good times and bad

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Funny how, in the midst of dissecting and analyzing the malfeasance of a particular spiritual persuasion or point man (and I am thinking here of the sandstorm around Eido Tai Shimano) we can forget how much the persuasion or discipline really means to us. We really do love it in one way or another.

But I suppose that negative dissecting and analyzing is no different from the unquestioning blind-eye we can bring to our spiritual persuasions. We claim and claim and claim again to love it ... and haven't got the patience or nerve to see the sand on which our most vaunted castle is built. It's all good ... hallelujah!

I feel pretty lucky to have found a persuasion that, in good times and bad, offers a concrete way (a way not relying on belief or hope) to check things out and be assured of something more than airy-fairy answers.
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slick talk

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As a habit, I watch the BBC news on television at 6 p.m. on most days. Not that I can't read most of it on the internet, but the visuals are sometimes useful.

At 6:30, there is a program called "The Nightly Business Report." I guess it's a good report, but the thing that continues to astound me about it is that no one seems to be skeptical, let alone ashamed.

Besides telling what particular stocks and bonds did on a particular day, there are a smattering of analysts poised to bring focus to particular aspects of the world and its investments. Last night, a fellow who seemed to be in his 60's said his company was advising people to get into selective junk bonds ("though we don't call them that any more").

And that seems to be the essence of an edgy economy whose brokers and bankers want to part people from their money: Rename the product and suggest that such investments deserve the trust of the 60-70% of the American public whose work creates the wealth that bankers and brokers pissed down the drain not so long ago.

People are working longer hours for the same pay ... when they have a job. It's not at all certain they will keep their job, so the tendency is not to spend on something as iffy as a much-lauded junk bond. Food and family count to those who watch TV. Those who are on TV have nice clothes and seem to think the money they are talking about is as easy as playing Monopoly. In hard times, it has a kind of arrogance: 15-30 million people without work depending on who you listen to and these people are still pretending times are flush.

I have a hunch that Main Street is a bit smarter than Wall Street. P.T. Barnum's "There's a sucker born every minute" has less force when the servings of macaroni and cheese increase in number. When the government asks for the people's trust, the people have a right (and plenty of evidence) to ask "why?" And without that trust, the hard times that are today are unlikely to be the good times of tomorrow.

Abraham Lincoln said, "You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time." I guess that people who tout a Monopoly-money world don't mind if they can't fool everyone ... just as long as they can rake in enough for their own purposes.

There really is something obscene in all of this.
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testiness

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Sometimes I wonder whether testiness rests more on age and fatigue or on just plain experience (right or wrong).

I was reading a Zen Buddhist thread just now and felt the testiness rising. I don't want to be cranky with people I don't know and so, increasingly, as the testiness seems to mount, I just don't/can't write anything. 35-40 years of involvement and the best I can come up with is, "Do it, if you like."

It's worth a laugh in one sense, but in another, I do have to bite my tongue. Virtue and vice ... do it if you like.

A piece of the cross on which Jesus was crucified was returned after being stolen in late June or early July. The true cross. Stolen. Returned. OK, do it if you like.

Talking to others is OK. Writing is another matter.

Just noodling.

issue oriented

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I was watching a TV show the other night with my younger son -- a 'documentary' about soldiers taking Special Forces training. The exercise at hand involved six or eight guys whose problem was to move an 800-pound barrel of explosives (actually water) from where they were to another point on their maps.

There were several teams, each with five poles and four tires. The problem was not just how to move the 'explosives;' the problem was also to figure out the best way to do it and to get everyone to back the effort.

Besides the trouble each team had working up some kind of rolling sling for the 'explosives' -- something that would roll without having the tires cant so much as to be useless -- there was ego-tripping. Separating individual opinions and self-worth from the job at hand proved extremely difficult.

I didn't see the end of the show, but was struck by the humanity of the problem -- trying to put the issue before preferences and self-esteem. Not easy, but certainly worth trying ... for ourselves and our spiritual practice, I think.

Where to draw the lines. Where the lines get blurred. It's a tough nut.
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seasonal

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Cool morning, cool as fall. Next door, a blue jay seems to underscore a change of seasons, racketing and waiting patiently for others who will make a racket too.

Seasons all seem to ride in on symphonies.
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heads-and-walls

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Has it ever been any different? Something happens, little or large, and some reaction is aroused in its wake. Over and over again. The situation seems to cling like warm bubblegum to the sole of a shoe and accompanies the traveler wherever s/he goes ... over and over.

I don't want to start another Eido Tai Shimano thread. There is already one with 284 responses on this blog, but the situation, the bubblegum in which I have stepped, goes on and on. It's just where I am for the moment: Tiring, saddening, outraging, deserving, slimy, self-serving, with mixed emotions and faceted thoughts ... on and on and on.

And little stuff is no different, clinging and cloying until ....

Until it either wears out and is conveniently forgotten in the face of some other something, or it is seen through to the end ... which never turns out as expected, but anyway it can be laid to rest in a mind full of reactions.

I guess that, little or large, we keep banging our head against the wall because it feels so good when we stop ... stop playing the heads-and-walls game ... and just breathe a little.

Funny how, no matter how profound or serious the circle becomes, still it is a circle and we all come back home.

happy

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How could you be where you are if you hadn't been where you were?

The question trips lightly off the mind's tongue, together with the implication that since there is nothing that can be done, why worry about or extol it? And there are a hundred sage approaches to pride and regret.

But seriously, how could you be where you are if you hadn't been where you were?

Every smile flows from every tear; every tear is nothing but what once was smiling. And only an intellectual would say that such things are endlessly interlocking: It takes more than one thing to 'interlock,' and how many things are there, really?

How nice it is to be happy!
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elsewhere

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In order to get some kind of handle on Zen Buddhism, I think it is first necessary to go elsewhere. Zanzibar, a new relationship, a tobacco barn, Main Street, a baseball game, the backyard shed, a spiritual persuasion, a political cause, or to the zoo.

Elsewhere.

And when the elsewhere's begin to crowd around like impoverished kids pleading next to a relief-supply truck, then, maybe Zen will suggest itself in ways that make sense.

But until then ... go elsewhere and find out.

Or, practice Zen ... and find out.
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accomplishment

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Upon reaching an age of reason, every unspoiled child can ask the same question, "Why should I was the dishes if they'll just get dirty again?" And the answer that comes back boils down pretty much to, "Because I am the mom and I say so."

Adults may chortle gently at teenage questions they themselves asked so many years ago, but there still seems to be an internal logic and good sense to them. No matter how neat and clean, how punctilious or attentive anyone's habits and executions may become, still there are changes in the attitude towards accomplishments or the accomplishments themselves.

The thing most desired comes to fruition, and then ....

The thing most hated still sucks, but....

The dishes, of whatever kind, just get dirty again.

Over and over and over again.

Of course, you could just stop washing the dishes and live in a pig pen. You could shoot your next-door neighbor's yappy dog in the head and pay whatever price that entailed. But ....

On reflection, accomplishments are a bit odd. Yes, it's done, but is never quite completely done, never static, never something steady-state. Eventually, I think you come back to the koan, "Who is the mom?" And without answering that one satisfactorily, the dishes will never get washed, the sky will never be blue, and that damned dog will keep on yapping.
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my kingdom for a joke!

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What I could use now is a good dirty joke ... or even a good clean one.

Having spent the morning between 5 and 1130 working on a bureaucratic form -- make sure of spelling, commas, tone, facts etc. -- I feel as if there were sludge in my thinking department.

Jokes are high-octane, on-target, blackboard-erasers.

Funny how laughter or sneezing or any number of other things just seem to clear things up and put you on track.

Zazen ain't bad either.
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old habits

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After a solid night's sleep (rare), I lay in bed for a few moments this morning and realized that nothing was wrong. Stomach, heart and other complaints that have taken me to doctors lately simply were not expressing their need for attention. To have nothing happening was 1. odd and 2. somehow boring. But not so boring that I didn't lie there and marvel for a while.

Funny how anyone might pray fervently for one thing or another and yet, when they got it, be so habituated to their acts of petition and complaint that, well, there was a sense of loss. Without something to strive for or complain about, who would you be?

It's a little like Martin Luther King's approximate observation, "It's not what's wrong with the world that scares people. What really scares them is that everything is all right."

Less politely, it's also like the old critique, "He's so dumb he could fuck up a wet dream."

Old habits die hard, but even if you can't plunge a dagger
into their heart, still you can examine the anatomy of the situation and learn a little something.


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national anthem

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"The Star Spangled Banner," national anthem of the United States, did not gain political approval as a national anthem until 1931, which seems a fair stretch from the War of 1812 and the battle at Ft. McHenry during which the Americans successfully defended Baltimore from a British assault in 1814. The British attacked with an hellacious barrage that went on and on and on and on. By morning, Francis Scott Key, author of "The Star-Spangled Banner," was able to frame the the anthem's question, "Oh say does that star-spangled banner yet wave ...?"

But it took until 1931 for Congress to put its stamp of approval on the song as the national anthem. Prior to that vote, such songs as "God Bless America" and "America" were heard at official gatherings without any congressional imprimatur.

One hundred and seventeen years.

This country, like every other, had flags to spare. Each symbolized this or that, called attention to this or that, inspired awe or devotion or, perhaps, horror at the cause for which it was raised. Flags are a serious business when it comes to symbolism, cohesiveness and propaganda.

But the national anthem had to wait. I guess music is more complex than cloth.

As a totally useless piece of information, I thought the scene was interesting.

crisp day

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After the recent avalanche of hot, humid days, today it is as crisp as a carrot ... nice zazen weather. A woman is coming to sit with me ... i.e. she built a fire under my sometimes lazy ways.

How Zen students cannot see their own function as teachers beats the hell out of me, though of course I was exactly the same.
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the moral/ethical path

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Ethics is what we do on behalf of others. Morality is what we do when no one is looking.

I guess I thought of this again today because I was reading the words of someone searching for a Zen teacher. As he put it, once bitten, twice shy: He had run into choppy waters in the past and didn't want to get blind-sided by some new charlatan.

No one can see the future, but the writer's concerns deserved some reassurances, however flimsy those might be.

One of the good things about Zen practice is the fact that it requires your own effort, your own practice, your own experience. Mostly, this is what any decent Zen teacher will do -- encourage you to practice zazen or seated meditation ... and find out for yourself. The good part is that no one, no matter how elevated or how debased, can ever take that experience from you. No books or wisdom required -- when practicing zazen, you know ... even if what it is you know is not yet precisely clear.

Some spiritual endeavors seem to rely on ethics, which can be measured and judged. Lots of religions have laundry lists to be adhered to.

As far as I can see, Zen is not much different, but the ways in which it encourages ethical behavior have slightly different roots. Zen's roots are not some attempt to bolster a temple or teacher or text or teaching or power structure. Rather, Zen's ethics rely on morality ... what would you do if no one else were around and you faced a particular situation or sorrow?

When I started sniffing and snooping spiritual endeavor, I was more interested in the morality of things: What did spiritual endeavor mean when the woo-hoo'ing crowd was nowhere in sight? Was it fact or was it some elevated fantasy? Did it or did it not work?

Of course separating ethics and morality smells strikingly like one of those homework projects in religion or philosophy. But I think that not separating the two is as mistaken as trying to paste them together.

What will you do when no one else is around.

What will you do when everyone around you is praising god?

In both instances, what's interesting and informative -- i.e. outside the realm of mere homework or belief -- is the doing.

Doing tells the tale, whether in ethics or morality.

Just noodling.
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summer and fall

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Here it is, Aug. 7, and this morning, against a blue sky, a raft of Canada geese flew past, chattering in ways most often reserved for September and October.

Who's to know when autumn arrives? The geese seem to know what they're doing.
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bookstore

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Yesterday, I went to a bookstore. The colorful spines and covers were all around me and the store smelled ... like a bookstore. Since this is a town with a college, perhaps it's not unusual that there is still a bookstore, but it had been some time since I went into one, let alone planned to buy anything.

For my son, whose birthday is approaching, I gathered up a fat compendium of disaster procedures. What to do when the electricity stops, where to find water, how to weave -- that sort of thing. The book is only half a joke since he may never be inclined to put it to use. But the amount of stuff young people don't know about and can't do sometimes strikes me as astounding. I don't like the panic mode that make such books possible, but I also don't like neglecting what you can do when you have to. So maybe the purchase of that book hinged on a suspicion about the future.

For myself, with the help of a gift certificate my daughter had given me for my birthday, I bought a bit of the past -- a book called "The Bolter." I had heard the author, Frances Osborne, on public radio and liked the stories she wove while being interviewed about a recollection of forbears who had lived in the early part of the 1900's ... wealthy, decadent, promiscuous WASPS who helped to make the high-profile parts of the 1920's and 1930's what they were.

When I got my book home, I skimmed through it idly, looking at the pictures and then reading a bit of the intro. It held out some promise, or so it seemed to me, and yet I could feel my mental gorge rising. This was about people who had and spent money and yet, I imagined, never discussed it. Money was a given and the eye-walloping houses in which they lived were nothing special -- they were just the way things were and the way these people expected them to be. This was simply their atmosphere of life.

What made my gorge rise was not some egalitarian disgust in which the have's and the have-not's were unfavorably compared. What felt like a noose around my neck was the narrowness of what I imagined the thinking to be ... like a Ku Klux Klan rally at which "everyone thinks like me." Here, I suspected, were people with good educations who ignored the particulars of the rest of the world.

As I say, I only skimmed the intro, and it may be that there is more to be gleaned than my own narrowed perspective. But what I did read and what it made me idly think was: "Perhaps there should be a law: Anyone who lacks curiosity will be summarily shot." If the atmosphere is rich and well-cushioned, then that's the atmosphere. But what about the rest of life? Aren't you curious?

And of course the question is unfair. People are curious in their own ways and with varying degrees of seriousness. But I think what got to me was the implied unkindness of a narrow, incurious world. Ku Klux Klan or well-heeled stock broker or religious zealot ... the potential for unkindness wafts up like the scent of skunk cabbage.

I know, I know -- who's to measure, who's to assess? But as the Supreme Court justice said of pornography, "I may not know what it is, but I know it when I see it."

Interesting how my gorge rose without ever reading more than 20 pages. Now, on behalf of my gorge, I will have to read more to get some sense of why those imperative pearl necklaces and large, roomy cars and aren't-I-wicked activities were (if so) as incurious as they were. I will read some more even if something in me rebels at reading and rebels at the subject matter as well. "Greed, anger and ignorance" trip off the tongue lightly. But the particulars are important, gorge or no gorge.
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poof!

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With the death of Aitkin Roshi, a man who provided light in my particular firmament though I never met him, it is hard not to think:

Eventually, all those we revere will be dead and we will be left in the role we once assigned to them. No longer will there be some other boss, other teacher, other friend. Now it will be up to us ... the ones who once lacked understanding and clarity and who went to the 'sages' for help.

Now, like it or lump it, it's our turn. No more relying on others: This is it. Mother, father, teachers, friends, religions, philosophies ... poof! You're in charge.

The fact that all the mealy-mouthed Zen teachers of all times have urged us to assume the high seat, to see for ourselves, to be the arbiters of war and peace, to grow up ... still, secretly or not so secretly we leaned on them -- the wise ones, the good ones, the ones we may have praised. Our weaknesses were so many and their sagacities flashed across our skies. We were reassured. But now?

But now -- no shit -- it's our turn and no one else's. Quiver, quibble, be scared, express our egregious modesty ... none of that matters because the high seat is where we sit ... period.
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Aitken Roshi dies

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A thread on Zen Forum International announced today:

Aitken Roshi passed away yesterday, Thursday, August 5, 2010, at around 5:30 pm at Straub hospital in Honolulu. He was 93.

With many thanks!



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Hiroshima

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Aug 6, 5:34 AM (ET)

By ERIC TALMADGE
HIROSHIMA, Japan (AP) - A U.S. representative participated for the first time Friday in Japan's annual commemoration of the American atomic bombing of Hiroshima, in a 65th anniversary event that organizers hope will bolster global efforts toward nuclear disarmament.

The site of the world's first A-bomb attack echoed with the choirs of schoolchildren and the solemn ringing of bells Friday as Hiroshima marked its biggest memorial yet. At 8:15 a.m. - the time the bomb dropped, incinerating most of the city - a moment of silence was observed.

Complete article
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he/she

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I was waiting my turn in the unemployment office yesterday. Across two widths of Formica-topped table sat a fellow in a well-worn T-shirt and jeans. His hair was grey at the temples and I guessed he was in his fifties -- a guy whose hands said he was not afraid to get dirty. He was waiting too.

Next to him sat what I at first took to be a young man. He was plump in a way that is common these days and he sported the clear beginnings of a goatee and mustache. His forearms were plump with muscle and fat and dappled by strong man-hair. The hair on his head hung down around his ears. It soon became apparent that he was with the guy in his fifties. The two talked in the low tones that people use in Formica-topped offices. Both seemed amicable and open and at ease with who they were.

But as they talked, I began to lose my moorings. The young man had a very feminine voice. I glanced at his chest, but could not say with certainty whether the extrusions were fat or breasts. Whatever checking I did, my eyes returned to the goatee and mustache, both of which said "male" in my head.

Finally, the young man decided to stretch his legs. He stood up, hitched up the jeans that exposed his butt crack, and walked into the hallway outside the office. Even standing up I was left guessing, as much as anything because my mind refused to get off the "male" frequency it had decided on. Still, after he returned to sit next to his dad, I gave up: This "he" was a "she." Or, if some mixture of "he" and "she," more "she" than "he." The goose-down goatee still flummoxed me a bit, but in the end my mind settled back on the fact that these were two people I somehow liked. Just pretty good people, whatever the sex.

What a deep-seated habit, the whole he/she thing. Of course it's necessary for procreation, I suppose, but otherwise ... well, what a habit. Here were two people who seemed content in their skins while I was not content in mine. I felt somehow that I had to know. But once I did know, what, precisely, did I imagine I knew and of what use was it?

I guess the usefulness was in pointing out to me what was pretty damned useless.
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another world

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Already at 3:30 a.m., the outdoors was as close and moist and glutinous as chewed taffy. The forecast is for another hot, humid day and even in the darkness I can believe it.

-- Is this true or is it just my overactive imagination? When you're young and walk down Main Street, the people you see are young -- with a sprinkling of elderly people forming a backdrop. But when you are old, Main Street is full of elderly people, with a sprinkling of young people to enliven the scene. Do we just see ourselves wherever we go or is this just a perky imagination looking for an outlet?

-- A friend was good enough to look up descriptions of "Tathagata Zen" and "Patriarchal Zen" and send them along in the wake of some earlier references we had both made. But as I read through the definitions and the regard or disregard in which each has been or is held, I found myself not caring a whole lot. It's all useful stuff in one sense (sorry, I haven't got what it takes to spell it all out), but in another sense, so what? The Zen teacher Rinzai summed things up for me when he said, "Grasp and use, but never name." Everything is useful in its time ... so, go ahead a use it. Just don't imagine that naming it has much to do with anything.

-- Interest in writing has definitely waned. The topics don't rise up as they once did and when they do rise up, the excitement is muted. I can see why other writers find books or articles or history to fluff up their prose ... let someone else do the heavy lifting... hitch a ride and make a point or two. Still, no matter how bad the writing gets, I don't imagine I will stop ... it's such an old habit, entering 'another world' ... and then finding out that it's the world you're already in.
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what's wrong with not knowing?

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Without getting into a helplessness swoon about it, isn't it amazing how much hard evidence there is that we really don't know from one moment to the next and still we imagine we do know and are in control of our lives?

The hard evidence, for example, might be seen in the the black man in neighboring Connecticut who was caught on film stealing booze from his distributor's company. He agreed yesterday without complaint to resign, and then proceeded to kill eight people and injure two before turning the gun on himself.

OK, the tale is shocking and frightening, but how much different is it from whatever is going to happen five minutes from now? I really don't know, irrespective of the Korean Zen that can drum-beat "don't know mind."

Why do I insist on doing what plainly lacks complete or even particularly compelling evidence? Would I go nuts if I didn't know? Would it be too scary? Would I be somehow less? What's wrong with not-knowing ... people, places, things, thoughts, emotions? Since the evidence points to a much wider spectrum than knowing, why do I insist on the narrow and demonstrably untrue? Even when I do guess what's going to happen, it never happens precisely as I imagined, so I end up being satisfied with pretty good guesses or approximations. That strikes me as a half-baked kind of life.

As I say, no need to get your tail in a knot. But it does strike me as a curious matter.
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the perfect teacher

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Sometimes there are deprecating glances and dismissive rejoinders when anyone admits to a wee whisper in the heart -- the whisper that longs desperately for "the perfect teacher." Unblemished, accepting and capable of overlooking the flaws I myself am so bad at overlooking.

"Every moment is the perfect teacher," I can hear someone saying. Well, maybe so, but where there are aches and cuts, who would not long to be thoroughly and completely healed? Sage nostrums can take a hike ... where do I find the perfect teacher? I'm not kidding -- I want this more than I wanted a B-B gun when I was a kid.

The perfect teacher ... the one without flaws; the one who accepts all flaws.

I like this idea of a perfect teacher in whom we can find surcease and release. Rationally, it's off-the-charts even if there are vast religions supporting it, but realistically, where the heart beats, it makes perfect sense.

Trying to find the perfect teacher may be as irrational as thinking you have actually found him/her, but where the longing arises, the heart opens up wide-wider-widest and it is this quality that makes the search for the perfect teacher a wise choice. Open up to what touches the heart ... what really touches the heart. Nurse and nurture that longing as a mother might nurse and nurture her child.

And how does the good mother act? Is she inattentive? Not at all. So bring an unswerving attention to bear on the honest yearnings -- however insane they may seem. Books don't answer. People don't answer. But an attentive mom?

Well, mom is god. Any kid knows that.
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"Zen and the Art of Seduction"

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Received the following in email today. The 1982 document is unpublished, but has joined the Aitken (Roshi) archive (a public record) in Hawaii.

"Zen and the Art of Seduction" by Robin Westen

It may be dusty, but it may also be pretty informative for anyone interested in Zen practice.
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writing

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During a radio interview yesterday, an author complained that these days everyone wants to be a writer, but nobody reads books. Bucking the trend to some extent, he pointed to a magazine on the west coast that only read submissions accompanied by a sales slip indicating that the would-be author had bought a book.

Everyone's got something to say. Everyone would like others to listen. Has it ever been any different? I don't think so. It's just that now the internet does not discriminate -- as publishing establishments once did -- between good writing and bad. There is no fickle finger of fate sending out pink slips that say, "your writing skills suck."

And where no one can yank your chain, the willingness to believe you have something interesting to say trickles weed-fashion across neighboring tracts. No critic says, "boring" or "derivative" or "repetitive" or just plain "stupid." The playing field has been leveled on the internet and with a level playing field, why should anyone be expected to read? Some people write better than others ... equality is not the point. How can anyone be expected to sift through every bit of mediocrity, however heart-felt or sincere? I sure as hell won't.

Reading may be a strong informer of writing, but you have to be devoted to writing before you find that out. And is there some cachet to writing? Less and less that I can see.
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repetition

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Having recently visited a doctor who grew pretty touchy when I asked him to go over a point yet again ("I've already explained that," he said more than once), it occurs to me that I too can overlook the need for repetition:

And so, for no particular reason, here are several things I think it's worth repeating:

The Cucumber Sage
The Invitation
Desiderata

As I say, this list is in no way exhaustive -- they were just things that came to mind when thinking about the inability or unwillingness of those in possession of good suggestions to be smug or distant just because they happen to have such information.
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Ben Franklin

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Some quotes from Ben Franklin:

-- He that lives upon hope will die fasting.

-- Having been poor is no shame, but being ashamed of it, is.

-- He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.

-- All would live long, but none would be old.

-- Anger is never without Reason, but seldom with a good One.

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perfecting the slob

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Slick, four-color design magazines and upscale housing on television shows often depict something quite interesting. What they depict is nothing that is interesting, nothing that is loved: No books on the walls, no velveteen portraits of Elvis, no orange ceilings, no refrigerators with magnetized reminders.

The reason for leaving out such human traces, I imagine, is that the viewer will not be distracted from the architecture, the layout, or the placement of things. Certainly there can be a couch, but not a couch with a beautiful or ugly lap blanket lying carelessly over the back.

As in a Zen meditation hall, you can see better if there is less to see. You can introduce your own color or style without fear of contradiction. This, the magazine pictures seem to say, is an empty canvas on which you are welcome to paint.

Sometimes I wonder if people try to make their minds resemble the spare and dustless symmetries you can see in magazines or on TV ... a place in which the smell of an apple pie would never entice the nostrils.

On the one hand, the mind is as full of endless chatter as a teenager's room may have unwashed clothes on the floor. Who wouldn't want to clean up this mess? On the other hand, once cleaned to perfection ... well, how interesting can perfection actually be even if it were possible?

As a supreme court justice might know pornography ("I may not know what it is, but I know it when I see it"), so each person may recognize his or her own inner slob. But recognizing his or her own inner perfection may be more than honest person could achieve. Scrub the floors until they glisten, paint the walls, vacuum the rugs, fill up the bank account, get the right car or spouse, give away all your worldly goods, erect a hermit's hut in the forest ... at what point will someone say "enough!" and just hang up a beloved velveteen Elvis ... stop perfecting things according to someone else's thin-lipped dictates?

Slob living doesn't work very well.

Micrometric perfection doesn't work much better.

How about picking your velveteen Elvis and following it to the ends of the earth?
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100,000,000 affected

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Some 100 million people were said to have been affected as Twitter -- an electronic 'communications' device -- was temporarily shut off for maintenance today. Here's the story

100,000,000 is a lot of people.

When I ask my sons what it is they communicate with such devices, they grow evasive and inarticulate, making me imagine it's sex, drugs and whatever there is that stands for rock 'n' roll these days. But even if the communication is naughty somehow, what is it that makes these devices so addictive?

A safe distance? An anonymity that allows for honesty? A loneliness looking for an outlet? Business deals? Love? An electronic circle of friends ... which makes me wonder how the word 'friend' is intended these days?

I don't mind being left out of the loop -- I can barely work the cell phone I keep for auto emergencies and tracking down one child or the other -- but there must be some human threads running through these gotta-have-it devices.

Well, whatever the reasons, someone certainly is making a lot of money.
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obvious

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Discovering the obvious can seem too prosaic and yet, where the discovery appears, it can feel like quite a square dance -- full of bright music and smiles. The dime drops and there is some dial tone that gives a whole new meaning to our old-fashioned telephone.

It's pretty obvious, for example, that the mind is a grasping, greedy cuss, and yet when anyone slows down enough to really examine this obvious realm, it can be like a vast revelation. You can almost imagine a couple of buffed pamphleteers showing up unannounced on your door step, hawking the 'good word.' That's how stunning the discovery of the obvious can be.

Sure, it's d'oh that the mind skitters and skates and scoops up belief and hopes and possessions like some vast street sweeper. Obvious stuff. But for those who consent to look into the causes and results of such a mind ... well, whoa mama!

If a grasping mind is good for grasping and yet things are always in a state of flux and thus ungraspable, what the hell is anyone supposed to do with this wily cuss -- the one that can put spaghetti on the table and yet cause so many doubts? Some summon up brass bands of philosophy and religion. Some reflect back and try to make some sense of things. Whatever the course, it is clear that what is obvious has even more scope than initially imagined.

Oh well, I guess I was just thinking about the rarity of people consenting to reflect in a way that will bring them home. Everyone reflects, but the seriousness with which they reflect varies and more often than not just leads back to an elevation of the wily cuss who started the reflection in the first place. Still, if you bang your head against the wall often enough, the dime may drop -- do'h! -- into your lap.

What's the matter with a cup of coffee? What's the matter with some eggs? What's the matter with some hash-browned potatoes? Sure, it's obvious ... but is it obvious?
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