Is Life Predictable?

There is a sign in the zendo: everything changes, everything is connected, and pay attention. For me, it requires us to be vigilant at all times. We don't know what is going to come our way. Simple jobs can become complicated. Just when we think we have all the I’s dotted and the t’s crossed, we are thrown for a loop.

I took a survey and asked my kids if life was predictable and they said yes. I asked some zen practitioners and they said no...after laughing. Do we live in the same world? Buddha said that when you throw a stick it could land on either end. As cut and dry are the laws of karma, Buddha also said that things just happen.

My first zen teacher said there was no such thing as cause and effect. There are only conditions. If the forest is dry and if it is warm, a condition exists for a fire. A condition also exists for a picnic. To say that the fire was caused by the condition suggests that each time such a condition exists you'll have a fire. We know that isn't the case. The second problem with cause and effect is that it doesn't acknowledge that everything is connected. That doesn't mean that everything is connected to something, but rather it suggests that everything is connected to everything else, as illustrated by Indra's net. Conditions are infinitely complex. Cause and effect suggest that things exist that aren't connected.

My daughter is teaching a class this summer that will end four days before her due date. When she told her doctor today, her plan was met with laughter. How did my daughter know with such certainty how her pregnancy would progress?

We know that erratic and unpredictable parents produce problems for their kids. These kids never learn to trust. Maybe in the end they are more prepared for real life. Maybe our desire to make them feel secure taught them the wrong lesson. The kids who stayed in London during the Blitz were better adjusted that those who were sent off to the country for safety. Was it that they were with their parents, or was it that they saw the other side of life?

I felt a pang of guilt when my kids said that life was predictable. Where did I go wrong? Did I hide the truth from them? Did I know the truth? (To be honest, I had no idea.)

I remember what my wise philosophy professor told me in college. Imagine you are a beach ball floating in the ocean. You can't determine where the ball will go, but you can tap it this way or that and change it direction just a little. Did I believe him? No, as an ambitious 18 year-old, I thought I could do anything if I tried hard enough.

Do I owe my kids an apology? Or do I just wait by the sidelines until they figure it out on their own? 

Disarming the Zendo Bomb

Tonight I thought I had dokusan with Kosho, my zen teacher. Thought, that is, because we do it every couple of weeks and I’m never sure if we did it last week, or two weeks ago. Anyway, it is a private meeting where we are supposed to discuss my zen practice, but usually we talk about something else. The relationship of one’s life and one’s zen practice is inextricable linked. The difficulty with talking about sitting is that what goes on when one sits is, as the koan says, “most intimate.”

For this reason, on the day of dokusan, I work hard to think of some non-practice issue about which to talk. Nothing came up so I succumbed to talk about my meditation...especially focusing on why should I do it anyway? It seems that I ask him this question annually and then rapidly forget what he says.

The way dokusan works is that after about ten minutes of meditation, Scott, the ino (head of the zendo), comes over to me and tells me that it is time. I then get up, bow to the cushion and to the others in the room, and then leave the zendo to go to the Kosho’s house across the street. I like to be done with dokusan in time to come back to ring the bells during service. Sometimes Kosho forgets to tell me it is time to end, so today I decided to set my alarm.

I was sitting away and the ten-minute point came and went, and Scott didn't come and get me.
Then I realized that my phone alarm was going to go off in a few minutes and disturb everyone meditating. My phone was in my jean pocket.  I'd have to get it out and disarm it. I was sitting next to another priest, Mako, so I knew I would not go undetected. I would initiate, or so I thought, a thought in her head, “What in the world is he doing? Did he forget to silence his phone? He should know better by now.”

In any case, I was able to disarm the Zendo bomb and place it quietly on the zabaton on which I was sitting.

As the time ticked away, I started to wonder if Kosho knew that I was going to ask him about meditation. Did he decide that it would be better if I just sit rather than talk? Trying to talk about meditation might be the last thing I needed to do. Meditation is a bodily activity that isn't well understood by the mind. Perhaps if we could conceptualize it, we wouldn't have to sit.

When meditation was over we walk to the entrance of the zendo and give Kosho a gassho bow. I was the last one since I had to put out the candles. By that time, I was so grateful to Kosho that my dokusan was simply a time to sit. I smiled at him and he smiled back. My answer about why should I sit came this year from sitting, not from talking.

I Turned Out to Be Me

I could have been anything. I knew I wouldn't be tall, but I thought I could be a pro basketball player because the Globetrotters had players like Too Tall (5'2").  And during the baseball season I thought I could turn pro and become as good as any of my baseball heroes like Minnie Moñoso. I would just need to learn to hit the ball and a few other minor things. In fact, I could steal bases with vengeance. Which was useful since I often walked because I was so short that pitchers couldn't find my strike zone.

And then there was art. I had delusions of grandeur there too. No goal was too high—even the Sistine Chapel. Somehow I didn't have too many goals for my kids. My son had enough of his own (are kids having goals a guy thing?), while my daughter didn't seem to share so many of our ambitions. (Nevertheless, both kids have accomplished a lot.)

In our Zen Writing class, we read a poem about the poet’s hurt shoulder and how it impacted her rowing. I am reminded of all the things I can't do for one reason or another. Coming to terms with one limitations seem to be synomonous with getting old, or maybe I should say, getting older.  Of course, one of the biggies is that I'm beginning to realize that I can't live forever. But beyond that, there are many things I can't or won't do because I either can't or I realize the consequences.

I used to believe I could fix anything in a house. My father-in-law could do that and he'd instruct me step-by-step. And then he'd grunt when I'd do something wrong. Now that he's not in Austin, I've hired some people to do stuff and discovered that their skill set is way beyond mine.

I sometime think I know a little about computers, but when I think of the knowledge ofvarious friendly geeks whom I know, I don't stand chance in their world. But I putter along and manage to keep things working.

I turned out to be me, I suppose. Yes, I turned out to be me. It was probably my last resort. It was what I'd become if nothing else worked out.

Some people have extraordinary talents. They can do anything. Fortunately or unfortunately, I can just be me. I wish I would have known that many years ago. Then I might not have spent so much energy trying to be someone else.

Ordaining the Big Oak Tree

We ordained the big oak tree tonight. I felt a little funny about being part of that ceremony. That beautiful old oak tree is kind of like a wood Buddha from the 12th century. It has been around far longer that we have, and has experienced many persuasions over the century(s) that it has lived.

Photo by Scott Shaevel

What about its choice? Is this like the Mormons baptizing everyone and their brother? Do we have that right to determine what someone should believe? Should we even baptize a child? Are we regulating its mind before it has the ability to say boo?

Maybe I could sneak over to the tree some night and defrock it. I kind of liked the lack of preferences of that tree. How it reaches out in a myriad of directions giving love to all sentient beings, even those in a blade of grass mentioned in the sutra that we read at the ordination. Maybe, just maybe, that is what the tree is contemplating when it isn't struggling with challenging elements and people.

When I read this to my Zen Writing group, Bill pointed out that when the Zen center moved into our current temple that they saw that the tree was dying and both petitioned the city to move a sidewalk and changed the landscaping to give the tree more water. I started to feel that the tree might now have some major affinity with Zen. I hope so.

After our meeting, I spoke with Scott about the tree. He suggested that it might be a Buddhist for a while, but then, when its tenants change, it might adopt another persuasion. That sounds good to me.

This morning I found a paper on tree ordination in Thailand: http://tinyurl.com/m5tqzl9 Here is the abstract of the paper:

“Abstract: The symbolic ordination of trees as monks in Thailand is widely perceived in Western scholarship to be proof of the power of Buddhism to spur ecological thought. However, a closer analysis of tree ordination demonstrates that it is not primarily about Buddhist teaching, but rather is an invented tradition based on the sanctity of Thai Buddhist symbols as well as those of spirit worship and the monarchy. Tree ordinations performed by non-Buddhist minorities in Thailand do not demonstrate a religious commitment but rather a political one.”

In retrospect, I like that we ordained the tree. We take for granted much of our environment that treats us so well.

Photo by Scott Shaevel

Original Dukkha

Dukkha is:

Disturbance, irritation, dejection, worry, despair, fear, dread, anguish, anxiety; vulnerability, injury, inability, inferiority; sickness, aging, decay of body and faculties, senility; pain/pleasure; excitement/boredom; deprivation/excess; desire/frustration, suppression; longing/aimlessness; hope/hopelessness; effort, activity, striving/repression; loss, want, insufficiency/satiety; love/lovelessness, friendlessness; dislike, aversion/attraction; parenthood/childlessness; submission/rebellion; decision/indecisiveness, vacillation, uncertainty.

— Francis Story in Suffering, in Vol. II of The Three Basic Facts of Existence (Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 1983)

There are the mysteries. Where did we come from and where are we going?

But there are also very common problems. When are we not only expected to know but to act wisely?

I went to the grocery store to buy a jar of applesauce. I didn't want corn sauce. I wanted applesauce—just like granny made. I bought original applesauce. When I get home I see that it is corn sauce. What is original about that? Did the caveman adulterate apples with corn syrup?

So I call Motts, the people who make this stuff that no one should be consuming, and complain. I ask, “What is original about corn sauce?” “Oh” they say, “Would you like us to send a coupon for some unsweetened applesauce.” “Yes,” I said, ”And next time I'll read the whole label.”

At the time I thought I had learned something. With my newfound wisdom, I went to buy soymilk. I see the sign, buy one and get the second one for $1 off. I was “in.” I put two original soymilks in the cart and check out. When I returned home, I started drinking the stuff, and was surprised at how good it tasted…until I read the fine print. Corn syrup. Once again I was taken by that word original.

Luckily it is the sugary one that my grandson drinks so my daughter took it out of my hands.

Next time at the store I bought some unsweetened soymilk. Today I opened it to drink some and then realized that I should shake it up a bit. Thought I had closed the tab, soymilk went everywhere. I immediately called 800soymilk and complained, “Your lid doesn't work.” After I read them off a liturgy of numbers the nice woman said she send me a new box.

Why am I so particular? Why do these simple shopping tasks become such horrific and painful challenges?

The Joyous Bodhisattva

I mentioned in an email to some old friends that one of their daughters appeared to be a bodhisattva because she befriended a homeless person and helped him out. One of the friends wrote back and asked what a bodhisattva was. I tried to explain that it was one who, finally enlightened, decides to stick around to save the rest of us.

Unsatisfied with my explanation, I decide to read what a Buddhist priest had to say on the subject. A few years ago I had heard an art historian speak about bodhisattvas and could hardly recognize what she was talking about, let alone what religion they were representing. There are many brands of Buddhism. I suspect that that most Buddhists believe that their religion is the real McCoy and that the other practitioners are charlatans.

As Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche explains, “those who take the bodhisattva vow make one simple commitment: to put others first, holding nothing back for themselves....” He continues,

“One of the obstacles to bodhisattva discipline is an absence of humor; we could take the whole thing too seriously. Approaching the benevolence of a bodhisattva in a militant fashion doesn’t quite work. Beginners are often overly concerned with their own practice and their own development, approaching Mahayana in a very Hinayana style. But that serious militancy is quite different from the lightheartedness and joy of the bodhisattva path. In the beginning you may have to fake being open and joyous. But you should at least attempt to be open, cheerful, and, at the same time, brave. This requires that you continuously take some sort of leap. You may leap like a flea, a grasshopper, a frog, or finally, like a bird, but some sort of leap is always taking place on the bodhisattva path.”

I liked the joyful aspect of this practice. Even a guardian angel (as in Drop Dead Diva) needs to have fun. To make giving a laborious and painful task serves no one.

On Intention

I'm interested in the idea of intention. When we hurt someone is that our intention?  We complain to someone that they did this or that. Let's say they embarrassed us. They think to themselves that they didn't do what they did to embarrass. We are confused about how could they not have realized the effect of their actions. But we usually don't think that through. We do what we do because we are hurting in some way or not getting what we need. Yet, in retrospect, when various parties are hurt, then, and only then, might we realize that the results are different from our actions? That's why we  judge others by their actions and ourselves by our intentions. We don't know someone's intention. We do know that they might have caused pleasure or pain. If it is pain that they caused, they might eventually see that and ask for forgiveness.

Now it gets interesting. If someone says to you, "I forgive you" because you've been a louse, do you necessarily feel any better? The perpetrator still feels bad because he messed up, and the hurt one still feels hurt. Things may be a little better. But believing that all is well is a delusion. Words are exchanged but wounds abound. The perpetrator has wounds because they realized that they were hurtful, and the victim has wounds from the action. 

Sometimes we ask for forgiveness. We say, I didn't intend to hurt you. I didn't know the repercussions of my actions. And you say, that's all I saw, the repercussions. How could you not see them? 

One Zen teacher says that everything, even our dreams, are intentional, and another says that they are not. Can we live intentionally? Thoreau said,

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

My third Zen teacher said we want both to be intentional and to not be intentional. If we are too intentional we will plow right through situations without seeing what they require. Maybe a horse with blinders is intentional. Maybe, instead, we just want to open our eyes and do what the situation demands.

But Mom...he did!

My mother had a very firm rule that we weren't supposed to smoke in our house. I know that she didn't want us to smoke at all but I don't know if she actually forbid us from doing that. I just know we weren't supposed to do it in the house. My parents' friends could smoke and even my sisters’ boyfriends could but not us kids.

Sometimes one of my sisters and I would smoke by exhaling into the fireplace. Because my parents now live in another world, and because they never would agree to have email, I think I'm now safe with that confession. Smoking with my sister was a rite of passage for me. Growing up I had two older sisters. When the oldest went to college I was no longer the odd one out.

Before long my middle sister went off to college and I was the sole kid in the house. I'm not sure how much I smoked in my room after my parents went to bed, cautiously breathing the smoke out the window. One night my mom came in my room and caught me. She made me promise never to smoke in the house again. So what did this smart 15 year old kid do? He got busted the very next night.

Having a father that was an ace lawyer taught me how to wiggle out of tough situations. I told my mom that Confucius said that sometimes it was better to lie. I believe that was his version

of "skillful means" like the Lotus Sutra story about the father who lies to his kids who are in a burning house so that they drop their playthings and not become ashes.

My mom became more interested in my comment than in my smoking. She said, “surely Confusion did not say that.” “But Mom,” I said, “he did!” “Show me,” she said. Well, the next couple days my mom and I scoured the little Modern Library book that I still have, The Wisdom of Confucius. Finally one of us found the saying. I have no idea if I continued to smoke in my room but I did persuade my mom to drive me every night to a college library so that I could study there and ... smoke.

P.S. I am now looking through the book to find the quote. So far, to no avail. But it was not easy to find the first time. I "Googled" it and could only find that Confucius said you should tell the truth. I'll add it to this post if and when I find it.

P.S.S. My cousin, Barbara, found this blogpost on lying in Confucianism and Taoism: http://uselesstree.typepad.com/useless_tree/2006/02/the_ethics_of_l.html

You Tell Me

I saw today a photo by Irving Penn of a pile of discarded cigarette butts. The photographer had made this as a large platinum print on beautiful paper. It probably would cost now in the 10s of thousands. I didn't like the series when I first saw it about 30 years ago, but today they made a lot more sense. Maybe I was too close then to being a recently quit smoker and remembered that I used to look through ash trays for barely smoked butts.

I was surprised to read recently that people with OCD aren't actually neatnics. I wonder what that is about.

As I sat down on the doan's cushion at the zendo tonight, I noticed a stick of incense on the floor. My mind was engaged in a vigorous debate of whether I should get up and pick it up. If meditation had begun I would not, but since it had not, I started thinking that our head teacher might be upset if (when) he saw it. I picked it up and put it on the incense table. Then I went back to my cushion and didn't give the incense on the floor another thought. Didn't, that is, until now. I also picked it up because I didn't want it to interrupt and occupy my mind during meditation. Thinking back on the occasion, I probably should have left it on the floor as an "opportunity for practice."

Should I have allowed this broken and renegade piece of stick incense where it wanted to hang out? Was the temple less holy because of its transgression?

You tell me.

Who is Perfect?

Prompt: I was thinking about the first time MLK was asked to join in a march. He said no, explaining he was the new minister in town and that he didn't want to make waves or endanger his family. A few days later he changed his mind. That's the MLK we know.


t was once very impatient with a student. I actually wanted to strangle her. I kept telling her something and she didn't get it. It was one of those "I want a cigarette" moments. But I didn't smoke. I just pretended to maintain my cool and repeated myself over and over again.

The next day she thanked me for being so patient with her. I felt pretty bad, remembering my impatience and being so ashamed that I wasn't the person that she was thanking.

When I was in college, at one point I had nine dogs. Well, I had three ... Bonnie, Clyde, and Blackbeard. Bonnie got kind of stuck one day when I was walking her before classes. I tried to separate her for this very aggressive male but failed. Soon, 64 days later, I had the six ugliest puppies I had ever seen. Or maybe I should say that Bonnie had them. I had no idea how to contend with so many dogs, esp. without a fenced yard. And as you can imagine, the six little ones started to use my floor as their yard. Just after cleaning up one mess, one of the still unnamed puppies made another mess. I started yelling at the small innocent being. Her mom took one look at me and went over and cleaned it up. How small did I feel!

We tend to glorify heroes, but, for me, it is the fact that they were humans rather than gods that makes them so special. I've known a few heroes in my life. They were bigger than life. They could do no wrong. They only had the best of intentions. And then I learned a little more about them and realized that they too were just human beings ... special, but not because they were perfect, but because they were not.

It’s a Boy … Or Is It?

Knowing Fish
One day Chuang Tzu and a friend were walking by a river.
“Look at the fish swimming about,” said Chuang Tzu, “They are really enjoying themselves.”
“You are not a fish,” replied the friend, “So you can't truly know that they are enjoying themselves.”
“You are not me,” said Chuang Tzu. “So how do you know that I do not know that the fish are enjoying themselves?”

My god, I told my friend it was going to be a boy, forgetting that she had told me that she didn't want to know. It came to me as I was sitting. So then I started thinking, “what lies could I tell to deceive her into thinking that it really wasn't going to be a boy but rather some worthy alternative?”

I could say that I had lied and told her the opposite because she said she didn't want to know. But knowing and not knowing are different. It isn't a surprise, at least not the same surprise, if you know, even if you are wrong.

We rarely hear of people mistakenly not knowing. We all believed the world was flat until it became round in 1492. We love to think we know everything. Kids ask "why" until they learn that's a sign of being a kid, and then they stop asking. In school they aren't told about all the things we don't know—just about the stuff we do know.  Wouldn't it be great to have a textbook of all the things we don't know? Do fish enjoy themselves when they are swimming about? Does anyone know?

Michael at the temple said the other day that he was an agnostic at best. That's a little bit of a mind twister. What would an agnostic at worst believe? I guess in the continuum of believing, Michael goes from 0 to 50, while the at worst agnostic would go from 50 to 100. My father was once an atheist, but then he softened because he didn't want to offend anyone. He became an agnostic, he said, never adding "at best" or "at worse." Right before he died he said that now he could be with his wife. Did the morphine change what he knew?

So perhaps this is all some very elaborate scheme to divert her from thinking she knows. I was reading about a movie on Wittgenstein. It said that at age 32 he solved all the problems of philosophy and then was tormented the rest of his life realizing that he could be wrong about everything.

I said it was a boy. My daughter (perhaps lying to really surprise us) said she heard that from the doc. But perhaps she didn't want anyone to know. Telling the opposite is a good way to pull that off, especially when there are multiple choices. Are you sure it is a boy? Do you know if fish enjoy swimming around? Someone once told me that the great high for a fish was getting caught with a hook? Who knows that?

I'll let you know in July whether it is a boy or a girl. Only the babe knows for sure.

My Former X-rated Mind

I was surprised when Jimmy Carter said that he sinned with his mind, not with his body. I would have though that a president was 1) better disciplined than that or 2) better at knowing what to admit and what to lie about.

I’ve often become distressed at some of my thoughts. What is wrong with me, having such obscene thoughts? And what dreams I’ve had! What is that about? I imagine hurting people I love, having sex with people that I shouldn't, and on and on. Who is it that thinks these wrong thoughts? Who is feeding me my stories?

I was surprised learning in my Jewish Torah studies that Jews don't worry about their thoughts, but rather focus on their actions and/or lack of action. That seemed to lift a heavy weight off my shoulders and actually, since learning that, I’ve noticed that my day dreams and night dreams have become a lot less interesting. There is nothing that encourages bad thoughts like trying to not have bad thoughts. So the rabbi, giving me permission to think anything, actually put a break on my x-rated mind. (I just watched the Linda Lovelace film on Netflix and didn’t have a lewd thought … just felt sorry for the poor woman.)

Now to the Zen story of the two monks. One carries the woman in the beautiful Kimono across the river and sets her down. The other, a younger monk, doesn't touch her ... and ends up (lustfully) carrying her in his mind the rest of the day. The suggestion in the story is that the older and wiser monk acts correctly, doing what presumably needs to be done. And the younger monk’s action follows the rules of his religion, though his mind is somewhere else.

This is not an unusual occurrence. I often censure my actions but not my thoughts. I somehow thought I could get away with it. I thought I could whiz through a grocery store and not care about others. Then I realized the other day that I was releasing negative energy throughout the store, pushing my way through the crowds, looking for openings for my shopping cart like it was a football game. Now I'm trying to construct shopping as a loving dance, focusing first on my body and letting it lovingly move the shopping cart. I haven't come yet to the maiden in the kimono who wants to cross the stream, but now I know what to do. Or do I?

... then or now?

Part I:

In a workshop
on mindfulness
I wondered
whether I’d
let go of my past
or
turn to the present.

I worked so hard
on that past,
why throw all that
away,
I wondered?

What a waste!

Why would anyone
throw out the baby
with the bath water?

A Buddhist monk claimed
there is a way to be present
thinking about the past.

Convinced
by what he said,
I understood
nothing more than
he believed he could.




If nothing else,
I was convinced
by his sincerity.

Six years later,
I remember
the monks conviction.

I consider now,
looking back,
how my feet planted
in THIS ground,
thinking
about THAT ground.

If a gust of wind came,
would I blow over
or stand my ground?


Part II:

I remember,
fifty years ago
a loss—
the other guys walked
my girlfriend home.


I discovered jealously,
chasing them down
the asphalt road,
turning to sand
as it neared the surf.

Funny thing was,
now that I go back,
I had never
walked her home,
or even
thought about it.

I missed out
not doing that.

Something incomplete
about that day.

I was so angry
I threw my bike
in the bushes
and yelled something
vile at them
as they passed
over the dunes.

So how do I,
sitting in this chair
many years later
return to this little town,
a few feet from the ocean,
without forgetting
how many miles
and how many days
I am from that ocean.

Without forgetting
how,
on her wedding day,
they drank too much
and went over a cliff.


Part III:

I hear a dog barking.
Is it that lab
that I had picked up roving
near my house
50+ years ago,
or is it a dog
here and now?

And how do
these worlds intersect?

Where might
I be?
Where am I,
there or here,
then or now?

Do ships return?

I wanted to write a poem. The first two lines came to me when I was sitting. They were perfect—so perfect that I knew that I would not forget them. Who forgets something that is so perfect? You? Me? Oh, wait … I just remembered that it was two lines. And there were no fancy words in those lines.

It is coming now. The ship goes off to sea, leaving me behind. It was something like that. Do you ever feel left behind? Like when someone goes on a trip. There we have the crack (this was written in a Zen writing group and our prompt was from my classmates’ (Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge) book, poemcrazy.

We see the ship leave and we know that it is going to another world. We stay in our world. But our world is not the same because the ship is not in it any longer.

I didn't want to think about any more of the poem. I knew that I should be calming the sea and not making waves. I was trying to settle my mind and I had this fantasy that the bell would ring and the meditation session would be over and the rest of the poem would come to me effortlessly.

The ship goes off to sea,
leaving me behind.
What do I do with myself,
waiting for it to return?

Do ships really return?

This isn't going well. Sounds like some dumb sophomoric philosophical journey. Yikes!

But really … Have you had the experience that ships never really return? They have their grand adventure and then are reborn into something else.

Maybe I should write the poem more abstractly? Maybe a haiku?

Ship off,
Me behind, waiting
for nothing.

But maybe that wouldn't be so clear. You know what I mean by nothing. Right? Since the ship can't come back, I can't wait for it. Or I guess I could wait, if I want to set myself up for disappointment.

What is it that we wait for anyway? And is it ever the same when it comes?

Not that thinking again. Feel like hitting myself over the head.

Ship goes off to S E E
Someday to return
a different ship.

Maybe that's closer.

Where is the ship now? Is it dark and still as it is here, or is the sun rising and the waves bellowing? Have the people on the ship bonded into a tribe, making it impossible for anyone else to intervene?When the ship returns will it look the same, even if it is not the ship that left?

Returned ship never left,
only to fool
the watchman
counting the days ...
believing this or that.

My Reality is Terrible

Note: This is a letter I wrote today to a prisoner. We write these letters to encourage their Buddhist practice.


Dear A,

I should preface this by saying that I live a pretty idyllic life. I have wonderful friends, good health, ample resources, and freedom. I’m not sure how I would be in your situation. I admire your efforts to survive.

I enclose Buddha’s sutta on the Dart. When you say “my reality is terrible” you are expressing your idea of your reality. Reality in itself is neither terrible nor wonderful. Some who have “everything” are miserable and others in dire circumstances love every moment they are alive.

http://pleasenowords.blogspot.com

I read about monkeys who were performing tasks for rewards. As long as they received the same reward for the same task, they were happy. But when one received less than the other, he was angry. He might have been satisfied with the lesser reward had he not experienced his buddy getting more. We see the "deprived" monkey constructing a reality that causes him great anguish.

The good news is that one can choose their view of their reality. In the sutta, the Buddha speaks of two darts that come from pain. One is the pain itself, and the second is that pain that we create. For the time being you are stuck in a physical environment. This includes your body, your cell, the other inmates, the guards, etc. This is a given. It is up to you to determine what are you going to do. Are you going to suffer or thrive? The second dart is the one created in our minds. That is the one you need to look at if you want to relieve your suffering.

You say that peace is “really hard when a bunch of jerks act stupid.” Letting your peace become dependent on others is stupid. They do what they do. You create a judgment about their actions … and you let that judgment affect your happiness. It is you against them.

Instead, embrace them. They are your brothers and they are doing their best to cope as you are. Show them some kindness and they will respond with kindness.

Eckankar appears to be a cult like Scientology and Hare Krishna. I’m not sure that all organizations aren’t partly a cult. They want followers and work hard to get and retain them. I suggest you take their literature and throw it away. And telling others why they are a cult to you sounds like a responsible thing to do. I don’t think the United Nations will pursue them as they have their plate full with what they probably consider to be more important human rights violations.

I liked your story of the monk and the tigress. Our minds look at actions in various ways and judge these actions according to our perspective.

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Take care and let me know how it goes … accepting that you are the creator of your reality … and as the creator, being the one who can change it.

Mr. Kim

Grandpa Nofun, Part I

I'm no fun. And now, since I became a vegan yesterday after about 5 years of gluttony, I’m probably less fun. Growing up, my sisters called me “a bump on a log.”

When my neighbors played cowboys and Indians, I watched and tried to figure out how they could imagine that they could be anything other than who they were. Maybe if we had a TV I wouldn’t have had this my problem.

I just wanted to take things apart to see how they worked ... and then when I was twelve I discovered art and I just wanted to do that ... and then when I became hooked on computers I wanted to do that and art ... and when I realized I could change things in the world, I started doing that. I don't even drink—not even a soda pop. No donuts, only 100% chocolate … no sugar … zilch! I was eating almond ice cream, but I decided that I don't like how the sweetener makes me feel, so I quit that.

I’m not one for imagination. I don't think of my art as creative or as making thing up. I just take advantage of my lack of talent ... and my faulty memory … and all kinds of good stuff seem to come out. My friend and fellow artist of 50 years, French Fry, has a great imagination. He makes up enough stuff for the two of us. My wife too has been an artist for 1/2 a century, and she too doesn't have too much fun with anything. She just likes to perfect things. Once she had fun in graduate school with some art about her love for peanut butter, but that soon ended.

When I was in high school my girlfriend’s father was a minister and he gave a sermon about how we had to find new ways to celebrate life. I really liked that, but, looking back, I would have been happy celebrating in old ways. In college I got drunk a couple of time, and I went to visit some elephants, but generally my life has been pretty dull and boring. I identified much with Andy Warhol when he came to our college to talk. No matter what he was asked he'd answer, “I don't know. We just work a lot.”

When I studied literature, I wondered if writers made up their thrilling and passionate stories. How could they be serious craftsman and have fun too? What was that about? Did they live the lives they wrote about? Or take a movie actor like James Dean. Was he a craftsman or a hoodlum? I couldn't imagine how someone could be both.

I think I was attracted to Buddhism because it seemed like it would be no fun. All work and no play make Kim happy. Black was the color of choice, and tea was the drink, and silence was the word. Everything was overcast. All was dreary until ...

Reading Photographs

The assignment was to bring to acting class an object that was very precious to us, and then to do a kind of show and tell, and tell the class what it meant. Many brought photos of things. Some brought objects that were mass-produced. I remember one woman who held a little photo in the palm of her hand and proceeded to tell us that it was her boyfriend. I wondered then how that picture took on the power of a human being.

Kim Mosley

There is a saying in photography that the real subject of photography is the photographer. We make so many decisions when we make a picture that we end up expressing ourselves fully. Sometimes, however, we look at a photograph and believe it is about the object or scene depicted. Our body knows better. We respond viscerally to the photograph as an object, and look through the subject into the creator.

AJ Bunyard

John Szarkowski curated an exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art about 40 years ago called Mirrors and Windows. His view was “that the photograph is seen either as a mirror—a romantic expression  of the photographer's sensibility as it projects itself on the  things and sights of this world or as a window—through which the external world is explored in all its presence and reality.”  I tend to think that he was wrong with his premise and that all photos are about the internal workings of a psyche. Our challenge in reading a photograph is to channel the photographer though the object, as we do when one's friend tells a story. What we listen to is a litany of emotions. We get a sense how they are feeling and who they are. The words themselves just become the carrier of the feeling. In the end, the story is just that. Much more moving is that part of themselves that we have just shared.

Kim Mosley

Buddhism and the Virtue of Selfishness

N implied that combining Buddhism and Selfishness would be an oxymoron, and I think it would be "birds of a feather."

Before I begin, I think part of the confusion here is that there are two brands of selfishness. One is a psychological illness, where a person is unable to give, share, or love. The other applies to people who work to fulfill their dreams and ambitions, and who create the life of their dreams.

To gather information on this topic, I went on a field trip to a doctor's office, a drug store, and a grocery store (just because the drug store didn't have the right kind of diapers for Charlie).

I wanted to see why people do things. There was a receptionist at the doctors' office who had a big smile on her face. I wasn't sure if it was her hot date last night, or if she was high on some cool drug, or if she was just a smiler. Then I saw the nurse to give me a shot. She was trying to be helpful, giving me screwy information that made no sense in my situation. I tried to be nice about it. Both of these people are paid for their services and wouldn't do their jobs if it wasn't for the pay. They did their jobs relatively well ... well enough that they were still there after an extended period of time. Were they essentially benevolent beings, or were they just doing what they were asked to do? You tell me.

Then at CVS (the drug store), a nice clerk asked me if she could help. I knew that if I just said "diapers" she'd think they were for me. So I asked for "baby diapers" (though I don't think of anyone but a complete new born as a baby) and she told me what aisle I should go to. Again, a helpful person, paid to do a service. Would she stand there without the pay? I doubt it.

I pulled my car into the parking lot of the grocery store, and noticed a woman in the car next to me loading her groceries into her trunk. It looked like she had forgotten two large cans at the bottom of the basket so I mentioned that to her. She said that she had not forgotten them. Then I asked if she'd like me to take her two carts. She looked tired and I thought that would be a nice gesture. It actually gave me a lot of pleasure to do this for her, especially after she smiled and seemed appreciative. I didn't debate with myself about whether I should do this or not. It seemed like doing this would make the world a better place, and would make her day a little better. It gave me a lot of pleasure to contribute this positive energy to her world.

Driving home, I started thinking about how and why my wife puts hand cream on her hands. Is this an altruistic act? Surely it would be if she just did this for me. But actually I think she treasures her hands and treats them with respect. I'd say it was primarily a selfish act.

As I drove home, I saw a golf course, streets, stores, telephone and electrical wire, cars and busses. All of this was made by people who have no particular attachment to each other ... yet it is these “selfish” acts that make the world go around. Sure we have the good Samaritans, but generally most of what we do, and what others do, is quid pro quo. I do this for you and then you do something for me.

The primary goal for the Buddha (I think of Buddha as a view rather than a man) is to relieve suffering (sometimes translated as anguish). What better way to do this than to develop and practice skills that make the world a better place? Why do we do it? Usually because that's our job. That supports the people we love and ourselves. That contributes to our feelings of self-worth. Do we relieve suffering? Absolutely. Is this what makes the world go around? Most assuredly.

P.S. Please watch Milton Friedman's piece on ”I the Pencil.” He describes how many people, with nothing in common, with neither love towards or affinity with each other, produce a common good. He once told a mom, "you are primarily concerned with helping your family. I'm concerned with helping the world." Is this far from Buddhism?

Sacred

I tell her that her work is sacred. She asks why. I feel uncomfortable and don't want to admit that my litmus test for sacred is when my heart goes thump in a certain way.

I think of the passionate DH Lawrence who differentiated between ideas and experiences. He says that we like to make experiences into ideas so we don't have to feel them. I do that, fitting ideas neatly into a square hole. But experiences are all over, bursting into the sky and running down our legs like the dribble from a melting ice cream cone.

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I attempt to deconstruct sacred. I ask “what makes something sacred.” That's easier for me than telling why I think it was sacred. I fool myself into believing that taking something apart is a more intelligent response. She stops me in my tracks, yelling “whatever” as a referee would yell “foul.”

Our zen patriarch Dogen said there was no place to spit. After being rebuked for stacking some chairs under an altar, I learn that some spaces are more sacred than others.

I remember the rubrics that some teachers use, assuming that if a student fulfills a number of expectations they would have a good essay. I rebel against the idea, and realize that one could do everything right and say nothing, and they could do everything wrong and say much.

When I label something good I acknowledge that I’m touched in a special way. I’m slowed down and realize what is important. Suddenly there is quiet. Everything glows. I feel an energetic breeze. I see goose bumps on my arms. Big ones. I want to step very carefully, not to disturb anything, hoping I can stay in that space for a moment longer. I become sacred, watching time and space collapse into the here and now.

That's sacred. And when zazen is over, one meditation leader rings the bell twice, as if a walking meditation is to follow. But no, it’s to let us know that as we walk back into our lives, we are just moving to another sacred space.

Intentional Letting Go

Happy go lucky is what many people think is letting go. I've been thinking about another letting go, more like intentional letting go. It is almost a contradiction in terms. I think about this when I prepare to be the doan in the Zendo.  I ring bells to indicate the beginning and end of sitting, and at different points during the service. But before that, I need to get from the front door of the temple to the shoe rack. In other words, I need to walk. Yikes, a challenge! Lifting up one's foot for the first step isn't so hard, at least compared with setting one’s foot down.

Or is it? Actually there is the physical act of lifting one foot up at a time, and then there is the intention. What will I think about as I walk to the shoe rack? Will it be about the tires on my car that need replacing or about the man who promised to send me a report today but didn't? Wait, where am I? “Calling Kim, calling Kim.”

The photographer Minor White spoke of photographers who go on vacation and forgot to take themselves with them. Is this much different than anyone going anywhere and leaving part of herself behind? If I really want to go somewhere wouldn't it be good to take myself along?

I decide to step over the threshold and leave my old tires and the unsent report outside. But wait, isn't this supposed to be about letting go. I did let go of the tires and the unsent report, but what about intentionally lifting up my foot. I could easily become a very affected with a self-conscious gait. So the challenge is to lift my foot up as if that's all I've ever done in my life. “Now my foot leaves the sacred floor and moves like a bird into the sky.” The separation of the foot from the ground will be silent, as in Japanese tea ceremony when a tea bowl is carefully lifted from the mat, without a sound, to be shared with a guest. It is a dance, of sorts. It is the moment, just after touching something, when the moving away is as gentle as the touch itself.

Void Contemplates Void

I read that yesterday. I've been struggling understanding emptiness. Unfortunately, the more I hear about it, I less I know. My modus operandi for understanding is to isolate the object on a pedestal and differentiate it from all other things.  Then I (erroneously) thinking I understand. I describe it by color, weight, mass, temperature when it freezes or turns to gas. I even watch it change, not realizing that I'm looking at just one piece of an infinite puzzle. Or maybe I'm just looking at looking. Or even looking at looking at looking.

When I meditate, I drift between two places. One is being somewhere else, like engaged in a fantasy of some sort, developing a project to do, or worrying that someone just stole a wallet from the zendo's shoe rack. Or I watch my breathing. But I sense my Zen practice could be something else. I separate my mind from my body from my breathing and become a trinity of three desperate elements. I'm exhausted just at the thought of it. I'm discombobulated. Totally discombobulated.

Sunday, in preparation for my Tao study class, I mistakenly read the wrong passage. It was about how a tiger, viewing his prey, has a choice of two actions. One is to leap to devour the prey, and the second is to do nothing. I loved that in the Tao world (actually our world) not acting is an action.

Then I was searching on the Web for the Heart Sutra today to send a prisoner. Lo and behold, the version I came across used the word void for emptiness. How nice I thought! My walking partner reminds me that before things there really was nothing. Space was not a container without contents. It wasn't. No outside. No inside. Nada.

So I've been trying to not busy myself with watching myself breathe—separating the breather, the breath, and the watcher—but rather I'm trying to do none of that. And not to pursue the alternative—drifting off into lala land. Hovering between being present and being vigilance is hard work—work that qualifies under the auspices of the protestation work ethic. No, I want to do something else. A while back we called it “be here now,” though at that moment when we observe ourselves being here now, we aren't here, but rather observing ourselves being there.

Coming back now to the “void contemplating void.” What was refreshing to notice when I quit trying so hard to “observe” was that my body was still breathing. All by itself. And I realized I didn't have to tend to it ... or even watch it. It was the leader of the pack.

The Fright on Saturday Night

I've been going through my artifacts box by box as if I've been digging with a spoon into the recesses of my brain. One day I found a creative writing award that my daughter won when she was 11, and a few days later, found the actual story that she had written to win the prize. She said I could put it on my blog.

Melissa at 11 (or so) and her long-haired gerbil, Kinky

My Deepest Secret

At the college where I worked, we’d send troubled students to a psychologist. She'd ask the students, right off the bat, "What is your deepest secret?"

When I shared this startling invasion with others they were often shocked. My colleagues thought that secrets should come in time, but not be sought after at the beginning of a first session.The therapist might ask something like “why are you here” but certainly nothing as abrupt as demanding the revelation of one’s darkest secret.

I started thinking about my secrets and finally realized that they probably aren't much different than anyone else. Freud spoke of the Oedipus and Electra complexes that probably date back to the Garden of Eden. As a kid, I was sent for some psychological testing. Afterwards my mom consulted with the psychologist and was told that I had “extreme hostility toward my dad.” I couldn't wait to tell him when he came home. We laughed (which for Freud would have cemented the deal).

Back to the Garden of Eden, where we feasted on the forbidden fruit. We smoked and drank and swore, and God forbid, touched our bodies in places that felt good.

We all lied and cheated at some point in our life. When shopping, I would complain if I was “short changed” but not if I was mistakenly given a five instead of a one in change.

We injured others. We said hurtful things and did harmful things to others. Sometimes it was to get what we wanted, and sometimes because we didn't know the effect of our actions. We now wish, perhaps, that we could turn back the clock and reverse our actions, but that is not in the cards.

We swim from one fantasy to another.  We are essentially romantics, falling in love again and again and again. For me, it might be a food, a new place, a new teacher, a newly discovered artist or writer, or a friend. Today it is 12 oz vintage Tupperware tumblers. It or they become the object of my fantasies, until the next fantasy arises like a phoenix. The cycle continues, over and over again.

What is your deepest secret?

Cup holder .96 from China, container is Tupperware.

Safer than a glass on a desk?

Disorderly Memories

I've been cleaning up for about six weeks. Actually have been going through most every box of things I own and finding all kinds of gems.

I received the card above from a photographer today. It was perfect. I'm intrigued how these little memories I'm finding jog my thick skull (see picture below) and are so meaningful ... at least to me.

Then my good friend FD sent me this picture today (above) of the two of us in our Hawaiian garb in St. Louis 30+ years ago. My skull looks thick. I'm on the right (in more ways than one). My daughter did the painting on the left (she's on the left). She was disappointed that I didn't know where that painting was. I guess there are still the art boxes to go through to find that treasure.

We went to visit FD and J in Maine about 20 years ago. Linda did tea on the rocks (not like Scotch on the rocks). Here's evidence:

I think my high school's 50th reunion last month has made me very nostalgic. I felt then, and as I go through my boxes, now, that I'm walking on the clouds in heaven, revisiting people and times from many years ago. It is quite a treat. (Click on pictures to make them larger.)

How are you too?

Photo by Francois Deschamps

She asked me (again) this morning. I responded, “Have you read my blog post” and she said “Yes.”

I understood the “how are” much better than the “you,” which at that moment totally mystified me. I wondered where was the “you” to evaluate its happiness? Was this going to be an inside job, with “you” evaluating “you”?

I knew that I had a body, but at that moment, especially as this was my Pilates (yes, I did her photos) session, my body felt like a machine, breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth and pointing my feet and keeping my knees two fists apart and not bending my legs. So it wasn't “you” doing all that but rather my body. If there were a “you,” where was it? Could I have left my "you" at home? Or worst yet, could “you” have been lost in a fantasy, constructed by my mind? And if so, how did it know when to join my body and when to strike out on its own?

To relieve the difficulty of this question, and to allow my Pilates session to be beneficial, I asked her, “Well, how are you?” She answered in such a way that I had little clue how she really was, so I added, “On a scale of one to ten?” And, expecting a number and the end to this ridiculous dialogue, she replied, “Better than last week.”

Then I went to see my chiropractor who straightens me out with his magic touch. No sooner had I passed through the door of his office, he asked, "How is the world treating you?" I was unprepared for this. Discovering that the world was actually engaged in a practice of treating me was quite an unwelcome revelation. I explained to him that his question was a dualism, separating me from the rest of the world. He agreed and started telling me about a movie called the Secret, about some holy grail. I then remembered that I tried to read the book, maybe at Costco, and if I were Holden Caulfield, I'd say that I wanted to barf, but since I'm not, I starting thinking about the other patients who were waiting to see him, and that pretty much ended our conversation.

Later in the day, I opened the door for a woman coming into the Austin Zen Center. She quietly asked me how I was. “Fine,” I said. And then, as I took off my shoes, I realized I hadn't asked her. “How rude,” I thought. So I asked her and was glad that she was fine too.

Photo by Francois Deschamps