If you'd like to explore a rich source of provocative, not overly-technical Zen reads, check out Sotozen.com. Among its many offerings is an attractive compendium of Zen stories, presented with penetrating opening commentary. A good start might be this favourite example, starring the decidedly un-Soto Ikkyu.
As you'll see, the infamous Rinzai master strongly recalls Nasrudin – an old friend who figures on this blog – and also Alan Watts.
In any case, the Ikkyu story provides another meditative exposition of conventional authority: sometimes they kick you out and sometimes they lock you in, but in all cases you must be where they tell you to be.
And while you're up, enjoy a good surf around Sotozen.com. It's a valuable resource for our lot.
(Shiba Zojoji, by Kobayashi Mango, courtesy of Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art and Wikimedia Commons.)
New Year's is upon us again, and as usual I'm in a reflective mood. This time I've got the Cowboys Fringants' Ici-bas running through my head. Les Cowboys have an unusual gift for couching poetry in vernacular speech, and it only gains in power what it loses in polish. Since the group lost its lead singer to prostate cancer just last month, this song has been much in my thoughts.
The video itself is a significant, Cowboys-worthy bonus; like another, unwritten verse, pumping context into words that might otherwise read more grimly than intended. Note all the visual metaphors for growing up and growing old, and also the classic backstreet scenes from some Québécois town, all of which have an uncanny knack for being distinct and the same at the same time. This one – whoever it is – makes me homesick for my own.
And finally, of course, that heart-pulling winter: much more than a simple season, it's a kind of family member in Québec; a relationship hard to grasp beyond the Ottawa. None of which is hurt by an additional call-out to my enduring love of taking long walks through it, both in town and nearer home.
« Ici-bas » literally means the here-below, an expression that exists in English as well, but is much more current in French. It implies the fishbowl nature of the human lot -- its claustrophobic smallness, the impossibility of escaping it with our lives. And also the unity of our experience, whether we choose to accept that or not.
All of which made translating even the title tough. At last I went with Down Here, with its implied awareness of the great not-Earth, and the modesty of our little neighbourhood and our existence in it.
Follows the usual heartbreak of reclothing sublime images in clunky foreign syntax. Does « trafic » refer to backroom intrigue, or is it just traffic? Because it's both in French, and the writer almost certainly meant both. And what of « faucher » (to scythe), mostly used in these industrial times to describe what Death does. Strike down, we might say, but that would leave a richer metaphor by the roadside. Nothing English gets us there as completely and concisely; you just have to take your best shot and move on.
Any road, I suggest you first listen to the song while reading the lyrics and ignoring the video, to savour the full impact of the message. Then run through the video again, watching it this time.
Either way, it's a touching meditation on The Great Matter.
Best of luck in 2024, and may we remember and honour each other, here-below.
(Note: an English translation follows the French lyrics.)
Ici-bas
paroles et musique: Jean-François Pauzé
Malgré nos vies qui s’emballent dans une époque folle
Où un rien nous détourne du simple instant présent
Alors que tout s’envole
Avec le temps
Malgré la mort, celle qui frappe et qui nous fait pleurer
Ou bien celle qui un jour, tôt ou tard, nous fauchera
Je m’accroche les pieds
Ici-bas
Malgré l’amour celui qui nous fait vivre d’espoir
Qui parfois fait si mal quand on reste sur le seuil
D’une trop courte histoire
Sans qu’on le veuille
Malgré la haine qui souvent nous retombe sur le nez
Et les caves qui s’abreuvent de ce triste crachat
Je m’accroche les pieds
Ici-bas
Ici-bas
Tant que mes yeux s’ouvriront
Je cherch’rai dans l’horizon
La brèche qui s’ouvre sur mes décombres
La lueur dans les jours plus sombres
Tant que mes pieds marcheront
J’avancerai comme un con
Avec l’espoir dans chaque pas
Et ce jusqu’à mon dernier souffle
Ici-bas
Malgré les merdes, les revers, les choses qui nous échappent
Les p’tits, les grands tourments, les erreurs de parcours
Et tout c’qui nous rattrape
Dans le détour
Malgré l’ennui, le trafic, les rêves inachevés
La routine, le cynisme, l’hiver qui finit pas
Je m’accroche les pieds
Ici-bas
Ici-bas
Tant que mes yeux s’ouvriront
Je cherch’rai dans l’horizon
La brèche qui s’ouvre sur mes décombres
La lueur dans les jours plus sombres
Tant que mes pieds marcheront
J’avancerai comme un con
Avec l’espoir dans chaque pas
Et ce jusqu’à mon dernier souffle
Ici-bas
Down Here
words and music by Jean-François Pauzé
In spite of the way our lives spin out of control in this daft epoch
Where an anything can pull us out of the moment we're in
While it all flies away
Over time
In spite of the deaths that strike and leave us crying
Or the one that one day, sooner or later, will cut us down
I will plant my feet
Down here
In spite of the love that allows us to live in hope
But sometimes hurts so bad we remain stuck on the edge
Of a story cut too short
Like it or not
In spite of the hate so often blown back in our face
And the caverns storing up all that wretched spit
I will plant my feet
Down here
Down here
So long as my eyes still open
I will search the horizon
For the chink that will shine on my ruins
A light in my darkest days
So long as my feet will still walk
I'll forge ahead like an idiot
Hope in every step
Right to my last breath
Down here
In spite of the hassles, the setbacks, the ones that got away
The small wounds and the great, the wrong turns
And all that trips us up
In the detour
In spite of the boredom, the traffic, the unfulfilled dreams
The routine, the cynicism, the endless winters
I will plant my feet
Down here
Down here
So long as my eyes still open
I will search the horizon
For the chink that will shine on my ruins
A light in my darkest days
So long as my feet will still walk
I'll forge ahead like an idiot
Hope in every step
Right to my last breath
Down here
( Update, 13 October 2025: The YouTube file I originally embedded here has gone 404, but I found this one to replace it. Though I haven't watched the new one through, the subtitles seem pretty much the same, and the visual quality is noticeably better.)
This is a fun movie, not least because it annoys the crap out of a lot of over-taught and under-practiced Zenners. Why, I'll get to in a minute.
Legend of Dajian Huineng (embedded in full above) is not so much the legend of Huineng – the hermit monk who's the last common ancestor of all surviving Chàn-descended lineages – as a legend of Huineng. The basics are all here: young peasant yearns to study the Dharma; family obligation keeps him illiterate and labouring; finally gets through monastery gate; clear-seeing impresses abbot; ends up usurping succession from equally legendary Shenxiu; becomes 6th and last patriarch of united Chàn.
Few of us have problems with that. It's the next act that raises Cain.
See, there's a single paragraph in the Platform Sutra – whence cometh Huineng's formal biography – that tells us he lived with a mountain tribe for 15 years after receiving transmission. According to the scribe, Huineng maintained a Buddhist lifestyle among the hunters, though his evangelism was limited to freeing trapped animals when possible and offering his hosts vegetarian alternatives.
Well, not to put too fine a point upon it… director Gui Zhenjie goes to town (or rather, the wilderness) on this footnote. He drops all the pithy poems, robed monks, and ancient temples, and picks up…
well…
• martial arts scenes. (Make that Billy Quan-school flying-fighter scenes.)
• a Captain Kirk-style cliff-top rescue.
• a several-week coma.
• a love triangle.
• not one, but two, pirate attacks.
• an overt feminist subplot.
• a complete Dances With Wolves narrative.
• a gothic torture scene.
• and a partridge in a pear tree.
(That the tribals eat.)
At last, in the final 3 minutes, the plot returns to record, as a stronger, wiser, dustier Huineng shows up at the monastery he'd set out for all those years ago and blows everybody away with his perfect insight. While still in the dooryard.
So the posers aren't wrong to say this is not a "good" film. To begin with, it can't decide whether it's a Zen-style bio-pic or a Saturday matinee. (And contrary to expectation, it does a much better job at the first than the second.) But I was engaged to the end, if only to satisfy my curiosity about what the director would pull out next.
The subtitles are, as is traditional, surreal; indeed, significantly more so than your garden-variety bargain-basement kung fu grinder. Supplied by a suspect intelligence – artificial or human – they render some passages downright impenetrable. Oft-repeated gaffes eventually cede to concentrated analysis, such as the "hunter team" that enforces "team" taboos and "team" honour, which the viewer's mind eventually resolves into "tribe". Or the master's "inner creed", which Huineng brilliantly pierces, to the consternation of the presumed "real" monks at the monastery. That one is, literally and figuratively, a koan.
But perhaps most bizarre (and then entertaining) is the tendency of 7th century Chinese people to call each other "bro".
Less endearing are sutra passages that drone on over the sole translation, "BUDDHIST SCRIPTURE", and esoteric ancestral verses transposed into random gibberish. Competent English translations of both are freely available online, and could simply have been copy-pasted into the .srt file.
Then there are a few clanging visual anachronisms (i.e., the use of chicken wire by Tang Dynasty hunter-gatherers), and a disturbing absence of ethnographic specifics on the exotic hill folk, who seem remarkably assimilated to Han culture (having, for example, zealously embraced the word "bro"), without, however, ever hearing of Buddhism. But humbugs of this sort, in a movie like this, serve in their whimsical way to enhance the experience.
As I've noted before, Zen luminaries are a tough subject for cinema, because the more impressive they get, the less they do. That said, Huineng's a worthy challenge, given the uniqueness of his story and its importance to Buddhist history. Sadly, though this effort has its moments – and would doubtless have more if someone cleaned up the subtitles – it's never going to do the man full justice. One fears others won't even try now, since a film purporting to do so is already in the can. (That's apparently what happened to Radio Caroline, another potentially great film, that unfortunately became a bad one before better scripts could prevail.)
But while we're waiting, we can enjoy Legend of Dajian Huineng on its own merits, both intended and unintended. The upload is a little wonky, dropping the subtitles briefly here and there, as well, in two short periods, as the entire soundtrack. Fortunately, both of them remain subtitled, so viewers can continue following. (As well as ever, any road.)
In the end, Legend has a scene for just about everybody, even if they aren't always people who've heard of Huineng. And that's got to be worth something, right?
Here's a fabulous old NFB film from 1984 that has nothing immediately to say about Zen – though it does evoke eremitical monasticism. And if you don't care about that (which is likely), it's just incredibly engaging documentation of a long walkabout – paddle-about, really – through a howling Canadian wilderness that hasn't changed much since.
How many places can say that?
Though none of his projects were commercial, filmmaker Bill Mason remains a Canadian icon. Most outside the country will know him for Paddle to the Sea (aka Vogue à la mer), played and replayed to past generations in primary schools the world over.
I also strongly recommend Mason's 1969 short subject Blake, which is best left to your discovery rather than any failed attempt to describe it here. But know this: it's a documentary. Blake really existed, was a close friend of Mason's, and that's actually him in the movie. All depicted events are historically accurate, though some had to be re-enacted for the camera, as will be understandable on viewing.
But Waterwalker is widely regarded as Mason's chef d'œuvre. And with good reason; not only does it bottle the quintessential Canadian epic – a canoe trek across the Laurentian Shield – the movie itself represents a Herculean pre-selfie stick semi-solo travelogue.
Figure this: both Mason and his (invisible) cameraman had to ferry – and portage! – a hundred pounds a-piece of equipment and film through this entire odyssey. They had to set it all up and take it all down for each shot, and keep everything safe from light and elements clear to the end of the expedition.
Trekking's hard enough all by itself. Just keeping yourself alive and healthy and moving forward is more than enough pressure for me. The notion of spending the time and energy to document it all on analog technology is breathtaking.
So give Waterwalker a watch and see if you don't agree. "When you travel alone," says Mason, "you spend a lot of time thinking, and you see things you would never notice when you're with other people." Any hermit can vouch for that.
And here, for an hour and a half, anybody can experience it.
Here's another great example of a video that adds striking dimension to the song it accompanies. Not that it isn't fine as it is; Vincent Vallières is among the most respected songwriters in Canada. But the juxtaposition of these images deepens the lyrics exponentially, turning Vallières' love song into a reflection on the temporal ground of being, and borrowing a few Zen references along the way. (Check out the Buddhist wheel of life at 2:32.)
It's no exaggeration to say that non-francophones could skip the translation (see below) entirely and just watch the video. With the music playing, of course.
Right from the first scene, the LP theme is genius. Not only does this medium literally spool out, turning 'round and 'round like life – till you wind down in the run-out groove – it's also legacy tech. The very sight of a phonograph record casts the mind back.
The vignettes that roll past thereafter will be recogniseable to anyone on the planet, but they have extra pathos for expats from la Belle Province: a rich reel of Québécois faces, places, and contexts that brings tears to my eyes.
Varying frame rates – slower than normal; faster; parameter – underscore the orchestral rhythms of life. It goes too fast; it goes too slow; sometimes it just goes, while we amble on unseeing. And it's all synchronised – wheels within wheels, out of our control, and for the most part beyond our comprehension.
Consider also that everyone in this dense little epigram is ten years older at this writing. The toddlers are in middle school; the small children are teenagers. The young adults have started their own journey, many including new children in turn. And some of the older subjects are almost certainly gone.
I never tire of this slide show. Another metaphor from my increasingly historical generation. As is the tone-arm return at the end, sure to provoke an emotional response in any who grew up on vinyl.
While we're up, it's also pointed Buddhist commentary on the nature of existence.
So for a tenth time, on this New Year's of 2021, I wish all my readers a promising and productive 2022, and hope to see us all back here again 12 months hence.
ON VA S'AIMER ENCORE
par Vincent Vallières
Quand on verra dans l'miroir
Nos faces ridées pleines d’histoires
Quand on en aura moins devant
Qu’on en a maintenant
Quand on aura enfin du temps
Et qu’on vivra tranquillement
Quand la maison s'ra payée
Qu’y restera plus rien qu’à s’aimer
On va s’aimer encore
Au travers des doutes
Des travers de la route
Et de plus en plus fort
On va s’aimer encore
Au travers des bons coups
Au travers des déboires
À la vie, à la mort
On va s’aimer encore
Quand nos enfants vont partir
Qu’on les aura vu grandir
Quand ce s'ra leur tour de choisir
Leur tour de bâtir
Quand nos têtes seront blanches
Qu’on aura de l’expérience
Quand plus personne n'va nous attendre
Qu’y restera plus rien qu’à s’éprendre
On va s’aimer encore
Au travers des doutes
Des travers de la route
Et de plus en plus fort
On va s'aimer encore
Au travers des bons coups
Au travers des déboires
À la vie, à la mort
On va s’aimer encore
Quand les temps auront changé
Qu’on s'ra complètement démodés
Quand toutes les bombes auront sauté
Que la paix s'ra là pour rester
Quand sans boussole sans plan
On partira au gré du vent
Quand on lèvera les voiles
Devenues d'la poussière d’étoiles
On va s’aimer encore
Après nos bons coups
Après nos déboires
Et de plus en plus fort
On va s’aimer encore
Au bout de nos doutes
Au bout de la route
Au-delà de la mort
On va s'aimer encore
Au bout du doute
Au bout de la route
Au-delà de la mort
On va s'aimer
When we look into the mirror
And read the stories in the wrinkles
When there are fewer of them ahead
Than the ones we've already got
And when we live peaceably
With the house paid off
When the only thing left for it is to love each other
We'll still love each other
In the doubt
And the crosswalks
Stronger and stronger
We'll still love each other
Through the triumphs
And the reversals
For life, till death
We'll still love each other
When our kids all move away
When we've seen them grown
When it's their turn to build
Their turn to build
When our hair turns white
When experience is ours
When no-one waits for us anymore
When the only thing left to do is to fall in love again
We'll still love each other
In the doubt
And the crosswalks
Stronger and stronger
We'll still love each other
Through the triumphs
And the reversals
For life, till death
We'll still love each other
When the times have changed
When we're completely out of style
When all the bombs have exploded
When peace is here to stay
When, without compass or chart
We'll run before the wind
When we raise sails
Now made of stardust
We'll still love each other
After our triumphs
After our reversals
Stronger and stronger
We'll still love each other
At the end of our doubts
At the end of the road
On the far side of death
We'll still love each other
Where the doubt ends
When the road ends
On the far side of death
"Life is cause and effect. And you certainly are no stranger to the cause."
So says the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come, aka the Quartermaster of Karma, in 1979's An American Christmas Carol.
As a Dickens scholar, this made-for-television movie – currently available "free with ads" from YouTube, as well as on DVD – puts me in an awkward position. It's from the 70s. It's American (more or less; we'll come to that). It's inspired by, though not entirely based on, a Dickens story that was already fine to begin with.
And it's also better than the source material in several important ways.
That's right, I said it.
From the top, let's put away one common fallacy: AACC is not a version, adaptation, or update of Dickens' A Christmas Carol. It's written as if the writers had never heard the Dickens story, were handed a one-paragraph synopsis of the plot, and told "Go!'. And everything about it works, from the concept, to the casting, to the wintry grey Canadian locations.
In it, Henry Winkler is one Benedict Slade, American boy, grown up through a harsh if unexplicated late 19th century childhood into wealth and bitterness. And now he's floating in the sea of suffering known as the Great Depression, and hogging the lifeboat all to himself. And damned sure he has every right.
The plot's rural New Hampshire setting is brilliant; a small town works much better for this than London, which may come off like a small town in Dickens, but it's not. A provincial miser is not only more conspicuous than an urban one, he's also in a stronger position to influence outcomes, for good or ill. And as a stage for rationalised selfishness in the face of full-spectrum need, the Dirty Thirties are a no-brainer.
Even more gratifying is the way the film's writers have amended certain shortcomings of the Dickens story. Slade quotes economic theory as if it were God's (or even science's) word. And after conversion he remains gruff, laconic, socially awkward, and highly competent, rather than becoming a loony old fool. Finally, the changes he makes are much more realistic and uplifting.
For our Mr. Slade doesn't wait for the new year, or even Boxing Day, to pitch in to the possible. He's out there in the piercing Christmas morning cold, rousting Thatcher, his much-abused clerk, out of his own heartbroken home and forcing him back to work.
Yet somehow Thatcher – whom Slade promises a tidy overtime – doesn't seem to mind, as he drives his employer, Grinch-fashion, from house to blighted house across a bleak landscape, returning and refinancing repossessions. One of which includes a family's freakin' woodstove!
In the midst of a New England winter!
In sum, Benedict Slade is simply much more interesting, and more believable, than Ebenezer Scrooge. (Sorry, Chuck!)
The cast, all but three of whom are Canadian with accents intact, is brilliant. The other two Yanks – David Wayne and Dorian Harwood – are particularly solid in their respective pivotal dual roles. In the Canadian box we have R.H. Thomson's sensitive turn as Thatcher (who apparently has no first name), Friday the 13th's Chris Wiggins as the man who saves young Benedict from an even grimmer future, and, in a rare early appearance… Luba Goy! Look for her in the bonfire scene at about the 1:14:30 mark. Fifteen seconds later she will shout "Eighty-five!"
And, gosh Henry Winkler is outstanding! Young actor, playing a character aging through multiple eras, giving as nuanced a performance as you'll see anywhere. I particularly like his take on Slade's soul. The complex old codger is neither stupid nor ultimately a coward; even in petulance you see a glimmer of irony in his eyes. He knows he's running a scam. On himself as much as the others.
For all this, AACC suffers surprisingly in some corners of the Reviloverse, usually at the hands of people who know little or nothing about Dickens or the original they claim to prefer. Some are offended that the lead appeared in a sitcom. Should any of them stumble in here, perhaps they might meditate on the difference between an actor and his character. As a Zenner might put it, "Whose name is in the credits?"
Not that there aren't some bona fide holes, of course. Of these the worst is the protagonist's age. As we learn, Slade was in his 30s during the Great War, so he couldn't be much more than 55 in the Depression. Yet Winkler's made up twenty years older than that.
And that's a shame, because a Slade just starting to anticipate the last act of his life would have been a richer premise.
There are smaller humbugs. The writers didn't grok inflation. The sum raised at a war bond drive is breathtakingly high in-world, to say nothing of the bids offered at a Depression auction. And for this country boy, the sight of workmen wrestling a hot iron stove – still smoking! – out the door in their leather gloves was not only surrealistic, it amounted to another missed opportunity. How much more dramatic to use 2X4s – the way that's really done – to carry a family's warm literal hearth away over Ontario's frozen December snowfields.
But none of that depreciates the work. I'm astonished to hear commentators sneer down this truly worthwhile experiment as "the dumbest Dickens adaptation ever".
First of all, it's not; I could write a book about the total crap passing for Dickens out there.
And second, it's not. As in not Dickens. It's a little different, and a little better.
So this holiday season, give An American Christmas Carol a stream. Unless you're as bitter as Benedict Slade, you'll be glad you did.
I'm just catching up with David Hayward, a cartoonist who has published under the provocative nom de guerre of The Naked Pastor for at least 10 years. His work, which draws on the inconsistencies of Christian practice, is refreshingly unblinking. It's also entirely transferable to Zen, and perhaps one or two other religions.
But what makes David's thoughts truly unique is his insight into the fundamental potholes encountered along everyone's road to enlightenment
Witness above illustration.
In this panel, ostensibly fingering Pastor Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church [godhatesfags.com - yes, really], we see a scowling human brandishing a sign that reads I HATE. Religious affiliation autocorrects this to GOD HATES, as indeed it always does, from which it's a short jump to GOD HATES FAGS, because malevolence can't exist without a target.
Ha-ha! Take that, Christians!
But wait… We're not done?
Nope. Could the sign now – just two hops in – say GOD HATES FRED PHELPS? Why yes, it seems to. And in case we thought we'd found a back-door out of this embarrassing development – maybe God just hates Fred Phelps because Fred promotes self-righteous Christianity – nope again. GOD HATES FRED PHELPS WHO HATES FAGS.
Well, crap. Turns out we (I mean God) hate Fred Phelps only because Fred annoys us. Now see here, sign person! You're clearly part of that big ill-defined group of people who are destroying humanity and making these the most immoral times in all history, from which we can never be saved!
Which is apparently exactly the case, because now we're carrying a sign that says GOD HATES EVERYONE. (Hold up… how did we end up carrying the sign?? I thought this was about Christians!)
OK, we've done it now. Unless we're psychopaths we can't help but realise, whether we admit it or not, that going around with a metaphorical bomb vest on is the off-ramp to Hell. And that means, of course, that GOD HATES ME.
Which, since those two are really the same person, means I HATE MYSELF.
Basically, that's all I am now: I HATE.
That is, GOD HATES.
And now He needs someone to hate. Let's see who's available…
And you're going to keep going around and around like that until you get down off the basswood horse and step off the carousel. Simply changing horses won't do it, nor will riding on the parental benches. (Side note: are there still carousels out there, with gilt and mirrors and calliopes and parental benches? Or are they all passed on to the Allegorical Hereafter?)
It's these cartoons that raise David above other internal critics of hypocritical churchmanship. Aside from the fact that most of his Jesus cartoons work just fine if you make them Buddha cartoons, he occasionally reminds us outright that he's not necessarily talking about Christians at all.
Which probably means that at this very minute one of us is out there printing GOD HATES DAVID HAYWARD on a sign.
'Way back in March of 2012 CE (how strange to have such a deep vault) I reviewed Zen at War, Brian Daizen Victoria's exposé of Japanese Buddhism during the Second World War.
And now, these many years gone, while looking up the book's Amazon link for a friend, I happen to glance at the reader reviews.
Some of them are disheartening.
While most commenters shared thoughtful, supportive responses, I rate it worthwhile to meet two others, not by way of defending Daizen's work – it's self-defending – but to survey some dangerous internal trends in our incipient Western religion. Especially here, where our grasp of Buddhist history (and our own) is tenuous.
First to catch my eye was a one-star rating entitled "Very disappointing":
This guy [Daizen] must have a terrible background, probably tried to escape all that trauma by moving to far east and becoming Buddhist etc., the classic story. It's ok as long as one does not try and contaminate beautiful Zen with a messed up mind. Avoid this book especially if you're a new Zen learner as it will ruin the whole experience for you.
There's something simultaneously amusing and infuriating about a self-professed Zenner who has no idea what a human being is. While I assume First Honoured Sangha is a sojourner, I've also met so-called "masters" who lack any greater insight.
So to protect any fragile new Zen learners who may stumble upon such spluttering, Ima lay down some tough-dharma. (Ten thousand apologies, pro forma trigger warning, how's your father.)
1. First Honoured Sangha has no calling to judge others or analyse their lives, or to declare their fate foregone. (Gotama; Dogen; Jesus.)
2. First Honoured Sangha knows nothing about Daizen's "classic story". We all have classic stories. Even First Honoured Sangha. (Gotama; Claude Anshin Thomas.)
3. First Honoured Sangha has no authority to give permission, or withhold it. (Gotama; Jesus.)
4. First Honoured Sangha has not been asked to guard the supposed "honour" of Zen. Zen is clean by its nature. Others soil it. (Bodhidharma.)
5. If First Honoured Sangha can't put down the burden of piety, then First Honoured Sangha can haul his or her prodigal backside back to the Church. If we must speak of contaminating Zen, piety is certainly the ultimate pollution. Mindless fear and shame are what authentic Zenners strive to overcome.
In an oddly similar vein, consider this (ostensibly favourable, five-star) review:
The shock value is not so great, as I've been aware of the basic contents for sometime. Japan is an island and the Japanese are an insular people. The emphasis in their culture is group conformity. Zen is not the transformer of personality as it was once marketed, and it should not surprise us to learn that Zen leaders in Japan followed the lead of the Japanese government and Army into widespread war.
The endemic racism and ethnocentrism of Western Zenners never ceases to dumbfound me. It's not just that we dissuade those of African or Hispanic or Arabic origin from joining us; we even freeze out Asians! With the exception of a dwindling handful of deified Asia-born teachers, you see damn few Asian faces in Western Zen centres.
Seriously, brothers and sisters. We have a problem.
One that won't go away until we drive it bodily from the zendo and kill it with ferocious blows from our monk sticks.
Apart from the sort of blanket condemnation First Honoured Sangha called down on another entire vaguely-defined demographic, Second Honoured Sangha neatly excuses Westerners from suffering any angst over Daizen's thesis. The demon, we're assured, isn't the Sangha; it's the Japanese.
With respect, Second Honoured Sangha is mistaken.
The demon is the Sangha. All of us. Then and now. There and here. Present and future.
You and me.
Nor am I alone in my discomfort with the unBuddhic habit of associating practice with submission to dictatorial authority – and then absolving ourselves of the evil we do under it. Thus, Third Honoured Sangha:
What I don't like, is the way it is almost impossible to discuss [enthusiastic Buddhist participation in Japanese fascism] in the Zendo, and I've tried.
Word.
And a final Fourth:
As a Buddhist, it was a reminder that we must be ever looking at our own practice. Do read this book.
Zen is important. We must resist the urge to turn it into a church.
(Photo courtesy of Serg Childed and Wikimedia Commons)
Here's another burst of insight from that cagey lot down at Monty Python.
This time they put humanity in context with a song drawn, fittingly enough, from The Meaning of Life. One fated from the outset to become a seminal text in my spiritual training, because I too have long asserted that this whole Great Mind thing is just a largish vaudeville show. And here Eric Idle (aka the Pythons' resident Zen master) confirms my suspicions.
For the rest, kindly note that the figures cited in the work are scientifically demonstrable. (Making this is a rare example of a novelty song that contains, like, verifiable data, and is therefore acceptable to Wikipedia, among others.)
And that Eric's knack for a penetrating conclusion is the most electric since Lennon and McCartney.
Follows the tablature:
GALAXY SONG
by Eric Idle
Whenever life gets you down, Mrs. Brown
And things seem hard or tough
And people are stupid, obnoxious, or daft
And you feel that you've had quite enough
Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned
A sun that is the source of all our power
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour
Of the galaxy we call the Milky Way
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick
But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide
We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point
We go 'round every two hundred million years
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe
The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, the speed of light, you know
Twelve million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed there is
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure
How amazingly unlikely is your birth
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth
This is pure genius, but bear with me, because it won't seem like it just from the description.
In Garfield Minus Garfield, Irish tech professional Dan Walsh experiments with the Garfield comic strip by deleting every character from it except Jon, Garfield's long-suffering, socially-awkward caretaker. In so doing, Walsh ends up elucidating a life that's played out in front of us for nearly fifty years, but remained almost invisible.
The results are uncanny. And a little heartrending.
From a Zen standpoint, the project is also a graphic demonstration of delusion. In Walsh's strip, Jon's largely hallucinating his reality; he himself is literally the only thing in-frame.
The point may be a little facile and solipsistic, but it's fascinating to see his Everyman grapple with suffering, in a world he's created between his ears.
Three weeks ago I wrote about the tendency in Western Zen to downplay the ongoing role of Korea in the development and direction of our religion. In that indictment I cited particularly the seminal importance, and extra-goryeonic obscurity, of Zen Ancestor Wonhyo – a Korean national hero who is only now receiving sustained Western attention.
And now I discover this video. Documenting a Wonhyo-themed pilgrimage through rural Korea by Tony MacGregor - Canadian writer for Seoul's English-language Korea Times - it's saturated with the kind of breathtaking imagery we often see in connexion with Japanese topics, but rarely Korean ones. Just the celebration of that nation's own spiritually-imbued landscape is worth the click, and makes for a very meditative visit.
The commentary is a little unfocused, and can get a bit precious in that way we Westerners have when we talk about Buddhism. But in some ways, that very wandering – mirroring Macgregor's literal ramble – is another reward, offering a wider vista on the subject. Particularly welcome is a brief account of tae guk kwon, that muscular Korean take on tai chi chuan that figured so highly in a memorable scene from Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring.
Toward the film's end, another meander takes us to an impromptu teisho by Sudoksa Bangjang Seol Jong Sunim, which is simultaneously predictably conservative (his topic is finding a teacher) and, from a Confucian perspective, revolutionary. Since the same could be said of Wonhyo, MacGregor seems to be underscoring his hero's continuing influence on Sôn, or Korean Zen.
In any event, I greatly enjoyed this documentary and suspect others will as well. As a lesson on an important Ancestor; an exposition of Korea's too-long ignored Zen heritage; and a tranquil tour of its compelling countryside, it's time well-spent.
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.)
Five years ago I got tired of paying the ridiculous prices razor blades command these days. As trivial as that sounds, like many Buddhist monastics I shave my head on a regular basis, and the cost adds up. I'd also heard that Internet-based businesses were popping up to service the growing general demand for relief.
Their product was said to be competitively priced. It was also said to be good; better than the storebought twin-blades I'd been using. The podcast host assured us he'd been using the starter kit the company had sent him, and it had changed his life. Or at least his grooming.
So I ordered one.
To say it also changed my life, in a small but significant way, is no exaggeration. That's why, in the interest of supporting others' practice, I'm sharing my experience here.
Harry's Razors, which mount on a high-quality handle that probably won't need replacing before my descendants are my age, feature four ganged blades in a flexible head that conforms remarkably well to face and scalp. You just lather up as usual (I use a particular kind of hand lotion, because it doesn't dry, works in cold water, and is made to nourish skin) and have at it. My head-and-face routine, which used to take 45 minutes, now takes 20(!).
What's more, I rarely get nicked – anywhere – with Harry's. (See elaboration below.) That's down to the bendy head, which nails the sweet spot between too stiff and too floppy. The result is full control, with just enough forgiveness to keep you intact, as long as you proceed with ordinary due mindfulness.
Finally, the blades are in fact competitively priced, especially if you shell out for the big 16-blade box. It'll set you back $30 Yank, but that works out to $1.88 per blade, or between 24 and 31 cents a shave, if you preserve the blade by drying it thoroughly each time you finish.
That's cheaper than name-brand twin-blades, for a much better shave.
Which brings me to my other reason for writing. My last shipment came emblazoned in several places with a strident "NOT FOR HEAD-SHAVING!". This alarmed me, since the whole reason I use Harry's is that it's perfect for head shaving. I'd even sent fan mail to the company soon after I discovered their product, thanking them for marketing the tool that we Buddhist monks have been waiting for, and was told in the reply that head-shavers were a demographic the company was particularly keen to reach.
Has something changed?
I checked out the thing online, and found to my dramatic lack of surprise that Harry's has indeed become a fetish among head-shavers. Some of these were similarly worried by the new turnabout, while others assured them it was all a pack of nonsense, cooked up to deflect some unspecified liability threat.
Well, the new blades looked and flexed like the old. I chucked one up and fell to.
Same fantastic Harry's shave. Face, neck, and head.
In the interest of full disclosure I must say that over my five Harry's years I've drawn blood twice, both times on the head. One was so trivial it scarcely bears mention; the other less so. But the telling bit is that in both cases I was hacking away like a Japanese chef, just 'way too impatient and irresponsible to expect Harry's to pay me a living pension for this. And that second incident involved not only the afore-mentioned Ginsu schtick, but also a worn-out blade that a less Scottish monk would long have discarded.
And hey, if it's campfire stories you're into, I can rummage back over the 35 years I was a twin-blade man. The fact that I can recall and enumerate the times I've got into trouble with Harry's tells you everything you need to know about their relative safety. Head or no head.
So I don't know why Harry's has suddenly turned head-shavers loose. Fact is, Hairless Brothers the 'Net 'round have been lauding this product since it came out, and I don't recall a single sour note.
Anyway, here's the deal: boy, does this thing work. And it would be disastrous if head-shavers didn't know that, because shaving your head is a pain in the butt. (Acupuncture thing, I guess.)
Just don't sue Harry's if you manage to slice an ear off.
Or me. Because that would be a very dodgy business decision.
So I'm reading Adam Savage's Every Tool's a Hammer, an elaborated meditation on "making", that thing that makers do. (I only recently found out I'm one of these. Before that I was just, you know, making things.)
It's an engaging read; Adam's a philosopher of creativity, and his thoughts on the process of bringing inspiration from concept to object are sangha at its best. Scattered amongst the useful bits of shop protocol, such as the necessity of clamping your work securely so it doesn't kill you, are mindful contemplations on more fundamental topics. Of these, the one that struck deepest is his misdoubt of the "scarcity model".
I've touched on this subject before, but Adam's understanding of it is more concrete. Essentially, he says, some makers work in the assumption that resources are inherently scarce. Therefore, a prudent person hoards them, restricts their distribution, declines to admit surplus or divulge where it is. Adam suggests such people do this from fear that they will run out of whatever they need unless they stop others from getting some.
Nor does he limit his definition to the material. In fact, he scarcely – see what I did there? – mentions physical wealth at all. What mostly aggravates him is spiritual avarice: refusing to help, teach, respect, credit.
I too have often smacked up against this. A classic example is the person who won't share a recipe, on the belief that equipping others to prepare the same dish will steal his thunder. (Note that this excuse rests on two fallacies: that such people won't change the recipe, thereby protecting the author's "patent", and that a cook incapable of outdoing himself is master of anything.) You run into these blocked heads rather often in the work world, were they refuse to teach you their profession, or share trade secrets, or defend your beginnerhood from critics, on the alibi that they're nipping competition that would complicate their lives.
Not that competition doesn't result from a more generous view. But I've yet to see a situation where you can really quash it by cynical means. Childishness on that level, though our culture implicitly endorses it, fences you off from the very resources you yourself must have to compete successfully.
At base, this scarcity model is the origin of the transmission hang-up in institutional Zen. That's the policy whereby only certified "dharma transmitted" gurus are allowed to teach Zen. By extension, all talking about Zen then becomes "teaching", so the rest of us just have to shut up.
To be honest, if it weren't for that second assertion, I'd have no problem with it. "Teaching Zen" puts others at risk, while endangering the teacher's own karma, which is why I'd advise anyone considering it to stop considering it. (And while we're up, if anybody out there takes this blog for "teaching", knock it the hell off before we both get hurt. )
Basically, the fear is that free agents would muddy the water, obscuring access to enlightenment. Trouble is, this scarcity dogma bulldozes 99% of our wealth into a big pile and sets it on fire. So Adam's right: such "scarcity" is manufactured.
It also undervalues sangha, as it posits that without certified instruction, students will fall willy-nilly for false and/or abusive authority. I'll see that and raise you this: when the Sangha replaces blind faith with caveat emptor, fools and scoundrels will find us barren ground indeed. Because dharma-transmitted fools and scoundrels abound, shielded by the Confucianism that's crept into our religion over the centuries.
Adam further suggests that far from establishing security, such attitudes actually impoverish. He's right. There is no scarcity of wisdom, insight, or compassion in Zen. We enjoy boundless wealth, in the millions who have trod and are treading the Path in earnest determination. What mind could reject such a windfall?
The essential quandary is not simply that no-one has a patent on the Dharma; it's that all of us are still not enough. We must have what everybody brings to the zendo. Bare minimum.
In biographical passages, Adam recounts many mentors, of various walks and origins, who put up with his beginner pestering, or calmly watched him make mistakes and then told him why his stuff didn't work, and one senior technician whose elliptical teaching method, by Adam's telling, was as koanic as any Ancestor's. All of which has inspired him to give in kind, now that he's a lion of the maker world.
The fact is, the most important thing makers make is makers.
(Photo courtesy of Richard Greenhill, Hugo Eliasand, and Wikimedia Commons.)
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.
I've used a lot of meditation timers since I started doing this. First was a CD of surf sounds. Two half-hour tracks, Atlantic first, then Pacific. "K-tel's Saltwater Super Hits."
As my zazen turned toward the orthodox I started using my refrigerator, sitting through the end of the cycle, or the beginning, then deciding if I wanted to sit through the next.
During my first sesshin I used a VCR: fast forward to the end of a cassette, rewind back 30 minutes, and reset counter. Then push "play" and the machine runs to the end of the spool, then auto-rewinds back to zero with a whirr and a "ka-klunk". Replay as necessary.
Eventually I got a pager-like timer I wear on the belt of my robe. I still use it sometimes. Also my watch, the timer on my iPod, an old-fashioned beaded mala, and, when I can, nothing at all; I just sit till I'm done.
But all of these solutions, while effective, lack a certain charm. And sometimes you just want a little atmosphere. Which is why it finally occurred to me to check out meditation timers for iOS.
Naturally I mean free ones.
Here are three that a not-very-long survey of the iTunes App library turned up. I don't know if they're available for other platforms, but if not, something else must be. Also, I've resolutely not updated the system on my iPod for five years, so I couldn't run some of the fancier apps I encountered. YMMV.
But each is effective and competitively priced.
WCCM App 2 is a gift from the World Community for Christian Meditation. It doesn't seem to have been updated in some time, but works well on my iPod. The welcome menu is a list of hotlinks to WCCM news boards, teachings, and devotionals – no doubt valuable for WCCM meditators. If you check the lower righthand corner of your screen you'll also see a stopwatch labelled "Meditation Tools". That takes you to a beautifully simple meditation timer that seekers of all traditions can use. You get your choice of one tone (a very nice singing bowl), customisable preparation interval, and session, which starts with one chime and ends with three. All in all, an elegant, effective resource.
Zenso is somewhat more complex, but intuitive and easy to use, offering in addition to a preparation interval the possibly of programming mindfulness bells during the session proper. You also get 7 traditional Zen tones, from chimes of various sizes to moktak to One Hand Clapping (aka Jack). You can select the number of reps too, from 1 to 3, though you'll have to take their word on that last one. There's also a vibrate option if your tech can do that.
And finally, Enso is a purchase-in-app alternative whose free default mode is well worthwhile. It offers the same timing options as Zenso, with a graphic interface that allows you literally to dial up the number of minutes you want. You only get one tone – a vaguely sci-fi-sounding synthesised chime that's oddly satisfying, given the Star Trek technology you're using – but you can buy any or all of 11 other bells for not much if you'd like. The app also includes some attainment-oriented functions that teach the wrong path, as far as I'm concerned, but, you know… off-switch, 'n'all.
To find these meditation aids search their titles at the iTunes app store, using your mobile device. While you're at it you might simply browse "meditation timer" as well; chances are your device is more current than mine, and your choices correspondingly broader.
And remember not to get attached to your new app. If the time or circumstance comes when you can't use it, temporarily or at all, that's got nothing to do with the quality of your sitting.
That's all on you.
(Photo courtesy of Liam Ferguson and Wikimedia Commons.)
Planes, Trains and Automobiles (that's a sic on that missing Oxford comma, good buddy) has been an underground holiday favourite since its 1987 release, owing to the high profile of its two protagonists (the supernaturally-gifted John Candy and Steve Martin) and their electric performance of a brilliant script. But often uncommented is the fact that it's also a classic work of Zen cinema.
Bear with me, here.
To begin with, Planes is about people travelling together, and since we invented the road movie, that all by itself makes it to some degree ours.
But it's not just that; this particular road movie really is a Zen teaching, for those who are present to it.
If you've yet to see Planes – and why the hell are you reading this, go watch it right now! – the premise is as straightforward as any old Ch'an tale: two guys battle their way upstream against the holiday crush, striving to make it home for Thanksgiving.
We've all been there. But with any good luck, the crush we dealt with was less… crushing… than theirs.
What unfolds next is both superbly funny and positively Bashōesque. The film's title encapsulates the spectrum of means and methods they're obliged to attempt, if not (at all) its full breadth. I'd expect such an odyssey to burn off at least 5,000 lives of karma if it happened in real life.
With due diligence on spoilers, as the plot twists and turns, director John Hughes takes our heroes closer and closer to earth, while with each drop they cover less and less ground. And if you watch closely, you'll note that the lower and slower they go – the less "progress" they make – the happier they become.
And that's just the obvious part. Other critics have pointed out how Hughes carefully balanced the two main characters so they'd remain comedic archetypes without becoming cartoon characters. They do dumb things, but they're not idiots. They do selfish things, but they're not jerks. They do deceptive things, but they're not con artists. In short, they're ordinary human beings, if somewhat stereotypical ones, facing an ordinary conundrum.
This too reminds me of our ancient teaching literature, in which villains are seldom encountered. Zenners tend to prefer insight and concordance to overpowering and overcoming. And when we apply our training faithfully, we tend to find ourselves in our adversaries.
I can't describe the climactic scene without letting the cat out of the bag, but when you see it, or see it again, note how the active figure in that moment travels, and how fast. When satori hits, how does he respond, physically?
In sum, Planes, Trains and Automobiles is essentially Enlightenment Guaranteed before the fact, if a little less on the nose and a little more Christmas-friendly. It's also a classic Hollywood comedy the whole family can enjoy.
So if you (or your family) prefer, you can keep all the Zen crap to yourself.
Happy holidays to all and sundry, and good watching.
Back in the 70s, a spoken-word performance of Desiderata became a sensation in North America. Soon everyone from Pierre Trudeau to Mr. Spock was quoting it.
By the 80s, Max Ehrmann's poem had become a mainstay of the New Age movement, which grew out of the less-profitable hippy movement, which also begat the contemporary Western Zen establishment.
Let's be clear: Desiderata contains strong statements of solid (if unintentional) Zen value. I like it. But when you start to see it framed in school administrators' offices, you've officially reached peak schlock.
Which is why when I heard National Lampoon's response I immediately knew I'd found a personal anthem. The fact that it follows the exact tone and metre of Les Crane's rather Uppish With People 1971 hit record only amplifies the exponential awesomeness.
The video above is a bit of a throwaway, but hey, it was either that or my 40-year-old Dr. Demento mix tape. I recommend you play the audio and ignore the visuals.
You don't have to get into a lotus position as well, but it couldn't hurt.
And remember, brothers and sisters: it could only be worse in Milwaukee.
This song holds a special place in my heart, because it held a special place in my practice when I first became a monk. As is often the case, my early experiences with meditation were thunderously transforming. I encountered personal peace for the first time in my life, and insights fell from the sky like rain in the spring. (Which was itself falling outside at the time.)
It's typical in this phase to re-experience familiar things as new. Old aversions become less objectionable; maybe downright acceptable. And old favourites shine with a renewed light, as if seen for the first time.
During that period I hungrily re-consumed many former pleasures, chasing that Christmas-like sense of discovery.
Prominent among these was the music that has enjoyed a prominent place in my life for as far back as I can remember. A few artists and albums struck particularly true, and today I consider them part of my foundational practice, though my relationship with some goes back to childhood.
Of the latter, none stand out more conspicuously than The Wind.
I've been a rabid Cat Stevens fan since he first hit back in the late 60s. My own songwriting style (I was a bit of a coffee-house artist in my youth) bore, and probably still bears, the unmistakable marks of Stevens' influence. I was even told I looked like him, though not by any (conscious) design.
So naturally, Stevens' work was among the first I revisited during that period of awakening.
It was all brilliant, but The Wind had something extra. The beauty of the words and music evoked the sensation of sitting, and I lifted the needle over and over to listen again.
There's no real mystery here; Stevens was interested in Buddhism during that era, and much of the compelling catalogue he compiled then is Zen-friendly.
But The Wind is unique. It's so simple, so short… and so bang-on. Stevens himself apparently understood this, because he made it the inaugural track of Teaser and the Firecat, setting the tone for the entire album.
In the intervening years Stevens has had a colourful spiritual journey of his own. In 1977 he converted to Islam, and as part of his religious commitment, changed his name to Yusuf Islam and renounced his musical career.
He may have had a particularly thorny relationship with what I once heard him describe as "my Buddhist stuff".
But Yusuf's spiritual practice has been straight and sincere, as evidenced by his willingness to change his mind. In the early Oughts he decided that music was a perfectly appropriate way to celebrate the 99 Names of God.
So I'm pleased to report that Yusuf (his current stage name) is writing, recording, and performing again, and that The Wind has actually become the centrepiece of those performances. Though I've never practiced Sufism, it certainly does echo the Sufi teaching I've studied, and I don't see why it can't be Muslim as well as – or even instead of – Buddhist.
Anyway, as this modest little treasure has been instrumental (no pun intended) in my own enlightenment practice, I hereby commend The Wind to others, in the brotherly wish that it bring the same peace and encouragement it brought me.
It really does capture a deep experience that evades words.
Last week a cougar killed a mountain biker in North Bend, Washington, about an hour from where I live. The Spokane Spokesman-Review's Eli Francovich offers a well-researched overview of the incident and the conversation about it.
The cougar attacked not one, but two human beings, travelling together. Specifics are elusive, but in the end, the lion killed one of the thirty-something men and wounded the other.
Both riders were struck in the head, as is typical of big cats.
Not only was this one unimpressed with their number (they routinely hunt in the midst of large herds), he wasn't even deterred by the rattly, metallic, petroleum-smelling contraptions the creatures were riding.
This cat uncharacteristically revealed itself before the assault. In that first confrontation, the two cyclists did everything by the book, up to and including straight-up attacking their stalker with their bikes.
Afterward, the panther demonstrated the cold calculation for which his order is justly renowned, running off through the forest as if frightened, only to loop back, track and observe his targets unseen, and finally, strike decisively from cover.
Authorities agree there was likely nothing the men could have done differently; these guys were well-trained in mountain lion drill. Sadly, this time it was only partially effective against their intelligent, unpredictable alpha predator.
But Francovich's piece raises an interesting data point unconsidered in my book review: the reliance of cougar researchers on bear spray.
Bear spray is the meanest crap on the planet. The effect is physiological, and instantaneous; it literally burns and asphyxiates its object. And cats, even more than bears, are highly sensitive to olfactory insult.
Like a shotgun (and unlike other firearms, which are all but useless in this context), it barely needs to be aimed. This is vital when you're startled and terrified. Point it in the general direction and squeeze. Even if you don't score a direct hit, you'll put the animal on notice that you can hurt it badly if you want to.
Better still: the stuff hisses as it comes out. Language any feline understands.
Doesn't change the fact that you have to see one to use it. These men had an unusual opportunity to use bear spray in their first encounter, but probably did not in the second, fatal, one.
But I'm still gonna get a can. In this case, anyway, that initial hosing-down almost certainly would have made the difference.
For the rest, this latest tragedy re-illustrates, for the benefit of a species famous for its self-regard, the Dharma of the Outback:
"It's their forest. It always has been."
(Warning sign from Arizona's Saguaro National Park courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and a generous photographer.)
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If you'd like to explore a rich source of provocative, not overly-technical Zen reads, check out Sotozen.com. Among its many offerings is an attractive compendium of Zen stories, presented with penetrating opening commentary. A good start might be this favourite example, starring the decidedly un-Soto Ikkyu.
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