Running On Empty

When PBS was on Shikoku filming the video OHenro segment of Sacred Journeys, i was hired to get them around and take care of the day-to-day logistics. I still remember their telling me when we first talked about the project that in their opinion suffering was a requirement of doing pilgrimage successfully. It seemed that they believe suffering was the most important tool in a pilgrim's quiver if he/she hoped to find answers to whatever questions they brought to the trail.

I didn't see any sense in getting into discussions of Buddhist philosophy at the time so simply told them that i thought that idea was wrong, that they misunderstood pilgrimage, at least how it applied here on Shikoku. In the end, though, my words changed nothing as it was clear throughout the project that they continued to believe in the value of seeking out suffering as a method of purifying yourself.

I wonder how many other people bring this idea to the henro trail? I also wish i could convince people that it is absolutely not true and save them some time and effort in finding this out for themselves.

The Heart Sutra makes this clear from the very opening lines. As the sutra begins, we find Kanjizai (Kannon Bodhisattva) in a deep state of meditation when he realizes that the five aggregates are empty. If we understood nothing of the Heart Sutra beyond this, but could see this as intuitively and as clearly as Kanjizai saw it, then our paths would be nearing an end. Even without a lot of practice, a great many people can see the truth of the emptiness of the "external" world. It doesn't take a lot of time or a lot of mental effort to see the truth of impermanence, non-self, and suffering with relation to the world "out there."

Moving internally, it isn't even all that difficult to come to an understanding that this thing i call me is impermanent, has no intrinsic self-being, and causes suffering. Everyone knows on some level that who they are today is not who they were when they were children and infants. We grow and change from second to second, throughout our lives, and our beliefs, ideas, and emotions have caused us countless hours of suffering over the years.

Taking one more step backwards, though, bothers a lot of people. The majority of people don't even see any need to do it. I was walking part of the trail with a friend one year when the subject came up and after i got out about one sentence my friend cut me off and asked why in the world anyone would even want to go down that path? I changed the subject and he never even blinked an eye; he followed the new subject line and never even hinted that he saw that i hadn't answered his question. For people like this, those so firmly established in the normal material world, taking that backwards step is so counter intuitive that it doesn't even register as a valid line of reasoning. Of course the world as i see it exists. Of course i am this body and mind. Of course i change, but there is an "I" that is me.

Then some of those people learn about Buddhism and the five skandhas, and this gives them something new to hold onto as they give up their previous notion of a permanent "I." I may not be permanent, but certainly the five skandhas are. I mean, the Buddha said it himself, it's right there in the sutras — we are made of the five skandhas.

And it is right here, at the hardest step to take in the backwards direction, that the Heart Sutra begins. Yes, i know that's what he said, and in one sense it is true, but in the deepest of meditations, at the pinacle of wisdom, Kanjizai tells us that even the five skandhas are empty, that even these do not exist in-and-of themselves, that they are impermanent, and as untrue as everything else.

And what happens when he realizes this? He passes beyond all suffering and discontent. It doesn't say that he realizes that he can ignore them, that he can bear them with dignity, that he can work through them; it says that he passes beyond them. He sees them as non-existant, he sees them as the mirages that they are.

In other words, as you take your first steps on the henro michi, you are beginning with the understanding that not only do you not have to look for suffering to be successful on this walk, but that suffering does not exist. If you are looking for suffering you are looking in the wrong direction. It's as if you arrive on the trial with a new map and compass and as you try to orient your map to make sure it aligns with what you are looking at you lay your compass on it, but put south to the top in the capsule. When you do that you guarantee right from your very first move that you are looking at the world upside down.

As you bow at the sanmon of Temple One and take your first steps inside, do so with the firm conviction that not only is your superficial personality empty, everything about you is empty. In the world of absolute reality that you will be investigating during this walk there is no you. That may not make sense yet, but accept that coming to understand this is the purpose of walking the henro trail as a pilgrimage. Everything else in the sutra is an added bonus. Kanjizai tells you right up front, right in the opening words everything you need to know: Even the five skandhas are empty. There is no You. And when you get it, there is no suffering or discontent to be found anywhere. They don't exist either.

Speaking of the Henro.....

It's been a long time since i have taken the time to write anything. A very long time. I thought i was going to write about my walk of the Camino de Santiago, but as it progressed i found that i didn't really have anything to say. Seems that i have that problem a lot lately.

But, i recently realized that i have a hole in my Shikoku website and it's glaring enough that i think it needs filling. That hole is in my comments on the Heart Sutra. Near the end of my comments i mention walking the Heart Sutra trail, as opposed to walking the physical henro trail. But i never tell anyone what that actually means to me.

All those years ago, when i first wrote those words, i kinda, sorta, just assumed that it was clear what i was thinking. Without putting much thought into it, i guess i assumed that if you had read all the way to the end without falling asleep or completely losing interest in what i was saying, that you would be on the same page as me and know what i was trying to get across. Now i'm not so sure.

Or, maybe what i'm really wondering, am i sure that i know what i wanted to say? I have this amorphous feeling that i know what i meant, but if someone approached me and asked me to give them the "elevator speech" version of what a Heart Sutra pilgrimage would entail.....i know i couldn't do it. Of course a lot of words could be poured out and spread around, but a short, concise, "here's what i mean" type of explanation would most likely not be seen.

Since i have to add something to the web site to fill this gap, i think i'm going to try and flesh out my ideas here on the blog over the next few weeks or months and then, once i'm convinced i have something that i can live with, cut, copy, paste, and edit what i need over to the site with a link from the bottom of the Heart Sutra comments.

Admittedly i have no idea how i want to approach this. So, i think what i will do is to walk the trail with you repeatedly, around and around, prefecture-by-prefecture, adding and subtracting with each successive passage through each prefecture until i get some semblance of clarity.

Of course the first passage will simply be a reiteration of the standard names of the prefectures: Hosshin no Dōjō, The Dōjō of Awakening Faith; Shūgyō no Dōjō, The Dōjō of Practice; etc.

Then i know that i need to add the Kongōkai Mandala and how i see the pilgrimage as a physical manifestation of its teachings. Which, by necessity brings in the Five Buddhas and the Five Wisdoms.

And, again of course, the Six Paramitas also have to be included as they are just as much a part of this as anything above. Anything else? At this point i don't know. I'd like to keep it to no more than that because i'm not trying to write anything that someone could point to and say he's trying to be serious.

I want to keep this relatively simple — here's what it means to walk the pilgrimage with your day-to-day life focused on the Heart Sutra. Here's what you should do, here's what you should keep in mind, here's what you should work on, and there's your goal.

Wish me luck.

Think You Know Everything?

Struggling with a brush pen with ink that doesn't want to flow all that well. Need a new tip? Just give it time? Don't know, but it still writes the sutra every day so i guess i'll just wait a while longer....

Wanted to add a few thoughts to my Kanjizai post of the other day. It has always been interesting to me that, as has been pointed out in many commentaries on the sutra, the two protagonists here are the paragons of wisdom and knowledge. Sariputra was considered by all to the be the most knowledgeable of all the Buddha's disciples. He knew the abhidharma inside and out, front to back, top to bottom. There was nothing you could ask him about abhidharma that he couldn't answer. He was, apparently, a walking dharmic encyclopedia.

Avaolokitesvara, on the other hand, is the epitome of wisdom, prajna. And that should make all first time readers stop reading, put their book down, and wonder — is there a difference between knowledge and wisdom? If Sariputra is all knowledgeable, doesn't that make him wise? In our everyday world, most people would say yes, they mean the same thing. As a Buddhist, though, they couldn't be further apart; they have completely different meanings.

Just keeping that tidbit in mind, right off the bat it is made clear that they are not only different, but that apparently wisdom has something to teach encyclopedic knowledge; or, conversely, even when you think you know everything, until you understand wisdom you are still a student.

So at the very beginning of the sutra, just after introducing Wisdom as the speaker, we are told that while he was practicing prajna paramita (顴自在菩薩行深般若波羅蜜多時...) he had an epiphany.

What does that mean, practicing prajna paramita? What does it mean to be practicing it deeply; or to be practicing the deep prajna paramita? I prefer to read it as deeply practicing but the difference is subtle. A dictionary will tell you that 'prajna' means wisdom and 'paramita' means going to the other shore, implying the shore of nirvana as opposed to this shore of samsara.

Kanjizai was seated in meditation, in a state of deep and profound samadhi. In that state, there was no longer a Kanjizai, no longer a Sariputra, no longer a meditator meditating. In that state, there was simply Being; awareness purely and simply being awareness. In that state, reality was purely and simply manifesting as what it was, no more, no less. With no filtration taking place through thought processes, predispositions, beliefs, ideas, hopes, desires, past teachings,... or anything else. This was pure, unadulterated, unchanged, untampered with, beingness, doing nothing but what it is...being.

That is the wisdom. Crossing to the other shore means not going anywhere, but simply crawling between two thoughts into that place where you are on the other side of your normal, talkative, endlessly blabbering on and on, mind. The other shore is right here on the zafu you sit on, nowhere else. And once there, seeing reality as it is, as it always has been, as it always will be, in all its naked glory (although that's just adding more useless adjectives) is the wisdom they talk about. 

Once you see this, once you see that this pure and simple awareness located on the other side of your thoughts, once you see that this is who you really and truly are, you have your fingers on wisdom. And at the start of the sutra, this is where we find Kanjizai, that one who sees the true existence of himself. And it is from this place, this deep samadhi, where he sees wisdom spread out in front of him, that the teaching comes.

I picture him speaking very slowly, with a beautiful smile on his face, as he starts by pulling Sariputra into the teaching by calling his name. "Sariputra...."

Sometimes i say to myself, 'ahhhh, to only have been there...' and then i realize i was, and i am, each and every time i sit down with a cup of tea and write out the sutra myself.

Kanjizai

One of the interesting things to me about the beginning of the Heart Sutra is the use of the name Kanjizai (顴自在) Bosatsu for Avaolokiteshvara. In Japan, it seems that almost everywhere else he/she is know as Kannon (観音) Bosatsu instead.

The kanji for Kannon imply a bodhisattva (bosatsu) who actively perceives (観) the sounds (音) of the world. One who listens for the cries of distress and supplications for help by all of us mortal beings stuck in samsara, and who vows to use any means possible to alleviate our pain and suffering.

The kanji for Kanjizai, though, to me, paints a different picture. Of course you can never remove the "the one who listens for the cries of the world" message from any talk of Kanjizai Bosatsu, but looking at the kanji you get another side of who this bosatsu is.

Kan (顴) still means to perceive; more than just to hear, more broadly meaning to perceive with any of the six senses. Ji (自) means oneself, yourself; pointing your finger directly at your heart (or nose, in Japan) and noting that you are referring to only yourself. Zai, or Sai, by itself (在) means existence, to exist.

So, Kanjizai Bosatsu (顴自在菩薩) can be the bodhisattva who directly perceives the existence of him/herself. The bodhisattva who perceives in a direct, unhindered, and unconditioned way, the manner that he/she truly exists. How does he/she do that? As the next phrase of the sutra says, 行深般若波羅蜜多時, he saw the truth of existence while deeply practicing, while deeply immersed in Prajna Paramita.

For me, this alters who Kannon is when i read the Heart Sutra. He/She isn't a remote, unapproachable deity "somewhere out there" who is willing to help when we get to the boiling point and scream out in pain. No, This Kanjizai is an advanced version of you and me, a being that started out in the same shackles that we wear, but over time and with countless amounts of effort, overcame his/her conditioning and finally came to understand just who and what he/she really is. Just who and what he/she really isn't. Who was able to cut through all the conditioning, was able to crawl through the gaps between thoughts, and was finally able to stay there when and for as long as desired.

The egg had been hatched, so to speak. When he/she left the egg a new life came into existence; just as when the silk worm leaves the cocoon and the butterfly springs forth, one life is traded for another, even though the life is the same. 

And it is with this new life, this new way of being, this new ability to simply Be without all the conditioned "stuff" that entombs us now, that Kanjizai was able to sit and perceive what existence really is. And it is with this new life that all pain and suffering will disappear.

And it is only when you get to this point that you can honestly say that you perceive that form is not different than emptiness (and vice versa) and that form is exactly emptiness (and vice verse), and that this is true also for the other four skhandas. Until you get to this point, though, it's all just an intellectual understanding, which is not prajna.

When i hear "Kannon," i imagine a deity other than myself offering to help. When i hear "Kanjizai," i imagine myself sitting on my cushion, immersed in prajna paramita, and one day crawling out of the cocoon. In just the first few kanji, the Heart Sutra makes this a very, very personal journey.

Opening Closed Doors

DHS 181



I remember reading a review of one of Mary Oliver's poems online a year, or so, ago and being more than slightly puzzled. In short, the reviewer said that Mary never says anything that anyone else couldn't say at any time, that she simply writes about the everyday common things that she notices, and everyone else could too, throughout the day (and life) and that just isn't special enough to make her poetry anything... well... special.

When i read that, i didn't know whether to laugh or shake my head in sorrow. He's absolutely right in pointing out what Mary writes about, but completely off the mark when saying that everyone else notices the same things as well, or with equal clarity. The vast majority of people do not notice the world as clearly as Mary does. In fact, the vast majority of people are completely blind to the goings on of the natural world and their internal world.

This has been one of my favorite poems by Mary over the past few months — although i admit to having new favorites all the time...

Mockingbirds

This morning
two mockingbirds
in the green field
were spinning and tossing

the white ribbons
of their songs
into the air.
I had nothing

better to do
than listen.
I mean this
seriously.

In Greece,
a long time ago,
an old couple
opened their door

to two strangers
who were,
it soon appeared,
not men at all,

but gods.
It is my favorite story--
how the old couple
had almost nothing to give

but their willingness
to be attentive--
but for this alone
the gods loved them

and blessed them--
when they rose
out of their mortal bodies,
like a million particles of water

from a fountain,
the light
swept into all the corners
of the cottage,

and the old couple,
shaken with understanding,
bowed down--
but still they asked for nothing

but the difficult life
which they had already.
And the gods smiled, as they vanished,
clapping their great wings.

Wherever it was
I was supposed to be
this morning--
whatever it was I said

I would be doing--
I was standing
at the edge of the field--
I was hurrying

through my own soul,
opening its dark doors--
I was leaning out;
I was listening.

In the first third of the poem alone Mary challenges us twice to see nature with new eyes. Fix yourself a cup of tea and find a comfortable spot where you can sit quietly and watch some form of animal life. Sit long enough and quietly enough that you begin to see the sounds with your internal eyes. Sit long enough that you can hear the texture of the fur on their bodies or the shine in their eyes.

Sit with Mary's understanding that you really don't have anything better to do. That doesn't mean that this is simply the best choice for the use of your time at this particular moment, but that this is the best use of your life, period. Sit with the understanding that the best thing you can do with your life is to notice life, to pay attention to the world, to kick your focus out of your house and out into the world. This is invaluable advice she is offering.

And what would most of us do if a couple of the gods showed up at our door and made themselves comfortable at our dining room tables when we invited them in? Would we even invite them in? If we did, could we sit quietly, offering attentiveness, a willingness to listen, a willingness to Be, and no more? Could we comfortably offer ourselves, and no more, leaving all the psychological trappings in the closet for the time being?

And once we realized their true identity, could we still be free of want, desire, greed, need? Do you see that the gift is Life itself and not all the material "stuff" that we usually fall prey to? Do you see that clearly enough that you could be content, nay, happy, without begging the gods for more or different than you already have?

All it takes to see life in this way is to take Mary's advice and stop occasionally and to throw open the doors of your soul to the world. To throw all the doors and windows wide open and give free rein to who you are to lean out with the wind blowing in her hair and with life raining down on her face. To give her permission to listen, and see, and smell, and hear, and taste life as it really is, outside your head.

DHS 180

DHS 180



Henro trail ahead
Daishi and KPops in tow
Morning training run

Vulnerability & Worthiness

DHS 179



Thanks to Whitney Vosburgh for pointing this video out. If any online video should go viral this year, it is this TED talk given by Brene Brown. I won't say anymore about it, just stop what you are doing and watch it! Then close your office door or shew the kids outdoors for a little while and find somewhere quiet and take a little time to think about your life.

Brene Brown On Vulnerability

Thankful For Disasterous Gifts?

DHS 178



I don't know if the Gods hate me and are seeking revenge, if they love me and are handing me a present, or don't give a hoot and life is just as it is. In any case, i long ago gave up trying to understand how and why my life has turned out like it has.

Anyway... i have been steadily getting everything together for round 2 of my bike trip across the US, and have been planning to leave Lockport on, or around, June 1 and riding west through June and July. Then, last Thursday evening, i got an email from a friend on Shikoku asking if i was interested in guiding an American around the henro trail — all expenses paid.

Now that drops me squarely into a quandary; a major quandary; maybe even a quandary on the scale of impending universal disaster. If i accept and go, what about my bike trip? On the other hand, how in the world do you turn down a free trip around the henro trail? That would be like asking you to give up breathing for the rest of spring and into early summer.

Those that know me know that i really had no choice — i contacted the guy, he offered me the job, i accepted the offer, and have put the bike trip on hold yet again. :-(

I'm now looking for airfare to Japan and will be there from around March 28 to June 13th. The "client" is walking the henro trail to collect film and information in order to put together a documentary film on the Henro. He plans to take 10 weeks in total to walk it, which is entirely possible given that i took me 8 weeks without stopping to shoot film every day. My job is to get him around the island, interpret for him, help him find people and locations, and be his general connection to the people of Shikoku. I'm not sure, but he may have seen my picture on the Contact Me page of this blog and needed a good looking guy to stand in for some of his shots of "walking henro." Not really sure if that is a possibility or not though. ;-)

I am soooo thoroughly besides myself with excitement i can hardly breath. I didn't think i'd get back to the trail for many more years. I'll be taking lots of pictures and gathering lots of information myself to update the web site when i get back.

As for the TransAm Trail......... i don't know. I'm really worried that if i don't do it now i may never get it done, and it has been a dream since 1977. You don't give up dreams that easily, not even if the trade off is Shikoku. So, for now, i'm leaving it open in my head as a possibility that when i get back in mid-June, i'll rest for a couple of weeks and then do the bike ride in July and August. Will i really feel like doing that after walking the henro trail for 10 weeks? I won't know that until sometime near the end of those 10 weeks. As all the famous people say, only time will tell.

So there you go, another completely unexpected change in the life of Lao Bendan.

Don't Knock Unless You Already Have The Keys

DHS 177



Kanjisai Bossa
Gyōjin hannya haramita ji
Shō ken go un kai kū

The Heart Sutra is a beautiful text but you'd think that after reading through it and thinking about it year after year i'd get tired of it, be willing and ready to move on to something else at some point in time. Surprisingly, i'm not.

It starts out so deceptively simple: Kanjisai Bosatsu (also known as Kannon, in Japanese, and Avalokiteshvara, in Sanskrit) is practicing the Prajna Paramita; the paramita of wisdom, the Perfection of Wisdom. Actually, not just the prajna paramita, but the profound prajna paramita. The important point here, though, is that the sutra makes clear right at the very beginning that the key to the doors we hope to pass through lie in practice; not scholarly research, not theoretical debates, not books, CDs, DVDs, talks, or anything else that is intellectual in nature, but practice. That's the door Kanjisai Bosatsu is telling us to go through.

For years my practice was, well... "my" practice; I did it, I benefitted from it, it effected only me. Over the years, though, it slowly evolved into a wider practice. This practice was still focused on me, but at the same time it indirectly involved everyone else that came into contact with me, even though they didn't realize it. Then, after many more years, it ever more slowly evolved into just practice; a practice that didn't involve me any more or any less than it involved the mailperson that delivers mail to people in Billings, Montana, or a bank clerk in Guangzhou, China — in other words, it involved everyone and everything even though it manifested at a particular time and a particular place called me. Practice became something that i participated in rather than something i did.

And, that's what Kanjisai Bosatsu (the Bodhisattva Kanjizai) was doing — he was participating in the deeply profound practice of the Paramita of Wisdom. Wisdom doesn't mean to imply that because he was a bodhisattva he was incredibly learned and knew all of the Buddhist literature and theory inside out, like a gray-haired wise old man, no, it means that he understood what the Buddha understood, that he saw reality through the same eyes that the Buddha saw it, that he was aware of the sham that most people pass off as "life."

Wisdom means that he understood emptiness and impermanence and how all life is defined by these concepts, how everything is nothing but emptiness and impermanence, and yet, at the same time, how everything is at the same time dual, divided, and apparently self-existent. Wisdom doesn't mean you threw away the concept of apparent reality and have moved up to the bigger and better concept of ultimate reality. Wisdom means that you can see reality for what it really is, which is non-dual duality, which is impermanence lasting countless eons, which is both apparent reality and ultimate reality, at one and the same time, at no time, here, nowhere, in your life, and in absolutely nobody's life.

As he was sitting in meditation (probably) and participating in this mysterious process of non-dual duality, he saw that the five skandhas, the five heaps, are also empty. It's not that everything is empty of any self-inherent existence and composed solely of the five skandhas, but that that is true AND that the five skandhas themselves are also empty. Everything, with no exceptions is empty. Why? Because everything is one reality and that one reality is empty. You can't say that everything is empty except the skandhas or you are still mired in the world of duality. In a non-dual reality, if you say anything is empty of inherent existence, then by definition you are saying that reality, in total, in its oneness, is empty of inherent existence.

So that's where this beautiful document starts — on your zafu and out of your head. We are told, while still standing at the front door, that if we want to enter we have to accept two principles: the entire journey is predicated on practice and the entirety of everything is one and empty. If you don't accept those, you might as well just move on and knock on another door because those are the keys to the door of the Heart Sutra.

Non-Dual Divisions Don't Divide

DHS 176




I was reading a little bit of Shunryu Suzuki this morning and this reminded me so much of Kōshō Uchiyama's words from a week, or so, ago:

You are living in this world as one individual, but before you take the form of a human being, you are already there, always there. We are always here. Do you understand? You think before you were born you were not here. But how is it possible for you to appear in this world, when there is no you? Because you are already there, you can appear in the world. Also, it is not possible for something to vanish which does not exist. Because something is there, something can vanish. You may think that when you die, you disappear, you no longer exist. But even though you vanish, something which is existent cannot be non-existent. That is the magic. We ourselves cannot put any magic spells on this world. The world is its own magic. If we are looking at something, it can vanish from our sight, but if we do not try to see it, that something cannot vanish. Because you are watching it, it can disappear, but if no one is watching, how is it possible for anything to disappear? If someone is watching you, you can escape from him, but if no one is watching, you cannot escape from yourself.

Zen Mind, Beginners Mind
Shunryu Suzuki

After reading that, i looked around the room to see if anyone else wanted to comment on it and, low and behold, over in the corner was Venkatesananda jumping up and down like a kindergartner with his hand flying about in the air — "me, me, pick me, oh, oh, oh, me, pick me..."

OK, OK, calm down....

Knowledge, to be complete, perfect and free from the possibility of doubt arising, should be total knowledge – or knowledge of the totality. Knowledge of the totality implies the synthesis, the unification (yoga) of knowledge, the knower and the known. That is, there is an experienced division, which is intuitively realised to be non-existent, and which is also intuitively realised as the source of all pain and sorrow.

Can this experienced division be realised to be non-existent? That is what they call an intuitive understanding, or self-realisation, enlightenment, etc. If that is also an experienced (divided) experience, if you see God as you are seeing another, you are seeing something which you have created, which comes into your life and departs from your life. Everything that has a beginning has an end. A state in which neither a beginning nor an end was experienced, the deep sleep state, was a state of no problems, no pain, no sorrow, no division. Can that state ‘prevail’? (If you use the word ‘experience’ you are trapped. An experience arises and therefore it has to come to an end.)

This is the problem dealt with in the Bhagavad Gītā: on the one hand there is an experienced division, on the other hand there is an intuited state of non-division. That intuition at the same time reveals that the state of divisionlessness is also free from sorrow – sorrow being an experience. And, (what is important), any experience related to that which has a beginning and an end, which comes into being and goes, is sorrow.

The Song of God: Bhagavad Gita Daily Readings
Swami Venkatesananda

Morning sun rises
Mu chi yaku mu toku
Moon fades in the light

Each breath a new birth
Each birth unconcerned with why
I mu sho tokko

Lost

DHS 175


:-(

Lost in thought he was
Walking a Shikoku trail
At home at the desk

How To Kill A Fox

DHS 174


So if you know... heck, if you even have an inkling of a suspicion... why don't you act accordingly??

"If you know what is right and what is wrong, why do you not do what is right and avoid what is wrong? Because the doer of the action is far removed from the knower of right and wrong. The doer of right and wrong is burdened with the memory of what is right and wrong. He is burdened with knowledge. Instead of knowledge — of truth becoming flesh — the knowledge has remained unassimilated and it prevents him from functioning in the here and now.

"There is a funny story: a fox and a cat met in the wilds. They were discussing methods of escaping when attacked. The cat said: 'Climb the tree.' The fox said: 'You are stupid. I know a hundred methods. I can chase the hunter, I can throw mud in his eyes, I can run away, I can howl.' As the fox was saying all this, a hunter came. The cat quickly went up the tree but the fox was trying to figure out what to do.

"You can guess that he did not come to a conclusion; he did not have to because his conclusion came immediately! When all this knowledge is stored up as memory, it paralyses the doer of the deed."

The Song of God: Bhagavad Gita Daily Readings
Swami Venkatesananda

So, why??

Looking

DHS 173



More pieces of the never-ending house work puzzle fall into place — the kitchen has now been painted. All that's left is to work on the cabinets, modifying what is there to suit me until i come up with the money to get what i really want. Before the cabinets, however, i'll paint the bathroom. The walls are stripped, now to patch the nail holes and then on to the paint. In April i'll replace the vanity with a pedestal sink and put in a new toilet.

As we used to say in Pidgin English in Cameroon to mean step-by-step, bit-by-bit...Softly, Softly, Catch Monkey. Maybe i'll finish the downstairs this year??




Looking for nothing
Somewhere between this and that
Everything is it

Fragrant Flowers

Daily Heart Sutra (DHS) 172



I think we've all been in situations where you are sitting there listening to someone speak, all the while knowing without question that the words are completely empty, completely without value, that the speaker neither believes nor really means what they are saying. The words are being spoken solely for the purpose of supporting their image of themselves and nothing will ever come of them.

Sometimes it may be appropriate to call their bluff and force the situation but more often than not it's just not worth the trouble. More importantly, much more importantly, is to accept it as a lesson and a reminder to look at your life, your words, your intentions. Use the occasion to review your recent words and see if they have been true words. Review your recent actions and see if they have been, if not in support of others, at least not harmful to them.

Even more importantly, though, i try and look at my recent intentions in all areas of my life. Have my intentions been solely to promote myself, solely to make myself look good in the eyes of others, solely to advance myself at the expense of others? If so, in part or in whole, i use the occasion to reflect on the what's and why's of those occasions, and vow to try to do better.

This from my favorite rendition of the Dhammapada, by Thomas Byrom.

Look to your own faults,
What you have done or left undone.
Overlook the faults of others.

Like a lovely flower,
Bright but scentless,
Are the fine but empty words
Of the man who does not mean what he says.

Like a lovely flower,
Bright and fragrant,
Are the fine and truthful words
Of the man who means what he says.

Chapter 4

Colored Stillness

DHS 171



Writing the Heart Sutra each day seems a simple act, but as Donna Farhi says in her very nice book:

"Intention has a way of coloring all experience. ..[W]e can take the body of our practice and through intention make a movement in our life that is an expression of grace, beauty, and wisdom. We can be doing the simplest of asanas or meditations yet through our intention be expressing the highest realization."

Bringing Yoga To Life
Donna Farhi

Thoughts but no thinking
Awareness but no day dreams
Calm zafu stillness

Despair In Lockport

DHS 170


Arg sigh moan groan sigh
One more day one more kanji
Despair for the lost

I have no idea what's going on. Two days, two lost characters. Where is my mind???????

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Yesterday's post was about the possible abrupt end to life on earth for some, as yet undetermined, nations and/or groups of people. On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, i saw the below article online yesterday that predicts the probable upcoming immortality of human beings as we merge with the machines we will build in the future — machines that have so far surpassed us in intelligence that humans almost become trivially insignificant. Well, not almost, they become completely insignificant. Sorry if that bothers your ego.

It's a long article but worth reading all the way to the end.

2045: The Year Man Becomes Immortal

Whether you agree with the opinions of the Singularitarians or not, what i find interesting about this article (besides the immortality thing, of course) is the dedication and persistence of a group of people who are willing to stretch their minds and try to look at life in great detail 50-100 years down the line, even when they know that their predictions will make them look foolish in many people's eyes.

As i said yesterday — fascinating.

Asteroids & Missing Information

DHS 169


Lacking perfection
Beauty dwells amidst absence
One lost character
:-(
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I find this a fascinating story:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20110208/us_ac/7810886_separating_apophis_earth_collision_myths_from_facts


In short, an asteroid called Apophis is headed in the direction of our home planet. It's bigger than the one that hit in Siberia that you've probably seen pictures of with all the trees blown down. It's smaller than the one that hit off the Yucatan Peninsula a few hundred thousand years ago killing off the dinosaurs (and giving us humans room to survive). But, it is big enough to destroy an entire nation and, depending where it hits throw the world economy into a shambles.

It will first pass the earth in 2029 — within 20,000 miles — and everyone agrees that it will not hit the earth, although you will be able to see it pass with the naked eye, and it will probably be bright enough to cast a shadow. I.E., it will out shine the moon as it flashes through the atmosphere. That's close!

The problems come up on it's second pass in 2036. NASA says the odds are it will not hit us; end of story. A Russian scientist say, yes, the odds are against it, but they are not trivial odds so that shouldn't be the end of the story, we should be making 18 and 25 year plans on a) what to do to mitigate the chances and b) what to do in case it does hit.

Fascinating stuff. Big enough to take out an entire nation, with huge potential ripple effects on the world economy. Big enough to cause a tsunami that would take out the entire east or west coast of the US depending where it hit. And a non-zero probability of striking. Amazing.

Whispered Dharma Talks

DHS 168




Whispered in silence
Not one word yet all can hear
Nature's dharma talk

Secondhand People

DHS 167



"For centuries we have been spoon-fed by our teachers, by our authorities, by our books, our saints. We say, 'Tell me all about it - what lies beyond the hills and the mountains and the earth?' and we are satisfied with their descriptions, which means that we live on words and our life is shallow and empty. We are secondhand people. We have lived on what we have been told, either guided by our inclinations, our tendencies, or compelled to accept by circumstances and environment. We are the result of all kinds of influences and there is nothing new in us, nothing that we have discovered for ourselves; nothing original, pristine, clear.

...

"Seeing everything that goes on in your daily life, your daily activities - when you pick up a pen, when you talk, when you go out for a drive or when you are walking alone in the woods - can you with one breath, with one look, know yourself very simply as you are? When you know yourself as you are, then you understand the whole structure of man's endeavour, his deceptions, his hypocrisies, his search. To do this you must be tremendously honest with yourself throughout your being. When you act according to your principles you are being dishonest because when you act according to what you think you ought to be you are not what you are. it is a brutal thing to have ideals. If you have any ideals, beliefs or principles you cannot possibly look at yourself directly. So can you be completely negative, completely quiet, neither thinking nor afraid, and yet be extraordinarily, passionately alive?

...

"So is fear perhaps the reason why you have not got the energy of that passion to find out for yourself why this quality of love is missing in you, why there is not this flame in your heart? If you have examined your own mind and heart very closely, you will know why you haven't got it. If you are passionate in your discovery to find why you haven't got it, you will know it is there. Through complete negation alone, which is the highest form of passion, that thing which is love, comes into being. Like humility you cannot cultivate love. Humility comes into being when there is a total ending of conceit - then you will never know what it is to be humble. A man who knows what it is to have humility is a vain man. In the same way when you give your mind and your heart, your nerves, your eyes, your whole being to find out the way of life, to see what actually is and go beyond it, and deny completely, totally, the life you live now - in that very denial of the ugly, the brutal, the other comes into being. And you will never know it either. A man who knows that he is silent, who knows that he loves, does not know what love is or what silence is."


Freedom From The Known
Jiddu Krishnamurti

Challenges

DHS 166



Given the nature of the trip i'm setting out on, it's fitting that i saw two interesting sports related articles in the news this morning.

First: Oh the pure and simple beauty of a well executed play resulting in an out in baseball. Now imagine 3x the beauty (link):



Second: If i wanted a hero, this woman would certainly rank right up there near the top of the list. She is an amazing example for all: Running down a dream: Leg amputee makes U.S. track team

Lastly, some final thoughts from that beautiful anthology A Book Of Luminous Things as i get ready to set out — tomorrow morning.

Vacation

One scene as I bow to pour her coffee: —

Three Indians in the scouring drouth
huddle at the grave scooped in the gravel,
lean to the wind as our train goes by.
Someone is gone.
There is dust on everything in Nevada.

I pour the cream.

William Stafford

And:

In The Middle Of The Road

In the middle of the road there was a stone
there was a stone in the middle of the road
there was a stone
in the middle of the road there was a stone.

Never should I forget this event
in the life of my fatigued retinas.
Never should I forget that in the middle of the road
there was a stone
there was a stone in the middle of the road
in the middle of the road there was s stone.

Carlos Drummond De Andrade

Not a lot of comment is needed; both are already very clear. One points to the sad life we normally live inside our cocoons, only occasionally looking up to notice the world as it passes by our window, then quietly closing that internal window and closing ourselves back inside. Is this really the way to live a life? Is this really the way to experience this one and only life we will live? Is this really the way to be the best person we can be?

The other points to just the opposite. If you put your mind to it, you can train yourself to notice the smallest details; not everything, but a lot more than we normally do. At the end of my ride will i remember the stones in the road that i swerve around instead of riding over? Will i remember the cardinal in the tree watching me ride by? Will i remember the Day Lillies blooming on the side of the road at that intersection? Will i remember the child that waved to me from her front porch when i stopped in front of her house? Will i remember that beautiful sunset after a day of rain in the Appalachias? Will i remember the small details? Can i keep myself awake throughout the day, day after day — open, awake, aware, alive?

Will i?