tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80582577780144417452024-03-13T13:04:08.852-07:00Shaking off the Weirdness...A home on-line for the thoughts of the Zen Trixter, a progressive thinker 'mongst many in the Pacific Northwest. Medical Marijuana, social equality, justice and activism, vegetarianism, Buddhist thought and practice...
...oh, and bad puns.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger183125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058257778014441745.post-10932021828794452702014-02-20T19:08:00.003-08:002014-02-20T19:08:37.903-08:00A change, it is a comin'...<br />
<br />
Hang tight, campers. I'll be back soon.<br />
<br />
-ZTUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058257778014441745.post-41691611817162417282012-03-23T11:57:00.002-07:002012-03-23T11:57:09.204-07:00Happy New Year!A x-post from <a href="http://tinyurl.com/84v6rn7">Da Fatman</a>...Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058257778014441745.post-43937242777368300012011-10-28T18:48:00.000-07:002011-10-28T18:48:04.697-07:00Listening for the center of the sun...To look upon the world with these dead, glass eyes,<br />
And listen intently with these old, wooden ears,<br />
Is the gift of all gifts.<br />
<br />
Like hunting for sand-dollars on the beach,<br />
Only to find a gold coin.<br />
<br />
Like looking for a whore,<br />
But instead finding a wife.<br />
<br />
Like trying to count smoke.<br />
<br />
Like trying to see the center of the sun.<br />
<br />
Is it even there?<br />
<br />
No.<br />
<br />
It's here! Here! HERE!<br />
<br />
Just listen...Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058257778014441745.post-54793241690962820362011-10-17T08:11:00.001-07:002011-10-17T08:11:07.396-07:00Split Pea & Bacon SoupThe smell of bones<br />
The air of pain<br />
The bubbling of blood.<br />
<br />
Not to be shunned<br />
or avoided<br />
but bathed in<br />
as a hot-spring<br />
for an aching body.<br />
<br />
Karma to Karma.<br />
Lips to lips.<br />
The kiss of death;<br />
To heal me<br />
of my ignorance.<br />
<br />
The world works<br />
Just this way,<br />
And I shouldn't hide<br />
from the truth<br />
Like I once did<br />
When I was so<br />
Full of myself.<br />
<br />
Thank you, Great Teacher,<br />
for the taste of wisdom<br />
you give me,<br />
and the way your<br />
incense<br />
fills my nose<br />
with the smell<br />
of reality.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058257778014441745.post-87322387850996202602011-06-27T09:04:00.000-07:002011-06-27T09:04:29.185-07:00Two jewels and a rock: my supreme support...A brief update from the health front:<br />
<br />
I'm a lot better than I was. I'd say 95%. The lingering 5% is a result of fatigue brought on by 10-or-so days of iffy sleep due to the massive amount of antibiotics I'm still on. Taking them alone is tiring. They make me feel lethargic due to their body-load. But they also cause a pretty severe insomnia. I think I'll only be on them a few more days. They were a life-saver, to be sure, but we're getting to the point where the cure is worse than the symptoms. The 5am nose-bleeds are getting sorta old as well. That's because the anti-b's kill off a lot of the gut flora needed to process dietary potassium, and a lack of Vit. K means easy hemorrhages.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-az7Fp-AMEUQ/Tgip63gPRgI/AAAAAAAAArQ/AjjmnFWnE3k/s1600/IMG_20110617_140444.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-az7Fp-AMEUQ/Tgip63gPRgI/AAAAAAAAArQ/AjjmnFWnE3k/s200/IMG_20110617_140444.jpg" width="150" /></a>But enough whinging. I'm spending my time being grateful for all the friends who've expressed concern, love, compassion and metta for me, grateful for all the medical professionals whose skills helped save me, and my daughter and fiancée for being so strong for me in what for them must have been a very scary situation.<br />
<br />
I'm headed back to the Zen Temple to get some work in. I'm looking forward to seeing it 10 days after I left it suddenly. Part of me feels a bit robbed that things I was working on were finished by others' hands. But at the same time, I'm more grateful that things I was working on were finished by others' hands.<br />
<br />
Sangha: my supreme support.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058257778014441745.post-24190410304663223032011-06-26T09:45:00.000-07:002011-06-26T09:45:34.485-07:00Sunday morning reflection...<h6 class="uiStreamMessage" data-ft="{"type":1}" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="messageBody" data-ft="{"type":3}">A bell peels, ringing out a call to the faithful, yet I remain, still and motionless; a faithless apostle of this moment...</span></span></h6>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058257778014441745.post-47007897202224462432011-06-21T11:34:00.000-07:002011-06-21T15:11:20.277-07:00Rememberences (Edge Practice, Part II)...<blockquote><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>I am of the nature to have ill health; there s no way to escape having ill health...</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">-The Five Remembrances</span></blockquote> So as I said in the last post, I wound up in hospital last week for a few days with a rather nasty case of <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulitis">cellulitis</a></i>. I've had this before, a few years back shortly after I sprained my right knee. It was bad, but after a huge shot of antibiotics in the ass, and a week or so of oral treatment, it was managed.<br />
<br />
This time? Not so much.<br />
<br />
I'd been working on the rehab/reno of my sangha's new Zen temple in north Portland. We recently purchased a 100-year-old church for our new home, and there was much work to do. One of the things that I struggle with through this extended unemployment is a sense of <i>malaise;</i> a general feeling of purposelessness. Nothing to do, nowhere to go. One of the things I've been focusing great energy on lately is weightloss (you can follow <i>that</i> story over at my other <a href="http://fatmanindabathtub.blogspot.com/">blog</a>) and I'd been having some really satisfying success. Part of that success is directly a result of all the physically hard work I'd been doing the three-and-some weeks prior.<br />
<br />
Working hard, sweating, crawling around in the crap, using my skills and knowledge all felt so good. I'd come home exhausted, sure, but it was that satisfying kind of tired that comes from real ardent effort at something that really matters. I felt energized, strong, and vital. I haven't felt that way in quite a while. I was feeling really good about things.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-L11u46pKZrE/TgDD1YVEH3I/AAAAAAAAArI/wWYofcW3Jko/s1600/andy+the+sander+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="112" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-L11u46pKZrE/TgDD1YVEH3I/AAAAAAAAArI/wWYofcW3Jko/s200/andy+the+sander+1.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>My teachers dropped in after returning from some extensive travel. They hadn't seen the temple in almost a month, and the look on their faces was so incredibly gratifying. Sure, the place still resembled Dresden for the most part, but the changes were remarkable. My sensei—the teacher I work most closely with in my practice—just kept on looking at me with this glint in his eye. It was in no small part a look of deep gratitude for all the effort, but there was also a glint of "Really? You did this? I'm impressed," that comes from a deep understanding of me and my physical limitations as a partially disabled man. He knows many of the most intimate details of my life, including the hurt parts that are born out of feelings of weakness and emasculation. For him to see me standing there in my work clothes, gear hanging off of me, not looking like I was about to have a heart-attack, and able to see what I'm actually physically capable of, what my skills can accomplish, and what my dedication can achieve, was both gratifying and touching. We chatted briefly, then I got back to work.<br />
<br />
I was working with a friend planing wainscoting. I was "catching," or receiving the thin boards after the machine milled off the face of each piece, removing a hundred years of paint and dirt, then stacking them neatly. In that process, the closed room we were working in grew rather warm, and I was sweating pretty good. I was also getting completely covered in ancient sawdust and old paint. It caked on my arms. It got in my eyes. I was wearing a respirator, but I'm sure I breathed some of it in, too. As we wrapped up, I could feel myself itch nearly everywhere. I was sweating more than I thought I should be. I'd run out of my allergy pills that day, so I hadn't taken one, and thought I may be having an allergic reaction. It made the most sense to me at the time.<br />
<br />
I had to leave to get home and see my partner. I started to feel rather lousy. One of my friends noticed this and offered me a ride to the bus stop, which I accepted. On the way back into SE Portland, I started to feel absolutely awful. A few miles away from my street, I knew that something significant was happening to me, and that if I got off at my stop, I wouldn't likely be able to walk up the hill to my flat, so I called a taxi from the bus, and told them to meet me in the parking lot of a Walgreens next to a bus stop. When I got home, my fiancee was there and had an extra allergy pill, which I chewed, then took a hot shower to wash off all the caked-on crap. It seemed to work. I felt better, with the only major thing now being a roaring headache, and sent her home telling her that I didn't want to snap at her unfairly due to the headache, and what I really needed was rest.<br />
<br />
I slept like crap that night. I couldn't get comfortable, couldn't stay asleep, and kept being either too hot or too cold, with the headache still in place.<br />
<br />
The next day, I thought I felt a bit improved. My step-daughter stopped by in the early afternoon, and we hung out a bit. I was getting ready to make us something to eat when the same shivers and cold feeling crept over me again. I told her to make herself something to eat while I went to try and warm myself up in the shower. If that didn't work, she said she could run me to urgent care.<br />
<br />
I had the shower set to "poach", I'm sure. I sat under the scalding water, freezing and shaking almost uncontrollably. <i>Is this blowing up into anaphylaxis?</i> I wondered. It was a moot point; I knew I was in trouble. I called to her from the shower, and said something I hoped I'd never have to say to her on my own behalf: <i>call 911.</i> I was starting to feel like I was going into shock. I knew that I had to get to a hospital, and fast, and that the chances of me physically being capable of getting into her tiny CRX were slim-to-none. I was to the point that I didn't even know if I could get out of the shower. EMS arrived quickly, assessed me, got a temp of 102.8, and took me to a nearby hospital.<br />
<br />
My daughter had run into downtown and picked up my fiancee. They were both there, both worried, and both doing their best to be strong. When I got into ER, I was examined, and given IV fluids, a big fat pile of acetaminophen and a dose of Tramadol. It all seemed to help, and within three hours, I was feeling vastly improved to the point that I was able to eat, and they were considering discharging me, willing to write it off to a nasty virus. The ER doctor said "If your vitals show stable, we'll send you home."<br />
<br />
They didn't.<br />
<br />
For as well as I may have felt, my blood-pressure was screwed up. I have mild hypertension, or high blood-pressure, but the problem was in the opposite direction. I was showing consistent <i>hypotension</i>, or <i>low</i> blood-pressure. The BP readings for me should have been 130/80 or so, but I was consistently showing 90/45. The doctor looked at me and said "I'm really sorry, but I just don't feel good about sending you home like this, so I'm going to admit you overnight for observation." As bummed as I may have been by this, I had to agree with her. I sent my fiancee home, assuring her that all would be well, that there was nothing to do, and that I was exactly where I should be.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-idlIyKzD7nQ/TgDcZOMR_LI/AAAAAAAAArM/c27W5xVGXoo/s1600/me+in+hospital.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="149" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-idlIyKzD7nQ/TgDcZOMR_LI/AAAAAAAAArM/c27W5xVGXoo/s200/me+in+hospital.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>They found me an initial room, and the doctor in residence came to examine me. While doing a top-to-bottom exam, she was checking my feet, and commented on the swelling. I told her I have edema, and had for years. I also mentioned that my right shin and ankle were slightly larger due to a case of cellulitis a number of years earlier. "I'm looking at your <i>left</i> leg," she said. "You look like you've got some redness there." I still felt generally okay.<br />
<br />
Shortly thereafter, not even an hour later, I was moved to a different room. I started to feel terrible again. Sweating, but cold. Uncontrollable tremors. The acetaminophen they'd given me in the ER was wearing off. They gave me more, and one of the nurses took a Sharpie marker and traced the area on my left leg that was going red and radiating hot. It was cellulitis for sure, and it was <i>very</i> angry. They started me on two kinds of IV antibiotics. I knew I was going to be in hospital for at least a few days.<br />
<br />
The next day, my step-daughter came and hung out in my room with me, bringing me a few more things from home. Later that day, my teacher—who'd recently found out that I was in the hospital—came and visited me. It was a comfort, and I appreciated it deeply. "How are you practicing with this?" he asked. I told him that I would simply repeat the Five Remembrances whenever it occurred to me, and that I was trying to concentrate on my breath, which was still there, still vital, and still under my control. I remember him saying to me just before he left "Do not make the mistake of minimizing the size of this challenge."<br />
<br />
I was discharged the morning after that visit, on Friday. Things looked rather good. I was told to make a follow-up appointment with my personal physician as soon as I could. He was available the next day—Saturday—but I figured that Monday was good enough. The hospital doctor thought so back when we were talking about it, so I scheduled an appointment for Monday.<br />
<br />
The weekend was generally uneventful, with the only major addition to my routine being the swallowing of two antibiotic pills a day the size of baby shoes. I felt better, looked better, but was still having trouble sleeping, and waking up hot at 4am. Monday morning, I noticed that a larger patch of redness was showing on my leg. When I got to my doctor, I could see the concern on his face. <i>Is this being resistant? </i>I told him I was tolerating the antibiotic well, and asked if he thought we should double it. He agreed. He also put me on half my normal dosage of diuretic to help get the excess fluid out of the leg. The swelling and edema would only make it harder to heal. That was yesterday. Anyway, that's where I am now: four baby shoes and half a water pill a day, plus acetaminophen as needed.<br />
<br />
The double dose of anti-b's make me very photosensitive, and give me a crashing headache, but appear to be working. The red patch is cooler, less diffuse and more defined, which is good. The swelling is down overall. I'm still a bit nervous, but that's not really going to accomplish anything helpful.<br />
<br />
This has been, and continues to be, a rather significant challenge. I went from feeling so good, so vital, and my lowest weight since high-school, to completely helpless and dependent, shivering in misery in a hospital bed hooked into IV's, or laying on my couch with my leg in the air, watching the Hysteria Channel about 10lbs heavier than this time last week. It seemed so instantaneous.<br />
<blockquote><i>All that is dear to me, and everyone I love are of the nature of change; There is no way to keep being separated from them.</i></blockquote><i>All</i> that is dear, including my own health.<br />
<br />
Once again,<br />
<blockquote>"...it's always the image of change that <i>really</i> makes the poem..."<br />
-Alan Watts</blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058257778014441745.post-76459991455975887772011-06-19T09:15:00.000-07:002011-06-19T09:20:25.901-07:00The edge of practice...A close friend and dharma brother recently asked me about a term we bandy about in our community/shanga: "practice edge". "What the hell is an 'edge' of practice?" he asked. I used cutting metaphors, cliff metaphors, etc. It worked, but I left the conversation feeling like I gave a thimble full of water to a thirsty man asking for a drink. Not short-shrift, but by no means quenching.<br />
<br />
I wound up in hospital for a few very miserable days this past week. I'm healing well, but my sleep schedule is completely out of whack, so I was up at 4am. I did zazen for about a half an hour lying down in the dark, then got my phone to watch something while laying there, hoping to fall back asleep for a bit. That didn't work at all, because I made the grave mistake of watching something so utterly engrossing that I woke right up.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.greenfusefilms.com/images/BTFPoster0809WEB2SM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://www.greenfusefilms.com/images/BTFPoster0809WEB2SM.jpg" width="207" /></a></div>What an utterly fascinating film this is! I'm not going to go on and on about it here, but suffice it to say that it stirred something in my head in that wonderfully groggy space between dreams and wakefulness.<br />
<br />
If you look at life like a perfect, flat, uniform sheet of paper, it has four edges. If you consider or assume that those edges define its scope in any direction, and beyond those edges is nothing (and by definition, beyond that life) you have a pretty interesting and generally useful model for the human life, or human experience.<br />
<br />
Now, if there are no imperfections in that sheet of paper<b></b>—no dimples, tears, creases or folds—you have a rather homogeneous existence. Everything just flows evenly from edge to edge, even if that plane is twisted. It all just goes along smoothly until it suddenly stops.<br />
<br />
I think that would be a very boring life.<br />
<br />
But put a crease in there, and suddenly, without affecting the contiguousity (yes, I just made that up) of the experience, you've now got more definition. You have difference, you have realm, you have texture, you have <i>shape</i>.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.researchdesignassociates.com/system/html/single-fold_6-d7623522.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.researchdesignassociates.com/system/html/single-fold_6-d7623522.jpg" /></a></div> With that, you also have, in the case of the analogy of life experience, <i>choice.</i> <i>This</i> side of the crease or <i>that</i> side? Left or right? North, South, East or West? Up or down? Do you, or don't you?<br />
<br />
We all think that we want a smooth life. Wrinkles, crinkles, tears or messy bits in the flow of our existence tend to upset us, make us change course, or do something in a manner not of our original or current desire. But to quote (with minor modification) Billy Bragg; "...all (life) is strange, and you have to learn to take the crunchy with the smooth, I suppose."<br />
<br />
As I said, I wound up in hospital recently, and at one point, I was laying in my bed, soaked in misery, watching a stunningly beautiful full moon arc across the slightly cloudy skies through the huge windows of my room, and I remembered a favorite audio bit from Alan Watts I stumbled upon a year or so ago...<br />
<blockquote>"So we are living—as it were—on many levels of rhythm. This is the nature of change. If you resist it, you have <i>dukka</i>, you have frustration and suffering. But, on the other hand, if you understand change—you don't cling to it, and you let it flow—then it's no problem. It becomes positively beautiful, which is why in poetry the theme of the evanescence of the world is beautiful. When Shelly says:<br />
<blockquote><i>The One remains, the many change and pass;<br />
Heaven's light forever shines, Earth's shadows fly;<br />
Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,<br />
Stains the white radiance of Eternity,<br />
Until Death [shatters] it to fragments.</i></blockquote>Now what's beautiful in that? Is it heaven's light that shines forever, or is it rather the dome of many colored glass that shatters? See, it's always the image of change that <i>really</i> makes the poem..."</blockquote>Change gives us dynamism. Difference gives us definition. Choice gives us opportunity. Smoothness gives us rest. The dimples, tears, creases and folds in the fabric of our lives—those places and points where direction changes without our consent, where the shape morphs into something we're not expecting or even wanting, where roughness pushes us out of a comfortable flow—<i>these</i> are the edges of practice.<br />
<br />
Space and time themselves are not smooth, we now understand. We perceive them as so, but they're not at the most basic and fundamental level. Quantum particles pop in and out of existence, creating a seething foam of ever-changing texture. Time is bent by the laws of physics, slowing the closer you get to the speed of light. As I said, we perceive them as so, but in reality, they're anything but. The error in perception is, as always, a matter of scale.<br />
<br />
But I'm all about texture...<br />
<br />
<br />
<blockquote></blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058257778014441745.post-53032455532746170182011-01-26T07:48:00.000-08:002011-01-26T07:48:11.096-08:00Sound poem...The day awaits,<br />
hard like cold iron,<br />
waiting to be heated and<br />
hammered into some fresh, new shape.<br />
The loud banging of the hammer and anvil<br />
a song to be heard throughout the day,<br />
but yet to begin.<br />
The fog,<br />
gripping.<br />
grasping,<br />
clinging to everything it touches,<br />
trying so very hard not to lose its tenuous hold on life,<br />
whimpering as it slides down the hillside.<br />
The crows beckon,<br />
from on high and down low,<br />
their voices stabbing through the quiet,<br />
making their intentions known.<br />
What they're saying<br />
is readily heard;<br />
what is being said remains a mystery,<br />
lost in translation.<br />
The sound of all things,<br />
loud and quiet,<br />
gentile and shrill,<br />
soft and sharp,<br />
caresses me like the hands of a lover,<br />
with a mind of their own,<br />
wants and needs of their own,<br />
and their own<br />
agenda.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058257778014441745.post-48280872987300526532010-12-17T16:10:00.000-08:002010-12-17T16:13:44.017-08:00A few of my favorite Zen things...<i>Fannys on zafus in honorable poses;<br />
Sit in the zendo and breathe through our noses.<br />
Inos and doans. The large bronze bell rings.</i><i> </i><br />
<i>These are a few of my favorite Zen things.</i><br />
<i><br />
Sore, achy muscles from sitting through sesshin.<br />
Avalokitishvara, Dogen and Kuan Yin.<br />
All bodhisattvas throughout the world sing,<br />
These are a few of my favorite Zen things.<br />
<br />
When the tire's flat.<br />
When I feel fat.<br />
When I'm seething mad.<br />
I simply remember my favorite things,<br />
And then things don't look so bad.<br />
<br />
Work in the green-house or samu in kitchen;<br />
Wrestle the bramble into short-term submission.<br />
Straighten your rakusu: the only zen bling.</i><i> </i><br />
<i>These are a few of my favorite Zen things.</i><br />
<i><br />
Chanting and kinhin and bowing to founders;<br />
Sanzen with Hogen when my practice flounders.<br />
Koans and parties with puppets that sing.</i><i> </i><br />
<i>These are a few of my favorite Zen things.</i><br />
<i><br />
When I'm freezing.<br />
When I'm roasting.<br />
When there is no breeze.<br />
I simply remember my favorite things,<br />
And then I'm more at ease.<br />
<br />
Red cape and cap because Jizo gets too cold.<br />
Practice my dying--hopefully when I'm old.<br />
Boat-loads of metta for all living beings.</i><i> </i><br />
<i>These are a few of my favorite Zen things.</i><br />
<i><br />
The gateway to freedom is zazen samadhi.<br />
Be one with the moment: heart/mind and body.<br />
For a great Heart of Wisdom: the moment's the thing.</i><i> </i><br />
<i>These are a few of my favorite Zen things.</i><br />
<i><br />
When I'm stressed-out.<br />
What's this about?<br />
Try to seek its source.<br />
The Great Way is easy for those without<br />
"favorite things" of course.</i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058257778014441745.post-1807052839029587292010-12-06T07:57:00.001-08:002010-12-06T08:01:45.080-08:00Birthright<i>To what do I owe the pleasure?</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>To thee, of course.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>To years of truth that cut like scalpels, knives and saws,</i><br />
<i>Leaving me bloody, but lighter.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>To years of fire that burn away the underbrush, deadfall and chaff,</i><br />
<i>Setting the forest floor for growth anew.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>To years of flood that have washed away all the loose, fetid rot of me,</i><br />
<i>Where my "good" and "bad" are not distinguished.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>To the wind, ever-present, blowing hard from all directions;</i><br />
<i>Challenging me to stand in the face of it and howl back.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>To all those energies that have come to manifest my life;</i><br />
<i>Each person, place, thing that has helped me become more verb-like.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>The magic of banality, the wonder of boredom, the thrill of ennui;</i><br />
<i>Each sting of assumption and error a Zenji.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>To sit</i><br />
<i>As a stone</i><br />
<i>In a field;</i><br />
<i>Immovable but by time,</i><br />
<i>Resolute through stasis,</i><br />
<i>Confident via gravity,</i><br />
<i>Stalwart by way of density.</i><br />
<i>Eternal on the small scale,</i><br />
<i>Insignificant to the large.</i><br />
<i>A solid, concrete illusion.</i><br />
<i>An æons-old, tenuous conglomeration.</i><br />
<i>Dependable,</i><br />
<i>Yet ever crumbling,</i><br />
<i>atom</i><br />
<i>by</i><br />
<i>atom</i><br />
<i>back</i><br />
<i>into</i><br />
<i>aggregate.</i><br />
<i>Out of time,</i><br />
<i>out of place,</i><br />
<i>out of form,</i><br />
<i>The Universe spreads her legs,</i><br />
<i>and</i><br />
<i>Noumena is born.</i><br />
<i>Looking upon this place</i><br />
<i>With blurry,</i><br />
<i>unfocused,</i><br />
<i>impossibly blue eyes;</i><br />
<i>Seeing that all is right with the world,</i><br />
<i>and greeting it with a awful, confused wail.</i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058257778014441745.post-88144038426286965372010-11-21T17:52:00.000-08:002010-11-21T17:52:55.890-08:00The best medicine...<blockquote><span style="font-size: large;">A Universal Recommendation of Zazen</span><br />
(aka: "FUKANZAZENGI")<br />
<br />
-------------------------------<br />
<br />
<i>The Way is originally perfect and all-pervading. What need is there for practice and realization?</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>The Dharma vehicle is rolling freely. Why should we exhaust our effort?</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>There is no speck of dust in the whole universe. How could we ever try to brush it clean?</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>Everything is manifest at this very place. Where are we supposed to direct the feet of our practice?</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>Now, if you make the slightest discrimination, you will create a gap like that between heaven and earth.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>If you follow one thing while you resist the other, your mind will be shattered and lost.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>Suppose you are confident in your understanding and rich in enlightenment, gaining the wisdom that knows at a glance, attaining the way and clarifying the mind, arousing an aspiration to reach for the heavens. Now your head is stuck in the entrance-way, while your body has no clue how to get out.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>Although Shakyamuni was wise at birth, can't you see the traces of his six years of upright sitting? Bodhidharma transmitted the mind-seal from India. Can't you hear the echo of the nine years he sat facing a wall?</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>If even the ancient sages were like this, how can we today dispense with wholehearted practice? Therefore, put aside the intellectual practice of investigating words and chasing phrases, and learn to take the backward step that turns the light and shines it inward.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>Your body and mind will drop away of themselves, and your original face will manifest. If you want to get into touch with things as they are, you - right here and now - have to start being yourself, as you are.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>For practicing Zen, a quiet room is suitable. Eat and drink moderately. Put aside all involvements and suspend all affairs.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>Don't think about "good" or "bad". Don't judge true or false. Your mind, intellect, and consciousness are spinning around - let them have rest. Give up measuring with thoughts, ideas, and views. Have no designs on becoming a Buddha. How could that be limited to sitting or lying down?</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>When you sit, spread a mat and put a cushion on it. Sit either in the full-lotus or half-lotus position. In the full-lotus position, first place your right foot on your left thigh, then your left foot on your right thigh. In the half-lotus position, simply place your left foot on your right thigh.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>Tie your robes loosely and arrange them neatly. Then place your right hand on your left leg and your left hand on your right palm, thumb-tips lightly touching.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>Straighten your body and sit upright, leaning neither left nor right, neither forward nor backward. Align your ears with your shoulders and your nose with your navel. Rest the tip of your tongue against the front of the roof of your mouth, with teeth and lips together both shut. Always keep your eyes open, and breathe softly through your nose. Once you have adjusted your posture, take a breath and exhale fully, rock your body right and left, and settle into steady, immovable sitting. Think of not thinking. Not thinking: What kind of thinking is that? Letting thoughts go (Nonthinking). This is the essential art of zazen.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>Zazen is not a meditation technique. It is simply the Dharma gate of joyful ease, it is practicing the realization of the boundless Dharma way. Here, the open mystery manifests, and there are no more traps and snares for you to get caught in.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>If you grasp the point, you are like a dragon gaining the water, like a tiger taking to the mountains. For you must know that the true Dharma appears of itself, so that from the start dullness and distraction are struck aside.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>When you arise from sitting, move slowly and quietly, calmly and deliberately. Don't do it head over heels. Understand that those who transcended the mundane and sacred, and died while either sitting or standing, have all committed themselves entirely to this power.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>In addition, turning the Dharma wheel with a finger, a banner, a needle, or a mallet, and realizing it with a whisk, a fist, a staff, or a shout - these cannot be understood by discriminative thinking. Much less can they be known through the practice of supernatural power. Your conduct must be beyond seeing forms and hearing sounds, it must be based on the order that is prior to knowledge and views. Don't worry about if you are more intelligent than the others, or not. Make no distinction between the dull and the sharp-witted. If you concentrate your effort single-mindedly, that in itself is wholeheartedly engaging the way. Practice-realization is naturally undefiled. Practicing the way means to live the present day.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>In our world and others, in both India and China, all equally hold the buddha-seal. The wind of truth is blowing unhindered, so just give yourself to the sitting, be totally blocked in resolute stability.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>Although they say that there are ten thousand distinctions and a thousand variations, just wholeheartedly engage the way in zazen. Why leave behind the seat in your own home to wander in vain through the dusty realms of other lands? If you make one misstep you stumble past what is directly in front of you. You have gained the pivotal opportunity of human form. Do not pass your days and nights in vain.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>You met the Buddha way in this life - how could you waste your time delighting in sparks from a flint stone? Form and substance are like the dew on the grass, the fortunes of life like a dart of lightning - emptied in an instant, vanished in a flash.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>Please, honored followers of Zen, long accustomed to groping for the elephant, do not doubt the true dragon.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>Devote your energies to the way that points directly to the real thing. Revere the one who has gone beyond learning and is free from effort.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>Share the wisdom of Buddhas with Buddhas, transmit the samadhi of patriarchs to patriarchs. Continue to live in such a way, and you will be such a person. The treasure store will open of itself, it is up to you to use it freely.</i></blockquote><br />
-Dogen zenjiUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058257778014441745.post-40816783888914707252010-11-14T08:10:00.000-08:002010-11-14T08:10:37.680-08:00Touching the Void...<blockquote>僧問:狗子還有佛性也無?<br />
師云:無。<br />
問:上至諸佛,下至螻蟻皆有佛性,狗子為什麼卻無?<br />
師云:為伊有業識在。<br />
<br />
A monk asked, "Does a dog have a Buddha-nature or not?"<br />
<br />
The master said, "Mu!"<br />
<br />
The monk said, "Above to all the Buddhas, below to the crawling bugs, all have Buddha-nature. Why is it that the dog has not?"<br />
<br />
The master said, "Because he has the nature of karmic delusions".</blockquote><span style="font-size: xx-small;">—The Recorded Sayings of Zen Master Joshu, koan 132, translation by James Green</span><br />
<hr /><br />
"Ku," "mu" or "sūnyatā" is the underlying true nature of all phenomena. Often translated (read: "dumbed-down") as "emptiness" or "void", it is the base level of reality in a Buddhist paradigm. And, (all too) often, this--to outside observers--is seen as being tinged with negativity. "What point is there to life if all things are empty? That sounds suspiciously like nihilism, and I don't like that!" More advanced or formal practitioners appreciate that this is not, in fact, a proper apprehension of the concept. They do, however, understand why so many misapprehend the concept of <i>ku</i>. Were it to be easy, we'd all have a handle on it by now, and render practice unnecessary.<br />
<br />
Every practice, every step on the path--be it kinhin, a walk to the library, or a wiping of your ass--is a practice of <i>ku</i>. Every sneeze, burp, fart, back-rub, egg-scramble, oil-change, fapp, nose-pick, letter-opening, thrust, wince, hug, smile, frown... <i>everything</i> is empty and without form. A true apprehension leads one to experience that every sneeze, burp, fart, back-rub, egg-scramble, oil-change, fapp, nose-pick, letter-opening, thrust, wince, hug, smile, frown... <i>everything</i> is the entire Universe. Whole, total and complete, lacking nothing.<br />
<br />
As I am off for a week of monastic retreat (or "sesshin") starting on Monday, I leave you with this:<br />
<blockquote><i>In your life, in your daily experience of now,<i> where do you touch</i></i><i> "ku"<i>? Have you? Do you? What has this experience done for you? Where/how does it manifest? Does it inform your life, or vice-versa?</i></i><i> </i></blockquote>May all beings achieve enlightenment, even before me...Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058257778014441745.post-5032323851363222942010-11-13T10:21:00.000-08:002010-11-13T10:21:58.164-08:00THIS should be interesting... (or not).I've been struggling the past few days. After returning from the Mindful Eating retreat, I was on a bit of a high. I felt empowered. A tad more in control. I dropped below 240lbs. I had a job interview that went really well, and I look to be employed soon by a non-profit that I really believe in. Our sangha has finally found a suitable building, and will pay a mere song for it, not a Wagnerian opera's worth. I was feeling like... I dunno. Things felt <i>good.</i><br />
<br />
Somewhere between there and here, I've slid back into some old, unhelpful ways. It's illustrated something to me: No matter how "in control" one feels, it's an illusion. A delusion, more rightly. And it reinforces to me <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shitou_Xiqian">Sekito Kisen</a>'s admonition: "Do not waste your time by night or day!"<span style="font-size: xx-small;">[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandokai">1</a>]</span><br />
<br />
It's so easy to lose sight of what's important, <i>truly</i> important. It's almost as if we--as monkeys--are programmed to lose it. I suppose in a way we are, or else practice would be unnecessary.<br />
<br />
The weight has ticked back up on the scale a bit. Not dangerously so, but not insignificantly either. I feel a clinging arising in me lately. A desire to fill voids. A habit of seeing voids where there are none, or making them in my mind in order to feel gratified when they are filled, or by what I choose to stuff them full of.<br />
<br />
This I believe is coming from anxiety.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i698.photobucket.com/albums/vv350/Rakshan/scans/bc01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="140" src="http://i698.photobucket.com/albums/vv350/Rakshan/scans/bc01.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>I guess part stems from the initial tastes of S.A.D. 'Tis the season and all. But I know that the lion's share is stemming from my going to my first full sesshin at the monastery.<br />
<br />
The anxiety isn't as great as it has been in the past about this. I don't feel panicked. I know I'll be fine. I have been needing to do this for quite a while, and I have the support of my teachers and my friends, both inside and outside the sangha. I know I'm "ready" to do this.<br />
<br />
I am just railing against the ideas of discomfort and dissatisfaction. Fighting preconceived notions of a future that I <i>think</i> I may have an idea about. How dumb. Here I am, the guy that tells everyone to have no preconceptions, yet I'm busy being bitten in the ass by my own.<br />
<br />
But that's just as it goes, innit?<br />
<br />
I'm happy, though, in that I do now taste a difference on my palate regarding this anxiety. It's less than it used to be. I'm vastly more anxious about being away from my cat for a week, and her needs, than I am my own. The worse that will happen to me is that I'm mildly uncomfortable and slightly annoyed for a week. I've suffered worse.<br />
<br />
I know this is a bit of a scatter-shot blog today. Sorry. Just spitting out a mouthful of what's on my tongue. Maybe if I do it on a piece of white paper, we can have a pretty Rorschach to look at?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058257778014441745.post-69996060994930788242010-11-11T10:21:00.000-08:002010-11-11T10:21:44.843-08:00Armistice Day, 1918: My Dear Son George...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_z9a3Lf5oUws/TNwtR5N-bhI/AAAAAAAAApQ/vIEkKgyc2uI/s1600/mary+logan+grady.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_z9a3Lf5oUws/TNwtR5N-bhI/AAAAAAAAApQ/vIEkKgyc2uI/s200/mary+logan+grady.jpg" width="116" /></a></div>On this Veteran's Day, 2010, 92 years after the armistice, a letter from my great grandmother, Mary Logan-Grady, of Valders, WI. to my maternal grandfather, George Grady, a conscientious objector in WWI, who served as a corpsman and ordinance technician throughout France between 1916-1919. This entire piece, including the parenthetical addendum, was printed in a local Manitowoc news paper in remembrance of Armistice Day (date unknown).<br />
<br />
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></i><br />
<blockquote><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">My Dear Son George:</span></i><br />
<br />
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">I am more than bursting with joy this morning. The glad news of peace arrived yesterday at half-past 2 o'clock. What a relief and comfort to all mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers and all sweethearts.</span></i><br />
<br />
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Every whistle and bell and bugle and horn was heard for miles around. Yes, more than that, the roosters crew all night and Darkey howled and Sport barked and all the cows came bellowing to the barn and everything was at a standstill.</span></i><br />
<br />
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">John just got through plowing as the whistles blew. It was a real holiday.</span></i><br />
<br />
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">And the night before, they had devotions in our church and blessed the service flag. Sadie and Ella rang for the dedication and thanks to Almighty God and the Blessed Mother, there aren't any gold stars on it yet, if all be true which I hope it is.</span></i><br />
<br />
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Last night I dreamed I seen you coming up the road driving the gray team on an old buggie and you looked so small and thin. The first time I ever dreamed of you. We got all your letters and Johney's letter came a few days ago.</span></i><br />
<br />
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">So, you seen General Pershing.</span></i><br />
<br />
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Well, George, I have no more paper and I want to write so bad. Excuse this letter this time.</span></i><br />
<br />
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">With love from your loving Mother.</span></i><br />
<br />
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">P.S. Schools and churches and everything was shut down the past five weeks. Elmer (Barnes) had the flu so bad he died three times, but still lives and is feeling fine.</span></i></blockquote><i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></i><br />
(James Mullins, formerly of Manitowoc, and now teaching at St. Ambrose College in Davenport, Iowa, found this letter among his mother's keepsakes after her death several years ago. He sent copies to other relatives, including Mrs. Justin Mullins, (formerly Mary Claire Barnes) who brought it to the newspaper office. Mrs. Grady was her grandmother.<br />
<br />
Mrs. Grady writer of the letter, was the former Mary Logan, and the family farm was on County Highway C, where it is still operated by Mr. and Mrs. Gordon Grady and Mrs. Ruth Grady. Ruth's late husband was John Grady who is mentioned in the letter.)Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058257778014441745.post-13715382699117965992010-11-11T09:49:00.000-08:002010-11-11T09:49:41.121-08:00Veteran's Day: A letter home...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_z9a3Lf5oUws/TNwmO-m74dI/AAAAAAAAApM/ksfULBXaqrc/s1600/George+Grady+Letter+-+Jan+1st+1919.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="256" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_z9a3Lf5oUws/TNwmO-m74dI/AAAAAAAAApM/ksfULBXaqrc/s320/George+Grady+Letter+-+Jan+1st+1919.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_z9a3Lf5oUws/TNwl8LySlQI/AAAAAAAAAo4/QE_Sl7_-XBs/s1600/George+Grady+Letter+-+Jan+1st+1919-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_z9a3Lf5oUws/TNwl8LySlQI/AAAAAAAAAo4/QE_Sl7_-XBs/s200/George+Grady+Letter+-+Jan+1st+1919-1.jpg" width="135" /></a></div><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_z9a3Lf5oUws/TNwl9uzM0nI/AAAAAAAAAo8/aYtUp6FiVWc/s1600/George+Grady+Letter+-+Jan+1st+1919-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_z9a3Lf5oUws/TNwl9uzM0nI/AAAAAAAAAo8/aYtUp6FiVWc/s200/George+Grady+Letter+-+Jan+1st+1919-2.jpg" width="130" /></a><br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_z9a3Lf5oUws/TNwl-6Zt6yI/AAAAAAAAApA/3ZDkYU9Qryg/s1600/George+Grady+Letter+-+Jan+1st+1919-3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_z9a3Lf5oUws/TNwl-6Zt6yI/AAAAAAAAApA/3ZDkYU9Qryg/s200/George+Grady+Letter+-+Jan+1st+1919-3.jpg" width="134" /></a>On this Veteran's Day, 2010, 92 years after the armistice, a letter from my maternal grandfather, George Grady, a conscientious objector in WWI, who served as a corpsman and ordinance technician throughout France between 1916-1919, to my great grandmother, Mary Logan-Grady, of Valders, WI.<br />
<hr /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Charpentry, France</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Jan 1st, 1919</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Dearest Mother-</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Well, another year has rolled around and in place of the grim and hideous spectacle which the last few years have found confronting them on taking their appointed place in the ages, it finds all mankind at peace. I can well imagine with what a frenzied and momentous joy the wild bells ushered in this new year of nineteen hundred and nineteen. God grant that all subsequent years finds the world more securely attached to peace and peaceful pursuits.</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>It would be too bad if this war has been fought in vain, unless the whole world stands as a unit and agrees to abolish compulsory military service and fails to uphold the fourteen points of President Wilson's plan, I am sure in a few years expect the same awful catastrophe to occur again and with more terrible and appalling results. There is no way to judge the future but by the past. My prayers now are for the peace counsil [sic] which is soon to sit. I hope God be with them in their work so that their poor blind eyes be able to see their way clear and guide them aright. On their heads rest the future of this turbulent sphere. How well their work is done determines the safety of it. Let us sincerely hope and pray for the best so that the sacrifices and heroic sufferings and efforts will bear fruit.</i></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">-PVT George W. Grady</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"> Ordinance Detachment</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"> American Expeditionary Force</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"> France</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_z9a3Lf5oUws/TNwmAbz1CXI/AAAAAAAAApE/p1fd2bRoDPg/s1600/George+Grady+Letter+-+Jan+1st+1919-4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_z9a3Lf5oUws/TNwmAbz1CXI/AAAAAAAAApE/p1fd2bRoDPg/s200/George+Grady+Letter+-+Jan+1st+1919-4.jpg" width="136" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_z9a3Lf5oUws/TNwmCemeSHI/AAAAAAAAApI/Fe2gqwSPH-8/s1600/George+Grady+Letter+-+Jan+1st+1919-5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_z9a3Lf5oUws/TNwmCemeSHI/AAAAAAAAApI/Fe2gqwSPH-8/s200/George+Grady+Letter+-+Jan+1st+1919-5.jpg" width="134" /></a></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058257778014441745.post-73035589200113167452010-11-02T09:53:00.000-07:002010-11-02T11:19:52.869-07:00Back into the depths...To go deeper than ever before<br />
Presupposes a shallowness that may<br />
or may not<br />
be a delusion.<br />
<br />
Can the ocean ever truly be shallow?<br />
Can the sea ever be anything other than the sea?<br />
Are there parts that are one thing,<br />
but not the other?<br />
<br />
I peak<br />
as a wave<br />
acting alone<br />
but never truly<br />
Alone.<br />
<br />
I crest<br />
like a mountain<br />
atop an ever moving<br />
firmament.<br />
<br />
I crash<br />
like diamonds<br />
upon an eternal and endless<br />
shore.<br />
<br />
I recede<br />
back into the depths<br />
of the infinite potential of<br />
suchness.<br />
<br />
I am<br />
as you are.<br />
<br />
Same.<br />
Same.<br />
But different.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058257778014441745.post-52690379315762066122010-11-01T21:39:00.000-07:002010-11-01T21:39:07.532-07:00Mindful Eating (II): The Ango pledge...An <i>ango </i><span style="font-weight: normal;">(<span class="t_nihongo_kanji" lang="ja">安居</span>)</span>, for those who don't know, is a period of more intensive practice in a zen sangha or monastery. My sangha observes one every autumn. For us, it's traditional to make an ango vow or commitment; some extra practice like bowing, chanting, memorizing a sutra, daily- or extra zazen, etc. This year, I was having a hard time coming up with something that resonated with me. Last year I committed to sit every time my sangha was at the dharma center (of 32 opportunities, I missed four. Jes' sayin'...). This year, I was thinking of trying to memorize the <a href="http://www.zen-azi.org/en/node/296"><i>Shosai Myokichijo Dharani</i></a>, which always renders me dumb and mum. I may still. I'll be chanting it daily for six days in about two weeks.<br />
<br />
But this past weekend, I attended my teacher, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Chozen_Bays">Chozen Bays</a>-roshi's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mindful-Eating-Rediscovering-Relationship-Food/dp/1590305310"><i>Mindful Eating</i></a> retreat at <a href="http://www.zendust.org/">Great Vow Zen Monastery</a>. The retreat was a gift to me by my friend Bansho, but it was a bit extra significant for a few reasons. I've dropped over fifty pounds this year, and I really wanted to attend this retreat. He's been following my progress, and had purchased this retreat with the intent of making it a scholarship. I suddenly couldn't come up with the finances to attend, and it all fell neatly into place.<br />
<br />
I'll talk a bit more about the experience in a future post, but suffice it to say that I came up with my commitment tonight as I ate dinner half <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%8Cry%C5%8Dki">ōryōki</a>-style. I will eat at least one meal a day this way throughout all of ango.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs949.snc4/74251_1647461914882_1486970560_1650369_4569539_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs949.snc4/74251_1647461914882_1486970560_1650369_4569539_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058257778014441745.post-61508419121634318892010-11-01T18:26:00.001-07:002010-11-01T18:26:51.878-07:00Mindful Eating (I)...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_z9a3Lf5oUws/TM9oxpuV59I/AAAAAAAAAok/Y_0O0dbuftc/s1600/whirly-poo-01.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="249" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_z9a3Lf5oUws/TM9oxpuV59I/AAAAAAAAAok/Y_0O0dbuftc/s320/whirly-poo-01.png" width="320" /></a></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058257778014441745.post-36376940817299929822010-11-01T15:47:00.000-07:002010-11-01T15:47:45.960-07:00Back from the edge of Space and Time...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRhgCWe2LiatK2uwYei4ep_GOGIP_IeCwDsL-zFjIh8AlQbSpA&t=1&usg=__ii5oSWwpqsYQ99wJy0wOZv9GE84=" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRhgCWe2LiatK2uwYei4ep_GOGIP_IeCwDsL-zFjIh8AlQbSpA&t=1&usg=__ii5oSWwpqsYQ99wJy0wOZv9GE84=" /></a></div>Just got back from a weekend-long monastic retreat (focused on mindful eating: more on that in a following blog post) and can report that much zazen was energetically sat. At 4:30am yesterday morning, I was up, sitting zazen outside in the crisp cold of an early Oregon autumn, in the pitch dark with a stunningly bright half-moon hanging behind the translucent UV-blue clouds, and every star in the sky encouraging me to "wake up"! I sent out my intentions, and included all my Weirdness-following friends. One thing that came up for me (thanks in no small part to the aforementioned moon) was the issue of the waxing and waning of practice at times, and specifically the energy required to keep up a good daily zazen/shikantaza practice. My tip to you all: don't be discouraged if you fall off the zafu. Be gentle with yourself. Just get back on. Be it five minutes or a half-hour is no matter. As Dogen-zenji stated, "Do not waste your time by night or day."<br />
<br />
Keep at it. Your practice is quite literally of the utmost importance to <em>all</em> beings throughout space and time...<br />
<br />
-bows of gratitude-<br />
<br />
=/\=Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058257778014441745.post-19916549876599073772010-10-11T14:03:00.000-07:002010-10-11T19:55:43.465-07:00What's love got to do with it?And off to the races we go!<br />
<br />
<a href="http://fullcontactenlightenment.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/abzen2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://fullcontactenlightenment.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/abzen2.jpg" width="129" /></a>First off: <a href="http://hardcorezen.blogspot.com/">Brad Warner</a> has a new book out, called <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sex-Sin-Zen-Exploration-Everything/dp/1577319109"><i>Sex, Sin, and Zen: A Buddhist Exploration of Sex from Celibacy to Polyamory and Everything in Between</i></a>. No, I haven't read it yet. I was sent an advanced promo for it of a few chapters by someone with a link to the publisher, but it was of a few of the "dryer" chapters. Regardless, I'll read it soon. Also regardless, buy the book, y'all. Brad-san needs the dough, and I want him to have it. Brad is one of the few contemporary Zen writers in America that's actually saying something relevant <i>and</i> interesting, and as aggravating as he is to me sometimes, I think that his approach is not only valuable, but inherently important to Zen in the West. Props, Brad. Actually, I'll probably post a review of the book once I've digested it, so stay tuned...<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><hr /><br />
Let's begin at the beginning.<br />
<br />
I am not average.<br />
<br />
That is not a boast. It is a statement of statistical observation. I am a 42-year old male (that bit <i>is</i> average), queer (latently bisexual) ethically non-monogamous (read: "polyamorous") agnostic, former-vegan, leftist/socialist libertarian (minus the gun craziness, but with added crispy anarchistic tendencies) Zen Buddhist who believes in the inherent, constitutional right of gays to marry, is a pro-cannabis advocate and thinks most drugs should be legalized, as should prostitution.<br />
<br />
So I confused the census guy a wee bit. But he seemed really happy to see me the 2nd and 3rd time he was by here. I was obviously a fun compare/contrast from the Jehova's next door. And while he may have been a bit perplexed that my mailing address wasn't actually--in fact--Amsterdam, he understood why Portland seemed not so unbelievable.<br />
<br />
I've been of the "alt" generation my entire adult life. For a time in the late 80's, I was actually a safe sex educator to certain communities; a time when friends and loved ones started dying. To say "I was on the front lines" of the HIV/AIDS fight is a bit of an over-statement that I'm not entirely comfortable with, but I will say proudly that I did my part to help educate gays, lesbians, and straight folks--both friends and strangers alike--so as to help keep them from becoming one more statistical data-point in a war with an increasingly growing body-count.<br />
<br />
And yes, I lost people I loved. Too many.<br />
<br />
My fist "adult relationship" was when I was seventeen. I don't really want to go too deeply into it, but it was more formative than I think I realized then. And it was a non-monogamous one. My first. Not hers. I'd heard about "swingers" in the likes of the Penthouse Forum and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xaviera_Hollander">Xaviera Hollander's</a> "Call Me Madam" column, but while that was titillating, it just didn't seem to fit my experience. My partner at the time, (I'll call her "RDL") was a bit older, vastly more experienced and much wiser than I was at the time. She was my first great teacher of love, sex, and of compassion. Great Compassion. She was a care-giver of the first order, an angel, a true Bodhisattva, I'm certain of that. I'll never forget when we sat down to talk about "opening" our relationship. "How can you love more than one person at a time?" I asked her in mild horror.<br />
<br />
"Do you love your mother <i>and</i> your father?" she replied.<br />
<br />
"Well, of course, but that's different!" I exclaimed.<br />
<br />
"Really? How?"<br />
<br />
I waxed intensely on the topic, covering all the obvious points, including a detour down the predictable Freudian tangent. When I was done having my emotional and intellectual grand mal, she sat there quietly, then said "Okay. Now open your heart and tell me how it's <i>really</i> different."<br />
<br />
I couldn't.<br />
<br />
And I couldn't not because it wasn't different (because to some degrees it obviously <i>is</i> and I'm fine with admitting that) but because I suddenly allowed myself--for whatever reason--to truly wonder <i>why</i> it was, and then very quickly I was forced to ask myself if it was, in fact, all that different. Was I simply tripping over a language issue? I mean, the most complicated and nuanced words I knew at the time to try and differentiate one kind of love from another were words like <i><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="el">αγάπη</span></span></i> ("<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agape">agape</a>") or "trancendant, 'otherly' love", but no words seemed to work properly. I told RDL that I'd have to think about this. I left the discussion shaken, but oddly charged, and I didn't know why.<br />
<br />
After a lot of soul-searching, I agreed that RDL and I would open our relationship. In my mind, this was mostly a sexual thing, and I'll admit that I did it mostly to please her and at the same time hedge my bets against giving her any kind of reason to dump me. But I <i>did</i> have her assurance that if at any time I felt uncomfortable or threatened by this path, I could hit the stop button. Being that I trusted her both implicitly and explicitly, I felt that this was at least some kind of wild experiment that I had <i>some</i> manner of control over.<br />
<br />
The following 18-or-so months was one of the weirdest, most wonderful and at times most painful periods of my life. I never felt comfortable with telling even my closest friends about my life that they couldn't see. Some of my friends were privy to my "sexual adventurousness", but none knew that this involved more than just me and a few people in bed together. No one but my mother--my closest confidant--ever knew that it involved concurrent heart-based relationships with people. I had a number of relationships with women in that period, with RDL being my overriding constant.<br />
<br />
It was right about that time that we heard a new term. Actually, I'd discovered it in a magazine. It may have been <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omni_%28magazine%29"><i>Omni</i></a>. This word was "polyamory". And while I--a growing word geek--bristled at the bastardization, it sure seemed to fit what we were doing in our lives.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_t6rV3U9ZEHM/S18t9TFDZdI/AAAAAAAAo48/Kc_Pi5ep1NI/s400/polyamory_is_wrong_tshirt-p235838933475364492cxkc_8001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="175" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_t6rV3U9ZEHM/S18t9TFDZdI/AAAAAAAAo48/Kc_Pi5ep1NI/s400/polyamory_is_wrong_tshirt-p235838933475364492cxkc_8001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div>But it seemed to be working. And it seemed to fit me. I had always been a big-hearted guy. I'd always had much love to give. And in that period of time when I walked away from RDL to "think about this", one thing popped into my mind over and over: I loved RDL, deeply and truly, and I wanted her, and "us" to be happy. <i>Forever. </i>But was I really ready to commit myself--my heart--to one person for the rest of my life? Forsaking all others? 'Till death, etc? Was it truly reasonable to think that, on a planet of billions of people, the one great love of my life just happened to be living one town over from me? Was there really only one person on this Earth I could ever <i>love</i> this way, lest I diminish that love through feeling that way about another? Would that even happen? I mean, my parents had six kids. None of us felt less loved than the others.<br />
<br />
I suddenly started to get a handle on this issue, and the first thing that helped was to understand that a) I didn't know a damn thing about "love", and b) nobody else did, either. I was in the first generation to have a 50% or greater divorce rate, and one of the first to deal with single-parent families (both through divorce, death and as a mindful life-choice). It was becoming obvious to me that what society said about love was vastly different from what love's boots were like on the ground (or outside the door, or banging, or... <i>anyway.</i>)<br />
<br />
Sadly, my time with RDL was cut short. We were there for each-other until the end. I still miss her. And yes, I still love her. Deeply. Every woman I've ever been with has been told of her, and I have told most of those later women that they own her a debt of thanks. She is without question the main reason why I am the man I am today, and most likely the reason why they fell in love with me. She was my greatest teacher, for she taught me that love is nothing like what is printed or put up on the silver screen. It is so much more than that. It is truly a Universal thing. She was tapped into something huge, mighty and powerful. Trans-formative. Transmogrifying. Transcendental. I wanted to taste that. She fed me. Then she had to go. The very last words she uttered to me were "Be honest with yourself, always, and know that I truly love you."<br />
<br />
The following years were a morass of mistakes, tempests, fool's errands and other missteps. After RDL, I tried monogamy, thinking that I could never experience what I had with RDL outside of the strong container of safety and encouragement that she provided. My first was with a girl I'd went to high-school with, that had me making the mistake of proposing to her after only a week together, and which ended a month later after I wised-up to the fact that I was about to ruin both our lives. The longest try at monogamy lasted nearly six years. It ended less over the issue of monogamy -vs- polyamory than it did over a mismatch of personalities, ages and life-goals. But I knew that when I left the Center Coast for the Left Coast that I wanted to be polyamorous again.<br />
<br />
That I'd fallen in-love on-line with an amazing polyamorous woman in Portland, OR sort-of sealed that deal. I've been here in Portland, and actively polyamorous, ever since. That relationship was also very formative. It was my first marriage. It was my first divorce. It put my daughter in my life. It was a time of great growth, both personal and spiritual, and I owe her, too, a great debt of thanks. And yes, I still love her. Deeply. Too. But more in an <i>agape</i> way. She's with the right person. She's happier than I've ever seen her. That's the promise I made to her on our wedding day: to do all that was in my power to make her happy. That just also included asking her for a divorce when the time insisted upon it.<br />
<br />
Polyamory developed quite a bit over the years. It now has clubs, magazines, TV pieces featuring it and a whole raft of other trappings, institutions and eclectica, like shirts and buttons with pithy sayings (which we all know makes it relevant). But what is it really, and how does it relate to my life, and to a life devoted to the Dharma?<br />
<br />
<hr /><br />
Teh Wikipedia defines "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyamory"><i>polyamory</i></a>" as "...the practice, desire, or acceptance of having more than one intimate relationship at a time with the knowledge and consent of everyone involved." Now, this to me is a bit short-shrifted of an answer. The above could also apply to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swinging">swinging</a>, which poly is most assuredly not. "Intimate relationship"--were the term "intimate" to be used properly--would be okay, but the word typically carries too much mere sexual baggage. I tend to use the terms "heart-centric" or "emotional" to reinforce the most pertinent point of polyamory for me: the <i>heart.</i> For me, and for most long-term poly practitioners, polyamory is better defined as "...the practice, desire, or acceptance of having more than one concurrent emotionally intimate, heart-based or romantic relationship--with or without sex--with the knowledge and consent of everyone involved."<br />
<br />
Secks. About that. Yes, I've been ENM (or "ethically non-monogamous") my entire adult life. I have felt open to many interactions with many people over my lifetime. Yes, more than many other people, but honestly, less than you might think, given my circumstances. ENM/Poly has never been a vehicle for merely shagging anything I want at any time. It's not that simple. Nor is it that easy. And as I have grown in the Dharma (having taken the first Five Precepts), I have come to view polyamory as a very special embodiment of the practice of the precepts. Talk about a practice of non-attachment! Oy! So, let's look at those precepts, shall we? As a matter of fact, let's look at the whole thing: how does the practice of polyamory and the dharma mesh in my life?<br />
<ul><li><b><i>Polyamory is about </i><i>ethics.</i></b> At least it is for me, or anyone truly operating within the original model. This is not about "getting some on the side". In true, open polyamory, not only does everyone know <i>about</i> one-another, everyone typically <i>knows</i> one another, at least in a formal--if not cordial--sense. There are no secret lovers. There's no sneaking around. Of course, any model can be improperly or dishonestly implemented. If, say, you were poly, found someone you fancied, and saw them--romantically or intimately--without letting other partners know about it, that would be cheating, just like in the monogamous world. The interesting twist here is that, unlike monogamy, you are responsible to more people at the same time. The potential to <i>hurt</i> more people with unskillful action is even greater. Which leads us nicely to...</li>
<li><b><i>Polyamory is about karma.</i></b> Boy-howdy! Again, as above, you are not just responsible to one person. Your actions often have an immediate effect on numerous lives. That is very swift karma, and the potential to harm people by heedlessness and selfish action is possibly higher than with monogamy.</li>
<li><b><i>Polyamory is about mindfulness. </i></b>You bet it is. You will come to no good end if you don't remember where you should be and when, to say the least. Double-booking, forgetfulness, kids and other associated partner's names, birthdays, anniversaries, etc are all challenges that people have with ONE "significant other". Try it with more than one! Being attentive to multiple partner's needs--emotional, physical or what-have-you--and being involved in their lives in any substantial way is a very demanding practice in mindfulness. You cannot expect to be a fulfilled and fulfilling partner in a poly dynamic if you have a "phuq-all" attitude. It, and you, will crash and burn before take-off.</li>
<li><i><b>Polyamory is about non-attachment.</b></i> <-- Understatement of the year. What greater exercise in non-attachment is there than to give your heart to someone, and then not only allow--but support--that partner in a similar relationship with someone <i>else?</i> We all want to feel special. We all want to be the center of someone's world. Yet at the same time, deep down inside, we all are insecure when it comes to love. When our partner appears less interested than they once were, or admits to being interested in someone else, we immediately say to ourselves "I'm going to <i>lose</i> them..." as if they were a mere <i>possession.</i> Yet at the same time, many--if not most--people like to say things like "love is infinite". Well, if the latter is true, how can the former happen? If there is no end to love's ability to feel, to express, and to expand and encompass all it needs to, then why do we so often allow our heart to "attach" itself? Or, is it--in fact--the heart that's doing the attachment after all? Could it be the ego--the "small self"--at work here? Jealousy is often defined as the ego crying "this is MINE!" when the heart-mind--or the "greater or true self" is saying "this is Universal". And make no mistake about it: poly people deal with jealousy all the time. If anything, we just try and go about dealing with it differently. Which leads us to...</li>
<li><b><i>Polyamory is about communication.</i></b> And frankly, it's vastly more about communication than sex. By <i>magnitudes.</i> There must be constant, open, and at times very intense communication with partners in order for polyamory to be healthy and happy. There really is no place for biting one's tongue, burying feelings, sweeping things under the rug. It <i>will</i> upset the apple-cart, that pea <i>will</i> disturb the princess, etc, and will likely do so in the most upsetting way possible and at the most inopportune time. The only way to head-off problems before they happen is for everyone to communicate in an open and honest fashion <i>at all times.</i> To say that it's challenging doesn't cover it. At times it's completely Herculean, at others, it can feel down-right Sisyphean. But it must, must, <i>must</i> be done in order for this life-choice to be ethical. After all, lies of omission are still lies.</li>
</ul>So, those are just some of the issues that are tangentially related to polyamory and a Dharma life. But what did the Buddha say about any of this? Well, frankly, not too damn much. Honestly, the Buddha didn't actually say a whole lot about love and sex while he taught. More than anything, he likely viewed romantic love in a slightly dim light, in the same way that inspired him to name his son <i>Rāhula</i>, or "fetter". This is so often interpreted as a major negative. "How could the Buddha, someone who professes love and compassion, name his only child 'ball and chain'? How cold-hearted! How could the Buddha look at love and romance as something so negative an influence on life?!" Well, look at it this way...<br />
<ul><li>Has love ever caused you to be heedless, or to make unskillful decisions?</li>
<li>Have you ever felt "intoxicated" by love?</li>
<li>Have you ever lied about your feelings for someone in order to protect yourself, or ingratiate yourself to someone in the hopes of gaining their affections?</li>
<li>Have you ever acted spitefully in order to lash out at someone who you feel has hurt you or your heart? Worded differently: have you ever gone out of your way to kill someone's joy?</li>
<li>Have you ever passed up an opportunity for personal growth or betterment simply due to your desire to stay within the comfort-zone of an established relationship?</li>
</ul>I'm sure it's becoming clear where I'm going with this. I have to answer "yes" to all of the above at one point or another in my life, and I'm pretty sure you do, too. In the case of someone who is working with renunciation--or mindful letting go of attachments--"love" most certainly can be a fetter. That romantic "love", or even familial "love", is a connection that attaches one to a sense of comfort, placidity, and predictability. When the Buddha named his son Rāhula, it was not an insult. It was an admission of the truth of the Great Matter. It was as if he was saying "I will love you, and my heart will bind to you, and no matter how hard I try, this, too, will cause suffering. The problem is not that I don't love you, son. The problem is that I <i>do</i>. I must give up all fetters so that <i>all</i> human beings can free themselves from the ever-turning wheel of <span style="font-size: small;">saṃsāra, and that includes <i>you.</i>" Now that's not to say that romantic or familial love is a pointless waste of time, or is in and of itself unskillful. Far from it. But allowing it to be blown out of proportion--as it so very often is--is where the fetter is created. One can, and should, love, but it must always be with the acknowladgement of the Truth of the Great Matter.</span><br />
<blockquote><span style="font-size: small;"><i>All that is dear to me, and everyone I love, are of the nature of change; there is no way to escape being separated from them</i>.</span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_remembrances">1</a></span></span></blockquote>This is the Truth of "love". It will not last. It is of dependent origin. It is finite, and must be fit into a tiny lifetime. But just because of that, it is not diminished in the least bit. Because that "love" is--or at least can be--a manifestation of a much greater, and Universal "Love", in the same way that a single wave is an expression and manifestation of the entire ocean. And just like that one wave, that one single peak of movement and water, it is finite, and it will disappear. But even so, its transient nature does not in any way diminish the ocean. Waves come and go, yet the ocean remains.<br />
<br />
The ocean. The vastness of "Love". We always hear the term "unconditional love" bandied about. It's verging on being over-used. I've always found it sadly ironic that I hear it in wedding vows and ceremonies all the time, and then, right behind it are tagged (you guessed it) <i>a list of conditions!</i> It's nearly like saying "I'll love you unconditionally, unless you do this, this or this, and you can't do this either. You must promise me this, and in exchange for that, I'll promise you this." Hmmm. All that's missing from that, to my mind, is the term "Party of the First Part", and all the rest of the legal mumbo-jumbo. Talk about romance!<br />
<br />
I could go on and on (and on...) about this, but as this is now the longest blog in my blogging history, I'm going to try and wrap this puppy up. I guess I'll try and close this up like this:<br />
<br />
In my life--<i>my </i>life, the only one I can actually do anything about--I know that to be genuine, I have to do as my heart dictates, and that those actions must be in accord with my ethics and the Precepts as I understand them. My actions are always governed by <i><span class="Unicode" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: normal;" title="International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration">ahiṃsā, </span></i><span class="Unicode" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: normal;" title="International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration">or "non-harming" taking into account all those I love, including myself. Physical, mental and emotional harm can only be prevented or mitigated by my actions, my deeds. "My deeds are my closest companions. I am the beneficiary of my deeds. My deeds are the ground upon which I stand.</span><span class="Unicode" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: normal;" title="International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration">"</span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_remembrances">1</a></span></span> Love is so vast, and I do not feel that I can be genuine, and fully embody my life here this time around, if I commit to something I do not truly and genuinely feel in my heart. I believe--I truly believe--that I have an infinite capacity to love. I also believe that my ability to love more than one person at a time in an emotionally--and at times physically--intimate way is in and of itself one more Dharma gate in an infinite and boundless realm of Dharma gates, and I have repeatedly taken a vow to enter them all.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodhisattva_vows"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span></a> This, too, is a practice in compassion, deep listening, non-violent communication, openness, non-attachment, equanimity, selflessness, and above all else, ethical living. It is not merely about sexual gratification, nor is it--nor can it be--about selfish sensory or emotional fulfilment and ego gratification, and I am always hyper-aware of my own motivations and sense of "self" through this life-choice.<br />
<br />
In closing, I'd just like to say that I am one of the luckiest people on the planet. I am in relationships with two unbelievable women, both of whom, in their own ways, help bring out the very best in me. They challenge me to be the man that I want to be deep down. They accept me unconditionally. They care for me in ways that are very hard to explain, and it humbles me down to my very core. Could I find that fulfillment, that challenge, that sense of connection in a monogamous relationship? I'm sure the chances are good. But were I to do so from anyplace other than an honest desire in my heart to do so, and not by some societal mandate, I would be being disingenuous, and I promised myself when I started pursuing the Dharma that I wouldn't allow myself to do that. The Dharma is Truth, and to try and be anything other than who I really am is a disservice to both the Dharma and to myself, and thereby all beings. And the Truth of the Great Matter is just as the Buddha said:<br />
<blockquote><i>"Thousands of candles <br />
can be lit from a single candle, <br />
and the life of the candle <br />
will not be shortened. <br />
Love and happiness never decreases <br />
by being shared." <br />
</i><br />
<i>— Sutta Nipata</i></blockquote><i>That</i> is what love is to me. And I commit to following the path honestly, and with an open heart, through ethical adherence to the Precepts.<br />
<br />
'Till death I do part.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058257778014441745.post-29021933065456391372010-10-08T17:22:00.000-07:002010-10-08T17:23:42.688-07:00Next time, on a very special SOTW...Well, I've been putting this off for long enough...<br />
<br />
...so what's a bit more procrastination gonna hurt, eh?<br />
<br />
Kidding. I kid. I'm a kidder.<br />
<br />
There are going to be a few big bloggy things happening here soon that deal with some rather weighty topics, and particularly how they relate to the dharma and me.<br />
<br />
Party on, Garth...<br />
<br />
<object width="320" height="240"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Ihr4ODx3Gl0?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Ihr4ODx3Gl0?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="320" height="240"></embed></object>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058257778014441745.post-51324361624202769752010-10-05T10:17:00.000-07:002010-10-05T10:37:53.830-07:00Let's see what happens...So, over the last three or four years, I've been experimenting. I suppose one could look at it as a sort-of social/psychological experiment. At least I do. Field research and data-gathering have been going well, and I am ready to release some of my initial (and very preliminary) findings. I've touched base with "the Journal '<a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/index.html">Nature</a>'" (at least that's how they always refer to it on NPR, so I figure that's how I should mention it. You know... to sound all official-like) but they don't seem too interested in my research. Elitists! They pointed me towards two avenues: a thing called <a href="http://www.tricycle.com/">Tricycle</a> (which I didn't understand, as it has nothing to do with cycling of any kind at all), or something called "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimeograph">Mimeograph</a>" which is a journal, I think, although I've never heard of it.<br />
<br />
Anyway, I'm not sure about how to go about presenting my findings, but as with all good science, I know it involves charts and graphs. Far be it from me to fall on my face when it comes to scientific inquiry and analysis, so anyway, here we go.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="248" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_z9a3Lf5oUws/TKs-M579cCI/AAAAAAAAAn8/4KsHlBjhjYc/s400/thing+happens+chart.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Fig 1: Mean-average chance of something significant happening in my life. </span></i></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_z9a3Lf5oUws/TKs-M579cCI/AAAAAAAAAn8/4KsHlBjhjYc/s1600/thing+happens+chart.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>As the chart clearly illustrates (aside from the fact that I can't properly spell <span style="font-size: small;"><i>"significant"</i></span> with this little caffeine in me) the chances of something significant happening in my life at any given time is exactly 50% (that's %50, for my research colleges at Cambridge). This is a pretty significant finding, and I was as stunned as Louis Leakey at a "Old bones no one's ever seen" convention. This is ground-breaking (Leakey joke. See what I just did there? Anyway...)<br />
<br />
Alright. Let's get serious. I guess.<br />
<br />
I've been making a practice of having no real expectations of life for the past few years. This stems--in part--from a conversation I had with my sensei <a href="http://www.zendust.org/hogenandchozen.htm">Hogen Bays</a> earlier <a href="http://shakingofftheweirdness.blogspot.com/2010/02/realizations-and-assumptions.html">this year</a> in sanzen.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><object height="240" width="320"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/LybO3LqUJpg?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/LybO3LqUJpg?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="320" height="240"></embed></object></div><div style="text-align: left;">It was a wee little thing of an epiphany. A weepiphany, if you will. Totally kensho-lite. But he nodded in a way that--to us students of his--says "Good. You got that one. Now go chop more wood."</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">When you think you know what's going to happen next, you're walking down the wrong path. Assume anything--<i>anything at all</i>--and you're in for a surprise. It may be a good surprise, or a nasty one, but you will, in fact, be surprised. Why?</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Because you don't know what-the-phuq you're talkin' bout, Willis. Srsly. You have no idea. No, you really don't. At least I don't, to be sure. I've proven this to myself over and over again, and a few years back, I decided to finally take a clue.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">I have spent the unfortunate majority of my life thinking I knew what was around the corner. Where I was going. What was going to happen in a sequence of events. That style of living was a comfort of sorts. "No one enjoys stumbling blind through life" I thought. "Better get things sussed so's I don't stub mah toes!" But through my 20's and early 30's, my feet saw more hard corners and errant Legos than I cared to admit. Well, I don't care now.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">That idea of comfort in a presumed understanding of the Universe is so deadly. Whenever I think of a concept like that--an assumption that is held for its own sake in order to make you feel better about your complete and utter insignificance to the Universe--I think of two things, obviously related: Friedrich Nietzsche and Monty Python.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Comfort. Contentment. We believe that these things are important to our lives, our joy, our experience of happiness. We tend to equate them with "happiness" in the same way that we equate "health" and "love" with happiness. But they are truly illusions. They are not the things-in-themselves. We look at them as indicators. Maybe they should be looked at more as <i>symptoms.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Nietzsche, in <a href="http://praxeology.net/zara.htm"><i>Also sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen</i></a>, stated this through the eponymous character:</div><blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">In truth, man is a polluted river. One must be a sea to receive a polluted river without becoming defiled. I teach you the Overman! He is that sea; in him your great contempt can go under. <br />
<br />
What is the greatest thing you can experience? It is the hour of your greatest contempt. The hour in which even your happiness becomes loathsome to you, and so also your reason and virtue. <br />
<br />
The hour when you say: What good is my happiness? It is poverty and filth and wretched contentment. But my happiness should justify existence itself! <br />
<br />
The hour when you say: What good is my reason? Does it long for knowledge as the lion for his prey? It is poverty and filth and wretched contentment! <br />
<br />
The hour when you say: What good is my virtue? It has not yet driven me mad! How weary I am of my good and my evil! It is all poverty and filth and wretched contentment! <br />
<br />
The hour when you say: What good is my justice? I do not see that I am filled with fire and burning coals. But the just are filled with fire and burning coals! <br />
<br />
The hour when you say: What good is my pity? Is not pity the cross on which he is nailed who loves man? But my pity is no crucifixion! <br />
<br />
Have you ever spoken like this? Have you ever cried like this? Ah! If only I had heard you cry this way! <br />
<br />
It is not your sin -- it is your moderation that cries to heaven; your very sparingness in sin cries to heaven! <br />
<br />
Where is the lightning to lick you with its tongue? Where is the madness with which you should be cleansed? <br />
<br />
Behold, I teach you the Overman! He is that lightning, he is that madness!</span></div></blockquote>You say "So what?" Well, that's reasonable. But when I read this sometime in high-school, it tingled me. It sent a shiver through me like experiencing my first erection (and I'm not making that up). And, like my first erection, I had no idea <i>why</i> it made me feel that tingle. I had no idea why because I had no context for the experience. Later in university, and after a (very) hard few post-high-school years, it hit me like a sack of wet, angry cats.<br />
<br />
<i>Wretched contentment.</i><br />
<br />
The French (leave it to them) call it <i>malaise. </i>To us Amerikaners, we tend to call it "complacency". Kierkegaard called it (sorta wrongly) "despair". It's that mild uneasiness that arises when you're stagnant, but okay with your own stagnation, because it's better than one of the alternatives. Yet in accepting that stagnation, you rule out the other alternative. Sorry. I'm not trying to be obfuscative (and I'm digressing). It's my blog. Deal with it.<br />
<br />
Back to the point.<br />
<br />
This complacency we tend to drop into out of fear of being hurt by something that may or may-not happen in life--this attempt at homeostasis--touches this idea of assumptions. We tend to think that we know what's coming. We tend to WANT to know what's coming. Hell, we even think we CAN know what's coming.<br />
<br />
No.<br />
<br />
No.<br />
<br />
No.<br />
<br />
I told my teacher Hogen, in that sanzen conversation (is that a "sanzenversation"?) that "No enlightened being would ever assume <i>anything</i> about the future <i>ever.</i> That must mean that nirvana is a constant state of complete and utter amazement at every single event, no matter its size. It's like an eternal state of 'Holy shit! <i>Really?</i>' I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. But I'm pretty sure that that not-knowing is a good thing."<br />
<br />
So my life has been a practice of not-knowing for the last few years. In many places, it's been a practice of acceptance, of sorrow and tumult, of stress and of deep, deep pain. At other times, great joy. Utter amazement. Wonder. As a matter of fact, the latter seems to have outweighed the former, but by a percentage, not by a magnitude. But the practice has allowed me to experience the wonder more often than I had previously anticipated.<br />
<br />
This wonder has manifested itself all over the place. Watching squirrels in trees and on phone-lines, watching snow fall, feeling rain, smelling the earth. It's sorta obvious that I get it from nature. But moreover, it manifests now more noticeably in my relationships. This practice of "not knowing" and "not assuming" <i>anything</i> really fills my current relationships with a wonder that is really hard to describe. It can really be heady at times. Not being complacent about relationships is actually really challenging, because (even though we don't like to admit it) us monkeys really actually try very hard to shoot for homeostasis in our relationships. The predictability makes for easier present-buying, I think.<br />
<br />
But the more I've taken my hands off the modeling clay that is my love-life, the more I've been finding the rewards greater than I could possibly have envisioned. And moreover, to stop envisioning or assuming what "love", "relationship", "sex", "gender", "partner", "love-life", etc, even <i>mean</i> is as fertile a ground as a freshly cut field in the shadow of an extinct volcano. <br />
<br />
Can you have romantic love without sex? Can you really experience the depth of connection that comes between two people without that slippery in-and-out friction? Can spirits fall in love without the consent of the bodies? Is there just "friends" and "lovers", or is there something between that that's not so base and tawdry as "FWB", but more than "just friends"? Where does the idea of "partnership" go when boots are left outside the door, but not actively banging, yet those boots still like rubbing up against one another in a fashion? Can you get through life without falling off the tightrope of the preconceived notions of the onlooking masses?<br />
<br />
I don't know.<br />
<br />
But I'm down with finding out.<br />
<br />
Let's see what happens...<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://wiki.urbandead.com/images/7/77/Spanish_inquisition.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="256" src="http://wiki.urbandead.com/images/7/77/Spanish_inquisition.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
Oh, and by the way, the pie chart is slightly wrong, at least in a zen context. The chances of something <span style="font-size: small;">significant happening at any given moment in my life are, in fact, 100%. My bad.</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058257778014441745.post-24397053340985147042010-09-27T17:14:00.001-07:002010-09-27T17:14:29.647-07:00Monday wabi-sabi...To be alone is a great burden. To be accompanied, a terrible one. To fear loneliness is to fear your true self. To want more than what already is is both ignorance and madness.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058257778014441745.post-90029483534188107082010-09-24T09:09:00.001-07:002010-09-24T09:09:16.842-07:00Friday morning...Embrace this day.<br />
<br />
Embrace it now.<br />
<br />
Then now.<br />
<br />
Then now again.<br />
<br />
Hold this day tight to you like a child once lost, now found and back in your arms again.<br />
<br />
This, too, is your birthright.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0