Daily Drama

Twenty-four hours can make a big difference sometimes.

Monday: Helene and I are getting ready to head back to Michigan for the holidays with my family. Although she still has a bad cough, her bronchial infection is much better. She can talk and has energy for the first time in almost two weeks. I find Oberon is being served at Moto right down the street from my house.

Tuesday: At 2:00am Helene has gone into anaphylactic shock. Her body is covered in hives that look like welts and her eyes are swollen shut. She takes copious amounts of Benadryl. We lay on our backs on the bed holding hands and just breath. In my mind I am calculating just how fast I can get her to the hospital if her breathing stops. I can feel the beginnings and endings of all things intertwined like our fingers. By 5:00am she is out of danger. Her breathing is regular, and she finally goes to sleep. At 7:00am I am on the phone with Northwest Airlines to see what I can do about rescheduling our flights. For two hours the call goes directly to a message that says that due to the bad weather they are too busy to take my call but are sorry for the inconvenience. I too am having issue with the weather. Outside it is cold, cloudy and rainy. At around 9:00am I finally get through and am told that if I do not get on the plane today I will have to pay a $150 dollar penalty and buy another ticket at current market value. This essentially means I will not be able to fly home for Christmas. They also tell me that my return flight will be canceled if I don't fly out today but that I can re-buy the flight for over $300 more than I paid for it in the first place. The call ends with the line, “Sorry for any inconvenience, happy holidays.” Indeed. After calling all my family to tell them the news, I collapse into bed next to my sick little Sabel cat. We wake around 7:00pm and watch A Christmas Carol (1984) with George C. Scott. Helene goes back to bed around 10:00pm and sleeps for fourteen hours.

Wednesday: The sunshine has returned. On a whim, I call Northwest Airlines to see if I can work anything out with them in terms of reschedule a flight. “Good news!” My operator replies, “You qualify for the Midwest Winter Weather Waiver. Your reschedule is covered without penalty or any other additional coasts to you. Merry Christmas, Mr. Hull.” Looks like I will be able to fly out on Friday to see my family for Christmas after all. Although still coughing, the swelling around Sabel cat’s eyes had gone down to a reasonable level. She is curled up on the couch watching old movies on TCM. Tristan texts me the message, “Write Forest Write!” I make a new ZenCowboy video and spend the afternoon writing as I listen to Butter by Hudson Mohawke.

Thursday: To be continued . . .

The Motherland

My world is collapsing in around me. On the eve of our deportment to the Great White North, Helene and I stop in for a quick dinner at my favorite local sushi spot, Moto. For some reason that I can no longer remember, we always sit at the bar. And just as I’m about to order my Spicy Asian Slaw with a Tootsie Roll, I see a familiar orange ball with a smiling sun on it at the top of a beer tap not five feet in front of me.

“Excuse me,” I say to the waitress, “what beer is that?”

“Oberon,” she replies.

“Bell’s Oberon!?!” I ask.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“From Kalamazoo?”

“Uh, . . . I don't know.”

“Bring me one. Now! Please.”

“Sure, no problem. You know you’re the second person today that’s freaked about us having this beer on tap.”

“How would you feel if you could get a pint of Kilt-Lifter in Tokyo?”

“Stoked.”

“Exactly. This is about the same thing for a beer-drinking guy from Michigan.”

“Cool, enjoy.”

The woman next to us is so intrigued she orders one too. We toast each other and then take our first drinks. It is at that moment, looking up at the sign above the bar that clearly lets me know I am drinking this Midwestern jewel in the Sonora Desert, that I feel as if my world is collapsing around me.

“The water, it tastes different,” she says after her first sip.

“Yeah,” I say, “that’s the taste of Lake Michigan fermented.”

The waitress comes back and asks if I’m enjoying my beer. I’m not sure if it could be more obvious that I am so I say, “Yeah, it’s good. But next time I come in I expect to see Brador on tap.”

“What’s that?” she asks.

“My youth,” I reply.

She looks me up and down and then says, “We sell beer and sushi, not miracles. You want another Oberon?”

I look over at the little orange ball on the tap and think to myself, “This certainly feels miraculous to me.” Then I look back into her sarcastic eyes and say, “You’re kidding, right. Of course.”

Mr. Bronner

And as I type this, I feel the water of the Great Lakes coursing through my veins once again and the warmth of that cold little mitten has already smitten me. In a few hours I will be stepping into a flying elevator and then stepping out again onto the frozen tundra of my childhood. (Okay, so it’s not quite tundra, but it’s still a lot colder than Phoenix.) Just to make my point, here’s a video to a couple driving in Michigan. Notice their quaint Michigan accents:

The picture at the top of this post is from the 2003 Sufjan Stevens album entitled Michigan. In the summer of that year Helene and I went to Portland, Oregon and caught Steven on his first ever West Coast tour. It was in a small bar and half the folks seemed to be there for the opening act, Joanna Newsom. (Although I wish her well, I am not a huge fan.) The group had on blue Boy Scout Uniforms, U of M baseball caps and in the back was a handmade map of Michigan. Between songs, Stevens would point on the map to where he was taking us next. After the show, I told Stevens that his album’s exploration of what it meant to grow up in the mitten had saved me years of therapy. Here’s a wonderful video from that disk:

Ahh Impermanence

Last night, Phoenix was hit with a major storm. Today, December 8, 2009, there are many people without power. This tree is at the front of my complex. Had it fallen the other way, it would have smashed into my neighbors’ bedroom. I always liked this tree when I walked past it to the grocery store. According to one of the old timers who were gathered around this morning, the tree was planted in 1968. The year I was born. We were the same age. They are cutting it up now and taking it away. It is no longer considered a tree. The police officer on the scene referred to it as a road hazard. It went down around midnight last night. Midnight last night I was asleep in my bed, like my neighbors. I am happy the tree fell in the road and not on their bed. Two people ran into the tree this morning with their cars, one at 4:30am and the other around 6:00am. No one was injured. One car needed to be towed. At 4:30am I was sleeping in my bed. At 6:00am the first bell rang for sitting on our zendo. There is a giant eucalyptus tree hovering behind our house on city land. I have been asking that it be trimmed for three years. If it were to ever fall due west, it would land right on our bedroom.

Today is Rohatsu. On this day, 2,500 years ago, Siddhartha Gautama dropped his hand to the ground, looked up at Venus in the early morning sky, and understood that we are all Buddhas. And so the Dharma wheel turns and our tradition has grown over time to this day of Rohatsu, December 8, 2009.A tradition that Shakyamuni Buddha said would end in 2,500 years, which is right about now.

This tree fell in the the garden next to the clubhouse where we used to hold zazenkais. It will be cut up and hauled away soon too. Hopefully, it will be used to create something new. We no longer use this space for zazenkais.

Today, December 8, 2009, was the first weekday morning the Sitting Frog Sangha sat together in our new space. I anticipate sitting in the mornings as a sangha for many years to come.

Just Plane Silly

I've been flying a lot the last few weeks. Hence, this post:

An Afternoon in Sausalito

BEFORE heading up to Spirit Rock in the morning for Martine and Stephen Batchelor's Halloween weekend workshop called The Secular Buddha, I'm hanging out in Sausalito. I flew into San Francisco International Airport and took a commuter bus up to the Spencer Street Exit. It's a trip I've made may times and normally it takes about a half hour. BUT with the Bay Bridge out, every one has to head North over the Golden Gate Bridge to get to the Richmond Bridge further north to get to the east bay. My flight was almost two hours. This time the drive from the airport to Sausalito was also about two hours. AND driving in Marin County is nuts right now because everyone from the other side of the bay must pass through here to get to and from the city. Hopefully, its good for businesses along the 101. And hopefully the weekend will be better traffic wise. And hopefully they will open the Bay Bridge soon. BUT that is not why I'm posting this. I'm posting this to show you what I'm looking at as I type these words. The view behind this picture taken by Helene in October of 2008 is what I see right now, give or take 295 days or so.

Local Color: Phoenix Flames

Under Pressure

"It's a snake's nature to move in a crooked fashion. But if you put it in a bamboo tube, it becomes straight. The control of the mind through samadhi is also like this."
Nagarjuna

Last Spring three of my friends went off to do a three-month training period at Yokoji-Zen Mountain Center. This happened to coincide with Tricycle Magazine’s The Big Sit 90 day Internet Ango. I wound up going to Mountain Center at least once a month to sit for long weekends and trained in my own householder way for 90 days. This fall, I decided to take the concept of a prolonged training period, create some group commitment areas and individual commitment areas, get a small group of non-Buddhists together to work with me, and call it 90 Days of Great Determination. So far, I’m sucking at this big time.

One of my commitments last winter and spring was to blog on a regular basis. I think I did alright. Summer rolled around and I slacked off a bit, but I was going to start at it again as part of my 90 training period commitments. So here I am two weeks into this and all I feel like is a failure every day. I intended to meet with my three participants at least once every two weeks. We can't seem to meet. I intended to keep a daily journal. It’s been weekly at the most. I am keeping up with SOME of my commitments but my small community component has so far crashed and burned. Still, I’m seeing how I should have begun it differently and when I do next January, I’ll make changes.

That’s not very specific, I know. For now, that’s all I can type.

One of the cool things about 90 days though is how long it is. Yes, I have been dragging my ass on several commitments from day one, but every day I look at my training schedule and see them shouting at me to get started. Hence this post.

And what has been coming up for me also is reflecting on how I would be handling this in a more traditional Zen training schedule. I used to think that just going to the zendo and following the schedule day in and day out was enough. Now, I see that I was always a failure. There was never a day when was present for the whole time. There was never a ceremony where I didn’t make some sort of a mistake or drift off in the middle of chanting.

I once said to Tenshin Roshi that I was enjoying just digging in and surrendering to the schedule. He smiled and said that we are always surrendering to the mountain’s schedule first and our Zen schedule second. I got this a little bit when I woke up last April one morning to a blanket of powder. Sandals in the snow made for a cold day. But how was I to know, it had been 90F in Phoenix when I left and 70F on the Mountain the day before. By the next day, the snow had melted and my feet were warm again.

And after an endless summer of 110F days I would happily walk barefoot in snow right now.

I suppose last spring was a honeymoon period or beginner’s luck. Looking back that 90 days seemed so effortless. But I can only be at where I am. I surrender to the mountain that is my life first and then dig in, surrender to the schedule, and keep moving forward through the tube. Hopefully, the pressure of this first post will press me on to the next.

A Sheep or a Goat?

Sometimes living with Helene can be like living in one of Plato's dialogues. The other morning, literally seconds after my eyes had opened to another day, her first words of awakened consciousness were, “Must life on this earth be violent?”

I assumed the question was rhetorical but when I looked over at her I realized I was expected to reply. Pre-coffee Socratic method is always a bit dicey but I answered.

“Yes, because it’s a good story. We are always looking for antagonists in our narratives to keep the illusion of a personal plot plodding along.”

I gave the example of the film UP that I had recently seen with my nephew. “The first ten minutes is a montage of this beautify domestic bliss lived by two people who found love early and followed through in turning the every day into awe by loving another completely and surrendering to that love. That idea may seem enchanting but it’s a boring story. The plot of the film gets interesting when she dies and he’s left alone as an old man with a life full of memories, pain, and problems. We are always adding drama, some if it violence, to our lives to keep the story interesting.”

“That sounds glib.” she said, “So if I’m on a beach relaxing and get hit by a sunami or I’m BBQing for my family and a faulty propane tank explodes burning me to death (This happened to a poor guy in Phoenix recently) I added this violence to keep my life interesting?”

“Well, now you’re talking about how we define violence. The eternal pounding of the ocean on rock until it was pulverized into sand created the beach you were relaxing on. The charred pieces of skin, muscle, and bone that you were grilling before you were burned yourself was also violent. The very act of eating, it be a cow or a carrot is a violent act of stomach acid breaking down a living organism to a chemical level and reconstituting it into ourselves. It takes death to sustain life. We just take it personally when our death or the death of someone we love is involved. Everything comes from friction and energy. The friction and energy we like is called a wonderful vacation on the beach. The friction and energy we don't like is called a tragic sunami.”

“Well, that’s true,” she said, “but what about all the violence we can control but don’t? What about Iraq?” (We had just seen the film No End In Site the night before.) Watch a clip here:

What moved me the most in watching is film was the total detached arrogance and ignorance that was used in the reconstruction of Iraq by our leaders and how this snowballed into the violent quagmire we have today. The concrete walls of the Green Zone are a physical symbol of our ability to cut ourselves off from the situation that surrounds us, to detach from the reality in front of our eyes. The maddening aspect of this film and it’s unpacking of the events that happened after Mission Accomplished is that it becomes clear the nightmare of the pain and suffering and violence that has occurred in the post United States of America invasion of Iraq could have been avoided.

Not wanting to sound like a hippy but at the same time not knowing where else to go in the face of such concrete momentous human pain,(warning, this link is graphic) I said, “The continued violence in Iraq could have been avoided if our government leaders had made their postwar reconstruction effort and decisions based on compassion for the Iraqi people not based on an outdated cold war political ideology and greed.”

“Yes, and . . .”

It almost hurt me to say it. The simplicity of my answer felt stupidly child-like, “And love. Had we acted out of compassion and love much of the suffering that is going on there today could have been avoided.”

“True, but what keeps us from acting out of love and compassion? What keeps a good Buddhist like you full of glib answers and removed from your heart? Why are you afraid so sound like a child, to sound like an old cliché hippy?”

“I don't know.”

“Walls,” she said, “Our incessant need for walls! That’s why humanity adds unnecessary violence to this world. Walls. We build walls, both literal and figurative, around ourselves to block out the pain of living and that very act creates even greater pain. In our desperate attempts to avoid pain, we detached from the world around us, which inevitably causes suffering for others and ourselves. When the walls come down we cannot help but act from love and compassion.”

“But when the top UN envoy for Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, went to Baghdad he did not built a wall, like America’s Green Zone, he allowed his offices to be open to the people and look what it got him.”

“Killed in a bombing.”

“Yes, so what did he get for his openness but pain and death?”

“When we are in a place of openness we cannot help but act from love and compassion not matter what the outcome. Most of the time we do this instinctively without thinking about our own outcome; running into a burning building to save a child or stepping in front of an oncoming bus to push a stranger out of the way.

While these are noble acts they are not enlightened acts. The keys to heaven go to those who knowingly tear down the walls both inside and outside and move through this world naked and unafraid. Life on this planet might be inherently violent but we, as a race, have the conscious choice to not add to that violence.”

In that moment a Bible story from childhood called the Sheep and the Goats flashed in my head. After Jesus has left the temple in shambles he goes on a tirade about the end times. I remember that the Bible I read as a kid highlighted the words of Jesus in red. In this section Jesus is talking about how we will be separated like sheep and goats. “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty . . . The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’” Matthew 25:34-40

For the goats the message was different: “’Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needed cloths or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ Then they will go away to eternal punishment but the righteous to eternal life.’” Matthew 25:44-46

“So it’s not about doing something solely based on what I might get but doing something because it's the compassionate thing to do for others despite the pain it might cause me? And the rub is that if I break down my walls and reach out compassionately to others I will probably get hurt and hurt others and yet if stay behind my walls I WILL hurt myself and others.”

“I think so . . .”

And then I thought about Abu Ghraib and wondered if I was responsible for my goverment's sins againts others. “Helene, am I a sheep or a goat?”

“What are you talking about?!?”

“Nothing, I just remembered something from when I was a kid and it got me thinking. If the keys to heaven go to sheep not goats who sorts out who is who? Is eternal punishment to hell really a sound moral goal for goats? Where does compassion and love fit in there? Isn't hell just another walled prison we’ve built to try and protect ourselves from those we perceive as evil? Isn't heaven the ultimate wall made to protect ourselves from suffering and hell the ultimate attempt to make those we don't connect with suffer? Does hell have visiting hours? And if I visit, will I be allowed to leave? Sometimes I’m sure I'm a goat. Sometimes I know I'm a sheep.”

“And sometimes you’re ridiculous. Would you like coffee?”

“YES, I would. And I’m serious about this goat sheep thing.”

“With cream?”

“That would be delightful, thank you.”

“My pleasure.”

The Hazy Moon of my Life

It's Helene's Birthday today and I am grateful to be celebrating it with her. This is an older post from an older blog that I felt like revisiting. I was lying on the couch with Helene this afternoon, when I was hit with an overwhelming feeling. She’s leaving tonight to spend the next few days with her mother, who is going in for her second major surgery in less than a year. We have watched Helene’s mom go from an active, vibrant women who lived for operas, plays and her volunteer work at the museum to a women who lives in the shadows of her former self. I won’t go into all the gory, sordid details, but over and over again I am constantly being given reminders lately of life’s absolute impermanence. Death’s cold breath has been giving me metaphysical goose bumps on the back of my neck. About a year ago, I saw this movie on TV that took the footage of the moon missions in the 60’s and 70’s and added current commentary by the astronauts. It was fascinating to hear the reflections of old men as they watched their younger selves dance on the moon. One of them said that being up there was like holding on to life by a string over the abyss of space. The dance on the moon was a dance with death, as they literally were kept alive by a small tube tied to a tin can. And yet, he said, it was the most alive he has ever felt, looking at the earth from a little rock in the vacuum of space. Lying with Helene on that couch I felt the warm of her skin on mine and the rise and fall of her chest. I could almost hear the blood moving through her veins. Normally, this kind of physical awareness excite me. But I felt a calm stillness. A completeness in her arms. I looked at her and felt as if I was looking into the face of the whole world from a little rock in the vacuum of space. I was brought down on my emotional knees by the shear beauty and total impermanence of it all. Of her, of her mother, of me, of my mother, of our love, of our lives, of your life, of this whole spinning blue ball in space. I kissed her. We got up. She packed a small suitcase. She left. I was hit with this overwhelming feeling today, like breathing in a cold winter night, like the warmth in my chest after a sip of single malt scotch, like falling up into the vast expanse of a western sky, like the simple sadness of a child, like the death of an old, old friend, like the shock of a scorpion sting, like the closed fisted tension of my lover’s body just before she opens to release, like an exposed palm with extended fingers spinning round and round in vast emptiness. Like dancing on the moon. Ever have that feeling?

Happy Birthday, Love!!

Made in Detroit

I went to the Movement 2009 Detroit Techno Festival this weekend with my friend Charity. We met two years ago on a Street Retreat here in the Motor City. It was a funny feeling to see people dancing in Heart Plaza by where I had slept. I kept wondering where all the homeless people were going to sleep the next few nights while the festival was going on. The last time I was here my pockets were empty. This time I was very aware of my keys, cell phone, camera, and wallet.

The last time I saw some of these DJ’s spin was in the 80’s. The scene has changed a little since then. It’s a lot whiter than I remember. There were no glow sticks, angel wings, state-of-the-art light shows, or neon colored spandex. We danced in crowed basements and old warehouses. I’m not saying one is better than the other, just different. Like the difference between walking the city with a wallet in my pocket and walking without. Both situations bring freedoms and constrictions.

The memory of the sad boy who dancing in this broken city over twenty years ago makes me smile. The memory of the man who made peace with Detroit two years ago through living on her wounded streets brings with it a feeling of tranquility as the beats move through the ground and I sit under the trees in the grass by the waterfront. The memory of this past weekend dancing in Detroit as I sit at my mother’s computer and type this brings a state of self-reflection.

My hometown continues to break my heart. It is through these deep cracks that compassion comes in.

It’s good to be in the bitter-sweetness of home.

Charity w/ glow sticks

Glow Stick Devil

Let me respectfully remind you – (And me!)

I’m going back up to the Zen Mountain Center one last time for this training period. It ends this Sunday. The gang up there has been sitting hard for almost three months and I have enjoyed sitting with them once a month for the last two.

This weekend I will sit and then say good-by to my friends as they go off to new adventures. I will then drive back to Phoenix in time to see Apollo at Doc’s Place and say good-by as he heads out for his new Traveling Poet adventure. Monday I go back to work and say good-by to my seniors as they too move on to new adventures. With every hello comes good-by.

I called teachers troublemakers in a past post. Well, actually, Pema Chodron called them troublemakers. I borrowed her title and added my own two cents.

Not everyone liked the word troublemakers. Bad connotation I guess. How about the word instigator? A spiritual teacher drives us to strive harder and push further that we could on our own.

Ah, but there’s nowhere to go and nothing to gain.

True. . . .

NOW pick up that pen and write! Open that book and read! Go deeper into that Koan! SIT Stronger! Sew that rakasu! Build! Create! Help! Love! Smile! Shout!

STRIVE HARDER & PUSH FURTHER!

Yes, right now you are perfect and complete. But you’re not finished.
(And why would we want to be finished? To be finished is to be done.)

During training periods, like sesshins, there is a gatha (verse) that is spoken at the end of each day before we leave the zendo for sleep. It goes something like this:

Let me respectfully remind you -
Life and death are of supreme importance,
Time swiftly passes,
Opportunity is lost:
Awaken!
Awaken!
Take heed. Do not squander your life.

When I was up at ZMC in April it snowed and was quite cold for a little desert rat like myself. One afternoon I had a vivid dream. There was a break of a little over an hour after lunch. The sky was grey. I was cold, tired and decided to take a nap. I went back to my cubbyhole, set my alarm to give myself 25 minutes before the next sitting, and was out in seconds.

In my dream I was in the same room at the Zen Center, but it was down in the desert with palms trees out my window. I was a beautiful sunny day out so I opened my door and stood at the threshold taking in the sun. Then, literally out of the blue, Genpo Roshi walked up to me with a big smile on his face; arms outstretched, and hugged me warmly.

He said, “Dan! How are you?”

Still shocked by his surprise visit, I did not respond.

“And you say, ‘I am well. Good to see you Roshi. How are you?’”

I repeated what he told me to say. He pulled back with his hands on my shoulders, looked me in the eyes, and said a bit sarcastically but playfully, “There you go. Good.”

He let go of my shoulders, snapped into a serious look and said, “Oh and Hoen, WAKE UP!”

I sat up in my bed and saw that I had slept through my alarm. I had 8 minutes to get to the zendo. I swiftly put on my robes, ran over, and made it seconds before the first bell.

Thank you, Roshi, as always, for the push.

Hello. Good-by. Hello. Good-by. Hello. Good-by. Endless Practice.

Beautiful.

Who draws the line?

I had originally intended to write a post about my friend Eric’s opening this weekend. I even had a little film clip from last summer that we made on the rooftop of his studio in Brooklyn. Then I read this post on the Shambhala blog, SunSpace and felt the need to respond.

Here’s a quote from the piece: “Eric Manigian’s past reflects his respect for Zen philosophy; however, his use of the ensô could also be seen to reflect the co-option of religious symbols by secular commercial art. Most of Manigian’s art goes to high-profile private clients. The Ensô Table will be shown at BKLYN Designs, which is presented by the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, May 8-10, 2009.”

The key issue I have with the post is the usual crap I see with “spiritual people” who feel that the sacred is somehow outside of the material, that people with money equals bad and people without it equals good.

I work with people who have little money every day. I find that only those in a position of money and privilege can afford to romanticize those without. Here is my response:

Who draws the line?

Art and architecture have always had high-end patrons, including projects of a religious nature. Buddhists temples (and magazines) in America are created by people with money. The Buddha himself slept homeless in a park designed and donated to him by a king.

In this post, Heisler elevates the ensô as a sacred religious symbol with lines like, “. . . only a spiritually complete person can draw a true ensô.” And then she suggests that Eric Manigian’s Ensô Table is “secular commercial art” because his “art goes” (is bought by) “high-profile private clients” (rich people).

The sacred remains sacred by its very nature.

An ensô creates a distinction of sacred AND secular, yet its essence points to the non-dual. If there is no outside to the circle, then nothing can be seen as sacred. If there is no inside, then nothing can be seen as secular.

Manigian is an artist and a Zen Buddhist who has been practicing for 20 years. What makes his Ensô Table any less sacred? It becomes “secular commercial art” because rich people might buy it? Really?? So rich people are bad and artists must be poor. Sounds like childish platitudes to me.