Monday, December 31, 2007
Time Among the Horses
May I recommend this rumination on New Year's Eve by Verlyn Klinkenborg. (Now there's a name...)
Sunday, December 30, 2007
The Sleeping Duo
Naps have become like food, as necessary and as perfunctory. In the course of a day, I might quietly lie down two or three times, slide into insensibility, and then then get up again as if nothing had happened.
Meditation is the most reliable trigger for a nap. I sit down, cross my legs, relax the mind into some semblance of receptivity and openness. There is the distinct sensation of energy moving down into the abdomen to nourish the being who grows there. A twenty-minute instant later, my eyelids begin to sink. It is so delicious to curl up right there, on the cushion. I come awake again to find the candle still burning.
I can't say what happens in the twenty minutes of sitting and thirty minutes of sleeping. But I choose to imagine that, in some very real way, life is being given to the child.
In Taoist thought, a woman loses qi by bearing children. Men lose qi with every seminal emission, and from that belief there arose an elaborate system for having a climax while avoiding ejaculation. If you're a pregnant woman, however, there's no way to have a baby without actually having a baby.
In yogic thought, prana, which is roughly the same life-force as qi, is transferred to the growing baby during the third trimester. This is the gift that everyone receives from her mother. Consciousness migrates from who-knows-where, but the vitality of life comes from a woman's blood and bones. And diet.
The pregnancy newsletter I receive ("You are now in the 30th week of pregnancy!") says,
Meditation is the most reliable trigger for a nap. I sit down, cross my legs, relax the mind into some semblance of receptivity and openness. There is the distinct sensation of energy moving down into the abdomen to nourish the being who grows there. A twenty-minute instant later, my eyelids begin to sink. It is so delicious to curl up right there, on the cushion. I come awake again to find the candle still burning.
I can't say what happens in the twenty minutes of sitting and thirty minutes of sleeping. But I choose to imagine that, in some very real way, life is being given to the child.
In Taoist thought, a woman loses qi by bearing children. Men lose qi with every seminal emission, and from that belief there arose an elaborate system for having a climax while avoiding ejaculation. If you're a pregnant woman, however, there's no way to have a baby without actually having a baby.
In yogic thought, prana, which is roughly the same life-force as qi, is transferred to the growing baby during the third trimester. This is the gift that everyone receives from her mother. Consciousness migrates from who-knows-where, but the vitality of life comes from a woman's blood and bones. And diet.
The pregnancy newsletter I receive ("You are now in the 30th week of pregnancy!") says,
No kidding.Your baby is rapidly growing at this point. Obviously your baby is continuing to gain weight, and his/her head is also growing.... Because there is so much development and maturing going on, it is incredibly important to ensure that you are getting plenty of nutrients and rest.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
I Am Two People
Perhaps it is presumptuous to imagine having a relationship with a person who doesn't know what they are yet.
But you know how it is: spending time being close with someone, especially in silence, gives you an idea of who they are. Whether it's correct or not is hardly important: there is the impression of relationship.
And so I feel that I get along well with the little one. He bustles about in response to his papa's voice; is quieted when I sing to him; rests when we meditate.
He would weigh 2.5 pounds, and open and close his eyes, if he were on the outside. But in the realm where he now resides, there is no reference for these things.
-
For me, being pregnant seems to precipitate recurring dreams. So I have dreamed the same dull dream every night for a week, just before I wake up: something doesn't measure up; there is some mild disappointment, and I make my way home from a building in Belfast.
But you know how it is: spending time being close with someone, especially in silence, gives you an idea of who they are. Whether it's correct or not is hardly important: there is the impression of relationship.
And so I feel that I get along well with the little one. He bustles about in response to his papa's voice; is quieted when I sing to him; rests when we meditate.
He would weigh 2.5 pounds, and open and close his eyes, if he were on the outside. But in the realm where he now resides, there is no reference for these things.
-
For me, being pregnant seems to precipitate recurring dreams. So I have dreamed the same dull dream every night for a week, just before I wake up: something doesn't measure up; there is some mild disappointment, and I make my way home from a building in Belfast.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Baby Name
To name something you have not seen seems presumptuous. How can a name be the only thing you know? It is a false conceptual handle on an unknown phenomenon.
Even so, there is a baby--or rather, there is a heartbeat, and a shadowy ultrasound image, a growing abdomen where he allegedly lives--and there is a baby's name. It is a boy's name that came to me early on, so unmistakably as to relieve one of the need for further brainstorming.
Now the baby's movement has is becoming apparent. It is extremely subtle. But now the name begins to denote something more real. There is evidence; there is someone this name applies to. Deep inside, someone devoid of concepts--a tiny being in a dream--is called something. Is named and measured and planned-for. I suppose it has always been this way. Knowing nothing, we are born into this world of speech, symbol, and meaning. It's not more valid than the void; it's just the law of this realm.
Even so, there is a baby--or rather, there is a heartbeat, and a shadowy ultrasound image, a growing abdomen where he allegedly lives--and there is a baby's name. It is a boy's name that came to me early on, so unmistakably as to relieve one of the need for further brainstorming.
Now the baby's movement has is becoming apparent. It is extremely subtle. But now the name begins to denote something more real. There is evidence; there is someone this name applies to. Deep inside, someone devoid of concepts--a tiny being in a dream--is called something. Is named and measured and planned-for. I suppose it has always been this way. Knowing nothing, we are born into this world of speech, symbol, and meaning. It's not more valid than the void; it's just the law of this realm.
Saturday, December 01, 2007
What I See Right Now
No camera could capture this.
Snow has begun to fall in thick flakes
and the sparrows cluster and flit around the feeder
that hangs across the way
in a maple still golden with autumn leaves.
Snow has begun to fall in thick flakes
and the sparrows cluster and flit around the feeder
that hangs across the way
in a maple still golden with autumn leaves.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
New Favorite Book
In the past two days, I have read two books, which is more reading than I've accomplished in the past twelve months combined.
Paul Broks' Into the Silent Land is the new fave.
The other book, John Conroy's Belfast Diary, is perhaps too striking and too thought-provoking to be instantly liked. It would not make a good Christmas gift. It's something you read and mull over and don't necessarily foist upon your friends. How do humans manage to live in a the midst of a simmering conflict, of random sectarian violence and random official persecution? And what of the intimacy of the conflict? Your neighbors betray you; your foes are quirky, human, and deadly. It's hard to agree on a story, even, at the end of it all.
It's easier to retreat into the mind, the "silent land" of Broks' title. There's no easy answer here, either, but it's a Not Knowing with which I can easily agree.
This point of view is all too rare, both in the popular press and among neurobiologists. Describing phenomena does not mean we understand them. And nobody does a very good job of locating, or
even defining, consciousness. We are trying to define the universe from within the universe; any answer we find is a product of the system we are attempting to encircle with ideas.
Paul Broks' Into the Silent Land is the new fave.
The other book, John Conroy's Belfast Diary, is perhaps too striking and too thought-provoking to be instantly liked. It would not make a good Christmas gift. It's something you read and mull over and don't necessarily foist upon your friends. How do humans manage to live in a the midst of a simmering conflict, of random sectarian violence and random official persecution? And what of the intimacy of the conflict? Your neighbors betray you; your foes are quirky, human, and deadly. It's hard to agree on a story, even, at the end of it all.
It's easier to retreat into the mind, the "silent land" of Broks' title. There's no easy answer here, either, but it's a Not Knowing with which I can easily agree.
Wouldn't it be absurd for an airline pilot to deny knowledge of the principles of flight, or for a physician to claim ignorance of the basics of human physiology and anatomy? Yet I, a neuropsychologist, can give no satisfactory account of how the brain generates conscious awareness (p 92).
So, does conscious awareness have a physical location: mine, here and now...precisely somewhere between my ears? Self-evidently, it seems. But then, go into the skull; visit the brain's interior workings and you will see that there is nothing much to see. Not a spark of colour or whisper of sound and no signs of intelligent life. As you wander through this silent land you can describe its geography adequately enough in the third person, but, quite obviously, not in the first.
From this vantage point it seems self-evidently true that consciousness does not have a physical location. ...We are embodied, but nowhere traceable within the physical structures of the body (p 95).
This point of view is all too rare, both in the popular press and among neurobiologists. Describing phenomena does not mean we understand them. And nobody does a very good job of locating, or
even defining, consciousness. We are trying to define the universe from within the universe; any answer we find is a product of the system we are attempting to encircle with ideas.
Monday, October 29, 2007
A Little Dose of Faulty Understanding
I don’t really know what happened yesterday, but I feel better now than I have in weeks.
I was desperate. And I love Green Tara, the Tibetan goddess who became a Buddha. So I gritted my teeth and signed up for a one-day Tara retreat at the Maitripa Institute. It wasn’t cheap, but it cost far less than the ridiculous amount they charge for classes, say, or their not-very-modest gala dinners. It’s a different model, I tells myself. But I don’t need to pay big bucks to stick with something, or to value the Dharma, dammit. They don’t know what they’re losing, driving me away with their high prices. Or perhaps they do. They lose those who still have hope--and they attract those who, in a final act of desperation, are willing to pay.
I paid, and I was served lunch, and buckets of sweet milky tea, and I sat with people I did not know and did something completely new. It was lovely.
The jokhang, or hall, is floored with smooth bamboo-- the better for those full-body face-on-the-floor prostrations. Giant statues bedecked with gold and rugs and mysterious symbols are enshrined in the front, behind glass. The sitting arrangement is buckwheat zafu and modestly-sized zabuton.
To do a Tara puja you follow along in the book and chant the same thing over and over. When afternoon comes and you are still chanting the same thing, they make it more interesting by inviting you to circumambulate, or to lead the chant, or to make an offering on cue.
The cue comes from the rinpoche. He sits even during the breaks, a young coarsely-built Tibetan of sterling reputation. He gives instruction and offers bits of insight in a monotone, rocking back and forth while addressing the lectern. His smile is colossal, his humor comes easily, and he takes the proceedings seriously. We are all there because we need something, and he knows this.
What we do together brings a goddess into the room.
Near the end, he takes the Tara image off the altar and blesses us. The gold statue is heavy and reassuring on top of my head. But it is the hours of chanting to the One who dispels conflict that has an effect: I realize the inner conflict is of a piece with the outer. Feeding one gives rise to the other. And really, no one wants conflict. We want to be understood and appreciated. We want it to be OK--in our way, on our terms. That modest little impossibility, “it has to be this way,” is our undoing. Seeing the conventional world clearly, a Buddha feels compassion. Seeing the ultimate aspect clearly, she knows the wisdom of the emptiness of phenomena.
I have been undone too often these last three weeks. I have not been happy. And yet now, life is not a problem. This part of it--this part where I work hard for little money and lots of faultfinding--is both an integral result of all that has come before, and a key component of what the future must become.
When we are finished, we stand, and then the rinpoche is in front of me, holding out his hands. I take them. They are huge and fleshy, and feel as if they’re made of nothing at all. He looks in my eyes.
“Thank you,” he says. I squeeze the nonexistent flesh in reply.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SVAHA
I was desperate. And I love Green Tara, the Tibetan goddess who became a Buddha. So I gritted my teeth and signed up for a one-day Tara retreat at the Maitripa Institute. It wasn’t cheap, but it cost far less than the ridiculous amount they charge for classes, say, or their not-very-modest gala dinners. It’s a different model, I tells myself. But I don’t need to pay big bucks to stick with something, or to value the Dharma, dammit. They don’t know what they’re losing, driving me away with their high prices. Or perhaps they do. They lose those who still have hope--and they attract those who, in a final act of desperation, are willing to pay.
I paid, and I was served lunch, and buckets of sweet milky tea, and I sat with people I did not know and did something completely new. It was lovely.
The jokhang, or hall, is floored with smooth bamboo-- the better for those full-body face-on-the-floor prostrations. Giant statues bedecked with gold and rugs and mysterious symbols are enshrined in the front, behind glass. The sitting arrangement is buckwheat zafu and modestly-sized zabuton.
To do a Tara puja you follow along in the book and chant the same thing over and over. When afternoon comes and you are still chanting the same thing, they make it more interesting by inviting you to circumambulate, or to lead the chant, or to make an offering on cue.
The cue comes from the rinpoche. He sits even during the breaks, a young coarsely-built Tibetan of sterling reputation. He gives instruction and offers bits of insight in a monotone, rocking back and forth while addressing the lectern. His smile is colossal, his humor comes easily, and he takes the proceedings seriously. We are all there because we need something, and he knows this.
What we do together brings a goddess into the room.
Near the end, he takes the Tara image off the altar and blesses us. The gold statue is heavy and reassuring on top of my head. But it is the hours of chanting to the One who dispels conflict that has an effect: I realize the inner conflict is of a piece with the outer. Feeding one gives rise to the other. And really, no one wants conflict. We want to be understood and appreciated. We want it to be OK--in our way, on our terms. That modest little impossibility, “it has to be this way,” is our undoing. Seeing the conventional world clearly, a Buddha feels compassion. Seeing the ultimate aspect clearly, she knows the wisdom of the emptiness of phenomena.
I have been undone too often these last three weeks. I have not been happy. And yet now, life is not a problem. This part of it--this part where I work hard for little money and lots of faultfinding--is both an integral result of all that has come before, and a key component of what the future must become.
When we are finished, we stand, and then the rinpoche is in front of me, holding out his hands. I take them. They are huge and fleshy, and feel as if they’re made of nothing at all. He looks in my eyes.
“Thank you,” he says. I squeeze the nonexistent flesh in reply.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SVAHA
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
What a Parent Should Do
I was inspired by a talk given by PSU psychology professor Leslie B. Hammer at the Pacific NW Association of Independent Schools conference, held at Catlin Gabel School on October 12. My notes follow.
When anxiety takes hold, the cognitive field narrows, the world collapses into good and evil, and it becomes impossible to evaluate relative risk. In this state, a B- on a child’s paper evokes a similiar response to the child being attacked.
There is a correlation between kids gone awry--kids stuck in a swirl of depression, sex, drugs or delinquency--academic pressure from parents, family disengagement, and elite schools. In fact elite schools have higher rates of teen dysfunction than poor schools. (This sounds incredible, and I wonder if the studies corrected for the fact that students in poor schools often self-select themselves out of school.) But even so, the more affluent, the more pressure, the more messed up the kids are. Correlations can be tricky: they don’t say anything about causes. So it’s not that grade-obsessed parents necessarily cause teenage misbehavior. Rather, parental response focuses on the concrete readout of a life in crisis, without focusing the underlying causes, without addressing the kid’s social and emotional experience.
Family life is about enjoying one another. Period. You need unstructured time; you can’t arrange to bond. Kids and everyone need unstructured time to allow imagination and creativity to flow.
Happiness, and the Causes of Happiness, consist of: giving and receiving love; finding and using your gifts; and living a meaningful life. Period. Once basic subsistence needs have been met--not “middle class” needs, but subsistence needs--there is no longer a correlation between money and happiness. With increasing wealth, proxy variables start to stand in for satisfaction: a new car; the college sticker on the car; building your kid into a designer package that will win admittance into a selective school, rather than the best fit for that person’s needs and growth. There is a dissatisfaction that sets in with progressive material status
Studies on the introduction of the internet to homes show an increase in depression and alienation, and a decrease in family time, once a household becomes wired. Screens do not develop relationships; people do.
Relationships are not a frill. They are critical to personal health, proper development, and success in life. There is this focus on academic “basics”, but studies clearly show that emotional health is crucial to educational success at all levels: when kids feel safe at school, they learn better and do not drop out. At all developmental stages, “Secure Attachment” is a result, and a cause of, attunement and responsiveness.
There is plenty of literature on Secure Attachment in early life, but what does it look like for a teen? If your kid can offer a strong “YES” in agreement with the following five statements, that’s a tremendous predictor of future success and well-being.
This session ended up being about parenting, and what sort of relationship I want to have with the child growing inside me.
When anxiety takes hold, the cognitive field narrows, the world collapses into good and evil, and it becomes impossible to evaluate relative risk. In this state, a B- on a child’s paper evokes a similiar response to the child being attacked.
There is a correlation between kids gone awry--kids stuck in a swirl of depression, sex, drugs or delinquency--academic pressure from parents, family disengagement, and elite schools. In fact elite schools have higher rates of teen dysfunction than poor schools. (This sounds incredible, and I wonder if the studies corrected for the fact that students in poor schools often self-select themselves out of school.) But even so, the more affluent, the more pressure, the more messed up the kids are. Correlations can be tricky: they don’t say anything about causes. So it’s not that grade-obsessed parents necessarily cause teenage misbehavior. Rather, parental response focuses on the concrete readout of a life in crisis, without focusing the underlying causes, without addressing the kid’s social and emotional experience.
Family life is about enjoying one another. Period. You need unstructured time; you can’t arrange to bond. Kids and everyone need unstructured time to allow imagination and creativity to flow.
Happiness, and the Causes of Happiness, consist of: giving and receiving love; finding and using your gifts; and living a meaningful life. Period. Once basic subsistence needs have been met--not “middle class” needs, but subsistence needs--there is no longer a correlation between money and happiness. With increasing wealth, proxy variables start to stand in for satisfaction: a new car; the college sticker on the car; building your kid into a designer package that will win admittance into a selective school, rather than the best fit for that person’s needs and growth. There is a dissatisfaction that sets in with progressive material status
Studies on the introduction of the internet to homes show an increase in depression and alienation, and a decrease in family time, once a household becomes wired. Screens do not develop relationships; people do.
Relationships are not a frill. They are critical to personal health, proper development, and success in life. There is this focus on academic “basics”, but studies clearly show that emotional health is crucial to educational success at all levels: when kids feel safe at school, they learn better and do not drop out. At all developmental stages, “Secure Attachment” is a result, and a cause of, attunement and responsiveness.
There is plenty of literature on Secure Attachment in early life, but what does it look like for a teen? If your kid can offer a strong “YES” in agreement with the following five statements, that’s a tremendous predictor of future success and well-being.
- My parents accept me for who I am.
- My parents respect me.
- My parents want to know my opinion about things.
- I want to know my parents’ opinion about things.
- When I’m worried about something, my parents are there for me.
This session ended up being about parenting, and what sort of relationship I want to have with the child growing inside me.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
A Flash of Something
In the absence of a project assigned from somewhere, reflective writing is the only kind of writing I do. There has been very little reflective writing of late.
Creative energy has been going elsewhere: to a new job of daunting emotional proportions (who knew teaching science involved so much drama?); to keeping body and soul nourished somehow (too much cheese makes everything irritable, while going unfed is discouraging); to mulling the changes taking shape on the future horizon (life in six months will be beyond all imagining).
Today, a dear friend helped Bun and I move most of our possessions (which are mostly my possessions) into our new condo. We will continue to sleep this week in the old apartment, while the paint dries in the new place. The familiar space, now empty, is spartan and beautiful. Do I really need my stuff? Do I even want my stuff? Not really.
And yet I have stuff, and it has me.
We took a break from all this to go to the ballet. Our cheap seats in the first row were breathtaking. We peeked into the orchestra pit, and watched a toddler being handed over the barrier to visit his musician father while the others tuned their instruments. We could see artists waiting in the stage right wing. We saw the sweat fly as dancers whirled; we heard the thwack as their thighs slammed together. Their athleticism was literally in our faces. The absence of visual input from part of stage left was not missed. It was so much better than sitting in the center, a reasonable number of rows back.
I know these people have made incredible sacrifices to be in their position, briefly lit and costumed. They have forgone much to be so exalted and yet so captive. Bodies bear the marks of it: of discipline and intensity and submersion in a way of life. Do they have time for anything else?
I can feel my mind and my way of being shaped by teaching. I speak differently; I jot down quiz questions obsessively; I am slightly more likely to question bad behavior. My life revolves around those 6.5 hours a week where I am up against the blackboard, up against the clock, up against teenagers' expectations.
Unlike the dancers, I have no chance to rehearse or perfect my actions--nor will I, unless I happen to teach the course again. Yet, in some spark of time, something is briefly illuminated. Chalk dust flies. Minds stretch--or stagnate at the rear of the room. Whatever it is, there's one chance, and it's over.
On Monday we will talk about the Periodic Table. Why do Argon and Potassium fall into the order they do? More to the point, can I find the magic in the ordering of elements--in the art, the leaps, the impossible beauty--in a list? Perhaps not. But that's the creative endeavor these days.
Creative energy has been going elsewhere: to a new job of daunting emotional proportions (who knew teaching science involved so much drama?); to keeping body and soul nourished somehow (too much cheese makes everything irritable, while going unfed is discouraging); to mulling the changes taking shape on the future horizon (life in six months will be beyond all imagining).
Today, a dear friend helped Bun and I move most of our possessions (which are mostly my possessions) into our new condo. We will continue to sleep this week in the old apartment, while the paint dries in the new place. The familiar space, now empty, is spartan and beautiful. Do I really need my stuff? Do I even want my stuff? Not really.
And yet I have stuff, and it has me.
We took a break from all this to go to the ballet. Our cheap seats in the first row were breathtaking. We peeked into the orchestra pit, and watched a toddler being handed over the barrier to visit his musician father while the others tuned their instruments. We could see artists waiting in the stage right wing. We saw the sweat fly as dancers whirled; we heard the thwack as their thighs slammed together. Their athleticism was literally in our faces. The absence of visual input from part of stage left was not missed. It was so much better than sitting in the center, a reasonable number of rows back.
I know these people have made incredible sacrifices to be in their position, briefly lit and costumed. They have forgone much to be so exalted and yet so captive. Bodies bear the marks of it: of discipline and intensity and submersion in a way of life. Do they have time for anything else?
I can feel my mind and my way of being shaped by teaching. I speak differently; I jot down quiz questions obsessively; I am slightly more likely to question bad behavior. My life revolves around those 6.5 hours a week where I am up against the blackboard, up against the clock, up against teenagers' expectations.
Unlike the dancers, I have no chance to rehearse or perfect my actions--nor will I, unless I happen to teach the course again. Yet, in some spark of time, something is briefly illuminated. Chalk dust flies. Minds stretch--or stagnate at the rear of the room. Whatever it is, there's one chance, and it's over.
On Monday we will talk about the Periodic Table. Why do Argon and Potassium fall into the order they do? More to the point, can I find the magic in the ordering of elements--in the art, the leaps, the impossible beauty--in a list? Perhaps not. But that's the creative endeavor these days.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Happy Day
Dear Friends and Family,
As you may already know, last spring I re-met and fell in love with an old high school classmate. Although we weren’t close twenty years ago, I found in B an unusual combination of sweetness, energy, commitment, and steadiness--as well as very similar ideals and values. We fell in love immediately, and the months that have followed have confirmed the appropriateness of that initial warmth and adoration.
Accordingly, we were married at noon on August 8 in a very small ceremony at the Washington County Courthouse in Hillsboro, Oregon, in the presence of a judge and two witnesses.
The thought of hosting a large celebration with food and fanfare occurred to us--it seems to be the norm in this society. But it seems much more natural (for us) to be married quietly and to turn our energy toward life together. We hope that you will be able to join us soon for a visit, a meal, and a walk in one of Portland’s wooded parks. Know that you are invited to be a part of our life together, just as you have been a part of our lives in the past.
It should go without saying that we have no need or expectation of any gift. But if you feel so moved, we would treasure a handwritten blessing, or a piece of advice for married and family life. (If you would like our mailing address, please drop me a line at dgarigan(at)gmail.com.)
Warmly yours,
DTG
As you may already know, last spring I re-met and fell in love with an old high school classmate. Although we weren’t close twenty years ago, I found in B an unusual combination of sweetness, energy, commitment, and steadiness--as well as very similar ideals and values. We fell in love immediately, and the months that have followed have confirmed the appropriateness of that initial warmth and adoration.
Accordingly, we were married at noon on August 8 in a very small ceremony at the Washington County Courthouse in Hillsboro, Oregon, in the presence of a judge and two witnesses.
The thought of hosting a large celebration with food and fanfare occurred to us--it seems to be the norm in this society. But it seems much more natural (for us) to be married quietly and to turn our energy toward life together. We hope that you will be able to join us soon for a visit, a meal, and a walk in one of Portland’s wooded parks. Know that you are invited to be a part of our life together, just as you have been a part of our lives in the past.
It should go without saying that we have no need or expectation of any gift. But if you feel so moved, we would treasure a handwritten blessing, or a piece of advice for married and family life. (If you would like our mailing address, please drop me a line at dgarigan(at)gmail.com.)
Warmly yours,
DTG
Sunday, August 26, 2007
A Teacher Slams Back
What Teachers Make, or
Objection Overruled, or
If things don't work out, you can always go to law school
By Taylor Mali
www.taylormali.com
He says the problem with teachers is, "What's a kid going to learn
from someone who decided his best option in life was to become a teacher?"
He reminds the other dinner guests that it's true what they say about
teachers:
Those who can, do; those who can't, teach.
I decide to bite my tongue instead of his
and resist the temptation to remind the other dinner guests
that it's also true what they say about lawyers.
Because we're eating, after all, and this is polite company.
"I mean, you’re a teacher, Taylor," he says.
"Be honest. What do you make?"
And I wish he hadn't done that
(asked me to be honest)
because, you see, I have a policy
about honesty and ass-kicking:
if you ask for it, I have to let you have it.
You want to know what I make?
I make kids work harder than they ever thought they could.
I can make a C+ feel like a Congressional medal of honor
and an A- feel like a slap in the face.
How dare you waste my time with anything less than your very best.
I make kids sit through 40 minutes of study hall
in absolute silence. No, you may not work in groups.
No, you may not ask a question.
Why won't I let you get a drink of water?
Because you're not thirsty, you're bored, that's why.
I make parents tremble in fear when I call home:
I hope I haven't called at a bad time,
I just wanted to talk to you about something Billy said today.
Billy said, "Leave the kid alone. I still cry sometimes, don't you?"
And it was the noblest act of courage I have ever seen.
I make parents see their children for who they are
and what they can be.
You want to know what I make?
I make kids wonder,
I make them question.
I make them criticize.
I make them apologize and mean it.
I make them write, write, write.
And then I make them read.
I make them spell definitely beautiful, definitely beautiful, definitely
beautiful
over and over and over again until they will never misspell
either one of those words again.
I make them show all their work in math.
And hide it on their final drafts in English.
I make them understand that if you got this (brains)
then you follow this (heart) and if someone ever tries to judge you
by what you make, you give them this (the finger).
Let me break it down for you, so you know what I say is true:
I make a goddamn difference! What about you?
Objection Overruled, or
If things don't work out, you can always go to law school
By Taylor Mali
www.taylormali.com
He says the problem with teachers is, "What's a kid going to learn
from someone who decided his best option in life was to become a teacher?"
He reminds the other dinner guests that it's true what they say about
teachers:
Those who can, do; those who can't, teach.
I decide to bite my tongue instead of his
and resist the temptation to remind the other dinner guests
that it's also true what they say about lawyers.
Because we're eating, after all, and this is polite company.
"I mean, you’re a teacher, Taylor," he says.
"Be honest. What do you make?"
And I wish he hadn't done that
(asked me to be honest)
because, you see, I have a policy
about honesty and ass-kicking:
if you ask for it, I have to let you have it.
You want to know what I make?
I make kids work harder than they ever thought they could.
I can make a C+ feel like a Congressional medal of honor
and an A- feel like a slap in the face.
How dare you waste my time with anything less than your very best.
I make kids sit through 40 minutes of study hall
in absolute silence. No, you may not work in groups.
No, you may not ask a question.
Why won't I let you get a drink of water?
Because you're not thirsty, you're bored, that's why.
I make parents tremble in fear when I call home:
I hope I haven't called at a bad time,
I just wanted to talk to you about something Billy said today.
Billy said, "Leave the kid alone. I still cry sometimes, don't you?"
And it was the noblest act of courage I have ever seen.
I make parents see their children for who they are
and what they can be.
You want to know what I make?
I make kids wonder,
I make them question.
I make them criticize.
I make them apologize and mean it.
I make them write, write, write.
And then I make them read.
I make them spell definitely beautiful, definitely beautiful, definitely
beautiful
over and over and over again until they will never misspell
either one of those words again.
I make them show all their work in math.
And hide it on their final drafts in English.
I make them understand that if you got this (brains)
then you follow this (heart) and if someone ever tries to judge you
by what you make, you give them this (the finger).
Let me break it down for you, so you know what I say is true:
I make a goddamn difference! What about you?
Monday, August 13, 2007
They Don't Makem Like They Used To
The Economist has the best of all the obituaries I've read for Tommy Makem.
Many years ago, when my mother was pregnant with me, she inexplicably went on an Irish folk-music kick. For years, I thought her brief affair with that music explained my own love for it. More recently, I wonder if perhaps it was the other way around: the developing baby was influencing her. Whatever the cause, the songs of the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem resonated in my heart all during childhood. I learned to operate a record player so I cold play their LPs; I memorized all the albums; and on nights when living seemed like too much, I would lie on my back in our darkened livingroom with my head near the speaker.
At the time, I did not know that Irish vocal music is a solitary tradition. The old men in the pub in Kingscourt would shush each other with great seriousness, so that one of their number could compose himself and warble one of the old rebel songs, or courting songs, or praise-of-place songs. The Clancys and Tommy Makem were less refined: they stood around a microphone and whaled away, and it sounded alright, or at least enthusiastic. Makem was the best singer of them all, it was clear, and no surprise that he had a healthy solo career afterward, when it was just his baritone filling the air.
I had wanted to go on one of the musical pub tours he lead of South Armagh, or the folk festival he organized there. To have such musical talent come from a region that sank into such darkness and brutality, and to have music play a part in the revival of hope in that area--it's something you'd want to be part of.
As it is, I'm sad today. I'll leave with two quotes from Tommy Makem, and an excerpt from the piece in the The Economist.
On Ireland today:
We're so obsessed with modernity we don't know what we're losing. They're making gazillions of dollars in Ireland but they're losing their culture.
When asked if he planned to retire soon:
Yes, of course, I retire every night and in the morning when I awake I realise just how lucky and privileged I am to be able to continue doing the things I love to do.He had performances booked through this fall.
IT ALL began in the kitchen of a house in Keady, County Armagh, in Northern Ireland, where Tommy Makem's mother Sarah, as she stirred a pan on the hob or filled the kettle, would sing of morning dew and magpies' nests, Barney Mavourneen and Mary of Kilmore, ships and red roses:
Red is the rose that in yonder garden grows
Fair is the lily of the valley Clear is the water that flows from the Boyne
But my love is fairer than any.
Tommy said he could sing before he could speak; and not long after he could play piccolo, fiddle, tin whistle and the five-string banjo. He would stand up in the church hall, no taller than a chair, and sing “The Little Beggarman”:
I am a little beggarman, a begging I have been
For three score years in this little isle of green.
Music and tales filled not only his home but the rolling fields and hills of South Armagh itself. The heart of Ireland seemed to beat there beneath Slieve Gullion, the mystical mountain where the hero Cuchullain had learned his warrior skills and where the hunter Finn MacCumhail, bewitched and curious, had tracked a white doe to the summit. Tommy Makem picked up those legends too and, in 1955, took them to America, together with his bagpipes and a suitcase patched up with tape.
He meant to work in a cotton mill and do a bit of acting, but one St Patrick's night he was paid $30 for singing two songs in a club: “and I thought, by God, this is the land all right. Gold growing in the streets.” By 1958 he had teamed up with his friend Liam Clancy and Liam's brothers Paddy and Tom, who had come from Tipperary to America before him, and the gold continued to accrue. The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, all kitted out in Aran sweaters knitted by Mrs Clancy, triumphantly rode the wave of a folk revival that was turning Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie into stars. Adapting to the new world, they added tin whistle and banjo to the old songs and quickened the pace, because, as Tommy said, “The heartbeat of America is so much faster than the old country.” They did “The Morning Show” and “The Tonight Show”, Ed Sullivan and Carnegie Hall, landed a $100,000 contract with Columbia and ended up singing “We Want no Irish Here” in front of Jack Kennedy at the White House, while Kennedy flashed his white teeth and rocked with laughter.
Tommy Makem was always the key man, with a baritone sweet as buttermilk or sharp as salt, nipping effortlessly over his “hi the dithery idle lum, dithery oodle idle loos” and his “roo run rye, fa the diddle dye, hey the O the diddle derry Os”. And for a lifelong teetotaller no man had more feeling when he sang of hoppy beer or dark-frothing porter or devilish golden whiskey, or almost anything at all served up in a jug in a bar:
When I am in my grave and dead
And all my sorrows are past and fled
Transport me then into a fish
And let me swim in a jug of this.
The songs he wrote himself he dismissed as “garbage altogether”, never to be compared to the old words and melodies he wanted to preserve in live performance. But a few he was proud of, and none more so than “Four Green Fields”, in which “a fine old woman”—Ireland—sang of her fourth field, Ulster, that was still “in bondage/ In strangers' hands, that tried to take it from me”. In America his audiences, largely third-generation Irish of the diaspora, would weep and sing along until, according to the New York Times man, they were “ready to go out and die for Ireland”.
All told, Tommy Makem's choice of songs was fervently nationalistic: children's rhymes about “King Billy”, or rebel songs such as “The Wind that Shakes the Barley”, in which the hero's sweetheart is killed, as they caress in a glen, by a British bullet. And most stirring of all, in a voice with an edge like a knife, he would sing “The Patriot Game”:
Come all you young rebels, and list while I sing,
For the love of one's country is a terrible thing.
It banishes fear with the speed of a flame,
And it makes us all part of the patriot game.
Bob Dylan adapted this for his great anti-war song “With God on Our Side”. But Tommy Makem tried always to separate his love of country from the horrors of sectarianism. As Northern Ireland slid into the Troubles after 1969, he kept away from politics—a task made somewhat easier by staying in America, where he went on singing to the end of his days. In the dark low-ceilinged bar he bought in New York in the early 1980s, the rule of the house was tolerance and good fellowship. And the slow dawning of peace in Northern Ireland was celebrated by the founding in 2000 in South Armagh of his International Festival of Song, a deliberate declaration that singing could lead men out of darkness, just as Finn MacCumhail at the top of Slieve Gullion found the doe he was following transformed into a beautiful young woman, who smiled at him.
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Shy Thoughts
I've been feeling private about my private life lately, which seems reasonable. Thus, what follows concerns sex mostly in the abstract. Even that feels like a lot.
What I have to say is that there are things we don't understand. The world is built the way it's built, regardless of our delusions around being able to master it, if only conceptually.
Now I will leave you to read it, and go to yoga.
I remember vividly the brief exchange that gave me the first clue about the power of sex.
I was six years old, and the kids at school were giving me the idea that “sex” was very important and naughty. I lived on a sheep farm where we recorded the gender of baby lambs on file cards: where it said “sex” you wrote either M for male or F for female. That was hardly worthy of fuss.
So I asked my mother what sex was. Silence fell. Her face looked a little funny.
“There are two sexes, male and female,” she said. No surprise, but I sensed I was onto something. Over the months that followed, I kept asking the question, mostly to see her squirm. Eventually, she confessed that sex had to do with animals breeding. But where was the juice in that? And why would my classmates care what our ram was up to?
Of course, other answers came in time: sex is what mommies and daddies do; sex is how babies are made; sex is something you must avoid at all costs. The anxiety became more explicit as the years passed, and the funny look remained. For years I imagined this was a kind of bashfulness, some desire to avoid sullying the innocence of a little child whose naiveté was already slipping away by slow increments.
Only recently did it strike me: Nobody has a good answer to that question. What is sex? It may be what mommies and daddies do, but do they understand what they do? Can they say why?
The experience of sexuality, of life as a sexual being, can drive our entire life. The urge to couple, to reproduce, to have someone, to just get off now, careens a stable life into chaos; it throws us off course into dark territory. Chasing the thrill of sex, the mighty are laid low; finding the thrill, the humble imagine themselves to be king or queen; hoping for love we are depleted and derailed; finding it, we feel glorious. Whatever sex is, defies simple understanding. Like thirst and hunger, its pull is something we share with insects and beasts. How does a polar bear explain sex? Or a wasp? How could our knowing be any more complete? We do not turn that wheel; we are turned by it.
Sexual desire is so close-in that we fail to recognize it. The primal is both commonplace and commodified. From our inexplicable needs, a culture based on titillation and gratification rolls forth.
So when my child asks, “Mama, what’s ‘sex’?” I’ll say, “Sex is the thing that drives adults mad, and makes them do things they never thought they’d do. Be glad that you are a child now, with a child’s hormones and a child’s concerns. Because when you start to grow up, you enter a mysterious world, and come unwittingly into a power that is beautiful and dangerous, inspiring and devastating, depending on how you use it.” I don’t expect her to understand. After all, none of the mommies and daddies do either.
What I have to say is that there are things we don't understand. The world is built the way it's built, regardless of our delusions around being able to master it, if only conceptually.
Now I will leave you to read it, and go to yoga.
I remember vividly the brief exchange that gave me the first clue about the power of sex.
I was six years old, and the kids at school were giving me the idea that “sex” was very important and naughty. I lived on a sheep farm where we recorded the gender of baby lambs on file cards: where it said “sex” you wrote either M for male or F for female. That was hardly worthy of fuss.
So I asked my mother what sex was. Silence fell. Her face looked a little funny.
“There are two sexes, male and female,” she said. No surprise, but I sensed I was onto something. Over the months that followed, I kept asking the question, mostly to see her squirm. Eventually, she confessed that sex had to do with animals breeding. But where was the juice in that? And why would my classmates care what our ram was up to?
Of course, other answers came in time: sex is what mommies and daddies do; sex is how babies are made; sex is something you must avoid at all costs. The anxiety became more explicit as the years passed, and the funny look remained. For years I imagined this was a kind of bashfulness, some desire to avoid sullying the innocence of a little child whose naiveté was already slipping away by slow increments.
Only recently did it strike me: Nobody has a good answer to that question. What is sex? It may be what mommies and daddies do, but do they understand what they do? Can they say why?
The experience of sexuality, of life as a sexual being, can drive our entire life. The urge to couple, to reproduce, to have someone, to just get off now, careens a stable life into chaos; it throws us off course into dark territory. Chasing the thrill of sex, the mighty are laid low; finding the thrill, the humble imagine themselves to be king or queen; hoping for love we are depleted and derailed; finding it, we feel glorious. Whatever sex is, defies simple understanding. Like thirst and hunger, its pull is something we share with insects and beasts. How does a polar bear explain sex? Or a wasp? How could our knowing be any more complete? We do not turn that wheel; we are turned by it.
Sexual desire is so close-in that we fail to recognize it. The primal is both commonplace and commodified. From our inexplicable needs, a culture based on titillation and gratification rolls forth.
So when my child asks, “Mama, what’s ‘sex’?” I’ll say, “Sex is the thing that drives adults mad, and makes them do things they never thought they’d do. Be glad that you are a child now, with a child’s hormones and a child’s concerns. Because when you start to grow up, you enter a mysterious world, and come unwittingly into a power that is beautiful and dangerous, inspiring and devastating, depending on how you use it.” I don’t expect her to understand. After all, none of the mommies and daddies do either.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
A Poet Writes Back
Here is a fragment of an open letter from the poet Sharon Olds to Laura Bush declining the
invitation to read and speak at the National Book Festival in Washington,
DC. It has been circulating out there on the internet since October, 2005. Alas.
invitation to read and speak at the National Book Festival in Washington,
DC. It has been circulating out there on the internet since October, 2005. Alas.
[T]he prospect of a festival of books seemed wonderful to me. I thought
of the opportunity to talk about how to start up an outreach program. I
thought of the chance to sell some books, sign some books and meet some of the
citizens of Washington, DC. I thought that I could try to find a way,
even as your guest, with respect, to speak about my deep feeling that we
should not have invaded Iraq, and to declare my belief that the wish to
invade another culture and another country--with the resultant loss of
life and limb for our brave soldiers, and for the noncombatants in their
home terrain--did not come out of our democracy but was instead a
decision made "at the top" and forced on the people by distorted
language, and by untruths. I hoped to express the fear that we have
begun to live in the shadows of tyranny and religious chauvinism--the
opposites of the liberty, tolerance and diversity our nation aspires to.
I tried to see my way clear to attend the festival in order to bear
witness -- as an American who loves her country and its principles and its
writing -- against this undeclared and devastating war.
But I could not face the idea of breaking bread with you. I knew that if
I sat down to eat with you, it would feel to me as if I were condoning
what I see to be the wild, highhanded actions of the Bush Administration.
What kept coming to the fore of my mind was that I would be taking food
from the hand of the First Lady who represents the Administration that
unleashed this war and that wills its continuation, even to the extent of
permitting "extraordinary rendition": flying people to other countries
where they will be tortured for us. So many Americans who had felt pride in our country
now feel anguish and shame, for the current regime of blood, wounds and
fire. I thought of the clean linens at your table, the shining knives and the
flames of the candles, and I could not stomach it.
Sincerely,
SHARON OLDS
Monday, July 16, 2007
A Cow's Life
At my cousin Doug Leman's farm, the dairy cows live row on row in a huge barn. Eight hundred ladies in various stages of lactation and lactational readiness. For a few weeks before giving birth, they go dry and are moved to another location where they are put out to pasture. But mostly they live in a giant barn.
You might think this would be unpleasant for the cow, being cooped up all day. But you'd be wrong. An unhappy cow does not give milk. The converse is also true: if she's giving milk, she must be happy. These ladies give milk, so they must be happy.
So sensitive are the cows that if you kick one or yell at her, there is a measurable decline in her production. You can keep track of who is who by means of the microchip each carries in her ear. The pampering continues in the special nutritionist who monitors the bovine diet. Nothing but the best silage, hay, and grain on the menu.
This sensitivity to adversity is astonishing. It is well-known in the dairy industry that electric fields impair milk production. Presumably because they make the cows feel crappy. Special consultants will come to your dairy and tell you that this machinery must be moved, or that that heating coil--which thaws the drinking water in wintertime--must go. The farmers comply, you may be sure.
Considering the hemming and hawing over the effects of electric fields on humans, and the inconclusive studies that have come out, you'd think this would merit some notice. Here are animals kept under uniform conditions, and a recognized deleterious effect to EMF exposure. If cows get to be shielded from electric fields...why not the rest of us sentient mammals?
You might think this would be unpleasant for the cow, being cooped up all day. But you'd be wrong. An unhappy cow does not give milk. The converse is also true: if she's giving milk, she must be happy. These ladies give milk, so they must be happy.
So sensitive are the cows that if you kick one or yell at her, there is a measurable decline in her production. You can keep track of who is who by means of the microchip each carries in her ear. The pampering continues in the special nutritionist who monitors the bovine diet. Nothing but the best silage, hay, and grain on the menu.
This sensitivity to adversity is astonishing. It is well-known in the dairy industry that electric fields impair milk production. Presumably because they make the cows feel crappy. Special consultants will come to your dairy and tell you that this machinery must be moved, or that that heating coil--which thaws the drinking water in wintertime--must go. The farmers comply, you may be sure.
Considering the hemming and hawing over the effects of electric fields on humans, and the inconclusive studies that have come out, you'd think this would merit some notice. Here are animals kept under uniform conditions, and a recognized deleterious effect to EMF exposure. If cows get to be shielded from electric fields...why not the rest of us sentient mammals?
Sunday, July 08, 2007
You Have One Wish...
In Japantown today, there were wishing trees for the Tanabata festival. At one point in the lunar calendar, the stars Rigel and Vega come near one another in the sky. The Japanese imagine that these are lovers being reunited. It's a very sweet summer holiday. A good time for invoking a certain celestial tenderness into one's own life.
People had written wishes in English, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish. Ninety percent of the ones I could read were for money ("OKANE!"). Five percent were for perpetual togetherness with a girlfriend, boyfriend or pet (too bad all things are marked by impermanence). The other five percent were for someone else's well-being, or for family togetherness. Those gave me a feeling like having found a gift.
As I looked at the trees, I knew what my deepest wish was. Not to become Buddha. Not, specifically, to free beings from suffering, or to serve the world in some way. Just to have a long and happy life with the man I'm going to marry. I think that does actually include sila, samadhi, and prajna. It includes someone else's well-being, and family togetherness. And I'm OK with that.
People had written wishes in English, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish. Ninety percent of the ones I could read were for money ("OKANE!"). Five percent were for perpetual togetherness with a girlfriend, boyfriend or pet (too bad all things are marked by impermanence). The other five percent were for someone else's well-being, or for family togetherness. Those gave me a feeling like having found a gift.
As I looked at the trees, I knew what my deepest wish was. Not to become Buddha. Not, specifically, to free beings from suffering, or to serve the world in some way. Just to have a long and happy life with the man I'm going to marry. I think that does actually include sila, samadhi, and prajna. It includes someone else's well-being, and family togetherness. And I'm OK with that.
Existence/SF
I will be in training for three weeks at SF Zen Center.
There are many old friends here--and many familiar faces I've met elsewhere--all gathered to ask a question about the essence of Dharma apart from cultural and sectarian convention. If the Buddhadharma isn't the robes or the bowing; if following the Buddha Way can be accomplished by any number of practices, of which seated meditation is but one; if the Dharma is not a thing that resided in India or China--then WHAT IS IT?
I don't know, but Paul Haller feels studying the Sandokai and meeting teachers from a variety of Buddhist sects will help us tease through the puzzle. So I'm game.
I had thought it would be nice to get out and about. I lived in San Francisco for seven years, and I used to live in this neighborhood. It was a different life then: I had a biochemist boyfriend; I lived in a moldy old house; I was presumed to be a geneticist.
I was tied to the elements of my life in ways both wholesome and otherwise. Mostly, I liked my entanglements. I was my entanglements: relationships engender identity. So I was that person once. Just being back in San Francisco, some feeling of being the old Self is revived. I realize I visit this place, and other places I have been tied to, in an attempt to reconcile Then with Now. In an attempt to find out who I was, and what I am. If I am not a PhD student, and and my true self is not a scientist; if my ideas and concepts about myself can change so radically--WHAT AM I? Who is this walking down the street? What is this remembering? Where does it come from?
When I walk down the streets of what, four eon-years ago, was my neighborhood, I can barely see anything, because everything is so familiar. It's grimy, it's Victorian, it's chaotic. In the coffeeshop, on the streetcorner, on the steps of houses, the people are all different, but they're the same. Same personalities, with different faces.
Along the projects, two emaciated black women with headscarves are sitting in the sunshine. As I pass, I bid them a neutral, but cordial, good-day. They return the greeting, and I hear one say to the other, "That was real polite."
In the Walgreens, the lady at the checkout has nappy bleached-orange hair. I ask her how she's doing today. "Blessed and delivered," she says. "Blessed and delivered."
Aren't we all?
I went out to a café in the evening, thinking it would be enjoyable. It wasn't, really. Maybe I would have been restless anywhere, but it didn't feel right. I wanted to be back at the Center rather drinking bad tea in a room full of people pretending to ignore each other. It was dark and cold and windy. San Francisco summertime.
It was late, and wakeup was at 6am. Trudging up Church Street, I saw a pair of legs that left me breathless. They belonged to a gargantuan homeless man steering a bicycle laden with bulging sacks. There must have been twenty bags hanging off the handlebars, the top tube, the racks. He wore a massive backpack and cutoff pants. In the middle of each calf, grimy bandages peeled away from a pair of bloody wounds. Symmetrical black mouths. Filthy. How does that happen? It was too much. But it is his life--and the merest corner of my life.
I walked quickly, and took the Jizo Shingon as my mantra, for this strange man, and all who travel through this realm.
OM KA KA KABI SAN MA E SOWA KA
It was more of a question. How do we come to fear others? And how are we connected with them anyway? "Emaciated black women" equals crack, or AIDS. "Filthy bleeding man" means danger. This story might be true or it might not. If it is true, are we are Blessed and Delivered, regardless? Even on crack? With AIDS? When abused and brutalized?
Perhaps the question is not whether life is sacred, in all its decay and defilement, but how.
There are many old friends here--and many familiar faces I've met elsewhere--all gathered to ask a question about the essence of Dharma apart from cultural and sectarian convention. If the Buddhadharma isn't the robes or the bowing; if following the Buddha Way can be accomplished by any number of practices, of which seated meditation is but one; if the Dharma is not a thing that resided in India or China--then WHAT IS IT?
I don't know, but Paul Haller feels studying the Sandokai and meeting teachers from a variety of Buddhist sects will help us tease through the puzzle. So I'm game.
Each of the myriad things has its merit,
expressed according to function and place.
I had thought it would be nice to get out and about. I lived in San Francisco for seven years, and I used to live in this neighborhood. It was a different life then: I had a biochemist boyfriend; I lived in a moldy old house; I was presumed to be a geneticist.
I was tied to the elements of my life in ways both wholesome and otherwise. Mostly, I liked my entanglements. I was my entanglements: relationships engender identity. So I was that person once. Just being back in San Francisco, some feeling of being the old Self is revived. I realize I visit this place, and other places I have been tied to, in an attempt to reconcile Then with Now. In an attempt to find out who I was, and what I am. If I am not a PhD student, and and my true self is not a scientist; if my ideas and concepts about myself can change so radically--WHAT AM I? Who is this walking down the street? What is this remembering? Where does it come from?
When I walk down the streets of what, four eon-years ago, was my neighborhood, I can barely see anything, because everything is so familiar. It's grimy, it's Victorian, it's chaotic. In the coffeeshop, on the streetcorner, on the steps of houses, the people are all different, but they're the same. Same personalities, with different faces.
Along the projects, two emaciated black women with headscarves are sitting in the sunshine. As I pass, I bid them a neutral, but cordial, good-day. They return the greeting, and I hear one say to the other, "That was real polite."
In the Walgreens, the lady at the checkout has nappy bleached-orange hair. I ask her how she's doing today. "Blessed and delivered," she says. "Blessed and delivered."
Aren't we all?
I went out to a café in the evening, thinking it would be enjoyable. It wasn't, really. Maybe I would have been restless anywhere, but it didn't feel right. I wanted to be back at the Center rather drinking bad tea in a room full of people pretending to ignore each other. It was dark and cold and windy. San Francisco summertime.
It was late, and wakeup was at 6am. Trudging up Church Street, I saw a pair of legs that left me breathless. They belonged to a gargantuan homeless man steering a bicycle laden with bulging sacks. There must have been twenty bags hanging off the handlebars, the top tube, the racks. He wore a massive backpack and cutoff pants. In the middle of each calf, grimy bandages peeled away from a pair of bloody wounds. Symmetrical black mouths. Filthy. How does that happen? It was too much. But it is his life--and the merest corner of my life.
I walked quickly, and took the Jizo Shingon as my mantra, for this strange man, and all who travel through this realm.
OM KA KA KABI SAN MA E SOWA KA
It was more of a question. How do we come to fear others? And how are we connected with them anyway? "Emaciated black women" equals crack, or AIDS. "Filthy bleeding man" means danger. This story might be true or it might not. If it is true, are we are Blessed and Delivered, regardless? Even on crack? With AIDS? When abused and brutalized?
Perhaps the question is not whether life is sacred, in all its decay and defilement, but how.
Saturday, July 07, 2007
Praying 4 U
I'll confess: I have been angry, and thought way too much about, the few individuals who have done me harm in this relatively painless life. It was pointed out to me the other day that perhaps a person of the Dharma would pray for those who have intentionally and selfishily harmed one; perhaps a person of the Dharma would urgently hope that these beings be spared the nasty karma that results from behaving nastily.
Me? That? Well, 'tis the point exactly. Forgiveness is beautiful concept, until it is belatedly understood as an option.
Me? That? Well, 'tis the point exactly. Forgiveness is beautiful concept, until it is belatedly understood as an option.
Friday, July 06, 2007
Adventures In Reality Part 2
I hadn't been to Indiana in a while (19 years), and my grandpa's health isn't so great. I told B I wanted to visit but didn't think it could work out. B thought otherwise, and somehow he made it happen.
So, after a weeklong meditation retreat where time slowed to an invisible pace, I whisked myself to Indiana, drove through the countryside with my man, and delivered myself to a pair of happy grandparents.
They immediately took us around to share us with my mom's aunts and uncles, all of whom live in beautiful little houses about 50 feet apart. I am wearing my clothes from the retreat, I have had almost no sleep, and I am happy.
There is a meeting of cultures at work in these photos. You can't see the photographer, but he's part of the interchange.
So, after a weeklong meditation retreat where time slowed to an invisible pace, I whisked myself to Indiana, drove through the countryside with my man, and delivered myself to a pair of happy grandparents.
They immediately took us around to share us with my mom's aunts and uncles, all of whom live in beautiful little houses about 50 feet apart. I am wearing my clothes from the retreat, I have had almost no sleep, and I am happy.
There is a meeting of cultures at work in these photos. You can't see the photographer, but he's part of the interchange.
Adventures In Reality Part I
We are buying a flat.
I never thought that would happen.
I told B I would be happy there regardless. But the bathroom tile could be improved.
I never thought that would happen.
I told B I would be happy there regardless. But the bathroom tile could be improved.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Agreeing to be Transformed. Yet again.
The world of sesshin is as different from this one as Childhood is from Today.
When I return to the monastery, my body will fall into its old habits and associations, some of which actually promote harmony and stability of mind. The place is familiar, but there is always some new novelty. In the past, novelty was most unwelcome: why, oh, why, must we now use this mallet to strike the densho bell? How in hell did they come up with the idea of removing all the towels from the guest area?
With time and distance—and the illusion of safety in my life—there has developed some measure of curiosity and generosity in the face of change. Last time, for example, I paid special attention to my least-favorite activity, meal washup. Normally, the glut of clueless anxious neophytes being inefficient in the kitchen would get me going, and the worst aspects of mind wold flare up in those precious minutes before the post meal break—a break that wasn’t happening, because here we would be, dealing with somebody trying to mop the floor before having swept it, or some such.
But last time, as a person with a home of her own and a decent paycheck to go home to, I considered the fact that meal washup is an event of finite length. The fact that, regardless of how painful it may seem, meal washup will eventually be over. The fact that, no matter how irritating others’ behavior is, it must be far more painful to be them than to merely witness their befuddlement. The fact that, if I am not the one in charge, it is none of my business! how--or if--the person who is in charge, decides to be in charge. I can go, and try to do some good for twenty minutes, and be done when we’re done.
Having a home of one’s own, and a decent paycheck to go home to, seems to promote this sense of perspective. When I lived at the monastery, and had nothing, and no sense of a safety net, every little stressor felt like a survival issue. I was not as well-liked as others, I thought. I had no family to retreat to if things did go sour. There was no backup plan. And yet, stressed as I was my time there could only be temporary. I was flinching before the stick came down. I was flinching, even though there was no stick.
That flinching was itself the problem: the way to stay at a place is simply not to leave. But it was right that I did go. Or maybe leaving was just what I did next. You have to leave before you can come back. And coming back is quite OK.
Although the world of sesshin is distinct from the world of bathroom tile choices, and miles away from the realm friends who drink wine and tell stories until late, there is a certain smearing that happens, consciousness-wise. Sesshin does not take place within normal time and space. (This is just as well, since in the conventional world I seem to be sleeping ten hours a night--not exactly monastic.) The retreat is out there, like a sound on the horizon. As early as last week, I felt it: a thinning of this life, a sense of that-which-shines-behind-everything.
Last night, we went for a walk as night was falling, and I just couldn’t. Couldn’t go uphill, couldn’t go in a particular direction. I told B how a friend of mine literally runs a fever on the way to sesshin. He knows to keep going, in spite of the urge turn around and drive home. I’ll be alright, I said. I just need to be distracted. So we found a coffee shop and worked on my favorite procrastinated task, overdue taxes, instead.
But B was a little worried. I used to do this every month, I told him. It came to be like a break from the regular schedule, since we had to work less, and nobody could bother me. I could just sit, and not have to be anyone, for a week.
Sesshin seems crazy if you haven’t done it. Especially sesshin with no eating after noon. Some of us look forward to that as a macho challenge. Some of us, meaning this person who has, at various times, thought it normal to throw bales of hay around, kill animales, walk barefoot on gravel and dung, ride her bike in ridiculous danger, discuss science with Nobel laureates, and live without electricity. There were winters when I had no proper coat, and long stretches of time, past and recent, when I owned one pair of disintegrating shoes. I have found myself far afield from consensus notions of reality and selfhood more than once. None of that was a problem at the time—and it makes for some good stories—but none of those adventures would come easily now.
So I’ll go off and sit for a week. If you go into it thinking you own it, you’re going to get smashed by it. But: curious, generous, knowing it will end? You’ll come out OK, even if you’re not the same person who went in.
When I return to the monastery, my body will fall into its old habits and associations, some of which actually promote harmony and stability of mind. The place is familiar, but there is always some new novelty. In the past, novelty was most unwelcome: why, oh, why, must we now use this mallet to strike the densho bell? How in hell did they come up with the idea of removing all the towels from the guest area?
With time and distance—and the illusion of safety in my life—there has developed some measure of curiosity and generosity in the face of change. Last time, for example, I paid special attention to my least-favorite activity, meal washup. Normally, the glut of clueless anxious neophytes being inefficient in the kitchen would get me going, and the worst aspects of mind wold flare up in those precious minutes before the post meal break—a break that wasn’t happening, because here we would be, dealing with somebody trying to mop the floor before having swept it, or some such.
But last time, as a person with a home of her own and a decent paycheck to go home to, I considered the fact that meal washup is an event of finite length. The fact that, regardless of how painful it may seem, meal washup will eventually be over. The fact that, no matter how irritating others’ behavior is, it must be far more painful to be them than to merely witness their befuddlement. The fact that, if I am not the one in charge, it is none of my business! how--or if--the person who is in charge, decides to be in charge. I can go, and try to do some good for twenty minutes, and be done when we’re done.
Having a home of one’s own, and a decent paycheck to go home to, seems to promote this sense of perspective. When I lived at the monastery, and had nothing, and no sense of a safety net, every little stressor felt like a survival issue. I was not as well-liked as others, I thought. I had no family to retreat to if things did go sour. There was no backup plan. And yet, stressed as I was my time there could only be temporary. I was flinching before the stick came down. I was flinching, even though there was no stick.
That flinching was itself the problem: the way to stay at a place is simply not to leave. But it was right that I did go. Or maybe leaving was just what I did next. You have to leave before you can come back. And coming back is quite OK.
Although the world of sesshin is distinct from the world of bathroom tile choices, and miles away from the realm friends who drink wine and tell stories until late, there is a certain smearing that happens, consciousness-wise. Sesshin does not take place within normal time and space. (This is just as well, since in the conventional world I seem to be sleeping ten hours a night--not exactly monastic.) The retreat is out there, like a sound on the horizon. As early as last week, I felt it: a thinning of this life, a sense of that-which-shines-behind-everything.
Last night, we went for a walk as night was falling, and I just couldn’t. Couldn’t go uphill, couldn’t go in a particular direction. I told B how a friend of mine literally runs a fever on the way to sesshin. He knows to keep going, in spite of the urge turn around and drive home. I’ll be alright, I said. I just need to be distracted. So we found a coffee shop and worked on my favorite procrastinated task, overdue taxes, instead.
But B was a little worried. I used to do this every month, I told him. It came to be like a break from the regular schedule, since we had to work less, and nobody could bother me. I could just sit, and not have to be anyone, for a week.
Sesshin seems crazy if you haven’t done it. Especially sesshin with no eating after noon. Some of us look forward to that as a macho challenge. Some of us, meaning this person who has, at various times, thought it normal to throw bales of hay around, kill animales, walk barefoot on gravel and dung, ride her bike in ridiculous danger, discuss science with Nobel laureates, and live without electricity. There were winters when I had no proper coat, and long stretches of time, past and recent, when I owned one pair of disintegrating shoes. I have found myself far afield from consensus notions of reality and selfhood more than once. None of that was a problem at the time—and it makes for some good stories—but none of those adventures would come easily now.
So I’ll go off and sit for a week. If you go into it thinking you own it, you’re going to get smashed by it. But: curious, generous, knowing it will end? You’ll come out OK, even if you’re not the same person who went in.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
A Birth-Control Moment at Three Lions
It's a bright day in Northwest Portland. As I walk to the coffeeshop, sights and sounds slip by. Everything seems as it should be, unremarkable and good-humored. Ahead of me, a man is bent over, reaching into a newspaper box. Instead of a newspaper, he pulls out a little boy.
It takes a moment to register, but now I am paying attention. The man is in his early twenties, with large eyes and a full beard. One of your modern hippies, maybe. The boy is around five years old, and he is being propelled quite forcibly--and silently--toward the coffeeshop that is also my destination.
Inside, a young woman is hunched over a computer. The man joins her, and the boy begins running around the coffeeshop, interacting with the chairs, going into the bathroom, chattering constantly. The couple are examining the computer screen with great care.
"Dad, will you go outside with me?" The screen continues to fascinate.
The mother takes him to the bathroom, and leaves him there to do whatever little boys do. The parents scowl at their laptop, and all is silent until someone's phone rings.
It takes a moment to register, but now I am paying attention. The man is in his early twenties, with large eyes and a full beard. One of your modern hippies, maybe. The boy is around five years old, and he is being propelled quite forcibly--and silently--toward the coffeeshop that is also my destination.
Inside, a young woman is hunched over a computer. The man joins her, and the boy begins running around the coffeeshop, interacting with the chairs, going into the bathroom, chattering constantly. The couple are examining the computer screen with great care.
"Dad, will you go outside with me?" The screen continues to fascinate.
The mother takes him to the bathroom, and leaves him there to do whatever little boys do. The parents scowl at their laptop, and all is silent until someone's phone rings.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Phone Call from Central Asia
My father calls. It is 11pm in Baku, Azerbaijan, and 11am in Portland, Oregon. We are literally a world apart, but we talk anyway about our lives and various administrative tidbits. He tells me he's in a park, sitting on a bench in the darkness.
Is that safe?
Probably not, but he'll be OK.
He says he goes for weeks without speaking English. When I was growing up, my dad's command of language always seemed comically optimistic. He had no compunction about foisting his fractured Spanish on anyone at all. You can imagine my embarrassment, but the reality was even more excruciating. I took Spanish quite seriously. I took everything more seriously then. I conjugated verbs and considered the subjunctive. My father was trapped in present tense, to the extent that he could utilitize even that. Still, I wonder now if I inherited some language talent from him.
Now father's lingua franca is Russian. Since leaving the US 10 years ago, the place he's worked--Estonia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Azerbaijan--have all been countries hoping to join Europe after decades of Soviet influence. Almost everybody understands Russian, even if they don't want to. Since my dad is obviously not a native speaker, people are willing to lay resentment aside and answer him. Someone complimented his Russian the other day and he told them, "Oh, no, I sound a lot better than I am."
It’s true, his accent is so good that you could imagine he knows something about Russian. Even I can tell that it comes to him easily. Not like Spanish.
Everywhere my dad goes, he seems to get along well. In Baku, it was the same story. After about three minutes he finds himself having a drink and laughing and getting to know people. There is a language barrier, but it doesn’t seem to bother anyone.
One time he went on holiday to Egypt and came back saying he hadn’t been kissed so much since he was a little boy in Winamac, Indiana. Presumably, being Egypt, he made all these friends without even drinking.
The next port of call for my father may be Kyrgyzstan. The first challenge, I think, is learning to spell the name of this country. I find it goes easier if you insert the letter "y" in every conceivable location.
The next thing to do when heading to Kyrgyzstan is to see what Lonely Planet has to say. I think my dad will fit in just fine in a place with "a healthy distrust of authority and a fondness for drinking fermented mare's milk."
The distrust of authority part is self-evident: my dad is an itinerant globe-trotting IT consultant who takes no crap from no- one. And he already knows plenty about mares and milk.
A lifetime ago, when we lived on a farm, my dad milked goats by hand; and later, he hooked up our Jersey cow to an old vacuum milker. He engaged in tests of will with at least two mares, and took no crap from them, either. So he’ll fit in great with the Kyrgyzis: he can probably already discuss mares and milk, in Russian--after a fashion.
It’ll be great: the Kyrgyzis can put him in a yurt and he can design a database or two for their government. Sounds like a good sort of exchange.
Our conversation is interrupted then, and my father takes a call on another phone.
In the silence, I hear women's voices in the darkened park speaking words I do not understand. Somewhere in the world, it is night, and somewhere people live an ordinary reality I cannot imagine, expressed as a language I cannot grasp.
Somewhere, in a city on the Caspian Sea, my father will happily talk to anyone in any language he can dredge up. He sounds better than he is, and his secret is that he doesn't let that stop him.
Is that safe?
Probably not, but he'll be OK.
He says he goes for weeks without speaking English. When I was growing up, my dad's command of language always seemed comically optimistic. He had no compunction about foisting his fractured Spanish on anyone at all. You can imagine my embarrassment, but the reality was even more excruciating. I took Spanish quite seriously. I took everything more seriously then. I conjugated verbs and considered the subjunctive. My father was trapped in present tense, to the extent that he could utilitize even that. Still, I wonder now if I inherited some language talent from him.
Now father's lingua franca is Russian. Since leaving the US 10 years ago, the place he's worked--Estonia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Azerbaijan--have all been countries hoping to join Europe after decades of Soviet influence. Almost everybody understands Russian, even if they don't want to. Since my dad is obviously not a native speaker, people are willing to lay resentment aside and answer him. Someone complimented his Russian the other day and he told them, "Oh, no, I sound a lot better than I am."
It’s true, his accent is so good that you could imagine he knows something about Russian. Even I can tell that it comes to him easily. Not like Spanish.
Everywhere my dad goes, he seems to get along well. In Baku, it was the same story. After about three minutes he finds himself having a drink and laughing and getting to know people. There is a language barrier, but it doesn’t seem to bother anyone.
One time he went on holiday to Egypt and came back saying he hadn’t been kissed so much since he was a little boy in Winamac, Indiana. Presumably, being Egypt, he made all these friends without even drinking.
The next port of call for my father may be Kyrgyzstan. The first challenge, I think, is learning to spell the name of this country. I find it goes easier if you insert the letter "y" in every conceivable location.
The next thing to do when heading to Kyrgyzstan is to see what Lonely Planet has to say. I think my dad will fit in just fine in a place with "a healthy distrust of authority and a fondness for drinking fermented mare's milk."
The distrust of authority part is self-evident: my dad is an itinerant globe-trotting IT consultant who takes no crap from no- one. And he already knows plenty about mares and milk.
A lifetime ago, when we lived on a farm, my dad milked goats by hand; and later, he hooked up our Jersey cow to an old vacuum milker. He engaged in tests of will with at least two mares, and took no crap from them, either. So he’ll fit in great with the Kyrgyzis: he can probably already discuss mares and milk, in Russian--after a fashion.
It’ll be great: the Kyrgyzis can put him in a yurt and he can design a database or two for their government. Sounds like a good sort of exchange.
Our conversation is interrupted then, and my father takes a call on another phone.
In the silence, I hear women's voices in the darkened park speaking words I do not understand. Somewhere in the world, it is night, and somewhere people live an ordinary reality I cannot imagine, expressed as a language I cannot grasp.
Somewhere, in a city on the Caspian Sea, my father will happily talk to anyone in any language he can dredge up. He sounds better than he is, and his secret is that he doesn't let that stop him.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Awhirl
I said, "Sweetie, what are we going to do this weekend?"
Maybe see the sunrise on a mountain.
Maybe see the sunrise on a mountain.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Heedlessness vs Engagement
On the wall in my kitchen, just above the little folding table where I eat my breakfast, there is post-it note that says “heedlessness,” with a line through it. A few inches away is a prayer plaque from a Japanese temple, depicting Bodaidaruma.
Bodhidharma was a hundred years old when he made the sea voyage from India to China. The winds opposed him. The dharma he taught concerned the importance your true nature. Not falling for illusion or ideas, but systematically and exhaustively investigating the self as it truly is. To make this point, Bodhidharma sat in a cave meditating for nine years, and accepted as his first disciple an experienced meditator who was nevertheless willing to sacrifice his own arm for the key to freedom.
For a long time I thought that freedom, in the spiritual sense, meant that one had cultivated the mind so extensively that one no longer needed to calculate what effect an action might have. The advanced teachers I’d met, and myself on a good day at the monastery, moved and acted with a unselfconscious ease, like flowing water. It seemed they did not know what they were doing until they did it. Their answers were always profound, and they met all of life with a light touch.
One day, fresh out of sesshin, with an expansive mind and a ready tongue, holding forethought to be anathema and impulsiveness a virtue, I found the limits of this easy-flowing freedom. A friend and I were perhaps too intoxicated with our own cleverness, and one another’s cleverness, and we carried on a conversation that caused harm to others. There was trouble--not a lot, but more than enough.
Working my way out of that steaming pile o’ karma, I was confronted by the question of how a person acting from a free and unencumbered place can possibly do harm. I hadn’t been harboring any explicit malice in my heart; but I had been a jerk anyway . And others had been hurt by my actions. The answer seemed to be something like the resolution of the koan of Baizhang’s Fox: an Enlightened Being is aware of cause and effect. (The link is worth a click.) No matter how high you might be flying, ignoring the consequences of volitional actions turns you into a low, slinking creature--the fox of Japanese folklore--bound to inquire endlessly into just how this outcome came to be.
Three weeks ago today, I met an old friend for sushi at a restaurant in my neighborhood. Bun and I had gone to high school together, and although we weren’t close, we had all the same friends in common. I last saw him a few years ago at one of those friends’ weddings, and I don’t have any memory of him, really. Except that we later went for a walk on the beach in San Diego, and had a good chat together.
When I look now at the group photo from the wedding reception, I see that Bun’s gaze is direct and true. Now, I recognize it, but at the time what stuck in my mind was the incredible abundance of delicious food at the reception.
After about five minutes at the sushi restaurant, Bun had invited me to go with him to the country of his birth, which he left as a tiny child. I accepted instantly--perhaps heedlessly, who knows?-- and came home that night smitten.
I have come to enjoy being single, finally, after so many cycles of heartbreak and disillusion--many purely imaginary, but some all too real.
(Like so many with a taste for dharma, I see disillusion as a good thing: incorrect ideas drop away, fantasies are punctured, the harsh medicine of reality releases the bondage of grasping. But it’s been hard. It hurts. It’s supposed to hurt. In fact, what hurts, hurts because it is delusional.)
But here was Bun, eminently qualified in every external way to be the man for me. And truly a man: grounded; knowing himself in an important way; having found some understanding, in spite of never having sat with Bodhidharma. This deeply noble and generous person was lit up from the inside. I was lit up from the inside, too! After our next outing, he held my hand and told me how much I meant to him. The next time, he kissed me and told me he loved me. Since then, we haven’t spent much time apart.
In my diary I wrote, “I didn’t think people like Bun existed anymore.” If I had known... what learning experiences I would have missed--or perhaps become have become embroiled in anyway. But so it is. This.
Normally, I am the outgoing and impulsive one. I find myself in a Zen monastery. I find myself not in a Zen monastery. Then, I find myself in Portland, working hard. I am keeping commitments, making some money, taking a job for next year that will require my effort and skill five days a week. Some maturation may be happening. By contrast: Bun, who has worked for the same technology company for nine years, patiently and earnestly doing some good inside the bowels of the behemoth. Not particularly interested in dating--certainly not in dating just for its own sake. But he knew, when he met me. And he acted.
I look at the “no heedlessness” sign. I have known this person for twenty years, and although I never really saw him until last month, an understanding and a trust arises from that history together. I look carefully at the outcome I am headed for: buying a place together, getting married, and the valuation is positive. Beneficial. As though there is some inkling of a deep spiritual bond already present, which is being reenacted in the surface world in a manner that is at once natural, inexorable and full of delight.
Having sat it silence, it is time to move, to take up the heart’s desire and step into the future. To pay attention to the pull of karma. Not heedless, but engaged.
Bodhidharma was a hundred years old when he made the sea voyage from India to China. The winds opposed him. The dharma he taught concerned the importance your true nature. Not falling for illusion or ideas, but systematically and exhaustively investigating the self as it truly is. To make this point, Bodhidharma sat in a cave meditating for nine years, and accepted as his first disciple an experienced meditator who was nevertheless willing to sacrifice his own arm for the key to freedom.
For a long time I thought that freedom, in the spiritual sense, meant that one had cultivated the mind so extensively that one no longer needed to calculate what effect an action might have. The advanced teachers I’d met, and myself on a good day at the monastery, moved and acted with a unselfconscious ease, like flowing water. It seemed they did not know what they were doing until they did it. Their answers were always profound, and they met all of life with a light touch.
One day, fresh out of sesshin, with an expansive mind and a ready tongue, holding forethought to be anathema and impulsiveness a virtue, I found the limits of this easy-flowing freedom. A friend and I were perhaps too intoxicated with our own cleverness, and one another’s cleverness, and we carried on a conversation that caused harm to others. There was trouble--not a lot, but more than enough.
Working my way out of that steaming pile o’ karma, I was confronted by the question of how a person acting from a free and unencumbered place can possibly do harm. I hadn’t been harboring any explicit malice in my heart; but I had been a jerk anyway . And others had been hurt by my actions. The answer seemed to be something like the resolution of the koan of Baizhang’s Fox: an Enlightened Being is aware of cause and effect. (The link is worth a click.) No matter how high you might be flying, ignoring the consequences of volitional actions turns you into a low, slinking creature--the fox of Japanese folklore--bound to inquire endlessly into just how this outcome came to be.
Three weeks ago today, I met an old friend for sushi at a restaurant in my neighborhood. Bun and I had gone to high school together, and although we weren’t close, we had all the same friends in common. I last saw him a few years ago at one of those friends’ weddings, and I don’t have any memory of him, really. Except that we later went for a walk on the beach in San Diego, and had a good chat together.
When I look now at the group photo from the wedding reception, I see that Bun’s gaze is direct and true. Now, I recognize it, but at the time what stuck in my mind was the incredible abundance of delicious food at the reception.
After about five minutes at the sushi restaurant, Bun had invited me to go with him to the country of his birth, which he left as a tiny child. I accepted instantly--perhaps heedlessly, who knows?-- and came home that night smitten.
I have come to enjoy being single, finally, after so many cycles of heartbreak and disillusion--many purely imaginary, but some all too real.
(Like so many with a taste for dharma, I see disillusion as a good thing: incorrect ideas drop away, fantasies are punctured, the harsh medicine of reality releases the bondage of grasping. But it’s been hard. It hurts. It’s supposed to hurt. In fact, what hurts, hurts because it is delusional.)
But here was Bun, eminently qualified in every external way to be the man for me. And truly a man: grounded; knowing himself in an important way; having found some understanding, in spite of never having sat with Bodhidharma. This deeply noble and generous person was lit up from the inside. I was lit up from the inside, too! After our next outing, he held my hand and told me how much I meant to him. The next time, he kissed me and told me he loved me. Since then, we haven’t spent much time apart.
In my diary I wrote, “I didn’t think people like Bun existed anymore.” If I had known... what learning experiences I would have missed--or perhaps become have become embroiled in anyway. But so it is. This.
Normally, I am the outgoing and impulsive one. I find myself in a Zen monastery. I find myself not in a Zen monastery. Then, I find myself in Portland, working hard. I am keeping commitments, making some money, taking a job for next year that will require my effort and skill five days a week. Some maturation may be happening. By contrast: Bun, who has worked for the same technology company for nine years, patiently and earnestly doing some good inside the bowels of the behemoth. Not particularly interested in dating--certainly not in dating just for its own sake. But he knew, when he met me. And he acted.
I look at the “no heedlessness” sign. I have known this person for twenty years, and although I never really saw him until last month, an understanding and a trust arises from that history together. I look carefully at the outcome I am headed for: buying a place together, getting married, and the valuation is positive. Beneficial. As though there is some inkling of a deep spiritual bond already present, which is being reenacted in the surface world in a manner that is at once natural, inexorable and full of delight.
Having sat it silence, it is time to move, to take up the heart’s desire and step into the future. To pay attention to the pull of karma. Not heedless, but engaged.
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
A Trend Toward Privacy
Dear Friends,
(And especially T-chan, DeShu, and Frobbo)
Yes, I made the blog secret for a day. 21 hours, actually. Not to shut you out, though! I'm fiddling around with the settings, trying to find a way to create some boundaries while still sharing my life with like-minded folk around the world.
The impetus for this is that I will be teaching next year, part-time, at a school that is named elsewhere in this blog. A school where I will be expected to project something like a professional demeanor.
Where I will not be able to tell my students that I am incredibly in love (which I happen to be).
Where I will not be able to buy tasteful and silly nude calendars made by the senior guys as a fundraiser. See, I tried to do this--right around the advent of the job that was abruptly listed, offered and accepted--in blithe ignorance of the obvious fact that purchasing said nudie calendar looks really bad. Mitigating factors do not save you when you're a high-school teacher. We gotta stick with what looks bad, in spite of the fact that I am, for example, not into 18-year-old. Or that I am a fan and family friend of one of the kids. Or that I thought it was hilarious, and I'd like to support the senior class--
--but not in that way. No no no. Deep breath. Accept embarrassment at hands of older and wiser faculty members, and move on.
The point of all this is that it's too easy to type in my given name (or the "Shugetsu" that decorates all my email messages) and end up here. So blog privacy hath arrived. Enjoy it.
Saved
(And especially T-chan, DeShu, and Frobbo)
Yes, I made the blog secret for a day. 21 hours, actually. Not to shut you out, though! I'm fiddling around with the settings, trying to find a way to create some boundaries while still sharing my life with like-minded folk around the world.
The impetus for this is that I will be teaching next year, part-time, at a school that is named elsewhere in this blog. A school where I will be expected to project something like a professional demeanor.
Where I will not be able to tell my students that I am incredibly in love (which I happen to be).
Where I will not be able to buy tasteful and silly nude calendars made by the senior guys as a fundraiser. See, I tried to do this--right around the advent of the job that was abruptly listed, offered and accepted--in blithe ignorance of the obvious fact that purchasing said nudie calendar looks really bad. Mitigating factors do not save you when you're a high-school teacher. We gotta stick with what looks bad, in spite of the fact that I am, for example, not into 18-year-old. Or that I am a fan and family friend of one of the kids. Or that I thought it was hilarious, and I'd like to support the senior class--
--but not in that way. No no no. Deep breath. Accept embarrassment at hands of older and wiser faculty members, and move on.
The point of all this is that it's too easy to type in my given name (or the "Shugetsu" that decorates all my email messages) and end up here. So blog privacy hath arrived. Enjoy it.
Saved
Thursday, May 24, 2007
What Is Buddhism, Anyway?
Thanks be to the Resident for first sharing this article.
Lately I have been wondering: What is the Dharma? If the Dharma is not a "thing," what is it that happens in temples? What is Dharma practice apart from meditation?
I guess I'll get to investigate these questions this summer, when I'll attend a three-week residential intensive at San Francisco Zen Center. It focuses on modes of practice; teachers from other traditions will come to share their practices and perspectives.
Enjoy the article.
Buddhism With a New Mind-Set
Western spiritual seekers who have focused on meditation have fueled a remarkable growth in Buddhist practice in the United States. So what to do if you are part of an ancient Buddhist tradition that is huge in Asia but has failed to catch on in the United States, in part because it has no real place for meditation?
Change the tradition.
That is what the Rev. T. Kenjitsu Nakagaki of the New York Buddhist Church and other leaders of the Buddhist Churches of America, one of the oldest and most established Buddhist movements in the country, are doing.
The 65 temples across the country that make up the church network are part of a school of Buddhism known as Pure Land that is one of the most widespread in the world and was once a thriving part of the Japanese-American community. Over the last few decades, however, the movement has lost two-thirds of its United States members as a result of assimilation and the diminishing numbers of Japanese coming to this country.
Spurred by a new reform-minded bishop, Koshin Ogui, a growing number of the movement's temples have abandoned their traditional lack of interest in meditation and are offering the practice as a way to survive by reaching out to non-Japanese adherents.
In some ways, the story line is familiar. Religious traditions have long adapted to fit changing cultural circumstances. Consider how Hanukkah, a relatively minor holiday on the Jewish religious calendar, has leaped in importance among many Jews in the face of the crush of attention surrounding Christmas in this country. But while Zen and Tibetan Buddhism -- the Buddhist forms that have largely driven the religion's surge among Western practitioners -- focus on meditative practices as a way to achieve enlightenment, Shin Buddhism, the Pure Land school that the Buddhist Churches of America embraces, teaches that meditation is ultimately useless because of the inherent human limitations.
But the Rev. Marvin Harada, of the Orange County Buddhist Church in Anaheim, Calif., who started a Sunday meditation service several years ago, sees an interim use -- to calm the mind so it can receive Buddhist teaching.
''It's really something that's needed in our modern lifestyle,'' he said, because that lifestyle ''is so hectic, so fast-paced, we have a shorter attention span.'' Only by renouncing all self-effort in attaining enlightenment and trusting in what Shin Buddhists call ''Other Power,'' embodied in the form of the Amida Buddha, revered by Shin adherents, can a believer attain birth in the transcendent realm of Pure Land. That is a place -- similar to the Christian concept of heaven -- where nirvana can be achieved.
''Shin Buddhism defines itself as a form of Buddhism that does not rely on meditation,'' said Matthew Weiner, a Buddhism analyst for the Interfaith Center of New York. ''It's not just a stylistic difference. That's why this is so kind of radical, in a sense.''
The growing incorporation of meditation into Shin Buddhism also offers an intriguing study of how white converts, who are actually outnumbered by their Asian immigrant counterparts in the United States but have driven the rising profile of Buddhism here, are reshaping Buddhist practice.
As a minister in Cleveland and Chicago, Bishop Ogui said he began offering meditation several years ago because 60 percent of the people who called his temple were asking about it. Any venture that turns away that many potential customers, he said, is bound to close.
Clergy members ''are supposed to respond to the needs of the people,'' Bishop Ogui said. ''Any program, including meditation, tai chi, yoga, anything which makes people feel comfortable, or willing to step into the temple, should be offered.''
At the New York Buddhist Church, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Mr. Nakagaki has been leading meditation classes and incorporating the practice into his Sunday services for years. On a recent Wednesday evening, for example, Mr. Nakagaki, seated on a mat, led a small group of followers, most of them non-Asian practitioners, in an extended period of sitting quietly and concentrating on breathing
It is a familiar scene to those accustomed to the Buddhism that has come into vogue among white spiritual seekers, many of whom have jettisoned Buddhism's other tenets to focus exclusively on meditation.
Colin Anderson, 47, a regular participant in New York Buddhist Church's class, drops in on meditation centers all over the city.
''I don't see it as a religion,'' he said. ''I see it as more of a science of the mind.''
The concept that is taught at many meditation centers -- that controlling one's mind can lead to better controlling one's actions -- which might lead to being reborn into a better life, makes sense to him.
''You're in control of your own life with your own karma,'' he said.
But that idea directly contradicts what Shinran, the founder of Shin Buddhism, taught some 800 years ago. Shinran came to Pure Land after growing frustrated with meditation and other practices taught by other Buddhist schools. He advocated that believers not pursue any specific practice but instead trust in the Amida Buddha's infinite wisdom and compassion for liberation from the endless cycle of life, death and rebirth.
''Shin is based on entrusting, entrusting in the idea that we as human beings are limited, and we're incapable of cultivating ourselves,'' said the Rev. Fumiaki Usuki of the West Los Angeles Buddhist Church, who described himself as wary of the growing use of meditation among his fellow Buddhist Churches of America ministers.
''Just because we have meditation doesn't mean these people are going to stay,'' he said. ''They're driven by this Hollywood aura of meditation. They're supermarket shopping.''
Nevertheless, on Sundays at the New York Buddhist Church, which is now about 70 percent non-Japanese, Mr. Nakagaki begins services with five to seven minutes of meditation.
The meditative practices are a bridge to usher the curious into a Buddhist tradition that can be difficult to grasp, Mr. Nakagaki said.
''My way of thinking, it is a form of kindness, a form of compassion to help them understand Pure Land Buddhism better,'' he said.
The growing use of meditation has sparked a debate within the Buddhist Churches of America about whether its priests are going too far in catering to the whims of an audience that many Asian Buddhists see as dabblers.
''I am maybe more conservative than some,'' said the Rev. Gregory Gibbs of the Oregon Buddhist Temple, who came to Shin Buddhism after years of Zen practice. ''We don't want to obscure our fundamental teaching.''
The debate has also highlighted fissures among Asian practitioners, who tend to be more traditional, and Western spiritual seekers.
''There's a split between converts and so-called ethnic Buddhists,'' said Jeff Wilson, a contributing editor to Tricycle, a Buddhist magazine, who is working on a doctorate on Buddhism in America at the University of North Carolina and has followed the debate over meditation in Shin Buddhist circles closely. ''The people in the so-called ethnic component tend to think of the converts as very elitist, that they're taking over Buddhism and changing it.''
Shin Buddhist leaders in Japan, worried about doctrinal purity, have also questioned the changes Bishop Ogui is encouraging.
''Whatever people worry about in Japan does not make sense most of the time here,'' Bishop Ogui said. ''In America, we have to understand the American culture, and we have to go along with these unique differences.''
In some ways, Pure Land Buddhism has always been at a disadvantage in this country because its teachings about the Amida Buddha make it appear similar to Christianity. During World War II, Shin Buddhist practitioners also started calling their temples ''churches'' and holding regular Sunday services as a way to appear more Christian in the face of anti-Japanese discrimination. Many Westerners looking for the exotic, or an alternative from their Judeo-Christian upbringing, have gone elsewhere. Now Shin Buddhist leaders are hoping to lure them back.
At the New York Buddhist Church, the meditation classes, along with other changes that Mr. Nakagaki has incorporated, including shaving his head and wearing a robe to look more like monks from other Buddhist branches, appear to have had some effect.
Mr. Nakagaki's congregation has grown to about 50 people on Sundays from fewer than 20 when he first started, a little over a decade ago. But attendance is not his primary concern, he said. He merely wants to bring Buddhism to the American people.
Lately I have been wondering: What is the Dharma? If the Dharma is not a "thing," what is it that happens in temples? What is Dharma practice apart from meditation?
I guess I'll get to investigate these questions this summer, when I'll attend a three-week residential intensive at San Francisco Zen Center. It focuses on modes of practice; teachers from other traditions will come to share their practices and perspectives.
Enjoy the article.
Buddhism With a New Mind-Set
Western spiritual seekers who have focused on meditation have fueled a remarkable growth in Buddhist practice in the United States. So what to do if you are part of an ancient Buddhist tradition that is huge in Asia but has failed to catch on in the United States, in part because it has no real place for meditation?
Change the tradition.
That is what the Rev. T. Kenjitsu Nakagaki of the New York Buddhist Church and other leaders of the Buddhist Churches of America, one of the oldest and most established Buddhist movements in the country, are doing.
The 65 temples across the country that make up the church network are part of a school of Buddhism known as Pure Land that is one of the most widespread in the world and was once a thriving part of the Japanese-American community. Over the last few decades, however, the movement has lost two-thirds of its United States members as a result of assimilation and the diminishing numbers of Japanese coming to this country.
Spurred by a new reform-minded bishop, Koshin Ogui, a growing number of the movement's temples have abandoned their traditional lack of interest in meditation and are offering the practice as a way to survive by reaching out to non-Japanese adherents.
In some ways, the story line is familiar. Religious traditions have long adapted to fit changing cultural circumstances. Consider how Hanukkah, a relatively minor holiday on the Jewish religious calendar, has leaped in importance among many Jews in the face of the crush of attention surrounding Christmas in this country. But while Zen and Tibetan Buddhism -- the Buddhist forms that have largely driven the religion's surge among Western practitioners -- focus on meditative practices as a way to achieve enlightenment, Shin Buddhism, the Pure Land school that the Buddhist Churches of America embraces, teaches that meditation is ultimately useless because of the inherent human limitations.
But the Rev. Marvin Harada, of the Orange County Buddhist Church in Anaheim, Calif., who started a Sunday meditation service several years ago, sees an interim use -- to calm the mind so it can receive Buddhist teaching.
''It's really something that's needed in our modern lifestyle,'' he said, because that lifestyle ''is so hectic, so fast-paced, we have a shorter attention span.'' Only by renouncing all self-effort in attaining enlightenment and trusting in what Shin Buddhists call ''Other Power,'' embodied in the form of the Amida Buddha, revered by Shin adherents, can a believer attain birth in the transcendent realm of Pure Land. That is a place -- similar to the Christian concept of heaven -- where nirvana can be achieved.
''Shin Buddhism defines itself as a form of Buddhism that does not rely on meditation,'' said Matthew Weiner, a Buddhism analyst for the Interfaith Center of New York. ''It's not just a stylistic difference. That's why this is so kind of radical, in a sense.''
The growing incorporation of meditation into Shin Buddhism also offers an intriguing study of how white converts, who are actually outnumbered by their Asian immigrant counterparts in the United States but have driven the rising profile of Buddhism here, are reshaping Buddhist practice.
As a minister in Cleveland and Chicago, Bishop Ogui said he began offering meditation several years ago because 60 percent of the people who called his temple were asking about it. Any venture that turns away that many potential customers, he said, is bound to close.
Clergy members ''are supposed to respond to the needs of the people,'' Bishop Ogui said. ''Any program, including meditation, tai chi, yoga, anything which makes people feel comfortable, or willing to step into the temple, should be offered.''
At the New York Buddhist Church, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Mr. Nakagaki has been leading meditation classes and incorporating the practice into his Sunday services for years. On a recent Wednesday evening, for example, Mr. Nakagaki, seated on a mat, led a small group of followers, most of them non-Asian practitioners, in an extended period of sitting quietly and concentrating on breathing
It is a familiar scene to those accustomed to the Buddhism that has come into vogue among white spiritual seekers, many of whom have jettisoned Buddhism's other tenets to focus exclusively on meditation.
Colin Anderson, 47, a regular participant in New York Buddhist Church's class, drops in on meditation centers all over the city.
''I don't see it as a religion,'' he said. ''I see it as more of a science of the mind.''
The concept that is taught at many meditation centers -- that controlling one's mind can lead to better controlling one's actions -- which might lead to being reborn into a better life, makes sense to him.
''You're in control of your own life with your own karma,'' he said.
But that idea directly contradicts what Shinran, the founder of Shin Buddhism, taught some 800 years ago. Shinran came to Pure Land after growing frustrated with meditation and other practices taught by other Buddhist schools. He advocated that believers not pursue any specific practice but instead trust in the Amida Buddha's infinite wisdom and compassion for liberation from the endless cycle of life, death and rebirth.
''Shin is based on entrusting, entrusting in the idea that we as human beings are limited, and we're incapable of cultivating ourselves,'' said the Rev. Fumiaki Usuki of the West Los Angeles Buddhist Church, who described himself as wary of the growing use of meditation among his fellow Buddhist Churches of America ministers.
''Just because we have meditation doesn't mean these people are going to stay,'' he said. ''They're driven by this Hollywood aura of meditation. They're supermarket shopping.''
Nevertheless, on Sundays at the New York Buddhist Church, which is now about 70 percent non-Japanese, Mr. Nakagaki begins services with five to seven minutes of meditation.
The meditative practices are a bridge to usher the curious into a Buddhist tradition that can be difficult to grasp, Mr. Nakagaki said.
''My way of thinking, it is a form of kindness, a form of compassion to help them understand Pure Land Buddhism better,'' he said.
The growing use of meditation has sparked a debate within the Buddhist Churches of America about whether its priests are going too far in catering to the whims of an audience that many Asian Buddhists see as dabblers.
''I am maybe more conservative than some,'' said the Rev. Gregory Gibbs of the Oregon Buddhist Temple, who came to Shin Buddhism after years of Zen practice. ''We don't want to obscure our fundamental teaching.''
The debate has also highlighted fissures among Asian practitioners, who tend to be more traditional, and Western spiritual seekers.
''There's a split between converts and so-called ethnic Buddhists,'' said Jeff Wilson, a contributing editor to Tricycle, a Buddhist magazine, who is working on a doctorate on Buddhism in America at the University of North Carolina and has followed the debate over meditation in Shin Buddhist circles closely. ''The people in the so-called ethnic component tend to think of the converts as very elitist, that they're taking over Buddhism and changing it.''
Shin Buddhist leaders in Japan, worried about doctrinal purity, have also questioned the changes Bishop Ogui is encouraging.
''Whatever people worry about in Japan does not make sense most of the time here,'' Bishop Ogui said. ''In America, we have to understand the American culture, and we have to go along with these unique differences.''
In some ways, Pure Land Buddhism has always been at a disadvantage in this country because its teachings about the Amida Buddha make it appear similar to Christianity. During World War II, Shin Buddhist practitioners also started calling their temples ''churches'' and holding regular Sunday services as a way to appear more Christian in the face of anti-Japanese discrimination. Many Westerners looking for the exotic, or an alternative from their Judeo-Christian upbringing, have gone elsewhere. Now Shin Buddhist leaders are hoping to lure them back.
At the New York Buddhist Church, the meditation classes, along with other changes that Mr. Nakagaki has incorporated, including shaving his head and wearing a robe to look more like monks from other Buddhist branches, appear to have had some effect.
Mr. Nakagaki's congregation has grown to about 50 people on Sundays from fewer than 20 when he first started, a little over a decade ago. But attendance is not his primary concern, he said. He merely wants to bring Buddhism to the American people.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Would Someone Please Open the Door
In the world that appears to be Outside--the world which has been such a trial lately--a flower appears.
I am so ready to see flowers, and the grimy hallway carpet on which they appear, as somehow external. So ready to feel as if there is something I must *do* in order to administrate a life that feels safer and more certain.
Then the barriers soften. The division between Inner and Outer loses substance. There are impossible coincidences; there are meetings that make me cry; there are things breaking apart so suddenly that I come apart along with them. All along, there is some understanding developing, but I can't put it into words.
I read Ismail Kadare's The Palace of Dreams in two sittings, yesterday and the day before. His books give substance to the symbolic world of the unconscious. They're tragic, and they shine with a soft understanding. Reading them, I become more whole.
I won't say what I dreamed last night, but it was truly strange and hopeful. The flower, coming after that, is no great surprise.
I am so ready to see flowers, and the grimy hallway carpet on which they appear, as somehow external. So ready to feel as if there is something I must *do* in order to administrate a life that feels safer and more certain.
Then the barriers soften. The division between Inner and Outer loses substance. There are impossible coincidences; there are meetings that make me cry; there are things breaking apart so suddenly that I come apart along with them. All along, there is some understanding developing, but I can't put it into words.
I read Ismail Kadare's The Palace of Dreams in two sittings, yesterday and the day before. His books give substance to the symbolic world of the unconscious. They're tragic, and they shine with a soft understanding. Reading them, I become more whole.
I won't say what I dreamed last night, but it was truly strange and hopeful. The flower, coming after that, is no great surprise.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Wheel of Becoming
A thousand-word commentary on my life:
Attachment, attachment, attachment.
Aversion, aversion, aversion.
Is there anything more than this?
(Wikipedia on the Bhavachakra.)
Attachment, attachment, attachment.
Aversion, aversion, aversion.
Is there anything more than this?
(Wikipedia on the Bhavachakra.)
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Monks on Ice
Zen Boys fall too. This adorable video shows how.
As with Life (and all forms of Practice), the importand thing is not that you fall down, or how many times you fall down--or how many times you fall down compared to someone else. The important thing is that you get up, again and again.
(Presence of Sangha member with video camera is optional.)
As with Life (and all forms of Practice), the importand thing is not that you fall down, or how many times you fall down--or how many times you fall down compared to someone else. The important thing is that you get up, again and again.
(Presence of Sangha member with video camera is optional.)
Four Words
There is an article in the New Yorker magazine about aging. It is beautifully written by Atul Gawande, one of my favorite writers.
Why we age is the subject of vigorous debate. The classical view is that aging happens because of random wear and tear. A newer view holds that aging is more orderly and genetically driven. Proponents of this view point out that animals of similar species and exposure to wear and tear have markedly different life spans. The Canada goose has a longevity of 23.5 years; the emperor goose only 6.3 years. Perhaps animals are like plants, with lives that are, to a large extent, internally governed. Certain species of bamboo, for instance, form a dense stand that grows and flourishes for a hundred years, flowers all at once, and then dies.
The idea that living things shut down and not just wear down has received substantial support in the past decade. Researchers working with the now famous worm C. elegans (two of the last five Nobel Prizes in medicine went to scientists doing work on the little nematode) were able to produce worms that live more than twice as long and age more slowly by altering a single gene.
"...and age more slowly..."
Those are my words.
From 1997 until 2001 I did PhD research at UCSF in one of the leading labs studying aging in C. elegans. We had long-lived mutant worms, but the link between their long-life and aging was unexplored. I explored it, finding simple markers for aging, and identifying a rapid-aging mutant. Of all the paths I explored, this one paid off best and soonest. So I published a paper and went off into the land of Zen.
Four years. Four words. Some imperceptible mark upon the world.
Dauers
Originally uploaded by dhavalsubhaspatel.
Tools of the trade (III)
Originally uploaded by md&r.
Why we age is the subject of vigorous debate. The classical view is that aging happens because of random wear and tear. A newer view holds that aging is more orderly and genetically driven. Proponents of this view point out that animals of similar species and exposure to wear and tear have markedly different life spans. The Canada goose has a longevity of 23.5 years; the emperor goose only 6.3 years. Perhaps animals are like plants, with lives that are, to a large extent, internally governed. Certain species of bamboo, for instance, form a dense stand that grows and flourishes for a hundred years, flowers all at once, and then dies.
The idea that living things shut down and not just wear down has received substantial support in the past decade. Researchers working with the now famous worm C. elegans (two of the last five Nobel Prizes in medicine went to scientists doing work on the little nematode) were able to produce worms that live more than twice as long and age more slowly by altering a single gene.
"...and age more slowly..."
Those are my words.
From 1997 until 2001 I did PhD research at UCSF in one of the leading labs studying aging in C. elegans. We had long-lived mutant worms, but the link between their long-life and aging was unexplored. I explored it, finding simple markers for aging, and identifying a rapid-aging mutant. Of all the paths I explored, this one paid off best and soonest. So I published a paper and went off into the land of Zen.
Four years. Four words. Some imperceptible mark upon the world.
Dauers
Originally uploaded by dhavalsubhaspatel.
Tools of the trade (III)
Originally uploaded by md&r.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Surrendering the Self
A quote that illustrates 1. the interpenetration of Taoism and Zen--the unity of Truth-- and 2. the disconnect between romanticized views of practice, and Reality.
I took minor liberties with the language in the final stanza.
I took minor liberties with the language in the final stanza.
Accept disgrace willingly.
Accept misfortune as the human condition.
What is meant by “Accept disgrace willingly?”
Accept being unimportant.
Do not be concerned with loss or gain.
This is accepting disgrace willingly.
What is meant by “Accept misfortune as the human condition”?
Misfortune comes from having a body.
Without a body, how could there be misfortune?
Surrender your Self humbly; then you can be trusted to care for all things.
Love the world as your true self; then you can wholeheartedly care for all things.
Tao Te Ching Verse XIII
adapted from the translation by Gia-fu Feng & Jane English
Thursday, April 26, 2007
The Inner Massacre
On the day that thirty people died at Virginia Tech, many more died in Iraq.
What happened in that dorm and those classrooms could have spurred a call for more and better mental health services, for more accountability on the part of institutions, or for some sort of respite from the violent imagery that suffuses our society. Unfortunately, the advocates of these social movements were not as ready with their talking points as the NRA were.
Or perhaps we all wanted to listen to the gun advocates. Perhaps we all wanted to flirt with the notion that, if everyone were armed, the tragedy would have been averted. Perhaps imagining ourselves with guns is more interesting that imagining ourselves in a society that does not glorify gun violence.
Obviously, life would be different if we were all armed. But I don’t think that would be a better life. In case we have any doubt, Iraq looms before us, for our information, a ghastly demonstration of where universal firepower will lead. Guns are commonplace, and so even more firepower is necessary. Improbably enough, what results is not order, but mayhem.
But, you say, we are not Iraq. We have a government that imposes order, provides services, and enforces laws. This is not a chaotic society. And I agree. We are comparatively peaceful—and Iraq is not—because we are accustomed to order and justice. We believe that if a crime occurs, justice can be served at the end of the day in an appropriate and sane manner. Not by vigilantism. But in Iraq—in the Wild West, in a universally-armed state—anybody with a vendetta against anybody else has the power to act on it.
And so it is that, in Virginia, a state where guns are easy to obtain, and many people have obtained them, a person more unbalanced than the rest can amass an arsenal, and use it. The mission: some idea about justice. Some suicide mission to show the world—something. And to kill as many people as possible in the process. If the unbalanced person knew that everyone was carrying a gun, his strategy would adapt to serve his destructive fantasy: school shooters will become school bombers.
The unstable young men of the hypothetical firearm-rich future will abandon their twisted execution-style gun-based fantasy, in favor of a suicide-bomber fantasy. The seeds are certainly planted; that’s how really serious people wreak havoc in an overly-armed society. All that is needed in middle America is a slight shift as to what constitutes the glorious revenge of the wronged. So will gun-toting students feel safe in that golden future time? Or will they live in fear of commencement, of keggers, of any crowd situation?
If everybody were mentally healthy and had the same ideas of right and wrong, universal gun ownership might actually promote order—or at least not destroy it. But in that utopia, with everybody sane and clear-headed, having the power to end others’ lives would be unnecessary.
The fundamental problem here is thinking that more power can save you, that there the way to outwit the violence of the human heart is by means of more violence. Packing a gun is a cause and a consequence of being afraid, paranoid, on-edge. The legions of us who could apply for a concealed weapons permit, and do not, know this intuitively. I do not wish to be the kind of person who would carry a gun; I do not wish to become the kind of person that carrying a gun would cause me to become. Despite the dire misfortunes that might happen to my cute little self, I know I have a vanishingly small chance of meeting a brutal end in our still-decent society. Armed, I am certain to live in fear, to be constantly forced to weigh whether or not I would use my weapon should circumstances turn foul.
Perhaps some disagree; I guess they must. But even the most ardent gun proponent would agree that the massacre at Virginia Tech should be a wakeup call. I say it is not a call to perpetuate the problem that Cho embodied; it is not a call to value violence; it is not call to take enforcement of our own particular opinions about who should to live and die into our own hands. Keeping the raving lunatics in check by arming the marginally more sane is not the answer.
Instead, let’s wake up to how people get that way: let’s think about mental health services, university emergency procedures; let’s wonder why gun violence is promulgated as a solution to problems.
Look at Iraq. And the blessings and the safety of our own lives, as long as they last. Because even with all the guns in the world, or all the mental health services, we will die, we will get old, we will sick. And occasionally, we will fall as the innocent victims of another’s delusion. Or be killed by an automobile, a medical mistake, or a freak accident. For every day that we are well, and safe and free, we have the power to make the world a kinder place. Or a more fearful one.
The holocaust survivor who barred the door—his students said—lived every day with great energy. Since he was twenty-two, he had known his life to be a gift.
And ours is too. Life is gift now. Don’t build a wall around that gift. Don’t collapse in fear, cursed and rendered immobile by its incredible richness and promise. Become something beautiful. Become the world.
Disclosure:
I do own a gun. I think it is in a box somewhere. I like shooting guns, and I am an excellent shot. I grew up with guns, which were used to shoot coyotes animals that threatened our livestock. But now the farming days are over, and when I talk to my dad about what all his guns are actually “for,” I have found nothing particularly wholesome or encouraging in his response. It seems to be about firepower covering up fear. (I say this with great respect for my dad, knowing he will probably read this.)
I am not some peace-and-love Hippie. I am much more interested in the darkness of the human soul, and in the truth that transcends all notions.
The gun you keep in your house is 163 times more likely to be used against a resident of the house, rather than an intruder. I’m pretty sure those numbers are still true.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Startled Awake
"When we are most intensely alive--startled into alertness by love or pain or fear--we perceive with an added acuteness too often forgotten or lost to distraction."
Jane Hirschfield, Nine Gates p 86
Jane Hirschfield, Nine Gates p 86
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Becoming One With the Way
What our ancestor describes a thousand years ago can only be done now, in this moment:
"Can you coax your mind from its wandering
and keep to the original oneness?
Can you let your body become
supple as a newborn child's?
Can you cleanse your inner vision
until you see nothing but the light?
Can you love people and lead them
without imposing your will?
Can you deal with the most vital matters
by letting events take their course?
Can you step back from your own mind
and thus understand all things?
Giving birth and nourishing,
having without possessing,
acting with no expectations,
leading and not trying to control:
this is the supreme virtue."
Tao Te Ching, Verse X
trans. Gia-fu Feng & Jane English
Friday, April 20, 2007
The Life of the Self
Looking at the SF girl's blog today, I realized: There is something wrong with Me and Blogging. Yes, it's good to post a picture, or a link to an article somewhere that provokes thought. But what I want to do--what I consider good blogging to be--is a discussion of what's important. What opens the heart? What clouds the vision? How shall I live this life?
I have been paralyzed, in a way. It has seemed like an act of greatest fortitude to say, "I did this. I felt this way. And I wonder what it means."
I wonder how I can love the kids I tutor so much; I wonder why I can't sleep; I wonder why there are days when zazen is the farthest thing from my mind, even as a mantra decorates everything I do. I wonder why there are days when I sit for hours, hungry for the world inside this one. I can't tell you why.
I notice an increasing sense of my own dignity and boundaries. A palpable sense of no longer accomodating the disrespectful.
Perhaps, where blogging is concerned, I feel I have already said too much. That it is too easy to google my name and find the blog. Or too easy to go blog-->photos-->name. I have a professional self now. There are those whom I would not want to know if I am having a hard time, if I make a grave mistake in my personal life, if I have a deep spiritual insight. Or a shallow one that sounds so good.
Did I mention? I feel single in a very happy way. Realizing how multifacted and intriguing my experience is, I wouldn't be willing to be partnered in a way that didn't magnify the Shu. Without someone else around to please an accomodate--to be derailed by--I feel my own rhythms. Days come when reality thins to a veil and something palpable hovers just..there--just everywhere, borne by glory. Other days are cold, lugubrious, and flat. They're mine, though, my life, the life of this little self.
I have been paralyzed, in a way. It has seemed like an act of greatest fortitude to say, "I did this. I felt this way. And I wonder what it means."
I wonder how I can love the kids I tutor so much; I wonder why I can't sleep; I wonder why there are days when zazen is the farthest thing from my mind, even as a mantra decorates everything I do. I wonder why there are days when I sit for hours, hungry for the world inside this one. I can't tell you why.
I notice an increasing sense of my own dignity and boundaries. A palpable sense of no longer accomodating the disrespectful.
Perhaps, where blogging is concerned, I feel I have already said too much. That it is too easy to google my name and find the blog. Or too easy to go blog-->photos-->name. I have a professional self now. There are those whom I would not want to know if I am having a hard time, if I make a grave mistake in my personal life, if I have a deep spiritual insight. Or a shallow one that sounds so good.
Did I mention? I feel single in a very happy way. Realizing how multifacted and intriguing my experience is, I wouldn't be willing to be partnered in a way that didn't magnify the Shu. Without someone else around to please an accomodate--to be derailed by--I feel my own rhythms. Days come when reality thins to a veil and something palpable hovers just..there--just everywhere, borne by glory. Other days are cold, lugubrious, and flat. They're mine, though, my life, the life of this little self.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Living Alone
These were turning words for me today. Many thanks to the friends who pushed them into view.
To live alone does not mean to reject the world and society. The Buddha said that living alone means living in the present moment deeply observing whatis happening. If we do that, we will not be dragged into the past or swept away into thoughts about the future.
The Buddha said that if we cannot live in the present moment, even if we are alone in the deepest forest, we are
not really alone. He said that if we are fully alive in the present moment,even if we are in a crowded, urban area, we can still be said to be living alone.
From Thich Nhat Hanh's commentary on The Better Way to
Live Alone sutra
Monday, April 16, 2007
Thoughts on the Ovine Gaze
Sheep are underestimated. They do not accommodate; they do not pretend to understand.
This ewe faces a bizarre sight: before her, a man on an otherwise perfectly satisfactory ride home from work has stopped his car. He stands before her, a strange contraption raised before his face. Whatever he’s doing, he’s not stopping. For this man is an artist obsessed with texture and color. He might have stood there all evening, snapping away with no consideration for dignity—the lengthening shadows might have engulfed him entirely—had not the wise ewe decided to declare the photo session ended. Northern Ireland’s rusty cranes and collapsing cottages will hold still forever. But a ewe with two lambs occupies the slightest sliver of time.
By now, those lambs’ wrinkly little skins have filled out; their bellies are growing round; they’re venturing further from the teat to play and nibble grass. The moment is truly gone—not like paint blistering or rust peeling, one layer giving way to another—but like fire that consumes the world.
This photos is posted on Flickr, and so there are comments on this photo. They encompass a whole range of levels of coarseness. Commenters claim to see dinner, or a suggestive look—as if a sheep has ever suggested anything to anybody!
Through the camera, we see something that is not yet dinner: we look, and the sheep turn around and looks unblinkingly back. This is not “stupid” facing us: this is consciousness, awareness, a gaze that meets your own and forces some questions. Do I eat something that looks back at me. Is this meat, or a life? Can I face the life that I destroy in order to live? Can I face meet the life that I destroy—not so much in order to live, as to have the satisfaction and comfort I’ve become used to? Seeing and being seen like this: there is no red meat without a mind.
Much easier to make a joke.
When I say that a sheep has never suggested anything to anybody, I mean this: sheep don’t relate to us, and they don't want to. Dogs want something cats require it. But sheep just don't care. They are not pets; their job is not to connect, but to look. By nature, they are grazers— prey. You are barely relevant, and sheep are in no hurry to ingratiate themselves with you.
We mistake this dignity, this remove, with stupidity. We imagine that animals who relate to us are “smart”; animals that could care less, are not. But perhaps the sheep are the wise ones. They do not enter our dramas with us; they stand apart. And when it is time to move, they move in the wisest way: as a body, en masse. Perhaps we are the ones who should relate to sheep, we who fling ourselves after the latest promise of respite from reality. We who butt heads, and drop lambs, and head for home at the end of the day.
We who stop then, as the shadows draw long, and wonder just what—really—is going on.
This ewe faces a bizarre sight: before her, a man on an otherwise perfectly satisfactory ride home from work has stopped his car. He stands before her, a strange contraption raised before his face. Whatever he’s doing, he’s not stopping. For this man is an artist obsessed with texture and color. He might have stood there all evening, snapping away with no consideration for dignity—the lengthening shadows might have engulfed him entirely—had not the wise ewe decided to declare the photo session ended. Northern Ireland’s rusty cranes and collapsing cottages will hold still forever. But a ewe with two lambs occupies the slightest sliver of time.
By now, those lambs’ wrinkly little skins have filled out; their bellies are growing round; they’re venturing further from the teat to play and nibble grass. The moment is truly gone—not like paint blistering or rust peeling, one layer giving way to another—but like fire that consumes the world.
This photos is posted on Flickr, and so there are comments on this photo. They encompass a whole range of levels of coarseness. Commenters claim to see dinner, or a suggestive look—as if a sheep has ever suggested anything to anybody!
Through the camera, we see something that is not yet dinner: we look, and the sheep turn around and looks unblinkingly back. This is not “stupid” facing us: this is consciousness, awareness, a gaze that meets your own and forces some questions. Do I eat something that looks back at me. Is this meat, or a life? Can I face the life that I destroy in order to live? Can I face meet the life that I destroy—not so much in order to live, as to have the satisfaction and comfort I’ve become used to? Seeing and being seen like this: there is no red meat without a mind.
Much easier to make a joke.
When I say that a sheep has never suggested anything to anybody, I mean this: sheep don’t relate to us, and they don't want to. Dogs want something cats require it. But sheep just don't care. They are not pets; their job is not to connect, but to look. By nature, they are grazers— prey. You are barely relevant, and sheep are in no hurry to ingratiate themselves with you.
We mistake this dignity, this remove, with stupidity. We imagine that animals who relate to us are “smart”; animals that could care less, are not. But perhaps the sheep are the wise ones. They do not enter our dramas with us; they stand apart. And when it is time to move, they move in the wisest way: as a body, en masse. Perhaps we are the ones who should relate to sheep, we who fling ourselves after the latest promise of respite from reality. We who butt heads, and drop lambs, and head for home at the end of the day.
We who stop then, as the shadows draw long, and wonder just what—really—is going on.
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