One Down, Three To Go

Finally finished (almost) the front porch project. I tore off all the old boring railings with even more boring standard vertical balusters and rebuilt them with a design i found in one of my books on Japanese design. I also moved one of the railings higher up the stairs and widened the bottom two steps so you aren't constrained to go up and down in an absolutely straight line. You can now enter/exit at an angle.

The final product doesn't look all that "Japanese-ish," but it looks a lot better than the original, IMO. The stairs and railings are done, but one last piece of the project remains. I'll post another picture when that is done — maybe two or three more weeks.


Here's a couple of pictures (click to enlarge them):






Now i have to move back indoors to finish the last three projects that i promised myself i'd finish by the end of the year. Restain all the wood trim in the living room, restain all the wood trim in the dining room and convert a door frame (sans door now) to an arch, and paint the kitchen.

Chinese Democracy

Liu Xiaobo is awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize for his sacrifices in calling for Chinese freedom.

Notice on CNN

This is great news.

Winter Study Group of One

It's getting colder as we settle into autumn here in Chicago and the trees in the neighborhood are beginning their annual migration to reds and yellows. This means more time spent indoors as it gets lighter later, darker earlier, and colder day-by-day. As i mentioned earlier, i've decided to use this season to go back and look at the Four Noble Truths and, following the lead of Phillip Moffitt's book Dancing With Life, think about how they apply to my life now, as opposed to how they applied to Buddha's life 2,500 years ago.

My plan is to spend one month on each of the Truths, which will have me finish at the end of January. To that effect, i reread the introductory chapters in Dancing during the last week of September, and started the first chapter of Truth 1 yesterday. Since i'm not going to buy any new books i looked on my shelves this morning and pulled out a selection that i will use as supplemental material. Here's what i came up with:

Ajahn Sumedho's The Four Noble Truths
      Like Moffitt, the Theravada viewpoint
      (Online document at buddhanet.net)

Geshe Tashi Tsering's The Four Noble Truths
      The Tibetan viewpoint

Thach Nhat Hanh's The Heart of The Buddha's Teaching
      The Zen viewpoint
      (The first half of the book only)

And since i have always believed that you can't really understand the intent of what the 4 Truths are asking us to do without understanding the Six Paramitas, i may also spend time again with:

Robert Aitken's The Practice of Perfection

Daido Loori's The Heart of Being
      Selected chapters only, like the chapter on the Bodhisattva Vows

That's a lot of reading, a lot of sitting, and a lot of reflecting, but luckily i don't have to do all of that at home — on sunny days i can simply pack a couple of onigiri, a thermos of green tea (or hōjicha!), my eReader, and sit while i ride my bike.

No, no, no, no, no.....

The question isn't "how dedicated are you to your practice," the question is really "why the heck do you practice in the first place?" Or, "if you piled up all the crap in the world, all in one spot, and did a Down Dog asana over it, could you keep you knows above the stink?"

One attempt to look for an answer is here, in this video: Enlighten Up! (2008) Yoga documentary

Get out your mat, sit comfortably in a cross-legged position, and enjoy.

How Dedicated Are You?

An amazing example of dedication to your practice:

Leaving Your Mark

Discovering Your Master

A couple of things to consider as the day, and weekend, winds down.

There are some things that just can not be changed and we must simply learn to accept them.

Do you think you can take over the
universe and improve it?
I do not believe it can be done.

The universe is sacred.
You cannot improve it.
If you try to change it, you will ruin it
If you try to hold it, you will lose it.

So sometimes things are ahead and
   sometimes they are behind;
Sometimes breathing is hard,
   sometimes it comes easily;
Sometimes there is strength and
   sometimes weakness;
Sometimes one is up and sometimes
   down.

Therefore the sage avoids extremes,
excesses, and complacency.

Tao Te Ching

Avoid extremes, including the extreme of complacency. Being complacent with where you are and what you are will bring you no closer to who you really are. Accept that there are extremes, accept that the extremes are self-defining, but then avoid them and walk the middle way.

This doesn't mean, though, that one should always avoid the edges in life, always hiding safely in the middle and amongst the masses. NO! NO! and NO! I believe that the only way to grow, and the best way to find meaning in life, is to spend a great part of that life on the outer edges of our envelope, in whatever area we have dedicated our life. It's at that outer edge that you find Life, it's at that outer edge where numbing and debilitating routine and habit are nowhere to be found. It's at that outer edge where you can glimpse, from time to time, that unknown reality just beyond reach.

Some people look for that edge on their zafu. Others in a sports uniform, others in a lab coat, others in books in libraries. There are countless ways of living on the edge. But, in every case, before you start that search you have to prepare yourself first.

Love yourself and watch -
Today, tomorrow, always.
First establish yourself in the way,
Then teach,
And so defeat sorrow.
To straighten the crooked
You must first do a harder thing -
Straighten yourself.
You are your only master.
Who else?
Subdue yourself,
And discover your master.

...

Mischief is yours.
Sorrow is yours.
But virtue is also yours,
And purity.
You are the source
Of all purity and impurity.
No one purifies another.
Never neglect your work
For another's,
However great his need.
Your work is to discover your work
And then with all your heart
To give yourself to it.

Dhammapada

Some of the work we need to do in this life is internal, that search for our master, that journey towards who we are. No one can do it for you and you can't do it for anyone else. Discovery often entails long, lonely expeditions into the unknown, whether those are physical or mental expeditions, whether it is a trek outside towards the North Pole or a trek inside during a long silent retreat.

Only the strong survive, those who give all of themselves to the search. But that doesn't mean the weak are forbidden from searching, no. Everyone starts out weak at some point in their lives, it's just that the driven ones understand that it all begins with the decision to straighten yourself — to straighten your way of thinking, to straighten your body, to straighten you attitude, to straighten your emotions... to straighten every aspect of who you are.

Once you do that, once you commit with all your heart that you will do whatever is necessary, then discoveries will be yours.

Dancing Dichotomy

Really, really, really crappy weather today (the Fog) so except for one quick excursion to the grocery store for some beans, tofu, and garlic to add to dinner, i locked myself in the house all day to stare it down, wait it out, and dare it to offer its best. While doing so a good portion of my recent posts all tumbled together as i sat and did some reading.


T.S. Eliot offered this a few days ago: "Except for the point, the still point, there would be no dance, and there is only the dance."

And while i didn't write anything about it (even though i should have), i mentioned that i was reading Geshe Tashi Tsering's book Relative Truth, Ultimate Truth, in which the discussion is about understanding and simultaneously living the dual aspects of who we are: the relative white, male, educated, US citizen (in my case) and the ultimate awareness that is all.

And then, Dōgen offered this: "Determination to see all things as the really are, free of preconceived ideas, results in emergence of true practice."


These may all seem to be unrelated but in hindsight they appear to me to follow a very clear and distinct path. Eliot was right, there is only the dance. On the relative level that means life is dancing with you, all the time, everywhere, non-stop. Your job throughout your life is to figure out how you want to participate in that dance, on what level, with what level of sincerity, in what types of activities, with what level of acceptance and/or denial. At this level, there is a you and there is the dance.

But that's only half of the dichotomy. On the ultimate level there is no you, no me, no others, no life; there is nothing but the dance. There is only the dance and that dance is everything. It is all that every was, all that is, all that every will be, now, then, to come. It is all of that and none of that because in that dance, there is no now, then, or to come. There is no was, is, or will be. There is only the dance, manifesting as me here, you there, and Joe Blow over there. How it manifests is completely beyond our control, it just is. That is the dance — and you can get a ring side seat to watch it perform if you find somewhere to "sit," peak through those cracks between two thoughts, and then simply let yourself die.


But how in the world are we supposed to do that. Life is just too damn messy and it plays too many games with our heads. One day the weather is clear, the next it's drizzling, and then the Fog settles in for a stay. Some people make you happy others piss you off to no end. Some days you're content with what you have others you want the whole world. Some days you could run a marathon others you can barely make yourself crawl out of bed, and if you didn't have to go to the bathroom so bad you wouldn't.

It takes practice, lots and lots and lots and lots of practice. But, as Dōgen said, when you persist, when you take a vow to continue the search, to continue peaking through the cracks, when you swear on your parents grave that you will not give up, that you will persevere and endure until you can see all things as the really are, free of preconceived ideas... then, true practice appears.

And as Czeslaw Milosz said, this is when you are finally able "to see, purely and simply, without name, without expectations, fears, or hopes."

It's this true practice, this pure practice, this simple practice that all this lead me to today. I was reading Ajahn Sumedho's The Four Noble Truths again (for about the two-thousandth time). Being that he was a teacher of Phillip Moffitt, i then switched to Moffitt's book Dancing With Life, which is based on Ajahn Sumedho's teachings on the Four Noble Truths.

In Dancing, Moffitt says:

"Even under the best of circumstances, life is challenging, and much of the time it is difficult. It is always uncertain, constantly changing, and mostly out of your control. Whether it is taking you on a wonderful ride or stepping on your toes, life will move you with the rhythm and in the direction of its own unfolding, irregardless of your best intentions. Life dances and you must dance with it. This is the necessary price and mysterious gift of being incarnate – alive in a body.

"If life is going to dance with you, then what kind of dance partner do you wish to be? Can you have a conscious, peaceful relationship with your own life's dance as characterized by a sense of ease, empowerment, and meaning? Certainly it is possible to affect the course of your life. Hard work, discipline, and self-development enable you to be a better partner when life comes to dance, but finding a way to be at ease with the dance itself is a crucial skill in finding freedom and meaning in life."

Necessary price and mysterious gift? What an interesting phrase. I read the book early last year, but did no more than read it, just to ingest the contents. At the time i didn't try to think about it, to reflect on what was being said, to digest the contents. I didn't try to figure out how to apply what Moffitt was pointing out to my life, to my personal dance.

I think i'm ready to do that now. I think i'm going to spend the next four months working through the book again, slowly this time, one section, one Truth, at a time, taking a full month for each to digest the teachings and then to sit and watch how the "nutrients" pass through my system.