Heartbeat

When I was a shiatsu practitioner, I learned to breathe in unison with the client, setting a subliminal rhythm that would help them to relax. By mid-session, our pulses would usually be in synch as well. (If our hearts weren't beating together, it meant things weren't going well-- we were not connecting, and the person was not relaxing at all.) By the time I came to holding their head and sliding my fingers up into the connectors at the base of the skull, our shared heartbeat would be like a tiny earthquake, shaking the world in a slow thumping vibration.

Last night Rob came to hug me goodnight, and then fell asleep on top of the covers. In the dim light of dawn, I reached out to hold his dozing body--the bed is very narrow--and I felt the matching pulse in his chest and my arm. All night, our hearts must have been stabilizing, and resonating with, one another....He and I have always matched heartbeats well; whenever I have occasion to notice, they're in synch. When they're not, we're invariably having some difficulty.

Suddenly, a commotion erupted outside: a loud yowl, and hissing. Cats. Our two hearts sped up and beat quickly, and then gradually slowed to normal. All in unison. Even watching it happen, feeling it in his sleeping body and my curious one, did not disturb the synchrony.

This reminds me that I should look into The Heartmath Solution. I think we barely understand the very real effects we have on one another.

Bodhisattvas

They look into our eyes with a
tenderness; goodwill; warmth; delight
we already know and feel,
catching the eye of a baby
absorbing the world's sight and sound.

Little Lessons of 31 May 2006.

• The lessons of Pilates are those of meditation as well:
  We have tremendous power, but we try to solve our problems using all the wrong muscles!



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• Willful obliviousness to cause and effect always comes back to bite you. No matter how much money you throw around, and possibly because of it.

Overheard at the Golden Crane

• Male customer: I was a serious hippie, let me tell you. I lived in a tipi for two years.



• Rhetta (my coworker): Yeah? Well I lived in a tipi and I got married in a tipi...in buckskins!



• Customer (smiling): You win. Man, weren't the seventies great?



• Rhetta: From what I remember, yes.

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Ever wonder what they'll say about the "oughties?"

• Remember the Iraq War?


• Yeah, the one we all ignored while we paid attention to pregnant celebrities instead? Those were the days!

In all seriousness though, I predict that learning foreign languags will be de rigeur; people will grow their own food in gardens (possibly out of necessity); and reading books will make a comeback. At least that's what I want for my future. And it won't be bad at all.

The Pure Land...

How indescribably wonderful it is that we have received this life so that we can hear anew each day the call of the heart of the infinite.

from the Notes on the Nembutsu.

To Hell with "Figuring It Out"

I'm reeling with a sense of profound "right"ness after reading (skimming, really) an article in the May issue of BuddhaDharma magazine. In it, three distinguished teachers who have made public service a calling—Venerables Robina Courtin, Paul Haller, and Bernie Glassman—discuss right action and how it manifests in this complicated world. (The topic is a particularly chewy one for Westerners, who so often come to Buddhism because they want to meditate peacefully, and be free from the more distressing aspects of life.)

So the teachers are chatting away, and make mention of the multitude of practice options that are available (at least in theory) to the American layperson. Predictably enough, just like with any other area of life, we commodify "practice." It's easy to start strategizing about how best to exploit various practice places and styles for my own gratification. I have also enjoyed speculating about further professional training; perhaps I should investigate (or return to) this or that practice center. Alternatively I could grow organic produce, or be a neurobiology researcher.

This sort of thinking has never yielded a satisfying answer. Therefore I do not willingly engage in it any longer.

But if that materialistic mindset doesn't solve anything, yet I know I'm not going to be working retail and eating food stamps forever, in what direction should I turn my overeducated little mind? Ven. Robina sliced to the point, in less time that I'm taking to tell you this. To paraphrase:

Ask what you can do that will be of the greatest benefit to the world. And just do it. That might mean being a renunciate nun, or it might mean getting married and having ten kids.

The question isn't answered, but the ground from which to ask it is clear. Presuming to pursue the dharma from any mindset other than this, the bodhisattva's, is disgusting. And I have been so disgusting with this "figuring it out."

Mushin said yesterday, "Some people are wasted by living a monastic life, and some people are wasted by not living a monastic life." She's right, but it's taken me a long time to start to see that there is no "better" or "worse" undertaking within the life of the dharma. Just what is appropriate for a particular person at a particular time.

And because we are so prone to flitting about—wanting to have it "our" way, whatever that means—a bit of committment to the undertaking is never a bad idea; a sense of deeper purpose and a few obligations to those we love can help keep us steady. As can debt, and lack of alternatives.

But I digress: Forget me. What is the most beneficial thing I can do?

What is the most beneficial thing I can do?

(I should confess that I do have a notion. It did not come from thinking. I am not saying what it is yet, though.)

War In a Small Town

Rob and I drove up to Independence, Oregon for breakfast. There’s a breakfast place there called Andy’s, which has become a fixture since I left fourteen years ago. After the initial hush that fell over the place when we walked in—we’re clearly not from there—conversation picked up again, and we ordered giant plates of pancakes, omelets, and hashbrowns.

Formal portraits of two young Marines regarded us from the wall behind the cash register, and the patrons—farmers, laborers and businessmen—all had the war on their minds. Most days, I disagree with their politics, based on different starting assumptions, but I grew up with these people, literally, and I don’t mind hearing what they have to say. Mindlessly following the “right” view is incredibly boring, no matter which team you think you’re on. After years in the lock-step political environment of San Francisco, it’s refreshing to be in a place where people with ideological differences have to live together and cooperate.

When I was growing up, and the conservatism of rural Oregon got to be too much, we always knew we could go to Corvallis. It’s the kind of town that can supports multiple left wing breakfast establishments. The one with the best prices attempts to make up in gleeful anti-Bush superficialities what it lacks in food service competence. Because I was in no mood for poor service and gratuitous lefty propaganda, we headed for Independence, where people’s opinion on the war has more to do with the fact that they know people who are it.

I found myself on the edge of tears all through breakfast, not because the pancakes were tasteless fat pillows, but because of the conversation of the two men across the way.

The older guy was telling the younger about the misadventures of a mutual acquaintance, “Ditto”, in Iraq. His voice held palpable disdain for the insurgents, for perceived sympathizers at home, for the publication of images depicting attacks on US soldiers, their deaths and their funerals. He was angry, too, at the incompetence of the military, at journalists who might not tip soldiers off to planned attacks, at the death and dismemberment of people his friend cared about. And he was full of dismay watching “Ditto” is trying to live with himself after something that went wrong in Iraq.

Even third-hand, it’s awful to hear: faced with the terror of a an ambush; or a bomb ripping through your vehicle; you’re under attack, your friends are dying and “they”—the bad guys, the people whose country you invaded—are out there trying to obliterate your life and turn you into blackened meat.

This is why my pancake breakfast was devastating. Because this is happening, and it’s brutal and tragic, and exactly how things are right now in some part of the world, in my name. I could never judge someone for their rage at this reality. But I don’t think that formless anger shaping itself into a revenge agenda is going to help anything.

The younger guy said how much he wanted to be a mercenary—although he preferred the term “contractor”—and to hunt down deportable aliens for the Department of Homeland Security.

Isn’t that a telling transition? From fear, despair and shock directly to anger, to revenge, and institutionalized self-defense, by whatever means necessary.

And the cycle goes round and round. Wanting to live undisturbed in our own country. Objecting to our people being slaughtered; objecting to the humiliation of their bodies; turning in anger on some halfway-relevant target. Humans under threat become self-righteous and certain, and therefore dangerous. Hurting and being hurt, not seeing ourselves or anyone very clearly.

It never ceases to amaze me that we deport foreigners who slip up or have bad luck, and have no standards at all for our native-born citizens. I’ve had so many friends—deserving, intelligent people who offer this country so much—who’ve endured immigration headaches, nightmares and disasters, just to be here. Meanwhile, I’ve noticed that many of my fellow citizens cook drugs and shoplift and beat up bicyclists—but nobody would dream of asking them to leave. How interesting it would be, to find mercen–sorry, “contractors”– at your door to discuss your library fines?

If you’re an immigrant, you may know this feeling. Like the fellow at our next stop, Monmouth’s fabulous bagel bakery. This shop is one of the few in the country that hand-roll their bagels. The Moroccan-born owner was an engineering student who fell in love with a local girl, and parlayed bagel-making skills learned in New Jersey into a livelihood for them and three little kids.

This fellow didn’t have any library fines; he was just Moroccan. So a couple years ago, Federal agents came by his house for a chat one evening. What exactly was he doing, living as a pillar of the community and purveyor of authentic hand-rolled bagels? In fear and anger, the previously apolitical man went that night to a meeting of the Polk County Democrats.

He was behind the counter today, and that bit of outdated gossip was on my mind as we chatted about bagels and where to buy them. He’s an incredibly sweet, community-minded, principled person. That someone called the feds on him does not make me feel safe, not at all.

But I am safe. And incredibly fortunate to have the few worries I do. Everything about this life I’m living: good home cooking; car and ready supply of gas; warmth and electricity; opinions and intellection; liberal tendencies; the means and motivation to meditate—all comes about as the result of my life circumstances. And it will all, one day, pass away.

A great many, perhaps all, of the aspects of life that are enjoyable or infuriating have come about in dependence on my life as an American. I can’t separately imagine the life of a me who hasn’t lived in this country. It’s far too complicated to unravel, but I know that it would be foolish to think my comforts and conceits have nothing to do with US foreign policy. It is unthinkable that my life circumstances, my very existence, have not been bought with war, genocide, torture, corruption and bloodshed—and with courage, sacrifice, insight, principle and generosity.

It’s hard to accept the irony that the bounty my life is a product of a historical events I would probably have opposed. Should we hunt down the Indians? Rape our way through Mexico? Drop a bomb that obliterates hundreds of thousands of civilians in an instant? Debate after the fact is academic at best, inflammatory at worst. But we are here, and the world is the way it is because of what came before.

So we do our best with the situation at hand. I have plenty of opinions, but I’m not sure they matter one bit; how could I possibly evaluate the alternative to what IS? And given the way things are, what can I do now, within these circumstances?

I don’t know how to get out of Iraq. Things are getting worse there, quickly. Killing makes killing easier. And hearing about killing makes it easier to hear about more. Unfortunately.

Oregon’s Governor Kulongowski has made a personal pledge to attend the funeral of every Oregon resident killed while serving in Iraq. To partisans on both sides, acknowledging the human cost of war is treated as a radical stance. But Kulongowski is not particularly anti-war.

What he does say—and few will— is that burden of this war is disproportionately borne by a specific sector of society. They come from rural areas and blue-collar families, from farming and logging and building-it-yourself backgrounds. For generations, these folks have been a reliable source of patriotism, dedication—and popular support for the Republican party. I wonder how much more they can give, and how much longer everyone else can pretend the war is a distant political abstraction, not a reality as intimate as clothes, as thoughts, a parallel history weaving its way into—and becoming—this life.

Remembering Trojan

Trojan, 1978

The Oregonian is the largest newspaper in Oregon:

To the Editor:

I get most of my news from the Oregonian, but my roommates and I pulled out our geriatric television to catch KATU’s live coverage of the Trojan cooling tower implosion. I grew up in Oregon in the 70s and 80s, in a subculture that regarded the cooling tower as a menacing threat—and demonstrating at the site as a worthwhile way to spend a weekend. Later, as an adult, I lived in Columbia County and saw the other side of the issue: the power plant had been a major source of jobs, and the surrounding communities were hit extremely hard by its closure.

I didn’t give much thought to the Oregonian’s treatment of the story, which reflected the ambivalence, nostalgia, and changing attitudes that Trojan has prompted through the years. To see that massive cooling tower—so beautiful and so ugly—come down, has meaning to anyone who ever loved the power plant, or hated it—or wished for a safe, clean alternative to fossil fuels. The Oregonian touched on all these things to some degree, although it did gloss over some newsworthy details (perhaps I missed them): that Matt Groening took Trojan and its numerous safety violations as the inspiration for the power plant in the Simpsons; or that the profits PG&E’s would have lost upon its have been subsidized for years by the ratepayers. Those tidbits I found online, during a fruitless search for a live webcast.



So to the television it was. On KATU, there was nothing in the way of nuance, no acknowledgement of the complexities of Trojan’s life and death. A sound bite from a former worker, but no mention, however momentary, of Trojan’s political or economic history. This pointed ignorance, in favor of a “Dude, that’s way cool!” approach to the event, turns the actual story into a banal curiosity, and does the public no service at all.

Now, as Trojan fades into memory, I’m left with a new respect for print media, and a disappointment in the overall level of public discourse in society. I know curmudgeons young and old (I’m 32) have always muttered along these lines, but a television station’s refusal to do anything other than trivialize this event seems like a purposeful act of oversight. That’s no way to watch years of history neatly collapse away.

Shugetsu's Dishes

Shugetsu's Dishes
Originally uploaded by Shugetsu.

This (very small) photo was taken during a teachers' meeting at Great Vow Monastery in September, 2004; on the website of the teachers' association, it's the visual associated with a theme of "selfless service" or something to that effect.

Looking at it now, I realize I look exhausted. Guest Zen Teacher Nonin Chowaney is washing in the background. We are going full out.

At this time, the walk-in fridge was a welcome refuge: cool and pitch-dark; a place to stop the mind before turning around an re-entering the fray.

Life Themes & Wasted Energy

I've been keeping a diary for years, and the work I've been doing lately has largely been on those paper pages, not in the public (and vaguely commodified, performative) forum of a blog.

May 7 2006. Sunday evening but still light

There seems to be a lot wanting to come to the surface lately. Today I was struck at how words create pictures, and how writing is processed so effortlessly into narrative vignettes. What incredible minds we have, that we can feel a story by reading words!

I've been doing a great deal of thinking lately—maybe that's why I'm so tired. ...I heard quite clearly in my own head the other day that the purpose of (this) life is to connect with others. That rules out only a few avenues, unfortunately.

This groping for the future has also turned my eye to the past, with an attention to the broad themes of my life. I can see patterns only now, 30 years out. One is "becoming exasperated with a group situation"; unable to to feel safe owing to a lack of boundaries; overly-invested in others' drama; seething with desire to leave, but seeing no way out; leaving finally, in good time; such relief upon release that the lifestyle so abandoned isn't seen accurately.

At least in this last transition—leaving the monastery—there hasn't been some embarrassingly juvenile behavior on my part. But from my childhood home—through school years, to graduate school and life in spiritual community—I've been acting from the same script, over and over.

Another theme is "in spite of fretting, I do my best and everything works out"—namely, I get into college; I succeed as a scientist in due time. Yet another strand: "personal connections bear fruit," when I have the gall to make them. Or the string of bizarre little hobby sidelines that look promising, but need to be pursued in order to amount to anything (no shortage of ideas in this little mind)...I can carry a torch for years....There is a strong desire to betake myself to other lands, where I will be loved at last. These have ALL been with me since I was five years old! As a very small girl, I got incredible crushes; I had seven hobbies at once; I dreamed of running away.

I don't think I've so clearly seen my emotional reactions and stories about myself as continuous with the internal scenarios concocted by my child self.

Yesterday, M. emailed me again about the our paper, now accepted into Science...look at that: my discovery, which I hated and walked away from five years ago...in Science. I knew then that I was leaving just as things were getting good, and that it didn't matter—I couldn't stand it. Maybe I should have taken a couple of months off and then looked for postdocs....Yet that never seemed like an option, although it certainly was suggested to me. I'm sure I would have hated it too.

So there's another theme: "overlooking the obvious choices." Not seeing a perfectly reasonable path, so overwhelmed am I with aversion.

Right now, or recently, dharma has been the obvious path. But how to stay on that path, let alone where to end up, has been anything but clear. But just today, a total stranger started sharing her personal spiritual search with me. Again.

Feeling is at least as important as knowing. I can think myself silly, but when I feel the right thing, naturally I move.

So much energy is wasted in feeling threatened....These days I feel it when someone is describing their web design plans and profession. But if I set aside feeling threatened, I could ask them to help me. Or draw the line at undermining my own interests. Or whatever is needed. I needn't always be nicey-nicey; I do sometimes think that "free Delia"="nice Delia".

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When committed, there are no "deal breakers." One has a sense of purpose and is not stopped by fear.

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Dwelling in "I don't like this/I'm miserable" vs. "What do I wish to become?"

On Shoes and Trees

Going through old papers today, I found an archaeological record of my life: monastery sleeping assignments; little bits of paper that say "survival agriculture/live like wild goose/ our ideas of zen are so insane" (I think that was to have been a blog post); and this poem, from February I think:

On shoes
drying of a cold day
I spy a lone red fox hair
I'm done for now!

I've been "done for" for a while. The only fox for miles around lives only Japanese zen tales that treat it as a damned creature. (About that time, I dreamed I was turning into a fox, fleeing for my life.)

Finding in signs what we wish to see, this hair spawned a spasm of not-entirely-joyuous resignation to the apparent fact that a certain redheaded person has affected me forever. Maybe finding signs in little red hairs is a sign that my life isn't exactly on track.

On that note, I found a wonderful British site for ecards that don't suck. There's a lot of Tony Blair there, but what's missing is what makes it great: no sappy stuff, no crappy animation, no dumb music. My favorite just builds a growing tree. It's simple to program, I'm sure, but it was a very welcome reminder that our life grows in a completely unique, completely normal, beautiful and unlikely fashion:

There are no ugly trees; there is nothing "wrong" with this life of mine.

Irreconcilable Accents

My mind has been fooling me again.

I am hearing voices, although that's not the problem: people are actually speaking. And they're even saying things that make sense.... But it's how they talk that threatens reality: I am hearing an accent where there isn't one.

(More correctly, since there is no objective standard for unaccented English, I am hearing an accent other than the one they have.)

So here I am this morning, walking into a spartan "breakfast" in the lobby of a sterile EcononLodge in Olympia, Washington. Two young businessmen are yakking away in the broadest Cockney accents you can imagine. I say hello to them, and find my way to the Raisin Bran. Milk. Weak black tea and a hard-boiled egg. Chat with Rob about his trip to Japan—funny, after almost a year, he has yet to tell me about so many of his adventures in the moist summer heat of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Rob is distracted by the two men. They are not actually speaking Cockney, or even English. We don't know what language it is. Rob says it could almost be German, maybe some regional dialect he can't understand. "Maybe it's Danish," I say.

Oh help. This has happened before...

...at dinner with my mother, two weeks ago, when she was visiting me in Corvallis. We went to Evergreen, the Indian restaurant in town (no relation to Evergreen State College, whose Student Activities Center is at the moment hosting my quiet keyboarding).

A tall young father with two small children came to sit at the table next to us. I entertained the obvious thought: that perhaps mom was away, and he didn't want to fix dinner for the little ones. He was a lovely dad though, and he spoke to his kids in such kind and resonant tones, with a classic North of Ireland accent. I reveled in it, as discreetly as I could; it's not something you hear every day. And I do miss it. More than I know, as it would seem.

Conversation at my own table distracted me, and when I turned my attention back to my neighbor...he sounded as American as I do. No trace of Irishness, or of anything other than a standard west-midwest English.

I can't even describe this accent properly, yet I hear it where it doesn't exist. And I persist in hearing it, giving it my attention—only to find that it has evaporated. That it never was.

This is hardly news to Buddhists, or philosophers, or Buddhist philosophers. I guess I should be grateful for these prolonged hallucinations—for these glimpses of the dream-within-the-dream. It's one thing to hear that our experience of world is determined by mental constructs, another thing entirely to emerge, blinking, from a manufactured experience, and to wonder what other flaws of perception are propagating themselves undetected.

It's also impossible not to experience a certain measure of humility: that my affinities and predilections shape the world; that I don't see myself and I don't understand myself; that, as Hogen says "the unconscious is just that: unconscious."

It's a bright day; I like coffee; and I'm on the trail of Irish resurgents at this college, where the woods are so deep that the road signs have moss on them. That's what I think about myself. But really, who knows?