Art In the World

Today's New York Times article reviewing the show "Zen Figure Painting in Medieval Japan" masterfully educates the reader and evokes the Dharma behind the art. No small task--and harder still to do it with such apparent lack of effort.

The review touched on the notion of leaving things alone. It's not necessary to abuse the body in the quest for truth, for example; it will disintegrate in time, of its own accord. Nor is it necessary to try to force things to be a certain way; they are as they are. This leaving things alone isn't always passive; left alone, a flower undergoes revolution as it blooms. Things take their course, whether you fight them, or cheer them on, or sullenly prefer otherwise. Water finds the lowest point, forms a stream, and flows. "Leaving things alone" has as little to do with spending ones days at home with the shades drawn as it does with trying fruitlessly to be something you're not.

In light of that notion, I'm still processing last night's showing of Eloquent Nude and Portland's Cinema 21. The director and I go way back, all the way to eighth grade at Catlin Gabel School Ian McCluskey. To have known someone half a lifetime ago, and to see what they can do now....

What Ian can do is incredible indeed. The film pays tribute to the creative frisson that made Edward Weston's photography some of the most notable visual work of the 20th century by profiling Charis Wilson, the young woman who was his muse, lover, and collaborator. Although the film is a documentary, a great deal of its impact comes from largely-unscripted reenactments that echo Wilson and Weston's easy creative unity. Making a film about the creative process is itself a creative process, and what has emerged is a picture that sparked the largest premiere Portland has ever seen.

I couldn't help noting that Charis' excellent writing skills were instrumental in his winning a Guggenheim fellowship. Turns out she was one of the young ladies who attended the ancestor of my alma mater, Miss Catlin's School for Girls. No wonder she knew how to write!

I'm hoping to meet Ian soon to catch up on the past 16 years. But he might be hard to catch: the film is going to open in San Francisco and Santa Cruz in the next couple of months, followed by Minnesota, and then on to New York. Maybe he can visit the Zen Figure Painting show. It closes June 17.

Notes to Self

Notes to Self
Originally uploaded by Shugetsu.

What clears karma?

What does "not being driven" look like?

The only prison is in the mind.

It's spring: the heat, the light, the flowers, are all asking that we change.

Body & Identity

faceless ones
Originally uploaded by Shugetsu.

Recently I showed up several days into a sesshin. In order to respect others and to quiet my own mind, I undertook the practice of not looking at people's faces.

I already knew most of the sesshin participants. Even so, I mistook some friends for others; quite sweet and funny to discover this.

Others in attendance, I did not recognize. In the days that followed, I came to know their feet, or their backs, or their legs, very well indeed. At no time did I yearn to see their faces. Their bodies radiated emotion and personality so vibrantly; what I sensed from them seemed truer than what a facial expression might convey. The face shows what you're thinking; the body shows what you are.

I think the creators of this cheesy-yet-curiously-moving line of tchotkes know this to be true.

Zen and the Japanese Woman

Yumi in the Garden
Originally uploaded by Shugetsu.

Yumi is a remarkable young Japanese woman. We first met in Corvallis a year ago, and I was honored to show her around Portland on a recent visit.

Being with her, I remembered what it is to fall in love with a foreign land. To see the shops along NW 23rd and the trees strung with lights; to meet cool friendly people at every turn; to soak up the vibe at coffeeshops and teahouses. To feel that a place is perfect; to not see any faults at all.

I felt that way about Japan once, just as she feels that way about my home now. The reality of one's own life is so draining, compared to the promise of a world that is bright and foreign and unsullied by familiarity. Through her eyes, I saw just how remarkable my life is.

The lives of women in Japan are not like my own. The lives of most women are not like my own. There is so little these days to wear me down, or exhaust me, or cause me to lose my sense of self. The only real challenge resides within; and whatever lurks in the darkest depths has created few allies on the outside.

Yumi said that there is a trend for women in Japan to practice Zen. They visit temples to sit zazen, draw Buddha-images, and eat shojin-ryori (delicate and lovely "temple food"). These things are all considered healing.

I reflected on this story, and resumed a dormant practice: drawing Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. In female form.

OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SVAHA

Destroying the Mystery

Longing is the core of mystery.
Longing itself brings the cure.

- Rumi

When I saw this quote on a greeting card, I was stunned. I scribbled it on a scrap of paper and looked at it several times a day. Every time desire arose, I pulled this out of my pocket, and reflected from the midst of longing. Are these words true? If true, how are they true?

Only as a being of desire, a being who wishes and yearns, will I find what I seek. And...what am I truly seeking?

Yearning is born from some sense of lack, some aspiration to wholeness and beauty. And from a belief in my own separation; from a belief that there is something to have and to own; something that can be had and owned through time. If "I" could "get" "that." Then "I" would be "happy." Complete. Not so suddenly alone.

As if anything or anyone could confer that power.

And yet we must yearn. Within the relative realm, within the human sphere, there is the wanting-of-things. We're made to yearn. And, says Rumi, that longing is itself the path.

So feeling the longing, and feeling the cure: really asking What matters most? What is true happiness? Will I survive without this piece of antique jewelry, without the attentions of this stranger? Feeling the feeling below the story, feeling some more, and then moving on.

One day, finally, googling the quote. And finding there's more:

Longing is the core of mystery.
Longing itself brings the cure.

The only rule is, suffer the pain.

Your desire must be disciplined,
and what you want to happen
in time, sacrificed.

--Rumi

Arising then: disgust. That someone would cut off the most important part of a quote, the better to make a buck from an attractive half-thought.

Although. The whole lugubrious quote might never have caught my eye, or made its way into my pocket, or lodged in my heart.

And now there are a few more lines to chew on, as precious as the first.

The only rule is, suffer the pain.

Gratitude for the Worst and Stupidest

On March 25 2003, I entered training at a Zen monastery.

A giant stream of karma led me to that day, and plenty of enthusiastic self-entanglement has ensued. Seems like unskilful actions are the ones you remember most. Whatever was skilful seamlessly just becomes part of life, and you forget your own role in it.

Yesterday, it struck me: I had to do it. All of it. Including the obsession, the betrayal, the breakdowns, the pettiness, and so forth. The stupid confrontations, the being-driven-by-fear. I needed to do this stuff, and remember it, and puzzle over it. There is no other way this limited person can be forced to look at the big questions of life. When you are in the middle of crisis, or when you are ashamed of what you've done, you need to figure out what's going on, and you'll stop at nothing to find out where your compulsions are coming from. We need to study the evidence to know the answer. With no evidence, there's no thread to follow back to the dark heart of the self.

Labelling this or that action as "stupid" or "wise" indicates whether it will cause pleasure or pain. But labels cannot say whether, or how, an action will become grist for the process of self-knowledge. Vowing to understand the darkness is another action, perhaps. I love the teachings on karma: nothing is "good" or "bad", rather "this is the way to hurt yourself and others" or "this is the way to bring happiness to the world." Pain, though makes us remember the lesson learned in a way that nothing else can. And the pain we bring upon ourselves and others absolutely requires our continued attention. In the universal eye, the "wrong" action makes perfect sense. And it's necessary.

This is not to excuse bad behavior. Only to explain it, and to say that we own it like we own nothing else. My clothes, my phone, my glass can all wear out, or be lost or stolen. While my actions also are gone, they illuminate a puzzle, and their legacy of pain confers a pressing responsibility to study the puzzle. What a gift, precious and terrible.

wrathful-protector
Originally uploaded by rezendi.

The Wearing of the Green

I have come to loathe this country's celebration of St Patrick's Day, and over the years I've developed a litany of complaints which I'm quite pleased with: it is celebrated by drinking to excess; it is about wearing green; it contributes to a simplistic view of Irishness as having to do with leprechauns and shamrocks; it thereby disrepects a formidable saint and trivializes an ethnic heritage. Needless to say, I have answered all who ask, I do not wear green on this day. I don't fookin' need to. My dad is an Irish citizen. That's plenty.

But today, something I have known for a long time bubbled up out of memory, and wearing green suddenly seemed to be all right. Possibly even a good thing.

Pretend, for a moment, that you are oppressed. That you are denied an education; that you cannot practice your religion; that you are systematically, legally, abused. You cannot vote. You cannot enter a profession, or engage in trade of any sort. Your priests are hunted for sport. You are Irish under the penal laws: a non-person.

In response to this, the moral backbone of a country is broken: morality is an unaffordable luxury; lying and conniving flourish; vigilantism against collaborators is the norm. Poverty, of course, is endemic.

Perhaps the most bizarre aspects of this very non-funny time: capital punishment for wearing the color green. Because green stands for Ireland.

Then, the famine. A million Irish perish; and those who are able to emigrate in great floods, often under unthinkable conditions. Read about the coffin ships and you'll understand why so few Irish Americans know where in Ireland they actually came from.

Famine Monument - Dublin City - Ireland
Originally uploaded by lpinseel.

When you come over in a half-human state, and throw yourself into the work of living in a new land, details get lost. What is remembered, mostly unconsciously, is this oppression. That wearing green means something, even if we don't remember what. That we are here, dammit; that we are alive still; that something lost needs remembering.

So: to the fat guy in the green T-shirt, and the little black girl with the green hair ribbons: thank you for honoring this past, however unknowingly. May brutality never harm your spirit; May you proclaim your truth to the world, never apologize for what you are, and ever thumb your nose at oppression. Wear green. Don't allow any government to deny you your humanity. And please, find some mode of self-expression other than drinking excessively, regardless of whatever St Brigid may have told you.

I'm a bit embarrassed it took me this long to put together what wearing green means. Although I suspect 99 of 100 Irish-Americans would be clueless as well.

For an exhaustive school curriculum detailing the Famine and penal laws, click here.
For an overview of Celtic Christianity, including Patrick's Prayer, click here.

For the shameless tearjerker of a song that came into my head this morning, read on.

O Paddy dear, an' did ye hear the news that's goin' round?
The shamrock is forbid by law to grow on Irish ground;
St. Patrick's Day no more we'll keep, his colour can't be seen,
For there's a cruel law agin the wearin' o' the Green.

I met with Napper Tandy, and he took me by the hand,
And he said, "How's poor old Ireland, and how does she stand?"
She's the most distressful country that ever yet was seen,
For they're hangin' men an' women there for the wearin' o' the Green.

Then since the colour we must wear is England's cruel red,
Sure Ireland's sons will ne'er forget the blood that they have shed,
You may take a shamrock from your hat and cast it on the sod,
It will take root and flourish there though underfoot it's trod.

When law can stop the blades of grass from growin' as they grow,
And when the leaves in summer-time their colour dare not show,
Then will I change the colour, too, I wear in my caubeen
But 'till that day, please God, I'll stick to wearin' o' the Green.

But if at last our colour should be torn from Ireland's heart,
Her sons with shame and sorrow from the dear old isle will part;
I've heard a whisper of a land that lies beyond the sea
Where rich and poor stand equal in the light of freedom's day.

O Erin, must we leave you driven by a tyrant's hand?
Must we ask a mother's blessing from a strange and distant land?
Where the cruel cross of England shall nevermore be seen,
And where, please God, we'll live and die still wearin' o' the green!

The True Home Is In the Heart

Last night I dreamed I was in Ireland
Somewhere around the Cavan/Meath boundary,
watching brillant clouds, and the play of light on endless hills;
a skyful of shadow and fire.

The memory of those clouds stayed all morning,
and some part believed myself in Ireland:
corn flakes and strong tea for breakfast.

Then, 10AM, I saw those clouds again
blazing behind buildings now, over foreign trees,
dark and fringed in finery.
The bus coming, and time for only one poor picture.

Why Work?

The Monks of New Skete say that although many must work in order to survive, all of us must work in order to be whole.

With nothing to do all day, it is impossible to develop as a human being. Work turns the hours of the day into a lesson, an opportunity to see where we are stuck. It's all well and good to sit still and be spiritual, but without the challenge of interacting with others we will never be able to develop qualities of kindness or forgiveness. And without the cacophony of demands that the world batters us with, we will never learn how to be of service while safeguarding the one being whose wellbeing we most directly affect: ourselves.

This morning on the bus, Matt the young engineer I sometimes talk to asked, "Am I immature for being unmotivated and disliking my job? Seems like a real adult should work because they are being paid, regardless of whether they care about the work." All I could answer was, "When you believe in what you do, it's a lot easier to be enthusiastic."

I don't know if "enthusiastic" is even the word. If I set up work as something separate from my life, I get exhausted. But if it's continuous with everything else, there's no problem.

I have it easy. Spending time with kids and helping them learn is just what I'm doing with my time. Those hours would come and go anyway, and this is the most rewarding way I've found to pass them. In spite of all this, I do dread long days, and I do get nervous when I have to learn something new, then turn around and teach it.

Being absorbed in work is a lot more difficult when it's something you don't care for, or don't think is of benefit to the world. When ideas get in the way. If you are busy hating the dirty dishes, or you're angry the bus is late, or you're offended by your coworker, the whole undertaking is exhausting. So there needs to be some surrender to the process, to spending time in whatever way.

Another thing I haven't quite figured out is the way in which "surrender to the process" includes establishing boundaries. Negative ideas make life difficult; but wholehearted absorption is almost impossible once you are feeling jerked around. I do have some influence over what my day and week look like; I can reject clients or decline opportunities to sub; I can even change my mind about something when circumstances change. Leading up to these actions, I feel conflicted. I know that, if anything, I err on the side of overaccomodation. Having carefully concluded that a particular action is a completely reasonable reflection of my needs, I act. And afterwards, I know it's been the right thing. Only in retrospect do I know the action was right, because the seamlessness returns, the constriction is relieved, and life is bigger and brighter than before.

Another Day

7:58 on the Tuesday morning after daylight savings.

Kids stream up the hill from the parking lot and swarm around the school buildings.

Many are smiling. Can you imagine such a thing?

It makes the day ahead--subbing middle school math--seem so much more inviting.

Watching the Rock

stein32
Originally uploaded by kaibun.

I've always wanted to do what flickr-ino Kaibun has done: photograph the same thing through the seasons.

See the entire set.

Cycle of Rebirth

My Old House
Originally uploaded by Shugetsu.

Buy dilapidated rental property in 1994 for $600K. Allow crumbling to continue. Sell in 2003 for $1mill. Remodel beautifully. Sell in 2007 for $1.75mill.

I really loved this place, and when we were evicted to make way for the new owner and his family, I almost didn't mind. Four of us lived in the two-level owner's unit at the top of the building. In spite of the leaks, the peeling wallpaper, the fallling plaster, the mold, the funny wiring, and the lack of proper heat, none of our friends could be convinced to pity us, because our rent for that huge rambling space was only about $2000 altogether.

After many battles over repairs and habitability, we called the building inspector, and our landlord was cited for 19 violations of the housing code. At that point, it was easier to sell.

Every potential buyer but one planned to subdivide our unit into studios. But a young contractor with two kids fell in love with the building. We moved out so they could move in. The transformation he wrought is incredible.


This is my old room.

My life, too, has changed at least as much.

As we were being evicted, it struck me: the house was built in 1907. How do you "own" something that old? Generations of tenants had lived there, and now us, and now someone else.

And now, a very wealthy someone else.


You can see more photos of the house on the Zephyr Real Estate site.