Since I occasionally sleep in Washington Square Park, it has become somewhat of a home base, and I often find myself wandering over to the chess tables where an interesting slice of New York life takes place. This is the area made famous in the movie "Searching for Bobby Fischer" where chess "hustlers" set up shop, playing for money or other contraband.

There are about twenty tables in a rough circle, each with a permanent inlaid chess board. Various characters have staked out their tables where they can be found day in and day out, calling out to passers-by for a game or trash-talking one another. A sign above the square warns that playing chess for money is illegal, but this is happily ignored by one and all. Whether one just wants to learn or gamble, the game will usually cost about five bucks.

Most of the guys have chess clocks and often the games are blitz matches of five minutes per player to finish all moves. This leads to very quick, intense games and the atmosphere can be quite combative with opponents smacking down their pieces loudly when they move and verbally berating one another. It makes for great drama.

Some of the guys are homeless, some are drug addicts and/or dealers, and some are just chess afficionados. I have seen drug deals, drug use, fights break out, and even a police raid where the police drove their car into the park and into the chess circle area to arrest one of the guys. That makes for great drama too.

Sometimes on the weekends, parents will bring their young sons to play the hustlers, re-enacting scenes from "Searching for Bobby Fischer". Simon is a homeless guy that I've gotten to know and he reminds me a lot of Laurence Fishburne's character "Vinnie" in the movie. He even looks like Fishburne with dreadlocks. Simon is an interesting source of information on many topics, including the plight of the homeless, the changes he's seen over the twenty years he's lived in the park, and, of course, chess. He's currently trying to find the secret of the Universe through mathematics, though to be honest, I find some of his physics to be a bit questionable.

And then there's crazy Enrique from Brazil, probably the most brilliant chess player of them all. To play him is to endure a constant barrage of high-pitched shrieks, maniacal laughter, and shouts of "Never! Never! Never!" (As in "You should never make that move!" or "You will never beat me!" or perhaps, "Your life will never amount to anything!")

I love playing the game myself, though I am nowhere near as good as these hustlers. Since I don't have any money, they usually ignore me, but every now and then I can finagle a game out of one of them. This always becomes a great lesson in humility as they invariably hand me my head on a platter in very short order.

But, of course, these are great opportunities for practice, both game-wise and psychologically. The more I embrace both winning and losing, the more I enjoy the game. And chess is a great metaphor for life since they both involve inevitable gains and losses in position, tempo, and material. The more I can remain centered amidst the victories and defeats, then the more I am able to free myself from the suffocating grip of dualistic judgments such as winning and losing. Then perhaps life can become less about concepts such as success and failure, and more about enjoying the Game of Life itself.

Or perhaps this is all just a big rationalization for being a lazy bum.

Take the bait? Knight sacrifice. Checkmate!


"If I enjoy both winning and losing, then I never lose."
---nine-year-old Peter, son of a friend of mine

Okay, it was a pretty surreal moment: I was interviewed by Al Jazeera television (yeah, that Al Jazeera) at the Church of the Holy Apostles free lunch program. Not surprisingly, the interview was about homelessness in New York City. Apparently a report came out recently saying that homeless population levels in the US remain about the same as last year, except for NYC where homelessness has increased dramatically.

The reporter (a white British man) interviewed a woman at the table where I also happened to be eating. When he finished speaking with her, he asked if he could interview me. I protested that I wasn't a proper representative for the homeless, but he explained that he just wanted my perspective on the homeless situation. That seemed fair enough, so I agreed.

Basically he wanted to know if I felt that a portion of the homeless were falling through the cracks because of external conditions beyond their control, i.e. a failure of the system. I replied that while many homeless people are suffering from self-inflicted problems such as addictions and other bad choices, there are definitely others who have just had a very bad run of luck, such as some working poor who have been priced way out of the housing market and/or can't afford medical treatment. I wanted to launch into a diatribe against a lot of bad policies implemented in the Reagan era that exacerbated homeless problems, but I held my tongue.

Personally, I feel that most of Al Jazeera's reporting is quite laudable, but, like any other media outlet, they definitely have their slant on things. The interview seemed benign enough, but I just hope that I didn't become a pawn in a piece of propaganda on the failures of American culture. But then again, hiding the cracks in our society doesn't usually help them get fixed either.


"I know that a sprite is like some kinda fairy or something, but I'm named after the soda Sprite...And my wife's name is 7-Up."
---large fellow at the free lunch program

"I've got some great ideas for patents on GMOs that will affect global warming...and art. Want to help?"
---sweet, loopy, beautiful Bella from Russia (also at the free lunch)

I have long since bought a new begging bowl to replace the one that was stolen when I first arrived in NYC. (I used the leftover money that was anonymously donated to me way back in Hyde Park.) It's a little bothersome having to watch my backpack like a hawk when I'm sweeping up, but that was the lesson from having my bowl stolen. At night I try to sleep on my backpack to keep it secure, but one morning I woke up in Washington Square Park to find that someone had managed to open it up. Amazingly, it doesn't look like they took anything. Granted, I don't have much worth stealing (inventory), but how could they pass up on my Burger King Star Wars fortune-telling Yoda action figure?

But recently life has gotten a lot easier since Fuat's roommate has moved out and he's letting me stay with him! What a luxury to sleep on a bed and not have the police wake me up at 6am in the morning. Or to have a bathroom available nearby that doesn't shut at 7pm, and where I can shave and not have to worry about the drug deals going on behind me. And yes, I know that part of my practice is learning to become comfortable with the uncomfortable, but it's nice to appreciate the blessing of a hot shower too. The last time I went for a shower at the "Open Door" homeless support center (offered twice a week), I waited in line for two hours to find out that they were only accepting the first few people in line and I was near the back.


Lately, I feel that I'm not sweeping and cleaning enough. I'm getting sidetracked by too many distractions, like the "Be In" concert in Central Park commemorating the "Summer of Love" forty years ago, or watching the chess games in Washington Square Park, or going to all these meditation centers, or even writing this sporadic blog. I'm just the same old scatter-brained Zum dressed up in a different clown suit. So I'm resolving to try to cut down on the extra-curricular activities, especially since Young's art show is coming up soon and she wants me to help with the installation for at least a week before the opening.

Finding a parking spot here in NYC is challenging at the best of times and nigh impossible in certain areas, like Chinatown where Young gets all of her specialized art supplies. (I recently saw a TV news piece  reporting that a parking space recently sold for $250,000!) So I've been chauffeuring her around so that she doesn't have to find a parking space. I just drive around a bit or park illegally with an eye out for the police. (Good thing I don't have any vows against breaking the law.) A few times I have even just met her in Chinatown and sat in her double-parked car while she buys her art materials.

I recently drove us back up to Poughkeepsie to confer with Sukran about Young's coming art show and to measure the gallery space. On the way back we went to Young's friend's art opening in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Afterwards, many of us went to dinner at a Korean restaurant and I had a fascinating conversation with another artist about how postmodern art is really a movement toward Eastern philosophy, especially with regards to deconstructionism, impermanence, interconnectedness, emptiness, and unity.

So, it's been almost two months now of this psychological/spiritual/social experiment. How much longer? I really don't know...

Have I really learned anything? Well, the only thing I can really say I've learned for sure is that there really is such a thing as a free lunch after all. And maybe that's enough....

...Of course it's enough! It's more than enough. Deconstruct, monk! Unlearn your previous conditioning. Let go of the linear, the hierarchical, the dualistic....embrace impermanence....emptiness....unity.

Postmodern monk or mostmodern punk?---I still haven't quite figured out...

...probably the same thing.


"Do you find your medication helpful?"
---elderly man on a bench mis-hearing my explanation that sweeping is a meditation for me

"I didn't do it!.....Sorry."
---little boy who absent-mindedly kicked my begging bowl

"You will know."
---Yoda, cryptically answering my query of why he wasn't stolen

This happens sometimes: I had what I call a "meditation meltdown" while practicing at the Fire Lotus Temple (zen center). I was struggling with a particularly scatter-brained case of "monkey mind" (a Buddhist term referring to the mind's tendency to swing uncontrollably through thoughts, emotions, memories, fantasies, etc.). I was getting quite frustrated and I began to spiral down into a sense of hopelessness about my practice. As well as criticizing my meditation, I began to question this whole crazy walkabout and even this blog too. (One of the reasons why I haven't written for a little while). It all seemed so pointless, especially since I couldn't seem to manage my mind or my emotions at even a basic level.

Often these meltdowns are actually quite helpful since they allow me to let go of goal-oriented practice, to surrender to myself and everything as it is. Sometimes I am even able to relax into the simultaneous brokenness and perfection that inhabit everything. (Leonard Cohen has a great oft-quoted line from his song 'Anthem': "There is a crack in everything---that's how the light gets in.")

But not this time. This time I was just wallowing in a lot of frustration and self-criticism. No light was getting in the damn cracks, and I'm glad no one was there to quote Leonard Cohen to me or I might have throttled them.

Then a senior monk gave a dharma talk that helped ground me a bit. He spoke of the Pang family, apparently a somewhat legendary family in China. They were discussing spiritual practice one day:

Father: "Practice is difficult, difficult, difficult---like balancing sesame seeds on the waving branches of a tree in a storm."

Mother: "No, practice is easy, easy, easy---like placing rose petals on the boulders by the stream on a calm sunny day."

Daughter: "Neither difficult nor easy---morning dew on ten thousand blades of grass."

And, of course, practice is no different from life. We tend to waver somewhere between difficult and easy, yet there are rare moments when we are blessed with a direct experience of reality---exactly as it is. Pure, immediate, expansive, unified, gorgeous. Exhilarating and shattering to behold.

Afterwards, I read a bit of the Taoist sage Chuang Tzu and this helped me remember and clarify my original intentions with this walkabout. In the preface, the translator includes a poem written by a Chinese poet-official who was exiled from his homeland for criticizing government policy (poets have always had it rough):

Leaving homeland, parted from kin, banished to a strange place,
I wonder my heart feels so little anguish and pain.
Consulting Chuang Tzu, I find where I belong:
surely my home is there in Not-Even-Anything land.

The translator explains, "Chuang Tzu's writings have freed him...from his narrower identity as a native of a particular locale, a player in a particular role in life, and made him a dweller in all time and place, in the land that Chuang Tzu calls 'Not-Even-Anything' because it is in fact everything and everywhere."

So have I managed to become a bit freer, to loosen the reins of the fear and craving that ride me roughshod? Have I learned to dance more gracefully with my deep-wired programming involving food, shelter, security, social acceptance, etc.?

Hard to tell after only a couple of months. If so, probably not much. And besides, as I learned after almost a year in a monastery, most changes fade back to our original habit patterns when we return to our previous lifestyles. So again, I am reminded to let go of ideals and expectations, for they are often the worst tyrants of all. Perhaps at the end of the day (week? month? year? lifetime?), the desire for liberation is just another form of craving to let go of.

After all, Truth is what everything already is, what we already are---shiny and shadowy.

Morning dew on ten thousand blades of grass.

The underground world of the subway system is such an integral part of life here in the Big City. I'm very lucky to be able to travel all over the place with the subway because Young bought me a month pass for helping her with her art installation (which we have been doing this week, working like mad and running back and forth between NYC and Poughkeepsie).

The swarms of people, the often stifling heat in the subway stations, and the roaring trains with their screeching brakes can make for quite a visceral experience.

Sprinkled into this soup, especially at the main stations and sometimes on the trains themselves, are an interesting mix of buskers and beggars. There are the usual guitarists and saxophone players of varying skill levels, but it’s also common to see older Chinese gentlemen playing their country’s classical music on stringed instruments. (I just looked it up---the instrument is called an “erhu”, a Chinese violin of sorts.) Drummers are another familiar sight and sound, bashing away on all manner of objects.

I’ve also seen a full mariachi band, a guy belting out some opera solos, and an intriguing old man with an arched back pounding out “Hava Nagila” as random dolls on his keyboard gyrated to the music. In the dancing category, some young break dancers put on an amazing show in the middle of our subway car, and in one of the main stations a woman was prancing about with streamers attached to the ends of sticks.

As with most cases where strangers are forced together, everyone generally tries to ignore one another and not make eye contact, but I have had a few interesting interactions.

One fellow kindly invited me to the weekly meeting at the "Art of Living" center, an organization set up by the guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (not the musician of the same name). On another evening, a drunk guy kept pressuring me to drink vodka with him as the rest of the amused passengers looked on. He put his arm around my shoulders and kept pushing the vodka bottle toward my face. I thanked him, but refused the drink and held my ground until eventually one of his friends dragged him off the train by the back of his shirt collar. It's not that I have any vows against alcohol---after all, many Taoists will happily exclaim "Bring on the wine, women, and song!"---but I'm not a big fan of straight vodka. Now if he'd also brought a bottle of orange juice to mix it with.....
 
Another man began questioning me about various metaphysical concerns such as "Who created the world?" and "What happens after we die?" In the brief time we had on the subway train, I tried to explain the Buddha's simile of the poison arrow. The Buddha was asked many similar metaphysical questions by one of his monks who threatened to disrobe if he didn't receive satisfactory answers. The Buddha responded by saying that he did not teach about these issues because his teachings focused on the way to end suffering in the Here and Now. He likened someone who was stuck on metaphysical issues to someone who had been shot by a poisoned arrow and was refusing to have it removed until he knew what kind of wood the arrow was made of, what kind of feathers were on the arrow, whether the arrow had been shot from a bow or a crossbow, etc. Buddhism focuses on pulling the poison arrow of our suffering out now. It emphasizes the immediacy of our lives, and our potential for peace and freedom in this very moment.
 
 
“Please give generously because your donations help keep us out of the Big House…and out of your house!”
---the break dancers
 

This past 9/11 was the sixth anniversary of the tragic terrorist attacks. The main visible difference here in NYC was the increased police presence at transportation hubs and other important locations. They searched bags and generally kept an eye on everything and the day passed calmly enough.

Various events were held around the city to commemorate the tragedy. There were concerts in all of New York's main parks to "fill the air with music". I went to the concert in Washington Square Park which featured quite a few talented musicians playing under somewhat soggy skies.

That evening at the Fire Lotus Temple we watched a Bill Moyer's documentary on hate. Afterwards, we had an interesting discussion on positive ways to deal with conflict in our personal lives. We also discussed if anger is ever helpful and even considered the provocative concept of "positive hatred". (In the documentary, the widow of slain civil rights activist Medgar Evers said that her hatred of her husband's killers is what initially kept her from totally collapsing.)

I found myself doing a double take when I sat down on the subway train across from a young Muslim couple who had some rather large luggage. It's unfortunate that ordinary Muslims have to suffer under the suspicions and fears provoked in us by the violent actions of an extremist faction.
 
I think that it is worth mentioning that during my travels abroad I have found that Muslim cultures have been extremely welcoming and generous. It is a tenet of Islam to be hospitable to strangers, and many Muslims take this quite seriously. I have been warmly welcomed into many homes in various Muslim countries, often by complete strangers.

My good friend Rebecca and I were actually in Pakistan in 2001 when the 9/11 attacks occurred. We were in the mountain town of Gilgit, located in the Himalayas of Northern Pakistan. We had been out and about during the day and came back to our backpacker hotel to see the tragedy unfold on the television in the main lounge with many other international travellers. The next morning I went around the town, asking ordinary people what they thought about the attacks. Everyone with whom I was able to communicate with in pigeon English seemed genuinely shocked and saddened by what had happened and there was a pervading sense that the world was about to change dramatically, especially in that region since Afghanistan lay across the border to the West and the general sentiment was that the United States would retaliate there soon.

Deep down I realized that the world was changing in fundamental ways, yet I idealistically and somewhat naively held onto the notion that our travels would be unaffected. We had been planning a short trek up to the Mount Rakaposhi base camp and I suggested that we continue with the trip. We hiked up to the base camp on a beautiful trail that ran along the stunning Minapin glacier. On our first morning at the base camp we came out of our tent to find that the first snows of the season had fallen during the night, carpetting everything in pristine whiteness.

It was a gorgeous sunny day made even brighter by the sunlight reflecting off of the new snow. We decided to hire a guide from the camp and hiked out onto the glacier. The hike was relatively easy---up over the moraine, skirting the crevasses---and we reached the middle of the glacier around mid-day.

We were startled by a distant rumbling from one of the peaks and looked up to see a small avalanche tumbling down the mountainside. Then, about ten minutes later, another snowy cascade came crashing down another peak. Apparently the combination of the new snow and the sunny hot day made for perfect avalanche conditions and we were treated to a multitude of snowslides surging down the surrounding peaks at approximately ten minute intervals. It was all so surreally beautiful in that bright bright milieu on the glacier at the top of the world as the snow tumbled down around us.

Due to the lack of longtime snow accumulation and since we were way out on the glacier, our safety was never at risk. Our guide was especially nonchalant, ignoring the cascades around us and focusing instead on making small snow structures. I have a great picture of him blithely constructing a tiny snow tower as an avalanche tumbles down the mountainside behind him.

The sad irony of the tower and the surging snow cascade only hit me later, and now, whenever I recall those avalanches and their beautifully billowing clouds of snow, the memory is indelibly linked to the billowing smoke and dust clouds emanating from the collapsing World Trade Center towers.