In the early pages of The Tao of Jeet Kune Do, Bruce Lee’s notes are quoted thus:

Understanding oneself happens through a process of relationships and not through isolation.

While I see some truth in that, I think I also need a balance of relationships and isolation.  Solitude is really what I mean:  I need times of solitude.  I never got why Superman needed a Fortress of Solitude, but something really clicked for me this morning:  remember the part in the most recent “gritty reboot” movie, where Superman takes Lois way up into the stratosphere and they can hear all the voices of the world crying for help and whatnot?  All of a sudden, the whole Fortress of Solitude thing really made sense:  it’s a place he can go where he can enjoy the silence – regroup, consolidate, become one with himself again.  Then he’s able to go back out and face the help-crying voices again.

I had a busy day yesterday, and some of that busy-ness overlapped the times during the day I routinely have to myself.  I met a mentor for lunch; normally I sit by myself in the cafeteria and read while I eat.  I had to run home to let Christine and the cat into my apartment because the door I had left open for the PSE&G guy was closed by said guy; I had just sat down to eat dinner and read at Whole Foods.  So I had to take my dinner to my next appointment and wolf it down there.  While I was eating, a friend of mine was leaning over into my face/food space, wondering what I was eating.  She got too close and I snapped at her like a starved dog, “get the fuck away from my food, woman.”  Whoa.  I apologized quickly, but the damage was done.

As I’m sure you know all too well, dear reader, I’ve been alone for quite some time now.  I know that I’ve come to enjoy it, but I what I did not realize (at least not so overtly) until last night was that I’ve come to depend upon solitude.  I need it.  If I don’t have at least short periods of being alone with myself, time to collect and regroup, I may as well be carrying kryptonite around in my pocket. 

I think it may be time for some sort of retreat for me.  Solo hiking or getting engrossed in a novel for a few hours are usually my preferred means of solitude:  maybe I’ll take a day off work next week and burn some miles and climb some mountains by myself.  This weekend is already booked with group hikes.

So yeah: 

Dear Bruce Lee,

Don’t go forgetting about balance.  It’s the yin that defines the yang – the solitude that defines the isolation. 

See also melissa’s Tao Te Ching reference in her comment to yesterday’s post.

Sincerely,

Ted

Normally, I like to save the pages from my Zen-a-Day calendar to which I’m particularly attracted.  However, in tearing off the page two Thursdays ago, I accidentally tore the page in half.  It’s been sitting on my dresser in two pieces for a while now and I’ve thusfar been able to resist the urge to just throw it away.  I’m going to do so now.  But, by way of closure (and so I don’t actually lose the words), here it is:

Behind a temple was a vine with many squashes growing on it.  One day a fight broke out among them, and the squashes split up into angry groups, making a big racket.  Hearing the uproar, the head priest went outside, saw the quarreling, and scolded them:  “Hey!  Squashes!  why are you fighting?  Now – everybody do zazen.”

The priest taught them how, showing them how to fold their legs and sit up straight, and as the squashes began to follow the priest’s instructions, they calmed down and stopped fighting.

“Now,” the priest said, “everyone put your hand on top of your head.”

When the squashes felt the top of their heads, they found something attached there, which turned out to be the vine that connected them all together.

“What a mistake!” the squashes said, realizing their predicament.  “We’re actually all tied together, living just one life!”  From that moment on the squashes never again fought.

You will never know the world aright till the Sea floweth in your Veins, till you are Clothed with the Heavens and Crowned with the Stars; And perceive yourself to be the Sole Heir of the Whole World; And more then so, because Men are in it who are every one Sole Heirs, as well as you.  Till you are intimately Acquainted with that Shady Nothing out of which this World was made; Till your spirit filleth the whole World and the Stars are your Jewels; Till you love Men so as to Desire their Happiness with a thirst equal to the zeal of your own.

-Thomas Traherne

Hoo boy, do I have a long way to go.

Yes, yes, I know, dear reader:  it’s been quite a long time since my last post.

A lot’s been going on lately and I’ve mostly been keeping to myself.  Oh, I’ve been talking to people here and there about things, and it’s not that I didn’t feel comfortable talking to you about them, dear reader, but, well, I haven’t felt comfortable talking to you about them.

I quit my job on Thursday.  Scratch that – I ‘resigned’ on Thursday:  handed my boss my resignation letter at the end of the day.  I had to go into the office for a bit on Friday, I suppose to bring closure, though there wasn’t really anything for me to do.  Everything I’d been working on had been tied off or handed off in the past week or so.  I think my boss saw it coming, but I don’t think he was expecting it – if that makes sense.

I’m starting at a new firm soon.  It’s a start-up, and I’ll be in on the ground floor.  Several of my colleagues from the old firm are already there and I’m excited to work with them again – they’re the ones from the old firm who actually worked.

I’ve known for several weeks that I’d be moving firms, but couldn’t really tell anyone at the old place until I’d squared away all my stuff.  The last few weeks have been torturous for me:  I’ve not been sleeping well and my self-doubt has been at the forefront of my thinking.

After I resigned on Thursday night, and knowing that I’d have to go into the office on Friday and face everyone, I went to see Inception with my sister Katie.  It was pretty good, though I think it could have been much better.  At least it was entertaining and got me out of my head for those few hours before I went to bed.

And, it helped me realize that I’d been spending so much (too much) time in my head lately.  Mostly falling prey to my self-doubt and thinking along pessimistic lines.  I don’t mean to say that I’ve stopped all that and have reverted to a pollyannaish outlook, but rather that the movie helped me become aware of just how much time I’d spent concocting possible future scenarios in my imagination – and negative ones, at that.

Not blogging about my thoughts and feelings on the whole scenario was tough but necessary.  There are one or two people with whom I work who know about this site and I couldn’t risk letting any of my plans become public knowledge at work.

Special thanks to Jen, Heather, Anna and Didi for talking with me via email about what’s been going on in my head.

I’m still a bit nervous for the future, but I’m also confident that I can handle whatever comes.  I’m excited in a subdued fashion to see how things unfold over the next few weeks.  I just re-read Sun Tzu’s Art of War and am currently reading both Richard Branson’s Losing My Virginity and Bruce Lee’s The Tao of Jeet Kune Do.  I think I’m going to read a few books on military history, in order to have some practical examples to which I can relate the aphorisms from Art of War.

Game on.

On the ride up to RI at the beginning of my MINIs on Top trip, I popped into my CD player a series of CDs my friend Jason loaned to me two or three years ago:  it was a talk by Eckhart Tolle called The Flowering of Human Consciousness.  It was pretty good – both for the content and because it took my mind away from the traffic of the drive.

For my trip this past weekend, I bought Tolle’s first book The Power of Now on CD to listen to on the longer sections of the drive.  I got through about half of it and am looking forward to another long drive as an opportunity to finish it.

I’m not really one for books-on-tape (I prefer paper), but I don’t think I’d read Tolle’s book even if I bought it – or I’d probably put it down halfway through.  But Tolle has an interesting enough voice (he speaks the Queen’s English with a German accent), and I find this kind of material to be better transmitted through the spoken word than in print.

Tolle’s main thesis isn’t all that different (and, to his credit, he admits as much) from what various spiritual teachers have been saying for pretty much millennia:  that all we have is this moment – there is no past and no future, and thus no point in spending time living in either.  That we must be completely present in the now in order to live a complete and fulfilling life.

He talks about transcendence and enlightenment as well, but these are relatively foreign concepts to me and while they seem nice to think about as ideals, they’re not part of my everyday life.  I dig the fact that he brings an element of everyday life to his spiritual teachings.

I’m not going to go all starry-eyed for the guy, but I can get with many parts of what he says.  I think I most identify when he relates things to zen and yogic teachings.

Anyway, listening to this was an excellent set-up for my vacation:  it reminded me to stay in the moment.  I did so as much as possible and doing so played an integral role in the fulfillment I received while I was in the woods.

I have plenty more to say on this topic, but I think that’s enough for now.

The last five days passed like a dream.  I was really hoping for some kind of spiritual experience or battery recharge or something when I headed off to the woods last Wednesday.  And I got it.  Well, I got something.  Not entirely what I thought it would be, but something nonetheless.

I’ve been looking forward to spending a few days in the woods, hiking and camping, for the last few months (ever since just before the busy season started).  The last couple of weeks have been melancholy and frantic – in that rushing-to-do-everything-and-not-getting-anything-done kind of way.  I was hoping to walk out of the woods with a life-plan for the next few months laid out in my head.  What happened instead was that I waked out of the woods with a calmer and more peaceful mind, which is therefore more able to put together a life-plan for the next few months . . . maybe sometime this week – I’m really not all that worried about it right now.

So here’s a quick run-down before I head off to bed:

I left my house Wednesday morning and met my buddy SoloJoe Whalen at the Sloatsburg rest stop on 87N (about fifteen minutes or so from my house).  We then caravanned up to The Mountaineer in Keene Valley NY, so that Joe could pick up an air mattress and some other supplies.  We stopped briefly at a cabin called Random Scoots in Keene NY to visit with a couple of friends from the ADKHP forum.  Then we boogied back to the Northway, south one exit, and over to the Upper Works parking area.  The sun was just going down as we got there and we had decent light for the first mile or two.  Around 4.5 miles in (it was dark by this time), we bumped into the monument to the man for which the river we were following (Calamity Brook) got its name (his death was a calamity).  The monument was, however, a side trail, so after snapping a few photos, we booked it back onto the trail, happy in the knowledge that we only had to carry our heavy packs another .4 miles before we started passing lean-tos at which we might sleep.

Well, about two miles later, we hit a sign that read “High Water Bridge” – one which we found familiar.  We put our packs down, wiped the sweat off our faces and looked at each other in perplexity.  I pulled out my iPhone (upon which I was tracking our progress via my GPS app) and pronounced us to have backtracked.  We then said the F word a lot.  And then some more.  I laughed quite a bit at our predicament, as it meant we still had at least another three miles to walk that night and we were already exhausted from carrying those heavy packs.

By the way, when I say “it was dark”, I don’t mean the kind of dark you’re probably used to.  I mean the kind of dark wherein there is no visible light ANYWHERE.  If we switched off our headlamps, we could not see each other standing only a few feet away.  Starlight, yes.  Moonlight, not this evening.

Anyway, we finally made it into a lean-to close to 1AM, scaring the couple within it half to death.  Joe’s got great people skills, though, so he smoothed everything over pretty quickly.  I told them that we were bears, but they didn’t believe me.  Probably Joe with the whole talking-thing.  Joe and I decided not to eat, as that would prolong the already lengthy time we’d be keeping the nice couple awake.  Night comes early in the Adirondacks – about 9PM this season – so even if they had plenty of steamy sex in the lean-to before we arrived, they still must have been asleep for a couple of hours.  As we lay our heads down to rest, I could not, however, resist muttering to Joe “don’t make any moves on that guy, ok?  We just met and you hardly know him.”  I’m sure that was good for an extra couple of minutes of awake-time for the dude.

lolz

We woke up around 6AM on Thursday, had breakfast and were on the trail by 8:30AM.  The lean-to we stayed at was the third one we poked our heads into, and the only one not full.  As such, it was also .4 miles farther away from the trail upon which we would start our march.  It was kind of a long day.  Not in a bad way, but in terms of hours.  We hiked for around 10 hours, returning to the lean-to just before 7PM and covering probably between 12 and 15 miles.  We climbed Gray Peak and Mount Redfield (both “bushwhacks”), putting me at 9/46 for the Adirondack High Peaks and Joe at some ridiculous number beyond my meager 9.  I put ‘bushwhacks’ in quotes back there because the trailless peaks of the Adirondacks have very clear trails on them, but they’re just not marked with blazes or signage.  The bushwhacks in the Catskills are much tougher in a navigational sense, though I can’t imagine trying to get through the growth on the sides of the mountains in the Adirondacks – it’s wicked thick.

On the hike, Joe and I discussed literature, relationships, philosophy and other things sublime.  Come to think of it, I don’t think I said ‘boobs’ more than once or twice.

When we got back to the lean-to, we had something to eat while Joe packed his pack and got ready for the five-mile hump out of the woods.  I have no idea how that sonofabitch made it – I was completely exhausted.  But he did.  And then he drove 5.5 hours back to NJ, packed his stuff and was on a plane from Philly to Colorado by 8:30PM on Friday night.  Joe’s out there now, bagging 14,000 foot peaks.

I had the evening and the lean-to to myself, and I made good use of my time.  By which I mean, I walked down to the beach of the Flowed Lands reservoir (or whatever kind of body of water it is) and rinsed myself off in the cold mountain water.  I also rinsed out my shirt and socks and pumped some more drinking water from the spring.  I didn’t have a computer, so I couldn’t blog, but I made some notes in a notebook and read some of Haruki Murakami‘s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (thanks, Sara, for loaning it to me – it only got a little wet on the hump out of the woods and none of the pages are currently sticking together), which I am currently enjoying immensely.

I went to bed early Thursday night – maybe 10:30 or so – both out of pure exhaustion and lack of stuff to do when it’s black as pitch outside of the lean-to door (which is really the whole front of the place).

I woke up early on Friday morning, said “fuck-it” and dozed for a few hours.  I finally got moving around 10 or 10:30AM, just as the first raindrops began to patter on the lean-to roof.  I made and ate breakfast and arranged my gear so as to minimize the possibility of anything getting wet besides my raingear and my pack’s rain cover.  Then I humped the 5 miles back out of the woods to my car.  In the rain.  And when I say “rain”, I’m talking mountain lions and timber wolves.  It was effin pouring.  The trail wasn’t so much a trail as it was a series of rock-tops upon which to step, and small streams in which one might step without fear of the water coming above the tops of one’s boots.

Not that it mattered in any case; my boots were soaked by the time I got to the car.  I had on these goretex waterproof socks, though, which kept my feet and socks dry, despite the fact that my boots were soaked through.  I couldn’t believe how heavy my boots were when I took them off.  Nor could I believe that the next thing on my plate was to get down to the Cats to meet Scott and hump around all night and day in the woods in those heavy wet boots.

By the way, the hump out of the Adirondacks was simply splendid.  Even though it was raining, I had a great time.  The weather was warm enough that it really didn’t matter if I got all wet (not that I did – I was wearing raingear).  I kept a steady pace and it seemed by that point that my backpacking muscles had figured out what they were doing and gotten stretched out – they were not nearly as sore and painful as they were on Wednesday night.  On that hike, I thought about various hiking-related things, but mostly just enjoyed myself and my vacation.

I got to the car and headed down to the Cats to meet Scott.  Well, actually, I headed back north to Keene to get gas (should have done that Wednesday afternoon), and then south to the Catskills.  I toweled out my boots as best I could and put them in the passenger side footwell, under a blast of hot air.  My wet socks and shirt went on the dashboard, to be warmed and dried by the defogger.  Which created some fog, but not too much.

Believe it or not, by the time I got to the Cats, my socks and shirt were dry, and my boots were barely damp.  It took quite a bit of maneuvering on the drive to achieve this, but I’m glad I did.

I met Scott at the Alder Lake parking area at around 9:50PM on Friday night and we humped the 2.25 miles in to the Beaver Meadow Lean-to.  This night hike also involved some backtracking, though probably only about .5 miles-worth.  I wonder if there’s a patch for night-hike backtracking miles.

We hit the lean-to around midnight and ate, then slept in on Saturday morning and hiked a rather lazy six miles or so along Mill Brook Ridge, bagging the high point and the high point of Woodpecker Ridge (a quick bushwhack), while talking of recent events and things sublime.  That puts us at 47/102 for the Catskill Hundred Highest.

We then stopped back at the lean-to, gathered our heavy stuff and humped back out to our cars.

When we got home, I took a nice long hot shower and went to Steve’s Sizzlin’ for a big steak, then swung by Scott’s house to hang out for a bit.

Today was a lazy day, but I got all my errands run.  It was an excellent weekend and I’m currently walking the earth with a deep sense of peace in the background.  I’m pretty ok with going back to work in the morning, which means it was a successful vacation.

=)

So it’s half past midnight and I’m still up.  I really should be in bed by now.  This has been a short, hard week.  Not hard like “oh my god, I don’t think I can do this” – there’s just been a lot of work involved.  I haven’t done much outside of waking up and going into the office, coming home and working for a couple of hours, and then going to bed.

The work is getting done, but I have this lingering sense of guilt whenever I’m not working.  For example, I’ve been emailing with clients in Taiwan until around midnight or 1 every night and getting in to the office until around 10:30AM.  I’ve been leaving the office between 6:30 and 10 every night.  My week started with an 8:30PM conference call on Sunday night (Monday morning in Taiwan).  And still when I hit the snooze bar at 8:30AM, a little niggler in the back of my mind says “you’re supposed to be in the office now” (8:30 is my normal start time – not that I get in before 9).

I know there’s no real sense in paying attention to this itchy thought process – that if I scratch it or in any way start to pay attention to it, it will simply become more inflamed and demand more of my attention.  So I’ve mainly been ignoring it.  The other move is to go down the road of rationalization/justification:  “I was in the office until a ridiculous hour last night,” “I need at least a couple of hours to myself every day – there’s no reason I need to be working now,” etc.

That line of thought can be dangerous for me, because it leads to “they’re not paying me enough for the sh*t I put up with,” and eventually “don’t they realize who I AM?!?”  Bad thought, that.

In addition to ignoring the itchy, niggly, guilty thoughts and forging ahead, I’ve also been catching the hours of downtime as best I can.  Tonight I left work at 6:30, planning to get to Campmor and Radio Shack before I met Anthony for sushi at 8:30.  I got home around 7 and realized that if I cut the Campmor trip out, I’d have a whole hour to decompress and read my book before Anthony arrived.  So I did just that.  And it was wonderful.

Scott, Anthony and I left from my house at 8:30 and had sushi – well, Scott the Fat Vegan had edamame and something else (because fish-brothers have faces).  I more or less gorged myself and it was wonderful.  The three of us chilled at my place for a bit afterward and then Anthony bounced and Scott and I talked hiking gear and relationships until just about now.

Tomorrow I’m going to leave work early – hopefully around noon – and meet my buddy SoloJoe up in the ‘dacks for to go on the hiking escapade.  [If you didn't pick up the Hungarian accent there, you probably need to watch some more porn.]  Tentatively, we’ll bag four peaks over nineteen miles on Saturday (or just two in about 2/3 of that) and then bag another two easy ones on Sunday.  I have a conference call at 4AM on Monday, so I need all the head-clearing, sweat-creating, relaxation time I can get between now and then.  Sorry Christine, I won’t be at your party tomorrow night.  =(

I’m certain I’ll either forget or never get around to posting it, so here’s the quote from Wednesday’s zen-a-day calendar:

When you do something, you should burn yourself completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.

-Shunryu Suzuki

I’m a big fan of Suzuki’s discussions.  As far as I can tell, he’s really the Eastern dude who made Zen available and graspable (that’s probably an oxymoron) for Western dudes like me.  Alan Watts is the Western dude who’s credited with bringing Zen to this continent.  I think.  Anyway, I dig Suzuki.

This quote put me in mind of a Lauren Flax post from way back – when she was doing the Spark thing.  Her piece is called Burning and you can get to it by clicking the link and scrolling through that post until just after the pictures.  Though why in hell you’d want to skip a word of what Lauren Flax has to say is beyond me.  Sheesh, effin’ disposable society.

THERE IS NOTHING *BUT* INSTANT GRATIFICATION.  THERE IS NOT ANOTHER KIND.*

Suck on some of THAT zen, em-effers.

*Because we only have this instant, silly:  nothing “lasts”.

I don’t really know that I have all that much to say.  I mean, I have plenty to say, but not anything in particular that I’d like to talk about right now.  All weekend long I’ve had threads run through my head that would make nice blog posts:  interesting things I could tease out into 500 or so words (who am I kidding – probably more like 1000).

So here’s (maybe) the reader’s digest version (in no particular order).

This morning I dreamed a little bit of fear.  Overall, the dream was an interesting one:  it came in several parts; I think they were connected, but it’s hard to tell.  At the end of the dream, I had to run up this flight of square-spiral stairs to get to this ledge on a balcony that overlooked a courtyard or something (like the open inside of an Embassy Suites hotel – if, of course, they’re all like that – there’s a word for this, a European one, I think).  I had been studying something like lock-picking or lock-building (this wasn’t exactly it, so don’t shrink my head about locks and/or secrets or something); suffice to say I was watching this old man do his work and mostly keeping quiet (hey, at least I’m progressing in my dreams).  Anyway, we had to be at the top of this balcony thing in a couple of minutes and I took the stairs because it would be faster – the old man couldn’t run that fast, so he had to take the lift, which was slower.

Anyway, as I got to the last flight of five or so steps (in the squared-spiral), I noticed that the steps themselves got narrower and that they opened onto a very narrow catwalk-type thing – it had metal edges and carpet down the center; it was maybe 9 inches wide.  I realized that I’d be way exposed at a great height and my fear of heights kicked in.  Call it vertigo or whatever, but the feeling is like one wrong move (and there are no right moves) and I’m going to catapault off the side.  The only real solution for this – which is no real solution at all – is to hug the ground (or whatever’s horizontal) as closely as possible and move very slowly, heart-in-mouth the whole time.

This is a real thing for me, by the way.  I’ve had a pretty severe fear of heights in the past and have frozen just like this, scared shitless.

Anyway, in the second it took me to pause, the staircase started closing in on me.

While I’ve had this fear of heights in the past, I’m pretty much over it at this point.  I’ve had my ass hanging out over nothing on the side of a mountain – with a long way down – many a time.  Oh, it’s still pretty freaky, but I try to get the job done and not think about it.  I don’ t know that I can say I’ve conquered this fear, but I certainly know how to deal with it.

This feeling of fear in my dream was very real – exactly like it used to be when I was a kid.  Anyway, I only paused for a second in the dream, because I knew how to get past the fear.  But that second was long enough for my surroundings to start inhibiting me (whyever inanimate objects would want to inhibit me, I have no idea – let’s not get into any persecution complex thingies here, dear reader, hmmm?).  So by the time I got to the last step or two, I was squeezing my legs out of the teeny staircase opening.  And the old man had beat me to the top.  I woke up a little bit later in the dream sequence.

When I woke up, I knew that (that part of) the dream was about fear and possibly conquering it.  I have no real idea how to interpret the dream, because other than the momentary heart-pounding from the vertigo-anticipation, it didn’t really affect me.  I didn’t get scared enough to wake up, and I moved past my fear in my dream.

Maybe it was just a reminder that I need to move past my fears in real life.  I need to figure out what those are – that’s something that’s been on my mind a bit lately.

******   ******   ******

So that’s a decent segue into something else that I’ve been thinking about this weekend:  writing poetry.

I haven’t written any poetry since I was in college.  I used to write all kinds of crap – if you’ve been reading long enough, you may even have read some, dear reader.  I’d say my poetry writing career was between 16 and 22.  I hit puberty somewhere in that range.  Obviously – my poetry was all kinds of angsty.  It was all about emotions and really wallowing in them – good or bad.

So thinking about that shite got me to realizing that my emotions are nowhere near as extreme as they once were.  If I were to be all melodramatic, I’d say something like “I don’t have emotions anymore – I can’t feel anything”.  But that’s not true.  I still feel stuff.  I get crushes and I get hurt; I get pissed and I’m generally pretty happy, sometimes even ecstatic.  I still get embarrassed, though being naked isn’t one of the things to cause it anymore (hell, at this point I know it’s not going to get any bigger, but it gets that old-woman-blush-young-girl-squeal job done pretty well), sometimes I’m lonely, and sometimes that’s mixed with sadness and self-pity (though not to that teenager extreme).

Oh, and by the way, to any emos who might be reading this:  I was once like you.  AND I GOT OVER IT.  One day, you’ll work in an office too, and you’ll probably like it.  So stop dressing like a retard and whining all the time.  Hang out with the punk rockers and maybe try some drugs that involve having fun and not crying – they’re much better than the ones you’re doing now.  Emo = you’re doing it wrong (re: drugs).  Get a real style.  If you were that hardcore, you’d have offed yourself by now.

In any case, there are a any number of different things I could say about my relationship with my emotions, but I think I’ll leave that for a different post when it’s not almost 1AM and I have to be at work in the morning.  Suffice to say that I believe that emotions are meant to be felt deeply – that in order to truly feel love, one has to risk getting hurt – and I’m slightly concerned that I’m too afraid of getting hurt to put myself out there and fall in love again.  Not that there are a shit-ton of prospects knocking down my door at the moment.

The point of the last handful of paragraphs is that I think I’d like to start writing poetry again, and that I think I’ll need a crutch or two in order to do so.  Those crutches shall be named ‘haiku’ and ‘sonnet’.  I need a structure to fill in order to get back in that saddle.  So hopefully you’ll be reading some niceguyted poetry in the near future.  Sans teenage angst.

******   ******   ******

And the last bit for tonight regards today’s reading from the calendar of zen:

If you really want to get to the truth of Zen, get it while walking, while standing, while sleeping or sitting. . . while working. (Pen-Hsien)

That’s what I was talking about in my post the other day:  for me, zen is an every-moment thing – it’s not simply an adjective for spartan artwork.  The object of zazen (in my opinion) is merely to take some time to practice meditation.  Meditation should be an every-moment thing as well, but it takes practice to be able to do it while simultaneously doing something else.

If one can’t walk and chew gum, one needs to spend some time sitting and chewing gum, until the action of gum-chewing becomes subconscious – a habit, if you will – then one can practice (a little at a time) doing both together.  One may stumble here and there, or find oneself not actually chewing while walking, but that’s ok – it’s just a matter of realization at that point and getting back to walking and chewing gum.

So much of what I’ve read about meditation is that it’s object (or one of them, at least) is to be able to walk through life in a state of constant meditation.  ‘Mindfulness’ is a word often used.

That’s where I’m at:  I’m trying to walk through life in a state of mindfulness.  Which also means I need to get back to my zazen practice.  Because, as Shunryu Suzuki once said,

Life without zazen is like winding your clock without setting it.  It runs perfectly well, but doesn’t tell time.

As you may or may not know, my daily morning reading/meditation comes from my Zen-a-Day calendar.  I’ve ripped off plenty of those pages on plenty of these here pages already.  Yesterday’s reading was as follows:

A tea master asked his son to rake the leaves in the temple garden.  When the boy was finished, the tea master did not approve.  The boy then returned to the garden and took great care to rake it again, so thoroughly that not one leaf or twig remained.  Still the tea master did not approve.  The boy was baffled, not knowing what else he could do.  The tea master stepped into the garden and shook a tree, allowing a few autumn leaves to drift down upon the immaculately swept grounds.

Aside from the nice visual created in my mind, I’m not so sure how well this jives with my current understanding of Zen Buddhism.  I suppose I’m cultivating more of an active-zen than anything else right now, which is why the note I placed on the calendar leaf this morning was “zen as an ‘art’ concept ≠ zen itself.”

I think society’s current understanding of Zen is more as it relates to visual experiences than anything else.  We see a spartan room with one (or a few) carefully placed objects and say “that’s very zen”.

Caveat:  I am not a Zen Buddhist monk, nor has my study of Zen Buddhism been what one might call exhaustive.  I’ve read a bunch of things and can only give you my impression of what Zen means.  I am by no means an expert.  Though perhaps I am.

It doesn’t really matter anyway – the concept of ‘expertise’ doesn’t really fit in with Zen anyway, I think.

This is my third year with the Zen-a-Day calendar.  So far, there have been few repetitions, for which I’m thankful.  So to get back to what I wanted to say in the first place:

For me, zen (not much point in capitalizing) is, to a certain extent, about stripping things of their perceptual accoutrement, but it’s also about those perceptions themselves.  They’re all we have.  Zen is about the moment.  While my perceptions in this moment are unavoidably shaped by the past (perceptions in other moments), the past isn’t now.  And zen is about the now.

So, insofar as the reading placed a pleasant image in my head for a moment, it’s that moment that’s the bit of zen, not the characteristics of the image itself – a few scattered autumn leaves on a pristine bit of ground.

Swami Ramananda wasn’t really all that prepared for the satsang on Sunday.  I think the topic was something along the lines of “the obstacles of commitment” or some such.  I think the original point of the topic was for him to discuss issues that come up for those committed to yoga as a spiritual path.  At some point, it kind of devolved into relationship advice from a single dude who’d never been married and took a vow of renunciation (mostly material things, I think, though it’s technically ‘everything’) twenty-something years ago.

I’ll give you a quick thread I pulled from the satsang overall and probably leave it at that.

One of the things Swami Ramananda touched on repeatedly was “sustained effort”.

Crap.  I think this is going to turn into more than just one thread.

Ok, whatever (“starting on the left…” – “That’s the right foot, Daddy!”) it’s too late; keep going:

I think what he was really doing was defining ‘commitment’ as “sustained effort” – that even though the path may sometimes be rocky or uneasy to walk upon, commitment means staying on that path in order to find out where it takes us.

Swami Ramananda told the story of a seeker who was on his way to heaven – this one passed two other seekers who were still on their respective paths (of the eight-limbed path of yoga).  Both asked if he would bring back some news for them once he reached enlightenment.  The first was on the path of meditation (as a means of achieving enlightenment – I forget the name of this path), and the second was on the path of joyous celebration (also on the way to enlightenment – I think this is called Bhakti yoga).

The first seeker had been sitting in unmoving meditation for so long that an anthill had grown up around him.  But no matter how uncomfortable the ants were, he wouldn’t move.  The second was dancing and singing and smiling and doing lots of happy things.  When the seeker returned from heaven (being now enlightened), he kept his promise and stopped by the other two on his way to I don’t know where – maybe Katie’s party last Saturday.  Anyway, the meditating seeker asked the enlightened one how much longer until he achieved enlightenment.  The answer was “two more births,” to which the seeker replied “Jesus effin Christ on a stick, I don’t know if I can make it that long” (I’m paraphrasing here).  He doubted his commitment.

The second seeker asked the same question and the enlightened one pointed to one of the trees and said “you have as many lifetimes left to go as there are leaves on that tree over there”.  This seeker (who was partying pretty hard) said “sweet!  A finite number – so it’s totally countable!”  He immediately became enlightened.

The overall point being that the joy is in the journey – that if one is joyful about the journey, that is the quickest path to enlightenment.

Were I the one telling the story, I probably would have flipped it around and told it the other way as well – where the first seeker said “two more births?  No prob, I dig meditation” and the second seeker said “f*ck me, but my legs are tired!” – and the first being enlightened, while the second was stuck with partying.  Just for the sake of illustration, would I have told it this way as well.

So toward the end of the satsang, when Swami Ramananda was answering questions and most of them related to marriage or some other relationship-type commitment, one dude said in that nasally stoner-sounding voice (with the all-famous I’ve-just-had-an-epiphany-and-I’m-sharing-it-with-you tone of voice) “I’ve been realizing more and more that love is a choosing.  A choosing. . . [blah, blah, blah] . . . a choosing.”

Seriously, dear reader, he said “a choosing” like six times – I think those two words were like 45% of his statement’s word count.

And me, in my infinite wisdom (I mean, c’mon the dragon is my current totem), sitting behind him, subvocalized “shit, bro – have fun with that anthill”.

My point here is that, yes, “the joy is in the journey”, but more so that the journey is about finding the joy.  For me.  I’m not going to speak on behalf of anyone else.  It’s about finding the joy in life for me.  Because, as I mentioned in yesterday’s post (at the end – the part after the mundanities), there’s nothing but the here and now.

I’ll tell you what:  enlightenment sounds pretty cool, but it’s like any other projection or pipe-dream:  it’s not here, and it’s not now.  Not for me.  Maybe not now, maybe not ever.  I’m not even sure I feel like believing in enlightenment.  Hell, give me a sunny day and a good book or some good company or a full tank of gas and no traffic or a spreadsheet full of data with secrets buried inside – or a million other things – a blank screen and some thoughts to tumble onto the pixels.  Shit, life is good right now.  I’m one happy camper.  If you can tell me enlightenment is better than the here and now, then I’ll probably say that you have no idea what you’re talking about.

Go ahead:  tell me you’re enlightened.  I dare you.

Not that this site is really getting all that many hits from www.Nirva.na – you know?

Anyway, one more digression before I go:

The thing with the stoner-sounding dude talking about love being a choosing – I don’t know that I really buy that.  During the satsang, the Swami talked about commitment as being kind of a grey area – that it’s not always all-or-nothing:  sometimes one needs to leave the path one has been committed to walking.  Take it from a guy who’s walked the path of ‘the hard way’ for a real long time:  the rough patches aren’t the ones that define commitment or the right path.  Oh, they’re there in both cases, and commitment must necessarily be tested, but there are a million ways up the mountain – not all of which are rough all the time.  And the one that’s rough all the time, well, as much as I like to think myself the tough guy for making it through, I don’t necessarily know that it’s the best way to the top of the mountain – it’s just a way.

Fuckit – I’m starting to think in thircleth right now.  Pick a way up the mountain – there are a lot of them – I’m going to try to enjoy myself as much as possible on the way up; I’ll meet you at the top either way.

This past weekend was a decent one.  I spent an inordinate amount of time sleeping.  Went to bed around 11:30 on Friday night, after getting out of work around 8:30, which precluded any trip up to the Adirondacks.  Got up around 1 or so on Saturday (yes, in the afternoon) and had to have my brother stop by and jump start my car.  Man, was I glad I wasn’t in the Adirondacks for that call!

After John jumped my car, I threw my laundry in and received a call from my mother – her battery had died and she needed to pick up a new one from the Toyota dealership.  So I picked her up and we got her battery and installed it.  I drove straight from there to the Pep Boys in Paterson and got myself a new battery (and installed it).  No more battery issues for me after that.

After my laundry was done and I had eaten, I took a shower and picked up John and then Scott to head in to Astoria for Katie’s birthday party.  We all had a fantabulous time.  Well, Scott and I did.  John was ludicrously drunk (ah, memories) and fully succeeded in embarrassing himself.  The DJ played 80s and 90s hair and regular metal and (some dance) and Denny and Brad (guitar and djembe) played a set that Katie designed.  Pretty excellent, overall.  As always, I was humbled that Katie’s friends all remembered me and were happy to see me.  It was very cool to see them as well and spend some more time hanging out.

Scott, John and I left around 1:30 or 2 and I dropped those fuckers back off at their respective apartments.

Scott showed up at my house at 8:30 on Sunday morning so that we could head off to the puja at 10.  The puja was pretty excellent.  That’s a yoga prayer service, for those of you who are as uninitiated as I was prior to Sunday (well, truth be told, I knew what a puja is before that – just hadn’t been to one before).  After the puja was a satsang with Swami Ramananda of the Integral Yoga Institute of New York City.  In between, we did a bunch of chanting.  Overall, a very fly way to spend a bunch of hours in a row.  I particularly dug the chanting.

After that, Scott and I had lunch at Whole Foods (my Burger King) and discussed the puja and satsang.  Then we went to Ramsey Outdoor Store and visited our stuff.

I got home around 5 or so and fell asleep shortly thereafter.  I woke up around 10 to put my pyjamas on and got up in time to be not as late to work as I usually am.

Both Scott and I were aware of the fact that we were not particularly self-conscious during the puja, chanting or satsang – when once we would have been incredibly so.

Being around a group of people dedicated to a particular spiritual path was pretty cool.  It wasn’t very much like going to church – there were only about 10 people there (including Scott and me) and it was relatively informal.  Very comfortable.  Normally, I’d feel out-of-place and would have spent the time measuring my own spirituality against the people there – comparing and coming to the conclusion that I really should be along their spiritual path (and farther along on it, for that matter).  Or finding my own spirituality coming up short.

Not so this past Sunday.  I was very comfortable with the whole situation.  I was comfortable in my own spirituality and felt no need to compare.  For the most part, I spent my time identifying aspects of my own spirituality with what was displayed and discussed among the others around me.  But at no point did I feel inferior.  And this had nothing to do with anyone else present – not I caught any kind of condescending vibe anyway – it was entirely due to the fact that I was cool with me.

I don’t really know that I can describe my spiritual path to you, dear reader, but I must be doing something right if I was able to hang out with that bunch of yogis and be pretty comfortable with myself.

I lean a lot on zen stuff, but I can’t really say that I’m a Zen Buddhist.  I’ve read a bunch about zen, but I think the more I read – treatises and whatnot – the less I’m learning.  For me, zen means simplicity.  It means that if I think I know something, I really don’t.  That there’s no such thing as ‘understanding.’  That if I think I get it, well, that’s the surest proof that I don’t.  That there’s nothing but the here and now.  Nothing beyond it.  That life is meant to be lived and experienced.  That’s it.

Be kind, be grateful and live.

I’m doing it again.  Reading.  Fiction.  Science fiction, to be exact.

And I’m enjoying it.

It’s 12:28 and I’m struggling to write this because I want to get back to my book.  This doesn’t bode well, dear reader.  I’ve things to accomplish and I’m not sure that I won’t get sucked in to this novel until I’ve finished it.  I’ve been late to work every day this week – which is not so unusual – even though I’ve been making it to bed by around this time.  Which implies, of course, that I really should be getting to bed around midnight or earlier.

Right now, my mind is whirling on in attempt to justify another half an hour, another chapter, another 20 pages before bed.  My eyes are scratchy and that’s what I’m thinking about, even as I’m typing this.

No, this won’t do at all.  My pale green “fresh bamboo”-scented candle burns on my desk and the aroma is soothing in its pleasantness.  The two shaded incandescent lights at opposite ends of my apartment – one next to my chair and one over my bed – are lit and, combined with the ambered pine floors beneath the rugs and the angles of my ceiling impart a feeling that cannot be described as other than cozy.  Gemütlich, even.

No, I’ve no desire to leave this place for work tomorrow at all.

Pity.

I’ve been giggling my ass off all night long.  And I’ve got Bob Marley playing on the stereo right now.

No, dear reader, I’m not pulling tubes in my apartment.  I’ve been having a great time on facebook with my buddy Matt Helmick (@IntegralHack on Twitter), and for whatever reason, I can’t blog to Marley.  I have no idea why, but my thoughts just don’t stay on track when he’s in the background.  I know these CDs back-to-front, so one would think it would be as meditative for me as anything else, but it’s just not.

Anyway, Matt and I bumped into one another via the yoga circles on Twitter.  After spending some time slinging 140 character one-liners back and forth, he found me on facebook.  And facebook’s functionality has definitely trumped Twitter as far as cross-country friendship-building possibilities go.

So yeah, before this gets to be sounding too gay – frig, I lost my train of thought again.  Damn you, Bob.

Oh yeah:  Matt and I have three fellow mateys on facebook (read: three friends in common – I view facebook in English (Pirate), so I don’t see things quite like you do):  Andrei Codrescu, Liz Wilhite and Jennilyn Carson.  Jennilyn came first – she also travels in the Twitter yoga circles as @yogadork; her blog is on my blogroll (down and to the right).

Andrei is some author for the New York Times or some such publication for The Man – I don’t remember.  I think Matt, Liz and I were going back and forth in Matt’s facebook comments about something Andrei wrote – so I friended him and passed his link along to them.  Liz and Matt are friends IRL, I think.  Somewhere in there, I friended Liz as well – her comments and status updates are dry and witty and totally fits her url slug “Satirica”.  Awesome.  I just noticed that.

I’ve been meaning to ask Liz for a cake recipe or two.

This evening, Matt’s sister Wendi posted a comment in the thread that Liz and I were in.  I chanced to mention to Matt that Wendi is H4WT, and he suggested a sister-swap.  Being ever the gentleman and protective brother I am, I of course declined, but said that I would certainly friend-suggest my favorite sister Katie (who always brings the awesomeness) to him, that we might have more fellow mateys.  Which I did.

And to my surprise, Matt also suggested Wendi as a possible swashbucklin’ matey fer me!  Will wonders never cease.  I am continually astounded at the bounteous synchronicity of this Universe.  It’s honestly a wonder that I’m still agnostic.

So if everything works as the Universe seems to have planned – totally independent of any meddling on our parts – Matt and I will, sometime in the near future, have 5 fellow mateys.  Oh frabjous day, caloo calay!

KATIE IF YOU DON’T FRIEND MATT I’M GOING TO SET YOUR CAR ON FIRE *AFTER* I COVER IT IN BOLOGNA.

Seriously.  I know you’re logged in to facebook right now.  JUST DO IT.

Stupid reggae.  Where was I?  Huh.  I totally lost my train of thought.  Again.

In any case, I’m off to bed now, to lay my head a-rest on that sweet pillow of balance in the Universe – the pillowcase being gratitude, of course.

Ok.  Check it as I wreck it:

I’ve been all over the place lately.  Looking for instant gratification in all the wrong places.  Well, the right places, but instant gratification isn’t what I need; I get too wrapped up in it and forget about long-term goals.

So here’s my plan:  I’m going to do an inventory and figure out what my goals are (or are going to be or should be or whatever).  That way, I can start out on the path toward these goals, instead of running around (figuratively) jerking off all over the place and not really getting anything substantial done with my life at present.

1. I’m going to start by making a list of all the things I want to do or have.  The beginning of that list is below.
2. Then I’m going to group those things in the list into…well, things that are like each other.
3. After that, I’m going to put those groups into an order of priority – which ones I want to get/achieve first.
4. Then (I may skip that last step and go directly to this one) I’m going to figure out a couple of long- and short-term life goals and start moving toward them.  Inexorably.

You see, I’ve been all over the place lately and I realize that I haven’t been moving toward any particular goals at all.  I’m just kind of doing things for a “feel good” sensation as soon as possible.  But I’m repeating myself.

The purpose of this is to get me back onto a normal cycle of effort and sense of accomplishment.  I know that even just a little bit of a sense of accomplishment is like a catalyst for more effort.  It’s definitely an ouroborean chicken/egg thing:  one begets the other.

It’s an unending cycle.  Except that at some point in the past few months, the cycle ended for me.  Well maybe not ended.  Maybe a wave analogy would be better at this point:

My emotional wave has become completely irregular – amplitude, wavelength, and period are not predictable.  In my attempt to increase the frequency of my “feel good” moments (metaphors officially mixed), I shorten the wavelength by messing around too much on facebook and other social media sites (or doing other things), but eventually get bored and flatline for a bit – before starting all over again.  But again, everything is irregular.  There’s no predictability.  I need to get back to the rolling waves of the deep ocean (see me in my little lifeboat, riding to the crest, then surfing into the trough).

Seriously, I know you don’t usually click the links, dear reader, but if you check out the bewitched pictures in the last couple of links, you’ll get a better feel for what I’m talking about.

Did I mention that my facebook time is now spent reading in English (Pirate)?

So.  Before I digress further, here’s the beginning of my list (I’ll continue to add to it in the next few days)”

Things I’d Like to Do/Have

• pushups
• iPhone
• GPS
• 46ers patch
• 3500 Club winter patch
• girl
• more $
• my own business
• bar membership(s)/solo practitioner attorney
• social media gig
• new suit
• topcoat
• pay off student loans
• new jeans
• be more on time to work
• become a more proficient bass player
• more social media followers/friends/influence

Yes, yes, I know that most of these things are material and that I seem to be ignoring the spiritual.  But please remember, dear reader, that I’m a zen pragmatist.  I believe strongly in “chop wood, fetch water, seek enlightenment” and other such things.  “Bring the body and the mind will follow” is a good one too.  My mind is always going anyway; as long as I’m doing something, my thoughts tend to be clearer and less jumbled.  This lonely philosopher achieves enlightenment through action.

The muse isn’t speaking to me particularly clearly tonight.  My mind is kind of nowhere right now.  Which, in a zen/yogic sense, is probably ideal.  My belly is full, my apartment is warm, Laila Jo and I are chilling and listening to one of my metal tribute to Metallica discs; I really can’t think of anything more for which to ask.

My friend Mike bought me a kitchen knife set for my 4th anniversary of not being a complete asshole.  It’s pretty sweet.  I’ve been cooking more lately, and I can’t begin to tell you how much easier it is to cut onions with an actual cleaver than it is to cut them with a big ass hunting knife.

I’m grateful for the Gratitude Drum Circle this past Saturday evening.  Quite a few people showed up, no drama ensued (to which I was privy, at least), I’m pretty sure everyone had a good time, and my apartment is cleaner and more organized than it has been in a while.

In order to have room to fit everyone, I had to put a lot of my (albeit “organized”) clutter away – I’m grateful for the abundant closet space in my attic-like apartment.  I bought a vacuum on Saturday; sweeping the cat fur off of the rug was becoming a full-time job.  I picked out a good vacuum cleaner from the new Target on Route 4, but didn’t look at the box I actually bought.  This one has a bag and is much bigger than I the one I was looking at.  I don’t really like vacuums with bags.  Maybe my mother, brother, or sister could use a new one.  In any case, the overall feng shui of my apartment has improved significantly since I put all my junk away.

Come to think of it, I also bought the wrong silkscreen ink on Saturday as well.  I needed black ink for the shirt I’m making for Jim Spaulding, and instead of picking up black fabric ink, I bought black acrylic ink.  The latter isn’t designed to be washable.  Pearl paint was all out of black fabric ink, and I really thought I found the last one – that’s what I get for being right-brained:  the words ‘fabric’ and ‘acrylic’ are awfully similar in a holistic sense.

As I was driving to the car wash on Sunday, I was thinking about the Gratitude Drum Circle of the night before and was – get this – overwhelmed by a feeling of gratitude.  Go figure.  Probably the coolest part about the experience was that it happened on a section of road upon which I drive to work every day.  So it happened again for me this morning.  I’m hoping this feeling continues whenever I drive over that particular bit of macadam.

Several people said they’d come back for another drum circle on the next full moon.  I wish I could figure out how to set up an audio link to the *.m4a file that Alli sent me with one of the drum circle grooves on it, but I can’t even get my media player to open it.  If anybody has any suggestions, let me know.  I’ll probably google it another time; I already did, but the conversion program I installed wants me to give them $39 for the year to make it work – which I’m not going to do.  I’m sure there’s a free way to do it, if I only look a bit harder.

Someone else put up a blog post about Star Wars characters on Twitter, so I posted the link to my list in the comments section.  My stats have been blowing up all day.  Which is good for my ego and (theoretically) my pocketbook – I’m going to guess that Google owes me about $5 for the ads over the past year.  I’m not going to bother checking; this blog isn’t that popular yet anyway.

So yeah, that’s pretty much it.  As I said, my mind isn’t anywhere in particular right now, and I kind of like that.  I’d like to spend some time setting up a separate directory and installing WordPress MU and Buddypress, but that’s going to take some time and stress, and I don’t feel like harshing my mellow right now.  I’m going to go practice my bass for a bit – I printed out the tablature for Jason Newstead’s bass solo at the Mexico City concert from the Binge & Purge boxed set.

Overall, I think the sin I struggled with most during my trip to San Diego was envy.  I’d like to discuss this at length, but I’m tired and would like to make it to work on time tomorrow – even if it is a Friday.  So this will be short.

[Famous last words of Ted Wallace.]

I just finished Life of Pi – Yann Martel is the author, by the way.  I really should update my Goodreads profile; there are a lot of books I’ve read recently that aren’t included therein/on.

I’d have to say that I would recommend this book relatively highly.  I’d give it two semi-enthusiastic thumbs up.  I can’t really go off on a tirade about how wonderful it was, because it wasn’t.  But it wasn’t crappy either.  Very (brown) Indian – lots and lots of adjectives piled atop one another, which I find to be somewhat tiresome and frilly.  The story, while not ridiculously exciting, moved along at a fairly brisk pace, for which I was and am grateful.

As far as making me believe in God (with a capital ‘G’), I’m not so sure.  Probably less than Millman’s book Way of the Peaceful Warrior was a “life-changing” read [read my semi-half-assed review here].  Maybe I am and was too tired to take Martel’s implications and run and dance with them.  Maybe they just need time to sink in.  Man is an animal.  Yay and duh at the same time.

Overall, though, it was an interesting and quick read and didn’t conform (in my mind at least) to one of the 21 (or however many) major plotline archetypes.  Two thumbs, but not all that far up.  Maybe waist-high, but not as stiff as the Fonze’s.

I don’t know if it’s the book, some bit of jet lag, or a combination of both and other things as well that’s left me a bit off today.  I didn’t get very much done at work, which isn’t unusual – though I did take care of everything that might qualify as immediately pressing.

It was nice to sit in my chair and read with Laila Jo in my lap, purring like a fuzzy engine.  She shad quite a bit while I was petting her – and while I was away.

Overall, I have an overwhelming sense of solitude.  It’s not the sweet kind that comes with finally having some time to myself after a stretch of busy-ness, nor is it the bitter kind that’s soured by loneliness.  My solitude is more of a fact: it just is.

I flew to the other side of the country and back again over the course of three days – albeit accompanied (to a certain extent) the entire time.  I returned home to find things pretty much as I had left them.  I did not have a sense of home-coming.  In fact, when I returned a text to a friend of mine, I couldn’t bring myself to say “it’s good to be home”, rather, I said “it’s good to be back“.  I struggled with my choice of words for a moment, deciding to err on the side of truthfulness.

Not that I’m not home.  Nor am I in some sort of melancholic malaise.  I just am, and that’s a very bland fact right now.  Not nearly as exciting as the yogis and zen masters make it out to seem.  At least not right now.  I’m going to bed.  Things are always different in the morning.

My zen-a-day calendar has been a bit list-happy for the past few days.  Yesterday’s quote (which is today’s quote for me, because you’re now reading something that was written in the past (yay time capsules)) was, I thought (try to follow me, here dear reader, without criticizing my tense-usage), pretty darned apropos and pragmatically…well…Zen:

1. Get enough food to eat, and eat it.
2. Find a place to sleep where it is quiet, sleep there.
3. Reduce intellectual and emotional noise until you arrive at the silence of yourself, and listen to it.

-Richard Brautigan

Yes, #4 is blank on my page at home as well.  I’m curious to hear your thoughts on #4.  And so glad to have a comments section.  Please, dear reader, let me know what you think.

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about ego deflation in the last couple of days.  I was speaking with a friend of mine this evening, and she passed along this aphorism:  “10% of life is what happens to us, 90% is our reaction to it.”

Now, what I’m wondering is if we follow the “kill self now” aspect of so many philosophies (zen, for example), and get with the fact that shit happens – shit doesn’t happen to us, it just happens - then what exactly is that other 90%?

That is – hypothetically speaking, of course – if I can come to terms with the fact that there is no ‘me’, that I’m just one teeny piece of the universe, and I can put away the whole concept of something happening ‘to me’, then what am I left with?

A thorough discussion of acceptance is well outside the scope of this post, but if you’re down with the notions I’m throwing your way, what happens to that 90% of life that’s supposed to be all reaction to the happenings?  Is it just air – nothingness – like the air inside of whipped cream or styrofoam?  Or is it nothing at all, and the 10% is really 100% – do we then get lost in that 10% of life, because that’s all there really is (shit happens)?

Is it the tao that fills the empty ewer?  What do you think?

It seems to me (note the self-conscious self-reference) that if the all-important *I* is removed from the equation, there can be really no conclusion other than that the 10% is really 100%, and that what passes for ‘me’ is just one little bit of everything.  And, if we stir in a bit of reductio ad absurdum, there really aren’t any little ‘bits’ at all – everything is everything (as the divas say) – and, consequently, *I* am everything – and nothing – at the same time.

Thus concludes today’s lesson in mind-fucking.  Procrastination classes start tomorrow.

When I dance, I dance; when I sleep, I sleep; yes, and when I walk alone in a beautiful orchard, if my thoughts drift to far-off matters for some part of the time for some other part I lead them back again to the walk, the orchard, to the sweetness of this solitude, to myself.

-Michel de Montaigne

So I walked in to Barnes & Noble tonight and asked the girl at the help desk if she could point me in the direction of the self-help section.  Her reply:  “Wouldn’t that be defeating the purpose?”

Joke.

I know full well where the self-help section of the B&N is – it’s like the section on the map marked “Wilderness”.  As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing there.  Except maybe tygers and dragons.

My favorite character from Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged is Ragnar Danneskjöld.

I didn’t have meaningless sex last night.  But I did go to yoga.  Did it help?  Yes.  Quite a bit, in fact.

There were two chicks in the class that were about my age – one was kind of cute.  It a bit distracting, but probably just the challenge I needed.  I still have knots in my shoulders, but damn did it feel good to stretch every effin part of my body.

In case you’re not a yogi/yogini, one practices with one’s eyes closed.  That was a bonus for me, what with the chicks in the class.  I’m usually none too good at keeping my eyes to myself.  So I was glad that I had them closed.

Yoga practice is meditative – one is (at least in my mind) supposed to be in a state of meditation for the entire class.  I try to be, at least.  In meditation, I try to detach myself from my thoughts – to be aware of the facts that I am not my body, nor am I my mind.

I try to let my mind focus on my the postures (my body) while I’m practicing yoga.  I try to let my thoughts pass through my mind, without getting lost in them or attempting to control them.  As a matter of fact, I try to do this all the time – whether I’m “meditating” or not.

Supposedly, that’s one of the stages of yoga and/or zen practice – to be basically in a state of constant meditation.

I’m out of practice at formal meditation, so I had a little trouble watching the river of my thoughts rush by without getting caught up in them.   They started to sweep me away a few times.

All in all, though, I consider last night’s endeavour a success.  For me, personal change has to take place slowly, in small increments.  As much as I would hope that an hour and a half of yoga practice would relieve all the tension in my body and set my mind at peace, I can’t expect these things to happen immediately.  But last night’s exercise was a step toward those goals.  I just need to continue.

Although the knots are still there in my shoulders, they’re not nearly as tight as they were yesterday.  And, by the same token, even though my mind still runs away with me, I did hit upon a realization last night:

At the end of class, before the breathing exercises, we do yoga nidra – deep relaxation.  We lie on our backs, tense up each muscle group and let them relax, and then direct our attention to relaxing our bodies completely, from our feet up.  We spend 5-10 minutes in complete silence and relaxation – and meditation.   Normally, I fall into a light sleep/stupor at this point (as do many in the beginner class – some even snore).

Tonight, however, I did not.  As I was meditating, trying to “tie the puppy to the post” (and realizing that I didn’t have a post), my thoughts started to pull me into themselves.  Instead of following a pleasant one down into slumber, I just let them pass by and didn’t fall asleep, as is my wont.

I think that’s what I’m supposed to do.  At least, it felt more right/proper than simply falling asleep.

Overall, the class was very good for me.  But again, it was but one small step toward peace of mind and body.  I need to continue walking that path if I want to get away from my recent state of tension.

Today’s hike was a good one.  Jack said it was “pretty easy”, then promptly fell asleep in the car for half an hour.  On the way back we stopped at the Rosendale street festival to see our friends Johnny and Nicole.  It was pretty interesting.  I checked out some of Johnny’s art and bought some of his hot sauce.  Good stuff.

I myself promptly fell asleep when I got home (about 4:30PM) and finished Way of the Peaceful Warriorby Dan Millman.  Sadly, it’s subtitle “A Book That Changes Lives” does not (yet) apply to me.  At least, not in the dramatic way that’s implied.

Overall, I found the writing to be pedestrian and the insights to be about the same.  Though I can’t really offer a good review, I can say that it was a quick read and that it would be suitable for one’s first peek into zen.  I would put it in the same category as Hardcore Zen by Brad Warner.  Both are first-person accounts of the author’s experiences with nondualityand the resulting shock to the system.  Both authors describe similar experiences arising from zazen meditation practice, as well as teachers who were fairly rigorous in their enforcement of the disciplines that lead thereto.  In both cases, the teachers were quick to point out that these experiences don’t mean anything.

Millman’s Experience (pp. 196-8)

Then the cave was again shrouded in darkness.  Socrates [Millman's semi-fictional teacher] stood quickly and walked to the entrance with me right behind.  The air smelled of ozone as we stepped outside.  I could feel the static electricity raise the hairs on the back of my neck.  Then the thunderstorm struck.

Socrates whirled around to face me.  Lightning flashed.  A bolt struck one of the cliffs in the distance.  “Hurry!”  Socrates said, with an urgency I’d not heard before.  “There’s not much time left – eternity is not far away.”  In that moment, the Feeling came to me – the feeling that had never been wrong – and it said, Beware! Death is stalking.

Then Socrates spoke again, his voice ominous and strident.  “Quickly, back into the cave!”  I started to look in my pack for my flashlight, but he barked at me, “Move!”

I retreated into the blackness and pressed against the wall.  Hardly breathing, I waited for him to come get me, but he had disappeared.

As I was about to call out to him, I was jarred almost unconscious as something viselike suddenly gripped me behind the neck with crushing force and dragged me back, deeper into the cave.  “Socrates!” I screamed.  “Socrates!”

The grip on my neck released, but then a far more terrible pain began:   my head was being crushed from behind.  I screamed, and screamed again.  Just before my skull shattered with the maddening pressure, I heard these words – unmistakably the voice of Socrates:  “This is your final journey.”

With a horrible crack, the pain vanished.  I crumpled, and hit the floor of the cavern with a soft thud.  Lightning flashed, and in its momentary glare I could see Socrates standing over me, staring down.  Then came the sound of thunder from another world.  That’s when I knew I was dying.

One of my legs hung limp over the edge of a deep hole.  Socrates pushed me over the precipice, into the abyss, and I fell, bouncing, smashing against the rocks, down into the bowels of the earth; then, dropping through an opening, I was released by the mountain out into the sunlight, where my shattered body spun downward, finally landing in a heap in a wet green meadow far, far below.

The body was now a broken, twisted piece of meat.  Carrion birds, rodents, insects, and worms came to feed on the decomposing flesh that I had once imagined to be “me.”  Time passed faster and faster.  The days flashed by and the sky became a rapid blinking, an alternation of light and darkness, flickering faster and faster into a blur; then the days turned to weeks, and the weeks became months.

The seasons changed, and the remains of the body began to dissolve into the soil, enriching it.  The frozen snows of winter preserved my bones for a moment in time, but as the seasons flashed by in ever more rapid cycles, even the bones became dust.  From the nourishment of my body, flowers and trees grew and died in that meadow.  Finally even the meadow disappeared. 

I had become part of the carrion birds that had feasted on my flesh, part of the insects and rodents, and part of their predators in a great cycle of life and death.  I became their ancestors, until ultimately they, too, were returned to the earth.

The Dan Millman who had lived long ago was gone forever, a flashing moment in time – but I remained unchanged through all the ages.  I was now Myself, the Consciousness that observed all, was all.  All my separate parts would continue forever; forever changing, forever new. 

I realized now that the Grim Reaper, the Death Dan Millman had so feared, had been his great illusion.  And so his life, too, had been an illusion, a problem, nothing more than a humorous incident when Consciousness had forgotten itself.

But I knew.  If he had only known then what I know now.

I lay on the floor of the cave, smiling.  I sat up against the wall then gazed into the darkness, puzzled, but without fear. 

My eyes began to adjust, and I saw a white-haired man sitting near me, smiling.  [Socrates]  Then, fro thousands of years away, it all came back, and I felt momentarily saddened by my return to mortal form.  Then I realized that it didn’t matter – nothing could possibly matter!

Warner’s Experience (pp. 178-9)

I’m not sure how many nights later The Big One hit.  Maybe a couple weeks.  Maybe a month.  It started off with coming to full awareness while deeply asleep.  It wasn’t a lucid dream.  I’ve had so many of those I’m used to them by now.  This was something entirely different.  I was actually aware of that open formless state of deep dreamless sleep.

Real trippy, doncha think?  And it gets even better.  Soon I found myself surveying the entire universe much as God himself might do.  I could perceive the whole of all creation at once.  I don’t say I “saw” it because I didn’t seem to have any eyes or any body.  Or rather the universe itself was my body and mind.  I perceived galactic clusters and massive star formations in the way I normally perceive my own arms and legs.  Or something.  It’s impossible to describe.

The universe was evolving before me.  I was aware that millions of years were passing, yet I was experiencing them as mere moments.  Again, description is impossible.  Whatever.  I saw the universe coming together.  First one planet became unified into a single being.  Not just the intelligent species but all life-forms on the planet and ultimately the planet itself.  This spread through the planet’s solar system and then on to other solar systems nearby.  Meanwhile the same thing was happening in other parts of the universe millions of lightyears away.  The unified sections gradually met each other and became bigger and bigger.  Finally the entire universe consisted of just two “beings” composed of the combined matter and space of a billion, trillion, Godzillian galaxies.

The two beings faced each other, and I, now one of those beings, felt exactly as I do when I face my wife.  And we melted into each other.  The whole universe, stretching on into infinite time and infinite space, was now one single unified being.  No tension.  No fear.  No competition.

But the universe was lonely.  There was no one to talk to.  No one to share its experience with.  No other.  And with no other to contrast to, no self.  To cure its loneliness it split into two again, then four, six, eight, and so on until, over a period of billions upon billions of millennia it was back to being countless individual beings.  At that point I felt myself swept back into my own body once more.  I opened my eyes and I was in my bed.

Socrates and Nishijima

Millman’s teacher – again, semi-fictional – was a kindly anonymous old man.  Warner’s teacher (Nishijima) was an arrogant semi-celebrity hardass.  Millman had his experience in a cave in northern California; Warner was living in Japan, working in the Godzilla-movie industry.  Both men’s experiences are colored by their own life-situations, but they share the same undercurrents:  that I am the Universe and the Universe is Me; that Iam nothing more than an expression of the universe here and now.

Both authors’ experiences are followed shortly thereafter by a feeling of oneness with the universe – specifically, with their immediate surroundings.

Socrates tells Millman that the cave-experience is rare and that his feeling of oneness will subside.  I prefer Nishijima’s reaction to Warner’s explanation:  that it was “just a fantasy” that would “never come true even in the future.”

Conclusion

If you’re interested in checking out zen from the periphery, dear reader, I’d suggest reading Way of the Peaceful Warrior first.  If that piques your interest and you’d like a little more detail, move on to Hardcore Zen.  The former gives a very nebulous account of the general ideas of zen, whereas the latter gets deeper into the bases and fundamentals of the practice.  Neither of these are a substitute for the real thing, though.  Zen is not an academic practice – it’s not something that can be achieved via reading – it’s something that has to be lived.  To their mutual credit, both authors make this clear.

Ted’s Note

In both cases, I identify more with the teachers than the students.  Good for you and your mystical experiences, now get back to living life.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve spent plenty of time pursuing such mystical experiences – I’ve even had some myself – but while sometimes comforting and sometimes frightening, I don’t believe that we live in them.  Whatever the true nature of the universe may be, I still live in it, and any knowledge thereof is simply my perception. 

At bottom, one consistency I’ve noticed about zen teachers is that they’re always telling their students to turn their attention back to real life.  Zen isn’t about cosmological understanding, it’s about attention to and purity of one’s actions.  Without sounding too arrogant, I think I’ve passed these turning points that Millman and Warner describe.  I’ve spent my time in contemplation of the world around me and reached the conclusions.  Yes, I still have plenty of things to let go, and yes, I need to spend more time sitting zazen – but not with the aim of becoming “wise”.  I need to do these things so that I can be more attentive and pure in my actions.  I need to demonstrate wisdom through my actions, not through my thoughts.

Thank you, Scott, for lending me The Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman.  I can’t say that it’s life-changing just yet, but I’m only halfway through.  Perhaps I’ve read too many books about zen at this point to be particularly disturbed by his implications thusfar.  We’ll see – I still have the other half to read.

Tonight I’m meditating on my pride.  Even as I write this.  I’m burning a 6” white taper, into which I carved the word “pride”, and I’m considering the various manifestations of my pride in my life as I watch it burn.  I am, of course, also blogging and listening to some live Led Zeppelin as I do so.  Am I a zen multi-tasker?  Hell if I know.  White is for purity and cleansing.

Tomorrow, I’ll take the melted wax with me and bury it far from my home. 

I’ll be hiking Blackhead Mountain with my friend Jack in the morning.  As the Catskills are dear to my heart and a comfortable place for me, I am tempted to wonder at the implications of burying the castoffs of my pride-cleansing candle in a place to which I’m sure to return.  But then again, I tend to think too much – I take things literally when they’re meant to be figurative and vice versa.
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I hope that Jack and I won’t be too tired from our hike to stop by the Rosendale (NY) street fair and visit with our friends Nicole and Johnny.  We’ll see – the hike shouldn’t be all that hard.  The views from the summit of Blackhead are some of the most dramatic I’ve seen in the Catskills.

My pride is the root of many of my most glaring (to me) character defects.  It is a tool I use to preserve and protect my ego and leads to things like rationalization and self-justification.  These two are my favored methods of comparing myself to others and making excuses for myself when I don’t measure up to my standards.  Hell, my pride is even the source of those standards.

Like the kid in the novel, there’s a lot that I need to let go – and my pride is a big one.  So I’ll bring a copy of Desiderata with me tomorrow and read it as I bury the remnants of my candle.

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant, they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let not this blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism. Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass. Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore, be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams; it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful.

Strive to be happy.

-Max Ehrmann (ca. 1927)

I did not go hiking on Sunday.  Which is to say that I did not go hiking today.  Or yesterday – I’m not sure when you’re reading this, dear reader, but seeing as how Monday officially began about ten minutes ago, I suppose I can’t really go wrong with saying that I didn’t go hiking yesterday.  By which I mean Sunday, though the statement is still correct, even though I still consider it Sunday because I haven’t gone to sleep yet.  What a pain in the ass time travel can be.

So yeah, Lone and Rocky Mountains still remain unsurmounted by the inexorable Ted Wallace.  But I’m coming, I can promise you that, dear mountains.  That’s why I get to call myself ‘inexorable’.  I know it’s a bit of arrogance on my part to so name myself, but what the heck, I’m master of this domain. 

I did get some exercise this weekend – took my kayak out on the Passaic this afternoon (by which I mean Sunday afternoon).  I acquired just the amount of sunburn for which I set out.  And I made it past the third bridge upstream of the Fair Lawn boat launch area:  the Lafayette Avenue bridge.  As before, it was a tough paddle.  The last time, the rain had swelled the river and the current was swift.  Today I think the river was back to normal, and the current was still tough to manage.  There were parts where my paddle was scraping the bottom, which was a new experience for me.  My arms are blood-filled and tired, and I’ve been doing my utmost to consume as much protein in the past few hours as possible.  I’ll tell ya, dear reader, whatever chilled piece of cow I bought for my dinner this evening was looking pretty good before I cooked it.  I’m giving some serious consideration to this whole ‘tartar’ thing.

But I digress.  As I was battling the current this afternoon, slowly gaining water on the next bridge in front of me, that’s the adjective that flowed through my mind:  inexorable.

If you’re reading this “Note” on Facebook, please note that these daily posts are not simply me wiling away my time via that particular medium – these are actually real-life blog posts on my website The Quixotic Jedi.  The “Notes” are just my RSS feed plugged into the Facebook machine.  If that pale shadow is all you’re accustomed to reading, feel free to check out these words at http://QuixoticJedi.com.  (Teaser:  the font is Georgia – chicks dig Georgia.)

In any case, today’s reading (by which I mean Sunday’s reading) in my zen-a-day calendar was a quote from Margaret Young:

Often people attempt to live their lives backwards:  they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want, so they will be happier.

The way it actually works is the reverse.  You must first be who you really are, then, do what you need to do, in order to have what you want.

I’ve never heard of Margaret Young before.  Have you?  Whatever – the compiler of my zen-a-day calendar has a penchant for picking random quotes that he/she feels are zen-enough to qualify.  I’m not necessarily going to disagree about this one.

The sentiment is pretty easy to remember:  be-do-have, not have-do-be – right?

I’ve encountered this particular concept many a time, and can’t say as I disagree with it.  I think it’s pretty sound reasoning:  if I’m cool with my insides, being cool with my oustides will naturally follow. 

The tough part for me is figuring out how to put this into practice – especially since I do want to have more things (and more money), and there are lots of things I want to do, many of which require the whole more things or more money…um, thing.

My laments often go something like this:  “If I only knew what I wanted to be when I grew up, I’d be doing that.”  I’m often jealous of those who have known since they were little kids that they want to be a writer or a stock broker or a garbage man.  I wasn’t born with that.  As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve always admired my teachers, but neither do I feel that I’m yet qualified to teach, nor do I feel like locking myself into a teacher’s salary.  NOR do I have any desire to teach a group of semi- or completely unwilling students, in the hopes that I can make a difference in one person’s life (someone who truly wants to learn).  Besides, I spent so much of my development in school, it’s not much of a wonder that I don’t know much beyond the life of an academic.

I’d enjoy being an adventurer.  One of my current heroes:  Teddy Roosevelt.  I’m an Edward, by the way, neither a Theodore nor a Teddy.

If you’ve some free time, read the Wikipedia article on Roosevelt.  That mean old cuss lived a life to be envied.  If you’ve not the time to read the whole article, click this link, and scroll up two lines to read Thomas R. Marshall’s statement regarding Roosevelt’s death.

So anyway, please pardon the digression, dear reader.  The best I’ve come up with regarding putting the be-do-have thing into practice is as follows:  I try to stay in the moment.  I try not to dwell too much in the past, and not to project too far into the future.  I try to trust that I’m right where I’m supposed to be right now, and that the winds of fortune or change or whatever will blow me in the right -do- and -have direction, as long as I’m true to my be.

One of these days I’m going to learn to start my blog post before midnight.  I’ll tell ya, though, the stick of incense I’ve got burning right now is awesome.  One of the guys from work gave me a handful of those long ziplocks with different types of incense.  For whatever reason, his wife figured she had too much and told him to get rid of them – and I was the only guy he could think of that “might be into that sort of thing”.  How that works, I have no idea.  I wear stiffly creased khakis and oxfords to work pretty much every day.  And I haven’t had long hair since the days of my marriage.

I certainly didn’t dispute that I’m an incense-burner, though.  When he gave them to me, I was really more of a Nag Champa kind of guy, but what the heck, I figured:  free incense is free incense.  There were about half a dozen fragrances in the packets he gave me, and I really hope I’ll be able to find this one again.  It’s wicked soothing – any anxiety I might have about not being able to come up with something intelligent for you, dear reader, pretty much melted away as soon as the stick started to burn.  There’s nothing like diversifying and trying new things.

Wednesday was a good day for me to call in sick.  I got maybe 30 or 40 emails all day – and only one or two that had anything to do with me.  I slept in, went to Campmor to pick up a cockpit seal for my kayak, took the kayak down to the Passaic River for a nice 4-mile jaunt, and went back to Campmor (because I bought a spray skirt instead of a cockpit seal – and the wrong size, to boot).  I also finally got over my aversion to spending $150 on a pair of hiking boots – I picked up the Asolo Fugitives that I’d been fanasizing about for the past 6-10 months.  While my Keen Voyageur Mids (last year’s model) are comfortable as any boot I’ve ever worn, the sole is just a bit too soft for me to be traipsing around the Catskills with them all summer.  Oh, and I found the cockpit seal (in the right size) – it’s on my kayak now (which is, incidentally, on the roof of my car).

I bought the cockpit seal so that I wouldn’t have to worry about having my kayak on the car when it’s raining.  Yeah, I get wet pretty much no matter what, but there’s really no reason why I need to sit my ass down in a soaking wet seat as soon as I put the boat in the water.  I’m also hoping it does something for the aerodynamics vis-a-vis the gas mileage I’m losing with the kayak on the roof.

I think there’s a good chance that my kayak will be a semi-permanent fixture on my car for the rest of the warm seasons.  I’ve got the loading and unloading process down to about ten minutes each, which could very well be as fast as possible, and the Passaic is only about a ten minute drive from work.  I’m hoping to be out on the water almost every day after work.

I got rained on pretty good on Wednesday, but it was about 70 degrees outside – so the rain was just enough to cool me off.

I think I’m also going to check out some of the outdoorsy forums to which I belong, to see if I can find some weekend outings with fellow-kayakers.  Do girls kayak?  ;-)

“So what does this have to do with real life, Ted?” you ask. 

This has everything to do with life, dear reader.  I should have bought the boots months ago and broken them in by now – but I didn’t.  So I take the lesson I learned (once again) – that the anxiety accompanying the anticipation created by fantasization outweighs (in a negative sense) the sense of accomplishment of actually doing the deed – and I move on.  And plan my hike for this weekend. 

I have two mountains left to climb (Lone and Rocky) for the Catskill 3500 Club, and I have to go back to SW Hunter Mountain to sign in at the canister Scott and I couldn’t find in the pouring October rain.  No, I don’t particularly enjoy having to climb the mountain all over again, but I’d rather do that than send in my tally sheet with “couldn’t find the cansiter” and hope that the membership chair takes pity on me.  Which, if you need it spelled out, is me not having to learn that lesson all over again by just doing it, instead of wondering “what if?”

The above (sectioned) anecdote also deals with real life insofar as I’m back to being psyched for getting out and trying new things (e.g. kayaking in new places and possibly with new people).  Damn, I hope there are some hottie girl kayakers out there.

Just kidding.  Sort of.  It’s not so much about meeting chicks as it is about me doing things that I enjoy.  Bonus:  I get some exercise and some weather on this Irish and Eastern European skin of mine.

I’m pretty sure I’m over my “haven’t got a girl” whiney time.  I know that I only really whined for that one post, but that’s a lot for me.  For me to sit down and blog about being lonely means that it was weighing on my mind more than usual.  Whatever.  These things happen.  Thanks for bearing with me through that, dear reader.

To a certain extent, I carried that whiney-ness (yes, I’m sure it’s spelled “whininess”, but I think that looks dumb) right into Father’s Day with the family.  At that point, it was more of an intellectualization than anything else.  I talked to my family a bit about how I live in the middle of suburbia – soccer moms and lawn-mowing dads – instead of around people of a similar age and station in life.  I pondered aloud about moving to Hoboken or some other more city-ish locale, and we had a good sort of brainstorm sesssion.  “What are the possibilities for Ted’s future?”  It was pretty cool, except that I need to stop taking things so personally.  And I need to stop projecting the rest of my life out from this point forward.  Sometimes it’s tough for me to stick to just “doing the next right thing” – but when I do, life is phenomenal.

My dad’s biggest suggestion was “why don’t you go back to school?”  And get this, his idea was that I go get a PhD in Philosophy (of all things), and then enter the world of academia. 

My dad wasn’t too happy when I switched my major from Biology to Philosophy, once upon a time. 

Now, I’d love to get a PhD in Philosophy and teach.  And there’s a very good possibility that I’ll do so sometime later in life.  But for now, that just doesn’t work for me.  I just don’t think I have enough life experience (or money) to do so.  Which brings me to Saturday’s quote in my Zen-a-day calendar:

“The more one is absorbed in so-called philosopy, the greater one’s delusion and blindness.”  -Emanuel Swedenborg

Not necessarily an original thought.  And quite in keeping with my understanding of Zen. 

This quote is particularly applicable to me.  When I was in undergrad, studying Philosophy, I thought I was uncovering deep metaphysical truths – with my mind.  Oofa.  Friedrich Nietzsche aside, I don’t know what kind of deep truths about the world and reality I was uncovering from my opium-hazed closet of a room in the fraternity house, with a disgustingly full ashtray and my Mac in front of me.

That said, I still hold with many of the things I wrote those ten or more years ago about Perspectivism, Pragmatism, and Solipsism.  Which is exactly why I’m psyched to spend more of my time experiencing life than studying it.  My brain is always going anyway, and Philosophy is always present for me.  I’d rather enjoy that in the background while I’m actively pursuing squeezing all I can out of life.  I’ll sit down and write and talk and teach hungover and still-stoned college kids about all that stuff when I’ve got more grey hairs on my head than brown.  And when I’ve actually managed to hunt down and kill patience while on safari.

So that busy patch at work is pretty much over, for the moment.  It looks like I’ll have a few days of breathing space before I have to start busting my ass on another needs-to-get-done-in-a-month project.  Yay.  Definitely no more 12-16 hour days for this weary blogger.  I left work at like 6 today, and man, am I psyched that there were still several hours of daylight left.  I think my kayak may become a semi-permanent fixture on my car for the remainder of the warm-weather days.

As I was driving home this afternoon, I found myself drifting back into those “they don’t pay me enough money” thoughts.  Again was I looking at the houses in the neighborhoods I drive through on the way home and wondering why I don’t own an home and garden.  How I’m ever going to pay off that $100k student loan debt that can be so unbearably burdensome.  How exactly I’m going to tell my boss that he needs to give me a raise.  Et cetera. 

These are not good thoughts for this weary blogger to have.  They quickly turn into an endless loop of self-pity and get rich quick schemes – most of which involves quitting everything and starting life anew.  “If only I could move to Phoenix, everything would be fine.”  Phoenix??  wtf is in Phoenix?  Nothing, but that’s where my thoughts take me.  Join the CIA and be a covert operative, living out of a suitcase and lying to everyone.  I’m a pretty good liar, but it makes me feel icky when I do it.  So I don’t.  Too many things to remember, to paraphrase Samuel Clemens – or was it Mark Twain who said that?  And who’s speaking now – Ted Wallace or niceguyted?

Whatever.  I find it easier to maintain that zen-mindset when I’m busy as sh*t – the next right thing is always right in front of me.  I’ve always been self-mutilating when I’m not occupied.  There’s a bird like that – the grey macaw, I think.  In the wild, it’s just fine.  But in captivity it gets bored and just sits there, pulling out its feathers.  It’s supposed to be a wicked sma’t animal, too.

So this afternoon, when I started down that endless never-gonna-make it loop on the drive home, I did two things – I couldn’t tell you which one I did first – I started smiling, and I made a mental gratitude list.  And I reminded myself that all I really have is this one moment – nothing else.  And at that particular moment, I wasn’t at work busting my ass, the sun was shining, and I was driving (which, incidentally, is one of my favorite things to do).  I had Disturbed’s “The Sickness” blasting, and the windows and sunroof were all down. 

The whole smiling thing really works.  The muscles of my face remind my brain of what it’s like to be happy, so my brain opens the tap on the happy brain chemicals, and I feel better almost instantaneously.  If it doesn’t work right away, I usually start laughing, because I’m pretty sure I can outwit my brain – and I think that’s funny.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the past few years, it’s the power of laughter.  And that power is pretty much endless – at least from what I’ve found.  It’s taken a little work (not really hard work), but I’ve managed to make laughing my immediate reaction to just about anything.  Ask my sister what the first thing I did last summer when we were walking back to her apartment from dinner in Astoria and we realized that I hadn’t left my driver’s side window open the whole time – someone had broken it and stolen my GPS.  I laughed.  Whatever.  I can always buy a new GPS (I did), and at least I still had a ride home and it wasn’t raining yet.  And, parenthetically (though I’m not going to use parentheses for this sentence), my no-sense-of-direction-having ass had been to Katie’s place enough times that I knew how to get home without needing the GPS – ha!

Anyway, to wrap up:  the physical act of smiling, coupled with the mental run-down of the things in my life I was thankful for pulled me right back from the brink of self-pity this afternoon.  Easy-peasy-jap-an-eesy.  Try it, it works – better stats than Sex Panther.  Trust me.

Thank you, dear reader, for putting up with my crap for the last couple of weeks.  As you know, work has been ridiculously busy.   Today was a 13-hour day, and it felt almost light.  As I was driving home from work this evening, I was trying to figure out whether this current period of my life is one that’s honing me for similar situations in the future, or whether it’s one of those times that all my work on myself in the past has been preparing me for.

Probably a little bit of both (duh). 

In the past few years, I’ve been working on deflating my ego.  Being all into self has gotten me into some pretty crappy spots in the past, and I’ve been trying to spend less time in my own head.  “Live in the moment” – “chop wood, fetch water, seek enlightenment”, as the zen saying goes.  Well, the ass-kicking that work has been dealing to me lately has been very good practice for staying out of my own head.  I just don’t have the time to sit around and think about how the world is affecting me.  I just am. 

Happily, I really don’t have much to say about the state of my ego.  I haven’t really been paying attention to it.  This time last year, I was about half as busy as I am now.  And I was pissed.  The single, constant thought that was on repeat in my head was (some variation of) “they’re not paying me enough money”.  Some form or another of this thought consumed me, except during the few hours of respite I’d get when work consumed me.

Now, work has totally consumed me.  Oh, those thoughts run through my head still, but I’m not spending any time with them.  I let the thought/feeling wash over and through me, and I’m not sad when it goes.  It’s not a productive type of thought, and I don’t have time for unproductive thoughts.

Overall, things have been pretty good.  My ego seems to be pretty well kept in check by the sheer amount of work I have to do.  When something happens that dings my ego, I’ve been noting it, but not really doing anything about it.  Just moving on to the next thing that needs to be done.

I really hope that this continues.  I’ve been pretty darned content.  I don’t know that the word serenity necessarily applies – that word carries a lot of weight with me.  I think, though, that I’ve achieved kind of a diluted form of serenity.

As far as the “little bit of both” thing goes: 

The result of past work:  I used to think that I was achieving serenity by repeating to myself “I really don’t care”, but I also kind of knew that that’s not what serenity is about.  Serenity is more of an “I’m ok with that” – but one has to be able to insert any damned thing in place of the ‘that’.  I’m pretty close to the latter right now.  There’s not a whole lot that bothers me, because I can’t afford to let anything bother me – I just don’t have the time.  So I think saying “I really don’t care” was more of a stepping stone for me to get to “I’m ok with that”, even though I still stumble over things that I’m not ok with.

Honing me for the future:  I said to my boss before the proxy season started that “I don’t know if I have another gear in me”.  After the last few weeks, I’ve found that I actually have several more gears in me than what I was working with last year.  I’m hoping I can take this modicum of serenity (however diluted it may be) with me as I move into the next phase of life – whatever that may be and wherever it may take me.

And so, to wit, the reading from my zen-a-day calendar this morning:

“When you Truly feel this equal love for all, when your heart has expanded so much that it embraces the whole of creation, you will certainly not feel like giving up this or that.  You will simply drop off from secular life as a ripe fruit drops from the branch of a tree.  You will feel that the whole world is your home.”  -Rama Maharshi

I’m certainly not there yet.  Hell, I’m still hoping that chick from eHarmony emails me back and decides that there’s nothing more important in her life than having hot, steamy sex as many times as humanly possible with me this weekend.  Yeah, I’m glad I still have some work left to do on myself.  Being perfect is probably unbearably boring.

I have a handful of thigs on my mind this evening, so I’m going to just go ahead and pass them right along to you, dear reader, m’kay? 

The first is that the Grateful Dead had it all wrong with the whole “livin’ on reds, vitamin C and cocaine” line.  And I say this with a vast amount of experience behind my statement, and also with just a little bit of dismay.  As you know, I’m passed “burning it at both ends” several miles back.  I’ve been living in the land of “there is no candle” for many years now.  I wouldn’t have it any other way.  One can’t suck the marrow out of life without first cracking the bone – and that often requires chipping teeth and whatnot.  Are you following my metaphors ok?

I’ve been kicking ass at work.  I told my boss in the beginning of the year that I didn’t have a problem working as hard as I did last year during proxy season, but that I didn’t know if it would be possible for me to work any harder this year.  I specifically said that I didn’t know if I had another gear in me.  This was in the context of me requesting help – another person to teach some of the more routine tasks for which I am responsible, so that I might have more time freed up for the more non-routine situations that I’m often called upon to handle.

Well, I’ve found that I do, in fact, have another gear.  It might even be two or three that I’ve been running with for the past several weeks.  And I have to say that it’s due in no small part to the fact that I’m keeping my body properly fuelled.  I’ve been providing my body with the energy it requires for this sustained mental and physical exertion I’ve been undergoing.  And when I say “properly fuelled”, I’m speaking of FOOD and WATER (and, to a certain extent, sleep).  Reds, vitamin C and cocaine are poor substitutes for three hots and a cot.  They might do well to keep one awake and partying for days on end, but they don’t do much good for one’s brain.

During undergrad and law school I ran on stimulants, but rarely fed myself well (if at all), and hardly drank any water.  I managed just fine back then, but am amazed at how much more work product I’m turning out right now, and the quality thereof.

Another thing I’m doing differently from back then is that I’m taking more meaningful breaks from work.  Whether it’s a few deep breaths while looking out at the meadowlands behind the office or making a phone call or being sure to read some fiction while at lunch, I’m inserting short periods in my day where I’m getting my mind off of work.  Instead of forgetting things or dropping one of the many plates I have up in the air at any given moment, this has helped me to prioritize and look at my work with fresh eyes after such short breaks. 

All in all, I think that this Ted is doing much better than the old Ted was doing back then.  I’m much less likely to freak out than I used to be.  And all my talk of self-doubt aside, I’ve got more self-confidence.  The more I’m able to take a break and come back to my work with a clear mind, the better I am able to see solutions to problems.  And all ego aside, the more often I see that my solution is correct, despite whatever nagging sense of self-doubt I might be constantly carrying with me.  I may be inexperienced in many things related to my industry, but I’m extremely experienced at problem-solving.  And I’ve had lots of opportunities to expand this experience – with more and more success every day.

I have clients with whom I started out on the wrong foot that are now thanking me profusely for my help and support.  And I have to say, dear reader, that it’s because I’ve been keeping my nose to the grindstone and getting my work done.  Sure, I’m still tempted to look up every five seconds and wonder when the accolades are coming, but the less often I do so, the more often I receive actual genuine accolades.  Ones that seemingly come out of nowhere.  And these are the best kind to get.

Read the last bit of “No Coincidences Doesn’t Mean Obvious Reasons” and the last bit of “A Bit on Isolation and Revelation” and I think you’ll see what I mean.

Yes, another post about that which I do not possess.  But it seems so cool!  It must be awesome to have faith.  Again, I’m talking about the kind of faith that works in all seasons, in all situations.  The kind that people who “walk with god” have.

Yeah, yeah, I know:  be careful what you wish for…

Well, I’m not wishing here; I’m hypothesizing.  And this hypothesis is about an evolution of faith.  I don’t think that it necessarily comes to those like me all at once - sure, there’s the “white light experience” and whatnot.  I’m not discounting that possibility.  It’s happened enough for other people.  I just don’t know that it would work for me.  I’m too much of a skeptic and a contrarian.  I’m the proverbial (or John-gospial) Doubting Thomas; though that dude believed after sticking his fingers in the holes.  I’d probably chalk the white light up to an aneurysm or something and be all psyched for my coming psychic powers and eventual death, like in Phenomenon.  Man, it would be cool to learn Brazilian Portuguese that fast!

So back to the hypothesis.  I think that faith comes to guys like me over time.  Through practice and repetition.  I suppose there’s worse karma to bear.  I’m not ready to give my will up to a higher power all at once; but I can do it in little bits and pieces.  A couple of situations here and a couple of situations there.  String them together and eventually I’m acting on faith for most of the time.  And who knows, maybe I string together a few years of complete faith just before I die.

I was discussing faith in terms of humility - or humility in terms of faith (take your pick) – with some friends not too long ago.  In that scenario, one asks/prays for something, but always remembers to append the request with “…if it be thy will”.  I think this is an excellent ego-deflation tactic, and I use it often.

I think that after doing this for a while, if one is truly attempting to align one’s will with that of one’s higher power, those prayers are answered in the affirmative (as opposed to in the negative or with “not yet”) more and more often.  After a while, one stops asking/praying for one’s own desires, and simply prays “thy will be done” – because that’s what one wants.

Tuesday’s reading in God Calling by A. J. Russell touches a bit on this.  And, if you’ll bear with me, dear reader, I think it can be linked to and – in a way – will bear out my hypothesis:

May 26:  Claim More

You are doing your claiming as I have said, and soon you will see the result.  You cannot do this long without it being seen in the material.  It is an undying law.

You are at present children practicing a new lesson.  Practice – Practice – soon you will be able to do it so readily.

You see others manifesting so easily, so readily demonstrating My Power.  But you have not seen the discipline that went before.  Discipline absolutely necessary before this Power is given to My disciples.  It is a further initiation.

You are feeling you have learnt so much that life cannot be a failure.  That is right, but others have to wait to see the outward manifestation in your lives before they realize this Spiritual Truth.

What I read from this is definitely not a “humble request” of the higher power, it says claiming – as though one had a right to it.  I think this is kind of the next step after the humble request.  That once one is walking with god and acting in concert with the will of a higher power all the time (notice I don’t say “on a regular basis”), these prayers/requests cannot but be fulfilled.  My will and god’s will are one.  Thus, the use of the term “claim”.  And all of a sudden, that “right” to something becomes “righteous” and takes on an entirely different meaning from that which we Americans usually view it (e.g. the Bill of Rights, right of privacy, right to free speech, etc.).

But all of this doesn’t happen overnight.  It comes through the practice and discipline of aligning one’s will with the higher power.  Which must necessarily have humble beginnings with the appendage “…if it be thy will”.  Like the effin Karate Kid, I don’t need to know that painting the fence or waxing the car or sanding the froor will help me block the punches and kicks that evil Johnny will eventually throw at me in the tournament:  I just need to know that Mr. Miyagi told me to paint the fence, wax the cars, and sand the froor.  I practice the motions with the faith that Mr. Miyagi knows what he’s doing and has a higher purpose for all this crap (other than whiter pickets, shinier cars, and smoother froors).  And keeping my mouth shut through all of this requires discipline, dear reader-san.

I’ll not here get into the real and metaphorical pain that’s involved in said discipline.

Q:  Does this fit with my zen-pragmatist views?  A:  Sure, why not.

I’m a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest.  And I’m winning.  Because I know all kinds of crazy one-legged martial arts.  I’m a fuckin’ ninja.  You can’t touch this, as MC Hammer once said.  Heck, maybe he still does – I wouldn’t know ’cause I sure as hell don’t follow him on Twitter.

Things are good.  I’m exhausted.  Tuesday was an extremely busy day at work and I kicked some ass.  I got in (on time) at about 8:30AM and rolled out a little after 11PM.  I cut out for about an hour to have dinner with Scott, and that made all the difference.  Whether it was getting out of the office or filling my belly or just hanging out with Scott, I walked back into the office feeling like I could accomplish anything.  When I left to meet Scott, I was feeling a bit overwhelmed.

After a day like that, normally I’d sleep in a bit and start the next day a little later, but I can’t afford to do that just yet.  Maybe Thursday or Friday.

Things at work are good right now because I’ve got everything cut out for me.  I know exactly what I have to get done and how to do it.  Sure, it’s going to take a lot of time to get al that done, but I’m feeling pretty confident overall. 

This time last year, I was running around like a chicken whose head just got cut off.  I was completely overwhelmed and was freaking out (to myself) pretty regularly.  I was over-stressed and couldn’t stop thinking/talking about how I should be making more money.  Don’t get me wrong, delusions of grandeur still about, but they’re a bit more reserved this year.  I don’t know that I’m in control of them, but at least I’m keeping my mouth shut.  To my co-workers, of course.  You, dear reader, don’t really count on this scale.  And that’s a good thing, believe you me.

Self-doubt does, to a certain extent, still plague me, but I’m ignoring it right now.  I have too much to do to get all wrapped up in ego and inconsequential wonderings about whether I’m good enough, smart enough or (darnit) whether people like me.  I am, I am, and I pretty much don’t care if they do. 

I’m in a much better place than I was last year, and I have at least twice the workload now than I did then.

Call me a hypocrite, but as much as I’d like to get into a discussion of zen in the workplace and whatnot, I’m just going to keep on keepin’ on for the next few weeks.  As Wu-Tzu said:

Talking about Zen all the time is like looking for fish tracks in a dry riverbed.

I live in a carriage house.  My apartment is a studio above two bays of a three-car garage that was probably built in the 50s.  The ceiling has cool angles, and the windows are small and oddly-shaped.  They’re old – some of the ropes attached to the weights in the wall have snapped, and they don’t open and close smoothly.  My air conditioning unit is very small and has a hard time keeping up with the hot air in the winter.  It’s a lot like living in an attic.  If I’m away for too long and the air gets stale, it has that grandma-attic-y smell.  I love it.

My place is set behind a pretty big old house in a really nice residential neighborhood.  It’s quiet and dark at night, and that’s like heaven to me.  I can play Metallica loud when I’m cleaning and whatnot, and I’m pleasantly alone whenever I’m home.  There’s an old lady in the house that has help and I see them every once in a while.  The kids are all grown with kids of their own and the lines between yard and gardens are wonderfully blurred.  In the spring the purple of the crocuses dust everything.  It’s very cozy all the time.  The german word is gemütlich, and everything about where I live is that.

I share my abode with mice and ghosts and we have a pact.  I don’t bother them, and they don’t bother me.  In exchange, they can have whatever they need from me:  the mice get warmth and crumbs and the ghosts get whatever it is that ghosts dig about living with me.  Both are required to stay out of sight, which is easier for the latter than the former.  But I’ve only seen a mouse once.  I wish the mice would figure out that I can see signs of their passing, but I think they’re maybe just reminding me that they live here too and that they’re keeping up their end of the bargain by staying out of sight.  By “signs of passing”, I generally mean teenily shredded scraps of various colored paper.  Surprisingly, I’m pretty sure they prefer to shit outside.

I bought mousetraps when I first moved in, with which my cohabitants had quite a bit of fun at my expense.  They’d eat whatever I put out for them, to my endless frustration.  I keep the mousetraps around as a kind of warning, but I think they’re more for my own tough-feelingness than anything else.  I don’t like mousetraps anyway – as dextrous as my fingers are, I think I’m more likely to catch one of them than a mouse.  Neither would I want to catch a mouse – I’d feel too bad about having killed it.  Please don’t tell the guys in my fight club.

As far as the ghosts go, well, they like to make funny noises at night and stand by my bed to remind me that they live here too.  We had a couple of heated wordless discussions when I first moved in, and every once in a while I have to reassert my authority as the rent-payer, but overall we get along just fine.  I have no idea what they get from me.  Maybe companionship, maybe some sort of vicarious experience or energy.  Either way, I wish them well.  I suppose I could banish them if I ever got pissed, but I can imagine what frustration they may have at being incorporeal.  Besides, I don’t really get that pissed about stuff like that anymore.

I live alone, but not really.  There’s nobody with whom to talk, but that’s why I live alone.  My mice and ghosts simply add to the coziness of my home.  It would be empty without them.

I mentioned in yesterday’s post that work has just redlined for me.  What I didn’t really get into was that with this added busy-ness and - to a certain extent - accompanying stress, I have to make certain adjustments to my lifestyle to accomodate.  So here’s what I’m doing:

I’ve switched back to reading fiction.  I talked about this a bit in a post back in January called “On Moderation“.  Reading for escape.  When work isn’t monopolizing my brain-pan, I’m usually reading something, well, “educational”.  I’m a hundred or so pages into William James’ The Varieties of Religious Experience, and I just finished reading Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras (which is pretty short).  These types of readings are good exercise for my brain because they give me things to think about.  When I read for escape, though, I like to read fiction.  I get swept along in the story and let my brain just go on auto-pilot.  There’s not a whole lot of proper thinking that goes on when I’m reading for escape.  Half an hour of reading fiction at lunch is a great way for me to break up the workday.

I’m also cutting out any unnecessary socializing.  And I’m doing so conspicuously.  That is, I’m telling my friends straight-out when I’m choosing to isolate – instead of sneaking around and ignoring phone calls or making excuses.  That just adds more stress.  I’m trying to get home at a decent hour and decompress as close to the end of the workday as possible.

One thing I need to be vigilant about is getting exercise.  I don’t get much exercise during the week, and when work is busy I’m tempted to spend a lot of time catching up on sleep on the weekends.  While this is good to a certain extent, it’s also important for me to get my blood flowing and expend any additional energy pockets my body has built up over the course of the week.  Hiking usually suffices.  In the next six weeks or so, I need to make sure that I’m getting some exercise – hiking or kayaking or whatever.  When I get some exercise on the weekends, I’m evened-out during the week and more efficient.  If I don’t, those energy pockets turn into knots in my shoulders and back and make me (though I don’t always notice it until it’s too late) a bit irritable and sometimes sharp/short with my words to others.

I also need to stick to those three things I mentioned in “The Oxygen Mask Analogy“.  They’ll be more important than ever in the next few weeks.

I can’t really say that things have been feeling particularly weird lately, but I’ve been a bit more vigilant in the past couple of days.  I read Sabrina’s post on Thursday about Mercury Retrograde and my ears perked up a bit – figuratively speaking, of course.  That post was the second time in a couple of weeks that I ran across the expression “Mercury Retrograde” – the first was a friend’s facebook status that stated “happy mercury retrograde”.  Since Thursday, I’ve kind of been waiting for the other shoe to drop – “third time’s the charm” as they say.

So here’s the skinny:  About three or four times a year, the planet Mercury appears to slow down, stop, and then go backwards in its path across the zodiac.  It’s all an optical illusion resulting from elliptical orbits and our skewed sense of perspective (we’re moving too) - I won’t really get into the mathematics here.  This is happening now – basically the time between May 6/7 and 30/31.

Astrologers say this affects all different forms of communication – from email and phone calls to simple misunderstandings between people.  If you’d like to read/learn more, Google “mercury retrograde” (duh) – that link will bring you to a Google search thereof.  Here are a couple of the links I skimmed:  About.com and Astrology on the Web.

As with anything in astrology, it’s tough to paint in broad strokes – we’re all different won’t all be affected the same way by such things.

The vibe I’ve been getting lately is one of a more chaotic time for me – which is good, because I kind of dig chaos.  It keeps me on my toes and keeps giving me opportunities to fail or succeed.  I prefer the latter, but success isn’t always the case and I’m ok with that.  As I mentioned at the end of Saturday’s post, I’m going to be using the next several weeks to keep an eye on the plates I already have up in the air – keeping them aloft instead of finding new ones to put up there.

Sure, I’ll spend some time in introspection – read all about it here – but I’m going to try not to spend too much time meditating on interpersonal relations and communications.  If communications are going to be effed up for the next few weeks, I’ll try not to put too much stock in them.  In the next few weeks, I’ll also try to make sure that I’m being clear in my own interpersonal communications – that I’m not giving mixed signals or making veiled assertions or giving vague responses.

I’ll also try to be aware that, no matter how direct or clear I think I’m being, I may not be getting my point across.  Rather than pressing or forcing, though, I think I’ll need to just take this possibility in stride and move along as best I can without getting overly frustrated.

The next few weeks also happen to be the busiest time of the year for me.  I have four shareholders meetings to work on this year – all in Taiwan, no less.  Communication is already a bit strange, as they are about 12 hours ahead of us here in EST, English is their second language (and I don’t speak Mandarin), and most communication is done via email.  What a perfect time for Mercury Retrograde.  Yay.

Again, I’m going to stay close to home in the next few weeks and tend my wagon train as best I can.  Maybe this isn’t the best time to worry about shaking up my routine.  We’ll see.  I’ll keep you posted.

If you’re reading this on Saturday morning, I’ll be in the Catskills, after a two week hiatus.  I can feel my need to be in the woods, closer to the goddess and working and sweating to achieve that closeness. 

A couple of weeks ago, I posted “Driven” late on Friday night, expecting to bushwack Kaaterskill High Peak in the morning.  Unfortunately, my body had other ideas.  I think I woke up around 8AM, realized I was too far behind schedule, and lay my head back down – not to pick it back up until the early hours of the afternoon.

Please read that post if you’re interested in where I’ll be hiking today.

This week has been crescedoing steadily and I’m not sure I’ve yet reached its peak.  No pun intended.  Work has been getting busier and busier for me, but I’m proud to report that I haven’t been freaking out and wasting time being over-anxious.  Along with work getting busy, I’ve managed to continue to fulfill my other daily commitments as well.

I think I’m currently struggling with my people-pleasing character defect – my desire to be “all things to all people”.  It was well that I posted about the Oxygen Mask Analogy earlier, as that has started to have particular significance in my life.  I need to take care of myself first, if I wish to be of any use to others.  If you read that post, I’m doing pretty well so far in my 30-day quest to eat breakfast, do pushups, and meditate every day.  I’ve slipped a bit with being purposeful about meditating, but that’s ok – this is a good reminder for me that I need to be more mindful of that promise to myself.

As far as my goals for the week go, I’ve made a good effort.  I still haven’t finished plugging my edits into Nicole’s novel, but I made a start and spent some time on that this week.  I’ve also spent some time searching for the missing piece to my car’s kayak-rack, even coming up with a separate solution – which didn’t work, but that’s ok too.  I made the attempt and it’s been raining all week, so I’m not kicking myself about not being prepared to kayak after work.  Things are still up in the air as far as wrangling a date or rejection out of a certain girl, but that’s fine as well – I made my attempt early in the week and am smart enough to recognize when the goddess is trying to teach me patience.  I’ve got a whole life ahead of me and really have no intention of feeling like a stalker.  Things will happen if/when they do.  Maybe I’ll start that Tai Chi DVD Saturday night – the week ain’t over yet.

Which brings me around to isolation.  I took care of my commitments this evening and pulled away from possible social engagements with friends.  I usually spend some time on Friday nights doing social things, but I recognized the need for a bit of decompression from the various stresses of the week.  I’m listening to some Bob Marley, which is a good change from my usual Metallica or J. S. Bach.  I’ve stayed true to Monday’s “Monday Monday” post and have shaken my routine up a bit this week – even though it went by as fast as the past several.  I made myself a solid dinner and am content to be alone tonight, not rushing to return emails or come up with a blog post topic.

I think I may now understand what the goddess was trying to tell me on Wednesday night when she pointed out that “a wise prince, marching the whole day, does not go far from his baggage waggons.  Although he may have brilliant prospects to look at, he quietly remains (in his proper place), indifferent to them.”  I can’t go running off half-cocked in search of every next thing that might bring me some pleasure for the moment.  For now at least, I need to stay close to home and diligently monitor the progress of the wagon-train of my life.  It’s time for me to stop setting new things in motion for a while and follow along with those aspects of my life that are already steadily rolling.

Yay Twitter.  Sometimes I see a link in someone’s post on Twitter that speaks to me, but I’m reticent to post here about it because I think the world already knows.  I forget how many people are on Twitter, and how many tweets happen each minute (a lot and a sh*t-ton).  So that’s as close as you’ll get to a citation for this one, dear reader.  Whichever post I pulled this one from is off in the Twitter aether at this point.

As you probably already know, I’m an amateur yoga practitioner.  The (beginner) classes I attend are generally about an hour and a half long and cover about 11 postures (not including chanting, eye movements, the sun salutation and the variations and repetitions of the postures).  I sometimes yoga it up at home when I have time, but it’s rare that I have an entire 1.5 hours to spend – I can abridge a bit and squeeze the contents of a class into about 45 minutes, but I feel like I’m rushing and don’t enjoy it as much.  Rushing absolutely kills the meditative benefits I get from yoga – and that’s my main reason for the practice.

In the Five Tibetan Rites, I think I’ve found the answer to my time-constraint issue.  In the same way that counting my exhalations helped me to learn the rudiments of meditation, so does the counting aspect of this version of the Rites allow me to maintain a meditative state as I go through these exercises.  I’ve reproduced below the version I found in the link from the nameless one’s Twitter post.  After that is a short video I found on YouTube, demonstrating the Rites, and finally some links for your clicking pleasure.

My apologies for not including the original link – I copied and pasted it to Word and printed it out, to my short-lived shame.  I’ve also modified some of the text, because I didn’t like the way it was originally written.

Intro:

The Tibetan Five Rituals or Rites is a series of yoga exercises designed to refresh the body and mind.  They synchronize all of the body zones so that they work together instead of against each other.  Done regularly, they can make you look and feel younger and healthier.

First Rite

Spinning is the first of the Tibetan Five Rites.  Stand with your feet shoulder width apart and your arms spread at shoulder height.  Start to spin as fast as you can, while still maintaining control.  Spin as many times as you can without getting dizzy.  The goal is to spin 21 times.  This movement is meant to strengthen the link between the right and left hemispheres of the brain and stimulate the body’s energy.

Second Rite

This movement is very similar to leg lifts.  Lie flat on the floor.   Tuck your chin to your chest and slowly lift your legs – knees straight – as far as you can.  Try to get them to extend over your body.  Then slowly return them to the floor and straighten your neck.  Again, the goal is to do this 21 times.

Third Rite

Start this movement in a kneeling position.  Place your hands on the back of your thighs.  Arch your back forward as far as you can, tucking your chin into your chest.  Then arch backwards as far as you can.  Repeat 21 times.

Fourth Rite

This movement requires some strength; you may need to work up to it.  Sit on the floor with your legs extended straight in front of you, hands on the floor beside your hips.  In a single movement, raise your hips up off the floor while bending your knees.  The goal is to form a straight line from your shoulders to your knees.  Allow your head to dangle backwards in a relaxed state.  Work up to being able to do this 21 times.

Fifth Rite

Laying on your stomach, raise your body, supporting your weight on your hands and feet.  Raise your hips up as high as you can, trying for an inverted V position.  Slowly lower your hips until they sag and your back is arched backwards.  Repeat 21 times.

Video:

Links for Reference:

MKF Projects Print Version, Life Events Version (helpful animation), Benefits, Wikipedia article (good history information; also linked above).

My wi-fi was down last night.  Or more specifically, as Scott pointed out, my neighbor’s internet was down last night.  It went down pretty much as soon as I sat down to write.  Coincidence?

The post I had planned was going to be a tongue-in-cheek bit entitled “I’m So Deep” or something of that nature.  It was going to be about how I couldn’t figure out whether to write about the Tibetan Five Rites, William James’s The Varieties of Religious Experience (which I’m currently reading), or the quote from the Tao Te Ching that the goddess put in front of me last night.

I think the important sign I received last night was the latter of the three, and it would have been lost in my own ego-soaked ramblings, had I been able to post (not that I couldn’t have written separately and posted this morning when I got to work).

Last night I pulled out what I thought was Patanjali‘s Yoga Sutras, so that I might read it while I was eating dinner (at 11PM).  When I sat down, I found that the sheaf of papers I was looking at was in fact a copy of the Tao Te Ching, which has been sitting in my car for close to a year now.  Somehow, it had migrated to the surface of the pile in my trunk-cum-backseat.  A sign from above?  Probably.  I only read one little piece, and couldn’t really remember why I had highlighted the section I did (below in italics).  Here’s the piece – maybe you can help me figure out what the goddess was telling me last night, as I read it over and over:

1.  Gravity is the root of lightness; stillness, the ruler of movement.

2.  Therefore a wise prince, marching the whole day, does not go far from his baggage waggons.  Although he may have brilliant prospects to look at, he quietly remains (in his proper place), indifferent to them.  How should the lord of a myriad chariots carry himself lightly before the kingdom?  If he do act lightly, he has lost his root (of gravity); if he proceed to active movement, he will lose his throne.

-Tao Te Ching, Section 26

So it would seem that upon this I shall be meditating for a bit.  If the goddess moves you to explain it to me, please do.  I have some rudimentary preliminary thoughts, which I might share at a later date.

I know I’ve mentioned this before, but it bears repeating:  there’s an excellent analogy I heard once-upon-a-time that regards self-care, and it goes like this:

There’s a reason why the oxygen mask instructions say to put the oxygen mask on yourself before you put it on your children:  if you spend your time trying to put it on your child first, you may pass asphyxiate before you can get it on the child, and then you both die.

By analogy to life, this means:

One has to take care of oneself first, otherwise one cannot be of use to others.

Being a person with some altruistic tendencies, many (if not most) of the things I do are with others in mind.  Shrink my head as much as you like – I won’t disagree that at some level my motives are selfish.  But there’s also a reason why this analogy resonates particularly strongly with me. 

I just read a blog post by Cynthia James that relates directly to this point.  Being possessed of a Y chromosome, and having read some of Marcus Aurelius‘ accounts of stoic philosophy, the term “self-nurturing” does not particularly appeal to me.  Nevertheless, I’m all about increasing my efficiency and effectiveness, so I’m going to give Cynthia’s suggestions a shot.

Cynthia asks that I create a list of three self-nurturing goals that I intend to accomplish (every day) over the next 30 days.  Here is my list:

1. I will have breakfast every day.  Breakfast for me usually consists of two raw eggs scrambled in a glass with some milk before I leave the house, and two granola bars when I get to work.  I keep the granola bars on my desk and am already pretty good about eating them every day, but I don’t always have the eggs before I leave the house – for some reason I think that those extra 3 minutes will make a crucial difference in what time I get to work.   I will not leave the house without the eggs in my belly.
2. I will meditate as soon as I get home for at least five minutes every day.  As a corrollary to this, I will also try to be home by 10 PM every day.  Eating dinner past 10:30PM has not been very good for me – and I’ve been doing that for a long time now.  Meditation will be in the form of yoga or simple zazen.
3. I will do pushups every day.  Probably the best time is first thing in the morning, but after meditation will be fine as well (it’ll help ground me, too).  Pushups are something that I already do on and off.  Besides being good exercise, they’ll also increase my upper-body muscle mass a bit, which will be good for my self-image.  I can currently do 35 pushups at a go – I hope to be at 50 by the end of the 30 days.

These are three things that are already somewhat in my schedule.  I’d rather, though, that they were something I did daily, instead of intermittently.  I’ll mark the date in my Outlook at work (per Cynthia’s suggestion) and let you know how I made out at the end of May.  Wow.  Coincidence that today is May 1st?  Maybe.  Some say there are no coincidences.

Every morning, I read from two different sets of meditations.  This is the third year in a row that I’ve been reading from the Page-a-Day Zen calendar (“zen-a-day” in my head) – each year, the readings are different.  The other slot is a rotating one.  This year, “God Calling” by A. J. Russell fills that role.  It’s a very Catholic reader – which is not exactly my cup of tea (I’m agnostic), but it was a gift and I had an opening for 2009. 

Though I characterize myself as agnostic, I’m also a seeker.  I’m searching for god.  I drink in the experiences of others, and revel in my own.  I can’t really say that I’m getting “somewhere”, but I’m certainly not where I was.

I’ll start with yesterday’s reading from the latter set of meditations, and then move to the former.  And I’ll only paraphrase the “God Calling” reading, repeating the words that really spoke to me yesterday:

First Reading

You will conquer.  Do not fear changes…

As breathing rightly, from being a matter of careful practice, becomes a habit, unconsciously, yet rightly performed, so if you regularly practice this getting back into My Presence, when the slightest feeling of unrest disturbs your perfect calm and harmony, so this, too, will become a habit, and you will grow to live in that perfect consciousness of My Presence, and perfect calm and harmony will be yours.

Life is a training school.  Remember, only the pupil giving great promise of future good work would be so sinigled out by the Master for strenuous and unwearied discipline, teaching and training…

…take this training, not as harsh, but as the tender loving answer to your petition.

I read these meditations in the morning while I’m getting dressed.  I’m not a “morning person”, so I’m half-asleep and generally operating on auto-pilot when I read them.  Which, in the case of “God Calling” is probably for the best, because it’s quite dogmatic – and I don’t mix well with dogma.

What struck me this morning was the discussion of regular practice, with the example of breathing rightly.  As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a yoga practitioner and a student of zen.  Both of these schools stress meditation, and consciousness of the breath is always among the first lessons in any kind of meditation. 

In school, I hated taking beginner classes.  I attended a few classes in psych 101 and started counting the days to the next term, trying to figure out how to get into abnormal psych – a 300 level class – without taking any 200 level classes.  Same for philosophy, biology, and any other damned subject I found interesting.  I read the first few chapters of a book on zen and started daydreaming about the koans I would put to my students and whether or not I could get away with slapping them in answer to their questions, as so many other zen masters did.  A couple of beginner yoga classes, and I was looking for literature on how many hours I needed before I could teach (lol - and what cool “yoga name” would be my handle).

See the pattern?  I do.  I attempt to skip from beginner to master without dealing with the mundanity of the intermediate levels.  And I’m usually successful, though I generally have to go back to teach myself the intermediate levels while I’m trying to keep up with the advanced levels – I learn everything, as I should; but I do it the hard way, and it takes longer.

But I digress.  I’m currently working on not attempting mastery of entire fields of study at once.  It’s uncharacteristic, but I’m trying to take (and I hate this term:) baby-steps in my current endeavours.  Which is why yesterday’s reading got through my sleep-deprived morning haze:  I’ve been practicing “right breathing” more. 

That’s it.  Five paragraphs to get to those last six words.  So much for practicing brevity.  And being conscious of my breath as the beginning of meditation is where I’m at in my studies of zen and yoga.  But this is just an example that, like a fractal, is one small piece of the overall picture of the habits I’m trying to develop.  I’m doing so in small bits, but every day.  And I’m taking joy in doing so.

Second Reading

The second reading from yesterday was a Khalil Gibran quote:

Work is love made visible.  And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.

An apropos reading, as I’ve been concerned about my work ethic in the past couple of weeks.  I’ve been spending more time than I’d like messing around on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites, instead of finding more work to do at work.  And I’ve been rationalizing this behavior.

As with right breathing and the other good habits I’m attempting to acquire, this is a bad habit that I’ve acquired through practice.  And now I have to undo it by forming a good habit to take its place – and do so with practice.  Which means that I can’t get all pissed at myself for not walking into work and keeping my nose to the grindstone the whole time.  That all-or-nothing attitude that I’ve had in the past does me no good – because I’ll end up saying effit and settling for nothing and social media distraction all day.  Instead, yesterday I did just a little more work at work than I did on Monday; and just a little less messing around on the internet than I did on Monday.  And I’ll continue this practice tomorrow, until I’m back to where I used to be – working hard at work to further my career.  Because I’m not an alms-taker.

As I did yesterday, tomorrow I’ll do these things with joy.

I was up until about 3:30 in the morning on Friday night, messing with my new SlideShare account, in order to get “NASA’s Next Spacecraft – Alternatives to Ares?” posted properly, so I there was really no way in hell I was waking up two hours later to bushwack 7 miles and climb two mountains.  I’ll be doing that today.  Here’s yesterday’s post, if you want to read about it.  Sorry, cousin Danny, I’m screwing you over on the AM kayaking thing.

I slept right through my alarm and got out of bed just before 15:00 EST.  What a glorious day yesterday was!  I spent it running errands – don’t worry, I won’t regail you here with tales of the laundromat and car wash.

Pleasant Irony #1

As I was on my way to the (DIY) car wash, my friend Cheryl popped into my head, and I wondered if we were friends on Facebook.  Cheryl and I comment on each others’ blogs from time to time.  She’s married, lives in Florida, and is a fellow Mensa member.

As I’m sure you’ve gathered by now, I’ve become somewhat addicted to Twitter, so I checked my @replies from my blackberry while I was driving, and what do I see at the top of the list?  A tweet from Cheryl:

cliopatra#hunkalert @niceguyted nice guy – funny – smart give him some love, ladies!

Needless to say, we’re now friends on Facebook.  What a cool surprise!  This was completely out of the blue.  Cheryl and I hadn’t spoken (via twitter or blog comment) in at least a day.  Chalk it up to intuition or my burgeoning psychic powers, I found it a pleasant irony that I was thinking about Cheryl at just about the exact moment that she was tweeting about me.

Pleasant Irony #2

After running my errands, stopping by to say hello to sister Katie and Cousin Danny at MacMurphy’s Pub in town, and cleaning everything I own (or rent), I went to my local SBUX to get some time away from Mafia Wars, Facebook, Twitter, etc.  I figured if I changed environments I’d be more apt to finish plugging my edits into the word version of Franco’s novel so that I can (finally) get that back to her.  I also planned to get a couple of emails out of the way – one to Didi, and one to another Twitter friend, @yogadork.

I didn’t do a very good job of putting this post together or working on Nicole’s novel while at SBUX (or writing that email to Didi, for that matter).  I did, however, get to upload a bunch of winter hiking pics to my Facebook page, which you can view here (even if you’re not on Facebook). 

As I was composing my email to @yogadork, I pulled up YD’s facebook page and then Twitter page, and what do I see but this re-tweet (about 3 minutes old):

yogadorkted on the prowl, what did I say about wolf? RT @niceguyted: @cliopatra #hunkalert nice guy -funny- smart give him some love, ladies!

Neither tweet has netted me any dates (yet), but they both made my day.  And the pleasant irony of reading both tweets right as I was thinking about these two did not go unnoticed – it’s the stuff that saying “there are no coincidences” is made of.

Feng Shui

When I returned home from the SBUX and took my laptop out my bag and put it on my desk, I was struck by a feeling that I can’t quite describe.  I recognized immediately that it was due simply and completely to the energy flow in my apartment. 

I’m a pretty neat person – I definitely have clutter in my apartment, but that’s relegated to certain specific areas.  When I cleaned yesterday afternoon, I didn’t do any major moving of items in the apartment – everything has a place and generally stays in its place.  I clean about once a week, so the difference between before and after isn’t immediately recognizable to one looking in from the outside.  But last night, it was immediately recognizable to me.  It felt really good and comfortable to walk into my apartment and sit down at my desk and write to you.

“So a try-mind is more important than any Zen master.  If you say “I can,” then you can do something.  If you say “I cannot,” then you cannot do anything.  Which do you like?”  -Seung Sahn

“Do or do not, there is no try.”  -Jedi Master Yoda

The title of this blog and Didi’s incorrect assumption aside, we’ve all heard Yoda’s statement at one point or another.

So the question here is, who’s more correct, Yoda or Seung Sahn?  Do we need a try-mind, or should the concept of “try” not even be in our vocabulary?

I don’t know that the two are necessarily incompatible.  I think both are saying the same thing.  Yoda doesn’t put a time-limit on “do”.  As much as I hate to do it, I’m going to quote one of my old man’s coffee mugs: “you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”  If I assume that something isn’t worth trying – that the inevitable outcome will be “failure” – then I’ve effectively failed before even beginning.

If I assume the opposite, and put failure out of my mind, I’ve succeeded no matter the result.  I learn from each attempt, which is a kind of success in itself.

I’m not necessarily saying that if I attempt enough times, I’ll succeed in pulling an X-Wing out of the swamp with my mind.  But I am saying that the more calls I make, the better I’ll get at closing a client; the more shots I take from the foul line, the more often I’ll make them – I’ll have learned what not to say; how not to shoot the ball.

I don’t learn but by making mistakes.  If I don’t get out there and try something, I’ll never succeed at it.  And sometimes, I even succeed on the first try.

“To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring.”

-George Santayana

Juxtaposition:

As Garth said in Wayne’s World 2:  “We fear change.”

So what’s it going to be – fear of change or the embracement thereof? 

To take Santayana’s statement (maybe a bit too) literally, I’m a pretty big fan of the changing seasons.  I like that I live in a geographic region that has four different seasons.  You’ll rarely find me complaining about the weather – yearning for summer in the middle of winter.  This may very well be because I’m also a contrarian:  when I hear people complain about the cold and say “I can’t wait for the summer”, I usually think in the opposite direction.  I accept the winter for what it is – and that it will eventually give way to spring.  Those who wish for the summer in the midst of winter are invariably the ones who complain of the heat in the summer.

As I grow older, I find that I’m more aware of the fact that the seasons are not as distinct as I once thought.  That the season is changing every day.  As winter approaches, I’m aware that the days are getting shorter, and I try to spend some time drinking in the sunlight with my eyes during the day.  It’s been around 32 degrees in the morning for the last few days, even though we just tripped over the winter/spring line.  I’ve been noticing that the days are getting longer since the solstice.  It feels good to be in tune with the world around me.

In a figurative sense, Santayana’s statement is a good reminder to me that change is the only true constant.  I am different today that I was yesterday; different now than I was five minutes ago – even though these changes may be imperceptible, they’re still happening.  I’m happier when I embrace the flux.  It becomes painful to hold on to what was – eventually, if not immediately.  That pain comes from the fear of change – fear of the new and different.

If you have the album Led Zeppelin II, I recommend you flip over the record and point the needle to the third set of grooves – track 7 on the CD:  Ramble On is the title of this post and the theme for today in my life.  Here’s a live version from I-don’t-know-when-or-where.  For maximum effect of this post, please listen and read along with the lyrics.

How and why Led Zeppelin’s “Ramble On” is a proper metaphor for my life today:

Leaves are fallin’ all around, time I was on my way
Thanks to you, I’m much obliged for such a pleasant stay
but now it’s time for me to go, the autumn moon lights my way
for now I smell the rain, and with it, pain
and it’s headed my way
Aw, sometimes I grow so tired
but I know I’ve got one thing I got to do

Spring is coming, I can smell it in the air.  Days are getting longer; the sun rises earlier and it’s easier for me to get up in the morning feeling energetic.  The past few seasons have been good to me, but things are changing in my life.  I can smell the pain headed my way if I try to hold on to what’s past.  Hard decisions have to be made; the time for them has been approaching for a while.  It’s time to strap my gear on and head on down this metaphorical road.  As Plant says “I know one thing I got to do:”

A-ramble on, and now’s the time, the time is now
Sing my song, I’m goin’ ’round the world, I gotta find my girl
On my way, I’ve been this way ten years to the day
Ramble on, gotta find the queen of all my dreams

Today, I’ll be hiking alone.  Scott and I haven’t gone hiking for the past three Saturdays – we’ve hardly missed a Saturday in the past few seasons.  Never three in a row.  We have nine mountains left to climb in our goal of joining the Catskill 3500 Club.  Most of them are trail-less peaks, which means they’ll be tough hikes.  Today I climb Rusk Mountain – the easiest (in my estimation) of the bushwacks.  I’d try something harder, but I’ve never walked into the woods with just a map and a compass by myself before.

Got no time to for spreadin’ roots, the time has come to be gone
And though our health we drank a thousand times
it’s time to ramble on

I’ve spent the last few weeks waiting on other people:  waiting for Scott to be available on the weekend to hike, waiting for a certain girl to (metaphorically) look in my direction, waiting for my boss to spontaneously give me a raise.  As though I were actually walking through this life with other people.  I’ve had a good few seasons of companionship – made some friendships, solidified others.  Sure, I’ve been lonely here and there, but somewhere along the line I forgot I was alone.  Or maybe I should say and somewhere along the line I forgot I am alone.  I’ve been holding back waiting for others to catch up – gathering moss, if you will.

A-ramble on, and now’s the time, the time is now
Sing my song, I’m goin’ ’round the world
I’ve gotta find my girl
On my way, I’ve been this way ten years to the day
I gotta ramble on, I gotta find the queen of all my dreams
I tell you no lie

So my gear is in the car behind me, full tank of gas, and I’m off.  Literally and figuratively.  I’m hereby putting myself on notice that if anybody wants to roll with me, they’d better hustle up and roll with me, ’cause I’m not stopping to wait.  I need to be “The Big O“, not just think about it.  Companionship is nice while it’s there, but it fades and wears and loneliness shows through.  And loneliness isn’t something I can abide for long – what I can do, though is embrace my alone-ness and get back to taking care of me.

Mine’s a tale that can’t be told, my freedom I hold dear
How years ago in days of old when magic filled the air
’twas in the darkest depths of Mordor, mm-I met a girl so fair
but Gollum and the evil warg crept up and slipped away with her
her, her, yeah, and ain’t nothin’ I can do, no

So today I have no hiking partner, no girl, and no raise.  I just have my map & compass, my gear, and myself to keep me company.  I’m the only one that can make me happy.  But please, dear reader, don’t misunderstand:  I’m not unhappy.  I don’t feel deserted.  This isn’t me whining.  This is me girding my loins and polishing my armour.

I guess I’ll keep on ramblin’, I’m gonna
Sing my song/Sh-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah, I’ve gotta find my baby
I’m gonna ramble on, sing my song
Gonna work my way all around the world
Baby, baby/Ramble on, yeah

Scott’s probably reading this now.  We’re not breaking up, buddy.  You’re still my hiking partner – if you want to be.  I’m just off to climb Rusk by myself today.  In hiking, as in life, I’ll be right there with you when you’re ready to climb it; I have no problem climbing this mountain twice.  Dear reader, I hope you’re listening to the music.  This isn’t a sad song, this is a song of rebirth and renewal.  It’s about getting a move-on to see what’s around the next bend, over the next rise.  New and exciting adventures lie ahead and I plan to drink of them as from the cup that overfloweth.  I’m skipping my way up these mountains, whistlin’ a happy tune. 

A-do-do-n-do-n-do-n-do, my baby/Baby
A-ramble on, baby
A-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-de-do-de-do-de-do-de-do-de, yeah, yeah/
I can’t stop this feelin’ in my heart
Everytime I feel I will leave, I really gotta part
Gotta keep searchin’ for my baby/
Baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, babe
I’ve gotta keep a-searchin’for my baby
My, my, my, my, my, my, my baby/
Yeah-yeah, a-yeah-yeah, a-yeah-yeah
My, my, my, my, my, my baby/
Yeah-yeah, yeah-yeah, yeah-yeah, yeah-yeah, yeah-yeah
Ooh, my, my, my-my, my-my, my-my, yeah/
I can’t find my bluebird, I’d listen to my bluebird sing
but I, I can’t find my bluebird
I keep a-ramblin’ baby/ Ah, ah, yeah
I keep a-ramblin’, baby/I keep, keep, keep, keep, keep
Babe, babe, babe, babe/
I keep a-ramblin’, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby
My, my babe
Bay-ya-by/A-goodbye, goodbye, a-goodbye, baby
Well, something’s wrong

Oh, and if that lovely girl of whom I speak is reading this,

;-) 

I may not be waiting around gathering moss, but you know how to get ahold of me.

So again, I’m off.  Catch on up and roll with me if you like – I plan on having fun.

Today’s Hike:  Rusk Mountain

 
View Larger Map

All the aforesaid aside, I don’t plan on dying today.  This ain’t no suicide note.  Rusk is a bushwack of the releatively-easy type:  straight up and straight down.  I shouldn’t have too much trouble keeping the summit in sight, as there still aren’t any leaves on the trees.  Rusk is also 3,680′ high, the twenty-first highest of the thirty-five mountains in the Catskills over 3,500′, so it won’t take me forever (part of the way up is on a trail, anyway).  I’ll be sans-GPS tracker, so I apologize, dear reader, that you won’t be able to follow my progress.  But then again, this ain’t about you. 

How about a couple of hiking metaphors today?

I’m going to semi-steal a bit from my friend Alessandra’s blog  – she posted Robert Frost‘s “The Road Not Taken” a few days ago.  I haven’t read this poem in quite a while (probably since high school), but there’s still something about it that resonates with me. 

Whether I still, like so many of us, think of myself as “different” or whether I’m just plain defiant, I couldn’t really say.  But there’s something about going exactly where everyone else seems not to be going that appeals to me.  I never really had an interest in getting to know the popular kids - I usually gravitated (and still do) to the one sitting by themself, intent on whatever they’re doing – whether reading, writing, fiddling with the holes in their pants, or just looking out the window.  I was always interested in learning the things that others didn’t already know about.

Go ahead and shrink my head and say it’s because I have an overbearing father or because I’m the eldest in my family – it makes no difference to me.  It’s just the way I am.  I’ve spent enough time trying to get to the bottom of it and mind-effing myself along the way, that I think I’m happier not knowing and just being.

And so, without further digression, here is Frost’s poem:

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

It’s really the last sentence (5 lines) that gets me.  Along the way, I’ve constantly made choices for which I’ve been poo-pooed because they didn’t conform to what the crowd was doing – what was expected of me.  And ”with a sigh” I can’t imagine myself making any other choices.  I’m happy with where I am right now.

I switched from a Biology major to a Philosophy major in undergrad because I was more interested in the latter than the former.  I can tell you right now that I’m glad I don’t spend my days micropipetting solutions into agar blocks for gel electrophoresis.  Interesting though it may be.

That Philosophy degree led me to law school, where I was further educated in the arts of logic, argument, analogy, and metaphor.  Yet again I chose not to flow with the crowd into Pmbr or Bar/Bri classes and thence to huge bar exam testing sites.  I am not an attorney today, for which I receive no end of grief from everyone I meet.  But I’m happy today.

“Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong.  There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right.  To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage,” says Emerson.  Have I mapped out a course of action for my life?  Probably not.  Do I do so in the short-term?  Absolutely.  Do I follow them to their end?  Again, yes.

Have these things led me to riches, fame, and power?  Not yet – at least not in the senses that these terms are traditionally understood.  By metaphor or analogy then?  Maybe.  At the end of the day, I don’t suppose it matters “Ashes and dust, Maximus, ashes and dust” as Proximo was wont to say.

So are we all just taking different trails up the same mountain?

And I’ll leave you with this, dear reader - again from Emerson:  “Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”

***All metaphors and analogies aside, this post is in no way meant to suggest that my road is “better” than yours or that you “follow me” – I prefer to enjoy these woods by myself.***

Sigmund Freud, the famous psychoanalyst, split the personality into three parts:  the id, the ego, and the superego.  Whether I agree with him on this is immaterial for the purposes of this post; I’m simply going to identify these characteristics within myself, specifically regarding my ego.

The id and superego are relatively easily explained.  Id is comprised of my base instincts.  It’s the “animal” part of me that just wants to eat, sleep, and ef.  My superego is basically my moral structure; that which I think I should be. 

And my ego is me.  It’s influenced by both id and superego, but my ego is what walks and talks and what you know when you think of me.

These are very rudimentary explanations of Freud’s principles, and are only intended as an introduction to this discussion.  For a more detailed discusson, click here.  From here on out, I’ll basically be talking about my ego in the regular vernacular sense that most people use the word.  The above is partly me showing off that I took intro to psych in undergrad, but it’s also meant to give some background of what I’m thinking when I talk about my “ego”.

My ego is an attribute and a detriment.  When I feed it too much, it gets unwieldy and I have trouble paying attention to anything else.  If I beat it up too much or don’t feed it at least a little, I feel like crap.  My self-esteem goes down the tubes and I become hesitant about everything – like I’m a walking raw nerve.

Let’s look at my ego in three senses:  inflated, deflated, and right-sized.

Inflated

When my ego is inflated – meaning I’m thinking highly of myself – I tend to continue inflating it because it feels good to think highly of myself.  I’m constantly looking for situations in which I can be a hero or a star.  I try to dominate conversations, even when I have nothing productive to add.  Attention from other people feeds my ego. 

Inflation of my ego tends to perpetuate itself, by which I mean that increasing the state or level of inflation becomes all-important.  I don’t pay attention to anything but those things that will further inflate my ego.  For example, if I write an article that gets published on a work-related blog or website, I will begin to avoid my daily chores at work and spend time submitting the article to other sites.  I’ll get frustrated when my co-workers ask me to do something that is well within the realm of my work responsibilities.

When my ego is inflated, I only pay attention to me and either forget about or actively ignore thoughts of others.  This leads to me hurting others – whether intentionally or not.  I say things I don’t mean or do things I shouldn’t because I think these will lead to me feeling better about myself.  That they will reinforce my superiority.

Deflated

When my ego is deflated, my attitude towards everything is in a downward spiral.  In a similar fashion to my ego-inflated state, I’m only focused on myself.  Only in this state, I’m never good enough.  I think that everything I say and do is somehow wrong.  I’m constantly thinking that I’m hurting others, when in fact I’m not.  Again, I’m not paying attention to how others around me are feeling, but only to my perceptions thereof.  Perceptions that are darkly colored by my own lack of self-esteem.

I tend to be very hesitant and untrusting of my own actions and motives when my ego is deflated.  Having conversations with pretty girls is particularly hard in this state.  I get embarrassed easily over nothing.  I often tend towards isolation when in this state.  This tendency, again, only serves to reinforce the deflated-ego state.  I sit on the pity-pot and focus on the things I think are wrong with me.  I’m not good enough and never will be, etc.

Right-sized

When my ego is right-sized, I have some degree of humility – which is to say that I’m able to evaluate my thoughts, actions, and feelings in a (relatively, always relatively) objective manner.  In this state, I am not constantly thinking of myself and how the world relates to me.   I can act “naturally” and not be over-proud or ashamed of my actions and perception of the world.

Analogy:  first-person shooter games.  In FPS games, one generally has a choice of views:  the screen either displays the full figure of one’s character in the center of the screen, or the screen displays what would be seen through the eyes of the character.  If my ego is inflated or deflated, I’m looking at the world in the former sense – as if I’m a third person watching everything that’s going on.  I see myself as one of the characters in the overall field of battle.  I watch myself carefully and think how cool/uncool I look. 

If my ego is right-sized, I’m the character.  I’m just me, looking out of my own eyes at the world.  I’m not paying attention to what I’m wearing or how I’m holding my gun.  When my ego is right-sized, I’m not too concerned with me and how I fit into the whole picture, I’m just paying attention to what’s in front of me and taking care of the task at hand.  I tend to “forget” myself.

This is the state in which I am most productive at work and most able to be a benefit to those around me – a good friend, etc. – because all my attention isn’t focused on me.  My attention is focused outside of me.  People can say “you effed that up” and I’ll be able to say “ooh, yeah, sorry about that, how can I fix it?” or “no, I’m pretty sure I got it right” without worrying about how the situation makes me feel.  By the same token, I’m also able to feel something without only thinking about how it’s going to make me look.  If I like the pretty girl, I talk to her and not worry about whether she’ll think I’m a tool or if everyone around will think I’m out of my league or obviously making a pass.

At these times, when my ego is right-sized and I’m not “inside my head”, things run smoothly.  In a similar fashion to FPS games, I will often pop out of “eyes-only” mode and into “third-person” mode and see myself in an objective manner (and judge myself).  And this is where the analogy breaks down to a certain extent.  But I trust, dear reader, that you will forgive me this – there really aren’t any perfect analogies anyhow.

The key is to keep my ego right-sized.  I accomplish this by counteracting inflation with humility and deflation with affirmation.  If I realize I’m paying too much attention to myself in either a positive or negative way, I try the harder to focus on the task at hand – whatever that may be.  These states are in a constant flux, and thankfully “right-sized” isn’t too much of a razor-edge for me.  That said, it can still be somewhat of a balancing act.

To conclude:

As I said above, my ego can be both an attribute and a detriment.  In tough situations, my ego can help me be a leader, it heals my hurts and serves as my armour.  And my ego can also keep me up at night, get me in trouble, and cause me to hurt others – whether I mean to or not.  Keeping it right-sized is preferable, but if I spend too much time trying to do so, I’m probably only going in one direction or the other – towards over-inflation or total deflation.  Balance is something that happens, I have to forget about me and just be.

So as I sit here with a cheekful of cherry Skoal, my green money candle and stick of some kind of incense burning, listening to somebody play Bach on the harpsichord pretty well, I thought I might write a little more about what D. T. Suzuki has been telling me about Zen Buddhism.

I read a bit at lunch today that resonated well enough to get my head nodding rather vigorously and the meatballs falling out of my sandwich.  The book I’m reading is called Zen Buddhism and it’s a collection of Suzuki’s writings edited by William Barrett.  The part I was reading at lunch is called “The Zen Doctrine of No-Mind”, and I’m about to start quoting from (and paraphrasing) it rather liberally.

But before I do, how about a quick digression to set the stage?  Whether it’s a penchant of Suzuki or merely Barrett’s editorial decision, this book has a lot about the historical journey of Buddhism from India into China, where it there became Zen.  I’ve mentioned this before, so I won’t get too far into it here, but suffice to say that Suzuki seems to have a pretty good handle on where the various branches of the Buddhist tree derive and separate from one another.  He often repeats that ritualization leads to stagnation and thus dead branches. 

One such example occurs with respect to the three subjucts of the Buddhist Triple Discipline:  Morality(sila), Meditation (dhyana), and Wisdom (prajna).

“Morality consists in observing all the precepts laid down by the Buddha for the spiritual welfare of his disciples.  Meditation is the exercise to train oneself in tranquillization, for as long as the mind is not kept under control by means of meditation it was of no use just to observe mechanically the rules of conduct, in fact, the latter were really meant for spiritual tranquillization.  Wisdom or Prajna is the power to penetrate into the nature of one’s being as well as the truth itself thus intuited.”  [emphasis mine]

Suzuki goes on to describe how the three aspects of this (single) discipline became separated from one another into specific schools of study.  Basically, these three are meant to be practiced together - to balance one another.  Spending too much time specializing in the study of one is to forsake the others, and thus to forsake the entire point of the Triple Discipline.  Suzuki continues:

“That all these three are needed for a devoted Buddhist goes without saying.  But after the Buddha, as time went on, the Triple Discipline was split into three individual items of study.  The observers of the rules of morality set down by the Buddha became teachers of the Vinaya; the Yogins of meditation were absorbed in various Samadhis, and even acquired something of supernatural faculties, such as clairvoyance, mind-reading, telepathy, knowledge of one’s past lives, etc. and lastly, those who pursued Prajna became philosophers, dialecticians, or intellectual leaders.  This one-sided study of the Triple Discipline made the Buddhists deviate from the proper path of Buddhist life, especially in Dhyana (meditation) and Prajna (wisdom or intuitive knowledge).”  [emphasis mine]

This is the point at which my meatballs landed in my potato chips.  Suzuki goes on to discuss specifically the split between meditation and wisdom, which is exactly what I was thinking about and needed to read.  I can’t forego one for the other without becoming imbalanced in who I am.  In a very simple sense, my actions, thoughts, and feelings must be in harmony with one another - which corresponds directly to the balance among the practices of morality, wisdom, and meditation – otherwise I am not whole. 

Maybe that’s not as simple a statement as I would like it to be.  I think an elaboration would be more suited here than trying to break this idea down further:

Morality:  I was raised here in America according (more or less) to the Roman Catholic code of morality embodied in the Ten Commandments.  My parents taught me to be a gentleman – speak when spoken to, open doors for people, help little old ladies across the street – things like that.  I’ve got a pretty good handle on the rules of polite society (and how not to go to jail).  But if I simply follow these rules with no thought at all to the true moral underpinings – why it’s wrong to kill, why it’s wrong to steal, etc. – and go about my merry way doing whatever I like without transgressing these boundaries, then I’m a sociopath (or just an asshole).

Wisdom:  I chose to study philosophy because I like to think.  I like dialectical and analytical problems because they keep my mind exercised and sharp.  If taken to the extreme, I get completely lost in my books and in my head and never really do anything.  I spend lots and lots of time thinking about what’s right and wrong, true and untrue, what should and should not be.  I forget about reality and become completely absorbed in the hypothetical.

Meditation:  I enjoy yoga.  I like going to class and practicing at home.  I enjoy the breathing exercises and postures.  Yoga helps me get centered and clears my cluttered mind.  Some days, I feel that I would like to be a yoga instructor.  In order to become an instructor, (in my mind) I would have to spend years in study and discipline.  Lots and lots of meditation so that I become “completely” centered.  If I did that, I’d have to quit my job and live in poverty, even though I’d be “full” and “wealthy” “on the inside”. 

Any one of these, if taken to the extreme, automatically foregoes the other two.  And I don’t want to live that way; it makes me feel incomplete.  To a certain extent, I have direct experience with each of these – living as though that one thing (morality/wisdom/meditation) were the most important way to live.  In each case, I felt strange, though I couldn’t have told you why at the time (and probably would have denied it anyhow). 

So, without making this post any longer than it already is, I’ve reached this conclusion:  it really is ok for me to be a jack of all trades (master of none).

Of the things that interested me about the study and practice of Zen were statements like “chop wood, fetch water, seek enlightenment”.  Statements that Zen is intensely practical piqued my interest.  I’ve stated before that I’m a Pragmatist (“do what works”).  I came to this conclusion on my own, through experience and study – but more of the former than the latter.  The study of various philosophies has helped me greatly:  I’ve been able to pick and choose what I liked and left the rest for the mindless zealots.  If something didn’t make sense or didn’t work for me, I simply switched directions and read about other things.

To be sure, when I was studying Nietzsche, I was a Nihilist – but I was young.  Hell, I’m still young (and still something of a Nihilist), but I’m not as inclined as I once was to shoe-horn my experiences into the tenets of a particular mode of thought.  Yes, I am studying Zen Buddhism, but (at least right now) I’m not a Buddhist.  One of the concepts I particularly enjoyed wrapping my head around is in one of  D. T. Suzuki’s essays on Zen:  his idea is that Zen is very much a living thing in itself – that it has flowed through time in the hearts and minds of its practitioners and has thus evolved (and I use the term loosely) to what it is today. 

Even still, it is not a static thing, but malleable – we each interpret it in our own way and pass that on a little bit differently than the way it was transmitted to us.  Suzuki says that the inside kernel – the basic principles, if you will – have not changed, just our expressions and interpretations thereof.  These changes have to occur in order for Zen to fit into our time.  Formalization leads to dogma, which leads to stagnancy and thus to rot.  Zen (according to Suzuki) is the flower that blossomed when the seed of Buddhism was transplanted from India into Chinese soil.  I love that analogy – good analogies are very important to lawyers.  ;-)

Without getting carried too far away on a discussion of Zen’s roots (and I’m not that far into my reading, so my paraphrasing can only be inadequate anyway), my point is that this malleability is precisely one of the things that attracted me to Zen in the first place.  Quotes like the following also really help me with my understanding of meditation:

“For studying Zen, one should have quiet quarters.  Be moderate in food and drink.  Cast aside all involvements and discontinue all affairs.  Do not think of good or evil; do not deal with right or wrong.  Do not intend to make yourself a Buddha, much less be attached to sitting still.“  (Dogen)

I am not particularly attached to sitting still, which is why I prefer sun-walking and the active meditation that comes with yoga practice.  Nor am I inclined to attempt to make myself a Buddha, because I am not a Buddhist.

I study philosophies in order to better understand my own experiences and to find better analogies to fit my own personal world-view.  Being part Perspectivist and somewhat of a Solipsist, I’m less inclined to try to fit my thoughts into any particular category, and more inclined to find ways to refine my thinking – I enjoy studying things that underscore my experiences, not the other way around.

So far, I like Zen because I believe that by being true to myself, I am being true to Zen practice.

I’ve read about many different forms of meditation: moon-walking, sun-walking, yoga, wall staring, zazen, etc. The books relating to Zen Buddhism I’ve read that have been written by westerners stress zazen as the sine qua non of Zen practice.  Zazen itself takes many forms (koan meditation, etc.), but the central idea is sitting still – which is hard for me to make time to do (and hard for me to do, when I make the time). 

Moon-walking is walking (generally in a circle) slowly:  right foot forward, left foot forward to meet the right, then left (or right again) foot forward; and any basic variations thereof.  Sun walking is walking (again, generally in a circle) at a steady pace: left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot…  Sun-walking is more active and does not stress as much the concentration on each individual step.  Yoga goes through a series of stretching postures and concentrates on the breath through the postures.  Wall staring is just what it sounds like:  sit a couple of feet from a blank wall and just stare at it.  And as I just mentioned, zazen is sitting still (with variations as to what the mind does).

Heretofore, meditation for me has been different forms of sun-walking, and a little bit of yoga.  I’ve been to plenty of yoga classes and occasionally will unroll my mat at home and go through the cycle of basic postures.  Sun-walking for me is usually along the lines of cleaning my apartment with Metallica’s black album blasting – most of my actions are from muscle-memory (but I still have to think about what I’m doing), so part of my mind is freed up to just wander.

My zen-a-day calendar for this year dedicated the first full week of January to getting the reader “back on the cushion” – the basics of zazen.  I’ve been trying to get at least a few minutes of zazen meditation in each day.  So far, I’ve been moderately successful, insofar as I haven’t just said “effit, I don’t have the time”.  What I really need to do is carve out five minutes of every day (the same five minutes, mind you) to sit zazen.

So far, I’ve been practicing a relatively rudimentary form:  I’m counting my exhalations up to ten and then starting back at one.  It’s been pretty good for me and is getting easier the more I do it.  What I’d really like to do is go straight to koan meditation, but I haven’t reached that point in any of my readings yet.  So for now, I’m sticking with the basics and just watching my breath.

Last night I watched the movie Hero, a 2002 flick starring Jet Li.  Grazie, John (my brother), for allowing your considerable DVD collection to be without it for so long.  “That particular piece was on loan from my brother’s collection” – sounds like art.  Grazie is I-talian for “thank you” – sounds cultured, no?

It’s rare that I sit still long enough to watch even a 90-minute movie like this one, but on the occasions that I do, it’s often well-worth it (from a state-of-mind perspective).  I don’t own a tv (laptop), so this kind of non-interactive visual stimulation is unusual for me.  That said, it’s important for me to unplug my brain every once in a while – to let something else besides my own will spin the wheels for a bit (deja vu – have I said this recently?).

This particular film – and being that I know the difference between a “movie” and a “film”, I am comfortable with the appellation “film” – I found to be a very worthwhile enterprise.  It’s set in feudal China and the themes underlying the plot are of honor, duty, and love – all, to my mind, worthy subjects of thought.  The cinematography (by which I mean camera angles, scene setup, and the general “look and feel” of the film) was excellent:  the landscapes and architecture were very soothing to the eye (and thus, to the mind). 

Because of the optical and intellectual qualities of the film - simultaneously soothing and stimulating – my brainwaves were able to return from their workday choppiness to a relatively still, reflective pool. 

And that’s about it.  Sometimes it sucks to be able to say things succinctly.  Watching Hero was just what I needed last night – it gave the hamster a break.  I even went to bed early.

Last year, when I started blogging on myspace and was looking for things to blog about, I started a list of the books I’d read. I continued to update it all year, and eventually transferred it here. You can see the final post here. Toward the end of last year, I also found goodreads.com; you can see my profile thereon here, if you’ve an inclination to check out my reading tastes.

The first book I finished in 2009 was Hardcore Zen by Brad Warner. I thought it was ok. Warner was a punk rocker back in the day and he really likes mention this over and over again. Of the 202 pages in the book, I’d say I really learned something from about 15 of them. I don’t mean this as a dig or an anti-complement, just that there weren’t many “take-aways” for me. The book is really more autobiographical than anything else. Warner certainly has/had an interesting life, but my purpose in reading it was more of an academic one, and I just didn’t get as much of what I was looking for as I thought I would when I pulled it from the shelf.

Warner’s style, while interesting, is not all that unique in that it’s mainly in the vernacular. I can see how this would be attractive to some, but I found it off-putting at times. I think the idea of a hardcore anti-establishment punk rocker becoming a “Zen Master” is interesting, but I don’t think it was enough to carry the book. Warner talks about it so much that it lost its trading value for me.

At the end of the book, Warner also goes on a tirade about drug use. He says very specifically and emphatically that drug use is not a means of achieving enlightenment. While I would tend to agree with him, I didn’t appreciate the manner in which he voiced this opinion. He spent what I found to be an inordinate amount of time bashing some other guy’s book, entitled Zig Zag Zen. I thought this was a waste of ink and paper: Number one, because I don’t see a point to giving the other guy any ink at all – I wouldn’t have heard of his book if Warner hadn’t mentioned it; number two, because I think it (arguably) runs a bit afoul of the first of the Buddhist 10 Precepts; and number three, because I just find it unbecoming of any kind of scholar or author to give voice to an opinion in this manner, especially outside of any kind of forum for debate.

While I don’t advocate drug use either, I don’t think Warner is necessarily correct in his assertions. I see his point, but as has been said many times before “there are many different routes up the mountain”. I don’t think I want to follow this line of reasoning too far either – mainly because I think it’ll end up being circular and I’ll end up being a hypocrite.

At the end of the day, I don’t think this book was a particularly horrible read. While I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it, neither would I attempt to dissuade anyone from reading it. I think Warner gets one main thing right: Zen practice starts with sitting zazen (that’s meditation, for the layperson). He really hammers this home, and for that I’m grateful.