Jewish Samurai. In Training. Very Hard To Understand. Thank You.

Next Stop: The San Francisco Zen Center

2009-12-08T10:21:00.005+09:00

In a few days I'll be flying to the San Francisco Zen Center's Green Gulch Farm where I'll be a resident student for a long time. Perhaps many years. At least that's the plan. Who can say for certain. Well, it's all been leading up to this... though, it strikes me as absurd to say so.

Actually, saying anything about anything is really a challenge these days. I've just come off two sesshins and Ango and I'm feeling a little blown out, a bit wispy. Often, when I look at the smoke coming off the incense at the zendo, I feel like I'm looking at the state of my mind. It is not entirely pleasant and I'm wondering if this a natural stage in practice?

I'm rolling with it. The practice continues. And I'm so happy to be participating in Suzuki Roshi's home. Like everyone else, I'm just trying to come home.

And, slowly but surely, I'm giving up on the idea of perfection.

"Things as it is."

PS Tomorrow is December 8th. HAPPY BODHI DAY EVERYBODY!

A Call to Stillness

2009-11-22T00:35:00.003+09:00

A Call to Stillness

We can make our minds so still like water
That beings gather about us
That they may see their own images
And so live for a moment, with a clearer--perhaps even with a fiercer life
Because of our quiet

~ William Butler Yeats

Meditate NYC 2009

2009-10-18T06:07:00.002+09:00

Meditate NYC 2009 Kick-Off Event:

Sunday, Nov. 8, 3 – 7 PM Judson Church

New York — Meditate NYC begins on Sunday, November 8 with an afternoon of meditation instruction by Buddhist teachers from a great variety of traditions. The event is free and open to all.

After the kick-off the Buddhist community of New York City will join together to sponsor a full week of free meditation instruction, November 9 – 15. People from all faiths, backgrounds, and experience are welcome at Open Houses hosted by meditation groups and dharma centers throughout the NYC area.

What: Meditate NYC Kick-Off Event

When: Sunday, November 8, 3:00 – 7:00 PM

Where: Judson Memorial Church, 55 Washington Square South (on the south side of Washington Square Park, between Thompson and Sullivan Streets.)

Presenters include: Roshi Pat Enkyo O’Hara, Michele Laporte, Josh Korda, Ellen Scordato, Donna Walker-Kuhne, Koshin Paley Ellison, Myoji Sunim, Janet Jiryu Abels Sensei, Rev. Dr. Chung Ok Lee.

Free Meditation Instruction at Open Houses Throughout NYC:

November 9 – 15

For 2500 years, Buddhism has taught meditation as a means of cultivating tranquility, kindness, and wisdom. Ongoing scientific research confirms meditation’s positive effects on body and mind. With instruction by teachers from myriad Buddhist schools, Meditate NYC is an accessible way to find out what various approaches to meditation involve and what the benefits are.

Anyone who is interested in meditation is encouraged to attend any and all events. More information, including detailed locations for the Open Houses, is available at HYPERLINK "http://meditatenyc.org/" http://meditatenyc.org/ .

Meditate NYC is sponsored by the New York Buddhist Council

and co-sponsored by Tricycle: The Buddhist Review

That Was Zen, This is Now

2009-10-07T21:07:00.006+09:00

I was walking through the meatpacking district on my way home from the zendo last evening.

There I saw two billboards, one on top of the other, which caught my eye:

Blanche Hartman Roshi often says that she really has only one teaching: "Just this is it."

Her student, Jana Drakka, has shortened it to: "This!"

Even Zen kitsch is "it."

A student once asked Suzuki Roshi: "If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?"

Suzuki Roshi answered: "It doesn't matter."

The Zen of Eugene O'Neill

2009-09-22T11:04:00.002+09:00

O'Neill looked directly and didn't turn away.

The clip below is from Long Day's Journey Into Night and it's pretty much the best description of kensho (an enlightenment experience) that I've ever heard:

An Unavoidable Excess of Motion

2009-09-12T10:09:00.006+09:00

The image above and the video below remind me of how city life and monastery life are not so different. It's a question of framing, as is everything... and then, maybe, the frame drops away; revealing the "great big 'I don't know' in the sky" as a meditator friend of mine says.

For people with a contemplative bent, everything is in motion and the solidity of things is in doubt. In this way of seeing, is New York really any different than a zendo?

Well, New York and zendos are both filled with dharma bums. I saw someone reading Jack Kerouac's Aftermath: The Philosophy of the Beat Generation on the subway.

I looked it up when I got home. Here's an excerpt:

The Beat Generation, that was a vision that we had, John Clellon Holmes and I, and Allen Ginsberg in an even wilder way, in the late Forties, of a generation of crazy, illuminated hipsters suddenly rising and roaming America, serious, bumming and hitchhiking everywhere, ragged, beatific, beautiful in an ugly graceful new way—a vision gleaned from the way we had heard the word "beat" spoken on street corners on Times Square and in the Village, in other cities in the downtown city night of postwar America—beat, meaning down and out but full of intense conviction. We'd even heard old 1910 Daddy Hipsters of the streets speak the word that way, with a melancholy sneer. It never meant juvenile delinquents, it meant characters of a special spirituality who didn't gang up but were solitary Bartlebies staring out the dead wall window of our civilization...

Impeccably Zen

2009-08-26T14:51:00.005+09:00

On my way to sit zazen this evening at the Still Mind Zendo, I passed a billboard (see above) from Corcoran which suggests you buy their product because apparently the product is "Impeccably Zen."

The billboard is on 7th Avenue and 17th St. Still Mind Zendo is on 17th St. Between 5th and 6th Avenue.

Two Zens. One original undivided way.

New York, New York.

The Zen of Jacques Derrida

2009-08-23T00:13:00.013+09:00

Zen and the gesture of deconstruction are complimentary. In my imagination, I can see Dogen and Derrida getting along smartly over tea.

Zen and deconstruction are both nondual systems of inquiry. Their objective is to render strange that which we took to be familiar. This is accomplished by reading things against their own grain.

For example, a deconstructive/Zen approach might say that, ironically, the truly religious person is comfortable using an atheistic mind.

The mind which works from “great doubt” paradoxically reveals “great faith” because “absolute reality” is “beyond” our egoic notions of “being.” So instead of falling back on our ideas of reference (as "believers" do) we have to let go into the uncomfortable and intimate space of “not knowing.”

This is the practice of Zen. Or, more specifically, this is zazen.

The zazen way is to look beyond ideas of belief. The only way past ideas is through direct encounter of the mind which makes ideas. Through direct confrontation with the dualistic “believing mind,” the Zen student challenges the ideas of a Self which is always present.

This looking reveals a humbling insight: just as Metaphysics is just another attachment to the craving for “good things,” belief in the idea of an unchanging Reality is heretical.

Perhaps this is why the Buddha taught: “No Soul.” Clinging to the idea of a total presence is just desire run amok. In other words, it’s suffering.

Everything changes. Nothing stays the same.

To use Derrida’s lovely language: presence is always “divided, differed, and different from itself...”

Acceptance beyond acceptance is therefore needed. We need a rapport and a rapprochement with the discomfort of our lived moments.

This is the way of the mystic.

Returning to the Ordinary World

2009-08-12T18:22:00.011+09:00

A koan:

A monk asked Kegon, "How does an enlightened one return to the ordinary world?" Kegon replied, "A broken mirror never reflects again; fallen flowers never go back to the old branches."

While I'm certainly not claiming enlightenment, my travels in the East are coming to a close. I'm returning to America in a few days. I'll be resuming the training at the San Francisco Zen Center.

But first I'll be visiting New York. Back to the city I called home for 28 years.

Back to the ordinary world.

In the Chinese Zen collection Wu men Kuan, Chao-Chou asked Nan-Ch'uan: "What is the Way?"

Nan-Ch'uan answered: "Ordinary mind is the Way."

Japanese Zen Master Bankei maintained that the enlightened "Unborn Mind" which is the holy grail of every meditator is, in fact, just our everyday, ordinary mind.

Suzuki Roshi endlessly pointed to the ordinary in his embracing of "Beginner's Mind," while his contemporary, the Korean Zen master Sueng Sahn preached "Don't Know Mind."

New York, like anywhere else, is ordinary. It is luminous.

So I was riding on an intercity bus yesterday and the AWESOME '80's song from Duran Duran called "Ordinary World" came on the radio and it struck me that they were singing a love song to Zen. Here's the chorus:

But I won't cry for yesterday, there's an ordinary world,
Somehow I have to find.
And as I try to make my way to the ordinary world,
I will learn to survive.

A Flight Out of Time: July 25th, 2009

2009-07-25T17:41:00.006+09:00

TODAY IS A DAY OUT OF TIME!

Today is called "Zero Day", or the "Day Out Of Time." In a solar year the moon phases from new to full a total of 13 times, in 28 day periods. 13 multiplied by 28 equals 364 days. The 365th day of the year is today: July 25th. The Mayans, Druids, and Egyptians all utilized this system.

So today is a flight out of time. Consider this in light of the Zen saying: "You are time."

Today we can escape from the concept of absence from our own lives by embracing the unknown. By taking a flight that is a flight out of time (as Hugo Ball entitled his Dada diaries) a "flight into the desert (of the real)," into the silence of a poet, we return to ourselves... only to see that we have moved on.

In Pascal's Pensees, #542, he writes: "Thoughts come at random, and go at random. No device for holding on to them or for having them. A thought has escaped: I was trying to write it down: instead I write that it has escaped me."

Fly.

Not Knowing

2009-07-25T17:08:00.003+09:00

We study the mind to know our self. And, as we know our self, we can begin to let go of our smaller minds, our self-cherishing and self-clinging egos which distract us from our lived life.

But how? How shall we free the mind? There are so very many ways and they all lead to to the top of the mountain (maybe). But this journey of a thousand steps must begin with three simple words: “I don’t know.” Holding the space within ourselves for not knowing, we become intimate with the moment without preconception, intellectualization, or judgment.

“I don’t know mind” is not a return to ignorance. This mind still encounters interpretative thoughts. It ignores nothing. It doesn't suspend itself in confusion or crippling doubt. However, not knowing means that the mind chooses to cultivate a love for investigating things just as they are. In this way, we may find greater clarity and crisp relationship with our experience.

The masters tease us to encounter this consciousness of “I don’t know” because they seek an end to comparative thinking. "The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences," they say.

In this way, together, we poignantly experience intimacy.

To illustrate the importance of questioning our assumptions and dwelling in the unknown, meditation teachers are fond of telling the following story:

Once upon a time, a businesswoman entered the Los Angeles airport on her way home to New York. She was exhausted. She had successfully completed a series of meetings and negotiations and was looking forward to relaxing in the airport lounge. She bought a package of cookies and coffee and, along with her luggage, somehow negotiated it all over to an unoccupied table. Sitting down with great relief, she opened her paper and began reading. Soon she became aware of someone rustling on the other side of her table. From behind her paper, she was flabbergasted to see a neatly dressed young man helping himself to her cookies! She was furious but was simply too tired to make a scene. Instead of dealing directly with the situation, she reached her hand under her paper and took a cookie herself. The man paused, but he said nothing.

A minute or two later she heard more more rustling. She glimpsed below her paper and saw that he was helping himself to another cookie. She grew angrier, but simply reached out and took another cookie.

And so it went. He would take a cookie and then she would follow suit. By the time they were down to the last cookie in the package, she was fuming but could not bring herself to say anything. The man looked at her and then looked at the last cookie. A moment passed. Then she saw the young man’s hands break the cookie in two. He handed half across to her, smiled, and ate the other half and then left the table.

Naturally, she was quite annoyed that she didn’t get to eat her whole package of cookies. Sometime later, the public address system announced that it was time to board her flight. She was still simmering over the incident. But when she opened her handbag to get her ticket, she found her full package of cookies intact and unopened. She had been eating the young man’s cookies!

Perhaps it is wise to doubt our thoughts. Things are not always so... we just don’t know.

We just don't know because all things rise and pass away. And so, if I become lost in thought, it is possible to miss the flow of impermanent reality. I do not know reality through preferential ideas of good and bad. I know reality through the direct experience of knowing by not knowing. So I need to greatly doubt the permanence of my assumptions. In this way, I may move away from the seductive naivety of certainty and towards a more expansive and creative innocence of mind.

Sojun Mel Weitsman once asked Suzuki Roshi, “What does it mean to be ordained as a Zen priest?”

Suzuki Roshi answered: "I don't know."

The Absolute Zen of Joel and Ethan Coen

2009-07-11T22:48:00.005+09:00

The Dharma gates are boundless and the Coen brothers master them. They're Zen Komuso ("Priests of Nothingness"). Check out this clip wherein their psychopathically precise Chigurgh points to the importance of paying attention to our life:

Stop Being Mindful!

2009-07-10T05:55:00.001+09:00

I recently heard a Zen teaching that instructs the meditator to: "Kill the watcher inside." Huh? What about mindfulness?

Forget mindfulness. "Kill Buddha if you meet him on the road." Kill the watcher.

Zen. It's not what you think.

The following is from Muho Noelke (Abbot of Antaiji Monastery):

We should always try to be active coming out of samadhi. For this, we have to forget things like "I should be mindful of this or that". If you are mindful, you are already creating a separation ("I - am - mindful -of - ...."). Don't be mindful, please! When you walk, just walk. Let the walk walk. Let the talk talk (Dogen Zenji says: "When we open our mouths, it is filled with Dharma"). Let the eating eat, the sitting sit, the work work. Let sleep sleep. Kinhin is nothing special. We do not have to make our everyday life into something special. We try to live in the most natural and ordinary way possible. So my advice is: Ask yourself why you practice zazen? If it is to reach some specific goal, or to create some special state of mind, then you are heading in the opposite direction from zazen. You create a separation from reality. Please, trust zazen as it is, surrender to reality here and now, forget body and mind, and do not DO zazen, do not DO anything, don't be mindful, don't be anything - just let zazen be and follow along.

To drive a car well and savely you need long practice and even then you still have to watch out very well not to cause any accident. Nobody can teach you that except the car itself, the action of driving the car itself.

Take care, and stop being mindful!

Zen at War, War in Zen

2009-06-24T22:03:00.010+09:00

Any discussion on this blog about the relationship between Zen and war would immediately call into question the title of this blog: "Jewish Samurai." I have never really explained the meaning behind it and I don't intend to.

Sufficed to say, identities like "Jewish" and "Samurai," and even "Zen" are problematic because none of these points directly at our true nature. Our true nature, whatever it is or isn't, cannot be touched by words.

Nevertheless, I do not wish to deny my Jewish upbringing and the karmic causes and conditions which arose from that experience. Nor do I wish to deny the history of the Samurai's (and other forms of militant nationalism) influence on Japanese Zen which unfortunately found expression in World War II. Ultimately, as my ancestors were being killed in the camps of Europe, many leaders within the Zen community were complicit in the rhetoric which enabled the war. Worse still, they twisted the Zen teachings to make the act of war look like the ultimate path for self-realization.

It is said in our circles with excessive pride and self-congratulation that there has never been a Buddhist war. Not necessarily so.

The most comprehensive treatment of this issue can be found in Brian Victoria's excellent Zen at War and this is the most subtly helpful book I've read since Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. If we want to practice the Zen way, we must not look away at anything... especially shadow aspects.

When I sit with this issue, I think the most disturbing and challenging manifestation of this history is found in Sogaku Roshi's and Yasutani Roshi's views--two very prominent Japanese Zen masters whose teachings had a profound affect on the development of Zen in America. They were also rabid warmongers.

Here are some examples of what they said during the war:

"[If ordered to] march: tramp tramp, or shoot: bang, bang. This is the manifestation of the highest Wisdom. The unity of Zen and war of which I speak extends to the farthest reaches of the holy war [the Japanese invasion of China]." (--Daiun Sogaku Harada, 1939)

"[The Spirit of Japan] is the essence of the Truth. The Japanese people are a chosen people whose mission is to control the world. The sword that kills is also the sword that gives life. Comments opposing the war are the foolish opinions of those who can only see one aspect of things and not the whole."(--Hakuun Yasutani, date unknown)

"[Battlefield loyalty, marching and shooting is the] highest wisdom of enlightenment." [This is] "combat zazen, the king of meditation." (--Hakuun Yasutani, date unknown)

On the one hand, this is not Zen. Plain and simple.

On the other hand, this is Zen. Not so plain and simple.

Perhaps the most delicate idea I'll put foreword here is that I think what they said during the period has a kernel of internal consistency with Zen ways... Of course, their teachings' nationalist application was misguided in the extreme and utterly lacking compassion.

The Buddhist way has been exemplified time and again (most recently in Vietnam and Tibet) as a path of non-violence. In the end of the day, the Buddha's objective can be summed up as: "the cessation of suffering." As such, the Japanese roshis rather should have sat, meditated, and allowed themselves to be shot by the emperor for being anti-war, than generate more suffering in the world.

But underneath these teachers' political wrongheadedness, I do detect a "great zeal" (essential for practice along with "great faith" and "great doubt") which contemporary students might reject wholecloth at our peril in favor of an overly-tame Zen. Maybe.

How this form of "great zeal" finds expression in practice is a koan.

Well, for one thing, as a Western student, I'm deeply indebted to zealous Japanese teachings of forbearance (bordering on soldierly discipline). Despite their apparent lack of compassion, the Samurai were undeniably concentrated and devoted. This spirit is immensely helpful in and out of the zendo.

And, I must admit, my practice gets considerable "mileage" when I learn from Japanese "martial" disciplines like Aikido. It is just the nature of this activity to be a radically conducive field for cultivating mushin (no mind), shoshin (beginner mind), and fudoshin (equanimity mind).

Zen is a perspective which extends to all activity. Indeed, Zen is activity. But it is not nihilistic. All activity is interconnected with all beings. In this there is radical freedom and radical responsibility. This paradox is Zen. We can never have an un-Zen moment.

So, with this in mind, one can detect the whiff of the dharma hovering about these serious "mistakes" of the Japanese roshis (no less than the surprising degree and number of sexual scandals in American Zen). By swinging off so thoroughly to the extremes, they show us the Middle Way. And, indeed, I'm writing this post in the spirit of looking for equilibrium having benefited from their karma.

Zen mistakes are fertile ground for recuperative teachings. Recuperative teachings are possible when we study the self. Awakening to this realization is the practice of Zen.

I think this is a strength of the tradition. We're forever balancing, not denying.

In the end of the day, the Soto sect did issue a very strong "Statement of Repentance" in 1992 about the war. And American Zen institutions have dealt directly with the question of sexual misconduct. Neither issue has been solved at all because balance is never achieved. But I think there is wholehearted effort being made.

Apropos, I was struck by something that Karen Maezen Miller said in an interview about her book Momma Zen: Walking the Crooked Path of Motherhood.

She was asked:

How does your training affect the way you deal with the inevitable meltdown moments of parenting? Can you tell us about a not-so-Zen moment and what you learned from it?

She answered:

Most people think Zen is some kind of altered state; something way different than ordinary. But zen is always exactly you: where you are and as you are. So none of us ever has a not-so-Zen moment. It’s just that some moments aren’t very pretty. When that happens, when I lose it (and I lose it all the time), my meditation training helps me to see it! Namely, I can see that I’m slamming doors, screaming, throwing stuffed animals, scaring small children and making a menace of myself. And once I see it, I know the way to recover. Just stop doing that stuff and apologize. I don’t get into trouble any less than anyone else; I just might get out of it a little quicker.

WELCOME BACK, GRACE!

2009-06-19T21:49:00.002+09:00

Dear Grace,

I wanted to express the happiness I felt when I found out you had returned to the zendo.

I also wanted to share my heartfelt gratitude to be able to follow your progress in a most unique way: the SFZC podcasts. Over the past year, Fu and many others have incorporated their love for you into their dharma talks.

Actually, their love was the driving engine of their talks. And this was so palpable and moving... even through the distant medium of an iPod. In particular, I can only imagine how the force of Fu's heart was received up close. I have no doubt that it was as great a help to the sangha's practice as it was to mine.

In this way, the events of your life have literally become teachings.

May you be happy and healthy and may you continue to be a refuge for such profoundly inspiring people.

Deep Gassho!

Kafka On The Introvert's Dilemma

2009-06-13T06:38:00.008+09:00

I just read Kafka (excerpted below) on the challenge of solitary living. Ouch.

"Summary of all the arguments for and against my marriage"
(--from Kafka's diary, c. 1912)

1. Inability to endure life alone, which does not imply inability to live, quite the contrary, it is even improbable that I know how to live with anyone, but I am incapable, alone, of bearing the assault of my own life, the demands of my own person, the attacks of time and old age, the vague pressure of the desire to write, sleeplessness, the nearness of insanity—I cannot bear all this alone. I naturally add a “perhaps” to this. The connection with F. will give my existence more strength to resist.

2. Everything immediately gives me pause. Every joke in the comic paper, what I remember about Flaubert and Grillparzer, the sight of the nightshirts on my parents' beds, laid out for the night, Max’s marriage. Yesterday my sister said, “All the married people (that we know) are happy, I don't understand it,” this remark too gave me pause, I became afraid again.

3. I must be alone a great deal. What I accomplished was only the result of being alone.

4. I hate everything that does not relate to literature, conversations bore me (even if they relate to literature), to visit people bores me, the sorrows and joys of my relatives bore me to my soul. Conversations take the importance, the seriousness, the truth of everything I think.

5. The fear of the connection, of passing into the other. Then I'll never be alone again.

6. In the past, especially, the person I am in the company of my sisters has been entirely different from the person I am in the company of other people. Fearless, powerful, surprising, moved as I otherwise am only when I write. If through the intermediation of my wife I could be like that in the presence of everyone! But then would it not be at the expense of my writing? Not that, not that!

7. Alone, I could perhaps some day really give up my job. Married, it will never be possible.

This Blog's One Year Anniversary

2009-06-01T03:14:00.001+09:00

Zen is a tricky business. One finds that there is a diminishing desire to write too much.

Rather than commemorating one year of blogging about "spiritual progress" with platitudes, I thought I'd post some videos about going up and towards mountains.

PS "The only Zen you find on mountains is the Zen you bring up there."

The Zen of Leonard Cohen

2009-05-08T03:55:00.006+09:00

The following quotes were excerpted from Shambhala Sun in an interview they did with Leonard Cohen (otherwise knows as "Jikan" [i.e., Silent One] - his Dharma name) at Mount Baldy Zen Center, which, if I may say, sounds like the most rigorous Zen training to be had (they're Rinzai-shu) at any monastery in the Western Hemisphere. Leave it to badass Leonard Cohen to go at it hard-core. Gassho to the end of love.

This "connection—the unavoidable presence of the Other—has driven us to religion," he says, explaining why he thinks "the great religion is the great work of art." We "form ourselves around these problems," he goes on. "These problems exist prior to us, and we gather ourselves, almost molecularly, we gather ourselves around these perplexities. And that’s what a human is: a gathering around a perplexity."

"In the zendo," he tells me, not unhappily, "all of this disappears." ("This" referring, I think, to his name, his past, the life he carries around within him.) "You don’t notice if this woman’s beautiful or ugly. If that man smells or doesn’t smell. Whoever you’re sitting next to, you just see their pain. And when you’re sitting, you feel nothing but the pain. And sometimes it goes, and then it’s back again. And you can’t think of anything else. Just the pain." He pauses (and the chanteur/enchanteur slips out again). "And, of course, it’s the same with other kinds of pain, like broken hearts."

On Zen students:

"Everyone here is fucked up and desperate," he says brightly. "That’s why they’re here. You don’t come to a place like this unless you’re desperate."

In exultation, one Zen student proclaimed zazen to be "Better than drugs!"

"Secretly," he told me cheerily, "the sin of pride as it’s manifested here is that we feel we’re like the marines of the spiritual world: tougher, more reckless, more daring, more brave."

"There’s a bias against religious virtue here," he assures me, grinning one morning, as bells toll outside and I smell sweet incense in the air and hear clappers knocking in the distance, "and it’s very appealing. So you never have the feeling that it’s Sunday school. And you never have the feeling that you’re abandoning some cavalier life, or getting into some goody-goody enterprise. Not at all. Not at all." When a Buddhist magazine recently asked Cohen to conduct an interview with Sasaki, he gladly agreed, provided they could talk about "wine, women, and money." And to be sure, we’ve hardly been introduced before the disarming sinner-songwriter is using "pussy" and "shunyata" in the same sentence.

"What would I be doing? Finding new drugs, buying more expensive wine? I don’t know. This seems to me the most luxurious and sumptuous response to the emptiness of my own existence. "I think that’s the real deep entertainment," he concludes. "Religion. Real profound and voluptuous and delicious entertainment. The real feast that is available to us is within this activity. Nothing touches it." He smiles his godfatherly smile. "Except if you’re courtin’. If you’re young, the hormonal thrust has its own excitement."

Walking Through Adrienne Rich's Dharma Gate

2009-04-30T06:32:00.002+09:00

"Prospective Immigrants Please Note"

by Adrienne Rich

Either you will
go through this door
or you will not go through.

If you go through
there is always the risk
of remembering your name.

Things look at you doubly
and you must look back
and let them happen.

If you do not go through
it is possible
to live worthily

to maintain your attitudes
to hold your position
to die bravely

but much will blind you,
much will evade you,
at what cost who knows?

The door itself
makes no promises.
It is only a door.

Enlightenment Therapy

2009-04-28T04:41:00.007+09:00

Chip Brown of The New York Times has written a feature story on a Zen monk's encounter with psychoanalysis. The article is very compelling in its portrait of a wounded man seeking redemption.

Here's the link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/magazine/26zen-t.html

As a practitioner, I have some disagreements with the portrayal of Zen in this piece. Zen comes off as a philosophy which is opposed to self-analysis. How strange. In Zen we rigorously study the self in order to forget the self. We do not forget the self as some kind of escape. That would be psychological repression which is in no way consonant with Buddhadharma.

On the other hand, I think that too much authority is granted by the author to the interpretive strategies of psychoanalysis. Chip Brown's writing seems a little seduced by Dr. Jeffrey Rubin's [the analyst] admittedly dazzling acumen. But Dr. Rubin's insights may not be necessarily so... The interpersonal subjectivity between analyst and patient can be of great help or it may muddy the true nature of things because people's opinions (read: ego) are competing for acceptance.

In the end, the clarifying factor is meditation. This (perhaps unfortunately) can only be done for oneself. After the therapy session's conclusion we must be our own therapists.

Nevertheless, the article can really raise awareness of how difficult the private lives of Zen practitioners may indeed be. Too often I project that the roshis I know are living free from suffering. It's a silly idea, really. They're perfectly human. But when you see them in the robes, comporting themselves with heartbracing dignity and stillness, the mind makes assumptions.

Awake people are awake, that is all.

So, much love and thanks go out to Chip Brown, Dr. Jeffrey Rubin and Prof. Louis Mitsunen Nordstrom for their intervention.

Some Thoughts On Ego Psychology And No-Self

2009-03-27T22:44:00.011+09:00

I have a friend who is training to become a social worker. We're currently having a discussion about integrating spirituality and clinical work. I think of this as one of the last taboos, in a way. I guess there is much to say and none of it is all that helpful.

But I'll point at the moon.

On the one hand, there is clearly no conflict between mindfulness practice and cognitive restructuring techniques or stress reduction. Very few psychologists would object to integrating the techniques of basic meditation and awareness training.

I think the "problem" arises at a deeper level; namely, the ego. Contemporary Western clinical practices are dependent on the theoretical existence of this "thing" called the ego. The therapist approaches the client as a secular independent unit. The assumption is that the client's ego has basic reality testing, judgment, impulse control, defensive functions, and thought processes. Basically, the client has an identity. That identity is unique and irreducibly individual.

In many spiritual practices (certainly in Zen) one never has a true relationship with the ego because it's not really there! At the center of your being is nothing, an absence, a void. No self. This emptiness is infinite and transpersonal. Your potential--for happiness, among other things--is limitless because there is literally no duality between you and the universe. This is always and already so. Our task is to awaken to this.

Buddhism is uncompromising on this point. Any progress along the spiritual path ultimately has to deal with the question: "Who Am I?" If one meditates for long enough, invariably, everybody sees the same thing, basically: "I'm not there!" Ironically, when people "get it" they tend to become well adjusted and compassionate.

So integrating these two approaches to the self is a challenge as the therapist would have to reevaluate all their assumptions--starting with the idea that there are two independent people in a clinical setting. Maybe there aren't. What if the other person, quite literally, is you? This completely decenters the implied power relationship between therapist and client. In this way, there is only intimacy. What does this do to clinical etiquette and transference?

And then there's "ego identity." What to do with it? Strengthen it or collapse it? Acknowledge that it's a useful fiction when there's awareness? Or show how it's a delusion which stands in the client's way?

Obviously, the therapist can use a multi-modal approach which incorporates some techniques for mindfulness. But, in the end, if the jumping off point is still ego-based, I think it's difficult to work with the client beyond developing greater self-understanding and coping skills (which is no small thing!).

So an "egoless psychology" seems to be a final frontier of sorts. Many beautiful minds are exploring this now. Here are a few: Barry Magid, David Loy, Jack Kornfield, Ken Wilbur, Stanislav Grof, Daniel Goleman, and, of course, Thich Nhat Hahn.

Great Faith/Great Doubt and Nowhere to Stand

2009-03-17T22:14:00.008+09:00

In mind training, koan-study is about contradiction, about cultivating a love for holding paradox. The little kensho pearls that get generated by the "bump-and-grind" of two opposing truth-like concepts are beautiful and helpful. But after some time, most everyone becomes a little malcontent with the wabi-sabi preciousness of koans. Like many things Japanese, there can be an over-valuing of the clever, the pretty, and the smug.

In general, students naturally and, I think, correctly want more. And here is where the great doubt of "nowhere to stand" usually gets introduced by the roshis.

I'll give an example. A few weeks ago, my teacher threw this curve at me:

Sensei said: "Is there a teaching no master ever taught before?"

I said something clever but sincere, like: "Yes, this morning I noticed that the zendo's bell needs to be fixed."

--OK, not bad. A little moment of counter-intuition contradiction. I was pleased for a second, then--

Sensei repeated: "Is there a teaching no master ever taught before?"

Me: "Um, I don't know?"

Sensei: "I'll give you a hint: there is doubt here."

Me: "What doubt?"

Sensei: "You should ask me if I, personally, believe my own question to be any good? Does my own koan help me or you at all? This is the practice."

-----------

I find what he is saying to be very compelling. He seemed to be pointing away from the origami-esque self-canceling of koans.

In fact, there are a number of people whom I’ve met who refuse to participate in koans. One such woman said to me: "Koans are like giving out pictures of bread to stop hunger."

Ultimately, this is all very moving to me. I feel like this woman and my teacher are really practicing “great doubt,” even if they lose some of the ground of their tradition.

After all, this is a practice of flexibility. In the Dhammapada, the Buddha is not shy about describing "swans that take flight towards heaven" in divine terms. And like a divine swan alighted, in flight we have nowhere to stand.

Doubting Morgan Freeman

2009-03-01T20:43:00.005+09:00

In most religions, the need for faith is often bandied about. In Zen, not so much. Often, my teachers discuss the need for "great doubt." It is said: "At the bottom of great doubt lies great awakening. If you doubt fully, you will awaken fully."

This is a very honest but torturous route. Doubt reveals that faith can be helpful or it can give us Santa Clause. However, that species of doubt is just the surface. The Zen masters want us to go on a real mind bender; to the kind of dark forests where all our ideas live. If we are already dwelling inside this forest then we are asked to sit. We sit to to observe these phenomena with the great doubt of a scientist.

But this requires engaged teachers, learned skill, and found community.

With these, doubting may reveal that there are ultimately no differences, only different moments. In the end, we have all had each other's experiences. And the experience of doubt is closely related to heartbreak and compassion, in the fissure of which I may understand your karma in a very personal way because my moments are contiguous with yours. I may share a border with your experience of doubting. In this way, humility. Simplicity. Intimacy.

Recently, I've been thinking about the choice of existence as described in The Shawshank Redemption. For many people, this film was a teaching. For example, there is the famous moment when Red, the narrator as played by Morgan Freeman, says: "Get busy living, or get busy dying." Obviously, he is recommending that we get busy living.

But perhaps this is wrong?

I think we can all say that we have gotten busy and lived. In fact, in these times, we have "lived" faster and more intensely than most. And each time, as it happens, after we have gotten busy, there is a fall. So perhaps it's time that we got busy living and dying. Or, rather, being aware that our life is living us and not the other way around...

All things rise and pass away. We do not know this through faith. We know this through direct experience. And so we need great doubt. We need the direct experience of greatly doubting the permanence of things, not great faith in mantras for living an idea of life. In this way we may move away from the seductive naivety of The Shawshank Redemption, with it's title implying that there is something which needs redemption in the first place.

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there." (-Rumi)

Kundalini Yoga: The Yoga of Awareness

2009-02-15T18:35:00.005+09:00

Caution: the following is a little technical. Yoga is meant to be experienced, not explained. Jnana (intellectual understanding) may be one of the ways pointing towards enlightenment. But it is nothing without accompanying practice.

I was recently asked if Kundalini Yoga can remove samskaras. Samskaras are the mental formations we might call "personality traits" in the West. Some traits are undesirable, particularly habits of thought. Can Kundalini Yoga help to shed this kind of karma?

What I'm in the process of learning is that when exploring Kundalini Yoga (I'll shorten it to KY) by way of Jnana, there are two perspectives which need to be discussed: one point-of-view is that of Sikh Dharma, the other is more holistic.

KY's natural history runs through the Raja tradition of India, but today it is primarily interpreted by the Sikhs (in particular, Yogi Bhajan, who broke with tradition by teaching KY in America starting in the '60's).

The Sikhs have always had a kind of democratic impulse and they believe Kundalini raising technologies is everyone's birthright, not just the Raj. However, that means that a lot of KY theory has been sifted through the filter of Sikhism. In the process, its classical roots have been somewhat appropriated or transfigured on behalf of religious devotion (bakhti).

The second perspective that a lot of teachers embrace is more expansive than orthodox Sikhism. I can say with some confidence that KY practitioners keep coming back to the studio because the primary benefit is: awareness. I think if we see KY through the lens of "awareness training" then a lot of things start to make sense.

The huge emphasis in KY on meditation, breath, and rigorous movement catapult the mind (very quickly) into unordinary states. In order to do this, there are some pretty significant departures from classical yoga built into the current practice. This is especially true of the asanas. For example, a single KY asana may include and collapse up to three classical poses--it telescopes them by emphasizing movement and flow in (tri)angles. By classical standards, asana accuracy is sometimes sacrificed for efficacy.

This is especially true when it comes to KY's emphasis on the endocrine and nervous systems. In particular, KY hyper-stimulates the parasympathetic system while sending a lot of oxygen into the midbrain. Some believe that this triggers the Pineal Gland which may release elevated amounts of D.M.T. (sometimes called "the spirit molecule").

Whatever the internal mechanism, I can tell you that my mindfulness consistently goes way up during practice. Personally, I find that in contrast to other forms of yoga, the mind on KY looks at itself in a very reflective way. I have a friend who calls KY: Postmodern Yoga... because the mind becomes so aware of its own mechanisms.

So... to approach an answer to the question of samskara, I can discuss the Sikh explanation and also have a go at a more intuitive approach.

The Sikhs believe that there are specific times of the day when the self passes through a kind of twilight zone. During these periods, samskaras are most vulnerable to change. These times are called "Amrit Vela" (ambrosial hours)--they are between 4AM and 7AM and 4PM and 7PM. The Sikhs believe that it is then that our minds are in tune with "Ava Gavan" (a transient stage trending towards Nirvana) and if we do yoga with mantra recitation during this time, then "Guru" (the inner teacher, not an external teacher) will recognize the natural balance of the tattvas (aspects of reality) and correct the imbalances caused by samskaras. In this view, karma actually shapes the five tattvas: fire (anger), air (attachment), earth (greed), and ether (pride). Yoga, then, acts to balance karma/tattva by activating "Guru," the primal spiritual intelligence of every being.

Personally, I find this explanation dissatisfying because it requires faith in a cosmology. Though, it is worth saying that many, many cultures believe in an almost identical narrative. The 4AM to 7AM window is especially cherished in Tai Chi and Sufi practices.

But I'm much more enthusiastic about applying Buddhist philosophy here.

Virtually every Eastern discipline, stemming from a Vedic tradition, agrees that "volitional arisings" or "form-created-by-mind" is at the root of suffering and samskara. But there is significant disagreement about what causes the arising of these conditions. In Buddhism there is a total evacuation of metaphysics in favor of a psychological approach.

According to this view, in the beginning of everything there is avija or "ignorance" (not God, or the Word).

Here is a list (more of a feedback loop, really) of the 12 Nidanas. The Nidanas describe the contingent process of how we accumulate dukkha (suffering, stuck mind).

Ignorance
↓
Formations
↓
Consciousness
↓
Mind & Body
↓
Six Sense Bases
↓
Contact
↓
Feeling
↓
Craving
↓
Clinging
↓
Becoming
↓
Birth
↓
Old Age & Death

The Buddha believed that these contingent conditions arose because of ignorance of the relationship between form, consciousness, feeling, perception, and, finally, formation. This is how samskaras arise.

Kudalini Yoga has the ability to drive a wedge into the ignorance cycle.

The unique emphasis in KY on pranotthana or intensified and repeated movement of the six senses forces the mind to discern the difference between bodily pain (unavoidable) and mental suffering (optional). We realize that physical/mental formations do not need to cause changes in consciousness. The difference between "contact" and "feeling" is highlighted by the fact that we practice KY with our eyes closed. Lots of mantra and meditation are also utilized to enunciate this kind of awareness.

We also put emphasis on the body locks (bhandas) in KY. In fact, mulbhand (root lock), is applied pretty much throughout. Pranayam (breath) dynamics aside, the bhandas have the effect of putting clinging into your conscious control. Very quickly, then, one learns to skillfully uncling through this process. Impermanence becomes very literal.

Finally, breath control is the crown jewel of the practice. We practice something called "Breath of Fire" endlessly. This preps us for stopping the breath. This is said to cause mahanidra (the temporary death of the great nerve). Basically, this is as close to death as one can get. No breath. This is the most important stage in undoing samskaras. If we can master our striving and our clinging to our lives then wisdom may follow.

"Not Existence": The Zen of Ingmar Bergman

2009-02-01T23:24:00.002+09:00

Enlightenment as an Empty Shoe

2008-12-07T17:41:00.006+09:00

I've been speaking with a number of people about transparency and clarity. These days, our intuition is operating at such a peak level (and rising) that individual deception--self or otherwise--is just a waste of time.

Of course, the embarrassment of full disclosure is also a necessary and natural result of these times. As we realize that we are the masters--that there are no more gurus, no more geniuses--well, there's bound to be blushing at just how collaborative we've become.

For a beautiful enunciation of this feeling, please read:

Is Einstein the Last Great Genius?

http://www.livescience.com/culture/081205-science-genius-einstein.html

No more secrets.

I'll give two examples of this collaboration as I see it. These are ancient in precedent and modern in expression:

1) In my yoga studio, we're seeing more and more foot related injuries from people who live in urban ares. It's really sad but it's also a literal opportunity for satori.

The Buddha (who probably never wore shoes after the age of 29) once described enlightenment in this way: when you're an adult, you put on sensible shoes, and, inevitably, a small stone gets stuck inside. At first it hurts, it really hurts. But after a while you get used to it. You come to expect the pain. One day, the stone falls clear out of the shoe and you are in a state of bliss. You say, "I never knew!"

Enlightenment!

These days, cosmic consciousness isn't achieved cosmically so much. Now, it's manifested more prosaically and, I believe, honestly. Just clean house (and sneakers). Let emptiness do the rest.

Today, in Zen and Kundalini Yoga and everything, people's higher minds are investigating so fast that all we have to do--our entire responsibility--is just to help people take off their shoes. But just their shoes... the rest they must do.

2) In Japan, you can see how important it is to people to be of physical assistance to each other. There are these really amazing "wrathful bodhisattva" guarding the Buddhist monasteries. Their responsibility is to protect the meditators inside and adventurers outside. They're incredibly loyal lions and their hearts never give out... but their backs and feet can become very tired and strained.

Every morning (very, very early), the monks convene with local businessmen on their way to the Nikkei. Together, they tie red and pink ribbons around the lions as signs of love and gratitude for their compassion. Also, it is said that the purpose of the ribbon is to support the lions' backs and feet. They're very old. The monks call this give-and-take "karma yoga" or the practice of taking care of those who take care of us. And so it goes. Everybody and everything is gathered into a reciprocal state of equality and mutual support.

This is the ideal. Bodhisattvas taking care of bodhisattvas. I mean, here are human beings taking care of statues for goodness' sake! You can imagine, then, how loving the practice makes them towards living, breathing things.

Mãĩ tumse pyār kartā hū

A Moment of Zen Noir

2008-11-16T17:13:00.009+09:00

I don't know, I found this trailer almost impossibly sad. But very funny.

Enlightenment in the space and time of a gunshot.

Then there's this clip in which a monk says: "You going to freak out, or eat the orange?"

Seeking A Path Beyond Thought. But How?

2008-11-12T02:04:00.007+09:00

I recently got this e-mail from a close friend of mine in New York:

On the whole, I'm a firm believer in meditation, yoga, mindful living and the like. But of late I haven't been living that way. Mindful living is just that and it was getting very emotionally exhausting to basically be thinking all day. Don't get me wrong, I still do breathing, but I've taken a meditation hiatus... I'm trying to follow the whole "go with the flow" philosophy, but every so often the other side of my brain pops in and starts making trouble.

Trust me, I've been there--the thinking flooding in during meditation. Frustrating.

At those times, it seems like meditation is actually conspiring to create its own worst nightmare: more thought.

People usually abandon meditation at this stage. But they risk not realizing that the massive and exhausting inner noise is the ego's last gasp attempt to keep its integrity. It always--hear me--always gets better under these battle conditions. It is here that the mind is about to make a leap. Let it. Keep working.

Actually, at this stage, mind has already made the jump.

The Zen Masters teach us that we are already enlightened! We just don't recognize this.

At first blush, this may look like a typical religious tautology. But it's not circular thinking. I can report this is so from repeated experiments. The result: all training becomes redundant when you get the flash of insight. This is "Beginner's Mind."

OK. Fine. But how to do this?

Imagine your happiness as always with you, already smiling under your conscious mind. I'm guessing that we all trend towards desiring help from the outside. Especially when we want in to "the zone."

I'm not sure, but if most people see life this way, I think they are partially correct. While everybody (everybody) in our life are wrathful Bodhisattva (literally: compassionate warriors), helping us to slice away at our delusions of mind, they cannot ultimately go to war for us.

And so sadness always follows peak experience because at some level the drug of outside help wears off.

However, when we encounter that favorite helping other again, we naturally give ourselves permission to enjoy ourselves with them. This unconsciously cements the mistaken understanding that they are meeting our needs.

No. Primarily, we make ourselves happy. Mind is fully responsible for this state. But we've been conditioned to interpret the source of that happiness as external. It's not.

The ego has a great deal of trouble with this cognitive shift. And it even seems somehow ungrateful not to acknowledge external sources of joy.

And, indeed, it would be incredibly selfish if one remained stuck in a solipsistic framework wherein we were totally obsessed about our own inner worlds.

However, I cannot overstate how valuable it may be as an exercise to vigorously work out just how much mind creates our external reality.

Once you enter meditation from this vector--and, if possible, remain inside this angle of approach--I suspect you will better know what you already know.

However, if you would like some "outside" assistance in this process from a guided point of view, please watch the video below. It is the first in an eleven part series on "Facilitating Big Mind" (all the lectures are on youtube). The workshop is led by Genpo Roshi.

Despite very valid criticisms of this method, I believe this is a powerful adjunct to zazen.

If you wish to go through the process, it is advisable to set aside about 90 minutes for uninterrupted engagement with the material.

Celibacy: A Zen Perspective

2008-11-11T13:10:00.018+09:00

Recently, a question was sent to me by a friend:

"I'm thinking about this celibacy thing for you... why would you elect to adopt the monastic aspect of this? It would seem to me that a family and a spiritual life of this sort are not antagonistic to each other... Just curious how a young guy like you could be thinking of this..."

Well said, right? It's a classic question.

I answer in this way, hopefully without apology:

As I learn more about integration as a core gesture, the more I'm becoming convinced that compartmentalization while training is important. At present, my life is overdetermined. My mind is underdeveloped.

In other words, when I am really learning to do something different, I think it is best to mindfully devote my resources to that practice. Afterwords, after all the pieces have been disassembled rigorously, only then can I put them together as a free functioning, fully integrated unit.

The key here is: free functioning--and the choice to be so.

In Christianity (and I dare say some Jewish streams of thought), monastic tradition is driven by competitive suffering. Deprivation is seen to be somehow transportive. In that model we might say: pain = progress.

In the Zen model, the spiritual economy works very differently: we simplify. And then we simplify some more. We even simplify our attachments to Buddhism. This is a bottomless process. The goal is complete receptivity. Total presence, total non-judgement.

Why be so present?

--here's the Buddha's thesis--

MAXIMUM HAPPINESS.

And, ideally, maximum sustainable happiness for the maximum number of beings.

Now, sex is unquestionably one of the greatest pleasures. It is clearly part of life's best. Everybody (laypersons) should be having responsible, non-harmful sex according to Buddhism! It's natural!

The only problem I can see is not with sex. I think the world has had quite enough of sex bashing.

The problem is with unskilled mind. In the Western mode of desire, our minds do not realize that pleasure may not facilitate happiness. Not sustainably.

So what if it's not sustainable? Nothing is.

Yes, but what if confusing pleasure with happiness makes happiness somewhat unavailable?

I'll provide some examples of this which I used earlier in this blog:

Things we do which we say "make us happy" are said to do so because they function as a "relief" from a prior state. For example, after work, we might go golfing. Perhaps the day at the office did not make us happy.

However, after sufficient time, happy at the links, we need relief from the golfing as well. Every golfer has to and wants to call it a day after a point. In fact, it would make them unhappy to continue.

One could imagine a version of Sisyphus' hell as a never ending golf tournament, caddying one's irons from hole to hole. Indefinitely.

The same could be said of any thing outside ourselves which provokes a "happy" state of mind.

For example, I might say: Pizza makes me happy. So, theoretically, the more pizza I eat, the happier I'll be. But after two or three slices... a fourth, let alone a fifth becomes nauseating. The effort will not repay itself.
Even more precariously, we can harm ourselves and others in an endless cycle of trying to get at happiness.

Is there another happiness? One which you couldn't give or get enough of when you were a child and--hopefully--when you are an adult? One which will not tend to burn you or itself out, even though it requires sustained effort?

I think so. And it's always, already inside. It is not an external sublime. Personally, I never get tired of this form of pleasure/happiness. What it is exactly, for you, I cannot tell. But it's there.

Find it. But find it with precision. Celibacy is only one path towards assisting this exploration and it is not explicitly recommended by the masters. In particular, the Japanese Zen teachers are suspicious of the righteousness and seperationist biases of celibate practice.

I am mindful of this. However, I have found that it can dissolve desirous attachment. With reduced attachment, the mind can live in an empty space and flow towards openness.

Emptiness allows for the realization that all energy is just energy. Ki is Ki. Therefore, if I'm of an intention to direct my energy towards any part of my body--this can be accomplished when there is emptiness or "mushin" (lit: "mind like water").

In Karate, we put our hands through blocks in this manner. In Kundalini Yoga, we utilize tantra to refine our postures and perspectives. In Aikido and Zazen, we become observers of the wind and change. The list of conduits is extensive... And for those practicing sexuality, it goes without saying that energy can be accessed and channeled most directly through this powerful discipline.

In this way--and somewhat ironically--celibacy becomes a very sexual process. It is a sexuality of silence. If the silence can be improved upon, we should speak, if not, we should not speak.

But none of these words should be taken on faith. This is a matter of personal intuition.

According this way, Zen never, ever suggests renouncing sex unless your experience validates that without it you may refine your life and your senses. All things, in Zen and life, must be researched and tested.

As we say: "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him." Nothing is sacred, all is subject to inquiry.

In my case, my psychological makeup is so challenging that I think the monastic path can be most helpful is assisting me to find the middle way. However, this is a deeply subjective and not prescriptive view of the world.

To sum up then, even indefinite celibacy is non-definite. "Everything changes."

Is this hedging my bet?

I don't think so. And if it is, then celibacy is not ideal because it is somehow facilitating delusion.

If, however, my celibacy is clear-eyed, then I may view the monastic life as a model for progressive training. And, in practice, the monastic energetic commitment is so hard-core, that discipline quickly becomes second nature.

But having integrated the lesson of "everything changes," I know that discipline itself changes. In this way, we must meet our lives moment-to-moment, in the spirit of genuine scientific inquiry.

On some level, this also means I affirm or reject my experimental celibacy every day. But no matter what my daily conclusions, I do not act on swaying mind. I merely observe its fluctuations.

As Dalai Lama, Kundun says: "if science proves an aspect of Buddhism incorrect, then we have an obligation to render that aspect of Buddhism obsolete." Similarly, if I determine my path is incorrect, it will be corrected.

But for now, for today, it is most appropriate, I think.

Ask "Zen Cat"

2008-11-09T05:55:00.006+09:00

http://www.movingsky.co.uk/zenCat/

Click on the above link for a fascinating discussion with Zen Cat, a new technology which allows you to interact with a "virtual personality"--in this case, your statements and questions will be met with specific replies in the tone and cognitive perspectives of a Zen Master. Actually, a cat who thinks he's a Zen Master. No, really, a programmer's impersonation of a cat impersonating a Zen Master.

You see the possibilities.

Enjoy. Or. Do not Enjoy.

P.S. Below you'll see a photo which describes two of our more prominent minds: the monkey mind and the dove mind. For those practicing Zen, please remember that it is important to integrate the chattering monkey mind, not to "annihilate" it.

The Angels From America Spoke: YES WE CAN!!!

2008-11-05T05:00:00.008+09:00

CONGRATULATIONS AMERICA!!! CONGRATULATIONS WORLD!!!

LOOK UP, LOOK UP!!!

It's not very Zen of me, but I cannot contain my happiness! I don't remember the last time I felt so utterly hopeful!

It's been a long time coming...

To be on the East side of Earth for this wonderful day is humbling. The day belongs to every person around the world who said NO to fear! Around me, I meet people who feel planetary today.

To quote my teacher, Tony Kushner:

"The great work begins!"

All forms of theatre, all action can be theurgic ways of repairing the self, the nations, the world.

Do lots of yoga, meditation, eat well, die anyway--but love the people in your life with ferocity and unconditional kindness.

"To do this, every Kabbalist on earth would sell his right nut." (Rabbi Chemelwitz, Act 5, Scene 6, ANGELS IN AMERICA)

The time is now.

Zen and the Art of Therapy

2008-10-16T00:46:00.004+09:00

I was recently asked by a friend who works in the field of Mental Hygiene (a strange phrase, don't you think?) how I would apply the Zen concept of "skilled love" to her practice.

I assumed my teachers would suggest that I should answer the question as honestly as possible--i.e., with: "I don't know."

However, when I asked Sensei for help in addressing this, he insisted that I struggle towards an answer.

Right. So here goes:

The principle of "skilled love" is closely related to the Buddhist concept of non-attachment. However, the tough-mindedness which attracted me to Zen in the first place sees non-attachment as impossible without an understanding of compassion.

Compassion is this, simply:

You are not your ego.

You are not your thoughts.

You are not the sum of your memories.

Neither is anyone else.

However, Zen cannot tell you what you are (and, no, I'm not going to say we're Nothing or neti-neti, because I don't have a black belt in that type of thinking yet).

Before I understood this, I was lost in thought. Since I fully identified with my thoughts, I was attached to each. As a result, depression, anxiety, and suffering were inevitable.

Here's what changed: as (perhaps) opposed to New Age-thinking, which advocates increasing love of the self, I chose to turn my love of "me" off. That's very tough. It's unbelievably shattering to REALLY grasp that all my problems are self-generated. That I was making the self up--out of memory. Not here, not now.

Nevertheless, here's the bottom line: it's been a very long time since I've been emotionally overwhelmed and it's extremely unlikely that I will be again--in fact, it's technically impossible--if there continues to be centered observation of the ego, as opposed to living inside of ego. But I know as surely as I'm going to die, that if I were to take an extended trip back to a lack of mental discipline, relapse into the usual would be unavoidable.

So, one needs skills of mind.

And at the top of the list is the need for "skilled love." In fact, this love is so tough-minded, it initially doesn't feel like love.

Why?

Because it isn't love. Not in the usual sense. But after practice, it's much more fun.

The most accessible example of this might be: drumming.

Here are the phases of drumming, as I understand them:

1) Drum is tuned. Focus is on the instrument, but attention is still not fully present.

2) Tuning up and finding the rhythm. I dare any drummer, no matter how experienced, to attempt drumming and thinking at the same time while they're warming up.

3) Skilled love. Drumming is a little mechanical without dedication. So you let go.

Letting go actually means letting go. Muscular tension, then, is redundant, unnecessary to playing. But so is attachment to the music. In the skilled love phase, you could stop just as surely as you could continue. The choice is your own. Karma.

Here's where something weird happens. Right about then, when skill on the drum mixes with devotion and choice--thought returns. In fact, you can carry on a perfectly coherent (actually, amazing) conversation while your hands are doing the walking.

This experience is duplicated in the practice of yoga and martial arts. Our teachers refuse to engage us in talk until we're immersed in the zone. Then the conversation flows.

Do enough of this, repeat, and something shifts.

So, how does this apply to the therapeutic session?

I think "the zone" can be accomplished in Western therapy if we wouldn't overburden it with all the expectations it currently has to bear.

Right about now, therapy is trying to compensate for an increasing lack of meaningful companionship. The therapist is paid to stand in as confidant.

I think it's great that this service is available. The only problem I can see is that the analysand can spend the entire therapy session getting warmed up.

Since the client "needs to talk," and that's probably a good thing, this implies a Zen-like responsibility for the therapist.

I would say it can work something like this: skilled love never, ever means "working on someone else." The most emotionally moving gift, I believe, that you can give someone, is to work on (getting off) your self in their presence. By doing this, something dramatic can happen in the room. We change and we don't know why--but we certainly don't feel controlled--in the company of someone who is always centering themselves.

How does that make you feel?

P.S.No jokes about "work on (getting off) your self in their presence," please. Too easy.

Pure Theatre Geekery: "'Charlie Rose' by Samuel Beckett"

2008-10-11T07:32:00.000+09:00

"'Charlie Rose' by Samuel Beckett"

Very reminiscent of Ohio Impromptu. You can watch it here as performed by Jeremy Irons and... Jeremy Irons.

Elsewhere. It's better.

2008-10-07T06:37:00.002+09:00

Another traumatic day in economics.

Consider: on 9/11 while our attention was focused elsewhere, the birds sang in Central Park.

Taxi To The Dark Side... and back again.

2008-10-06T00:14:00.013+09:00

Change is said to come from within. But without outside help it's almost impossible.

But even with help, change tends to tango, lockstep, with one of the roughest depressions a person can go through; namely, dislocation of identity. Add geographical relocation to the mix and many international travelers, including this one, get messed up by an inevitability: that unfortunately and naturally, pain is to be expected when shifting gears to a radically different position of being in the world.

I can only imagine how difficult it is has been for everyone who has helped me through life to balance judicious intervention and skilled restraint. In Japan and Buddhism generaly, they call that role: "Bodhisattva" (lit. Compassionate Warrior).

I am glad that the use of the word "warrior," in this context, has no New Age connotations in tow (Bodhisattva, is a sanskrit word [बोधिसत्त्व] in use since at least the 5th Century B.C.E.)... in fact, my teachers in Zen--they who almost never reveal frustration--do become testy when a student begins to fetishize "the warrior". Their concern is that New Age-y thinking is selfish. In overemphasizing the self, New Age doesn't actualize personal growth. Instead, my teachers suggest that focus on the other is really the only way to achieve sustainable happiness.

Love (esp. skilled love) IS the answer. And skilled love absolutely requires expression outside the ego's limits. Before, that was just words. Now, it's just evident.

In this vein, I want to share a kind of "truth" which I've begun to learn at a core level:

What is happening is just what is happening.

Shakespeare/Hamlet said: "Nothing is either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." And the frustrating simplicity of the statement belies how a person really doesn't need a whole lot more self-knowledge than this. However, beginning that kind of ego-mastery of no judgement (not ethical relativism), is probably only possible though radical rethinking. And the rethinking often means confronting your most sacred values--whatever they may be.

I'll give a personal example: last night I saw "Taxi to the Dark Side". If you haven't seen it, I do recommend it as the direction seems very tough-minded and organized. Nevertheless, because of its unflinching stare at torture, it's likely to cause your mind and heart to hurt. Sometimes, it (actually, not "it;" rather: me) brought me to sorrow and shame.

But, then, as I was watching the interviews with the convicted American soldiers, I became aware of a fatal relationship implicit in how I saw them. Specifically, I was apprehending the soldiers as my soldiers, my representatives. I was so ego-attached to an idea of who they were and the fear that they might be my echo, that I almost failed to actually look at the screen and see them.

So I looked.

The truth is, when you actually see a person, you realize that you have no idea--or, at least, I didn't--who they really are. The soldiers were irreducibly complicated and singular. I had no reliable framework in which I could successfully judge them.

This isn't a mental leap, it's a gut reaction, thank goodness.

And I was even able to forgive them. They didn't need my forgiveness--but I did. The forgiveness process is almost indescribable... when it works, it works--in this way, I learn from their actions and the learning isn't driven by shame.

Wow. Personal responsibility need not be instructed and learned by way of guilt? Who knew?

OK, so how does this translate into skilled love? One of my sparring partners is an Israeli soldier with whom it has been difficult for me to practice good Aikido. Why? I think I hate her guts. For the following reason: she's a member of the infamous Israeli border police, a group tasked with patrolling the "security fence" and maintaining the Palestinian checkpoints. As an organization, let's just say they aren't renowned for being compassionate warriors.

But, really, how the hell do I know?

In fact, for all I know, this woman might be amazingly thoughtful at her job--and even if she isn't, it doesn't matter.

In the dojo, she's just there, then. Real and standing.

For some reason, this actually occurred to me in the moment as I was opposing her on the mat. We practiced very good Aikido today. She even saved me from a nasty potential fall which probably would have dislocated my shoulder. Thanks, therefore, is due to the interviews with the Abu Ghraib soldiers.

Look closer.

Change is impossible without help from an other.

I didn't get it.

Now... it's working out.

"More Life"

2008-10-01T02:11:00.005+09:00

To quote Kushner's "Angels in America": More life.

I'm on my way to the synagogue right now so I must be brief but I wanted to wish you a new year of profound happiness--even if you do not formally observe this day as a new year's beginning.

I was just thinking how lucky I am to be able to celebrate two new years (today and Jan. 1st) in every year... so too, I thought it would be neat to share the idea of beginning again whenever you wish to do so.

The more I study Aikido and Zen, the more a stream of clarity regarding beginnings becomes evident: that beginnings are far more preferable than is mastery. A beginning's purity and enthusiasm are difficult to retain. I find that in endless practice situations in the dojo, I am most happy when I forget the clock and fall into a new technique as just that: new. Without (ideally) the terror of "the blank page" staring up at me.

And, so, I think writing and falling (we spend most of our training time learning how to fall) are honeymooning love interests beginning again and again...

Again, more renaissance, and, again, love and, again, more life.

A Highdea: How To Do Kundalini Meditation By Being Your Own Warp Core

2008-09-29T21:26:00.000+09:00

Right. So this came to me as I was sitting in meditation in Yoga class. It seemed terribly profound at the time.

For those of you who ever watched Star Trek (great to watch when you're growing up... but why, oh why, is it so lame?) there's a key image which you can use when trying to draw energy up from the ground and down from the sky--the warp core.
Yeah.

ANIMATED INTRO ON HOW TO DRAW ENERGY UP AND DOWN DURING YOUR MEDITATION:

Srugim or Sex and the Holy City

2008-09-25T22:10:00.010+09:00

I'm in Israel for this leg of my studies before my scheduled junket to Japan for intense training in Zen. While I'm here, I live in the old Jerusalem neighborhood of Katamon--this place is famous for its singles scene. Recently, Katamon (or "the botz" or "swamp" as its singles wryly and only half-affectionately call the place) came to national attention as it was featured in the new Israeli TV show "Srugim," a soapy but poignant Israeli pop-intervention. Srugim dramatizes the lives of young, "Modern-Orthodox" singles adrift. Modern-Orthodoxy means many things to many people, but as a movement it tries to live in the space between the real world and real ritual (the "liminal space" as my teachers say). Watching "Srugim" is fascinating... Once, I was one of these people. Now, I'm just me/and them/and everybody else.

"On the beach on Shabbat (the Jewish sabbath)":

How the Ego works

2008-09-24T22:53:00.002+09:00

One day, a priest was passing by the office of his bishop. He heard the bishop praying with the these words: "I am nothing. I am nothing."

The priest was inspired. He went into his own office and began to pray: "I am nothing. I am nothing."

The janitor passed by the priest's office and heard the prayer. The janitor was inspired. He walked down the hall repeating: "I am nothing. I am nothing."

The priest heard the janitor praying and said to himself: "who the hell does he think he is?"

David Mamet on Budo/David Mamet on Acting

2008-09-23T19:00:00.012+09:00

Sensei recently encouraged us to watch David Mamet's Redbelt. Mamet's style of writing--he has a purple belt in Brazilian Jiu-jitsu--relies on leveraging the unstoppable inertia of inevitability.

This is the essence of praxis in tragedy.

The incomparably enigmatic Chiwetel Ejiofor play's Mamet's protaganist, Mike Terry. Terry, nearly a saint in this film, embodies Mamet's broader philosophy. As he says:

"Everything has a force. Embrace it or deflect it. Why oppose it? Just turn to the side."

One can hear the ring of truth about this idea, no?

Mamet takes this exact approach to theatre in his famous book True and False in Acting: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor. In this text, he embraces Sanford Meisner's brilliant and economic epiphany: that acting is SIMPLY about practicing "the reality of (not) doing." In other words, acting is not doing anything until someone or something makes you do it.

As Mamet writes: “Preoccupation with effect is preoccupation with the self, and not only is it joyless, it’s a waste of time.”

Just take the heat off yourself by putting all your attention on the other. It works.

Iaido and the Aleph-Bet: Workshop Every Wed.

2008-09-11T22:36:00.004+09:00

Q: What do Samurai culture and the Aleph-Bet have in common?

A: Explore the question. Join us for a free workshop that will introduce the Ancient Japanese sword art of Iaidō and Otiyot Chayot, a system of movement inspired by Kabbalah, T’ai Chi and the Aleph-Bet.

Through Iaidō, we will use our bodies and our “swords”* to become living calligraphy of the Hebrew letters.

The goal: to find a state of flow and no mind.

Details:

Where: South East corner of Gan Sacher, Jerusalem

When: Every Wednesday (18:00 - 19:30)

Clothing: loose, comfortable clothing

* “Swords”: Please visit your local hardware store and purchase a wooden stick, approximately 60 cm in length. Alternatively, if you would like to continue studying this art, purchase of a bokken (a traditional wooden practice sword) is recommended.

To RSVP or for more information, please e-mail: akiva@republictheater.org

Budo for Peace: changing the perception of Oyev (enemy) into the Ohev (beloved)

2008-09-09T17:43:00.006+09:00

Budo for Peace (BFP) brings together young people from conflict areas in the Middle East to learn and practice traditional Japanese budo (martial arts) in order to learn its values and apply them toward breaking down fear and building trust between peoples. Through martial arts training and understanding of traditional Japanese budo values – including respect, harmony and self-control – the youth enrolled in our program are taught to convert both internal and external conflict into harmonious behavior.

For more information, please visit: http://www.budoforpeace.org

Aikido and Anne of Green Gables?!?

2008-09-08T20:59:00.007+09:00

Like many children of the '80's, I grew up watching PBS' Anne of Green Gables.

Then adulthood, quarter life crisis (actually crises), and cynicism.

But life travels in circles and, if we're lucky, spirals.

I feel lucky.

Like many in their late-twenties, living in NYC, I wanted so much more. And when I was ready, teachers appeared in all things. I fall in love at least twice a day now.

I think a good indicator for spiritual or self-aware progress can be found when you brush (not trip) against your own past as you're moving forward, take note of it, and keep moving. Wallowing in nostalgia is not of-the-moment. But deja-vu is. It propels you progressively, urgently, and, of course, uncannily.

For those so inclined, I recommend reading Jacques Lacan's framing of this idea. He calls it: meconnaisance.

When you train hard, the soft emerges. And this is how, twenty+ years after childhood, Anne Shirley returns. As you may know, the Anne of GG series has a cult-like following in Japan. Many have speculated as to why. They've suggested that it represents a desire for a Japan that never was. Perhaps. Whatever the reason, I found the following article on the Aikido Journal site (see: http://www.aikidojournal.com/?id=3432). It is written by Nev Sagiba Sensei. In it he describes what is, I think, the ideal human-animal: rigorously disciplined in mind and body and, as a result, surprisingly gentle in spirit.

And so today, as Coney Island's Astroland officially closes its doors forever, new ones open. Here's an example:

Advantage and Disadvantage - Life Navigation Skills

Pursuing the path of Aikido over many years has taught me the simple revelation made by a friend a long time ago, on a beach watching the rising sun: “To every advantage, there is a disadvantage; to every disadvantage there is an advantage. Each carries inside of it the seed of its opposite.”

This is the secret of navigating life, indeed the very cosmos itself. Ukemi.

I have a friend, a very hard stylist who never stayed with Aikido long enough to truly extract its benefits, who jeers at the Koryu or Kobudo arts’ methodology; the old style where the master takes the uke role. He claims, “Yeah, they practice losing so they can get good at it.” I’m not sure what he bases this on but, since he talks a lot and no longer practices, I can only deduce that it’s just plain ignorance arrived at because of academic theorizing and lack of practice. A bad combination indeed.

Can we really agree with this view in the face of the fact the old masters came from generations of battle-hardened warriors often going back thousands of years into old China and India? Their methods obviously have purpose, discovered in the wisdom of ages of experience.

My experience over my few years of variegated training differs considerably from that of my friend and I have consistently observed the very opposite to his view. I concur with the Kobudo view. I have found that the sport ‘martial artists’, the few freaks who survive this hard game invariably get killed or turn out to be cowards in the street, the field and any real emergency. In tending to be self-centered about winning they walk into their own darkness and fail. Repeatedly I’ve witnessed this. Big, tough, macho pussies they turn out to be, only capable of generally pushing their weight around when no real risk exists.

Conversely, the gentle, non-competitive people who train quietly and treat everyone with respect generally turn out to be fearless warriors in all manner of high-risk situations. And then they resume their creative service to society bearing their own burden as if nothing happened. You generally would not pick them as being out of the ordinary.

Again and again and again I have seen this trend until it began to speak to me. I asked the question: Why? I have no answers, but I have developed a theory, the theory of Ukemi and Kaeshi.

When you practice to both “win” and “lose” till these two impostors become irrelevant, another dimension of consciousness begins to appear; a different paradigm or way of viewing existence which enables us to navigate instead of blunderbuss through life, with entirely different results.

Because you understand both, you fear neither, and therefore it becomes possible to take charge and win at every point.

Remember the days when trainees of some arts knew no groundwork. Nor how to fall safely, and if felled, made the decision to imagine they had lost. A mere fall was considered a loss in their minds and at that point they gave up trying. Man, the ground is your ally and just the beginning whether you stay there or not! And you GET UP AGAIN.

A Budo acquaintance I share information with, often confesses that he has “lost” as many fights as he has won. Since he refers to crime fighting he’s referring to the real thing, not sport. Whilst I appreciate his candor, I keep having to tell him that he has lost none. He does not seem to get it and I have to keep repeating it: “If you lost you would be dead!” Mere bruises, pain and injuries do not constitute loss, they indicate you are alive. “What did you do?” I ask. He replies: “I got up and got on with life.” I rest my case. You won. The rest is mere details.

Life navigation is determined by attitudes. The practice of Aikido in particular, delineates those attitudes.

I was on the phone not long ago talking business with another friend, a hardened Budoka, now a successful business entrepreneur with some severe past street experience. He suddenly, mid-conversation told me: “I have to go. I’m closing shop, ‘Anne of Green Gables’ is on.” And hung up the phone.

What??? ‘What’s is the world coming to?’, I thought. But I became intrigued. I recalled that my ex and her daughters used to watch it and I then, being younger and more task-oriented, basically ignored it as “girlie stuff.” Now, this toughened, street hardened warrior closed shop to watch “Anne of Green Gables”? Well, most of my life has been surreal in one way or another, so, whilst surprised I quickly adapted; but my intrigue got the better of me and so I decided to close shop as well and put the TV on and watch “Anne of Green Gables!” What was it a street hardened fighter was getting out of watching this? So much so that I ended up getting the complete series and er.. studying it.

No leaping of tall buildings. Just human circumstance. A bit too close to home for comfort. And the nostalgia of a seeming better past is always a hook. Romantic, idealized and unrealistic pasts are always an escape from now. But there are some bits of gold in the story that do apply to real life.

The way the character, a girl, heroically navigates a potentially miserable life turning everything her way, was pure Aikido life navigation. Portraying the highest, the best, the possible of human potential, never staying down for long, bringing value to the world instead of only taking and expecting. Strong where necessary, but mostly dynamically kind and staunchly compassionate in the face of spite, anger, hard-heartedness, envy, betrayal and a host of miseries. Making friends of possible enemies and never taking no for an answer when it came to integrity.

It caused me to reflect on my past life. Despite my high and noble ideals.. well.. it makes me look like a bull in a china shop with a blindfold; or a steam roller in high gear, though I did not realise it at the time.

Looking back, of necessity I too fought life more than necessary at times, instead of appropriately yielding to least some circumstances. I hope I can learn to do better as I grow. It taught me also that for the vast most of us, when we behave like idiots, we know no better and that’s why we stumble blindly, clumsily and arrogantly through a life riddled with errors and learning mostly the hard way. It brought up considerable feeling of forgiveness for others in this plight, not possible many years ago in the thick of battle.

I have known people in life who in many ways resemble this Anne character, not a Pollyanna but a dynamic spiritual warrior, yet with heart. What made them different? An ATTITUDE and a CHOICE to remain positive despite the challenges and to CONVERT THE DISADVANTAGES INTO ADVANTAGES. PURE AIKIDO.

Er.. it makes my expertise on the mat and other battles pale into insignificance. I’m the student; they and the character of Anne are the masters of Aikido. Guys with a hakama… nothing much.

What enables such an attitude earlier in life in some more than others, the slow learners like me?

I don’t know, but I found these passages which I’ll share:

From Rudyard Kipling:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master,
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

—Rudyard Kipling

And from the Mahabarata and the Bhagavad Gita:

”..Realize that pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat, are all one and the same: then go into battle..”

Another translation:

“…Treating pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat alike, engage yourself in your duty..”

In other words: Get over it. Grow up. Do something about your attitude. Get on with the business of being human, creating and serving all life, and sure, be a good fighter as well, just in case you need it, but make better things than mere fighting, your primary focus.

And if you have to, when there is no alternate choice, then fight if you have to.

As the Founder of Aikido stated: “Leave everything in the hands of the Universe.. Live life creatively and to the fullest… Love all life… True Budo is an expression of God’s love… It requires no more weapons than your heart… Regardless of circumstance, hold an attitude where everything can be converted to advantage, no matter what… true victory is victory within yourself, everything else then follows…”

Nev Sagiba
aikiblue.com

Zen Bubbeism

2008-09-07T03:27:00.002+09:00

Weakness is Power: The Musical

2008-09-07T00:03:00.013+09:00

There's a funny bit in an old Jet Li film where he plays a village idiot. This character finally grasps that one cannot even hold an inflated ball underwater, so strong is Nature compared to muscles.

Then, I swear, said village breaks into a chorus line, belting out: "Mercy is Merciless" in the key of F# and doing jazz hands. Ok, no jazz hands, but, um, lots of tai chi hip-hop. Seriously.

For some reason, this reminded me of John C. Caputo's understanding of "weak theology":

On the classical account of strong theology, Jesus was just holding back his divine power in order to let his human nature suffer. He freely chose to check his power because the Father had a plan to redeem the world with his blood. ... That is not the weakness of God that I am here defending. God, the event harbored by the name of God, is present at the crucifixion, as the power of the powerlessness of Jesus, in and as the protest against the injustice that rises up from the cross, in and as the words of forgiveness, not a deferred power that will be visited upon one’s enemies at a later time. God is in attendance as the weak force of the call that cries out from Calvary and calls across the epochs, that cries out from every corpse created by every cruel and unjust power. The logos of the cross is a call to renounce violence, not to conceal and defer it and then, in a stunning act that takes the enemy by surprise, to lay them low with real power, which shows the enemy who really has the power. That is just what Nietzsche was criticizing under the name of ressentiment.

– John D. Caputo, The Weakness of God: A Theology of the Event

And if anyone doubts the power of this radical choice, watch this:

Aikido literally exerts no force. Since energy cannot be destroyed, Aikido rechannels it. However, this is far from some vaguely Christian notion of sublimation. The technique is so precise, so logical, that I feel sorry for someone who exerts strain against a disciplined Aikido practitioner (Aikidoka)... such an aggressor would actually, literally hurt himself--while the Aikidoka, in a very kinetic sense, does nothing.

[Chorus: Reprise "Mercy is Merciless!"]

[Dance break: Do Tai Chi hip-hop. Exit All Stage Left.]

Yeah, yeah, yeah! Next time I'm in the dojo, I'm going to ask sensei if we can warm up by singing some Ella Fitgzerald:

You can try hard
Don't mean a thing
Take it easy, greasy
Then your jive will swing

I think sensei will not like this idea.

Common Students that Martial Arts Instructors See/Want to kill. Kidding...

2008-09-06T00:29:00.006+09:00

Common Students that Martial Arts Instructors See

1. Question Lad (aka. What-If?): This guy will bring up every possible permutation for every drill that is being worked. Solution: Make him uki.

2. Captain Slacker: Dogs the drills and sucks away the stunning dynamic experience that occurs during every class. ;-) Solution: Make him uki.

3. The Interpreter: Seems to believe that explanations must be altered to so that the masses can understand them. Even when the masses are already doing the drill. Solution: Make him uki.

4. The Whacker. Selflessly and altruistically strives to make each partner drill ultra-"realistic", for his partner's learning benefit. Leaves a wake of bruises, black eyes, and sprains behind him until he tries it on the wrong person. Solution: trade partners frequently, the right one will come along soon.

5. The Silver Spoon. Has a unique blind spot that prevents him from seeing anything that needs doing around the dojo. This blind spot is so wide that he can't see an entire dojo floor full of other students with rags cleaning up. Solution: hand him a rag. Or make him uke. Gis make great cleaning rags, with or without a person in them.

6. The Assistant Insructor. Possessed of a truly amazing learning curve, this specimen has absorbed enough knowledge in six months' study to be able to offer a flawless critique of others' practice. Undeterred by the presence of actual knowledge and experience. Solution: have him do heian shodan. As my sensei told me, "Nobody knows more about karate than a green belt. If you don't believe it, just ask him"

7. The Vince Lombardi Wannabe: Believes only that a good offense is the best defense. Constantly attacks training partners at full speed to demonstrate this philosophy, leaving confused and disgruntled students in his wake. Solution: He/she feeds the instructor next time.

8. The Whiner. Common source of "but that huuuuurts!" "I think I need to sit out for a moment," and "that's too hard!" during simple basic partner drills, including all light sparring. Solution: Take two Tylenol and put them back in. They'll either gain a little intestinal fortitude or they'll quit. (Note: the Tylenol is for YOU, not them.) (Note 2: I'm not talking real injury here----I mean the whimpering little whining that happens when someone gets an arm bar put on, so that the pressure on the arm "hurts my arm muscle." Things like that. People who simply canNOT get through an entire class without at least 2 brief class pauses while the instructor checks if the person is really hurt, or just whining yet _again_.) (And yes, I've got one of these. Arg.)

9. The Toughman. Can take ANY technique, and "tough it out" according to him (it is almost always a him) Pressure points don't work (according to him), locks are something he can handle (according to him), and getting thrown/landed on/smashed/crushed/mangled is something where he can "take the pain, suck it up, and shrug it off." No matter what. Solution: make him uki MORE.

10. The Cross-trainer. "White belt, you need to adjust your stance this way." "But sir, this is the way we did it in the last tkd/karate/aikido/judo/whatever class I was in. And I've noted you don't do [such and such] technique 'correctly' ---in my last class, the teacher said it was stupid to do it the way you do." Teacher: "Arg. Can I simply kill you now?" Solution: Manage to not show Little Grasshopper why you "do it that way," and simple explain that different classes do it different ways----and in THIS class, we do it MY way.

11. The Primal Male. Women simply canNOT do techniques that would be effective against this man because, after all, they are women. Smaller, weaker, etc... Solution: Have the smallest high ranking female in class use The Primal Male as demonstration person for joint locks and throws. In front of the new students. (This person is common in many college programs, BTW.)

12. The Mouth. Has the amazing ability to continue talking while you are standing in front of him stating that he should shut up. (If you're lucky, this only occurs in children's classes.) Solution: His partner gets 10 pushups everytime he opens his mouth.

13. The Clueless: He's constantly doing stuff wrong. Even the simplest explanations bring a glazed look to his eye as he continues to be unable to improve. Solution: Can't think of a single one. [Ed. Note: Baseball bat. Hey, it is theraputic for the teacher.]

14. The macho newbie: He's big, he's strong, and he knows it. Furthermore, there's no woman in the whole dojo that he couldn't knock out with his fabulous punch, and he's going to make sure that everyone knows it. Solution: Kick him in the groin. ;) (OK, so you can't really do that if you're the instructor, but you can tell the other students to do it!)

15. The macho old-timer: He's big, he's strong, and he's been doing this a long time. Ain't no one in the place that better *ever* beat him at a drill, or they will pay the concequences. Solution: Kick him in the groin (Hey, Don got to use solutions over! ;), and then quickly move on to the next partner.

16. The "in my previous dojo"'er: Need I say more? :) Solution: send him on to his next dojo.

17. Ninja Bob: is pretty sure that he is training to become a covert agent, and wants constant reassurance of the deadlyness of his/her endeavors.

18. Every sifu's best friend: wants to be your 'best' student, but unfortunately can't deal with training in the group. It's not his fault really, but he's a kick ass private student at the no contact level. (you guys can call this "The Maurice" if you want)

19. Mr. Agreeable: Yes, he understands. Yes, the drill makes sense, sure. Sure, keep it slow, watch the contact. (smile, nod) Oh, like that, right. ...Proceeds (as soon as your back is turned) to, in dazed confusion, invent his own damn drill, thank you very much, fast, out of control, and not at all similar to the original.

20. Ms. I'm-tough-'cuz-I-do-karate. She likes to think she's tough, but anytime someone makes even a little bit of contact, she's going to complain to anyone that will listen. This is to be contrasted with the women who *are* there to train, and say nothing about the multiple bruises they take home every night from the macho-newbie and the macho-old-timer. Solution: Hit her really hard and tell her to stop being such a wuss when she complains. The phrase "It's karate/judo/etc., it's supposed to hurt a little bit" should be used often. Solution: every single time, without exception, pair Ms. Selfdefense with #4, The Whacker. This will necessitate her learning to "whack" back.

21. Ms. Self-Defense. She's read too many RMA threads, and truely believes that her intelligence will get her out of any struggle she may encounter. And if her intelligence doesn't work, then her legs will, because after all, women's legs are stronger than men's. Solution: Put her one on one with one of the smaller guys, and tell her to defend herself. 19 times out of 20, she'll find that her legs and her intelligence don't matter too awefully much. Every single time, without exception, pair Ms. I'm-tough-'cuz-I- do-karate with #9, the macho newbie. She will probably eventually get pissed off enough to WANT to let him have it.

22. The glass menagerie: think that they should be able to learn how to fight without ever falling down, getting bruised or otherwise experiencing physical discomfort. Never fully commits to a technique, holds back and typically ends up being one of the first people to experience an injury. (Usually from not committing to the movement properly) Solution: time...they either learn or leave.

23. The natural: has natural athletic ability which really does help him or her in the learning of MA. Is frequently lazy, however, since it doesn't seem that hard to learn. This person frequently gets bored and ends up leaving without fulfilling their potential. Solution: find something that challenges them (and make them uke?)

24. Eclectic Man. Has done thirty other arts for one class apiece. Is just killing time until he can create his own martial art and associated web site (whose address he will repeatedly post to RMA). Hopes to be inducted to the "World Martial Arts Hall of Fame" as "Supreme Grandmaster of the Year" before his 23rd birthday. Immediate response to any drill is "In Armenian Tae Kung Kara Aikikenpojujutsu, they do X instead". Thinks you are jealous because his uniform has more patches on it than yours does. Solution: Make him uke. Preferably for "the Whacker" ;-)

25. Satori Man. Has read every single book or article ever written on Zen and martial arts. Owns stock in Shambala. Has never actually done zazen. Quotes koans at every opportunity. Believes Morihei Ueshiba was God. Believes Morihei Ueshiba was a Buddhist. Is fond of expounding about how "X" is not a "real martial art" because it lacks a "spiritual component" Solution: Invite your friend Charlie, who has been teaching "X" for a couple of decades, to the dojo to teach a surprise special seminar...and thereby acquaint Satori Man with his own spiritual component by making him uke.

26. Variant 1 on Satori Man: all this and has never done any MA training. Solution: make him stop talking and practice. He'll go away. I recall one kid who rebelled at being forced to hold the shinai with a right-handed grip. He'd read Go Rin No Sho and according to him, Musashi didn't do it that way. He lasted 2 classes.

27. Jutsu Man. Flip side of "Satori Man". Believes he is the reincarnation of Miyamoto Musashi, John L. Sullivan, and Attila the Hun. Is dismissive of many "-do" forms because they "aren't practical" have "all that spirituality bullshit", or are "just sports". Believes women "can't fight for shit". Solution: Invite a small, female, godan in Judo to teach him the meaning of the term "kata guruma"...and make him uke.

28. The Ogler. The woman who is so busy oogling at the guys, she's not paying attention to what you're trying to teach her. In my experience, these are always beginners. One possible solution is to pair her up with a guy, ideally one of the guys she's oogling. That way, at least, I can go off and teach someone else or practice with someone who wants to train. Another solution is to throw her quickly and rather than help support the fall, let her weight drop completely. Doesn't leave quite the same bruises as punching, but can be pretty punishing all the same. Of course, *I* would never do this.

29. The Drifter: Comes to class once every couple of months. Is completely clueless about the material currently being studied, but wants to be promoted to the next belt. solution: Relocate the dojo every once in a while. (Thats what my Sensei does)

30. The Hasbeen: used to practice five or ten years ago, and has now returned. Thinks he knows just as much as the advanced students that studied with him then and haven't stopped. Tries very hard to prove he is just as good as them by using lots of force while doing the techniques. Solution: pair him up with one of said students.

THE COMPLETE HISTORY OF AMERICA (abridged)

2008-09-05T21:21:00.004+09:00

Last night I saw The Reduced Shakespeare Company's

THE COMPLETE HISTORY OF AMERICA (abridged)

I loved it! So gleefuly subversive. For example, see their tongue-in-cheek new national anthem:

Austin: As we’re all agreed that we need a new national anthem, I have written my own modest example. Um, could I get a G?

Reed: Yeah. [plays note]

Austin: Thank you. Now, this is a song – this is a song which some of you may recognize. Maestro?

[Reed plays “America, the Beautiful” on accordion]

Austin: [singing] Oh, beautiful for spacious skies
And non-exploited waves of botanical companions.
For mountains of majesties and color
And free-roaming non-human beings
Beside the differently-harvested plain.
Oh, non-Eurocentric bioregion
Non-theologically specific supreme being
([speaks] If she exists)
Shed ambigenic grace on thee
And made you more of a
Non-speciesistic, multi-cultural eco-warrior
From chronologically-gifted anthropomorphized river
To cosmetically-enhanced sea!

[Music ends]

[Audience cheers; applauds]

Austin: Thank you so much! Thank you. Thank you so much. Play ball!

The Jewish Samurai: A Joke

2008-09-04T10:00:00.003+09:00

The Jewish Samurai

There once was a powerful Japanese emperor who needed a new chief samurai. So he sent out a declaration throughout the entire known world that he was searching for a chief.

A year passed, and only three people applied for the very demanding position: a Japanese samurai, a Chinese samurai, and a Jewish samurai.

The emperor asked the Japanese samurai to come in and demonstrate why he should be the chief samurai. The Japanese samurai opened a matchbox, and out popped a bumblebee. Whoosh! went his sword. The bumblebee dropped dead, chopped in half.

The emperor exclaimed, "That is very impressive!"

The emperor then issued the same challenge to the Chinese samurai, to come in and demonstrate why he should be chosen. The Chinese samurai also opened a matchbox and out buzzed a fly. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh! The fly dropped dead, chopped into four small pieces.

The emperor exclaimed, "That is very impressive!"

Now the emperor turned to the Jewish samurai, and asked him to demonstrate why he should be the chief samurai. The Jewish Samurai opened a matchbox, and out flew a gnat. His flashing sword went Whoosh! But the gnat was still alive and flying around.

The emperor, obviously disappointed, said, "Very ambitious, but why is that gnat not dead?"

The Jewish Samurai just smiled and said, "Circumcision is not meant to kill."

KILL YOUR TV!!!

2008-09-03T09:00:00.003+09:00

What I do at home. For fun. Must get out more...

God bless John McCain, poor guy...

2008-08-31T22:03:00.004+09:00

When I observe John McCain on and off the podium, I see a pain-body and a body in pain.

He seems too strong.

Ultimately his presentation is the condemnable product of torture. I do hope he feels more peace.

That's it. No irony here.

Please join me in wishing him a fuller recovery from the horror of trauma.

Zen Masters for Obama

2008-08-31T20:40:00.001+09:00

What if Obama's DNC speech was delivered like this:

Sometime in the '70's at UCLA, D.T. Suzuki (a Zen Master) came to visit at the behest of the university.

The administration set up the main auditorium for him. Hundreds of students and the whole East Asian Studies Dept. was there--the crowd was deep in anticipatory excitement.

The chairperson came onstage and introduced the guest-of-honor: "Welcome D.T. Suzuki, world-class Zen scholar, writer, and master! You're finally here!"

The crowd sat in reverent silence.

Then, a little man, Suzuki, shuffles out to the mike, looks at the chairperson, shakes his head, adjusts a pair of glasses, reaches out and taps the mike.

A hollow ping sounds throughout the hall.

He leans into the mike and says: "Zen Buddhism. Very hard to understand. Thank you," and walks offstage.

---------

P.S. You can purchase the "Zen Masters for Obama" bumper-sticker here:

http://www.cafepress.com/irregulargoods.219133227

Japanese Jews and Krav Maga

2008-08-28T03:43:00.008+09:00

I am currently advancing my understanding of swordsmanship in the Japanese styles of "moving Zen".

There is so much happiness which comes up during the ancient practice of Iaido.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iaidō

The "inner smile," which we read about in so many traditions, actually finds real expression in this art as it would be impossible to support the weight of the katana for the hours of practice unless ones chest is light and filled with nothing. Far from being abstractions, these principles really get reified in the martial arts if one studies them for the appropriate reasons--whatever they may be. I find that the practice of Kundalini Yoga is also invaluable here.

It's so interesting to be doing this work in Israel with Japanese Jews who are said to descend from Samuari (they call themselves: Hata). They are such a compliment to the Israeli scene. Instead of realpolitik, they teach flexibility and peace as the "way of the sword" = to give the other (opponent/friend) the radical permission to be themselves. To let them be. Without occupation or preoccupation.

My studies in Israel and Japan are, partially, an effort to explore alternatives to the home-grown Israeli system of self-defence called Krav Maga. You may have heard of it. The best way for me to describe it is this: it's like trying to shoot down a mosquito with an anti-aircraft-gun.

It's inelegant and unnecessarily brutal to the practitioner and the opponent. Most importantly, it runs the same old patterns without any improvisation or imagination. It just doesn't see the target. Because of this rigidity, it's likely to get you killed in a fight. It also screws with ones way of interpreting the world.

It seems that the Israeli defence establishment 's approach to the other is similarly self-defeating and ultimately, well, anti-human. Perhaps they could benefit from time spent studying to really explore the limits of their potential.

As the late Yogi Bhajan (the premier teacher of Kundalini Yoga) said again and again, the key phrase for our times is: "Don't just tread water. Keep up. Really keep up, and you'll be kept up."

One has to be worthy of survival.

Namaste.

PS Here you can see a clip of me performing Kata Juppon Me - Shiho giri (four-directional cutting of four opponents)

Captain Nemo: Zero-Tolerance for War. Enforced by War.

2008-08-12T07:58:00.005+09:00

I've been thinking about Jules Verne's Captain Nemo. He really is an anti-war war star. His approach really begs a review of the ethics of "zero-tolerance collective security."

Specifically, this model applies to the following scenario: Country A attacks Country B in a manner which is voted to be "unjust" by a dedicated International Law jurying body.

Zero-tolerance collective security dictates that Country(ies) C who voted on this decision are compelled to go to war as peacekeepers in the scenario. Ideally, they halt the aggression from Country A to Country B.

Let's leave aside, for the sake of argument, the logistical nightmare and political aftershocks of such a policy.

What say you to the ethical implications?

Thoughts on Tisha B'Av 2008

2008-08-11T05:56:00.001+09:00

Seeing as how it's Tisha B'av today (a day to mourn how we Jews have destroyed each other with hatred), I've been thinking about how we often attempt to deal with our trauma by integrating the characteristics of our abusers.

This is neither a novel idea or a particularly insightful one--that the body politic acts like any body in crisis.

However, if you look to Jewish History for clues about what happens during that process of integration, of the abused becoming the abuser, something singular reveals itself: we cast ourselves as other in really, really literal terms! In other words, we actually act out fascist roles and symbols somewhat consciously!

For example, see this article from the BBC:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7270650.stm

It points to recent rhetoric from the Israeli Deputy Defence Minister as he deployed the word "Shoah" against Palestinians.

Or this article, which points to the alarming trend of JEWISH NEO-NAZIS (!) in Israel:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6985808.stm

For more on this, I highly recommend the film: The Believer

http://www.palmpictures.com/film/the-believer.php

And then there's this mind-warping report on Israelis tattooing themselves with Auschwitz-inspired numbers on their forearms:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/979508.html

Also, I can tell you that the above article is actually just the tip-of-the-iceberg--when I was in Israel in April, I read several articles which noted that this was becoming a popular fad among twenty-somethings.

I sincerely doubt that the motive to put a number on ones arm is merely a clean and simple statement of defiance against genocide. It comes out of a much, much deeper impulse.

Some might point to the unsettling counterpoint between Fascism and Zionism--how these philosophies come from very similar intellectual world-views.

At the very least, Israel was founded with the help of Revisionist approaches.

See:

The Stern Gang: Ideology, Politics and Terror, 1940-49. (Frank Cass Publishers, 2005)

Muscular Judaism: The Jewish Body and the Politics of Regeneration (Routledge Curzon, 2007).

But one could even say that a rigorous historical contextualization of Fascist roots in Zionism does not necessarily indict Zionism today... indeed, most modernist movements (even Feminism) were touched by this stream of thought.

What is desperately indicting is how Israeli policy has lost sight of the post-Holocaust responsibility of Israel: to be a counter-example to hatred and racism. To show how a national body can have a global vision by becoming the change it wishes to see in the world.

We're failing at this. Miserably. Israel views itself as "alone" in a crowd and it is therefore lonely and traumatized/traumatizing.

To expand on this, here is an excerpt from an article by Rabbi Yaacov Haber:

...as the Kotzker Rebbe said, “There is no place lonelier than a room full of people.”

Loneliness is possibly one of the most painful human experiences. Loneliness is not the same as being alone. Many people have times when they are alone through circumstances or choice. Being alone can be experienced as positive, pleasurable, and even emotionally refreshing if it is under the individual’s control. When Moshe received his prophecies, he was alone in solitude. Loneliness is unwilling solitude that is forced upon a person.

We always read Parshat Devarim on the Shabbos preceding Tisha B’Av, in part because of the connection between our Parsha and Tisha B’ Av signaled by the word “Eicha”. Moses asked, “How [Eicha] can I carry your burdens alone?” (1:12) and in the Book of Lamentations that we read on Tisha B ‘Av, Jeremiah asks in astonishment, “How [Eicha] could Jerusalem sit alone?”

But it’s not just the word “Eicha”! The Vilna Gaon explains that Moses said, “How can I carry your burdens alone?” and Jeremiah asked, “How can the city (of Jerusalem) sit alone?” Feeling alone, explains the GR”A (a Talmudist), is the essence of our national tragedy.

Moses and Jerusalem were reflections of the condition of the Jewish people. Moses was a lonely person and Jerusalem was a lonely city. Our people became isolated — not just from the world, but from each other. There was polarization, elitism, and arrogance. Moses felt isolated and so did Jerusalem, and they both exclaimed: “Eicha?!”

Eicha? How?

I'm not sure.

But I think there is a way out: end our preoccupation with separation. Separation theology insists that "we are over here" and "god is over there".

What a lonely origin myth.

From this comes almost all our human difficulties: apartheid against others and self. We've got to stop.

What would love do?

Is Love all we need? You decide of course... but please watch:

2008-08-08T13:00:00.000+09:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mMRR0yP0C4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUE4CypfFS4&feature=related

The Dark Knight, Derrida, and a failure of autoimmunity...

2008-08-06T14:00:00.003+09:00

After watching The Dark Knight, a columnist recently wondered about the ferry passengers in the Joker's "social experiment" (if you live in America and have a pulse, you'll know what I'm talking about):

"What if the detonators they were holding were actually for their own bomb?…and that in thinking they’d kill the others and save themselves, they’d only kill themselves."

Hmmm. Now there's a predicament that sounds politically familiar: our situation is a failure of autoimmunity. In other words, the patient is killing itself by deploying too high a fever. An hysterical response.

Here's a summary of the concept: It comes from Jacques Derrida, a philosopher deeply influenced by historical trauma, specifically colonialism in Algeria. His work originated the school of deconstruction: a method of reading text which seeks to disassemble any discourse standing as a "construction". Deconstruction demonstrates how if you read a thing against its own grain, it reveals something about itself which undercuts itself (this concept is sometimes called up as an "always, already").

How does it work?

Take 9/11 for example. Derrida deconstructs the "event" of 9/11 and problematizes the concept of terrorism. As always, he is interested in the question of language and how it is powerless to identify and label the attacks of September 11. The "event" is reduced to an "intuition without a concept", an "incantation" repeated continuously, by which the date "9/11" becomes more real to us than the actual event. Therefore, as we repeat the term "9/11" endlessly (in a traumatic "repetition compulsion") we become the continuing agents of our own trauma. We terrorize ourselves.

In this perspective, repeating the phrase "9/11" and compulsively attaching images of the towers falling, "spectacularize" September 11, and make it a "major event" in our psyches.

Even if we weren't there!

Derrida thus explores the suicidal temptation of "being there, as if." This could be called a "failure of autoimmunity" in contemporary American politics. For Derrida, "9/11 is the symptom of an autoimmune crisis occurring within the system that should have predicted it. Autoimmune conditions consist in the spontaneous suicide of the very defensive mechanism supposed to protect the organism from external aggression."

Fox News much?

This is how Derrida reads the stories which we tell ourselves about ourselves. He also calls up the heritage of the Cold War, during which the United States provided weapons and training in Afghanistan, and to the hijackers that actually perpetrated the September 11 attacks and contends that the 9/11 attacks were the manifestation of this suicidal paradox.

He observes the same failure of autoimmunity regarding the problematic expression of a "war on terrorism," because it tends to generate a "vicious circle of repression". In other words, by evoking a "war against terror," the United States terrorizes itself.

So too, the Joker tried to activate this psycho-logic in the passengers of the two ferries.

It didn't work. They stopped the cycle.

They grasped that the only way was a third way: throwing the detonators out the window. They'd have only been blowing themselves up anyway.

Yay for Hollywood naivete! Sometimes it's kinda wise. Never tell an entertainer to shut up and sing--they'll invariably surprise you.

Zen in the Art of Shooting Yourself

2008-07-21T08:53:00.001+09:00

To gain a better insight into the paradoxical relationship between the way of the warrior and his responsibility for waging peace and war simultaneously, I have recently reread Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel, a German professor of Philosophy.

Here's an excerpt I found most intersting:

"The archer ceases to be conscious of himself as the one who is engaged in hitting the bull's-eye which confronts him. This state of unconscious is realized only when, completely empty and rid of the self, he becomes one with the perfecting of his technical skill, though there is in it something of a quite different order which cannot be attained by any progressive study of the art..."

This idea, "something of a quite different order" which finds similar expression in such texts as The Art of War, and the Tao Te Ching, would seem to render the idea of "reading the enemy as the enemy" impossible. If the target is oneself--if there is no fundamental difference--then killing can be a suicidal gesture.

Even according with Western mental health theory, deploying force often sustains more concentrated trauma to the perpetrator than the victim (assuming the victim survives, of course). This has been elegantly demonstrated in Spielberg's Munich and Henckel's The Lives of Others and dare I say in the real-life Sonderkommando at Auschwitz, Gen. Wesley Clark, Robert Oppenheimer, Maj. Claude Eatherley (commander of the spotter plane over Hiroshima), and possibly John McCain, to name but a few.

According to this vector, difference is erased between subject and object as a consequence of the act of violence... As my favorite teacher, Jacques Derrida, used to say: there is no différance = a French neologism on différer which puns on "to differ" and "to defer," i.e., closure in finding meaning is always deferred because things (especially signifiers/words) are never as they seem.

Yet, Derrida cautions that we still live in a world which demands provisional action and responsibility. As such, we continue to act "under erasure" which means we're all just shooting in the dark... but the shooting is sometimes, however rarely, consistent with the ethics of protecting the body and the body politic.

How do we decide when, where, and if, to act?

I would say it is here that the discussion often gets messy and, instead, I would like to demand intelligent specificity from my life.

However, speaking from experience and as I mature, I see that it is exactly topics like this which I revisit year-after-year... and more often than not, I simply cannot believe that "I actually said that"--but here goes, under erasure (how convenient):

This year, I will be traveling to Japan under a fellowship to study the beautiful but deadly Martial Arts of Kenjutsu. To prep, I have been examining Bushido, the traditional code of the warrior.

Please don't mistake this for a romanticization of the Samurai ala Zwick's culturally naive and condescendingly PC The Last Samurai (though I find some guilty pleasure in that film, I have to admit). But even though the Samurai messengers were feudal, womanizing warlords, their essential founders' message contains much wisdom.

The Bushido code is typified by these virtues:

Rectitude (義 gi)
Courage (勇 yuu)
Benevolence (仁 jin)
Respect (礼 rei)
Honesty (誠 makoto or 信 shin)
Honour (誉 yo)
Loyalty (忠 chuu)
Filial piety (孝 kō)
Wisdom (智 chi)
Care for the aged (悌 tei)

Each of these virtues demands a lifetime of study, but, in brief, you may notice that nowhere in this code is any specific exhortation to violence. Instead, we are given the moral framework for a life, not death.

However, in Bushido, if any of these virtues are directly threatened by an honorable adversary (i.e., one of equivalent or superior skill than you posses) or oneself, the warrior is obliged to do battle with the opponent (not "enemy") and/or herself; hence, the very important tradition of Sepuku which can be performed non-lethally by westerners as the Buddha recommends: "show endless patience to your self, but show no patience to your delusions." Literally kill your delusions for they are sometimes more skilled in deception than you are.

Your delusions truly are master terrorists and there can be no negotiation. They must be held to account, rapidly.

The delusions are:

desirous attachment
anger
jealousy
pride
miserliness
ignorance

Without constant vigilance, "moral bankruptcy" is inevitable if we posses these qualities overmuch. Note that if our "leaders" were to divorce themselves from these delusions, almost all wars after WWII would be nearly impossible to initiate.

And make no mistake, much of the Allies' intentions to enter and prosecute WWII, were fueled by these delusions. I would also say that their purposeful failure to target Auschwitz is in fact proof that, at best, "ignorance" was at play... and, at worst, "desirous attachment" to anti-semitism and economic expediency was the order of the day.

It is indeed very hard to get around the moral imperative to make war on genocide--and rightly so. But I would suggest that these clear-cut examples are far fewer than most of the conflict-zones currently under Western eyes.

So how does one "do" or "make" war as an individual?

Here, I believe we should return to the Gandhiesque approach as a default. Note that in the Buddhist, Sikh, Taoist, and even Sufist traditions, the sword is not a phallic symbol, but, instead, actually symbolizes "Shakti," the eternal feminine power. And like all things feminine, the sword is not a sword. It is also not a sloppy apologetic metaphor. Rather, it morphs fluidly into whatever weapon one yields according to one's talents.

There is no doubt in my mind that the peaceful placard is one of the finest weapons in the protester's arsenal. The proof is in how much true attention it has received during the 20th Century (e.g., India, South Africa, American Civil Rights, et al). It makes a difference or a différance, as you like. In this respect, the peaceful protestor acts honorably with the pure and brave heart of a warrior.

However, a nagging question remains: when I return from Japan, I will be far more skilled in the art of physical combat than I am currently. In fact, it may become my most precise skill.

What to do with it?

Obviously, this skill is in the mind as much as the body... and yet, I am troubled by the fact that if we were ever to encounter such a clear example of massive delusional forces, such as those which existed in WWII, would it be my wise honor and duty to actually fight? And what does it mean "to actually fight" in someone else's house, as it were? This opens up larger questions about the ethics of "collective security" and "peacekeeping operations," doesn't it?

I pray we will never, ever find a clear-cut context... but Rwanda, Darfur and a dozen other examples are not promising signs for the end of these questions.

On the other hand--and here we really get into metaphysics or "higher" consciousness--when is doing nothing exactly the appropriate thing to do? When does the system demand mindful observation rather than intervention, even if every cell in our mistrained body-mind is telling us to fight righteously on behalf of the oppressed?

Inside/Outside is not a binary... it's just incorrect.

2008-07-18T02:36:00.000+09:00

I am resuming this blog as of today--it's been an incredible ride, one worth "putting out there" for consideration... mine = this is the simple truth of blogging as a state of solipsism. Note: solipsism can be a tremendous framework for generosity as it can (contingent on discipline) eliminate fear and delusions--they're all in the mind. So just deny them access to the mind. They do not invade from "outside" so solipsism facilitates the work done "inside":

For example, see:

In Praise of Shadows (陰翳礼讃 In'ei Raisan) by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki

Some excerpts:

[W]e Orientals tend to seek our satisfactions in whatever surroundings we happen to find ourselves, to content ourselves with things as they are; and so darkness causes us no discontent, we resign ourselves to it as inevitable. If light is scarce then light is scarce; we will immerse ourselves in the darkness and there discover its own particular beauty. But the progressive Westerner is determined always to better his lot. From candle to oil lamp, oil lamp to gaslight, gaslight to electric light—his quest for a brighter light never ceases, he spares no pains to eradicate even the minutest shadow.

I would call back at least for literature this world of shadows we are losing. In the mansion called literature I would have the eaves deep and the walls dark, I would push back into the shadows the things that come forward too clearly, I would strip away the useless decoration.

Celebrate Summer Solstice in NYC with Yoga

2008-06-19T13:33:00.000+09:00

In celebration of the longest day of summer this coming Saturday, I'd like to invite those of you who live in and near NYC to join me for the following Yoga events--beginners and masters welcome:

Start the day with Yoga in Times Square:

See: http://www.timessquarenyc.org/about_us/events_solstice.html

If you're in the mood for more, my studio, Golden Bridge Yoga, is holding a free open house for Kundalini Yoga study from 11AM-4PM.

See: http://www.goldenbridgeyoga.com/

Kundalini Yoga is the oldest and most powerful of all the styles and is rarely taught in the West. Contrary to internet rumors, it isn't dangerous at all and even one class will do amazing things for your body and mind. Golden Bridge is the preeminent studio for Kundalini in NYC and our teachers are brilliant and generous.

Hope to see you there!

Once more unto the breach, dear friends...

2008-06-17T12:41:00.000+09:00

I apologize for the paucity of posts recently. As I've mentioned, I work as a director and one of my plays will be going up tomorrow evening. We work the night shift in theatre.

I have encountered some tremendous grace notes from the actors. I can see that they really are courageous people. I am also a little more open to acknowledging their fear on the night before a performance; that they are just professionals in need of some basic reassurance. I can provide that now, more meaningfully... and yet, in seeing their fear, I've become troubled by my role in this occupation.

Flaubert kept a sign above his studio door which read:

"Be orderly in your life so that you can be violent on the page."

I agree with the orderly part... and I still see tremendous value in ecstatic engagement with the violence of human stories... and yet... my mental focus and emerging sense of calm have been damaged by my professional engagement with "tragedy" onstage/on the page.

This is a disquieting realization. Since I am not yet a master (in art or in practicing life), I am concerned about a certain kind of negative energy: the pain which one showcases when directing a play about human beings who are hurting.

One cannot make art only from the POV of compassionate observer. I would say that good theatre moves beyond measured empathy with our characters. At some level (Method or other techniques) we must become them. There's a danger there that I didn't acknowledge or understand before.

I suspect this is something to ponder rather than act upon (no pun). Still, it's a bit disturbing to realize what one loves in life is potentially hazardous to health and spirit.

Battlestar G. is my Teacher Part II (spoilers)

2008-06-15T13:55:00.003+09:00

For people who saw the finale. If we cannot forgive we will be in the last shot of the season.

Religious people when faced with such imagery often say: repent now.

Frak that. Just forgive.

Forgiving Dr. Mengele

2008-06-12T17:33:00.001+09:00

I've shared this doc with quite a few people. The reaction is usually near violent disagreement. Yeah... the Ego dies hard.

A vibrator for your mind

2008-06-12T12:14:00.001+09:00

Quantum physics and string theory have been subject to a lot of use and abuse in recent years by the spiritual community.

Cough-cough-What the #$*! Do We (K)now!?-cough.

Actually, as long as you keep your wits about you, it's a very beautiful documentary. But, please, please, after you're done viewing it, read something like The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene to make your inner science teacher happy.

However, taking the above as an inspiration only, I would like to make a more basic point here: just as it is the nature of all atomic and subatomic particles to be in a state of constant vibration, consider your thinking--when you "talk to yourself" in your mind's ear, do you tend to monotone your inner monologue? I do. I drone it--that's why it's usually not helpful.

In kundalini yoga and mindful meditation which follows, a gong and singing bowls (the famous instrument from Nepal) are employed to literally vibrate the bodies of the students.

It's a very pleasant feeling. I like being vibrated--and who doesn't really? What one realizes after a while of practicing this (especially with chanting) is that your thinking's perspective is altered: you actually begin to think musically... sometimes in words and sometimes in images. Vladimir Nabokov, for example, claimed to have so mastered this process that he only thought in images.

This is one of the ways through which one can realize that thinking isn't a bad thing--it's just that we don't do it very well. Like all things monotoned, so often there is a lack of color to what we call thinking.

Recommendation: try to think when your body is moving and see if you can apply a tempo or timbre to the words forming in your mind. For musicians and music lovers, it's often a lot of fun to try to think words out in a key--say A#. It really allows one to transform familiar thoughts into strange and new ideas. And making the familiar strange is literally the definition of divergent original thinking.

Yoga on the MTA

2008-06-11T14:20:00.000+09:00

Maybe it's just me... do you know how it seems when you learn a new word "all of the sudden" you hear or read it quite a bit. The question of coincidence--or an explanation for coincidence--is beyond the scope of this blog. However, one thing is certain, the more one is out of the apartment doing something, the greater the chance for synesthetic happenstance.

Case in point: After yoga tonight, I left the studio, and walked to the 6 train on Canal. In the station, I bumped into an actress I had worked with previously. She told me that she was coming home from work, a nightclub gig.

Then she told me this job was secured for her by the very same person who inspired me towards studying yoga.

Furthermore, this actress was looking for a studio in which to study kundalini yoga. I referred her to mine (Golden Bridge) and so the triangle was complete.

But there was more: at the next stop, as we were discussing the benefits of various styles, an entire class of yoga students from another school, hugger muggers dangling, got on the subway and started a sacral chant. It was sort of in jest, but after a while the whole car (half of which was taken up by the class) was either listening or participating in the chant.

Summer in NYC. Get out of your apartment, right?

Enlightenment through entertainment?

2008-06-09T16:34:00.000+09:00

Every Monday, I attend Kadam Morten's class (see my May 2nd post), sponsored by the Chakrasambara Buddhist Center.

For more info see: http://www.meditationinnewyork.org/

This class concluded his series on The Compassionate Warrior: The Six Practices of a Bodhisattva. It was entitled "Concentration: Power of the Focused Mind."

If I didn't know his presentation style better, one could have mistaken Kadam Morten's countenance as stern. The focused, skilled mind is no laughing matter in Buddhist thought--well, actually everything is a laughing matter in Buddhist thought.

For example, the following joke is one which I'm told His Holiness the Dalai Lama is quite fond of:

What did the Buddhist monk say to the hotdog vendor? "Make me one with everything."

When the monk asked for his change, the vendor replied, "Change comes from within."

Buddhist humor, no less than a skilled mind, is actually an exercise in accomplishing multiple tasks with one clean and efficient gesture. The joke (and the famous "what is the sound of one hand clapping?" is most certainly a form of joking) rips up language and preconception--it's a form of entertainment. Comedy is effective--especially stand up--when the practitioner is focused on disrobing cliche.

Similarly, Kadam Morten's style is light-hearted but tough-minded. However, as I noted, his approach to the topic of Concentration had a tactical urgency to it. It is his belief that the focused mind is the finest weapon wielded by the compassionate warrior, an illusion smashing nuke, as it were.

Kadam pointed to distraction, particularly our attachment to being "plugged in," the new human condition lived "online," as the counter-measure to this weapon.

OK, so far nothing new or groundbreaking. Admittedly, freeing the mind and focusing it is also not new... we just never seem to get it. So these poor Buddhist monks have to repeat themselves over and over until we lay-practitioners catch up.

When I asked him if that meant unplugging as the solution--he shook his head. Buddhist approaches very rarely advise a retreat from the world. Instead, the idea is to re-contextualize the world from your mind's point-of-view. Everything is an obstacle course for your mind to train.

Solipsistic much? Yes, very. And that's a good thing because it allows one to be genuinely compassionate and generous.

I then asked him if unplugging isn't the way to go per se, what challenges does entertainment provide for the mind? He pointed to TV's preoccupation with death. For the average western person, distance from death is at a maximum right now. Actual death's visibility is either sanitized, or removed completely. The nature of the impermanence of all things is less keenly felt now more than ever before. As such, Kadam suggested that every time we see death on TV or in cinema, it can serve as a strong reminder to consider one of the most important precepts of wisdom: everything dies. Please consider it and do not welcome fear into your mind as you do so.

Of course, such meditation begs the important question (also too oft repeated but rarely put into practice): what would you do if today was your last?

Live that way by choice. Because one day it really will be your last day.

Conclusion: Focus. And make absolutely certain that you are entertained and are entertaining during that process.

Battlestar G. is my teacher

2008-06-09T09:05:00.000+09:00

I will write more about this topic over the coming days: the rising idea of forgiveness in pop-culture... how are we seeing the need for grace in entertainment?

My first example: Battlestar Galactica

Huh? I'm kidding, right? What's with the cheesy title for starters?

Well, for those who aren't yet in the know--trust me, it's worth your time--I recommend a recent Salon feature, titled:

Everything you were afraid to ask about "Battlestar Galactica"

A complete primer on the smartest sci-fi TV show ... maybe ever.

By Thomas Rogers

http://www.salon.com/ent/tv/feature/2008/04/02/bsg_explainer/

"...by virtue of its strong writing and naturalistic style, the series manages to be engaging and politically relevant. Its creator, Ronald Moore, uses "Battlestar's" universe as a funhouse mirror for American post-9/11 cultural anxieties. Since the miniseries' initial Cylon attack -- with its parallels to the events of Sept. 11 -- "Battlestar" has broached topical debates about torture, military occupation, abortion, genocide and war crimes. It has managed to do so while avoiding the trap of strained allegory and partisan politics..."

And how does forgiveness figure here?

To quote http://redblueamerica.com/:

"Battlestar Galactica" and America after 9/11

"'Battlestar Galactica'" is perhaps the smartest and most comprehensive artistic meditation on life in post-9/11 America that exists in all of popular culture... At the end of Season Three, in fact, Lee Adama -- the admiral's son -- gives a rousing courtroom speech. Everybody, he says, has committed awful mistakes in the course of trying to survive the end of the human race. But those sins should be forgiven, he suggests, because everybody is trying their best in the face of unspeakable evil. Left and right, we all need to give each other a little grace."

If sci-fi can change it's spots and really speak to us like the adults we are... then the sky's the limit. That's the final frontier; or put another way, consider Battlestar's thesis: survival is not enough--you have to earn it, be worthy of it. One accomplishes this by finding grace in situations where it is profoundly absent from the scene. You have to make your redemption stick. Every day. And then you have to live with your choice. Every day.

1 Week: serenity now

2008-06-08T13:17:00.000+09:00

I am very tired so this will be short. This week has been one of the best--or at least one the most radically different--in my life.

I have been inspired--by choice. By the ability to actually choose to be happy. And I've even inspired a few people. My friends have asked me: what are you up to? You look great!

Two people even suggested that I seem "serene".

Surely that's the goal. It's nice to know that I am seen by others in a positive light. It feels good. I think it will continue.

And finally the night of rest...

2008-06-07T14:05:00.001+09:00

Tonight was wonderful.

Based on the last six days of work, I finally feel happiness that is meaningful: my friends detected a change in me and responded organically with warmth. They embraced my new focus on THEM. They responded enthusiastically as they noted that I was really interested in THEIR lives.

They enjoyed our time together--and so did I.

I meet up with my friends almost every Friday night. And for the first time in three years I was truly happy with them.

Why? Because--FINALLY!--I was a friend.

Some wanted to know what I'd been up to that felt so realistically palpable to them--in fact, they wanted in. I recommended the practice of yoga which has been so transformative for me. But in the end of the day, in the evening, it was due to the fact that I listened. Really. The night was about them from my POV. I chose to make it so... as much as I could. And in the language of capitalist economics: the relationships returned dividends based on real investment. And in the far more generous language of socialism: the smallest divisible human unit is at least two people, not one.

My friends and I now have an economy or a collective going on, depending on your political outlook. The result is the same: we are not in a hopeful welfare situation anymore.

We exchanged.

The lesson: practice in the form of rehearsal, when done with intent, pays off in performance. As I noted in a previous posting, I am a theatre director, not an actor. My friends are all actors. They know what it means to put themselves on the front lines. Tonight, their director decided to be an actor.

Now I know what a director must do in rehearsal = act. Do.

If this post seems grandiose as it surely will to me in the morning, I ask for this: if you've ever been happy, and realized that it came from love and you were desperate for more... know that love may be the only sustainable happiness. It can be felt again tomorrow. Choose to do it. With effort. It's a choice.

Actors frequently talk about "choice" because those are the moments to moments which build a full performance.

Thank you, friends. I'm grateful.

And there was evening and there was morning: on 24

2008-06-06T12:19:00.000+09:00

Day 5:

This is why I don't own a TV: I stopped by a friend's apartment earlier this evening and he was strung out on his 4th DVD of 24 which apparently he's been watching for the last 12 hours--straight.

I used to find 24 immensely entertaining until Jack Bauer (and the show in general) became certain that torture was the way to go. Now we--the audience--let Jack get away with, and righteously enjoy the torture because his hyper-moral clarity and certitude tell us its ok, necessary, inevitable.

In earlier seasons of 24, torture was not the sadistic show-stopper it has become--torture was even dismissed as an option by Jack on several occasions because "it would take too much time"... but now, it's really become sick and I've definitely watched people "getting off" on this... maybe the lack of a grey zone surrounding the torture on 24 (a FOX network show after all) makes it easier for conservatives and liberals to sleep after Abu Ghraib. I don't know...

I work in theatre. I direct plays. I'm not exactly known for directing light-hearted pieces. Like Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, when given choice of material, I'll always go over to the dark side (they have cookies) and praise shadows specifically because rolling that way demands rigor of interpretation. Why? Because, if you "fake it," if you try to to force the light from the dark in these plays, then you quickly realize that you're practicing kitsch.

And kitsch, like certainty, seems to me to be one of the worst bad-faith gestures I can think of.

So dark plays can sometimes force honesty from us. 24 isn't dark. It's gauzed up, bloody kitsch. It doesn't really confront torture--it denies its awfulness by making it safe to enjoy.

Right now, I'm rehearsing Samuel Beckett's "Endgame"--what a force against certainty, against fascist aesthetics; relentlessly questioning and without answer.

If Freud is right, or even partially right, our need for psychic payback, vengeance against perceived wrongs, and aggression in general is a drive which cannot and should not be denied. But how we express this need, as artists, or consumers of art--even when watching 24--perhaps there is a demand for more questioning, no?

2008-06-06T12:16:00.004+09:00

Day and Night: Separated?

2008-06-05T12:00:00.000+09:00

Day 4:

In general, for the seeker, I think it's important to look at the "return to Freud" trend which has dominated critical theory and even the social sciences over the past few years.

This is based on a refreshing reappraisal of his work. Many people (feminists included) have noted upon rereading Freud, that his approach is a great deal more subtle and "tough minded" than was popularly thought.

Particularly in works like "Civilization and its Discontents," and especially "Beyond the Pleasure Principle," Freud repeatedly indicates how the logic of the psyche operates in "compromise formation" like a palimpsest. A palimpsest is defined by Webster as:

Main Entry:
pa·limp·sest
Pronunciation:
\ˈpa-ləm(p)-ˌsest, pə-ˈlim(p)-\
Function:
noun
Etymology:
Latin palimpsestus, from Greek palimpsēstos scraped again, from palin + psēn to rub, scrape; akin to Sanskritpsāti, babhasti he chews
Date:
1825
1 : writing material (as a parchment or tablet) used one or more times after earlier writing has been erased
2 : something having usually diverse layers or aspects apparent beneath the surface

So, when Freud talks about "the death drive" and "the life drive" (i.e., traditionally thought to be an binary which is analogous to thanatos vs. eros, anxiety vs. rest, inertia vs. the second law of thermodynamics, death vs. sex) he is not describing two mutually independent drives.

Quite the contrary!

Freud says if the psycho-logic operates like a palimpsest, in compromise formation, then our minds are always (must always) wrestle with paradox: the paradox of self-destruction emerging from our most creative instincts and similarly creativity emerging from our most aggressive impulses. How we act out these strange bedfellows on the mind is dependent largely, according to Freud, on cultural context.

Interestingly, as a side-result of the renewed serious attention paid to Freud, Jung has completely disappeared from the academic radar screen. He is seen as little more than a new age symbolist, a deck of tarot cards. In all my undergrad and grad classes, I haven't once heard his name mentioned with anything but dismissal.

That’s a shame. I hope Jung finds a similar renaissance. In fact, I know more than one physicist who secretly enjoys reading Jung.

Surfacing

2008-06-04T12:42:00.000+09:00

Day 3:

Here's what I'm learning to believe:

A Mayan proverb: If you do not ask, you will be lost.

As one begins to step across the limn of a different way to live, the dissolution of unskilled thinking is key. Keep asking for more focus as you fight through illusion and step onto dry land.

Ask penetrating, insightful questions.

Ask these questions precisely.

Demonstrate to yourself that your mind may finally function as more than just a noisy reflex organ.

It may now become simply elegant.

But make no mistake: the dissolution of the cringing mind, the end of an addiction to the disease of thinking MUST NOT EVER manifest itself in anti-intellectualism.

More than anything else, unmindful anti-intellectualism is responsible for the madness of our unending state of war.

But unskilled finger pointing is also unmindful. It is also banal. So I will stop doing so.

Instead, I would emphasize that the only thing that matters is that you or I must not fall into this trap on the way to waking up.

Anti-intellectualism is a form of spiritual death.

Kitsch, sentimentality, and tautology are not acceptable or appropriate tools for the seeker.

There is such energetic rigour and specificity required in the work of skilled living.

Where you find kitsch, you will not find enlightenment.

Why?

Because kitsch is incompatible with meaningful questions.

Anti-intellectualism is incompatible with meaningful questions.

I'll close this post with an excerpt taken from Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being. It may be very familiar to many of you, but it rewards another close reading:

"The fact that until recently the word 'shit' appeared
in print as s--- has nothing to do with moral
considerations. You can't claim shit is immoral, after
all! The objection to shit is a metaphysical one. The
daily defecation session is daily proof of the
unacceptability of Creation. Either/or: either shit is
acceptable (in which case don't lock yourself in the
bathroom!) or we are created in an unacceptable
manner.

It follows, then, than the aesthetic ideal of the
categorical agreement with being is a world in which
shit is denied and everyone acts as if it did not
exist. This aesthetic ideal is called kitsch.

'Kitsch' is a German word born in the middle of the
sentimental 19th century, and from German it entered
all Western languages. Repeated use, however, has
obliterated its original metaphysical meaning: kitsch
is the absolute denial of shit, in both the literal
and figurative senses of the word; kitsch excludes
everything from its purview which is essentially
unacceptable in human existence." (Kundera 248)

Firmaments

2008-06-03T12:21:00.000+09:00

When I go looking in search of what I've lost--if I bend literary--well, that would be fun. But it wouldn't have any love in it.

Remember: in things past, blogs, talk, and text--it's all been said. Time after time.

That's OK.

Reader, that's OK.

This post is simple minded. It's been said before. In this one case, I have no problem with that.

So: on the second day of this blog, I would like to show some love. I am grateful to Kadam Morten Clausen for his lucid, lucid, lucid lecture delivered earlier tonight. It was entitled: Effort: Enjoying Life

See this link for more info: http://www.meditationinnewyork.org/Resident_Teacher.php

Kadam Morten noted that:

1) Things we do which we say "make us happy" are said to do so because they function as a "relief" from a prior state. For example, after work, we might go golfing. Perhaps the day at the office did not make us happy.

2) However, after sufficient time, happy at the links, we need relief from the golfing as well. Every golfer has to and wants to call it a day after a point. In fact, it would make them unhappy to continue.

One could imagine a version of Sisyphus' hell as a never ending golf tournament, caddying ones irons from hole to hole. Indefinitely.

3) The same could be said of any thing which provokes a "happy" state of mind.

4) For example: Pizza makes me happy. So theoretically the more pizza I eat, the happier I'll be. But after two or three slices... a fourth, let alone a fifth becomes nauseating. The effort will not repay itself.

Interim conclusion: happiness that requires effort will burn out.

Well...

Maybe not...

To "obtain" happiness as a thing, something outside to be annexed, surely that requires effort. And one only has just so much effort on reserve.

Is there another happiness? One which you couldn't give or get enough of when you were a child and--hopefully--when you are an adult? One which will never burn you or itself out, even though it requires much effort?

Yes. And you know what it is.

If you've forgotten, as I have--we'll I'm making an effort! Immediately.

Seriously, like right now.

It's sustainable. I'm told.

In the beginning was fear

2008-06-02T08:58:00.000+09:00

In the beginning--of this--there was and is fear...

But there is no false profundity.

Beginnings, especially written beginnings, are only "hard" because I want to impress somebody.

So there will be only one commitment here: there will be no pretense. It will be avoided. Rigorously.

Instead: honesty. As best I know how. I suspect honesty actually improves with use. I wouldn't know. Yet. But I'd like to.

This blog is a journal. A journal's function is to record. I will do that. I am doing that. As simply and as honestly as I know how now.

The Goal: So that in the end I may return to this point and KNOW there was no beginning and end. There is only now.

I don't know that. Now. Maybe I will.

I'd like to.

Here. Now.

2008-06-01T23:08:00.000+09:00

Giving testimony:

I'm here.

The rest hasn't been written yet...

I'm doing that.

Now.