Navigating Fog

One of my practices for many years is journaling, especially in the morning. My typical day starts in the dark (I’m a pre-dawn awakener most days), candles lit, sipping coffee and journaling. One of the many journal entries in this daily ritual is called “On This Day”, in which I look over what I wrote on this date in previous years. (My journaling software, Day One, offers this feature.) 

What seems evident is that, in hindsight, I’ve been in a fog this whole time. I can see clearly through the rear-view mirror what I could not see in the moment. While I have had some times of greater lucidity than others, I’ve often been pretty confused about what was unfolding in the moment. 

I do see patterns, forces and choices which increase or decrease the density of the fog. For example, when my meditation practice is strong, I tend to see more clearly than when it is not. When I get sloppy about care for my body, the fog becomes denser. But there’s always fog.

I’m starting to conclude that this is the human condition, or at least this human’s condition: even in the moments I think I’m seeing clearly, I’m in at least some level of fog, always. 

I suppose I’ve always yearned to live without fog. “Awakening” was supposed to clear the fog completely so that I might see myself and Reality unobstructed. I’m now starting to think this is naive. There’s always fog, regardless of whether I see it.

As I write this I’m reminded of this Zen koan:

Monastic Shen’s Fish and Net

One day Senior Monastic Shen and Senior Monastic Ming visited the river Huai. They saw a fisherman pulling in a net from which a carp escaped.

Shen said, “Brother Ming, look how splendid the fish is! It is just like a skilled practitioner.”

Ming said, “It is indeed. But how come the fish did not avoid being trapped by the net in the first place? It would have been much better.”

Shen said, “Brother Ming, there is something keeping you from being enlightened.”

At midnight Ming understood the meaning of the conversation with Shen.

Mastery is not to swim in a river without getting entangled in the net, apparently. It is to learn to escape the trap of the net. 

In a fog-bound life, the trick is not to will away the fog, but to become a skilled navigator of the inevitable fog that comes with being a human.