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.)