By ~ Roshi Susan Murphy
Human beings have suddenly been forced to discover exactly how much we touch our faces. Very interesting. And how much our hands are our primary interface not just with the world but with each other’s worlds, in the general run of everyday life.
And then these highly receptive fingers of feel reach like tendrils for our faces… partly searching in space to prove we exist, is that at least partly it?
When I first heard the anouncement of ‘Don’t touch your face!’ as a mutually life-saving slogan for our sudden new world, not only did I begin to notice that soon after hearing it how frequently I did touch my face, I also heard it as a koan.
Face… such an interesting word. What we ‘face’ things with. The face we put upon things. The face behind which we hide. The face that draws the eyes to meet another pair of eyes and begin to read the lineaments of another human being’s soul. The tiny set of variations – minutely particular miniscule differences in shape and position of eyes, nose, mouth – that generates currently nearly 8 billion instantly recognizable personal faces.
As Maxine was suggesting on Sunday afternoon, one way we can locate a very good practice point in ‘Don’t touch your face!’ is most directly a keener noticing of what we are doing and being in this very moment. As Taylor Plimpton suggested recently in Tricycle, “… just because you feel an itch on your face does not mean you need to scratch it.” Instead, experience it fully, and let its sensation keep you present, awake, alive. Notice your desire to solve it, fix it, respond to it—but don’t. Keep your hands settled and calm. Let the itch rise and fall. What’s the worse that can happen if you don’t scratch it? Will that tickle on your nose kill you? No, but apparently, scratching it in the era of COVID-19 might.”
And then if you must, scratch your nose with your sleeve or the back of your hand … before going crazy.
But there’s another way to turn this koan in the light of the Dharma, touching (excuse the dangerous word) into the koan, ’What is your original face, the one you had before even your parents were born?’ In the light of this koan, is it even possible to avoid the touch?
Let’s inquire into this matter of face, and touch, at our next gathering, on Sunday.