Yes and No

Warren Buffet said that the difference between successful and very successful people is that very successful people rarely say yes.

Before I remembered that quote I was going to make a case for saying “yes,” probably because I say ”yes” too often and “no” rarely.

My mother was the “yes” person, as was my sister who is closest to my age. My older by 5 1/2 years sister probably is more like my dad, saying “no” more ofter than “yes.” I should clarify that, with my sisters, it was often they who were asking as well as answering the question. They both “listened to their own drummer.”

Of the three of us, I’m not about to suggest who might be successful (or not), and who might be very successful.

Somehow I associate saying “yes” with being life affirming, and saying “no” with being overly cautious. In a game show, if I had a choice of $1000 or a mystery gift, I’d take the mystery gift. Or maybe not. I’d hear the voices of both parents. I’d weigh how I’d feel losing $1000 with how much I wanted $10,000 instead. (My dad said that you should only get insurance if you couldn't afford the loss.)

But suppose it was $1,000,000,000 or the mystery gift. I’d take it, going with the idea that a bird in your hand is worth two in the bush.

But if it was $10, I’d go for the gift, as I can afford to lose $10. And who needs a worm in their hand?

Sometimes I say “yes” when buying something, and then I’d have shopper’s remorse and return it. Part of the reason that I say “yes” so often is that I’m so good at returning things. I switched majors 10 times in college, which is one reason it took me 5 1/2 years to graduate.

I was given the name of “Jelly Mosley” many years ago because I changed my mind so often. I see myself as someone who really doesn’t care that much for one preference or another.

The Third Patriarch of Zen, Seng-T’san (606 AD), wrote the Hsin Hsin Ming (Verses on the Faith Mind), which starts with this stanza:

The Great Way is not difficult
for those who have no preferences.
When love and hate are both absent
everything becomes clear and undisguised.
Make the smallest distinction, however,
and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart. 

In the third and last sentence, we see that in the relative world, where we are constantly fettered with the discriminating mind, we cease (with the smallest distinction) to have no preferences, and create a battleground with one side against the other.

I think the ancient lesson here is that it is of less consequence whether you say “yes” or “no” than whether you say either. Your son tells you he wants to drop out of college (as I did at one point). You can say “yes” or “no,” or you can say nothing (or you can ask, “why?”).

As Lao Tzu wrote, “He who knows does not speak. He who speaks, does not know.”

Janitors

Many who go through art school don't become artists.

I mentioned on Facebook that one of my former students was working as a janitor after going to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. I was apartment hunting with my son when he was going to start studying painting and we happened upon this former student. Seeing the student sweeping up in a basement produced a sad image in my mind of my son ending up becoming a poor janitor.

One of my former students on Facebook commented with the question, “What is wrong with being a janitor?” Another wrote, “If you wanted to be an artist, being a janitor is not the way to go.”

Buddha talked about right livelihood. Wrong livelihood encourages us to break the precepts, while right livelihood encourages one to keep them. A Buddhist should not sell liquor, weapons, or butcher animals.

Going back to Dogen (1200-1252), we see that a multitude of activities, if done with attention and devotion, are equivalent to meditation. Washing a grain of rice is a matter of great consequence. Dogen writes, “When washing the rice, remove any sand you find. In doing so, do not lose even one grain of rice. When you look at the rice, see the sand at the same time; when you look at the sand, see also the rice. Examine both carefully. Then a meal containing the six flavors and the three qualities will come together naturally.”

Even going to the tosu (toilet), if done correctly, can bring us into this moment. It doesn't matter what we do. The importance of a job isn't dependent on a pay scale or uniform.

I like the fact that the set of even numbers is as big as the set of all integers. In the same way, being a janitor, which has infinite opportunities to touch sentient beings and care for sacred spaces (all spaces can be thought of as being sacred), will change the world. And... I am glad that my son didn't get chosen for such a job and instead he's an animator and professor (partly because I would hear my parents lament that he wasted his talent, partly because having an idea (janitors change the world) and believing in that idea are worlds apart).

I learned recently about the idea of relegation rather than refutation. We can relegate being a janitor as an important but different job to that of being president of the US of A. Both are important jobs. Both change the world.

P.S. I was an unmindful janitor many moons ago in Champaign, Illinois at the Unitarian Church. I had to dust the pews, but it was so dark that no one including me could tell if I dusted or not. But when women wore white dresses, I worried.

Polio Shot

Years ago I had to get polio shots. The first one really hurt. So I told my mom that if she gave me five dollars I wouldn’t cry when I got the second one. I just focused on the money.

Today I will be getting one of my fingers fixed. It doesn’t have very much strength and won’t close all the way. The painful part (I had my thumb fixed three years ago) is the shot to knock it out.

I wish my mom would give me five dollars.

Oh, mom, where are you?

Maybe I should take five dollars from what I inherited from her and spend it on something I really need. When I asked her for money, she would ask if I just wanted it or whether I really needed it. I’d say that I did need it, which is probably why my nose got a little longer.

I’m not sure what I’m going to get with the five dollars. I know we won’t have time to go anywhere on the way home. Maybe I’ll send it to Heifer International so someone, somewhere, will have part of a goat.

I’ve been reading so much about offerings in the Torah. Yet my offerings have been so minuscule. Or I could send it to a pen pal in Kenya. For $5, he and his sister can eat very well for a day. They can get meat or fish, and a variety of other foods.

I’m always surprised, when working with my trainer, how I can move one part of my body while focusing on another. For example, I can move my shoulder and my hand moves. How does it know to do that?

In the same way, I will think about the five dollars when I’m getting the shot in my hand. What can I do with the five dollars to make the most difference in the world?

I’ll write a little later in the day to tell what I decided. Thanks mom for going along with my scheme to feel no pain. That’s it. No pain, world gain.

So I worked with my trainer this morning and we came up with an idea that I’d give $5 to the clerk at our local gelato bar and tell them that I’m paying for the next customer to come through the door…but they shouldn’t tell the customer it was me. Then I could watch their expression as they learned that their gelato was a gift.

After that, I started to realize that maybe meditation was the best procedure… that I would meditate through the entire procedure, from the shot to when they put the bandage.

We’ll see how that goes.

__________________________________________

Ok. I had the surgery and it went fine. I’m even able to type, though the operated-on-finger is numb.

I didn’t think of giving away $5 nor did I meditate when I got the shot to put my hand asleep. I just breathed as deeply as I could and soon it was over. Before the shot they sprayed my hand with something that was so cold in hurt, which probably hid the pain from the shot. The surgery was easy. It just felt like someone gently touching my hand.

Now back to the rest of my life.

Eye Glasses

“A” insisted that there is one basic truth, that things are “as it is.” You might wonder about the grammar here. The great American Zen teacher, Suzuki roshi, said this because in his mind, all is interconnected and interdependent, so “it is” works better than ”they are.”

I told her that idea is just one more lens through which we can look. One more pair of eyeglasses. She disagreed, saying we might not know what that thing is, but it is, nevertheless.

I remember an intro to philosophy course that I audited for awhile. The teacher went from one philosophy to the next, attempting to sell each one. Just when I was ready to buy, she went to the next…and the next…and the next.

I should have realized then what I realized later that one doesn’t contradict or verify the other, but rather that they are all right.

An art teacher and I were listening to Buckminster Fuller and afterwards he went up to Fuller and said that he’s been thinking of some things that are similar to what he said and could he share his ideas with him. Fuller said that he was very busy, but that he knew my teacher was right.

I didn’t realize the gist of his statement until recently. How did he know? Perhaps because we are all right. 

I wrote something about searching around for the best religion when Jim Jordan, the recently deceased priest and husband of Barbara Kohn, one of my Zen teachers said, “In the end they are all comic books and they all say the same thing.”

I had lunch with three women today, all of whom had serious Christian backgrounds, and all of whom are straying from the gospel. I got a sense that their new beliefs were really no different than their old beliefs. Their attachment to their beliefs was the same. 

What is right? If all the comic books say the same thing, we can think that they are all right. But suppose they say different things. Perhaps one says that the world is 6000-10,000 years old and the other says it is 4.5 billion years old. Can both be right?

Most intelligent people would say no, they both can’t be right. So they ascribe to one view or the other. But another way to look at is that they are systems for viewing reality based on assumptions. The Intelligent Design people say that the Bible is factual. Their conclusions follow that assumption. Others have different assumptions. Geologists assume that carbon dating gives reliable information. That assumption gives another date for creation. We can choose this theory or that, but we should let the others have their view. 

Where this gets tough is when conclusions start to cause wars, like when Hitler decided that Aryans should live and others should die. What do we do if we don’t agree with that view? I think in the same way that we should let our neighbor alone as long as she doesn’t interfere with our lives or property, we can allow people to have their Aryan stories until they start to make it impossible for non-Aryans to live with their stories.

Forgetting Be Here Now

Around 1980 I went through EST, and then took a few “graduate seminars,” one of which was called, ‘Be Here Now.”

I remember nothing about it, other than the title of the seminar.

When meditating, one of my gauges about where I am is how startling it is when I hear the bell at the end of the session. If I’m startled I take that as a sign that I was off in la la land. If, on the other hand, I’m waiting for the bell and the ringing doesn’t phase me at all, then I know I’m looking out for the bell rather than paying attention. I’m not “here now.” I am for the middle way. It doesn’t catch me at one extreme or the other.

The key, here, is paying attention. One of the neat things about psychotherapy is that you have someone (when it is good) that is paying attention to you. Not someone who wants to tell you what you should do. Not someone who is worried whether or not their car will start. But someone who is listening to you. Someone who is there with you.

Maybe I should capitalize “YOU” because they aren’t just listening to another person, but they are giving you permission to be YOU. Why is that so difficult for us to do for ourselves?

Being alive, really alive, is all about paying attention. I wish that we didn’t have the word “meditating” and instead we had the word “attending.” The therapist listens to the other. Can we listen to ourselves, focusing on who we are—who we really are? Can we gently hold ourselves in our arms, lovingly, as we watch our breath go in and out? Can we watch thoughts come and go, without beating ourselves up for thinking this or that, or for thinking at all?

We don’t need to medicate with outside stimuli or “feel good” substances. We can simply return to our being, our Buddha nature, our original self. Even if we do it for just one breath, we see Buddha in us for that one moment. We are back in the womb, attended too from the other, gently floating without aspirations or anxieties. We are “here and now.”

Try that. One breath where you pay attention to the breath going in and out. Breath in and notice its distinct taste or smell. Feel as it cools the area below you nose. Hear the sound of breath coming it, and the breath going out.

Now look at your hand. Don’t name it hand. Just look at its color, its texture, its variations, and its repetitions. That is what “Be Here Now” might have been about.

Meditation

I’ve been procrastinating writing about meditation.

I usually don’t know what I’m going to write when I choose a topic. What I say or think is often a surprise for me.

What do I really think about this or that? Usually my thoughts are pretty limited. When I think of the word “meditation” or whatever, I’ll usually have one thought or image. Maybe I’ll think about sitting last night and how afterwards I lied when I asked everyone to say in one word how their meditation went.

I said “busy” and actually I was preoccupied with a pain in my leg. It takes a lot of strength to sit up on a chair. I sit on the edge of the chair and try to sit so that I’m neither leaning backwards or forward.

My left leg seems to hurt when I’m leaning one way or the other.

I decided to work on counting my breaths to ten, and then starting again. Sometimes I would get distracted and start thinking about things, then I would feel my leg, and then go back to the counting. I’m usually tired when I start sitting, but more rested at the end. 

I remember hoping that the time would end. I don’t do that so much anymore. 

Sometimes my eyes were closed, and sometimes they were open a little.

Maybe I was busy.

Am I convinced that meditation is a cure-all for my ills or the ills of the world? No! Am I more alive when I’m meditating that when I’m in a busy environment. Yes. 

Sometimes I think that if I had an hour to live then I’d want to sit. Some of the people in the group used “peaceful” as their word to describe their sitting. 

I will write more in the future about this curious activity. In a Zen temple, it is so public and so private at once. I like that dichotomy.

Does It Matter?

My walking partner, Michael, and I were discussing the other day, “Does it Matter.” My uncle Ed, the most accomplished scientist I know, (kindly) asks me this in response to my inane questions.

Michael (or Dr. D, as his students called him), said that we don’t matter in the grand scheme of things—that we are minuscule particles. To give the other side a voice, I said that, given the Butterfly Effect, everything we do makes a difference in the universe. (Is that a symptom of ADD?)

Both arguments probably have a lot of validity,  but we probably are on one side of the fence or the other. Ed might respond that it doesn’t matter which one you choose.

I think holding both views, one in each hand (lightly), might be the way to go. Michael’s view would keep us humble. We wouldn’t take ourselves too seriously. We would enjoy life. My view, shared by the Butterfly, might suggest that we have a very big purpose in the universe. It might constitute significant motivation for changing the world.

In support of Michael’s viewpoint, the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam says,

“Then to the lip of this poor earthen Urn
I lean'd, the Secret of my Life to learn:
And Lip to Lip it murmur'd—"While you live
Drink!—for, once dead, you never shall return.”

This suggests you only live once, and so you should just enjoy life.

And yet Omar Khayyam himself was a contradiction because he wrote this and other poems. Why didn’t he just drink?

In a Festival service this morning for Sukkot/Simhat Torah, we read the following prayer:

“Adonai, what are we, that You have regard for us?
What are we, that You are mindful of us?
We are like a breath; our days are as a passing shadow;
we come and go like grass which in the morning shoots up, renewed,
and in the evening fades and withers.”

This is a point for Omar Khayyam and Michael. We are only a blade of grass.

Is the Butterfly Effect a pipe dream? Is it one of those theories that may be true, but in practice doesn’t mean anything. The thought of one Ebola germ lurking on a doorknob just jumped into my head. That germ could board a plane and travel to Dallas, Texas, and cause schools to be cancelled and fear to permeate a nation.

What about a smile at the check-out counter. Imagine if you could “make someone’s day” by smiling at them, and then they smile at others and so on. Did that smile make a difference? I think so.

I wish I could have remembered some of the inane questions I asked Ed. Maybe they do make a difference. And maybe he wasn’t making a judgement, but just wondering why my resources were directed toward that problem and not one that mattered more.

One Drop at a Time

Someone was telling me the other day that some people are lazy, and that is why they are poor. She's run in over 50 marathons and her father is an engineer who makes telescope lenses for major observatories.

There was a forest fire and all the animals left. One bird, however, kept flying back to the forest, with one drop of water in its beak. The other animals watched their home burn. The one bird however, when asked what it was doing, explained that it was putting out the fire, drop by drop. The other animals laughed at the stupid bird. As the fire became bigger and the bird became exhausted it could fly no longer. Finally it fell into the fire.

There is a similar story about a girl on a beach covered with millions of sand dollars. The girl knew that the sand dollars could not survive the hot sun, so she started to throw them back into the ocean. “What are you doing, you silly little girl.” “Oh, I'm saving the sand dollars—one by one.”

There is a third (ancient) story of the Myth of Sisyphus that Albert Camus appropriates. Sisyphus pleaded to the Gods to let him come down from the heavens for a short visit with his wife. Breaking his promise, he refused to return, so the Gods sentenced him to roll a boulder up a hill each day, only for the boulder to roll back down at the end of the day.

None of these stories are about laziness. All three characters have futile jobs. And none of them are lazy. Sisyphus, for Camus, emulates our own lives. We take one step forward, and then one step backward, over and over again. And yet we persist, dropping water on the fire or throwing sand dollars back into the ocean.

Why do some watch their homes burn, and others try to put out the fire? We could view our lives as futile. The best that can happen could be what my father wished for: that he wouldn't die of anything serious.

Why is it that some will persist with impossible odds and others why give up so easily? I asked a writing teacher in college if he had read the great writers when they were 18, like me. “Yes” he said. “And?” I asked. “Well, they weren't any good, but they wrote lots.”

I'm not sure why some can run marathons and others get tired just thinking about it. It wasn't, necessarily, that it came easy. Even Moses, picked by G_d to be his spokesman, had trouble speaking. Yet his words shaped most of our lives in one way or another.

Statistics?

I wrote on Facebook  “when you have 30 people in a room, two will probably share a birthdate.” Andy, a friend from the 60s, replied, “Inevitable. Statistics.”

“Bah humbug,” said Ebinizer Scrooge.

Deepak Chopra asked the question of why is it that some people with a propensity to get a disease get the disease. I suspect that Andy would say “statistics” to that too. Deepak was not so convinced. Though we have a precondition for a disease, it is not just “chance” that
 causes the disease.

Living in a city is a precondition for being mugged. Is it then just a matter of Russian Roulette?

I used to marvel at the bell curves that are produced by the random distribution of balls falling through an obstruction.

One could take the bell curve as an expression of determinism. With enough coin flips, half will be heads and half will be tails. But each individual coin could be either, even if the ten flips previous were heads. Does the coin has free will?

Statistics is weird that way. It doesn’t tell how one person, or even one subgroup will behave. Belonging to a college club will improve your grades and your persistence at college. But if you are African-American, at least at the college I was at, it would have the opposite effect. Statistics doesn’t tell us about the behavior of the individual, only about the behavior of the conglomerate. So does the individual mistakenly believe that they are free, when really they are part of a grand plan?

Or is he able to buck the system?

Is religion (prayer, for example) a waste of time given that the master plan produces a bell curve? What do you think?

Facebook Friends

I commented on Facebook that I wanted to have 2000 friends. So I’ve been befriending all those numerous and wondrous beings that have at least 100 friends in common with me.

Joan wrote Xox and I replied XOX (I’m lucky that my wife, having talked to me for almost 50 years, won’t read much of my daily blabber.) Joan asked me to do a set design for her play. As I read the script, I realized that we had both had the same PE teacher in high school (Sanford Patlak), and we didn’t even know that we had gone to the same school.

Then Pam wrote: We do not share 100 mutual friends, but of those we do share, they are among the most talented in STL. I'd love to get them all in the same room.

These new friends are from all over the world. They are such interesting people. Maybe I’ll get to meet some of them in person someday. Like the female Kim Mosley in Hawaii. She is such a fine artist, who now seems to be involved with acting for films.

My neighbor doesn’t want a lot of friends because every year he gives a $1 for each friend he has on Facebook, and he says that many friends would cost him too much money.

I’ve never worked well within a vacuum. I love to get feedback on my work. Sometimes people comment. Sometimes they just press the like button. One person told me he hated my work.

Donna said the other night that her painting isn’t complete until someone looked at it. I’ve heard actors say this, but not a painter. In fact, I went every night to the play with my set. It was amazing how it was a different play each night, depending on the audience.

I have one plea: please don’t assume that people can read your mind. They are interested in what you think, especially if it is positive or at least useful. So speak up. Silence is only golden if you have nothing to say. But you do, so please speak up. Tell your friends you love them, or whatever. When people post idiotic stuff, tell them it is idiotic… and why. What an opportunity we have for the exchange of ideas and feelings.

Thanks!

The Art of Opportuning

In a sense I have no right to say “poor me” or to even say anything to others who say, “poor me.” I’ve had so many privileges. I can’t start to imagine what my life would have been like if things had been different. Some of the privileges were a birthright, some were earned, and others were a gift of the stars. I’ve had challenges too, but minuscule compared to some.

This is a free country (we are told)…so here I go:

When things weren’t going well there was an exercise we did at the college where I taught. It was a reframing operation—we took the threats and morphed them into opportunities.

For example, because of climate change, one might not be able to grow figs any more. Some would be “down” calling the glass half empty, and lament about the “good old days.” Others would see this as an opportunity for change. They could grow something else, move to a different climate, stop growing altogether or go back to school and learn to acquire a new vocation.

This is what we call “fresh air.” Complaining just gets us deeper in quick sand. Opportuning (just made up that word) does the opposite. The glass is now half full.

Here’s another example: my car won’t start so I can’t drive to the grocery store. Opportuning, I realize I can walk to the store and on the way, say hi to the neighbors who are out on their sidewalk. Different framing.

I think sometimes about people I’ve known who have taken their lives. Their lives had challenges to be sure, but by no means (as seen from the outside) as dire as many others. Some will say that they were clinically depressed. I suspect they were right in some cases. But I wonder what might have been different if they had learned the art of opportuning.

In my search for what should be included in our education, opportuning certainly should be included. It takes us from being victims to being survivors.

No, you aren’t an orphan!

Silas, my friend in Kenya, wrote that he's now an orphan. I've written him a couple of times telling him that he is not.

I think, probably incorrectly, of an orphan as one who is alone in the world, without the memories of parents. This is probably wrong according the dictionary definition. But what did Webster know?

I had imagined that when my parents died that I’d be an orphan. I would finally be free of their bonds. They would stop telling me what to do. No such luck. Their voices are even stronger because I can not say no. Or at least they pretend not to hear me. In fact, I read that Baby Boomers can't grow up until their parents die. “Do parents really die?” this Baby Boomer asks.

Why are their voices so strong? First, there is the issue that you don’t want to “kick someone when they are down.” And then there is the power of someone who doesn’t defend themselves. My father tells me to do this or that. I can’t argue with him, because, in my mind, he keeps repeating his plea.
In John 14:18 we read “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” Essentially this says that there are no orphans. As a friend in college once said to me, “No matter what, God will always love you.” You aren’t alone. You not only have the memories of your parents, but you have reminders of their love in other humans, animals, plants, and even in inorganic matter.

Superman was shot from a distant planet as a baby. He was an orphan, perhaps? But when? Was it when the rocket took off? Was it when the rocket left the atmosphere of Krypton? Was it when the rocket landed on Earth? Or was it when Krypton disintegrated, moments after lift off? He was an orphan, perhaps, until he found the icicle that contained his history. Then he was no longer alone.

I’m finding, in reading the Torah, much about my parents and how they thought. But even more so, about their parents and their parents, ad infinitum. Roots was an effort to find out who you really were. We learned the words “nature vs. nurture” in school. What we might not have learned was that “nurture” wasn’t just the people who played a role in our upbringing, but those who played a role in their upbringing…back to the beginning (if there was such a thing).

Silas has a rich legacy. Though his parents aren’t with him as they once were, they are still every bit a part of him.

P.S. As is often the case, my wife tells me at dinner how I'm all wet with my thinking. In this case, she told me that the idea of orphans is just for children. Adults don't become orphans when their parents die. Wikipedia says the same, that “...orphans are children whose parents have died.” Sometimes kids are counted as orphans now if one of their parents have died.

Cheerleader for Hire?

Last night I completed my Torah Drawing (http://kenshinsbarmitzvah.blogspot.com/2014/10/parshat-bamidbar-4th-portion-numbers-31.html) and I showed it to my wife of 45 years.

I thought it was a good one. She said, “Looks like all your other drawings.”

“Oh crap,” I thought to myself. “I wanted a cheerleader and I got a wife.”

So this morning I told her that I couldn’t sleep because she didn’t like my drawing. “No,” she said, “It wasn’t that I didn’t like it, but only that it was like your others.”

As I heated up my second cup of coffee (I get 16 oz a day so I don’t OD), I was laughing about something I read Monday night: that in ancient Japan, people would buy fake enlightenment certificates. Maybe I should Google “fake certificate that this is the best drawing of your life.”

Or, “Cheerleader for Hire.”

I just wrote to my son-in-law that I took off my complaint bracelet last night and now am writing this complaint about my wife. Given enough time, we’ll complain about everything.

When people start meditating, they worry that they aren’t doing it right. And, of course, that worry becomes a great object for meditation. It is an opportunity how we take a perfectly peaceful and non-harmful act, and convert it into a painful experience.

When we say something, we don’t worry whether it is the best thing we ever said. We know that sometimes we’ll hit the mark, and sometimes we don’t.

Is our goal really just to hit the mark? And would we quit if we really did hit the mark? Did Duchamp quit art and only play chess because he had no more to say as an artist? (Actually I think it was recently discovered that he did continue, but stopped showing.)

Art students complain when they graduate that they have no audience for their art. I feel blessed to be living in an age when I have so many outlets. And I get a sense sometimes that I’m touching someone. What more could someone ask for?

In the meantime, I feel like I’m a greyhound running after a hare that is just a few inches from my nose. That is the game. Catching the hare would be a grave disappointment. It probably is the same hare that’s been used all season and is full of maggots.

Envisioning a Complaint Free World

Dirt on a Stairway

Will Bowen has been envisioning a “Complaint Free World.” I’ve been wearing his bracelet for a few years now, and have never stopped complaining. But I see the point. Rather that bitching that the world is not how you’d like it to be, it is a matter of smelling the roses. Enjoy the world for how it is.

I buy a new toaster and it breaks in less than a year. I return it, only to be told by the manager at K-Mart, “You don’t expect a toaster to last more than a year, do you?” I asked to speak to his superior and quickly get a new toaster.

“One should speak only pleasant words, words which are acceptable (to others). What one speaks without bringing evils to others is pleasant.”—Buddha, That 21

“Abandoning divisive speech he abstains from divisive speech. What he has heard here he does not tell there to break those people apart from these people here. What he has heard there he does not tell here to break these people apart from those people there. Thus reconciling those who have broken apart or cementing those who are united, he loves concord, delights in concord, enjoys concord, speaks things that create concord.” —Buddha, An 10.176

A Buddhist temple may throw you out if you speak against the temple. So what do you do when you disagree? Or when you see injustice?

In Japan, you don’t express your views until you know what the others believe. And you always vote as your parents vote. In Burma, the kids bow every day to their teachers, to their parents, and to monks.

We face an interesting dilemma when we see an injustice and we feel compelled to make waves. As a nation, we are complainers. We didn’t like the rules in England, so we came to America. And when the rules followed, we had a tea party. More complaining.

That’s who we are. When we see rules that hurt people, we want to complain. When we buy a lemon, we want to complain.

Yet Bodhidharma said that suffering injustice is one of the four important Buddhist practices. Are we between a rock and a hard place?

Look at all the freedom that has been created through complaining. Especially now, with the advent of the Internet. Look at the power of bad reviews on Amazon.

We have the expression “go with the flow” and we relish the idea of flow in positive psychology ”flow is characterized by complete absorption in what one does.” This sounds like mindfulness. Is this the antithesis to complaining?

Or is complaining actually part of the flow? This article, The Mind is like a Hammer, beautifully describes how in Zen, the point is not to change the mind, but rather to discover who is holding the hammer…who is complaining. When injustices appear to be about us, we reinforce a false dualism of ourself and the other. When we look at the problem from everywhere, we aren’t saying anymore, “I was wronged” but rather ”We were wronged” where there is no distinction between us and them, where “we” is the whole. Love has now replaced hate and anger. Change as growth can now occur.

Is inheriting good or bad karma similar to the idea of original sin?

Painting by Donna Birdwell

I'm not a believer in either original sin or karma...I don't think. But I'll give this a try. Like a bad scientist who decides what he'd like to prove before he does the experiment, I will look at this.

But first there is a difference in how Buddhists and Judeo-Christians see birth. I'm looking at a painting by Donna Birdwell that shows a woman floating in the water in an almost embryonic position. There is a path of petals on the surface of the water, and more petals rising from the woman as she breathes.

Dark petals are coming from her feet and hands. These petals tell me where she came from, while the light petals show where she is going.

The distinction of how birth is seen in Buddhism and Judeo-Christian belief is critical here.

In Buddhism there is no birth and death, nor any beginning or end. Our lives, though they appear to many as linear, are more like a circle or a spiral where “what goes around comes around. Though with each “rebirth” we get a fresh start, we inherit much. Call this karma if you want.

I read some years ago that someone taught planarian to avoid light (see: http://community.dur.ac.uk/robert.kentridge/bpp2mem1.html) and then ground up the planarian and fed it to little ones and then the fed planarian could learn faster to respond to the light. So it is with karma. Like height needed for basketballs or big brains needed in physics, we inherit karma. It is with what we start. If we were bad in the past we'd have a lot of stale stick stuff in us and we'd have to work hard to clean it up.

Original sin seems to differ from karma. Because Eve disobeyed God and ate the fruit humans will forever have to pay. In the original sin scenario, no matter what is done in this life, the next time around you are born as a sinner. (Note: I don’t accept this view of Genesis.)

In the karma model, you could start as one in previous lives had done much harm. This is different existentially from one who is a sinner. In the Judeo-Christian baby, the kid is off on the wrong track from the get go, while the Buddhist Babe is born with Buddha nature, and yet may need to work through a karmic legacy to retrieve that innocence.

The baby in the painting floats in the water. There is a circle formed with her arm and head. She will wake up and see what challenges arise for her. She is naked with only the inheritance of who she really is—her Buddha nature. Her karmic legacy is what she carried from her previous life. It is not who she is, but rather that the opportunities and challenges she will meet.

More Injustice: Jewish Stereotyping

I’m not sure when I started to return things to stores that didn’t work. “Buyers remorse’ for me is most often the realization that I'll need to spend time returning the item.

My family was Jewish, whatever that might mean.

My parents and sisters never returned things. My mom was a smart shopper. She’d buy the best and keep it forever. We still have her lawn chairs, which are over 50 years old. My wife replaced the canvas seats about 30 years ago. They will probably last another 50 years if someone is wise enough not to sell them for scrap aluminum.

My grandfather was the only cheap one I knew. His job as a kid in Russia was to stand by the scale in his father’s grain business and make sure no one put their foot on the scale. When he came to America he would buy day-old bread. And he’d fill up gas cans in Portland and drive them to the beach where gas was more expensive. Yes, I know, it was stupid. He was generous to his children and even strangers in supporting their education, even though he only had an eighth-grade education.

My father was a lawyer, and could figure his clients way out of any mess. He barely ever spent money. He’d complain when my mom would buy me books. Was he cheap? I think my sisters would say he was. After my mom died, he wouldn’t buy any new clothes. He did join Costco and bought a few things he probably didn't need. Perhaps that was his mid-life crisis occurring in his 80s. But his needs and interests were about things but about ideas. He was savvy in business, with most of his life owning linen stores. The last 25 years of his life he gave free legal advice. He never was ambitious about making money. And he didn’t like to talk about money. He got mad at me because when the ambulance was taking him to the hospice to die, I asked the EMT what the starting salary was for EMTs. I was interested for our college students who always are looking for ways of making a living. My dad scolded me on his deathbed and said it wasn’t polite.

I had a student who was working in some kind of business when she said to a customer that he was trying to “Jew” the business out of some money. She was fired on the spot.

Yesterday, I was talking to one of my wife’s friends about returning things, and she started talking about how it was my being Jewish showing up. She felt that Jews are cheap and therefore like to return things.

I felt hurt by her stereotyping. It seems to be a prevalent perception the Jews are cheap.

My Catholic neighbor growing up, who I played with often, when he was teaching economics at the Kansas University, gave an annual lecture, The Art and Joy of Cut-Rate Living. Perhaps he was an influence, though I don’t remember any money dealings with him.

I’m near the end of Sopranos now, and a little Jewish stereotyping has just reared its ugly head in these clips. The joke in the second clip is about Jews by a Jew.

I understand that Christians weren’t allowed by the church to do money lending. Christ threw the money lenders out of the temple. Some say now that the issue was not the money lending itself, but the fact that they were doing it in the temple. In any case, Jews were restricted from engaging in many occupations, so money lending became one occupation that they could engage in.

Here’s a couple of web articles on Jewish Stereotyping:

Are Jews Cheap & Selfish?

Wikipedia on the Stereotypes of Jews

In the last article I was interested how initially the stereotyping came from non-Jews, but more recently from Jews. In Oliver Twist, the character Fagin is referred to as “the Jew” 257 times in the first 38 chapter. Wikipedia claims he finally came to his senses late in life. In his novel, “Our Mutual Friend,“ the character Riah says, “Men say, 'This is a bad Greek, but there are good Greeks. This is a bad Turk, but there are good Turks.' Not so with the Jews ... they take the worst of us as samples of the best …”

It feels like an injustice to be stereotyped. If returning what you don’t like or what doesn’t work is being a jerk, I hope my friends tell me. But the suggestion that you do that because you are Jewish seems offensive. The subtext I hear (and probably not intended) is one of being a dirty Jew.

As to Jews being “cheap,” here’s an interesting article, “Muslims ‘Give Most to Charity,’…” that suggests that Muslims give the most, then Jews, and then Christians.

Enough said?

Suffering Apparent Injustice and More Questions

I was all set to write more about suffering injustice when someone sent me another translation of this phrase which blew what I was going to say.

In a book on Chan Buddhism, Peter Hershock (who is coming here to Austin in a few weeks to talk with us for a day) says that the practice was “suffering apparent injustice.”

He says that when we are good and bad things happen it is because of bad karma earned in previous lives.

At one point Buddha is asked if things sometimes just happen, and he says yes. So this teaching is a little bit in contradiction to Buddha…who also said that if a teacher contradicts the Buddha, then you should follow the teacher.

Another reason that an injustice may be apparent is that we think life shouldn’t be that way. We think sickness, old age, and death are unfair.

N wrote that some Christian missionaries had a dilemma because they didn’t know whether to help the poor since the meek will inherit the Earth (my words, not N’s).

So might we say that Bodhidharma didn’t believe in injustice? Some accuse different political factions of that.

When do we want to change things? There are two pieces of pie for dinner. One is covered with mold, and the other is steaming hot, having just been pulled from the oven. I’m served the moldy pie. Is that just?

Should I eat it as Suzuki Roshi ate the bad cucumbers, without wincing? Or as Buddha knowingly ate some bad pork and died (as the story goes)? He didn’t want to insult his host.

I think tomorrow I’ll try to nip suffering in the b_tt. Ouch!

Suffering Injustice—Many Questions.

Tangled Mess

Bodhidharma ((who brought Zen (Chan) from India to China around 600 CE)) said in his Outline of Practice that the essence of Chan practice is: suffering injustice, adapting to conditions, seeking nothing, and practicing the Dharma. Why would one of the wisest men who ever lived suggest that we should practice “suffering injustice”? Would the world go to “hell in a hand basket” if we all did that? Do we really have a choice but to do that?

I’m not sure how this all started today. I kept running into people suffering injustice. Or maybe they weren’t “suffering” as Bodhidharma prescribed. I heard in a Dharma talk the other day that someone was looking forward to joining a monastery so they could start suffering. What did they mean?

First I saw this YouTube video of Michael Brown protestors interrupting a symphony in St. Louis:

St. Louis American, an African-American newspaper, had a good description of the event.

Second, I read this book review in the Los Angeles Review of Books about Chinese Comfort Women. Did they suffer injustice, especially since they refused to talk about what had happened to them (until now)?

And lastly, I read this on Jewish Feminism.

Oh… it all started in Torah class last week. We read in Leviticus that women are sequestered twice as long from the community when they have a girl rather than a boy.

And, I remembered that Burmese nuns are low on the seniority pole, even if they have been practicing for decades. They still need to bow to a novice male monk.

So many questions here. What did Bodhidharma mean by “suffer”? Are there times when suffering might not be the right action? Have the African-Americans in Ferguson been suffering all along and that is the problem (they haven’t been protesting).

Here is Buddha’s Dart sutra that describes how our mind creates a mental feeling when the body has a bodily feeling. 

Jews are told to create injustice. “You shall not aggrieve a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 22:20). They are told that not coming to someone’s aid makes one responsible for their trouble (don’t have a reference here). 

Second Chances (Eating Meat and Not Wearing a Helmet)

Sometimes we get a second chance. When we do wrong, and realize it, we can respond in a variety of ways. We can say, we made a mistake…we shouldn’t have done that. What that says to me is that we got caught, and being caught, made the action a poor choice. A little better response might be to feel remorse. We say, “I feel terrible for what I did. I am sorry that I hurt you.” But the real growth and forgiveness come when we alter our behavior.

I realize, when eating meat, that I’m contributing to an industry that is using a great deal of resources to produce nutrition that could be derived from other means (see: http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-food/meat-wastes-natural-resources/). Many of us “know” this. I also know that the wholesale slaughter of animals does not make us a peace-loving species. Yet many of us, myself included, pay others to raise and kill animals for food. We may be ignorant of the facts. We may realize that we are doing the wrong thing, but do it anyway because we “enjoy it” or because we believe that we need the protein (see: http://www.vrg.org/nutrition/protein.php).

Or we can acknowledge that this is all true, and feel sad for the killing of animals and resources, but continue to do so. Perhaps we rationalize our behavior with the argument that it isn’t eating 1/1000 of a cow that hurts the environment, but the mass eating of many animals. (In 2008 in the USA: Cattle: 35,507,500, Pigs: 116,558,900, Chickens: 9,075,261,000, Layer hens: 69,683,000, Broiler chickens: 9,005,578,000, Turkeys: 271,245,000, see: http://www.animalliberationfront.com/Practical/FactoryFarm/USDAnumbers.htm).

Believe it or not, I didn’t mean to write a diatribe about eating animals. I guess this guilty meat eater leaked.

What I wanted to write about is not wearing a helmet when riding a motorcycle. We had a wonderful secretary in St. Louis who loved to ride on her motorcycle with her husband. I guess one could call them “bikers.” They had Harleys and cherished them.

They had a serious accident, riding together and having a great time. I can imagine how they loved to feel the breeze across their face and their hair blow in the wind. And they mended fine.

A few years later, still without a helmet, they had an even more serious accident. Now our lovely secretary had to give up her job. She has trouble walking, and says she can’t type anymore.

We sometimes say, “oh, if only I had a second chance.” They did.

I could tell many similar stories of other accidents on motorcycles or bicycles. I scolded a friend the other day for not wearing a helmet. I hope he’ll change him way. He has a good head. “Yes, I have a helmet,” he said, ”it’s at home!”

I made my son wear a helmet when he rode his bike. He refused, so his bike didn't get ridden for over a year.  We never really had much of a discussion about it (that I remember). I was just trying to protect him, and he was worried about his fashion statement (as I remember). I wonder how he remembers it.

When he was in the third or fourth grade we lived in Evanston. a suburb of Chicago. There was a man who walked the streets. He had been a stockbroker until he had a bad bike accident (sans helmet). Now he could only tell his story, trying desperately to get kids to wear their helmet. He’d tell them how he used to be able to think, but now he can only walk the streets and tell kids to wear a helmet.

We’ve arrived when we have changed our actions. I hope it is not too late.

Revenge

Revenge is interesting. We think of it as an antidote when we are injured. Today ISIS beheaded another man. They apparently are doing this as revenge for our actions. And now we’ll bomb them to retaliate. And so wars continue from the beginning of time.

Two biblical quotes that relate here (of many): turn the other cheek, and an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Some say that an eye for an eye is not about revenge, but rather the legal idea of paying for damages that is caused. If I make a man blind, then I need to pay the blinded man the money that a slave would cost so that I can have the slave see for him. This is not out of rage, but rather an attempt to ”set things right.”

"if a man cuts off his neighbour's hand, or foot, he is to be considered as if he was a servant sold in a market; what he was worth then, and what he is worth now; and he must pay the diminution which is made of his price; as it is said, “eye for eye.” From tradition it is learned, that this for, spoken of, is to be understood of paying money; this is what is said in the law, “as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again.” Not that he is to be hurt, as he has hurt his neighbour; but inasmuch as he deserves to want a member, or to be hurt as he has done; therefore he ought to pay the damage.'’ Maimonides, Hilchot Chebel. c. 1. sect. 2, 3.

Perhaps “turn the other cheek” is one of least followed maxims there is. We are inclined to protect ourselves. When we turn the other cheek we are allowing injustice to continue. In a sense turning our cheek is creating more war, not less. Maybe that’s why it is not followed very often.

Time

Sometimes I feel like I’m in a torture chamber and these two metal plates are slowly moving toward me to crush me. I can’t stop their movement. Before I know it, it will be 10:30pm, our official bedtime (though we almost always go to bed later that).

I need to figure out how to do my stuff before then. I don’t worry too much earlier in the day, because I have the rest of my life left. Oh, I mean the rest of my day. But by 5:20 pm I’m starting to clutch. Especially when I’m going to the temple tonight to sit.

When I wake up, I usually am tired with what I was thinking about yesterday, and not yet into thinking about anything new. I just expect something to happen as the day progresses.

It is like taking pictures. I have no idea what is going to call out to me, “take my picture.” Something eventually does. I remember a teacher of mine bragging that he went shooting with a friend and his friend couldn’t find anything thing to take a picture of, but he found treasures everywhere he looked.

I was wondering if it is a defect in my seeing that I can’t see pictures everywhere. Why are some vistas not pictures and other vistas pictures?

So as I sit here with the metal plates slowly crushing me, I write about time. At the gym, I want time to go faster so I can go home. But the rest of the day I want it to go slower so I can get something done. Ideally I’d like a time app that would work slowly or quickly as needed. If I were king, I could do that. All the clocks in my kingdom would be synchronized to my time. We’d all go to bed at 10:30 pm, but it would be my 10:30 pm, not the arbituary one.

I realize I’m not king, though, and that clocks are pretty consistent.

Back to the drawing board. Samuel Johnson wrote, “If you don’t get half your work by 10 am, chances are the other half will go undone.”

Off to sitting.

Miracles and Gratitude

My neighbor’s grandson was saved by a medical miracle, or so the mother claimed. 

I read recently that gratitude is the practice for spirituality. 

I use to tell my students that it was a miracle that we have a shallow depth of field when the lens is wide open, because otherwise it would be hard to focus. Now that doesn’t matter because of autofocus.

Miracles are not rational. You need to produce three miracles to become a saint.

I found an old book at the University of Chicago libraries that I read over and over again. I was intrigued by those events that contradicted the laws of nature. I was surprised that the Jesuit/Buddhist teacher Robert Kennedy said that G_d doesn’t mess with laws of nature. And Einstein famously said that G_d doesn’t play dice with the universe.

I’ve come to see almost everything as a miracle. So much in my life seems like it is a long shot. I can’t think of anything that isn’t a miracle. The fact that I can type this post, and have it appear on my phone so that I can reread it as I’m riding a bus to hear a Dylan Thomas poetry reading is a miracle. Actually a succession of miracles. Yes we can explain these miracles. We can say that the bus is possible because we discovered the wheel and the combustion engine. And rubber and glass. They are all miracles. The fact that Dylan Thomas lived. Life on Earth. Earth. All stupendous miracles.

Gratitude seems connected with the idea of recognizing miracles. Taking gifts as something commonplace is rejecting there specialness. I hear a baby cry in the other room. A baby that was once the size of the tip of a needle. Someday he’ll write poetry or build skyscrapers. A skyscraper coming from the tip of a needle. And if I hadn’t married my wife he might have never landed on Earth 45 years later. 

Such a chance operation, as Cage would call it. See: http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/poetic-technique-chance-operations “Chance Operations are methods of generating poetry independent of the author’s will.” Ha, do we think we are in control? I’m sure Cage knew better than believing that we could really will things to happen. A delusion. When we learned that the unconscious decides before the conscious mind realizes it then we see that we may be driving the car, but we don’t determine where it is going. It has a mind of its own. Another miracle.

But what about evil? Like stubbing your toe or worse. Do we have gratitude for that too? Is that sadism? Do we reject the gift because if doesn’t stay new and perfect forever? Or do we honor it in all its permutations?

Rage is Empty

I've been watching the Sopranos, a series about the mafia. I guess in the early days the Italian immigrants didn't display a lot of rage. They laughed a lot, even as they were performing their nefarious deeds. Now it is different.

Both Tony Soprano and his sister display tremendous rage even if someone looks at them in the wrong way. His sister was put in jail because she assaulted another soccer mom at her kids' soccer game. As part of her sentence she needed to take an anger management class. Tony talked about this with his therapist and it was evident that he was starting to consider that such a class would be good for him.

His therapist kept saying that depression was rage turned inward. I started to think about whether rage really existed at that point if it did not show its ugly eye. Was this a transformation?  Sometimes I surprise myself with my feelings. “Where did that come from,” I think? I thought that I was a nice guy and then I thought that!

In my reading of the Torah today, I came across a section when the Lord tells the Jews that if they follow his laws they will defeat all armies and slay all beasts.

It is hard to believe that the Jews were so gullible. Rather I think a better reading is that, in the same way that rage and depression are interconnected, so are our external and internal threats. If we do the right thing perhaps our internal enemies and beasts will be slain.

When we look in a mirror we see ourselves.  If we are five feet from the mirror it will appear that we are ten feet away. We form a connection to the illusion in the mirror, perhaps in a similar way to the connection of rage and depression, or the connection of our external and internal enemies.

We live in two universes. One we create and nurture. The other and bigger one (?), does what it does, presenting us with continual challenges and gifts.

I wrote about this also in another of my blogs: http://kenshinsbarmitzvah.blogspot.com/2014/09/parshat-bechukotai-2nd-portion.html

Am I a Jew?

Years ago I heard a talk by a rabbi titled “What is a Jew?” She presented a number of different definitions, including the common one that you are a Jew if your mom is/was a Jew.

My dad, who also had Jewish parents, told me when he was dying that he didn’t want any services in a church/temple. They asked him in the hospice if he wanted to see a rabbi. “No,” he said, “But can you send a philosopher.”

He told me not to belong to anything. I mostly went against much of what he told me, but I kind of like this one.

Some people, including the head teacher of the Zen Center in Austin, don’t like to think of themselves as this or that…in his case, a Buddhist. When I look at the Burmese monks, I see them as Buddhists. It is a birthright that runs through their blood.

I was about to fill out a form for a temple yesterday and it asked me if I was a Jew. When I came to that question, I stopped filling out the application. Is being a Jew something that I can opt out of? Hitler didn’t think so. In Spain, during the inquisition, you could convert out of Judaism by becoming a Christian.

Is being a Jew ascribing to the tenets of a religion? And are there tenets ascribed to by most Jews. We hear of many Jews who claim they are non-practicing.

Our family had a marriage (actually many) between a Jew and a non-Jew. Both of the families were distraught. My father gave a speech and convinced everyone to be joyous of the union.

If we did a Venn diagram of all humans, Jews should be a small circle inside the human circle. One question in my mind is whether the circle is surrounded with a hard or soft line.

I don’t want to be separated from others who might be of other persuasions. My “community” is diverse. Being a this or that just seems like a limitation…a barrier. So my answer is: No, I wish to be interconnected with all beings and non-beings.

Though one could look at this like gender. I am a man, but I’m still connected to those who aren’t men. So in that instance, “Yes, I am a Jew, and a Buddhist, and an artist.” Hence my name, “Jelly Mosley,” because I change my mind frequently.

Exercise

I’ve become somewhat of an exercise fanatic.

When you are young you mostly think about the moments ahead of you. You never imagine that you are near the end. You buy a box of animal crackers. After eating the first one, it seems like there are many more. You haven't made a “dent.” But soon, there are few left. And then there are none.

You look at yourself in the mirror and you think, “I don’t need to look like this.” Or you get tired of waking up and having trouble getting out of bed. So you exercise.

I’ve tried a few things. Yoga, pilates, qigong, working in a gym with a trainer (actually two). Walking. Swimming. Meditation. I guess meditation is an exercise, of sorts.

But there are other exercises. Attempting to eat 26 weight watcher points a day. Another challenge.

Attempting to post on three blogs and Instagram a day.

Attempting to do 365 (minus a few) drawings from the Torah.

Attempting to know my grandkids, maintain relationships with wife, children and assorted relatives and friends.

These are all exercises. Practice, as they call it in Zen.

I retract my first sentence. I’m an exercise fanatic.

I wonder what my life would be like if I did nothing.

I had imagined a much easier retirement. I’d get up in the morning and wonder, “what shall I do now, what shall I ever do.” (from the Wasteland by T.S. Eliot)

Whose Eye is Beauty In—Beholder or Creator?

Zen says the artist,
the audience,
both,
and neither.

And is it in the eye
or the mind…
or the visual
cortex?

Uncle Ed
asks
if it
matters?

My wife says
you know better
than to ask
me that.

To be honest,
It is all beautiful
to me, this
life of ours.

Try to construct
a more interesting
mix of this
and that.

Always a surprise,
and a challenge.
Always a miraculous
sight to behold.

Who Done It?

“I like your drawings” or “You have such a beautiful grandson” or “your kids are so talented.”

I was told years ago that when someone compliments your art you should say “thank you.” That was supposed to take the place of what Gomer Pyle would say, “ah shucks.” Or making some excuse, like, “well, it would be better if I had of sharpened my pencil.”

This got more difficult when people would compliment things that I didn’t make, as in “I like your wife.” Do you say thanks? I certainly didn’t draw her into existence.

Once someone asked my dad if I did good art and he said, “some people think so.” I’m still curious where that remark came from.

Though I’ve been doing similar pictures since the 5th grade, I really don’t take credit for them. A few days ago I was trying to dig into the “does G_d exist” question. When I hear that question I start marveling at the exquisiteness of the universe and then, whether I say yea or nea, I know that what exists is far beyond my comprehension. Can we take credit for creation if we didn’t create the creator of our art?

In the same way, I’m repeatedly surprised by my art. I can’t for the life of me understand where it comes from. It feels as if some agent has possessed me and takes control of my pencil, camera, or whatever. Even when I say something (or write something), I have no idea where it came from. It is the miracle of birth, I suppose, where two relatively stupid forms join and become something stupendous. The whole is bigger than its parts. Much bigger.

I’m curious about others. Do you take responsibility for what you do? Are you possessed in those creative moments by something you don’t understand?

Prompts

http://pleasenowords.blogspot.com/2014/09/615.html

I had very few assignments in art school. And when I did, I usually didn’t do them. I thought I was, as my mom claimed to be, a “rank individualist.” Though from the first class I taught, I gave assignments. 

I work much better with prompts. I thought it was the fact that I was often collaborating with others, but really working with someone else is easier for me because an idea is suggested.

In our Zen Writing group we read a poem or tell a story. I resisted this for a while. “Why should I follow the prompt,” I thought? 

One thing that we develop in school is a bag of tricks to use when we are blocked. One trick I’ve use is to draw a nose. A nose needs a face. A face needs a body. A body needs a friend and something to stand on. Hence, a drawing is almost finished.

Prompts abound. I look at my bookshelf and see prompts calling out to me. Odyssey, Digital, Clean, Naked Lunch. All great prompts. 

I guess I was afraid that if I used someone’s prompt I wouldn’t be doing “my” art. That was a false worry. The prompt still needs to be processed through and by me. It is in the limitations that one reveals themselves. 

I once asked one of my teachers, “Why did you never tell us what to do?” He replied, ”You don’t know how much I told you what to do.” I learned then how a teacher can give prompts in subtle ways. He can look at your photograph and say, “Oh, I see you are interested in line.” Now he has brought the idea of focusing on lines to my conscious mind. Next time I’m out making photographs, I’ll look for lines. 

I Will Fly

Anthropomorph III (Ambivalence)—Donna Dechen Birdwell

The first woman
arrived in the night,
after the sun
fell asleep.

She popped up
like a bean stalk,
with feathers
on her arms.

Her feet rooted,
unable to go
and nothing to see
and only one job to do:

to wonder.
What else might there be
and are there others
like me?

Are things like this
or different?
Will I get tired...here?
And where is here, anyway?

I hear something—my feathers are blowing.
Why can't I remember
where I came from?
My mind is empty.

I reach in
the darkness
to see
what else is here.

I lift up one foot
and then
another.
I can take a step.

But where am I—
where will I go?
Oh I see something now—
over there.

How bright
that is!
What comes next?
I will fly.

God: She is Just a Story

A high school classmate who embraces Judaism recently wrote me that he is still undecided about whether G_d exists. M, a friend at the temple here, claims he doesn’t believe in G_d, but sees himself as a Jew through and through.

I asked a Catholic colleague, who has a PhD in Philosophy, whether she’d still believe in G_d if I could prove that he/she didn’t exist. “Of course I would,” she said. “Why?” I said. “Because I’ve experienced him,” she replied.

I can imagine that we could experience many things that our bodily senses might not perceive. Love is one of those things. Being depressed is another. Perhaps there is some chemical change in our body when we are in love or depressed, but perhaps too, those changes could occur when we aren’t in love or depressed. In any case, all that is verified is that a change has occurred, not that love, depression, or G_d exists.

I believe that if we took apart every molecule in the universe we wouldn't find love nor depression nor G_d. Nor do I know people who believe this. If we were hunters or fisherman, we’d come back empty handed. And many believe that does not matter.

When we say, “I don’t know if I believe in….,” what are we really saying? How can you not believe in a belief? You construct a story that shapes our conception of life. What is there to not believe? It is a story. Just a story. And for some, a life-changing story. But still, just a story.