Essays and Assays

Zen and the Art of Being a Temporary Receptionist in a Chemical Plant by Katherine Howard copyright © 2003 All Rights Reserved

About the author
For over a year, Katherine Howard gave a great deal of her time, talent and considerable powers of angst to the birthing and nurturing of writersmonthly.com. Last month Katherine realized that in return, she received absolutely nothing. She immediately resigned her position as Submissions Editor.

Katherine now lives in a small town in Oregon along the Columbia River where she tends her worm bin, putters in her garden, and lies awake nights thinking up greeting card gags.

About the essay
Two weeks after Katherine Howard told her dear friends at writersmonthly.com to take the Submissions Editor job and shove it, the Publisher received the letter reprinted below. The letter was handwritten, in blue pen, on the back of eleven (11) torn out pages of The Little Zen Calendar, a page-a-day calendar published by Workman Publishing.

We NEVER accept handwritten submissions. But, given that this work was from Katherine Howard, and given our small collective twinge of guilt over our barbaric treatment of her in the past year, and given that it sounded as if Katherine had forgiven, if not forgotten the abuse she suffered in our employ, and given that Katherine hinted that if we did publish this essay she would not sic her lawyer on us, we made an exception.

One
One day Yuan-wu took the high seat, and said: "A monk asked Yun-men: ’Where did all the buddhas come from?’
Yun-men answered: "The East Mountain walks over the water."
But if I were asked, I would not answer that way. I would say: "A fragrant breeze comes of itself from the south, and in the palace a refreshing coolness stirs."
ZEN MONDO

Yo.

This letter comes to you from the scenic reception desk of Coastal St. Helens Chemical situated on the banks of the mighty Columbia River.

Clearly, I don’t have quite enough to do. The fate of receptionists everywhere. Dare I file my nails?

When the phone rings I struggle against the urge to say, "Writers Monthly". Am I forever imprinted?

Two
I would believe only in a god who could dance. Friedrich Nietzsche

This morning I have exhibited my full range of dorkiness—could that be dorkyness?—first, failing to press the requisite button to record the weight of a tanker truck and next, pulling the hood release on the company van instead of the emergency brake release. A variety of less obvious bloopers has rounded out the morning. And this is the beginning of my second week...I was smarter last week.

Three
The moon floats above the pines,
And the night veranda is cold
As the ancient, clear sound comes from your finger tips.
The old melody usually makes the listeners weep.
But Zen music is beyond sentiment.
Do not play again unless the Great Sound of Loa-tzu accompanies you.
Hseuh-T’ou

Sunday morning I baked cats. Some I steamed.

It was the Oregon Feral Cat Coalition Spay and Neuter Clinic and my post was at the warming table. Post surgical patients with temperatures below 98 degrees came to us for a session on a hot pad under a heat lamp. If that didn’t do the job we added surgical gloves filled with hot water around their torsos and if that wasn’t enough we pulled out the big guns—bubble wrap. I saw more feline anuses yesterday than ever before. Hmmmm. The total came to 51 cat anuses. Multiply that by the number of kittens that won’t be born this spring...

Very satisfying.

Four
Logically considered, Zen may be full of contradictions and repetitions. But as it stands above all things, it goes serenely on its own way.
D. T. Suzuki

Friday night we accidentally witnessed karaoke.

It was an innocent quest for a cheap tavern burger that turned ugly. Well, not ugly, but smelly, which wasn’t the fault of the singers except to the extent that they all chain-smoked Camels. It was at the The Ol’ Pastime Tavern in Rainier. A number of the songbirds sported headgear that appeared to have been purchased from the estate of Hoss Cartwright.

Country music was the prevailing theme. I didn’t sing.

Five
On a journey, ill—and my dreams, on withered fields, are wandering still.
Basho

The office ladies ordered out for lunch from Vinnie’s Chicago Subs. I ordered a chicken sandwich called the Stool Pigeon. My sandwich arrived, wrapped in paper, marked "stool". I flashed on my recent encounter with 51 cat anuses. Is there some sort of alimentary canal karma taking place in my life?

Six
I am enlightened, and always have been, simultaneously with the beginning of the universe.
The Buddha, first words after realizing the truth

Speaking of alimentary canal karma...

Coastal St. Helens Chemical makes ammonia and urea. What do you suppose they start with? Trucks pull up but none have ever dropped off anything. It’s a mystery.

Seven
There was once a little hut where a monk lived for thirty years. He only had one tray, made of clay. One day a monk, who studied under him, broke the tray accidentally. Each day the teacher asked the monk to replace it. Each time the disciple brought a new tray, the monk broke it, saying, "This is not it! Bring my old one back."
Sen Koan

I ate my stool sandwich in the conference room with a bunch o’ the guys in blue jumpsuits. Perry Mason on the television. One of the engineers has a Great Dane in his car most afternoons. He’s not evil. His wife is having a medically difficult pregnancy and can’t cope with Fido. I have struck a deal to take him for a stroll on my break. The dog, not the engineer.

Eight
The goal of Buddhism is to bring about right human life, not to have the teaching, or teacher, or sentient beings, or Buddhism, or Buddha. But if you think that without any training you can have that kind of life, that is a big mistake. Shunryu Suzuki

Who cleans up the World Wide Web? Will it be irredeemably clogged in five years and we’ll have to invent new languages, even alphabets, to keep up with the need for domain names?

I found a greeting card designed by an old friend (a painter)on Saturday and bought it, excitedly thinking I would write to him via his website. The website works, but his email is dead. These dead addresses must be piling up like dog hair in a dryer vent. (Oops. I think I hit the wrong button on the switchboard. Just cut someone off.)

Nine
While I peer up at the lofty stupa, towering into the red dawn, softly my tears fall. Yamada Roshi, on "Pilgrimage to a Memorial of the Buddha’s Enlightenment"

2:25 PM... All is quiet. Traffic is passing on the highway. A ship went gliding past on the river a little while ago, looking like a disembodied building floating above the shrubbery on the riverbank.

Ten
And a man shall be free, and as pure as the day prior to his conception in his mother’s womb, when he had nothing, wants nothing and knows nothing. Meister Eckhart

Tomorrow I think I’ll bring a bird feeder to hang in a tree outside my window. I wonder how the people here would feel about me doing some knitting at my desk?

Eleven
Words, like eyeglasses, blur everything they do not make clear. Joseph Joubert

Aaaaaaarrrrrrggggghhhhhhh!

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Other Katherine Howardisms...

-How odd it was to see an enormous dead beaver on the side of the highway, at least 1/2 mile from beaver-suitable water. Had it been running away from home?


-How extremely American I felt when I dribbled a portion of my Taco Bell Burrito Supreme on the page of a magazine article about fitness.

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