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!!