Confession

Monday, September 30, 2013:

Negligence produces a lot of dirt. As in a house, so in the mind, only a very little dirt collects in a day or two, but if it goes on for many years, it will grow into a vast heap of refuse.

Sutta Nipãta; 

Commentary to Verse 334

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The one 0f the most beneficial practices of the Catholic Church for me was the Sacrament of Confession. It could have been a house cleaning if it would have been done properly. Unfortunately, the simple act of making it a ritualistic sacrament became a roadblock to any authentic confession: i.e., after rolling out a litany of sins, the penitent was sent out of the booth with an Act of Contrition to pay an indulgence of a Rosary or a couple of prayers from the catechism. However, ritualizing an honest self-appraisal had the effect of causing me to separate myself from the positive aspects of an inventory and trivialized the act of making any meaningful amends. A thorough housecleaning became a mere show… a performance for the benefit of appearances. It reminds me of a bit out of Tortilla Flats by John Steinbeck where the woman of the house uses a vacuum cleaner without a motor to give her neighbors the impression that she has a vacuum cleaner.

            A self-appraisal doesn’t have to be any more serious than taking a broom to my kitchen floor. In fact, taking a broom to my kitchen floor can become an act of meditation on its own. The idea of a thorough Tenth Step (the Step in which we AA’s give ourselves a good look-see when our day is done) is important for my mental stability. To be honest, I do a minimum of house-cleaning until I have company coming over, but I have less to do and the task is done easier if I stay ahead of it. Translated to keeping up with the clutter in my mind, I find that some kind of a daily practice of honestly and openly admitting or acknowledging my faults to another human being every now and then, is far superior to any ritualistic performance for the sake of others.

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The Great Adventure, the Vocation of Life

Thursday, September 26, 2013:

To recognize the nature of your mind is to engender in the ground of your being an understanding that will change your entire worldview and help you discover and develop, naturally and spontaneously, a compassionate desire to serve all beings, as well as a direct knowledge of how best to do so, with whatever skill or ability you have, in whatever circumstances you find yourself.

Sogyal Rinpoche

Glimpse After Glimpse

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It was around the time all good Catholics got the slap on the face by the Bishop and took the Confirmation Sacrament. The priest came to our Catechism class after that slap and gave the boys “the talk”. No, ‘the talk” wasn’t about the birds and the bees; it was about committing ourselves to a Vocation. A Vocation is "Catholic speak" for the Priesthood or entering an order to become a monk. The talk was quite serious and it caused me to consider what it was that I could commit my life to. I believe I might have considered the priesthood… or entertained the idea of cloistering myself in a monastery… at least until my adolescent hormones awoke in me a desire that wasn’t at all about the celibacy of taking “the vows”. But, instead, I began to think about a vocation as a lifetime commitment to a higher calling outside of  Churchy business. I understand now that a vocation can be akin to what Joseph Campbell meant by his admonition to “follow your bliss”.

            We think, in the secular world, that a vocation is the same as a career. We speak of “vocational training” as preparing us for a job and a job can be a trade or any occupation: Yeh, an occupation, like we are temporarily claiming a territory. Perhaps that priest poisoned my thinking but a vocation has always meant to me a higher calling above and beyond how I put food on the table. If I follow my bliss it doesn’t matter how I put food on the table or what I do with my hands if what I am doing serves that higher calling. Following my bliss isn't merely about what we used to say in the sixties, "Doing your thing." I am grateful for that lecture so long ago because what that priest infused in me was to seek out that which it would be that is powerful enough to compel in my heart the adventure of a calling beyond "doing my thing".

            The time will come when I will go to the grave and, whether or not I succeed or fail in my calling, I will have the satisfaction that I didn’t throw away the one chance I had at the adventure I was called to in my life. The chanteuse, Edith Piaf, sang it so well with all her heart, No Regrets. That is the greatest blessing I have to hold on to; I have loved and I have been loved. To the best of my skills and abilities, I have been on the great adventure of life.

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The Realm of Adventure

Wednesday, September 25, 2013:

I can admit that I just don’t get it. At the core of my being I have no idea at all what I am doing here. I start my day with prayer and meditation and have no understanding whatsoever whether or not it actually makes a difference or why I should do so. I sit down at my desk and write out my thoughts, post them on my blog, and then send the link to facebook. I do it out of habit… it goes with my cup of coffee. By the time I’m done writing this, the keyboard is warmed up enough so that I can go to work on the novel. 

   I go to work on the novel because I get anxious if I don’t. I get anxious and impatient and sometimes I take out my frustration on others. If I am not weaving and sculpting words into a form, I feel empty. I don’t know what others should do, but, if they do feel the way I feel about life, if it is an empty canvass, a bardo, a space between the breath of birth and death, and needs filling, I would like it if everyone I know would fall for a muse as demanding as mine (whether the muse demands chopping wood for winter or dishing out beans in a soup line). 

   This muse of mine in particular won’t do anything for me unless 110% of my attention is placed on the altar of my vocation and my vocation happens to be the arts. Unless I sacrifice my time and devote my whole self to this calling, I get nothing… absolutely nothing. When I do put forth the effort I am drained but fulfilled. This is my truth. It may or may not apply to anyone else but I sense that Joseph Campbell was on to something when he advised those he mentored to “follow your bliss.” Following your bliss is about risk and moving out of our comfort zones into the realm of adventure. The realm of adventure is where I found love, where I found hope, where I found the muse. She awaited me there and led me out of the prison of mediocrity. The key to the door to the realm of adventure is willingness to step through the porthole. “Knock and the door shall be open to you,” said the Carpenter. And I might add, “If no one answers, barge your way through,” it is worth it.

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Accepting the Label

Tuesday, September 24, 2013:

I hated the idea that I had to accept a label of any kind and, to me, alcoholism was just another label… or even an excuse. I told myself I just had a temporary drinking problem and that, if I applied the proper amount of will power, I could control and once more enjoy drinking. I certainly didn’t want to join a group of pathetic losers that sat around and commiserated with each other about their powerlessness. Furthermore, if I really needed it, I could take prescription drugs to help ease the periods between drinking bouts. I considered opiates to be a great relief from my drinking problem and that, if they were more available, I could refrain from drinking long enough to restore my life. It was an established fact of my experience that I could go long periods between drinks… even a week or two… with medications. Medicinal marijuana wasn’t around then but I did use pot as a medicine too. When I wasn’t drinking I thought that opiates made me feel good and helped me to function on the job and in social situations. It was a vicious circle in which I needed more and more to feel like I could cope. I had no idea, except for a haunting suspicion in the back of my mind, that I was acting quite insane and that “normal” people didn’t have to be “on something” at all times.

            We often hear people talk about hitting bottom and we naturally think that hitting bottom has to be a dramatic event or situation in which we find ourselves hospitalized, imprisoned or on the street homeless. It is weird but an alcoholic or an addict can adjust to these predicaments easily. Hitting bottom essentially means we came to a point, in my case and many others, at which nothing worked for us. We tried religion; we tried medications; we tried self-will; we tried getting away from places a friends; we tried everything but surrendering to a power great enough to relieve our addictions and surrendering to a program of the Twelve Steps, with a Fellowship, to sustain that commitment. I didn’t become an alcoholic until I surrendered my will, not only to my understanding of God, but to the whole concept and accepted the experience of my fellows in the program.

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They Twerk and Nobody Gets Fired!

Here is the rule in the bureaucracy of government today: Nobody gets fired. Nobody gets fired when the Veterans Administration delays claims until there is a backlog whereby it takes several years to resolve a simple claim. Nobody gets fired when it is found that the State Department looked the other way and put their heads in the sand over the attack on Benghazi. No one gets fired when it is revealed that the IRS targeted groups exclusively for political reasons. No one gets fired when the NSA farms out security checks to unreliable and fraudulent vetting allowing amateurs like Snowden into sensitive areas and the Navy Yard shooter past the gates. No one gets fired when a self descibed Islamic extremist opens fire on 13 of our best in Fort Hood. No one gets fired when guns are allowed past our borders to the Cartels in Operation Fast and Furious and we lose one of our agents to a gun that wasn't tracked. No one gets fired when... well, ad infinitum.

This is not a Republican or a Democrat problem. This is our problem! We keep electing bozos because of hair-dos and smooth appearances in front of a soft-ball pitching media and the beat goes on. No one gets fired because the public gets its tits twisted in a ringer over a twenty year old bimbo twerking on a TV awards show and could care less about how we are having our minds twerked between the butt-cheeks of our incompetent and corrupt leaders.

An Invitation

Sunday, September 22, 2013:

Everything can be used as an invitation to meditation. A smile, a face on the subway, the sight of a small flower growing in the crack of cement pavement, a fall of rich cloth in a shop window, the way the sun lights up flower pots on a windowsill. Be alert for any sign of beauty and grace. Offer up every joy, be awake at all moments to “the news that is arriving out of silence.”

            Slowly, you will become a master of your own bliss, a chemist of your own joy, with all sorts of remedies always at hand to elevate, cheer, illuminate, and inspire every breath and moment.

Glimpse After Glimpse

Sogyal Rinpoche

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I held the mistaken impression, and many of us do, that meditation is about going inside, shutting out the world and the ability to stop all my thoughts. I desired an ideal atmosphere of peace and quiet, away from distraction, that would facilitate my practice away from the distractions and noise of my environment. None of this is a bad thing, and I do love a walk in the woods, but I find it just as good to stop, clear the mind with my eyes wide open, when in what would seem to be the most impossible situations that are not at all conducive to meditation.

            I discovered my attitude about meditation changing after I crushed a knee-cap from a spill on my motorcycle. My leg was put in a full length cast and, thus, I had to ride the bus to work. I usually took a seat as far to the rear as possible. Because I rode regularly, from my vantage point in the rear of the bus, I began to see that I had become a part of a community of regular riders. We rarely spoke more than an acknowledgement… a hello or a nod of recognition that said, “Hi there, I see you every day and it is good to see you again.” If one of us was not aboard, I found that I missed seeing that person. The hum of the motor, the sound of the brakes, the opening and closing of the doors as passengers boarded or got off at each stop, the conversations and idle banter (and, frankly, quite loud) of the waitress on her cell phone, were not distractions but created instead a sense of comfort and ease. I realized then what Sogyal Rinpoche was talking about in this reflection. That sense of comfort and ease, awake and alert, illuminated and quietly inspired, these are the qualities of a successful meditation and I was doing it from the back seat of a city bus. What could have been considered a mundane bus ride became an invitation to meditation.

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The Capacity to be Honest

Friday, September 20, 2013:

Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are those who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault, they seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average. There are those too who suffer grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest.

Alcoholics Anonymous, p.58

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I remember hearing this paragraph read in my first meeting and then read it for myself that night as I poured over the first 164 pages of this book. It stuck in my craw like a playground challenge… it was either fight or flight at this point. What do they mean, “Honest with myself?” Could it be true that I couldn’t be honest with myself; that my dishonesty was the reason I couldn’t get sober? My mind went back to my first psychedelic trip in which I was stunned and sat on the beach in Waikiki as each lie I told others; each lie I told myself; every promise I failed to fulfill; revealed itself in a flash of consciousness. I remember grasping what it meant in terms of a cosmic reality. My mind went back to that moment and also recalled how I had been relieved of the obsession to drink for about three or four months. I attributed my short-termed sobriety then to the power of LSD, psilocybin, peyote and did not once give credit to the cosmic reality I had realized. It all faded into the background and I simply picked up where I’d left off in my moment of clarity.

            I speak of this experience, not so much to extol the virtues of psychedelic short-cuts, as it is to demonstrate how essential it is to follow-up on profound spiritual experiences with a simple program in order to stay free from the bondage to self. I had no way to make it stick… to take that moment of clarity and carry it beyond the sands of the beach and into my daily affairs. It took thirty years to finally have this point driven in like a stake in my heart by reading this simple paragraph. It was true… again I was god-smacked into realizing that I might be constitutionally incapable of staying honest with myself without some help. So, the journey began fifteen years ago; the journey that actually began thirty years before on the beach in Waikiki; the journey continues. I couldn’t get this delusion taken care of without the power of the Heart of Compassion to grant me the courage, the Twelve Steps (a simple program) to give me direction, and the Fellowship of others like me combined to help me dismantle what I thought I was. It works… it really does.

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The Heart of Compassion

Thursday, September 19, 2013:

Compassion is characterized as promoting the aspect of allaying suffering. Its function resides in not [enduring] other’s suffering. It is manifested in non-cruelty. Its proximate cause is to see helplessness in those overwhelmed by suffering. It succeeds when it makes cruelty subside, and it fails when it produces sorrow.

Buddhaghosa; Visuddhimagga 318

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I have been a sober member of the Fellowship of AA for fifteen years. I have been defining and refining what my Higher Power means to me in these years. AA’s insistence on the individual’s freedom to explore what God is to each of us is one of its most powerful precepts. I have the liberty to condense mine to a phrase; the Heart of Compassion. I prefer this to any concept that puts God “up there” or “out there”, as it brings God closer to my own heartbeat. It leeches the poison from the confusion of words when I speak of the connection with God so necessary to recovery. The term, the Heart of Compassion, puts before my consciousness what it is I am connecting with when I seek through prayer and meditation to improve that union. The distance between my heart (I don’t mean my blood pump) and the Heart of Compassion is the space I create between myself and others with ego-centric behavior. My experience tells me that it, how my heart connects with yours, is determined by how I perceive the divine. If I see God as a remote, and white-bearded grandfather in the sky, I am likely to define spirituality in terms of dogma. When I do so I risk isolating my core from any useful connection with God by stuffing it all between my ears. The power of the Heart of Compassion increases when I allow myself to be embraced by love in bringing God from my brain to my heart. This is the first step in achieving non-cruelty... heart to heart suffering is thus dissolved.

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Thine Not Mine

Wednesday, September 18, 2013:

 LOVED BACK TO RECOVERY

Our whole treasured philosophy of self-sufficiency had to be cast aside. This had not been, done with old-fashioned willpower; it was instead a matter of developing a willingness to accept these new facts of living. We neither ran nor fought. But accept we did.

Best of the Grapevine,

Vol. I, p. 198

I can be free of my old enslaving self. After a while I recognize, and believe in, the good within myself. I see that I have been loved back to recovery by my Higher Power, who envelopes m. My Higher Power becomes the source of love and strength that is performing a continuing miracle in me. I am sober… and I am grateful.

Daily Reflections, p. 270

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It is a more difficult proposition to get across to a newcomer than even that of a Higher Power. It runs contrary to everything we know that worked for us in the past. Most people already have some kind of concept of God or a religious background. Very few of us come to AA as hard-core atheists, so, it isn’t all that difficult to convince a prospect of some idea of a Higher Power (even if his/her faith had been abandoned long ago). However, convincing any of us that it is useless to fight it… to surrender to it… to cede our powerlessness over it… is downright counter-intuitive and, frankly, weak. We can even think that God needs our help! We can believe in God but our God isn’t powerful enough for this miracle… after all, isn’t this our experience? We can even surrender to the notion that we are powerless over our alcohol in the first Step but the Second Step escapes us because we don’t actually believe that God can restore us to sanity without our help.

            My experience with the Twelve Steps of AA is that they are best employed to see more clearly exactly how powerless I am in the face of this disease: that I take the Steps in the same manner that the Christ revealed the Ten Commandments and the Law of Moses. It is not possible to obey them to perfection. He said he came to fulfil the law and not to destroy it. The Twelve Steps are impossible to take without complete surrender… ya can’t honestly get past Step One without complete deflation of ego and ceding all power to the Heart of Compassion. It isn’t so much to pray; “God, how can I help you?” but it is; “God, what would you have me to do? Not my will but thine be done.”

            I have a friend who likes to say, “God is in the business of miracles.” In other words, “Let go and let God.”

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Carrot on a Stick

Tuesday, September 17, 2013:

Yesterday a demented human being walked into a building and blew away 12 other human beings. I have heard religious folks trying to explain the age old problem: If God is all powerful and all knowing; then, why does God allow such evil to prevail? The answers I hear from the clergy are not comforting to me at all. The chief one is that we are all given free-will and evil is nothing more than the misuse of free-will; that evil and good are the reasons there is a heaven and a hell. Reward and punishment, in this case, is a carrot held out on a stick, compelling us to do well in our lives or to intimidate us with the fear of some future ambiguous torment in the next life. This only works if all of us fear death and busy our minds with ways to comfort ourselves with the notion that we will be rewarded for our suffering we endure in the here and now.

            So, if I don’t accept the premise of life continuing after death in some way, then I am left with the explanation that evil and good don’t exist. If I can accept these terms then I must also accept the proposition that what we think of as evil is nothing more than an aberration of natural selection. The lepers Mother Teresa helps stand on equal grounds before the evolution of the species as do the crimes against humanity of Adolf Hitler. I.e., the lepers the dear woman does help enables a mutation that becomes a useful adaptation but this can’t be determined in the here and now and the ovens of Auschwitz... oh hell, I can't go there!

            Other than deliberate acts I have mentioned, there are those cases where something goes wrong in the neuro-biological make-up of an individual that throws aside the issue of good and evil altogether. He simply gets his rocks off murdering people or is driven to it by the demons of his own mental illness. This explanation has nothing to do with free-will and is not a cushy one at all. Evil then becomes arbitrary and has no useful purpose in evolution nor does it yield to any concept of reward and punishment. It just is. Deal with it.

It disturbs us to think that an individual gets pleasure out of anti-social acts such as murder. It disturbs us to think that the man can walk into a school snuffing out the lives of the innocent and there is no punishment in this life or the next at all for him. Therefore, I go to a place where good and evil become irrelevant. I go to a place where there are no explanations available or necessary. I go to a place where the Heart of Compassion compels me to act with kindness because I understand that we all live in this ambiguous duality and it isn’t then necessary to act on behalf of good or evil. The fact is that a few good people tend to hold societies at large in check so that evil doesn’t prevail. There is no reason for it beyond the love a mother feels towards her infant at her breast or the pride of a father at the growth of his child. I believe that we are genetically engineered towards compassion and compassion extends beyond the reach of the lack thereof. I believe this for no reason whatsoever. It is an article of faith based of personal experience when I surrendered a life of confusion to the Heart of Compassion.

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I Seek Refuge

Monday, September 16, 2013:

When we say, “I take refuge in the Buddha,” we should also understand that “The Buddha takes refuge in me,” because without the second part the first part is not complete. The Buddha need us for awakening, understanding, and love to be real and not just concepts. They must be real things that have real effects on life. Whenever I say, “I take refuge in the Buddha,” I hear “Buddha takes refuge in me.”

Thich Nhat Hanh;

Being Peace

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We have the same concept in the West in what we call The Christ. The Christ has two aspects in the Gospel of Saint John; man and God. As man, Christ is the logos, the word, made flesh. The word made flesh is divine love. The Christian faith takes divine love into the heart through the persona of a carpenter named Joshua Ben Joseph via the spoken word of God. Or, if you will, the messiah expressed via the son of man. I could get complicated on this matter but the simplicity of it comes when I start from within. As beautiful as churches, temples, dogmas, and fellowships can be... the source of beauty and power comes from within when I recognize and accept the Buddha/Christ that abides there in the temple of my body. The radiance of the divine in me extends outward in a dynamic that is shared. The power of Christianity is that at its root is the belief that there is nothing we can do about our alienation from the divine on our own. Salvation, or union, is not earned by giving all we have to the poor; by chanting; by fasting; by praying; by meditating; by the smoke of incense: by the ringing of bells or clanging of cymbals. They are all empty without compassion. I get there by surrendering and accepting. When I connect with the Heart of Compassion, from within and without, everything becomes simple and clear.

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Without a Place and With a Place

Sunday, September 15, 2013:

FIFTEEN YEARS

Fifteen years ago today the life I led hit bottom. I have celebrated this day ever since September 15, 1998. I don’t need go into the details but I can say that my spiritual journey took on a new dimension since then. I like to call it the bodhisattva path. The bodhisattva path is one of compassion. In the dark night of the soul I found the guiding light that directed my feet from despair to the dharma of the Twelve Steps and the Sangha (fellowship of the spirit) of Alcoholics Anonymous. I am not ashamed of this admission. I follow the light of compassion, forsaking the snares of delusion, whereby I free my heart from the bondage to self. It is the greatest miracle of my life that I found the Heart of Compassion… the power of forgiveness and the joy of sobriety.

From the words of Saint John of the Cross excerpted from a couple of stanzas of his poem: Sin Arrimo y Con Arrimo (Without a Place and With a Place).

Without a place and with a place

to rest-living darkly with no ray

of light-I burn my self-away.

My soul no longer bound is free

above itself it rises hurled

into a life of ecstasy,

leaning only on God. The world

will therefore clarify at last

what I esteem the highest grace:

my soul revealing it can rest

without a place and with a place…

I savor the poems of Saint John of the Cross. My experience bears his truth in my heart from this last stanza of the poem.

Love can perform a wondrous labor

which I have learned internally,

and all the good and bad in me

takes on a penetrating savor,

changing my soul so it can be

consumed in a delicious flame.

I feel it in me as a ray;

and quickly killing every trace

of light I burn myself away.

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Choosing a Path

Saturday, September 14, 2013:

When you have explored the great mystical traditions, choose one mater and follow him or her. It’s one thing to set out on a spiritual journey; it’s quite another to find the patience and endurance, wisdom, courage, and humility to follow it to the end. You may have the karma to find your teacher. For very few of us know how truly to follow a master, which is an art in itself. So however great the teaching or master may be, what is essential is that you find in yourself the insight and skill to love and follow the master and the teaching.

Sogyal Rinpoche

Glimpse After Glimpse

256

If a man string putrid fish\on a blade of kisa grass,

That same grass will putrid smell.

So with him who follows fools.

If a man wrap frankincense

In a leaf, that leaf smells sweet.

So with those who follow sages.

Ituvutaka 76

365 Bhuddha

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It is difficult for the Western mind to grasp what it means to follow a path, a master or a teacher without becoming overly submissive or dogmatic. If not that we reject the idea of following anyone else. We have a different take on individualism that is at once as creative as it is destructive. Following a master tends to lend itself to the type of submission that is characterized by the example of a Hitler or a Jonestown. But we do have the example of the Christ whereby he led his disciples to a point and then set them free once they “got it”. Once we "get it" the individual is free of bondage to self and that person ought then to be free to express his or her individuality.

            

     In AA we have instituted the concept of a sponsor and some mistake a sponsor for a mild form of dictatorship. There are far too many who even relish the idea of calling themselves “Step Nazi’s. To me such an attitude is contrary to every instinct ingrained in my spirit. Granted, the Twelve Steps were confusing to me at first and I needed a spiritual guide to help me understand them. However, it is important that I don’t put a sponsor on a pedestal because he/she merely an alcoholic like me and has no more understanding of profound spirituality than a toad. So, where a spiritual guide is concerned it behooves me to choose wisely and become consciously aware of what kind of wisdom they are expounding. A sponsor or a spiritual guide that is thorough will be able to let me go. A teaching that is wise will depend on the power of my own concept of a Higher Power that will also rely on the teachings and the Fellowship to take me further.

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The Willingness to Forgive

Friday, September 13, 2013:

In Tibet we say: “Negative action has but one good quality: it can be purified.’ So there is always hope. Even murderers and the most hardened criminals can change and overcome the conditioning that led them to their crimes. Our present condition, if we use it skilfully and with wisdom, can be an inspiration to free ourselves from the bondage of suffering.

Sogyal Rinpoche

Glimpse After Glimpse

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There are those in my past that I have not been able to forgive. There are things I have done in my past that I cannot forgive myself for. There are things I have done in my past that I would rather be damned to hell for an eternity than to beg forgiveness. Forgiveness is second to admitting this condition… it is an illness… a mental and spiritual illness… to be unable to forgive. It takes time and treatment to get over these hurdles.

            Still, the center of my practice is to seek out the holy quality that would free me from this curse… the inability to forgive or to allow others to forgive me. I know that the grace of the Heart of Compassion is powerful enough to move my heart. We have a Step in AA that comes with a prayer saying: “I am now willing that you should have all of me, the good and the bad…” Willingness is the key and willingness is something I sometimes feel helpless to find in my heart. How can I break away from the bondage to self if the willingness to forgive evades me?

            For those of us who have had the miracle of recovery from a fatal disease can understand this willingness problem. I couldn’t break away from alcoholism as long as I wasn’t willing in my heart to do so. Willingness was fleeting… a window opened… sometimes with a hangover or a circumstance brought on by drinking. I suppose that I might have had hundreds of opportunities to leap through that window. I know that there were a few times I actually did go to the side of light but was drawn back. To stay out takes a miracle that is hard to grasp but is made possible by spiritual practice.

The trick isn’t to forgive as we meet face to face but to actually stay in a state of forgiveness after you walk away from me is another thing altogether. The Seventh Step prayer continues, “I pray that you remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and to others…” This perhaps is the greatest roadblock to freedom from self with which I have been challenged in the past thirty years… and certainly in the past fifteen years in recovery.

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Dangerous Times Demand More of Me

Thursday, September 12, 2013:

“Where there is no vision the people perish…” (Proverbs 29:18)

The Book of Proverbs in the Bible interests me more than most of the others because it is packed with wisdom… wisdom that applies to everyday life. Granted, a good deal of it is infused with the values of its time and is tribal in nature, but the meat of the text is a source I go to when all else fails to inspire me after my morning meditation. This time, while I sat, this verse came to my attention as I prayed for our leadership. My spirit gets a bit antsy when the giant chess game of world politics comes to a place where the horrors of war percolate to the top of the agenda for those with good or evil intentions. We need a vision… a national vision… a world vision… a vision not unlike that of the first months after the first and second World Wars.

            I’m just a bit depressed about the events of the day because I see no apparent position; no particular direction, no vision to embrace. These are dangerous times for nations to careen against each other and in such times... when the vision is fogged, it is most important for me to clear my head and my heart so that I am not led about and exploited by those who would seduce my emotions. Before I act I must allow myself to be guided by the Heart of Compassion to do the next right thing.

            There is today a pastor that was arrested for plotting to burn a pile of Korans. Our nation’s Constitution permits this but our laws don’t. His arrest will add fuel to a controversy that has been simmering since 9/11/01. However, his actions, had they been allowed to be carried out, would have caused an explosion of protest. We need today to resist the temptation to be manipulated by folks like this pastor and those who would pretend to be upset by his actions. It takes vision to wait on guidance but I must accept guidance from beyond my emotional insecurities. The times demand it for there is another pertinent scripture that applies from the Book of Joel; “… your sons and daughters shall prophesy, and your old men will dream dreams, your young men shall have visions.” (Joel 2:28) Do we need youth to change our minds about a direction and vision? I do have to let go of old ideas... i.e, old dreams... old chimeras... in order to accept a new vision for world peace. That vision is to be seen only through eyes youthfully renewed.

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Just Another Day Until...

Wednesday, September 11, 2013:

 It was a day that changed everything… absolutely everything…. I made no journal entry about it ‘til the next day. It was a day off from cab driving but I did rise early. I had been writing in my journal at 06:29… the usual self-obsessed drivel about romance, heartbreak, and desire…. Then it happened. I turned on the TV for the local morning news and weather…. Images of people stunned played out on the screen after the first tower had been hit. There were shots from handheld cameras by an amateur who caught it spliced in with news folks on the scene already… Hell, it was New York on a Tuesday morning! There was talk… it was an accident? My heart asked, Was it possibly a terrorist attack? I feared it was right away but then: What? Who? Why?…. I flashed on the previous attack a few years before... "the Blind Sheikh". Then the second tower was hit! My heart then knew… there was no doubt... no thought it could be otherwise… it couldn’t be… then the images we all know played out before the nation’s eyes.

            Stunned… like millions of others, I went to the Red Cross to give blood. That night I made my way to the Court House with my candle joining hundreds of other. It was too soon for anger… there was only grief. The podium was occupied by the usual “community organizer” types. It wasn’t long before one of them began bemoaning how American capitalism brought on itself this disaster by exploiting the peoples of the world. The ache in my heart only increased at political opportunists taking advantage of my grief… it took it personal! Dammit, give me time to weep! Give me time to sort out my feelings before I explode! I snuffed my candle and went back home.

            The next night of cab driving I was out hauling the usual party crowd… to the club and bar. They were still out there but all of my passengers were very quiet, polite… even respectful… none of the usual noise. They weren’t out to party as much as they were out to be around friends. Santa Barbara had been, as it still is, a place where huge parties at houses in the hills with hundreds of the young set calling several cabs were the norm… but from that night on for several months these big bashes ceased. Small house parties with intimate friends seemed to be the new trend for a while.

            That night I took three men home: an Iranian and two South Americans. The Iranian made it a point to apologize for the attack… he felt he had to personally make amends for his people to an American. He told me that we are all Americans in our sorrow this day. His pals agreed. His tone was humble and I could tell he was sincere. We felt in our hearts a kinship that I will never forget: the fellowship of the grieving.

           

            I recall that week as one that was a particularly sweet one. My customers were kind… people were solemn… respectful… decent beyond anything I can recall in my cab before or since. We all looked inward for a spell… for a spell before the conspiracy theories and battle cries went out. I would that the emotions of the week after the horror of that attack would be felt at the atrocities that are perpetuated by the spiritually wounded of the world… those infected with the self-assurance that our cause is right and everyone else can go to hell. I would that we could all change into the spirit of forgiveness and atonement expressed by that young Iranian from the dark of the backseat of my cab that night… hearts made tender by the unimaginable…

geo 5,462

Each Step I Take

Tuesday, September 10, 2013:

I like to walk alone on country paths, rice plants and wild grasses on both sides, putting each foot down on the earth in mindfulness, knowing that I walk on the wondrous earth. In such moments, existence is a miraculous and mysterious reality. People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child --- even our own eyes. All is a miracle.

Thich Nhat Hanh; Miracle of Mindfulness

&

The latest estimation of the age of the universe is estimated by cosmologists to be about 13.5 billion years. It seems that this approximation is just a stab in the dark to those of us ignorant of the physics that came up with that time span… after all, physicists have been wrong in their estimations so many times before. But, for me, the universe did not exist before I came into consciousness. If I am honest with myself, it all begins and ends with me! 

   Of course, I can look out at the cosmos and I can actually see that the earth I stand on is but a tiny speck orbiting around the sun on the outer edge of a spiral arm of our galaxy (which is but one of hundreds of thousand billions in the known universe). But ,in actually, as far as my consciousness is concerned, I really am the center of my universe. Others simply orbit around me like astrological signs. I know that my perceptions about myself are so very wrong when I do the math… but do I act that way? Do I bother to consider that I am but a speck in human history… that the day will come when I go back into the void out of which I came?

If I were to achieve a certain amount of fame and fortune in this span of time… this bardo… this place between the inhaling and exhaling of billions of breaths of what we think of as God, how long will I be remembered… A couple of hundred years… A thousand years…? Perhaps my name will be remembered a millennium or two if I achieve the greatness of the Christ or the Buddha. Or I might become infamous if I perpetuate the atrocities of a Khan, a Hitler, or an Alexander. But, for most of us, our memory only lasts as long as our grave markers. How can I consider these things without sinking into despair?

This what I call, a cosmic bind. I can fantasize about life everlasting out of desperation or I can accept the reality of the now… this footstep I am taking here… this one of thousands here and now as important as my first one that was celebrated by my parents only a short time ago. Here I am and the miracle I need is now. The Heart of Compassion is everywhere and every atom of my being is replicated in a cosmic hologram throughout the universe. So must be my consciousness independent of the mortal coil that comes and goes with each breath in the wonder of a child's eyes.

geo 4,461

The Fog of War

Monday, September 9, 2013:

The fog surrounds my place today and a fog wraps itself around my awareness. I’m not particularly distressed about it because I know that, as I go about the business of the day, it will clear sometime around noon. I know this to be true from experience and I have faith in my experience. There are times when the sun doesn’t break through but that doesn’t dispel this faith I have in how the fog is lifted most of the time. 

     Magicians use slight of hand to alter our perception of experience and so do gurus and political leaders. I am cautious of talking about politics or religion because, more often than not, those with whom I try to have a dialogue on any given subject draw me into arguments wrapped around their delusions and the deceptions the media magicians have convinced them of. 

     I bring this up because our nation is once again on the precipice of war. I have had to dismiss myself from the debate but this doesn’t withdraw my opinions from the responsibility of praying for our leadership. We always seem to have the suspicion that political leaders are obsessed with deception and have no interest of affairs on our behalf. While this might be true for the most part, it is possible that once in power, they see things that are hidden from us. Decisions like war would weigh particularly heavy as an enterprise for most of us if we were in the President’s shoes. Wringing my hands, ranting and raving for or against decisions made on high via the social networks seems so impotent… where do I go then? I ask myself this question: Do I believe the Heart of Compassion is powerful enough to petition with prayer? Do I believe that God is able to influence leadership? Either I do or I don’t… whether do I go anywhere from that point requires compassionate action. When, like the tiny nation of Bhutan, we adopt the notion that our gross national product would be happiness, then everything else would follow. In the meantime we pray for the oppressors as well as the oppressed.

geo 5,460

The Authority of Compassion

Sunday, September 8, 2013:

It is so very good to be home with my Bon Bon at my side in the morning. It is an established ritual: I get out of bed after I tell her that I love her. I do that because I don’t ever want to go a day without saying that at least once. She doesn’t have to be awake when I do so either. Then I slap my face with water, start the coffee, and sit silently a few minutes with the Heart of Compassion before I come into my little office and pound out another reflection for the day. It is such an established ritual that I feel empty if I miss it… (and it does happen sometimes that I don’t sit and meditate) and I never neglect to tell Bonnie that I love her because, for one thing, I never know what the day will bring. But, more importantly, she is a manifestation of my Higher Power and a gift of God to me. It is as simple as that. If I love her with all my heart, all my mind, and all my soul, I am in truth loving God the same. It is difficult not to act with compassion with others beyond her when I neglect to do so with her. Perhaps that is why most everyone loves to see a couple of lovers walking hand in hand, no matter what the age, and we smile inside. The meaning of this is that I love what is in my hand in order to love that which is beyond me. 

     It doesn’t matter to me one whit if I try to improve myself or get all religious. I’m not trying to perfect myself at all. I just know that the current of compassion is the path to freedom. Everything I do from there (as a convicted felon celebrity is prone to say on her television show) “it is a good thing”. I can speak with authority on this because it is my experience and my experience is that the only authority I need to be subservient to is the authority of compassion. I start love at home before it flows outward from my heart into the “Sangha”… the community of faith. How much more important can it be to extend that love beyond the narrow confines of my tribal beliefs and alliances into the world at large?

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There's No Place Like Home

Saturday, September 7, 2013:

My train ride back to Santa Barbara turned out to be an endurance run. I don’t want to give the impression that I don’t like delayed train rides but this one was different. The train was crowded for the first leg of the trip and I had a somewhat worn-out seat that had very little cushion left in it. I couldn’t find a position that my back agreed with. It started getting dark over the pass between Eugene and Chemult but I tried my damnedest nonetheless to get some sleep. My mate on the seat next to me was an agreeable young man, who was getting off the train in Klamath Falls Oregon, so I grit my teeth and endure… gritted and endured. We were side-tracked several times before we arrived in Klamath Falls and didn't pull into the station over an hour late. 

A drunk couple got into an argument in the dining car sometime after Eugene (They'd been pounding the hooch down since starting out in Seattle: that would be about as much time as it took for me to get a good buzz going... and good and belligerent). The passengers in the dining car and the conductors had enough of the man’s loud and abusive crap sometime after Chemult, Oregon. The girl was allowed to stay but the man would be 86’d at Klamath. It is always a sad thing to me to see the change in personality after one gets busted this way. Until we got to Klamath Falls (about two hours), three or four Assistant Conductors (I think that’s what they’re called)... they all sat with the man about four seats behind me. 

The man realized he had no idea where Klamath Falls is on the map. He began asking the A.C.’s things like; Question: How far is Klamath from California? Answer: Not far. Question: Is the station there open all night? Answer: No. Question: Will I be allowed to take the next train from there? Answer: Yes. Question: When will the next train come? Answer: Schedule says 10PM. Question: Are there hotels near-by? Answer: No. Question: How about a Greyhound? Answer: No.

 He started apologizing profusely after the realization dawned on him that, not only was he royally screwed… shipwrecked and alone, but this was going to be a very expensive hangover. It is one thing to piss off a bartender and get 86’d from the local pub, but to be 86’d from a train is another story altogether because the poor soul is abandoned by the tracks in a God forsaken place in the middle of nowhere like Bumfock, Oregon. On top of that there is absolutely no reprieve from the misery "one too many" caused. On a positive note: At least there wasn't a squad car awaiting his arrival. The only thing worse than being 86'd of a train in Bumfock, Oregon is to be 86'd from a train in Bumfock, Oregon, and, to wake up in a jail in Bumfock, Oregon.

            Well, after Klamath (by this time it was 11:30 making us an hour and a half late) everything returned to normal. I had two seats to myself so I stretched-out to get a nap and I finally started to nod-off around 2 AM. We arrived in Chico where a very… very… obese woman (at least 350 lbs) broke a leg after missing the step debarking from the train. The fire truck and EMT showed up and it took at least another hour and eight men get her on the gurney and load her up with hydraulic lift into the ambulance.

            My train-ride reading: "The Fobbit" by David Adams. If anyone is interested in one soldier’s experience deployed in Iraq, this book seems to me to be as realistic as Catch 22 was for WWII, albeit not quite as cynical. It is humorous, if one has ever been in the military, and some (but not all) civilians might get it too. I caught myself laughing out loud at the most inappropriate times and some fellow passengers could have considered me quite insane. I arrived in Santa Barbara exhausted around 7:45 PM. (only 1 ½ hours late). My sponsor and good friend, Joe S., picked me up at the Station… Thanks Joe… and I went straight home and to bed after calling Bon Bon to say, “I’ll see ya tomorrow.”

            I’ll call Mom to check on Dad’s condition soon. I will write about that experience later… when I digest it.

           So today I'll just click my heels, get myself to a meeting, and say, "There's no place like home... There's no place like home... There's no place like home!"

geo 5,458

The Past Matters, It Really Does

Thursday, September 5, 2013:

I stayed the night at the M-6 in The Dalles Oregon. I probably wouldn’t recommend it to anyone unless ya really need to sleep. However, The Dalles itself is one of those high spiritual vortexes where the Columbia River once sluiced through narrow basalt formations over Celilo Falls. For well over ten thousand years tribes built precarious scaffolds over the falls to reap a bountiful harvest of the Pacific salmon spawn. This was where Ken Kesey’s character, Chief, from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest lost his soul after The Dalles Dam replaced these fishing grounds in 1957. 

     Lewis and Clark camped here on their epic journey west and this was where the steamships debarked on the way through the Columbia Gorge upstream from Portland. I can feel the history and history comes alive in the sweat and tears of those who have passed lives on this sacred spot. The local legend has it that, in the time of the Gods, a chief (Saghalie) settled where the Gorge is today. The chief built a land bridge so that the families of his two cantankerous sons, Mt Adams (Pahto) and Mt Hood (Wy’East) could meet. The sons both fell in love with the same beautiful maiden. She couldn’t choose between them so they did what men would do a million times over in any bar for a maiden’s attention: they went to war. The volcanoes blew, the earth shook and the land bridge collapsed. There we have it, 17,000 years ago, the way it was then: a family squabble with everlasting consequences. The lesson is: Make peace or suffer separation. All the father wanted was unity to enjoy the land the gods gave them. I don’t know whatever happened to the beautiful maiden… I guess it wasn’t important enough to mention what became of her, just as the causes for most wars are forgotten or become minor compared to the travesty they create and the harmony they destroy.

geo 5,456

Leaving Home/Going Home

Tuesday, September 3, 2013:

So, today I’m heading back to visit my dad in the hospital before driving to Portland to catch the train. Dad had a turn for the worse yesterday but was pulled back after it got a bit iffy. It is so similar to what happened to Bon Bon: medications reacting… his sodium levels got too high and this affected his brain function... his heart almost gave out too. At 92 years his system is delicate… his spirit still strong… who knows how much longer the inevitable? The Heart of Compassion does.

            I sat by the fire pit with my brother in-law, Gary, yesterday evening. He’d been splitting and stacking wood for the winter all day and all day I had been parsing sentences: chopping and stacking them too.

My novel, Adriane, is coming into a cohesive form of its own volition. What started out as a rogue elephant is becoming tame. Of course, I never want it to make too much sense because life doesn’t make all that much sense. But I do feel as though, when I read others' works, that there is a point to it all even if the point is blunted and obscure.

By point, I don’t mean that I am preaching anything or trying to make a point, but rather that the characters in my story, flawed as they might be, are rarely villains; even though what they do to each other is often villainous. I am changing the story to each character having chapters in which they are speaking in first person singular. I am doing this because it drives me to find in my heart compassion for each of them no matter how despicable they might be. Admittedly, some are unredeemable, with deprivation rooted so deeply that they don’t have a chance to make things right. While some have a golden spot in their hearts in spite of the poor judgment which leads them into catastrophic consequences of their actions. They too are not heroes, or heroines, so much as they are ultimately human.

My novels are like Jungian dreams: all the characters are the dreamer. I believe it was Andre Gide who said that the artist is capable of the most heinous crimes but does not commit them out of knowledge of consequences… both personal and social... or was it compassion? I suppose that is to say it is because he was aware of his karma and not because murder can be trivialized into a faux pas against society. Karma is a vibration... a series of wavicles crashing of the beach of our intentions, on which we surf, using the boards of our actions.

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Labor Day at the Lake

Monday, September 2, 2013:

The early morning hours… that is the time the forest gets to be the forest... when the only sounds are that of squirrels in the trees. And even they don’t make much of a fuss until after the sun warms the bowers. Of course, George, it is Labor Day weekend and I could've expected nothing more than a huge amount of human machine noise last night… but it does amuse me to some degree that folks think that getting out here is the place where any racket, that can be made, can be made in the woods. Last night there were several four-wheelers racing around and, as if that weren’t disturbing enough, someone began blasting away with shot guns, rifles and pistols (hey, I'm a lifelong member in good standing with the NRA but...).

            But, what the heck, isn’t that what holidays in the woods are all about to most people…. Bring your boom-boxes, bring your machines, bring your guns, bring everything that you can’t make noise with “in civilization”” and let it all hang out here because there ain’t nothing to disturb but the deer and a few bears… eh? Ah, but this is Labor Day. It all goes back to normal tomorrow I suppose.

            Gary and Joy took me on a boat trip around the lake yesterday and I do enjoy a day on the water. Cruising can be depressing, however, when I see the shoreline taken up with ostentatious mini-mansions plopped down with lawns before a few yards of beachfront. Almost extinct are the quaint cabins painted green or brown to blend in with the trees enveloping them: there are still a few left hither and tither. And there are a few that are just as big as the ostentatious ones but blend in so well they are barely noticed. My eyes doesn't object to those examples. The lake that I love so dearly still exists up on the north end to some extent but some fairly obscene displays of ego are thrust onto what were once pristine beaches accessible only by boat...

            Everything changes. Nothing stays the same… ever. And change comes to us incrementally. Wasn’t there a time when changes came less abruptly? In my childhood this lake could only be gotten to after enduring a hell of a long ride up a gravel and washboard road from Priest River. Dad would pack up all our gear and an army surplus canvass tent into the trunk of our 1950 Plymouth, with four kids in the back seat, to take us all the way to the Reeder Bay campground (which consisted of a handful of campsite overlooking the beach). The only cabins on the lake were ones nearby the resorts. That is but a faded memory for most folks and many, even my age, wouldn’t have known of it because the lake was too remote to get to… Ya had to really want to be here.

            Ahh, but there is still some magic about this place. I make this pilgrimage every year because I am revived by just sitting with my cup of coffee and listening for the first chatter of the squirrels busy about perpetrations for winter. I will keep coming back as long as I can. Even though there were no gatherings around the campfire (real life interfered with my plans for this weekend) I still love it.

geo 5,453

            

The Wheel of Karma

Sunday, September 1, 2013:

My father is in the hospital with an infection in his leg. I am grateful that I got to see him and let him know how much I love him yesterday. He is on the third floor the day my grand-niece delivered a boy on the first floor. I believe that Dad would have had a laugh at that. He still has his signature sense of humor. He has a hard time talking... is easily confused and frustrated. I told him that I'm not much at hospital conversation and he immediately replied, "Neither am I." Like I said, he has a  great sense of humor. From my own experience I know that just because folks can't talk doesn't mean they aren't there, eh?

Hospitals… This past summer I have been visiting hospitals far too much for my taste but I simply go where my love is. Don’t we all? Several family members were there in both rooms… Little Hudson must feel a warm welcome to this world. My Dad is on the other end of the wheel of karma, as his experience must be preparing him (and us) for his passing. One is born and another… I know he has a considerable amount of bounce-back. No, I’m not crossing him off as of yet… but circumstances prepare us, and him, for that eventuality.

            Everything seems to have a harmony about it and I can accept that no matter what.

To little Hudson, I say:

Welcome to our world. I know we have made a bit of a mess of it before you got here but we are doing the best we can to make this place as good as it can be for you. 

   But don't you fret about it. You are okay for this moment... eat well, sleep well... cry when you need something. Mom will be there for you. A few years from now you will be able to break free of the nest and fly to your own destination... but rest easy, Boyo,... that is all in the future. 

   For now all you have to do is grow into a healthy young man. On the way you will learn many things but you really only need to know one with two parts to get on well in this world: Be kind to yourself and to others. That one thing is a lot bigger than it looks at first sight, but don't you fuss about it. Lean on that principle and you will find that the rest falls in place. I learned that much from my Dad and Mom and I pass it on to you. Thanks for coming into the world just on time.

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