The End of All Things

"I am become Time, the destroyer of worlds."

Krishna, in the Bhagavad Gita

(A variant Hindu translation of the Oppenheimer quotation more famous in the West.)


(Photo courtesy of Robert Couse-Baker and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Heritage bird's nest

(The age of this robin's nest, blown out of the tree in a recent windstorm, can be estimated by the strand of baling twine incorporated in its construction. It's been at least 2 decades, maybe more, since the area where I found it was agricultural.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Ask a Dinosaur

Insight from a sangha-mate on Mastodon (appropriately enough):

One of the most important ideas to sit with – amid the convulsion of climate change – is that Earth was not made for us.

That idea flies against many religions, but also appears in secular settings, with even activists thinking of Earth as a sort of organic machine, a spaceship, a system that’s carefully balanced in absolute ways.

Those metaphors have power, but they’re ultimately unhelpful. Our place here is precarious because we don’t 'belong' in any cosmic sense.

We’re just here.

(Photo of a well-worn dinosaur path in Colorado courtesy of James St. John and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Empty egg

(For my money, the American robin [Turdus migatorius] lays the most beautiful eggs in the woods, and we often find large pieces of their intensely blue shells discarded on the ground after a successful hatching. Sadly, that's not the case with this one, as something has chiseled a hole in it and sucked out the contents. Squirrel is my guess, though other suspects include crows, Steller's jays, or even rats. A greater expert than I could no doubt finger the miscreant by the size and shape of the perforation.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Don't Do Anything

As non-Vajrayana Western converts to Buddhism will tell you, we have a slightly awkward relationship with Tibet. Not that we have any real bone to pick with our Tantric brothers and sisters. It's mostly just a difference of style. Practice models in the three other common convert denominations – Zen, Vipassana, Theravada – are pretty stripped-down, with Zen probably being the most "gorgeous" of the very Puritan lot. Tibetan forms, meanwhile, are downright High Church.

More prosaic is the simple fact that the Dalai Lama is the only Buddhist most Westerners can name, and since our media regularly imply that he's the "boss of Buddhism", we're all generally believed to owe him fealty. Thus, non-Buddhists are often surprised to learn that I don't really follow the guy's news – he's fine as far as august spiritual figures go, but carries no greater weight with me than the Pope or other sincere religious celebrities.

Similarly, Tibetan Buddhist stereotypes often pass for Buddhist, full stop. Yet I rarely chant "om"; I don't own a copy of the Tibetan Book of the Dead; my Zen teaching embraces transmigration (which I don't necessarily buy, either) rather than reincarnation; and therefore we don't believe past masters can inhabit children.

All of which to say, non-Tantric Neo-Buddhists tend to know fairly little about that tradition or its teachings.

So I was grateful when a fellow Mastodonian shared a particularly provocative passage from Tilopa, an Indian sage whose wisdom looms large in Tibet. Upon further exploration I learned that the posted lines are actually the heart statement of the great Tantra master's programme.

The interpretation presented can be traced to Alan Watts, and reads as follows:

No thought, no reflection, no analysis,
No cultivation, no intention;
Let it settle itself.

Certainly a Zen-friendly sentiment, in that we-say-these-things-a-lot-but-never-do-them kind of way. And other translations found elsewhere enrich the context:

Don’t recall.
Don’t imagine.
Don’t think.
Don’t examine.
Don’t control.
Rest.

A bit more Soto in flavour than Watts' Rinzai-esque lines, perhaps, consisting of nuts and bolts exhortations ("act this way") rather than a self-absent explication of phenomena. But taken together – as is usually the case with these two schools of Japanese Zen – they bring greater insight.

And finally, this fraternal take:

Let go of what has passed.
Let go of what may come.
Let go of what is happening now.
Don’t try to figure anything out.
Don’t try to make anything happen.
Relax, right now, and rest.

(Both of the non-Watts translations quoted here are the work of Tibetan Buddhism teacher Ken Mcleod.)

So I'm paying this forward, as a particularly valuable meditation for Zenners, regardless of source.

Because it's not just good stuff, it's Zen stuff. And also good Zen stuff.



(Tableau of Tilopa courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and a generous photographer.)

WW: Cedar bark harvest

(Encountered this cedar while walking along the bay a few weeks ago. The distinctive scar is symptomatic of bark collecting by local indigenous persons in search of raw material for making baskets, clothing, and other practical items. And this time, if you look closely, you'll also see that someone has sketched a rough cartoon of an aboriginal man in charcoal on the debarked surface. Perhaps a portrait of the bark-harvester himself?

I've happened upon cedars like this in remote places since I was a kid. Always gives me a certain satisfaction to know that the First Nations are still out there, still being themselves, in the face of everything.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

WW: Japanese cherries

(This is the fruit of the Japanese cherry tree [Prunus spp.; Cerasus spp.], whose blossoms bring world-famous glowing colour to the north and south Pacific Rim in spring. Its fruit, on the other hand, is viewed as inedible; some authorities even insist it's poisonous.

It isn't. It just tastes bad.

The stiff, bitter flesh of Japanese cherries is indeed uninspired fresh fruit, to put it mildly, but they still have the vibrant colour and heady fragrance of their more palatable cousins. Hence, cooked well and sugared judiciously, they can yield a cranberry-like jelly that's not at all objectionable.

Here I've gleaned about 3 cups of them from a local tree; I plan to simmer them in cider to impart to it their colour and perfume, much as sorbs – a similar fruit – are sometimes used. Afterward, I'll probably make kvass from the cider.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.