'tailoring' the news

My daily reintroduction to the Internet includes a tour of various news sources. I hardly know what I am looking for, but I go looking anyway: My Way News, the BBC, Reuters and UN-Cast, pretty much in that order. If some story catches my fancy, I may reach out to The Guardian or al-Jazeera for a wider look. I skip the great American news organizations of the past, The Washington Post (too unsure of its footing) and The New York Times (too assured of its footing).

I want to know what's happening in the world, but I'm getting a little long in the tooth to believe that news organizations are likely to tell me the whole story. I am satisfied with hints and to some extent grateful for the efforts.

After getting a general sense of who's killing whom and the collateral-damage suffering that that implies and after sniffing the latest political maneuvers here and there and after taste-testing scientific or sociological trends, I fall back on "all news is local" and the particular stories of particular people who exemplify or are somehow curious-making.

And the last stop is might just be labeled as "weird shit" -- or stuff that seems odd to me. Sometimes funny, sometimes bizarre, sometimes just fun to think about... stories that I have somehow winkled out and been delighted by.

But I get testy when I think that news organizations might be tracking my interests like some slithering merchant -- tailoring its web site to my previous choices of stories to read. Is it true or is it paranoia? I really don't know, but the thought makes me irritable. I don't want news that I will like ... I just want whatever news an organization finds worthy. Maybe I'll agree. Maybe not. The organization's job is to make its own informed judgments and then allow me to make my own.

This morning, for example, I was scanning the BBC and came to a "Most Popular" box. The stories listed within it all correlated with weird or bizarre tales I might have chosen. The coincidence was too compelling on the one hand and too annoying on the other -- I hate being grouped with the "most popular" anything. Yes, I had already read the story about about male Swedish subway drivers wearing skirts, but that was because a friend had sent it along and I like to pay attention to my friends. And I might well have been interested in "Why Finnish Babies Sleep in Boxes" or "The Singing Nun of Kathmandu" or "Hero Dog Returns to Philippines" or "The First Book of Fashion." But were these stories really the most popular or were they simply a reflection of my past interest in "weird shit?"

I dislike being sales-pitched under the guise of being 'helpful' -- and this is particularly true when it comes to news. It's unimportant on the one hand, too paranoid by half on another, and too mediocre on yet another. To the extent that it's true I am being tracked like some WalMart shopper, it reminds me of a time when the newspaper I worked for affixed the American flag to its masthead. That one small act let me know that the newspaper -- qua newspaper -- was destined for the shitter. News isn't "American" and it certainly isn't what Adam Fisher likes.

But I suppose I am over-reacting and unduly crabby.

more mental confetti

Leaving aside the snippy and the snarky for a moment...

-- If a man truly believed in and had faith in god, and if he used prayer as a means of expressing that faith, wouldn't he then be constrained to pray for things as they are? Given a deep and abiding faith in god (pick your definition), I see no other option. But praying for things as they are seems a bit peculiar since things already are as they are ... unless of course someone wished to dither and dick around asking questions like, "or are they?"

-- And somehow as a corollary to or an association with the above: Who ever came up with the bizarre idea that god had a "will?" What would god do with a will? Maybe others have a convincing answer, but ascribing a will to god sounds faithless to me. The only circumstance under which I can imagine god's having a will is if his/her/its purpose were to be at man's beck and call. But if god were only in business to be at man's beck and call, could god reliably be called god? Or not?

-- Yesterday, while driving up to Leeds Reservoir to take some pictures and get my ass out of the house, a laughing quiz show on the radio -- something called, "Wait! Wait! Don't Tell Me!" -- suggested in passing that Prostitutes' Day had been stricken from Australia's list of official holidays. As someone who lives in a country where prostitution is illegal, my interest was piqued. The radio show moderator noted that the holiday fell between Mother's Day and Father's Day in the land down-under and that it would now no longer be necessary to send yet another card. It was good for a laugh.

But when I got back to the house, I tried to look up this snippet of totally useless information on the Internet. I found a "Whores Day," (Americans love being delicate about indelicate matters so perhaps "prostitutes" was just a bit of politesse) but that seemed to relate to a protest over working conditions.

Was there in fact an Australian holiday dedicated to prostitutes? I simply could not nail it down. Perhaps I had heard it incorrectly or misconstrued what I heard. But while searching the Internet for answers, I did run across a strange link that listed the facts and cost structures of various sorts of black market activity ... how much illicit drugs cost in various countries, national income derived from prostitution, the cost of black market human organs, the price of an AK-47, and how much a hit man cost in one country or another. How accurate or well-researched the link was I have no way of knowing. But the notion that someone might want to put such facts into a single basket of information ... well, yes, the breadth and depth of the Internet can make my jaw drop.

A disused road at Leeds

-- Visiting the environs of the reservoir was very pleasant, and yet I am hesitant to mention it. Camera in hand, I found myself walking down a disused road beneath tall trees, many of them evergreens. A swollen river course lay to my right and the earth was damp from previous days of rain -- damp and redolent with evergreen needles ... soft and giving beneath my sandals. And as I walked, things seemed to fall together somehow. There was nothing special about it, but still I am hesitant to mention it for fear someone may think I am doing some sort of Thoreau simplicity schtick. It wasn't like that. It was more normal than mere elevation.

The senses seemed to coalesce. You could see the smells and hear the sights and taste the silence. Since everything was happening at once, it did not lend itself to the written word. And while it was happening, I hardly noticed. It was just too normal to do anything as silly as notice... that would have been like some dim bulb expatiating on the fact that he had five toes.

The taste of softness beneath my sandals. The touch of the silence which was hardly silent at all, given the bubbling of the river. The sound of sunlight. Though it may sound exotic and woodsy and spiritual (Quick! Let's all run away and suckle at the breast of Mother Nature or find some dank but holy cave in the Himalayas!), still the best word I can find is -- woods or no woods, pine needles or no pine needles -- NORMAL.

Normal and pleasant, just like any other venue.

And no, I don't do LSD.

after the rains

A few frumpy pix at Leeds Reservoir...

where geniuses live

As if on some imagined campus, the tour guide might point out ...

"The smart people live in that house. The geniuses live elsewhere."

tragedy and statistics

The Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin (1879-1953) is credited with the icy and unnervingly-accurate quote, "One death is a tragedy. A million deaths are a statistic."

Joseph Stalin

The observation is true in the public square. But more tellingly, it is true in the human heart. Some things are just too huge to find an appropriate reaction and so the statistical sound bites are brought to bear: For example, war is "awful," however inadequate the word "awful" might be.

By contrast, when the house cat slaughtered by a gang of thoughtless boys ... the gorge rises with an enfolding and comprehending revulsion. A tragedy.

But little or large, tragedy or statistic, one element seems to be constant -- the need/willingness to forget. Those who assert they will "never forget" may honor a particular tragedy or statistic, but the actual ability to remain in a high state of horror or despair or even joy dwindles in the course of time. Is it laziness or willfulness or just in the nature of things to pigeon-hole and displace what once blazed like fury?

Currently, the news is delighted and aghast at the tendrils of governmental intrusion into Americans' private lives -- secretly collecting millions upon millions of communications as an alleged means of assuring the safety of the nation. Like the Roman Catholic church, the government is busy defending its actions by asserting that the safety of the nation, which is defined in decidedly unsafe terms, comes at a price. You can't have heaven without swallowing a hell we will define for you.

Millions upon millions of emails and other communications ... it's so huge as to defy the mind. Oh well.

The news media are all over the story like white on rice. A feeding frenzy.

Meanwhile the story of a single cat drops off the front pages. Pfc. Bradley Manning, 25, was news when his trial began Monday. The army intelligence analyst is accused of the single biggest release of classified documents in American history. The tale that might tell all secrecy tales is put aside because ... well, because to keep the eye focused on a single point, however horrific or serious, is not a choice the media (or perhaps anyone else) is willing to make. It takes too much energy.

Today, for example, the BBC, a pretty good news service, could do no better in the tragedy exemplified by Manning than to offer up a five-day old story and 'analysis' by Mark Mardell, the North America editor. The news was stale and the analysis was as brief as it was bereft of any compelling observation ... tepid, mediocre and it made me wonder why the BBC would bother to run such lack-luster observation. If you don't have anything to say, well, don't say it. It's not that I wanted it to agree with me but rather that I wanted it to agree with its own substantive self. But there was no 'there' there ... or if there was, it was more worthy of a high-school sophomore.

Manning is a tragedy in my mind, I'll admit. But as I watch the upsurge in concern about the demeaning of American rights, I can see why Manning, like the secret harvesting of American communications, may be consigned to the realm of statistics. Even the slaughter of a house cat cannot maintain a lofty, if tragic, perch.

the wispy world of fealty

As if on a tendril of wood smoke, the men to whom I owe a debt come whispering today. These were the benevolent grown-ups to my child, men now dead and yet to whom I feel a living fealty. They are two or three and, although I might cast a wider net and be rewarded with a hundred wriggling, silvery fish, today it is just this smaller catch of two or three that lingers and nourishes anew and leaves me helpless.

These were no shylocks. Where my gratitude and fealty rose up, they did not demand or even take much interest in it. Whether subtle or gross, others might wheedle and require that their actions be noticed and applauded, that their sovereign rings be kissed as a means of reassuring their "importance" -- the usual merchant's approach to fealty. But these few dead men seemed unconcerned with merchandizing.

Don't get me wrong. These men were flesh and blood and, although I do not know the particulars, I am 100% convinced that they too screwed the pooches of their lives. I will not name or describe them: This fealty is mine as yours is yours ... arising softly as on a tendril of wood smoke.

Sometimes I could weep with gratitude where the wood smoke rises, yet when did weeping ever tell the tale? I have longed to repay or requite the fealty I owe, but like the men to whom I feel I owe it, the fealty seems unconcerned. These men are dead, like all good things, and the fealty is my responsibility, not theirs.

Shall I praise them by way of expressing or leavening the debt I owe? How shall I be free of what I cannot help but think of as a wondrous gift? How can I be worthy of that gift? I can hear the shylocks answering, "adore me ... bow down and kiss my ring... build spires to my glory ... sing hymns of greatness... make a religion...give me credit." I can hear them and find them on every street corner, within and without. It's common enough, but it's ick-ick-ick.

My fealty (for lack of a better word) is serious to me, but what is it and how can I meet its implicit challenge? Who loves this love? Zen Buddhists may offer a sparkly ring to kiss: "There is no separation. There is nothing else." Their fealty is theirs as mine is mine.

On a tendril of wood smoke I owe a debt. It cannot be repaid (these guys are dead, among other things) and yet I would give my left nut to repay it. "But how, how, how?!" my heart and mind can yowl.

There are times when I dislike the answer that rises up, not least because it is an answer that feels endlessly incomplete. Listen to me, Adam!

Kiss the rings you need to kiss.
Weep the tears you need to weep.
Acknowledge whatever fealty there be.
Be the light you have been gifted.
And when the mind caterwauls, "but how, how, how?!" then trust yourself and know the light that cannot be adored or owed or thanked.
And then ... and then ...

Return to your regularly-scheduled pooch-screwings.

tale of the grumpy Gautama

Passed along in email ... provenance uncertain, picture added:

Have you ever wondered how different Buddhism might have been if Siddhartha Gotama had been 65 rather than 29 when he began his spiritual quest? What if he had decided to wait until he was retired before wandering off into the forest ? And what if he decided to seek the truth not because of any particular encounter with old age, sickness and death, but simply because he was pissed off with his life and was looking for a new challenge ? Here’s what might have happened…

It was Sid’s 65th birthday and a party had been arranged in his honour to celebrate his retirement from public office and his royal duties. His wife and son had gone to extraordinary lengths to make this his best birthday bash ever. A mountain of food – roast pork scratchings, cheese and pineapple on sticks, lots of crispy things and many sweet delicacies – was laid out before him. He was also presented with a sumptuous three-piece saffron wrap-around garment and the most popular sitar band in the kingdom entertained him long into the night. What more could he wish for ? Well, quite a bit as it turns out!

You see, Sid was really bored and irritated by it all. He wanted a new challenge, something to test him to the limit, something to get rid of that nagging feeling of being pissed off all the time, so he hatched a cunning plan…

In the middle of the night, when his family were fast asleep, he grabbed a toothbrush (and a handful of pork scratchings to eat on the way) and then headed for the forest. For the next six years he sought out teachers and gurus who he hoped would provide insight into the nature of grumpiness, but it was all to no avail. So at the age of 71 he’d had enough of wandering around talking to others and realised he needed to sit down and work it out for himself – which wasn’t that easy as arthritis was by now a constant companion. Nevertheless, he sat there, day and night, for a very long time. One night a vision of Mara came to him, offering all manner of pleasures if he would just abandon his quest. As the invention of Viagra was still two and a half thousand years in the future, Sid had no problem rejecting the offers of the nubile nymphs that flashed before his eyes, so Mara gave up and went in search of a younger victim with more testosterone.

And then, on a full moon night in May (or maybe not) Sid experienced a moment of absolute bliss and didn’t give a toss about his grumpiness! His constant feeling of being pissed off had itself pissed off! Oh joy, deep joy! From this day forth he would be known as “The Delighted One” – he was delighted not to be pissed off all the time!

And so it was that for the next 6 years The Delighted One travelled throughout the land preaching to all who would listen to him. In time his insights were formulated and then written down and eventually became known as “The Four Delightful Truths”. They are:

1) Life can make you grumpy 2) The cause of that grumpiness is intolerance 3) There is a way to make you less grumpy (be more tolerant) 4) The Delightful Eightfold Path is the way to “Delightenment”

The “Delightful Eightfold Path” teaches the cultivation of:

1) Delightful View – see things as they really are (don’t forget to get regular eye tests and change your glasses if necessary as it might impair this step!).

2) Delightful Thought – try not to be too grumpy and avoid wanting to inflict harm on those who piss you off (even if they deserve it).

3) Delightful Speech – refrain from swearing at people who barge in front of you at a supermarket checkout or post office. (Be especially kind to those who ingratiate themselves with spiritual teachers if you can).

4) Delightful Action – refrain from hitting someone in public with your walking aid, handbag or any other domestic weapon you might have on your person, if they annoy you.

5) Delightful Livelihood – refrain from going back to work if you can.

6) Delightful Effort – refrain from over-exerting yourself as it could be dangerous and may need medical attention.

7) Delightful Mindfulness – be as aware as possible at all times. If necessary, use a pen and paper to write down your thoughts as they come and go.

8) Delightful Meditation – focus the mind as much as possible on the possibility of achieving “delightenment” – a serene state of not giving a sh*it about anything and going with the flow. (A note of warning: going with the flow might be a problem if you are taking diuretics. Also, not giving a sh*it could cause problems if you have constipation or have an anal-retentive disposition, so please stay mindful.)

When Sid, the Delightful One, died from indigestion after eating some pork scratchings offered by a householder he was visiting, his followers were in despair (although as they had followed his teachings they were not pissed off).

Nevertheless, in time, they recognised the importance of promoting his teachings and a “Silver Sangha” was formed to spread his message. But following lots of senior Sangha moments, during which many of the Delightful One’s supporters forgot what all the fuss was about, a schism arose and what came to be known as “grumpy-yana” went it’s own way.

So there we have it. Two and a half thousand years ago a grumpy prince Sid achieved “delightenment” and changed the world. Has it made a difference to me in the 21st Century ? Well, yes and no. I have regular eye tests, no longer wish to inflict harm on the morons I meet on a day to day basis, don’t swear out loud, don’t hit people with whatever comes to hand, I long for my retirement, I try to do as little work as possible, I make lots of lists and stay close to the toilet during those times when I feel I am ‘going with the flow’. And yet… sometimes (just sometimes you understand) I do miss being grumpy and feeling pissed off. But that’s just me.

~ This has been attributed to one Dennis Sibley, a hospice worker in England.

savoring the barbed wire

Mental fortune cookies du jour:

Include nothing.
Leave nothing out.

And somehow, associatively, an old favorite:

It can't be helped.

buried alive

In the news ...

-- There is more on the U.S. government's surveillance of American citizens. As usual with such backward and invasive programs, those who support it may not get everything they want, but my guess is that they will get more than they deserve.

-- In the is-nothing-sacred?! department, Canada is taking Nestle and Mars to court, alleging that they and several other individuals and companies entered into a conspiracy to fix the price of chocolate. As any addict like me knows, chocolate is the Very God of Very God and messing around in those hallowed precincts is worse than apostasy. Go get 'em, Canada!

-- In Bolivia, a seventeen-year-old man suspected in the rape and murder of a 35-year-old woman was tied up, thrown into the grave next to the woman in question, and buried alive.

The chief prosecutor says more than 200 furious local people seized Santos Ramos and buried him in the grave of his alleged victim.
He says residents blocked roads into the village to stop police arriving.

idolatry

Several years ago, my wife gathered up various bits valuable metal around the house and we went to one of those gold-and-silver merchants that have sprung up like toadstools in the wake of the economic collapse.

We had a house and kids and I had recently retired, and so, although in the grand scheme of things we were not "poor," still there were financial pressures. Like a lot of other people, we dispensed with the beauty and craftsmanship and sentimental value of things as a means of floating our economic boat. The

merchants didn't much care about beauty or craftsmanship: They were interested in how much silver or gold the items contained and how much they might be worth when melted down.

In the Abrahamic religions and even in wider applications, the "golden calf" is a metaphor for idolatry -- for missing the essence and elevating the frills. In religious applications, golden calves tend to piss the Almighty off because they are false gods. More broadly among those who do not lay overt claim to celestial status, they are simply an indicator of the extent to which anyone might have missed some true message. It can be pretty satisfying, pointing out the overweaning, ritualistic, false-god direction that others follow ... what a bunch of idolators! Jesus turned over the money tables in the temple and the story is taken to suggest, perhaps, "what the hell does money have to do with spiritual life?!"

And there is a value to such observations. How many persuasions can anyone point to in which the appearances rise up like vines and choke out the essence? A lot I imagine. The blood-lettings and other palpable corruptions of idolatry are no small matter.

But I think also that idolatry might very well be the bedrock of spiritual life. Institutional golden calves may be easy to point out, but the idolatries of a personal life are more elusive ... not to mention discomforting. What golden calf do I place upon the altar of my heart? What "goodness" or "evil" guides my steps? What "delusion" or "clarity" glistens and winks in the sunlight? What choices do I choose to burnish? Leaving aside the pejorative meaning of "idolatry," isn't this every bit as much an idolatry as any literal golden calf? "Non-attachment," "compassion," "enlightenment," "delusion"   etc.

Of course it is easier to turn a gimlet eye on other people or institutions or situations when it comes to golden calves. And it may be discomforting to turn that gimlet eye inward and recognize the idolatries of my own life: "No! No! You don't understand! My way is true and glistening and does not wreak havoc! My choices are choices that focus on the essence, not the frills!"

I think there is another approach to this idolatry business. Instead of assuming that golden calves can somehow be evaded or brought crashing down, perhaps it would be better to concede that there are nothing BUT golden calves ... Golden Calves R Us.

And the great thing about golden calves is that they are golden -- pure gold -- and the proper function of spiritual effort is simply to melt them down. The gimlet eye of spiritual practice is hotter than a blast furnace and bit by bit the invaluable nature of idolatry is made apparent. Idolatry separates, but spiritual endeavor melts the crafty beauty away until even spiritual endeavor is returned to nothing but flowing luster.

I say this, of course, as one idolator to another.

Brad Warner's book

When the blind email arrived and asked me if I would like a review copy of Brad Warner's 189-page book "There is No God: And He is Always With You," I made a mistake and said yes. Reading books about spiritual endeavor has dropped off the edge of my flat earth: I view the exercise as being akin to swallowing castor oil: If it's so damned healthy, you go ahead and do it!

Brad Warner

I said yes because I admire Brad's willingness to speak aloud of the heart-felt stuff that other instructors, Zen or otherwise, tend to gloss over with sweet-sounding, 'authentic' bitch-slaps ... "that's just ego" or "let go of your expectations" or "just be compassionate" or "just let Jesus in." All of them may be true enough, but such nostrums fail to address the very real to'ing-and-fro'ing of the human heart.

Right, wrong or indifferent, Brad dives in and wonders aloud (metaphorically speaking) whether picking your nose will consign you to hell. His latest book is published on a North American continent that is laced, lashed and sometimes blessed by Christianity and thus, for any spiritually-inclined person -- even, or perhaps especially, for a Zen Buddhist -- there is the question of "God."

Like it or lump it, human beings do think about "God," and so I have warm feelings for a Zen student who will display some honesty and take the issue by the horns ... in all its messy, human glory. Brad's writing style is always pretty clear and sometimes humorous. It's human and humane. I think his book might be a good one for the Zen student who is burdened by the rote bitch-slaps of tradition or for the Christian whose own wider and wilder heart and mind are not at ease with facile and approved nostrums.

Zen is alive; Christianity is alive; toothpaste is alive; God is alive ... and alive does not mean bitch-slap dead.

So what about God? Maybe a time comes when the Zen student or the Christian decides that it's time to get serious, time to stop taking someone else's word for it, time to put God on the front burner and take a look. And it is in this context that I think Brad's book might act as a friend or catalyst. Brad's style and presentation are not pushy (there is the "we" word that cushions the blow and often makes me want to ralph) but the substance may help others to push themselves, to dig in and really take a look.

Here is a passage I liked:

The word God, on the other hand, is much more immediate and richer. Rather than asking you to ponder its meaning, the word God just punches you in the face, after which you have to deal with how to respond. It has all kinds of messy layers of meaning and connotation. It sparks emotions and tangents.  Sometimes it makes people feel settled and happy. Sometimes it makes them angry. Or it makes the confused. Or it makes them frustrated. Or all of the above at the same time. It is a dangerous word.

Dangerous -- perhaps the only meaningful word in any spiritual lexicon. What is not dangerous in spiritual life is likely to be bullshit. Of course, such an observation in itself may be too dangerous to make ... that's why I am glad that Brad made it.

I really don't know if "There is No God: And He is Always With You" is a good book, a stunning book, an irreplaceable book, an insightful book or is worthy of any of the other adjectives critics muster and apply. As a fellow Zennie, I hope all of Brad's promotions on behalf of the book and on behalf of the Zen centers he wants to open come to some benevolent end.

I think his book is as good as the man or woman who reads it ... and I hope they are many.

déjà vu all over again

Anyone who has seen the 2005 movie "V for Vendetta" or read George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four" may feel a strange sense of déjà vu when ingesting today's news story about the American government's defense of the need to collect the phone records of American citizens, "calling such information 'a critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats.'"

the find-out factor

Just guessing here...

Leaving aside any top-lofty criticism, isn't it a strange and contagious capacity ... how much anyone might know without bothering to find out?

Of course no one wants his or her ox gored, so what they know is based on long study and perhaps intense experience: They did in fact bother to find out. They're not like all those other people who are shooting from the hip and claiming to know what they haven't bothered to find out.

For example: For 13 years, I painted apartments in New York City. In one sense, I know something about painting. For 40 or more years, I have been interested in and to some extent put my ass on the line for spiritual endeavor. So maybe I know something about that. And for longer than any dabbling in spiritual adventure, I have exercised an interest in or desire to write. And on a bad day, I can claim to know something about writing.

These are things about which I know something ... but have I bothered to find out? In one sense, sure. But in a more important sense, I think I think....

Don't be ridiculous!

I'd say the way to gauge the find-out level of what is known probably rests on the importance imputed to it. If it's important, there is something left to find out. If it's unimportant, there is something left to find out. And where there is something left to find out, the contagious capacity to know is bound to trip anyone up.

Importance and unimportance are not so necessary. Which is not to say they are unnecessary.

It is to say:

Where circumstances arise, act...and where you make a mistake, correct it.

I dislike -- meaning it pretty much makes me want to throw up -- the contagion of relying on the savvy of others, but I have to admit I like the Zen teacher Rinzai's observation, "Grasp and use, but never name."

ready, set, whisper!

Pfc. Bradley Manning

Not that it wasn't to be expected in one sense, but the veil of secrecy has begun to be lowered on the trial of Pfc. Bradley Manning, 25, the intelligence analyst accused of the single biggest release of classified documents in American history.

The trial that puts a single man's freedom and life on the line is all about secrets and it is unlikely that the specifics and backstory and factual facets of those secrets will be examined: It is easier to jail one young man and throw away the key.

The government that has accused Manning seems to rest its secrecy arguments on a premise that resembles this: "Manning released secrets and did harm. But the circumstances and facts surrounding those secrets are secret, so we can't discuss them. In short, we cannot publicly divulge what harm was done. We can only allege that that harm was done ... and ask you to trust us."

It all sounds a bit like the Russian or Chinese legal system that Americans are wont to excoriate.

singing in the shower with Kant

Karaoke is an exercise in which an amateur performer sings the lyrics of a popular song and is backed up by the same music the original famous performer had ... but the original performer's voice has been excised.

Bars and other gathering places sometimes have karaoke nights on which the very brave or the very egotistical or the very drunk can test their vocal wings and strut their stuff. The audience is free to hoot or applaud and the performer is free to bask in the glory or suffer the despair.

Jennifer Lopez/J Lo

OK ... a borrowed background against which to place a new and original voice. The background offers an acknowledged/popular seriousness and thereby confers some safety to what is clearly a very personal risk.

Karaoke looks like a lot of fun, whatever the eek factor.

But, more broadly, living life according to borrowed backgrounds strikes me as an exercise that may facilitate beginnings, but really becomes impoverished if utilized for a whole lifetime. "I am a Buddhist," for example: When the comforting music stops, where is the original music?

In France, if I judge by this personal essay, students studying for a literary baccalaureat degree are graded according to seven segments of their studies. The overall grade assesses each of the seven segments, but among them, philosophy is given the greatest weight.

Other countries have school-leaving exams which cover the history of ideas and religion and so on. But the French are very clear that that is not what theirs is.
The purpose of the philosophy Bac is not to understand the history of human thought but to leap into the stream that is the actuality of human thought.

Emmanuel Kant

In other words, students are not so much expected to ingest and rest safely in the background music of Plato or William of Ockham or Kant or Hegel or Schopenhauer or Heidegger or Sartre as they are asked to be them ... in effect, for students to sing their own music without a safety net.

It may all sound exceptionally top-lofty or simple as a teaspoon of sugar, but isn't this the way of things -- learning a little of the background not so that the background will rise to a greater station of veneration and safety but rather as a stepping stone to an utterly unconstrained lifestyle?

No more fakin' it. No more safety nets.

Others may say it "sounds like" Kant or J Lo or Jung or Buddha or Jesus and applaud or hoot. That's their problem.

The orchestra has gone home.

This is just singing in the shower.

the democracy of fear

Pfc. Bradley Manning, 25, went on trial yesterday and the trial continues today. He is accused of the single greatest release of classified documents in U.S. history. Odds-makers figure he will get 20 years.

He is accused of "treason."

Of "giving aid and comfort to the enemy."

He is accused of a wide swath of disloyal behavior for having given documents he collected as an army

intelligence analyst to Wikileaks, an organization dedicated to more transparency and less convenient secrecy in government.

Wikileaks then handed the data to the New York Times and a variety of other news outlets which published portions.

Different from Manning, those news organizations have had no charges of treason or other governmental infraction leveled against them.

Pfc. Bradley Manning has been incarcerated for three years while awaiting the "speedy trial" the American legal system is said to provide.

Pfc. Bradley Manning has been accused of endangering the lives of Americans. Not one concrete and verified instance of such endangerment has been put forward as far as I know. The government claims it cannot afford to give the details of secret ops. But if it cannot afford to produce tangible evidence, how can it afford to put Bradley Manning on trial?  The government case seems to rest largely on a trust-us set of allegations. American security from threats depends on secrecy ... so trust us -- Manning (but not the New York Times or other news outlets) did a bad thing.

Trust us while we ban the photographing of the flag-draped coffins returning from Iraq or Afghanistan ... under cover of 'family considerations.' Trust us while we hide a video of an American gunship mowing down journalists and innocent Iraqis. Trust us to keep secret what needs to be kept secret in the 'national interest' ... needs which seem to dovetail so neatly with private or political desires for secrecy.

Strangely -- or perhaps not -- Manning's predicament has excited more interest overseas (he has dual citizenship based on his mother's Welsh nationality) than at home. Britain and Europe are speaking with louder voices than the America in which Manning is being tried.

Trust us ... you should be afraid.

And the invocation of fear works, at least for me.

I am no-kidding afraid of the government that encourages me to disparage or be afraid of Pfc. Bradley Manning. The 'democracy' of fear is vile.

the bureaucrat

Incoherence alert!

The sorrow and horror that rose up yesterday is, like all potent emotion, on the wane today and yet lingers, lingers, lingers. As closely as it can be categorized and made bite-sized, it is like being hog-tied and tossed into one of those graves with impossibly-squared-off corners. The smell of the earth is rich and wonderful, like spring in a corn field ... the soil purely begging to grow whatever might be planted ... and yet

up above -- etched against a blue-on-blue sky -- some perfect hand is filling in the grave with a tea spoon. What harm could a teaspoon do ... the earth so nourishing and rich ... teaspoon after teaspoon after teaspoon until the dread and sorrow take command. However incremental, this is death. It is beyond the facile realms of "pitiless" or "horrible" or other socially-acceptable bits of "there, there" hand-holding.

I cannot say that I am right and others are wrong. The arrogant angers of the past is minor stuff. I can, however, take a swing at what is purely my emotion ... a sadness I cannot compass, a dread more dreadful than dread, and, whispering from the bottom of the grave, the horror. Visceral, edgeless and incoherent. Teaspoon by teaspoon by teaspoon.

It began yesterday when a friend sent along a video of Eido Tai Shimano's concluding talk at a sesshin or Zen retreat held May 10-15. After first assessing how long the video clip was (nine minutes and change), I watched it. I can do pretty much anything for nine minutes so I watched. And it was from that point that the incredible sorrow -- molecule-deep sorrow and horror ... wracking -- kicked in.

Eido Shimano came to America in the 1960's and helped to build a Zen Buddhist organization whose most concrete exemplars were a town-house Zen center in Manhattan and a monastery-like building in the Catskill Mountains. I studied for nine years within his precincts beginning in the 1970's. I loved Zen practice somehow -- deeply and with the sort of awe and confusion and devotion and determination that I think other students may have felt in their own ways. I remained in Shimano's bomb zone until his sociopathic depredations -- the sexual manipulation of female students being the most high-profile -- became too much for me. When I left, I was confused and angry and felt betrayed ... but those were, however painful, minor matters. Later, I would become involved in efforts to lay out Shimano's chicanery -- a chicanery best depicted, perhaps, in The Shimano Archive: This son of a bitch deserved to be brought down! And so, bit by bit, he was reduced in stature: His legend, both in his own mind and in the minds of others, was deflated ... not perfectly perhaps, but in some measure. The video attested to a hoped-for and perhaps-attainable resurrection as a "Zen master" and teacher of "true Rinzai Zen."

Watching the video yesterday, I wondered how many years Shimano had devoted to what he called "Zen practice." Was it 50 or 60? Imagine that! So much time, so much effort, so much accomplishment and ... and here's where the sorrow and horror overwhelmed me ... the upshot, at least in my heart and mind, was purely the most horrific and sorrowful thing I could imagine in spiritual life ... the upshot was ...

A bureaucrat.

Teaspoon by teaspoon by teaspoon ... nothing threatening about a teaspoon, right? ... a bureaucrat. In my heart and mind, it was beyond screaming in its sorrowfulness.

To give the incoherence a rest for a moment, perhaps it needs to be said that any discipline -- spiritual or otherwise -- has its bureaucracies. These are the formatting agents, the rules of the game, the what-do-you-do-and-how-do-you-do-it parameters. There are rituals and books and lectures and histories. Facts and functions to marshal. Practice is built within the bureaucracy. Bureaucracy is the sine-qua-non -- the inescapable exercise weights that will nourish a strong man or woman. Little by little, the newcomer gains a footing which then takes on a subtler and subtler meaning and reach. The richness reveals itself -- the richness of bureaucracy. A man or woman could spend a lifetime uncovering the implications and profundity of a bureaucratic format.

But, as the old wake-up joke has it, "How many people ever lay on their deathbed complaining, 'I wish I had spent more time in the office.'?" What is the point of spiritual discipline? I wouldn't presume to lay down some uppity, bureaucratic generalization, but it strikes me as horrific beyond naming to be hog-tied and then buried alive, teaspoon by teaspoon, in the very nourishing bureaucracy that had once steadied the course.

Fifty or sixty years and the outcome was nothing more than bureaucracy? Excusing yourself at every turn? Elevating yourself at every chance? Lying on your deathbed wishing you had spent more time in the office? Where was the life and liveliness and unfettered enjoyment of spiritual life ... the real deal, the non-format-able ease, the genuine kindness, the laughter? I'm just asking, not trying to say "I know but he doesn't." And yet...

Once, when the congregation was in an uproar over his latest mean-spirited manipulation of one woman or another, Eido's teacher, Soen Nakagawa, then-abbot of Ryutaku Monastery in Japan, reportedly sat down with Eido to talk things over. And at the end, Soen was said to have delivered what I always considered the most powerful and shocking reproof I ever heard. Soen was said to have said, "Now it comes. Dead rock."

Dead rock.

A bureaucrat.

Teaspoon by teaspoon by teaspoon.

The molecular sorrow and dread and horror ... beyond weeping. To spend so much time and expend so much energy and then wind up as a functionary who does everything right and gets it all wrong.

I would gladly be buried teaspoon by teaspoon by teaspoon if I thought a single man or woman might thereby be freed from his or her own capacity -- and imaginative willingness -- to become nothing more than a bureaucrat.

As I say, this is just a bit of how I feel. It is not meant to elevate one thing or demean another. If I wanted to elevate or demean, I would be more coherent ... you know, do the bureaucratic buck and shuffle. But this is just how I feel.

And it feels lousy.

As a starving man might beg for food, so I beg without any other recourse: Learn the bureaucracy well, but by the living breath that assures this very life, do not surrender to the bureaucrat who would be king.

Teaspoon by teaspoon by teaspoon ... fuck that!

rewarding the thieves

Suppose you walked up to me on the street, robbed me of $100 and then were punished with a $8.50 fine.

Could I be forgiven for asking, "How the hell does that compute?!"

The thief is not only excused, but also rewarded.

Today, a decision-making process will begin in court as to an $8.5 billion settlement offered by Bank of America to mortgage-securities-holders bilked of $100 billion or more according to some petitioners. If the allegation is true, what happened to the other $91.5 billion?

Outrage is delicious, of course, but what wonders me is how those capable of such adroit theft (and their political co-conspirators) can imagine that the guns of revolution will not -- and should not -- be aimed at them when the time comes.

Is it really so outlandish to think that on July 17, 1918, the Bolsheviks executed the ruling Romanov family -- the Czar, his wife and children -- and tossed the remains down a well? Isn't barbarism and atrocity more often than not founded in barbarism and atrocity?

mental confetti

Falling with the solid rain that has broken the back of a recent heat wave today ...

-- I wonder what the origins are of the expression, "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth." It seems an odd configuration of words. Simultaneously, I'm not quite sure whether having the question or finding the answer is more enjoyable.

-- On the British TV series "Foyle's War," which is set during World War II, many of those being questioned by Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle and his sidekick, Detective Sergeant Paul Milner often address their inquisitors as "mister." The honorific is polite but not subservient and depicts a kind of equality that is appealing and adult. I wonder if it is true to life.

-- In schools, evolution as I understand it is a theory and framework that invites empirical investigation and varying degrees of proof -- the kind of critical thinking that schools might reasonably try to instill in their young charges. Creationism, as I understand it, offers a theory and framework which does not invite empirical investigation but rather posits a certainty into which all subsequent fact is forced to conform. While it may be useful in later life to know that people are more convinced by belief than they are by fact, still, as a matter of schooling, I think critical thinking might be accorded a temporary place in the sun.

-- BS'ing with my son on the porch last night, I was interested that he noticed the comfort he acknowledged in living a definitively formatted lifestyle (he was talking about basic military training). There were no immediately-apparent if's and's or but's about it. And that led me to think: "The bad news is that you are completely, edgelessly and terrifyingly free. The good news is that you can make lemonade out of lemons."

-- When it comes to the sometimes galling "haphazard" nature of things, the only serious and important question I can think of is, "Who says so?" The question is too often glossed over in the attempt to maintain status and control. Terrifying? Sure. But sometimes the only recourse is through the terror.

-- My mother once observed that the "unconscious" is called "the unconscious" because it is "unconscious" -- not because it is something anyone could be conscious of. For all the educated inferences, I think she had a point.

does old age confer wisdom?

Does age confer wisdom?

Well, sort of ... maybe.

But I'm inclined to think that age may just as easily confer a well-fortified ignorance.

Pick your poison ... wisdom or ignorance.

I think it is action that conveys anything that might conceivably be construed as wisdom.

But that's just an observation made by an ignorant old fart.

sesshin with Eido Shimano

Having been run out of town on a rail provided by the Shimano Archive and other tar-and-feather appreciations of his sexual and other depredations, Eido Shimano apparently enjoyed a return to grace May 10-15 during a sesshin (retreat) at an undisclosed "country mansion" participants dubbed "The Hidden Zendo."

Judging by the perfumed recounting of the event in the link above, the dozen participants were well pleased and duly grateful to Shimano and his "most distinguished career as the founder/builder and Abbot of the Zen Studies Society." The fact that Shimano is currently suing Zen Studies Society for $2 million and is being counter-sued for a similar amount and the history on which those suits are premised ... well, as the fictitious and flummoxed TV news commentator Emily Litella used to say, "never mind!"

An authentic Rinzai Zen teacher...
Selflessly giving of himself ...
Kindly consenting to guide the footsteps of others...
Overseeing the propagation of the True Dharma...
At a "Hidden Zendo"...
With "The Rinzai Zen Sangha" ...

I no longer have the energy to reprise the dismal facts.

I no longer have the energy to ralph.

The best I can do is remember American humorist and social observer Will Rogers who said,

There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.

PS. And for those wishing to hear them, here are the teisho delivered over the five days.

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5

PPS. And, as a footnote that may sound familiar to those who have endured the Shimano style in earlier times, the public relations material accompanying this glowing announcement asserts, "We have strong connections with Japanese Zen monasteries and Zen Centers around the world."

That same public relations material states, "we declare the establishment of a new organization, the RINZAI ZEN SANGHA, which does not affiliate itself with any other Zen Buddhist organization."

To the ordinary mind, putting these two assertions together may sound contradictory or as if someone were trying to lay claim to supportive benefits without taking any personal responsibility ... childishly self-centered in other words.

Naturally, in the hands of a 'true' Zen master, it has a deeeeeeeeeeep meeeeaning that cannot be comprehended by those with lesser insight.

If it looks like bullshit and smells like bullshit, why then of course it is Shangri-La.
 

winners and losers

 

German police detain a protester during an anti-capitalism "Blockupy" demonstration in Frankfurt June 1, 2013. German police used pepper spray and batons against anti-capitalist demonstrators from the Blockupy movement on Saturday during a second day of protests against Europe's austerity policies.
REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hundreds of indigenous Brazilians have reoccupied a ranch that belongs ('by law') to a local politician. Police continue to do what they can to dislodge such 'illegals' who flout the laws that do not protect them. "Indigenous activists say farmers in Mato Grosso do Sul frequently use violence and threats to force them off their ancestral territory, and that the local authorities do little to protect them." A BBC story does not cite the odds being given on the success of the less well-off.  

A child shoots an arrow at an effigy of a U.S. soldier at an amusement park in Pyongyang to mark International Children's Day, in this photo taken by Kyodo June 1, 2013. Mandatory Credit.
REUTERS/Kyodo

 

 

Bayern Munich's players celebrate with the trophy their victory over VfB Stuttgart in their German soccer cup (DFB Pokal) final match at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin June 1, 2013.
REUTERS/Tobias Schwarz

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

finding your question

The American comedian George Carlin once described Sunday church services as an opportunity for people to get together ... "and compare clothes."

I seriously doubt that there is a spiritual persuasion anywhere that does not have its own version of Louis Vuitton hand bags and Patek Philippe watches, its collection of humble pies displayed in sparkling glass cases, or its shelves of vellum-packed text lovingly wrapped in the finest leather and dusted ... perhaps even daily.

And yet within this nave of spiritual life I think there is always one man or one woman -- way in the back, perhaps -- who asks without knowing answers, "is it true?" In this setting, this place of impassioned and well-coiffed agreement, the question has a heretical feel to it and thus is spoken where no one else can hear. Setting aside the fulsome agreements or snarky criticisms ... very simply ... as plain as a worm in a bottle of fine tequila ... "what if ... what if ... what if it were true? What would that be like?"

In "The Way of a Pilgrim," a Russian peasant -- a fellow in the back of the nave, so to speak -- is lightning-struck by the biblical injunction to "pray without ceasing." He really wants to know ... really, honestly, openly. He is willing to make a fool of himself in order to find out. He is willing to fail. And in this state of mind, with his tequila worm as company, he sets out. He sets out not because the adventure is worthy in someone else's eyes, but because ... because ... because he has to... because nothing else makes sense.

No one seems to know for sure if "The Way of a Pilgrim" is a true narrative or simply the conceit of some spiritual juggler. Like Jesus walking into the desert, it hardly matters ... or rather, it may matter to those who wish to compare clothes, but to the man or woman at the back of the nave of spiritual life, it's simply not relevant. It's just a beckoning, scary insistence. What if all this agreed-upon talk about being happy and at peace ... I mean really ... what if it were true and I could be happy?

Those inclined towards spiritual persuasions may nod like a bobble-head doll on the dashboard. Yes, yes, I understand what you mean; there are times when the clothes don't work any more, when I sorely wish I could nail things down to my own satisfaction. I wish ... and part of the reason I wish is that in the nave of spiritual life, it is an approved wish ... as long as you don't fulfill it.

A Russian peasant, Jesus ... these are spiritual-format descriptors. Spiritual institutions and the individuals who enjoy their realms ... both have fine clothes or snarky observations or bookshelves overloaded with ... well, whatever it is, it is kept well-dusted. But where the worm wriggles, where the question comes up clean as a hound's tooth -- where the child asks from a bare-naked and unadorned curiosity, "Daddy, why is the sky blue?" ...

The heart is open, the handholds disappear and all that is left is a strange determination ... your determination ... and it may have fuck-all to do with anything blithely referred to as "spiritual life." "Spiritual life" is just "life" with a bit of icing. Once, just once, wouldn't it be nice to know for sure, to know without a safety net, to know in a way that risks a palpable death?

Everyone is the man or woman sitting at the rear of the nave -- the whisperer of strangely insistent questions. And sometimes it is hard to hear the real question in the midst of the soaring hymns ... the toe jam of spiritual life.

The real question is not someone else's question. It is just your question -- the one that leaves you disarmed and yet determined. Perhaps the question arises on the tip of a pencil; perhaps it rises up with the discovery of lint in the bottom of a pocket; perhaps it jumps out like a child from behind the sofa; perhaps it comes calling after the last "amen" is sung; or perhaps it as obvious as the worm at the bottom of a tequila bottle.

No doubt about it. Wide open. For sure.

Your question... and a question to be honored as never before. Fuck the answers! I want the answer!

I hope you find your question.

I hope you find your answer.

I hope you are happy.

Keep your clothes closet neat and don't forget to get undressed before you take a shower.

feeling better

Posted elsewhere, but thought I would put it here as well:

Worth investigating or just a bit of nonsense ...?

Everyone has times when they hoped to feel better. At the basic level, maybe it's better-than-sick, better-than-sad, better-than-ouch, better-than-hungry, or, if you're on a big-bang-Buddhist bender, better-than-deluded, perhaps.

OK, feeling better would be nice.

But "better" by definition carries with it a something-else, something against which to compare or contrast the "better" that is sought or attained. So by making a reality of whatever is "better," a foundation and support system is also created for what is "worse" ... in short creating more of what anyone might hope to escape in the first place... sort of an out-of-the-frying-pan-into-the-frying-pan effort and direction... seeking relief by imposing discomfort.

It sounds as wacky to me as it sounds true and human.

Is there a better mousetrap? I'd ask the question, but we all know how reliable 'better' mouse traps are. :)

patriotism here and there

In the news...

-- A federal judge has ruled that Google must surrender customer data based on warrantless demands by the FBI. The ruling was written May 20 and obtained yesterday.

FBI counter-terrorism agents began issuing the secret letters, which don't require a judge's approval, after Congress passed the USA Patriot Act in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The ruling comes in the wake of the Department of Justice secret seizure of two months worth of Associated Press reporters' phone records. Verizon Wireless was good enough to provide the data to federal officials earlier this month.

The government seized the records for more that 20 separate phone lines assigned to AP staff in April and May of 2012, the AP reported.

 
--  In Russia, a jailed member of the Russian punk band Pussy Riot, has ended her hunger strike after 11 days.

Maria Alyokhina was one of three punk rock members jailed after an anti-Vladimir Putin performance in a Moscow cathedral in February 2012.

She went on a hunger strike claiming that jail personnel had encouraged other hardened inmates to treat her badly. Previously, she had spent five months in solitary confinement.

The Pussy Riot trio were jailed for two years last August after being convicted of a breach of public order motivated by religious hatred.
The prosecution prompted worldwide condemnation, with Sir Paul McCartney among those calling for the band members to be freed.

-- On Monday, Pfc. Bradley Manning, 25, the soldier accused in the biggest leak of classified information in U.S. history, is scheduled to go on trial, three years after his arrest in 2010. Manning is accused of providing more than 700,000 documents to WikiLeaks, an organization dedicated to more transparency in secret governmental activities.

Will Manning receive a fair trial -- a trial at which the honest parameters of the accusations are examined and aired? I doubt it. The government claims the right to secrecy and the right to keep its reasonings under wraps. Even if Manning is exonerated in the face of many of the prosecutorial claims, still the government is likely to feel he should be punished for something. It would all be too embarrassing otherwise ... forcing the government to review and revise its Vatican-esque assertions of the high moral, classified and patriotic ground.

knee-jerk poisons

Yesterday, while sitting on the porch, I killed what looked every bit to be a brown recluse spider, a spunky critter about two inches from leg-tip to leg-tip. The brown recluse has a toxic venom, but the fact is that

my superficial knowledge of its dangerousness sent my mind into an overdrive that credited itself and discredited the critter. Although I decline knee-jerk proscriptions against killing since killing is a verifiable piece of my potential, still I dislike doing it if I can help it.

I killed a brown recluse spider. I take the responsibility. And I feel quite ashamed of myself.

I noticed the spider when I reached into a plastic recycling box that was partially filled with old newspapers. I was looking for a particular section of an old newspaper ... and the spider popped out. The spider was trapped by the slick sides of the box and made no move to attack my outstretched hand, but its appearance startled me and my mind raced to the danger it might pose not just to me, but to other family members who might sit on the porch. Toxic ... danger ... kill it! And I did. And am ashamed. It would have taken little effort to pick up the whole box, step out the door and shoo the critter into the grass. Instead, I allowed my jumpy, self-centered, superficial understanding to rule the roost. No one else may care, but I care.

USS Indianapolis 1937

It reminded me of those who kill sharks because the fish might upset the delights of summer swimming ... or kill sharks because of the feeding frenzy that contributed to the horrific demise of some 600 sailors after the torpedo-sinking of the American cruiser Indianapolis on July 30, 1945: The only good shark is a dead shark.

My needs and desires and fears are more important than those of a shark ... or a brown recluse spider. Why? Because I say so.

I have a feeling that the toxin injected by my action may prove salutary ... I will do what I can not to repeat my action. But that doesn't change the current pain of the poison.

selfishness

By extension, it occurred to me this morning that to the extent anyone might hope to make progress in spiritual endeavor, to that extent precisely it would be necessary to get it straight: Spiritual life is based

on selfishness.

"Selflessness" may be the hymn, but selfishness is the fact ... the texts, the temples, the sages, the nostrums, the conundrums, the vast efforts ... the sooner anyone acknowledges and digests the selfishness, the more likely the progress. Disapproving glances, however gift-wrapped they may be, are not enough.

Lads and lassies with swift and inventive minds may nod in counter-intuitive agreement as if somehow they could elude the lash of selfishness, but it's a self-serving bit of buck and shuffle.

Lads and lassies of deep devotion and honed discipline may dissent in slithering and dulcet tones ... and who knows, maybe they're right. But I doubt it.

Lads and lassies with well-watered bookshelves may pull down one sage or another as a means of supporting their subtle and grasping 'understandings' ... as for example, the Zen teacher Dogen:

To study Buddhism is to study the self.
To study the self is to forget the self.
To forget the self is to be enlightened by all beings....

And lads and lassies wedded to the vast corporate structures of spiritual life may come up with yet another reason why "taking the suckers for all they're worth" is actually a noble and holy and profound pursuit: Since there is no self, my selfishness is just a function of the Great Dharma ... and other similar, if well-dressed, Ayn Rand drivel.

Anyone can exercise some variety of excuse or evasive maneuver ... I know I have in the past and may yet again ... but for those seeking some bit of actual-factual peace, some progress in spiritual practice, my money is on selfishness -- the gentle, if sometimes saddening, recognition that selfishness is the alpha and omega of spiritual endeavor and there cannot be progress without acknowledging this with the same ease anyone might acknowledge that they had blue eyes or brown. It is not something to acknowledge as a smugly sneaky way of avoiding or eluding or killing off the fact. Transcendence is for the bright and bustling lads and lassies.

The selfishness of Jesus.
The selfishness of the Buddha.
The selfishness of Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. or Mother Teresa.

The selfishness ... that looks back from the bathroom mirror.

Looks back with blue eyes or brown.

Plain as salt.

In order to make progress, in order to find a bit of peace, it's not enough to observe lazily "oh well, people are people." There is some effort required and for my money, acknowledging the selfishness of spires and holy men, texts and temples, spiritual disciplines and other deluded pastimes is central to that effort and its concomitant progress. Bit by bit, an easy acknowledgment.

Just because Dogen said so and just because Dogen was a heavy-hitter in Zen Buddhism and just because what he said may be true is no fucking excuse. Selfishness is here and now, not then and there. First the acknowledgment with unflinching courage ... then the continued acknowledgment with unflinching patience ... easy as pie and more cutting than a wood rasp: Selfishness... without it, all spiritual life would fall flat on its face ... devolve into some tentacled corporation like the Vatican... and leave the honest aspirant gasping for air.

I feel lucky to have come into contact with Zen Buddhism, not so much because it suited my needs, though that's true as well, but because as a discipline and effort, it offers some opportunity for honest progress. What others do with that opportunity is their business. But for me, the opportunity was to get things a little clearer about the selfishness without which spiritual endeavor would drop dead ... which is, when you get down to it, what it's supposed to do.

Once when I was chatting with my Zen teacher, I asked him about dualism. No, he said, Zen is not dualistic. Is it monistic, I asked? No, he said, it's not monistic either. What was it then, I asked. He screwed up his face as if the words he spoke were distasteful when compared with the fact: "Well, maybe it's like a pointless point."

Selfishness. Get used to it. There is no self but self. What if there were a war and nobody came? What if there were a self and nobody came? Self is circumstances and sometimes they can be pretty selfish indeed. Coming and going, lively as a jumping bean. Relax -- it's the only way anyone could progress.

Blue eyes and brown -- who in their right mind would try to 'transcend' that?

Plain as salt selfishness ... think it over.