Noble Truth 8 Fold Path #1

4 Noble Truth — 3rd Truth

4 Noble Truths — 2nd Truth Revised

What is my Vow?

4 Noble Truths — Truth 2

4 Noble Truths — Truth 1

4 Noble Truths — Part 0

What is Practice?

Mad as a Mad Hatter

I'm

The Rod

Dropping Linda in Austin

My Body

Memory

What I Desire

Pencil

So my big dilemma today is whether to write something. I was going to write something every day, and make a picture, but yesterday I wrote two pieces since I was in an all-day writing intensive. So I could take a day off.

We read a poem about a pencil. About all the poems that are in a pencil. I remember when we had John Grimes (https://id.iit.edu/people/john-grimes/), an early computer graphics champion, come to talk at our college in St. Louis. He held up a pencil and said, “We’ll never have anything more sensitive than a pencil.”

I’m not sure if he’s right, but it is a pretty amazing instrument. NASA supposedly spent a million dollars to develop a ballpoint pen that would write in space but finally settled on a pencil that worked as well.

What interests me more is that we have stuff inside us that needs to come out. If we don’t let it out, then it dissipates… vaporizes. That’s why I’m writing today.

P.S. This is drawn with a ballpoint pen.

Why I Hate Imagination

The Case of the Leaking Pen

Karma. I like to define it as the effect of our volitional actions.

Volitional suggests “on purpose.” But much of what we do in inadvertent. We didn’t pay attention. I consider inadvertent actions to be volitional as they were mainly preventable if we had paid attention.

Yesterday I left Gary’s apartment with his pen in my pocket. He didn’t give it to me. I guess I just put it in my pocket. It isn’t the first time. Pens often end up in my pocket, as if, in a previous life, I was a bonafide pen robber.

Today the pen started leaking, staining my fingers like a scarlet letter. All would know of my indiscretion.

Every morning we recite the repentance verse that says,

“All my ancient twisted karma.
from beginningless greed hate and delusion,
born through body speech and mind
I now fully avow.”

It will have a little more meaning tomorrow as I look at my stained hands.

Do I get Gary a new pen? Did I cause the leaking? Was the leaking what we call a dharma gate, teaching me to pay attention, and, of course, to keep my hands in my pockets?

“‘Once when the Buddha was at Jetavana Park, an intoxicated Brahman wandered into the compound where Buddha was staying and asked to become a monk. Buddha requested that some of his monks shave the Brahman’s head and clothe him in a kesa (or the Buddhist monk’s robe). Later, after the effects of the liquor had worn off, the Brahman was astonished and frightened upon seeing that his bodily form had changed into that of a Buddhist monk, whereupon he ran away. The monks respectfully asked the Buddha why he had allowed the drunken Brahman to become a monk only to have him run back home. Buddha answered, ‘For eons beyond measure, this Brahman did not have the heart to leave home life behind, but now, while under the influence, he gave rise to a bit of courage. Due to this, he will, later on, leave home life behind.’” (Eihei Dogen, Shukke)

On somewhat another subject, is the question of whether we should abandon Facebook because they helped the Russians put Trump in the White House? Do you cancel an exhibit of Chuck Close’s paintings because he didn’t treat his models nicely? Is this a matter of winning the battle and losing the war. I’m a little scared of our expectation that Facebook approves right speech and censures wrong speech. We might applause when they suppress ideas that we want suppressed, but what about when they start promoting ideas that we don’t think are right. Will they always be on our side?

Dialogue with a Squirrel

The Art Institute of Chicago started as a storehouse for plaster casts to support the students‘ need to draw Greek and Roman statues. Eventually, it became a museum of art. I’ve been thinking about training and my long rejection of the idea. And then I met up with a verse on the training of an elephant in ancient India, and misread the verse, thinking they had the same problem with training that I did.

Yesterday I had a little thing going with a squirrel. He was trying to stay cool by laying his belly on a branch of a tree in the shade. I watched him, and he watched me, and eventually, he went back to work, scavenging pecans from our not too fruitful pecan tree, and I going in the house to get more garbage for trash collection day tomorrow.

Squirrels seem to have been well designed. Their natural instincts seem to work. Animals seem to share that quality of being authentic and functional. They don’t need the training to accomplish their higher needs unless they become domesticated.

Elephants do well without us. But when we want to ride them we have to tame them. I’m not sure that they become happier and more fulfilled. I’ll have to ask my elephant friends.

It seems that humans need a lot more work. Our natural instincts get us in all kinds of trouble,  We pass the fridge and eat more than we need for energy. We get infatuated and our life goes astray. We sit on a meditation cushion and drift off into Lala land. Why? Why can’t we just follow our instincts?

We train and train. All of us are doing one ironman or ironwoman after another. I had looked forward to retirement so I could stop trying so hard. I thought I could just be me, and follow every whim. Little did I know I’d have to face one boot camp after another.

Hard or Soft

For about 10 years we have been holding weekly zen writing sessions at the Austin Zen Center. We have it as a MeetUp group, with 850+ members, and also advertised on the Austin Zen Center web pages. We have each time a combination of people who have been coming for years, and newcomers. Last night I started by talking about the difference between consciousness and mindfulness in relation to photography. Ernest Haas (http://ernst-haas.com/), who came to St. Louis Community College to talk eons ago, spoke about the difference between looking and seeing. When looking, he said, you are merely orienting yourself. I don’t remember what he said about seeing, but he did suggest that is what the photographer tries to do. It seems much like mindfulness.

“With a bit of mindful observation, we can in fact easily notice how spacious and allowing the mind can be when we are open to differences and variety, and how narrow and cramped the mind can become when we are self-righteous and judgmental. Becoming aware of this difference can serve as a good signpost for noticing when the mind shifts from open-mindedness to closing down.” —Analayo. Satipatthana Meditation. Windhorse Publications. Kindle Edition.

In this wonderful book on one of the two basic sutras by Buddha that explain meditation, Analayo talks about the feminine quality of sati or mindfulness. I suspect that it is the difference between sprinting and long-distance running. I know nothing about either, but I suspect that when sprinting you are trying hard, and when long-distance running you are trying soft. Some of you runners might want to correct me.

Perhaps it is more like someone driving on a long trip and a race car driver racing in the Indianapolis 500.

“Once the crops have been harvested, however, the cowherd can relax and just observe the cows from a distance. All he has to do is to be aware that “there are the cows.” For this distant watching, the simile uses the term sati (Anālayo 2003: 53 and 2014a: 87). I picture the cowherd sitting relaxed at the root of a tree and watching the cows grazing in various places. All he has to do is just be aware of them from an uninvolved distance.”

Analayo is associating the cowherd with the meditator. Part of the reason for the “soft” approach is that the “hard” approach is unsustainable, even for a minute (try to stare intently at something for a minute).