victory and defeat

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It should be easy, I imagine, but it's not and I hardly dare to write it: The whole thing is like a fish-hook in my heart ... a foolishness to try to escape and yet I squirm and flop and look for some easy, salving, grown-up, forget-about-it relief. It's so minor compared to the woes of the world ... and yet where the fish hook sticks in your mind and heart, it's never minor and there is no dismissive, adult resolution.

As I say ... a minor matter in the great scheme of things ... and yet....

On Saturday, my older son was off for the Western Massachusetts track meet. He was among those throwing the discus. It was to be one of his last competitions in high school -- something he had trained hard for.

When I arrived, a couple of flights (groupings) of young women were still completing their throws. Then came a flight of young men -- the ones who couldn't throw quite so far. And finally, my son's flight ... the ones who threw further and were lumped together. There was one fellow from another town/team who my son -- and everyone else -- knew was the best. He was the one to beat, if anyone could. He was very good and both his supporters and those who sought to dethrone him kept an eye on his movements.

The discus pitch or field consists of a high, netted area in the center of which is a concrete circle in which the competitors stand and from which they must make their throws. Two chalk lines angle outward from the netted area and the throwers must keep their throws within the confines of the chalked lines. Each thrower gets three opportunities.

Angus' first throw was 133 feet. His second throw fell outside the chalk lines and thus was a dud. But his third throw -- his last throw of the meet for him and perhaps the last throw of his high school career, was 144 feet -- far and away the best throw of any competitor and just six feet short of the school record.
He trotted out, as required, to pick up his discus and on the way back ... on the way back his face was suffused with joy -- pure, unalloyed joy -- the kind of joy any parent would give their life to assure in their children. Not smug, not dismissive of anyone else ... just purely, openly, nakedly happy. It filled him to the four corners of the universe and he bumped bellies with a number of teammates, all of whom were happy for him as well.

It was all beyond hot-damn!

Until ... until one of the judges noticed that one of Angus' teammates had shown him an ipod photo of the moment ... a picture Angus hardly bothered to look at. The accomplishment was assured. He didn't need pictures. But the official noticed and there was a rule that there would be no pictures taken and displayed to competitors during the meet ... which was still going on. The idea of the rule seems to be that a competitor might gain some unfair advantage in his next throw. But there were no more throws for Angus. He was done.

Nevertheless, Angus was disqualified. Erased. Extinguished from the meet. The coach pleaded an impassioned case. The officials agreed they all liked Angus and could see the coach's point ... and then they agreed with the rule book.

And it was over. In the winning came the loss. It was literally stunning to those of us who did not know the rule book and, even when hearing the rule, could not get our heads around how it would apply ... except that it was a rule and the meet was still continuing and ... the rule book said.

Angus' face was still and hard as he walked away from those who would try to console him. He had to console himself and not be nagged by passing sympathies. He walked. He returned. He walked some more. And all the while I pleaded within for some words of comfort that would mean more than jackshit ... that would put that look of unalloyed joy back on his face, that would somehow WORK, that would not reflect or wallow in my feelings of sadness and yet might somehow relieve his ....

And I couldn't fucking do it!

Even two days out from the event ... sometimes life is like that: You cannot do anything ... though you might give anything, still, you cannot do anything. Despair falls short ... period.
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war and peace

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Funny how the same mind that seeks peace is equally in play when the wars begin.

This should probably tell us something about the nature of war and peace....

Same mind, different day.
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eine kleine morgen musik

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An article along this morning's news wires outlines a charitable effort to grant the wishes of the elderly ... making it possible for them to do things like take piano lessons when piano lessons previously seemed unattainable.

Meanwhile Israel, a country with an excellent public relations apparatus, attacked an aid convoy headed for the blockaded Gaza Strip. The attack occurred in international waters. "At least 10 activists were killed in Monday morning's clash in international waters of Israel's Mediterranean coast," the Associated Press reported. "Activists" ... not "aid workers." "Activists" are people you can blame, now or later, for violence you either precipitated or took part in...in international waters.

My Zen teacher, Kyudo Nakagawa Roshi, once said, "Without ego, nothing gets done." Without our wishes, perhaps we would never stir our stumps to accomplish what we wish might be accomplished. And it may be a very fine accomplishment, whatever we wished for, but I think it behooves us to recognize that what we wish for and what we strive for leaves wreckage in its wake. Not taking responsibility for that wreckage ... well, it's common enough ("look what a good thing I accomplished!"), but it also is enough to turn your stomach.

A world without wishes would be a strange thing indeed and yet, as I sat on the porch today, watching the flag flap in the cool, morning breeze, watching the play of light and shadow ... and then hearing a neighboring cardinal sound off in colorful notes more colorful than his feathers, there was something pleasant about not wishing ... something uncompromised and uncompromising ... something like piano music...no wishes necessary.
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reminders

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A nice Memorial Day Weekend gift ... Alanna and Mike came to sit this morning. Alanna has been several times before, but Mike I have only 'known' on the internet. Always fun to meet in person someone you have imagined from afar ... and then be corrected. I like that.

It was especially nice, as we sat in a kind of triangular 'circle' to have Mike mention his shikantaza and mu practice and to have Alanna ask for some elucidation... and just to hear the two of them talk about a subject Alanna had read about and Mike was practicing.

There is so much stuff I forget until someone mentions it.

The morning passed nicely and helped to smooth some of the rough edges of what happened at my son's track meet yesterday ... something I still haven't got my head around and wish I could. The zazen helped.
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Memorial Day

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Memorial Day weekend is in play at this end of the world -- a time, for some, to remember those who sacrificed on the battlefields of the past ... on behalf of those who did not sacrifice so much. I put the flag out as usual and after all these years still have no clear idea as to why I did it or what it means. Sometimes I wish I could be as assured (and to my mind idiotic) as those who think they are confirming their patriotism by wearing American-flag lapel pins.

I dunno. I just put the flag out ... the flag of the country I live in and am responsible for. It is good to acknowledge where you are, to take stock ... even when it's confusing and not at all as easy as red-white-and-blue.

A time for cookouts and sports and parades.

Yesterday was my younger son's last baseball game of the season, a game his team won, 18-14 ... a hitting festival on a sunny day. Today my older son competes in Western Massachusetts track ... throwing the discus. Another sporting event in which he will do well, but acknowledges he hasn't got the build to beat all comers.

When I see the kids on the field and when I hoot and holler to the dismay of my off-spring, I can't help but think we are incredibly privileged ... clean and safe and cocooned in a privilege that is ... just the way things are at the moment. I don't begrudge the kids or gnaw on the notion of all the starving and underprivileged people of the world, but I do think we are privileged and full.

Shall I attribute such privilege to our flag and to those who have sacrificed what others have not sacrificed? That reasoning strikes me as facile and self-congratulatory without a satisfactory base. Others feel differently and will make speeches to that effect.

Oh well ... I put out the flag. I holler at baseball games. And I will watch my son throw a disc into the sunshine today.

Happy Memorial Day!
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obvious questions

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Five years as a newspaper reporter plus a kind of insistent curiosity about things has brought me around to a pretty-much conclusion: Ask the simple questions. More often than not, the complex questions betray more confusion on the part of the questioner than they do any profound delving. The simple questions are enough and have a much better yield.

I was thinking about this bias after I watched a show called "Modern Marvels" on TV yesterday. The series seems to address obvious issues ... nothing Ph.D. about it. Yesterday's segment was about coffee -- its history, its delights, its making, its business, its social implications ... just the panorama of what constitutes an obvious segment of the society I live in. The show seemed to attempt an answer to the simple question of coffee-how-come. And there were a lot of interesting tidbits from Ethiopia and Turkey to the upscale Starbucks chain. During the Middle Ages, people were given to drinking alcohol as a substitute for the often polluted water ... and as a result wandered around in a fog. And coffee sharpened the wits of those required to participate in the Industrial Revolution that came later. Etc.

The simple questions are the questions that everyone has -- the honest stuff that lies below the veneer of intelligence and wit. How does it work? How can I be happy? What makes this a part of the society and mindset in which I live?

Picking up pizza yesterday, I was standing in line when a boy of about three looked up into my face and said, "You got a boo-boo." An inch-and-a-half-square bandage was plastered above my left eyebrow where a dermatologist had removed a small cyst that morning. The boy said what was most obvious to anyone looking at me...the kind of stuff no one else was likely to mention ... good manners, right? So the two of us had a small conversation about the obvious -- boo-boos and how I had a bandage just the same as he might get one from his mom when he scraped an elbow.

To others listening, I think there was a sense of mild embarrassment or oh-isn't-he-cute/kids-say-the-damnedest-things. But I felt utterly at home: Why wouldn't we share information about the obvious? We were human beings and curious and purring like a couple of cats.

Why do we credit something called the ineffable? Is it really worth the effort? What draws us to consider or disdain one thing or another? Is what is called good really necessary and if so why? It's no big deal any more than my boo-boo was a big deal ... just a moment or two of socializing while we waited our turn in the pizza line. Pretty obvious, don't you think?

Have a cup of coffee. :)
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still laughing

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My internet Zen friend Hughie has had a stroke. A large and damaging stroke, according to his daughter.

Strange how affecting something like that can be (and I don't just mean that it reminds me I'm going to die). I've never met Hughie, never spoken with him. He lives in the UK and I'm on the other side of the pond. Nevertheless, through Zen bulletin boards, each of us has cracked wise to the delight of the other; each of us has made observations with which the other has agreed. And when he quoted his wife from time to time, I would routinely joke about coming across the ocean to marry her ... very pointed, feet-on-the-ground remarks; a straight shooter who needed Buddhism in about the same way she needed another nose hair.

Highie's son named his son after me, I seem to recall. Of all strange things! And I never met him either, though I did beg and plead for computer help from time to time ... Andy knows that shit.

Hughie had his stroke four days ago at 5 a.m. Here is a bit of an email I got from his daughter, Claire, today:

They have assessed him and said he's had a 'large' stroke and that the damage is severe. They said he probably can't follow what we are saying beyond 10 seconds before he loses the flow and that he then probably forgets it. He can't read he can't make any sense of the words. ...

For him to be the same again would be 'miraculous' to use their words. He seems fed up but is still laughing.

My friend is a laugh-er though I have never heard him laugh. I am happy he is still laughing ... and very sad otherwise.
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dumb and dumber

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A voice on the radio the other day argued that even assuming that those who are unemployed found some renewed occupation, the length of their unemployment would mean that there once-sharp skills would be dulled...that, in effect, the work force is getting less and less effective and the nation is likely to suffer a kind of collective dumbing-down.

Certainly I find it true -- use it or lose it. The jolly juxtapositions and intense importances I once found compelling and worth noting have entered a kind of Vaselined blurriness. What once was sharp and interesting and important ... well, the energy and willingness to engage it has dwindled. Is it age? Is it retirement? I don't know, but I do know that where once subject matter seemed to clamor in the mind, now I have to read secondary sources like the news or some revered text in order to fire up the engines of writing ... which, themselves, seem slower and less capable.

Let others be concerned. Help them if they ask. Otherwise ... well, otherwise let things alone. Great involvements are not all that great.

How much worse off would anyone be if they never involved themselves in spiritual life? How much worse off if they simply did a half-assed job instead of a good one? How much happier or unhappier if the dove headlong into one Big Muddy or another?

Dumb, dumber, dumbest ... it seems to be the direction.

possessions

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People are far more interesting than their possessions, but it's not always possible to convince them of this fact.
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a community of eunuchs

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Eunuch wedding halted

The article says,

Pakistan has a large population of eunuchs living all over the country.
The community was recently granted official status by Pakistan's supreme court.

How and why "a large population of eunuchs" came to pass is not explained. So I am left to wonder -- is it punishment or elevation or sterilization or ... what's at the root?

Inquiring minds....

Well, another BBC article says the group lives on the impoverished fringes of society and, without saying why, notes:

The eunuchs, known as "hijras" in Pakistan, are men castrated at an early age for
medical or social reasons.

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rattling your cage

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My older son was up early (and a bit grumpy) today, headed for the high school where the seniors are planning a "prank" that has its roots in previous years' pranks. It's pretty tame, but he got out of bed for it, so that makes it worth the price of admission.

What is planned is to set up a toll booth in the school parking lot. Those wishing to park nearer to the school's front entrance can pay a "toll" (I think it's a dollar). All others will be relegated to parking spaces further from the entrance. The money will go to some school need.

A prank made for relatively well-off, relatively 'entitled' kids. Sometimes I worry that the comforts the kids enjoy will not serve them well in the future, but life has a way of teaching lessons we didn't learn before -- lessons for which there is never enough preparation, no matter how well-off or impoverished anyone might be.

Funny how parents long to shield their kids from the lumps and bumps that are likely to come along and yet no matter how energetic the effort to shield, still the bell jar of growing up -- for better or worse -- can never be enough: The bell jar of entitlement or lack of entitlement is made for one thing alone ... to be shattered.

In the army, I had a black buddy in basic training. He and I would horse around -- challenging each other to do more push-ups or chin-ups or ... well, competing and then laughing with or at each other. He came from some place in back-roads Virginia and I was a white kid from New York. Both of us were dressed in the same fatigues and had the same impossibly short haircut and the bell jars of the past made little or no difference. We were pals, suffering and griping about and making the best of our current circumstances.

And then one day, he wasn't around. He was gone for a couple of days and I couldn't find out what had happened to him. Was he sick? Had he been thrown out for some reason? Had he gotten into some trouble? I simply didn't know.

And then he was back. "Where the fuck were you?!" I asked with a friend's exasperation. And he explained that he had been to the dentist where, at age 19, he had had all of his teeth pulled out.

My New-York-white-kid bell jar shattered in that moment. My assumptions were all pretty entitled ... dental hygiene was how people grew up; tooth brushes, however annoying, were something you used; dentists were people you went to for a filling or a cleaning ... but my assumptions were just that, assumptions ... not facts or laws chiseled on some holy stone ... just assumptions. My friend grew up poor and this was one indicator of that poverty. But, but, but ... but he was my friend and I didn't want to think he would be put upon in this way, this bell-jar-shattering way.
Together with my sadness was a recognition of one small way in which I was just plain ignorant and in that ignorance, inattentive. Inattentiveness is not the hallmark of a friend.

It really rattled my cage.

That's life for you, I guess. Always rattling your cage.

It may be worth looking into.
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'diplomacy'

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You can feel it coming today -- the summer heat that means each pore will kick into a moist and moistening high gear, when every puff of wind ignites a small "thank you" someplace inside, when it takes an added energy to complete a project ... something like getting an air conditioner in the window. The sky is blue and clear, the sun is bright, the birds are conversing and ... it is hot.

Today I ran into Donna in the supermarket -- a meeting that seems by its frequency to be destined by the fates somehow. Usually we meet in the produce aisle and laugh about our latest encounter before setting off on whatever gab comes to mind.

Today, I got to ask her about the protocols of the homosexual world, a world that doesn't offend me but towards which I would prefer not to be offensive any more than I would want to be offensive when in any other Rome.

Alanna, a woman who has lately visited the zendo, recently went through a divorce from her partner and is feeling a bit bruised around the edges. She moved back here after living in Connecticut and sees her daughter every other weekend. I like her and when she stopped by the peace picket line last Saturday to introduce me to her daughter ... well, there's a kid to melt your heart: So beautiful and friendly and probably four years old.

Anyway, I like Alanna and I like Donna and her partner Kathy and I thought it might be nice if Alanna met some nice people who were on her sexual wavelength ... but I felt uncomfortable making introductions based on anything so flimsy as sexual orientation. Kathy and Donna live across the street and I had been wondering about taking Alanna over after zazen some Sunday morning ... but I was feeling sort of shy.

So I tried putting the issue to Donna, someone I trust not to laugh at my uncertainties and someone who would probably set me straight, so to speak.

And as Donna and I stood grocery-carriage to grocery-carriage near the cash registers, I realized that I was being a real twit. This wasn't an issue for the United Nations General Assembly. It wasn't even something for Emily Post. I had been right from the get-go ... nice people introduced to nice people and perhaps they could find some friendly and supportive ground ... or not. Wasn't that enough? What made me think that straight and gay had anything to do with it? This wasn't some Arab country where you could fuck up by eating with your left hand. Nor were any of these women the hard-eyed harridans who sit around blaming all men because, after all, all men are to blame ... for everything ... just on principle.

Anyway, before I had even formulated the question, I realized how silly the question was ... and Donna and I went on to talk about the fact that it was going to be hot and when did she and Kathy and daughter Eliza plan to get their big, plastic-lined pool up and running and when we might all lounge around deliciously and gab under the blue sky with the birds conversing and the temperatures going through the roof.
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stupid and smart

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I don't really imagine Americans are alone in their disabilities, but I received the following four 'stupid' clips in e-mail this morning:

1. With subtitles
2. Remembering 9/11
3. Prime minister
4. From the Bush era

Stupidity is an interesting and sometimes frightening commodity. First of all, a person who is called stupid is frequently not aware of his or her own stupidity. It takes some second, 'smarter' person to point it out, although events may also call a particular perspective into question.

Second, there can be a blissful pig-headedness to stupidity -- a kind of I'm-getting-by-so-I-can't-be-that-stupid assurance. As a corollary, there can be a real unwillingness to revise approaches, even in the face of painful, factual evidence.

And third, the person who recognizes stupidity in others can exemplify an unwillingness to learn from the very stupidity they observe: Is there anyone so smart that they do not likewise possess blind spots and bias? British TV comedies are often based on this premise and there are guys with shotguns hanging in the rear window of the pickup truck who can survey the academic or literate scene and point out appropriately, "He's so dumb he can't even grab his own ass with both hands."

Pointing out the stupidity of others -- as in the film clips -- has a kind of delicious arrogance: "Lookit me! I know better than that!" It can make you laugh. It can make you cry. But I wonder to what extent it will make anyone think.

Stupidity, as far as I can figure out, has no definitive boundaries -- no lines or edges. And the same can be said for a format considered intelligent. There is no demarcation beyond which anyone is smart or stupid, no matter how hard any academic institution or beer-guzzling good ol' boy might try to suggest otherwise. There are circumstances and what we bring to them.

Can we help? Maybe so ... so let's share whatever wealth we may possess, not with an eye to standing taller, but rather with an eye to informing the scene. When did ego-tripping ever improve much? But information can be useful ... right information, wrong information, all kinds of information. There is no demarcation line: To recognize stupidity is to recognize intelligence; to recognize intelligence is to recognize stupidity. It's a package deal and each of us has his or her own package.

I see nothing wrong with having a good laugh and shedding a few incredulous tears, but in the end, I think it behooves everyone to lend what assistance they may and set aside the intelligence or stupidity they may perceive. If I help you, I also help me. If you help me, you also help you...and a little at a time, the need for "I" and "you," the demarcation lines we draw, no longer carry their compelling force.
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experiment du jour

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Today, just for fun:

Try to do or say or think something that is completely original.

Alternatively, try to do or say or think something that is completely unoriginal.

Just for fun ... it might make you laugh.
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revisions

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A front page article in the local newspaper today says that the Catholic diocese will trim nearly 50 jobs -- reducing staff positions from 138 to 89 on July 1. A multi-million dollar deficit is laid at the feet of parish inabilities to meet their financial obligations. Catholic schools and programs cost money. Sex abuse payoffs were not part of the local squeeze, according to the diocese.

What were once rock-solid and soaring certainties are worn away by newer realities. In Buddhism, the observation is made more poetically that whatever has component parts is bound to come apart. Naturally, such wisdom may invite nods of intellectual approval, but there is often an underlying assumption that everyone else's ox may get gored, but mine will not ... my sand castle is secure.

Whether politically or personally, things do come apart. It's not some threat from on high and it's not some encouragement to "Repent! The end is nigh" although there are spiritual and other persuasions that can use such an observation to instill fear and compliance. It's just an observation of what actually happens and those who ignore or camouflage it do so at their peril.

Things come together. Things come apart. Isn't this true? I think it is, not least because I seem to visit an increasing number of doctors as age advances. There is no bulwark against what actually happens, or, if there is, it too is bound to come apart, shape-shift into a revised reality.

Everyone makes peace with such a reality in his or her own way. Some shield their eyes, some build churches, some make promises they cannot keep, some party all night ... the ways are endless.

But I think the subject is worth studying, worth investigating, worth tuning in to. Everything that comes together comes apart, over and over and over again. Now ...

What principle is this and is there a way I can stop whining about it?
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the fires

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When the crisis is upon us -- physical, psychological, whatever -- there is a usefulness to stepping back, to finding the voice of reason that assesses and points and has an unflustered approach.

Yes, attachment won't do.

Yes, your responsibilities are not someone or something else's responsibilities.

Yes, there is a time to stop crying and do the best, most sensible thing you can think of.

And sometimes that cool and calm arbiter of crisis seeps over into less stressful times until, perhaps, it becomes a habit of cool distance ... a believable technique with which to address all of life's unforeseen incidents ... a way to assure your own happiness and ease, a way to fend off despair.

Only of course wisdom is only as wise as the one in need of it. And sometimes the wiser course is to simply despair.

Lately, it seems, I have been peppered with wise opinions about human conditions that are frightening and perhaps frightful ... the wisdom of Buddhism brought to bear in thimble-sized sentences that reek of wisdom and parry all fear.

A shrink friend of mine once told me that his dog had died and his children and even he was very sad. I asked him if he planned to get another dog. "Not just now," he said gently. "First we need to grieve."

In Buddhism, the bodhisattva Jizo enters into the fires of hell to save all sentient beings ... beings in torment, beings riven with ignorance, beings captured and overwhelmed by despair. Such is the wisdom of the bodhisattva Jizo and such deserves to be the wisdom of any serious Buddhist.

Thimble-sized sentences of wisdom when the fires of uncertainty and despair leap up on every front ... this is not Jizo. Jizo enters into the very flames of ignorance and sorrow and despair to be among those he as vowed-without-vowing to save. And so too must Buddhists enter the flames and feel the heat and see their own skin blister and boil. It is their strength and their fervent promise ... to shy from nothing, to extend their wisdom that does not fit into thimbles or holy texts ... to be there ... to be here ... here where the fires are hottest, to go where "wisdom" does not reach, to forsake everything -- everything -- for THIS.

If you cannot give it all away, at a moment's notice, how can what you strove for be worth the effort?

None of this is some goal or Boy Scout badge -- some pie-in-the-sky, top-lofty virtue. That's just encouraging bullshit. It's just that there is no other option ... literally, no other option. It has nothing to do with kindness or compassion or freedom ... it is just like breathing ... a sine qua non ... free and compelling and having nothing to do with any second thought.

Ignorance and uncertainty are our very home ... and we would be well-advised to be at home and stop worrying wisely about whether the dining room should be blue or mauve, whether the arbiters of tasteful wisdom will be pleased or displeased, or whether some omnipotent god will hit us on the nose with a rolled up newspaper.

Go where the fires burn brightest.

Go home.
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baby girl

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Jeff came to practice zazen this morning. It has been a number of years since he last came and now he has a nine-month-old baby girl.

Diapers and shit and bottles and throw-up and smiles and lack of sleep and wondering if you will ever survive with your sanity anywhere near intact. And the hardest part may be that there really is no time to wonder if you will survive with your sanity intact because there are diapers and shit and bottles and throw-up and smiles and lack of sleep ... all of it keeping you too busy to wonder.

Sounds like zazen to me. :)
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nature

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A few minutes ago, there was the sound of a woodpecker about his/her work. But it was incredibly loud ... not the tick-tick-tick that you usually hear, but a kind of mini jackhammer of a sound.

It was loud enough to make me go outside to look around.

I couldn't find the bird or source of sound, but a woman across the street had likewise come out to see. Where was it? Neither of us could say for sure, but the woman said, "I love stuff like that." And I did too: Nature going about its business.

The other day in the baseball stands, Dan, a fellow father whose son was likewise playing, told me that one day as he was roaming the woods, cutting trees that had been marked for the lumber yard, he came upon the head of a deer. Just the head, no carcass. And nearby there were cat tracks ... big cat tracks ... in the snow. Dan commented, "They say there are no mountain lions around here, but I can't imagine what else could have done that ... chewed off the head and dragged the carcass away."

Nature ... why is it somehow such a relief in the world that man creates and inhabits?
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support staff

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I was talking with Tom on the peace picket line yesterday. Tom is a 76-year-old Korean War vet who has not yet found an adequate defense against the nightmares and memories that wake him in the night. Dreams are so naked, so undefended, so raking and wracking in their power.

Because Tom had been around several Buddhist blocks in his life, we could talk about names and people and Zen centers we knew in common. Tom interspersed his conversation with references to the interconnectedness of all things and similar truths that, when issuing from the lips, are often little more than encouraging dreams...something to be naked with and yet, with luck, defended and unthreatened.

There are things in people's lives that are so piercing, so powerful, so grinding. Who wouldn't need some staff, some aid, some purchase point?

Again and again, lately, I come back to the story of Gautama Buddha, who extended a closed fist to a weeping child, pretending there was gold within. The child, entranced by the thought of gold, stops crying. And when the fist is opened ... well, it is empty. But there is no jumping to the empty fist before the charade is played: Tom has searing nightmares and they are no joke or philosophical talking points.

And so I said to Tom what I honestly feel -- that it is important to assist people with their support systems ... even going so far as talking about the interconnectedness of all things, if necessary. My feeling was that in meditation, a good staff, a good support, a good bit of gold was breath-counting ... counting the exhalations from one to ten and beginning again. It may be annoyingly simplistic to the nightmare-filled mind, but it has a concrete feel to it, focused and supportive and as strong as Gautama's fist. Just take the time to sit straight and still and count the exhalations, over and over again.

Bit by bit the nakedness comes home and nightmares lose their power. Bit by bit the interconnectedness of all things is not so important ... it's just true and the need to turn it into a staff or a bit of gold recedes.

Things are OK.

And it's enough.
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getting it wrong

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Maybe the whole difficulty with spiritual endeavor is that we can't get it wrong. What a revelation! What a scary thought!

Here we are, many of us busting our asses to get it right and ... and... and along comes the understanding that there is no way in hell to get it wrong.

The harder we try to get it right, the more we get it wrong.

And we can't get it wrong.

How about them apples?
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a comfortable lead

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The fifth inning turned into a hitting festival.

First the home team, the baseball team on which my younger son was playing, racked up seven runs on top of the one run they already had. Everyone was hitting. It was a bonanza of satisfaction. On the home team bench, I could hear one of the players say "we've got a comfortable lead."

But when the visitors came to bat, they too racked up five runs in quick succession. The sand began to run out of the "comfortable lead" -- this was a real threat to the victory that had seemed, just a half an inning ago, to be within a kind of ho-hum reach. Optimism and smug assurance on the home-team bench turned to wavering doubt and, perhaps, a kind of fear.

Bank accounts, love, employment, religion, hearth and home -- how nice to have a "comfortable lead" -- to feel the heart rest and relax in an assured assumption. I'm a winner and it is no less than my due since my dreams were directed to this moment, this smooth and easy victory.

For those old enough to have seen victory come and go, there can be a similar assumption -- what is gold today is lead tomorrow, what was joy in this moment turns to edgy uncertainty in the next. As the one heart assumes an assured certainty, so another assumes and assured and perhaps jaded, uncertainty.

And the assumptions seem to have a force of their own, as if, well, we are built for assumptions and expectations and who would we be without our dreams and hopes, our nightmares and despair? Don't we have to think something or feel something about things? In what way are we human otherwise?
Wouldn't it be robotically cold to set such matters aside and walk through life serene as a peacock feather?

But if certainty is not enough and uncertainty is not enough, what is enough to assure the peace of mind that will meet-and-greet the circumstances that arise in life ... the actual-factual stuff that comes along irrespective of certainty or uncertainty? Where is the resting place to which, somehow, we feel (or even know in some part of our being) entitled and yet eludes us at every turn?

Self-help books and ancient texts and wise gurus cannot reveal such a place or state of mind. Their truths may be inviting or consoling and yet somehow we are not consoled. We demand peace of mind and life seems to giggle at our demands, as if it were saying, "sling all the certain or uncertain bullshit you like, you can't catch me ... I'm the Gingerbread Man!"

If you bang your head against the certain/uncertain wall long enough, there may come a moment when you realize how good it feels when you stop. It takes some investigation and some willingness -- not commodities that anyone can talk you into. You either investigate or consent or you don't ... your choice, your life.

But what's the payoff for the one who does investigate and does consent?

Well, today has the makings of a beautiful day. It's cool, with some cloud cover, but ... what a nice day. Nothing added, nothing missing. Laughing ... just laughing.
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forget-me-not Buddhism

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Roughly speaking, Buddhism bases itself on the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. The Four Noble Truths are: There is suffering. There is a cause of suffering. There is an end to suffering. There is a way to end suffering.

The Eightfold Path consists of: Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration. The word "right" is sometimes translated as "complete" in order to create a wider context than a right-wrong dichotomy. The Eightfold Path offers the suggested steps anyone might take as they pursue a way to end suffering.

Today it occurred to me: Suppose that a dedicated and practicing Buddhist visited his or her favorite Buddhist temple or center. And suppose that after an hour or two of meditation or chanting or bowing or whatever prescribed ritual, s/he walked out the front door of the temple with the intent of going home. And suppose, on that walk home, all of a sudden, every jot and tittle of "Buddhism" were erased from his or her mind. Gone ... just gone ... all of it...a major brain fart ... a catastrophic Alzheimer's moment.

Buddhism ... all gone and there was no recollection of having forgotten anything.

Would the truth of suffering be any the less true? Perhaps it would be more true? In either case, Buddhism or no Buddhism, suffering does not take a holiday or rely on any -ism whatsoever.

Sometimes I am happy to call myself a Buddhist. :)

Buddhism is the forget-me-not of persuasions precisely because you can forget everything you ever learned or thought or concocted about it and it would still be true ... perhaps even true-r.

No one needs Buddhism in order to be a Buddhist.
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unintended consequences

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A homosexual couple in Malawi were sentenced Thursday to 14 years at hard labor for their 'gross indecency' and 'unnatural acts.' It could have been worse -- they might have been executed.

Africa in general does not take kindly to homosexuality, a fact that fundamentalist Christians from the U.S., among other places, have encouraged and taken advantage of.

But now exponents of an anti-homosexual persuasion have proclaimed themselves horrified by the cruelty of the punishment meted out according to anti-homosexual feelings that they themselves helped to fan.

The law of unintended consequences.

Who does not want to take credit for the good that they do in the world and yet shrink back when that same good produces bad or cruel results? Wall Street bankers and brokers were gratified when the money rolled in, but have been less quick to admit their role in the worldwide economic collapse. In the Gulf of Mexico, an off-shore oil rig that produced gasoline for the car I drive exploded and is now gushing pollutants far and wide ... and yet, suddenly, no one is responsible, no one will shoulder the blame. Islam is not responsible for the group called Al Qaida -- one of the latest enemies of the United States and other well-to-do countries -- and yet this group twists the Qu'ran to its own uses and finds a following. The Catholic Church is not responsible for its sex-abusive priests.

But it is at less-exciting or headline-worthy levels that the law of unintended consequences takes a more insidious toll, I think. Everyone wants to think they are doing 'right' or 'good,' and yet shies from the fact that 'right' is not somehow unconnected to 'wrong,' and 'good' contains within it the seeds of 'bad.' The fact that such connections can be observed emprically over and over and over again is not surprising or unusual. What is interesting is the unwillingness to shoulder the responsibility for fallout from what in other circumstances can produces gold stars and victory parades, a tingling sense of virtue and hand-clapping hosannas.

Yes, I too would like to think well of myself, imagine that some good will come of my actions or typewritten words. I too have focused on the missteps of others while ignoring my own carefully-closeted contributions to error.

It's not enough to point the finger at 'them.' Pointing to 'them' is not especially stupid or bad, it's just not very accurate or true. And I don't think anyone can be happy in this life without some honesty ... some shouldering of the responsibilities they cannot evade. I cannot do much about what 'they' do or say, but I can do something about what 'I' say or do.
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doing time

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Yesterday, I got a note from a woman who is serving the tail end of a two-year jail sentence. She said she would be out in September and did not name the crime.

She wrote asking about the zendo here, saying she had begun her practice in prison and intended to continue it. So, she was snooping the zendo from afar ... and probably bucking up her spirits: No one is ever entirely sure at the beginning of a spiritual adventure that the whole thing isn't complete hooey.

I wrote her back. And as I did, it occurred to me that this had turned into an inescapable reflex ... when someone asks for a hand, there is just no other choice. Always, that's the way it is -- no escape. Even if I had not responded, still there is no way not-to-respond.

What an odd habit.
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world of whispers

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Pay attention to the whispers -- they aren't lying. It's no good pretending to be gooder than good: Listen to the whispers and embrace them for what they are -- your own.

The bookish, historical observations in spiritual endeavor about clashes between orthodoxy and mysticism do not interest me much. There are plenty of examples which I am too lazy to look up and bring to bear here.

But the frictions in the human heart between the contrived and the experiential, the orthodox and the mystic, do interest me. This is a world of whispers and I think they are worth heeding.

What is orthodox has rules and regulations. It is formatted and particular. It may claim a lofty aim and yet forget that aim in its exercise of rules and regs, of format and style. In this world, the church is elevated and God becomes its servant; imposing and authentic texts are revered and enlightenment comes in a distant second.

What is mystical spreads its arms wide and lays claim to what cannot be regulated or limited. It will not sit still for mere piety. It sings and dances and imagines itself to be singing and dancing.

All of this has historical exemplars, which, as I say, don't really interest me as much as the fact that this is the world of the human heart -- mystic longing for an unconstrained limitlessness and then hitting a brick wall ... the devil is in the details; the orthodoxy adhering tightly to its manacled directives in pursuit of ... and then waking up one day to find that what is sought is not clear at all and the staleness of what is called good is enough to choke a horse.

The orthodox heart builds spires and castles and then longs to break free. The mystical heart lays claim to freedom only to find itself hogtied by a lack of skill.

George Fox (1624-1691), the founder of the Society of Friends or Quakers is quoted in his Wikipedia space as saying,

... he heard an inner voice saying, "Thou seest how young people go together into vanity, and old people into the earth; thou must forsake all, young and old, keep out of all, and be as a stranger unto all."

A stranger unto all. It made me think of The Dhammapada's approximate lines,

If you find no equal or better
In life, go alone.
Loneliness is preferable
To the company of fools.

Perhaps wrongly, this struck me as a theme across experiential persuasions -- the enormous fear (orthodoxy) and yet deep longing (mysticism) to "be as a stranger unto all."

The whispers may not be couched as I have couched them, but I do think they are whispers worth heeding.
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the middle way

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Strange to think how many may imagine the middle way as some kind of revised and elevated compromise in their lives -- another negotiated settlement in which both sides leave the walnut-paneled board room and proclaim themselves satisfied with some juiceless peace.

To my mind, this is crap. The middle way is uncompromising. Better to stop treating it from a position of some mewling merchant, scuffing a humble toe in the sand and promising to be ever-so-good. Bullshit!

Imagine ... day and night for years on end, there has been one compromise after another, one deal after another, one go-along-to-get-along maneuver after another, one socially well-coiffed posture after another ... forever meeting life, kissing its hand and murmuring, "let's make a deal."

The middle way is uncompromising ... and, if I had to guess, you wouldn't have it any other way.
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if I were a Christian

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If I were a Christian, perhaps I might pray:

Lord God,
I come before you wordless,
Seeking without syllables
That you ask and answer
The deepest questions of my heart.
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maple syrup

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When I was a kid, sometimes we would trudge along in the left-over snows of March and gather maple sap. We would walk behind or ride on a sledge pulled by a couple of horses. On the sledge was a gigantic vat into which we would pour the sap that came from buckets attached to the maple trees. Once the vat was more or less full, it would be taken to the sugaring house where it could be boiled down and eventually become maple syrup.

As we gathered the sap, occasionally we would become thirsty and take a long swig out of one of the sap buckets. The sap itself was thin and cool and vaguely sweet -- a good thirst-quencher. But once inside the sugar house, there were long rectangular metal troughs into which the sap would be poured. Someone would stoke the wood fire beneath the troughs and eventually, the sap would boil. And as it boiled, frothy grey-ish bubbles would appear on the surface -- bubbles that would be skimmed off and thrown away. These were the 'impurities' in the sap.

It took hours to make maple syrup, to boil down the sap enough to create the viscous confection that went on pancakes and French toast. By the time it was done, sometimes the kids would grab a small, hot cup of syrup, go outside the sugar house, and pour it on a bit of March snow, allowing the syrup to cool down and create a kind of gooey, taffy-like candy. It was delicious.

Skimming off the impurities ... sometimes I think spiritual endeavor is like that. Boiling and boiling and skimming and skimming until ... deeeeelicious!

But as I look back now, I wonder if the important lesson was not more apparent in the sips of sap we would drink ... direct from the tree, impurities and all, vaguely sweet, but always thirst-quenching. Concocting something deeeeelicious is not so much the point of spiritual endeavor, I think. A nice cool drink is enough.
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losing it

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A longtime Zen friend sent me an email this morning asking if I could make suggestions he could pass along to a parent whose son was writing a high-school paper on Buddhism. Frank said he knew I was well-read in Buddhism, so....

And I was caught utterly flat-footed. First of all, although I have a hundred or so books on Buddhism gathering dust on the shelves, I really haven't read very much. I pretty much blew my reading wad when I studied Vedanta. Not that I haven't read some, haven't been wowed, haven't been encouraged by some Buddhist books ... but none of them really spring to mind. I feel like someone who OUGHT to know where a favorite shirt was ... but just don't. Where did it go? It really was a wonderful shirt ... but it got away from me somehow.

How would I write a high school paper on Buddhism? Buddhism is something that has consumed a considerable amount of time during the past 40 or so years. A school paper ought to be like falling out of bed ... no problem. But the fact is I feel as dumb as a high-school student assigned to write a paper on Buddhism. An a-b-c ought to be a piece of cake and, well, I can't find the cake mix.

Someone else will have to go the supermarket and get the mix and set the oven and bake it for 24-26 minutes -- someone who knows about Buddhism.

A part of me feels flummoxed and vaguely sad. What the hell was all that energy for if you can't even write a five- or ten-page paper? But another part is content: If someone asks me a direct question, my friends and acquaintances will tell you I can talk the hind leg off a dog. It's in there somewhere ... at the back of some memory closet ... together with my favorite shirt, I imagine.
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"death"

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Posted this on Zen Forum International in response to a question about "death," and thought I would post it here as well:

Voyager -- Everyone meditates on death. This is because they meditate on what is alive and compelling. It may sound spooky or pessimistic (in The Dhammapada, Gautama was reported to have said, "All fear dying./All fear death."), but really, the more you investigate this moment, this life, the more natural it becomes ... this moment is gone (or dead, if you like) before anyone can get a handle on it. Simultaneously, of course, something new is born. Every moment is like this ... it's just up to us to bring our minds into accord with what happens all the time.

Intellectually or emotionally, this is easier said than done. But in practice, it happens without any real effort ... just like birth, just like death: Things begin (so to speak) and they end (so to speak). Emotion and intellect can never comprehend or be at ease with this flow, but Zen students can.

Just my take.

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