Cast & Credits

By way of addendum to my depression post, I have to thank two people and another sentient being who helped me through that 1998 crisis: Beasley the cat, Beasley the human (my therapist) and Michele the psych nurse.

I've lost track of Michele and haven't seen Beasley the human in five years. Beasley the cat, who hooked up with me when he was only a few weeks old, is now eight and still with me, the senior pet in the household.

Skip's State of the Union

I am not a strong adherent to the Triune Brain concept. It may very well be true, but in my own 'only don't know' world, it doesn't seem to have a lot of relevance.

Nonetheless I offer the link to Skip Largent's Triune Brain State of the Union at www.skipsilver.com:

"Your human field balances and attunes itself by way of your synchronization with lovingness. Unbalance derives from fear. The field emerges from a complex neural network, the Reticular Activating System, in the top of your spine, forming a double torus over the head and over the lower body. ( a torus field resembles a doughnut shape )

"No part of the human triune brain WORKS until the electromagnetic field emanating from your Reticular Activating System tells it to work (including your exalted neocortex). Lacking spark from the Reticular Activating System, the three brains in your head sit there like a stack of jello."

Skip's complete State of the Union here.

Dateline: Vienna

If you don't know, John X is in Vienna this week, and blogging about it here.

First, do no harm

I'm batting .000 on router repair. I've tried to fix two in the past week. One still doesn't work as it should, and the other is in worse shape than it was before I tinkered with it.

I am again confronted with the reminder that I don't know as much as I like to think I know. People ask me to fix something, and my ego and my codependency-related inability to say 'no' to requests lead me to make my friends' lives marginally less pleasant than they were before I 'helped.'

I'm still working on "'don't know' mind," but I've pretty much mastered "'don't know jack shit' mind."

I spent most of Sunday alone, running errands and doing housework. Trips to Target and Homeland and PetSmart and Borders. Plus a half-hour on the phone trying to talk someone through undoing what I'd done to a router. A lot of this busyness is just to keep the depression at bay. Some meditation teachers suggest that we should sit with our depression and work with it. But others say -- I think this is really important to note -- that depression can actually be amplified by meditation.

Back around 1998-99, when my life went pretty much completely to hell, I reached a point where I could not be alone for more than 48 hours. I had no friends at all at that time, and when my days off from work rolled around each week (on Monday and Tuesday, as I recall), I would be sitting in my apartment with a white-knuckled grip on the arms of my chair, literally trying to avoid killing myself while I was completely alone with my thoughts for two days.

I have gotten so used to being busy socially over the past few months -- and having constant distraction from my depression -- that I had almost forgotten it was there.

But in the final analysis, the depression owns me, or at least a large part of me. I could go back on some drug to alter the chemistry of my brain, but that wouldn't address the larger cosmic question of whether I ought to be depressed. My track record as a useful individual isn't very good and my track record as a wise or knowledgeable person is even worse. Who wouldn't be depressed if they had been as big a flop as a human being as I've been.

(And yet, here's the rub: I don't think I would have it any other way. I can't imagine myself being a cheerful, successful, heartbreakingly handsome overachieving American. I would be even more miserable than I am now.)

I have at least one friend who has taken the Buddhist bodhisattva vow: to delay nirvana and keep coming back, life after life, until all beings have been enlightened.

That, at least, I could recognize as beyond my ken. Yeah, I'm going to enlighten all beings. Jesus. I might as well take a vow to be an NFL quarterback.

My vow is to keep coming back until every wi-fi router on earth is fucked up. That's something I have some reasonable expectation of accomplishing.

A dream

I fell asleep for awhile this afternoon and had another nightmare about TV news. Been awhile.

I'm up again

I spent most of the day on my own Saturday. Did the usual breakfast thing at the RC, then tried to fix RJ's wifi router. Don't know yet if I succeeded. After that, bought cat food. After that, did overdue household chores. After that, read. After that, bought a hundred-dollar pair of speakers for my dining room. After that, an hour at the mostly empty RC. After that, more of the Diamond Sutra, then bed by 8:30. Now I'm up.

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John X asks in a comment on the previous post,

How attached are you to the idea of non-attachment?

I think the answer is, 'Well I'm a lot more attached to the idea than I am to the actual practice.'

Some rich dude told Jesus he wanted to follow him, and Jesus said, 'Give away all your stuff and come with me.'

But the rich dude –– well, you know how it is. Lease payments on the SUV, credit card bills to pay, that check to the Republican National Committee you've been meaning to write, there's already another new iPod out, the collagen injections are wearing off –– hey, I'd like to help, but I think you'll just have to go get crucified without me.

So the rich dude and Jesus went their separate ways. And Jesus turned to his disciples and said, "It's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to get into the kingdom of heaven."

Now, I am not a rich man. For me, getting into the kingdom of heaven would be like maybe a German Shepherd trying to fit through the eye of a needle.

But the deal, as Jesus and Thoreau and Master Gotama all said, is that having a lot of material stuff weighs you down –– spiritually, morally and intellectually. (Said the guy who just set up wireless iTunes speakers in his dining room.)

Now, on the other hand: before Master Gotama achieved enlightenment, he spent several years wandering around India as an itinerant holy man. This included some time as one of those 'one grain of rice a day' ascetics –– major major major non-attachment.

After a year or two of that, he weighed about 60 pounds, was near death, and still didn't see himself as enlightened. So he started eating again, and came to what he later called the Middle Path, somewhere between stuffing yourself on KFC every day and wandering around in the woods half-naked and starving.

(You notice I'm writing about all this like I actually know something about it. Here's a caveat: I don't know shit. Double check my facts on wikipedia, so you'll know they're at least truthy, if not true.)

Synchronistically enough, I happened to read a story this past week about a monk who was asked this same question a few centuries back: are you attached to non-attachment? There was an exegesis of the story afterward, explaining all the details of his paragraph-long answer, but the short version was, "No, I'm not."

You know, I just stepped on the Buddha boat like ten minutes ago in cosmic time, and I'm still asking directions to the promenade deck.

blogblah!, meanwhile, asks if I know too much about don't-know mind.














































I don't know.



iTunes (from the dining room!): Rupak Tal, Ravi Shankar

I'm up

...and I don't know why.

I didn't go to bed all that early. But something woke me up - probably a cat thumping around.

Still working my way through the Diamond Sutra commentary.

Non-attachment. Don't-know mind. Those are my two goals. Not having a lot of luck with them this week.

A couple of kids

There are a couple of kids who are occasionally seen around the Red Cup. The Cup is not a very kid-friendly place; there's no rule against children, but I think it must mostly be a boring place for small fry.

The two kids I'm thinking of, though, seem to handle it pretty well. They are neither running rampant across the landscape, nor are they sullen but perfectly-behaved little Stepford kids. They make some noise, but not a lot of noise, they wander around some; but they don't grab stuff off tables or otherwise make themselves nuisances. And they seem like pretty happy, well-adjusted youngsters. If I'd had kids, I hope that I would have done that good a job raising them. In truth, if I'd had kids in my twenties, they'd probably be in federal prison now.

I was reading an article the other day about teaching children Buddhism in a commune somewhere. It sounded like a very strict, almost puritanical upbringing.

Personally, I don't think kids need to be taught Buddhism. Kids need to know kidism, which they already come by naturally. Parents need to guide that and help it mature into healthy adulthood. Giving kids a belief system can come later, as they're about become adults and take on the responsibilities of adulthood.

John X says

"Cats = Zen masters"

John may have meant that a little tongue-in-cheek, but I think there's truth in it, and so did Alan Watts, who also likened cats to accomplished Zen practitioners.

Cats, especially domesticated cats, live in the moment. They make no plans. While there may be a pecking order among a group of cats, they don't classify things, measure things, categorize things, obsess about their standing among other cats, lie awake because their week-old iPod has just been discontinued for a newer model, or do any of the other things we as Americans are supposed to do.

And as Watts pointed out, they achieve this enlightened state without zazen, without retreat, without monasticism.

Yeah - we can learn a lot from cats. I know I have. I'd be sleeping on the sofa all the time if someone else would take care of feeding me.

Huang Po says

"Most people allow their mind to be obstructed by the world and then try to escape from the world. They don't realize that their mind obstructs the world. If they could only let their minds be empty, the world would be empty. Don't misuse the mind. If you want to be free of the world, you should forget the mind. Once you forget the mind, the world becomes empty. And when the world becomes empty, the mind disappears. If you don't forget the mind and only get rid of the world, you only succeed in becoming more confused."

– Huang Po, tenth century Ch'an master

This comes from Red Pine's translation of the Diamond Sutra, with commentary.

The Diamond Sutra itself is brief, about the length of a longer New Testament epsitle; the commentary, which includes quotations from Huang Po and other Ch'an and Zen masters, runs about 350 pages.

The quote above really caught my attention. A person can retreat to a cave, shut himself or herself off from the world, and sit there in utter isolation, still not at all getting it.

Does this contradict the behavior of all the masters who went into permanent retreat? I don't think so.

A lot of people who grow up in wackjob families end up being isolated. They reach adulthood with a huge set of rules for living that make no sense outside the confines of their own crazy families. They take these twisted rules out into the 'sane' world, suddenly realize everyone thinks their behavior is bizarre or unacceptable, and retreat back into their homes because they have no idea what else they can do. They get rid of the world, but they still don't get it.

The master or sage who has already gotten it, on the other hand, begins to see the so-called 'real world' as, at best, irrelevant, and at worst a hindrance to further understanding.

Again, it's the difference between self-denial and renunciation.

I really doubt that I am ever going to do the Cold Mountain thing. I'm too hooked on things like broadband Internet and health care to walk away from my job and try to live off wild plants in the mountains. But the rest of the stuff in this world seems less and less important as time goes by.

Depression?

I was in bed last night at 7:30 p.m. and tonight at 7:45 p.m.

I love my bed. I like that feeling when I first lie down and I feel the muscles and joints in my knees and lower thighs stretch. I like knowing I don't have to be anywhere or think about anything –– even about no-thinking –– for awhile. I like that it's dark.

And then I'm asleep.

I know I had some kind of vaguely unpleasant dream this evening. I don't remember a thing about it.

Gimp the Cat update

I should mention that Gimp feels like he weighs almost as much as a normal cat now. Back when he was lying sprawled out on my porch in the hundred-plus weather, he had the heft of a sheet of typing paper.

He still can't jump like the other cats and I doubt he'll ever be able to, having lost so much muscle mass, but at least he's starting to look like a normal, if dirty, cat, rather than a walking skeleton.

An evening alone

I finally got to Borders tonight, which I had been putting off for several days. There was a time not all that long ago when I would visit Borders or B&N once or twice a week. Now weeks go by between visits.

I also ate dinner alone at Chili's tonight. That's the first time I've eaten dinner in a restaurant by myself in I don't know how long (not including the Red Cup, where even if I'm there alone, it's like being with family). Again, it wasn't all that long ago that I always ate alone.

I have not eaten fast food, with the exception of two McD's sausage biscuits, since before I got sick. It wasn't all that long ago I was at KFC twice or three times a week, and Taco Bueno on the days I wasn't eating chicken.

Lately, I haven't spent a lot of Sunday nights alone. It feels lonely tonight being by myself.

Bought Red Pine's translations of the Diamond Sutra and the Heart Sutra at Borders. Looked for some new music but saw nothing that appealed to me.

iTunes: Rag Jog, from The Indian Bamboo Flute compilation.

Plus there's some Craig's sandalwood incense smoking.

Non-attachment redux redux

There are some interesting comments on my previous post. Blogblah! and JohnX got me to thinking more about the attachment I have to negative emotions.

This runs counter to my other 'big thing' – the 'don't know mind' approach – but in this case, I think knowing at least a little can help me be rid of the attachment(s).

Of course, what I'm about to write isn't knowledge, it's assumption... but here it is anyway.

We all have things happen in our lives that aren't fair. Sometimes we're able to get 'justice' or 'satisfaction' or some other sort of balancing of the scales. But sometimes we're not able to have that – unless we're very wealthy or very powerful, we sometimes get screwed and we just have to smile and shrug and go on.

In that case, hanging on to the indignation or anger or rage is one way of at least validating to oneself that the wrong did occur and that I (or you, or whoever) should have been treated more fairly. I (or you, or whoever) can hang on to negative emotion as a way of believing we're not some inconsequential insects upon whom others can can step at will without fear or consequences – even though in truth that's a fact of life for most of us at one time or another.

I hung onto my rage against my abusive boss for years in part because he got away with it time and time again. Years later, long he had left the state, I finally realized that every time I dwelt on that anger against him it was like he got to yank my chain again by remote control. And I finally quit.

From the non-dualistic Buddhist POV, there is no "I" to be wronged, so the anger is wrapped up in something that is almost a hallucination.

If we decided to indulge rage and anger over being victimized, few people would have more cause for doing so than the Buddhists of Tibet, who were murdered, forced from their homes and even their country by the Chinese communists... or the Vietnamese Buddhists who fled the communists in their country. But you don't see the Dalai Lama or Thich Nhat Hanh howling with outrage over the way they and their people have been treated, because they have internalized the very thing I understand intellectually, but which is not yet part of my basic personality makeup.

Non-attachment redux

If you've been reading this blog for awhile, you know I've been focusing on non-attachment in my daily life.

One way that I track down my attachment issues is by looking for things that evoke a strong emotional response, either positive or negative. In doing that, I've discovered

1. that there are more things in my life that evoke strong negative emotions than strong positive ones.


2. that I have a certain attachment to some negative emotions that I don't have for positive ones.

The reason I experience more negative emotions is not because I have a miserable life – I could live like Warren Buffett and I'd still be about the same emotionally – it's because the 'negative emotion technology' in my system is rather finely tuned, while the 'positive emotion technology' was pretty much smashed flat by my parents (for reasons that could make a whole 'nother blog).

So, when good things happen, I tend to have a flat emotional response, while I can react more naturally and emotionally to bad things.

But the more interesting thing is that I have an attachment to these negative emotions, and I have a hard time shaking them.

Back in 1983 or '84, I worked for a boss who was incredibly abusive. I think I can fairly say he was the worst person I ever knew who wasn't a serial killer. (If it turns out someday that he is a serial killer, that will not surprise me.) He was a lot tougher on the female employees than he was on the guys, but he enjoyed making everyone's life miserable. I don't mean that as a figure of speech – he literally enjoyed making people miserable.

He was forced out in 1989 or '90, but even as late as 1995, I could still find myself in a rage just thinking about him. I eventually kicked that, but it took years because I was attached to the anger I felt, and part of me didn't want to let go of it.

If you read a lot of Buddhist literature as I do, you find a lot about losing attachments to wealth, luxury, sex, fame, power and the like.

But what if your attachments are to anger and resentment?

Well, I got over my issues with that sorry-assed mother$#%^@* psychopath asshole boss... so I guess I can kick the rest of it, too. That sorry son of a bitch... I mean, seriously, you wouldn't believe the shit that asswipe pulled... I remember one time...

Just for the record

If I never ever ever see another &^%$*# 'Oklahoman Buyer's Edge' in my mailbox again, that will be fine with me. They go straight from my mailbox to the trashcan, unopened. What a waste of newsprint.

Health Update

Went back to the doctor today – my hemoglobin count is at ten, which is where it was when I left the hospital. So I haven't gotten any worse (it was six before I went in the hospital and got the transfusions), but it should be going up.

I go back in two weeks for another test.

Amazing lineup, indeed

Belief-O-Matic

Following Nina's lead (which see), I went over to BeliefNet's Belief-O-Matic to see where I fit in the religious scheme of things.

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"The top score on the list below represents the faith that Belief-O-Matic, in its less than infinite wisdom, thinks most closely matches your beliefs. However, even a score of 100% does not mean that your views are all shared by this faith, or vice versa.

"Belief-O-Matic then lists another 26 faiths in order of how much they have in common with your professed beliefs. The higher a faith appears on this list, the more closely it aligns with your thinking."


1. Mahayana Buddhism (100%)
2. Theravada Buddhism (98%)
3. Unitarian Universalism (98%)
4. Liberal Quakers (96%)
5. Taoism (96%)
6. Hinduism (86%)
7. Neo-Pagan (82%)
8. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (80%)
9. Jainism (79%)
10. Secular Humanism (73%)
11. New Age (68%)
12. Orthodox Quaker (64%)
13. Sikhism (61%)
14. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (59%)
15. New Thought (59%)
16. Bah�'� Faith (59%)
17. Scientology (59%)
18. Reform Judaism (53%)
19. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (38%)
20. Nontheist (36%)
21. Seventh Day Adventist (36%)
22. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (28%)
23. Jehovah's Witness (24%)
24. Eastern Orthodox (19%)
25. Islam (19%)
26. Orthodox Judaism (19%)
27. Roman Catholic (19%)

So I'm a little more Buddhist that Taoist. Mahayana Buddhism includes Zen, which is the cross-pollination of Taoism and Buddhism. Looks like I could also slip into a Unitarian/Universalist Church pretty safely.

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While we're on the subject, I want to recommend Bones of the Master, a book published in 2000 recounting the efforts of an expatriate Chinese Ch'an monk to return to the PRC and give his late master a proper Buddhist burial, and the American neighbor who goes with him.

A good review is here. (Although the reviewer incorrectly states that the monk, Tsung Tsai, may be the last Ch'an monk on earth. Actually he is probably the last monk from his monastery left alive.)

Thanks to Jen for loaning me this book, as well as Sean Murphy's One Bird, One Stone: 108 American Zen Stories. In addition to being a collection of memorable quotes, anecdotes and koans from American Zen masters and teachers, One Bird, One Stone
is a sort of popular history of Zen's arrival and growth in the U.S.

As such, it ties in nicely with Monica Furlong's Zen Effects: The Life of Alan Watts. Watts gets only a passing mention in One Bird, One Stone, but many of the same characters in the history of American Zen pop up in both books, and you can come away from both books together with a pretty good understanding of who influenced whom, who taught whom and so on. Thanks again to JohnX for loaning me the Furlong book.

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I wonder how many of us there are: Americans who have adopted or gravitated toward Buddhism or Taoism, but haven't made the formal commitment of joining a sangha, zendo or temple nor have placed ourselves under the guidance of a teacher. Are we learning the real deal from books?

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BeliefNet note: if you sign up for anything on BeliefNet, you're going to get spammed by their 'partners,' which include everything from eHarmony.com to health food distributors.

Raccoons stole my peanut butter

No shit... I left the back door open yesterday, and some raccoon crawled through the open window in the storm door, ate all my potato chips, then carried a jar of Jif peanut butter back out in the yard and tore the labels off trying to get it open.