In Morris for lunch.

Grand Illinois Trail

My bicycle and tent have been complaining of neglect more and more loudly at the start of each week so i'm caving into the pressure and taking them out on the trail for a week. I'll leave Lockport (just north of Joliet) tomorrow morning and spend 8 days pedaling around the northern part of the state. It's supposed to be a little over 500 miles long, with 200 of that on paved roads and the rest on packed gravel trails, but i'm cutting out the eastern swing through the city of Chicago.

(info, pdf guide, map)

My current plan is:
Day 1: Starved Rock State Park near LaSalle
Day 2: Campground north of Sheffield
Day 3: Campgound north of Port Byron on the Mississippi River
Day 4: Mississippi Palisades State Park north of Savannah
Day 5: Lake Le-Aqua-Na State Park in Lena
Day 6: Rock Cut State Park in Rockford
Day 7: Somewhere in McHenry, as yet unknown
Day 8: Long ride south from McHenry — McHenry, Crystal Lake, Elgin, Naperville, Romeoville, home.

Where the "true" trail would go east from Elgin into Chicago, then south along the lake, before turning back west to Joliet, i seen no sense in being a target for goofballs looking for a new bike and willing to take mine... so i'm avoiding the city altogether.

A few of the days are around 55 miles, but it seems that most of them will be between 65 & 70 miles.

A Day At The Office

Noticed that i haven't posted a picture of me spending a day at the office yet this year.

Bottle of water, thermos of tea, salmon onigiri, some cheddar cheese, and a great book — all spread across a clean desk. And to top it off, parking is very, very convenient.

" 'Beauty cannot guarantee truth,' asserted the physicist Robert Mills, the second half of the Yang-Mills duo. 'Nor is there any logical reason why the truth must be beautiful, but our experience has repeatedly led us to expect beauty at the heart of things and to use this expectation as a guide in seeking deeper theoretical understanding of the fundamental structures of nature.' Conversely, Mills added, 'if a proposed theory is inelegant, we have learned to be dubious.' "

The Shape of Inner Space
Shing-Tung Yau

Can the same assertions be made about what we find/see/come to realize about the nature of Being while on our zafu?

Focus!

I seem to be having a lot of trouble focusing this year. It's gotten so bad that at the beginning of this month i sat down and wrote up a list of the ONLY books i was going to allow myself read this month and in August. There are a few books that i enjoy and want to get through before starting anything new.

Imagine my surprise, then, when i realized last night that i had completely forgone the almighty list and spent the day with two new books! (hanging my head in shame...)

The first, "How to Practice Dharma: Teachings on the Eight Worldly Dharmas," by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, has been yelling at me to start it for months. The second, i simply stumbled on. I don't even remember what i was looking for yesterday, but in the online search results up popped a link to a pdf copy of the book "The Shape of Inner Science: String Theory And The Geometry of The Universe's Hidden Dimensions," by Shing-Tung Yau and Steve Nadis. I had never heard of the book, but when i first opened the file all i had seen was "The Shape of Inner Science," and i thought this was about consciousness, the mind, or something along those lines.

Well, my original list is now in the dust bin as i can't stop. Both books are just too exciting to put down. And lest you think that they have nothing in common, consider these tidbits from Inner Science, where the author is discussing Einstein's use of Reimannian Geometry in his development of his General Theory of Relativity.

"Equipped with Riemann’s metric tensor, Einstein worked out the shape and other properties—the geometry, in other words—of his newly conceived spacetime. And the resulting synthesis of geometry and physics, culminating in the famous Einstein field equation, illustrates that gravity—the force that shapes the cosmos on the largest scales—can be regarded as a kind of illusion caused by the curvature of space and time."

Or this, in the next paragraph:

"Suppose that two people start at different spots on the equator and set out at the same speed toward the north pole, moving along longitudinal lines. As time goes on, they get closer and closer to each other. They may think they are affected by some invisible force that’s drawing them together. But another way to think of it is that the assumed force is really a consequence of the geometry of the earth and that there’s actually no force at all."

Gravity is an illusion? Assumed forces can be the consequence of the geometry of the space you inhabit? The next time someone questions the idea of emptiness and the idea that conventional reality is an illusion, ask your listener if they believe in physics and mathematics.

Two great books to spend the rest of the week with!

P.S., Yesterday it was 100% fine, today it looks like the top of my cherry blossom tree is dying. :-(

Going To The Birds

I built a small bamboo water fountain in the back yard last month.

Besides looking good (IMO), the sound of running/trickling water is incredibly soothing — especially in the evening as the neighborhood starts to wind down and becomes quieter. However, it really started to show promise this afternoon when a cardinal and a yellow finch decided to check it out as a possible bathing site.

I get incredibly happy about the smallest things....

P.S., the cherry blossom tree in the front yard is doing wonderfully. It doesn't look like it was affected by the disastrous broken branch at all. There is even new growth on it. I'll post another picture of it this weekend.

Reduced To Tears, But Hopiing For The Best

When i looked out my front window Saturday morning, i was looking to see if any more orange day lilies had bloomed; they're starting to make their appearance. Then i couldn't believe my eyes. I was in SHOCK. The top half of the Yoshino cherry blossom tree that i had planted in the front yard two years ago was hanging to the ground! Something had broken it off! Did i say i was in shock?

Here's what the tree looks like.

About halfway up the tree, there is a "V" where all the branches start growing out of the trunk. The tallest part of the tree, the top, grows out of the left side of this "V," and it was this part that was hanging all the way down to the ground. One small piece of the bark hadn't broken so the top half hadn't fallen to the ground, but was just hanging there.

What to do? Buy a beer and sit there drinking and crying? That would do nothing to help, so instead i went to the garage and dug out a bamboo stake and lots of twine. Using two pieces of bamboo and about 20 meters of twine i spliced the two pieces back together. I pulled the twine so tight that i broke it several times but in the end the two side of the "V" were back together again. Wrap, wrap, half hitch, wrap, wrap, half hitch, wrap, wrap, half hitch,... 20 meters worth. Just before the last of the cut disappeared under the twine i could see that the split was completely sealed, i could see no opening in the bark, just a line where the spit had been.

Is this going to save my tree? It's been two days now and the tree shows no signs of change. All the branches are still pointed up, nothing is drooping, and none of the leaves show signs of wilting. Is this a good sign? I don't know. How long before any signs of problem will show up? Or, conversely, how long do i have to wait before i can say there is a good chance it is going to heal itself?

Don't Call Me Boring

In response to my post titled "The Middle Way," Ted commented:

"This is dead on. I remember the majority of the Henro to be dull and monotonous. Yet when I finished, I felt that when I looked back over my life, I'd always think of it as one of my bigger achievements."

I guess i need to be more careful about my use of the word 'boring.'

According to my dictionary the definition of 'boring' is: "So lacking in interest as to cause mental weariness." While that is the word i have used on many occasions, Ted is forcing me to look at what i really mean and decide if that's the best word to use. I have decided it is not.

Rather, the word i should be using might be 'dull,' which is defined as: "Lacking in liveliness or animation," or "Not keenly felt," or "Not having a sharp edge or point," among other things. I like that and it seems much closer to what i'm trying to say about the experience on the henro trail or on the zafu. While my gut isn't happy with 'dull,' intellectually i'm content for now.

I remember way, way back when, when i was in the military, i served on submarines. For the first several cruises, i can remember laying in bed from time to time trying to come to some understanding of what boredom is and why i felt it from time-to-time, but not all of the time and not all that often. I decided that for me boredom meant no more than not being where i wanted to be. When i wasn't able to simply accept that i was underwater, and would be for a great many days more, then i felt bored when i wasn't occupied. But, since most of the time i simply accepted it as my job, one that i had volunteered to do, i was perfectly content to be where i was and boredom wasn't part of the picture. The above definition was right on for me — when i felt bored, unaccepting, there was this feeling of mental weariness.

However, this is not the case for my time on the trail. There is never a time when i feel mental weariness. I feel more alert and more aware in my boots, on the trail, than i do at home. It's similar to my mindset in my running shoes on a good day or in my bike saddle on any day. While there may be nothing of interest going on, nothing that would be considered mentally stimulating, my awareness and alertness are very, very high.

I think i should be using the word "dull" to describe my walks around the henro trail. It is an experience that is the opposite of lively, the opposite of animated, the opposite of keenly felt. There is a certain daily rhythm that you fall into if you try, mentally and physically. You are alert and moving, aware of what is happening around you (maybe more so than normal), yet there is no urgency to life, no urgency to your actions. You just become one more piece of everything around you, one more piece of the environment.

As the process starts, there is still obviously a 'me' and 'that tree,' 'that car,' 'that person,' 'out there.' Then, as the process deepens, all of those individual 'things' out there, merge and slowly things settle into just 'me' and 'everything else,' with the later being one 'thing' (for the lack of a better word). All the external differentiation has melded into one.

Then as the process continues, slowly, every so slowly, the 'me' begins to dissolve into that 'everything' and i'm left with 'everything,' but with a twist. At this stage, there is still some piece of me sitting somewhere over my shoulder noticing all of this. There is still a little piece left that has noticed that the merger is taking place and that 'Dave' is no longer separate from everything else; that Dave and everything else are all one and the same, manifesting as this over there and that over here, etc.

Then at some point that piece doing the noticing disappears. That disappearance is always completely unnoticed by Dave until something happens to pull me back into Dave's boots and Dave's head. It might start raining. A car may honk it's horn, someone may greet me, etc. At that point Dave deals with the situation and the process starts over again.

None of this is to imply that i'm a spaced out zombie when walking. Far from it. Cars are still looked for as i cross the street, henro trail markers are still looked for and noticed (usually), people that i pass are still greeted. It's just that Dave is no longer doing this, it's just happening.

The point of this? Just that boring is completely the opposite of how i would describe the henro trail — even though that is the word i mistakenly used. Yes, the experience may be called dull, but it is in no way boring. Life, when you truly experience it is not boring. Life, when you see it in it's unconditioned, unfiltered state is beautiful. Life, when you are talking about that word with a capital L, Life, and not when you are talking about that personal life you have built up and come to believe is all there is, is breathtaking.

Sorry for using the wrong word. And thanks to Ted for forcing me to be more accurate.