Saturday, August 31, 2013

Priest Lake

Saturday, August 31, 2013:


Each time the losses and deceptions of life teach us about impermanence, they bring us closer to the truth. When you fall from a great height, there is only one possible place to land: on the ground --- the ground of truth. And if you have the understand that comes from spiritual practice, then falling is in no way a disaster, but the discovery of an inner refuge.
Glimpse After Glimpse
Sogyal Rinpoche

&

I am sitting at a window of the beautiful apartment above my brother in-law’s workshop at Priest Lake Idaho. The forest surrounds us... the main house and workshop… it is quiet but soon the sounds of Labor Day Weekend will break through trees with the noise of boaters and four-wheelers; still, the fresh air and the serenity of the place goes undisturbed. How can I think of disaster and downfalls in such a place… this little spot of heaven on earth? It is peculiar, but I can and I can with nothing but gratitude in my heart for loved ones and family that I would not fully appreciate if it weren’t for the close calls with impending doom that have confronted me with the ground of truth in past seasons. I am grateful for those hard times that brought me through with grace and the unrestrained power of the Heart of Compassion. This is a sacred place where I sit today.

geo 5,451

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

This Elephant

Wednesday, August 28, 2013:
If this elephant of mind is bound on all sides by the cord of
            mindfulness,
All fear disappears and complete happiness comes,
All enemies, all the tigers, lions, bears,
            serpents (of our emotions);
And all the keepers of hell; the demons and the horrors,
All of these are bound by the mastery of your mind,
And by the taming of that one mind, all are subsided,
Because from the mind are derived all fears and
            immeasurable sorrows.
Shantideva
From: Glimpse After Glimpse,
Sogyal Rinpoche
&

Once the regular practice of self-examination and meditation is established, it is astounding how little effort it takes to keep my mind where it can be used productively. Training takes time and it doesn’t come automatically. Had I started young it might have been easier. Like a circus elephant tethered to a stake it is content to stay where it could, with the least effort, lift the stake and escape. It is difficult but not impossible to train the mind at my age even though I started at a late date. It takes patience and self-forgiving, but it can be done. I don’t aim for sainthood. I just need to be able to put a strap on the outrageous emotions that get in my way of my usefulness and I am okay with that, for my peace is easily disturbed in crises. It took great effort to hold back on all those fears when Bonnie was in I.C.U. I made it through fine but it took a toll as I was found exhausted and hospitalized myself afterwards. If it was just a matter of her surgery and a week or two of recovery I might have been okay with it but, when her recovery dragged on past a month my resolve was worn down. That was when I depended heavily on the Heart of Compassion within and beyond myself for strength. This is something we hear over and over again from people of all faiths; we can plow through the everyday trials on our own but, when challenged, we are forced to lean on a Power greater than ourselves. It is in these times that the rogue elephant of despair can become the dancing elephant of Genesh.

geo 5,448

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Awake to Your Beauty as well as Mine

Tuesday, August 27, 2013:


 Sometimes, when I meditate, I don’t use any particular method. I just allow my mind to rest, and I find, especially when I am inspired, that I can bring my mind home and relax very quickly. I sit quietly and rest in the nature of mind; I don’t question or doubt whether I am in the “correct” state. There is no effort, only a rich understanding, wakefulness, and unshakable certainty.
            When I am in the nature of mind, the ordinary mind is no longer there. There is no need to sustain or confirm a sense of being: I simply am. A fundamental trust is present. There is nothing in particular to do.
Glimpse After Glimpse
Sogyal Rinpoche

&

Yes, there are times when I get up late and have to be somewhere that I can only give a few minutes to meditation. But it doesn’t take much time or effort on the way to an appointment to simply breathe. When I make a big deal out of anything along those lines my mind gets all tied up; an anaconda squeezes the life out of my consciousness. I have responsibilities to others I have made commitments to.

 There was a time when I thought I was free because I cared not one whit whether I showed up or not. I would often appear on a doorstep unannounced thinking my surprise would be a gift. I believed that this sort of spontaneity was liberty. Once I was touched by the Heart of Compassion, consideration for other people’s time and attention became something to honor and respect. If I told someone I would be there at a certain time, at a certain place, and could not make it, I could at least call ahead… otherwise, I was actually telling that person that I believe his/her time was of no importance to me… that I believed myself to be superior to them.

  Tardiness is not at all where I was going to go with this reflection but I have known others, and have done so myself, who regularly show up late to appointments, or let a friend wait at the coffee shop, just because we had to get our twenty minutes in the lotus position first. This rigidity of practice denies the deity of others even though one might believe that spiritual commitment to meditation comes first. That rigidity, to me, is a form of idolatry. It is putting something before God (if one wants to think in Biblical terms). Meditation can be simply sitting and listening to a friend and does not require that I deny them respect in order to fulfill a self-centered righteousness of my practice. Meditation is awareness and does not require that I blot out the world around be, Instead, I become fully awake and aware of your beauty as well as mine.

geo 4,447

Sunday, August 25, 2013

Support our Troops Not The Inanity of War

No, thanks: Stop saying “support the troops”

This article sadly takes me back to a time when Viet Nam War Veterans were spat on and held in contempt when we returned to the Mainland. Steven Salaita's energy would have been better spent by giving something of himself to our troops and scrutinizing the many so-called charities that propose to "support our troops". Instead it was an opportunity to do what so many of our left do to slam the evils of capitalism. Perhaps he is just teething like his child and will grow-up someday as he sees how the importance of creating a life for his family and that depends on the security afforded to us by young men and women posted in harm's way on our behalf. Though Mr. Salaita gives a nod the sanctity of the "selflessness" of those in uniform, I can advise that his critique might hold more water if he would have listed the many organizations (like Wounded Warriors) that put 100 percent of donations into the patriotic duty of helping those who have given so much in life, limb, and sometimes sanity, in our behalves.

Saturday, August 24, 2013

Priest Lake Idaho

Saturday, August 24, 2013:
NEXT WEEK

I am preparing for my annual trip to Priest Lake Idaho. It is almost a ritual for me and reunion with my family no matter how I get there. Bonnie might not be able to accompany me because of her recent heart surgery and my MD recommends I don’t drive due to a recent anomaly of my aorta that was found as recently as last Thursday. All of this came down so recently it caught me off guard; however, I must go no matter what. I have made the decision to take a train as far as Portland and to rent a car for the rest of the trip. This itinerary is a matter of convenience, as the train arrives at 2:43 am in Sandpoint and the closest proximity of a car rental agency is forty miles away in Coeur d’ Alain. The nearest alternative to that is Spokane, where the train arrives about an hour earlier. I can't see myself sitting in the station until the rental agency opens after sunrise. Besides those factors, the drive through the Columbia Gorge is one of the highest spiritual treats of the whole trip. I’d still get to Coolin Idaho in the middle of the night but in a car and I wouldn’t have to wake anybody up to come get me.

geo 5,445

Richard Dawkins is not an Islamophobe

Richard Dawkins is not an Islamophobe

Friday, August 23, 2013

Awake and Asleep

Friday, August 23, 2013:

The dharma that is taught and the dharma that is experienced are descriptions of how to live, how to use your life to wake you up rather than to put you to sleep. And if you choose to spend the rest of your life trying to find out what awake means and what asleep means, I think you might achieve enlightenment.
Wisdom of No Escape:
Pema Chödrön
&

When I was in the hospital this week the social worker asked me my religious preference. I have thought about it a few times and I have concluded that my background (the spiritual foundation of my faith) is Roman Catholic practiced within the structure of Buddhist methods to fulfill those principles. That makes me a Christian/Buddhist. However, as the Twelve Steps and Traditions of AA is the dharma that presented itself to me, I don’t pretend to be a Buddhist or anything else. The word, dharma, describes the path… the whole path within the context of our faith. A complete understanding of this concept is portrayed in the Gospel of Matthew (after the beatitudes from what is called the Sermon on the Mount) where the Carpenter asserted: Think not that I came to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am come not to destroy, but to fulfill. Christianity has taken its share of blows for the misuses of its basic premise based on “the Law” Christ was speaking of. That “Law”, described in the preceding sermon, is not only dear to Christians but is revered by many of those outside of the fold. To know and understand The Sermon on the Mount is the Christian dharma and to know and understand the meaning of it is to know and understand the meaning of awake and asleep. Later, in the same Gospel, it is written: Thou shalt love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the laws and the prophets.


geo 5,444

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Doggedly Human

The Nature of Mind

Do not make the mistake of imagining that the nature of mind is exclusive only to our minds. It is in fact the nature of everything. It can never be said too often that to realize the nature of mind is to realize the nature of all things.
Sogyal Rinpoche,
Glimpse After Glimpse

&

I heard a pundit of a talk show on the tube last night contend that a dog has no soul. Really? How do you know that? He then asked his guest, “Does a dog or cat go to heaven or hell?” I believe that this is the most ridiculous question I have ever heard. A dog has a dog’s mind. It is made of the same stuff that Einstein’s was made of. Perhaps a dog’s mind is simpler but a dog feels fear, a dog feels joy, and a dog feels love. Some tend to believe that these are exclusively human qualities and mistakenly believe that these are what make us human. Truthfully, what makes us human is our human-ness. What makes a dog is its dog-ness. We are given qualities and instincts that are best not thwarted with vaunted perceptions of ourselves. It turns out that our most selfish instincts are grounded in unselfish behavior.
geo 5,443


Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Muriel Hemingway, Tom Waits, and Four Fingers of Jack

Tuesday, August 20, 2013:

It was fifteen years ago this month that my life had taken an emotional tailspin. It was a Saturday… my day off. I had a construction job… a rehab… it was a Dr.’s house on the Riviera above the El Encanto. The day had gone well enough. As was my usual routine on Saturdays, I spent the first couple hours after ten a.m. at Mel’s. Going home early, with a good buzz, I stopped by a shop on lower State that resembled the old “head shops” of the sixties. It was only about a block away from my apartment. Somehow, in there, I met a smashingly gorgeous young woman and had invited her to my place to smoke a few joints. Amazed at my luck, she agreed to go! I don’t remember much of her visit except that I sat at my desk and she sat across the room on my couch. I told her she was as beautiful as Muriel Hemingway.

            She said, "Who?" She was too young to know who the fuck Muriel Hemingway was.

            I had a couple of cameras that I used for talking young women into doing some nude photography... some good friends or flings (but mostly bar-flies, prostitutes, and crack whores). I do know that I tried to talk her into posing for me but she politely declined. Hell, I had just turned fifty-two and she couldn’t have been much older than twenty. What had been a pleasant interlude with a curious, perhaps interesting, ancient, man had most probably become a disgusting proposition for at least three reasons; 1. I remember how I felt about people over thirty when I was twenty, and 2. she was not a bar fly, prostitute or crack whore. 3. A grubby, unshaven low-life with bad teeth was... well, you girls know.

             She left after a few joints and I had given her a few buds in a small zip-lock bag. She promised to come back… I believe. However, she never did.

            After she was gone, I remember sitting at my desk doing what I loved doing the most back then: writing in my journal, smoking bowls of pot accompanied by four-fingers of Jack in a mug topped off the rest of the way with beer, and playing Tom Waits loud!. That girl was gorgeous; the pot and Jack Daniels most likely enhanced how she looked… imagine a dish like Muriel Hemingway in my dive! I put a pot of beans on the burner to make some chili and passed out on the couch.

            I awoke to the smoke of beans frying and popping in the pot on the range. I sat there after dousing the smoking beans and I thought, "Why don’t I go back to the shop and find her. I didn't try hard enough to bag her... maybe if I put on the charm..." It seemed then like a perfectly good idea at the time to me.

           So I roamed State Street looking for her, checking out O’Malley’s, the Alpha and Radd Thrift stores, and all the clothing and antique shops between there and Mel’s with the persistence of a blood hound. I eventually gave up and headed back home.  I checked with the clerk at the "head-shop" one more time. It was then that I blacked-out.

          I can vaguely remember coming out of the black-out... slipping out at the end of a Tourette’s syndrome act…. yelling at tourists scurrying out of my path... staggering toward my place... coming to from a state of mind in which I caught this character in my skin shouting at the top of his lungs; “Don’t you know who I am!” I can imagine the sight… how it must have looked to them… a drunk waving his hands and flipping them off! I was about a block away from home when I spotted the bicycle cop across the street. He was coming right at me.

            I snapped out of my Tourette’s mode politely into my Mr. Manners mode. I  apologized… Amazingly, I still possessed enough sense to do explain to the cop that I had a few drinks too many and that I knew my behavior got out of line. I pointed out that my I.D.’s address showed I was only a block away from home and begged him, "I'll be fine if you would please let me get home… I'll hit the sack," I promised, "I won't cause any more trouble."

           Yes, I went to jail that afternoon. On the way I got pissed that I was going to jail and my Mr. Manners forgot all his niceties and began to rant against my demise into another black-out. My Bad Ass character came out. Cops must get that all the time because they did not respond to his taunts… calling them Communist Nazi’s, challenging their sexuality and so on. Even in the holding cell, he ranted into the night until the Correctional Officer tired of all the noise he was making, “C’mon," he  demanded, "take off that badge and let’s go mano y mano!”

          The officer pretended to accept the challenge, opened the door to the cell, and took off his badge. “Okay, punk. Feel froggy do you? Then leap!”

          That shocked me out of Mr. Bad Ass mode and I immediately, and obediently, shut my mouth.

           Later, as I was being processed, photographed and finger printed (Mr. Bad Ass had refused to do so the night before), I was contrite and embarrassed as I put together the events of the day before. How did I get so crazy? I must have known that much. But, what I didn't know then was that I only had two more good drunks left in me afterwards. I had to suffer some more between that time and ...

geo, 5,440

            

Monday, August 19, 2013

Gentle With Ourselves

Monday, August 19, 2013:

Again and again we need to appreciate the subtle workings of the teachings and the practice, and even when there is no extraordinary, dramatic change, to persevere with calm and patience. How important it is to be skillful and gentle with ourselves, without becoming disheartened or giving up, but trusting the spiritual path and knowing that it has its own laws and its own dynamic.
Sogyal Rinpoche

&

I know that Sogyal Rinpoche was speaking of perseverance but being gentle with myself also encompasses everything I do that I do well. That isn’t to say that I don’t look at myself with an unjaundiced eye. I mean to say that, when I do I look without being nasty with myself or others, I do well. My favorite painting instructor, Ken Knack, was one of those great teachers for folks like me. He had a good instinct for criticism of our work that pointed out what we were doing right on the canvass and, by implication, we grasped what didn't work. I understand that there are those who don’t respond well to this kind of teaching. That is fine with me… they want to be told what they are doing wrong with every brushstroke, color of paint, and composition. This spirit also seems to be prevalent in the ones who need a guru to help them along with their practice. This is an instinct that is as human as the evolution of our central nervous system and it can be a good thing with positive results. I'm certainly not knocking them. However, their greatest obstacle to growth is that there is always the tendency in these to seek out a “Great Teacher” or blindly join movements.  This is true whether they are saved by motivational speakers; a leader that soothes with smooth presentations in self-esteem seminars; or yield themselves to any preacher that pounds the pulpit well. 
    The artists, the poets, the "Christs" of any consequence don’t exactly march to the beat of a different drummer as much as they walk and dance to the drummer of the cosmos. Sometimes they do gather around themselves disciples but, for the most part, they let their works speak for themselves and encourage us to do so too on our own. If we were taught anything in the twentieth century, it was the horrible consequences of yielding our hearts and minds to the Jim Joneses or Adolf Hitlers of the world. If we are gentle and true to ourselves we can be truly freed by the spirit compassion. I personally abhor any political, religious, or spiritual, movement that demands I abandon reason or cede my will to another (whether it is a conclave of bishops or elders, a committee, an individual, or an ideal). The Heart of Compassion is open and clear on this point. We can't be taken advantage of once we understand that we it is more important to be kind with ourselves than it is to be rigidly obedient to any cause or individual. 

geo 5,439

Sunday, August 18, 2013

Fiction is no Lie

Sunday, August 18, 2013:

My morning usually begins with putting on the coffee and then sitting on my cushion for a few minutes of prayer and meditation. I then read a few spiritual texts and, after finishing that, I try to find something suitable for this blog to expand on with my own experience. I do this no matter how I feel because I have established this routine over the years as a regular practice. I write these meditations hoping to connect with, inspire and encourage, others of like mind. But I definitely do not try to convert anyone to my way of thinking. I don’t speculate on things I haven’t had direct experience with and stay within the scope of practical application of my practice. There is nothing mysterious I wish to convince anyone of and, when I can, I touch lightly on what is going on in the world around me.
This is essentially a self-centered activity that is rewarding in the training of the mind by sticking to these principles: #1. Never write about things I don’t know. #2.  Don’t take myself so damned seriously. #3.Never forget rule #1. 
I pour myself another cup of coffee after I have posted this blog and work on whatever is my current novel. Novels are where I can speculate, opine, and make-up characters that have experiences similar to mine but I can play around with a variety of alternatives that can be taken from those. Seeing things through a handful of fictional characters’ eyes has the effect of expanding my mind to other ways of thinking. I don’t have to speculate too much on this because most of what goes on in my head and heart is already there. However, I rarely have to act on every impulse that crosses my mind because the characters I create can. This too is a self-centered activity. As in a Jungian interpretation of dreams, all the characters in the dream are that of the dreamer. Ahab is as much a part of Melville’s soul as are Queequeg, Starbuck or Ishmael. Fiction is no lie. It comes down to knowing one’s self… knowing one’s self down to the core. When I hear others making up things about God or religion I can understand that even though their concept of God might be fiction, it is no lie. One's beliefs, as errant as they might be, speak volumes about that person's character... more than anything else. This is why I love fiction… writing it and reading it. So, dear preacher, tell me a good lie if you can't tell me the truth, but dammit, make it a good lie!
geo 5,438


Friday, August 16, 2013

Negate the Negative

Friday, August 16, 2013:

The Tibetan mystic, Tertön Sogyal, said that he was not really impressed by someone who could turn the floor into the ceiling or fire into water. A real miracle, he said, was if someone could liberate just one negative emotion.
Sogyal Rinpoche

Having been raised in the Catholic Religion, I had this idea I gleaned from stories of the Saints, that a spiritual connection with God had to be sudden and miraculous; like a beam of light from a cloud in heaven. A miracle was raising the dead, healing the sick, or calling down fire to smite the heathen. One of the most beautiful chapters of the Christian Bible has to be 1 Corinthians, chpt. 13 that reads: Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels, and have not charity (i.e., love or compassion), I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophesy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing, And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profits me nothing.
            That chapter continues to describe what compassion looks like; it is kind; humble; open-minded; patient; minds its own business; makes no excuses; is forgiving; and so on. It takes a miracle far more profound than any of the aforementioned to be in this state of liberation at all times and it takes discipline. During WWII radar was very primitive. It directed a beam towards the intended target and bombers simply read the beam. If on the beam, a light on the console came on; and, if off to one side or the other, another warning showed itself. Compassion is like that. When I am on or off a light comes on or off. This is called awareness and emotional balance. At first I sometimes needed someone else to point out those alarms to me but soon I became accustomed to seeing for myself when anger and discontent took me off the beam. It is a miracle to be able to stay on beam at all times but it gets me where I want to go. The positive beam negates the negative if I stick at it and make the necessary adjustments as I fly into the realm of the spirit.

geo 5,436

Thursday, August 15, 2013

The Light of Wisdom

Thursday, August 15, 2013:

“It (wisdom) is like a lamp, O King, which a man might introduce into a house in darkness. When the lamp had been brought in it would dispel the darkness, cause radiance to arise, and light to shine forth, and make the objects there plainly visible. Just so would wisdom in a man have such efforts as were just now set forth.
Milindapañha 39

&

There is nothing arcane, esoteric or secret about wisdom. It is there in my face all of the time. I know, that if I’m honest with myself, it is hard to grasp the idea of God. Unless I get into some sort of “make believe” I don’t really believe in anything I can’t touch with my senses; hear, see, touch, smell, or taste. I might imagine it in my mind but, no matter how hard I try to convince myself or others, my faith is in what I know to be true. This is where wisdom enters a dark room for me and this is where it shows itself in compassion. Compassion and wisdom are the same to me and the Heart of Compassion is what I touch on when I enter the dark night of my soul. I enter the door to this room through my senses: I breathe; sit; listen for my heart-beat; feel the air as it passes… inhaling… exhaling; taste the clarity of it. The mind puts all these together as a composite. Aware and awake it opens up and connects with the Spirit of Compassion… mine to thine. As I rise and go out to meet others, I take this clarity with me… the clear mind of wisdom shakes my preconceptions and opens my heart to what is before me and takes it inside. That is what it is meant by union… or yoga, if you like. This isn’t about belonging to an exclusive group, smugly separating ourselves from others outside of “the Faith”. It isn’t about worshiping God, Goddesses or gods… it is about joining the Human Species (I don’t call it the Human Race because we aren’t a race). God isn’t “out or up" there in the light of the Heart of Compassion.

geo 5,435

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

An Active Calm

Wednesday, August 14, 2013:
Zoning out on a Zardoz Death March
We say, “In calmness there should be activity; in activity there should be calmness.” Actually, they are the same thing; to say “calmness” or to say “activity” is just to express two different interpretations of one fact. There is harmony in our activity, and where there is harmony there is calmness. This harmony is the quality of being. But the quality of being is also nothing but its speedy activity.
Shunryu Suzuki;
Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind

&

In another one of my morning meditation readings the topic was, “Alert, alert; yet relax, relax.” This admonition seems to be a paradox at first glance because the duos; relax and alert, activity and calm, are opposite ends of a polarity. I laughed at a bumper sticker I once saw that read, “Jesus is coming, look busy!” This is the same idea even though it is tongue in cheek.
            I don’t sit in meditation to “zone out”. The idea is to become alert and calm; to stand back… straighten the spine… lower the shoulders… and breathe objectively. Any problem I have that encircles the mind like a labyrinth of confusion and doubt, in most cases, and can’t… won’t be solved with panic. The same problem can’t be tackled by the paralyses of analyses either. A core sense of calm is displayed by employing a walking meditation in my practice. Moving, yet unmoved, I take each step; placing the heel and rolling the foot to the toes, in union with my breath. It is no zombie death march (as in the kitschy flick, Zardoz). It is a living... pleasant to do on a forest trail where no one is watching… walking… breathing… step by step… so sweet is the mountain air… it can be tasted! Alert, the eyes see the wonder of it… the ears hear the music of chipmonks chipmonking and birds birding… moving my body centered, I am calm and alert at once…. A human being, being human.
geo 5434


Monday, August 12, 2013

Big Al

Monday, August 12, 2013:
I don’t mean to elevate Big Al to sainthood, but today is his Sobriety Date. He returned to where we all come from in June of 2004; almost a year after his twentieth year of sobriety. He was suffering from diabetes… he had been whittled away one toe at a time. He said that all he wanted to do was to make it to twenty years and any time after that the Lord can take him (Al's religion was 1. Raiders football, 2. Catholic, and, 3. some Chumash spirituality thrown in [in that order). I hope he is where he can be still watching his beloved Raiders.
I bring Big Al up today because he remains an important influence on my early sobriety, and he is a friend that still lives in many other’s hearts as well as mine. Back when I drove cab on the graveyard shift, I’d stop by the Sobriety Center and shoot the shit with him in the middle of the night. We had plenty laughs and sometimes some serious talks. He once told me that I’d be a calming influence on that cute girl, Bonnie R. I had to laugh because I didn’t think of myself as a calm guy.
My insides didn’t match my outsides at that time. I was in a hopeless affair with a dancer from the Spearmint Rhino… Yeh, in old school speak, a stripper (still smoking crack and muscle popping tar). She’d been living with me for about three months. My heart was in turmoil but I kept up a nice façade... maybe I did look like a “calming influence”.
I was, in truth, anything but that. Bonnie and I became good friends after he mentioned that cute girl. She’d invite me over to her place to do little chores like changing light bulbs for a couple years after that. It is funny how these things tie together. It wasn’t until March of 2007 that Bonnie and I finally became officially an “item”… an AA romance. I feel that Big Al was, not only an important part of my sobriety, but he was also instrumental in Bonnie becoming my dearest one. Every anniversary of Big Al’s sobriety date, I give him a nod of gratitude. Here’s to you Big Al… football season is about to start and I sense that you have been granted a seat on the fifty-yard line!

geo 5,432

Sunday, August 11, 2013

Godshit/Dogshit in My Pocket

Sunday, August 11, 2013:

[Aranyabho] had a sheepish grin on his face as Ahjahn Chah was good naturedly berating him. As I sat down Ahjahn Chah said, “Aranyabho’s got dogshit in his pocket.” I didn’t say anything, waiting for the explanation. “Aranyabho’s got dogshit in his pocket. He goes somewhere and sits down but there’s a bad smell, so he thinks, hmmm, this place is no good. He gets up and goes somewhere else, but he notices the bad smell again so then he goes somewhere else… He doesn’t realize he’s carrying dogshit around with him wherever he goes…”
Paul Breiter;
Venerable Father
&

Of course, when I read something like this… something very cleverly put that has some sort of dolt as the object of derision, I am sure it isn’t about me. “Yes, it must be about those other stupid fools,” I smugly say to myself.
            Sometimes, when I sit honestly with naked humility, I can see through the mist to clarity of mind… a clarity of mind that senses my own ridiculousness. I get it…. I have sat down with the odor of dogshit in my pocket… I have brought with me in my clothes preconceived notions… a paradigm of beliefs about myself… about myself or the dogshit I have accumulated… the Godshit that says to me "I need to improve myself"... that I am not doing it right… that there must be a better way to do this: I chase ideas, teachers, and dharmas of different colors. I do everything required… I am not alone in this: damn, I can’t count on my fingers and toes the amount of times I have heard from one of my fellow alcoholics/addicts… "I did everything my sponsor asked me to do, I diligently worked the Steps, I made all my amends, I prayed every morning for God to help me stay sober, I went to three meetings a day and sponsored several others… but I still went out when temptation was too great. Where did I go wrong? Maybe 'the Program' isn’t for me."
            It is difficult to respond to the poor soul. The answer is as elusive as holding water in one’s hand. My heart goes out to those who are struggling because I know how he/she feels. I have felt at times exactly the same way… that I am unhappy doing what I’m doing and I must try something else... I have had all of these feelings except that I haven’t picked up a drink, yet. When I go somewhere else I bring myself; my own dogshit in my pocket. The smell doesn’t go away and it isn’t enough to discard the crap. The odor remains until I cast of the jacket; the delusion that there is somewhere else to go; some practice; something I am missing.
I sit and breathe. I sit and breathe in the understanding that I am enough. I’ve done enough; that the world of wonder isn’t right before me… it is me… that God isn’t somewhere else… that I am not created by God… the universe… the cosmos… but I am a seedling that grows from it. My very heartbeat is the conscious expression of the dance of Creation; nothing more and nothing less.
To connect with the realization I am that and that was enough and that was more important than mere abstinence from drinking and using: these were but the dogshit in my pocket. I got rid of this notion that i was trying to get sober and that it was to cast off the cloak of my beliefs… this Godshit of delusion and the obsession to drink or pick-up; to trade it for union with a Power greater than that old sinking jacket I call myself and I sat with my nakedness.

geo 5,431

Saturday, August 10, 2013

A Set of Waves

Saturday, August 10, 2013:
This existence of ours is as transient as autumn clouds.
To watch the birth and death of beings is like looking at
     the movements of a dance.
A lifetime is like a flash of lightening in the sky,
Rushing by, like a torrent down a steep mountain.
Attributed to the Buddha
By Sogyal Rinpoche
 in Glimpse After Glimpse
&

I was reading an article yesterday on the earliest migrations of homo-sapiens from Africa in an old Archaeology magazine I keep in a rack next to the toilet. The estimation of that event keeps getting pushed back… now it is about 125,000 years ago. That is only 75,000 years after evolving from homo-erectus 200,000 years ago. But, in the big picture, this is nothing. Neanderthals were walking around Europe for a million years before these newcomers arrived. Then, since it was my birthday, I thought of the sixty-seven completed orbits around the sun that I have been enjoying. That brought me to think of how long this beautiful planet has been in this orbit: that is estimated to be about 4.5 billion years. It is hard to imagine those numbers… hell, a million years is an infinite number compared to my brief span: the dinosaurs left us only sixty-million years ago. How brief have the millenniums and centuries of agriculture… societies … cities… religious institutions that had all the answers… civilizations and nations claiming to be eternal that have come and gone… how short a period these have all these been?… and so on.
            There was a time when this would have caused me to despair as I’d sink into feelings of insignificance… by the hopelessness of it all… my life a mere spark… at the thought of it overwhelmed me. But it was in that instance I saw the glory of it… the wonder of life... the gift of these few precious years… a sense of gratitude and awe opened my heart to the realization that time is marching on whether I want it to or not so I might as well ride it like my brief span here is but the one wave in a billion sets of waves that I can ride: so, I surf on the wonder of it all!

geo 5,430

Friday, August 9, 2013

Sixty-Seven Orbits on this Rock Around Sol Today

Friday, August 9, 2013:

67 spins around ole' Sol on this rock today. My GAWD, who would have thunk I'd make it this far? I am so grateful to be here today. I love my life. I love my family (Mom and Dad) more and more each year; yes, all of you in who have touched my life on the road; jabbered with me into the wee hours of the night (yes, you Robyn); to the fop of a King, Juan Carlos (an inside joke); all the cab drivers I've worked with, Jim; and bar-tenders; restaurant waitresses that passed a free cup of coffee to me when I was down and out; to the Fellowship of AA; all the nurses and Drs that made it possible for me to make it through some rough times; for the sustaining light of my life, Alanna and her mother, Carrie; and, equal to them, my dearest lover, companion, and friend, Bonnie; and for the Heart of Compassion that surely lives in each of these.

geo 5,429

Thursday, August 8, 2013

Spiritual Pride

Thursday, August 8, 2013:

We scarcely need to be reminded that guilt or rebellion leads to spiritual poverty. But it was a very long time before we knew we could go even more broke on spiritual pride…
The Best of Bill;
Humility, p. 39
&

False pride and false humility are siblings… conjoined twins. One leads to the other in some sneaky ways that others can spot in us pretty easily but, more often than, not I am blind to its corruption in myself. I find it amusing that it is so very common among political or religious true believers to see it in the opposition but are willingly blind to it in themselves. I have found that this blindness cripples me and that maiming extends all the way up the ladder to the way my other beliefs are employed. It is important that I don’t chide myself for getting pumped up in false pride but to see instead how it began with a real and honest pride that was earned in some cases. Otherwise, I can slip into false humility about what I have actually accomplished.
            A good example of this was how shocked the public was when Cassius Clay boasted, “I am the greatest!” and then proceeded to deck Sonny Liston in the first few minutes of the first round. Not only were we taken aback by his proclamation of greatness but were stunned when, as Mohammed Ali, he displayed his ability in the ring before our eyes. Afterwards, he didn’t shy away with an “Awe shucks,” but took credit for what he did to reaffirm his self-appraisal. Had he not acknowledged what he’d done, he would have limited himself with false humility in our eyes. 
           Maybe this example is a bit obscure... False pride evolved from his early evaluation later in his career when he faced George Foreman. That is another story and I don't want to get lost in this analogy. I just love thinking about how Cassius Clay shook up the white establishment of his day... decked "the Bear" and, added to us insult to well deserved injury, to become Mohammed Ali. Yes, I might be the only person now that can admit to betting against him twice back then.
            The poverty of false pride or humility creates obstacles that thwart spiritual progress. I try not to get into my evaluation of it in a moral sense, thus creating unnecessary guilt. We are admonished to strive for spiritual progress and to stay away from striving for spiritual perfection. Nothing of any value at all can be accomplished without taking pride in my labors; to strive always to improve my skills and to never become satisfied with less than that while I am able makes life enjoyable and worthy of a pride that transcends the mundane. There will come a time when age takes away physical and mental agility and strength to persevere. The door shuts but it does me no good at all to accept limitations imposed by a misguided sense of false humility. Spiritual progress is contingent on practice… practice… practice… while I am able. I practice now so that when all my other God-given talents dissipate with time and the only choice left for me is to go out a grumpy old man or a gentle and compassionate one.

geo 5,428

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

A Great Fact For Us

Wednesday, August 7, 2013:

Our book is meant to be suggestive only. We realize we know only a little. God will constantly disclose more to you and to us. Ask him in your morning meditation what you can do for the man who is still sick. The answers will come, if your own house is in order. But obviously you cannot transmit something you haven’t got. See to it that your relationship with Him is right, and great events will come to pass for you and countless others. This is a Great Fact for us.
Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 164

&

At the time the book this quote comes from was published, only a handful of people called themselves members of this obscure Fellowship. Yesterday, I sat in meditation with my Fellowship. Afterwards, one of us shared that she has no dogma except for the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of AA and even that dogma is her personal practice. I thought about what “dogma” meant and it occurred to me: The difference is that Dogma is a set of beliefs figuratively set in stone. A dogma is a belief commonly held by a group and it usually takes an act of faith to believe; i.e., life after death for the righteous, reincarnation, or the transfiguration of wine into the blood of Christ. We take it on faith that someone before us has experienced these “mysteries”. Another dogma is one that proclaims its Book, (the Koran; Sutras; Vedas; scriptures or Bible) is divinely inspired and that every word of it is sacred. Very few religious fanatics... true believers... would say that their Book is suggestive only. That is exactly why faith in our book isn't a dogma.
Bill Wilson rolls over in his grave, so to speak, when some of us speak of the Big Book as our Bible. It was considered by him, and the early Fellowship of Alcoholics, to be a text book, a manual, a blue-print instead. It is a guide, one of many, for recovery from alcoholic. We don’t have a monopoly on this truth in the same spirit that some Hindus or Buddhists believe that their Vedas and Sutras as road maps of the territory, a Great Fact, to be traveled for enlightenment. Once on the road, everything on that map… the territory it describes, is one that will be experienced by the traveler. The Great Fact for us is that our suggestions will lead us in the direction of recovery and nothing beyond that.

geo 5,427

Monday, August 5, 2013

Mindlessly Mindful

Monday, August 5, 2013:

When you let go it is like cutting a kite from its cord. But even without its cord, the kite still comes back, like a parachute landing on you. You feel a sense of fluidity and things begin to circulate so wonderfully. Nothing is being dealt with in any form of innuendo, or in undercurrents. There is no sense of someone working the politics behind the scenes. Everything is completely free flowing. It is so wonderful --- and you can do it. That is precisely what we mean when we talk about genuineness. You can be so absolutely good at giving, and so good at taking. It is interesting.

Training the Mind;
The Main Practice,
Chogyam Trungpa

&

It isn’t so very difficult to be mindful but, thwarted by self-centered motives, mindfulness slips through my fingers like cupping water to drink. It is there one minute and, if I try to hold on to it, my hands will be empty before I can drink of it. When I give, am I giving to feel good about myself or do I give to simply give? If I am thirsty, I drink. When a need is there that needs filling, I fill it, when I am acting without strings attached to my actions. Mindlessly mindful, the stream flows through my cupped hands and I lift the refreshment in cupped hands to my mouth without pausing to think of how my thirst will be quenched. Whether or not it will be quenched doesn’t matter in the moment. Whether or not I will be any happier with myself as I give doesn’t matter either. Free of guilt for not giving, as well as feeling righteous for giving, are no longer attachments that turn charity into a self-aggrandizing egoism. The words of the Carpenter apply well in this case: “When you do alms, let not thy left hand know what your right hand does.”(Matthew 6:3)


geo 5,424

Sunday, August 4, 2013

No Longer Slaying Dragons

Sunday, August 4, 2013:

Enlightenment is real, and there are enlightened masters still on the earth. When you actually meet one, you will be shaken and moved in the depths of your heart and you will realize all the words, such as illumination and wisdom, that you thought were only ideas are in fact true.
Sogyal Rinpoche

Shaken and moved… isn’t that what we want from art… Shaken and disturbed instead, slaying dragons, I tried to shock and to amuse at once… but shaken and moved? No… but now a quiet haiku moves me. Otherwise; a painting by Picasso, Francis Bacon or Jean-Michael Basquiat; a poem by Alan Ginsberg or William Blake; the “I have a Dream” speech by Martin Luther King; a song cried out by Billy Holiday; the trumpet of Louis Armstrong; a guitar solo by Segovia; a violin virtuoso the ilk of Yitzhak Perlman or Isaak Stern; a Bach Fugue; a John Coltrane and Dizzy Gillespie bebop; the piano keys danced on by Thelonious Monk; a Chuck Berry Duck Walk; a novel by Jack Kerouac; Elvis (before he got fat), Marlon Brando too; and so on: these, for all times, brake through the moral bleakness of my anger and contempt. I knew there was something to it when I was a young man, even though I thought of being shocked and moved... to being as disturbed as possible, in order to be shaken from the mundane.
            Sometimes I read blogs and posts on facebook and see myself twenty, most certainly, thirty years ago. I had to not only make a difference but I had to be different. Shocking and moving with political astuteness, I had only a surface recognition of spiritual mastership, thinking I was above the common crowd because I had a just cause. Disillusionment (turned to bitterness with both), artistic as well as social causes, took me out of the mix. My soul had sunk so deep that it had nowhere else to go but up. I then sought instead to be shaken and moved at the core of my being.
            I now believe it is a good thing that youth embraces a cause. But causes will cement our consciousness if we don’t find somehow to be shaken and moved from them. It was once said by somebody… it doesn’t matter who said it (it has been attributed to everyone from Benjamin Franklin to Abraham Lincoln); “Anyone who is not a socialist before he is thirty has no heart. Anyone who is still a socialist after thirty has no brain.” I would venture to say that heart and soul kept malleable… open to change… open to vehicles of change, is the secret that is not so secret, to enlightenment. Once that is done, no longer slaying dragons... once there, the bum asking for spare change might just be my enlightened master today and I see the Heart of Compassion everywhere.
geo 5,424


Saturday, August 3, 2013

No Man Can Save Another

Saturday, August 3, 2013:

By self alone is evil done, by self alone does one suffer.
By self alone is evil left undone, by self alone does one obtain
   Salvation.
Salvation and perdition depend upon self; no man can save
   another.
Dhammapada 163
&

I won’t give him the honor of mentioning his name, but, I saw a few clips of the trial of the guy who kidnapped three girls and held them captive in his basement for over a decade of their lives. He abused one to the extent that he caused a miscarriage (i.e., in other words, murdered the child inside of her womb by repeatedly punching and kicking her stomach). The court allowed him to enter a plea of guilty to 22 counts, in lieu of charging him with murder too, thus relieving him of a death sentence. He was, however, allowed to make a statement at his sentencing in which he tried to excuse these monstrous acts by insisting he is a sex addict and not a monster; that he has a disease and should not be held in contempt; as though this wasn’t enough, he also insisted that he did not rape these girls but that the sexual acts he forced on them was consensual.
            While this whole charade is outrageous, many of us use identical claims when caught with our hands in the cookie jar. “I couldn’t help myself… the cookies were so tempting… and it was mom’s fault; the jar should not have been left out within my reach… she actually wanted me to take them!” We see the Mayor of San Diego making similar claims, as well as many celebrity alcoholics and addicts, doing so too.
The medical community is still debating whether there is such a thing as sex addiction (most consider it to be tangential to an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). It doesn’t really matter much at all. Calling sex addiction, alcoholism, drug abuse or gambling, a disease doesn’t excuse anyone from responsibility for this behavior… especially on the scale of this monster. It means that we need treatment and, because it is causing all kinds of repercussions in our lives, we need to take responsibility for it. I.e., it is no excuse to say to one’s wife or husband when one’s wiener is caught exposed to the world at large via a text message, “Sorry honey, but I have a disease and can’t control my urges.” This is the worst form of denial because we think we have solved our problem by confessing to it when we are actually just making an excuse for it. Confession is only good for the soul when we become willing to do something about it. Furthermore, disease or not, two weeks in a recovery spa ain’t gonna do the trick either.
Thankfully, this monster is going to spend the rest of his life in prison. In such cases I can’t help but to think of Richard Speck. He was the monster that killed several nurses back in the sixties. He served a life sentence… got breast implants… even made a video in his cell with his butt-boy that was put out to the public in which he taunted us by claiming he was having a great time at our expense. I believe that loving kindness must extend to all involved (his victims as well as this walking bag of dung) and that it might even to be more merciful to take this particular turd out. A death sentence might be a shortcut for his karma and give him a chance to work it out on a cosmic level. There is no way to eradicate his karma in this lifetime... and mine for judging him so harshly.
geo 5,423


Friday, August 2, 2013

The Sweet Music of Service

Friday, August 2, 2013:
PSALM 190
A psalm of praise

Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.
Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence
with singing.
Know ye that the Lord is God; it is he that hath made us,
and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep
of his pasture.
Enter his gates with thanks giving, and into his courts
with praise; be thankful unto him, and bless his name.
For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth
endureth to all generations.
Psalm 190
King James Version
&

I’ve found useful truth in the Bible, even though I usually have to degenderize references to the “Lord” and so on. I also believe that it is within our consciousness that we find the cosmic reality of a Higher Power and that this implies that we are co-creators… participants of creation. Putting those differences aside, I can enjoy the meaning of this psalm. While worship is a serious and respectful practice, it isn’t as solemn as some would insist. Joyful music, grateful creativity and pleasure, with a song in my heart, elevates me from the drudgery of our practice from it being a religious obligation. Taking my religious beliefs, and myself, lightly leads me to draw the conclusion that most of the harm religion has done arises from taking ourselves and our beliefs far too seriously. Approaching service joyfully is hard to do without a sense of gratitude and humility. It is also hard to sustain such humility with any endurance without a connection to a Power greater than ourselves. It is wise for me to remember that even angels couldn’t fly if they didn’t take themselves lightly.

geo 5,422

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Near Death Experience

Thursday, August 1, 2013: 
One of the most important revelations of the near-death experience is how it transforms the lives of those who have been through it. One man said:
            “I was transformed from a man who was lost and wandering aimlessly, with no goal in life other than a desire for material wealth, to someone who had a deep motivation, a purpose in life, a definite direction, and an overwhelming conviction that there would be a reward at the end of my life. My interest in material wealth and greed for possessions were replaced by a thirst for spiritual understanding and a passionate desire to see world conditions to improve.”
Sogyal Rinpoche
&

Please, these observations are just that… not preaching; not soliciting sympathy; not an argument of any kind that is meant to contradict anyone else’s experience. I am simply laying out how it happens for more than a few of us.
My first near death experience happened when I was twenty-one. Years before then I had, at one time, many of the spiritual ideals the Rinpoche speaks of but, disillusioned (while serving in the Navy), I was lost to the despair of alcoholism. The near-death experience I had did nothing to change where I was going with my life except to sink further into my addictions after taking several stabs at spirituality. It was only after a direct experience with the Heart of Compassion that I was able to change and to build a life. When the life I had worked so hard to create fell apart, I had my second near-death experience. Instead of drawing my heart closer, I was driven further into the morass of desperation… having had faith and lost it. It took over a decade of wandering in the wilderness to get grounded once more. But this had little or nothing to do with any sort of near-death experience except by default.
I say this not to contradict the Rinpoche, but, because I have found that alcoholics and addicts are not unfamiliar with death nor do they fear or are changed by it in the way that “normal” folks are. It doesn’t necessarily work universally, or as smoothly, as any sane person would suppose. I have heard from more than a few addicts say that they could hardly wait to get out of the I.C.U. from an overdose to score another bag of whatever it was that got them there. For us, near-death experiences, sabotaging careers, abandoning families and friends, and losing all material possessions, isn’t enough to stop us.
Hitting bottom has nothing to do with losing any of those things because an alcoholic or an addict has no attachment strong enough to replace what is gotten by that momentary relief from despair their drug of choice provides. Hitting bottom is for us an inside job. The incomprehensible demoralization… the humiliation… these are what drives most of us to our knees. Getting any of those things back is not what rescues us either. It is only surrender… the surrender of humility and the grace of a loving God that has any chance of changing our lives.


geo 5,421