That's Weird

Drop It

2010-05-18T18:49:00.000-07:00

This story is told about the Buddha, who one day was sought out by an ardent follower who had brought presents to the master to show his devotion. The Buddha gave him audience. The man stepped forward and held out his right hand, offering a precious ivory ornament. "Drop it," said Buddha. The man, surprised, stepped back. Then he stepped forward again, this time offering in his left hand a precious jewel. "Drop it," said Buddha. Again the disciple, surprised, obeyed and stepped back. Then, smiling as if catching the Buddha's meaning, he held out both hands empty and stepped forward. "drop it," said Buddha.

Inconceivable

2010-04-15T18:38:00.000-07:00

Found these words of wisdom in an article by John Daido Loori:

Although water is inherently empty, it flows up and it flows down. It rises to the sky and rains down on earth. Water becomes dew, ice and snow. It flows and it's still. It breaks and it melts. Water becomes rivers and streams, lakes and oceans. Water is all of these things, yet it is not any of these things. It is inconceivable.

It is also inconceivable that you and I are the same thing, yet I'm not you and you're not me. It's inconceivable, because our minds are dualistic. We only understand something to be one thing and not another. But life doesn't work that way. We need to learn to use our minds differently. Or rather, we need to relearn what we have forgotten after years and years of conditioning. That is the only way that we will be able to see the wonder that surrounds us.

Daido Roshi was the founder of Zen Mountain Monastery and author of many books on Zen, creativity and photography. He passed away last year and is most certainly missed.

2010-04-15T18:13:00.000-07:00

The plants and flowers
I raised about my hut
I now surrender
To the will
Of the wind.
~Ryokan

Trying Not to Grit My Teeth . . .

2010-03-01T18:18:00.000-08:00

From an interview with Maya Angelou by Brian Lanker from the book I Dream a World: Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America

I'm convinced that I'm a child of God. That's wonderful, exhilarating, liberating, full of promise. But the burden that goes along with that is, I'm convinced that everybody is a child of God. The brutes, the bigots, the batterers and the bastards are also children of God. And that's where the onerous burden comes in for me, as a practicing Christian, to try to keep that in mind and not grit my teeth until they break off into little stubs.

Everyday Magic

2010-02-26T17:55:00.000-08:00

From Chagyam Trungpa's Shambhala:

"Realize that your own wisdom as a human being is not separate from the power of things as they are. They are both reflections of the unconditioned wisdom of the cosmic mirror. Therefore there is no fundamental separation or duality between you and your world. When you can experience those two things together, as one, so to speak, then you have access to tremendous vision and power in the world - you find that they are inherently connected to your own vision, your own being. That is discovering magic. We are not talking here about an intellectual revelation; we are speaking of actual experience. We are talking about how we actually perceive reality."

Key here is that this isn't just an idea. He's talking about actual experience in the here and now. Trying our best to see things as they actually are. It ain't easy!

Lovely

2010-02-17T07:57:00.000-08:00

It's 8am and the sun is out. First time we've seen it in awhile. There are shapely, distinct shadows on the wall! Beads of water on the pine needles from last night's rain glisten like so many diamonds. The slightest breeze changes everything. I'm off to the studio to make some cups.

Javelinas and Teenagers

2010-01-04T16:46:00.000-08:00

The Human Animal

2009-11-15T17:54:00.000-08:00

I liked this paragraph from Barbara Kingsolver's essay High Tide in Tucson

It's starting to look as if the most shameful tradition of Western civilization is our need to deny we are animals. In just a few centuries of setting ourselves apart as landlords of the Garden of Eden, exempt from the natural order and entitled to hold dominion, we have managed to behave like so-called animals anyway, and on top of it to wreck most of what took three billion years to assemble. Air, water, earth and fire - so much of our own element so vastly contaminated, we endanger our own future. Apparently we never owned the place after all. Like every other animal, we're locked into our niche; the mercury in the ocean, the pesticides on the soybean fields, all come home to our breast-fed babies. In the silent spring we are learning it's easier to escape from a chain gang than a food chain. Possibly we will have the sense to begin a new century by renewing our membership in the Animal Kingdom.

Advice to the Cook

2009-10-28T15:58:00.000-07:00

Doing some research on Oryoki and found this in an article giving advice to monastery cooks -

"Do not discriminate between the faults or virtues of the monks or whether they are senior or junior. You do not even know where you stand, so how can you put others into categories. Judging others from within the boundaries of your own opinions, how could you be anything other than wrong?"

Monkey Mind

2009-10-05T09:31:00.000-07:00

As I sit down to read yesterday's mail, I notice my mind is madly ticking off a list of other things I could (and should) be doing. It seems pretty irritated that I haven't yet learned to bi-locate.

Is this what Buddhists call monkey mind? Chattering on and on, not always making a lot of sense. Either nagging and dissatisfied or off in its own little world, going on about one thing or another. Making up stories. Trying to get me to believe they're real. Relying on dubious premises to cobble together "the way things are."

It takes careful investigation and tireless effort to begin to unravel the tangle of thoughts woven over the years by a relentless monkey mind.

Relax

2009-08-10T08:29:00.000-07:00

Found this wonderful paragraph on deep relaxation in Chogyam Trungpa’s Shambhala.

If you are able to relax – relax to a cloud by looking at it, relax to a drop of rain and experience its genuineness – you can see the unconditional quality of reality, which remains very simply in things as they are. When you are able to look at things without saying, “this is for me or against me,” I can go along with this,” or “I cannot go along with this,” then you are experiencing the state of being of the cosmic mirror, the wisdom of the cosmic mirror. You may see a fly buzzing; you may see a snowflake, you may see ripples of water; you may see a black widow spider. You may see anything, but you can actually look at all of those things with simple and ordinary, but appreciative perception.

Indra's Net

2009-05-14T15:58:00.000-07:00

I’ve always liked the Buddhist story of Indra’s net. Here’s a short version by Francis H. Cook from his book, Hua-Yen Buddhism: The Jewel Net of Indra.

Far away in the heavenly abode of the great god Indra, there is a wonderful net which has been hung by some cunning artificer in such a manner that it stretches out infinitely in all directions. In accordance with the extravagant tastes of deities, the artificer has hung a single glittering jewel in each "eye" of the net, and since the net itself is infinite in dimension, the jewels are infinite in number. There hang the jewels, glittering like stars in the first magnitude, a wonderful sight to behold. If we now arbitrarily select one of these jewels for inspection and look closely at it, we will discover that in its polished surface there are reflected all the other jewels in the net, infinite in number. Not only that, but each of the jewels reflected in this one jewel is also reflecting all the other jewels, so that there is an infinite reflecting process occurring.

Not long ago, I realized what a brilliant illustration of interconnectedness this is. I’d known about the metaphor for years and had some intellectual understanding of it. But thinking about it recently, I felt the reality of it like an electric shock that shook me from the top of my head right down to my toes. Every action, every thought we have changes the world; subtly no doubt, but certainly nonetheless. Changes not just our world, but the world. It can’t be other than that. Yikes!

The Garden of Eden

2009-05-07T11:46:00.000-07:00

I like this poem a lot:

Paradise is not a place
where we are going.
It is a place
where we are from.
We can go there
at any time.
It is our beliefs
that lock us in our hell.

It is the sacredness of this moment
that is the key to freedom.

~John Squadra
from This Ecstasy

Heroes

2009-05-07T11:37:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I read an article about Shoji Hamada, a real hero for me and many potters interested in the Mingei tradition. The article spent some time detailing how he worked, how he got his start in pottery, even what he wore.

I read the article carefully because my tendency is to try to emulate the people I admire. I actually considered wearing a samue for work, just like Shoji. I wondered again what it would be like to have his mindset, his attitude, his lifestyle. Yet, I know exactly what it would be like. Just like it is now.

Not that I think I’m anything special, just the opposite really. I can imagine how it would feel to be a living legend as Hamada certainly was. I can make up stories for myself of how I’d think, how I’d spend my day, what I’d say to my friends and colleagues, but I know that if I really were that person I’d feel exactly as I feel today. I’d spend my days just as I spend them and say the things I say. It would be nothing special.

I don’t think we can really live out our stories. We have to live in the real world as ourselves, doing what we do. And no matter how remarkable we may be, to ourselves we’re just us, living everyday the way we live it. Nothing special.

Tangle

2009-05-06T10:20:00.001-07:00

This painting by Tiffany Liu does a nice job of illustrating the problem with my brain. Knotted, tangled, convoluted ideas upon ideas, upon more ideas. Some of them old, rotting and gathering flies.

The tangle as a whole is an object of my own making. New ideas are added daily and quickly find their way into the tangle that is . . . well, me. My job, as a person who spends some time trying to see things the way they actually are, is to sort through the mess, untangle the ideas, painstakingly, one at a time.

Once a thread is separated from the tangled mess, I aim to look at it, consider its relevance in the here and now, discard those ideas that don’t pass the test and keep the relevant ones from again becoming part of the tangle. It’s going to take some time . . .

Passion

2009-04-24T20:32:00.000-07:00

I’ve always been passionate about many things. My work, animal rights, my kayak, the water it floats in, and coconut meringue pie. And there are those things I hate – war and torture come to mind today, also flippancy about important things, and Brussels sprouts Strangely, the fact that I’ve really never tasted a Brussels sprout doesn’t stop me from hating them.

So this morning I’m reading* an article titled Smile at Fear by Tibetan Buddhist writer Carolyn Rose Gimian. In it, she mentions the Buddhist teaching of the three poisons – passion, aggression and ignorance. Poison passion?

I’ve always felt good about being passionate. After all isn’t the opposite of passion apathy? Or is the opposite of passion nonattachment? The thing about passion is that it keeps us from seeing things the way they are. We view things we’re passionate about as if through a curtain that blurs the shape, obscures the details and makes it easy for us to see pretty much just what we want to see rather than what’s really there. Just trying to see things as they are is a lifetime occupation.

*Shambhala Sun , March, 2009

Feel the Burn

2009-01-12T16:24:00.000-08:00

I don’t like feeling pain.

When in pain I want to distract myself and will more often than not do whatever it takes to serve the purpose. I know I’m not alone because our economy depends on this rather chicken-shit human tendency. I’m talking about drug manufacturers, of course, but they’re not alone.

The entertainment industry distracts and amuses us, and makes us care about its stories. We can be so completely engrossed that we succeed in forgetting our own pain; and even more readily cease to care about the pain of others. Frighteningly, our willingness to avoid, seek pleasure, forget and be apathetic is essential for our economy.

In the hope of avoiding fear and pain, I am at this moment trying to not think about the implications of this . . .

Time

2008-01-04T22:33:00.000-08:00

I’m reading a book titled Each Moment is the Universe by Dainin Katagiri. In it Mr. Katagiri tries to explain something of Zen Master Eihei Dogen’s ideas of time, space and being. The subtitle is Zen and the Way of Being Time. Turns out “being time” means exactly that. We are time and space, time and space are us.

This morning as I sat trying to wrap my mind around Dogen’s ideas, thinking about the way things work much the same be they tiny or enormous – everything comes into being, stays awhile, deteriorates and passes out of being. A flower blooms, fades and finally falls in pieces on the ground. In death it serves future flowers by providing mulch and then adding fresh nutrients to the soil as it rots. A nice system. Very natural.

I wonder about us humans and our distaste for change. Particularly change that involves death, rotting and the like.

Then I look down and see Meg the Aussie dog staring at me, reminding me as she does every morning that she’s hungry and wants her breakfast. Suddenly my musings re the workings of time, space and human nature seem not so important. I get up and feed the dogs.

Tacky v Cool

2007-11-17T21:05:00.000-08:00

I was looking through the Sundance catalog which arrived in the mail a couple of days ago. Seems to me that someone there (maybe Robert Redford himself?) gets off on trying to get us to buy stuff that no one in their right mind would want.

The item in question in this particular catalog is a plastic snowman that looks identical to the ones that graced so many front yards for Christmas in the fifties. Complete with inner light for that special mid-century appeal. The description says, “Oh so tacky is now beyond gloriously good with our lighted Snowman sentinels . . .” I don’t think so. The real kicker is that in addition to selling them one at a time and in sets of three, they also helpfully offer a set of 36 of the inane creatures for a mere $2100. I’d be interested in knowing how many takers they get for the set of 36 (plus $450 extra for shipping). We can only hope that $5000 glow-in-the-dark nativity sets aren’t next on the Sundance agenda.

Winter

2007-11-16T20:24:00.000-08:00

The day before yesterday my favorite Japanese maple tree had a full complement of burgundy colored leaves. Yesterday’s wind storm blew every last leaf onto the ground and down the driveway. The now leafless branches sport clumps of pale green lichen and stand proud in their rosy red winter color.

I love winters in the Pacific Northwest; the monochrome afternoon light; the misty pale gray mornings and close-to-ever-present rain make the few sun breaks all the more beautiful. Reading this, you may think I spend a lot of time appreciating my surroundings. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. I’m disappointed to admit that I spend way more time either ruminating over past events or planning for things to come. Like John said, “Life is what happens while you’re making other plans.”

I’ve noticed that when I am able to stay in the moment it’s a lot like balancing on the edge of a knife blade. Any move in any direction, and you’re toast. Even when you notice that you’re still in the moment, you’re not. Go figure.

2007-11-14T19:24:00.000-08:00

As a potter, I spend a lot of time alone in the studio. As a potter who lives in the sticks and is somewhat of an introvert (extroverts read ‘recluse’) I spend the majority of my time alone. I’m not complaining. I can’t imagine anything I’d rather do, or anywhere I’d rather be. Besides, it gives me time to think.

Lately I’ve been paying a good deal of attention to the thoughts running through my head every day. And that is what’s so weird. They quite often don’t make much sense. Maybe they used to back in the day, maybe not even then.

I doubt I’m alone in this. I may have more time than most for introspection, but I suspect a lot of the blather that fills my head is clogging up psyches all over the planet this very minute. Our adversity to aging is one example.

Oh to be Young Again
What’s with the nonsensical wish to remain young forever? Or at least look like we are. If ever there was a losing battle, this would be it. We’ll waste untold resources in the pursuit of even the slightest smoothing of our (what must certainly be prematurely) aging skin. Plastic surgery that attempts to remove the effect of the years is big business. And we’ve all seen the results of one too many face lifts - that grimacing smile that looks more scarecrowish than youthful. And why? A face, proudly worn, wrinkled with laugh lines and years of a life well lived is altogether beautiful. Even if it’s on a woman; maybe especially if it’s on a woman. I notice this quite often, yet a couple of weeks ago I was conned by some good advertising into sending for this stuff that’s supposed to erase wrinkles in six weeks (coincidently two weeks longer than its 30-day free trial offer). I did manage to come to my senses and send it back before they charged my Visa account the $150 they say the stuff is worth (on sale of course). Besides, it didn't seem to be working . . .