WW: More oyster mushrooms

(Still Pleurotus ostreatus. I've posted on these before, but it never ceases to amaze me how attached this species is to the saltchuck. Rare just a few hundred yards inland, if you can smell the bay, this choice edible isn't just common, it's riotous. Something in the chemical signature of sea air.

The above photo documents just a few feet of downed big leaf trunk that's covered with them. And it's not the only host in this patch of woods, either; if I'd been of a mind, or just greedier, I could have had gallons.

But I only took about five stems, and am busy deciding what to do with them. [Among other things, oyster mushrooms are great breaded and fried, and make a worthy substitute for seafood or chicken in veganised dishes.]

A spring blessing that never gets old.)


Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Short List of Blessings

(In honour of Thanksgiving.)

that I was a child before helmets and helicopters
Internet radio
brown rice
pinto beans
cats
dogs
all the music
that this world happened after I had twenty years of enlightenment practice under my belt
this beautiful, teeming, engrossing, unknowable planet
dancing Muppets



(Photo courtesy of Samuel Stone and Pixabay.com.)

Tom Lehrer's Entire Catalogue, Free For The Download!

This is a July post – meaning it has little immediate relevance to Zen or hermit practice – but Tom has made it clear on his website that this incredibly generous gesture is temporary, so I need to get word out to other fans well ahead of then.

Tom Lehrer was the patron saint of my college years, thanks to a chemistry prof who brought The Elements into class on a cassette tape and played it for us as a study aide. (I aced the class. Thanks to Tom? You decide.) I subsequently asked for the album for Christmas, and my sainted mother got it for me.

Infection achieved.

I've since continued to discover and enjoy Tom's work, even though his musical career ended while I was in primary school.

In real life, Thomas Andrew Lehrer was an accomplished academic with an amazingly broad résumé, encompassing teaching positions in mathematics, music, and political science, at a long roster of Ivy League colleges. A secret life of virtue that remained generally occult to the legions who savoured his storied public career as a composer and performer of jangly, razor-sharp music hall satire.

(And if that's not impressive enough, he also claims to be the inventor of the Jello shot, which claim has not yet been debunked. A fact I share in Tom's patented voice, in tribute to his questionable influence on me.)

Anyway, 'way back in 2007, Tom shifted every one of his songs into the public domain, declaring that anyone can perform or record any of them free of any financial obligation to creator or corporate sponsor.

What's more, we are also encouraged to download any of his own recordings, among which there are many enduring classics, also free of charge.

And now he's actually made them available on his website, often in multiple versions, for anyone so disposed.

All 95 of them.

And all of his albums may also be streamed or downloaded there in their entirety.

This amazing act of magnanimity (or insolence, take your pick) is time-sensitive, as the author, who is 96 at this writing, warns that the page may be taken down at any time. So hurry on in.

For those who have lived in tragic ignorance of this seminal œuvre, may I suggest the following appetisers:

The Elements (where my own life took its dire turn)

Oedipus Rex

The Vatican Rag

We Will All Go Together When We Go

And if you don't like those, there are 91 more waiting for you, right here.

Nine bows to a man who has made this existence slightly but significantly more tolerable.


(Photo of Professor Lehrer corrupting Danish youth for once courtesy of Jan Persson and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Spring blessing

(Pieris japonica, known here as popcorn bush, is a popular landscaping shrub on the North Pacific Coast. Native to the same latitudes on the far side of the ocean, where climate and soil types are about identical, I'm told it fills whole ravines in Japanese forests. This must be brilliant to see, given its heady fragrance and dense sprays of sparkler-bright blossoms.

The early-spring show, and the fact that we had one at every house I can remember – always right by the front door – made this a favourite flower from early childhood. It's also a good carving and turning wood, fairly soft and light but fine-grained, taking an oil finish well; properties apparently unknown outside of Asia, given the absence of mention online, at least in any of my languages.)


Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

National Hermit Day

This Sunday, 29 October, is National Hermit Day. (I have no idea which nation declared this. The day commemorates an Irish saint, so I'd guess Ireland must at least be in. And since most of the websites about it are American, I'd guess they're in, too. Really, it seems more like International Hermit Day, unless, like Labour Day, various countries are feuding over what date it's observed.)

Anyway.

Judging by Internet sources, lots of people are writing about this, but not many are researching it.

This page, for example, manages to get just about everything wrong.

• The 29th is not St. Colman's Feast. (That would be the 27th.)

• A group of hermits is not called an "observance"; it's a skete. But at least the person who made that up knew what we are; he or she might have gone with a "grumpy" or a "Kaczynski" or some other synonym for antisocial.

• No mention of spiritual practice – the fundamental definition of a hermit.

This one does a better job, at least mentioning the religious nature of non-metaphorical hermits, but only after it says:

Hermits, by definition, are people who prefer seclusion to socialization.

Uh, no. Our actual motivation can be contemplated here.

Honourable mention to this site, which not only gets St. Colman's feast day right, but leans heavily on the religious origins of the word, going so far as to list two actual hermits (50% of the total) on their list of famous hermits.

Anyway.

I'm not sure what we should do on (Inter)National Hermit Day. A hermit parade on the high road would be pretty paltry, unless you happen to live near the Zhongnan Mountains. Pinching people not wearing sandals would involve a lot of people, and spread the most irritating of all the asinine North American St. Patrick's Day customs.

So bump that.

We might take a page from Bodhisattva Day and don some meaningful garment… if the whole thing about hermits weren't that we serve in civilian clothes, without exclusive robes or regalia.

So how about this: prepare a nice sesshin meal. While enjoying it, contemplate the worthiness of devoting your life to pursuing fundamental, extra-human truth. Recall that it's your right, neither alienable nor certifiable.

Rice and beans or a hearty ramen soup, maybe. A good cup of tea and a nice flavour plate on the side.

Eat in gratitude and appreciation for how delicious and filling it is, whether the dish earns others' praise or not.

It feeds and rehinges.

And that's a blessing worth celebrating.


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

Good Video: Hidden In Plain Sight

So it's July again, the month when the Internet takes a vacation and I can post stuff that's just cool and not necessarily about enlightenment.

Except this kind of is, if you want it to be.

Anybody my age or older was raised on Warner Brothers cartoons; among other things, their vaudeville tropes are almost entirely responsible for our knowing anything about that art form, whose popularity peaked when our grandparents were in high school. Yet somehow, a very important facet of those gems of animation's golden age remains occult, in spite of the fact that it's been right in our faces for decades.

I found this video fascinating, and if Looney Tunes was a cherished part of your childhood, you will, too. One thing is certain: I'll never look at them the same way again.

Oh, and the Zen angle? It's about clear-seeing. And being present. And appreciating the fulness of unrequested blessings.

And not making everything so goddam serious.

So prepare to be floored by something you've seen a hundred times.

And Happy July.

WW: Oyster mushroom catch

(Found these while biking, growing by the side of the road. Interesting thing about the way Pleurotus ostreatus behaves in these parts: it only seems to grow within about a quarter-mile of the shore. I've found them many times, but always where you can at least smell, and often see, the bay.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Zen Judaism

In my university years I lived in a comfortably adequate basement apartment, where I developed a friendly rapport with my landlords – an elderly Jewish couple who lived upstairs. It was my first close relationship with a member of that community, and given our relative ages, over the next three years our interactions slipped into a familiar pattern.

Thus I am one of few goyim to have experienced the blessing of Jewish grandparents.

During that time I came to relish the Hebrew world view – so similar to my own Scottish and Old Settler heritage, yet so... not.

Upgraded, as it were. Different data, same conclusion. And with a wicked snap no Scot could despise.

So twenty years later, when, having become a Zen monk, I encountered the following online, I was primed to appreciate it.

The following is one of many well-shared excerpts from Zen Judaism: For You a Little Enlightenment, a short 2002 book by David M. Bader that took the early Net by storm. The site I saved my own text from has long since gone to the 404 meadows, but Heller Web Space preserves a close facsimile, with appropriately Web 2.0 æsthetics.

So enjoy this spin on the wisdom of the Ancestors, with refreshingly Nasrudinic clarity.

Zen Judaism
by David M. Bader

1. If there is no self, whose arthritis is this?

2. Be here now. Be someplace else later. Is that so complicated?

3. Drink tea and nourish life. With the first sip... joy. With the second... satisfaction. With the third, peace. With the fourth, a danish.

4. Wherever you go, there you are. Your luggage is another story.

5. Accept misfortune as a blessing. Do not wish for perfect health or a life without problems. What would you talk about?

6. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single "oy".

7. There is no escaping karma. In a previous life, you never called, you never wrote, you never visited.And whose fault was that?

8. Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkes.

9. The Tao does not speak. The Tao does not blame. The Tao does not take sides. The Tao has no expectations. The Tao demands nothing of others. The Tao is not Jewish.

10. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Forget this, and attaining Enlightenment will be the least of your problems.

11. Let your mind be as a floating cloud. Let your stillness be as the wooded glen. And sit up straight. You'll never meet the Buddha with such rounded shoulders.

12. Be patient and achieve all things. Be impatient and achieve all things faster.

13. Deep inside you are ten thousand flowers. Each flower blossoms ten thousand times. Each blossom has ten thousand petals. You might want to see a specialist.

14. To practice Zen and the art of Jewish motorcycle maintenance, do the following: Get rid of the motorcycle. What were you thinking?

15. Be aware of your body. Be aware of your perceptions. Keep in mind that not every physical sensation is a symptom of a terminal illness.

16. The Torah says, "Love thy neighbour as thyself." The Buddha says there is no "self." So, maybe you are off the hook.

17. The Buddha taught that one should practice loving kindness to all sentient beings. Still, would it kill you to find a nice sentient being who happens to be Jewish?

18. Though only your skin, sinews, and bones remain, though your blood and flesh dry up and wither away, yet shall you meditate and not stir until you have attained full Enlightenment. But first, a little nosh.


(Photo courtesy of Unsplash.com and a generous photographer.)

WW: Windfall

(Found this brand-new pair of bike gloves beside the highway today, about 30 yards apart. My size and everything.

Normally, when this happens on a bike trail, I leave the lost article where it is, or hang it up in a prominent place for the owner to find. But you can't leave stuff on the road shoulder; passing cars quickly reduce it to rubbish. And, as is often the case on roadsides, there was no effective place to display these. Finally, when you lose something on a trail, you can retrace it, if you judge the time and effort well-spent. But on the road system, you're turning right and left and things get complicated fast.

And these aren't the most expensive gloves, to say no more. Had I lost them, I'd probably not re-ride a long trek, if I even noticed they were gone.

Sometimes you just have to accept the unearned blessings of futility.

May my involuntary benefactor profit from the karma points accrued.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

WW: Tiny shop

(A year ago I shared the just-finished foundation of my new shop. This is what that space looks like now. Appropriately cramped and cluttered; right little piece of heaven. Best Christmas present I ever gave myself.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

WW: Bikecombed skeleton

(One thing I love about biking, rarely celebrated by those who sing its praises, is the stuff you find by the side of the road while doing it. An astonishing variety of wealth flies off the traffic speeding by, including, at last count, about half the tools now in my shop.

In this respect, bicycling helps to fill the gap left by the loss of ready access to a beach.

Another case in point: this portable apocalyptic horseman, discovered par terre last week while pumping up a long hill.

Which serves me well, because though I always candle Smiling Jack each year, I've never had any other decorations. So now there's a skeleton hanging on my door. Rather like a Christmas wreath, except, uh… bonier.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

WW: Tomatoes from heaven

(A few days ago the tide left these two luscious giant tomatoes on the beach. They'd washed up about 50 yards apart, in perfect condition, and did I mention they're huge? I have no idea how they ended up in the bay, but I'm glad it happened here, where water temperatures remain at refrigerator levels year-round, and not, say, Australia, where I probably couldn't have made several meals of them. In fact, I still have half of one in the fridge.

A lifetime in, on, and by the sea has left me with countless memories of similar blessings. Some edible [and sometimes highly timely, appearing when I badly needed them], others material, but all of them delightful and welcome.) Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Histoire d'hiver

My mom died three nights ago. I had been looking after her for several years, managed her home hospice daily over the last six months, and as usual, was alone with her in the house when she went.

The blessing is that she went quietly, after dropping into a two-day sleep from which she did not rouse. Finally she simply declined the next breath, and that was that.

Likely the death any of us would choose if choice were given.

It's famously hard to know what to say to a person in my place. What is less well-known is how hard it is to know what to say when you're the person in my place. Aside from Issa, few meet the challenge.

Which is perhaps why one of my favourite cinematic moments has been running through my mind.

It's the last line of the brilliant Canadian coming-of-age memoir, Histoires d'hiver. As the final scene of his childhood plays out, the protagonist, now my age, says this in voiceover:

« Papa est décédé il y a quinze ans déjà, et maman, elle, la nuit dernière. Et aujourd'hui, je me sens comme un enfant qui n'a plus le choix de devenir enfin un adulte, car il n'est plus le petit gars de personne. »

(English translation here.)

I expect I'll share further meditations as they become available.

(Photo from the final scene of Histoires d'hiver. The movie itself, like most Canadian films, is difficult to find. The YouTube video linked in the text is the only source I could locate, and of course, YouTube tends to blank such things straightway.)

WW: Chimes of fortune

(I found these by the side of the road while riding my bike. They're meditation chimes. There's a small broken hanger on the lower end that may be implicated in the accident that put them, somewhat the worse for wear but otherwise intact, on the shoulder, but the rest remains a mystery. Another bicycling monk? Doesn't seem likely in my little town. But who knows?

Chalk it up to found dingstock and another Zen mystery.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

WW: White daffodils

(A determined band of them, growing next to a railway in the middle of nowhere, for no clear reason.)

Best Thing In Years

Zen monasteries traditionally close in midsummer, when the zendo gets too hot for comfortable (or safe) sitting and the travelling is good. Then the sangha put the altar Buddha in cryostasis – wrapping him in black cloth till autumn – take stick, and leave, posting a skeleton crew to mind the store.

The Internet does that too. Around July readership drops sharply as more attractive options open up on the northern half of our planet, where most users live. Thus, I learned long ago that I can do pretty much anything I want around now; ain't nobody home no how.

Hence the yearly ritual of the rock groups, with sporadic even weirder vacations from Zen, strictly spoke. So let this post be one of the latter.

Over the past year I've become attached to a Youtube trend so awesome I have to share it. By measured steps, short-subject filmmaking has advanced on that platform, quietly improving and proliferating, in the absence of all profit motive or likelihood of fame. Today, as fans often remark in the comments, these labours of love and passion can rival anything coming out of major studios or corporate television.

Probably the most prominent example is Dust (above). Though devoted to science fiction, in the best tradition of that genre this channel's definition of same is decidedly liberal. So much so that choosing an embed is agonising. The one I finally went with is both typical (quality of concept, writing, performance, production) and unusual (subject). But I'm unable to discern a "normal" Dust subject; any redundancy in their catalogue is well-camouflaged.

Note also that the suggested video is only 12 minutes. That's on the long side. If Dust uploaded a 20-minute film, they'd probably have to put an intermission in it.

The Omeleto vault, for its part, might be summed up as "O. Henry meets Rod Serling". Again, my search for an archetype was fruitless, but the video below is representative of the humour, insight, and fearless young writing.

Some of the actors you'll see are familiar, particularly in the Dust entrées. But if you recognise one, you won't recognise two; the rest will be brilliant aspirants. This means those few name artists are doing it for joy more than career, and I for one tend to love that sort of thing out of all proportion to objective merit.

Which is also awesome here. Just to be clear.

Likewise, some scripts are complete, taking the audience two hours' distance in ten minutes, while others play like opening scenes from non-existent features. But in both cases the raw power of the writers behind them makes me want to get out of the business.

All in, this movement is a perpetual mitzvah: the best movies you'll see all summer, free, bottomless, on demand, fully portable, and each one shorter than a sitcom. (Even without adverts.) "Hang on, I gotta watch this BAFTA-calibre movie. No worries; it's eight minutes long."

And the manna pelts on unabated, for in addition to further Dust and Omeleto suggestions, you'll find other nuggets of comparable genius from still more independent short channels in the margins. If you're not careful, this could become a problem.

But don't come running to me; my own Watch Later list is so long it'll be months before I get back to you.

So much of the hope we had for the Internet never materialised, or rotted into horrors we scarce suspected. In such times, this-here is a fair-dinkum boon; a manifestation of wish fulfillment.

So load 'em up. We've earned it.

Hindsight

I was difficult when I was younger.

Part of me would like to go back and face some of those challenges and circumstances again, except... not be a jerk this time. Think it might help?

"Not making a bad situation worse." Right up there with "being grateful for your blessings", and "cherishing other people just because they're in the boat with you."

Lessons it took me longer than most to learn.


(Photo courtesy of Jonny Keicher and Unsplash.com.)

WW: School apples

(Swung into this back-county primary school a few days ago, looking for a place to get off my bike and rest in shade. As I coasted into the carpark I was delighted to find an entire row of summer apples! Two dwarf varieties – a red one and a green one – espaliered against the front fence. Both heavily in fruit.

There's nothing like a tart, juicy, sun-warmed apple of a late July afternoon, when the tarmac is melting under your tyres and you're hungry and thirsty. I don't know whose idea it was to instal this waist-high orchard, but he or she was a genius. Now I come up with excuses to pass this school – which is generally well off my track – so I can enjoy a few more.

May your scrumping be as rewarding.)

Good Song: Christmas Song

I've pointed out before that Christmas is a Buddhist holiday. Now comes a brother (not Buddhist, so far as I know) who's found the same wisdom in this ancient pagan celebration.

The lyrics (below) to Eliot Bronson's Christmas Song mirror orthodox Zen teaching on the self. They also gibe perfectly with the timeless Yule theme of the past ceding to the future.

This year I'm sharing Eliot's brilliant meditation because Christmas is a tough emotional time for many of us. Especially those who find themselves alone, cast out, lost, or remorseful amidst all the love and conviviality. Some even come to hate this season.

But my brother is telling it like it is here. And his Zen-friendly, John Lennon cadences are all the more powerful for their simplicity.

The millstones of time are a gift, brothers and sisters. And you are a great deal more than anything you've ever been or done. It's a central tenet of the Buddha's teaching: you can change your bio anytime.

Merry Christmas.
You can start over.

Again and again and again.

If you've got nothing else to celebrate, celebrate that.


(By the way, this recording is available for sale here. Note that Eliot has donated it to a charitable project that funds pediatric cancer research. At a big 79¢ US for the file, it's a karmic bump we all can use.)


CHRISTMAS SONG
by Eliot Bronson

You're not the place you're from
You're not the things you've done
In a world turning 'round the sun
Isn't that strange?

You're not the name you're called
You're not who you recall
Because after all
We can change

Merry Christmas
You can start over
You can start over
Merry Christmas
You can start over
Whenever you want to

You're not what you can do
You're not what you've been through
And the lines between me and you
Are lies

You're not what you can see
Not even what you believe
And there's a part of us that's always free
Like the sky

And Merry Christmas
You can start over
You can start over
Merry Christmas
You can start over
Whenever you want to

Everyone

Everyone has a room to air.
Everyone has a soul to bare.
Everyone has a horn to blare.
Everyone has a cause to care.
Everyone has a task to chair.
Everyone has a doubt to dare.
Everyone has a bent to err.
Everyone has a hull to fair.
Everyone has a flame to flare.
Everyone has a growl to glare.
Everyone has a hound to hare.
Everyone has a glove to pair.
Everyone has a call to prayer.
Everyone has a chance too rare.
Everyone has a crow to scare.
Everyone has a song to share.
Everyone has a snipe to snare.
Everyone has a coin to spare.
Everyone has a debt to square.
Everyone has a scowl to stare.
Everyone has an oath to swear.
Everyone has a page to tear.
Everyone has a road to there.
Everyone has a robe to wear.

(Photo of Fuke Zen monk courtesy of Urashima Taro and Wikimedia Commons.)