sex in spiritual life ... just noodling

I know it has more holes than Swiss cheese and I know I will be taken out behind the woodshed and reminded how naughty or inept I have been, but the following occurred to me in the wake of receiving the latest web site relating to the trial and incarceration of Joshu Sasaki Roshi (the translations of news articles are at the bottom) back in the 1950's. Recent accusations against Sasaki dovetail with allegations against various other Zen teachers, most notably, perhaps, Eido Tai Shimano.

In each instance, the harm done seems to be inextricably woven with sexual events and subsequent uproar that have spilled over into the spiritual centers that cared to consider them. In the wake of so much confusion, anger, anguish and whatever all else, new ethical guidelines have been proposed and adopted at Zen centers. My thought was that a cards-on-the-table approach to sex -- as for example an evening talk or a sheet of paper passed to all newly-minted members ... well, hell, I just made this up.

The topic for this evening is ...

Ready ... set...

SEX!

Just to set the stage a bit, I will ask all of you if anyone here lacks a sex. Is anyone here neither male nor female? If so, raise your hand.

Very good.

Everyone here is either male or female. No surprises there.

And with sex goes sexuality. Maybe we can agree to define that in simple and less than solemn terms as the urge to merge. Most people, because they are human, feel sexual yearnings ... for members of the opposite sex, for members of the same sex, for both, for neither ... for dogs or cats or whatever all else. In simple and less than solemn terms, people get horny to one degree or another.

So far so good? Is any of this surprising? Is anyone out there in a state of shock or awe? Is there anything you don't agree with? Raise your hand.

If none of this is somehow news to anyone, then I will assume were are more or less on the same page.

Now we get to the sticky wickets of  sexual yearning.

When someone gets horny, that horniness does not come in one flavor. It has more flavors than Ben & Jerry have ice creams. Horny can be mixed with love. It can be mixed with violence. It can be mixed with submission. It can be mixed with power or manipulation or exultation or self-gratification or frustration or humility or spirituality or confusion or joy or ... any or all of the above a more besides. You get the drift.

Like anything else, things intersect and overlap and infuse what in simple terms is called horny. An orgasm can be as pure as the driven snow, but what leads up to that orgasm is often a potpourri of interconnecting hopes and fears and smiles and whatever all else.

Perhaps at this point we should stop and review.

We are all human beings, male and female ... remember that part?

We are all one sex or another ... remember that part?

We are all imbued with sexuality that accompanies that sex. Remember that part?

OK. I hope we are pretty much on the same page about this.

The reason that the topic this evening is SEX is that in the past there have been a number of instances in spiritual communities where the role of sex -- or at least the most titillating aspect of a situation was sex -- has caused hurt and harm. And anguish is no fucking joke! 

I won't go into the ambivalent-but-frequently-prurient outlook of American culture when it comes to sex, but since we are all members of what might be called a spiritual community, I think it is in our best interests to put our sexual cards on the table. Hiding sex in a spiritual community has the same result that it does in a wider society ... corruption and sometimes hurt and harm. Spiritual communities, when they are asked, love to tell you that they are emphatically not into hurt and harm ... but in the past, hurt and harm is sometimes what they have produced.

But let's keep things grounded here. I can get my rocks off thinking about you and you can get your rocks off thinking about me. Maybe it will come to some fruition, maybe not. But boys will be boys and girls will be girls and I think all of us in a spiritual community are here in part to be honest in our lives. Sex and sexuality are pretty honest things, don't you think? Good, bad or indifferent ... they are true. No big mystery. Penises and vaginas and occasionally some additional paraphernalia.

I am not trying to diminish the roller-coaster ride that sex and sexuality can provide -- the mistakes and sorrows and resounding joys that can evolve. I am trying to make the obvious obvious. Boys, girls, men, women ... in a spiritual setting as in any other. True, some spiritual settings proscribe honest connections of this sort, but we do not, so let's leave the proscriptions to the proscribers.

In our practice, honesty counts. So ... let's keep our honesty on the front burner.

In our practice, everyone does what they can to minimize the hurt and harm they may spread around. Easy to say and not always easy to do, but we try, fail, acknowledge our failures and try anew. We try to keep in focus what is as plain as the nose on our faces. And one plainly plain thing is SEX.

When it comes to sexual contact between any members of a spiritual community, I think at least one simple rule applies: "No means no." Of course "no" does not always mean no as the overlays of a human life infuse a sexual situation. And those with apparent power can indeed manipulate for their own purposes. It can be damnably confusing. But I think that when, as this evening, SEX is put on the table and openly acknowledged as a part of the spiritual mix ... well, perhaps the load is lightened.

Yup, there's sex in the spiritual community. What did you expect? Hurt and harm are both inevitable and unacceptable: They deserve to be called out ... but hurt and harm are only as corrupting as the unwillingness to acknowledge them.

Let's put our cards on the table.

Keep it honest.

Do no harm.

And now we will all chant THE INCOMPARABLE SEX DHARANI:

Sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, sex,

Sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, sex,

Sex, sex, sex,

Sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, sex,

Sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, sex,

Sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, sex,

Sex, sex, sex,

Sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, sex,

Sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, sex ...

S-S-S-S-S-E-E-E-E-E-E-X-X-X-X-X-X-X!

OK, I'm spent.

Anyone got a cigarette?

"The Cucumber Sage"

For those Zen Buddhists who may not have read it in the past or those who would like to read it again or those who might like to snoop the Zen terrain, I always liked THE CUCUMBER SAGE, an apocryphal piece dotted with some nice truths.

I was reminded of it the other day and thought others might enjoy being reminded.

friends and enemies

It's nice to have friends. Friends lighten the load. They hem and stitch and cushion the known universe. They make things gentler, perhaps, and more credible. It's nice to have friends.

But thinking it over, it's nice to have enemies as well. They too hem and stitch and help to define the known universe. They too are "meaningful" ... in the sense that they are "full of meaning." Notwithstanding their boisterous acidity, it's nice to have enemies.

And with that in mind, perhaps there is some usefulness in the old English proverb, "With friends like these, who needs enemies?"

success!

I have never had an easy time seeing my own successes or, when I did, wallowing in their delights. But this morning was somewhat different.

In an email, a correspondent accused me -- in self-sustaining and polite terms, of course -- of being a blowhard on this blog. Since I write pretty much every day and sometimes at insufferable lengths, the observation was both apt and flattering.

I wrote him back, "Just because I am a blowhard doesn't mean you have to follow suit." And, having written that line, I realized that, besides giving me an outlet for a writing habit I can't seem to kick, the usefulness of this blog lies precisely in the fact that others may recognize their ability not to make the same mistakes that I have.

I have to admit that the thought train lit a small, flashing flame of a "success" I could not and did not wish to sidestep. The important part about seeing an asshole is not the seeing, but the willingness not to be one.

A successful asshole ... as talents go, it has a certain ring to it.

treacly euphemisms

Language has enough trouble transmitting anything meaningful without adding to the burden. Of course  one man's 'burden' is another man's 'clarity,' so I guess it all boils down to taste rather than meaning.

And my taste finds some euphemisms more annoying than others. People who have "issues" as a means of sidestepping their very real "problems" ... it's too much like the old myth about the ostrich that sticks its head in the sand as a means of finding safety. Don't solutions rely in part on honesty? Taste is taste.

During World War II here in the United States, the entity that oversaw military activities was appropriately called the "War Department." I'm not sure when the spin doctors and money-hungry turned it into the "Defense Department."

Was there ever a time when "life insurance" carried a more appropriate handle like "death insurance?" I don't know.

"Collateral damage" may excuse itself because it includes buildings, street lamps and other municipal infrastructure, but I can't help thinking someone made up that term in order to sidestep the oops-destruction of men, women, children and other animals who once led very real lives like my own. "Slaughter" might be closer to the mark.

And the treacly euphemism that bobs like a turd in the punch bowl of my mind my mind this morning is the "Department of Homeland Security," which I wish someone would see fit to rename the "Department of Homeland (or Home-grown) Terrorism."

I'm sure others have their, uh, faves. These were just some that came up on my radar screen this morning.

photos

Richard Gasquet of France hits a return to Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria during their men's singles match at the Rome Masters tournament May 14, 2013.
REUTERS/Alessandro Bianchi

Roma Hattu, a Rohingya Muslim woman who is nine months pregnant and is displaced by violence, grimaces while experiencing labour pains on the bare floor of a former rubber factory now serving as her family's shelter near Sittwe April 28, 2013. Myanmar authorities have begun segregating minority Muslims from the Buddhist majority in troubled areas of a country in transition.
REUTERS/Damir Sagolj

a world of loss

Angelina Jolie, a moderately good American actress who has won an Academy Award, announced

Monday that she had had a double mastectomy -- both breasts removed because she carried within her an 87% chance of contracting breast cancer.

Hollywood runs on boobs, so in a business sense, the action probably aroused anxiety. But (if the ladies will forgive me for a second), women run on boobs as well. Not just are breasts a matter of allure or motherhood, they are also, somehow more deeply, a profound, if unstated, assumption of who a woman might be. (Guys, if you are having a hard time keeping up with this, just consider what it might be like to be castrated.)

I cannot pretend to know or understand the swirling confusion, the wild swings from the rational to the viscerally irrational, the sense of numbness following searing jets of emotion ... I cannot know and, in a whispering world, I am glad I don't. "Life-turned-upside-down" is a wimpy attempt to describe the fallout.

Profound loss. Really profound.

How I wish sometimes that the word "loss" could be expressed without the component of threat, of scariness, of run-for-the-hills. It's probably not possible, but, wistfully, I wish it were. The threat component leads to so many agitated attempts to keep loss at bay -- to build religions and philosophies and buttressed walls and tight-knit social functions and other perfections -- get thee behind me Satan! And still there is loss. And still the world gets turned upside down. And still there are facts. Death, disease, drugs, divorce and, more subtly, delight ... and so often the threat is front and center.

I wish the threat component could be set aside because I don't think people are most sensible when under threat. Whether from within or without, threat induces panic and panic is not a very useful tool.

Somehow, there really is a need to address what is called loss. I find the format I chose -- Zen Buddhism -- a pretty good format. And yet, in saying that, I want to scream out that I could give a rat-fuck if anyone takes up Zen Buddhism. Everyone finds their own format with which to address their lives and their losses.

But although everyone picks his or her own poison, I have a hunch the outcome, when effective, is the same. The effective format is the one that stops holding loss at bay with talismans or prayers or convictions or beliefs or drugs or any other gizmos. The effective format is the one that does not shield anyone from loss ... it is the one that learns how to welcome it in.

This is not just some spiritual eyewash, some goody-two-shoes paradox. It is as literal as it may prove difficult. To live in fear is painful and unhappy-making. Check it out. There are entire religions that make a wondrous living by inducing fear in a membership those religions claim to "love." And that includes atheism.

Threat ... fear ... quick! reinforce the walls that will keep loss at bay!

But take away the threat bit by bit in whatever format is chosen and what is left? Where the threat is no longer enthroned, most of us are left with the facts of life. An 87% chance of contracting breast cancer. A double mastectomy. A loss so overwhelming that the tears don't reach and the cries don't inform. And there's nothing saying that the facts of life have to be gloomy and thereby threatening stuff. There is laughter to be had as well ... lots of it ... and lost as well.

It takes honesty and it takes guts, but I think any man or woman might want to take some time to examine the assumptions of their lives. Not as a means of armoring themselves against loss, but as a means of enjoying the lives they lead. Threats can be pretty imperious, but still ... what are the facts of the case? Ripped to shreds, whole and happy, boob-less or ball-less, tall or short, in-breath or exhalation ... what are the assumptions and what fact do they prove?

Written out, it all sounds very serious and scowly. And it's true, reflection takes some work. But threats can outstay their welcome. Examination puts them in their place. Loss is loss and it can rend the skies. Gain is gain and it can erect gorgeous spires. But bit by reflective bit, isn't there something to be said for getting comfortable in the skin you or I might claim to inhabit? Isn't there something to be said for enjoying ...

What-ever?

If the mommies of assumption can't kiss things better, why don't you give it a whirl?

procrastination

Today, Allahu Akbar!, the plan is to drive to New Hampshire and pick up my older son from college and bring him home for the beginning of his summer break.

I say "Allahu Akbar!" partly because it is tasty and feels peppy, but mostly because the drive means I can once again sidestep the pile of shirts I have washed but have yet to iron. I made a start and ironed four or five yesterday, but the work is not only somewhat tedious but also dispiritingly tiring. How the hell can running an iron around be tiring ...

That's ridiculous!

Ridiculous, but also (shit!) true.

Besides offering an opportunity to procrastinate and the enjoyment I foresee in linking up with a son I like, the drive opens a couple of doors to whimsy. I like whimsy ... doing stuff that has no special importance ... doing stuff "just because."

In this case, the drive to New Hampshire means that I can buy my younger son a rocket -- a Fourth of July firework. New Hampshire sells fireworks where Massachusetts, where I live, makes them illegal. I would like to buy it as a present to mark my younger son's upcoming graduation from military basic training ... something a little off the wall (and naughtily illegal) and yet something, in years past, he always wanted to have on the holidays marked with ooohs and ahhhhs and big noises. It's naughty and could get me arrested, theoretically, but it's got some zip and strikes me as worth the risk.

The other thing I would like to do for no particular reason is to visit a gun store in New Hampshire. There are several on the route to my son's college. I don't own a gun or have an overwhelming desire to purchase or shoot one, but a friend of mine likes guns and has complained that he hardly goes shooting any more at his local range because ammunition is in short supply.

Gun owners are hoarding ammunition because replacement ammunition is not readily available, he says. In a capitalist society, the idea that a much-desired item would not be for sale is odd: You'd think some businessman would fill the gap and restock gun store shelves, but apparently this is not the case and I would like to hear a gun-store owner's take on why this might be so, if it is. Some suspect that since the Newtown, Conn.,  elementary school slaughter Dec. 14, 2012, -- a horror that 'horrified' politicians who want to get re-elected -- the government has been cornering the market: They won't pass meaningful legislation (the past proves that), but if there's no ammunition available and no effort to find out why, well, politicians are off the hook and the guns fall a bit more silent. Anyway, that's the rumor and I want to see if a gun store owner, who must be feeling the financial pinch, has any substantive proof or whether the deliciousness of a Big Brother speculation convinces him.

It's all whimsy ... but it gets me out from under the ironing for a while. I have an excuse -- going to pick up my son -- and I intend to milk it.

Eido Tai Shimano index

A friend of mine called today and upbraided me mildly for not having an "index" for the segmented Eido Tai Shimano entries on this blog. The segments are just continuations of each other ... all relating to the sexual and fiduciary malfeasances of a Zen teacher who became a legend ... in his own mind and often elsewhere. The segments became necessary when the blog refused to take additional comments on given segments. It's all pretty damned unwieldy (with 8,000-plus comments) as it stands, but maybe an index makes some sense.

EIDO TAI SHIMANO

EIDO TAI SHIMANO (continued)

EIDO TAI SHIMANO (continued) 2

EIDO TAI SHIMANO (continued) 3

EIDO TAI SHIMANO (Con't) 4

"comfort women"

In a time when World War II (here is a link for the curious) is a blur on so many mental radar screens, I suppose that dredging up another horror will not have much impact. Horrors come and horrors go.

Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto, 43, said on Monday that the "comfort women" forced to have sex with invading Japanese troops in China, Korea, Indonesia, Taiwan and the Philippines were "necessary." The women, Hashimoto said, gave the soldiers a chance "to rest."

In the circumstances in which bullets are flying like rain and wind, the soldiers are running around at the risk of losing their lives....
If you want them to have a rest in such a situation, a comfort women system is necessary. Anyone can understand that.

According to the BBC story,  "Some 200,000 women in territories occupied by Japan during WWII are estimated to have been forced to become sex slaves for troops."

As those women were being raped, Hashimoto was not even a twinkle in his daddy's eye. His hindsight is nothing unusual -- those who did not live something are often pretty quick to assert an understanding that lacks understanding -- but still ....

Those with the stomach for it might want to watch, "City of Life and Death," a subtitled movie about the Japanese occupation of Nanking/Nanjing during the war. No doubt the flavor of the film cannot hold a candle to the reality, but it is a flavor. I sympathize with those who lack the stomach for such a movie ... eating ground glass is not exactly a joyous -- or even restful -- pastime.

AP phone records

How many examples does the electorate need before it recognizes the dictatorial eyewash their government is dispensing with its Department of Homeland Security and its "terrorism" and its other constricting devices? You don't have to be a Tea Party nitwit or a conspiracy nut or an Idaho militant crouched in some well-armed bunker to feel the tentacles reaching, probing, grasping ... and throttling the democracy out of "democracy."

How long before the apathetic "well, it doesn't affect me, so fuck it" just won't wash?

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative's top executive called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into how news organizations gather the news....

The government would not say why it sought the records.

a loss of beauty

Locally, and to the surprise of some, a 28-year-old man took the witness stand here in Northampton yesterday and admitted to setting dozens of fires in 2007 and 2009. One of the fires killed two men, Paul Yeskie Sr., 81, and Paul Yeskie Jr., 39. The admission carried with it a judicial reduction from "murder" to "manslaughter" in the deaths of the two men. Anthony Baye is scheduled to be sentenced tomorrow.

Many of the fires, including the one that killed the Yeskie men, occurred in Ward 3, the neck of the woods where I live. There was an anxiousness attending on the fires at the time ... they seemed to be random and without purpose: Who knew who might be next? People talked and worried in Ward 3. Anxiety and sorrow were measured out according to who was assessing the events and telling the tale.

My sadness revolved around what I thought of as a loss of beauty ... profound beauty.

I only knew Paul Yeskie Sr. from a single meeting. I met him because, somehow, I felt I had to meet him. Driving home "the back way" from one errand or another, I would pass by Yeskie's garden that was tucked in among the corn fields across the dike that lies about 200 yards from here. It was a pretty big garden -- I would guess 150 by 100 feet -- but it was invariably immaculate.

Looking from the road I drove on, the garden had a museum-quality perfection -- squash and tomatoes and other produce dotted here and there with flowers. There was not a weed in sight, the rows were straight ... it was almost fake in its garden-ness, as if created by high school students preparing for the senior school play. In my eye, it was beautiful, and I am a sucker for beauty.

On the day I tucked my car in behind Yeskie's pickup, he was near the road, became aware that I wanted to talk to him, and ambled over. He was a thin man, stringy perhaps, with a taciturn face that hardly lost its composure as I approached. And the closer I came to him, the more tongue-tied I felt: There was a deep compulsion to stop and try to praise his work and yet what words could I find that really filled the bill as his garden filled my heart? There really weren't any.

Finally, I simply opened my mouth and spoke the inadequate words ... that I had admired his garden for a long time and just wanted to say so out loud. He listened to me politely, with the sort of friendly disinterest a man might show to anyone when he knew what he was doing and needed no assistance, pro or con, and yet would meet the circumstances as they arose. The conversation was friendly, but I had a sense that, in some small way, I was wasting his time. Praise doesn't grown cucumbers and blame does not hinder the flowers. "Beauty" is a luxury item whose imperious luster is lost when the mouth opens.

Talking to this man, it occurred to me he might be stupid. It occurred to me he might be content. It occurred to me that what occurred to me was entirely beside the point. There was a beautiful garden. There was a man who tended it. It might blow my socks off, but that was entirely my responsibility ... like putting icing on an already-iced cake.

The meeting lasted under three minutes, I would guess. It was the last I heard of him until he died. And when the newspaper reported Paul Yeskie's death, it included the fact that he gardened and then gave his produce to various organizations -- the hospital, food pantries, etc. -- for free. And in my mind, what had been spectacularly beautiful opened out into an even more spectacularly beautiful realm. What was freely given in Yeskie's garden was then freely given. Nothing special, in one sense and yet, when left to my own devices, it was enough to reduce me to tears.

Across the dike that lies perhaps 200 yards from my house, the plot that Paul Yeskie worked is now high with weeds. What was is gone. I do not wish it were otherwise. I am grateful for the nudge that nudged me, for the silent and mundane soaring of my heart. It may be gone, but that's not possible:

Beauty is still my responsibility and joy and Paul Yeskie was one of my very good instructors.

behind the curve

You guys go ahead.
I'll catch up with you later.
I'll meet you on the edge.

complete faith

Sometimes it is said in spiritual endeavor that the student must have complete faith -- in the teacher or teachings or whatever. Have...no...doubt!

OK. As far as it goes, it sounds pretty good. Hard, perhaps, but ... well, OK.

Complete faith.

No doubt.

The fly in the ointment is that often (always?) the matter of faith is equated with belief ... to have an unalloyed faith is to believe in the teacher or teachings.

Anyone who examines belief knows that without doubt, belief hasn't got a leg to stand on... it's like talking about water and wetness.

And from this, I figure it is fair to deduce that complete faith points to something other than any belief, however well-adorned it may be.

It's not a criticism. Just an observation.

fancy and plain

Those with a fancy for this or that fancy up their lives with treasures that outshine what is left out.

Those with a fancy for what is simple, fancy up their lives with odes and paeans to the simple treasures of hill and dale and the delicate softness of a butterfly wing.

Either way, it sounds pretty fancy to me.

And lonely.

keeping falsehood at bay

Yesterday, a friend sent along a link to a pretty good documentary about the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. Pastor Fred Phelps has made headlines in the past with his "God Hates Fags" rallies and his picketing of funeral services for American military personnel.

Fred Phelps

The documentary was not quite as good as it wanted to be, but it was good in that any potential visceral distaste was put on the back burner in an attempt to paint a picture of an extreme persuasion. Yes, it was frightening and yes it was infuriating, but the volume was turned down and the documentary did not rely on the mindless "I hate it" argument (as if that were enough) that is sometimes brought to bear.

Strange to think how many persuasions, extreme and otherwise, seek the truth and build towering fortifications in its behalf ... all as a means of keeping falsehood at bay. Individually, institutionally, high-minded or low-brow ... keeping falsehood at bay.

It's a starting point, I suppose, but for anyone who seeks the truth -- sometimes called the "authentic truth" or something equally grandiloquent -- how could such a tactic be doomed to anything other than self-important failure? I don't mean this as a criticism. I just mean that the tactic cannot work ... that it would be like asserting that water could be something other than wet.

The truth is the truth ... that is for sure. But the fact is that falsehood is likewise true ... a true falsehood ... and anyone seeking the truth cannot simply hold such a truth at arm's length. Pastor Phelps and his companions -- whether high-minded or low-brow -- can revel all they like in the buttressing fortifications they have erected and maintain (like the rest of us), but for those seriously concerned with the truth, whether within or without, I think it's better to open the gates and embrace what cannot be an enemy ... or anyway, cannot be an enemy if the truth is an honest objective.

out of the improvement zone

I don't have enough education to answer the question, but, higglety-pigglety-fashion, I do have enough to ask it:

Jesus, Mohammed, Gautama, ... Where's the laughter?

As far as I can figure out, Hinduism -- the grown-up in the spiritual-format arena -- is the only one to weave in the laughter, and even Hinduism cannot be accused of being a giggle factory.

For the purposes of writing this morning, what I mean by laughter is the utterly personal, makes-you-laugh-out-loud stuff ... not the smug or well-tailored laughter that climbs on someone else's shoulders ... just the personally, can't-help-yourself laughing out loud. The stuff anyone knows all about without a backward glance and cannot contain despite any possible efforts.

So where is the laughter? Where is the laughter -- personal, no-bullshit laughter -- in spiritual life?

I have the feeling that the main sticking point rests here: Formatted spiritual endeavor is devoted to improving something. Lifestyle, habits, activities, sorrows ... some kind of improvement. There is nothing wrong and probably a good deal right about such improvements. Buddhism, for example, suggests "the middle way" -- the way between extremes -- and as a practical matter, the middle way really seems to pan out, assuming it's not just used for cowardly purposes. The middle way is an improvement over the wildly-swinging pendulum (joy/sorrow, courage/cowardice, love/anger, etc.) of anyone's life.

An improvement. Good reasons, bad reasons, right reasons, wrong reasons ... improvement is the name of the game and spiritual endeavor is no different.

But, I would maintain, no matter how hard anyone might try, no matter how devoted or serious they might be, still there is a small uncertainty that whispers. And anyone with two brain cells to rub together knows that it is the whispers in life that can upend the house of cards, no matter how much improved that house may be. Improved habit heaped on improved habit heaped on improved habit and yes indeed, things really do work better and the improvements are really worth the effort. A basis is shaped and nourished and worth the price of admission. The middle way -- to pick on one descriptor -- really does make sense.

But ... but ... but...

Whisper ... whisper ... whisper...

Where is the laughter -- the stuff that is so assured that the notion of assurance goes begging; the stuff that, personally and without any counseling whatsoever, has no truck with "the middle way;" the stuff that just plain knows there is no "middle way" and is too busy laughing to say so; the stuff that leaves "improvement" gasping for air?

Anyone who has laughed knows about laughter from muzzle to butt plate, but knowing is just another improvement. Anyone who has laughed knows that waiting around to drop dead in order to get into heaven is child's play for children. Anyone who has laughed knows that "enlightenment" and "compassion" may refer to very good improvements, but in the midst of laughter -- very personal, right-now, no-sissified improvement-required laughter ... no one asks, no one answers, no one improves, no one disapproves ... everyone laughs.

And this down-home, bedrock, easy-peasy understanding that has nothing to do with 'understanding' whispers in widening circles, like a pebble dropped in a smooth lake. Yes, the improvements are good and the middle way is good and, well, whatever improved format may be very good indeed. But laughter trumps it all ... and if laughter can do it, why not other unimproved clarities?

Laughter. Love. Diarrhea. Sleep. Sorrow. Even the nitwits running around saying "it is what it is?"

Can such things be contained or improved? Is there really some way to out-think or outwit what is right in front of your nose? There is a middle way, perhaps, but is there really a middle way? And if so, what extremes does it posit when used in the much-improved spiritual realm?

I suppose spiritual formats stick to improvements because A. It's good for the home improvement franchise they run and B. because laughter is too simple ... bad news sells better than good and there is a tendency to think that laughter is nothing but good news, when all the time "good" and "bad" have nothing to do with it. If improvement were sold on the basis of good news, there would probably be more confusions, more smarmy fortune cookies: No one but an idiot tries to improve on what was OK in the first place. Bad news is personal and pressing and spiritual formats attempt to improve such serious realms. Laughter only laughs.

Whisper, whisper, whisper ....

Laugh.

Who could ever improve on that?

concentration

saints

Everybody's got 'em, I suspect, but I'm not much of a fan of saints.

Saints are the ones beside whom others might pale or aspire -- the icons which the rest of us poor schlubs might seek to emulate... bright where we are dim etc.

Today, Pope Francis added hundreds of new saints to the Roman Catholic pantheon. It's good for business and I certainly wouldn't say he's wrong.

But I don't care much for saints. Saints separate in ways that find no purchase in reality. Buddha, Mohammad, Jesus ... pick your icon.

For my money, there are, in fact, saints. But naming them is a flimsy apostasy.

ethics

Ethics are things of which too much should not be expected.

Ethics are often wise and kind and based on some experience, but they are also boundaries that will invariably be crossed.

Ethics are the best of what might otherwise be a bad bargain.

Ethics are what anyone might do for another.

Morality is what anyone might do when no one was looking.

Anyway, those were some random thoughts when I received in email containing an article from An Olive Branch -- an organization dedicated to mitigating or perhaps 'resolving' conflicts within spiritual organizations. The table of contents to the May 2013 newsletter article read:

1. Safer Sanghas
2. Bylaws: Steps YOU Can Take
3. What Does "Fiduciary" Mean?
4. Meet Our Governance Consultant
5. Dealing with the Aftermath of Sexual Misconduct in Religous Organizations
6. Learning How to Talk in a Conflict

The topic is placed in the world of Buddhism, but might as well be placed elsewhere as well. (I apologize for not providing a direct link to the article: I can't figure out how to do it short of subscribing to the newsletter -- something which I have no desire to do.)

I received the article, I imagine, because of my past involvement in some very nasty and unethical shit. (Eg., here and here.) The raking confusion and horror and pain of it was, and often remains, very real. The blood was red then and the blood is red now. What scabs there are feel tentative and half-baked at best. Like the Vatican-sponsored sexual abuse scandal, words like "solution" and "healing" and "closure" have a self-serving and disrespectful scent. Ick.

And yet, "we must do something." There is a very deep need to "make sense" of great horror. And one of the ways to attempt that is to deconstruct the scene and remortar the bricks so that ... so that ... so that then we can say we have done "something." But blood is red and it is all just the best of a bad bargain.

Isn't it all a bit like the shredding of the heart when an injured child rushes into a mother's arms, tears of pain rushing down his or her face, and cries out with both incomprehension and complete faith, "make it stop hurting, mommy!"? And wouldn't the mother do anything -- anything! -- in her power to do precisely what her child begged for? The child weeps and the mother weeps as well because ...

There is Mercurochrome and there are Band-Aids and if all else fails, there is a trip to the doctor ... but to fulfill the make-it-stop-hurting-mommy plea ... ah! ... this is life and life is not in the pain business any more than it is in the relief business. Life is the redness of blood. It is more interesting than the accusations of "indifference."

Don't get me wrong: I like ethics and acknowledge their salutary effects. But I don't think those effects need to blinker anyone's vision. Band-Aids are important. They make an effort to protect and attend to the wounds at hand. To ignore them is foolish. But to praise them is probably too much.

Band-Aids don't heal.

Only life can do that.

Mother's Day

On Mother's Day
The best I've got,
For one and all,
Is garbled Gandhi ....

BE THE MOTHER YOU WISH YOU'D HAD.

voting in Pakistan

Voting in Pakistan today.

after the bomb blast

Strange how the hushed and serene corridors of faith can inspire a well-warranted explosion of surprise and disgust:

WTF?!

In Virginia, a Christian woman who was instrumental in finding a burial site for one of the young men apparently responsible for the April 15 bombing of the Boston Marathon has been deluged with critiques.

Tsarnaev, 26, was quietly buried Thursday at a small Islamic cemetery in rural Caroline County. His body had remained at a Worcester, Mass., funeral parlor since he was killed April 19 in a gunfight with police, days after the bombings that killed three and injured more than 260 in downtown Boston. Cemeteries in Massachusetts and several other states refused to accept the remains. With costs to protect the funeral home mounting, Worcester police appealed for help finding a place to bury Tsarnaev.

Martha Mullen was part of an interfaith effort to bury the body of a man who excited a lot of distaste, even in death. Christians could not find room in their hearts. Muslims were not much better. Both maintain a belief in a god whose love is embracing.

Nothing like making up god as you go along, telling him/her/it what to think even if he/she/it doesn't think it. I see nothing unusual in such fabrications, but I am not very good about choking down the unwillingness or inability to reflect.

If people are unwilling to take their own faith seriously, why should I?

what is missing

And, in the noodling department...

Religious institutions, like many others, often amass enormous wealth and power by selling to others the notion that something is missing. Whether benevolent or manipulative, the sales pitch is a wide-spread winner because the human sense that something is missing finds empirical evidence from one life to the next. For catch-all purposes, let's call what is missing "peace."

The trouble is that institutions and wise men, texts and temples, religions and philosophies cannot provide the peace that individuals seek. Such entities may do good and benevolent things, but providing the peace that is sought isn't one of them. Institutions and philosophies can't provide peace. Only people can do that...the very people who think something is missing.

Outlining this situation may suggest that running away to the high Himalayas and finding a cave of unimpeded silence is the way to go ... never mind what all the salesmen say, I'm going where the voices and persuasions of others cannot interfere ... someplace peaceful and peace-assuring without any more screwing around.

Naturally, it doesn't work, because there is no such thing as a human being who has not ingested and digested the salesmanship of others. The salesmen and saints aren't just "out there," they're also, and more importantly, "in here." It may be nice to blame or praise others for my predicament -- convenient or even virtuous -- but for anyone seeking peace ... well, how long can you subsist on that nonsense?

Peace ... real peace: If I can't find it without and I can't find it within, it sure as hell seems to be missing. For some, this becomes a Sunday-go-to-meetin' solemnity ... if I sing enough hymns or do enough meditation or ingest enough pre-chewed wisdom, then perhaps what is missing will make itself known. For others, things can become serious ... no more kidding around, no more goodness and evil ... what or where the fuck is it?!

Missing.

Peace.

My sense is that, however frightening it may be, there is only one recourse for those who seek peace: Start with what is familiar and known and already part of the framework. Anything, literally anything, will do: "Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly;" "Truth is one, wise men call it by many names;" "May I become the person my dog thinks I am;" "A man who won't fuck, won't fight;" "Nothing is missing;" "Where is the other blue sock?"

Any piece of mental confetti will do. Start there.

Only this time, don't wuss out. Follow whatever grains of sand are found on this beach and this time, go the distance; get to the bottom, the very bottom, of it. Others will find different grains of sand ... but others cannot provide peace. It simply isn't going to happen. Philosophies and religions and power and wealth may be found scattered on this beach ... no matter: Just don't wuss out. This is your beach, same as it is mine.

It's scary at first, setting out to nail down the honest peace that anyone might yearn for. Who wouldn't love to have hugs and support and warm encouragements and, well, company? Who wouldn't long to melt into the loving arms of one religion or another, one philosophy or another, one wisdom or another, one "enlightened being" or another? Who wouldn't want to get an 'A?' How can this single grain of sand, the one sitting on the tip of my index finger, possibly tell the tale, the whole tale and nothing but the tale ... the tale of peace? There must be something sexier, more profound, more elevating than that! A grain of sand? Something must be missing. I'm scared in this arena -- tell me I don't have to be scared and lonely and alone. Tell me things will be OK. Sell me some more Tupperware ... the preserving and annealing containers with which I am already overloaded.

In Buddhism (which I refer to only because it was a sales pitch I bought into), it is said that there are 84,000 Dharma gates or gateways to the truth, gateways to peace. 84,000 was once a number to indicate infinity -- an incalculable number. Infinite. Your salesmen and mine, your wisdoms and mine, your beach and mine. Not a grain of sand or nanosecond is excluded.

Just don't wuss out.

The Zen teacher Rinzai once addressed his monks with what I can't help thinking of as exasperation: "Your whole problem," he said, "is that you do not trust yourselves enough."

Start anywhere ... literally anywhere. Not someone else's anywhere -- you've got enough Tupperware already. Just your anywhere. Start and don't wuss out. Go to the ends of the earth. Go beyond the wind. Go where the stars no longer shine... the place where nothing is missing, the peaceful place.

Oh, and by the way, don't forget to do the dishes, kiss your children and say "cheese!" for the camera.

When it comes to peace, a granular phrase I like is, "missing in action."

for Tiago

I tried three times to respond to your latest email. Each time, mine bounced back saying your address did not exist. I'm not sure what sort of magic is going on.

talk about Penis Envy!

Construction on the new headquarters of the People's Daily, the official paper of China's Communist Party, is not yet complete in Beijing. And the Chinese government, like governments everywhere, seems to have a sense of humor on par with a toadstool as it tut-tuts about the juvenile commentary from near and far.

Not my juvenile commentary, of course ... I'm far too adult for that ... but commentary from all the other cocksure commentators out there.

caged and uncaged

©Adam Fisher

Soen Nakagawa Roshi, then abbot of Ryutaku-ji (monastery) in Japan, stands before an open but secured window during a going-away party given for him in New York on July 28, 1982. He would never return to the United States.

preserving what is ugly

London Zoo is appealing to fish keepers to try to find a mate for a critically endangered, tropical species.

The Mangarahara cichlid is extinct in the wild but the three in captivity are all male.
Described as "gorgeously ugly", the Zoo is hoping to start a conservation programme if a fit female can be found for the captive males.

vibrant and delicate

With the flowering dogwood down the street, the mind segues into a bit of whimsy on this lightly-misted morning.

Six or seven days ago, there were several brilliant days, one right after the other ... cloudless blue skies, air somehow clean and light, and the sun positively announcing every bird or dandelion or Chevrolet. Three or four days in a row and the word that came to mind was "peerless." (If several days in a row are "peerless," are they really any longer "peerless?")

Those days were bright and vibrant, as if nature had turned up the volume.

Then, a couple of days ago, the skies became grey. Rain, sometimes hard, fell. The mornings, as this morning, were coated in a light fog. The visual volume was turned down in one sense, and yet if anyone wants to get the full force and extent of nature's colors, a grey day is the kind of day to wish for. Delicacies leap softly into the eye. Things become as subtle and yet pronounced as a single strand of hair across some maternal brow.

Vibrant and delicate. Aren't people like that?

It's no good turning out some brass band for what is vibrant -- the wars, the deep love, the job well done ... no good because what is vibrant is just vibrant. Eeeeehaw!

Nor is it conclusive to wax rhapsodic about the tendril delicacies that can fill the scene ... the sip of coffee that is perfect, the single, strangely-enormous note within some symphony, the kiss that seems to last forever.

Definitions crumble. That's why things are new.

Sort of.

Newness has a way, like vibrance and delicacy, of outflanking any expression. It really is, after all, just new.

Turn the volume up, turn the volume down -- it's just your radio, right? No reason not to enjoy the program.

stayin' alive

Here in the United States, there is a popular television series called "The Walking Dead." The show, as I understand it from my kids, revolves around a group of human beings trying to elude an endless supply of walking dead people intent on eating the brains of those who do not yet qualify as dead.

Since these dead people have arisen from the grave, the series is a make-up artist's wet dream: Each famished and determined dead person looks scarier than the next. I don't watch the show because scary stuff scares me and there's enough on-the-ground scary stuff in life to satisfy my need to be scared.

Nevertheless, "The Walking Dead," tickles my ivories, not least because if the dead really did arise from the grave and were really that hungry, they'd be out of food in short order ... the dead, after all, are in the no-doubt-about-it majority.

The walking dead on TV have got what are sometimes referred to in sissy-speak as "issues." What was once alive is now dead and is clearly not happy about it. They want to kill everyone who is still alive, perhaps as a means of showing the living how unpleasant it is to be mired in the "issues" they face. Even the dead seem to want agreement from others.


What was alive is now dead and the dead demand their pound of flesh from out of a world that is not entirely dead and yet is not living in any satisfactory way either. The past reaches up out of the grave and infuses the present.

It can be scary all right.

How many adventures in life, to a greater or lesser extent, are like this -- starting out all bright-eyed-and-bushy tailed and then slowly, slowly asserting a gnawing, suffocating reality that was not at all what was planned in the first place. Bright promise turns subtly or overwhelmingly to an entrapment every bit as horrific as a make-up artist's imagination. Death, disease, drugs, divorce, marriage, the new job, the 'perfect' friend, spiritual life, delight ... start anywhere.

Anyone might do their best to elude the sense of stale and threatening -- laying on one reassuring Band-Aid after another -- but at best it comes up as an 'adult' compromise. How often is the word 'adult' used to paper over a pretty scary sense of being one of the walking dead ... of being the horror show anyone might seek to avoid?

Yesterday, I stuck my oar into a conversation that was redolent with the walking dead. It concerned the phony-baloney-dom of being a copy cat ... of joining with a group that was then allowed to define and defend the participant. And the thought that entered my mind was, "How can anyone find out s/he is not a copy cat without first being a copy cat?"

Bright-eyed-and-bushy-tailed, I join a group that applauds something I too wish to applaud. It is warming to be in a group with a goal that I find worthy. I am supported and perhaps raised up. I work hard and learn. I too love to applaud. I am a Buddhist or Christian or stock broker or mother or father or yo-yo champion ... just like the people around me, just like the wise expositors of my chosen faith. Where doubts arise, I set them aside or explain them away or do whatever is necessary to maintain my part in a worthy and warming atmosphere.

But sometimes the koan will not shut its trap. Not the koan in a book or philosophy, but right there in the bathroom mirror: I am being strangled by what I adore. To a greater or lesser extent, I am the ghoul I have worked so hard to avoid being. What was once living has in some measure died and now it has risen up out of the grave to eat my brain. All the sissy-speak in the world cannot hold things at bay any longer. "Everything is a compromise" and other "adult" observations simply don't fill the bill. I've done sissy-speak for too long, pretending I could outflank life by being intelligent enough or caring enough ... you know the routine.

Where is the aliveness? Where is the one who is not some potential ghoul constantly papering things over with "adult" explanations? Where is the god that the copy-cat god-mongers can spread on life like Vaseline on a thermometer? Where is the life without make-up artists? Where is the one who is no longer a copy cat?

This entire line of thinking can be pretty womb-gloom-tomb ... dumbing and numbing as an adult cow in a Chicago slaughter chute. Plod, plod, plod ... yes, a bright spot here and there, but still ... sissy speak is so sissy, somehow.

The bright spot, the one that beckons, is of course that however ghoulish and confusing things become, still the down-home fact is that the one who experiences such things is alive -- completely unfettered and alive. This is no philosophical or religious Tinker Toy. There is precisely nothing copy-cat about it. Every ghoul, like every 'living' being, is deeply and precisely informed by this aliveness and it is this aliveness that anyone might seek out using copy-cat methods.

The copy-cat may sweat and strain and bob and weave and camouflage and reveal ... but the fact remains ... what's the point of wanting to be alive when you are already alive? Alive as a copy-cat ... but no longer a copy cat ... just alive. Alive as a ghoul, but no longer a ghoul ... just alive. Alive as a spiritual wand-waver or mother or father or stock broker or yo-yo champ, but no longer a  spiritual wand-waver or mother or father or stock broker or yo-yo champ ... just alive. Alive and applauding; alive and weeping ... just alive.

How much TV can anyone watch? The answer is quite a lot, of course. My feeling is, knock yourself out! Scare the pants off yourself or drench yourself in vast compassionate story-telling. Give it a whirl. Hang out with the adults. Group-hug fellow copy-cats and yet don't ever think that anyone else is a copy cat. Buy as many Band-Aids as you like ... who knows, they may yet hold things together ... not.

When was the last time "alive" held anything together?