WW: Forest memorial

(According to information painted on its crossbar, this marker memorialises a young person. It's nailed high on a Douglas fir on the shore of a pond that's accessible from a nearby trail. It's a deeply touching gesture, as much for the simple dignity of the testament as the peaceful seclusion of its location.)

WW: Window casualty

(Happened upon this young grouse on the deck in front of a small uninhabited cabin well back in the woods. It must have smacked into the large windows. Window glass takes out a crushing number of birds. Doesn't seem much to be done about it.)

A Lament For Graveyards

I augur this the right moment to mention my regret at the passing of graveyards, which ironic development has left my society impoverished to a few woeful degrees.

Many of these are practical. For starters, a cemetery contains a wealth of historical data not easily acquired else. Just the demographics are a treasure. Where did past inhabitants come from? What religions did they practice? What organisations did they belong to, and what was their mission? What light does this shed on the present community? What have we lost? What gained?

In a cemetery you're surrounded by the final statements of multiple generations, reflecting successive changes in values and perspectives. Whenever I move house, one of my first outings is the nearest graveyard. An hour or so and I've got an earthier, more visceral understanding of where I am, more tactile, if not easily quantified, than the one I'll get from the local history books I'll study next.

Burial grounds encode a lot of culture, and if you're paying attention, the whole site, properly examined, amounts to a book in itself.

Then there's the simple peace of the place – the leafy green, the tranquil refuge from the fretting living. I've often botanised and foraged in cemeteries, as being mostly uncrushed by the pounding fist of development, and am especially fond of them as a mushrooming venue.

And of course, there's the sacredness of remains, an instinctive, non-religious kind of consecration we've never fully replicated. (Some cultures – First Nations, Catholic-majority societies, traditionally Buddhist peoples, Celtic homelands – find similar awe in sites that don't contain reliquaries, but industrial values have undermined even their ability to transmit such reverence to recent generations.)

Institutional Zen, in its Confucian attachment to human authority, practices a heretical adulation of the dead – disturbingly, even of pieces there-of – and while I'm reflexively uneasy with this, I do wholeheartedly embrace the sangha of the past as an indispensible source of companionship and insight. Their presence is felt strongly in cemeteries.

Still – speaking of irony – no-one on either side of my family has been interred for 70 years, making us yet another cause of death to the dead. The usual suspects are afield: the extreme expense of burial, for the most part, but also a callow, pseudo-logical insistence that we've no need of graves to honour and remember our loved ones.

Which is, of course, tripe. I would in fact greatly cherish a grave where I could visit my parents and grandparents, and the dear regretted friends now leaving this world at ever-greater rate despite my pleading insistence they reconsider.

No, the nondescript region where we will scatter my mother's ashes will not replace her grave: that specific plot of ground where what's left of her articulated body would drift toward new and different existences under a solid square of stone that I can see and touch.

Not even almost.

And as I myself will also receive no such treatment, I must eventually commit the same sin of cenotaphery, and drive yet another nail into the coffin of, well, coffins.

Not that I'd impose a traditional burial on my survivors, of course. I get it; things have changed. And although I accept that as a Zenner, I do much regret my headstone. Because I've got the most awesome epitaph ever:

"Nothing is carved in stone."

How happy I'd lie below such a koan.

Good hunting to all of us on this, the annual Druid crusade to keep the dead dead.

(Photo of Tomnahurich, my favourite graveyard to date, courtesy of Derek Brown and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Memorial

(This rhododendron grows just outside my mother's kitchen window. Since she moved here 6 years ago it has never bloomed – a fact she drew to my attention just last year.

But this spring it brought on four small white blossoms [one of them out of frame]. Rhododendrons grow riotously on the North Coast, and there are a great many of every colour in this neighbourhood, including the stunning pink native ones. But white heads are rarest. Especially such delicate ones.

As you can tell by its sallow leaves this plant isn't happy, which is undoubtedly why it hasn't bloomed before. I don't know what's bothering it – several other rhododendrons in the immediate vicinity are doing great – but when the bloom falls I'll feed it and see if that helps.

As my mom died three months ago, I'm especially drawn to these timid white blossoms – the colour of mourning in Japan.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Afterlife Kyôsaku

"One of the most powerful teachings that [Thich Nhat Hanh] shared with us before he got sick was about not building a stupa for him and putting his ashes in an urn for us to pray to.

"He strongly commanded us not to do this.

"I will paraphrase his message:

"'Please do not build a stupa for me. Please do not put my ashes in a vase, lock me inside, and limit who I am. I know this will be difficult for some of you.

"'If you must build a stupa though, please make sure that you put a sign on it that says, "I am not in here."

"'In addition, you can also put another sign that says, "I am not out there either," and a third sign that says, "If I am anywhere, it is in your mindful breathing and in your peaceful steps."'"

Senior student Phap Dung, on his teacher.


(Photo of a second century BCE frieze of Buddhists worshiping at a Shunga dynasty stupa courtesy of the Freer Gallery of Art, Wikimedia Commons, and a generous photographer.)

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.)

The Deal

Regulars may have noticed that posting on Rusty Ring has become a little haphazard. That's because I've been managing my mother's home hospice for the last two months. Aside from the daily march of tasks, it also includes regular upheavals in routine, resulting in topsy-turvy days and weeks. Since predictable scheduling is the first requirement of blogging, the results are showing up here.

The underlying situation is of course a source of stress, making the actual work a kind of distraction – and therefore a relief – in an ironic way. But once again I'm finding meditation invaluable. As ever, I hesitate to vaunt it too much, as newcomers and interested non-meditators may form inaccurate expectations.

Zazen doesn't fix anything. It doesn't make me care less, and I'm not sure it even makes me fear less.

It just makes me fear better.

If that makes no sense, welcome to Zen.

I have no idea how I survived these things before I became a monk.

Anyway, I'll continue striving to maintain the regular posting schedule, in full knowledge that I'm bound to fail. And I'll concentrate on offering stuff of value when I do, even if it's a line here and a quotation there.

Because one of the sub-vows of my Rule is, "I will do what I can, even if it's unlikely to succeed."

Peace and progress to all seekers.


(Graphic courtesy of Zoltan Tasi and Unsplash.com.)

No State of Emergency

Events this week have me thinking about my favourite Zen teaching story. (I say that about all of them, though my very favourites are the ones I take the piss out of in this journal.)

The gist goes like this:

A bandit army descended on a town, causing all the monks in the local monastery to abandon it, except the master.

Bursting into the zendo, the pirate general was enraged to find the old monk calmly dusting the altar, not even deigning to bow.

“Do you not realise,” he shouted, “that I would run you through without a second thought?”

“And do you not realise,” said the master, “that I would be run through without a second thought?”

At this the general bowed and left.

This is one of those tales we Zenners like to exchange with pious smiles, certain of its allegory, and that we'll never be held to the conviction it implies.

And now here we are.

The plague our species is currently facing puts me in a surrealistic place. Whenever I've imagined myself in an apocalyptic scenario – which is frequently, given my culture's obsession with it – I've seen myself meeting the aftermath of war, natural disaster, or economic crisis beside my neighbours, pooling our skills, standing firm against the selfish and the predatory, guiding our community to peace, promise, and security.

But in an epidemic, you have to board yourself up in your house, see to your own needs, and avoid catching or communicating the sickness to others.

And so stillness and acceptance must be the discipline, in full knowledge that very bad things might happen. And you must not go out and do combat with them, or call for help from others, or even, God forbid, open the door to curse at them.

Instead you must remain heroically immobile. To borrow an image from Thich Nhat Hanh, you must be "lake-still, mountain-solid".

In other words, I am now living the worst nightmare of all religiosos: actually having to practice what I preach.

The death and mortal-threat fables that abound in our religion distinguish it from other faiths. (Some may quibble that traditional Christianity, with its endless recitations of gruesome martyrdom, takes this laurel, but I would counter that those are journalism, placing the listener outside of events. Our tales make him or her inhabit the dying character.)

Such stories as The Tiger and the Strawberry, or The Mother and the Mustard Seed, exist for a pedagogical purpose. They remind us of the knife-edge we walk, that we must walk, and the impermanence of all things, including ourselves. The intent is to jangle us out of the chains of our dread, and into the freedom that acknowledgement confers.

We are not the universe. We are not the most important thing in the universe. It was just fine before we got here, and it will be just fine after we leave.

And so will we.

Because this life is not the goal of this life.

Understanding that, and practicing it, is the origin of strength.

There is no "state of emergency" in Buddhism, aside from the one we were born into and can't resolve without practice. There's no Buddhist constitution that can be suspended when it becomes inconvenient. The law is immutable.

And that's a gift.

So now is the time to do all that stuff we've been saying we do.

Now is the time to practice Zen.

In taking the cushion, let us cleave to our humanity, care for our fellow Earthlings, and maintain our grasp of reality.

Because we have no alternative.


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

Lynch's Law

An old friend last week posted a link to The Cruelty of Call-Out Culture: How Not To Do Social Change, David Brook's timely and incisive denunciation of our current lynch-mob fad. (The link goes to the original NYT post, which may not be available to all. Sadly I was unable to find an unregulated source.)

In it, Brooks relates a recent NPR segment on two members of the punk scene who were tarred and feathered (virtually, so far), then shunned, utterly and irrevocably, by their erstwhile comrades.

The first target, best friend of one Emily, was accused of "sending […] an unwelcome sexually explicit photograph" to a woman Emily apparently didn't know. Emily instantly turned on him, intentionally busted up the man's circle of friends, and effectively destroyed his life. She's had no further contact with this professed "best friend" since.

And then Emily herself was called out, in her case as a one-time cyber bully, having among other things posted a piling-on emoji to an Internet thread mocking a classmate. More than ten years previous. When she was in high school.

She instantly came in for the Adulterer's Special in her own right and was shunned in turn, as deeply and implacably as her apparently irredeemable former friend, by the same crowd she too regarded and depended upon as family.

At this point some may repress a smirk, but it turns out putting folks' eyes out ain't all that tidy, droogies. Witness:

"[Emily's accuser said the act of denouncing her] gave him a rush of pleasure, like an orgasm. He was asked if he cared about the pain Emily endured. 'No, I don’t care,” he replied. […] I literally do not care about what happens to you after the situation. I don’t care if she’s dead, alive, whatever.'"

Let's be clear. In this man's view, death is a reasonable punishment for flippancy. I think the moral here is, vet your allies carefully.

In further justification of his aggression, this individual declares that he was physically and emotionally abused in the past. In response to which my Zen training has taught me to ask: "By her?"

I'll warrant the reply to that one is less erotic.

Although by Emily's figuring she made moral progress between her bitchy teenage years and conscientious adulthood, let's note that her actions at both ages were identical: flush a pariah and move in for the kill.

Perhaps most frightening of all, she even condones her own attackers' behaviour, accepting the Gandhic hotbox she helped build as a righteous reaction to her ostensibly inexpungeable crimes. In other words, it seems she has gained little insight from all of this. She's suffered, deeply and grievously, for nothing.

Which is my definition of hell.

As for her tormentor's delusions, let's crack those right now: victims of injustice are more responsible for their actions, not less. Far from green-lighting cruelty, survival obliges you to stand firmly and publicly against the megalomania and mindless brutality that brutalised you. Particularly when it metasticises into an untargetted orgy.

Some commenters to the article claimed that vigilantism is righteous because duly constituted authority has long ignored, condescended to, even criminalised the victims of social crimes. Basically, "bullies must be bullied because bullies won't bully the bullies who bully the bullies I bully."

Now there's a koan. But the Buddha already solved this one for us, 2500 years ago:

"Blood stains cannot be removed by more blood. Resentment cannot be removed by more resentment."

That there's a paucity of justice in this lazy world is woefully clear. That we can secure it by further injustice is the con of a grifter.

Due process and calm analysis – of everything, including intent and context – are the right and left hands of justice. And empathy is its brain. If after patient and thorough investigation a case turns up weak, the accused is usually innocent, at very least of the precise charge or degree. As unsatisfying as that is to those who burn for payback, there is no other route to a just society.

If justice is truly your goal, you have to get off the sofa and build a system that values and compels it. Which is exceedingly difficult to do. But anything less just triples the injustice.

Bottom line: the karmic benchmark here remains the same it's always been: "Am I different from my enemies? Do I eliminate suffering, or create it?"

It's a tough inquisition, and one I freely own I fail on a regular basis.

But it simply will not do to skip it.


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

WW: Cemetery fudo

(Eight-strand kongo kumihimo in funerary white, red, and
black on a joss coin ring. Hung in a stand of bamboo.)

WW: Kitty fudo

(This is a funerary fudo I made for a cat friend of mine. [The cord is white, red, and black, the three bardos of death.] She was buried here in the woods a few months ago.)

Good Book: Cat Attacks

I didn't want to read this book. And I really didn't want to keep reading after I started. But as I've often said, denial is an unskilful response to danger.

Most of my life has happened in cougar country, much of it in the woods, where I prefer to practice Zen when possible. A few years back I sat 100 Days on the Mountain, an ancient Buddhist ritual, in Washington's coastal jungle.

The cat threat there, of which I was generally aware, comes up several times in my book. (Which is now finished and seeking a publisher.) But if I'd read Cat Attacks: True Stories and Hard Lessons from Cougar Country, I wouldn't have slept once during those more than three months.

Authors Dean Miller and Jo Deurbrouck are careful to point out that human-cougar encounters are extremely rare, and physical contact a tiny blip in that statistic. But they are also conscientious – downright didactic, in fact – in recounting, second by horrific second, exactly what happens in a mountain lion attack.

And though it's apparently impossible to escape a gruesome death if you're alone when the stats turn against you, your chances of avoiding that actuarial convergence drop to zero if you've no hard data on your predator's habits and methods.

Some of which, thanks to Miller and Deurbrouck, I now know:

•    Cougars prefer silent, lightning ambush from behind and above, after extensive, close stalking. When in the woods, turn and look behind you, thoroughly and often.

•    Your predator's single-minded intent is to kill and eat you. This makes your bear-mollifying skills guaranteed death. Instead, if one atypically shows itself before lunging, go big, mean, and criminally insane. This may convince the cougar to go back to just stalking you for now. If on the other hand you make yourself quiet and small and avoid eye contact, you've green-lit a kill.

•    The charge, when it comes, is supernaturally fast; witnesses uniformly report a "brown blur". And its dump-truck impact is instantaneous. So even if you see a lion crouching to strike (which they take great pains to conceal) you have no time to raise or aim, much less draw, a firearm.

•    Though they'll attack groups, particularly children in the midst of one, as readily as they'll strike a loner, cougars rarely turn on rescuers. (It's bizarre, un-prey behaviour that evolution has not prepared them to answer.) So if a companion is hit, come in hot and hostile and fight hard at close quarters, with feet and fists if necessary. Once engaged, a lion may cling stubbornly to its quarry, but they seldom or never accept third-party combat. So keep on hammering until you completely weird it out and it withdraws.

•    Solitary humans have no chance of survival.

This is just a smattering of the practical, unromantic intelligence Cat Attacks contains. The authors' steely pragmatism, while traumatic, gives the work great strength. Particularly valuable is their bullheaded refusal to get sucked into either of the silly postures – "kill 'em all" or "poor persecuted kitties" – one usually encounters when the topic is raised.

To counteract the first, they illuminate in equal detail the harsh reality of a cougar's life, which is astonishingly brutal and getting crueller by the day, thanks to overweaning human arrogance.

As for the second, well… in the same instant a cougar touches you it rips your face off. This allows it to begin eating you without waiting for you to die.

That image brings me keenly in mind of Meditation in the Wild, wherein Charles S. Fisher points out that early Buddhist monks – originally all, and then most, of whom were hermits – had a tendency to enter Asia's primordial jungles and never be seen again. Tigers are even bigger than cougars, and not one whit more sentimental.

These are the conditions that forged our nihilistic Zen world view.

So if you live or travel in the northern and/or western half of North America, read Cat Attacks. Get schooled. Be prudently terrified.

Because when I think of all the times I've been afoot in the rough at dusk – including every day of ango – I break into a cold sweat. One unmoderated by the knowledge that cats also attack people in broad daylight. (Even housecats creep me out now.)

So be safe out there, brothers and sisters.

As safe as this existence allows.

(Note: a slightly updated release of this book came out in 2007 under the title Stalked by a Mountain Lion: Fear, Fact, And The Uncertain Future Of Cougars In America.)

UPDATE, 31 MAY 2018. Coverage of a local fatal attack, with further information on staying safe in the forest, is available here.

St. Francis Meditation

“Remember that when you leave this earth, you can take with you nothing you have received - only what you have given.”

Saint Francis of Assisi

(Photo of meditating St. Francis courtesy of Eugenio Hansen, OFS, and Wikimedia Commons.)

An Education

Asleep on my lap in bed.

Three days ago I had the sad duty of accompanying my mother's cat out of this life. A cherished family member, he's figured many times in these pages, most recently only weeks ago.

Since I was a child I've seen many pets die. It's been educational, in some ways more than human deaths. There's so little drama when an animal goes, so little desperation. Our pets seem to die as they live: with acceptance, if a little apprehension. When they become too sick to sleep well, you see this come into their eyes.

He was just ten years old, but probably had liver cancer for some time before it became debilitating, and therefore noticeable to us. Suddenly he became lethargic, lost his appetite, and started holing up in dark places. Most alarming, he refused to purr, no matter how much affection was lavished upon him. By the time we could get to the vet, I was fairly sure what I was going to hear.

That same day, before our appointment, he began crying, loudly and urgently. Mostly from fear of abandonment, it seemed. Therefore I stayed close to him, except when he was in the lab. At last the attendant brought him into the examination room, laid him on an old pink towel, and left us alone for a few minutes. He lay on his side, his breathing shallow, a dull, half-open expression in his eyes, as if in meditation. I stroked his soft, thick fur and struggled to tell him what a good kitty he was, how much I loved him, and to thank him for taking care of Mom these last years.

At last the doctor came. I fondled the kitty's ears as she searched for a vein. Her calm competence at the end of a long workday helped keep me from crying, as long as I breathed mindfully and remained silent. I did my best to remain present, and not confuse the observer (me) with the events.

It came fast when it came, with so little disturbance the vet had to tell me he was gone. I stopped petting and stepped back from the table, and she swept him up in the towel. The last I saw of him was his head and ears, disappearing through the swinging door.

You and I will be lucky to go so softly.

One of the great strengths of Buddhism is its recognition of the universality of life. I've known too many animals to believe there is some qualitative difference between sentient beings. Cats are born; they live, to the best of their ability; and they die. Scientists warn us not to be anthropomorphic about this, but I warn them back not to ignore the evidence. If it's true we can't know what's going on in an animal's head, it's also true we can't know what's going on in each other's heads, either. Yet decent people don't assume that we can't fathom the feelings of a crying stranger, just because when we do it, we're sad, scared, or in pain.

That would be stupid. And as I've often said, nothing stupid is Buddhist.

Animals may love differently from humans, but they love. And anything that loves is worthy of love.

Also: life – all life – is brief and unrenewable. So love now.

Because sooner than later, we all pass through that swinging door.

We called him Sherlock, by the way. We'll never know what his real name was.

WW: Winter kill

(Deer bones found on the forest floor.)

New Year's Song: Et dans 150 ans

To commemorate this New Year's Day 2015 I offer a meditation on the passage of time. My brother's poetry here is so powerful I first took him for a Canadian. But on second listening I thought, no.

No. The prosody, the peculiar flow of his French; his unflinching insight, his cool under fire. This-here is a Frenchman.

Except better. Raphaël Haroche's father is a Moroccan Jew of Russian descent; his mother is Argentine. In other words, dude's a perfect storm. Prepare for bone-crystallising kensho.

Having said that, I should warn non-francophones that, as Canadian literary critic Mavis Gallant pointed out, "When poetry is translated, the result is either not faithful, not poetry, or not English." Here the author spins kaleidoscopic metaphors and convoluted word play (e.g., "bad choices" can also be "wrong guesses"; "let's drink to the street trash" becomes "let's leave them our empty coffins" when you turn it a certain way); as translator, I could only pick a shade and run with it. With luck the music and intonations will salvage some lost depth (and soften the stilted, un-English sequence of images) for non-French-speaking readers.

Finally, since the visuals in Raphaël's videos are famous for being a whole second song, I strongly recommend that you first just listen, without viewing, while reading the lyrics (below). That way your own impressions won't get wangled. Then, play the video again and just watch it, without reading. Mind blown a second time.

ET DANS 150 ANS
par Raphaël

Et dans 150 ans, on s'en souviendra pas De ta première ride, de nos mauvais choix, De la vie qui nous baise, de tous ces marchands d'armes, Des types qui votent les lois là-bas au gouvernement, De ce monde qui pousse, de ce monde qui crie, Du temps qui avance, de la mélancolie, La chaleur des baisers et cette pluie qui coule, Et de l'amour blessé et de tout ce qu'on nous roule, Alors souris. Dans 150 ans, on s'en souviendra pas De la vieillesse qui prend, de leurs signes de croix, De l'enfant qui se meurt, des vallées du Tiers monde, Du salaud de chasseur qui descend la colombe, De ce que t'étais belle, et des rives arrachées, Des années sans sommeil, 100 millions d'affamés Des portes qui se referment de t'avoir vue pleurer, De la course solennelle qui condamne sans ciller, Alors souris. Et dans 150 ans, on n'y pensera même plus À ce qu'on a aimé, à ce qu'on a perdu, Allez vidons nos bières pour les voleurs des rues! Finir tous dans la terre, mon dieu! Quelle déconvenue. Et regarde ces squelettes qui nous regardent de travers, Et ne fais pas la tête, ne leur fais pas la guerre, Il leur restera rien de nous, pas plus que d'eux, J'en mettrais bien ma main à couper ou au feu, Alors souris. Et dans 150 ans, mon amour, toi et moi, On sera doucement, dansant, 2 oiseaux sur la croix, Dans ce bal des classés, encore je vois large, P't'être qu'on sera repassés dans un très proche, un naufrage, Mais y a rien d'autre à dire, je veux rien te faire croire, Mon amour, mon amour, j'aurai le mal de toi, Mais y a rien d'autre à dire, je veux rien te faire croire, Mon amour, mon amour, j'aurai le mal de toi, Mais que veux-tu?

And in 150 years we won't remember Your first wrinkle, our bad choices How life screwed us over, and all those weapons dealers Who work for the men who pass laws for the government This pushy world, this screaming world The march of time, the melancholy The warmth of the kisses, and how the rain trickled And the love lost, and the ways they get you And so we must smile. In 150 years we won't remember How age subtracts, and hypocrisy crosses itself The dying children, the depths of the Third World The asshole hunters who blow away doves How beautiful you were, and the things ripped away The years without sleep, and 100 million hungry How doors swing shut if people see you cry The universal impulse to condemn without qualm And so we must smile. And in 150 years, we won't even recall The things we loved, and those we lost Come on, let's drink to the street trash! My God, we'll all end up in the ground! Such a disappointment! Just look how those skeletons sneer at us But don't glare back; don't make war on them They'll keep nothing of us -- or themselves -- in the end As well cut off my hands, or burn them And so we must smile. And in 150 years, my love, you and I Will be – softly, dancing – two birds carved on a tombstone In this high school prom for dropouts, I'm looking beyond Maybe we'll come back some day; shipwrecked, perhaps But there's nothing for it, and I don't want to lie My love, my love, I'll miss you so But there's nothing for it, and I don't want to lie My love, my love, I'll miss you so But what can we do?

He's right, brothers and sisters. In 150 years, no-one will remember a thing we've done or said, or that we ever lived; for the vast majority of us, our very names will never be pronounced again.

You can take it for cruelty or compassion, but you can't change it. Our human being survives time like a beetle survives a millstone. And in the same form.

May we all cultivate, in the coming year, that which endures.

For Fudo and Dr. Suess(-roshi)

Today I will sit
In this place, unmoving,
Until I have transcended all suffering
Or until my legs begin to hurt
In which case, I will stand
But I will sit while I stand
Then I'll walk about a bit
And sit while I walk
And then sit again
Really, this time
Until I have transcended all suffering

Should suffering hold out until lunchtime
I will sit while I eat
Then I will sit while I vacuum
Later I'll sit while I cook dinner, and then again while I eat
And then while I read
Finally, I will sit while I sleep

If by tomorrow I still have not transcended suffering
I will sit again
I'll sit in the bath, and I'll sit on the path
I'll sit on the grass and I'll sit on my, uh... cushion
I'll sit in the house, the garage, and the yard
I'll sit with the carrots, nasturtiums, and chard
I'll sit in a chair if I'm feeling conservative
I'll sit with a bagel, if it has no preservatives

I'm determined to sit for the rest of my life
In the midst of all happiness, boredom, and strife
I'll sit before dawn and I'll sit 'way past noon
I'll sit in September, December, and June
I'll sit while I sing and I'll sit while I cry
I'll sit in Vancouver, Algiers, and Shanghai
I'll sit while I play and I'll sit while I pray
Don't know if I'll sit while I poop, but I may

See, I'm no longer young, but I'm not just yet old
So I sit to remember and keep off the mould
When at last my bones fail, then I'll sit while I lie
And when my heart follows, I will sit while I die

After that I don't know what will happen
But it'll involve sitting.


(Photo of Thai child monk sculpture courtesy of Tevaprapas Makklay and Wikimedia Commons.)

Robin Williams and Atonement

I've purposely held off posting about Robin Williams until the tidal wave of pro forma anguish washed past and left us in a place of calm. I'll give the media this: this time the coverage wasn't schlocky and over-the-top. Which is good, because the man deserves better.

But given the way he went, and the fact that August has somehow become Suicide Month here at Rusty Ring, I've got stuff to say.

First off, Robin Williams was a crucial figure to my generation. I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere – not surprising, given that those of us who followed the Baby Boomers have always been studiously ignored. But Robin Williams was, to some extent, our John Lennon. The fact that he was apolitical suited us perfectly; so were we. His lightning genius was dazzling, his sword scalpel-sharp, though he never seemed to over-use it. He took down the officious and precious, but never harped or dwelled. In nearly every photograph a childlike gentleness glows in his eyes. He wasn't angry; he was self-mocking. In him we saw perhaps not ourselves, but what we wished we could be. And on a personal note, as a kid of Scottish descent growing up in the States, I'll be eternally grateful to him for finally convincing the Yanks that Robin IS TOO a boys' name. (Haven't been hassled about that since Mork.)

None of which I realised until he was gone. Sic transit gloria mindfulness practice.

With his passing, my man Robin also brought depression to international attention, resulting in myriad thoughtful, helpful articles about the relationship between creativity, damage, and loneliness. Last week my 2011 review of The Zen Path Through Depression trended worldwide, attracting hundreds of hits. So people are interested in the topic, and with luck some who need counsel are seeking it.

But one thing I haven't seen is any discussion of the collective responsibility for the condition and its consequences. Some time ago I read a study in which researchers assembled a group of depression patients and another of random others. Researchers gave each individual a series of open-ended true stories and asked them to predict the outcome. The depressed subjects consistently augured more accurately than those in the control group.

Get it? Another word for depression is insight. Often, depressed people suffer in part from the misfortune of not being as mentally incapacitated by denial as their cohorts. The implication is clear: at least some of depression isn't sickness at all; it's a tragic lack of sickness, in a world gone barking mad.

Last year I uploaded a piece partly addressing the issue of how to deal with such unfashionable insight, should you be so afflicted; suffice it to say that killing yourself because everyone else is crazy is unskilful, both for yourself and the world. But like Thich Nhat Hanh says: "Those who think they are not responsible are the most responsible." Therefore, today I'm talking especially to the non-depressed majority.

What can you do to reduce the suicide rate?

The standard Zen response is to be mindful of the seeds of violence in yourself and deny them water. Some of the best instruction in this highly effective practice is found in Claude Anshin Thomas's autobiography At Hell's Gate: A Soldier's Journey from War to Peace. In the meantime, here's a short list of possible first steps:

• If you belong to a church or other religious organisation that identifies any group of fellow mortals ("Satanists"; atheists; gays; intellectuals; competing religions) as individuals who must be "stopped"; converted by physical or social violence; or liquidated; leave it. 

• If you belong to a political party or movement that ascribes the problems we face to some superficially-defined group of people (immigrants; gays; rich or poor people; criminals; another race; proponents of a political or economic theory; another nation); leave it. 

• Boycott anger-tainment – shock jocks, call-in shows, intentionally biased networks, sensationalistic books and movies. Anything that's heavy on analysis and light on facts. Don't forget the red tops, too. The constant public shaming of Charlie Sheen, Lindsay Lohan, Amy Winehouse (who apparently still isn't dead enough), or whatever other none-of-your-business train-wreck is selling at the moment, dehumanises us more than you think.

• Too ambitious? Ok, just declare peace on somebody. Your choice. Choose one group that annoys the crap out of you and say, "From now on, you have my permission to be or do that." Slow drivers? Fast drivers? Loud children? People who use bad grammar? Obscenities? Residents of big garish houses? Those who dump their shopping trolleys in the car park for someone else to round up? (Ooo, that's mine!) 

Note that none of these are solutions to any problem, suicide least of all; rather they're a way to begin clearing the ground so solutions can develop. Maybe now that those self-centred bastards who strew their carts all over the place are no longer prompting a battle response, I will see the cause and effect behind their actions and perceive an end to it. Worst case scenario: I'll stop squandering my finite human energies on unproductive suffering. (Starting with my own.)

Once you start, it becomes addictive, this business of reason, acceptance, and forgiveness.

So go ahead, brothers and sisters: take that first step. See how it goes.

Until next time, honoured reader: Nanu-nanu.

(Still of Robin being human from the Bill Forsythe film of that title.)

WW: Graveside fudo

(The white, red, and black cord stands for each of the three Tibetan bardos of death. Hung by the grave of a canine friend.)

Suicide: The Cure

A year ago this month the suicide of a former student prompted me to get real on polite society's fancy backside and name the actual perpetrators of suicide, right out loud. I ended with a direct request that they knock it the hell off.

You'd think that would do it, but here we are a whole year later and my demands still haven't been met. So while we're waiting, here's a tip on how not to be their victim.

As I pointed out then, suicide happens because the culture refuses to admit that life sucks. This leads people to desperate measures to escape the deep loneliness of being the only hurting person in the world. How did they reach this improbable conclusion? Because they were lied to about the pie.

Stay with me, here. All of your life, The Consensus (aka society, "the world", people, the public, The Man, The Matrix, "they", the culture…) has force-fed you a definition of happiness based on others' acceptance: equal parts companionship (for which you must beg peers) and material success (for which you must beg The Man: teachers, the market, employers, etc.) Let's be clear: you didn't come up with this definition, and (o thunderous coincidence) you can't get either of its two requirements by yourself. The approval you need to buy Consensus-brand happiness is only sold by The Consensus.

If this sounds like some kind of dystopian sci-fi hell, welcome home. I call it "the pie". Because I love lemon pie. There isn't much I wouldn't do for lemon pie. Make that: there didn't used to be much I wouldn’t do.

Dig:

The universe is a giant dessert table. It's got every dessert ever invented, plus millions more not yet invented. But you've been told that the onliest dessert worth having is the lemon pie.

Yeah. That's likely.

And – what are the odds?? – lemon pie is also the only one you have to ask for. You could grab literally tonnes of others, FOB. But Consensus says the lemon pie is "the only true happiness". And you literally have to sell your soul (to The Consensus) to get it. What’s more, The Consensus gets to decide if it even wants your soul. Which it often doesn't. In which case you're screwed. For life.

Unless you take the trifle. Or the cobbler. Or the fruit plate. Or the beavertail. Or any one of a billion other happinesses The Consensus insists aren't even there. Every one shouting "Bite me!" (Get it?)

Enough about the pie. Listen. Some people never find a wife or husband. (And lots more do and wish they didn't.) Some never make a comfortable living. Many never attain social acclaim, whether by choice or default. Literally millions of us never get lemon pie… I mean, "success". And we're doing just fine, out here with the dogs. It's not that Consensus-endorsed happiness isn't good. It's just not better than the others.

I have close friends in (apparently) ideal marriages and/or careers. They have problems, challenges, compromises, regrets. Things are missing from their lives. I have others that have neither love nor status. Some wanted them dearly, once. (I sure did.) But it didn't happen, so we cultivated other happinesses. And we're as fulfilled as the pie-eaters.

In sum:

1. WE suffer because we don't have their happiness.
2. THEY suffer because they don't have ours.

––––> Balance: there is no pie.

In adolescence, the contradiction between pompous promises and bedrock hypocrisy comes into stark relief. As their souls come online, lots of young people find themselves at the wrong end of the table. They don't date well. God didn't make them mathematicians. They aren't reassured by conventional copouts. They like weird music, clothes, books, movies. They're too sensitive. Too visionary. Too intelligent. Too gay. And the suicide begins.

But here's the thing: you don't have to play. When I meditate (you knew it was coming; does this look like a fashion blog?) I clear my mind, shut up the critics– including the one I was trained to be – and walk right past the pie. No more starving navel-deep in food. When you cultivate inner silence, truth finally gets a word in edgewise. Suddenly sunsets and rivers and flowers and wildlife are blindingly awesome; a provocative book, a road trip, a cup of really fine chai; the drum of the surf, the om of a city; a song, a joke, the utter indifference of Time itself. That's the real world. And it's infinitely bigger than people.

They tell you not to settle for that. I just go ahead and settle for it. And you'd be astonished how unhappy it doesn't make me. I'm still sad sometimes; lonely, especially. I have regrets and misgivings, fear and anger, roads I wish I'd taken, roads I wish I'd never seen. In short, I'm living exactly the same life as the pie-eaters. It's just that now, it's devoted to ending suffering. (Trade secret: start with your own.)

Word up to all my world-weary brothers and sisters. No time for small minds. Eyes on the prize.

(But why am I so hungry all of a sudden?)


(Photo of Bunter Teller (27 Stücke) im Tortenkarton courtesy of Hedwig Storch and Wikimedia Commons.)