Sobriety Kyôsaku

An intoxicant is any external source that draws you deeper into yourself, your beliefs, your egocentrism, and away from direct experience of the real, present moment.

Samsaric life is floating down a river of intoxicants; it’s difficult to go against the flow but it’s the only hope.

– insight from a fellow Zen hermit in my Twitter sangha.


(Photo of Oregon's Rogue River courtesy of Hamad Darwish and Wikimedia Commons.)

Cross X

I've been listening to a podcast about cults, the primary sin of which (as well as many so-called mainstream congregations, including some that claim to teach Zen), is clerical abuse. Regular readers will recognise this as one of my hot buttons.

The hosts of the show (Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and Manipulation) are both cult survivors – one of a Mormon offshoot, the other of a radical Protestant church. Their personal experience lends valuable insight into the journey their guests have made to end up in front of their microphones.

The manner in which larger society receives cult survivors also comes up. I find this particularly interesting, since it's clear to me that if you drill deep and with unflinching honesty, a whole schedule of self-destructive behaviours – cult membership, suicide, abusive relationships, depression, personality disorders, addiction, most crime – usually originate in social violence.

And former cult members, like spousal abuse survivors, are prime targets for lazy critics. You were weak, stupid, cowardly, you gave tacit consent, and therefore you remain entirely responsible for any misdeeds you committed, or enabled others to commit.

The reflexive question survivors typically face is, "Why didn't you leave?" Moral equivalent of Groucho's "answer yes or no, do you or do you not still beat your wife?"; this challenge is impossible to answer without incriminating yourself. The question itself reads unfinished; it wants "…you idiot" at the end.

But as the hosts of Trust Me point out, it's much more productive to flip it:

"Why did you stay?"

Implied judgement is still there, but whereas the first query rings with fault and blame, this one accepts the equal possibility of decency: Why were you loyal? Why did you commit to this? What did you invest? Who were you afraid to hurt or disappoint? What dissuaded you from acting in your own interest?

Like all penetrating insights, this one is applicable to a lot more than just cults. In Zen we're taught that our true motivation for any act, casual or momentous, is almost always occult; layer upon layer of mind functions work in the dark, so that by the time thought hardens into action, we may be entirely ignorant of its origins.

Nowhere is this more evident than when I confront others in judgement.

Worst of all: when I stand in judgement of myself.

Therefore, henceforward, when interrogating others on past decisions, instead of asking "Why didn't you leave?", I will undertake to ask, "Why did you stay?".

Even when the accused and Crown Counsel are the same person.


(Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and a generous photographer.)

Good Song: Don't Judge a Life

If you don't know John Gorka, you should know John Gorka.

Few artists sing the human heart like John. A number of his songs sum up affecting moments of my life in ways that not only people my isolation, they help me understand what happened.

But in this case he's addressing a wider problem. The immediate topic is fellow poet and good friend Bill Morrissey, who possessed much the same gift as John's, had much the same sort of career – ignored by the machine, adored by initiates – and died in 2011 from complications of a dissolute life.

An Amazon reviewer who knew Bill quoted him from a conversation they'd had:

"Most everybody knows that I've had some rough sledding for the last few years, including my well-known battle with the booze. A couple of years ago I was diagnosed as bipolar and I am on medication for depression, but sometimes the depression is stronger than the medication.

"When the depression hits that badly, I can't eat and I can barely get out of bed. Everything is moving in the right direction now, and throughout all of this I have continued to write and write and write."

And then he was gone.

Don't Judge a Life – bookend to Peter Mayer's Japanese Bowl, spinning the issue from first to second person – is a reminder we all need on a daily basis. I particularly like this part:

Reserve your wrath for those who judge
Those quick to point and hold a grudge
Take them to task who only lead
While others pay, while others bleed

Readers with a solid base in Christian ethics will instantly recognise the source of this counsel. The same precept in the Buddhist canon is a little less explicit, but our teachings on bodhisattva nature clearly endorse and require it.

And both faiths stand firmly on the last verse.

DON'T JUDGE A LIFE
by John Gorka

Don't judge a life by the way it ends
Losing the light as night descends
For we are here and then we're gone
Remnants to reel and carry on

Endings are rare when all is well
Yes and the tale easy to tell
Stories of lives drawn simplified
As if the facts were cut and dried

Don't judge a life as if you knew
Like you were there and saw it through
Measure a life by what was best
When they were better than the rest

Reserve your wrath for those who judge
Those quick to point and hold a grudge
Take them to task who only lead
While others pay, while others bleed

Tapping the keys in a life of rhyme
Ending the tune and standard time
Silence fills the afternoon
A long long way to gone too soon

Don't judge a life by the way it ends
Losing the light as night descends
A chance to love is what we've got
For we are here and then
We're not

(Photo courtesy of Jos van Vliet and Wikimedia Commons.)

Into the Abyss

"Lion’s Roar Has Killed Buddhism", screams a recent headline on Brad Warner's Hardcore Zen blog.

Um… そうですね。

Don't get me wrong; I've called down the Western Buddhist press many times here on my own public confessional. Most of what passes for our media is pat, predictable, and embarrassingly bourgeois. Still, such a declaration, as sensational and click-baity as it sounds, must be at least a little over the top, eh?

As it happens, not so much.

My brother was reacting to The New Wave of Buddhist Psychedelics, a feature article on the Lion's Roar website that celebrates mind-disabling chemicals as enlightenment practice aids. Its very title asserts the existence of something called "Buddhist psychedelics", magical substances evidently developed by arhat pharmacologists to "get you over".

This is only the latest manifestation of a disturbing foible of Western Buddhism. Back in the 1960s, the hippies, justifiably disenchanted with their childhood religions, went trolling for alternatives. As they imported barely-understood Eastern philosophies from overseas, they were careful to "upgrade" them with their own values, incongruity be damned. Among these were environmental awareness, pacifism, New Age nutrition, gender equality, and sensuality, to name just five.

None of that is strictly-speaking Buddhic, though a strong sutric case could be made for the first two. The next two have to be lawyered up before they slide in, but perhaps the Buddha was suggesting them obliquely, while openly advocating the opposite.

Sly old Gautama. (Ahem.)

But that last one is out. Full stop.

The Baby Boomers were and are famously devoted to chasing sensations. "This I have seen; this I have felt." They wished themselves explorers, pioneers, eagerly barging in where angels fear to tread. (Ed. note: angels actually tread everywhere. They just don't loiter in pointless places.)

Their initial attraction to Zen was the far-out trips they hoped to experience while meditating. Those monks sitting all weird, not moving; they must see stuff, man. Go somewhere, baby.

The fact that zazen is emphatically the opposite of that is one of those contradictions many chose not to acknowledge.

But their favourite terra incognita – famously, infamously – was drugs. Thus the hippies augmented our culture's twin holocausts of tobacco and alcohol with a whole freezerful of new philtres, guaranteed to make you stupid or give us the rest of your money.

When I became a monk, pot was still viewed as a sacramental herb by a significant minority of the western sangha. If anything it's grown in esteem since, though without a crumb of justification; the Buddha was categorical, and common sense concurs, that anything that interferes with the free and natural function of a healthy mind obstructs enlightenment. (Not to be confused with substances taken to bring a malfunctioning brain back to parameter, otherwise known as medication.)

Anyone who's ever known a drug user knows they never make anyone a better person. We don't need to run this experiment an umpteenth time. We can simply validate the Buddha's foundational teaching on the matter, cross it off the list, and continue our authentic practice.

So that was annoying. But what's happening now – retro-chic promotion of acid trip as kensho – threatens to set the cause of ending suffering back fifty years.

Make that another fifty years.

Because it's not just self-imagined "psychonauts" at risk here; if it were, a hermit could just shrug and repeat what he always says to guru-worshipers, religious tourists, nihonophiles, and other posers he meets on the Buddha Way: "It's your karma, dude."

But Zen is important. Critical, in fact. It literally saved my life, and there are many, many others out there who are still desperately seeking it. To plough up their path, to mislead and reroute them into dead-end practices (or worse) is unconditionally the deadliest sin in Buddhism.

Tellingly, there is no precept against obscurantism. (Religion, yo.) But if you want another ten-thousand rides on this merry-go-round, just you keep it up, dharma pusher.

The only skilful response to "Buddhist psychedelics" is the same one we must give anyone suppressing the liberating truth that the Path is in-born, a universal birthright bundled free in every sentient mind, each of which comes into this life pre-programmed and fine-tuned for its single purpose: awakening.

Walking the Path requires no approval or assistance from anyone or anything. The power is inside, and nothing that isn't, is it.

Any other message – any other message – is delusory.

So on the off chance I've been vague about my thoughts on this issue, I'm going to plant my flag squarely and firmly in the open, where even stoned brothers and sisters can't fail to see it:

–––> The teaching that drugs are useful in Buddhist practice is evil.

It isn't a divergent model, a denominational difference, an alternate reading of the sutras, a newly-revealed insight, a simple disagreement among sangha of good faith, a questionable form grandfathered in by centuries of practice, or an inconsistency due to our human nature.

It's the deliberate generation of makyō, with attendant multiplication of suffering and delusion.

It makes the world a colder, more cynical, less compassionate place.

To put it succinctly: these people have joined the other side.


So there ya go, Lion. Looks like you have in fact found one thing psychedelics can accomplish. They can move a freakin' hermit to excommunicate you.

Have you any idea how far from reason you have to fall to achieve that?

Farther, I suspect, than an undrugged mind can take you.


See you on the road, brothers and sisters.

And don't eat the brown acid.


(Graphic courtesy of Hamed Khamees and Wikimedia Commons.)

Addiction

If you'd told me when I was 22 that the day would come when I would cherish my ex-girlfriends, I would have called you mad.

As a young man, I did relationships like a drug. Heroin, to be specific. I loved hard, like diamonds, and lost harder. I wore rejection like a crown of thorns, bled from it like stigmata, dragged it across the earth like the Holy Cross. Cowardice, caprice, indifference, were feminine vagaries I could not forgive.

I was the ex-boyfriend from hell.

I don't know what changed. I didn't hear from my ex-girlfriends for years, and then I did. And I was ecstatic, like a pilgrim who falls to his knees on the far edge of the desert, weeping for the pain, and laughing for the weeping.

No-one was more surprised than I.

So perhaps, sometimes, even I grow up.

Perhaps even heal.

My ex-girlfriends are interesting, caring, engaging women, and a gift to my life. They have great husbands, brilliant children, and there is nothing I wouldn't do for any of them.

There's no word for this unexpected love. It's not possessive, like a lover's, or exclusive, like a brother's, or conditional, like a friend's.

It just is.

And whatever it is, it brings me endless joy.


(Adapted from Rough Around the Edges: A Journey Around Washington's Borderlands, copyright RK Henderson. Photo courtesy of Peter Dowley and Wikimedia Commons.)

Good Song: Toujours debout

Renaud was one of the heroes of my youth. Equal parts Springsteen and Dylan (to whom his voice bears an unmistakable family resemblance), his lyrics have a Villonesque flourish that only a French proletarian poet could wield. Throughout the 70s and 80s he was the public conscience of his country – often much to its dismay. Calling down national hypocrisies and – unforgivably – making merry with the French language, Renaud kept the whole nation turning on a spit.

Then he married and became a father. Some whined about the conjugal turn some of his songs took, but the halogen candour he once brought to politics he now turned on domestic life. His love songs were devastating: an adulterer begs his wife not to leave, without quite being able to articulate why not; a parent forbids the child he's just beaten to run away from home.

And then Renaud just… disappeared. Much later we'd learn that he'd poured so much alcohol on his family that his wife took the kid and left. Then he lost his recording contracts. Then his friends.

One morning eight years later he woke, showered and shaved, and called his old studio to book time.

"Not possible," he was told.

Why not?

"Renaud is dead."

Renaud assured him he was not, but with that implacability only those who know the French can fully conceive, the voice on the phone would not relent.

In the end he had to call a collaborator from his previous life, and, after a similar conversation, ask him to call the studio and book time.

The result of those sessions was 2002's Boucane d'enfer (a play on "unholy racket" and "whiff of Hell"), Renaud's all-time bestselling album.

I wish the story ended there, but sadly the intervening years have brought relapses: lost weekends, lost weeks, lost months; a second wife departed with a second child. Renaud battles addiction like a rat with a boa constrictor: he survives, but he doesn't win.

And the press haven't been kind, to say no more.

Which is why this song, appearing after yet another long silence, belted out in Renaud's trademark working-Paris growl, grown breathless and broken, hit me so hard.

Because it sounds just like him, and so different. Because his voice reminds me of my past, and also of my own serial resurrections. And because I've always loved curses spat in the face of a bully.

Here-follow the lyrics. As usual the translation is mine, and it's been the usual heartbreaking grind. How do you land the one-two punch of « Qui me dépriment, et qui m'impriment » with the English "Who depress me and print me?" (You'll see what I went with below.)

There's also profound poignance in a hooligan like Renaud suddenly opting for the inoffensive; « nom de nom », a softer form of the French "God dammit!", has a pathos that "dang it" doesn't really convey.

More globally, the song just comes off as more petulant and defensive in English. The original French is more along the lines of "nice try, dickweeds", with a warm sense of renewal and reunion.

But not to translate would leave non-francophone readers in the dark, and that's not something I'm prepared to do.

So, with apologies for the treason, the gist:

TOUJOURS DEBOUT
par Renaud

Toujours vivant, rassurez-vous Toujours la banane, toujours debout J'suis retapé, remis sur pieds Droit sur mes guibolles, ressuscité Tous ceux qui tombent autour de moi C'est l'hécatombe, c'est Guernica Tous ceux qui tombent, tombent à tour de bras Et moi je suis toujours là Toujours vivant, rassurez-vous Toujours la banane, toujours debout Il est pas né ou mal barré Le crétin qui voudra m'enterrer J'fais plus les télés, j'ai même pas internet Arrêté de parler aux radios, aux gazettes Ils m'ont cru disparu, on me croit oublié Dites à ces trous du cul, j'continue d'chanter Et puis tous ces chasseurs de primes Paparazzis en embuscade Qui me dépriment, et qui m'impriment Que des ragots, que des salades Toutes ces rumeurs sur ma santé On va pas en faire une affaire Et que celui qui n'a jamais titubé Me jette la première bière Toujours vivant, rassurez vous Toujours la banane, toujours debout Il est pas né ou mal barré L'idiot qui voudrait m'remplacer Je dois tout l'temps faire gaffe Derrière chaque buisson A tous ces photographes Qui vous prennent pour des cons Ceux là m'ont enterré Un peu prématuré Dites à ces enfoirés j'continue d'chanter Mais je n'vous ai jamais oublié Et pour ceux à qui j'ai manqué Vous les fidèles, je reviens vous dire merci Vous m'avez manqué vous aussi Trop content de vous retrouver Je veux continuer nom de nom Continuer à écrire et à chanter Chanter pour tous les sauvageons Toujours vivant, rassurez-vous Toujours la banane, toujours debout Il est pas né ou mal barré Le couillon qui voudra m'enterrer Depuis quelques années, je me suis éloigné Je vis près des lavandes sous les oliviers Ils m'ont cru disparu, on me croit oublié Ces trous du cul peuvent continuer d'baver Moi sur mon p'tit chemin j'continue d'chanter

Still alive, rest assured Still smiling, still standing I'm reconditioned, back on my feet Steady on my pins, resuscitated People falling all around This place is a slaughterhouse, it's like Guernica All these people falling, discarded en masse And me still here Still alive, rest assured Still smiling, still standing Ain't been born, or else just out of luck The jerk who's gonna bury me Don't do no more TV, don't even have Internet Don't talk to radio or newspaper types They thought I was dead, think I'm forgotten Tell those assholes I'm still singing And then all those bounty hunters Ambush paparazzi Who depress and im-press me All the scams and scandals All these rumours about my health We won't pay them any mind And let him who has never stumbled Buy the first round Still alive, rest assured Still smiling, still standing Ain't been born, or else just out of luck The jerk who's gonna displace me I gotta always look Behind every bush For those photographers Who think you're all dumbshits Those guys buried me A bit too soon Tell those jackasses I'm still singing But I never forgot you And to those who missed me You the faithful, I'm back to say thank you I missed you, too Delighted to see you're still here I want to carry on, dang it Carry on writing and singing Singing for all the untamed Still alive, rest assured Still smiling, still standing Ain't been born, or else just out of luck The wanker who's gonna bury me I've been away for a few years Living close the ground, beneath the olive trees They thought I was dead, they think I've been forgotten Let the assholes blather on Here on my little journey, I'm still singing

(1978 photo of Renaud Séchan courtesy of Paul Kiuj and Wikimedia Commons.)