After 20 years of this I know that practice is not like mending a roof and now the roof doesn't leak. It's more like patching a roof and now it doesn't leak there anymore. With each subsequent sit you patch another leak, until sooner or later you're replacing that first patch again, and then the rest, and placing still more new ones.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
We don't mend things in this practice. We practice mending things. This isn't why they call it "practice", but from now on it's why I do.
For some this open-endedness is a hard truth. It leads some non-Zenners to reject our religion out of hand, on the grounds that it's unproductive. I've tried pointing out that it has this in common with everything else – that material productivity is ephemeral at best, in all contexts – but they tend to defend their thesis by defining their terms very narrowly. ("My family life isn't unproductive. My wife and kids make me happy." I sincerely hope so… but your investment won't return any longer or better than mine. This statistic greatly disturbs some folks, in a culture that encourages us to view achievement as a thing that somehow outlives the achiever.)
All of which is old news for any Zen student of average smugness. So it's a bit galling that many of those think practice can change your fundamental nature: stop pain from hurting, loss from evoking grief, discomfort and lack of control from generating fear and anger. The patches you lay today will remain in place forever if you practice properly, they insist. Eventually you'll have a whole roof.
Or to put it scientifically, that web of random gravitational attraction holding in momentary proximity a squirming conglomeration of volatile components, none of which is a roof, will become a roof.
The only roof in the universe, no less. Because that's the power of a single human being and its mighty attitude.
And so the eternal issue of why practice comes up again. As we face the daily failure and futility of this existence – the fact that the register of paths we didn't take is multiplying hourly – we start to feel like frauds. We aren't buddhas. We don't have control of our emotions and reactions. We're still getting angry and sad and disheartened. We aren't sitting enough, or right, or maybe at all, sometimes.
In these moments I try to stop beating myself up for not being fixed. To look beyond complaints that my progress isn't permanent, my product isn’t perfect, and my monkery hasn't made me greater than the human being I was when I started.
Bit much to ask innit, in a universe where none of those things are possible.
But I can nail a mean patch now. I can bang down others as well, at standard human speed, with standard human results.
After which the roof is less broken, even if it isn't fixed.
If not this, what would you have me do?
Fondest compliments to the Nation of Seekers. This thing we do isn't easy, but neither is anything else.
(Photo courtesy of Sergeant Gustavo Olgiati, US Army; the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service; and Wikimedia Commons.)
winter rain
time to unseal
the new tea
Three years ago almost to the day, I wrote here about the Winston Churchill Effect – that odd mass hysteria that causes whole nations to believe they remember events that never happened. In the post I related as how, as a child, I read a newspaper article about a boy my age who'd been poisoned by Hallowe'en candy laced with heroin, ostensibly given him by a psychopathic neighbour.
I'd invented that memory, sceptics assured me, on the grounds that no such crime has ever been committed, and newspapers would never report such an unsubstantiated rumour.
Well, this week I learned from the Secretly Incredibly Fascinating podcast (Episode #62: "The Strange Origins [and Stranger Persistence] of the 'Razor Blades in Candy' Myth", presented by Alex Schmidt and guest Jason Pargin), that I did in fact read such a story.
In 1970, Detroit five-year-old Kevin Toston died after eating candy that was later found to be contaminated with heroin. This was first reported in national media as a stranger-danger poisoning, before further investigation revealed that Kevin had most probably died from ingesting heroin left in his reach during a visit to his uncle. His parents, according to police, had likely sprinkled more of the stash on Kevin's Hallowe'en candy to camouflage the uncle's guilt.
I couldn't verify whether this theory came out true in court, but what's certain is that as the less-sensationalistic story dropped, so did coverage, at least beyond greater Detroit.
So I did read a real article, though several supporting facts I either added freestyle or conflated with other stories. Kevin's name, for example, was obviously not Richard. And my distinct memory of a tiny hole found in a candy bar wrapper, with the unvoiced implication that it had been injected with heroin, is similarly invented, though I'm getting a dim recollection of a schoolmate including that detail in a drugged-candy tale (either this one or another).
And though I remember that both of us were about 12 at the time, I was significantly younger, and Kevin younger still. A press photo depicts him as a laughing kindergartner in glasses, wearing a sport coat. And most significantly: he was African-American. So my memory of the two of us being similar in appearance was wildly inaccurate.
But hold the phone: on that last count, an intriguing alternative arises. In 1974 – the year I was twelve – Timothy O'Bryan really did die from eating doctored Hallowe'en candy, which was also initially reported as a stranger poisoning. And the photo run with this article shows a smiling, Cold War-coiffed Caucasian kid in a checkered collared shirt very like I used to wear.
(Note that once again, the culprit was family – statistically, far and away the most common perpetrator of child abuse. Turns out Timothy's father poured cyanide into his candy to collect on a life insurance policy.)
So one more time, no evil neighbour, and no rational excuse to deprive kids of the wonderful Hallowe'ens we cherished. But two such articles were published, and I almost certainly read them both. Over the years the two melded in my mind, and as the media seems to have done that thing where it reports accusations on Page 1 and ignores or buries vindications, I never learned that both were completely bogus, at least from the perpective of stranger-danger.
(By the way, seeing as we're on the topic: in the podcast, Alex makes the cogent point that heroin is enormously expensive. As is cocaine, another narcotic frequently rumoured to be slipped to trick-or-treaters. One does not waste these things pranking random kids, any more than one bakes diamonds into cookies to break their teeth. And while we're up, drug addicts never give their fix away, regardless of what they're strung out on. They obsessively hoard it until every last grain is gone, then desperately scramble for more. Thus it's highly unlikely that anyone possessing these substances scatters them about for the dubious thrill of harming unseen children.)
So the personal experience I shared in my January 2020 post is not in fact an example of the Churchill Effect. Though I've experienced others as well, the candy thing was just a pedestrian matter of scrambled memory – an extremely common cognitive glitch.
But in the cases of Kevin Tosten and Timothy O'Bryan, I remember actual newspaper coverage (albeit of something that never happened).
First I believed I'd read it
then I believed I didn't
and now I believe it again.
(Photo courtesy of Evan Amos and Wikimedia Commons.)
So when the local newspaper ran a bit on a classic New Year's meal from the American South, I was all over that. The dish itself – which could be summed up as "rice and beans cranked up to 11" – is deceptively simple, but hearty and sustaining. And, if attentively developed, incredibly delicious.
Like most traditional foods, hoppin' john varies from region to region and even family to family, to the extent that recognising versions separated in space and time may be challenging. Over the years, with the benefit of experience and helpful Southerners, I've made mine memorable and worthwhile. So I'm sharing it here. (Note that vegan hacks are also included in the recipe below.)
Whatever your own recipe becomes, hoppin' john is earthy and flavourful and I look forward to it all year, full as much as the Christmas turkey. (The dark leftovers of which could be fortified with a few drops of liquid smoke and used here in lieu of bacon, now I think of it.) I like to serve it in the pot it was made in, for an extra nod to self-sufficient cheer.
As for the name, nobody seems to know for sure where that came from. But I rate this meal a fine note upon which to hop into the coming year.
Hoppin' John
To serve 4:
For the blackeyed peas:
4 cups soaked blackeyed peas (1 1/3 cup dry; other beans – red, black, white, pinto – can be substituted if necessary)
2 cups chicken stock (or substitute lentil stock)
2 cups tomato or vegetable juice
2 tablespoons chopped Italian parsley stems (reserve the leaves for the main recipe)
1 teaspoon powdered thyme
1 teaspoon powdered sage
1 teaspoon rosemary
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon celery seed
1 bay leaf
For the rest:
3 slices jowl bacon (if necessary, substitute Spam, another bacon, ham, or sausage; for vegan, leave out the meat and sprinkle smoked almonds on the finished dish instead)
1/2 medium red onion, chopped
1/2 medium yellow onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
one each green, red, and yellow bell pepper, seeded and chopped
minced jalapeño to taste
4 cups cooked brown rice
1 teaspoon powdered thyme
leaves of 6 or 7 large stems Italian parsley (substitute celery leaves if necessary)
salt to taste
Simmer all blackeye ingredients in a covered pot till the beans are soft, about 40 minutes. If they end up soaking in the liquor for a while afterward, so much the better.
In a large skillet or pot, fry the bacon soft. Drain both bacon and pot well. (Too much jowl grease is too much.) Chop the bacon and lay aside for later.
In the residual grease in the bottom of the pan (or olive oil), sauté onions, garlic, and peppers. Add bacon and salt. (I seldom add salt to any dish, but this one tends to want some. Proceed mindfully.)
When the vegetables are bright and glistening, stir in the rice and thyme and toss assertively. You want a certain amount of crushing and bruising here, to integrate flavours and textures.
Add the beans and their liquor. Toss well again to mix completely.
Cover and steam over low heat for 15 minutes, until the rice is hot and liquid absorbed. Add water if necessary.
Remove from heat. Scatter parsley leaves on top, recover, and let rest for a minute or two before serving.
Best of 2023s to everyone, and may we meet again here 12 months hence.
After 20 years of this I know that practice is not like mending a roof and now the roof doesn't leak. It's more like patching a roof and now it doesn't leak there anymore. With each subsequent sit you patch another leak, until sooner or later you're replacing that first patch again, and then the rest, and placing still more new ones.
