Víspera de Año Nuevo

"Que la hoguera en la noche recuerde
la luz de las estrellas fallecidas."

Pablo Neruda

(Translation here.)

WW: Found art

(Unintended commentary on the season.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Christmas Memory

On this Christmas Eve in the ninth year of Rusty Ring, we wish all Aeruginosists near and far the most peaceful of holidays.

(Photo courtesy of Michal Klajban and Wikimedia Commmons.)

WW: Christmas bush

Appearing also on My Corner of the World .

Yule of Thumb

Here's some festive seasonal pedantry for all my fellow Jesuit-model nerds. It was high time someone cleared this up.

But I'll bet you didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition.

WW: Christmas garlands

This is old man's beard (Usnea longissima), a common lichen of the North Pacific rainforest. When conditions are right it drapes the trees in long, fanciful garlands such as these, giving the woods a decidedly fairy tale aspect.

Just in time for Christmas.

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Skill

Something I much appreciate about Zen is its clear-sightedness in the matter of human behaviour. Where other religions talk about sin – conduct that's "evil", implying an intent that may be absent, or at least confused with other goals to the point that the actor may be unaware that she's "evil" – we refer to problematic choices as "unskilful".

This is more accurate insight than "sinful", or its secular weasel, "inappropriate". (Inappropriate to whom? By what measure? To what end? According to whose interests? And what moral authority appointed you to evaluate any of this?)

The notion of skilfulness rests on the understanding that you can make things better or worse. (Some might argue you could also leave things unchanged, but that's also better or worse, depending on the status quo – whether it needs to change.)

The skilfulness criterion also draws on our koanic tradition, leading us to consider a proper Zen response to given circumstances. Will our acts generate more light, or heat? Will they resolve problems, or trowel them over? Are they truly effective, or do they just market us as Awesome Zen Masters? Will our choices pencil out over time?

This last is a particularly sticky wicket, because we most love to respond to emergencies and ignore the fact that we'll all still be here in a year or five or twenty, while the karma ricochets off the walls. I've been Lord God King of bold decisions in the past, that proved more reckless than resolute over time. It's less exhilarating to serve calmer future conditions, but I've learned the hard way that exhilaration is a manic pixie dream girl.

Like most useful ethical devices, this one may not please authority – a skilful act can upset many an unskilful apple cart – and may get you into more trouble rather than out of it.

But I've also found that careful consideration of the Zen road, with due weight given who we'll be when our sacred cows have become hamburgers, significantly improves ultimate outcomes, and usually immediate ones as well.


(Photo courtesy of Thao Le Hoang and Unsplash.com.)

WW: Frog pelt

(Most likely Peltigera neopolydactyla [which translates as "shield-shaped lichen with many sprouting fingers"], but the common name - frog pelt - is too delightful to pass up. Peltigera has a symbiotic relationship with several nitrogen-fixing bacteria, making it an important genus in the rainforest.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

The Final Precept

In the early days of my monastic practice, a Franciscan friend shared a bit of wisdom with me:

"You should only ever take a vow if you're already doing that anyway."

Sounded a bit paradoxical at the time, but as I've since learned it's exact.

People tend to take vows (or precepts, as we call them in Zen) as a declaration of intent – generally, to abstain from some urge they would otherwise indulge. And this negative emphasis – "I will forgo", rather than "I will accept" – won't convince your impulses to stand down.

"All you're doing is setting yourself up for failure," according to the friar. "And a vow you don't keep just creates greater discontent, more suffering, and more doubt that you'll have to overcome."

Instead, he suggested, you should vow to do something you've already come to do naturally; a principle you've resolved, if unconsciously, to refer to in future decisions. Then the vow is conscious confirmation of insight, instead of a promise to behave as if you already have insight you don't in fact have.

It took me years to grasp fully the truth of this teaching, but like all good resolutions, it came when needed.

In my case, the precept in question was the one governing my sexual life. I should state up front that I have serious problems with the role sex plays in my culture, the importance it's conceded in our ethical and spiritual domains, and the superstitions we weaponise to enforce them.

Thus I was reluctant to address the issue at all, as a red herring, when I was working to found an authentic Zen practice to free myself of such delusions.

There's also the fact that for me, conduct toward members of the opposite sex has always been governed by my desire for companionship, with the sexual component solidly subservient to that; since puberty I've had zero interest in sex before or without a relationship.

So the very nature of a sexual conduct vow struck me as beside the point – something that doesn't address my problem, and therefore a waste of time.

Finally, the second dependent vow of my Rule clearly states,

I will honour my karma.

And contrary to common Western misconception, karma isn't just the bad stuff that happens to you. So at that time I reckoned that to deny true love, if fell from the sky, would have, to quote the catechism of my youth, "almost the nature of sin".

Therefore, the precept I took was, "I will not initiate courtship." And I gave myself leave to lay even that aside if a solid case for it could be made.

I believe that was wise on my part, especially since adapting that precept to circumstances proved extremely instructive. And particularly because some of those circumstances were ultimately painful and regressive.

Which led me a few years ago to the Final Precept – the big one, the one everybody thinks of when you say "monk".

And by that time, like the friar said, it was really academic.

Because by then I'd meditated for years on my lifelong search for love and belonging, and especially on the sustained train wreck that pursuit of same has been over my lifetime.

I came to the conclusion that the investment was underperforming, and speculated on what might have been gained had I directed those resources elsewhere.

Toward my karma, for example. (If women wanted me, they'd've come looking for me.)

Toward things that have in fact brought peace and purpose. (My relationship with the planet, my Zen practice, the slow but steady opening of my mind and heart to The Great Not-Me.)

And especially, toward my monastic vocation. Of every angle I've worked since birth, it's the one that has consistently performed, without making anything worse. Had I initiated this practice at 16, where might I be today?

Somewhere, that's where.

So I married my Path.

And just like my Christian comrade told me, when at last I took the Final Precept, it was positive – "I will cleave to the path that works" – and not simply "I will refrain from sex", which vow, taken in a vacuum and without clarity, would probably not even stick.

Most importantly, it was moot. I no longer required convincing, and no deep existential temptation threatened my acceptance of it.

Now, when the possibility of courtship flickers, I remind myself that I'm otherwise committed. And that the partner in question is unfailingly faithful.

And there is zero cause to fear either will change.

(Photo courtesy of Chris Yang and Unsplash.com.)

Prudence

"Before criticising someone, walk a mile in their shoes.

"Then, when you do criticise them, you will be a mile away and have their shoes."

Jack Handy-roshi.




(Photo courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rawpixel, and Vincent Van Gogh.)

WW: Railway iron

(This is a pile of old railway iron, found in the ground by a bike trail maintenance crew. The trail was built on the right-of-way of one of the many narrow-gauge logging railways that seamed this part of the world right up my youth. All have since been decommissioned; some, like this one, were converted to bike trails.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Ignorance

"The trouble with people is not that they don’t know, but that they know so much that ain’t so."

Josh Billings

(Graphic courtesy of Nevit Dilmen and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Autumn moon

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Shop Talk

“Writing about spiritual stuff for a secular audience is like doing card tricks on the radio."

Mary Karr

(Photo courtesy of Farhan Siddicq and Unsplash.com.)

WW: November on the North Pacific

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Good Comic Strip: Garfield Minus Garfield

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.

Plus it's hilarious.

So if you like dark koanic humour, give it a click.

(Lead graphic courtesy of Garfield Without Garfield; explicated strip courtesy of Whatculture.com via Pinterest.)

WW: Sheep

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

The Deal

Regulars may have noticed that posting on Rusty Ring has become a little haphazard. That's because I've been managing my mother's home hospice for the last two months. Aside from the daily march of tasks, it also includes regular upheavals in routine, resulting in topsy-turvy days and weeks. Since predictable scheduling is the first requirement of blogging, the results are showing up here.

The underlying situation is of course a source of stress, making the actual work a kind of distraction – and therefore a relief – in an ironic way. But once again I'm finding meditation invaluable. As ever, I hesitate to vaunt it too much, as newcomers and interested non-meditators may form inaccurate expectations.

Zazen doesn't fix anything. It doesn't make me care less, and I'm not sure it even makes me fear less.

It just makes me fear better.

If that makes no sense, welcome to Zen.

I have no idea how I survived these things before I became a monk.

Anyway, I'll continue striving to maintain the regular posting schedule, in full knowledge that I'm bound to fail. And I'll concentrate on offering stuff of value when I do, even if it's a line here and a quotation there.

Because one of the sub-vows of my Rule is, "I will do what I can, even if it's unlikely to succeed."

Peace and progress to all seekers.


(Graphic courtesy of Zoltan Tasi and Unsplash.com.)

The Truth About Wolves and Dogs

"When a shepherd goes to kill a wolf, and takes his dog to see the sport, he should take care to avoid mistakes. The dog has certain relationships to the wolf the shepherd may have forgotten."

This line, written by Robert Pirsig in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, is incisive; equal to an revolutionary treatise, all by itself.

Reading it again, I'm reminded of several points of insight I've encountered in my past. For example, when I was a history undergrad, one of my professors described how America's white master class had forcibly converted captive Africans to Christianity in an attempt to render them docile and compliant. When, he said, the preacher fetched up against the many accounts of enslavement in Jewish scripture – accounts which rarely or never present it in a Godly light – he assured his enslaved congregation that those passages didn't mean what they seemed to mean; that they couldn't possibly understand such esoteric teachings.

"Of course, " said Dr. Francis, "this was complete nonsense. Those people knew full well what those Old Testament writers were talking about."

Later I encountered bitter capitalist denunciation of syndicalism. "Unions don't belong in The System!" they pouted. "They want to overthrow the free market!" Communism / socialism / atheism / totalitarianism / repression-depression-recession, fa-la-la-la-la.

But we lumpen learned unionism from capitalists. We implicitly understand such notions as monopoly, cornered markets, object value, possession, and the ethical justifications for acting in one's own interest, other considerations be damned. That the boss wants to kill this wolf is understandable. That he believes we've forgotten who the wolf is, is demeaning at best.

And then, of course, there's Bodhidharma. He said, "Just sit."

Literally.

That's his whole teaching.

All of it.

But in the fifteen-odd centuries since he said it, all manner of fa-la-la-la-la (or bup-po-so-en-jo-raku-ga-jo) has accrued on that small, inornate pedestal. Which was predictable; as I've quoted elsewhere, "Meditation is simple. That is why it so easily becomes complicated." You have to expect that, and accept it, and I do.

So now Zen has become a large corporate entity, complete with the usual demand for compliance, deference, and obedience, which has at length led to full-circle condemnation of Bodhidharma in some quarters. Or at least of others of his nation.

"You can't," we're assured, "possibly understand such complex, esoteric teachings."

And yet I meet more and more sheepdogs who smile and bow when we pass.

Brothers and sisters who know full well what the Old Man was talking about.


(Photo courtesy of Elxan Ehsan oğlu Qəniyev and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Cargo ship

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Jukai Koan

The custodian of a large synagogue approached the rabbi one day and said, "Rabbi, I'm at wit's end. The temple is infested with mice and no matter what I do I can't get rid of them!"

"Ah," said the rabbi, "that one is easy. You go into town and you buy as many tiny little yarmulkes as you can find. You put one on each mouse, and you bar mitzvah him."

"You will never see those mice in the temple again."


Wu Ya's commentary: "Pest control."


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

WW: Hallowe'en skull

(Yet another headbone, preserved on yet another farm. Just in time for the season.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Real-World Kyôsaku

"If my Zen only works at the monastery or at the temple, my Zen sucks."

Jay Rinsen Weik

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