Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Year's End

My Daily Reflections book reminds me that I just lived a sober life through another 12 months, 52 weeks, 365 days, 8,760 hours, 525,600 minutes. What a gift and I have little to regret this year. Even the passing of my father is something I can be grateful for. He was a good man and a glowing example of love and tolerance. To end one year reflecting on the wonders of the year before prepares my spirit for the year to come.

geo 5,569

Sunday, December 29, 2013

They Were Friends

   I have been thinking of some of my dear friends who have passed on into the void at young ages…Lisa; found on her kitchen floor days after she passed out, face pressed flat so that it stuck on the linoleum by the time they found her. To Scotty; whose body was found in a booth at the Adult Bookstore on State Street with his rig dropped on the sticky floor… Jimmy whose body washed up on Hendry’s beach after he fell drunk one night out of his skiff… to others who passed in emergency rooms with as much dignity as could be afforded on hospital beds with tubes and wires keeping the body going long after the spirit had left it. To so many others… they were friends of mine… and while some were betrayed by compulsion, heart-break, addiction and fears, and longing; a few others, but only a handful, like Big Al and my father went peacefully, surrounded by loved ones.

It is a beautiful Sunday morning and, though my thoughts might seem morose to some, I am inspired by these losses to live my life with devotion and skill in their honor. I devote my core being and labors of the day to their sacrifice within the dance and song of the Heart of Compassion. This too is where my heart beats.

geo 5,571

Saturday, December 28, 2013

The Geometry of Compassion

The basic unit of geometry is the point. The point is almost unperceivable until it is seen as the shortest distance between two points: a line. The arrangement of these points becomes a line that arcs itself into a perfect circle. The strongest form within that circle is the perfection of three points of that circle, equal distances from each other, composing an equilateral triangle.

It all started with two points: you and me. The three gems of Buddhism: The refuge of the Buddha; the refuge of the dharma; the refuge of the Sangha, completes a triangle within a circle embracing all three. This is very close to another trinity… three points in a circle that embraces all three: The Father; the Son; and the Holy Spirit. Taken to another plane of consciousness is the perfect triangle of how these three are enjoyed: The Christ; the Gospel; and the Church. To our Muslim community the three are: Mohammed; the Jihad (the path of purification; not the suicidal jihad we associate with radical Islam); and the Mosque. These three are but points embracing a similar circle (Allah) in common with each other.

In this context it is no accident. Not surprising at all is that AA’s symbol is the Circle of a Higher Power embracing a Triangle. Unity; Service; and the Fellowship. It is that way because it time has proven that it works and any movement, spiritual or not, that denies this basic geometry is bound to collapse upon itself. It is the pure and true geometry of compassion that all starts with you and me. One human being in communion with another.


geo 5,570

Friday, December 27, 2013

Agree to a Degree

I have heard my friends say that they don’t watch the news or read the papers (how antique can you get!) because it “bums” them out and shapes their thinking negatively. I understand and even agree to … well, a degree. However, I do have a variety of sources available to me today that my parents had not even imagined to exist. And I don’t accuse others who are less interested in the news of the day of sticking their heads in the sand though. I know that the most important thing is to act compassionately.

Acting compassionately can be applied to the problems of the day if I don’t allow myself to be driven knee-jerk by the differing slants presented on the nightly news, Huffington Post or Breitbart. Whatever kind of news junkie I am, it is important to me to know what folks are getting all fired up about and judge for myself where I stand. How might I apply spiritual principles to the issues of the day? Am I buying into the accusations and barrage of emotional slander of internet and television commentary?

Where can I encourage understanding and healing? Where can I put a hand out to opposing sides and find the humanity in those I would have detested otherwise? I couldn’t do so without constant conscious contact with the Heart of Compassion. The Heart of Compassion doesn’t see us as Democrats or Republicans. The Heart of Compassion sees right through skin color or ethnic identity. The problems of the world today, at the end of 2013, are not going to be solved by fueling the discord but by healing it. In other words, what can I learn from you if I respect your opinion in lieu of automatically writing you off as an ignoramus because of the flag you fly or the tattoos that cover you?

Are we so afraid to sit down with a Republican, a Libertarian, or  Democrat to discuss something as essential as health-care that we will not listen to what is being said? Can we get into a real conversation without falling back on talking points or personal accusations of racism or pinko/liberal subversive!

geo 5,569

Thursday, December 26, 2013

Compassion vs Condescension


This is the season in which the idea of compassion is expressed most openly. This is a time of the year when we are encouraged to do the two most powerful exercises required for the development of spiritual muscle: the practice of introspection at New Year Eve... honing ourselves evaluating the year that has passed... resolutions for the year
ahead. And continual practice of  running on the treadmill of compassion. 

Pity is often exploited by those in need and it can irritate us. I.e., when passing through Oregon a couple of years ago, every rest stop along I-5 seemed to have someone with a sign that read "Need money for Gas!" I know that it is a racket and it peeves me somewhat. In fact, it ought to. I love the scene from The Hunchback of Notre Dame, the "alley of miracles", the beggars threw off their crutches and Esmeralda danced, after a hard day begging upon entering the alley?

Does compassion compel me to respond out of guilt or do I see myself in the fellow that is simply down on his luck? Once spiritually fit… muscles honed through the vehicle of meditation I become centered and am not so easily manipulated. I can see those who do need help while others are, well, out of kindness I can say, clueless. If I allow myself to feel taken advantage of, eventually, I will cease helping others. I won’t find only pity and no compassion at all for those I might have truly helped. Instead, all I have done was to salve my guilt and grant me a sense of righteousness that was void of any compassion at all. Condescension, mistaken for compassion does more harm than good.

             Compassion can translate into giving a sandwich to a panhandler, caring deeply for his wellbeing, instead of coin that might be used to go for a jug of wine. Then again, a coin might be given knowing full well what it is going for because I know what its like to really need a drink.

geo 5,568

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Breathing

Taking a few minutes to pause this morning opens me up to an end-of-the year reflection. The winter solstice has passed and the sun rises a hardly discernible part of a minute earlier as the weeks pass. Everything changes… one thing that can be guaranteed… nothing stays the same. Oh yes, I live in the same house I lived in yesterday but experience has taught me that there is no assurance that this roof will be here tomorrow. I do pay the rent and keep up with my bills. Being responsible for these gives me a little security but the next few seconds can change everything.

            I remember, at the beginning of a year a long time ago, the security of a government job, and art studio downtown, a wife and a daughter to come home to, and we always had a few dollars in the bank to insure a certain amount of the normal comforts. But, by the Holiday Season of that year, I nothing left of any of it but an empty apartment and a bar tab I couldn’t pay. It wasn’t the Merriest Christmas for me that year.

            The next year was full of optimism, as I celebrated New Years at a tenth floor apartment in the Santa Monica Shores with some very dear friends. There was champagne, caviar, and a new lover in my arms as we toasted the New Year. That year held out the promise of a very good one for me: the world was my oyster. Ahh, but how things change! That year turned out to be the worst… absolutely worst... worse than the year before... the worst year of my life.

You just never know. Opportunities missed, doors close, doors open… it is a game played by planning on the hunches… intuitions… I caution myself… be ready for changes...nothing remains the same… Good fortune, bad luck… everything passes… the best laid plans… circumstances… Then when everything changes and passes and nothing remains of any of it… Nothing but the silence remains and in that desolation of spirit I find blissful peace. Beyond surviving the worst of it I become ready for the best of it. After all, there is no other place to go. I haven't had a bad years... really bad year... no matter what happened... since I came to this realization... I am grateful for my last breath... I breathe in now... I exhale... then my next breath... the rest is frosting on the cake.


geo 5,566

Sunday, December 22, 2013

The Grand Inquisitor

When I first read Dostoyevsky’s long friggin’ novel, The Brothers Karamazov, I was struck by the chapter half way through the tome, The Grand Inquisitor. In the Grand Inquisitor Dostoyevsky’s character, Ivan, paints a picture with a story about the Spanish Inquisition in which the Second Coming of Christ was presumably met by the friar of infamy, TomĪ¬s Torquemada. Reading it and re-reading it… it tires me. All this philosophy that troubles itself with good and evil… a life wasted or well lived… all of it is tiring and in the end useless. One says everything is lawful while the other affirms that a life with no meaning is without joy. The big question might whether or not it is worth making up a meaning rather than to spiral down in an inescapable reality of one circumstance leading to another to end up in the same place we were in before we were born.
            This question compels most of us whether or not we can admit it to ourselves. The most hedonistic materialist tries with varying degrees of success to fill the void between birth and death. We call our games and entertainment a diversion… a pastime… recreation... without giving a second thought to what it is we are saying. We have hundreds of channels on cable... or satellite... holding an I-phone in front of our faces... unconscious of anything around us... earplugs with the latest banality playing a sad excuse for music into that vacuum in our skulls... What's on TV tonight! There are times I would prefer to stay in bed to dream… to pass time before I must wake to work or play… to re-create something I fear I might have lost… to divert me from the truth. In such cases… in such a state of mind I’d rather make up meaning or even adopt a meaning preached from maybe a pulpit. It is a horror to us that there just might not be a meaning… any sense at all to it… no heaven or hell… a light at the end of a tunnel… nothing but the end.
            So I sit. I sit and wait. I wait for nothingness to reveal itself as though it were a bride coming from a room behind the altar obscured except in the sacrifice of surrender to the cold stone of existence. Then I rise… no bride… no promise... I rise to a rhythm… the rhythm lifts me with no sense at all but the resonance it has with my own heart-beat. I lift a foot… more feebly with age but I lift it nonetheless and pound it on the ground… thmp… thmp… thhm… thmp… a cosmic dance… ahhhh aum… ahhh aum… ahhh aum… the bride comes out from the room behind the altar I dance before in the darkest night of my soul. Ah, but you are wrong dear Ivan Karamazov and I don’t need to prove it to you cranky Torquemada! My own experience resonates with my heartbeat to yours, my friends, and thine, my Lord... there is joy in not knowing. It is the certitude of faith that flies airliners into tall buildings! So, therefore, I strive to not know more and in not knowing more I know the divine in the paradox of not knowing less. There are no secrets.

geo 5,564

Friday, December 20, 2013

Disturbed? Christmas Carols

CHRISTMAS CAROLS FOR THE DISTURBED 


* 1. Schizophrenia --- Do You Hear What I Hear? 

* 2. Multiple Personality Disorder --- We Three Kings Disoriented Are

* 3. Dementia --- I Think I'll be Home for Christmas

* 4. Narcissistic --- Hark the Herald Angels Sing About Me

* 5. Manic --- Deck the Halls and Walls and House and Lawn and Streets and Stores and Office and Town and Cars and Buses and Trucks and Trees and..... 

* 6. Paranoid --- Santa Claus is Coming to Town to Get Me 

* 7. Borderline Personality Disorder --- Thoughts of Roasting on an Open Fire

* 8. Personality Disorder --- You Better Watch Out, I'm Gonna Cry, I'm Gonna Pout, Maybe I'll Tell You Why 

* 9. Attention Deficit Disorder --- Silent night, Holy oooh look at the Froggy - can I have a chocolate, why is France so far away? 

* 10. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder -- - Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells , Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells…


geo 5,562

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Simply Breathing

When you have learned through discipline, to simplify your life, and so practiced the mindfulness of meditation, and through it loosened the hold of aggression, clinging, and negativity on your whole being, the wisdom of insight can slowly dawn. And in all-revealing clarity of its sunlight, this insight can show you, distinctly and directly, both the subtlest workings of your own mind and the nature of reality.
Glimpse after Glimpse,
Sogyal Rinpoche

&

Circumstances have always intervened to simplify everything for me. Surprisingly, the simpler things get, the quality of my life increases. I remember reading more when the cable was cut off; i.e., I didn’t have hundreds of channels on TV and the internet hadn’t come about yet. The things I thought I can’t do without were done without in the not so distant past. Simplification, however, can be about something altogether different than those material hindrances. Going within and clearing out the clutter is a first step towards breathing and breathing is the simplest thing I can do to begin the process.

geo 5,559

Monday, December 16, 2013

A Spiritual Bog

There are times that I don’t want to meditate, go to meetings, or have anything to do with giving of myself to anything spiritual in nature. This condition isn’t because of disillusionment, self-pity, despair, lack of faith, or anger with God. It is simply indifference and indifference is a spiritual bog that can be waded through. I just want to rest but, because of past experience, I trust that there is another side to it… so I trudge.

geo 5,558

Sunday, December 15, 2013

Amtrak Ride Home

Thankfully, the ride home on Amtrak was less eventful than the Greyhound one. It started out ominous though but it illustrates the difference in handling problems between Amtrak  and Greyhound.
            We began... all trains, freight or Amtrak, bound for Spokane from Chicago were caught in the middle of sub-zero temperatures somewhere in N. Dakota. Buses had to rescue passengers and crews by lest they freeze to death. That was an entirely understandable circumstance and any delay could have had my sympathy. However, this crises did not have any adverse effect on the schedule from Spokane. Amtrak had charter buses standing by for us (equipped with Wi Fi and comfortable seats) and we left for Portland on time. My only beef with Amtrak is that it’s schedule for Spokane sucks. There is only one train arriving or departing from the station and these are both in the middle of the night… mine for Portland was 2:45 am.
            Arriving in Portland on time… even a little early was more than I could have hoped for. The first leg of the trip was somewhat of a bother because I didn’t have a seat to myself…. Boo-hoo. My assigned seat was in the front of the last car. Having no seat in front of me meant that there was no pull-down tray for my lap-top but there was plenty of leg room. Furthermore, the seat was an old one… the cushion my butt had to accept was flattened out with age and slid forward when I reclined it and the leg-rest only worked halfway up so I couldn’t lay more prone to sleep that night; causing my sciatica to scream for mercy!
            My seat mate was a very pleasant to look at teenaged Chinese girl (I admit… I’m an old man but can still appreciate beauty when I see it). She spoke very little English so our conversation was limited to the necessities of the usual courtesies on train rides…. I.e., “Excuse me,” and so on when I got out of my seat. Her two companions in the seats across the aisle were also young Chinese girls who only had occasional words with each other as all three were glued to the games on the I-phones the whole time I was there. I was okay with that because I was using the time to do some editing work on “Adrian”.
            I was able, however, to change to a good seat to the car ahead of us (I think it was Sacramento) sometime the next morning. It was a bit too late for my sciatica but this was a newer car and much more comfortable. While busy editing “Adriane” a group of young men, college aged students, boarded and one took the seat next to me. He recognized a friend a few seats back and asked the woman sitting by his friend if they could exchange seats. The trip escalated to a higher level of pleasantness as she was an absolutely gorgeous, twenty-something, young Asian woman that could have graced the pages of any high fashion magazine. The serendipity of having consecutive Asian women seat companions was blessing enough but there was a qualitative difference this time as she held in her hand Alexis de Tocqueville’s “Two Frenchmen in America”. I continued with my editing when she asked what I was doing. I told her that I am writing a historical novel with roots in the Spanish Civil War. She actually knew what that was and also knew some of the history. From there we talked… talked about her art. She showed me some of her paintings (which were quite good examples of classical painting technique and her Orosco-like paintings of her own) on her smartphone and I showed her my illustrations that go with A Taxi Romance on my Kindle. Her aim is to tell a story with her pictures and is studying painting whenever she has a chance. She is also getting into sculpture. We briefly shared our philosophy of life and exchanged cards before she got off the train at Salinas to attend another painting class.
            It is experiences like this that I have always loved about train travel. They happened more frequently when I was a young man but I am so very pleased to have made acquaintance with someone of her age group that wasn’t completely blank about history and philosophy. Which brings me to the next experience on the train that I find somewhat comical as well as tragic.
            A young woman several seats away, wearing earphones and holding an I-phone yakked on her phone loud enough for everyone in our section of the car to hear. It was annoying at first because I couldn’t shut her voice out even when I put in ear plugs. The whole time from Salinas to Santa Barbara she let everyone know about her affairs… that she was in love with Amie but Amie was in love with Amber and Amber was in love with her. A few time they got together for threesomes but that wasn’t what she wanted in a relationship. Now, Amber was jealous of Amie and passed around the word that this girl was a pill junky. She protested that she takes pain killers because she is in pain and that it is nobody’s business what she does and insisted she wasn’t a junky. There was so much more. The contrast between the two women of similar age was striking. I wish them both well but I so much prefer the former to the latter.

geo 5,557

Saturday, December 14, 2013

The Grey Dog Don't Hunt

The trip to Spokane for Dad’s funeral (held Dec. 07) was one of those journeys that merit some thought or comment; for the purpose of the trip and for the journey to and from itself.

            Transportation: I decided to take the Greyhound even though my sisters had offered to buy a plane ticket. I just don’t like flying…. I don’t like it and I won’t fly as long as there is time and an alternative to flying.

Options: Renting a car wasn’t an option this time either because I wasn’t sure how well I could handle driving on ice this time of the year; I haven’t had to do so since I lived up there @ 1965. I would have taken the train because it was usually only a little less a problem compensated by the comfort of the train: being able to get a snack and to walk around whenever one feels like it. But the buses take a day and a half and there are choices on the schedule for arrival times. The train takes more than two days and there is only one choice for that and it arrives in Spokane after 1:00 am. If one of my sisters were to pick me up I didn’t want her to have to do so in the middle of the night.

The Bus: Dec. 05, 2013: schedules have changed so much… been pared down and there is no bus that goes North from SB like they used to. The all go to L.A. and then transfer to Bakersfield before it heads north to Sacramento. It takes a roundabout series of transfers that could only have been designed by a bean pusher with no concept of direction, geography, or convenience for the customer. 

This being said, I must mention that Greyhound has some beautiful new buses. When I boarded the first bus to Los Angeles I was given a taste of what I would miss out on the rest of the trip. This bus had very nice seats upholstered with a faux-leather-like material. It had electrical outlets and even Wi-Fi! The Amtrak usually does't have Wi Fi except on commuter trains. I thought that this wasn’t so bad and I could suffer the additional time on a bus if this was the case. However, this luxury turned out to be a tease because, upon transfer in L.A., I boarded an old cow that was more typical until the last leg of the trip (with the usual natty fabric upholstery, no electrical outlets or Wi-Fi).

The trip: The first transfer was only a thirty minute break and it went smoothly. I had both seats to myself and was comfortable enough. It went without any problems worthy of mention to Sacramento except that the route it takes splits off from I-5 to Bakersfield and stays with route 99, stopping along the way several times before, between and after Fresno and Stockton with only an hour break while transferring at Sacramento to the Portland destination. I was okay with that and it went fine.

The passenger demographic changed slightly at Sacramento. Before Sacramento my travel companions were mostly Hispanic. I think I was the only white boy on the bus. From Sacramento on there was more of a mix. My three collegian black men sat in the seats across the aisle, a couple of middle aged black women with one elderly black man had the seats directly behind me. We were a congenial lot and it was fine. I am grateful that texting on cell phones has replaced audible loud yakking on them. We all got along fine and that made for a rather pleasant ride.

The first incident (Dec. 06, 2013): The bus was only almost half an hour late by Medford but the driver promised he could make up the time before long.

The elderly black man (my age) was seated directly behind me. Before Red Bluff he tapped me on the shoulder, leaned over the back of my seat and he asked, “I’m a Viet Nam Veteran, can I use your cell-phone?” I obliged saying I'm a Vet too… he had a hard time figuring out how to unlock the phone so I dialed it for him. No problem. After a few minutes, before Redding, he tapped me on my shoulder again… he began a nonstop spiel in a low voice; “Mister, I’m a Viet Nam veteran … I’m flat broke and need to get a hotel room when I get off this bus… can you lend me twentybucks?… Gimme your mailing address and I promise on my grandma’s grave I get it back to you….”
I felt badly for the guy but only had a few bucks on me so I could be honest with him and say, “I’m flat broke too. That’s why I’m on a bus.”
It was true, I spent my last bucks on this bus ticket. Money for the rip home would have to wait 'til my SSI check is deposited mid-month.

He hit me up to use my phone, once more pleading, “I’m a Viet Nam Vet, I’m sick… the VA turned me out… can I…”
From the last call I knew he'd need help, “Give me the number… I’ll dial it for you.” I had to interrupt several times… shouting over his nonstop spiel.
He got pissed, “Oh fuck it… you treat me this way... I’m a Viet Nam Veteran... I'm sick and that is how I am treated… I don’t want your damned phone!” I heard him mumbling a complaint about assholes on the bus and how the VA turned him out and how he was sick... over and over and over again. 

I watched the guy as he made his rounds and noticed he wore sandals with no socks and no jacket… just a tee-shirt and jeans. Anywhere there was an empty aisle seat he sat down and I suppose he probably continued a similar proposition. Everyone started to settle down and most, including me, were sleeping before Medford. In the mountains past Medford everyone was awakened by the woman in the seat in front of me shouting, “Where’s my wallet!”
In a low voice… “… mumble... mutter… mutter, I ain't got your wallet... search me,” was all I could hear from him at first.
“Where’s my wallet!” again and again, “Where’s my wallet! I saw your hand in my purse! Where’s my wallet.”
“I don’t have your wallet,” he protested earnestly and loudly… “You're crazy lady, I ain’t got no wallet! Search me! Dammit, search me!”
"I want my wallet. He had his hand in my purse when I woke up... I felt him tuggin' at it!"

Everyone was awake by then as this woman had a great voice. In a flash a big white boy named Jason had the guy in a headlock demanding, “Give the lady her wallet!”
The black kids joined in on the shouting in unison, “Give the damned wallet back, you fool!”
The driver stopped the bus and came back. He immediately saw what was happening. He told Jason to let go. Jason obliged. The wallet and cell phone had been dropped on the floor by the old guy’s feet. Jason found it and handed it over, “Check to see if anything is missing.”
She checked, “No, nothing is missing. We must have caught him in time.”

The driver had the thief come to the front of the bus as the guy protested all the way, “What did I do… I didn’t do nothin’… I didn’t take a wallet… ii was sleeping… the woman is crazy!” and so on.
Meanwhile the bus was sitting there waiting for the police to show up. It was about twenty degrees outside by then too. A half hour passed… forty-five minutes… still waiting… Oh good, I thought. When the Oregon State police get there we will probably be delayed while reports are written and so on. I was relieved when the guy demanded he be let of the bus and the driver obliged him. It was crazy for the old guy. I hope the police got there soon because he could easily get frost bitten the way his feet were shod. I still think of him standing there freezing his thieving ass off…

I would help any Vet... especially a Viet Nam Vet... but a thief, Vet or not, has to be reckoned with. Still, I wish I could have helped him. Karma.

We took a short break at Grants Pass where the driver passed out incident forms for everyone to fill out as a light dusting of snow began to fall. From there the driver was trying to make up for lost time but, as the snow started to fall more heavily towards Roseburg… about a half inch by then.

We were probably about twenty miles before Eugene when the bus slowed to a crawl. The first one… a car had taken a spin off the freeway up ahead. There was about two inches of snow. By the time our string of the morning rush hour got through that there was another one and the snow had increased to four inches. We got through Eugene (scheduled for 5:30)…  it was approaching eight am by the time we got to Corvallis and the driver told us there were two more wrecks ahead. We got through Corvallis by 8:45am and the snow was up to five or six inches. Through Salem a crawl… it was after 10:00 am by the time we got through Woodburn (the transfer to Spokane in Portland was scheduled for 10:00am).

I figured that Greyhound would have a contingency plan for those of us who missed our transfer. I could not have been more wrong. We arrived in Portland after noon. No one knew anything about us. We had to change our tickets there but no one told us anything about that and we wouldn’t have even known about that little detail had not one of our group been at the counter and overheard it.

The manager in Portland was pulling her hair out by this time and fled to her office when any of us approached her with questions leaving our angst to the ticket clerk who knew nothing. I cornered her once and she snapped back saying, “It’s the weather… you can’t expect us to do anything the weather.” I asked her why there was no contingency plan for weather… like a back-up bus. She fled back into her office. It was only after our persistence that someone behind the counter (not the manager) informed us that we had to transfer our tickets for Seattle…. We were all compensated with ten dollars in Portland for a meal on Greyhound’s grudging behalf. It was about six pm before we boarded a bus for Seattle. We waited at the station in Seattle from about 8:00 pm to then transfer at 11:30 pm for Spokane. I wrote a nasty complaint via the Greyhound site comment section.

(Dec. 06-07) I would have liked to say the ordeal was over by then but, sadly, it was not. The arrival tie in Spokane was supposed to be 5:30 am. I was hoping we would get there later as I didn’t want Barbara to brave the early morning hours to pick me up. The bus we boarded was one of those brand new ones like the original bus I got on in Santa Barbara. I felt so good about that. I immediately went online to check e-mail and so on. We were only a few blocks away when the driver stopped the bus. We had barely left the station!

Some lights on the consul warn him that there was some kind of problem. The later the better I thought. His dispatch had him take the bus to the yard where a mechanic could figure it out. We sat in the yard another hour. Now, that was just fine with me by then. As this was the day of Dad’s funeral at 11 am, I was a little worried but as long as we got in Spokane in time to change clothes and shower I was okay with it. We had to change buses and got one of the old cows. It made for a slightly less comfortable ride and we got in Spokane with no further delays between 7 or 8 am. Barb and Mike picked me up, I took a shower and we made it to the church on time.
I swore I’d never take the Grey Dog again… it is Amtrak, rent-a-car, or airliner from now on… I swear! I swear! The damned dog just won't hunt.


The ride home on Amtrak was, as usual, a pleasant one with only a few minor hitches to start with that go along with public transportation or travel in the north country... like in December. I will write about that soon. I loved it regardless of the time it took.

geo

Monday, December 2, 2013

Where is Thy Sting

All beings tremble before violence.
All fear death.
All love life.

See yourself in others.
Then whom can you hurt?
What harm can you do?
Dhammapada 129-130

&

As I write today the sun is rising. Reflections about death might seem morbid to anyone whose practice is a New Age, feel-good, spirituality. Because death is feared, it is associated with negativity… the opposite of life. I usually avoid the subject in these meditations if I can because I consider these posts to be directed towards the uninitiated… those whose understanding hasn’t yet grasped the unavoidable. However, the passing of my father has forced the topic directly on my lap. Honestly speaking, I am as much in the woods about death as anyone else but I do have a few observations that are helpful to me on a very personal level and this venue seems the best place to put them down for others to read.
            I can’t help but to think about the near-eternity before I was conceived when I think about the eternity after life is extruded out of my corpse. It is a fact that every living being was awakened to this world and whatever was going on before that is a void. I know… I know, there are some who can supposedly ignite the memory of a past-life experience just as there are those who have had some sort of after-life experience. I don’t get into that because I haven’t experienced any such thing in spite of a few close brushes with death. I do have opinions about death but, obviously, I have no direct experience with it.
            I do have memory of much of what goes on after birth but have only a vague perception of what went on before I was conceived. It is a void… remarkably, an unknown for even a couple of years afterwards. This awareness isn't a source of much concern or fear for me because it is in the past… I’m over it, so why worry myself about it. But death looms before me as an inevitable… more than a stop sign it is appropriately labeled a dead end. 
          Does this knowledge encourage me to make the best of the interlude between the bookends we call life? It should if I can look into the eyes of a newborn babe and ask; “where have you been?” The more I am conscious of this the better able I become to allow others to live out their lives any way they choose as long as they cause no harm. Death loses its sting once I can understand that it is possible to let go of expectations and find the power of living in the now… a space and a place where there is nothing to fear. It is none of my business where I was before, or where I’ll be after, if I am living as best as I can here and now. I can then say to my father, “Thank you and welcome home.”

geo 5,544

Saturday, November 30, 2013

Heritage

I want to write something about my father out of respect and love for him. It isn’t easy to do so without feeling somewhat hypocritical because I have not been very close to him, geographically speaking, since leaving home in 1965. This estrangement puzzles me because my father had always set an example of an honest, loving and kind, integrity that was never a reason for me to stay at such a distance my whole adult life. Frankly, I left home to find my fortune… and when I failed at that again and again… time rolled out and away the years.
When we pass, we leave a heritage of a life well lived or one of no consequence whatsoever. There are those who would have mausoleums built in their honor to secure a place marking their spot here for as long as possible. Life is a pissing game for some… marking territory… and death is but an extension of the pissing game played all of our lives. Libraries, foundations, endowments, pyramids (great and small)… all left to live on. Folks like my father left a heritage without having to go through all of that nonsense. It is a heritage of the simplicity of love that is passed on through his children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and so on and on… so much greater than any monument of stone. I am most certainly blessed to live and to do my best to pass on his wealth of virtue… our family’s inheritance.

geo 5,542

Thursday, November 28, 2013

War & Peace













How do you view competition in business, politics, and our personal lives?

… We have to consider our idea of happiness. Even if you are successful in making more money as you do, but you still suffer. Maybe your competition doesn’t make as much money as you do, but they are happier. So you choose to be happy or have or have the other kind of success?
Thich Nhat Hanh;
You Have the Buddha in You,
Interview with Andrea Miller:
Shambala Sun Magazine: Jan 2014
&

I have Buddhist sentiments but my heart doesn’t resonate with every interpretation of the Buddha’s teachings. I’m thinking that my mind will change with the practice of mindfulness, but there are things going on in the world that are not conducive to reason. Thich Nhat Hanh was one of the monks in Vietnam who protested that war using peaceful means: I agree with that tactic. However, I’m not convinced that peaceful protest works universally in the here and now. The Mullahs that would condemn a woman to being stoned are difficult to convince peacefully.
There are those who are born warriors. War is, in spite of its brutality, a delicate tool to use against the kind of ignorance that would fly an airliner filled with innocent passengers into a tall building occupied with equally innocent workers. That kind of political fanaticism needs to be dealt with forcefully, with the immediacy of the here and now, and that is what warriors were born to do.
War is a horrible thing, it should not be left to amateurs or shouldn’t always be the first response. There are innocents involved and force is best used surgically; taking out those who wouldn’t be responsive to reason. But military force alone solves nothing without being accompanied with compassion and diplomacy for the sake of those defeated. Victory parades should resemble funeral marches. Reconstruction ought to follow the destruction of war with as much commitment in effort and money to that as the nation’s commitment to war.
Peaceful protest raises our consciousness and therefore serves a purpose for the future’s sake. Buddhist monks burned themselves in public during the Vietnam War to no apparent and immediate effect. The lives of those monks seemed wasted as the War ground on. And the results of victory by the Viet Cong were as disastrous as the American intervention to civilians and soldiers alike. Because the War had no real strategy to win, there was confusion and doubt on the home front. Lives were wasted irresponsibly to no end in sight because Americans never took war as seriously as the Viet Cong did. Peaceful protest played a role but would not have had any real impact had the war been conducted as war and not as a political opportunity for charletins.
We live in a hazardous world where we can, with a flick of a switch, annihilate all traces of civilization. Total war is inconceivable to most but, to the Mullahs who strive against the West, it is a means to an end and that end is The End. I am perplexed because no apparent solution reveals itself to me. These are times the require balance and focus relying on the guidance of a Power greater than myself before I jump on any bandwagon.

geo 5,543

Sunday, November 24, 2013

Religion/Discipline/Spirituality

A UNIVERSAL SEARCH

Puleeeeze!
Be quick to see where religious people are right. Make use of what they offer.
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 87

I do not claim to have all the answers in spiritual matters, any more than I claim to have all the answers about alcoholism. There are others who are also engaged in a spiritual search, if I keep an open mind about what others have to say, I have much to gain. My sobriety is greatly enriched, and my practice of the Eleventh Step more fruitful, when I use both the literature and the practices of my Judeo-Christian tradition, and the resources of other religions. Thus, I receive support from many sources in staying away from the first drink.
DAILY REFLECTIONS, p. 337

&

The word, religion, translates as, a spiritual discipline: one becomes a disciple of a person that embodies a spiritual concept (or simply the spiritual concept itself). When I used to say, “I’m not religious, I’m spiritual,” what I was actually admitting was that I had no discipline about my spirituality.  This was, by definition, not true if, in fact, I did have a practice I followed through with. Was I cutting my way through the jungle, trying to get to the mountaintop, without a map or taking any well-trod path? In this context, one might say that AA is a religion, though it claims not to be.

            AA has a discipline outlined in the Twelve Steps… a dharma, if you like, but I have come to believe that, for all practical purposes, I ought to drop the use of the word religion altogether. I do so because the word, religion, is confused at times with what we know of as “organized religion”. So, what is wrong about an organized spiritual discipline if the ultimate goal is to harm no one? I have even dropped the word God in exchange for a description of what is called God. By calling God, the Heart of Compassion, I cut through the baggage of the word God because I surely don’t wish to turn anyone away from the boundless treasure I have found on the way to the Heart of Compassion.

            Another part of this reflection was about AA not having all the answers in regards to alcoholism. The practice takes me to a vantage point where I can see that AA is but one path out of many. It has proven to be most effective for me but for others it just might not work. Every human being is an individual and I have found through the years that it is futile to try to cookie-stamp anyone into my way of believing. Worse than futile and counterproductive, it is destructive and doesn’t help at all on any level. This goes for my attitude about drinking. There are people who can smoke pot or have a few cocktails at the end of their day and it harms no one. Who am I to say that this is wrong? Just because I can no longer imbibe doesn’t mean that I have to demand anyone else ought to get on the sobriety bandwagon. Some of the best people I know smoke a joint, enjoy a drink, even get drunk, once in a while. Who am I to take away their pleasure or look down my nose at them?

            The idea here is that I mind my own business and try to be as helpful as I can towards anyone who wants what I have found. It is as simple as this, keep it simple and mind my own business.

geo 5,536

Friday, November 22, 2013

Fifty Years Ago

Fifty years ago, November 22nd … I was in my High School art class taking a clumsy stab at portraiture. I had chosen two pictures: one of JFK and the other, Abraham Lincoln. I admit now that I wasn’t doing a very good job of it… just couldn’t get it right. The school intercom interrupted, announcing that the President had been shot. His condition was unknown and that all students were to return to their home-rooms. I was stunned… if that is the right word for it… I had a knee-jerk reflex… “Nixon did it!” I said out loud and immediately sensed the ridiculousness of my accusation.
It was shock… I hadn’t been so shocked until 9/11. Some of us, myself included, were openly crying. My shock turned to grief: the sorrow was so profound. Though the impact of it was equaled by 9/11, the quality of the sorrow transcended anything I have felt since. Of course, the assassinations Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King were significant but I had become so much more cynical by then. As a nation we were so much more innocent.
Some of the students couldn’t handle the grief and had done as I had at first, they responded with accusation. A girl at the front of the class said, “The communists did it.”
A jock opined, “No, it was a “n” that done it.”
Another said it was likely a Dixi-crat.
My grief called me out of shock, and frankly, I am most proud of my little speech I cried out from the back of the room, “He was not shot by anyone but us. We killed him with our intolerance! We killed him with our ignorance! Sure as shit it wasn’t anyone else that killed him!”
You could have heard a mouse fart it was so quiet. I had my audience so I added one more thing in my diatribe, “Now, shut the fuck up and cry for yourselves.”
I still feel that way when I hear conspiracy theories and I can’t watch the plethora of programs devoted to the subject played on TV, ad infinitum, the last week no matter how objective or sincere the production might be. Just like 9/11, ignorance propelled some of us into wild hysteria by ego-tripping A-holes. Anger and ignorance rules where sanity is abandoned. I believe it doesn’t matter who acts out in such a way as to take out a leader or smash our consciousness with extreme acts of nihilism. We will never find out exactly what happened in Dallas that day… we won’t find out for sure. There are assassinations going back to Roman times that have never been fully explained. What is most important isn’t about who did what to whom… but rather, how does our emotional response affect us and our so-called solutions? How much are we going to give up our civil liberties as a result of our anger and fears?
The world we live in today would have been unimaginable on that day in Dallas. From gun-control to the “War on Drugs”… from Homeland Security, to a simple matter of a national ID card… how much are we willing to give up when it would have been better to feel the grief and process it before running in circles like a headless chicken?

geo 5,534

Thursday, November 21, 2013

Relax and Breathe

There are times as I look back on my life with all its flips and flops and feel nothing but regret for how much time I have wasted in fear and resentment. I look back at other times with pride for the smallest accomplishments. It seems to me that neither of these perspectives are objective and can’t be analyzed without some sort of distancing or elevation. I have to take the time to sit with myself. Meditation is often thought of as meditating on an ideal, a word, or mantra. But the most effective practice I have found for the distancing is simply to relax. The Little Red Book (published by Hazelden) speaks of this on page 106:
We attempt to momentarily suspend all mental and physical activity. We try to relax our entire bodies, then close our minds to the worries and anxieties about us.
            What do we think about? Just relaxation. Then we let go of our cares and turn to God with this simple prayer: Thy Will Be Done.
When i do that "Something tells me I'm onto something good..."


geo 5,533

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Walking

Walking the spiritual path properly is a very subtle process; it is not something to jump into naivety. There are numerous sidetracks which lead to a distorted, ego-centered version of spirituality; we can deceive ourselves into thinking we are developing spiritually when instead we are strengthening our egocentricity through spiritual techniques. This fundamental distortion may be referred to as spiritual materialism.
Chogyam Trungpa;
Cutting through
Spiritual Materialism

&

When in doubt… go to compassion. Compassion moves on self-centeredness in ways that becoming a spiritual technician cannot. The idea that I can somehow fix the mess I got myself into by mastering a technique is fine for normal folks but, for my kind, it is often a fatal deception. It is a fatal deception because I can become convinced that I am doing this bit on my own… even when I am doing “good deeds”. This is where the subtlety that Chogyam Trungpa speaks of, that he calls spiritual materialism, can lead me astray. Kindness of heart is achieved by tapping into the source of kindness. True compassion arises out of unity with the Heart of Compassion. Unity with the Heart of Compassion happens the same way any creative relationship works. A creative relationship works when one partner is in love with the other and wants nothing more than the other’s happiness. It is a mutual trust and caring for each individual. The vehicle of surrender; the opening of heart, one to another, compels me to kindness. It is within the Heart of Compassion that the power of virtue radiates. No longer is it my will… but Thine be done.

geo 5,531

Monday, November 18, 2013

Snapped a Picture

I didn’t take a picture of the sunrise today. I watched the sunrise. I couldn’t take a picture of the coffee’s aroma I enjoyed brewing.

I took a picture years ago, like so many before and after, stored it in a box and hoped to put it in an album for memory’s sake. I went through one of those boxes… so many wondrous moments… dear people… precious sunrises… snapped a picture… walked away… put it in a box.

The only pics that bring back those instances, and loved ones, are the times I paused and appreciated... at the click… the strobe flash... the nano-second of time passed... sealed them in the heart to love and hold... the smile... the grace of a glance... the dancer's leap... the crimson glow of light flickering off the leaves at sunset... ahhh.
geo 5,530


Sunday, November 17, 2013

Breathing In and Breathing Out



Breathing in, taking on the sorrow
And breathing out bliss, I pause.
Breathing in, taking on the bliss,
And breathing out peace, I rest.
Breathing in, taking on peace,
And breathing out emptiness, I sit
Breathing in, taking on emptiness,
And breathing out emptiness, is all there is.

All there is, is breathing in and out
All there is.
Breathing in and out all there is,
I am Dancing.
Dancing, I am dancing,
With the rhythms of Wonder.
With the rhythms of wonder,
The drumbeat of The Heart of Compassion
Resounds in mine and I sit.

Breathing in, taking on the sorrow
And breathing out bliss, I pause,
Again and again and again and again.


geo 5,529

Thursday, November 14, 2013

To Be Revealed

Because in our culture we overvalue the intellect, we imagine that to become enlightened demands extraordinary intelligence. In fact, many kinds of cleverness are just further obscurations. There is a Tibetan saying; “If you are too clever, you could miss the point entirely.”
            Patrul Rinpoche said: “The logical mind seems interesting, but it is the seed of delusion.” People can become obsessed with their own theories and miss the point of everything. In Tibet we say:                                “Theories are like patches on a coat, one day they wear off.”

Glimpse After Glimpse
Sogyal Rinpoche

There are those in AA that say: “Most of us are too smart to stay sober. We have to be dumbed-down to get it.” I have found that nothing obstructs spiritual progress more than intellectual arrogance. However, this doesn't mean I don’t use that product of millions of years of evolution behind my eyes and between my ears for nothing. It takes some training, but the intellect is able to function best when it is sidestepped and put in proper order. It is when I try to make sense of this business that the sense of it evades me. I don’t hold on to my ideas as fervently as I once did. My point of view has been blunted by the grinding wheel of experience. It has been tremendously liberating to be free of my own contrivances. Once, free of my opinions, I am able to say honestly what I know as opposed to what I have theories of.
Nietzsche wrote these controversial words in the very beginning of Thus Spoke Zarathustra: “For God is dead and his sinners died with him. The only sin now is to esteem the entrails of the unknowable more than the meaning of the Earth.”
Everyone gets hung up on those three words, “God is dead,” and avoid what the meaning of the Earth might be. It is what in front of me I can know in the here and now that warrants a higher priority, leaving the rest to be put on the shelf labeled “to be revealed.”

geo 5,526

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Dig the Pond

Dig the pond, don't wait for the moonlight; when the pond is complete, the moonlight will naturally be there.
Hung-Chih; Five Houses of Zen


Monday, November 11, 2013

Veterans Day

Pause…. Take a deep breath today for the men and women who put a thorn in the hand of fascism during WWII. Take another deep breath for our fathers, uncles, aunts, brothers and sisters... high school pals and so on, who have stood ground in faraway places on our behalf. They didn’t stand for a piece of dirt: they stood, whether they knew it or not, for us and our values.
When I came back from four years of service during the conflict in Vietnam, I complained to my dad, “At least your war was justified and you took out Hitler.”
His answer bothered me greatly at the time. He said he knew nothing of Hitler. He joined the army during the depression and the army was a job. After working in the CCC he was glad to be getting a check ($25 a month to start, I believe).
I do know he learned of Hitler. I remembered a tall German Pretzel can full of Reich Marks and medals. In that can was one more thing… a photograph of a pile of corpses, stacked like firewood. It was Buchenwald. He said he learned of Hitler there as the troops ushered the town’s people through that camp.
My dad came home and worked hard to make a good life for his family. He never complained or rarely spoke of the war at all. His Eisenhower jacket (with medals and a 3rd Army patch) and an occasional reminiscence with his hunting buddies at the campfire was all there was.
Though Veterans Day is a holiday, it isn’t a holiday in the usual sense in that it is a day of respect. Respect for those who stand, or stood, in faraway places like the Ardennes Forest like my dad. My generation did the same in the rice paddies of Southeast Asia and our present generation is mired in Iraq and Iran. Today, we honor those who didn’t come back for whatever reason.
geo 5,534