Observations

Things rattle around in my head sometimes. (I'm hoping I am not unique in this). Absurdities and oddities from the human experience that refuse to go away. Here's a few:

? Isn't the moral of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer that it's OK to revile and exclude someone who is different until you have a use for them, when it becomes acceptable to love them? Is Rudolph, then, the archetype of the undocumented worker? You know, as in the bigots who say, "Can't stand those wetbacks...except Juan, who takes such good care of my roses. Oh, and Maria, who cares for our children. I LOVE them." A further question: shouldn't Rudolph have told Santa where to put his fogbound sleigh? Founded Occupy North Pole? The Rights of the Red? For that matter, Santa's been doing this for a couple of centuries and he still hasn't figured out how to fly in fog, for Christmas' sake?

? I drive rental cars quite often and wonder why in the world they always give us two keys on a ring that can't be opened. Isn't the whole point of having two keys to put one in your pocket in case you lock the other key in the trunk or something? What could possibly be the point of conjoined keys?

? While we're on the subject of rental cars: why do the buttons and switches have to be so different from one car to the other? I have to spend an inordinate amount of time finding out how to operate cruise control, stereo, turn signals, heating and cooling. And the different places they put the plug-in jack for connecting my mp3 player to the car stereo is just intentionally cruel, sadistic, even. Can't we just decide and all do it the same way? While they're at it, could they just put the freaking fuel door on the same side of all cars and make them all open the same way? And, hey, what's up with some cars keeping the radio on after I take the key out of the ignition (until I open the car door)? When I say OFF, car, I mean OFF.

? One more on this theme: when I get into a rental car, it is almost always evident that the side-view mirrors have been adjusted to look behind the car. Folks, side-view mirrors (stay with me here) are for looking at the side of the car in order to see things in your blind spots. If you adjust them to be supplemental rear-view mirrors, it defeats their entire purpose.

? Is tetherball the dumbest of all possible games?

? Doesn't it seem that there are far too many talented engineers with too much time on their hands? I give you as Exhibit One those cheap wind-up toys that do fairly amazing things. I had one little car that went forward a foot or so, then a lever emerged from the bottom of the car, turned it all the way over, at which point the car continued on its way. And the engineering implied by those wind-ups that do a backflip, land on their feet, then do it again is mind-boggling  Another example: someone figured out that plastic drinking glasses, when stacked, have a tendency to stick together, so they put a little flange inside the glass about 4/5 of the way down, to keep them apart but still stacked. One more: in a little lunch box thingy I got a folding plastic fork. I know it doesn't sound like much, but a close look at this thing (which had to be cheap enough to mass produce) reveals astounding miniature engineering.

? Since we're basically made of seawater (our blood has the same salinity as the ocean), why can't salt water quench our thirst? For that matter, why hasn't a species intelligent enough to put a powerful computer in every phone figured out a cheap, efficient way to desalinate sea water?

? Nothing drives me as crazy as things that are designed to do only one thing and do them badly. The most glaring example is coffee carafes. They are for pouring coffee into cups but invariably pour a substantial portion on the counter and/or floor. Here's another one: return slips that don't fit return envelopes, like the slip you are supposed to return with your check to pay a bill. Now, this may seem petty, but consider that the company that made these made and sold them as a compatible set, meaning they must have either known they didn't fit one another or were too stupid to come to that conclusion.

? Around here I quite often see signs that say, "Illegal Trespass Prohibited". This drives me nuts. Trespass is by definition both illegal and prohibited. All illegal acts are prohibited. Does anyone really think that saying it three times will deter anyone?

? What is it with people who won't take their right-of-way at four way stops and other places? Do they really think this is considerate or kind? Folks, the most considerate, kind, intelligent thing you can do is to take the right-of-way the situation offers you and do so briskly. When you foil expectation in these situations, you only make the whole exchange more frustrating and dangerous.

? It bugs me that machines like microwaves, stereos, computers and cars display messages like "Hello!" and "Bye" and "Your Meal Is Ready". It's not so much that it creeps me out (which it does, a little), but do the designers really think this makes the whole experience more evocative? I don't require a warm personal relationship with my toaster oven. I require toast.

? Why do some people use motion detector car alarms on busy urban streets? Hello! Yes, every bus and truck that goes by will set off your alarm. Get a clue.

? I have stopped watching some popular comedy shows (eg, The Simpsons, Seinfeld) because I thought their humor had become mean-spirited. Yet I have no problem watching programs (eg, The Wire, Breaking Bad) in which murder and mayhem are common plot devices. I guess I don't mind if you shoot each other in the head as long as you aren't mean about it. Nice.

? As I get older, the term "absent-minded" takes on a more sinister and literal meaning. I mean, sometimes the sucker is just...gone!

OK, I know, not exactly Earth-shattering, but don't you sometimes just stop in your tracks and say, "What were they thinking?!" or, perhaps, "What was I thinking?!" I do.

Empathy for the shooters

On Thursday I was angry, disappointed, fearful and frustrated. My bosses were talking about taking away some of my Fridays off, a schedule I have had for 12 years and around which I have organized my life. Still, weighing some days off against the death of a room full of six-year-olds makes what I was experiencing infinitesimal. But to me it was a very real and present pain and caused me deep suffering, if only briefly.

I bring this up only in order to open my heart to those who suffer mightily every day and for years upon years. Take my pain and multiply it by ten and fill an entire life with it; only then would I have any clue to what could drive a young man to take up an assault rifle and shoot little children. This act is so far in violation of everything we as human beings stand for that we must believe that only an entire disconnection from one's humanness could make it possible. What suffering, what inner and outer torture, what pain, confusion and rage must have been present in Adam Lanza's mind for him to contemplate the deed, nonetheless act on it. Not only is the mass killing of others unthinkable to most of us, but the pure innocence of children this age brings the meaninglessness of it into even sharper focus.

But here we must pull ourselves up sharply. It is far too easy to disassociate ourselves from Adam Lanza, to make of him a monster with no relation to us. This is the very impulse, the creation of Us versus Them, that keeps certain people and even whole swaths of people out of our hearts. I find myself vilifying "gun nuts" and the NRA, thinking of them as monolithic entities rather than as convocations of like-minded human beings. I find it far too easy to assign blame; to Lanza, his mother, those who missed his mental illness, a society which didn't treat it, those who use the Second Amendment as an excuse to own the means to kill hundreds of their fellow humans. I, too, have the knee-jerk impulse to lock down every school, arm every teacher, put sharpshooters on the roofs. I have the desire to take away from every person in the world their guns and other weapons. I want, in other words, to do anything but feel that Adam Lanza was me. He was and is each of us. To think otherwise is to let ourselves off the hook. We are responsible. For one thing, to deny this association is to claim that we never feel a murderous rage, even rarely and briefly. Where we fail to empathize we cannot help but fail to understand.

I know there are those who will excoriate me for suggesting that we should in any way feel badly for someone who would murder children, that I am somehow condoning the act or aligning myself with who he is. This is an odd perspective which would seem to argue that hatred is the only moral response to a hateful act, that finding someone to blame or placing Those People beyond the reach of being full members of the human race is an effective response to our confusion and pain. Part of the punishment for a heinous act is to be utterly reviled and to fill my heart with contempt and venom.

The Buddha was unambiguous in his renunciation of the impulse to divide ourselves. We are one. We are so thoroughly interdependent that not one of us could exist without the efforts of us all. The post-apocalyptic stories of the lone man or woman making a go of it on this Earth are simply silly fantasies, not to mention the fact that without bacteria, bugs, rodents and other creatures we wouldn't be here. With every breath we take, oxygen molecules that have been in and out of billions of other beings and forms enter our lungs. The stuff which makes our bodies has been stars, Rottweilers and bacon. The border between us is artificial, porous, a chimera, without substance or form in the real world.

It is only useful to see into the hearts of those who suffer and cause suffering. Or, more precisely, it is only useful to see into the Heart that is the center of us all. The more I inveigh against the NRA or those who sell assault weapons without recognizing their connection to me, the more I encourage the very divisiveness that drives someone like Adam to abandon his humanity to rage and revenge, encourage the deep-seated fear at the center of the impulse to stockpile weapons to defend against unknown terrors. I am these people. They are me. Only beginning there can we even begin to understand.

Don't get me wrong. I oppose the private ownership of most weapons. As I am devoted to the Dharma, I am philosophically opposed even to the use of guns for hunting. (In response to those who say that deer and other animals must be thinned to avoid their becoming a nuisance, I recall the Gary Larson cartoon with two deer speaking, one saying to the other, "Why don't they thin their own damn herd?"). At a minimum, if suddenly in charge of the world, I would ban assault weapons and handguns (the latter designed for the sole purpose of killing other people), except for the military and police. If we must have them, how about gun clubs, where guns for hunting and target practice are kept in a central location and locked up, only to be accessed for licensed, planned activities, then locked up again? (And, if the end times come, where the militias would know where to find them, just to reassure that faction).

I would ban first-person shooter video games. Yes, yes, I too have seen the studies denying a link from these games to gun violence in the real world. But should we really be breaking down the moral horror that (one would hope) comes over us at the prospect of pointing a gun at another human being and pulling the trigger? Would we condone a video game in which we practiced the fine points of rape? When I visited them a few years ago, I was horrified to see my sweet greatnieces and -nephews calmly mowing down bad guys with assault rifles. This sort of game also reinforces the divide between Us and Them. When we depersonalize those we view as Other, it becomes much simpler to take them out without qualm. Think of the degrading epithets used to describe our opponents in war: gooks, krauts, japs, towel-heads, filth, Charlie. If we downgrade them from fully human to something less, we need not feel quite the same dismay when we end their lives. We may, in fact, feel that we are doing our holy duty by killing the Other, much as the Nazis did the Jews and others they demeaned. I read of the recent shootings in Pennsylvania on Yahoo and was more devastated by the comments on the article than the article itself. These mostly centered in "now the state will come for your guns, be ready to kill them" and, most chilling of all, "You are next". We have hammered out ideological bulwarks and are hunkering down behind them for the long fight. This can only lead to more and worse violence.

The Buddha's message was clear: it is the creation of suffering to leave any person or any creature whatsoever out of your heart. It is the source of personal suffering, societal suffering, the suffering of the whole world. In fact, there is no other source; this is the wellspring of all suffering. We can choose, instead, to turn to the wellspring of all that is good, the understanding that we are all one--the deer and the hunter, the NRA vice president and the pacifist, the shooter and the shot. Adam Lanza is that cute six-year-old girl he killed and she is he. It cannot be otherwise because it is the core truth of our existence. There is no other place to begin to heal and transform our world into one of love, harmony and understanding. This is possible. It is never too late to begin. 

Anxiety

Let me reassure you right away that I am not about to launch into some autoanalytical diatribe like last week's. But anxiety does have me curious.

Right now it is Thursday morning, December 13. This evening I will fly to Sacramento to visit my family. I do this every month, mostly because my parents are aging and I want to be a vital part of their last years, but also because I don't want to become an afterthought to the rest of my family, most of whom live in that area. (You would have to ask my siblings if "not being an afterthought" equates to being a pain in the ass). And this morning I am anxious. In fact, I have been low-level cranky all week. But here's the thing: I love flying. I love being with my family. I've developed a cautious affection for Auburn, where I spend most of my time. My brother and his wife, son and dogs graciously welcome me into their home. Things generally go smoothly. And so on. So...whence the anxiety?

I don't wish to equate this kind of anxiety with the crippling condition from which some unfortunate folks suffer; this is nothing like that. But my anxious feelings do seem to transform me into a different person. My resolves and disciplines (food, behavior, attitude, demeanor, meditation, kindness above all) seem to fade into the background as this ravenous desire to be comforted takes hold.

What makes me curious is not the anxiety per se; that's actually pretty mundane. What I marvel at is how malleable is this thing we call personality. How can something so routine cause me not only to feel these symptoms but to feel that I have been, no matter how temporarily and, in the end, insignificantly yet nonetheless truly transformed?

By Thursday evening, on the train on the way to the airport, a calm, warm, benign feeling overcomes me. All is well.

Throughout this trip (I'm writing this having now returned) I noted my feeling states and couldn't help but be aware that I go through a similar cascade on every trip: I seem to become annoyed at pretty close to the same time, get the feeling that everything is just as it should be right on cue, and so on. Because my monthly trips are so much the same (fly in Thursday evening, stay Friday and Saturday, home Sunday morning), and the things I do on those days are almost as predictable, it makes for an interesting Petri dish, a replicable pattern in which to see who I am, who I become at each stop. As I mentioned above, it really does feel as if this is not just a shift of mood but an entire transformation.

Which is just what the Buddha would have predicted, actually. The delusion is that we are ever some sort of constant and invariable being. We shift and change and respond to events. The risk of thinking of ourselves as permanent manifestations is that we will exacerbate suffering (ours and that of others) by trying to make it so, attempt to nail down the person we are and keep it that way. When I thought of myself this weekend as a creature in flux and that there was nothing in particular I needed to do in response, I suffered less. I also felt much less of a need to act out my discomfort with food or other actions. Just in the simple noticing of the fact of my anxiety, I also found its antidote, just as the Buddha said I would. Smart guy, that Buddha, eh?

ADHD? OCD? OK? LOL! TMI? tl;dr

I read a fascinating article in the New York Times last week about autism and how useful the specific characteristics of the autistic person can be to some businesses. It is a mind-bending speculation to think that the recent uptick in incidence of autism might not just be an increase in identification of those who are autistic and others on the same continuum (Asperger's and such) or an insidious development at all, but might actually be a step in the evolution of the species in response to our predilection for technological advancement. This thought is certainly not original; google "autism as human evolution" and you will see a plethora of articles on this subject. (In passing, I should note that due to the somewhat antisocial nature of this disorder, it is difficult to see how those on this spectrum have a reproductive advantage, which would be necessary for this development to truly be an evolutionary change. It has been demonstrated to be hereditary, however, at least to a certain extent).

Now, I know it's de rigueur to consider oneself somewhere on this spectrum, just as a decade or so ago to declare one's affiliation to ADHD was popular and even now OCD remains a somewhat attractive label. One wonders why we should be so quick to embrace these labels, and to do so fairly inaccurately. My brother was diagnosed with ADHD (then simply called hyperactivity) when he was quite young (he was taking Ritalin when it was still experimental) and his life has been made much more difficult by it. Why would we choose to co-opt suffering to ourselves? Why, for that matter, would we want to diminish the adversity faced by those who actually have a disorder by appropriating it in a (more or less) lighthearted fashion? I suspect the explanation is that having a label on which to blame our more antisocial or obnoxious characteristics is comforting and supplies us with a built-in justification for unwonted behavior. ("Oh, honey, I threw out your cockroach collection in a fit of OCD; I'm so sorry. But you know how it goes!")

Which is all by way of me doing precisely what I have just described! Here's the thing: I felt a frisson of identification when I read the Times article. I have quite often in my adult life felt one step removed from the social interchange that seems to come so easily to others. Of course, I know how dangerous it is to "compare my insides to other peoples' outsides," as the saying goes. It could just be that I am introverted (another label, eh?), which I certainly am. But the spectrum characteristic of being contented with repetitive tasks also feels mighty familiar. There is a particular list I maintain at work that I know would be enormously tedious for most people but for me is a true pleasure, and I become faintly irritated when interrupted while working on it. (Maybe I'm OCD? Heh). Just yesterday I spent several hours connecting a new television and all of the wires and cables that go along with having associated electronic components. Loved it. Perhaps I'm just patient.

Another thing: I marvel when witnessing my fellow humans engaging in lighthearted conversation that then, by all appearances, leads to association, which yields, in some cases, real friendship, wherein they voluntarily spend time together. Just being together. Strange. I don't mean to make light of this; I truly do marvel at these behaviors. They seem as odd to me as spontaneous human flight. I would be about as astonished if you stepped off a cliff and just kept walking on air. I scratch my head in perplexity when I witness unforced bonhomie. My interpersonal relationships tend toward banter, which serves the purpose of distancing me from any lasting connection to my fellow humans.

From an article describing Asperger's syndrome:

They are not content to be alone all the time and they long to form friendships with others. Since they cannot read social or emotional cues well, they come off as insensitive, pushy or strange, yet have very little insight into how they are perceived. They have very little idea how to make a friendship work. [Emphasis mine].

Hmmm.

Don't get me wrong; I really do like being around people and can hold my own in social discourse. I am even well-liked in my small social circles; I know this. I have a close, loving, intimate relationship with my wife and with many of my family members. Yet I am also aware of a certain arm's-length orbit around me that keeps most of those I know comfortably unknown unless I make a vigorous effort to bridge that chasm. I also don't want to give the impression that I have no true friends or intimacy. I have both, though these are select and few. Perhaps this is just as it should be, I don't know. But sometimes I envy the (seemingly?) easy affinity I see around me, the crowd of loved ones some people seem to effortlessly gather around them, to attract as adroitly as politics attracts fools. I have even tried to make myself more like a person to whom this might happen, without much success. Oddly enough, I have quite warm relations with a handful of relative strangers I encounter on my round of errands every Friday—the lady at the dry cleaners, the produce manager at my favorite store and others. I love to listen to their stories and even, sometimes, their troubles. Yet, of course, this makes its own kind of internal sense—they are not likely to become my actual intimates and our discourse is limited by time and circumstance to a narrow band of my attention.

I belong to an organization that emphasizes "fellowship". People go around talking about how much this means to them and how they couldn't survive without it. It is something they seem to have gained purely as a perquisite of being a member and take entirely for granted. I once again shake my head in wonder. I have even out-and-out asked what the hell this is all about and how one goes about getting some of this fellowship stuff. I get queer looks. But in this same organization I had the experience just recently, when all this fellowship blather (so it seemed to me) was going on and I was feeling on the outside once again, of wanting to raise my hand and ask, "Is it O.K. if I'm happy anyway?"

That's the thing. Overall I'm pretty happy. I know what your next question will likely be: then why worry about it? I don't know, it just looks like fun to have that warmth and intimacy all around me. Maybe that's only for a certain type of person. I was never destined to be a great basketball player, either; that doesn't make me less-than, just a person with specific abilities, talents and characteristics, none of which are particularly well-suited to a career in basketball. Or to widespread familiarity. I think of it as "the Brussels sprouts phenomenon". I like Brussels sprouts. Some people (OK, most people) can't stand them. I am convinced that I actually taste something different than they do. I don't like walnuts at all, but most people love them. My brother can't stand the taste of any citrus fruit. My wife dislikes anise or black licorice flavors and there are few tastes I like better. For all that we humans are very, very similar to each other in many ways, we also have these quirks of difference that make us interesting. Perhaps my way of relating is like this.


I love deeply where I love. I bestow my affection not easily but thoroughly. I am kind much of the time. I care deeply about the suffering of others. My heart soars in the presence of compassion, openheartedness, altruism and generosity. I am passionately devoted to the Dharma and other philosophies that emphasize kindness and love. I give of myself where I can. I am loved. This is enough; it is enough.

Heritage

It's as plain as the nose on your face and as subtle as an attitude, what we get from those who came before us. The shape of our eyes and the shape of our worldview, the tendency to everything from depression to cancer to obesity, our responses of fear, hope, aspiration, humor, violence and love; in some way or another we inherit all of these from our ancestors.

Yet we know this is not a straight-line correlation. Often the ways we think are shaped by a negative response to what we grew up with. My political beliefs, for instance, are nearly the opposite of my parents', though at depth the motivation behind our beliefs is not all that different. We simply disagree about the appropriate expression of compassion, not the inherent value of it. I have also noticed that my way of communicating in the world is an amalgam of many learned responses coupled with my conscious rejection of some of them. Much more difficult to recognize and change are my assumptions about the nature of the world; it is nearly impossible for me to make a different choice if the basis of that choice is not recognized or even known to me, but feels as if it is simply the Truth. Every once in a while I catch a glimpse of this: my feelings about race, about poverty, about what makes people tick is deeply ingrained. My conscious response to these may be to choose a more or less kind, generous, compassionate way of standing in relationship to them, but the underlying assumptions remain, often unchallenged because unknown.

These thoughts have come more sharply into focus for me lately because Kathy inherited from her parents certain artifacts and heirlooms, physical manifestations of generations of her family. My initial reaction to these was as Cool Old Stuff. (The photos in this post are real examples). There is a table made by her grandfather, a solid desk her mother used for years, chinaware over a hundred years old, a clock that is ticking in my ear right now that ticked in her greatgrandmother's house, in her grandmother's and in her mother's. Some of these are tchotchkes, geegaws, of no inherent value, imbued with meaning by context. There are also writings that would mean nothing in the wider world but mean a great deal to those of us who have the words of our fathers and mothers and others who existed in our lives, some of them who have always been only stories we have heard, illustrated by grainy black and white photos.

I have come to understand, though, that these heirlooms serve a more important function. As we unpack and place them around our house or, in some cases, make the choice to discard or donate them, they are serving as a repository of the ephemeral DNA of our family members and are essential tools in healing from the grief of their loss. That we will never see Kathy's mother again in this life is incontrovertible, but the ticking of the clock is an artifact that was years in the making, the background to all of the joys and sorrows that came to pass in her home over the years. Though it cannot carry memories of her into the present, like a fingerprint this sound has so thoroughly imbued our recollections as to be inseparable from them. As we place a table there, a plate here, as we discard that old towel, we meld into our hearts and minds the person who was, the complex web of body, mind, way of being in the world, posture, response and love that made Jeannette who she was.

Laurie Anderson, on her album "Homeland", tells the story of the birds. Birds were the first creatures, she says. They existed before the Earth was born, when there was only air and birds, "billions and billions and billions of birds." One day, a lark died. This was a problem because, where does one put the body? There is no Earth and thus no place to bury him. His daughter came up with a solution: "she decided to bury him in the back of her own head. And this is the beginning of memory".

This is, in part, how we continue to bury our dead. We put them in our heads. We incorporate them as part of our being. We have this odd belief that we continue on as the same people no matter what happens to us, when in fact quite the opposite is true--everything that happens to us changes us. Large events change us in noticeable ways, but even small things change us subtly. What you choose to have for lunch causes a minuscule shift  in the possibility of who you are and who you can hope to be in the future. How, then, could the death of a mother be anything other than grandly transformative?


But here's the crux of what I am trying to say: in the act of cherishing these keepsakes, Kathy is internalizing and externalizing her grief and loss, tying herself to the recent past and the long past through things that have meaning only (or mostly) within the context of who used them, touched them, honored them. Did her greatgrandmother treasure her cabbage shredder? I doubt it ever crossed her mind. But here it is, hanging on the wall of our kitchen, imbued with meaning from her having handled it, the finish on the wood mellowed by her sweat and the oil on her hands. Her daughter in turn honored and used it, and thus her daughter and now yet another daughter has placed it, not just physically  but psychically, into a corner of her life where each successive generation and the loss of those who are gone exudes from it as certainly as any photograph or letter. They become a part of us and we transform through the inclusion. And through Kathy I, too, am changed. Some of this is personal memory (I have, after all, been a part of this family for over 30 years), but much of my transformation is osmotic, once removed. As she changes I change; love is a form of melding and after all this time she cannot make a seismic shift without my own world tipping toward a new way of being.

It seems to me that we are losing some of this ability to transmogrify loss, the passing through the medium of material possessions into memory. It is doubtful we will proudly pass on our Ikea. "Son, this was your grandfather's iPad" just doesn't seem a very likely death bed bequest. We will not stumble upon a stack of love emails tied with a ribbon. Willing your World of Warcraft character to your daughter is unlikely to evince those feelings of connection that the ormolu clock might. Not that I count myself as one of those who thinks this loss of heritable goods is inherently bad. We are evolving as a species into a different form. The disposability of what we own and the sheer massiveness of information available to us is a manifestation of our new ethos and is morally neutral from the perspective of inherent desirability (the effect on the environment is an entirely different question, of course, not to mention examples of true, lasting craftsmanship). But when considering our ability to incorporate our elders into ourselves, these everyday, carefully crafted items carry with them an aura of those who have used them. Kathy's grandmother's grandmother handled this bowl, used it to knead her bread, perhaps, in the early settlement days in Wisconsin or Pennsylvania. In keeping and using it down the years, each successive person incorporated a bit of her being into it, until it comes to us freighted with the spirit of five or six generations of meaning, of grief, of joy, of carrying on, no matter what, with great love.

11,000

I just got back from a vacation to that warm-weather hotspot that's all the rage, yes, that's right, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. You just don't know what you're missing....

Well, OK, yes, you do. It was cold and wet and windy. We went there to visit Kathy's family; she has twin sisters who were turning 50 and it was very important that we go there to remind them of just how old they had become. I know, how kind of us. Of course, they are seven years younger than we are, so the force of our needling rhetoric was somewhat lacking.

And I came down with a cold almost as soon as I got there. I never know whether to blame air travel or not. I used to think it was impossible to come into contact with a cold virus on the plane and get sick the next day, my thinking being that there had to be an incubation period of at least a few days involved here. But, at one point during my copious down time (it was a pretty bad cold), I looked it up on my smartphone and even the Centers for Disease Control says that you can show symptoms in as few as 12 hours after exposure to a rhinovirus. So...who knows? I have been pretty fortunate the past few years in not getting ill too often, but I couldn't dodge it this time.

On the other hand, it was great to be forced into a supine posture and to stay there. I sat in a recliner while others worked around me (we were staying in my late mother-in-law's house and cleaning it out so it can be sold in the spring). I love to supervise the work of others. And I know I needed the rest. I sure did go through a few boxes of Kleenex, though!

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The 11,000 of the title refers to the number of views this little blog of mine has gotten since I started a little over a year ago. I'm not bragging about that number, of course; I am acutely aware that there are many blogs that get ten times that many hits in a single day. But I find it fascinating to think so many people have at least clicked on a post to see what it's all about. Blogger keeps track of  many statistics on this stuff and it thrills me no end that among those 11,000, six were from Malaysia, eight from South Korea and 11 from India, among other places. What does someone from India make of what I have to say, I wonder? I wish a few of them wrote comments so I knew a bit more about them.

I also find it fascinating (and, frankly, a bit head scratching) to see which posts have garnered the most hits: Happy Day has gotten 99 so far, Return 56, Cafe Racer 52 and Living Without A Car an amazing 294 hits. Joyful has been looked at 334 times, Shaking Up the Snowglobe a mind-boggling 501. I note with interest that whereas Eightfold Path, Wise Action (Part I) was viewed 245 times, only 43 of those folks came back for Part II. I feel gratified that the introductory post If You're New Here has been viewed 128 times; I guess it must be helpful (though I have no idea if most of those folks took a look and then ran away as fast as they could). My very first post, No, Indeed He Wasn't, has gotten almost a third of the total number of views, 3062.

Ah, well, I know these numbers don't really mean much in the final analysis. Well, I suppose they mean something, but I'll be damned if I know what it is. People seem to be looking for things to give meaning to their lives and to bring them joy. I'm sure that many of those who came here are attracted to the idea of accepting their bodies as they are while simultaneously taking on their complex relationship to food. It is perhaps the most fascinating journey I have been on, I can say that for certain.

But where the numbers truly have little meaning is in how I intend to continue. I have only my own experience and my own perspective to guide me and to give meaning to what I write here. I have enjoyed the ride so far and intend to continue, even if this post only gets 20 hits. What the heck, that's 20 more people than usually listen to me when I'm saying something! 

Skin

Complacency in the resting state of the human mind.

We would rather not be bothered by the thousands of events of cruelty, suffering, bigotry, despair, violence and casual dismissal of our fellow humans. In part this is certainly protective; too much goes on, we cannot absorb it all without ourselves falling into despair, which is perhaps the most destructive of all emotions, as it freezes us, makes us incapable of movement in any direction.

The other day I got in the mail a whole sheaf of photographs of myself. Naked. Yep, that's right, a pile of pics of yours truly in the buff! You won't be seeing them on the internet. Because I derive from Northern European stock (or, with less grandiosity, because I am a pasty-faced white boy),
my dermatologist (it feels odd to think I have my very own dermatologist) asked that I have high-resolution, full-body photographs taken of my naked body. She wanted to have something against which she could compare any new moles or blemishes, to make sure they were new and not just the same old, same old eruptions of dermis. The photography session itself was not particularly traumatic; I have no hang-up about my naked body and no delusion that the sight of it will be titillating. It is the body of a man of late middle age with lots of moles and lots of hair, pretty much average in pretty much every way. So, posing for a photographer, while it felt oddly like a fashion shoot (including the white umbrella-reflectors and striking poses as directed by the picture-snapper) was not in itself disturbing. But when my copy of the photos came in the mail, I felt a visceral reaction I had not expected, combined of dread and curiosity. Until this morning I had avoided looking at them.

Not from my portfolio

The Buddha taught that we should consider our bodies carefully: "In this fathom-long body, equipped with sense organs and faculties, I declare to you is the world, the origin of the world, the cessation of the world and the path leading to the cessation thereof." The entire philosophy of suffering and the end of suffering can be found in the body. Many have insisted that the Buddha intended to denigrate the body, asking us to see it as foul and the source of our cravings and distractions from the path of purification which could lead to the end of suffering. I find no such sentiment in the teachings, or at least not wholly so. I have read and heard the teachings on revulsion toward the body, but have also absorbed the teachings of the glory of the body. This may sound inconsistent, but it is more truly the evocation of the body as the teacher of all things, both "the origin of the world" and "the cessation of the world". To cling to the idea that the body is only to be reviled is to miss the point. Reviling the body is an exercise, just as celebrating it is. To cling to either image is to invite suffering into our lives.

She clearly disapproves

I went to see an exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum yesterday called "Elles", a tribute to women artists from the Pompidou museum in Paris. I expected to see the usual canvases of Kahlo, Cassatt  O'Keefe, Morisot and their ilk; there was very little so predictable as this. What I had not expected at all was the video installations, one of which was a naked woman (the artist) holding a live chicken by the legs until the chicken became calm, then having the head of the chicken chopped off and the same woman holding the chicken as it died, spewing blood over her and the floor. Just one example. The reason I evoke this disturbing image and the exhibit is to emphasize how clearly the show was designed to show our overwhelming disaffection and objectification toward our bodies and, in particular, the bodies of women (and to recommend to all Seattleites that they go see it).

Looking at the photos of my skin, there were few surprises. I thought my posture was better than that. Yep, there's that little inner tube around my middle that has been the subject of my most fervent hopes for weight loss. My, I have begun to sag! (Come now, Reid, you are well beyond mere beginning). What it did cause, though, was a crack in the skin of my routine image of myself and the world. We all carry with a certain version of our bodies that is notoriously inaccurate. Some of the paintings I admire the most are self-portraits that are honest and straightforward; the artist must have had to study his own body closely and in great detail (sometimes disheartening detail, we must believe) to paint such a portrait.

Both of these, as well as some other events in my recent life (A book by David Foster Wallace, a talk by Amy Goodman) have done is shake up my complacency, a necessary disturbance of the surface normality of my day-to-day life, a wake-up call of what the world is, both inside and outside my head.

I work with wounds, disturbances of skin integrity and its healing. One of the enemies of wound healing is what is called "biofilm", a glaze of bacterial matter on the surface of the wound that is fairly benign but prevents the wound from moving forward on the trajectory toward intact skin. It seems to me that our complacency serves the same purpose, this benign glaze that covers our eyes as we watch our televisions and stare into our omnipresent technoboxes. The best of art, of commentary, of actions by the outrageous, puncture our safe surround and bring us face to face with the reality—often ugly, as often gorgeous, sometimes both in a swirling admixture—of our daily lives.

This is precisely what the Buddha advocated. He did not wish for me to recoil with revulsion or swoon with delight at the sight of my own skin or the contemplation of my guts or my death. He had no desire for me to find the naked chicken woman disgusting or titillating (though of course she was a bit of both). He would have me give up neither my delight in escape nor my deeper seeking. What the Buddha asked of me is that I look at them and see what they are, truly are, in this moment, in my perception, right now. Really, the Buddha didn't advocate much of anything beyond WAKING UP.

Complacency may have been the Buddha's only enemy.

Weight loss reflections

I started this blog with the intention of tracking my efforts to lose weight. A couple of posts back, when I was talking about what I eat and why, I said that I would revisit this topic, if only briefly. As those of you who have been following this blog for awhile are aware, I have shifted my focus more to the Dharma side of things and have de-emphasized the weight loss angle. Why?

Well, it's not because I no longer think that losing some of this excess weight would be wonderful. I am aware of the health consequences of carrying even a relatively small amount of extra poundage. But here's the thing: I am simply not willing to live my life under some sort of cloud, constantly concerned about every extra pound or calorie. Put another way, I would rather die a fat, diabetic, hypertensive mess than spend the precious hours of my life worrying about my weight. Whenever I hear myself, internally or aloud, speaking in martial terms (fighting weight, struggling with it, wrestling it), I recoil. I don't want to live my life in any more struggle than is called for. Just day-to-day living is hard enough.

On the other hand, I treasure discipline and commitment. And by saying I treasure them, I mean that I find great pleasure in them, a greater pleasure than I do in eating junk, for instance. Because of this, in a normal, average week I follow the strictures of my 1800 calorie regimen six days, giving myself Sundays off. When I do this, I steadily lose weight. But many of my weeks are not "normal". When I go on vacation or to visit my parents I find it very difficult to measure and parcel out everything I eat, especially since much of the time is taken up in social eating. Not that I am one of those who, when I feel released from obligation, go buy a box of Twinkies and eat the whole thing; I have never been that kind of binge eater. But a few chips here, a latte instead of drip coffee, a cookie or cinnamon roll or two and pretty soon I have put on an extra pound or five. And since I am now visiting my family once a month, when I factor in my vacations and other time off, my "abnormal" days begin to outnumber the "normal" ones. With the decreased metabolism of a 56-year-old, I have found that, even with moderate eating, if I am not ever-vigilant, I can gain up to 10 pounds in a week.

My friends Barbara and Jim say that when they decided to take off some extra weight they always took their own food wherever they went, even out to dinner with friends or on vacation, if they thought they would not be able to calculate accurately the "cost" of the food they would otherwise be eating. That would be very difficult for me, but I get the point. When I eat with my parents, for instance, we tend to eat at places that specialize in meat and potatoes types of meals. Nothing wrong with that, and they like pretty decent places, but for a vegetarian, lean meals are hard to come by in these restaurant. I'm not complaining, but it does make me wonder how to deal effectively with such times.

Kathy and I just came back from a mini-vacation to Doe Bay on Orcas Island in Washington state.

Doe Bay

It was beautiful and restful and damn near perfect, at least for us. We didn't do much, really, though we went on a couple of hikes in two different state parks on the island. I did not pork out while we were there. We had a couple of meals in the restaurant attached to the resort, but mostly cooked and ate moderately in our own little cabin. Still, I would not be at all surprised to find I gained between five and ten pounds over those five days.

Our sweet little cabin, Chakra

Don't get me wrong. This is not a "problem" for me. I refuse to let it be. But it is a curious conundrum and one with which my thoughts are often taken up. I wonder what kind of alternative strategy I could use for those times when I am out of town or relaxing that would not make these times less interesting or fun but would still allow me to remain on the path to good health? I guess I will find out.

Walkin'

I am, both by necessity and inclination, a walker. I don't own a car and while I can rent or borrow one (and do from time to time), for the most part I try not to. Given the other options, walking is my choice both for mode of transport and exercise. Though I live in a city with a better-than-average transit system (some would disagree with this assessment), I still prefer walking for several reasons:

• The bus doesn't go everywhere. Even when I take the bus, I must walk to the closest stop, then from the arrival stop to my final destination. In many cases, I might as well just walk the whole way.
• It can be something of a hassle to wait for the bus and accommodate to those times when it is not on schedule. When I am walking, I know pretty much exactly how long it will take.
• It's a bit expensive to ride the bus. If I am going to downtown Seattle, it is well worth the $5 to get there and back, but if I am travelling to a closer destination, it doesn't make as much sense.
• Walking just plain feels good.

Seattle is a pretty good city for walking. There are sidewalks in most neighborhoods and many interesting things to see, many of which would be missed from a car or bus. It's a pretty hilly place, though, which can be a challenge, but can also be good if you are up for that kind of workout. It depends on where you are, but most places in Seattle have hills to them or away from them. Going from the waterfront to the top of First Hill, for instance, is an epic hillclimb (the original Skid Row is here, so named because logs were skidded down to the water from the top of the hill). Going from University Village to the University District or Northgate up to Roosevelt is somewhat daunting. There are trails that are more level, such as the Burke-Gilman and around Green Lake, but these are crowded and less interesting (to me, anyway) than the neighborhood walks. Besides, I treasure the feeling of my legs working against so much gravity and my lungs taking in vast quantities of air.

There is also the opportunity to make walking into a meditative pursuit. Though walking meditation is usually taught as a slow-paced, concentrated focus on each movement, there are no rules about this and often a faster walk or even running can be just as meditative. I quite often turn my walks into an opportunity to listen to dharma talks; these tend to be about an hour long, which is how long I walk when I am going out for a pure exercise walk (as opposed to walking to get somewhere). Walking home from work at night has become my time to listen to audio books.

I am also fascinated with the physics of walking. It is truly the science of controlled falling, throwing oneself slightly off-balance with each step and then stopping the fall with the other foot, doing this over and over again. I love the feel of muscles responding to a grade and the lean I take on when it is steep, the better to recruit the major muscle groups in my thighs and butt and back. I love, too, that the whole body is involved in walking, not just the legs. When I pay attention I can feel how the arms and chest and abdomen add their voices to the chorus.

Many studies have shown that brisk walking is one of the best forms of exercise there is, giving the benefits of cardiovascular work without the high-impact damage of running or other more vigorous forms. Which is not to denigrate any other kind of workout, merely to advocate for the benefits of my favorite type. The other huge advantage I see is that I can continue to walk for the rest of my life. I am already anticipating that I will still walk an hour a day when I am 90, the only difference being that I won't go nearly as far.

See you out there....

What I Eat and Why II

So, last week I started detailing what I eat on a daily basis and why I make the choices I do. One of the most important things I discovered in this process is how much is involved in the choices we make about food, and we make these choices every day. These are political, economic, spiritual, physiological, psychological and emotional in nature. There is nothing simple about eating.

I was visiting my extended family in California over the weekend and was reminded how much of the social there is in eating, how we gather around food to celebrate anything and everything, from birth to death and everything inbetween. When we don't know what else to do for someone in grief or pain, we know we can cook for them, drop off some cookies or a casserole. There is something consoling, joyful, reassuring about food. Yet this can also contain the seed of addiction with which so many of us struggle.

My mother's mother was addicted to food in an entirely different way: her self-worth was caught up in how successful she was in feeding others and took it as a personal affront if you were not willing to be plied by her with food. This became more problematic the older (and more mentally feeble) she became. Food, it goes without saying, is complicated.

I left off with breakfast. Lunch, then: when I work I eat homemade lentil soup. I make a large batch every two weeks and refrigerate it. I find it unnecessary to freeze or otherwise preserve my soup—it lasts just fine for two weeks. This is one of the pleasures of being a vegetarian; without meat in my soup, I can worry less about what might make me sick in the things I keep in the refrigerator. I also eat a piece of fruit for lunch. Midmorning, I have half a granola bar each work day. I have another piece of fruit about 2:30 each day. This is why I eat this way: first of all, as stated in last week's post, I need a diet that is predictable in both calories and protein. My lentil soup is rich in protein. I have also discovered that my blood sugar drops between meals unless I eat something, thus the granola bar and fruit. This is especially true when I am working, because my work is physically and emotionally taxing.

When I am not working, I have a bit more leeway. I still track my calorie and protein intake, but can make choices within those requirements. I usually make fairly healthy choices because these have fewer calories and therefore I can eat more of them! I like cheese quite a bit. I usually eat some cottage cheese, as this contains more protein per calorie than nearly any other food. I always have a glass of V-8 to give me more vegetables in my diet (on work days, I treat lentil soup as my vegetable, since it has a healthy amount of spinach, squash, and potatoes in it).

In the evening I don't have a full meal. I tend to concentrate my calories and protein in the morning and afternoon hours; I really don't require all that much energy in the evening. But if I have not yet used up my 1800 calories for the day, I usually eat right up to that allowance. I don't think it is healthy for me to drop too far below that number of calories. I always include plain yogurt as part of my evening, both for protein content and for the probiotics contained therein, which at a minimum help with digestion and may also aid in immune function. Otherwise, I favor chips (Sun Chips, pretzels, that sort of thing), licorice (the real, black kind, none of that namby-pamby red stuff—ick) and a small amount of white chocolate, if I have the calories to afford it.

I take some more supplements in the evening: more vitamin C, a multivitamin, more garlic.

That's about it for My Day in Food. Next time, I will write a bit more about how this all fits into my original intent to have this be a blog about my attempt to lose weight and how this whole thing fits into the principles of Buddhism.

What I Eat and Why

This blog began as a discussion of food and our attitude toward it, with particular emphasis on how the teachings of the Buddha (the Dharma) gives us insight into our eating (and vice versa, as far as that goes). I thought it might be interesting (to me, at least) to tell you a little bit about how I eat and why I eat what I do. If this holds no interest for you, please feel free to skip this one!

A few notes first:

• I am a vegetarian. Why: the first precept taught by the Buddha (I have written on the precepts here) is not to kill. You will recall that the precepts are not commandments and we must each make our own determination as to what these mean to us, if anything. To me, this precept means that no creature should die for my convenience or to satisfy a mere desire. You will note that this prohibition would exclude any circumstance where the death of another creature was essential for my survival (which is to say, I would not refuse meat if that was the only food available, nor would I eschew insulin or exogenous skin products derived from pigs or other animals). I admit to being conflicted about the use of animals for essential medical research, but in general I am not opposed to this use if it leads to the saving of human lives. I am aware that this is a moral quagmire, as I am thus placing the value of human life above that of other creatures, but the fact is that I do place more value on human life; that's just the way it is for me. I am not a vegan, as I have no problem with taking milk and other products from animals. As noted below, it would also be very, very difficult for me to get adequate protein intake without dairy. I also love it (especially good cheese—yum!) and have no intention of giving it up.

• I monitor and supplement my protein intake. Why: I was experiencing very low energy states a few years ago (more about that later) and one of the discoveries I made at that time was that I (like many people the world over) do not digest soy well. Not that it causes particular digestive issues, I just don't get the protein benefit others do from it. This is pretty common, actually. In combination with my vegetarianism, this makes it more of a challenge to get enough protein into my diet. I found I had to monitor my protein intake closely and every day.

• I believe in the use of supplements. Why: I am a scientific guy at heart and like evidence-based practices, but I think there is something to be said for the use of products with a long history of efficacy that nonetheless cannot be conclusively proven to be effective (I am thinking of such things as vitamins and certain herbs). This is an age-old debate—must we have proof of something before we can declare that it might have some usefulness? Are we simply wasting our money on these products or are they truly an adjunct to our better health?

So, here's what I eat:

For breakfast I eat some kind of cold cereal, usually. I eat something that is not too sugary, but still has some taste without adding any sugar or other sweetener. Now, I should say at this point that what I have done is figured out how many calories and how much protein I am consuming when I start the day with a particular cereal, since all the cereals vary somewhat on both metrics. This is easy to do in my case because (as you will see below) I eat essentially the same thing each day, with some variation built in. The reason I bring this up is because a lot of people think it is just too much hassle to track calories and protein. But, by having a chart of what a typical, basic day's measures of these two are, it is much less of a hassle for me.

I put about a quarter cup of bran cereal on my cereal, for the purposes of colonic health. There is pretty strong evidence that increased consumption of fiber helps prevent colon cancer. I also put a handful of blueberries on my cereal each day. The anecdotal evidence of many centuries suggests that berries in this family can boost immune function. 

I eat nonfat milk on my cereal. I also mix a scoop of whey-based protein powder with some more milk. As noted above, I cannot use soy-based protein powder, and a boost to my total protein is essential. My goal is to consume one gram of protein for every kilogram of ideal body weight. I have done quite a bit of study around this figure and, although studies and experts vary widely in their recommendations for protein intake, for me, 80g per day seems about right. This is also tied into the fatigue I was feeling a few years back—the measured protein intake is one of my responses to this.

I also eat a piece of fruit with breakfast. I am not so compulsive that I get all hung up on the calorie difference between different pieces of fruit. This is counted into my daily tally at a particular level and doesn't vary. Fruit is actually not all that nutritious, by the way, but does provide a complex carbohydrate to keep my blood sugar up. It also provides an extra amount of fiber (see above). The superiority of fruit over juices or even other sources of sugar has been exaggerated, though. Over-consumption of fruit can be a source of empty calories if one is not judicious.

With breakfast I take many supplements. I take 1000 mg of vitamin C. I know, I know, this has come in and out of fashion and recent science suggests that there is very little efficacy to vitamin C either as prophylaxis of common viral infections such as colds or as a scavenger of free radicals (purported to prevent cancers). Still, there was a time not long ago that I was getting sick at the rate of five or six times each winter, sick enough to take a day or two off work each time. When I complained to my doctor, she suggested that I try vitamin C and garlic. So, after doing some study on the subject, I started taking a total of 4500 mg of vitamin C per day as well as four tablets of garlic. I spread the vitamin C out throughout the day (it is water-soluble and taking too much at any one time means you are just urinating out the excess; it can also cause diarrhea at high doses). I also take two of the garlic tabs in the morning and two in the evening, hoping to spread the effects from that intake. And I have gotten sick much, much less since I started doing that. Granted, there are many other factors that could have caused this change to come about, but the temporal relationship between these measures being taken and the improvement in my health is suggestive to me of some causal relationship.

I also take vitamin D, 5000 IU every other day in the winter (less sun exposure) and three times a week in the summer. This was suggested by my naturopath after I went to him with my complaints of fatigue (my regular physician was at the end of what she could do for me). One very important proviso to supplementing with vitamin D, though: you must have your vitamin D levels checked at least yearly and more often when starting supplementation or substantially increasing your dose. Vitamin D can accumulate in your body (it is fat- and not water-soluble) if you take too much and cause much worse problems than the ones you are solving with it. You will also need to do your homework to determine the ideal blood level for you; traditional medicine tends to set the acceptable levels quite low. Recent studies have suggested that nearly everyone could benefit from some degree of vitamin D supplementation.

I also take a vitamin B50 tablet, which provides about 50 mg of most B vitamins, and a selenium tablet. These two were suggested by the LEVITY study conducted at the University of Washington about ten years ago as being efficacious for improved mood (along with exercise and exposure to as much natural light as possible).

These days I am also taking 1000 mg of organic American ginseng daily. I know, that's pretty specific, but here's why: an Australian study demonstrated that this type of ginseng was efficacious in providing feelings of more energy and improved stamina in a particular group of patients. So, I am running an experiment on myself, taking 1000 mg every day for a month, then 2000 mg (the dose recommended on the bottle) for two months, to see if I detect any improvement. Though my fatigue has improved a great deal, it is an issue that is far from entirely solved. I doubt this type of ginseng is better than any other kind, but am trying to replicate the study conditions to the best of my ability. I am nearly through the first month (1000 mg) and have seen no change.

Well, I got pretty wordy describing all that, and I'm only up through breakfast! I will tackle lunch, dinner, and my other food in my next post. I will also talk about my weight loss (the original purpose of this site) and where I stand in relation to that.

God

I don't exactly disbelieve in God. Is that vague enough for you? If I have gained any wisdom in my nearly six decades of life (a debatable proposition), that wisdom may well be summarized in this mantra: "It is more foolish to assert certainty than doubt in a world as uncertain as this".

Consider the evidence, such as it is: evolution is a fact, though as time goes by we realize how very limited Darwin's original theory is (even he acknowledged this). Still, evolution is the way we came into being. All things natural are explicable through the science of evolution. Creation cannot explain away things like entirely useless hipbones in whales or other vestigial traces of the evolutionary progress of species. (Yes, yes, I know, God has no need to explain Himself or Herself or Itself. There are mysteries and this is as it should be and all that. Still...). Then there is the trump card often put forward by the atheist; do you really want to believe in a God that would allow things like Darfur or the rape of a child? The Holocaust or Kim Kardashian?

I just looked at a few philosophical website entries about this question, so my head is spinning a bit, but I don't feel any clearer than I did before. Arguing about the subject from the perspective of logic isn't really very useful, is it? Atheism, whether they believe it to be so or not, is a form of belief; since the non-existence of God cannot be proved, there must be a degree of faith involved in the argument. On the other hand, the non-existence of anything cannot be proved, when you get right down to it (incontrovertible proof of a negative being impossible, in philosophical terms). Though I cannot conclusively prove there is no Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy, it does not require faith for me to be pretty certain they don't exist (my apologies to those of you still getting a buck under your pillow). The burden of proof, argue the atheists, is not on them, but on those who believe in God.

Which is where I exit the whole debate. It seems to me that taking this question as an exercise in logical thinking is precisely the wrong tack. God is a feeling, God is an understanding at the depth of our beings that defies explanation. God is that sense that only the existence of something beyond our human understanding explains the nature of how the world flows in a certain way. Of course, I acknowledge that this could easily be a soothing fantasy, like the child who believes that Dad looking under the bed dispels all the demons that normally live there. Life is too frightening, the argument goes, to carry on without God.

To throw up my hands and say, "I don't know" is to many on both sides of the debate the pinnacle of cowardice, a fecklessness beyond the pale. Yet that is precisely where I find myself. Raised in a firm belief in God, converted to wholesale atheism in my young adulthood, then confronted with evidence of the miraculous in my recovery from alcoholism (and witnessing the recovery of hundreds of others), I have come to a place of entire comfort with the uncertainty of my belief. I can't believe in a creator God, unless with my mother I were to believe that God created the universe by setting the work of evolution in motion and then sat back and let it do its work, an attractive melange, I think. Still, there are too many inconsistencies and redundancies in the whole operation to believe in a creator God, unless we were also to posit God as a well-meaning bungler. Do you really want to attribute the creation of sickle cell anemia to an omniscient being?

But I can't give up my belief in the miraculous. Miracles happen daily, if our eyes are open to them. This, perhaps, is my most firmly held argument against those who would philosophically debate the issue: while their noses are stuck in books and their voices are raised in epistemological wrangling, both theists and atheists are missing what is right in front of them. There is a Flow to the world, and we are either of it or standing in opposition to it. The former is a source of joy, the latter a source of suffering.  I have experienced this from both sides and am certain of the truth of at least this much.What is the nature of this Flow? I haven't the slightest idea. But it is not entirely human in origin, at least not on the scale of the individual. Perhaps it is the result of the combination of all human souls (another loaded word) or even the souls of all beings who have ever been and ever will be. How should I know?

But I do know this: if a person is determined to do right in the world and enters into the work of each day with this desire, good is more likely to come to that person. If, on the other hand, one expects evil of the world, evil will come to him in disproportionate quantities. If one uses prayer not as a grocery list for God, our errand boy, to do for us, but as a way of realigning with the Flow of being a human living in a finite body in a finite world that nonetheless has infinite possibilities and extent in a spiritual sense, true happiness is more likely. Is this some sort of brainwashing or Pollyanna view of life? Am I merely fooling myself in order to feel better about the disorder and cruelty in the world? God knows.

Shifting Sands

I can't recall the film in which I saw it, but I have a distinct memory of a world that seems perfectly real, but that dissolves behind you as you walk through it, as if it were real only in the moment you are in it, but then devolves back into chaos (or nothingness) as soon as its usefulness to you (or the plot) is past.

I have been having a similar feeling the past few months. I feel my role changing at work. My role as a husband has changed. As a father, a son, a person in recovery—all of these roles are shifting and transmogrifying. And I don't like it. This is very striking at work: in their insecurity, the younger workers assert their superiority and seeing this so sharply in them, I perceive it ever more clearly in myself. Don't they know how very hard I have worked to get where I am? (I can hear the whining in my head). Don't they know who I am?

One of the clearer messages of the Buddha's teachings is that such change is inevitable. Not only is our house built on shifting sand, the house itself is made of insubstantial stuff, of spun sugar and clouds. (Just ask our plumbing, which is disintegrating and needs replacement, but that's an entirely different subject!) I have thoroughly accepted this intellectually; of course life is all about change, who doesn't know that? Of course we all grow old, sicken, die, get hurt, become feeble, lose our faculties, our memories, our abilities. Of course the young come up behind us with more energy and new knowledge and displace us. This is all as it should be! Of course. But emotionally I find myself ill-prepared for the new realities springing up around me.

I'm not complaining, really. I feel more bewildered than hurt by these things. The illusion of solidity is nonetheless a very comforting fantasy and change usually happens so slowly that it is easy to believe that there is a solid reality here. There isn't, in case you persist in this delusion. This is not bad news, of course. It is what it is. The Buddha's message is one of thorough acceptance of this reality, that there is, paradoxically, no reliable reality. In fact, if we are looking for substantiality, we can never be anything but insecure (which is why there are so many destructive actions in our world motivated by fear and insecurity).

I am studying Wagner recently, specifically the Ring Cycle, in preparation for seeing it next year. (For those of you not familiar with it, this is a cycle of four operas, three of which are in excess of three hours long). I wanted to be more familiar with these masterworks in order to better appreciate them. One thing I was surprised to learn is that Wagner was influenced by the proto-Buddhists of his day. The conclusion they seemed to draw (or at least the one that Wagner incorporated) was that there was no God and that any drive to perfectibility was futile. I'm not sure that's what the Buddha had in mind, but it is interesting that Wagner should assert this.

What this has to do with the subject at hand (other than the fact that they are both rattling around in my head together just now) is this idea, which Wagner incorporated rather late in his career: we must come to terms with the idea that our lives will never reach an ideal state and remain there. The opera cycle is fairly explicit in the vagueness of its conclusions (if that's not too much of a contradiction in terms). Pretty much everyone dies in these operas, which is rather odd. Usually there is one hero left standing (think the final scene of Hamlet). But Wagner was telling a different kind of tale, one full of allegory and intended more to assert a point of view than to entertain: no matter what our status in life—hero, lover, god, or mere mortal, stumbling along to our measly destiny—we are fated to encounter our mortality and the frustration of our desires. The Buddha was explicit that the problem in this scenario is not the frustration but the desires, not the death but the expectation of ongoing life, not the change but the thought that life can be anything but change.

This feels like cold comfort today. I want security and certainty and the warm, cozy feeling of knowing my role and doing it well. I work hard and deserve a reward. I have earned a certain position in the world and expect to be acknowledged as such. As the saying goes, good luck with that. One of the primary problems with this system of belief is that everyone else is asserting their own right to be considered and treated in a light that is complementary to them, too, so that our day-to-day existance can begin to feel like a constant jockeying for position rather than just living our lives.