My new Chinatown slippers — made of straw and a ribbon of fabric — first appeared ambidextrous: which was left, which was right? A week later I can discern an asymmetry. Perhaps they're yielding to the shape of my feet. My feet, in turn, smell pleasantly of reed.
Identical a Chinatown slippers
Made of straw and silk
Have become left and right
It's late at night ... quiet. I hear the occasional distant bellow of a tugboat, the trickle of the little Zen fountain, a jet passing high above, the hum of the refrigerator, and the rustle of leaves in the wind. Compositions based on planetary motion play on the radio. Even in quiet there is sound; but in the noise of the day there is emptiness.
Last week, the talkative Buddhists were lauding the virtues of "golden silence." How silence was to be cherished and coveted. At the time I was drowning in silence. I wondered if it was not being overly valorized by those talking, for what is silence to one who is feeling shy and lonely?
The most comfortable way for me to read is to lie on my stomach on the bed and place the book on the floor. My head and arms drape down upon the open page.
In this position I can follow the traffic of bugs. There are the little knatty things that when threatened simply reappear 6 inches away; the funny beatle bugs that always end up on their backs and can't right themselves without my help; and a daddy long legs that makes a crazy dash across my pages every 10 minutes while doing his rounds.
When I hear the booms echoing off the brownstones I can hop on my bike and be down on the waterfront before the finale starts. I like to drive in circle-eights in curlicues while watching the fireworks. In the deserted shipping-yard I steer around the moon, stars, and glowing flowers.
Last time I was home I pulled an old 3-speed from the back of the shed and took a spider and her brood of eggs for a ride. Earlier in the day I asked my mom if she and Dad had moved to this house across from a school because they had three boys? She responded that was just a happy coincidence: my front yard had a huge sledding hill, four baseball diamonds, and a basketball and tennis court.
Decades ago I spent hours on my bike chasing my brothers and friends through the imaginary streets of half and full court boundaries. Now, the baskets are gone and someone had spray-painted a whiffle-ball diamond on the sagging and cracked green asphalt. Even so, I could still lose myself and the rhythmic patterns, sharp turns, and narrow streets of habits past.
An appeal of Buddhism is its focus on present practice rather than metaphysics. One parable likens such speculations to a man who has been shot with an arrow and refuses help until he is told of what type of wood and feather made the arrow.
Some Buddhist traditions do include philosophical tendencies or even superstition: preoccupations with relics and very large Buddha statues. Even ideas such as reincarnation and karma are material, though supernatural, claims that lack evidence and can lead to abuses: extravagant fantasies of august previous lives, or unjust social structures.
Fortunately, these concepts can be left aside without losing the core teachings: lessening one's attachments, meditation, and even showing compassion are practices that, once employed, yield results that can be judged by the practitioner.
Yet even the most stripped-down form of pragmatic religious practice (similar to Marcus Borg's panentheistic, as opposed to supernatural, theism) often contain an assumption with which I'm not yet comfortable: that more good thing, is necessarily a good thing. If some mindful practices yield peace, more will lead to a secession of all suffering. Yet, since I do not believe in an afterlife, meditating 12 hours a day almost seems like a waste of this unique and precious life.
Spiritual teachers often speak with a certainty about a promised land or state of mind. This is because they have somehow achieved such a state and can speak authoratively? Or, is that their students don't want to hear of doubts, even from the wise, when they're already troubled by their own?
Mike is dead; he must be. Mike played on high school chess team, a few years behind me, and as is often the fate of those with cystic fibrosis, he wasn't expected to graduate.
If I did not know him, I might have been distracted by his coughing — chess players are famously finicky about such distractions. But when it turned to choking and he would run to the bathroom to cough up the liquid from his lungs, pausing the clock for the boy whose time was running out was the least of favors.
After a seeming eternity of cringing from the sound of Mike's illness echoing down the empty hallway, he would return paler than usual, his purple lips and hands trembling. The clock would be tapped and the game would resume, much as life does, to a point. Mike probably reached that point a decade ago, and for some reason, I still think of him often.
When I consider the role of faith in the world I think of the distinction that Karen Armstrong draws between the mythos (making sense of life) and logos (rational and pragmatic thought). She argues that dangerous forms of fundamentalism arise when the two are conflated. For example, creating social policy based on literal readings of religious texts.
I think of faith as the light within, that guides are personal actions, not as an external flame that shapes social policy — this often leds to a conflagration.
Those that seek to understand "the other" are often accused of being amoral traders of the "collective self." To ask, "why are we hated" is seen as a repudiation of our own values. Presently, these claims are made against Americans who question American foreign-policy. Such accusations are based on, in part, two misunderstandings.
The first misunderstanding is a simple one. One person may be describing an elephant by the characteristic its trunk, and another is doing the same by way of its tail. Such a disconnect was evident in the president's remarks of the Abu Gharib prison scandal: this was not an example of the American he knows. And while most Americans agree, including myself, others from around the world can not: they are familiar with a different appendage of the beast.
Second, to ask for the cause seemingly excuses the abhorrent act. Yet, consider a dog that is neglected and abused such that it is fearful and aggressive towards any human contact. Be it the boot of its owner, or the open hand of a child, it will bite. This scenario contains within it a judgment about biting, the poor conditions of the dog, and its relationship to its owner or the child. The relationship might affect your response to the act (it is somehow more just if it bit the owner), but it need not alter the principle that violence is wrong, nor our interest in understanding and avoiding the conditions in which violence arises.
Because, fear begets violence, which creates much of the same in turn, we cannot permit ourselves to belittle the consequences of any violence, nor ignore the conditions from which it arises.
(1)
Thunderstorm arrives
I wash my bicycle
In the summer rain
(2)
Through the window
The smell of honeysuckle
Blows(3)
Summer afternoon — I read haiku to Nora floating in the tub
I'm not good at being idle. In idleness a weight presses in the back of my mind. If I'd been recently busy, if I need to reward myself, I do enjoy some time off. But even such time is busy with personal projects and reading. Such little holidays typically last a weak or so, no more. This summer has been longer, and I enjoyed a horizon without deadlines and requirements for about five weeks — a record for me, especially since I was without the Internet.
I can always find a way to spend time on a computer — both wastefully and productively. My experiment of abstinence has led me to appreciate the time available in the day when it is not frittered away in the machines and rituals of contemporary life. The morning, afternoon, and evening take on a new dimension, each with their own cadence of light and time.
My reading of Buddhism has permitted me to practice and appreciate the salience of now in the flow of the present. But at some point this summer, the nebulous free-floating anxiety of idleness returned, demanding that I do something useful, make some contribution. (This fear is perhaps the source of dissatisfaction with graduate school as well.) This impulse serves me well in some respects, and poorly in others. I so desperately want to be able to be calm and peaceful, not only after the passing of the storm, but in the still waters of anticipation. Yet, it is then that I begin to tremble and flail.
I thought I would mitigate my idleness by going to various clubs and volunteer groups that I previously did not have time for. Unfortunately, all this is quite dependent on the Internet: meeting announcements and registering are predominantly — and seemingly exclusively — Internet based. Even in making friends, exchanging e-mail addresses is now required: calling someone seems far too presumptuous.
In Cambridge a group I belonged to finally stopped sending out postal mail announcements when our oldest member learned how to use the Internet. Now, I appreciate the effort that was made up to then for this sole member, and wonder about the implications for those who can't use the computer any more, because of RSI or other disabilities.
Ironically, sadly, many e-mails sent to a RSI mailing-list that seek support from the community are dictated or typed with 2 pencils. The source of torture is also the only place people can find solace with others who might understand. Perhaps, in time, the interfaces will improve, and everyone can benefit from this new media.
George was a round boy with a charming smile. In that smile was a sense of self contentment and a desire to please, indicating that even if one is able to make peace with the world, one still hopes for friendship and love. For a fat farm boy in the sometimes cruel hallways of middle school, such things don't come easily.
George could not contend with the attractive "in crowd" with their brand-name parachute pants and lace-less high tops — those whom I envied. He wore jeans and a T-shirt, and often came to school with dirt under his fingernails and already smelling of hard work. In fact, George often missed the beginning and end of the school year so as to help his family on the farm.
I befriended George and took a secret pride in my efforts as some sort of Christian charity. George, in turn, bought me french-fries in the school cafeteria. What probably began as a lunch room trade became a bit more like a form of exploitation. I only realized this, and wondered where George got his money, when he began buying french-fries for others. At first, I was jealous and protective of my privilege, but then, when I was elbowed out of the way by the popular kids, I realize that I too had been taking advantage of George.
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