old 'Buddhism,' new day

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Like the neighborhood skunk that tiptoes down the driveway in its nocturnal travels and sends its scents through open windows here, yesterday was a "Buddhism" day, I guess. Old actions, old choices, old stuff comes calling once again like some ex-spouse with whom the connections appeared to have been severed and then, oddly, reassert themselves.

My younger son's good friend and fishing companion Brian was sitting on the couch when I ambled by on my way to the kitchen yesterday morning. He and Ives were watching TV. It was mid-morning and I wondered why Brian was here so early. "They let me out of work very early," he explained. Less work, less money ... so I said I would pay both boys something if they mowed the lawn ... and do a good job. I told them what I wanted and they agreed.

But later, Ives told me he had taken Brian out to the zendo and Brian had some questions. More or less, the questions seemed to boil down to, "What do you do in a place like that?" I'm a sucker for the simple questions, the direct questions, the human questions, so I told him in the simplest language I could find. Zen Buddhism -- what a strange pastime. On the one hand it's dumber than a box of rocks -- sit down and shut up -- and on the other, people put out a lot of effort to build sometimes fancy buildings in aid of such an activity. A conundrum -- why put out energy for something that stupid?

That's my kind of question. The vast compassion of the bodhisattva or the emptiness of mind ... I know others can expatiate and fiddle around, but those matters don't press my buzzers as surely as a simple, straightforward, open-hearted "What's it all for?" Now that makes some sense to me.

Not that it's a question anyone could adequately answer, of course: But at least it's straight-up and straight-across. Buddhism ... who thought that up and what usefulness did it have? I floundered around, told Brian what I could, and pretty soon the conversation turned to baseball.

Then, in the evening, some woman named Whitney called. She sounded somewhat breathless and young. She was interested in Buddhism and wondered if we could have a cup of coffee some time. I said -- perhaps rashly -- that it might be easier if she just came here and I would give her a cup of coffee. I figured that she could see the zendo if she wanted. But when I asked her when she wanted to get together, she replied, "As soon as possible." Uh-oh ... was this a case of drugs or recent social trauma desperate for any available talisman ... some wand which, when waved, would take away all worries and pain? I couldn't tell on the phone, but I guess I'll find out, assuming she shows up for the 9:30 date we set for this morning.

Buddhism ... coming calling again like some ex-spouse, reasserting a presence as if it were still as present as it had been in the past. Everyone makes his or her own bed and then has to sleep in it, but still ... that old bed?! I can see why the old-timers of the past were quick to point newcomers to someone else ... "Go ask Harry or Sally -- they know about that stuff." It's easier to let someone else flounder ... especially when they are convinced they are not floundering.

But since I am on the topic, here (Harry- or Sally-fashion) is an old cheat-sheet I once wrote for a high school student who came to visit the zendo as part of a Christian church assignment to learn about co-existing with other 'religions:'

                                                           BUDDHISM

The truth of Buddhism does not come from a book. It does not come from a temple. It does not come from someone else. It is not written on a piece of paper. The truth of Buddhism comes from the individual effort to investigate, verify and actualize a clear understanding of this life.

Shakyamuni Buddha, the man most often referred to as the founder of Buddhism, was born on the border of India and Nepal in about 565 BC. He attained what is sometimes called enlightenment at 35 and preached until his death at 80. Many schools of Buddhism sprang from his teachings … in India, Tibet, China, Korea and Japan among others. Uncertain estimates put Buddhist numbers at about 350 million worldwide.

All Buddhist schools agree on at least two things:

1. THE FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS: These are observations about the world around us.

The Four Noble Truths are:

*** 1. There is suffering (dukkha – the uncertainties, dissatisfactions and doubts that life can dish up); 2. There is a cause of suffering; 3. There is an end to suffering; 4. There is a way to end suffering.

2. THE EIGHTFOLD PATH: These are the tools suggested as most useful when seeking out a truly peaceful life in a changing world.

The Eightfold Path is:

*** 1. Right View 2. Right Intention 3. Right Speech 4. Right Action 5. Right Livelihood 6. Right Effort 7. Right Mindfulness 8. Right Concentration.

The word "right" is sometimes translated as "complete." A “complete” effort is thorough-going and whole-hearted. Nothing is held back. Buddhism is not a threat-based persuasion: You won’t go to heaven (right) if you practice it and you won’t go to hell (wrong) if you don’t. But honesty is required -- complete honesty. 

The Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path carry with them the verifiable observation that everything in life changes. There is nothing that does not change. Joy turns to sorrow, love turns to anger, birth turns to death, and the family car always gets a flat. All Buddhist schools agree on such things, but how they approach them may vary.

But as the Dalai Lama put it once, "Everyone wants to be happy." And that is probably as good a summary of Buddhism as any.

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inescapable truths

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Passed along in email and purportedly written by children:

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priest wannabes stay away in droves

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The Roman Catholic Diocese of Elphin in Ireland encompasses 1,021 square miles. According to Wikipedia, there are 108 priests "ministering to a population of approximately 70,000, of whom 97% (68,000) are Roman Catholic." The diocese reaches into four of Ireland's counties -- Roscommon, Sligo, Westmeath and Galway.

It was in these realms that the diocese recently initiated a campaign to recruit new priests. Newspaper and newsletter ads went out. Posters went up.

Ireland as a whole has an unemployment rate hovering at 14% or about 400,000 people.  3.8 million of Ireland's 6.4 million people described themselves as Roman Catholics in 2011.

Given a large Catholic population and with unemployment rampant, not one person, either within the Diocese of Elphin or outside of it, applied for consideration as a priest.

Young Swiss priests play football/soccer.

“We had information on posters, newsletters and local newspapers. It’s worrying and slightly discouraging,” organizer Father Jim Murray confessed. It has been four years since the last ordination in the diocese, and two priest sexual-abuse reports have sent shock waves through the country.

“It is certainly worrying," Murray said, "but you have to think the hand of God is at work. Some people are being called but they’re not hearing the call because of the stress of modern life. Certainly, the abuse scandals have had an impact.”

Murray also said he did not think that celibacy was a determining factor: “The issue of celibacy has not arisen,” said Murray. “The hard thing is getting good people who are thinking about the priesthood but are not ready to make the leap.”
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the mystic

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Grigori Rasputin

An Internet dictionary defines "mysticism" as "the belief that you can understand God directly by praying and meditating, or the practice of doing this." I guess that it is on this basis that a "mystic" takes on quasi-magical trappings in the mind, an ooooeeeeeooo quality ... sort of like Rasputin without the political manipulations.

The mystic and mysticism contrasts with an orthodoxy that has a laundry list of ethical dicta that it insists upon when speaking with others.

The juxtaposition of the two is thousands of years old.

Both can get a bad name for a variety of good reasons, but when I think of a "mystic," I think of any man or woman who lies still in the soft darkness of the night ... and wonders and pines.
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thief! thief!

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Don't ask others
If you seek relief.
If you're after treasure,
Why consult a thief?
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my name is Adam

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My name is Adam.

The meaning of the name varies according to which etymological roots anyone might choose. "Red" (like blood or earth); "man" or "mankind;" "handsome;" "first man" ... the list seems to go on and on but each definition or derivation manages to employ half-hearted and uncertain explanations ... "it could refer to" or similar constructions. Here is one stab at a definition.

My Dharma or Zen Buddhist name is Genkaku, a word that roughly means "original realization" or "original understanding."

I don't suppose my name-situation differs much from anyone else's ... a bit of breath, a bit of noise and what is designated gets a designation. It may not be precisely true, but it's close enough for folk singing and it's nicer than someone's calling out "Hey Fuckbump!" as a means of getting my attention.

Rinzai, a Zen teacher, once encouraged an assembly by saying, "Grasp and use, but never name."

He wasn't just playing some "Buddhist" game.
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genius

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Since I am no genius, I do not know, but I can imagine that geniuses, from time to time, must come upon a place in which they purely loathe their genius and long for some realm beyond the gilded city ... a place where elephants walk with stately step and men, perhaps, grow carrots.

Picking on geniuses is probably not fair, but, like "sex" or "money," "genius" entices literate and unwary fish and I'm not above baiting the hook.

Is there a man or woman whose burnished spires do not crowd around, tighter and tighter in the wake of well-crafted choices, and then cry out for some relief from all this wannabe bliss, the tightly mortared bricks of genius?

The house, the kids, the job, the adventures far and wide, the sacrifices, the accumulations of belief and hope and meaning and explanation, the holy lights, the dress and drama -- all of them shining in other men's eyes while these eyes, poor dears, grow dimmer and dimmer.

Genius is limited.

But you knew that.

Why else the fear and loathing?
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poverty

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During yesterday's TV coverage of the Olympic Games in London, there was a feature story about a burly, young American woman who had scraped and scrimped, begged and borrowed, in order to become the first-class weight-lifter she was.

She had grown up in poverty.

When Christmas came around, family members would offer each other photographs of the gift they might otherwise have actually given.

Poverty.

Religion uses the words of others to present a gift the giver cannot name or actualize, much less photograph.

There is poverty and then there is poverty passing for goodness.

Well, I guess that's why everyone is equipped with tear ducts.
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right and wrong

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My mother, who was a pretty good writer, once encouraged me when I was whining about one writing difficulty or another by saying, "Don't get it right. Get it written." It was bang-on advice.

Everyone wants to be right. Everyone hopes to escape being wrong.

But for those with a little gumption and a little time, I think it is good practice to try -- really try -- to do something wrong. It doesn't have to be massively wicked or harmfully stupid, but give it a whirl.

Doing zazen or seated meditation is a good arena in which to practice doing something wrong. Just sit down, cross your legs, erect your spine and then ... do zazen wrong: Let the mind wander and frolic and be depressed or whatever other out-of-focus activity appeals. Go for it. Really do it wrong. Really don't do it right.

Books and teachers may whisper in your mind's ear that this is all wrong. It's messy and not at all peaceful and the exact opposite of doing zazen correctly; it's stupid.

But try it for a half hour or so. Try to do it wrong.

Then, after rising from the cushion, consider ... was it right? Was it wrong? Do right and wrong really play a role? Don't ask anyone else. Just see what you think.

It may be instructive as regards "right" and "wrong."
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public humiliation

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In Pakistan, several police officers were suspended after marching a man and a woman naked to the police station. The pair was accused of wanting to have extra-marital sex.

While the consensus in Pakistan seems to be that the man and woman deserved to be reprimanded, still, the humiliation was too extreme.

I wonder what the reaction would be if U.S. politicians were treated to a similar fate.

Oh look, a bunch of flabby, naked men ... hell, I'm late for work.
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music and war

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At what was then called the Army Language School, besides instruction on how to kiss a woman's hand, we also had a singing class. One thing you had to hand the Germans -- they really had some rousing songs.  But, like 'em or lump 'em, we had to learn songs as part of our training.

Backgrounded in a culture that hiked in the woods long before American President John F. Kennedy encouraged his countrymen to get out and get exercise, the German singing was later transmuted into part of a wartime atmosphere ... cheerful, peppy, heart-opening march melodies at a time when men were being asked to shut their eyes and hearts and kill other men. Anyway, we learned them -- songs like Erika  or Westerwald... or the nostalgic yearning of Lili Marlene

Of course the Germans were not alone in linking music with the very antonym of what music is and does. Americans, British, French and no doubt the Russians all had jolly, patriotic encouragements or touching songs to remind the troops what they were fighting for or had left behind. Pick a war and there was frequently music to infuse and inspire it. "Over There", perhaps, or the hopeful and battered tenderness of The World Will Sing Again. Or the old lefty Pete Seeger speaking up for the ill-fated Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War with Quinte Regimento.

An assertion: "God with Us"

I wonder what would effect it might have on war if music were somehow magically disallowed. Or the use of the word "God" or "hero." I suppose the same greed would be in play, but perhaps there would be less icing on the dog turd.

At least, with some prodding, the Zen Buddhist establishment issued an apology in the wake of World War II ... an apology for twisting its own persuasion to support the Japanese war effort.

Music and war. The heart soars and the heart succumbs, nurturers and killers ... both tossed together willy-nilly in a human cake mix and topped with a hundred gaily snapping flags.

It is better, I think, to set aside excuses and reasons and explanations and meanings and the hundred other ways of seeking relief.

If you're going to kill, then kill.

If you're going to sing, then sing.

The best tune I know is attention and responsibility.
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the middleman

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Several days and several posts ago, I was talking with Bill, an abiding Catholic (relax, I'm not going off on another Vatican rant) who said that he viewed the Vatican-sanctioned sex abuses as comparatively small potatoes.

Bill's concern, as a Catholic, was his relation with God. "I cut out the middleman," he said.

I wasn't talking to Bill as a means of asserting my point of view but rather as a means of learning his. As a result, I didn't push or bully or point out what I imagined might be holes in his position. I didn't ask him, for example, "Do you still go to church?" ... a question, which, in retrospect, I wish I had.

But the line stuck with me: "I cut out the middleman."

Conversationally, the line rings deliciously, self-assertively true. It has a rabble-rousing desire woven into it ... cut out the middleman ... that'll show the greedy bastards ... bastards who help to raise the prices of Rice Krispies, gasoline, automobiles, tooth paste, electricity, banking, snow plowing, shoe laces, sporting gear, clothing, air fares, stocks ... the list is almost endless. There's the product then the steps it takes to get to the market in which I buy it ... the steps that demand payment for services rendered ... the middlemen. How delicious it might be to buy a designer-label polo shirt for the $2 it costs to produce in Thailand instead of the $50 a consumer might pay at Bloomingdale's.

Cut out the middleman. Yes, I'll take some of that!

But middlemen are as tenacious about their income as anyone else and will do their best to maintain the paying status they have achieved. The middlemen are not pushovers.

In spiritual life, things can be much the same. Whether honest or dishonest, spiritual institutions are the middlemen between the constituent and his or her deepest desire. Second-rate institutions refuse to relinquish their 'essential' middleman role. First-rate institutions recognize and even emphasize their tentative roles.

The constituent, of course, might like to cut out the middleman, whether at Bloomingdale's or in his preferred temple, but the fact of the matter is that he needs a middleman in order to do away with a well-nurtured and tenacious middleman within. Hopefully, the spiritual persuasion of the middleman he chooses will have his best interests at heart and push him further towards rather than further away from a world full of middlemen.

And who are the middlemen who keep a man or woman from their fondest desire? Aren't they just the judgments and beliefs and emotional caterwauling and bliss-hungry appetites that brought the constituent to seek out a different and perhaps more healthy middleman in the first place?

Spiritual students who claim to be cutting out the middleman by eschewing all middlemen are whistling past the graveyard. It may sound good, but like as not, there is no 'there' there -- no substance, no experienced understanding ... just hopeful posturing.

Yes, that's right -- I am my own most greedy middleman. I may dance and sing from dawn until dusk about "cutting out the middleman," but the fact of the matter is that no one is stopping me from achieving my heart's desire except me. The fact that I seek out a spiritual institution to act as my middleman -- to get a convincing handle on the middleman I nourish at every turn -- is testimony to how difficult the task may be. I could use some help getting rid of this middleman and what is the first human and yet nutty thing I do? I go find another middleman. Talk is cheap and "getting rid of the middleman" may sound good over a glass of beer, but it's a tough nut when it's up close and personal. I could use some help.

Second-string spiritual middlemen are tenacious. They hold on tight and inform the constituent in a hundred ways, "your heart's desire is unattainable without me." And many constituents, having forgotten their heart's desire, collude in this presentation. First-stringers don't put up with this guff. OK, they seem to say, I'll play the tentative middleman, but don't expect me to believe it.

Expose trolls grab their pitchforks and poke holes in the notion of middlemen. Their observations are often true as far as they go, but they leave out any credible, concrete means of attaining the heart's desire. This is understandable because any credible, concrete means invariably creates the world of the middleman, a world of fabrications and fabulousness and potential corruption. Talk about a rock and a hard place.

Maybe things just boil down to dumb luck or the passage of time. Find a middleman to help evict the middleman within and then ... well, then, perhaps, the best anyone can do is to keep going and cross their fingers.

Does any of it help?

Say "yes" and risk being credibly branded as a liar.

Say "no" and risk being credibly branded as a liar.

The only thing to do is to find out.
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just the 'facts'

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As a newspaper reporter, it took me several years to recognize that facts are less important than beliefs. However galling that recognition was -- and since I imagined I was a fact-gatherer, it could be pretty galling -- still it was an unassailable fact: Beliefs, not facts, were the important part. And if this was true, then it was up to me to make my peace with it ... gather the facts, but not expect facts to have a decisive impact on decisions.

I hated it.

Once, when I was still under the impression that facts would conclusively end a debate, I got permission to create two fact-boxes that would run side by side in the newspaper. The topic was schools-related ... I don't really remember ... maybe the creation of a new school, maybe the demolition of an old one: Whatever it was, it was a hot-button topic and I was sick of reporting on it. So I created the two fact boxes. Each was filled with bulleted items ... just the facts ... either pro or con.

When the fact boxes were published, the superintendent of schools called me up and said it was the most useful information yet published on the topic. And for about 30 minutes, I thought I had done something good and righteous and conclusively true. And then the reactions began to pour in and it was clear that facts did NOT end the debate. It just meant that beliefs, whether pro or con, slipped into new configurations of continued debate.

 How hard people may work on the topics that interest them. Warfare or spirituality, the close study can require an enormous effort. And from that effort, that close examination, those endless hours of research, can arise a quite simply stated conclusion. "War sucks" or "war is the only choice." "Enlightenment is worth the effort" or "enlightenment is nothing more than a warm bucket of spit."

So much effort. So many hours. So many facts placed cheek by jowl and assessed and assimilated and ... what a lot of effort ... and then ... and then ... nobody gives a shit. Or, if they do give a shit, they color the matter in as they see fit, according to their capacities or leanings, whether factual or credulous.

Gandhi was credited with saying, "speak truth to power." What a carefully-crafted suggestion. SPEAK truth to power. There is nothing wrong with speaking out of a wealth or dearth of factual information. But the notion A. that it is the truth and B. that that truth will have some expected impact is pretty wasteful, and more, sad-making in its empirical results.

Some will agree. Some will not. But whether they agree in ways that acknowledge the long, hard research that preceded one pronouncement or another is always open to question. And it is in this sense that relying on the agreement of others is a fool's errand. Sometimes I wonder which is more dangerous -- our friends or our enemies.

I just think that keeping an eye on our expectations is a good exercise because setting aside expectations is both more sensible and it makes time for more fruitful research. If you like it, fine. If you don't like it, fine.

Speak truth to power and leave it at that.
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the 'stupid' is in the details

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In abusive economic times, it may be a step up from the Depression-era tactic of throwing a brick through a store window, getting arrested and thus assuring a couple of hot meals and a roof over your head, but it's not much of a step, especially if it's not carried out with care:

A 47-year-old man who had lost his job and increased the amount on his life insurance policy went missing last week in the waters off Jones Beach in New York. An intensive search turned up nothing. Then Raymond Roth was picked up for speeding in South Carolina and his wife discovered 'post-mortem' emails from her husband to her son, instructing him how to deal with various papers, including a last will and testament.

It reminds me of a humorous riff from a woman comedian I once saw on TV. In several segments, she outlined very human situations in which the protagonist came to a ludicrous conclusion. The comedian ended each segment with an explosive, "What the hell's the matter with you!?"
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no gold medals for medalists

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As the 2012 Olympics move forward in London, television news stations have been caught between a rock and a hard place. The American network NBC has bought up the video rights to the events, and forced other networks to cover a news event without really covering it. On those other networks, nightly segments devoted to the Olympics announce winners and losers, but there are no supporting film clips. Networks other than NBC fill in with incredibly mediocre feature stories ... they've got to say something; it's a big story; but they are forbidden to bring the best evidence to bear. The result, for me, is that I have seen hardly any of the Olympics and I'm sorry ... expertise and effort and record-breaking are wonderful to watch, irrespective of country or the small-mind attention to gold medals.

In Ottawa, Ill., 138 skydivers shattered the previous record of 108, when they fell into the sky and created a snowflake formation.

Skydivers traveled from all over the world to take part in the record attempt, including from France, Spain, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, Russia, Italy, Belgium, Australia and the U.K. And one, 40-year-old Ahmed Sferi from Reunion, said he traveled for two days from his tiny Indian Ocean island home to reach Chicago so he could take part. 

The Federation Aeronautique Internationale certified the feat, but did not hand out gold medals. No doubt there were expenses, but nothing to match the billions spent in London. The sheer joy and excellence of it can only be imagined and delighted in by the likes of me.

I am delighted to be delighted.
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sounds of the weather

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Today, on the front page of the local paper, a small weather box announced:

Thunder here and 
there. High 88.

Taking the box at its word, I wondered if sound were an attribute that spoke to informative weather-casting.

Widely scattered
silence. Low 41.

Of course what I read was probably just some bored or harried or lazy editor trying to bring a little pep to what otherwise would have been too mundane. Thunder in a lazy mind implies rain ... but of course the implication is not always realized.

Sound doesn't generally make me sweat or give me goose bumps or suggest that today's reasons for going swimming have been improved or diminished.

Sonorous skies.
High 67.

Cumulus harmonies.
High 74.

Of course, there's no reason why sound should not be a factor in weather-casting, but it never occurred to me that it was.

It's kind of pleasant thinking that I might have missed out on some aspect of something so bald-faced obvious as the weather. It may be a ridiculous surprise, but surprises push me outside whatever boxes my box-making mind has created over time.

And boxes can really screw the pooch.
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honor

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Especially for those inclined to wield the sword of "honor" ... well I think it would be the honorable thing to think it over.

"Honor," says an Internet dictionary, is partly defined as:

the respect that people have for someone who achieves something great, who is very powerful, or who behaves in a way that is morally right

If there were ever a more open-to-interpretation definition than that, I'm not sure I have heard it.

And yet there are those whose sense of honor is set in stone, the kind of stone that allows others to suffer on behalf of their honor.

In London, a Pakistani couple was sentenced to life in prison for smothering their daughter to death in an "honor killing." The younger sister, who was 12 at the time, testified she watched her parents kill her older sibling.

Is it honorable to shove honor down someone's throat? Is honor based on agreement with others? Is it honor to claim certain deeds are honorable simply because someone else says they are honorable? Is social or cultural bias the same as honor and if so, how honorable is that? Do the honorable speak of honor or is that an activity better reserved to the dishonorable?

Just wondering.
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Chick-fil-A and the kiss-my-ass phenomenon

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Gadfly and documentary film-maker Michael Moore would love it -- a same-sex kiss-in protest outside Chick-fil-A restaurant outlets. The kiss-in was planned for today.

Chick-fil-A chain owner Dan Cathy said recently he backed a "biblical definition of a family," (by which he seemed to mean no homosexuals need apply) and the restaurant chain was reportedly (no actual figures were released) awash on Wednesday with supportive customers.

Interesting phenomenon, whether from rednecks or academics -- rounding up 'supporting' evidence that a particular point of view is 'right' or 'true' or something similar. The phenomenon posits the notion that if enough people express the same opinion, then, perforce, it must be true. The earth is flat. God is good. Love conquers all. The Bible/Quran/Vedas say so ....

What's the matter with stating your point of view and allowing others to make up their own unimpeded minds?

Bend over and kiss your own ass and stop trying to kiss mine.
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breaking the china

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The bull iconoclast breaks every bit of china in the shop until at last there is nothing left to break except the china bull.

The conformist dusts and cleans and preserves the china with a will ... and then is surprised when life breaks the crockery without so much as a by-your-leave.
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the 'value' part

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Yesterday, I wanted to send an email to Tom Doyle, a fellow who had done what I considered to be a knock-out video interview on the topic of Vatican sexual abuse. Besides my accolades, I wanted to ask a question. But I couldn't find an email address on the Internet, so I sent my letter to another guy who seemed to be hip-deep in the topic with a request to forward the note. Inside of ten minutes, I had a return email from the fellow I asked. He said Doyle was in Europe at the moment, but that he had forwarded my letter.

Bingo! Just like that! From here to California to Europe. It was magical from the old-fart arena in which I live. If I had tried to do that in the distant past, the whole operation would have taken a matter of days, if not weeks. Now, things were settled before the morning was out. How wonderful. How effective. This was no-kidding-around progress in terms of instant gratification.

And yet there was something flavorless about it. Something felt as if it were missing. It was perfect in one sense and yet it also felt flawed. Slow had turned to fast and yet the speed seemed to take the humanity, the subtle coloration of affection and personality out of the equation. It felt a little like the old observation, "S/he knows the price of everything and the value of nothing."

The je-ne-sais-quoi element appeared to me in an old envelope I had once framed and still hangs on the bedroom wall. It was a letter sent to me by an actor whose apartment I had lived in while he was on tour. I had flunked out of a Zen monastery, returned to New York, had no where to live, and the actor was willing to let me stay for free in return for some painting and carpentry chores. And while he was on the road, every once in a while he would send me letters detailing what, I can't remember. Perhaps he just wanted to remind me not to trash the place. We were not precisely friends, but since I was living in his digs, we were something more than acquaintances. He was a guy who was edgy and agitated in the hungry-actor mode ... longing to succeed and yet entirely unsure that he could ... a ballsy, neurotic existence. And his letters often seemed to posit his longing to be recognized for his artful abilities.

So here is the envelope of one of his letters:

Slower than an email by days and days and yet giving off a flavor and richness no email could ever match. Maybe it was phony-baloney, maybe self-aggrandizing, maybe just joyful ... whatever it was, there was a tale to tell before the envelope was ever opened. And the same is true of any other hand-addressed envelope ... which is probably one reason that junk-mailers have found addressing devices that look as if someone actually wrote them.

You can't take it to the bank, but, for whatever brief moment, you can take it to (the indefinable) heart.
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Kill 'em all! Or something like that

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Your contributions and mine to the various U.S. war efforts ... now that's a spicy meatball!


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something personal

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I couldn't fit my butt on the scanner and besides, the scanner is too fragile to take the weight, so I settled for something else that was more personal and less discursive.

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"suffering" ... some more prattle

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Some expositor -- Buddhist probably, but who cares -- once remarked, "Every time I think of me, I suffer."

My understanding is that "suffer" is a poor translation of the Pali word "dukkha," which might be more aptly translated as "unsatisfactoriness." But "unsatisfactoriness" is such a mouthful and besides, it puts human anguish, at whatever depth, into a category that sounds vaguely like the results of a first coat of paint in the living room ... it doesn't quite cover the previous color, but it's no big deal: A second coat will get the job done right. "Suffering" is more consoling, more important, more elevating, more in line with the ache or anguish within. This...is... important. And sure enough, it is, even though I say so.

In Buddhism, suffering is a cornerstone proposition. The Four Noble Truths in which all schools of Buddhism believe and on which Buddhism makes its case are observations from which (together with The Eightfold Path) all of the intricacies of this way or philosophy or religion flow.

The Four Noble Truths are variously translated, but here is the one I always liked:

There is suffering.
There is a cause of suffering.
There is an end to suffering.
There is a way to end suffering.

Short, sweet and to the point. And it puts "suffering" up on the scoreboard. It puts me up on the scoreboard. There may be plenty of talk about the "suffering of others," but the fact is that my own suffering is the first-est with the most-est ... the suffering I am most likely to know or feel or think or refer to or use as camouflage or ... well, suffering has a hundred uses and the only chance I have of getting to the marrow or solution is to examine my own.

OK ... in Buddhism, suffering plays a pivotal role, much as unsatisfactory thoughts or events play a pivotal role in anyone's life. Whose suffering? My suffering. But ... "every time I think of me, I suffer." No one wants to suffer, everyone wants a solution or an escape route ... and yet the only honest way out of suffering is in. "Every time I think of me, I suffer." Is there a thought anyone thinks that is somehow not me? And from this line of thinking or believing, some Buddhists enter the land of zombies, imagining that if they refrain from thinking or acting, they will enter some la-la land of "the unconditioned realm" or "Nirvana" or some similar bit of Hollywood. The logic seems to be, if every time I think of me, I suffer, then if I don't think, I won't suffer. This is ridiculous, but that doesn't mean it's not common enough. Take it from someone who tried it.

Well, I am prattling. The thought that crossed my mind this morning was that "I" does not really deserve the bad rap it can get in Buddhism or elsewhere. Sure, it can be confounding and painful and delicious and whatever all else, but the fact is, whatever "I" is, it's the only farm I have to till -- as axiomatic as blue sky. "I" may be a snare and a delusion, but so what? It's just the way things are and trying to make them something else is more deluded than "I" am.

Relax. Every time I think of me I suffer. Every time I think, I think of me. Blaming "me" for the suffering that ensues is possible and may sound good, but is it true? The only way to know is to check it out. Is there really some quid-pro-quo reason to suffer as a result of me? Of course anyone can suffer, but is it necessary? Really?

Best I can figure, if you make a mistake, correct it or note its impact and revise course. I may love seeing my name up on the scoreboard, but scoreboards are for baseball games. When it comes to "me" and "suffering," the old grade-school silly comes to mind:

Everybody's doin' it,
Doin' it, doin' it,
Pickin' their nose and chewin' it
Chewin' it, chewin' it.

A firm, but gentle attention. A firm, but gentle, responsibility. That's enough to clarify and dispel the wispy barbs that can rip a life to shreds.

With an unconcerned concern, keep an eye skinned. Every time I think of me, I suffer and...

Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.
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Tom Doyle on Vatican sexual abuses

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A cogent and level-headed and experienced view of the Vatican sexual abuse issues:


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a lady cardinal

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In the early morning sun, outside the porch door and not ten feet from where I was sitting, a lady cardinal perched on the tip-top of a six-foot arbor vitae.

The tree was so green in the light.

The orange bill and grey feathers were so vivid.

Beauty on the hoof.

Before I could stop myself, I said, "good morning."

She cocked her head once at the sound ... and promptly flew away.
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zendo for sale

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Last night, my younger son asked me if I still had my army dog tags. He said he would like to wear them. My heart leapt at the notion of giving something to someone I loved ... something that would otherwise slip away like flotsam on the swell.

When I was sixteen, my father gave me a shirt of his. It was too big, but I treasured it for its assertion of connection and adulthood. I would be happy if my son were happy in a similar small gesture.

But then I had to tell my son the truth -- that he was more than welcome to the dog tags, but I honestly couldn't remember where they were or whether, in fact, I still had them at all. I found it hard to believe I would let such a momento get lost, but ... well, I had no clue as to where they might be. Perhaps, without looking, they had already slipped beneath the swell. I can't believe I didn't put them in a 'safe' place, but where that 'safe' place might be is an open and unanswered question.

I told my son I would look around, but I haven't got a lot of energy and the house is chock-a-block with accumulated stuff, so ... perhaps those metal tags I had once worn with the same regularity I brought and bring to wearing underpants had simply evaporated into an invisible and invisibly packed "lost" basket. I do wish I knew where they were, but I doubt I will be successful in finding them.

This morning, in the moments of returning to wakefulness -- the moments I think of as the wake-to-ache time -- it crossed my mind again ... how to get out from under -- or at least allow others to get out from under -- all the stuff I have accumulated in a lifetime. I really would prefer not to be a burden to others and freeing them from dealing with the things I have valued but on which they place no value ... wouldn't that be nice?

And within that framework, I thought about selling the zendo. No one else in the family cares much about it and perhaps someone would pay me the $40,000 that remains on a mortgage that nibbles and nags each month ... whittling away what little arrives in fixed income. How I would like to be out from under the mortgage payments.

The wispy wishfulness was tinged with the difficulties involved. Even assuming there were a buyer, I'm not sure how anyone would get this small building off the property. The building is tucked at the back of the backyard and, well ... it would require some maneuvering. Nevertheless, I allowed myself some pipedreaming and some recollection.

I built the zendo in a time of more intense caring about Zen Buddhism. I had a dream, so to speak, and this 12x16-foot building was a realization of that dream -- not perfect, not fancy, but solid and filled with intention. I was secretly pleased with the result, looking on the building as something akin to an old and trusted friend. A real estate dealer once told me that when the house was sold, at whatever time in the future, it would be the zendo that sold it.

Maybe so, but this morning I thought seriously about trying to sell it and pay off the mortgage, a matter of more immediate concern to the family. Since no one would care much after my death about its impact or meaning and since my own love affair was slipping slowly away, why not get some practical use out of it now ... instead of bequeathing an albatross to others?

Funny how what once had so much meaning and so much impact and so much implanted love or despair in one life simply fails to make the cut in anyone else's. Soldiers returning from war may be astounded or disheartened by the fact that no one "back in the world" knows the blood, sweat and tears they shed and perhaps continue to shed within. College students may spend many a sleepless night completing a thesis that will then be widely unknown or forgotten ... and yet, for them, remains. Marriages entered into with energy and smiles and hopes are relegated in the end to notations in a church's or clerk's log.

This isn't dismal or distressing, I don't think, but it is a fact. My heart-and-soul efforts are not yours, nor yours mine. But attending on that fact, a further recognition seeps in: My heart and soul efforts are not really mine or, if they are, they are not that important. Or, if they are important, they are not important enough to lay at someone else's doorstep like some random, step-around-it dog turd.

Where are those dog tags? I really don't know. I don't like imagining that I simply lost them ... but perhaps I did.

Where is that zendo? I can see it in the backyard, but the truth is, I really don't know. I don't like imagining I simply lost it ... but perhaps I did.

In the wake-to-ache early morning, I fall into a guy-thing (or is it just a human-thing) reverie: If there is a problem, there must be a solution and I am going to find it ... now. You'd think I might be old enough to know better than that. Solutions, like 'meanings,' are largely fiddle-faddle.

The mortgage, if you ask the bank, is not.
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armed senior foils armed robbery

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By Amy Hubbard

Los Angeles Times

July 17, 2012, 2:40 p.m.

Two hooded men, their faces covered, went into a Florida Internet cafe Friday, hefting a baseball bat and toting a handgun. What they couldn't have expected to encounter was Samuel Williams, a fleet-of-foot senior citizen with a gun.
The two suspects, identified by authorities as DuWayne Henderson and Davis Dawkins, went spinning and running after Williams, 71, dropped to one knee and aimed his .380.
Video of the incident at the Palms Internet Cafe in Ocala, Fla., shows two suspects directing patrons, who have their hands raised. Williams, a grandfatherly looking man in billed cap and shorts, stands, then bends briefly to one knee and begins shooting.
The suspects scramble to exit, falling over one another as Williams continues his pursuit.
Williams does have a permit to carry a concealed weapon, according to Judge Cochran, a spokesman for the Marion County Sheriff's Office.
Cochran, in an interview Tuesday with the Los Angeles Times, said Williams was not interested in speaking to the media about the dramatic encounter. Henderson and Dawkins were released on bail, he said. Henderson also was treated for a gunshot wound at a Gainesville hospital, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
They were charged with attempted robbery with a firearm and felony criminal mischief.

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'winning' at the Olympics

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Eight female badminton players were shown the door at the Olympic games in London today. They were accused of losing matches on purpose as a tactical means of placing themselves more favorably in a run-up to the finals.

The Badminton World Federation announced its ruling after investigating two teams from South Korea and one each from China and Indonesia. It punished them for "not using one's best efforts to win a match" and "conducting oneself in a manner that is clearly abusive or detrimental to the sport" in matches Tuesday night.

If winning is the primary concern in sports, how then could losing in order to win be considered a punishable offense?

News programs here in the U.S. are as smitten with the Olympics as they are with the presidential campaign... and equally boring about it. Since NBC has the television rights to Olympic events, other stations are forced either to buy footage or talk viewers to death on topics that cry out for videotaped evidence... which is more often than not missing.

And on top of all that, there is the numbing desire to root for the home team, to tell how many gold medals the United States or Great Britain or China or whoever all else has won. I don't care about the home team very much. I care, when I do watch, about the excellence of the athletes, win, lose or draw. Their hard work and expertise, the flubs and successes, are inspiring ... I don't give a shit where they come from.
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your history and mine

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Last night, I got sucked into yet another documentary about World War II. The film bounced back and forth between combat (largely in the Pacific) to the American home front. And one man, now white-haired and seemingly out of tears, told the tale of being in his fox hole one night when a single shot rang out.

A single shot and then everything was quiet except for the Marine who had been hit. All night long, the wounded man cried out and moaned and the man telling the story was furious: He was so, so tired; all he wanted to do was sleep; he was desperate for sleep ... why wouldn't the wounded man hurry up and die so he could get some sleep?!

As morning broke, the wounded man at last fell silent. He had died.

And with the new day, the man telling the story found out that the single shot that rang out was an accident: Another Marine, hitting the dirt, had inadvertently discharged a round that hit the now-dead man. And the now-dead man was the best friend of the man telling the story.

The documentary was pretty good at depicting the vast and particular horrors of war -- the longing for glory and adventure that sucked men in from flat, rural existences; the diseases and hunger that wracked the body; the constant-constant-constant fear that the bullet with your name on it would find you; the atrocities meted out by friend and foe alike; the lack of information on the home front ... a lack that contrasted with the fact that neighborhood tapestries were picked apart by news that Johnny, the kid who had delivered your newspaper, or Pete, the high-school cut-up, or Frank, the boy who had been sweet on your daughter ... were all showing without a tear in newspaper clippings that announced the dead and neighborhood women baked casseroles and visited other women whose husbands and sons had been lost.


World War II -- a time when America, like its allies, could credibly be said to be under attack. In the event, of course, it made no difference who was under attack and who was attacking: It was just life and death, whoever you were. Life and death and despicably horrific... beyond-naming careless and ignorant and cruel. The simplicity of that war was and remains as magnetic as it was soul-searing. Magnetic with its 'patriotism' and 'glory' and 'victory' and 'defeat.' Magnetic in its collective will. Straightforward in ways that only the past can portray straightforwardness. The blasphemy in the heart is forsaken for the picayune desire to find 'meaning.' Nowadays, the United States tries to cover its offensive wars with the glory remembered in defensive times. It's a hard sell, but where sons and daughters, husbands and wives, are killed and maimed ... well, there has to be some 'meaning,' right? Here, have a serving of 'heroism' or 'patriotism'! See if you can choke that down!

The American philosopher George Santayana said, "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." As a descriptive statement, I don't think his words can be faulted. But too often, the observation is used as a means of criticizing others, of disdaining their stupidity, of clubbing others with a wisdom the speaker implicitly asserts s/he possesses. Too often there is a cynicism-tinged arrogance of intelligence and an implicit assumption that people do learn from the past and are capable of doing better, of not repeating past mistakes. This, to my mind, is dumber than a box of rocks.


As an observable fact, I think Santayana was on target -- "those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." But as a critique or criticism of others, it doesn't hold water. Human beings do, in fact, repeat mistakes made in the past. Same shit, different day. Same shit, different individual. Naturally, it all feels new and novel and important and pregnant with meaning because it is my shit, but that doesn't change the facts: Same shit, different day. Same shit, different individual.


The only conclusion I can reach is that expecting others to learn from the past is foolishness. The only thing that matters is what you can learn, what you can observe and digest and use to revise actions. The rest of it is wasteful, self-deluding eyewash... the same eyewash with which we have all washed our eyes for a long, long time. Well, it's your life and mine, your choice and mine.

Gautama the Buddha once observed, "It is not what others do and do not do that is my concern. It is what I do and do not do -- that is my concern."

He wasn't just whistling "Dixie."
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love me for who I am!

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Strange, the insistent, querulous, beseeching prayer within -- love me for who I am!

It seems to rise up with little or no recognition that if I loved me for who I am, there would be no need to burden others with a demand I steadfastly refuse to place on myself.

Prayers are odd: If you're so damned sure that something is missing, how could it possibly be missing?

We now return to our regularly-scheduled prayer meeting.
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