The Hermit Path

"There was an anchorite who was grazing with the antelopes and who prayed to God, saying, 'Lord, teach me something more.' And a voice came to him, saying, 'Go into this monastery and do whatever they tell you.'

"He went there and remained in the monastery, but he did not know the work of the brothers. The young monks began to teach him how to work and they would say to him, 'Do this, you idiot' and 'Do that, you fool.'

"When he had borne it, he prayed to God, saying, 'Lord, I do not know the work of men; send me back to the antelopes.'

"And having been freed by God, he went back into the country to graze with the antelopes."

The Paradise of the Desert Fathers


(Photo courtesy of Hein Waschefort and Wikimedia Commons.)

Rock Groups 2019

It's July, aka the Rock Moon here at the Ring, in which I share with the world my preternatural gift for naming rock groups.

Even rock groups that don't exist.

Even rock groups that should exist. So get on that, OK?

The rules remain constant:

1. All names inscribed here are available to anybody who wants one, free of any charge or obligation. You like it, you take it.

2. I can't guarantee somebody hasn't committed psychic plagiary by already naming their group one of these, so Google thoroughly before adopting one.

3. Any genre suggestions are gratuitous. If you think Les Sœurs Hospitalières would be a great name for your gritty alt-country band… have at it, pardner.

4. All I ask is that if in future someone asks you where you got that awesome name, tell them it was conferred upon you by a Zen hermit monk. Because that's a fantastic story.

And so, to those of you who are about to rock, I give you:

Rock Groups 2019

Les Ignares
The Wogs of Door (like last year's Dogs of War, but… not)
The Pie is Gone
Pygar
Les Sœurs Hospitalières (all-female medieval folk rock group)
Albatross
Grindhouse
Hammerstadt
Jessica's Bad Idea (grrrl punk)
Croatoan
OpCit
Wight
180
Puppyuppers
Stream of Conscience
Dino Arduino
Standup Tragedy
Splenetic
Bikini Chain
Drop D
Spew (gotta be metal)
Lolo Pass (country, as above)
Humphrey Dumfries and The Egg
Toxic Mail
UVB-76
The Latchkey Kids
The Knights of Stairwell
The Recipe
The Massage
Hot Mess
Cherry Red
Восток
The Synoptic Gospels and John
Заманиха
Pepper's Ghost
Punk Muppet
Icehammer
Pious Ponce
Pilot Error
Xylophobe
Angelfish
Gooseberry Jam (upbeat country rock)
Greek Fire
Cabulus
Devil's Club

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

WW: Real eggs

(They have to be steamed, not boiled, but it's totally worth the hassle.)

Entire Zen Teaching

Sit down.
Shut up.
Pay attention.


(Photo courtesy of Benjamin Balazs and Pixabay.com.)

WW: Coulee country

(Open in a new window to better appreciate the beauty of this unique habitat.)

The Third Treasure

After a recent very pleasant afternoon spent in the companionship of a beloved sangha-mate, I've fallen to contemplating the blessings of the Third Treasure.

This is the hardest one for us hermits to acquire. The Buddha is in the can. He's been and done, and left his priceless teaching and even more priceless (less priceable?) example.

The Dharma too is freely available. In fact, good ol' Donum Secundum is the great strength of my path. House-monks must cobble up an artificial, human-dependent Dharma to simulate the flow of the River we wild boys see in the sky each night. If in their rituals our domesticated brothers and sisters sometimes take direction from Les Nessman-roshi, it's that mocking up a universe is not for the faint of heart.

But we hermits, having sniggered at their choreographed pantomimes, must quickly return to the endless task of pulling Sangha out of plants, animals, mountains, tools, stars, meteorological events, water features…

Which isn't crazy at all.

For their part, cœnobites enjoy free and convenient access to, like, companionship. So much so that it becomes burdensome. Leonard Cohen, asked if he missed the days of his own Zen centre residency, diplomatically replied that monastery monks are "like pebbles in a bag, polishing each other smooth". He then pointedly dropped the subject.

But Sangha is critical, if for no other reason than to triangulate one's own attitudes and actions. A human being alone first becomes weird (guilty) and then insane (charges dropped for lack of witnesses), wandering off on ego-deflected tangents until simple reason, to say nothing of enlightenment, becomes impossible. Any sincere solitary will tell you that mindfulness of this dilemma, and self-monitoring of our course over the ground, claim much of our cushion time.

But as vital as all that is, it's not Sangha's greatest gift. There's also endless wisdom and insight; the times a fellow traveller solves a koan you've been working on for years in two or three words, and a tone that implies "…you dumbass". Then you return to your own practice liberated, in the Buddhic sense, and game to seize the next quandary.

But even that is not Sangha's highest power.

That would be simple companionship.

Here in the industrialised world, where humanity itself is roundly considered weakness, if not sin, we generally insist that social interaction is a luxury, and a superficial one at that. We absolutely do not recognise that refusing same is equivalent to denying food and shelter.

If we kept food from prisoners, there would be scandals, hearings, forced resignations, ruined careers; more advanced nations would levy the satisfying irony of prison sentences.

But when we lock people in dungeons, nothing happens. No gavel strikes, no activist shouts "hey-hey ho-ho", no candidate makes promises – even ones she has no intention of honouring – to eliminate this particularly caustic torture.

To cite a single case, a large percentage of incarcerated Americans are daily buried alive in solitary confinement. Not for days (24 hours being the maximum the average person can endure without permanent damage), nor even weeks, but years. Even sentences of ten years without the equivalent of food and shelter are considered trivial in American courts.

All of which is on my mind in the wake of four hours spent catching up with a close friend and comrade in Zen. I cleared the tea things much lightened, instructed, and renewed, and very aware that when the Buddha called Sangha one-third of Enlightenment, he wasn't being twee.

The equivalence is mathematical: in Buddhist practice, Sangha is of equal necessity to the Buddha and the Dharma.

Or to put it another way, you'd be entirely justified in locking your Buddha statue in a closet and replacing it on your altar with photos of your peers.

The Rinzai side of me is already smirking seditiously.


(Photo of "A Few Good Men" courtesy of Vibhav Satam and Unsplash.)

WW: Cactus flower

(Opuntia sp.)