I’m taking the summer to ride across the country by bicycle and cultivate that emptiness that comes from absence. I’m keeping a video blog here: slowlyrollin.wordpress.com. I’ll probably only update my zen blog infrequently on the road,
- Ross
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We talk about suffering. All life is suffering. We might now call it anxiety, stress. The French have colorful superlatives for their finer despair: ennui, melancolia. But I have not suffered.
“All beings grow old,” but I don’t feel age in my body. “All beings get sick,” but I’ve always recovered. “All beings die,” but not quite yet. It’s bourgeois suffering: the suffering of existence. But what happens when you see someone suffer and know that you’re helpless to help?
My best friend’s brother is in the hospital right now. For 10 years he has managed aggressive thymoma (he wasn’t supposed to have long to live when he first heard this diagnosis). The cancer is suffocating his heart such that he needs tubes to remove liquid to make room. He doesn’t wake up in pain because he doesn’t go to sleep: he rests, in pain. Treatment too will be painful.
I’ve been regularly dedicating my practice to him, to his family. Buddhism doesn’t give you an intercessory being like a god to pray to, to ask that He intercede on your friend’s health – that He cure him. When I dedicate my practice, the most I can hope for is that the peace, the presence, the living force that I cultivate on the mat and cushion be not wasted on me, but be shared – that this becomes my friend’s. And with this, the hope that peace brings healing, recovery.
It’s magic talk – that my intentions be felt 1,500 miles away… that my love be felt at all. (aside: disregard for a moment prayer research) Beyond hope, I had no reason to think I was making a difference. Until last night: I had insight.
Gido chanting is a devotional practice meant to cultivate the virtue of the bodhisattva whose name you’re chanting. Last night, with 6 others, we chanted Gwanseum Bosal (Sk.: Avalokitesvara) – the Boddhisattva of Great Compassion. Then it dawned on me, my dedication was cultivating compassion. Compassion literally means “to suffer with.”
My dedication is a vow to be there with my friend – miles away – that he is not alone in his suffering – that we are in this together – that I take on some of his suffering – and he shares some of my peace and presence – and that we are all connected, that it’s not just a lot of sentimental peace-love lip service.
Compassion is not sympathy. Sympathy is a simile, a metaphor. Compassion is literal. And because it’s so real, there are no words for comfort. How do I know “it will be alright?” I don’t.
But I do know that it IS alright. I hear your spirits are up, that you’re the same old Scott. For all that could be “not right,” at this moment in time, you are loved, you are surrounded by those you love. You are compassion for all those who suffer because they love you.
Why do you sit when there are a million things to do? Why do you sit when you could check things off a list? Read a book? Watch TV? Learn fiddle? Go online?
Why do you wake when the alarm goes off? Why do you hop in the shower? Why do you go to work? Why, when there is so much to do, do you instead do these things?
Why pause in gratitude before a meal?
Why breathe before entering your home?
Why greet the morning sun with a smile?
With the infinite possibilities, you do these things. With all the limitless potential and grand schemes, you do these small things. Why?
When at peace, why do you sit? Why do you sit when at peace?
Say you don’t ride your bike to work. And like, because you think it’s too cold or too dangerous or whatever, say instead you take the El: the red line to the brown line, coming home from work.
So you’re sitting on the red line (you actually got a seat today), and – oh yeah, it’s five minutes past five, which means you tore ass out of your office to be here in five minutes, and also it’s Tuesday, the worst day of the week. You’re sitting there dully, only to discover that the batteries in your fucking Kindle are dead. Didn’t even know those things had batteries. You shove it back in your brown leather musset bag and, so like, whatever, you look around. You make eye contact with the homeless guy sitting across from you but you instinctively divert your gaze so as to minimize contact with another human being. But, joke’s on you, because you sweep your head in the other direction and pay attention just long enough to notice that the homeless guy is staring at you. There’s no decency in that, of course. You know that. You look left. Continue reading
Posted in Here's to me(!)... whereever you are...
I’ve been this week in Los Angeles. Riding bikes with friends in Newport, we stopped for fish tacos at Bear Flag. We saw a guy on a moped with a dog in a crate on the back. My friend Pete remarked, “That lifestyle is completely foreign to me: he rides around with a dog on his motorbike, he’s not at work on a weekday, he looks good with his shirt off.”
Kid is a friggin’ bad-ass! For all of his self-deprecation (he’s the first to let you know when he’s got “a monster Z” on his back) he’s got to be one of the most confident people I know. It’s really inspiring.
I think I sometimes confuse confidence with self-praise. “If I tell myself good things about myself, then I must be demonstrating confidence.” But that’s totally off-base. Confidence is unshakable comfort in your own skin. Both ‘the good’ and ‘the bad.’ (‘Confidence’ and ‘comfortable’ share the same root, ‘con,’ from the latin ‘equivalent to.’)
It’s a way of seeing yourself. It’s a way of experiencing yourself. It’s a way to breath unconsciously, seeing yourself naked, a bit scrawny, and perfect too.
The U.S. Supreme Court decided in favor of the Westboro Baptist Church today, allowing their “idiosyncratic” protests of U.S. service members funerals. The God-fearing congregants of the church, you see, believe that God kills U.S. soldiers because of American tolerance of homosexuality.
Per CNN:
The church, led by pastor Fred Phelps, believes God is punishing the United States for “the sin of homosexuality” through events including soldiers’ deaths. Members have traveled the country shouting at grieving families at funerals and displaying such signs as “Thank God for dead soldiers,” “God blew up the troops” and “AIDS cures fags.”
And yet, the tone of all the reports seems to be that “intolerance wins.” They seem to be confused. They seem to think that tolerance means tolerance of things that are tolerable. But that’s wrong. Tolerance means to be tolerable, even of the intolerable. Continue reading
He was back again today.
Before I even opened my eyes this morning, I could tell he was back. I didn’t check right away – I was too groggy. I stumbled out of bed, caught my balance (you see, I sleep on the floor, so arising takes a bit more effort and concentration).
I guess he couldn’t see much because of the window covering – but when I pull it back, there’s his big black, glistening eye shrouded by his leathery head. That he can’t see much, that’s not the point. The point was that he was back – just like yesterday, just like the day before, just like every day since I’ve noticed him. Staring in my window. He only stares until I wake up – until I notice him. I can’t help not noticing him – he’s perpetually there. Continue reading
I’m lucky as an American – I get to practice meditation in peace. The ZBT’s dharma priest Bopkyong asked: if I were faced with being tortured, could I maintain some semblance of compassion?
The Buddha recites in the Dhammapada: “All beings tremble before violence. / All fear death. / All love life. // See yourself in others. / Then whom can you hurt? / What harm can you do?”
Staring in the eyes of my torturer, would I be looking in my own eyes? As he removes my fingernail with rusty pliers, could I feel his hands as mine? With all of the violence in Libya (and untold violence in Africa), how can you fight violence with peace? How do you not only look at your enemy as yourself, but also give this vision to your enemy?
Thich Quang Duc had an answer during the Vietnam War (or, as the Vietnamese call it, the American War):
Can you see yourself ablaze in his compassion?
Have you seen the horror in Libya? That human beings can do this to one another is sickening. If this is what humans do to one another, I am not human – it makes me want to scream.
You cannot stop the birds from flying over your head, but you can stop the birds from making a nest on your head.
