A Truly Happy New Year...

For a moment last night as I went to bed, it crossed my mind that today would be the last day of a decade. And then of course I realized that, no, the last day of 2009 would have been the end of the decade, and that the new one would have started on January 1, 2010, now long since past. We are a full year into it.

Still, the thought gave me pause to reflect that the first years of this still new century have not augured well for the progress of humanity--if, by progress, we mean not further economic growth and technological advances but rather movement toward greater happiness for all. It seems that while we are busy marching forward in the former direction, we take just as many steps backward in the latter.

So I have a wish for our human species in the coming year, the second of the second decade of the twenty-first century--and those, let's remember, are only a small handful of the centuries we have been able to count, let alone those eons that passed for our species before counting began! My wish is for greater harmony between us all; for greater compassion, greater understanding, greater tolerance, greater love.

Oh, I know. It's a hoary old wish, and one that is frequently scoffed at by cynics as some kind of sentimental dream. But I'm with John Lennon: I hope some day the scoffers will join us, "and the world will be as one." And I do dare to sense, behind or beneath all the rupture and rage and desperation we are experiencing in the world today, the glimmer of an understanding in the human consciousness that we cannot persist in our current behaviors without wrecking the only planet we have--the planet that we share with countless other beings, great, and small, and miniscule.

Something, somewhere in the depths of consciousness, I am convinced, is shifting. We have evolved and survived thus far, as a species. Surely our minds are capable of further evolution, of further adaptation to ensure the survival of us all. Perhaps, rather than the global caliphate that some are seeking, we will evolve toward a global sangha, a community of humankind where we are all, yes, kind; and where the guiding force will be the ultimate message of the dharma: compassion for all beings. This is my wish.

So... Happy New Year, everybody! May all living beings find true happiness in their lives. May all living beings be free from stress and pain. May all living beings be free from trouble. May all share in the blessings of a life well lived.

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/31/2010

"Feelings, whether of compassion or irritation, should be welcomed, recognized, and treated on an absolutely equal basis; because both are ourselves. The tangerine I am eating is me. The mustard greens I am planting are me. I plant with all my heart and mind. I clean this teapot with the kind of attention I would have were I giving the baby Buddha or Jesus a bath. Nothing should be treated more carefully than anything else. In mindfulness, compassion, irritation, mustard green plant, and teapot are all sacred."

~Thich Nhat Hanh

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Rocky Mountain Buddhist Hermit.

Growing up at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, (Colorado) spending decades climbing their heights and summer's backpacking into remote, mountain lakes for a week's stay, has been monumental in helping my Dharma practice.

It is also why I am so attracted to the way of the Buddhist hermit who's monastery is the mountain-tops (or forests) and his sangha the wildlife. Nature teaches you patience, paying attention, doing more with less, appreciating what you have and expecting the unexpected. In short -- it teaches you how to live in the present moment.

In the high mountains, (10,000 ft above sea level and higher) circumstances can change faster than a blink of an eye. The altitude changes everything to where you have to be alert at all times to survive. It can be warm, short's weather down in town during the month of August when we go backpacking; yet you still have to pack winter gear. You can be hiking in shorts and sunshine one minute and the next minute find yourself in a driving snowstorm. I have spent more than one August, summer's day held up inside a tent at 11,000 ft. above sea level, gazing out of the tent at a snow storm settling in around the camp site.When backpacking you take a fold-out backpacking stove (seen above, with fuel canister) to cook freeze-dried food, which isn't gourmet but when eaten after hiking up an 11,000 foot mountain, it tastes better than what any five-star chef in Paris could whip up. That's because you appreciate it more after having busted your ass-off and spent all your energy on putting one foot in front of another, slowly, up and up the mountain. It is the best food you've had all year because it is literally the only food you have. You take care not to let one drop hit the ground because each bite is precious for needed calories. Yet, how much food do we waste at home? Each bite of food is savored mindfully like it was the first meal to cross your lips in ages--even the bowls and kettle are licked clean of sustenance. It teaches you to focus on simply eating and enjoying it.

Everything in the mountains must be done with great care and attention to detail, which, again is why it's a great place to practice and live the Dharma. For example, getting a drink of water entails an entire process of purification pumps and water storage bottle balancing. It's not like flipping on the tap at home; but that water is the best water you'll ever taste because of the attention you put into gathering it. And, you see it as a lot more precious than the water you pour out of the tap at home. You find yourself rationing it out throughout the day because if you guzzle it all at lunch, then you have to hike back up to the glacier to pump some more because you don't ever want to be caught out in the wild without water.

Then there is shelter, which takes on a whole other importance when backpacking. Carrying everything you need for a week on your back means you're near-homeless and that makes you cherish your flimsy tent as though it were a palace. It makes you thankful for a warm place to sleep with some cover over-head. And you begin to realize that you don't need a big house let alone a mansion. I guess I relate so much to these hermit monks because I have lived the last two decades preparing for just such a life. One day perhaps, when, (and if) I feel the time is right, I will disappear into the mountains and build my small hut to spend the rest of my days meditating in. Not out of searching for the, "enlightenment treasure chest" but out of letting go of it.

Not to become some fabled "mountain-top guru." In fact, if you try, and come looking for me to be my student, I will shoo you away because there are much better qualified teachers than this crazy-eyed Buddhist. It's about being an anonymous being living out the rest of his days in the natural world--our true home. A home that humans have nearly abandoned for the accouterments and attachments of city life. We need to reclaim that home. I don't think everyone can or should become a mountain hermit but for me, it's in my karma. I have known from a young age that my life would find me living a life of solitude in the mountains at some point.

I will no longer feel attached to the desires of city life; and the choice will be made for me. I'll leave that city life chaos to more capable hands. At that stage of spiritual life, the best place for me would be in nature, where life exists at it's most basic foundation. A good place to leave this world from when the moment arrives.

~Peace to all beings~

Larks

Up late last night. For us. We're larks, not owls. Early to bed, early to rise... This morning, then, I was not very lark-like. A bit drowsy, in fact. It took a long walk in crisp (for Southern California) air to get the blood flowing. But it was a good evening. Good food, good talk, good wine (well, not-bad wine,) good friends. What could be better?

I'm reading two books about life. I have mentioned the first previously: it's the excellent How to Live, Or, A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer, by Sarah Bakewell. I'm excited to find out that my favorite essayist was quite the Buddhist--not in name or religion, of course. This was the 16th century, after all. But in spirit, in the way his mind worked, in the way he approached his writing and his life. On education, for example, Bakewell reports, he believed that "the child should learn to question everything"; and, quoting the master now, "should learn to pass everything through a sieve and lodge nothing in his head on mere authority or trust." I'm looking forward to digging further into this book, and MUST get hold of the Essais. I have not decided, yet, whether to go for an English translation or challenge myself with the French. There is a magic to the original language, especially with a writer like Montaigne. But do I dare...? It would be, after all these years, a serious commitment of time. I'm thinking I could perhaps find a single essay in French online, and give myself a little test.

The second book is the (thus far) wildly entertaining and thoroughly disturbing Life, by Keith Richards--a Christmas gift from Ellie, as the result of a few subtle hints from me. Entertaining because this is the rogue Stone with his tongue firmly in his cheek, cheerfully disrespectful of everything and everyone; and the man writes well (I'm giving him credit for the writing.) The book has an authentic feel to it that makes it an easy and pleasurable read. It's also (thus far) familiar territory for me--the area around London during and immediately after World War II. I, too, remember the visits to the "sweet shop" with the ration coupons you needed to buy candy. Bullseyes, anyone?

Disturbing, though, because of the constant, casual reference to drugs--indeed, an uninhibited celebration of a life seemingly devoted to their use. It's not the legality or the illegality of them that bothers me, nor am I one to make easy condemnations of other people's choices in these matters. But I do harbor judgments about the surrender of the mind to intoxicants and stimulants; perhaps these judgments originate in my own experiences with drugs, back in the 1960s, which were not always happy ones. Remind me to tell you some time about my one experience with LSD! But anyway, what do you think? Am I just being a prude?

I'll probably stop by tomorrow to pass on wishes for the New Year, so I'll refrain for now...

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/30/2010

"Root out the violence in your life, and learn to live compassionately and mindfully. Seek peace. When you have peace within, real peace with others is possible."

~Thich Nhat Hanh

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Tibet: The Struggle

In the Shadow of the Buddha weaves two narrative threads together. The first follows the journey of the man whom the current, 14th Dalai Lama once designated "the great protector of the Tibetan nation," Tetron Sogyal, who lived from the latter years of the 19th century into the early years of the 20th; the second is the story of Matteo Pistono, the book's author, in the steps of this master, at the direction of his own teacher, Khenpo Jikme Phuntsok. Together with the better-known Sogyal Rinpoche, Khenpo was one of the two concurrent 20th century reincarnations of Tetron Sogyal; and Sogyal Rinpoche, you'll recall, is the author of the justly celebrated and influential Tibetan Book of Living and Dying.

Does this sound complicated? Be ready for the infinitely mysterious, alluring, and disturbing world of Tibetan Buddhism. The story's roots go back much further, to the vajrayana master Padmasambhala, the "Father of Tibetan Buddhism" who, in the 8th century established the religion and went about the country concealing "treasure teachings" in remote locations, to be revealed across the centuries at an appropriate moment by those gifted with special powers--among them, Tetron Sogyal. Under the threat of invasion and occupation since the late 19th century by, among others, Britain, Russia, and China, tiny--and virtually defenseless--Tibet has been a turmoil of political intrigue and violent uprising, mixed in with religious fervor and centuries-old ritual.

Enter, in the late 20th century, our guide Matteo Pistono, a native of the American West brought up with a conscience that enjoined him to engage in social activism, who found in the Buddhist dharma a meaningful call to the service of his fellow beings. Drawn to Tibet--or rather, directed there by his influential teachers--he finds himself engaged in a personal pilgrimage, an inner search conducted in meditation practice and prolonged solitary retreats; and, at the same time, in the Tibetan struggle against the brutal Chinese occupiers. Part spy, part warrior, part courier, he acts as a go-between for the exiled Dalai Lama with monastic and secular leaders inside the country. The latter role is an often dangerous adventure under the suspicious and watchful eye of the omnipresent occupying Chinese forces; Pistono's major purpose is to bring documentary and photographic evidence of Chinese abuses to political leaders in the West--a risky undertaking in a time of unremitting tyranny.

These are the bare bones. The flesh is in the maze of intrigue, the narrow escapes, the perilous journeys on foot, horseback, motorcycle or jittery jeep; it's in the (sometimes confusing) cast of saints, mystics and hermits, the teachers and spiritual leaders we encounter in dizzying array from page to page; it's in the majestic landscapes of Tibet and the hearing rooms of Washington, DC, the remote caves and the magnificently decorated temples--the former glory of the "Land of Snows"; it's in the observation of esoteric traditions and prayers, the oracles and seers, the venerated ritual objects and the offerings to protective deities. A rich tapestry, indeed, a panoply in which this unique religion amazes and, at times, confounds the lay reader like myself.

The 14th Dalai Lama has become the major voice for Buddhism in the world today. Part politician and diplomat, part spiritual leader, he speaks for a particular, esoteric branch of Buddhism that is perhaps too easily mistaken for the larger picture. The mysticism, the ceremony and ritual of Tibetan Buddhism are not to everyone's taste--and, I feel obliged to add, not to mine. This does not mean, of course, that they are not authentically fascinating and rich with history and human significance. And the fundamental teaching of the dharma is common to Buddhism in all its manifestations: that we human beings have within us the ability to find happiness in our lives, no matter the social or political circumstances; and that we will not find that happiness without compassion for all our fellow beings. As Pistono writes, toward the end of his compelling narrative:

In politics, ultimately, there are no winners, for every politician will die and every government will fall--the wise, the durable question is not if a political system will survive, but when will it fall? Because everything is impermanent, including politicians and their governments, we have a responsibility to effect change that will bring about conditions right now for others to find contentment and happiness.

And surely there are few among us who would quarrel with that. At the same time, who could fail to be moved by the tragedy of this beautiful country and the life-and-death struggle for the survival of its religion, its people and their customs? May Pistono's story prove an important reminder to the conscience of the world. Long live Tibet!

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/29/2010

"The source of love is deep in us and we can help others realize a lot of happiness. One word, one action, one thought can reduce another person's suffering and bring that person joy."

~Thich Nhat Hanh

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Mistaken Identity

Speaking of Nazis... is there anything we can't laugh about?

I was writing, yesterday, about the movie documenting the escape of Jewish children from Nazi Germany--and not only Germany, in fact, also from other Nazi-occupied territories--via the Kindertransport. There were the familiar scenes in the documentary, with storm troopers brutally attacking Jews in city streets, painting racist epithets on the store front windows of Jewish businesses, throwing bricks through the glass, and dragging Jews from their houses for transportation to concentration camps. I wept.

Last night I watched another movie. It had scenes with Nazi storm troopers brutally attacking Jews in city streets, painting racist epithets on the store front windows of Jewish businesses, throwing bricks through the glass, and dragging Jews from their houses for transportation to concentration camps. And I was in fits of laughter.

Last night's film, of course, was The Great Dictator, the Charlie Chaplin classic from 1940...

... in which Chaplin plays the dual roles of Adenoid Hynkel, the ruthless dictator and a poor Jewish barber, a dead ringer for the "Fuehrer." It is years since I last saw the film, and I had forgotten how irresistibly funny it is. The strategy is mockery by slapstick. The brutality of the troopers who march under the banner of the Double Cross is laughable when they're presented as mindless and incompetent, easy targets for the handily wielded skillet or the well-flung pie. The target of the parody is, of course, far from funny--and is never out of sight. The film is also a devastating indictment of Hitler, his henchmen (in the movie, Field Marshall Herring and Reichsminister Garbitsch) and those who were so easily led into following their vile ideology. That it was made in 1940, before the worst of the atrocities was revealed, makes it all the more amazing.

Amazing, too, is Chaplin's performance--not only the extended tour de force parodies of the Hitler speeches, the callous ruthlessness, the laugh-in-the-aisles fits of rage. These are indeed splendid. What's striking, though--and the source, I think, of the powerful emotion his acting evokes--is his ability to use his body as a medium of expression. The famous scene, for example, where Hynkel toys with the globe balloon, bouncing it genially high into the air with a flick of the heel and catching it with arrogant grace, is nothing less than accomplished ballet; as is the street scene with the little barber where, mistakenly beaned by a piece of heavy cookware, he staggers off into an intricate, dazed little dance up and down the sidewalk and over the curb (an inspiration, I wonder, for the later Gene Kelly scene in "Singing in the Rain"?) These scenes are justly praised, but almost every frame of the film seems choreographed with equal poise and intention. It's beautiful to watch.

There is, too, a good deal of Chaplin sentiment in the movie. There is the starry-eyed, impossible love interest--and a hilarious scene where the besotted barber, with his enamorata, Hannah, in his chair, forgets himself and starts to soap her chin ready for the shave. And, at the end, with Hynkel sent off mistakenly to the camps by his own storm troopers, the little barber is mistaken for him and escorted to the podium at a vast Nueremberg-style rally; finding courage and inspiration in his heart, he surprises the world with a speech that begs for peace and brotherhood, gentleness and love among people of all races...

The movie ends on this note, with Hannah in a bucolic setting, listening to the sound of her little barber's voice on the radio, her eyes aglow with love and adulation.

Okay, it would have been better if history had come up with the same conclusion. It didn't. Tragically. But it was still good to laugh. And it felt strange to be laughing about the same things I had wept about the night before! What a curious bundle of contradictions we human beings are...

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/28/2010

"Keeping your body healthy is an expression of gratitude to the whole cosmos - the trees, the clouds, everything."

~Thich Nhat Hanh

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Kindertransport

We drove down yesterday, Boxing Day, to visit Ellie's sister in her beautiful new home in San Diego. Susie has become a loyal reader of The Buddha Diaries, so she knows more about our unfolding lives than we do about hers, and it was a good moment to catch up and a pleasure to find her so comfortably installed. It was a family event, too: our daughter made the trip with us, and Susie's daughter was also on hand, which made for an interesting mother-daughter dynamic over lunch. The talk, unsurprisingly, was about family relationships...

Then in the evening, back at home in Laguna Beach, we watched Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories from the Kindertransport...

... the beautiful and moving documentary about the Jewish children who were permitted to escape Nazi Germany, mostly to England, in the days immediately preceding World War II. Relatively, there were just a small number of them--a few thousand, when compared to the estimated 1,500,000 whose lives ended brutally in the camps; and there are today a dwindling number of survivors. A child born in 1930 would now, of course, be 90 years old. A handful of them, though, were interviewed for the documentary, and their stories--along with the montage of old photographs, documents, and film clips--were heart-breaking. You think you have seen it all and then new dreadful episodes appear, new stories of inhumanity from that bleak period.

Those who made it out of Germany were the lucky ones. The bureaucracy involved was in itself a nightmare: it required not only the permission of the Nazis, but also affidavits from the host countries, advance assurances of financial support, visas, and a host of other red tape. The US Congress debated the issue as to whether the children would be allowed to enter the United States and voted, in its wisdom, against their immigration. One of the reasons disgracefully offered was that it wold be "against the law of God" to allow them to enter the country without their parents. Seriously. As though the law of God countenanced their murder. Some things never change, and apparently the heart of the US Congress is one of them.

For those who made it to the Kindertransport trains leaving Germany at the last hour, good fortune was tempered by the tragedy of separation from their parents. The scenes, recalled by survivors and shown in grainy black and white film clips, were heart-rending for both parents and children. One father, unable to let his little daughter go, dragged her out from the window of a departing train--condemneding her to the misery of years in concentration camps. She survived, only to struggle with the fearful task of having to forgive her father for his action. The promises that this was only a temporary arrangement, that the storm would soon blow over and that families would be reunited, must have sounded hollow even to those who could not yet bring themselves to believe in the horror to ensue. The goodbyes, they knew, or must have suspected in the hearts, were in many cases final.

But the reason these stories are so affecting is more broadly significant, I believe, than the history of Nazi Germany and its treatment of the Jews--though that is indeed the poignant and peculiarly loathsome context. The stories speak to us, though, of something with which every human being is familiar, whether consciously or not, and that is the wound of separation. We bring with us into this world the experience and expectation of one-ness; perhaps, who knows, we return to it once we have lived out our human life. Between birth and death, however, sooner or later--and usually during early childhood--we experience separation. For myself, memorably, it was most dramatically the time when I was sent away to school. It came for my sister at a cruelly young age, when she was taken off with scarlet fever as barely a toddler to an isolation ward. For Ellie and her sister, with the separation of their parents. It is the stuff of pain for all of us, the cause of suffering that some of us carry with us for a lifetime.

I'm happy to report that, with some regrettable exceptions, the children from Germany were treated well in England--though, some noted, with the kind of British reserve that would seem unfriendly to one from more emotionally expressive European Jewish stock! I have a personal connection with the Kindertransport, which made the film of special interest to me: one of the children came to live for a while at my parents' home in Bedfordshire. I did not know him well at the time, because we met only during school holidays. But I do know that my father was an important inspiration in his life. Whether before the war--as many families did in the hope of avoiding persecution--or after, he converted to Christianity and thanks in part to my father's influence, he became a devout, practicing Christian in his later life. He was reunited with his parents after the war, and lives to this day in Chicago.

Which brings me back to our lunch-time conversation. As we talked about our sometimes uneasy, judgmental relationship with the next generation, I could not help but notice to what extent we were each talking out of our own separation wound, our own sense of loss and our need to rediscover or maintain connection with those we love. As I was saying to my sister this morning--she called via Skype as I was starting to write this entry--I am grateful to what I have learned from the dharma about my ability to reconnect with that sense of original one-ness by examining the inner wounds that cause me suffering and, by seeing them for what they are, to begin to let them go.

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/27/2010

"The true miracle is not walking on water or walking in air, but simply walking on this earth."

~Thich Nhat Hanh

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/26/2010

"When you say something really unkind, when you do something in retaliation your anger increases. You make the other person suffer, and he will try hard to say or to do something back to get relief from his suffering. That is how conflict escalates."

~Thich Nhat Hanh

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/25/2010

"The true miracle is not walking on water or walking in air, but simply walking on this earth."

~Thich Nhat Hanh

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Merry, Merry...

George poses in a borrowed "Ho, Ho, Ho!" jacket with scant tolerance for the indignity...

Despite which, he joins us in sending good wishes to all.

And here's the Buddhist Christmas poem I wrote for Ellie:

Sometimes…

... when you forget (and here,

by “you” I mean not just

you, but you and me and

everyone;) when you

forget to remember

who you think you are

and what you think, and

what you think you know,

and what you think

you need; when you

leave thought behind

and words give way

to silence; and when

silence yields in turn

to measureless, spacious

emptiness; then, some-

times the mind is freed

from rage and fear

and grief, expanding

into the great solace

and the possibility of joy.

(For Ellie, at Christmas,

and for all good friends,

with love)

A Book Review: "Choosing to Be"

We receive our life-lessons in often less than comfortable or welcome ways. A good part of our suffering is created by the need we develop early on in life to “be someone”—often at the unwitting urging of our parents, if not that of our social conditioning. We may take years to build an identity (well, several of them, really) in order to satisfy that inner need. And then that identity becomes who we are, a role we unthinkingly act out until something comes along and hits us in the gut; by which time it is so hardened as a “reality” that it is difficult or impossible shake without further suffering.

Kat Tansey’s Choosing to Be: Lessons in Living from a Feline Zen Master (Findhorn Press, 2010) opens at just such a moment of painful realization. A successful woman thus far in her life in the business world, she was brought low by chronic fatigue syndrome and debilitating depression, and the identity by which she had defined herself until that moment imploded. In her first chapter, “Deciding to Stay,” we find her desperately searching for some reason not to end the agony by taking her own life. She begins to find it in The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, picked at random—no, of course not at random!—from her bookshelf; and in the subsequent conversation she engages with her Maine Coon cat, Poohbear Degoonacoon, the Zen master of her title.

This is the beginning of the journey that her book describes. It proceeds in the form of a personal narrative and a continuing dialogue with Poohbear, in which Kat (I’ll call her by her name, because this is an intimately personal book) slowly discovers for herself the healing potential of the Buddhist path of meditation and compassion.

Let’s get the cat thing out of the way, because it brings immediately to mind the specter of cute animal/people stories. Well, no. Dispel that notion. Poohbear—his name notwithstanding—has all the gravitas of the personal guru that he is for Kat. He does not do cute, nor would she allow it. Even the playful kitten, Catzenbear, who is brought in as a companion for the older cat, does not succeed in knocking him off his wisdom-center. The alter ego for the appropriately-named Kat, he speaks for her own innate wisdom, for the “Buddha mind” that opens in her as she begins to explore and acknowledge the limitations of the “ordinary mind” whose games have become unbearable.

Put simply, "Choosing to Be" is the story of one woman’s search for happiness. Kat is surprised, at first, by her discovery of the Buddha and his promise that there is an end to suffering if we go about seeking it in the right way. With Poohbear's guidance—and soon also that of human teachers, Jason Siff and his wife, Jacquelin, of the Skillful Meditation Project—she develops a meditation practice and learns to watch her mind in action—frenetic action, to begin with!—and to tame its reactive patterns. She learns to recognize the hindrances, including the inner anger and sense of loss. When they come along to distract her, she digs persistently behind and underneath them, and discovers that these too can be overcome by the practice of patient, persistent mindfulness and awareness.

The useful thing about Kat’s book is that it documents each step along the way with enormous and compassionate attention to the detail of what is happening in her own mind. This is not a how-to book, like so many that preach the virtues of meditation. There is no instruction here—although there’s much to be learned. It’s an “essay” in the true sense of that word—an attempt, with words, to capture and describe an intensely human experience in all its transience and subtlety. It’s also the celebration of a struggle with the ego and its clinging habits, and of the discovery of joy that results from working through that struggle to attain a measure of wisdom. In this, Kat’s book offers us the model of a journey from which we can all take solace and inspiration as we pursue our own.

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/24/2010

"The past is gone, the future is not yet here, and if we do not go back to ourselves in the present moment, we cannot be in touch with life."

~Thich Nhat Hanh

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Laguna Beach Flooding

We made page A22 of the New York Times this morning... Here's the picture to prove it--our theater on Pacific Coast Highway.

Letting Go of Expectations.

The chaos of life streams through this mind, yet ownership isn't imposed upon it. It's free to pass through like a stranger in the night; registering its frenetic, holographic delusions but streaming out the other side due to keeping the mind open and relaxed. Tonight is a night where balance has returned. Tonight there is simply stark but relieving acceptance.

Like Buddha before us, letting go is gaining freedom. Once we let go of trying to control everything, life seems to flow with greater ease. It's not unlike a twig floating down a meandering river. It doesn't try to stop or force the current into an unrealistic upstream reversal of flow. It just lets go and enjoys the ride. Letting it take it where it will.

Life is like that it seems. We try and control the journey with some imagined belief in a power we don't have. There is no power over altering the flow of life. It will take us where it wants, so the only thing left to do is let go and learn to adapt to each bend in the river and enjoy the scenery while it lasts. It's once we let go that we notice a world that we were missing while being so focused on changing how our life is unfolding.

Suddenly we notice a sharpness, beauty and softness to life that we missed before. The trees seem to take on a new sacredness that brings us peace when before we pushed through them on our way to nowhere. It's why the cliche of "stopping to smell the roses" persists. When we stop trying to push toward a specific expectation we start to see that life has more to offer than we had ever realized before.

So, tonight, I've dropped the heavy backpack of the burdensome stones of expectations and am moving freely and effortlessly across the middle-path like a light and unconfined cloud. Relaxed to take whatever form the moment molds. Acceptance of being overwhelmed at times; unburdening myself of the chains of worry that enslave me and delay realignment with the peace that is an uncluttered mind.

Expectations are like fairy tales and myths; they are alluring but ultimately leave us disillusioned and disappointed, which are the fore-bearers of suffering. Today, I am letting go and it couldn't be more liberating.

Not a Revolutionary

Okay, here I go again. I persist (apologies for the commercial!) in my support for Barack Obama. I know that it's a point on which I and many of my liberal/progressive friends disagree, but I believe that I will be vindicated in the long run.

We know now, two years into his first term, that he is no revolutionary. That, I think, is what we were hoping for; that is what many of us believe that we were promised. We took the word "change" he reiterated so frequently during the campaign and made of it what we wanted; what we wanted was radical, revolutionary change. We wanted--I include myself--comeuppance for the Republicans, a full repudiation of all the misconceived and misconducted policies of George W. Bush. We wanted, as the Tea Party-ers are fond of saying, to take our country back. We wanted an end to war. We wanted a reversal of what we saw to be the corporate takeover of this nation, of dishonesty and cheating at the highest levels of the financial industry, of the exploitation and co-option of our government and politics by the rich. We wanted an immediate and irreversible turnaround, and that was what we heard when we were promised change.

Looking back on it, I realize how much I projected on this one man, Obama. There were political realities that I forgot--political realities that had to do not just with "Washington" and "Republicans," but with the readiness of vast numbers of my fellow-countrymen and women to accept the kind of change that I myself believed in. America was not--is not--ready for a revolution. So it was not only a disastrous legacy that he inherited on all fronts from his predecessor--two wars, an economy in tatters, a deeply divided and toxic political climate--it was also a country whose proclivities were far more conservative than my own, or those of almost everyone I know. I find it hard to acknowledge that there are those who disagree with my enlightened views, but regrettably it is so.

So, no revolution. Too bad. But the fact remains that Obama has already achieved, or at least addressed--in the view of a no less well-credentialled progressive than Rachel Madow, expressed on a morning network show today--about 85 percent of what he promised during the campaign. There's no doubt that a significant part of his agenda remains unaddressed, notably Guantanamo, immigration and, yes, those Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. And more. But I again agree with Madow, that those issues have not been abandoned or betrayed. The President has made it clear that there was some nose-holding to be done in making the compromises that he made; and that those tax cuts will need to be revisited in the next two years.

I'm glad that Obama managed to fly off to Hawaii for his family Christmas with a couple of victories behind him. I wish him well. I admire his courage, his remarkable calm, his humor. I continue to believe that there is method and vision for the future in his measured, accommodating approach, and that we will continue to move forward with hard-won changes in the direction of this country. I personally wish that it could happen faster, more dramatically, without compromise. But this is a massive and unwieldy ship we sail in, in these perilous times. It will take time and patience to set it back on course.

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/23/2010

"If you suffer and make your loved ones suffer, there is nothing that can justify your desire."

~Thich Nhat Hanh

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And More Rain...

More than 3.6 inches of it, last night alone. We woke to the news that downtown Laguna Beach was under 3 - 4 feet of water. The canyon was closed. The newspaper (again, for the third day in a row, despite repeated pleas, was not delivered.)

Horrors! Can you imagine the human misery!

Seriously, we were lucky, of course. Just a small leak in Ellie's studio. I managed to mop up the water with the aid of just a few beach towels.

Determined not to be outdone by the weather, we set off in search of a replacement for our missing New York Times. The village was out of the question, so we drove south at risk of life and limb, and eventually found a Starbucks on Crown Valley Parkway. NYT in hand, we found the sky clearing as we drove back north toward the village, so we decided to see how close we could get to downtown before the streets were closed; and in fact found a parking place just a couple of blocks from the main street, Forest Avenue.

The water, by this time, had subsided, but there was clear evidence of its power, flowing down the canyon to the ocean. Here's a couple of shots of the main shopping street:

Here's a view of the Pacific Coast Highway, closed by the mud flows:

The boardwalk, with the main life guard station:

The Pacific Ocean, where the runoff from the canyon creek runs through the main beach:

The High School track:

And the bottom of our own street, also blocked by mud. A few cars, we were told, had been swept down the hill.

So that was our adventure for the day. The skies are clearing now. The sun is breaking through the clouds. Hope you're dryer than we are!

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/22/2010

"Our own life has to be our message."

~Thich Nhat Hanh

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Please note...

... this guest post at Sweep the Dust, Push the Dirt.

Filbuster

Please consider joining me in signing the Daily Kos petition to end misuse of the filibuster in the US Senate. This is a much needed initiative, about which I wrote in The Buddha Diaries just the other day. Thanks!

More Rain

It keeps coming. All day yesterday, all night, and still this morning--with no sign of letting up. The weather forecast says it will continue all day tomorrow. I cannot remember such an event here in Southern California.

I notice that the rain brings out the worry-er in me. I worry about leaks. We ventured out yesterday to check on Ellie's studio down in what used to be the garage. Long-time readers will recall that we have had floods down there in the past, and that our contractor has come up with a variety of solutions. The sump pump seems to be working. We hear it kick in regularly as the pit fills with water; it pumps the excess out from under the house and spews it down the brick steps out in front. So that's fine.

The other problem has been the leakage from the back of the studio. It drains down underground from the back patio and seeps out through the packed dirt that supports the pump for the jacuzzi. Our contractor, most recently, laid a concrete floor and a drain that should have directed the water down to the street, but yesterday we noticed a small amount of seepage circumventing the concrete and gathering at the far end of the studio floor. I cleaned out some mud from around the drain last night, but am worried that the contractor's fix is not working as we had hoped. I have yet to go down this morning to check things out.

My big concern is that the water is eating away at the dirt foundation below the patio (see yesterday's picture) and that the whole substructure will eventually give way. So the rain gives me something to worry about, and my mind has a field day with the worry. I feel the physical effects in the gut, where they seem to gnaw at the stomach lining from the inside. Behind this is the mental preoccupation, a constant low-grade fear that something is not quite right, that something terrible is about to happen.

(Have you heard of the ARkStorm disaster scenario--so named after Noah's mythical vessel? Something else for Californians to worry about, next to the Big One. It's literally an airborne atmospheric river driving across the Pacific from the west, an unstoppable flow of rainstorms that could cause as much damage as a San Andreas earthquake--more, in fact, according to seismic and geophysical expert Dr. Lucy Jones of CalTech, whom we saw interviewed yesterday in the course of a television weather report. The last such event was in 1861-62, when it rained for 45 consecutive days. The next ARkStorm could happen any time...)

So this morning's sit was about the worry. In fact, it was the worry. I spent the entire time trying to identify it, recognize it for what it was, acknowledge that there was nothing I could do about it at that moment, and bring the attention back to the breath. With the sound of the rain drumming down on the roof, the water flooding down the hill outside, the sump pump gearing up to do its work, that was no small task...

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/21/2010

"Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves - slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future."

~Thich Nhat Hanh

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Rain

We are down in Laguna Beach for the holidays. This picture was taken this morning early (I-Phone) to show the results of two days of pretty much solid rain in Southern California. It actually looks much wetter than the picture might suggest. I gather there is much more to come in the course of the coming week. Still...

We aren't allowed to feel sorry for ourselves. I spoke to my sister this morning: there's a foot of snow in Cirencester, where she lives in the Cotswolds. The images we've been seeing on the TV screen of European cities and airports are dramatic evidence of the havoc being created by the weather there. Likewise a big part of the United States. My sister thinks it's Nature getting back at us. And still we have the climate-change deniers in Washington paralyzing any serious discussion, let alone the need to take action; and still we have countries throughout the world--most recently at the conference in Mexico--talking to a standstill. Woe is us...

I have been struggling with Skype. I signed up a couple of years ago, but abandoned it after a couple of conversations with the grandchildren in England. We had not mastered the art of using the medium, and the result was frustration and confusion. We also found the visual effect distracting: the placement of the camera at the top edge of the computer means that, if you're looking at the other person on the screen--and they at you, on theirs--everyone is looking down, rather than at each other. Still, at my sister's urging, I managed to get the application working again this morning, and the three of us had a fine conversation, with a cameo role for George. Now we're planning to make more use of its potential.

I'm halfway through a new book, and will be writing more about it soon. In case you're looking for a wonderful Christmas present for a friend who's contemplating a meditation practice, let me recommend it right away. It's called Choosing to Be, by Kat Tansey. The subtitle is "Lessons in Living from a Feline Zen Master," and it's about the teaching wisdom of the author's Maine Coon cat. Should your mind jump to "cute," let me promise you: not the least bit cute. A beautifully written, deeply felt, throughly believable conversation between human and cat about the difficulties we humans face in our daily lives, and the wonderful solace afforded by the Buddhist teachings about meditation.

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/20/2010

"Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today."

~Thich Nhat Hanh

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/19/2010

"Through my love for you, I want to express my love for the whole cosmos, the whole of humanity, and all beings. By living with you, I want to learn to love everyone and all species. If I succeed in loving you, I will be able to love everyone and all species on Earth... This is the real message of love."

~Thich Nhat Hanh

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The Treatise of a Burnt-out Buddhist.

The Crazy Buddhist, himself. In the flesh. See? I'm no Buddha--Just James.

This is a long treatise, so to speak of me thinking out loud on where I find myself on the Dharmic path; in a manner of speaking. Or, whatever mumbo-gumbo is the lastest Buddhist slang going 'round. It's a bit of a rant I guess but take it for what it's worth and nothing more, or less. It's simply me in the process of sorting through a lot of spiritual baggage. Some of it I keep, but a lot of it I frankly no longer have use for. I'm cleaning out my Buddhist closets and shooting for the simple and minimal. Enjoy it, hate it or don't read it. I wrote it out to help me put into words what I'm experiencing. I'm not here to appease or please anyone. This isn't a post I'm writing necessarily for anyone. It's just my thoughts that I didn't know where else to put them. So, if you're going to bitch me out then go ahead but I've got bigger issues than whether people "agree" with me. Agree, disagree--whatever. I've got enough work to do besides babysit those who want to throw firebombs from the anonymous, dark, alley ways of the cyber world.

DATELINE: December 19 - Midnight - Colorado - USA - planet Earth hurling through the vastness of space. Here are the rantings of a Buddhist without a Buddhist card.

I'm not interested in enlightenment; it's the sand trap of wide-eyed ideologues. I'm not interested in monkhood as I don't believe one has to leave the world to learn how to live within it and amongst it without letting it dominate your life. I don't really care if Buddha was real or not; the teachings work for me--period. If they didn't work then I wouldn't mindlessly worship an archetype out of tradition and romance for a mystical realm where rainbows cascade from our rears. These teachings are utilitarian; and that's what I like about them. They don't make me levitate, perform miracles or transform me into some Hollywood cliche "wise man" at the top of a mountain.

They help me be a person who is less selfish, nicer and a person with less stress. I'm not a Buddhist because of "Buddha"; I'm a Buddhist because I can't deny the results. I'm not saying I don't find benefit from the symbolism of the Buddha and monks; It's simply that I don't worship them--or, anyone for that matter. I see them as experienced philosophers; teachers who present the self-help system and leave you to figure out what that means to you--if, anything. I don't feel the need to defend my Buddhist pedigree to anyone because, frankly, I'm not too interested in being a, "Buddhist" anyhow. I just want to be a better person, and Buddhism helps me be that person. And, to survive this wacky world without losing my marbles (going crazy).

I'm not interested in being a spokesperson for Buddhism or "Buddhism in the west." I'm simply trying to make sense of the same crap as anyone else. Yes, I do happen to practice Buddhism from a foundation of scientific secular humanism but I don't think that makes one less of a practitioner of the Dharmic path. And, honestly? If it did I really don't have time to concern myself with the sanctimoniousness of people who are interested in such fraternal, fundamental religiosity. I'm not in this for the honor and pride of a tradition. I'm following the Dharma because it helps me worry less, stress less, anger less, relax and just be. I don't have the strength, will power or desire to wrap myself up in a theological pretzel and debate what tradition is the most pure. I'm just trying to make it through life with a little less stress and ability to stop and just enjoy the still moments. Those precious minutes that remind you of the true beauty of life--of being alive in that moment. A profound realization of being at ease with it all -- the chaotic and the serene.

I'm not concerned with the future of Buddhism one bit as Buddhism is just as fragile a construct as the ego. It's a shell that has a role to play but it is the curtains as opposed to the real moments unfolding through the window. I am trying not to take all this religiosity so seriously anymore. If one isn't careful, Buddhism itself becomes a vehicle for attachment and suffering. It's the ego's natural desire to "be apart of the pack." Instinct from the evolutionary days when ego was what kept us alive. We want to be apart of the club. However, after a certain level of gorging upon the outward hipness of the robes, bells, monasteries and shaved headed old dudes, the shine of that unrealistic, wide-eyed delusion that we picture Buddhism should be wears off. The starkness of it dawns sharp peal of the morning bell; stirring us from our dreaming slumber.

It's not the trinkets and esoteric stories that bring one relief from suffering. That's all the decorations on the outside; inside Buddhism is a stark, one room cabin with no heating and no where to hide. The perfect place to slaugther the Buddha--that ego that grabs onto the specialness of Buddhahood. So, if it can't thrive and drive us like usual it adapts to lust after "englightenment" "Buddhahood" or "monkhood." Monk hood, which tends to be a station along the wide-eyed, westerners, pilgrimage to find Shangra-la. Well, I'm hear to tell you there is no such place. There are no levitating monks, there is no old, monk living on top of a mystical mountain, there aren't many people who are enlightened, (which is a word I cringe to use but it's ubiquitous) and the sharp truth is that practicing the Dharma can be hard, long work. It's not for everyone.

But don't listen to me--seriously. Don't listen to the Dalai Lama, don't listen to Thich Nhat hanh, doesn't listen to the 130th incarnation of Buddha himself. In fact, if you see the Buddha--kill him. In other words, don't let the iconography and tradition wrapped around Buddha prevent you from living the Dharma for yourself. Follow your gut and return to the archetype of Buddha; not the legend but the archetype or example. He was alone and on his own when he wandered off into the forest to find himself.

I'm not an expert. I'm not a holy guru and I don't profess to be any better than anyone else. I'm still a beginner after 8 years of going the rounds with my ego. I'm not perfect, never was and probably never will be but the important thing is that I'm "O.K." with that. It's not about being perfect; it's about find a place grounded in reality where suffering isn't gone, but manageable. I'm perfectly content in letting whatever happens after this life happen, however it will--or, won't. I'm not going to spend what precious few days I have left on this curious but fascinating world ruminating over a possible life after this one. I have a hunch that there's something else but I'm not clinging to it. If I die and that its the end--well, c'est la vie!! (that's life). Besides, it's not going to matter either way if your dead and obliterated into oblivion. There's no "you" there to fret over it!!

So, I'm nothing special--I'm just a guy, trying to be better person. Buddhism is like a guide that points me on a grounded direction and the rest is up to me. I wouldn't have it any other way. Buddhism is a way of life for me rather than a trophy to collect and lord over others. I'm happy and working on improving my treatment of others and hoping for the best!! There's nothing left to do except, "be." Once you give up searching, it somehow has a way of bubbling up with-in you; when you least expect it. I've only realized fleeting moments and glimpses of it but once you experience it, you're never the same. But I don't call it englightenment -- there is no "name" that can truly define or convey what those moments of oneness are. It's beyond words, and I've gone on long enough anyway. I'm sure most of you didn't get this far, so if you're still with me--thanks for listening. Stay strong, be brave and don't forget to just be yourself. I love you all.

The Essayist

I was delighted to see, in yesterday's New York Times, this Conversation Across Centuries With the Father of All Bloggers, by Patricia Cohen. The "father of all bloggers" is, of course, Michel de Montaigne, the sixteenth century master of the essay. It's true that we all walk in his shoes. Or rather, we stumble along as best we can in shoes that are way too elegant for most of us. It's to him, in good part, that I owe my love of this particular literary form.

I first read Montaigne when I was a student at Cambridge, now more than fifty years ago. His Essais, published in 1580, were required reading for my degree in French Language and Literature, and I'm sure that I treated them with the lofty disregard of the typical undergraduate--well, at least the lazy ones, amongst whose number I must surely have been counted. But something must have sunk into my numb skull, because I have thought about them ever since. Just recently, I formed the intention to re-read them (hoping, now that my French is so rusty, to be able to find a good English translation. Any ideas?) thanks to a generous review of my book Persist: In Praise of the Creative Spirit in a World Gone Mad With Commerce--a review in which James Scarborough, the author, was kind (rash?) enough to mention me in the same breath as the master.

I have not yet re-read them. I have not even laid my hands on a copy of the book, either in French or English. I hereby promise myself that I will do so.

Here's the thing about Montaigne: aside from being a writer of supreme elegance, who manages to say what needs to be said with absolute precision and economy, he had the courage to write about... himself! All of his essays are just that, "attempts" to come to terms with himself, his ideas, and the world around him. As I remember them they constitute, all 107 of them, a scrupulously honest examination of the contents of his mind, an observation of the way it worked, its byways as well as its highways. Nothing was so insignificant as to escape his notice; whatever he noticed became subject matter for his writing; and his writing was not simply his analytical tool, it was itself the process. He is the prime example of one who practiced my favorite, often repeated adage as a writer: How do I know what I think 'til I see what I say

So it's good to see this great writer back in the swim of things after more than four centuries, acknowledged for his 16th century contribution to the 21st. It's clear that I now have another book to buy and read--the book that is the subject of this article: Sarah Bakewell's How to Live. I'll report back when I've had the chance to fulfill both promises to myself.