"Like the study of science and art, accounts of historical events can be intrinsically fascinating. But they have a wider significance. I believe that people are better able to chart their life course and make life decisions when they know how others have dealt with pressures and dilemmas---historically, contemporaneously, and in works of art. And only equipped with such understanding can we participate knowledgeably in contemporary discussions (and decisions) about the culpability of various individuals and countries in the Second World War. Only with such understanding can we ponder the responsibilty of human beings everywhere to counter current efforts at genocide in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia to bring the perpetrators to justice." "...we humans are the kinds of animals who learn chiefly by observing others---what they value, what they spurn, how they conduct themselves from day to day, and especially, what they do when they believe that no one is looking." ----Howard Gardner, from The Disciplined Mind, published in 1999
Dear reader, I've been distracted by assignments for grad school, and I've missed posting even once a week this past week. More importantly, I've missed visiting all of you. I'll be visiting soon, I promise!
Today is BG's birthday. It's exciting to see him mature and grow.
Next week is Halloween and trick-or-treat, as well as Segaki.
I was very much looking forward to the Segaki liturgy at the sangha that I sometimes attend. I don't get to the sangha often, as it is far away. For many reasons, this year, it seemed especially important to send things up in smoke before the Jizo in the little sangha garden.
This year, the sangha's liturgy is on the same night and the same hours as our township's Trick-or-Treat night.
So, as we go door-to-door in our neighborhood, LG will be a pirate.
I will practice the realization that I've probably attached myself to the desire to go to the sangha because I want to do in an external, physical way what I've probably already done in an internal, quiet way. I need to practice the realization that sometimes we humans don't have to show off, to act out.
Trick or treat.
For me, they are most potent hand-in-hand.
Have a great week, dear reader. Be well. I'll see you soon.
Pop culture has been a consistent source of amusement for me, particularly when it behaves as its name suggests: when it "pops" out of nowhere. You know me, dear reader---cognitive dissonance is one of my favorite jokes. Madder was having one of his verbal episodes yesterday, on the way to the bathroom:
Tonight I was driving home from university. I passed a commercial bakery, and smelled a yeasty, dense, slightly chemical smell, as if I were the proverbial Princess of the Pea , sitting on a pile of mattresses---if the mattresses were all plastic sacks filled with spongy white-bread hot dog buns. It made me laugh.
I laughed imagining myself as such a princess; I laughed imagining that the bread starter making its way in the mail from Bee and Jai must smell so differently, so elemental and alive in its fermentation. It's funny to me how things dance together, as if they are so much dough and freshly ground spices, dry fruits soaked to swollen, rising up in the heat of the oven: absolutely delicious, absolutely worth passing around to share. Don't you think?
Today we all went to see Mr. Bean's Holiday. Choosing to attend the early matinee, we had the entire movie theater to ourselves, something we enjoyed immensely. The movie is perfectly beautiful, and beautifully happy. The ending was perfectly wonderful, and in what is becoming more and more my usual fashion, I got a little teary-eyed with happiness.
What a wonderful thing to laugh out loud, dear reader. You know what I mean?
Last Thursday evening, Little Guy and Snowy watched the SciFi Channel's Who Wants to Be a Superhero? in one room; Big Guy and I watched NBC's The Office in another. At one point, during a commercial break from their show, S and LG came into the hallway, stood unseen by BG and myself. S announced, in a booming voice: The world was searching for a hero. They foundtwoin Mega Cheeks and Micro Cheeks! At this point, S and LG jump out into the room, clad only in their underwear, and this underwear is pulled fairly high up, exposing their rumps---much like an impromptu sumo look, or a wedgie, dependent upon one's viewpoint. Don't look, BG, I said through my laughter. It's not pretty. BG replies, matter-of-factly, I closed my eyes at 'the world was searching for a hero.'
Wish us luck for tonight, dear reader. More loud and mysterious things may be ahead.
Make puri, she exhorted; just enjoy the making and the eating, and then tell us all about it. Of course, I was delighted by Anita's invitation, and resolved to make the puri within the time frame that Anita had proscribed.
To make a long story short, I awoke this morning, the last day of the party, without having made the puris. I was feeling tired, a little deflated, a little out-of-sorts, and honestly didn't know if I would be able to make them.
I made a pot of rose tea, and added rosewater to my cup for that Extra Something. I sat in my grandmother's rocking chair, she who always was so much of the kitchen, offering the work of her hands from her kitchen at any occasion; for her, just being with you was as good as a party . As I drained my cup, the warm coral-pink cloud of rose from the last swallow of hot tea permeated my very skull, and infused into my very self, it seemed---warm, pink, vital: waking my senses and getting me out of the chair.
And so I began in the kitchen. I cleaned collards, and then put them in a crock to cook slowly in a pot liquor of smoked almond broth. As Little Guy sliced hot dogs with a Chinese cleaver, I made the puri dough following Anita's recipe, with only a small change: substituting some of the salty smoked almond broth for the salted water originally asked for.
LG went back to his playing as I added tomato paste to the sliced hot dogs in the pot, and cooked the mixture to a lovely reddish-brown. To this, two cans of bacon and brown sugar baked beans were added, and the pot left to simmer.
Though I had made pita breads countless times, and felt at ease with rolling out those breads while cooking them, I felt less at ease with cooking the puris as I rolled them. I decided to make all the rounds first, placing them on a big platter and covered with a towel, and then I would fry them.
As I rolled out the breads, I felt comforted by the crick-crick, crick-crick sound of my ring on the round pin. I felt happy as the dough stretched and turned, as the pin rolled around.
When the first circle of dough went into the hot oil, it bubbled happily and seemed to burst with joy, and I laughed out loud.
Come here, LG, I said, look at this!
Naah, well...okay, he said. Okay, all right, let me get my stool.
LG, perched on his stool, stood at the stove by my side as I splashed the top of that first puri with oil, and then flipped it. He watched with much exclamation as it continued to balloon and as I carefully brought it out from the oil to drain on kitchen paper. We both admired its beautiful, happy golden, glistening roundness. It was too lovely for words.
The next thing that I know, dear reader, LG has completely taken over the stove: he is using tongs to pick up a circle of dough to slip it into the oil; he is using a kitchen spoon to carefully splash oil on the top of the circle; he is checking the bottom, and flipping---his puris are puffing, and we are both wooping and clapping as if we were both tiny children.
I had no choice, dear reader, but to watch him and set the table in between puris.
So with vegetarian baked beans in hand, I joined my family at the table, to eat the collards that I had prepared, the beans and franks that LG and I had made together, and the puris that LG had cooked, for all intents and purposes, mostly by himself, with some salty gherkins on the side. This is the best dinner ever, LG said, happily and solemnly, all at once.
My grandfather had an expression whenever he was in the midst of eating something the he very much relished: there ain't going to be no rind.
So it was at our table today, as we toasted Anita and all those at the party.
From the moment that the rose cloud of tea awoke my senses to the moment the dinner was finished, I was so mindful of not only metta, embodied in the kindness of the kitchen, the kindness of the invitation and the gathering, but of ksanika, also known as point instant theory. This is a way of thinking about time, of the passing of time, and of the value of the moment: each moment is here and then never again; our lives' moments, the stories of these moments, are so very much as a movie, a flip-book---miss a frame, the story is changed, and perhaps even makes no sense at the time. What one needs to remember, though, is just to keep watching. The world is a beautiful place, a magical place, and in the kitchen today, I felt as if I were dancing with it.
I thought of the party, and imagined the individual frames, the moving pictures that were making up the story of a party, the story of a gracious hostess, and equally gracious guests.
I may not be able to see the rest of the pictures, but I felt so much the connection to the story.
Thank you, Anita. Thank you, dear guests and dear readers. Remember: the plot may twist and turn; but the story is about beauty. It's about magic. It's about the metta that fits it all together. Eat puris. Laugh together. Enjoy the moving pictures.
Dear reader, as you might have guessed, I've been somewhat scattered here of late, what with the finishing of summer coursework, the insomnia, and several other issues that have lately arisen. With the scattering came many questions; and I believe that from time to time we often begin to question the capacities, our abilities to maintain the rhythm of all the objects in the air when we begin to juggle, so to speak. That's when we have to remind ourselves to stop thinking about it so much, and enjoy the show for what it is: and most especially since it's our show to put on. We can juggle what we wish, and throw back and forth to whoever is willing. We can swap plates for bowling pins; bowling pins for flaming torches, for chainsaws or pineapples: we just need to keep it in motion. We can keep it to ourselves. We can let it all sit as we rest for awhile. We can pass it back and forth to someone waiting to jump in, or pass off to someone completely unawares: see what happens. What's the worst that can happen? Pick it up and begin again. Find out that you prefer chainsaws to pineapples. Or be touched by delight at the back-and-forth; happy for the synchronicity of motion.
And so it is, dear reader. On Sunday morning, I saw the father of one of our students, Vermillion (a pseudonym, of course). He said that when called by name at home, Vermillion often responds, I'm not Vermillion, I'm _______!; and that Vermillion will often choose one favorite character from stories to "fill in the blank" on that day for the "I'm not Vermillion." So on Saturday, it was I'm not Vermillion, I'm neroli! Such an unexpected happiness, dear reader: as if Vermillion had passed a pineapple to me: me, completely unaware, and all the happier for it.
On Sunday night, I was unable to see the meteor shower, for the cloud cover was drawn completely over the sky. Yet the night was still gorgeous, and I remained outside to hear the sibilance of insects with the knowledge of the motion above me, hidden from sight. I began to do the metta meditation: may you be safe and protected may you be peaceful and happy may you be healthy and strong may you have ease of well being, and accept all conditions of the world and then went inside and had the best night's sleep I've had for some time. A lovely, delicate surprise.
Yesterday I was running on behind, and feeling that I've been juggling too many things, as has been my usual of late. When I got to the university, I logged on to do some blog reading before the beginning of class. I was surprised and touched to learn that Bee and Jai had chosen to gift me with this: I've long admired their work: they are master jugglers who craft an amazing juggle, and are most generous in the tossing-back-and-forth to others---you know what I mean? I arrived at home late last night, stiff and tired, and decided to go for a walk, for the night this night was clear and glowing, most conducive to the coaxing of stiff joints and muscles. As I walked in the bend of the road, the one place without streetlights, and thought of all these things---of Vermillion, the metta meditation and the lovely sleep that followed it, of Bee and Jai and the community of friends here in the blogosphere---I looked up; and there, just so, dear reader, there it was: a meteor, long-lived and colorful, falling down through Scorpio, and fading just as quickly, as if it had been sugar melting into the warmth and skipping of my heartbeat.
Sometimes it seems life loves to toss to you the pineapple, the chainsaws, the flaming torches not because it wants to cause you to feel overloaded, but because life has a way of knowing just how fun it is to juggle and to take joy in the moving; of knowing when you just need to walk into a surprise party.
When it came to decide where to bestow this gift next, I looked to the point in time before I myself arrived here, to those whose words I've followed for a long time. I thank you, dear writers, for your words, and sharing your show with us. I'm passing this lovely juggle to:
One of the things I loved most about my drive to the university was a particular bit of graffiti art painted high-up on the face of an industrial building facing the interstate.
It was outsider-art-quality, quite charming, really; naive and beautiful: Winnie-the-Pooh, smiling beatifically out at all of us on the interstate, quite large and lofty, cheery-yellow and lolliopop-red, displaying his middle finger.
Dear reader, I'm glad that you enjoyed the poem "Watermelons" by Charles Simic, the newly-ensconced US Poet Laureate. I was so glad to be listening to National Public Radio's Weekend Edition yesterday and to be able to hear Mr. Simic speak about writing, as well as to hear his reading of what I understand to be one of his most well-known works, wherein he imagines what it would be like to be a stone. You may find the audio from the broadcast here. (I was sorry that the interviewer asked him questions about immigration and national identity when she could have been asking him more about his working with words; should you wish to go directly to the poem in question, it begins at about mark 4:24.) What a simple joy it was to be washing up the dishes, the sun streaming in the window, the dish soap sliding down the china, and listen to this broadcast. When I went to wipe the kitchen counter, I picked up an aluminum foil packet, a piece of cornbread I had made for supper a day or so ago. Unexpectedly, it was hot to the touch, the cornbread inside beginning to mold. When I held its warmth in my hand, I saw and felt the energy: the hum and the swarm of my old hive of bees rising up through the wood and wax of the hive, heavily fragrant and smokily humming; the body of my cello against my body, its throat, its bow the words of its song humming in my hand; the murmuring of the molecules as the metal is heated, excitement expressed in malleability, a fevered pitch; the eager feeding of simple organisms upon simple food, creating a funk, creating warmth. I understood what Simic was speaking to--- of stones struck together, and sparks flying out: a moon that shines from somewhere, with just enough light to read by. It was a wonderful thing. Cognitive dissonance: nobody expects the unexpected. When it comes, may it more often than not be a happy visit.
Dear reader, courtesy of our K-1 students, a knock-knock joke:
Knock, knock. Who's there? Jiminy. Jiminy Who? Jiminy Cricket! (guffaws and hoots ensue) Those persons holding the belief that children with autism don't possess a sense of humor are sadly mistaken.
Little Guy has been most enamored of the Discovery Channel program, Man vs. Wild. Some things stand out for him (and consequently us) more than others, such as the time the host Bear Grylls ate a rather large spider after plucking it from its web in the recent Autralian Outback episode: LG, the image of this fixed in his mind, resolutely refused to eat the following day, ostensibly because of the "gross factor;" though he did allow that should I manage to obtain some bacon for him, he was fairly certain that he could eat that. We now have a platform in 0ur apple tree thanks to the Everglades episode. It was from this platform that LG announced to me as I hung wash on the line that he had prepared a stick, and with this stick, he intended to hunt a squirrel or a rabbit by hurling the stick at the quarry's head, much as Mr. Grylls did to a rabbit in the Wile E. Coyote episode. (Sorry, no one remembers where that happened: only that it did happen.)
Before you ask me the obvious---yes, I am. But LG has to develop his own sense of ahimsa in order to completely own it; and I have to allow him the freedom to do so. It is a difficult kind of love, but it is mine as these children grow. You know how it is.
Back to the conversation as it unfolds: Hopefully, a squirrel. Hmm. Then what happens when you have hit the squirrel with the stick? Then Dad and Big Guy and maybe I will eat it. Okay. So you are just going to pick it up, and start eating? No. BG or Dad will use a knife and cut its skin off, and then cook it and then eat it. Oh. Okay.
I go into the house to break the news to Snowy and BG: LG is out on the platform. He has a stick, and he wants to hunt a squirrel with it, just like Bear Grylls. Snowy and BG chuckle. He expects one of you all to skin it and cook it. Immediately BG says, If LG gets a squirrel, then I'm eating it.
And the fact that the author cites the glorious Le Voyage dans la lune as something that informed some aspects of the book makes me incredibly happy. It is that strange, ethereal, stop-motion-so-fast-image of that space-ship, that moon, that is one of the first visuals I ever remember being aware of seeing. I do not know in what context I saw it, only that I remember it: and in some fashion, that wavering, silvery surreal image has been informing my sensibilites ever since.
And while toodling on the site about the book linked above, I found that the author was also an enthusiast of Edison...well, I will let you discover your own happy thoughts should you go there, dear reader. I will leave you with another link, and this one is especially for my paper-folding pals. And how 'bout if we made this one for Swampy? This one I've chosen for myself preparing to do the Ego-Eradicator posture in a certain kundalini kriya...or wait, how about this one: I'm just pretending that the caveman is a giant gulab jamun. It's a beautiful, brilliant moon out tonight: same as it ever was. I'll take my beauty when I find it, be it past or present. I wish the same for you.
And if you can't see the moon from where you are, please clickhere. (Just like a riff on a koan---we've avoided the middle-man!) (or finger, pointing)
I would be most remiss if I did not share with you, my friends, two wonderful things that happened yesterday. The first:
I was driving to class. My spouse, code name Snowy, called me on my cell phone. (I'll make his dialogue his favorite color.) Where are you at? he asked. At the intersection of_____, why? Oh, I was just out to get some samples, and I thought I might see you go by. Oh, okay. Well, okay, see you tonight, bye. Bye.
Dear reader, I must drive past Snowy's workplace on the way to class. His office building is on the corner of a well-travelled intersection. Snowy works for a world-famous company that generates much tourist traffic, and most of these tourists drive by and/or are stopped at this same intersection. Imagine my initial surprise when, as I approached the traffic light at this intersection, Snowy jumped out from behind a rather large planter (you know how those urban beautification projects can acquire some rather gargantuan planters for their horticultural crowing), and pulled up one trouser leg to the knee to display his own leg in a shameless wanton display, grinning like a lunatic, grinning like love, and looking directly at me. Dear reader, I am unsure how I managed to stay on the road, for I was so simply surprised: surprised to see him, and then surprised as to how tourist season and a corporate office don't figure into the hows and whens of things. I was delighted by his gesture. Snowy saw a chance to express his affection, and he took it. It's a wonderful thing, surprise.
The second:
Big Guy came in the room and slumped down on the couch as I was finishing a PBS show---Simon Schama's Power of Art. Each episode in the series centers in one one work, putting it into its social and iconographic context. I really appreciate the host's work; but that is beside the point of the story. Last night featured David's Marat. As the previews for next week came on, the show to feature Turner's The Slave Ship, the host commented that some contemporaries of Turner, when viewing the painting, compared it to a "kitchen mess." Well, BG said, they need to remember that art is a subjective thing. (Why yes, his favorite color is blue!) Happy surprise number two: BG, who may very well be in the running for "Most Likely to Date Princess Leia," or so he would have it seem, is in all actuality, a person who listens, thinks, and then articulates his thoughts so succinctly.
Oh happy day! I wish such surprises for you, dear reader. May you be as delighted as I have been.
Last night I attended the first class of the second summer session of my school. Our instructor discussed her policy with us. We are dismissed earlier than the scheduled time, with one proviso: we are then to follow through to make up the time online by reading and digesting the online resource she provides, write a reflection on the resource, and then post it to a community board. The class is then able to read each other's reflection. Each student must also respond to one other posted reflection, thereby instituting virtual collaborative groups.
Dear reader, I awoke this morning with the Very Best of Intentions. I first replied to your comments. I wanted to write a post, one that addressed my need to cultivatemudita in my approach to this class. (Often when I meet people that I admire, dear reader, for their talents, I feel as if my learning curve will be most steep in order to keep up; in short: I can become intimidated if I am not careful. This is something I would not wish for you, dear reader, so it makes sense that I should work to avoid it for myself.) I began to read more commentary on mudita. Time passed, as it always does. I resolved to visit the online resource for my class, and so I did. I began to type notes as I read. Then Little Guy awoke. It was a beautiful morning, so we had breakfast together, and went outside. LG wanted to practice riding his bike without training wheels, and he needed some moral support; a male and female cardinal pair were chatting and flitting back and forth, and in the name of scientific inquiry, LG and I felt it best to take tea on the back porch and observe this charming pair so as to determine possible nesting locations, and therefore, best avoid disturbing the Happy Couple; soon it was time for lunch, and for the prepping of dinner. One thing led to another, as they say, dear reader, and to make a long story short, we were driving on our way to see the World's Largest Hershey Kiss, Big Guy in tow, as his work shift was complete. Is it real? LG asked as we approached the Venerated Object, the World's Largest Hershey Kiss. Dear reader, he was answered by the wall of chocolate aroma we walked into immediately after he uttered the question, several yards away from the Kiss Itself. Can I tell you in words how wonderful it was to be in the presence of such an object? To celebrate, I had to buy the boys their chocolate confections of choice at the Artisan Chocolate stand: beautiful miniature chocolate pastries, served on a golden disk, eaten at a table beside the Kiss Itself. Feeling happy and Good About the World, the boys began a favored activity: riffing on things that make them laugh. Thus, not only was I treated to a bite from each serving of pastry (fudge-filled shorbread, chocolate ganache-coated marble cake), I was a happily captive audience to my boys re-enacting a Mystery Science Theatre clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0n0EsHB0JY and the gang fight scene from Ron Burgundy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Anchormenweapons.JPG
My homework? I managed to finally complete and submit it before the writing of this post.
What helped me was chocolate: the World's Largest Kiss-induced happiness, courtesy of LG and BG, and my Chocolate Mainline Happiness, the recipe which follows.
Neroli's Chocolate Mainline Happiness Bring to a near boil: 1.5 cups water
Add: 1 heaping teaspoon jasmine tea (Earl Grey would also do quite nicely). 2 plump green cardamom pods, crushed. Steep for 3 minutes. Strain into a deep-walled saucepan, and place the saucepan on a warming burner on the stove.
Chop: 1-1 ounce square of 99% chocolate. I've used Scharffen Berger; it blends ever so nicely.
Add chopped chocolate to the strained hot tea in the deep-walled saucepan. Whisk vigourously: not only to blend the chocolate, but to whip and froth the chocolate.
Pour into your favored drinking vessel. Inhale the scent and drink happily, dear reader.
On Sunday mornings I have the habit of walking to the store for the Sunday papers, and perhaps some bagels if we are all feeling as if we could use a little smackerel to go with our morning tea. I picked up four papers: two local, two urban. (No bagels today, thank you.) When scanning the second of the papers at the self-checkout, the lady who manned the self-checkout station said, That one doesn't scan. Just do whatever with it and I'll enter it. Thank you, I say, all the while thinking amusing thoughts of all that she thinks I might wish to do with the paper while she enters the price into my particular checkout system. (Look, I might say, I've made a paper hat. A palm tree that expands when you pull on the top of the rolled-paper tube----oops, I need a scissors for that, to cut the fringes for the fronds. Sorry.) The third paper, dear reader, apparently also does not scan. How many papers are you buying? my self-checkout friend asks. When I reply that I am buying four papers, she snorts, dear reader. I like to read differening versions of the same things. That's how I learn. That's how I form ideas and opinions, I say. I'm smiling when I say this because I think that it's a good thing. You ought to watch Nancy Grace, she says, punching in the price of the third paper. The fourth paper scanned of its own accord.
In yesterday's post, I spoke with you about a simple joy that is available to all of us: laughter. That the laughter was considered to be part of bodywork by the kundalini kriya that I referenced was quite a pleasing idea for me, one that I find most welcome.
It is my wish for you, dear reader, to laugh, and laugh really well, mind you, at least once a day. (Did you follow the embedded Darth Vader link from that post? It's a secret vice, looking at those images. But most definitely good for a laugh.)
Dear reader, since I made a resolution here to you and to myself to practice the craft of writing, I feel compelled to write further on the subject of violence that I began earlier; for it is specifically because of the violence that I have received in the past that I have difficulty with words in the present.
The life that was mine in the past of violence was one wherein one of the most oft-cited reasons for the beginning of violence was the extinction of Ebbets Field.
How can one not develop a sense of humor, an appreciation of the finer points of What Is Funny, when such a thing as the loss of that field is the gravity that holds you to that place, that one place, without seeming recourse?
And in that place I was kept in solitary confinement, a party of one; with a maitre d', of course: one who was very taken with all manner of ideas, and the loss of elegaic beauty that was Ebbets Field one of the most consuming of many that consumed. Needless to say, dear reader, I did not have great opportunity to engage with other people; to have conversation about stimulating things, much less the mundane things.
Use it or lose it as the saying goes. So I lost it.
I managed to escape once. I made small talk with the driver of the taxi. I cannot begin to describe to you to this very day, dear reader, the thrill, the joy, the absolute wonder in being able to speak to someone about the weather. The weather.
But as in most of these situations, these engagements between opposing forces (cat and mouse), I made a strategic error, and had to return, in order to win the war; in this case, the safety and custody of my son. Needless to say my return necessitated further isolation, and more strenous treatment to permanently affix my position.
One of the fundamental teachings of Buddhism is that suffering, dukkha,is caused by our attachment to things. We don't always get what we want when we want it, and perhaps we never do get it. It causes us to suffer, and our suffering plays out in inordinate ways: we might seek comfort from our suffering by using alcohol, by becoming a workaholic, by taking what we want by force. Perhaps we might take out our suffering on others without meaning to do so.
Yet again, we might mean exactly that.
And in the receiving end of that situation, words have no currency for your survival. You would be surprised how quickly verbal intelligences fade when they have no validity.
Visualization (backyard tree, running free) and laughter (say what?!?) are, again, a most welcome pair, in most every situation one may imagine.
And so, dear reader, from upstream I can practice non-attachment.
I am no longer attached to Ebbets Field with the same old ropes, with the black, the blue, and the stench of confinement. No, I believe that my dukkha was my silence; my particular brand of samsara was to deny that the range of voice available to each and every one of us as humans was also available for me.
By virtue of my experience, of being cut off from what is considered the average day-to-day, I am practicing non-attachment. In the classroom, I do my best to always see a child as a child, and not as a diagnosis. I am more reminded to meet these students where they are at, and to do so every day: the range of voice available to each and every one of us is no less available to them, and happily so!
I am reminded of the value of other intelligences outside of the linguistic realm, and it is in these places that I can most often look to meet these special students.
Where we go from there is up to them.
Non-attachment seems difficult to practice.
I believe that it is most often a case of seeming more difficult than it truly is. And if it becomes difficult, well, then, I am reminded of a skit from the television show, MadTV. The sketch features a male and female pair of dancers, who perform in a style that is known as krumping. In each of the skits, someone is always put at a disadvantage, to which the rejoinder is: "that's the krump."
So, dear reader, Ebbets Field is gone. People dress up their dog as el luchador. Darfur burns. Kids with autism are kids, first and foremost.
I have been keeping a yoga practice for some years now. A past injury healed in such a way that my body behaves differently than when I first engaged in practice. In previous times, the Iyengar and Ashtanga styles were my guide. Now I am drawn to Kundalini. I appreciate the movement and the rest. The chanting and the silence. Balance indeed.
And how can you not embrace a set that includes the following instruction?
Lie on your back and laugh at the universe. When laughing, do it as if you are seeing something wonderful happening and you are enjoying it! Laughing is one exercise to raise your consciousness and it is also a comfort to the heart.
Dear reader, I laugh all the more when I come to this part of the kriya, for this is the step that precedes it:
Sit on your heels (Rock Pose). Stretch arms up to 60 degrees, pull shoulders back, fold first knuckle of fingers toward tops of palms, point thumbs straight up, focus at the third eye point. Do vigorous breath of fire, 6 mins. This is called "Ego Eradicator" because you must surrender to your higher strength in order to complete it. To end, imagine a rainbow forming between your thumbs, then inhale deep, gracefully bringing the thumbs together over your head, exhale and stretch, inhale, exhale and let the arms come down, clasped in Venus Lock in your lap.
Dear reader, it is "Ego Eradicator" indeed, in no small part because I can only imagine how I must appear---squatting, signalling with my hands as if I am the Fonz, and breathing as if I am Darth Vader, and trying not to cross my eyes or fall over.
Laughter and imagery. This happy couple has been serving people well for a very long time, and will for some time to come. Thank for laughing with me. And if you tried the "Ego Eradicator" before you finished reading the post, let me know. We'll have another laugh together all over again.
Dear reader, I am most glad that you are here to keep me "on task," as the shop talk goes. I've challenged myself here in this venue not only to develop the habit, the practice of writing, but to assign words to that which I normally would---as the New Testament was fond of saying about a practice of Mary the Mother of Jesus---keep and treasure in my heart. Whenever I would read this about Mary in the Bible, I would say, yes, I can see that; and in reading these accounts, I would always feel a well-springing forth of good feeling and deep affection: one that was not replicated when reading any other part of the Gospels.
This summer here has been so humid and still, as it has for you as well, perhaps. My sons and I have spent much time at our lovely river. The boys enjoy wading into it all, to see what they might find, scooping up and sifting silty through their hands: crayfish, minnows, pebbles, skipping stones. That boy I would chase by this same river, he the Gingerbread Boy, I, wanting some sugar, is now taller than I and teaching his much younger brother the finesse in the skipping of stones. He's even perfected the art of skipping crayfish. Can I say what a gleeful thing that is? And how eager his younger brother is to move onto that craft? Me, I enjoy sitting on the soft bank, in the green-silver light that reminds me of the light of della Francesca or that other Northern Italian Renaissance painter who so articulated the quick-silver shimmer. It is often spoken in Zen practice that one may practice zazen most anywhere, doing most anything, and I attempt to realize this in my day-to-day. Laughing at skipping crayfish as they bounce upstream, knowing that their Mr.Toad's Wild Ride will be over soon enough is one of the ways that I practice.
I've mentioned Buddhist practice before to you, dear reader. What I must tell you is that I have no official affiliation as to my form of practice; I attend no bricks-and-mortar sangha. I am one who feels very much at home with the minimal or the baroque: thus I find my practice is informed by not only Zen, but by the distinct Mahayana form of Buddhism that is Tibetan Buddhism. As Zen is particularly amenable to solitary practice (thanks, Boddhidharma!), Tibetan Buddhism is best realized when practiced under the tutelage of a lama. Having no access to a Tibetan-lineage sangha, much less to a lama, when I sometimes feel the need of a lama, I think of the experience that I've held and treasured in my heart, as Mother Mary: the puja destroying the sand mandala. I think of the aged lama who led the puja, who with beauty and ferocity in slow motion took gorgeous complexity and brushed it into a pile of muddy-colored sand.That first moment, when brush came to sand, seemed to turn the world in every sense to me.
Dear reader, it is one of the things I keep and treasure in my heart.
My younger son and I visited the river one day last week when we found ourselves to our own devices. Yes, he caught a few crayfish; after collecting them to see who was biggest? who was tiniest? they all were happily released to the current. On his way wading out, he noticed something from beneath a rock, and plucked it out: a small rodent skull, perfectly clean of flesh and hair. May I keep it? he asked. Sure, I replied. As he set it on a rock to adjust his shoe, we noticed it leaking. (Here, I must tell you, if you are somewhat squeamish, please skip ahead.)Although the skull was perfectly clean, the cold temperature of the river, in tandem with the inverted position in which it was wedged beneath the rock, must have allowed for the retention of some small amount of brain-matter in the skull cup to remain, and to decompose at a much slower rate than the rest of the flesh. Can I keep it? And so, dear reader, this is how I found myself shaking a rodent skull over the river to dislodge the remaining funky brain-stew so that it might exit the small aperature at the base of the skull through which the spine, with its bundle of nerves went crackling: you can imagine how it went, dear reader; it was exactly the action one uses when one shakes the ketchup out of the bottle onto a plate of fries.
So what did the river give me? It gave me the most funny koan of a skipping crayfish, like the twirling of a flower. It gave me a message from the lama from afar: like so much brain-stew into the silver current; an affirmation of life in all its complexity and simplicity; beautiful and not-so-beautiful. This is the picture. Treasure. Enjoy. Repeat.
