call the police!

.
In Riyadh, the Saudi Arabian religious police have launched an annual crackdown on shopkeepers selling Valentine's Day chachka. This includes any items colored red.

Valentine's Day, February 14, is a western tradition -- like Mother's Day -- and is therefore somehow anathema to a part of the world that might lay strong claim to being one of the cradles of western civilization. According to the linked AP story, people celebrate Valentine's Day surreptitiously.

I'm not sure which surprises or upsets me more -- a religious police force or the fact that a religious police force surprises or upsets me. On the one hand, enforced goodness strikes me as an oxymoron and yet, on the other, which person inclined towards spiritual endeavor does not, at one time or another, call out the police?

It brings to mind Emmanuel Kant's 'Categorical Imperative' whose best-known segment suggests, "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." Imagine a maxim that puts Valentine's Day in the dog house...lordy!

And yet the yearning for something called a universal law is strong, I think ... some over-arching principle that explains or soothes or brings meaning to all things ... most especially my life. Who could possibly posit or long for such a law without creating a police force -- a guiding hand that is sometimes as hide-bound and smug as a bureaucrat?

I'm not so interested in the white-whining anyone might do about the social implications of a religious police force, though heaven knows there is fodder enough for 1,000 weeping essays. What interests me is the extent to which anyone might call out the police within themselves.

Spiritual endeavor, in its superficial beginnings, holds out hope to a confused and weeping world. That weeping is no joke. It's not just some philosophical Tinker Toy. People ache and are uncertain and spiritual endeavor suggests relief and reassurance and love. But hope without discipline is like living on a diet of cotton candy. Without some attempt to seek out and correct the causes of uncertainty and tears, how can the tears possibly stop?

And once having created a police force -- subscribed to one discipline or another -- it's a short step to the attempt to make that police force a universal law, whether within or without. Everyone would like to think they made the right choice, that they have not been sucker-punched by yet another of life's offerings.

And so, in search of a universal law, a universal relief, the first necessity is to search out a discipline -- a police force -- that is limited and limiting ... and anything but 'universal' or unlimited. It's a conundrum, a koan. The tears and uncertainties of the world, whether within or without, inspire a search for relief and understanding -- something wide and wholesome and kind -- and yet our police forces are rife with the danger of creating and sustaining something that is narrow and unwholesome and unkind. Our universal law can turn into a universal nightmare.

No more Valentine's Day!

The only way out of this pickle that I can see is to find a discipline that includes the proviso that discipline is not the point -- that having entered the temple of effort and hope, you will also be offered a way out, shown the exit to what you have entered. But it's not easy: How could a (wo)man going through a door marked "entrance" be expected (at the moment) to see the other side of the door, which is marked "exit?" Sometimes it is the police forces of spiritual endeavor that bust their butts to make sure no one ever sees the other side of the door.

No more Valentine's Day!

No more Valentine's Day in Riyadh and yet love insists and people celebrate secretly and persistently. Their loves, little and large, require expression, whether or not the police force frowns. And I think it is the same within: Too much Valentine's Day candy and you get sick; too little and you die.

The unlimited requires the limited. The limited requires the unlimited. Are they different or the same? Without a police force, there is chaos. But with an overzealous police force, there is only subjugation... which hardly seems like much of a relief or reassurance.

All this may be food for thought; it may all be interesting and compelling but, while you're working things out ...

Here -- have a Valentine's Day chocolate.

au revoir memoir-writing

.
Today, the memoir-writing class at the senior center petered out. Too many of the former six or eight participants had either fled to warmer climes or found other commitments. Today it was just Grumpy and me talking about this and that -- writing, his wife's death, his kids ... and his sleep patterns.

Since there were only two of us, we pretty much agreed that writing without as much feedback as possible was a losing operation. So we, together with Ashleigh, the senior center coordinator, agreed to wrap what was left of the memoir-writing class into a regular writing class and, if people in future expressed an interest in a more focused class (memoir writing is harder in some respects than other writing), then we would reconvene.

Grumpy and I chatted. And finally got around to the fact that, at I believe it is 87, he hardly sleeps at night. The thoughts just whiz, one after the other after the other after the other. Not sad thoughts -- Grumpy claims to be the "happiest man on earth" -- just one thought after another, pell-mell, like some rushing brook downstream of the snow melt.

And so I suggested the Zen practice of counting the breaths, from one to ten and begin again ... not as a means of zoning out or going to sleep, but rather as a means of seeing those thoughts for what they are ... possibilities, not necessities. I didn't lean on something called "Zen," just made the breath-counting suggestion, the sit-upright suggestion, the use-an-egg-timer to mark the sitting period suggestion. And he was surprisingly open to it ... was planning to try it "tonight."

And I believe he will.

Funny, one thing ends and another begins (and I just noticed that the word "being" is a rearrangement of the letters for "begin" ... not a bad definition, as far as definitions go) ... the memoir-writing class peters out and Grumpy begins counting his breaths.

How in the wide world of sports anyone might think they could draw a line between birth and death beats the socks off me. And if no line can actually be found, how could death be other than birth or birth other than death?

Just like breathing.
.

convincing stuff

.
Altruists and activists may wince, but I find myself with an underlying supposition that no one -- ever -- convinces anyone else of anything.

My axiom is this: You say what you have to say in whatever manner you feel like saying it. Long, short, impassioned, logical, illogical, gossipy, reflective, corrective, informative ... whatever. I do the same. You agree or disagree with me and I do the same for you.

But if there's any convincing to be done, I'll do it for me and you'll do it for you.

When someone says, "He convinced her," or "She convinced them," I'm sorry but I don't see things that way. It doesn't compute. It may be popular as a way of speaking, but it simply doesn't compute.

Have I convinced you? :P
.

chuckle from Charlie

.
Received this from Charlie today:

When I was a kid, I used to pray every night for a new bike. Then I realized that God doesn't work that way. So I stole a bike and asked Him to forgive me.
.

connecting the dots

.
Yesterday, I caught myself out:

Once upon a time, when it came to spiritual interests, I was desperately grateful for support ... anything and everything that would bolster and advance my hope that this was a realm I might find trustworthy. Mostly, I sought out support in books, but occasionally I would get to a lecture or go to some temple in search ... in search of a proof I could put together with other proofs and, when my collection of proofs was brought to bear, I could trust that spiritual life was not just some smarmy, dumbed-down, group-hug bit of human idiocy. I didn't want to be an idiot, to be taken for a hallelujah ride, to be blind-sided and hurt. I wanted to be intelligently assured and reassured.

And one of the facets of the reassuring gem I was fashioning was this: I really liked the stories, the histories, that pointed out connections in time and space and appreciation. Here in India, in 3,000 BC, was a text saying something inviting and seemingly profound and 2,000 years later in China, in a place and time unlikely to have had access to the earlier text, was someone saying almost precisely the same thing ... sometimes in almost precisely the same words. And the links did not stop there. On and on it went ... India, China, Greece, Rome, Israel, Russia ... in times and places too far apart to have relied on the times and places before ... all saying similar things ... sometimes right down to the wording.

The Vedas wrapped up the human need for credible data with the words, "Truth is one. Wise men call it by many names." I liked that hip-pocket aphorism for a long time. I too wanted to connect the dots and when someone connected the dots for me through time and space, then ....

Then I could credit the experience about which the spiritual adventure was talking. I could feel more comfortable putting my bet down. I could feel less as if I were buying a pig in a poke, something that would let me down, something that would blind-side me in times to come. True, I might not be able to lay claim to the experience, but connecting the dots was one way in which I felt less worried and more assured: I might not have the experience, but with the dots connected, the experience was, for me, credibly worth having.

What I realized yesterday was this: Where once I wanted proofs and reassurances and connected dots, now I honestly didn't care. I was not attributing to myself some exalted understanding or capacity. Just, quite literally, I didn't care if the dots could be connected or needed to be connected or ... well, whatever. And I was slightly surprised, somehow, that I didn't care. How did that happen? There was something slightly magical about it ... like being in a biology class discussing how babies came into being -- all the explanations and meanings and scientifically provable facts -- and then thinking, "Now tell me how it REALLY happens."

Yes, there is some experience on which to premise the understanding that the spiritual adventure is no lie. Yes, there is a laziness that is simply willing to surrender and say something stupid like, "Hell, it's just a fact." Yes, there has grown up a more easy willingness to be wrong and not worry about it too much: "Of course the dots connect through time and space ... but that's like saying 'the sky is blue' when the sky is already blue." I no longer need convincing ... even if I don't honestly know how that REALLY happened.

When I wanted to connect the dots, I would have been skeptical and disheartened if someone said, "The dots are already connected, silly!" or "What dots?" But these days I can find it exhausting -- and sometimes cranky-making -- when someone goes off on a connect-the-dots crusade, the very crusade I myself joined and relied on with mounting fervor.

Once I said, "Tell me it's true."
And the response came back, "OK. It's true."
Once I said, "But how can I believe it?"
And the response came back, "Believe it."
Once I said, "But what if I'm wrong?"
And the response came back, "You're not wrong."
Once I said, "But how can I know that?"
And the response came back, "Trust yourself."
Once I said, "How can I trust what has proven so untrustworthy?"
And the response came back, "Trust yourself anyway."
Once I said, "Give me credible evidence."
And the response came back, "OK -- how about this and that, the lines between the dots?
Once I said, "But that's not really enough. Give me some real proof."
And the response came back, "Trust yourself."

And that really pissed me off ... until I decided to try it.

Oh well, just noticing a change of heart. It may be that I am just getting too old and fat and lazy to fight and scramble and collate any more. But that's my problem, not yours.

You don't have to be so dumb.

Trust yourself.
.

too late

.
As an aging or aged person, there are any number of ways in which the phrase "too late" applies to me.

Too late to join NASA.
Too late to be a handsome rogue.
Too late to climb Mt. Everest.
Too late to become an astro-physicist, even assuming I had much aptitude for science.
Too late to take the Trans-Siberian Railway or visit Afghanistan, two things I have wanted to do in the past.
Too late to imagine that a new suit will make a hell of a lot of difference, let alone impress anyone.
Too late to be young.
And too late to do a heck of a lot about the leanings of a lifetime.

Sometimes I wish it were not too late.

Sometimes I luxuriate in its warming certainty -- it's too late now.

But there are some things it's never to late for. It's never too late, for example, to enjoy a laugh or sneeze or to breathe this breath. Not too late ... unless of course you think it may be too late, in which case, even as you imagine it is too late, it really is too late ... you already missed the laugh or sneeze or breath.

As the old refrigerator magnet once put it, "Life is what happens while you were busy making other plans." So, at whatever age, you're always too late in one sense and yet simultaneously it's never too late.

You ... are always too late...always coming in second, always bringing up the rear. And all the while it was never to late.

Smile!

See what I mean?
.

Eido Tai Shimano

.
I originally posted this in November last year. Later, I collected it with other posts I considered removing from this blog. Later still, it was suggested I put the posts back ... which I did. Today I got a call from someone who was looking for this particular post and was having a hard time finding it because it was in among other posts headed "putting it back." So ... I am giving it back its own space and title for whoever might find it useful.
________________________________________



Thursday, November 12, 2009
letter to Eido Tai Shimano
.
What follows is a letter I wrote in 1982 to Eido Tai Shimano, the chief executive of Zen Studies Society in New York and Dai Bosatsu Monastery in upstate New York. Mr. Shimano is a Zen teacher.

The reason for posting a letter of so many years ago is not to open the old wounds that bled freely in their time. Nor is it to deny that Zen Buddhism in America has made great strides when it comes to the sexual and financial abuses that it has faced and continues to face from time to time. Nor is it to suggest that I have not been a hypocrite. Nor is it to elevate my own status as a rebel or nay-sayer or promoter of some one true virtue. I too love Zen Buddhism both in its directions and in its experiential truth.

I am posting it as a reminder that the past is or can be very much the present and further that the 'scandals' that have occurred involved very real and particular people and that those people suffered in ways that are contrary to Zen Buddhist teaching. Not for nothing did the teachers of the past make upsetting the sangha a no-no. Not for nothing did they encourage repentance when it was warranted. And not for nothing were they aware that in the human sphere, however elevated and adored, the room for error was and remains a very real possibility.


November 1, 1982

The Rev. Eido Tai Shimano
New York Zendo
223 East 67th St.
New York, NY 11021

Dear Mr. Shimano:

Thank you for your creative letter of Oct. 19, 1982 with its equally masterful enclosure of Oct. 21 to Mr. George (Jochi) Zournas. I must say that as I began to read your work I felt some vestigial hope that you might in fact clear the air, turn some metaphorical corner and clarify what, over the years, has become murky with the stuff that Soen Roshi has learned to call your “lies.” By the time I finished reading your words, I was, of course, disappointed if not surprised.

“So much sitting, so many sesshins, so many dokusans…” and still Soen Roshi calls you a liar. Could you tell me why? Is this perhaps another encouragement to “bravely march on?” Coming as Soen Roshi does out of a society that takes pride in indirection, still he uses this most direct word, “liar.” Why? Coming as he does out of a discipline that enjoins confession and straight-forwardness, he calls you a liar. Why? Among the monks at Dai Bosatsu last summer you managed to plant the idea that Soen Roshi was an alcoholic and/or senile. But why would a senile alcoholic even bother to call you a liar? Politics, you say? – because Soen Roshi wants Dai Bosatsu, to become king of the some American Zen castle? If Soen Roshi actually did want Dai Bosatsu, why not give it to him? Do you not owe him a great debt for his teaching, perhaps as Torei felt he owed Hakuin? As a ‘true man without rank,’ with so many sesshins, so much sitting, and so many dokusans behind you, surely you recognize that the toys of Zen Buddhism – the robes and monasteries and power – are only dreams. Could you, a ‘Zen Mater,’ be fooled by a dream?

But this, of course, is not your understanding. Your understanding seems to be that They are all out to get you – you who are blameless in administration, honest in the dokusan room, pure and “fair” and deserving of respect from those who support and make possible your meaning as a person of rank. It is the questioners who are “insane” or full of “intense personal hatred” or want Your zendo or want Your monastery or hate you because you have money and they have not or don’t understand the ‘Japanese’ group and you…you bear it all so remarkably well, so staunch and patient. You are really very good at it: masterful, if not the master.

Besides those Jochi George Zournas mentioned in his letter (those Others who were out to get you), I would like to take this opportunity to recollect some others, perhaps not quite so august, who have left our own sangha. I am not now referring to those who left because they moved or to those who made an easy personal choice, but rather to those who left after some discovery in that beautiful zendo where there is room for our lifelong practice. True, some left in anger or confusion, but what was it they really discovered? Is it possible they discovered what Soen Roshi called your “lies?” I really don’t know, but I recollect them now and express my sorrow at their leaving: Daishin Peter Gamby, Maishin Mike Sopko, Reimon Ray Crivello, Genmyo Elihu Smith, Sojun George Seraganian, Bunyu David Bogart, Roca Lorca Morello (all of whom were residents as Sho Bo Ji with your blessings),Kanzan Bruce Rickenbacker (your monk who memorized the whole of the Diamond Sutra), Daiko Charles Carpenter (another of your monks), Shoro Lou Nordstrom (another of your monks), Kozen Peter Kaufman (another of your monks), Jonen Sheila Carmen (pseudonym), Wendy Megerman, Nennen Merry White, Toni Snow, Reishu Jim Gordon, Shinso Merete Galesi, Ishin Peter Mathiessen, Jean Day, Carol Binswanger, Jochi George Zournas, Wado Vicki Gerdy, Rinko Peggy Crawford and Mushin Frank LoCicero. You will recall, or course, that, over the years, the list has grown much, much, much longer and is filled with people who did not show sufficient “skepticism about rumors,” as you so quaintly put it.

How many of them came to you directly in 1975 and 1979 (when what were humorously referred to as the “Fuck Follies I” and the ”Fuck Follies II” were unveiled)? How many? Was it 10 or perhaps 20? Without any exception I know of, each of those who came to you directly came in a spirit of admiration and love, in hopes of clarifying a delicate matter without public exposure. The situation: your manipulation of the dokusan setting for your own periodic sexual satisfaction (seducing women); treating lovers taken from within the sangha with contempt once you had finished with them; and taking no candid responsibility for your own behavior but rather answering direct, honest and caring queries with, in one form or another, the line you used in a jam-packed zendo in 1975: “It’s none of your business.”

The line of people outside your door is long, very, very long. In my mind, they wait silently – the They and Them whom you so easily accuse of insanity or intense personal hatred. A long line of crazy people outside your door. What brought them there? Even crazy people have their reasons, don’t you agree?

Look! There’s Merry White. Remember her? She was the one who sent a letter to the Board of Trustees in 1979 outlining without rancor your sexual blackmail. It was she who wrote: “Personally, I found his (your) seductions very distracting and jarring during the first Kessei…I wonder now if I would not have been a better student in the long run without it. ... And last year (1978) during my second stay at Dai Bosatsu, it hurt me that he treated me very distantly for quite a while. When he warmed up, it became sexual again. That kind of either/or situation made it very difficult for me (or, I would think, any woman) to be his student. You want his attention and his help, and that, I think, is how it begins. He takes this emotional opening-up, which is normal and right in a spiritual student-teacher relationship, as a sign of sexual readiness.” Clearly the Board of Trustees, your Board of Trustees, took the only possible sane action by never fully discussing the matter and by issuing a letter, signed by Korin Sylvan Busch stating, “we affirm our confidence in Eido Roshi and his leadership of our sangha.”

And there’s Jane Smith (pseudonym)! Remember her? December 24, 1977, Room 1100A at the Statler Hilton after dinner at Mama Leone’s. Remember how the board of Trustees covered that one when Jochi and Korin, at whose instigation I can only guess, spread lies and rumors about Jane – how she was only dreaming of an affair with you? And how even Jane was drawn into the lies and told them on herself because she believed the truth would be harmful to you and to Zen practice in America? She was the same one who commented later in front of witnesses that “he (you) never even said thank you.”

And Carmen!… But of course you will recall this and much, much more.

On and on and on it goes down that long, long line. Person after person, Bodhisattva after crazy Bodhisattva, each of them willing their suspicions to silence. How is it possible they were so willing, so stupid? Perhaps it was because many people begin their spiritual practice with the understanding that the ascendancy they have previously granted to their emotions and intellect is the source of much suffering. Because of that pain, they were willing to set aside their own emotions and intellect (to the extent possible), and to be as faithful and obedient as possible. Perhaps they counseled themselves that intellect and emotion are more delusion. And perhaps they trusted that your emotions and thoughts were not based in delusion. This trust, however misguided, was surely human and understandable. Unfortunately, it was and is open to manipulation and deceit. There are many I know, myself among them, who practiced with you and were grateful to you, until, a little at a time, they began to wonder. In their wondering, they came to you in their twos and threes and tens, not even caring very much that you took lovers on the side, but curious about a wider pattern of contempt and manipulation. No doubt you saw them as insane people out to take your toys. Well, they didn’t get them, did they?

To some you said your Japanese heritage and samurai code of honor kept you from understanding or responding to these puritanical “barbarians.” Isn’t it odd for a so-called Zen Master who has lived in America for 20 years to claim he understands neither his students nor his environment? Isn’t such a person in the wrong line of work? No doubt it is equally insane to suggest that a real Japanese man would know something of discretion and that a true samurai would not exhibit contempt and dishonesty towards those in his own circle of honorable endeavor.

Of course it was more difficult to use this line on Dr. Tadao Ogura, the psychiatrist who offered to act as arbitrator in the present upheaval. He was the one who suggested taking three “impartial” observers from the sangha with him when he listened to the direct testimony of those involved. The group would then have reported to the Board of Trustees, your own Board of Trustees. Perhaps he too was one of the insane ones, the ones who had to be stopped. And stopped he was when Korin Sylvan Busch, at whose instigation I can only guess, let it be known that three “impartial” sangha members could not be found.

The long line outside your door does not say these things. They are silent. They are gone. It is I who say them, I, Kigen. I take responsibility for saying what I have said and doing what I have done. I have company, but I take responsibility for myself. I am one of Them, those Others whose fault it all is, one of the ones who supported you well, offered you gratitude, did his best to practice the Zen Buddhism of the Patriarchs, lied or remained silent for you on numbers of occasions, lied or remained silent to myself about you, endured and perpetuated your deceits, and, finally...went...”insane.”

It is out of that insanity that I also offer you my most sincere and honest thanks. I offer thanks without irony or sarcasm. You have taught me well and I am grateful. Besides the mechanics of Zen Buddhism, you have also taught me what a Zen Master is not – a teaching worthy of a true Zen Master. Although your teaching lacked the creative clarity, the nurturing of the Buddha Dharma, and the straight-forwardness of a truly enlightened man, still I say your teaching was fine. As I value my life, my Zen practice, so I value this teaching.

This is a time for potential new beginnings – yours, mine, the sangha’s. Always new beginnings. I pray now and will continue to pray that each of us may one day face death with strong, even breaths and perhaps a small smile of true understanding.

Thank you and goodbye.


Adam Fisher


It was during that same time period that I heard perhaps the sharpest rebuke I have ever heard in my life. At one point, Soen Roshi was talking face to face with Mr. Shimano and discussing the reported disharmony Mr. Shimano played a role in. Mr. Shimano offered his responses. And Soen Roshi reportedly said sadly, "Now it comes -- dead rock!"

attribution

.
Just now I received an email from a nice man who pointed to something called "the fundamental attribution error," a phrase, he wrote, that I might Google, and thus, I guess, become informed. And perhaps I will.

But I got stuck on the word "attribution." An internet dictionary says of this word:

▸ noun: assigning to a cause or source
▸ noun: assigning some quality or character to a person or thing

I assign characteristics to you. You assign characteristics to me. Philosophers and intellectuals assign characteristics to their interests and then assign more characteristics to their deductions. Social intercourse would fall silent without attributions of one kind or another. Cause and effect rely on attributions. It seems that, as a social species, we would be bereft and wan without our attributions.

I see nothing bad in it.

But I do wonder if it is not incumbent upon us all to ask: "Is attribution compulsory or merely possible? Is it true?" I say "incumbent" because I think that, without answering the question, we are left at a loss -- never knowing anything for what it is or was and basing our lives and happiness on what things seem to be and never what they are.

Given the over-arching habit of attribution, I concede that the questions may seem terrifying or too confounding to warrant further energy. But I would argue that there is no escape: What are things like when we stop dressing them up in our convictions or preferences or sincerities or hopes or beliefs? Just all by themselves ... what are things like? Are they really 'like' anything at all?

The immensity of the question, assuming anyone were willing to ask it in their own lives, can be daunting. But I don't think we need to scurry or fret and try to seek out an answer that would only lead to more attributions. I think that to ask it once is enough -- ask and be patient, caringly patient. Let it be like a seed of corn planted in the spring -- placed in its small hole, covered with nourishing earth, watered from time to time ... and then see the results when fall arrives.

To taste the corn is, after all, like nothing in the whole universe.

And the universe is no different.
.

losing my beloved shadow

.
Once, because she loved me best,
The moon sewed my shadow to the earth,
Pointing ahead of my footsteps
To lands of undefended trust.

"This way! This way!" my shadow crowed,
"Hurry up! We'll miss the show!"
And follow I did with uncertain steps,
Into the unseen up-ahead.

Once there was no other choice.
Shadows do not lie
And who was I to contradict
What loves me best?

But now my shadow has moved on.
I miss its bounding energies and yet...
What loves best nestles in my shoulder's nook
And murmurs with my unspeaking lips: "Love. Ain't that grand?"
.

blue stick Buddhism

.
I wonder if it ever strikes anyone as it strikes me:

Internet discussions of Buddhism or Zen Buddhism are like safe sex: Lots of fun, sometimes sweetness, sometimes solemnity, sometimes laughter, sometimes tears ... but no one goes home pregnant. The stick never turns blue.

But in Buddhist practice there are more pregnancies than there are Catholics in Ireland... living, growing, caterwauling, giggling, lively, blissful, shitty, curious, drooling, grasping, smiling, screaming ... every second, moment after moment, another blue stick, another baby ... and s/he's all yours.

Safe sex has its place -- or anyway I hope it does -- but let's not forget the living, breathing facts.
.

yardsticks

.
If you apply to others yardsticks you do not apply to yourself, you will never be happy.

If you apply to yourself the yardsticks you apply to others, you will never be at peace.

Why?

Because applying yardsticks is the ordinary way. It is not the true way. Yardsticks measure what is limited and the limitless cannot be measured.
.

reading books

.
Once upon a time, in Kentucky, a small-town council voted down funding for the creation of a library. And one of the councilors explained his vote this way: "I own one book and it is enough."

I read this story on the news wires and was pretty much as flabbergasted at the reasoning as the news story implicitly expected me to be. Something in my mind rose up and sputtered with the utter disbelief of someone who is/was a true believer in some other faith: Education is important in the sense that it provides possibilities and reading is one useful tool in becoming educated.

But a part of what stopped me in my tracks about the story was that there was what struck me as a straight-ahead honesty in the councilor's remark. No one HAS to read books and some people get by very well without opening themselves in that particular format. There are all sorts of heart-felt and logical arguments I would and can make about education and reading, but the fact remains: No one HAS to read.

What brought this back to mind was a discussion I had yesterday with my 15-year-old son as I drove him home from school. As a dutiful, nagging parent, I asked him the one question he knew I would: "Do you have any homework?" And, yes, he did -- he had to do some reading for his English class. And what was he reading? "I dunno. Some book about this Spanish family." And then his reactions got the better of him. "I don't understand why they can't give us something interesting to read."

He said he liked to read when people didn't shove it down his throat, but he wanted to read something "good." And so we went over what he might consider "good" and I said that taste was taste, but even what was not "good" was one of the possibilities to consider and digest. He looked, even as I might have at his age, unconvinced. Why bother with what you didn't like?

So then I prattled a little more about reading being a good way to learn how to communicate and that no matter what profession or interest he might conceive in life -- from CEO to auto mechanic -- knowing how to communicate in ways that others would understand was important ... one of the keys to making a living/money. That was concrete and he could hear it, his face said.

And then, like any parent, I caught myself out in the apparent hypocrisy of my arguments. Here I was urging him to read books and yet I haven't read a book in I don't know how long. For much of my life, I read two or three books a week with the same absent, habituated attentiveness someone might bring to eating potato chips. Fiction books, non-fiction books, serious books, silly books ... tons and tons of books. When I sat in my living room and looked up at the book shelves, the spines of the books I had collected and read looked back at me like friends and allies. They were, in some sense, who I was and I was quietly grateful and felt confirmed in their presence. Thousands and thousands of books ... that's me ... or anyway that was me.

But maybe it's true in all matters: You learn the habit in as many aspects and specifics and particulars and depths as you can because ... well, because that seems to be your taste or choice or need or something. Anyway, you take on the habit and then ... and then all habits walk away. They lose their grip in part because they aren't that gripping any more. They are possibilities -- perhaps very good possibilities -- but they aren't necessities.

Reading, marriage, drug addiction, religious persuasion, collecting coins, learning Greek, profession, money, watching television, building a bird house, fighting a war ... as once you were gripped and enthralled and attentive, so now you are released. It's just a possibility whose intellectual or emotional or moral overlays are no longer so compelling or imperative.

I am not trying to convince anyone of anything, least of all a studied ignorance ... "I own one book and it is enough." It's just interesting how habits seem to walk away in their own time. The habit of having some habit is often so strong that replacing habit A with habit B can seem like an absolute necessity as part of a human life. Who would I be without one habit or another? Habits R Us ... or are they?

Certainly you'll never learn anything without some pedal-to-the-metal attention and investment of energy. Without some effort, superficiality leaves people gasping for air, some enriched oxygen, something beyond mere bias and generalities. But having dived into the twelve-foot end of whatever pool you choose, having swum the laps you consider enough ... doesn't there come a time when, well, you want to get out of the pool and enjoy the sunshine? Nothing saying you can't go back in if you choose, but nothing saying you have to go in either. It's possible. Just possible.

And aren't the possibilities the 'one book' anyone might read ... and enjoy?
.

lightly

.
I wonder if Zen Buddhism is a little like the old refrigerator magnet that read, "Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly."

Maybe Zen Buddhists can fly because they take themselves lightly.

Into the darkest night ...

Lightly ...

Lightly ...

Lightly ....
.

delicious disdain

.
Somehow I seem to have gotten swept up in an emailing circuit awash in very bright people who love science and rational thought and are deeply skeptical -- "horrified" or "outraged" might be better words -- by the depredations of religion. It's such a delicious disdain.

And of course I haven't gotten "swept up" -- I swept myself up: I love people who hate religion in intelligent ways. I feel as if I were on a playground with a lot of very energetic kids ... and I love kids and their energies.

One of the people in this circle of emailers seems to be a former rabbi, so I guess the circle of intelligent criticisms has a quotient of leavening: Keenly intelligent AND with religious underpinnings. The playground is more interesting than just lock-step critiques.

But I do enjoy the playground. So smart. So skeptical. So unwilling to cave in to anything as mindless as any system that finds its home in unprovable beliefs and, sometimes as a result, causes great harm.

But one of the things I find most interesting is the sometimes-implied willingness to notice the filthy bathwater but ignore the baby sitting in it. Why would anyone avail themselves of the perceived idiocies of religion in the first place? An awful lot of people do, in fact, seek something that might be called spiritual solace. And I agree that numbers of adherents (to anything) do not prove that what is adhered to is worth a fart in a windstorm, but still ... for those with a keen mind, wouldn't it be incumbent to investigate this matter not as it pertains to their degrees in philosophy or psychology or other elevated intellectual attainments, but rather as it pertains to the poor schlub sitting in the bathwater?

It seems to me that those with greater capacities -- to the extent they aren't locked into their own zealotries -- have a responsibility to lend a hand and point out ways that might work better ... not as a dictum from on high or an ego trip (if you don't see things my way, you're an idiot), but as a way of improving the world the skeptic and scientist often claim they would like to improve.

Sure, throw out the bathwater. But smug arrogance is no way to care for a baby.
.

'economic' rant

.
It's just my opinion, but I have a feeling that others may share it, probably in better-articulated forms. And if there are enough who share it, I wonder what it portends for the United States I live in:

Yesterday, I went to the bank. I am retired and had saved a up a little over the years in the 401k plan at the newspaper where I worked. That sum took a 27% loss when the economy collapsed ... and I was forced to say I was grateful it wasn't a bigger loss. A woman at the bank I visited yesterday told me her 401k had gone down 40% and she had put her retirement on hold.

Anyway, I visited the bank because I wanted to take my 401k savings and put them somewhere that was both conservative and insured. I have to say that I am no genius about money, but given the banking and brokerage excesses of the past several years -- excesses abetted by the government and its agencies -- I guess my ignorance is not much to brag about.

I had spoken with the brokerage that handled the 401k and they were willing to realign the funds, but the more I thought about it, the more I felt that having to rely on the telephone when seeking assistance was a poor idea. Ergo, my trip to the bank: Could they accomplish what I wanted? -- a truly chicken approach to the savings I had. The answer was, they could. And because they are five minutes away and I can put a face with the information I receive, I will put my money there.

But while I was talking with the woman at the bank, I tried to make clear both my ignorance and my desire to protect whatever savings I could on behalf of my family, I also said, with a force that surprised even me, that I didn't trust the government reassurances worth a damn. The recession might be lifting, but there was still 17% unemployment when you made an honest reckoning; the impact of the industrial real estate market (deeply in debt) has yet to be felt; and television advertising suggesting people ought to get back into the stock market strikes me as egregiously optimistic and pretty much based on the old saying, "There's a sucker born every minute." The president says that there is a lack of trust abroad in the land and I think he's right.

But why SHOULD anyone trust a government that refuses to address the mechanisms that put the country into a 'recession' in the first place? In order to regain that trust -- and 60-70% of the economy rests on consumer spending -- the politicians would have to say 'no' to some of their biggest contributors (banks, brokerages, oil companies, pharmaceutical firms, etc.) Since politicians want to get re-elected, I for one do not plan to hold my breath about any consequential regulatory change -- the kind of change that might inspire my trust.

How dumb do these people with buffed fingernails and finely-pressed suits think people are. Pretty dumb is the answer and they are largely right. Greed is not limited to Wall Street or Washington. But Wall Street and Washington do not bear a commensurate burden when it comes to admitting mistakes and feeling ashamed of themselves. Not to mention feeling the financial bite.

All of this amorphous and not very well-sequenced whining I found myself spitting out as I talked to the woman in the bank. My mouth ranneth over. And somewhere along my ranting path, she looked at me and said, "I agree with you. There is worse yet to come."

I guess "caveat emptor" is a rule worth applying. Let the buyer beware ... of those who sell sequins but fail to sell the clothing on which to sew them. And beware of those who feel no shame, who cannot admit their mistakes, and whose reactions to mistakes is simply to paper them over and get back to business as usual, suckers as usual.

If my crankiness is any indicator, I wonder where the country is headed.
.

curses, foiled again!

.
The first time I came home from school and uttered the word "fuck" in my mother's presence, she sat me down and led me through the litany of curse words. She gave me the literal and figurative uses to which they could be put. As a second-grader, I found it embarrassing as hell ... I didn't want to know all those literal meanings: I wanted to strut my stuff. She concluded her lecture by telling me, "You can use those words with your friends and you can use them in front of me, but you may not use them in front of my friends." As an imperfect yardstick, it wasn't bad.

As a language lover, I am entranced by the high notes and low, the symphony and sometimes cacophony that language can create. What a song! And curse words are a vivid part of that symphony ... not the only part and not a part to be used idly, but a vivid part in much the same way that the piccolos might be part of an orchestra.

The comedian George Carlin once had a terrific riff on the seven dirty words you couldn't say on TV. They pretty much covered the bases of the cuss-word universe ... which is fairly limited if you examine it. His seven words, which he strung together in a fashion that made them sound like one, great, silly word were: Shitpissfuckcuntcocksuckermotherfuckertits.

The morally rigid, school teachers and instructing parents can come down pretty hard on curses. Buddhism has an invitation to "right speech" and many may interpret that invitation as excluding foul-mouthed exercises. And offending others is not terribly considerate ... so we get back to my mother's dictum of not using such words in front of "my friends."

But besides uttering what are called obscenities, the word "curse" has other meanings. It may mean an affliction. It may mean an evil spell. It may mean an appeal to some higher being to create a malevolent outcome for someone else. And sometimes it may mean the monthly cramps women are forced to endure.

"Curse" has a lot of meanings.

I guess anyone might sum up the curses in his or her life in different ways, but I have a feeling everyone has felt cursed from time to time -- as if there were some inescapable burden threatening to annihilate any chance at happiness or peace or relief. And such curses are enough to make anyone pray like a saint or curse like a trooper. Needling, wracking, consuming ... curses.

I haven't got the energy to explain it, but this morning I woke up with the thought strutting its stuff in my mind ... the curse I might point to in my own life ... the real horror ... the vivid knives of hell...the truly serious curse among curses...

And that curse summed itself up in two words:

"I"

and

"You."

Shitpissfuckcuntcocksuckermotherfuckertits!!!!!!!
.

Whizzinator derailed

.
I guess inventiveness knows no bounds. A pot-smoking parolee was facing criminal charges in Colorado after trying to bribe a urine-tester. He was caught with a Whizzinator -- a device used to defeat drug screenings.

Manufactured in California, the aptly and puckishly named Whizzinator has apparently gotten some high-profile use in the past, according to a Wikipedia article. Best price: $89, according to your friendly internet outlet.

Gotta say I wish I'd thought of a name like that ... Whizzinator.
.

an honest vow

.
Truth to tell, I have never been very good at vows. When New Year's Eve comes around and it's a time for resolutions, I'm lazy: "Don't make 'em, don't break 'em" is my mantram.

Spiritual endeavor -- and more specifically for me, Zen Buddhism -- is not exempt from the effort to imprint good intentions. Don't lie, cheat, steal, etc. is part of the Zen tableau. I have spoken such vows, failed to live up to them, and tried again. It was a good idea, but I'm not sure that I executed those vows with much success. I signed on to the importance of them and did my best.

But one vow that cropped up before I ever really went to work in the realm of spiritual endeavor was straight from the heart. It was just my personality, perhaps, but that was all I had to work with ... and I was dead serious about it.

As much as I wanted to plumb the depths of spiritual endeavor (I didn't want to plumb them for anyone's satisfaction but my own ... was this stuff bullshit or not?) still I made a great vow within:

If spiritual endeavor could not honestly enter the marketplace, if I found it was pie in the sky without equal usefulness and footing in barroom or tabernacle ... then I would drop it like a hot potato. Plaster sainthood ... fuck that!

I did not see this vow as a vow at the time. It was just one of the utterly serious bars I placed before myself. And, looking back, I think it was a good bar to raise, a good criterion against which to measure the honesty of my own effort.

Over the years, that vow has held firm. It has been revised and reshaped in its subtleties, but the vow remains -- in my heart, no-screwing-around, I-don't-care-what-bars-others-may-praise-or-critique ... it remains a true vow for me. I don't recommend it ... I'm just saying it's there.

And after so many years of spiritual prodding and poking ... well, I haven't found anything to make me drop spiritual endeavor like a hot potato.

Not to elevate my own stock, but the topic makes me I remember Ta Hui, the old Zen teacher, who once commented approximately, "I have always taken a great vow that I would rather suffer the fires of hell for all eternity than to portray Zen as a human emotion."
.

my beautiful cookie cutter

.
There are those -- me among them -- who are wary of the cookie-cutter approach that can be applied in life -- the one-size-fits-all morality or philosophy or religion that may contain some nourishing discipline but is also prone to doing real human damage.

Examples are all around, from politics to religion to psychology to athletics to war to ... well, pick your poison. This morning, for example, I will go an stand on a peace picket line and someone is bound to don a sign that says, in essence, "no more war."

I haven't got the energy this morning for one of my windy disquisitions on the multi-faceted situations that call out cookie-cutter responses.

What I do have the energy for is an interest in my own abilities to apply my own cookie-cutter. For someone who cares about cookie cutters, this strikes me as the only cookie cutter worth noticing because it is the only one about which I can honestly do anything.

Mostly, of course, I would prefer not to do anything about my cookie cutter. I am too busy being convinced by my convictions and the evidence I can adduce to support and solidify them. "War is a poor choice" ... "Buddhism is a good tool"..."anti-abortion activists give me the whimwhams" ... "homosexuality in the military deserves the reconsideration it is getting." For each, I can make arguments and reach conclusions that fit nicely inside some cookie-cutter mold.

But the old refrigerator magnet tells the tale as well as anything else I can think of: "Life is what happens while you were busy making plans."

No matter how beautiful and compelling my gingerbread men or Christmas trees or valentine hearts come out of the oven, still the cookie cutter cannot tell the tale.

If anyone were after a bit of happiness in life, I think it would be necessary to make peace on this front ... my own front, my own cookie cutter, my own sometimes desperately important conclusions, my own biases however well-intentioned. Seeing the cookie cutters that others may apply is not enough: It may offer a smug comfort, but it doesn't address what I can do anything about.

I like the idea of a bit of happiness.

So I guess I'd better get to work on my cookie cutters.

Beautiful as they may be, I guess I'd prefer the truth.
.

find out for yourself

.
Pretty much blew my writing wad this morning in trying to address the much-ignored suggestion in spiritual endeavor: "Find out for yourself."

What a two-edged sword! It might be funny if it weren't so serious: On the one hand, there is a savvy voice within that agrees whole-heartedly when it hears "find out for yourself." That voice says, "Yes indeed, there's no substitute for experience." But when seeking out the experience for which there is no substitute, what's the first thing anyone does? They ask somebody else...read a book, consult a guru, go to a wonderful lecture that someone else will give.

It's not the asking that screws up the water works. It's the believing and clinging to the answers that blurs the scene and hogties the possibility of finding out for yourself. Philosophy, religion, hope, belief ... these things may make for a good start but they make for a lousy finish when it comes to finding out for yourself.

Sometimes it truly marvels me that anyone would bother to create a canon of 1,700 formal koans when koans like this are a dime a dozen. Life dishes them up like food at an all-you-can-eat restaurant.

Find out for yourself ... dontcha just love it?

Find out for yourself ... dontcha just hate it?

If we say, "I understand" and bask in the glow of that understanding, life cocks a skeptical eyebrow and may suggest gently, "Wait a bit."

If we say, sometimes piteously, "I don't understand," life cocks a skeptical eyebrow and may suggest gently, "Wait a bit."

What other choice is there in the matter of finding some peace and easing our uncertainties; can god, by whatever name, honestly kiss things better ... what other choice is there but to find out for yourself? Do heavenly hosannas or weeping wails hit the mark? If there is another choice that hits the mark when it comes to a peaceful life, I honestly don't know it.

Find out for yourself.

And if there is another way, I hope you'll let me know. Finding out for yourself is no cakewalk and if there really is a better mousetrap, I'd love to get one.
.

around in circles

.
For some reason, the punchline on a joke whose back-story I cannot remember keeps insisting this morning.

The joke concerned a bird that was flying in ever-diminishing circles around a mountain peak. Smaller and smaller and smaller the circles became until finally...

"He flew up his own asshole and disappeared."

Sort of a less philosophical and less polite version of Zeno's metaphorical snake ... munching its tail until finally ... what?



Is spiritual life like that? Circling, circling, circling ... munching, munching, munching ... until there is neither munching material nor muncher? All that's left, if anything can be said to be 'left' ... is this.

Perhaps I will think of a more graceful topic later. :)
.

longing and fear

.
Whether intricately subtle or in-your-face gross, I think there is a lingering fear (also known as longing) that in spiritual endeavor "everything" will be somehow taken away, that there will be nothing left.

This fear accounts for innumerable sincere Buddhists, dedicated Buddhists, enthusiastic Buddhists, serious Buddhists, solemn Buddhists, well-versed Buddhists ... and any number of spiritually-inclined people who never heard of Buddhism: The more closely anyone attends to spiritual practice and the brighter the flame becomes, the clearer it is that this practice will burn your face off and, from the current perspective, nothing will be left.

Poof!

And ... eek!

I'd call all this par for the course -- desperately fearing what anyone might desperately long for.

But, setting aside the fear for just a nanosecond (you can always have it back), did it ever occur to you that "everything" -- every shred and smidgen and microparticle and thought and emotion -- is already taken away in every moment? Never mind religion or philosophy ... just seriously, for one nanosecond: Everything is already taken away -- past before you can say "present" -- in the twinkling of an eye, so worrying about everything being taken away is really just extra.

Everything changes, not because anyone says so and not because some wise ancient strokes his beard with contemplative slowness, but because it is just what happens. Everything is taken away faster than speaking the word "now," quicker than snapping your fingers ... it's all gone, all the time, without any help from anyone, whether genius or nitwit.

All gone ... all the time ... and you are none the worse for wear.

Practice is just a matter of catching on to what you already know. Birth and death, quicker than a nanosecond. Loss and gain are Tinker Toys... albeit Tinker Toys we have to address if we really want to catch up with what we already know.

So if it were possible, just for some tiny, tiny nanosecond, to unload the fear and longing ... wouldn't that be nice?

Wouldn't you sparkle and shine precisely as brightly as the moment itself? Wouldn't that be nice? I think it might.

All gone.

Twinkle, twinkle.
.

over and over and over again

.
Elsewhere, someone quoted what was described as The Phena Sutra -- a bit of the Buddhist canon as compiled in the Tripitaka:

Rahula, develop a mind similar to space, when you develop a mind similar to space arisen contacts of like and dislike do not take hold of your mind and stay. Rahula, space does not settle anywhere. In the same manner develop a mind similar to space. When you develop a mind similar to space, arisen contacts of like and dislike do not take hold of the mind and stay.

And I could feel my impatience rising: C'mon, Gautama -- you don't have to say it over and over and over again!

But of course we do have to say it over and over and over again. Like clay, the message gets reworked and reworked and reworked ... repeated and repeated and repeated on behalf of those who have not yet made their minds up to act.

In the old days, there were no books and no TV and no internet. There was an oral tradition that benefited from repetition. But the repetition is just as necessary in the day of books and TV and the internet: Listeners may nod sagely and say "I understand" and pay homage to one thing or another ... but they are not listening in a way that betokens action. They are listening in a way that betokens belief.

This is not a criticism. It is just an observation. I have heard the latest Dalai Lama, a good expositor of Dharma teachings, do precisely the same thing ... over and over and over again. Ditto Zen teachers I have encountered ... over and over and over again: Same shit, different day.

I guess as the willingness to take action -- to investigate and find out for yourself -- gains some footing, the need for belief-talk tends to dwindle. And likewise we can gauge our own position -- GPS-fashion -- by the affection we have for belief-talk.

Sometimes belief-talk is OK.

Sometimes it just fouls the air.

Your life, your choice.
.

unleashed clarity

.
Yesterday, as I was talking to a utility lineman outside the house, Scout, a big-chested malamute-like dog that lives next door, came padding up to check out the scene.

Scout is old now -- 14 sticks in my head -- and her steps are deliberate and slow. Her body tells a history of power, but now she is quite deaf and her movements betoken a new reality.

When I reached down and offered her my hand to see and sniff, and then reached further to stroke her chest, her head moved back reflexively, as if I might hurt her. But once my hand was on her chest, she knew the touch and relaxed and accepted in my affection.

As I stroked and crooned words she could not hear, I could see her left rear leg quivering at the hip. She was not cold or frightened ... she was simply old. Her big paws were planted as powerfully as ever on the earth, making the efforts they knew how to make, but the willingness to make those efforts was waning.

She walked because she walked.

She received affection because she received affection.

She moved on because she moved on.

It was enough.

It was all.

There was no "because."

And I loved her.
.

haunted by habits

.
For those inclined towards spiritual endeavor or practice, I think there is a natural tendency to be concerned with the bad habits of the past that have provided fuel to the fires of current regret and uncertainty.

One way of putting it is that bad habits come back to haunt you. And, for those inclined towards spiritual endeavor or practice, there is often some effort to correct or clarify or get to the root of those habits. It is hard, and sometimes hellacious, work. Investigation is not for the faint of heart.

But habits are interesting, and today I think that it is worth saying:

Your good habits will come back to haunt you and require a hard, sometimes hellacious, effort to clarify. This is not just some sissified theory or philosophy.
Habits by their nature leave traces and shadows. Bad habits, good habits ... traces and shadows remain.

But what is it that remains when this moment is gone ... and gone before anyone can wax lyrical about good habits or bad?

It's not something to worry about or belabor, but I do think it is worth considering: Your good habits will come back to haunt you and nobody likes being haunted.
.

homosexuality in the military

.
I remember sitting with a friend at a table in the Eierschale, my go-to bar in Berlin, listening to Dixieland music, drinking beer and talking. It was 1963.

My friend's face was not the face of a young man out on the town. Instead, it was wracked.

He was, slowly but surely, unveiling his life of terror in the army.

He was a homosexual and one of the things we, as members of a top-secret unit, had all told the army, in writing, was that we were neither homosexual nor communist. Homosexuality, in those years, 1962-1964, was still a social no-no. But in the army unit we belonged to, beyond the social condemnation, there was also an alleged fear that the bad guys, the communists just over the Berlin Wall, might snatch such an individual and threaten to expose his sexual proclivities as a means of extracting the secrets of our top-secret unit.

But that night, sitting with my frightened friend, I didn't care about any of that shit. I was looking at a 20-21-year-old who was scared out of his wits and saw no way out ... constantly in fear of being exposed and humiliated and, who knows, perhaps jailed for having lied to the army.

If my friend's confession was a fancy way of making a pass at me, it never crossed my mind or came to anything. I had lived in Greenwich Village and had coped with such advances before. This didn't feel like a pass ... it felt like a human being who was deeply afraid.

There were a number of homosexuals in our section of the unit -- Violet Section, so named because we were the egg-heads, the ones who were too smart and therefore not considered up to manly par with Green, Blue and other, less-egg-heady sections. Not everyone and not even a majority in Violet section was gay, but a number of people were. It was something to suspect or something to know, but it was not something to talk about or quibble with: These guys could do the work we all did, sometimes better, sometimes worse ... just like any of the rest of us. Who screwed boys and who screwed girls was not the point.

I thought of my friend's wracked face today -- his pure, imaginative, paranoid terror -- as I read an Associated Press story reporting on the appearance by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullens, before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Mullens argued that men and women in the service should no longer be subjected to the strictures that have guided military policies on homosexuality since 1993 -- the so-called "don't ask, don't tell" rule.

There were howls of understandable indignation in the Senate hearing room today much as there had been howls of indignation in 1948 when then-president Harry S. Truman integrated the armed services. The United States is a prurient country: If it can't get its head screwed on right about heterosexuality, what makes anyone think it should be more sensible about homosexuality? The whole matter is, if you'll pardon the pun, just too fucking scary.

But I remembered my friend's face today and hoped that, if he were still alive, he would be smiling a little.

I know I am.
.

sugar pill Buddhism

.
Talk about a rock and a hard place: A Newsweek magazine article suggests that antidepressant drugs, the darlings of a multi-billion-dollar industry and doctors far and wide, are not significantly more effective in treating depression than placebos.

The article is more nuanced than that but that is the thrust of it. Academics, doctors, pharmaceutical companies and a variety of others are greeting the research with a combination of fear and scoffing. But the research seems quite careful ... or at least it seems quite careful third-hand from a news magazine.

Depression is no joke for anyone who has or continues to suffer it. It may come in various forms and in various intensities, but it is no joke. Depression can be as debilitating, if not more so, than many physical afflictions. The idea, whether true or false, that a pill might alleviate or possibly cure depression is tremendously attractive. The affliction is real, and the pharmacological treatment is ....

Well, dubious. In blind tests, those taking a particular medication and taking placebos often seemed to have very similar reductions in depression. Not always, but in statistically significant numbers. So -- what to do? A $4 prescription or a $60 prescription?

But placebos rely on the patient's belief that the medication will be effective. You cannot tell someone they are getting a placebo and expect it to work. You have to pretend that it is a real medication and not just a sugar pill.

In Zen Buddhism, there are the lines:

Wishing to entice the blind,
The Buddha has playfully let words
Escape his golden mouth.
Heaven and earth have ever since
Been filled with entangling briars.

Buddhism ... a sugar pill. But there is a multi-billion-dollar industry of temples and texts and rituals that promises to treat a very serious and document-able illness ... suffering or uncertainty in people's lives. But calling Buddhism a sugar pill leaves the diseases it addresses to wreak havoc. The consumer needs to believe in order for the placebo to work.

One thing you can say for Buddhism that frequently cannot be said for other philosophical or religious persuasions: At least Buddhism is willing to admit its complicity in the placebo business. Sometimes that admission is placed on the back burner while the consumer makes a credulous effort -- sometimes a hell of an effort -- to find a cure for a debilitating disease. And sometimes the consumer attempts to leap over to placebo medication's demands and refuse to put intimate effort into what is, in essence, a lie.

But because the disease is daunting and debilitating, Buddhism will probably continue to offer its nostrums ... offer them with a straight face and a loving heart. Naturally there is room for snake-oil salesmen who will make a bundle off credulous consumers, but in general, in the hands of the well-versed, Buddhism is benevolent in its playful directions: It is the disease that wracks the consumer that is the point.

A rock and a hard place: Credulity is absolutely essential and yet credulity is not the point. It is the debilitating disease that makes the lie worth telling -- a lie that points to the truth ... and a wonderful truth it is.

Some philosophies and religions point to an unremitting need for credulity... how else could they sustain their houses of worship? But Buddhism has the decency to 'fess up when the time is right and the disease is defeated.
.

"sure"

.
This morning, an email from a high school senior at the other end of the state asked if I (and 27 others) might be willing to answer time-to-time questions about morality. He described himself as a theology student and his email address suggested he was part of a philosophy club or something similar.

My answer was, "sure."

But then I began to wonder -- why should the answer be "sure?" True, it was my knee-jerk reaction -- I'd be willing to help anyone in any way I could based on my own experience -- but why "sure?" Others I know would brush aside such requests: They are too busy or too advanced or too experienced in the dead-end roads that lie ahead. But I seem to be hard-wired to say yes to any direct request and this morning it strikes me as a bit odd.

OK ... so someone is interested in something that interests me. OK ... so I feel a debt to those who have likewise helped me in the past. OK ... so I have some sense that an honest question carries with it an imperative to answer ... not to be right or aggrandize my status, but just to answer. But imperative? What imperative? I really don't know.

Somewhere or other, there is a picture of picture of Joshu Sasaki Roshi with the words (as I recall): "I am 100 years old. My ears no longer hear stupid questions." In remembering this, I am not trying to lay claim to some vaunted status. Rather, I am interested in the "no longer hear stupid questions."

I am no where near that pinnacle.

The other night, a very funny woman comedian made a couple of modest proposals. One was the creation of the "Save A Ho Foundation" -- an institution dedicated to young women who watch TV as a means of elevating their own sexiness and then wear clothing that displays not so much sexiness as slutishness. The other was an invitation to say to others what we might really think: "What the fuck is the matter with you?!"

I found myself agreeing with both propositions. I am sick to death of hooker couture passing for character and beauty and my ears do hear stupid questions, especially from those who have a perfectly good plate of food in front of them but insist on asking someone else how it tastes, will it be good, what if I throw up, what if I become attached ... oh I am so confused. "What the fuck is the matter with you?" Just eat it and find out.

But an honest question honestly posed ... that's refreshing and elicits a "sure" before I have time to think. I may rue the day later and find myself faced with all sorts of dithering philosophy ... but for the moment, dithering philosophy may be a very good entrance into something serious and useful. Only later, when the table is set and the food has arrived, do I get testy and irritable and want to say, "What the fuck's the matter with you?!"

But speaking of dithering, here I sit dithering ... no closer than when I started to finding out why or how the word "sure" rolls off my tongue before my mind has a chance to think it.

Sure. It's serious, for me ... but I have no clue as to why that might be and I am stuck asking myself,

"What the fuck's the matter with you?!"

Maybe that's a reasonable bit of help as well.
.

laughter

.
How could we laugh at anything if we weren't laughing at ourselves?

I don't think it would be possible.

Thank goodness I have some sense of humor.
.

what's wrong with what happens?

.
Without setting your hair on fire about it, what's the matter with what happens? When things are never exactly the way you wanted them -- never really 100% satisfactory -- what's the problem?

When things are never exactly the way you wanted, I think the tendency is to make some effort to get them exactly the way you want them ... only to find they turn to be not-exactly what you wanted again. And again...and again...and again....

Mind you, the way things turn out may be pretty much in line with what you wanted ... but there's always a "but," some tweaking or addition or subtraction that needs to be done, some improvement or reshaping or revised meaning.

Most of this happens without anyone's really noticing. Improvements R Us. What happens is a means of improving what has not yet happened or has happened but didn't turn out right. And there is nothing wrong with planning or correcting, but is planning for what will happen an adequate reason for ignoring or failing to enjoy what does happen?

It's an interesting habit, one that is not worth belaboring: People will either choose to wonder or never wonder at all:

What's the problem with what happens?
.