Hmm…

Some of you already know or at least suspect that I’ve really–REALLY–gotten into Taoism lately.  Not the religion which developed from this understanding of ultimate reality, but the original teachings of Lao Tzu and Chaung Tzu.  It’s a profoundly simple and uncomplicated understanding of all that is, complicated only by it’s rejection of so much of what we regard as basic and true.  That being said and me rereading what I’ve written so far, it’s clear that nothing about this is particularly clear.  Whatever…

There is another book also alleged to be the work of Lao Tzu.  Lao Tzu, by the way (that’s btw for those who speak only text) may or may not have existed, an idea which somehow imparts the essence of Taoism–which, of course, is not pronounced tow-ism but dow-ism.  Go figguh.  That book is called The Unknown Teachings of Lao Tzu, Hua Hu Ching.  Now get this–and this part will be no surprise to those of you who like to have fun–Hua Hu is pronounced whahoo! (the exclamation point is mine, but what did you expect?  Ching is pronounced Jing.  Whoopee.

All that aside, on page 21 of Brian Walker’s translation of this tome, talking about the “mature person”who seeks understanding of the Tao, he says this:

          Gently eliminating all obstacles to his own understanding, he constantly maintains his unconditional sincerity.

          His humility, perseverance, and adaptability evoke the response of the universe and fill him with divine light.

All that is fine and respectful and such, but there’s something else, something utterly essential.  At the heart of the Tao with it’s constant rejection of all we westerners and most easterners regard as reality is it’s ability to laugh at both us and itself.  Really!  There may be no other body of take-this-seriously-’cause-we’re-ultimately-spiritual-and-divine literature with such a wonderful and instructive sense of humorous self-deprecation.  Humility, perseverance and adaptability are nice–don’t get me wrong–but if you can’t laugh, you don’t stand a chance of understanding Taoist understanding or truly loving this life.

*     *     *     *     *

Disclaimer: Just in case I prove to be following in the footsteps of the late and sorely missed Emily Litella in all of this,

“Never mind.”

Have an Assault Rifle?

It occurred to me this morning while sitting in peaceful meditation that I do indeed need a high-powered assault rifle equipped with a magazine holding at least 100 rounds of profoundly powerful kill capability.  Had my meditative state been any less profound, this remarkable revelation would have disrupted it severely, perhaps even causing me to latch onto that thought, building an ever-greater structure of consequences upon it until becoming sufficiently engrossed as to miss the three chimes signaling the end of the meditation period.

[I interrupt myself here.  This post is not about meditation.  It is about my--and perhaps your--relationship to those weapons of significant destruction which have recently come under fire ('couldn't resist that one!) from the liberals.]

Most folks who support the individual’s right to own  an AK-47 or the good ol’ 30-06 (a.k.a. thirty aught-six), the recently spotlighted AR-15, Remington 870 (“most popular shotgun in the country”) or even a Glock 40 tend to put it in terms of the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution.  That, as some will say, is all well and good, but justification via legality for owning one of these babies pales in comparison to the rationale supplied by actual need.  As one owner says,

“Guns, if they have a moral dimension, are good. Without guns, the strong can always dominate the weak; the many can always dominate the few; and men can always dominate women. A gun gives each person an agency equivalent to his (or her) moral standing. In my humble opinion, those who teach correct and proper gun use are doing G-d’s work.*

And there are a wealth of additional reasons to maintain one’s personal ability to wreak havoc from a distance.   Fear is usually at the heart of it.  But not always, especially among the truly brave.  Here’s mine:  it’s fearless and it begins with a photo:

The photo is one of traffic outside my bedroom window at night.  Think about it: every one of those cars has a horn, a radio and probably one or more additional devices for amplifying sound.  In short every one of them is capable of–dare I say it?–ASSAULTING sleep, reading or other bed activities.  This I do not like, but O, what to do?  From seven flights up there is no way to tell which vehicle hosts that honking horn or offending sound system.  If the culprit vehicle had a blinking roof light or other visible sign of identification, an M-15 or other designated marksman rifle (DMR) sniper rifle would be acceptable–if, of course, I was fast enough on the trigger to select, aim at and squeeze off that well-aimed single shot.  Quite frankly, dear reader, that scenario goes far beyond my  sharpshooterial skill level.  An automatic weapon, on (or in) the other hand, would allow me to hit all, thus insuring that the actual noisenik received his or her ultimate comeuppance.

And, with the aid of a silencer,  I’m sure my neighbors would thank me for standing up for our community’s right to a peaceful night’s whatever.

*   *   *   *   *

Now it’s your turn.  What is your reason for owning a gun.

• To protect your loved ones?
• To protect your valuables?
• To protect your castle?
• To defend your state via militia participation?
• To kill coyotes or other varmints?
• To have your way with small shop owners?
• To show them who’s a victim?
• To stand up for–or even enforce–your beliefs?
• To quash opposing political or social opinions?
• To feel like a real man or woman?
• Just for a thrill?

Use the comments tab below to register your reason for big gun ownership.

*http://www.gunrightsmedia.com/showthread.php?425221-The-myth-of-high-powered-assault-rifles

Art or Life? Pick One!

The image above was made with the idea that the camera never lies.  The one below with the idea that the camera is capable of going beyond reducing the multidimensional world to a mere two.  In the one above the goal is to show what things looked like.  The one below works more with emotional impressions which don’t fit well into words.  Which, for you, is the more engaging?

Click on “leave a comment” below to let me know your preference.

Thanks.

Another True Tale from the Mysterious East

LONG SON PAGODA, NHA TRANG, VIET NAM: The Long Son Pagoda’s huge white Buddha is visible throughout Nha Trang and beyond.  The pagoda is dedicated to the Buddhist monks who gave their lives or were killed protesting the repression of the Diem government.  Perhaps the memory of Thich Quang Doc’s self-immolation in 1963 played a part in my seeking out this place.  More likely not.  There was simply something compelling about the gigantic, utterly peaceful presence of the 79 foot tall Buddha that led me to taxi away from resting at our hotel and to the base of Trai Thuy Hill, to look up in awe and then begin the climb (120 or 152 steep steps, depending on which guidebook you believed) to the statue.

Half way up there was to be a great reclining Buddha created by a Thai sculptor.  I never saw it on my way to the top.  The only diversion from my climbing: a covered platform off to one side housing a great bell, a stone bench under it, attended by a monk who motioned me toward the bench.   Was I really ready to willingly break my momentum?  Apparently so, for I found myself going down steps to reach the platform then climbing up steps to take a seat on the bench.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the waist up I was within the bell surrounded by messages taped up by previous sitters: notes, poems, sections of sutras, wishes, thanks.  I began to feel myself to be part of a large, ancient and contemporary culture of gratitude.

My shoulders relaxed as did my belly and legs.  My breathing, stimulated by the climb and my fears that this was more than a 71 year old with my feet could handle slowed down into a warm and gentle rhythm.

The monk sounded the bell.  A deep, low, almost soundless vibration surrounded me like a loving embrace.  He began to chant softly.  Twice more he sounded the gong as the chant continued.  All the lunacies of the climb and of aging and of all the rest of the neurotic package I’d brought with me from home vanished.  Writing now, two months later, the ease of that moment remains with me.

The rest of the walk up felt both brief and easy.  The hilltop was filled on two sides by snack and souvenir vendors, some worshipers, some tourists and some folks just hanging out.  Both the “legitimate beggars” and the “scam artists” the guide books had warned against were absent or on a break.  Built into and around the hilltop were containers for the cremated remains of generations of monks and believers.

The statue itself rested atop a pedestal large enough to contain a shrine room where another monk assisted those wishing to light incense.  I removed my shoes, entered in silence  and bowed at the altar.  The vibration of the bell below was still inside me.

Walking joyfully back down the steps I came upon–no surprise, right?–the enormous reclining Buddha.  Clearly the universe had known I wasn’t ready for it on the way up.  There were several folks admiring and interacting with it including honeymooners who were being photographed touching Buddha’s elbow for luck.

I made a note to do that once the elbow was cleared and began photographing the enormous statue from various angles.  I moved in close for a tight shot of the Buddha’s face.  That was when it happened.  The right eye winked at me!  There’s no other way to say it, just as there is no way to explain it.  As I looked at the crystal clear image on the camera’s viewing screen, the right eye of the great stone reclining Buddha statue winked at me!  It did!  I looked directly at the statue.  No second wink.  Back at the screen.  No wink.  I switched to “memory,” but, of course, I’d not taken a picture.

I virtually skipped down the remaining steps, My smile growing with each stride.  At the base of the hill, just outside the pagoda, I got into a singing, giggling goof with three Vietnamese souvenir-sellers, then rode back to the hotel on the back of a motorbike through what seemed to me to be remarkably calm and well directed Nha Trang rush hour traffic. There’s a picture of me with the cyclorickshaw driver, but that’s not what this is about.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cambodia, Not So Much Thoughts…

Aside from some practical information in a couple of pre-trip guide books which focused on the historical ruins of Angkor Wat, my first exposure to anything more substantial than history and hotel locations in Cambodia came when I read Step by Step, a short book of Buddhist monk Maha Ghosananda’s words.  Frankly, they were only words to me at the time, standard Buddhist canon not at all unlike what I’d been reading on-and-off since the early 1960′s.  Then came real life.  In my three day “minute” actually in Cambodia, I learned.  My teacher was this man known to us as Thai.

In a brief introductory letter Thai wrote to us visitors:

My name is Thai and I have the pleasure of serving as your Trip Leader…One of the best things about my country is the warm and friendly nature of the Khmer People (Cambodian people.)…  May Buddha be near and protect you on your journey of discovery and spread luck along your path.

Thai not just showed us but truly demonstrated the quiet strength and depth and ultimate beauty of a people whose history has housed millenia of struggle with nature, with neighbors, and recently with the indigenous, naive and ruthless Khmer Rouge, creators of  the Killing Fields,

with the Vietnamese who came allegedly to rescue the Cambodians from the Khmer Rouge and, sadly, with my own nation.  For three days our little group traveled among this remarkable enclave of peace, gentleness and focus on a present, among as many as 6 million landmines in this nation of 14 million mostly rural people without even the slightest thought that one of us might step off the road to rest or piss behind a tree and have our legs blown away.

Maha Ghosananda led a series of dhammayietras, peace walks, through the Cambodian countryside and into cities and towns even while hostilities raged.  On these walks to bring peace and to restore the Cambodian traditions of Buddhism and civility monks and nuns and lay folk were sometimes shot, sometimes killed.  Still the people rallied to participate in or support the dhammayietras.  Even soldiers of the Khmer Rouge, sworn to eradicate Buddhism, would put down their weapons and bow when a dhammayietra passed. When he asked why he would bring his message of love and forgiveness to the Khmer Rouge, he’d reply that no one needed to be brought back into the human fold more than those who had strayed so far from it.

Maha Ghosananda said to know suffering, to really know it, is to know nirvana.   For me there was the overwhelming feeling that the folks we traveled among knew suffering.  They knew nirvana as the present moment, this moment, right now, the only time without either regret or fear, the only time in which love, joy and accomplishment was possible.

Here are some of the faces that greeted us:

And here–I don’t know why–is the one I remember best:

This is for your Kids

It happened like this.

My hall neighbor, Nicki, wrote that she would suggest to her son, Tyler, that he respond to the writing opportunity I posted two or so ago under the title

Put Yourself In The Picture!

the one no one responded to.

Hmm, I thought to myself…Self, what about a posting specifically for kids.  Many of the folks I announce new postings to have kids or grand kids or, at least in one case, great grand kids.  What if they were invited to write in response to…to what?  Then I remembered I’d brought home at least 50 snaps of kids from Viet Nam and Cambodia.  Some city kids, some country kids, some kids who lived in the mountains as part of ethnic minorities and even some kids who lived in a floating village!  Take a look at them!

 

#1 sits in the ancient Cambodian ruins at Angkor Wat.

#2 shows Vietnamese “just marrieds.”  The bride is 16.  The groom is not much older.

#3 is a thoughtful Montagnard, member of an ethnic minority who lives in a mountain village.

#4 shows to residents of an orphanage run by Buddhist nuns.

#5, 8 & 9 show Montagnard school kids.

#6 is a drummer in a Montagnard folk music and dance group.

#7, 10, 14, 16 & 17 are city folks.

#13 shows a Montagnard young mother and her child.

#15, 17, 18 & 19 are country kids.

#12 & 20 live on houseboats in a floating village in Tonle Sap Lake, Cambodia.  Even their school is a boat.

*     *     *

Now here’s what I’d like you to do:

1. Show the collage of kids above to your kids or grand kids or nieces or nephews or neighbor kids…
2. Ask them to write a short story (one page maximum) based on any one of the pictures.
3. They can:

• Type it directly into comments
• Or type it on a word processing program and cut and paste it into comments
• Or write it on paper, scan the page and copy it into comments
• Or draw a picture in response to a photo–maybe something they feel the kid in the photo would like–scan and copy it into comments
• Or something else I haven’t thought of.

In order to use “Comments” you

1. click on “Comments”
2. scroll down to “Leave a Reply”
3. and enter your story where it says “Enter your comment here…”
4. When you’re satisfied as you’re gonna be with your writing, click “Post comment” at the lower right.
5. Along the way you’ll see two options: Notify me of follow-up comments via email and Notify me of new posts via email. Check either or both if they’re right for you.

I truly look forward to seeing what the kids produce and then sharing it with you.

(Going to) Viet Nam Explained

Vague thoughts about Buddhism, reports of the country’s beauty and outright admiration for a nation that had survived a thousand years of Chinese domination, a century of French colonialism and eleven years of American military technology all played into my decision to go to Viet Nam.  Maybe there was also a need to confront some lingering shades of poorly defined patriotic guilt.  Despite my poorly displayed opposition to what there is called the American War, I went to Viet Nam still expecting to be seen and, in some sneaky, snide way, treated as the enemy.  But look at this guy!  Look at the look he gave me when I, unmistakably American,  asked, as best I could, if I could photograph him at his post in Hanoi at the Ho Chi Minh Masoleum.

“Yes!  Of course!  You betcha.”

And this warmth was absolutely typical of the response our group got everywhere we traveled in that country, from Hanoi in the north,

along the coast through unspeakably beautiful Ha Long Bay,

to historic Hue,

and Hoi An,

and Nha Trang,

to Da Lat,

and Ho Chi Minh City as it prepared for Tet, the new year

and into My Tho in the Mekong Delta.

 We lunched in private homes with both ARVN vets who fought with the invading American forces and  members of the Viet Cong who fought against us.  All agreed,

“The war is over.  Our job now is to make Viet Nam the best it can be right now–not to waste our time being pre-occupied with the past.”

Guilt laid to rest, there was still worry…

*   *   *   *   *

“How does anyone (like the woman at the left of the photo above) get across the street alive,” we asked.  “It’s not like Rome where you wait for a nun who’s going your way and tail along behind her.”  They said, “Relax.  When you want to walk, walk deliberately and steadily across the street.  Don’t look left or right.  Don’t speed up, slow down or stop.  Cross like you’ve got the right to do so.  You do!  People on bikes, motorbikes, in cars and trucks, they’ll see you and go around you.  If they can’t go around you, they’ll stop.  No one will honk or yell–the way they say they do in your country.”

*   *   *   *   *

After that reality and theory fell into place.  Maybe because I want to believe it, I do see the hand of the Buddha in the veterans’ focus on the present and in the mutual respect shown by those who use the street.  I see it in the harmony of native and French cuisines, in a guide telling us, “We are a very practical people.  We eat everything.”  This was our introduction to weasel coffee. (In the words of Yogi Berra, “You could Google it.”)

*   *   *   *   *

A remarkable number of my trip photos are of people: workers, kids, some Buddhist nuns.  The kids all go to school.  Everyone else works.  It’s said in Viet Nam, “If you don’t work, you die.”  More Buddhism?

There’s more to say about this trip and the 3 day extension into Kampuchea (what the Cambodians call Cambodia) with Angkor Wat and a floating village and memories of the Khmer Rouge and the Killing Fields.  Stay tuned.

Put Yourself In The Picture!

I’ll be away for the next 3 weeks.  While I’m gone, I’d like you to write me a story.  I want it to begin in the picture above with you passing through the red door (in either direction, your choice.)  Once you’ve done that (and, of course, you’ll have to tell us the details, you travel here:

or here:

or maybe even here:

only to find yourself confronting her:

or him:

or them:

Write me a story in 200 words or less, making yourself the central character and following the outline above.  Spelling, grammar and vocabulary do not count!  Interesting counts!  Engaging counts!  Fun counts–unless it’s dramatic or really serious.  Satirical always counts–except when you’re being dramatic, etc.

Submit your stories by putting them in the Comments section following this post.  To do that just

1. click on “Comments”
2. scroll down to “Leave a Reply”
3. and enter your story where it says “Enter your comment here…”
4. When you’re satisfied as you’re gonna be with your writing, click “Post comment” at the lower right.
5. Along the way you’ll see two options: Notify me of follow-up comments via email and Notify me of new posts via email. Check ‘em off if you wanna.  Whatever… One way or another on Tuesday morning Bobbie and I are off to Vietnam and Angkor Wat for 3 weeks.
6. More will be revealed.

Changes…

20 years the social worker for addicted, street-affiliated institutionalized adults.

The therapist. 

       The Helper.      

               2 decades of wonderful daily challenge.

 

“You’re only a failure if you believe it.”

“I believe it.”

“Which?  What I just said or what they said?”

“No, man, it’s not about them.  It’s what I say.”

“Which do you say?”

“That they’re right.”

(Forgetting about ‘them’) “About what?”

“About me.”

“That you’re a failure?”

“Yeah.”

“What did you fail at today?”

“Look at my life.  Look at where I am.”

(Firmly & slowly redirecting) “What did you

fail at today?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did you get up this morning?”

“Well, yeah…”

“Piss?  Shit?  Wash up afterward?”

“Yeah.  ‘Course.”

“Make the bed?  “Straighten things up?”

“Yeah?  What’s this got to do with shit?”

(Keeping focused) “Show up for our appointment?”

“I was late.”

“Are you here?”

“Yeah, I’m here.  What’s this all about anyway?”

(Keeping focused) “Are you here?”

“Yes, I am here.”

(Quietly) “What did you fail at today?”

“If you put it that way, nothing yet, I guess.”

“Did you give yourself credit for any of that?”

“What you did.”

“No, not really.  I mean, it’s such small stuff.”

(Puzzled tone) “You said ‘stuff.’  Usually you say ‘shit.’”

“See what I mean: you make stuff out of nothing.”

(Focused) “You said ‘stuff.’”

“O.K., I said ‘stuff.’  Are we finished yet?”

(Exhale, feel shoulders come down, smile appears)  “Yes.”

“This shit is really crazy.”

“Yes, it is.  Next week?”

“I don’t know…”

“Same Bat time?  Same Bat channel?”

“Same Bat time.  Same Bat channel.”

 

Now retired:

              

BEAU SIA IS A POET

I read (present tense here:  read “reed” not “red”)

Beau Sia and I want to write like Beau.

I want to be angry and write anger

and feel and sound justified in

throwing the word fuck into whatever I write

      Fuck!

often and in the right spots–even on this page        right now

And clever—yes, clever—and intellectually hip and

All the good shit he does so effortlessly (unless—

And this is a possibility—he stays up really late after performing or partying or whatever he does—

   and works his craft like an obsessed candymaker counting jelly beans and spice drops into cellophane packets.)

Even before I knew of him

I saw Beau live       heard him read    alone    without others

At MOCA, a museum in Chinatown

More modern than the Modern

More ultimately metropolitan than the Met (maybe not.)

Next I saw Slamnation: 162 slamassed poets from all over the USA

      ***First on the goddamn

moon

and don’t you forget it!***

In teams of poets

Competing in raucous rhythm and gaudy glee (and some anger to be sure

but probably never really angry)

In a competition they loved (I’m sure they loved it)

Without believing in it:

“How can you rate a poem, a poet, a performance in points?”

“You can’t. “

“You can’t score poetry.”

“They do.”

“But–”

   “We tell them to.”

   “Oh yeah…but  for the prize money, right?”

   “If we do it for the prize money, we lose out on the fun.”

   “But…”

Beau from Oklahoma representing NYC!

Go figure.  Nobody seemed to be

Where they were from.

(Question: are YOU where you’re from?)

Nobody cared.   All were great—I mean it.  Great!

Now I’m reading THE UNDISPUTED GREATEST WRITER OF ALL TIME: POEMS BY BEAU SIA

Reading it aloud

      Out loud

         Very loud

            VERY LOUD

                  VERY FUCKING LOUD!!!

So I have to wait until I’m alone in the apartment or by the river so I don’t scare anyone or give them a headache—I’m good at being loud when I think no one will hear—but I can do that.

What I can’t do is be angry.  I can

fake it.  I fake a real good anger.  But

Don’t get me wrong, I can feel anger all right.

It starts in my shoulders, then drops into my belly

before it rushes up my burning neck into

All those empty spaces in my brain where memories used to be

The ones I’ve pretty much disconnected from my mouth—pretty much

Swims in there, it does, while my belly becomes

the bucking bronco festival for city folk every once a year

at Madison Square Fucking Garden.

But enough about me

This was supposed to be about Beau

But the only thing about Beau is Beau

So you hear him—you know he’s on YouTube

Read him

See him.

Tell him I sent you.  See what he says.

Two Recommendations

 

Two recent articles by Richard Schiffman, I recommend both to you.

Do All Religions Teach the Same Truth? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-schiffman/do-all-religions-teach-the-same-truth_b_2217161.html?utm_hp_ref=religion

Did the Dalai Lama Just Call for an End to Religion? http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/atheologies/6647/did_the_dalai_lama_just_call_for_an_end_to_religion/

Rambling Again…

Let’s start with the 3 jewels of Taoism:

Simplicity, Humility, Compassion

Now let’s add On A Night Such As This, a collage created by Romare Bearden in 1975:

Here’s a picture of a pretty full moon rising over my block…

…and a Thanksgiving souvenir stand briefly on our corner:

There’s so much I know nothing about, so I present it rather than write about it.  What about you?

“It is so much larger than anyone can possibly imagine”

Another guest blog, this from a friend, Hannelore Sander

11/21/12

Notes from Sandy

I am volunteering a lot these days at disaster relief sites in Staten Island, Far Rockaway, and Coney Island, communities, which have been hit so hard by Hurricane Sandy.  I love doing this.  It is such a good place to put my energies.  I get up at six a.m., when it is still dark outside, and put on layers of clothing and a backpack, so that my hands can be free.  I take the subway to the Mayor’s Office in lower Manhattan.  Old clattering yellow school buses, called back into service for new turns of duty, take the volunteers, who have gathered there in the early morning cold, on long bumpy rides to the places where help is needed.  They come from all walks of life, ready for simple, practical, sometimes backbreaking, curiously unsentimental work.

On the way, initially towering above us, and then seen from afar as we cross the bridges out of the City, are the monstrous buildings of Wall Street, many of which still stand silent and empty, their electrical guts destroyed, a skyline of previously unassailable giants brought to a patient halt.  The power and the money that is in Manhattan will soon have erased all traces of the storm. But it will take years to rebuild the devastated neighborhoods of the outer boroughs, with their often poor residents, whose lives and harsh living conditions, which were a reality even before Sandy hit, now are made infinitely worse.  I have never really been aware of them before.

The most dramatic sight of boats carried onto shore and tossed onto the roads along the beaches is gone.  The cars that were buried under mountains of sand swept in three or four blocks deep on 20 foot waves are freed now, though their engines, corroded by salt water, will never allow for them to be driven again.  Where will they end up, these thousands of car carcasses?  Most of the commercial establishments along the main streets are boarded up but a few of the grocery stores and bodegas and small food places, their walls stained and their floors buckled and cracked from water damage, are beginning to stock some goods again.  Cosmetics are not important, the aim is to just open and make a living again.   There are piles of debris filling the yards and the sidewalks in front of the houses.  In some cases, it seems that every last possession that ever was in those homes, is heaped outside.  Traffic snakes slowly through streets clogged with fire engines and Con Edison trucks and other emergency response and repair vehicles.

In cavernous warehouses, we sort through mountains of donations, which will then be delivered to various distribution points.  In community centers and churches, we hand out bottled water and food and toilet paper and tooth brushes and diapers and cleaning supplies and serve a warm meal to those who for two weeks now have had neither heat, nor water and who are, in many cases, still without electricity.  “We will only take what we need,” they say shyly or proudly, and we feel a pricking behind our eyes.  We smell their bodies and wonder where they will be able to take a shower or wash their clothes.

Where will they go to live, these thousands upon thousands of people from those huge, housing projects, now still huddled around their gas stoves, which they keep on day and night to get some measure of warmth?  For many of these buildings are no longer safe, with gas leaks increasing and mold growing relentlessly on the walls.  “We went through the buildings the other day, knocking on doors asking if people needed help.  I smelled gas coming from behind one of the doors and we found a woman inside the apartment.  She had a respiratory disease and needed oxygen.  There were tanks of oxygen all around.”

As responders are beginning to look up from and beyond providing for basic survival needs, the scope and scale of this disaster are beginning to be seen and known.  “It is so much larger than anyone can possibly imagine”, the team leaders, who accompany us on the buses, say. “We now need to move into the restoration stage and it will be massive.  We just hope, that the interest will not wane, that people will still want to come out…”

This is Thanksgiving Week.

Guest Blog…with Eventual (and utterly unprejudiced) Commentary

My dear husband,

If I were your guest blogger, this is what my offering would be:

“Today, Day 24 of Richard’s retirement, has offered us a moment that could only be described as WONDERFUL. The scenario: me, at my desk, catching up on some work interspersed with checking email; he, supposedly at his desk, responding to various Facebook offerings. As I was somewhat engrossed in my own environment, I slowly realized I was hearing a sound emanating from the kitchen…a sound of clean dishes being put away off of the dish-drying rack.  Or so I thought.  But it continued. And continued. As I sort of “came to,” so to speak, it dawned on me that we didn’t have that many things on the drying rack. Sounded like coffee mugs and glasses. Lots of them. And then it hit me!! He was rearranging the mugs and glasses in the kitchen cabinet!!

I quietly walked to the sound I dreaded to confirm….and YES, there he was, up on the little step-stool, rearranging the mugs and drinking glasses!!  I waited for about 30 seconds, which was all I could muster before I started to quietly snicker. As he turned around to see what the sound was, he smirked as only he can. We then both broke out into uncontrollable laughter. He said, “Busted!!”

I can’t help but wonder (dread?) what the NEXT 24 days will bring. “

Your loving, and patient, wife….Bobbie

*************************************************************************************************************************

OK, so there’s the guest blog exactly as written.  Now permit me a few observations.

My dear [please note the lack of capitalization in "dear."  Dear indeed!] husband,

If I were your guest blogger, this is what my offering would be:

“Today, Day 24 of Richard’s retirement, has offered us a moment that could only be described as WONDERFUL. The scenario: me, at my desk, catching up on some work interspersed with checking email; he, supposedly [and just who is doing the supposing?  Who was directed to suppose?] at his desk, responding to various Facebook offerings. [Actually I was supposed to be checking to see what time the Beau Sia poetry reading at MOCA--Museum of Chinese in America--was supposed to start.]  As I was somewhat engrossed in my own environment, I slowly realized I was hearing a sound emanating from the kitchen…a sound of clean dishes being put away [and you can be sure just who cleaned them] off of the dish-drying rack.  Or so I thought.  But it continued. And continued. As I sort of “came to,” so to speak, it dawned on me that we didn’t have that many things on the drying rack. Sounded like coffee mugs and glasses. Lots of them. And then it hit me!! He was rearranging the mugs and glasses in the kitchen cabinet!!  [Well golly gee wonkers...]

I quietly walked to the sound I dreaded to confirm….and YES, there he was, up on the little step-stool, rearranging the mugs and drinking glasses!!  [Hey!  It's not like I was rotating the dining table chairs.]  I waited for about 30 seconds, which was all I could muster before I started to quietly [Quietly like a 16 year old practicing the trumpet] snicker. As he turned around to see what the sound was, he smirked as only he can. We then both broke out into uncontrollable laughter. He said, “Busted!!”

I can’t help but wonder (dread?) what the NEXT 24 days will bring. “  [Whatever that might be, I'm sure we'll love it.]

Your loving, and patient, wife….Bobbie  [Sigh...]

As I’ve said elsewhere, “Hey, I’m retired, I’m home, I’ve got nothing better to do than to notice everything and make comments.”

Good God!

 

 

Sunday morning I began attending a 6 part adult education series (free, of course) on the Book of Job being held at All Souls Church at Lexington Avenue and East 80th Street here in Manhattan.  The first question posed by Minister David Robb was “Why be good?”, but there seems to be a pre-question, “What is Good?”  Is Good the same as moral or ethical or correct or polite or something else? maybe natural or appropriate or desirable?  Growing up I was taught that being good meant obeying the 10 Commandments, to love–not just honor–your parents and to be polite. Whatever these requirements or guidelines might be called, the Book of Job clearly depicts a deity not acting in accordance with them.  This set me to noticing what for most people is obvious, that animals and oceans, winds and electricity–most humans in fact–don’t act in accordance with the Commandments or Precepts or any other concepts beyond what might be called their own nature.  But back to God…

How much human misery has resulted from people expecting God to obey the laws God had made only for humans and then being regularly disappointed at the reality that such is simply not the case?

While the Abrahamic faiths all label people as good or evil as they guide their lives by the Commandments, Buddhists and Taoists–Taoists particularly–emphasize following one’s human nature and simply fitting into the grand scheme of things as being the desired style of living.  The Tao Te Ching says we know the truth of this by looking inside ourselves.  This means looking past all the beliefs, opinions and feelings we’ve accumulated–the ego–to what others have called “God within” or our “Buddha Nature.”  Some might talk about uncovering the “real me,” but that, I suspect, easily turns into the “me I want to be” and sticks me back in the ego trap.

Retirement has taken me from a “senior” position in which I was expected to know and control a great deal and the ego to support that responsibility to one in which I am free to just respond to whatever comes along without having an assigned or defined relationship to it.  Relaxed, I don’t have to have opinions or any other habits of thought or behavior that must be brought out in reaction to the world as it presents itself.

What freedom!

Will this bring me closer to revealing that Original Mind, that Soul, that Real Me waiting under 70 years of accumulation?  Maybe.  I do know that there’s an increasing ease of living, a new joy each morning in discovering myself awake with  a new day ahead.  Less concern–I avoid the word “anxiety” here–with what I’ve done and what to do next.  There’s certainly less self-criticism for the variety of emotions–lust and anger come to mind–which come up unbidden then, usually, pass unrealized.  More music, more flavors and sights find themselves in the “delightful” category each day.  More options are not only acceptable, but actually exciting in their potential to take me somewhere new.  More spontaneous “Aahhh” and “Thanks!” and “Wow!”

All of this ties together.  Good, God, God within, fitting in, freedom, gratitude, delight and the rest of the list.

What do you think?  Please leave a comment.

After the Tragedy, the Laundry

I am not a victim of Hurricane Sandy.

Neither am I a hero nor a particularly keen observer.

I’m just here in New York, participating in my life

Itself unremarkable but for its uniqueness

And only thus equal to those of all others.

Just here

Sad with those whose pain

Is overwhelmed by suffering,

Envious of those with strength and determination

To lose themselves in service

With jealousy, too, for those whose words and photos

Have done so much to convey this moment to the world.

 

Friend Annie from Rockaway Park

Slept two nights on our couch

Glued by tortured imagination

To televised images of chaotic reality

Then replaced by Stepson David,

Just moved into an apartment 42 stories high

In a building without electricity

He firmly focused on next steps.

 

Some time spent in an emergency shelter

Serving bacon, eggs, pancakes and coffee

To grateful, subdued, nameless strangers,

Some time at a seniors center phoning

Inviting folks to a Thanksgiving feast

(“Travel should be possible by the 18^th.”)

–Needed, then not needed at a hospice–

A contribution to the Red Cross inspired

By rock ‘n’ roll.

I attend a presentation on Taoism

& Relationships, another on the Book of Job,

One more on Issues in Buddhism

Watch an old movie, Chocolat.

Vacuum!  Cook!  Drink tequila.

Friends from The Bronx come to dinner

Bringing red velvet cake and their love.

Return DVDs and CDs to the library

And the laundry—after the tragedy, the laundry.

Coming of Age in New York City

 

 

He was born “Richard,” and up until he time he arrived in New York everyone who knew him well called him Dick.  That, of course was before the word became synonymous with either a body part or an arrogant dufus.  The truth be told, this was after the time of Richard Milhouse Nixon, but coming from a liberal, pro-union family and having been active in civil rights since his middle teens, there was never any fear of him being identified with the disgraced president.

New York is different.  New York changed that and instantly.

It happened one night at the Annex, a bar, a jazz-filled bar on Avenue B in the Lower East side, it’s floor covered with peanut shells the way other bars covered their floors with sawdust.  The year was 1965, and the Annex–not and never annexed to anything–was the kind of place you might see John Coltrane or Sun Ra or Reggie Workman or any of the other Philadelphia expatriates who’d found their way to The Apple late’50′s-early ’60′s, axes in hand, eating fried chicken.  Dick, who less than a month after this historic evening would find himself, Ivy League diploma at home in his suitcase, frying those chickens for 75 cents an hour–had already finished one Cutty Sark on the rocks and was about to order another when a remarkably attractive and island black woman  entered  glancing about the room appraising it’s contents.  He was cool in his approach, never stumbling or wishing he’d held a drink.

“Hi,” he grinned with delightful naivete.  “My name is Dick.”  She looked slightly up into his eyes, her own blinking just once and very slowly.  Her face curled into a smile of no clear meaning.

“C’mon, White Boy.  You really don’t expect me to believe that!”

The “White Boy” thing went right past him.  It was 1965 and, remember, he was cool.  Still “huh,” was the best he could do.

“‘Dick?’  In New York that’s not a name.  That’s a value judgment.”

He stood blank-faced.  Again, “Huh?”  Her smile became a grin at the edge of a laugh.

“But back home–” he responded uncertainly.

“Where’s home?”

“Hartford.”

“Where’s that, Georgia?”  She looked him up and down.  “You don’t look like nobody from Georgia.”

“Hartford, Connecticut.”

“Maybe that explains it.”

“Explains what?”

She hmmed.  “‘Hartford,’ I like that.  I’m gonna call you Hartford.  Maybe even Hart if I like you.”

Dick stared at her.  That damned New York thing.  No wonder everybody was calling him Richie.  He stared at her and wondered, was he staring like a dick?  He smiled and thought,  “I could like that.  Hartford…Hart, ” not really sure if he’d thought it or actually said it out loud.  He envisioned a heart, not the valentine kind, but the anatomy heart, pulsating and powerful.  “It’s still an organ–” again not sure if it was thought or spoken, but,”Yeah, that could work for me.”

She smiled with her eyes.   “OK, Mr. Hartford–”

“No–No ‘mister.’”  He was still smiling, but his words were firm.  “You say ‘mister’ and I think you’re talking to my dad.”

She blinked.  Now her smile was warm, light, almost inviting.  “You got that, Hartford.  My name’s Pinkey.

“Pinkey!”  He smiled this time.

“Don’t give me no grief.”

He knew she’d heard before what she anticipated hearing now.  No worry, he thought.  The grin never left his face.  “That’s the last thing I’d want to do.”

A beat.  Her eyes twinkled.  “And what’s the first thing you’d want to do?”

His eyes twinkled.  They both laughed, walked to the bar and sat down.

Whether Pinkey was her first name or her last name he never did find out.

 

It all comes together.

Overcoming a virus, the Jewish New Year, a trip up the Hudson to the Bear Mountain Oktoberfest, the meeting in Briarwood Queens, home of Samaritan Village’s corporate headquarters from which I left with my retirement determined, the training in working with people with extensive childhood trauma, the legitimate possibility of per diem psychotherapy work at Postgraduate Center for Mental Health and the purchase of a new (Diamond Back) commuter bicycle–one with front shock absorbers to minimize the aches in my forearms.

And then there’s the image and words above, the first Rosh Hashonah card I’ve ever sent.  The photo was made from that Circle Line boat taking us to Bear Mountain as it passed under the George Washington Bridge.  The words fell out of my head without my having actually thought of them.

That sort of thing happens to me more and more frequently: stuff coming from somewhere deeper than my brain, bypassing the thinking process altogether, then making itself known to me at the same instant it finds its way into the ears of the world.  A spontaneous outpouring–not unlike the sunlight above the bridge (I don’t remember seeing that!) in the photo–of the me I hope will become more visible and commanding as I continue alive.

And it’s everywhere:

Sometimes it shows up when, riding the bike toward a destination, I turn–unprovoked–into a side street toward I don’t know or particularly care what.

• Sometimes it’s walking into an unknown movie theater only because the show’s about to start.
• Sometimes it’s about what’s put on top of my pizza.
• Sometimes it determines which church I walk into.
• So often it determines when I click the shutter of my camera or the words I write for you to read.
• Once it chose the woman I am still married to.

Wow!

What about you?  When has your spontaneity (I call it that only because I don’t want to turn off the atheists by calling it God or even Buddha Nature) raised its chuckling little head and dragged you off into Gee-I-didn’t-think-I’d-go-there.  Put it in a comment after clicking on “Leave a comment” below.

 

 

 

 

Working It Out

“Nothing’s wrong.  Everything is just as it is, that’s all.”

“Then why’s my belly flipping?  And my shoulders, how come they’re up around my ears–”

“That’s about you.”

“Yeah?  Ain’t I part of this  goddamn’ world?”

“Hey!  Take it easy.  Buddha said–”

“Buddha’s dead.

“Are you sure?”

“Wickipedia.  You could Google it.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Do I?”

“What’s up with you?”

“‘What’s up?’  The last six years you been sayin’ ‘What up?’  You tired o’ tryin’ to be street?”

“I guess.  Never thought about it.”

“See?  That’s it.  There’s a whole bunch o’ shit you don’t think about any more.  You just come up with your automatic Buddha says stuff like nothin’ could be nothin’ else.”

“I didn’t–”

“You do an’ I’m sick of it.  We usta talk about shit, explore it like.  Now, no matter what I say, you shoot back some five to seven words of 2500 year old profundity and think, ‘Topic closed.  I tol’ ‘em again.  O what a clever spiritual being I am.’  Ya know, I’m gettin’ really fed up with your ‘more deeper than you are’ crap.”

“No!  No, I didn’t realize…I didn’t mean to–”

“And when things ain’t workin’ for you, you go into your little silent withdrawal in public–like nobody’s got anything to say to you, so why even give ‘em a chance?  Mr. Silent Sufferer, except that you wouldn’t suffer because Buddha says suffering is just mind-created bullshit, and so, of course, you wouldn’t do that because you’re so damned in tune.”

“Jesus!”

“Don’t you mean “Buddha”?

“And the way you always talk about ‘Everything works out.’  How come you always seem to forget that while it’s workin’ out?  When you were goin’ through that shit at work and before that when you couldn’t eat because of the whatever that you wouldn’t get operated on because you were convinced it wouldn’t work”

“Hey!  Gimme a break.  I gotta be perfect?

“‘Course not.  Nobody’s perfect.  We both know that.”

“So what’s this all about?”

“I tell you the truth: When we’re together,  whether you’re being the spiritual asshole or the sulking asshole, you’re still being an asshole.”

“Yeah?”

“In both cases you’ve forgotten about me.”

“So?”

“Especially when I’m being an asshole.  Shit, man.  That’s when I need you.  Not some preachy shit or some ‘poor me, but you wouldn’t understand.’  I need You! 

“When are you an asshole?”

“Christ!  Like right now.  Right now!   SEE!  You don’t listen.  Fifty thousand butterflies doin’ the polka in my belly.  My jaw is tight…my shoulders…”

“Turn around!”

“Huh?”

“Turn around.  I’m gonna give you a back rub.”

“Yeah.  Right.  What’s that gonna do?”

“Just turn around…and shut up.

“Yeah.  You shut up too.”

“Yeah…”

 

 

(Insert Title Or Not)

Nothing.  Not emptiness.  Not even emptiness.

Just nothing.

(sigh)

In the Words of an Old Song…

There’s something happening here

And what it is ain’t exactly clear.

Maybe more about that in the future.  Meanwhile here are some new snaps.

This look keeps it all together for me.

This is about being grounded or maybe not.

I just like this one.

Here’s Topher…

and Bennie…

and Ron & Con after putting up with me.

The Colt Arms building in Hartford.

And one word that turned the back of a sign into the front of that sign.

First Friday & First Things First!

First, the upcoming surgery I mentioned last posting is now the surgery of the past.  It appears to have been truly successful.  The lesson here: Trust reduces stress which facilitates desired results.  Thanks, Dr. Shah.

Next, today is the First Friday of my taking Friday vacation days for as long as I can.  This is the temporary compromise to my asking for a reduction in my work week to 32 hours and being told no.  It is also something I’d suggested back in April and was told no.  The difference: this time I was not the one to suggest it.  The lesson here: sometimes your ideas are more powerful when they come out of somebody else’s mouth.

Next lesson, don’t talk more than what folks are ready to hear.  So here’re some new favorite snaps:

a staircase…

…a sink…

…and a truck.

And thanks, Universe.

 

Just Venting

Tomorrow at 11:30 a.m. I go into Lenox Hill Hospital for a 1:30 p.m. surgery date with Dr. Paresh Shah.  The event is the closing of a pouch that has opened off my esophagus and increasingly over the last 3 years interfered with my eating while encouraging both my belching and vomiting.  On the positive side, it has also led to my losing about 15 pounds and developing a mutually beneficial relationship with the fine folks who manufacture, distribute and profit from Ensure, milk shakes and a remarkable variety of soups and hot fudge sundaes.  Still on the up side, the diverticulum has led me to eat taking small bites slowly, chewing thoroughly and being content with less food per meal.  In short and often sweet–and Buddhistically abstract– the virtues of patience and persistence are closer to being significantly more mine than ever before.

Some other ultimately positive consequences of this particular turn of fate:

• Both my primary care physician, a Dr. Altman (who is actually quite young and who is now my PCP because my designated PCP, Dr. Aron,  has apparently decided that my health is not sufficiently interesting that he would enjoy or be challenged  continuing in that role) and my cardiologist, Dr. Janis, who replaced my now retired cardiologist, Dr. Cagin, in approving me for surgery both suggested that a man of my 70 years would do wisely to either reduce his work hours or retire altogether.
• My work supervisor, when made aware of the opinions of these gentlemen through my expressed desire to comply with their wisdom, denied my request to lop 8 hours off my weekly schedule while offering no opposition to the social worker whom I [allegedly] supervise reducing his work week by 10 hours.
• For the second time in 17 years I am actually considering working somewhere other than Samaritan Village’s Highbridge facility.  Both fortunately and unfortunately the city is filled with opportunities to help those struggling with addictions, criminality, fear and denial.  Chances are actually pretty good that someone out there (HEY!  ARE YOU READING THIS, SOMEONE OUT THERE?) will find me appropriate to join with them in this deeply rewarding work.
• Me being more in love with Bobbie than ever!  (I could try and try mightily to explain this, but I’d fail.  You have to believe me on this one.)  I did just upload this photo of her and Mrs. Sipowicz onto my MP3 player.

The mp3

onl

valuable possession I’ll have with me in the hospital–despite being told “Bring no valuablepossessions.”  It’ll hold about 65 music albums and photos of family and friends and a special and separate album of this particular snap.  I’ve known Bobbie since 1957.  She’s never looked or been more beautiful than she is now.  I mean, look at those weird-assed toes!  Does Kim Kardashian have toes like that?  Or Kate Bekinsale or any of A’mare’s nameless companions?  But I rhapsodize…

• Another positive in all this is that, rather than simply accepting and living with the diverticulum, I am accepting and living with the possibilities of modern medicine.  Two years ago I underwent a procedure to open the sucker wider so that nothing would actually get trapped in it.  Result: a failure from the git-go.  Then came two years of working hard to live with it, only to see it grow more and more demanding, more and more intrusive of my relationship with lobsters, pizza and Elisia’s pulled pork.  It wasn’t that I feared this surgery, but rather that I’d lost faith in medicine’s ability to actually succeed.  While that faith hasn’t been restored, my feeling now is, “What the hell.  They’ve got to earn a living too.  Let’s give this another try before I lose/give up my job and no longer have health insurance that matters.”
• There’s also great satisfaction in knowing that the paperwork is done: the Living Will, Advance Directive and the pledge of my corpse to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine are written and delivered, and that, in the event of a massive foul-up, all I own or lay claim to will go to Bobbie.
• I didn’t think of this one before, but I may have been motivated to put my photo book, See All As My Path!, on sale as  a way for folks to have access to some tangible artifact of my having passed through.  Interesting it is, how Buddhism and age and a year studying the foundations of chaplaincy and volunteering in a hospice seem to have taken much of the sting out of thinking and writing of my own death.  Of course this is no guarantee against my coming up to that final moment, bursting into tears and screaming at the then top of my lungs, “NOOOOOO!”  Whatever, we’ll find out then.

***************************************************************************************

Listen, thanks for putting up with this.  I’ve not done a real rant in quite a while.  I’ve also not admitted or–often–even been aware of all I might have been feeling when it came out all of it’s own.  That’s the beauty of writing for an audience you trust.

Thanks.

***************************************************************************************

Now here’s your final challenge: Find Snapper!

Later That Night…

This makes much more sense if you’ve read the blog entry called Mind, New Mind, Another Mind Altogether which is just below this one. 

This is about me and my dad.  This is the last picture I have of him.

He’s standing in front of the produce section of the Grand Union Supermarket in Bloomfield, Connecticut.  Dad kept this job, commuting a couple of hours a day on city busses to and from our flat in Hartford until it was time for him to retire, check into the hospital, live for a while with cancer and then die just before I would be graduated from college and come home wanting and needing to tell him I knew nothing and would he please explain to me what it meant to be a man and where one found the courage to be that.

Now it’s 48 years later.  It’s evening in the Chan Hall, Dharma Drum Retreat Center, Pine Bush, NY.  I’ve had dinner, rested, sat in silent meditation for a while, exercised, sat silently again and now it’s time for walking meditation.  I stand, this time not at all anticipating pains in my hip and feet, not at all feeling anger toward anyone, no fear of death or self-hatred for fearing death.  Just standing up to begin walking meditation.  A quick thought, “Is this me?” comes and goes faster than I can tell it.  We begin to walk at “normal walking” pace.  Something is happening.

No more than 10 steps into walking meditation I am aware of an intense presence at my immediate left.  It is entirely too soon for anyone to be passing me.  I look again.  The space is clearly empty–but it’s not.  There is someone next to me.  Invisible to me as well as to the others, he is my father.  Yes, unmistakably my father.  Without hesitation I reach out my left hand and feel him take it.  Hand in hand we walk in meditation around the Chan Hall for the next 15 minutes.  I talk.  He listens, assuring me all the while that he hears clearly, heart to heart, all I say and don’t say.

I tell him I love him and miss him.  Softly he lets me know that’s not all I want to say.

“Go ahead,” he urges.  “Go ahead.”  I tell him how I hate that he died when I needed him most, that–yeah, I know it was cancer and he didn’t choose it–still he abandoned me, left me to a fear and hopelessness that resulted in 20 years of terror covered over by alcohol, pot and cocaine.

“Yes,” he says.  “But there’s more.  Tell me more.”

“Yes,” I say.  “There is more.”

“Say it,” he encourages without emotion.

“I’ll say it,” my voice growling now.  “Don’t worry, I’ll say it.” My mouth twists and quivers.  My voice chokes, cracks dry.  I clear my throat.  “Even when you were there you WEREN’T there!”  I’m scared now, scared to continue and scared to stop.  “You were at work or eating dinner or reading the Hartford Times or asleep in the easy chair in front of the TV.  On weekends you’d spend Saturdays walking around on Main Street meeting and greeting all your buddies or up in the pool room doing the same damn’ thing.  On Sundays you’d be at Grandma’s or watching a ball game with Uncle Jack or playing rummy or some such shit.  You never had time for me.  You never listened to me or asked me anything about my life.  You never taught me anything.”

I felt his eyes lower.  His hand grew warmer in mine and almost tense, as if he were struggling not to speak.  I started to feel guilty and wanted to take back what I’d said.  But that, of course, was impossible.  Words uttered in silence are not retractable.  Nothing now but silence enveloping us, uniting us.  And then an image so clear of my hand in his, the year perhaps 1950, my fingers still sticky from late night ice cream as we walked home in the chill night air from the bus stop after a Hartford Chiefs night game at Bulkeley Stadium…

…the image of him standing alert at the edge of the water as a friend of his taught me to swim…

…of him in the cafeteria of West Middle School being an assistant Cub Scout leader when he was too tired to stand after a day of work on his feet…

…the image of us in the refrigerated room below the Hartford Market where he would make fancy baskets of fruit to be given as gifts to folks going on cruises or dying in hospitals, him telling me he worked hard so I wouldn’t have to…

…of him sitting on the couch, my mother’s sleeping head on his shoulder when I returned after midnight from my first high school party…

…an image of him walking into the Wooster pool room while I was trying to show everybody there just how cool I was and beating my ass at game after game after game of 8 ball…

…of me all IvyLeagued up and home from my fancy-assed college for the weekend, him telling me to phone my grandmother just to say hello…

For fifteen minutes we walked, me talking and him listening, him making me feel safe and heard.  Tears falling inward, clearing the path so obscured for those 48 years.  Him, I think, feeling a father’s courage to be a father, to hear the truth knowing it will lead to the deeper truth, and, for the two of us, the joy of love flowing freely again.

Mind, New Mind, Another Mind Altogether

Anger was my open door.

Let me explain.  This all has to do with a Silent Illumination (shikentaza) retreat, 10 days of silent  (no talking, no “Hi ya’s, no “Pass the salt,” no “Watch out!s”) meditation at Dharma Drum Retreat Center up in Pine Bush, NY.   Pine Bush, BTW, is the UFO capital of New York state, and I could write about that part of it if what I really want to write about gets too difficult.  You see, on the drive up to Pine Bush from East Elmhurst, Queens there was another passenger, a woman of both Serbian and Croatian heritage who was quite knowledgeable about this UFO business and was–but I digress.

In Silent Meditation practice there is no object of focus other than just paying attention to what shows up through the senses (mind included) and noting without identifying.  Sound easy?  It’s not.  Basically you’re inviting everything you’ve been avoiding for the last several lifetimes to come creeping out of the muck that is you into full blown consciousness.  Yeech!

And that’s just what happened.  Now it’s up to you.  If you actually want to read about it, read on.  If not, you know…

There were a bunch of us at this retreat.  I’d ridden up in the van with 5 of them and learned their names and found them all to be decent human beings not unlike myself.  The others, since we didn’t speak and hadn’t met before, remained anonymous although I felt sure they, too, were not unlike us van folk.  One exception, a woman I’d met on retreat back in October,  had gone through such extraordinary changes since then that I felt that, while I cared a great deal for her, at this moment I didn’t know her either.  Nonetheless she, too, could be listed as not significantly different from the rest of us.

Cut to day seven: OK, so here we are in walking meditation, a nice bunch of people on retreat, at this particular moment walking around the meditation hall in “natural walking,” silent to be sure, anticipating being directed to walk faster and faster and faster and then slower and slower, and then virtually not at all, hands clasped in front of us navel high and I’m angry at all of them.  Sure, when we fast walk, they all pass me.  And when we slow down, they don’t wobble as much as I do.  And when I finally can get up some speed, they seem to line up across the route and block me.  As if that’s not enough, my mind is racing to create a rap sheet for each meditator, a list of imagined offenses committed in the past, present and anticipated for the future.  Huh?

What’s going on?  Isn’t it enough that my left heel and thigh ache with every step and the ball of my right foot–O Christ!  Why am I here torturing myself in this hellhole?  I can’t sleep.  I can’t swallow food with this miserable pouch growing off my esophagus, and now I’ve got a guy in the next room whose snoring is gonna break down the wall between us and I don’t even have enough vacation time to cover this and what are they gonna do to me at work when they find that out and I’ll probably need surgery on the flipppin’ esophagus if I’m ever gonna be able to kick this Ensure habit and I’d really love some baby back ribs tonight and, and, and…and…oh

                                    oh

                                          oh

                                                         oh

                                                                    Oh

                                                                                             OH

OH!

Oooh…oh, dear God, it’s not about them.  It’s about me.  New Mind kicks in, imitating the mind I use when I’m teaching anger management to others.

“Anger, you see, is what we call a secondary emotion.  Before we get angry, we feel either hurt or fearful.  These are feelings we associate with weakness.  No one wants to feel week, do we?  Of course not.  We’d rather feel powerful, invulnerable, in control.  Anger gives us that rush of adrenalin that makes us feel just the way we want to feel.  Instead of, ‘O please don’t hurt me,’ we feel ‘I’m gonna kick your fuckin’ ass, you miserable chump’!'”

OK, New Mind continues, “so whatcha afraid of?  What hurts?”

“You know damn’ well what hurts,” I scream back at peaceful, self-satisfied New Mind.

“Don’t try to tell me about them,” New Mind responds softly.

“OK, I won’t.  My feet hurt.  My hip hurts.  Yes, damn it, my ego hurts.  I useta walk like the wind.  Now old ladies with shopping carts pass me on their way to sit on park benches for an hour or two talking about what hurts them, and how their children won’t let their grandchildren come for a visit and they fall asleep in front of the tv and then can’t sleep past 4:35 in the morning.”

“Oh yeah?”  New Mind has the hint of a smile in his voice.

“Yeah…yeah,” I respond.  “And what are you driving at?”

New Mind is silent.  New Mind knows something.  I feel it.  I feel it.  “What?!  You think…what?  That I’m afraid of something?  Afraid of getting older?  Afraid of growing old?  Huh?!  Is that what you think, you miserable piece of shit!”

New Mind stays silent.  New Mind smiles again.

I take a deep breath.  Exhaling, my shoulders come down from just below my ears.  My chest relaxes, belly presses outward against my belt.  Even my cheeks relax and my jaw droops.  Almost a smile.  “Yeah, I guess I am.”

*   *   *   *   *

Cut to the woods…

…and here I am, walking along alone in the woods, all the usual aches and my mind unable to put them down to enjoy either the scenery or the serenity when–and I have no idea of how this happened–I feel myself bending forward from the waist, stepping even more slowly and with far greater difficulty.  I feel my skin growing dry and wrinkled and mottled.  My eyesight blurs.  My voice, even though I’m not speaking, thins and cracks and I can’t remember the words I wish to speak.  I’m…old.  I’m old! Right here, right now, Oh my God, I’m old!  My mind–and this isn’t even New Mind–this is Another Mind Altogether.  This mind has cut and pasted all my worst fears right into my consciousness.  I look at my baggy clothing, drool stains on the shirt and skin like last years leaves.  I listen to that voice that both is and isn’t mine.  I feel my fear that I’ll never walk out of these woods alive.

“No!  No,” I actually scream and cry out loud and just as quickly return to the being I had been two  moments earlier.    But not quite.  I’m lighter of step now, powerful enough and delighted.  Fear and pain are out of the spotlight and buried somewhere in the chorus line.  Cautiously, yet confidently, I continue on my journey.

*   *   *   *   *

There’s more, but this is enough for right now.

The Final Project

OK, I’ve done it:
Put together pix and words
Made a book
and called it my final project. 

Please understand, I expect to do other stuff and I’m not dying any more than anyone else.  “Final Project” refers to this being an assignment (guess which assignment!) for the Foundations in Buddhist Contemplative Care program At New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care I’ve been part of since last September.  Anyhow, here’s the link.  The book is not for sale, just to see online.  Hitting the enlarge icon should make the writing legible.
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The link: http://www.blurb.com/books/3179436

Secrets of the Seder from Rabbi Jacobson to You!

Here’s the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wkh6bGZr7Eo

Here’s who it’ll link  you to:

Rabbi Simon Jacobson knocks me out!  A Lubavitcher  who could just as easily be a Zen Roshi or a Sufi master or a Christian mystic, here he presents an understanding of the Passover Seder, the holiday ritual featuring a meal or meal surrounded by ritual–your choice–guided by his desire to reveal the relevance of the holiday and to show–with true Kabbalistic understanding–the spiritual/psychological reality depicted in historical events.  If you can spare an hour 34 minutes and 36 seconds of this busy time, please click on the link and listen to him tell it.

If not, or as a less than scholarly introduction to it, here are my notes.  Yes, I took notes while I listened:

5 Ways to Transform the Seder

Introduction:The central theme of Passover is the freedom represented by the Jews leaving Egypt 3324 years ago, relevant today as spiritual liberation and psychological liberation from restraints imposed by our fears, passions and inhibitions, by our feeling the need to be self-protective or dishonest, restrictions which constitute any block to our being fully realized human beings.

The 5 steps are marked–cleverly enough–by 5 words beginning with S, E, D, E and R:

SPEAK     All are encouraged to speak out, to not submit to the will of oppressors by holding silent.  In the Pesach (the Hebrew word for the holiday which means the mouth that speaks) ritual 4 children ask questions relating to the meaning of the holiday.  One of them is described as the wicked child, the one who asks, “What’s all this crap about anyway?”  That child is needed as much as the others, so he is invited back year after year.

EMPATHY     The holiday begins with an invitation to ALL to be welcomed, for ALL to sit at the Seder table and be part of the celebration.  Life is not just about me!  The matzoh, the unleavened bread, represents humility, just as bread which has risen is inflated like ego.  The bitter herbs, symbol of suffering, are placed at the center of the Seder table.  The center in Kabbalah is reserved for compassion or empathy, so this positioning speaks for itself.  As to it’s relevance for us, focus on another’s struggle liberates us for the moment from self-concern.  Thus empathy yields the ultimate self-benefit.  Empathy leads to the greatest happiness.

DIP     There are several moments in the Seder when dipping or immersing occurs.  We dip our fingers into salt water, our matzoh into the sweet haroset or the bitter horseradish.  We count out the plagues by dipping our fingers into the wine.  Symbolically here’s where we get into the wonderful mysticism that unites Judaism with Islam, Christianity, Buddhism and the Hindu faiths.  The dipping represents our immersion, our being intimately and sustainingly in deepest connection to the sea of life, to interdependence, to oneness with all.  It bespeaks selflessness, ultimate seamless and non-duplicitous reality.  It is letting go and being  truly “in the zone.”

EDIFY or ENLIGHTEN     When we speak, do we edify and illuminate the topic?  Or not?  In my interactions with others am I drained or empowered?  Do I drain or empower them?  Hmm…

REMEMBER     Passover reconnects us with the past, with our personal and cultural histories and traditions.  It connects us to eternity.  Memory allows us to transcend time and space and thus to reach the great ultimate reality.  It connects us to that which truly matters.

Passover fuses body with soul, ritual with spirituality, tradition with relevance.

*   *   *

How does this tie in with your traditions and beliefs and what you’ve figured out about life?

I Thought I Was Cool…

(You can actually click on this image to enlarge it)

Things fall apart

I thought I was cool about death until this just-past Sunday afternoon when it looked like I’d lost all the music stored on the computer.  Long time friend David said it looked like I’d aged five years.  Music, as it turns out, means a lot more to me than I’d previously realized, and if recorded music means this much, my mind raced…  Regardless of how it happened or–since the future is still in the future, how it turns out–the realization that the music could not be found in either My Music or Windows Media Player and that there were almost five hundred new icons on my desktop that refused to be united into one file prayerfully named “Saved” initiated a rapid fire set of emotional changes that I became conscious of only several hours later.  The initial shock of this it-seemed irreversible disaster instantly transmuted into pain, fear then sadness.  Next soul self-preservation kicked in to hide the poor-me’s under an armor of anger.  If that weren’t enough, Mr. O-So-Sensitive-And-Considerate Me then conned himself into believing he’d hid the anger behind quiet calm.  The truth was revealed when, desperately wanting no more than to hug and be hugged by my loving wife, the anger arose to shove her away.

Sunday evening I hid out, reading Martha R. Jacobs’ so far wonderful book, A Clergy Guide to End-of-Life Issues and to fill out a Living Will and a Health Care Proxy as required by my Foundations of Chaplaincy program.  (Did I mention I’m studying Foundations of Chaplaincy with the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care?)  I did these with ease. Hiding out always works for me.

Things come together

Four days earlier Harvey, my buddy-of-the-month in the Foundations program, said praying is his exercise in true humility.  Reality, for us who believe in Divinity and practice Zen, is God.  Accepting reality–and, yes, the feelings that go along with  it–then moving on is the healing and the goal.  Reading A Clergy Guide I realized this.  Don’t ask me how.  I don’t know.  I just know I did.  The tightness in my chest and the nausea flipping around in my belly, my body’s reactions to the “music crisis,” and my emotional response to it–that tightness and that nausea both vanished!  There I suddenly was, sitting on the far end of the couch feeling like I’d discovered for myself the truth of Saint Theresa’s pronouncement, “All the way to heaven is heaven.”

The connection in all this was this: reading Jacobs’ understanding of the woman who believed deeply that just touching Jesus’ garment would heal her, would make her whole.  Jacobs underlines the woman’s role: she had to ask for help.  She had to display faith for the healing to take place.  My Mom loved to say that God helps those who help themselves.  Whether I look to the Divine or to Energy or to my local clinic for help, I must first see the need for it.  Then I must be open to the healing that is offered.  I must see that gift as help whether or not it takes the form of what I’d wanted or expected.

As for me and, I suspect, all others, the help will always be there, and it will always be on me–us–to get past the shock, fear, anger and cover-up bullshit to recognize it.  Sometimes we’ll succeed.  Sometimes not.  We are, after all, only human.

This is faith.

The Road Traveled

I always knew

I would travel this road.

Yesterday I did not know

It would be today.

The photo above shows a section of Henry Hudson Drive, called River Road by cyclists, running along the Hudson River’s New Jersey side, showing Manhattan and, yes, the World Trade Center in the distance.  The poem, Japanese from maybe the 18th century, I first saw on a placard inside a subway car.  Back then I thought it had to do with dying.  Later I thought it had to do with love.  Now I think it has to do with awareness.  Tomorrow…

At a retreat held further up the Hudson last month at the Garrison Institute, Zen Priest Robert Chodo Campbell offered a parable in which life was depicted as a rocky and hazardous road filled with a vast variety of traps and treacheries.  Meditation was depicted as a luxurious shimmering palace in which to take blissful refuge from the road.  Sitting in silent meditation after he’d finished, the realization–”realization” sounds so much more humble than  “lightning bolt of profound insight” or “earth-shattering moment of spectacular enlightenment.”  Whatever…–the realization came to me that I love The Road.

I love The Road!

The very challenges of traveling The Road are the ultimate treasures of my life.  The traffic, the potholes, the broken glass and occasional tree limbs, the pedestrians blinded by their smartphones, they are there for me.  Why I am here, why I have  made meditation and studying things spiritual  central to my living now I finally understand: simply to learn better to spot these treasures, attain them and share them.  And River Road, constantly hilly and yet the road to which I still return by bicycle although it seems to have developed some walking sections of late, is not an analogy for what I’m writing about.  It is one living manifestation of my understanding.  And there are other roads of richness: my marriage, work, friendships and, of course, my practice.

*   *   *

Perhaps you have a favorite road or path, a something-or-other along which you’ve traveled or wish some day to travel.  Perhaps at some point you’ve written about your road or, maybe, feel ready to do so now.  I surely hope so.  Please hit “Comments” below and share your road with the rest of us.

Thanks.

Death…Life…All of It!

Happy New Year to you, Happy Birthday to me.

It seems like the wisdom is all around at this wonderful moment.  Here are five gifts I’ve received to share with you all.  Enjoy!

*   *   *

Mary is about to turn 97.  She is frail and hearing can be difficult for her.  She can be forgetful.  One morning a few weeks ago, in the middle of a conversation about something else, she suddenly says, “I’ve lived too long.  I’m bored.  All I want now is my deep rest.”  Then, just as quickly as she’d left the earlier conversation, she returned to it.  This week I found the courage to continue that minute of openness and asked her what she thought death might hold.  Were hopes or fears involved.  She looked at me somewhat quizzically.  “No!”  A slight pause, then: “No one knows what happens after we die.  If I don’t know what’s next, how can I worry about it?  Have you seen my reading glasses?  I can’t find them anywhere.”

*   *   *

And this from Charles Upton in last Spring’s issue of Parabola,

If we see no purpose in suffering, how can we maintain our courage in the face of the hardships of life?  Nothing is left for us then but to make a religion, as well as an industry, out of our need to deny reality.  But if we are able, by the Grace of God, to come to a true sense of the ultimate goal of human life–self-transcendence, and the God-given duty to stand as a sign and mirror of the Deity in this world–then our suffering will be transformed from a misfortune into a teacher, from a degradation into an ennoblement, from an incitement to hatred and self-hatred and despair into a great power in the service of love (p.79)

*   *   *

The Gassho Meditation, the Living The Reiki Prayer with Dr. Usui

Just for today, I will not worry.  (I will trust in the Divine Plan of the Universe)

Just for today, I will not be angry.  (If I do, I will take responsibility for being angry and not project it on others)

Just for today, I will give thanks for my many blessings.  (I will be grateful for what I have and for who I am)

Just for today, I will do my work honestly.  (I will be with whatever I do and make it the most important thing in this moment)

Just for today, I will be kind to every living thing. (I am part of an interconnected whole, kindness to anything is kindness to me)

Just for today, I will honor parents and ancestors.  (I will hold the lineage of my ancestors in my heart so that it may heal)

*   *   *

From my buddy Bill, posted on Facebook after our failing to connect two days in a row for dinner–the responsibility for both failures resting squarely with me–and without knowledge that on the third day (today, in a few hours in fact)–I was/am scheduled to leave for a four-day silent retreat:

Bill Miller

Relaxing into a bodily felt sense of and as this moment, beyond the busyness of our minds is meditation, whether we are sitting, talking or dancing and while we may never fully grok it with our minds; we can feel the truth of it, in and as our bones.Who and what we are right now is all we need and nothing is missing. The objective to meditate in order to change ourselves, get beyond our suffering, our body or our world in order to understand or be at peace, at some point in future because our mind story says we need to, is a wrong view and wrong practice. We probably will do this a lot (most do) before just relaxing into and as the simplicity of bodily-based being in this moment, beyond our compulsive attachment to the mind story.

*   *   *

And, using the newest set of tools from Picasa, a snap:

As I said up top, ENJOY!