Short List of Blessings

(In honour of Thanksgiving.)

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



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

WW: Relics of childhood

(I recently captured this scene in a part of the county that was urbanised well after my own stretch of woods. It made me nostalgic. Notice the signpost pointing off the highway down a long, squirrelly dirt road, along which multiple houses are identified by number. And behind it, the old shelter where the children from those houses waited for the school bus, out of the rain.

Today young families can no longer afford to live there, and what few may stray in consider making kids walk up the road and interact with other kids abusive. Thus the state of this shelter, which seems last to have been used not long after I left for university.

By which time the signposts and shelters had long disappeared from my part of the county.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Proportion Koan

"It is better to light one candle than to hit the wax museum with a flamethrower."

- Wisdom I collected from the wall of a university library men's room back in 1974.

(Close-up of flamethrower dahlia courtesy of Andrea Stöckel and PublicDomainPictures.net.)

WW: Headsaw blade

(Noticed this saw blade in the maintenance yard of a local parks department. Through the 1970s, forestry was one of the "F's" – along with fishing and farming – that sustained my homeland. Today none of them are major economic engines anymore, driven out by exhaustion of natural resources and the current primacy of non-productive industries such as tech, office work, and development.

But I remember when every small town here had a sawmill; big ones, several. This giant blade – tall as a man – was undoubtedly rescued from one of those when it closed in the 80s. I imagine it's been archived in this place with an eye to incorporating it eventually in a historical marker of some kind.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

New Year's Song: On va s'aimer encore

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 We'll love each other

Good Movie: An American Christmas Carol

"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.

The Origin of Happiness

I'm suddenly reminded of the endless dithering in the model kit section at Sears, before choosing the next addition to the epic WWII dogfight hanging from my bedroom ceiling.

The dithering was exquisite.


(Photo of Avro Lancaster model [had it!] courtesy of Matias Luge and Pixabay.com.)

Happy Days Teisho

"Sit on it."

Street Level Zen: Dukkha

"As my gramma, Nana Roseannadanna, used to say: it's always somethin'."

Gilda Radner


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

WW: The stain of the past

(I've never been a stain guy. I don't know why; boatbuilders just tend to prefer oil or varnish. If we deny ourselves the natural beauty of the wood, we opt for full-on paint.

But my mom needed an amendment to a piece of furniture, and this was the only way to get it into the ballpark, finish-wise. So I bought a likely can and set up to practice before pitching in to her project.

Above is my turntable platform. It's just an off-cut of cheap Canadian plywood, glued up from truffula trees or some damn thing. Since I've been using it unfinished, I thought, "Beauty, eh?"

But the instant I laid down the colour, the 1970s - stained era if ever there was one - jumped out and started doing the Hustle. And a torrent of PTSD flashbacks came, well... flashing back.

If I'd'a known my turntable would end up like this, I'd'a bought some Chicago to play on it.

oo-oo-OO-oo-no, baby, please don't go.)

WW: Sign of the end times

(Blue-ribbon reserve-grand Slim Whitman album collection, spied at last summer's county fair.)

The Winston Churchill Effect

In Auntie's War: The BBC during the Second World War, Edward Stourton drops a bombshell.

He's talking about how radio – the original electronic medium – transformed Prime Minister Winston Churchill from a simple politician to a national fetish by bringing him into the sitting room of every British family. Hence all who are old enough can tell you exactly where they were when they heard him transmit these timeless words:

…we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.

So indelible was this rallying cry that in Way Back Home – his 2015 anthem to his wartime childhood – Rod Stewart included a clip of this gravelly, defiant BBC broadcast.

That never happened.

It's not unusual for people to remember things wrong. "Play it again, Sam", "I am your father, Luke", "Elementary, my dear Watson!" "Beam me up, Scotty," and enough ersatz Mark Twain quotations to double his shelf, have all entered our collective knowledge. Or properly spoke, belief.

But this case isn't just a few transposed words. An entire nation has literally hallucinated a seminal event, complete with deep affective context and a whole range of sensory cues.

I'm not old enough to remember (or misremember) this broadcast, but reading Stourton's documentation of its nonexistence, I was absolutely floored. I grew up hearing that speech! Old people wouldn't shut up about it! I've entertained/annoyed others with my impression of that Churchill broadcast since high school!

But as it happens, Churchill only ever read out this text in Commons. It was reprinted in the papers next day, and doubtless some BBC presenters quoted it in their segments. But the PM, yea though he frequently addressed his people over the national service, only spoke these particular words into a microphone in 1949, when he was asked to cut the recording we incessantly hear in historical documentaries.

This is just the latest – if most dramatic – instance of the Winston Churchill Effect that I've encountered. Another is the pretty hippy girls who spat on returning Vietnam vets in the 60s and 70s. Many of us remember reading about this in the papers, or seeing it on TV. And in his excellent, highly-recommended autobiography, hermit monk Claude AnShin Thomas relates in some detail the time it happened to him personally.

Except it didn't.

This urban legend is a little easier to bust, given the logistics such an assault would demand. The attacker would have to gain access to a military airbase; loiter around the terminal unnoticed for hours; divine who in the crowd was a returning combat veteran; then approach very near said young man without attracting any attention, even from the target.

All while harbouring jarringly unhippy convictions.

These inconsistencies have bothered me since I was a kid, but I was still dumbfounded to learn no such event has ever been confirmed. Ever. Anywhere.

To be clear, I don't believe AnShin is lying. Rather, he's as certain of this memory as I am that at age 11 I read a front-page story in the local newspaper about a kid – named Richard, wearing a striped collared shirt in the photo – dying from heroin-injected Hallowe'en candy. He gobbed a treat upon returning home, then fell sick. His parents sent him to bed, but when he got worse they rushed him to the hospital, where doctors, little suspecting the cause of his condition, were unable to save him. Later, the candy wrapper was found to be pierced by a hypodermic needle.

You're probably already there. No such crime has ever been reported.

Ever.

Anywhere.

This disturbing bug in our OS has serious implications for our survival. It also vindicates the fundamental tenet of Zen: "don't-know mind". This is the state Zenners cultivate, to the best of our ability, because those opinions we call "facts" are very contingent, and much – perhaps most – of what we remember is inconsistent and imprecise.

And every so often, complete rubbish.

In the state of don't-know mind, we remain open to further data. In this position we stop sorting input into yes, no, and maybe, and just catalogue it. Because the need to respond ethically to external stimuli arises far less often than we think. And "making up your mind" about the rest amounts to shutting off your intelligence.

By not becoming attached to discrete data, we avoid the hysterical blindness it engenders. And, with a little luck and continuing sincere practice, the insanity that leads to.

As for Churchill, he'd get another shot at posterity, as the peroration of his famous Battle of Britain speech would soon be cast in bronze:

Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'

And this time he really did broadcast it, having first received tremendous acclaim in Parliament. Prevailed upon that evening, he re-read his masterful "finest hour" speech, against his will, pouting and mumbling, from the BBC desk.

At 10PM.

To very few listeners.

And critics who universally panned the whole transmission as lacklustre and forgettable in the next day's papers.

Nevertheless, a great majority of British subjects would forever recall how their hearts quickened and their spines stiffened to Churchill's electric performance, as they listened to him that afternoon.

Or after dinner.

There's some disagreement on that point.


(Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.)

Good Poem: Deteriorata

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.

Street Level Zen: Things As They Are

"Do you realize it's three o'clock in the morning, and my daughter... Jesus Christ, you're naked! I thought you said you were decent!"

"I am decent. I also happen to be naked."

Neil Simon, The Goodbye Girl



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

Good Song: The Wind

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.

You be the judge.

WW: No-one suspects... the 1970s!

(Until it's too late. #thingsbuddhistmonksdontneed)

WW: 1970s time capsule

(Recently found this old school box of mine amongst my father's things; he'd stored loose hardware in it. I believe this dates to Grade 5 or 6; about '73 or '74. You can still see the old Pay'n'Save price tag, which establishment hasn't existed for 40 years now.

Never thought I'd say this, but I miss the bright, fun, outrageous aesthetics of that era. So what if everything was impractical? It made you happy to look at it.)

Going Outside

It's the old-man grump of my generation. Our fathers grumped that they had to walk to school, or work for our grandfathers, or fight wars.

We went outside.

When we were young, our parents didn't suggest we go outside, or try to sell us on the benefits of fresh air and sunlight. They barked, "Go outside!"

One did not simply take a turn around the house and back in the front door; several roofless hours were implied. Unless one were bucking for a corporal response.

Thus, we 70s kids spent whole days under Heaven. And if that's not scary enough, we were usually unsupervised. The nearest adult might be fifty yards away. Might be, but probably not; often there were none within shouting distance.

If by chance something went dangerously wrong – and it did – one of us had to run, on our actual feet, through forest and over stream and down lane, to find a grup.

It's easy to get misty about this today, and talk about how it made us fearless and independent and at home in the world. Not that it didn't; I'm truly alarmed at how terrified today's kids are of basically everything. That crap's no good for anybody.

But I also remember that bullies ran our world, and now that I'm old, I know how many of them would ultimately finish badly as well. Because the grown-ups weren't looking out for them, either.

Thus, anyone my age has near-miss stories. Unschooled adventures that diverted the lives of some, and disabled others. And a few of us – if very few – didn't survive.

But let's be honest: the conversion of childhood into a feast of adult-imposed fear isn't down to any of those risks. The real sickness is cellular.

Because looking back, the world beyond the rural districts of my vinyl-upholstered youth was pandemonium. Warring tribes, crumbling institutions, bone-deep animosity. The raging post-war economy had burned out to cold ashes, taking most of the opportunity with it. Repressed minorities rose against old-school bigots. Cities stewed in stinking decay, and their refugees stomped by the thousands into in my neck of the woods, mowing it down like hay.

Yet neither fear nor anger owned our parents. Oh, they were mad, alright. Old people grinched and spit about lifestyles they mostly encountered on TV and in the papers. They fulminated and pontificated… and then got back to life.

Sometimes, as an experiment, I try to imagine an All in the Family reboot, just to see what that might look like now. If it were as unflinching as the original, could Archie Bunker be anything but a rabid dog? Because he wasn't then. Dude actually became kind of a folk hero, even to those who opposed his politics. Sure, he could launch a barely-articulate right-wing rant on cue. But when the chance arose, Archie never actually harmed anyone.

I think we saw our fathers and grandfathers in him.

But it's impossible to imagine Archie as a contemporary conservative, advocating torture. He'd say that was for the Rooskies. And I recall an episode where he followed his convictions into a brotherly chat with a neo-Nazi. When his new chum's identity was revealed, WWII-vet Archie gagged visibly.

By contrast, we've grown up to fear the bigness of the world, and to crave physical and mental control over others – two things Archie Bunker did not. And I think that's really why we imprison our kids. That, and they can't fight back. It's related to the flowering of narrow private schools on our watch, and the fine-combing of public school curricula for dog-whistle pretexts that began in the 80s. We want to prevent our children from experiencing anything but us, and by God we mean to accomplish it.

And now we're living in the kind of world that makes. I have no idea how you come to want such a thing, growing up on the vacant lots of our childhood. They taught me exactly the opposite.

But I'm just one man, and these days I'm feeling like that guy in Planet of the Apes.

Or The Omega Man.

Or Soylent Green.

Wait a minute… those were all TOTALLY THE SAME GUY. Spacey, man. What a trip. That's, like, Weirdsville USA, dude.

Anyway. What was I saying? Oh yeah:

So what's a Zenner to do?

I have no idea. I'm practicing steadily, and waiting for insight. But I know what I'm not going to do.

I'm from the 70s. I'm not going to be uncool.

That's basically what I've got so far.

And maybe we should send the kids outside.

Away from us. Till the streetlights come on.

And hey: for God's sake. If you feel a war dance coming on, will ya stifle yaself heah?

(Photo of a bunch of kids my age cheating death again courtesy of the US Environmental Protection Agency, the National Archives and Records Administration, and Wikimedia Commons.)

Shut Up and Drink Your Potential

I was born on the crest of a tsunami of late-century self-help that's had a geological effect on our ability to think clearly.

The good news is that the worst is past. That was the period from the 70s to the Millennium, when such messianic gimmicks as Positive Mental Attitude (authentic 70s tip: the capital letters signal dippy fad ahead) laid waste to Western civilisation. But thirty years stoned on trademarked morality have taken their toll, and we're still dealing with the fallout from our protracted no-substance abuse.

I'm often given to reflect on this in Zen company. Western Zen draws heavily on what the 80s called "bobos" (bourgeois bohemians), a fetish of whom is rejection of consumerism, jingoism, xenophobia, homogeneity, and other questionable Western values.

All of which is fine by me. However, they may also indulge in baby-trashing, as when they spurn logic, empiricism, individualism, and circumspection. As a Wikipedia editor writes on the Positive Mental Attitude talk page:

More pernicious is the prescribed PMA [Positive Mental Attitude] in business and public governance, with consequences from a philosophy of over-confidence bordering on self-delusion along with lack of due diligence and just plain common sense.

Given that Zen circles are wont to tolerate such traps, and that they're negatively correlated with sanity (and therefore Zen), I rate it good sangha to lay down a few definitions. So-armed, the sincere meditator can navigate his or her way out of the maze.

Essentially, three terms are in play:

Strength is a synonym for resilience. Meeting a setback, strong people redouble effort; find a way around it; transform it into something useful; or decide, after sober reflection, to abandon that goal in favour of another.

Optimism is a character trait typified by strength. Faced with failure, an optimist says, "We can fix this, or do without it, or succeed at something else instead. One way or another, we'll press on." To correct a trite aphorism, an optimist sees the glass as half potential.

(By contrast, the pessimist sees the glass as all useless. "We can't fix this, and if we could it would only break again, so let's just wait for death.")

Denial is a negative character trait often confused with optimism. Denialists reject truth that annoys or frightens them, or simply doesn't serve their interests. A hallmark of denial is misdirection, i.e., defining things according to one's wishes rather than empirical data.

Presented inconvenient facts, deniers resort to censorship, intimidation, name-calling, and appeals to dogma to enforce or restore silence. These actions may be marketed as "strength", but they are logically its opposite.

Most of the PMA Moonies I worked with in the school system back in the 80s and 90s were more properly chronic denialists, unwilling or unable to address the daunting work at hand. Tellingly, they also couldn't sort a pessimist ("Don't attempt to solve this; we'll only make things worse") from an optimist ("Let's flush our problems into the sunlight and slay the crap out of them!").

In Zen we endeavour to look deeply. Any prejudice that obstructs our vision we engage to clear away. So let's first recognise that attitude isn't an objective phenomenon. The elephant tramples positive and negative monk alike, and any insistence that a cheery outlook can change that is magical thinking. (Which is a therapy term for delusion.)

What attitude does influence is our choices. An optimist might devise a response to the charging elephant ("I know! I'll use my feet to get out of its way! Because I'm awesome like that!"), whereas a pessimist might declare the trampling inevitable, thereby guaranteeing it. But in both cases, reality is influenced by a course of action (practice), not an attitude (perception).

In Zen practice, the two perspectives manifest like this:

P: "Do not criticise the teacher, the sangha, or the Zen community. It causes people to lose faith in the practice."

O: "The Buddha and the Ancestors have provided the tools we need to correct the errors of the teacher, the sangha, and the Zen community."

P: "I'll never practice properly because there is no teacher or Zen centre nearby, and the experts all say you have to have those." (Or: "… because my teacher or Zen centre isn't doing it right." Or: "… because institutional Zen doesn't do it for me, and everybody says you can't practice alone.")

O: "I can order my practice to conform to circumstances, among which are my situation and my nature. Or I can take a page from the Ancestors and continue as-is, seeking enlightenment in things as they are."

P: "Zen is grown lazy, sensual, namby-pamby, narcissistic, Confucian, political, hippy, poser, intellectual, bourgeois, institutional, Western, something. You can't truly do it in this time and/or place. The only genuine Zen is in the past and/or Asia."

O: "Zen is the best shot I've got. Ima do it."


That last one has saved my butt more times than I can count.


(Photo of cat realising her potential courtesy of Steve Jurvetson and Wikimedia Commons.)

Shovelling Peas Into Your Pants

In 1975, British artists Brian Eno (a musician) and Peter Schmidt (a painter) developed a formal system for smashing "creative block" (i.e., writer's block, except for everyone). They called it Oblique Strategies (deck: "Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas"), and it caused quite a stir in that decade's famously vivacious art scene.

The mechanism is deceptively simple: Eno and Schmidt wrote sentences on index cards and stacked them up. Then each time they smacked into a brick wall, or found themselves churning out the same old same-old, they turned over the top card and did whatever it said.

Most bear commands, such as:

State the problem in words as clearly as possible
Cut a vital connection
Humanise something free of error

 A few ask questions (hello, Zen!):

What were you really thinking about just now?
When is it for? Who is it for?
What mistakes did you make last time?

And many rival the best koanic poetry:

Remember those quiet evenings
Lost in useless territory
If eating peas improves virility, shovel them into your pants

For decades the card decks were only released in limited editions, expensive at the time and stupid now. To his credit, Eno recently released a production edition (some 150 prompts), but even that costs £40.00. While it would be a cool thing to own (I much prefer real, tactile tools to digital ones) we're not all hip enough even for those prices.

Fortunately, admirers have compiled OS prompts into online "strategy generators": web pages that randomly produce a meditation each time you reload them.

The two I used to write this post are:

http://stoney.sb.org/eno/oblique.html
http://www.oblicard.com/


So why am I writing about such artsy-fartsy stuff on a Zen site? Because "practice" is a synonym for "rut".

Yeah, I know: we Zenners love us our forms. We're inordinately – illogically – proud to do everything exactly as the Ancestors did.

And that's fine. But it does co-arise two dependencies:

1. It's crap. Nobody here and now is doing what they did in the mountains of China in the 13th century.

and

2. That's a good thing, because "consistent" is a synonym for "dead".

Therefore, as a guy who supervises his own practice, I find it worthwhile to shake things up from time to time. Examine my actions. Analyse my intent. (I was going to add "Vet my results", but since that word has recently become an instrument of torture, I'll "appraise" them instead.)

And – possibly the only trait we hold in common – this system is almost as effective for hermits as it is for rock stars. Fact is, even monasteries and Zen centres could stand the periodic administration of one such kyôsaku:

1. Everybody meditates in the zendo.
2. Someone (OK, a specially-ordained monk with a task-specific Sino-Japanese title) turns over the top card and reads it to the sangha
3. Everybody meditates again
4. The sangha discusses the prompt, with a view to implementing one or two of the practice adjustments it inspires.

(If this procedure is too Buddhic for your sangha, you could empower your teacher or non-profit board to impose the adjustments instead.)

Such a practice, faithfully applied, might go a long way toward busting the staleness and inertia that institutions breed by their very nature. It might also clear out some of the hierarchical congestion that generates and sustains abuses large and small.

Be advised that since OS was developed specifically for artists, some prompts may not be germane to enlightenment practice. (Or even Tito or Michael.) But I would caution fellow seekers to look deeply before discarding one.

It may be that "The tape is now the music" has a monastic application after all.


(Photo of a man performing water calligraphy in front of Beijing's Temple of Heaven courtesy of Immanuel Giel and Wikimedia Commons.)