As a child, I used to get compliments on my handwriting. I'd be bent over my writing workbook with a furrowed brow, dotting my i's and crossing my t's when a teacher would walk over and say, "You have excellent penmanship, Alex".

The compliment was nice, but the best part came when I got a gold star on my homework.  In grade school, gold stars were the bread and butter of life.  They showed that you'd done something good.  They showed that you were important.  In grade school, a gold star meant that you had value.  And I earned lots of stars.

But then my father brought a computer home one fateful day, and the world changed.  Handwriting wasn't important anymore.  Everything needed to be typed and double-spaced in order to get full points.  So, I traded my ballpoint pen for a keyboard and never looked back.

By the time I entered college the inviting loops of my writing had been replaced with unintelligible scribbles.  I'd call said scribbles "chicken-scratch" but that'd be praising them too highly.  Suffice it to say, on the rare occasion I needed to write something out by hand I'd use print letters.

This lasted until recently when on a whim I took some notes in cursive, came back to them later, and realized that I couldn't read my own writing.  The letters were stunted and smashed together to the point that it was hard to tell the r's from the m's.  And I felt embarrassment grow in my chest.

So, I purchased a handwriting workbook for adults, and I've been slowly working my way through it; practicing my letters and writing out quotes from dead people.  Surprisingly, I've found the practice to be meditative; requiring my full attention.

It's easy to write out twenty lowercase a's in a minute.  But it's hard to write a single lowercase 'a'  correctly; complete with the proper curves, angles, and accents.

If I rush to the end of an exercise, my letters become jumbled and small.  If I worry about past mistakes, I forget the tiny flourishes that turn writing into an art.  It's only when my focus is completely in this present moment that the letters take shape.

As I sit hunched over my workbook with a furrowed brow, writing in cursive requires me to take up space, allowing my w's to be as wide and loopy as they need to be.  It requires me to pay attention so that my uppercase q's don't look like the number two.  And it requires me to show special care when doing an exercise that no one else will see.

This bears many similarities to Zen.  A central part of Buddhist practice is solving the koan of life and death.  To put it another way, we all want to know how to live a good life and what happens when we die.  The uncertainty around these questions has driven philosophers into madness, so they shouldn't be taken lightly.

Sadly, many Buddhist teachers are flippant in response to these inquiries.  And while there's wisdom in saying, "Don't think about it so much," we're all human beings.  And we all want to know if we'll get a gold star for a life well-lived.

I don't have an answer to the koan of life and death.  But I do have an approach to the problem based on my experience with cursive.  In order to write out a quote that's both legible and beautiful to look at, I first need to write out several words. And before I write out several words, I have to write out several letters; slowly and correctly.

There's a word for this in Japanese, menmitsu, which translates to loving attention.  If I write each letter with menmitsu, giving loving attention to every stroke, the result is a piece of writing that's both good and beautiful to look at.  And the same is true in the story of our lives.

Each day, we write a single letter in a book called, "The Life I Lived."  We don't know how the book will end, but we can decide what today's letter will look like.  If we're careful and attentive with our days, filling them with acts of kindness and generosity, they add up to beautiful paragraphs and stories; until we end up with a life that's both good and beautiful to look at.

But we can't rush to the end, wondering if we'll be rewarded when we die  And we can't get bogged down in past mistakes.  Rather, in order to live a good life, we need to keep our focus on this present moment; ensuring that we dot our i's and cross our t's.

Namu Amida Butsu

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Cursive and the Koan of Life and Death