Safe to re-occupy

Not long after I began using the hut in earnest, I became aware that it was getting hotter inside in the summers, because the shade tree was not throwing much shade. Drought stress, combined with my having built too close to the tree 😓, denying rain to some of its roots, was creating an emergency of sorts. Though the tree appears here to be leaning away from the hut, across the fence line, its weight definitely trended downhill, to fall across the roof toward the creek.

I considered tearing down the hut for salvage, but I really liked it, and would rather keep it for the time being (attachment woes). I thought of sending for a bonded arborist, but that would get into money we didn't really have. 

I had been, in a previous life, a chainsaw professional -- but I hadn't been that person in a long time. I sensed, seeing shelf fungi ranging up to the first branches, that this tree's heartwood had been losing cohesiveness for several years, meaning that if I successfully felled it uphill, using a jack, the sapwood could "barber-chair" (split part way up), kick back, and smash the hut anyway. 

 If I were to take this on, it would have to be done with wire rope, cranked tight, perhaps with a thick hinge, so that the trunk would not separate from the stump as it went down. I hoped also to keep the tree off the fence, less than a foot away from the stump, and off the neighbor's land. This would have to be precise.

Wire rope I had on hand, having dragged it from abandoned clear-cuts in days of yore. Also in the tool shed there were a suitably sized set of single- and double-block pulleys, chains, and a come-along. 

I removed all the branches of the tree that I could reach from a ladder placed on the roof of the building, set my "chokers," so to speak, using another large fir tree a hundred feet away as my anchor point. I tightened the cable, working from the anchor end, and then cautiously gnawed away at the tree trunk with a small electric chainsaw, such as is intended for much smaller work.

I distributed my efforts over a period of weeks, much to the amusement of the neighborhood, but eventually the tree began to follow my plan. When at last I was able to take off the remaining branches with a pole saw, it became safe to cut through the hinge and drop the tree trunk.

I cut up the trunk and branches and hauled them away to the woodshed.

Attachment had led, perhaps, to considerable taking of pains, so to speak, but also to a test of patience. What we set out to do, often we find we can, especially if there is no hurry.

While I was working on this project, I noticed that I was not thinking about world problems, or my problems, or in fact much of anything. Hands grasp, arms lift, legs carry. It was as much like meditation as anything I'd ever done that bore the name.

Traditionally in Zen, physical work is practice close to, or on par with, or indistinguishable from, zazen practice. During a sesshin, or days-long zazen-practicing gathering, there are breaks from zazen for chores, called samu. The tradition of labor -- farming, forestry, construction, let alone kitchen and housework -- for monks dates back over a thousand years, and when it's being taught, the story is often told of the Tang dynasty master Baizhang, who, having made such work a rule for his monastery, would not except himself from field labor even in his old age.

“When the master did chores he always was first in the community in taking up work. The people could not bear this so they hid his tools away early once and asked him to rest.
The master said “I have no virtue; how should I make others toil?"
The master having looked all over for his tools without finding them, also neglected to eat.
Therefore there came to be his saying that "a day without working is a day without eating,” which circulated throughout the land.” -- Steven Heine, tr.

When I see a neighbor concentrating on a task, such as ditching with a backhoe or windrowing hay, I feel I'm witnessing something that is not different from zazen, in the sense that in the immediacy of the task, all pretensions, regrets and preconceptions drop away. All zazen has going for it is a deliberate effort to extend that immediacy -- which has the goal of the effortlessness that comes when there is no goal.

Desiring to have a hut in which to drop desire is ironic, of course, but to lift yourself by your bootstaps you begin by having bootstraps. Anyway, the building was now safe to re-occupy.

Do not think “good” or “bad.” Do not judge true or false. Give up the operations of mind, intellect, and consciousness; stop measuring with thoughts, ideas, and views. Have no designs on becoming a buddha. How could that be limited to sitting or lying down? -- Dogen, Fukanzazengi