Okay, I've been putting this off long enough already. I said that I'd try to sum up what I learned on my walkabout. And most questions I get involve what lessons I gleaned from my time as a wandering monk.....as long as we also count "What the hell were you thinking?!" (Actually, the most common question has been "What was it like?", to which my mouth and brain usually seize up as a thousand different thoughts and feelings logjam in my frontal lobe. Luckily, the part of my brain that keeps me from drooling usually remains unaffected.)

Some lessons are obvious. Some I've already covered in previous entries and will be somewhat of a rehash here. Others are lessons I've encountered long ago, but have been reinforced during my monkabout. And a few are even brand spanking new from my time on the streets.

As usual, getting this all down here will also help me clarify to myself much of what I experienced, though I still struggle against the writing process itself. (What, me procrastinate?) As you can see, without the urgency and simplicity of my walkabout lifestyle, I have found ample diversions to distract me from this blog.

And I better get to it too, before my notoriously slippery memory loses its grip on events, external and internal. Some of the salient details are already starting to slide into that murky fog that masquerades as my memory. Not surprising really, since much of this past strange year already feels like a surreal dream to me now.

So let's see, what other chestnuts did I forage from this experience, other than the aforementioned earth-shaking revelation that my socks don't need to match? Wow, there are so many lessons-----where do I start? Well, perhaps my fading memory itself is as good a place to start as any.

Lesson #1: All things fade. All things change. All things end. Paradoxically, change is the only real constant-----the only thing that doesn't change. We've all heard the old adage that you can't step into the same river twice. We all see everything changing all around us. Everything is a river. Energy and matter stream through everything, even solid-seeming stuff like rocks and Hummers---the flow is just a little slower with these, so we don't see it so easily. Just come back in a geological blink of an eye and see how that Hummer is doing in a million years.

This fundamental force of Change was a daily lesson for me in my wandering monk lifestyle. The transitory nature of life is so pronounced amongst the homeless. Faces come and go on a daily basis. I never knew when---or if---I would see some of my homeless friends again. I often didn't know when my next meal would be or where I would sleep that night. Each day was a practice in staying open to what the world would throw my way. I bounced from New York to California to Texas to Mexico to Colorado and finally back to California.

And sure, this lesson is pretty much a no-brainer: everything changes, get over it. But as I've said before, for most Buddhist traditions, a deeper understanding of annica ("impermanence") not only gives us insight into the workings of the Universe, but also helps us loosen up the rigidity at the root of so much of our personal strife. The more I accept change and let go of clinging to static expectations, then the more easily I am able to move with the natural ebb and flow of the tides of Time.

And the less I will struggle against Ma Kali, Goddess of Time, and her relentless dance of destruction. Fierce eyes bulging, tongue lolling, numerous arms bristling with pointy, slicey, bashy, bloody implements of havoc, she thunders "Cling to anything and you will suffer! Fight me and you will lose!" Eventually, Kali tramples all. (Including any insights or clarity I may have gained, so I try not to hold them too tightly either.)

But give battle we do. Aging is one of our primary battlefields. Armed with a plethora of colorful drugs and emboldened by battalions from the cosmetics industry, we flail against the passing of the years and our waning youth. We even have some victories: we cure diseases; we extend lifespans; we stave off the signs of aging. But Kali's implacable foot and bloody sword are ever descending. We are still mortal. (Of course, this may all change some day-----after all, everything changes, right?-----especially if we unravel the secret of "programmed cell death" or learn to store matter as data. Then, oh boy, is Kali gonna be pissed!)

In a strange sort of reverse nostalgia, I sometimes catch myself imagining an idealized dotage where I am too old to care about my appearance or self-image in general. I am a wise old man, free of the immense burden of caring what others think of me. When I become aware of this fantasizing, I give myself a few gentle mental smacks and remind myself that I can be free right NOW, right HERE. Even as I write this. I don't have to care how this turns out, what it "looks like". I breathe deep. I relax. But the moment is ever fleeting as my brain and chest soon tighten up as I struggle to hammer out sentences. There isn't much "moving naturally with the ebb and flow of Time". But it is a practice, a process, and perhaps my lesson is to be content with this slow trickle of words and not count on the floodgates opening anytime soon. (Perhaps, laughs the zen master, the smacks were not hard enough!)

This talk of "going with the flow" reminds me of a story told by Chuang-tzu:

One day Confucius and his pupils were walking by a turbulent river. They saw a man dive into the raging torrent up ahead. Thinking that the man sought to kill himself, Confucius sent his students to try and save him. However, when they reached the river's edge, the man was already walking along the riverbank, singing to himself. Astounded, Confucius asked him how he had managed to survive the wild waters. The man answered, "I go under with the currents and come out with the flow. I just go with the Tao of the water and never think of myself."

Again, I feel it is important to reiterate that "going with the flow" does not mean passive submission to whatever comes along. It means finding an appropriately harmonious response to what is before me. This response may be as "simple" as laughing along with the trash-talking chess player who is ridiculing my play as he slices my army to shreds. Or it may be as "difficult" as asking "God" to stop singing so that the other 150 of us at the homeless shelter could get some sleep. And it may be as paradoxical as "going against the flow" of my own programming or social expectations when I am ready to transcend these limitations. After all, the whole gamut of options from Yin to Yang are available for implementation.

But Lao-tzu cautions us to favor the gentler Yin responses, for we are a formidable aspect of Life, already full of strong Yang impulses. (Just look at our impact on the rest of Life on the planet.) In a way, it is a call to empower more of our nurturing feminine energy to counter the more destructive aspects of our male energy. (Madam Kali notwithstanding!) My job is to find the balance, the "center point of the Tao". For to be stuck in any extreme is to lead a life of self-imposed slavery.

(To be continued...)



"Yes, God is everywhere, but we should worship his different forms in appropriate ways. We worship God in the guru by bowing at his feet. We worship God in the hungry child by giving him food. We worship God in the poison by putting it safely away out of reach. We worship God in the thief by arresting him and bringing him to justice."
---Chandra Swami (This is not an exact quote. I am remembering something he said a few years back. Actually, he didn't "say" it because he has been in mauna ("silence") for the past fifty years or so. He responds to questions by writing his answers on a sheet of paper that one of his disciples then reads aloud.)


"It was humbling, educational, weird, sad, exhilarating, scary, maybe even liberating. But mostly it was humorous."
---a typical response when I am finally able to engage my brain and mouth to answer the question "What was it like?"


Happy Holydaze, All!

Rated: PG for occasional non-PC content

(...continued from previous entry)


The more I flow with the stream of my life, open to the divergent currents (even the back eddies), and respond in flexible ways, then the more I am able to move freely through my world. (Here in the West, we tend to limit our conception of flexibility to the physical, and so we are drawn to the practice of hatha yoga, which develops flexibility of the body. But the "higher" yogas-----raja yoga, bhakti yoga, karma yoga, jnana yoga-----practiced in the East focus on developing flexibility of our mental, emotional, and spiritual dimensions as well.) I endeavor to embrace reality---in all of its forms, light and dark---and respond flexibly. So I bow down deeply at Kali's fearsome feet, and yet dance nimbly to avoid those treacherous toes!

I rode the waves of my walkabout, the ups and the downs. The crests brought me to my wonderful artist friends in New York, numerous generous and funny homeless friends on both coasts, chess in the park, a beautifully mad lark to Mayan ruins with Shine, and an opportunity to help Carol during her final days. The inevitable troughs involved hungry days, dodging the cops, a rainy night with maniacs, sleep deprivation, and too many deaths.

Death, the biggest Change (from our bio-centric perspectives), barged into my walkabout in all manner of ways. It came gently on soft feet for my aunt Rosie who passed away at the age of 90. It came slowly and painfully for Carol as cancer claimed her body, spectacularly, horribly. It was shockingly sudden for my mother's young Japanese boarder Tepei who died in a tragic skateboard accident. And it was all too violent for Terry and Nate, two homeless people who were murdered in Poughkeepsie, NY and Venice, CA, respectively. (Recently, Los Angeles has experienced more murders involving homeless victims. An especially horrific attack occurred when some young men burned a homeless man to death by dousing him with gasoline and setting him on fire. In another shocking incident, five people were killed in a homeless encampment near a freeway overpass. No suspects have been identified in either case.) Kali will have her due.

As we are witnessing, economies also change, stumble, crash. Perhaps my experiences with the homeless are becoming a bit more socially relevant during these days of widespread home foreclosures, vanishing savings accounts, and epidemic job layoffs. The ranks of the homeless are surely swelling as I write this. Budget deficits are prompting local governments to make cuts in medical and mental health services, food programs, and youth and senior programs. Homeless shelters in Los Angeles are already reporting a sharp increase in the number of families using their facilities.

And, of course, political regimes change too. (Thank God!....er, Kali!) In fact, "Change!" has been the battle cry of Obama's presidential campaign. I'm optimistic about the possibility of Obama implementing real systemic changes, but I'll believe it when I see it. Cuz I'm talking about actual structural changes here, not just policy shifts. Pulling out of Iraq is a much-needed change, but it is merely a lateral policy shift. I look forward to evolutionary changes to our socio-political systems themselves.

Oh, maybe stuff like:
---Campaign finance reform to curtail rampant influence peddling to the deepest pockets. (I won't hold my breath on this one.)
---Universal healthcare (an especially nice boon for homeless people and wayward monks!)
---Real steps toward creating a green economy to address energy dependence, pollution, global warming, natural resource depletion, etc.
---Ending the horrific Bush Doctrine policies of pre-emptive war (what a nice euphemism for "attacking whoever the hell he wants"), misinformation (another nice one for "lying"), warrant-less (i.e., "illegal") wiretapping, and "enhanced interrogation techniques" (can you say "torture"?) will be a great ("no-brainer") first step. But I'm hoping we can switch gears entirely and implement a more proactive international diplomacy to defuse conflicts at their roots-----yes, even with those some would call our "enemies". Okay, maybe this is more of a policy change.....
---Well how 'bout putting the damn solar panels back on the White House then! (The ones that Carter put up and then Reagan tore down. How symbolic was that?!)

Whoa! How did that soap box get under my feet? So much for the detached composure of this ex-monk.....

Before I get too caught up in the nitty gritty details of recent changes, it would probably serve me to remember the big picture. Otherwise, I can get worked up into the kind of lather that spawns the conflicts that I am seeking to cure, internally and externally. So I will try to balance my subjective observations with some objective considerations about the nature of Change itself. I remind myself that Ma Nature teaches me that destruction and creation---the left and right hands of Change---are inter-dependent. The old gives way to the new, and the new becomes the old. Endings are beginnings, beginnings are endings.

So if I look closely enough, I may start to see that creation and destruction aren't so different after all. Maybe they are actually the same thing dressed up in different language depending upon the context. The creation of a sculpture or a painting is also the "destruction" of the original state of the media (the block of marble, the acrylic paints organized neatly in their tubes). The demolition of a building is also the "creation" of a mound of rubble and dust and memories and possibilities. Creation and destruction are ultimately just the change from one pattern of matter and energy to another pattern. We usually call it "creation" when the new pattern is one we prefer or is more recognizable. We use the term "destruction" when the new pattern is less preferable or less recognizable. Our distinction between "creation" and "destruction" is merely the result of judging Change through the filters of our biased perspectives.

Sound bleak? (Cup half empty or half full?) Well, not if I recognize that, as the Great Terminator, Kali is also the destroyer of ignorance, of evil, of the odious and odorous-----in other words, of all things Bill O'Reilly. Kali doesn't choose sides-----she's an equal-opportunity destroyer. So the next time she relieves my nagging headache or evaporates my writer's block or slaps down the Celtics' winning streak or throws the bums out of office, I'll try to remember to tip my hat to the Goddess of Garbage Collection. Kali's dance of destruction is simultaneously a dance of creation.

In a year, these ramblings will mean very little. In ten years, even less. In a hundred years, they will be long gone and forgotten. (So relax, ex-monkboy. Breathe deep, let it go, let it flow.....) In a thousand years, empires will have risen and fallen. In a million years, human civilization---if we survive---will be unrecognizable to us now. And in a mere billion years, I'm sure us humans---as we recognize one another---will no longer be around. We may very well have "naturally selected" ourselves out of the evolutionary race* by then. But I'm an optimist and I envision a future where we will evolve into much more complex and capable beings. A future where we will truly understand the unity of humanity and transcend the petty conflicts we inflict upon ourselves. A future where we will recognize the unity of life and learn to support our brethren animals and plants. A future where we will realize the unity of the Universe and build bridges to the stars, without and within. A future where both sexes can pee standing up.

*Now there's a concept: an "evolutionary race". I can imagine the "Evolutionary 500... ...Billion":
".....and as we come out of the first turn of the four and a half billionth lap, humans are in the lead, followed closely by the cetaceans, with apes not far behind. In the middle of the pack are about 10 million other species jostling for position. Working their way up on the inside are the cockroaches, whose pit stop for radiation shielding may soon prove to have been a stroke of genius. Struggling on the outside are the polar bears and snow leopards who have faded as things have begun to heat up. The reptiles are still looking nervously over their shoulders ever since that cataclysmic smash-up that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million laps ago. And bringing up the rear are lemmings, tapeworms, WWE fans, and smart toasters."

Of course, this is a very anthropocentric treatment where I've deemed intelligence to be the leading edge of evolutionary development. Humans have only been around for a few million years at most if you go back to homo habilis. If we instead use the measuring stick of species longevity, then the truly long-lived animal species-----sharks, crocodiles, ants, mollusks, and various single-celled organisms that may go back a billion years or more-----could make a strong argument for already having won the race! (And the plants and bacteria may just be laughing at us, entertained by all the animal species rushing around the planet, here and gone in the blink of an eye.)

And yet, the race goes on. Does it ever end? I think not. Species continue to evolve and I wonder what other intelligent creatures will come along over the next hundred million years. Whales already sing---will they develop a taste for poetry and theatre too? Will cats and dogs hold rallies for the right to vote? Will chimps shun technology if we make a mess of things?

And evolution continues to work on us too. (Keep hope alive, WWE fans!) We are living longer, getting taller (well, at least the rest of you are), and our brain genes continue to evolve. And apparently the gene for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder has become much more prevalent over the past couple thousand years. (Really, no joke. The gene is a form of the dopamine receptor gene DRD4. And here I thought all along that ADHD was MTV's fault!) As I've said before in this blog, we find ourselves at an interesting threshold: either we will evolve into wiser beings or we will probably select ourselves out of the picture. It's quite an elegant design, actually. (Intelligent or otherwise.) It remains to be seen if our species will be the ultimate "winner" of the Darwin Awards!

Jeepers, look at the size of this behemoth entry! My apologies. Obviously, I chose way too big a topic for my first lesson here. And I shall endeavor to be much more concise on my future lessons, or I'll never finish this. Though it may seem that the writing floodgates did finally open, I've actually been sporadically tinkering away at this for a few weeks now while I was up at the cabin. I bow down at the feet of Kali and pray that she may one day gently massacre my resistances to writing.

Funny. All this talk of Kali and I only just remembered that I met her at a small temple in a remote part of Kathmandu, Nepal. Her disciples called her Kali Mata ("Mother Kali") and she was supposedly the earthly incarnation of the Goddess of Destruction herself. She didn't have eight arms or a garland of human heads, but she did have the grim goddess' deranged glare down pretty good. What I remember most was her taste for expensive whiskey and the resulting mood swings between jocular hostess and imperious goddess.

But now the librarian glances at the clock and considers me through narrowed eyes. Ah, Mighty Kali, Goddess of Time, stamps an indelicate foot, her impatient sword gleams red. The library is closing now and I'd best head back to the cabin if I know what's good for me. (Ah, the cabin, now don't get me started.....)


Lesson #2: Everything takes longer than I planned.




"Don't worry about it. It might be the best thing that ever happened to you."
---black-robed Kali-das ("Servant of Kali"), responding to my query regarding the prevalence of malaria as we walked a dusty path along the Ganges in Rishikesh, India


"Nature is ever at work building and pulling down, creating and destroying, keeping everything whirling and flowing, allowing no rest but in rhythmical motion, chasing everything in endless song out of one beautiful form into another."
---John Muir, naturalist


"The difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind."
---Charles Darwin


"In your pet's universe, you are called 'the ape that brings food.'"
--- Scott Dikkers, from You Are Worthless: Depressing Nuggets of Wisdom Sure to Ruin Your Day


"Black Guy Asks Nation For Change"
---a decidedly non-PC article on the Obama campaign in the satirical Onion News


Merry Christmas! (Oh....and Joyful Kwanzaa....and Jolly Winter Solstice.....and Happy Hankunnah.....Chunkyhun.....ChakaKhan.....uh, that Jewish Holiday!)

(Dang, am I being all un-PC again?!)