My transition back to life on the streets of Santa Monica and Venice has gone fairly smoothly. There have been only a few bumps along the way, though there's also a tiredness in my bones that I can't quite seem to shake.
 
It was especially nice to get back to Ma Ocean with her sumptuous sights, sounds, and smells calling for me to remember who I really am. (If you know, please email me....) I was welcomed back by a seal and a pod of surging dolphins practically jumping out of the water as they plunged deep. I think they were feeding. I was also greeted by a trashed beach. The warm weekend weather encouraged hordes of people to come frolic by the seashore. It was wonderfully calming to be back to my "simple life" cleaning the beach.

I'm back to morning meditations at the beach. The four elements tease and prod me, seeking to show me that the tenuous boundary I maintain between myself and the rest of the world is totally imaginary. The wind blows around me, into me, through me. The crashing of the waves pounds in through my ears. The sun toys with my thermostat. The soft sands ceaselessly pull me into their embrace. The skin of my being is so much more porous than I could ever truly imagine. I try to let the elements in fully so that they can reshape my perspective, my consciousness, my being. And sometimes there is a slight shift and a door opens to wider awareness. But it is quickly slammed shut and forgotten by the next scatter-brained impulse that wanders by. (e.g., "Dolphins!", "I should have sacrificed the rook", "Go Lakers!",  "What month is this? Is it time to change my underwear?", "Well, at least us ADD types don't tend to fall asleep during meditation","Look at me! I've got 'wider awareness'!", "Nice bikini!", etc.) Is it really worth the effort?
 
It's also been nice getting back in touch with "old friends" and catching up on their lives. Ronald, my homeless El Salvadoran chess-playing friend, is now working construction jobs by waiting outside of building supply stores with other immigrant guys and has bought himself a nice bike. There's even a wild rumor that he's engaged to somebody, but I haven't been able to track him down since I heard it. Unfortunately, Andrew was fired from his Jack in the Box job, apparently because of a "power struggle", but he's now arranging to take the test to become a postal worker. John continues to write his short stories, but he's been struggling with a bout of writer's block lately. Dolphin never actually left for Asia, but instead had surgery on his left hand to repair some damage from a vehicle accident that happened quite a while ago. And speaking of car accidents, Shoma is reportedly rehabilitating well at a nursing home. And "Download" soon gave me the cold shoulder when I questioned his latest conspiracy theory that Timothy McVeigh was merely a pawn in the Oklahoma City bombing.

I'm once again enjoying the meals back at the Bread and Roses Cafe. There are a lot of familiar faces and a lot of new ones too. By definition, the homeless crowd is such a transient bunch. One day, the person who was supposed to wash dishes didn't show up, so they asked me to lend a hand. My clothes were soaked by the end of the afternoon, but it was nice to give back a little after receiving so many yummy meals there. And of course I've been getting reacquainted with the cans of Libby's Vienna Sausages handed out by a local church. (Does Austria condone the naming of these little beasties? Well, the word "wiener" actually originates from the word "Vienna", so I guess it makes sense.)
 
I've gotten back into the chess scene at Santa Monica's Chess Park, but not quite with the same enthusiasm as before. I'm not sure why, but perhaps this latest episode with Carol in the bigger Game of Life has put a temporary damper on the littler games I play. Or maybe it's because I just can't quite yet muster the mental energy that chess requires.
 
And I'm back to spending a lot of time with my buddy Rob on the weekends. One evening we went to see Grand Master Varuzhan Akobian play twelve opponents simultaneously at the Santa Monica Chess Club. Result: Akobian won eleven games and drew the last one. Rob also told me about the "Carlini files" that he stumbled onto on YouTube. Apparently these videos chronicle the exploits of the Great Carlini, the most outrageous of the trash-talking players at Chess Park. (Unfortunately, I don't have headphones, so I can't hear the audio for these videos on the computers here at the Venice library.)
 
And just this past weekend, Rob and I got me a bike, courtesy of Maria Teresa's generosity. We picked out an inexpensive used mountain bike from a guy who rents them down on the Venice boardwalk. It was another beautiful day, so we headed off down the beach bike path to the Manhattan Beach pier and back again. It's great to have my own bike now and not have to worry about someone else's.
 
The guy we bought the bike from is an immigrant from South Korea named Choeng-Kim. He is also a pastor and has an M.A. in comparative religions. He was very curious, asking a lot of questions about Buddhism in general and my walkabout practice in particular. He has been teaching people to become pastors for the past ten years, but he's become very disillusioned by the process, saying that his students are motivated by money or other worldly pursuits and not by true spirituality.

I've been calling Maria Teresa every few days from St. Joseph's homeless services center to check in on how she's doing. She is of course still grieving deeply, but her friends in Seattle have been very supportive, so she is slowly making her way through the pain. It's a long road, one that probably never really ends, but perhaps gets easier to walk as time goes by.

Speaking of elderly women (yikes, sorry about that segue!), the so-called "Black Widow trial" concluded with guilty verdicts for both of the elderly women who murdered two homeless men to collect millions from various insurance policies they had taken out on their victims. Nice to see justice done on behalf of the homeless.

So what's my plan now? I don't really know. And I don't really know if I need a plan. I'm a monk, after all. But at least in the short run I want to catch up on this blog. There were several entries that I was meaning to write before the whirlwind of Carol's life and death swept me up. But to tell the truth, I don't really enjoy writing, hence why I tend to procrastinate these entries. So, like most other things I have difficulty with, I try to approach it as a practice in transformation. I try to relax into the writing and see if I can loosen up some of my resistance and rigidity. Of course, it didn't really help that I wrote most of this entry up yesterday and then the library computer crashed, sending it all into cyberspace oblivion. Ah, but I guess it's another opportunity to practice letting go....

Oh yeah, the "few bumps" I mentioned at the beginning of this entry:

My samue robes have become quite worn and threadbare. A few days ago my pants split from the knee up to the thigh as I was putting them on one morning. The tear is about ten inches. Luckily, I had found some light blue material (with little flowers on it!) a couple of months ago, so I was able to patch it from the inside with my sewing kit. My sleeves are starting to unravel a little and I can see a couple of other areas (e.g., the shoulders where my backpack rubs) that will probably require some repairs soon too.

A slightly bigger bump: As I mentioned in my last entry, someone has put a ratty old carpet into my venice alley sleeping nook. My first night back, I found some cardboard to cover the carpet and was setting up my sleeping bag when I heard a soft sound behind me. I turned to see a dark shape descending through the branches of a tree a few feet beyond a fence right behind me. Several branches bent down with the dark form and then it quickly disappeared over a wall. It was dark and it all happened so fast that I never got a good look at whoever or whatever it was. The only answers my startled mind could come up with were "monkey!" or "ninja!" I still can't figure out what it was and I wonder how much the shadows were playing tricks on me.

After I calmed down, I decided to sleep there anyways and endeavored  to let go of worrying, similar to my experience that night under the Santa Monica Pier when a deranged guy threatened to kill us. ("...And a Word with the Devil") About an hour later, a guy parked his car a few feet from my feet and left the lights on, which illuminated my whole niche. He walked around the car and then stopped, staring straight at me. I probably should have waved or offered him a Vienna sausage, but I was still half asleep. After hesitating a while, he turned off his car lights and went into his apartment. Early the next morning I was woken up by one of the numerous people who raid the recycling containers for cans and bottles that they can cash in on. He stopped by my nook and looked in on me, then went on his way. Maybe he's the guy who carpeted the nook?

Then, two nights ago, I arrived at my sleeping spot to find another figure bundled up in blankets amidst the shadows. (I hope I didn't scare them, especially since I do look sorta like a ninja. How ironic!) I was so tired I just went straight back to the roundabout where I eat my evening meals. I went to sleep near the stunning sculpture of a nude female torso.....amidst the circling traffic and the rumbling buses.

As I angrily stomped away from "my nook" in "my alley", I suddenly realized that it was as much his or her spot as it was mine. Duh. Then I remembered that we are all brothers and sisters, sharing the same big house. And then I remembered that he or she.....is actually me.

Ahh, now I remember Ma Ocean. I am but a wave of energy on the Great Sea of Being. I am you and you are me. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

And please forgive me, Dear One, for I shall surely forget again in about five seconds....or less.



"The biggest obstacle to realization is forgetting."
---some swami I read in the Times of India newspaper (Funny, but I can't remember if I've already used this quote before in this blog!)

"I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together."
---the Beatles, from I Am The Walrus

"'Keep on rockin' in the free world!' Remember that song by Neil Young? It makes perfect sense, man! It's a free world!"
---"Tijuana Dave", explaining his life with his blanket: "I just unroll it wherever I am and go to sleep." (It's ironic that Neil Young's song is actually decrying our culture of homelessness in the U.S.)
 
"Dogs are great protection for being homeless. I had a pit bull/lab mix and nobody messed with me. I didn't even have to feed her! She ate cats and squirrels."
---fellow at Bread and Roses
 
"When you start spitting up blood, it's time to stop doing what you're doing."
---overheard in a park

"You gotta have good manners so that you can be hired by the gerbils."
---etiquette advice from a homeless guy I met in a park
 
"I caught a fire truck delivering a stolen child and they've been after me ever since. They've been frying me by electrifying my teeth."
---irate man who threw his coffee on the ground outside the Santa Monica library
 
Sometimes I feel like I'm a big magnet for crazy talk....

The weather turned unseasonably cold and my low-grade exhaustion has turned into a low-grade cold. I'm trying to drink more fluids, get more rest, and I'm dosing up on a bottle of chewable vitamin C that Maria Teresa kindly left me. And of course this is another good opportunity to practice staying upbeat, cuz unconditional peace and happiness means embracing whatever comes along.

Feeling under the weather has made the latest temptation for this pseudo-monk that much more challenging. I was offered the possibility of housesitting for some friends of friends of friends (yeah, degrees of separation again) when they go on a two and a half month vacation to Europe at the end of May. My only responsibility would be watering the plants. And this isn't just some ordinary place----it's a luxury home with a pool located in a really upscale neighborhood of Hancock Park. And they were offering $500 too!

My, my, what a tempting challenge to my only two vows: homelessness and poverty. I could probably make a good argument that I wouldn't really be breaking my practice of homelessness since it really isn't my place and I've already stayed in friends' homes in New York and Carol's apartment in Culver City and motels with Maria Teresa. And after all, my practice is not only about embracing the challenges this lifestyle throws at me, but is also about accepting the blessings that flow my way too. But the 500 bucks would definitely be breaking my practice of not using any money.

I was truly torn: after all, I could still housesit and turn down the money, but I also really want to hit the road again and see what happens in a new town. Stasis, introversion, and security vs. mobility, extroversion, and risk. Taoists are supposed to balance yin and yang and thereby attain their freedom, not get stuck between them.

Anyhow, this tempting offer never fully materialized because the owners found a friend that would do it for them instead of some dubious dude who thinks he's stuck in some kinda Kurosawa flick. (Actually, it often feels more like a Charlie Kaufman mind-bender....)

Speaking of samurais, there's a guy that frequents the St. Joseph homeless services center who wears the top robes (a hapi coat?) of a light blue samue, very similar to my robes. He also carries two round sticks stuck through his waist belt like samurai swords. One stick is long and the other is shorter, just like the long sword (katana) and short sword (wakizashi) that the samurai used. He cuts quite an imposing figure since he always wears dark sunglasses and gloves. And then there's those two big sticks.

Well, this town ain't big enough for two homeless kung-fu nut jobs, so I finally approached him to find out what his story is. I was ready to scream and run like hell, but he turned out to be a nice guy, if a bit intense. His name is Orlando and he is genuinely interested in the culture of the samurai, having read the classic The Book of Five Rings by Musashi. (Musashi was probably Japan's greatest swordsman. He was so good that for his final duel with his arch rival he didn't even take his sword. He was being transported in a boat to an island where the duel was to take place, so he merely carved one of the oars into a wooden sword, quickly dispatched his adversary, and then gave up sword fighting altogether.) Orlando and I also talked a bit about bushido, the code of the samurai, or, more literally, "the honorable way of the warrior". He is quite sincere about his practice and even spars with his sword sticks against trees. As I reflect on him attacking trees with his sticks and me picking up trash and begging for food, I think our practices come closer to kukushido, or "the honorable way of the nut job".

Another day at St. Joe's, I met a frenetic woman named Nancy who kindly gave me an extra watch she had. We continue to touch base whenever we see one another, but to be honest, I don't always understand what she is talking about since her conversations aren't always rooted in reality. But she has a sweet disposition and she is somehow surviving fairly well on the streets. And the watch is very handy since many of my basic activities (meals, showers, laundry, internet, etc.) are scheduled at specific times.

One morning I found a copy of Jack Kerouac's On The Road in one of the bathrooms at St. Joe's. I've always meant to read it, especially since it seems so apropos to my life. Yet another blessing from St. Joe. And I've decided to take it as a sign from the Universe to get my butt in gear.

So I've arranged with my St. Joe's caseworker to use Santa Monica's "Homecoming Program" (AKA the "Get the Hell Out of Our City Program") to get me to my next destination. (And yeah, I realize I'm bending the rules a bit, but to a wandering Taoist all places are home.) A friend in Austin, Texas has generously offered her place as a landing pad, so I'm hoping to leave sometime next week. But first, there's the small matter of getting a background check at the Santa Monica Police Department so that they don't accidentally send someone out of state if they have a warrant out on them. I imagine that this process will go smoothly, but in the past it's often prompted curious question and answer sessions.

(Despite my run-ins with the police---both recently and throughout the years---I truly appreciate them. They have a very difficult and often thankless job, and for the most part they are pretty decent people. The only ones that were ever disrespectful towards me were some cops who were screaming obscenities at me as they chased me in a dune buggy as I ran through the desert at a Nevada nuclear test site protest as police helicopters flew overhead. But I'm digressing here.....)

(And now that I think of it, two policemen actually saved my life back in college when they jumped this guy who pulled a gun on me, intending to shoot me......But I'm digressing back into Egoland again. (But notice that I haven't deleted any of this...yet.) Of course, it's all Egoland-----some parts are just subtler than others. Now where the heck was I? Or better yet, where should I be?)

Looking even further on the horizon, one of my numerous cousins is getting married in July and then there is a family reunion on my Japanese side, the Takahashis. I am tentatively planning to return to Southern California for these events. And if I make it that long, then it will be a year since I started this walkabout back in upstate New York. I plan to fess up to my family about this whole monk gig because I am becoming increasingly uncomfortable not being honest with them. I called my mother for Mother's Day and we had a wonderful conversation. But she thinks I'm back in New York City. Good thing I don't have any vows against lying.

Ouch.



"Anybody want some 99 cent acupuncture?"
---a homeless guy I call Non-Sequiter Man, querying the crowd at Bread and Roses Cafe

"I'm suing Ralph Nader because he's not German like Joseph Thomas, Jesus's father."
---Nancy

"Don't piss off the voices."
---written on a guy's shirt at St. Joe's

A while back.....before the episode with Carol (BCE).....one very foggy morning I arrived at Venice beach to find lifeguard trucks and police SUVs lined along the shore. When I drew near, I saw a small cabin cruiser floundering in the waves. Apparently a couple of fishermen out for some early morning angling had gotten lost in the thick ocean fog and mistook the rock breaker near the beach for a marina and had gotten caught in the surf. The fishermen had already abandoned ship and were on the shore, forlornly watching the small boat get battered by the waves. It was already completely swamped, rolling from side to side with each incoming surge.

Belying its name, the "Wolf Blade Razor" was now anything but sleek as it was being inexorably dismantled by the pounding surf. One fisherman sat huddled in a blanket as the other joined lifeguards fetching loose belongings and pieces of the disintegrating boat being washed up on the beach.

It was another powerful lesson on anicca ("impermanence" in the Buddha's original Pali language) as we all stood there watching the boat's seafaring days come abruptly to an end. The tides of time get us all eventually. (Which, apparently, everybody is actually happy about! I'm a fan of hypothetical questions and I have yet to meet the person who would choose immortality over mortality.)

After a few hours, a big tractor finally dragged the battered boat out of the surf and up onto the beach near the "public art walls" (read: "graffiti"). For the next week, debris from the cabin cruiser continued to wash up on the shore, providing me with some bonus flotsam to clean up. It's now over two months later and the carcass of the Wolf Blade Razor is still lying on the beach, now covered in colorful graffiti.



This whole event reminded me of an incident that occurred during my time in Alaska. One summer, I decided to do "the Alaskan fisherman experience" and joined a small crew planning to fish the far side of Kachemak Bay across from my small town of Homer. (Yeah, I know, it's an unfortunate name, but the town is actually very beautiful, attracting quite a few artists and their Bohemian ambiance.)

Our small boat was a "purse seiner", which requires a crew of four. There was Brent, our gruff, grizzled and pot-bellied captain. Tsviki was a handsome and proud Israeli guy fresh from his mandatory stint in his country's military. He used to enjoy spending his evenings throwing his knife into a target board he'd set up. Thomas was a young kid just out of high school from the East Coast, and true to his fiery red hair, he had a hot temper to match.  And then there was me---dark, bearded, brooding.....and still wrestling the demons that drove me up to Alaska in the first place.

So yep, we were basically four caricatures. And yes, we had our share of discord-----that's inevitable when you've got a curmudgeon, a proud warrior, a hot-head, and a brooder isolated together on a tiny boat. But for the most part, we got along fine and even though some work days lasted as long as eighteen hours, the summer flew by in a blur of sunshine, salmon, sea otters, and sleep starvation.

Brent operated the boat and barked orders from a short "crow's nest" of sorts which allowed him a good angle to scan into the water for schools of fish. Tsviki manned the small motorboat attached to one end of the net as we zoomed off in the bigger boat, laying out the rest of the net in a big arc or circle around the fish. Thomas ran the "lead line" which is the heavy edge of the net that hung down into the depths. I was responsible for the "cork line", which was the edge of the net that floated at the top of the water. As we reeled the big net in, tightening it around a school of fish (hence why it is called "purse seining"), Thomas and I tossed our lines into the storage area at the back of the boat, folding the net so that it could be deployed quickly and smoothly the next time. We were mainly going after "reds" (sockeye salmon), because the price was better than "pinks" (humpback salmon), and now and then we'd get some "silvers" (coho salmon) or even a big "king" (chinook salmon) as a bonus.

I guess there's a lot more I could write about that magical time-----like the long metal plungers we used to simulate seals diving into the water to scare the fish toward the middle of the net, or the aggressive jockeying between rival boats, or the tasty weekend salmon BBQs with friends-----but I don't really have the time (or the inclination!) right now.

The event that the demise of the Wolf Blade Razor reminded me of happened very early in our season. Our little fishing boat only had room for the big net and another storage area for any fish we'd caught that day. (At the end of the day---or if we'd caught enough to fill the hold---we'd deliver the fish to a tender boat which stored the fish on ice until they were transported to a processing plant.) So basically, our ship didn't have any compartments where we could sleep.

For sleeping arrangements, Brent had arranged with an acquaintance, Bob, to rent a very small cabin cruiser with four very small sleeping compartments-----shelves really, two on each side of the bow, one over the other. Now Bob was an eccentric character, a real do-it-yourselfer who had never met a project that he didn't feel he was already an expert on.

Since it was far from seaworthy, this old cabin cruiser needed a lot of work. For some crazed reason, Bob decided that the boat would be more maneuverable if the propeller was located further forward than the normal position at the stern. So he constructed a dubious "motor well"----basically a square hole with sides straight through the back deck and hull of the boat. He figured an outboard motor would work splendidly mounted in the well. Among other repairs, he also re-fiberglassed the entire hull. And to top it all off, we painted it in hideous shades of green and black.

We worked hard for a couple weeks helping Bob get the little boat ship-shape. And every night I would go home scratching my head about the latest theoretical "improvement". But I deferred to their deeper experience because I knew little about ships and the sea. After all, these were tough Alaskan men, wizened and wisened by lives spent carving out their survival from the harsh environment and rough seas. Or so I thought.

We finally launched the little cabin cruiser at the beginning of the salmon fishing season and my spirits were buoyed considerably when it didn't sink straight to the bottom. Unfortunately, that insane motor well design proved to be utterly useless, so we ended up towing it all the way across the bay and anchored it in a protected cove. After long days of fishing, we would return very late to sleep in the cabin cruiser.

Just a few nights into this routine, I was sleeping somewhat fitfully when I heard a foreboding series of events that in my state of exhaustion I did my best to ignore. First, I heard the bilge pump kick on. Now most boats naturally take on a little water, so they have bilge pumps that are automatically activated by float switches when the water reaches a certain level. Since this was nothing new, I easily went back to sleep. I woke up a little while later and realized that the bilge pump was still on. In my hazy half-sleep I still didn't think much of this and rolled over for more sleep. Then I heard Brent get up and start bailing water out of the boat with a bucket. I'm sure that the other guys heard this too, but we all did our best to pretend that we were still sleeping. I finally woke up more fully when I realized that Brent was bailing faster and faster. And then he said, "Uh guys, I'm not keeping up with the water." That got us going!

We jumped up, grabbed some buckets and pots, and began bailing like crazy. But somehow the water kept coming in faster and faster and it quickly became apparent that we were fighting a losing battle. Brent fired up the motor and headed us toward the shore as we continued madly bailing, profanities flying in all directions.

Sinking lower and lower, our sad little boat limped slowly toward the shore, due to that terrible motor well design and the fact that we had taken on so much water. Just when it looked like we would go under, the boat ran aground near shore. None of us had gotten the chance to get dressed, so we made for quite a sight as we abandoned ship in our underwear, splashing into the cold Alaskan water as we lugged our gear to shore, still cursing up a storm. Catching our breaths on the rocky beach, we watched as the tide came in, quickly submerging the helpless craft.

As I replayed the night's events and looked around at us, soaking wet in our underwear, I couldn't help but start laughing. Soon we were all busting up, unable to contain the absurd hilarity of the moment.

The next morning's low tide exposed the forlorn boat, revealing the cause of our calamity: apparently Bob had mixed the glue to the wrong proportions and the fiberglass waterproofing had simply peeled away from the hull. He eventually salvaged the little boat and I last saw it sitting on the famous Homer spit with a big "For Sale" sign painted on it. It's probably still there.



Sometimes when I remember that night, I wish I had been a spectator, watching from the shore or the surrounding cliffs. How priceless it would have been to see and hear the spectacle unfold! I even wrote a story called "The Fickle Gods of Fishermen" told from the point of view of three young sisters who are summering with their mother in a lone house on a bluff overlooking the cove.

We camped on the beach the rest of the nights and managed to finish the fishing season without any other major disasters. Prices were down that season and we didn't catch that many fish (for a commercial operation), so we made next to nothing. But the weather was exceedingly gorgeous that summer and I treasure my memories out on that beautiful bay. Especially that night of adrenaline-pumping profanity-laced hilarity.


"We'll be boarding the Titanic at 5pm sharp!"
---Non Sequiter Man to the crowd at St. Joseph's homeless center

At my last visit to the Santa Monica Zen Center, Yoshin Sensei told the famous story of Hakuin and the Samurai. (The version below is the one I originally read in "101 Zen Stories" in Paul Reps' Zen Flesh, Zen Bones.)

A warrior named Nobushige came to zen master Hakuin, and asked: "Is there really a heaven and a hell?"
"Who are you?" inquired Hakuin.
"I am a samurai," the warrior replied.
"You, a warrior?!" exclaimed Hakuin. "What kind of ruler would have you as his guard? Your face looks like that of a beggar."
Nobushige became so angry that he began to draw his sword, but Hakuin continued: "So you have a sword! Your weapon is probably much too dull to cut off my head."
As Nobushige drew his sword Hakuin remarked: "Here open the gates of hell!"
At these words the samurai, perceiving the master's discipline, sheathed his sword and bowed.
"Here open the gates of heaven," said Hakuin.


We create our own hells and heavens. And even though it is our internal thoughts and attitudes that determine the quality of our life experiences, we tend to spend a disproportionate amount of time and energy fussing endlessly over our external circumstances-----our appearance, our jobs, our belongings, our activities, our acquaintances, etc., as if they are the means to happiness, to heaven.

Given the same circumstances, two different personalities can conjure up two radically different experiences. I received a wonderful lesson on this out here on the streets. Most of the homeless sort of muddle through life with a certain amount of grim determination and acceptance of their lot. But there are some who occupy the extreme ends of the attitude spectrum, the heavens and hells of homeless life.

Donna recently became homeless, being one of the few who actually chose to live on the streets. She approaches homeless life with an upbeat attitude, seeing it as an adventure and even as a form of entertainment. She's quick to laugh at the little absurdities we all face out here on the streets (e.g., dodging the cops) and she attracts friends easily.

Ron also recently became homeless, but his outlook is all doom and gloom. Of course, the homeless lifestyle is that much more challenging when you're a bit obsessive-compulsive. He refused blankets from the homeless center, saying that they weren't clean enough, and so spent a recent cold weather snap walking around during the nights to stay warm. (I gave him my fleece vest.) He even manages to complain about the delicious (free!) meals that we are served at Bread and Roses Cafe, saying that they could never compare to the food he used to cook when he shopped at Whole Foods. While most of the homeless do indeed struggle, Ron takes it a big step further and turns his life into misery.

But I guess most things tend toward the middle after a while. Donna still smiles easily, but she's looking a little more tired these days, perhaps because she's working on her fourth boyfriend by now. Ron has gotten into a residential program and is looking for a job. And he's decided that a better attitude would help a lot too. They are my teachers. (Of course, everyone is my teacher if I just look closely enough to see the lessons they offer.)

So yes, I understand the well-worn homily "Attitude is everything." And then there's  "Happiness lies within." Simple, yes, but not so simple to integrate deeply into my programming, my being. There's a lot of wiring that needs to be ripped out first-----all sorts of conditioning that tells me that happiness is just around the corner or on the greener grass or just over the horizon if I would just do or say (or write!) the right thing.

So I try to remember that the glass is half empty or half full depending upon my attitude. And of course, just when I think I'm making some progress, those annoying wise guys come along and offer me another sip of Absolut. The zen master pushes me over the edge, whispering "The glass is totally empty!" And the Taoist sage catches me, laughing "The glass is totally full!"

If I'm lucky, some day I may truly realize that they are drinking from the same bottle, singing the same song. And then paradoxes will reconcile, as they eventually must, right? (As they already are!) And I will see that Yin and Yang are merged in this perfect shiny moment. Total. Clear. Stunning. Forever.

Scattered. Hazy. Terrifying. Temporary.

Broken and Beautiful.

Come drink with me?

 

"Every place is beautiful and horrible. It depends upon what you are looking for."
---Maria Teresa, Carol's mother

"A great truth is a truth whose opposite is also a great truth."
---Thomas Mann

"I can make a phone call and be home in no time, but why would I want to do that? It's a freak show out here 24/7! You can't pay for that!"
---Donna

"I'm trying to stop whining. It doesn't help any."
---Ron

"We are disturbed not by what happens to us, but by our thoughts about what happens."
---Epictetus

"I must die. Must I then die lamenting? I must be put in chains. Must I then also lament? I must go into exile. Does any man then hinder me from going with smiles and cheerfulness and contentment?"
---Epictetus

"I don't want an open mind. I want my mind closed. The path to heaven is narrow."
---Derrick, a homeless Christian guy who constantly harangues me about the righteousness of his faith

"I think God can wear more than one hat."
---me, responding to Derrick

"What difference does it make after all?---anonymity in the world of men is better than fame in heaven, for what's heaven? what's earth? All in the mind."
---Jack Kerouac, from On the Road


"The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven."
---John Milton, from Paradise Lost

"In Buddhism, hell isn't where we might be going, it's where we're coming from."
---Yoshin Sensei

A friend recently asked me for my definition of “perfect happiness” and it set me off on a meandering musing. The first thing that came to mind was “when the internal and the external are in harmony”.

In the West, our main approach to this model of happiness is to attempt to shape the external world (relationships, homes, jobs, belongings, appearances, activities, etc.) to match our internal impulses. The Eastern approach is to transform our internal conditioning so that it harmonizes with external realities.

Of course, these are extremely simplified generalizations, especially when considering that the boundary between East and West is dissolving---beautifully, tragically---as we embrace components of one another’s cultures. But allow me this simple conceit and I shall soldier onward.

And of course there are advantages and disadvantages to both philosophies. While the Eastern goal of unconditional peace, happiness, love, etc. may be more appealing to me, the Western approach to happiness may actually be a lot easier to accomplish, at least in the short term! It’s usually a lot easier to go out and get another half-gallon of mint chocolate chip ice cream than it is to learn to curb my appetites (current beggar lifestyle excepted, of course). As usual, the healthiest approach is probably to balance both methods. There is a time for manipulating external variables and a time for working on our internal compulsions. Mint chocolate chip ice cream in moderation.

Being a child of the West, I am well-versed in the practice of attempting to tweak external reality so that it matches what “I want”. It’s been a pretty radical shift to now try to re-align my internal impulses with external reality. And sure, that may all sound very grand, but what does it really mean to “harmonize the internal with the external”? Well, I think it means embracing---without clinging to---“What Is”, and letting go of---without pushing away---“What Is Not” (the past, the future, things I desire, fear, dream of). In other words, being at peace with myself and the way the world presents itself to me moment to moment, the light and the dark. In a word: Relax.

And yeah, I can already hear the Wise Guys banging on the door, slipping notes through the mail slot, reminding me that we are already in total harmony, that chaos and order go hand in hand, as do pain and happiness. The Tao is already balanced, unified, whole. And so that’s part of my practice too: to let these absolute (objective) truths in, to let them flavor and influence my largely relative (subjective) experience of life. And of course it’s also important to remember that I very well might not know what the hell I’m talking about here…..Humility is always a nice final resting point. (Good starting point and mid point too, for that matter.)

On the face of it, this practice of “harmonizing the internal with the external” can appear to be a fairly passive approach. One could, however, also easily argue that succumbing to our internal impulses day after day is actually a much more passive way of living. (It’s interesting to notice my very Western resistance to the notion of passivity…and let go.) Indeed, there are aspects of passivity to the Eastern path---after all, like all things, passivity has its place and time---yet it is actually a very active practice with some far-reaching ramifications.

Obviously, it can be a real battle to recondition deeply entrenched thought and habit patterns. If I can get them to open up and embrace whatever the world places before me (by convincing, cajoling, begging, threatening, even surrendering---whatever it takes!), then I will have opened a door onto a whole ton of unconditional internal potentials, such as peace, happiness, self-acceptance, love, freedom, gratitude, humility, energy, creativity, wisdom, fashion sense…..uh, yeah, etc.

But there are also implications that reach much further than “just” all this yummy unconditional stuff. (And here’s where we really disembark the passive train of thought.) The more I bow down to reality, the more it bows down back to me.

As I bow down to them, I can begin to truly see the ten thousand and one energies that come into and through me. (E.g., gravity, sounds, air, temperature, images, food, emotions, ideas, millions of years of biological conditioning, etc., etc., etc.) And the more I see them, the more I realize that they have been running the show the whole time anyways, dangling me on their strings like the puppet that I really am.

My ego objects. It doesn’t want to be a puppet. It wants to cut the strings, to be “my own man”. But if I can calm it down and teach it to embrace and resonate with these ten thousand and one puppet strings, then I may be lucky enough to realize an amazing thing: the strings work in both directions.

It makes sense---both intuitively and rationally---that the more I learn to harmonize with the energies of the universe then the more I will be able to bend and shape them. And perhaps this is the threshold between pre-determination and true free will. A determinist---which my coldly rational self is---believes that we are totally controlled by external elements through our biological and social conditioning, nature and nurture. We don’t see much compelling evidence for free will. So this may be a real flight of fancy, but just maybe free will can truly blossom when we fully harmonize with the world…..and learn to pull back on the puppet strings.

But for now, this marionette tries to let go of this dream and embrace the pirouettes and tumbles I am made to dance, especially the dance of bowing…

If I harmonize enough, perhaps the boundary between the internal and the external will dissolve as they merge. Or more accurately, maybe I will realize that the boundary has been totally imaginary all along and that the concepts of internal and external are merely an illusion to begin with. (That correction helped me dodge a blow from the zen master’s staff!) For the ten thousand and one things don’t just come into and through me, they are me.

Okay, I realize that I’m playing one of my broken records again, repeating songs that I’ve already sung in previous entries…..

So is it my fault or the Cosmos’ fault? Does the Cosmos dance this puppet Zum, or do I dance the Cosmos? Is there really a difference when I realize that it’s all simply The Dance?

Ah, what possibilities lie on the horizon then?!

Bonk! (The Wise Guys clonk me upside the head with their clear bottle and its clear clear liquid.) Ahem…I mean, what possibilities unfold, right here, right now?

We have never stopped dancing…..

Come dance with me?

 

"If you want to kiss the sky, better learn how to kneel."
U2, from Mysterious Ways

"Surrender is not submission, it is letting go..."
---Yoshin Sensei

“Really now, just where do you leave off and the rest of the universe begin? Or where does the rest of the universe leave off and you begin? Once you can see the so-called ‘you’ and the so-called ‘nature’ as a continuous whole, then you can never again be bothered by such questions as whether it is you who are controlling nature or nature who is controlling you. Thus the muddle of free will versus determinism will vanish.”

---God, in Raymond Smullyan’s essay “Is God a Taoist?”, an entertaining dialogue between a “mortal” and “God”

 “I decided to come back into my creation. And this time I want to keep a low profile. You remember what happened last time!”
---“The Creator”, who I met at Chess Park
(Well, I’ve already met “God” and “the Messiah”, so why not "the Creator"?)