Hermitcraft: Hermit Bread, Case 2.

'Way back in the first weeks of this blog I posted on the sourdough bread that's been part of my monastic practice since before I became a monk. But seeing as the recipe has continued to develop over the intervening years, and is arguably improved, I reckon I should revisit the subject now.

The big news is that some years ago I stopped using baking soda to raise the sourdough, though that's the traditional Old Settler drill. Soda is good for baking on the fly, because it reacts to the heat of the oven instead of requiring a lengthy stretch of steady, controlled warmth beforehand to raise the dough.

But eventually I succumbed to the richer scent and flavour, and the light, airy crumb, you get from wild yeast.

And it's still a simple and straightforward process, calling for just 20 minutes of hands-on labour, followed by a single rise. So now I do it like this:

YEAST-RAISED SOURDOUGH HERMIT BREAD

1 1/2 cups sourdough starter
About 2 cups all-purpose flour (added by handfuls to optimum texture)
1 tablespoon oil for brushing
shortening or butter for lubrication

Liberally grease a 10-inch cast iron skillet. You can also use a cake pan or cookie sheet, but cast iron gives the best results.

In a large bowl, blend the flour into the starter with a butter knife. When too stiff to stir, continue cutting in flour with the blade until the dough balls easily and is dry enough to work with the hands.

Knead the dough while continuing to add flour as necessary to prevent it sticking to your fingers. (See notes below.) When the dough is smooth, elastic, and dry enough to work lightly without gumming up your hands, roll it into a ball and position it in the centre of the greased skillet.

Pat the ball down to six to eight inches in diameter. Brush the top with oil and perforate the pat in rows with a wooden spoon handle or similar until it's holed all over.

Mark the dimpled pat into 8 wedges with a cleaver, chef's knife, or pastry scraper. Clean up and reseal the edges, cover the skillet, and place the dough in a warm location to work for about 4 hours. (See notes below.)

When the dough has risen sufficiently, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Uncover the pan and bake the bread on the middle rack for 20 minutes.

When lightly browned, unpan the loaf and place it on a rack to cool for a few minutes. Eat as-is or with any of the usual amendments. (Butter, jam, cheese, herbed oil, sugared berries, etc.)

Keep the fully-cooled pat fresh in an airtight plastic bag. Cold pieces can be microwaved for 30 seconds for a credible impression of just-baked bread.

Notes:

• For a richer bread, make your starter out of bread flour, then knead all-purpose into it as usual.

• I never knead this on a board, as is normal with bread. Instead I tip the bowl up on its bottom edge and knead the dough against the side while turning the bowl with the other hand, like a steering wheel. When the dough is sufficiently dry I hold it up and knead it between my hands. I suspect this technique is rooted in the recipe's origins as sojourner food; there's no other place to knead bread on the trail.

• If you lack grease for lubrication, oil and flour will work as well, but don't skip the flour dusting; the oil alone won't cut it.

• The dough must be tightly covered during the rise, or its surface will dry out and prevent the pat from expanding. I put a tight-fitting lid on the skillet. When baking on a sheet, I invert the now-empty mixing bowl over the pat. Make sure to grease an inch or so of the bowl's upper edge, or any dough that touches will stick.

• For the rise, place the dough somewhere that delivers gentle heat at 80 to 95 degrees. Good prospects include a water heater closet, a purpose-built proofing box, strategic positioning beside a woodstove, or, on a summer day, in reliable shade outdoors. I've also had success in an oven with the light on – usually with the door cracked a certain distance; the light alone can heat the interior to surprising levels – and a sun-heated car, but monitor the temperature carefully and consistently with both. I've also preheated an oven at its lowest setting and then turned it off, returning once or twice to take the dough out and heat the oven again. And I've put a size-appropriate incandescent light in a closet, tote, disused refrigerator, or large ice chest. Again, be very wary – those bulbs throw a lot more heat than you think – and mind the serious fire danger when placing a heat source in a tight space.

• Finally, remember that sourdough will also rise at room temperature if necessary, though it takes longer and results in a sourer, less consistent product.

The history of this bread, as well as traditional ovenless baking methods, are found at the bottom of my original post.

And a last important point: the original soda-raised recipe is still perfectly enjoyable if you've got no way to incubate the yeast; would rather not wait that long; or aren't over-fond of the taste of sourdough, which soda mitigates. It's also good for an upset stomach, among other things.

And I still mix it up for pizza dough.

At some point I'll post a few whole-grain elaborations I've developed over the years. In the meantime, enjoy this simple, thrifty down-home staple, that never fails to bolster my sense of comfort and well-being.

WW: Pokeweed

(This is Phytolacca americana, called poke in the American South and Midwest, where it's a rampant weed. [And also a wild edible, though just how edible is a plant that must be boiled in four changes of water to stop it killing you is worth discussion.]

I've never seen pokeweed on the North Pacific Coast till this summer, when I spied it growing on two neglected bits of land in my neighbourhood. The iconic, high-growing, and monopolising Southern brakeweed first evaded recognition, so far from its natural home, till I'd confirmed it online, where I also found that poke is now listed as an incipient invader here.

I'm about certain this is yet another misfortune of climate disruption. Protected before now by our wet, grey, cold weather, the new drier, hotter North Coast is proving quite hospitable to this latest headache, as well as many others.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

July Haiku

even one-penny
fireworks...
ooo! ahh!

Issa


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

WW: Deer through the back window

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Dukkha Koan

"You may not believe in hell, but hell believes in you."

(A message from this station and Fudo Myō-ō.)


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

WW: Oriental poppies

(Papaver orientale. Came in time for Remembrance Day.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Standing Up

Some months ago I had a refreshing conversation on Zen ethics with a fellow hermit on Mastodon. We're equally sceptical of quietism – the religious posture by which forms are judged sufficient to practice and action anathema – and our discussion helped me clarify some of my own thoughts on a matter that's critically pressing.

The quietist temptation pervades contemplative religions: this notion that real Zenners sit serenely with a satisfied smirk on their faces while injustice gallops unchallenged and others suffer.

It's easy to mistake that for dharma.

Quietism is the opposite of theological activism: the idea that true practice means doing good outside in the Red Dust World. Western Zenners most commonly encounter its ad absurdum form in those Christians who are called to sing, exhort, and engage in public "praise" (an archaic word for advertising) by way of filibustering hesitant believers and driving converts to the fold, where they too will presumably join in such questionable practice.

We non-Christians and former Christians tend to lean hard on this demographic when the topic of activism comes up, since this sort of exercise is easily criticised. But let us note also the Christians who care for the poor and imprisoned; assist the stranger and the foreigner; educate the illiterate; raise the downtrodden; and actively enhance the levels of hope and opportunity in their community.

A rare few publicly oppose deliberate evil, often at significant personal risk, while others – Quakers, for example – go so far as to confront passive evil. While a minuscule fraction of the whole, these last still trounce the percentage of Buddhists doing it.

Which brings me back to the exchange with my brother. We began on common ground, agreeing that the popular Zen position that practice excuses us from protest is erroneous. That, said I, is an illogical conclusion; ethical people act, and as I've written before, if practice doesn't result in an ethical person, there's no need of it. (I, for example, am already a fully-transmitted Self-Absorbed Jackass. No need for cushions, candles, or things that go ding to attain that.)

In the end, my brother summed up this entire meditation in words he'd come to several years ago:

"If you don't sometimes sit down and shut up, you'll never be enlightened.

"If you don't sometimes stand up and shout, there's no reason to be enlightened."

He also offered an alternative phrasing (another translation, what) that I call "the Rinzai version":

"If you never get your ass on the cushion, you can never become enlightened.

"If you never get your ass off the cushion, there is no point to becoming enlightened."

Regular readers will comprehend which of these I'm most given to.


(Photograph of police arresting a Buddhist sitting lotus during the Clayoquot Sound protests courtesy of Aldo de Moor and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: No Kings, Olympia

(US national day of demonstration, 14 June 2025. The photo depicts just the Capitol steps, where the speakers appeared, and maybe half the crowd below. There were about twice that many more on the front lawn and approaches, and maybe that many again on the sidewalks of the city, waving at passing drivers and receiving their honks of support.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Street Level Zen: Home

"A man is never lost at sea."

Ernest Hemingway


(Photo courtesy of Paul Harrison and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Flag lily

(Iris versicolour.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Good Song: Nobody Asks

Here's insight we can use.

In this short meditation, Rusty Ring favourite Peter Mayer sums up the lesson we all should have learned long ago, but that many – perhaps the majority – of us are still sulking over.

Candid elaboration on the Zen notion of dependent co-arising, as applied to the human condition (a subordinate form I prefer to call co-dependent arising), the whole track consists of little more than Peter's own voice and guitar, enhanced here and there with a ghostly violin at the edges. It all adds up to power that commands attention, and a sedate simplicity our sort esteem.

Another cut from Peter's excellent album Heaven Below.

I've got this on frequent rotation these days, as I absorb demands to take arms against successive waves of faceless, vaguely defined offenders. Give it a click; see if it doesn't help to keep you on-task as well.


NOBODY ASKS
by Peter Mayer

Nobody asks to be born
They just show up one day at life’s door
Saying here I am world
I’m a boy, I’m a girl
I'm rich, I am sick, I am poor

Nobody asks to be born

No one is given a say
They’re just thrown straight into the fray
The bell rings at ringside
And someone yells fight
Some just end up on the floor

Nobody asks to be born

And no one’s assured
Of a grade on the curve
Or a friend they can trust
Or a house where they’re loved
And no life includes
A book of how-to
Because nobody has lived it before

So to all the living be kind
Bless the saint and the sinner alike
And when babies arrive
With their unholy cries
Don’t be surprised by their scorn

Nobody asks to be born

WW: Calla lilies

(Zantedeschia sp.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Annoyance Kyôsaku

"I always think friction and having annoying things around is absolutely essential for good meditation. Otherwise, you become incredibly selfish, controlling, and easily upset."

Ajahn Sumedho

[I find this note encouraging, as friction and having annoying things around is basically the definition of my life and practice.]


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

WW: Derelict treehouse

(Kids love treehouses, but the treehouse years are few and fleeting, and as the demographics of a neighbourhood age and change, those much-loved adult-proof hideaways quickly return to the source.

This one is relatively unusual, in that it was built by adults to an actual plan, and features a host of architectural novelties. (It's also not even technically a treehouse, since no part of it is a tree, but I'm sure the child who owned it considered it one.)

And though its construction was obviously both time-consuming and expensive so far as such structures go, within just a few years – that probably seemed like months to the child's parents – its owner grew up and out, and with no other potential residents in the vicinity, even this carriage-trade example became uninhabitable.

Which is why you see many more abandoned treehouses than occupied ones.

So next time you see an occupied treehouse, take note. Because chances are you're seeing impermanence in action.)



Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Good Cartoonist: Avi Steinberg

If you haven't discovered Avi Steinberg, you're in for a treat. (And if you have, a welcome visit back.)

Avi's deceptively simple New Yorker cartoons have a knack for penetrating the heart of the problem, often in ways that illuminate the crux of our delusions. Though not a Zenner to my knowledge, his work repeatedly strikes Zen-adjacent targets with a clarity worthy of Nasrudin.

I've avoided possible insult to Avi's copyright by not posting any examples on this page, though the writer in me is, like, "Really? You're trying to drive traffic to his Substack without showing anybody why they should go?"

But such is the looking glass of these greedy times.

So you'll have to trust me. Click the links. See what I'm talking about.

Start here.

I don't know if the guy meditates, but this about sums it up. It's part of a protracted exploration of the nature of anxiety, of which pretty much every frame is gold.

Then sample a few from his timeline:

Winning.

The perils of mindfulness.

Why it's hard to keep writing.


Then click through to some more.

Or just Google Avi and click on Images.


And then we'll all sue him for stealing our lives.


(Photo of Hotei figurine courtesy of Adrian Pingstone and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Silver birch catkins

(Betula pendula. The catkins ripen from the stem to stern, so for a short period in the spring, the trees are covered with two-toned flowers.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Online Sangha

I've been gratified over the years to encounter a small but steady circle of fellow hermits on social media. It's always encouraging to meet others on the path – a particular challenge that distinguishes our practice from that of our cœnobitic (collectively practicing) brothers and sisters.

However, the quality of our experiences, while less frequent, can be notably higher.

Because hermit monks meet on rigidly equal ground. We're ordained by no-one except our similarly equal mothers. Therefore we share, compare, and contrast from a position of parity.

And as none of us can invoke rank to overrule or silence another, we tend to do all of this freely, in sincere respect and gratitude.

Just having someone to talk to. Just that, leads us to cherish each other.

This is radically different from the way companionship works inside, where dominating "lesser" sangha is the defining role of teacher or senior student.

The obedience and hierarchy that are necessary in the monastery or Zen centre are pointless – impossible, actually – on our path; and as a hermit's teachers are often impersonal, we're in little danger of miring up in an obedience fetish.

Obedience to whom?

Throw in our civilian clothes, and layfolk are liable to be a bit mystified about what it is we "do". In such situations, it's natural to cite first what we don't do.

• We don't teach.
• We don't preach.
• We don't accept supervision from those who do.
• And we seldom practice in groups.

Most incisively, we cleave to our founder's insistence that enlightenment is not conferred. It's yours for the taking, and can't be refused or rescinded by anyone else.

Thus, the blog and social media component of my practice isn't about claiming authority I don't have. My efforts here aren't meant to teach others or arbitrate their enlightenment.

Rather, they help fulfil my duty of sangha. Supplying, for the most part, but receiving as well, when I'm lucky.

I greatly empathise with and appreciate my brothers and sisters on the path. This is a lonely calling, hard to triangulate, because our mistakes are made in solitude. Which means I'm frequently enlightened within minutes of encounters with other seekers.

A conundrum that's tormented me for 40 years, they resolved long ago.

Shackle struck, ego eluded.

Advance one step.


For those interested, my coordinates are:

https://universeodon.com/@RustyRing
https://bsky.app/profile/rusty-ring.bsky.social
https://twitter.com/Rusty_Ring

(My timeline on these platforms is rather more political these days than I'm comfortable with, but don't be intimated; I prioritise good conversations about Zen and practice, and related topics.)

WW: Western trumpet honeysuckle

(Lonicera ciliosa. Iconic flower of the North Coast understory.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

When The Child Was A Child

I saw this film when it was new, beside a beautiful young woman with whom I did not yet realise I was in love.

She was also a German speaker, and afterward, shuffling through the autumn leaves of Northwest Portland, she taught me to say „Als das kind kind war“ properly.

Or any road, as properly as someone who doesn't speak German can say it.

I served her tea in my apartment, her eyes imprinted on my soul, and we parted without kissing.

Re-watching this opening scene almost 40 years later, it's like prophecy – the filmmaker's patina of memory, the palpable Zen in the poetry, and the young man as yet too distracted to be awake to it.

At least I had a better excuse in that place and moment.

WW: Nacre sunset

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

WW: Sun shower

(Not real interested in coming back inside today.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Anzac Day Meditation

Died aged 18 near this spot.
April 25th, 1915.
Did his best.

Australian tombstone at Gallipoli.


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

WW: More oyster mushrooms

(Still Pleurotus ostreatus. I've posted on these before, but it never ceases to amaze me how attached this species is to the saltchuck. Rare just a few hundred yards inland, if you can smell the bay, this choice edible isn't just common, it's riotous. Something in the chemical signature of sea air.

The above photo documents just a few feet of downed big leaf trunk that's covered with them. And it's not the only host in this patch of woods, either; if I'd been of a mind, or just greedier, I could have had gallons.

But I only took about five stems, and am busy deciding what to do with them. [Among other things, oyster mushrooms are great breaded and fried, and make a worthy substitute for seafood or chicken in veganised dishes.]

A spring blessing that never gets old.)


Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Quitting On Principle

A friend recently posted this meme on social media. His immediate intent was the current political situation, but in fact, it's really standing policy in any circumstance.

Sometimes we commit to things that take us down paths we wouldn't have chosen had we foreseen them. In the past I've incurred damage when I felt I couldn't back out of an initial commitment; that it was universally binding.

They rarely are. And even in matters where backing out implies a penalty, you're free to choose the penalty.

We tend to confuse anticipated blowback with lack of agency.

I had a teacher when I was young who told us that there are only two have-to's in life: you have to die, and you have to choose. Everything else is choice.

"What if someone points a gun at you?" we said.

"You can still refuse to do what he says."

"What if he shoots you?" we objected.

"Then you chose that. And if you do what he says, you also chose that."

I remember that some classmates had trouble with this notion, and petulantly rejected the teacher's point. But Zen agrees with him. Choice is always yours.

And any road, as I write this, guns aren't in play.

But I wouldn't bet on tomorrow.

These are karmic times. At such moments it's important to maintain a firm understanding of right and wrong, and what you owe.

What you have to do, and what you choose to do.

WW: Gyrovague beach ball

(This lone beach ball rolled past my front yard during a windstorm last week, from unknown origins and pursued by no person. As I was then occupied, I was unable to run after it and corral it. Next day I was in the back yard, and here it came again, travelling in the opposite direction this time, along the lane behind my house. I have no idea if it ever returned to its home, or if its erstwhile owners even know it's missing, but St. Benedict, any road, would not approve.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

The Inevitable Spring

The warbler
wipes its muddy feet
on plum blossoms

–Issa


(Plum Garden, Kamata, by Utagawa Hiroshige, courtesy of Rawpixel.com.)

WW: Turtle boom

(Turtles have always been rare on the North Coast. Unlike the other three reptiles that manage to survive here [this one and this one and this one], they're egg layers, and the rotting wet and lack of spring sunshine makes that problematic. So it was that I, an inveterate turtle lover, had only ever found a single one in the lake I grew up on. On summer days I used row quite a distance to see him, hauled out on his log of choice.

In the intervening years the lake got severely over-developed and the swampy shore where our lone turtle lived turned into lawn. The very log he used to bask on was ripped out of the lake. Since that time, about when I was in college, I've only seen one other turtle here, in a nearby lake just a few years ago.

Then, while walking the dog near some containment ponds last week, I encountered six (!) of them, lined up on a log beneath the first real sun we've had this year. Sadly, they were too far away for a recognisable photograph, but as I rounded the corner, I found a small one, about the size of an adult's hand, close enough for my phone to steal a shot. Still too far for positive species identification, but the Western painted turtle [Chrysemys picta bellii] being functionally our only native, this is probably that.

This must be how it feels to bag a photo of Sasquatch.

Next day, a friend posted photos of a similar line of turtles in my childhood lake, about 6 miles away. Both events have blown my mind.

It's hard not to draw the conclusion that this is yet another symptom of climate disruption. Less rainfall and elevated temperatures have almost certainly raised the turtle fertility here. I'm delighted to see them, but it's one more indication that our unique North Coast environment is rapidly disappearing.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Understanding Zen Practice

"Open during remodel."



(Photo courtesy of Amy Serin and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Café cats

(These are two employees of Neko, Bellingham's cat café. In this establishment, one may enjoy a variety of snacks while petting a truly bewildering array of resident cats. I captured this photo on their day off, which they take in the café's basement, where they enjoy access to sidewalk-level window lounges such as this one.

Some of these cats are professionals, but a significant number are there for the purpose of test-driving, after which the driver takes them home. A large display of photos on the wall documents dozens of former staff who thus found alternative employment as house cats. One wonders if it seems anticlimactic to be petted by just a few unchanging people every day, far from the glamour and adulation of show business.

One also wonders if their human coworkers get tired of cat house jokes.)


Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

The Infinite Monk Theorem

"An infinite number of monks,
with an infinite number of zafus,
and an infinite amount of time,
would eventually get around to meditating."

Wu Ya

(This assertion has never been formally tested, but my suspicions are the results would be similar to those of another famous thought experiment.)




(Nineteenth century Japanese drawing of a monk meditating, or maybe sleeping, courtesy of the US Library of Congress and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Signal the uprising!

(Narcissus garden blooms have long become wildflowers here on the North Coast, punching up in lawns and pastures, along roads, and, as here, in open forests. Most years they announce the coming of spring just days before it arrives, their bright yellow blossoms chiming like bells in the cold dark wet of late winter.

Each year I'm sceptical, and each year I'm wrong.)

Bodhisattva Day 2025

So here we are on another Bodhisattva Day. The statement has subtly become more emphatic in the current environment; even a touch confrontational, in a world where any call for steady hands is suddenly fighting words.

Perhaps that's why I chose my father's cardigan this year, though the thought only just now occurred to me.

My best to all who agree that discretion and mindfulness are the essence of morality.

Gasshō.

WW: Bodhisattva Day is 20 March!

(That's me in my cardigan on Bodhisattva Day 2014. This year Bodhisattva Day falls on Thursday – i.e., tomorrow. For information on the bodhisattva principle, Bodhisattva Day, and how to participate,
click this link.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Maximum Illumination

Enlightenment is the stated goal of Buddhism, possibly the only doctrine all denominations share, though variously defined.

As far as I know, all Zen lineages, diverse though we are, uphold the conviction that enlightenment is possible in this life; that it comes irrespective of social and material distinctions; and that meditation is the fundamental discipline of enlightenment practice.

In theory, we also hold our leaders to a "maximum illumination" standard; that is, the teacher must be the most enlightened person in the zendo. The old Chàn chronicles preserve accounts of itinerant peasants summarily unseating exalted abbots in dharma combat. And if that martial art has now mellowed to ritual sparing between genial sanghamates, in those old Chinese records it's presented as deadly earnest.

All of this goes to the strength with which the Ancestors cleaved to a central principle. To wit: if we're going to dropkick the Buddha's explicit orders for an egalitarian sangha, then the brother or sister monk we perch precariously on that perilous peak must at minimum embody awakening.

And it's at this point that we slam smack into the Christian concept of antinomianism.

For among the many commonalities our two religions share is an insistence on the possibility – nay, obligation – of attaining a superior spiritual state in this life. We call it enlightenment, they call it salvation, but though our understandings of those states differ in important ways, our certainty that they exist prompts coreligionists to announce themselves special and demand extra-scriptural privilege.

Specifically, they declare themselves leaders.

And this is where the antinomianism comes in. Because upon their ascension to secular power, two unproductive phenomena abruptly co-arise:

1. Their conduct becomes demonstrably unenlightened.

2. They insist this unenlightened conduct is in fact the height of enlightenment; it's just that the sangha are too pedestrian to grasp their higher wisdom.

And that second one is antinomianism. You see, it's really very simple: treating others like doormats is the soul of bodhisattva practice. It's just what arhats do, and if you were one, you'd get that

And there-in lies a crisis. Because it's not.

Not that defining enlightenment isn't hard. How can you tell if a person has attained a state that can't be comprehended, or even defined?

As the ancient Zen joke would have it: how do you eff the ineffable?

I've thought about this a lot. I've scrutinised my own experience; what's happened on the cushion, where my heart moves during and after kensho, what's changed in my personality in two decades of mindful practice.

I haven't become enlightened, but I've grown measurably, and the Buddha said that's evidence of nascent awakening.

So becoming a better person than you were pre-zazen is the test. Are you less judgemental now, more empathetic? Less uptight, more patient? Calmer? More loving, less ambitious?

Has your ego diminished, or inflated? Are you supple or brittle? Do you fret more in social contention, or less?

How do you measure up on the 8 Worldly Dharmas Illumination Indicator?

If these lights aren’t green, why waste your life becoming an even bigger ass than you already are by being boss?

In the end, I've gained one practical insight into the quandary of human limitation:

–––> It's what you do with it.

(NB: Not a new concept on these pages, but a new application of it.)

Annoyance, impatience, disappointment, despair, frustration; what do you do when they happen?

Do you use or manipulate others? Do you make cutting remarks or determine to get even?

Do you apologise when you've behaved in an ignorant, superior, or abusive fashion?

These are universal human challenges, but a moral authority must own and publicly grapple with them. And by this standard, you can see the risk you run to your own practice when you set yourself up as a guru.

Which is why my brotherly counsel is not to.

Of one thing I'm sure: selfish, inconsiderate, preëmptory behaviour is not a sign of enlightenment. And refusing to confess, apologise, and atone afterward indicates you're not even on the road.

It's not that I don't yet know enough about enlightenment.

It's that I know too much.


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

WW: Cabin bedroom

(A shot of the bedroom on second-floor of friends' remote cabin, which I've mentioned here a few times.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Good Song: Come Join The Murder

I had never heard of this alt hymn, or the artists who built it, or even the television series that launched it, before I first heard it on Celtic Music Radio some weeks ago. (Or maybe The Whip, or Folk Alley? Apologies to the unknown programme director with the sound judgement to add this track to the rotation.)

Which is probably for the best, as I understand the climactic scene behind which these poignant verses run would have superseded any connexions my own mind might have made.

And the work is deeply moving on its own.

In the meantime I've listened to it over and over again – I'm listening to it now – and suggest you do as well.

Listen without the lyrics. Let the chant flow through your skull. If the current moves you, listen a few times more before you engage your binary drive.

Just savour the oracular growl of Jake Smith (aka The White Buffalo), voicing the literary dexterity of lyricist Kurt Sutter. (While we're up, let's also note that the titular "murder" refers to a posse of corvids, not a capital crime.)

Those birds – crows, jays; ravens above all – were sangha during my forest ango; omnipresent, providing a guidance hard to quantify in the Red Dust World.

But you can take my word for it. These words–

Come join the murder
Come fly with black
We'll give you freedom
From the human trap

–arrested me.

Never mind that the story puts a darker spin on it; for me this quatrain encapsulates my experience on the mountain, taking me back to that time and place.

More sit than song.

And as Marshall McLuhan didn't quite say:

"The meditation is the message."

Therefore, for the good of The Order, I say in brotherly communion:

Let us clear our minds of discrimination, and contemplate this wisdom.


Wu Ya's commentary:

"Look, it's just a song."

–烏鴉


Come Join The Murder

by The White Buffalo and The Forest Rangers
words and music by Kurt Sutter

There's a blackbird perched outside my window
I hear him calling
I hear him sing
He burns me with his eyes of gold to embers
He sees all my sins
He reads my soul

One day that bird, he spoke to me
Like Martin Luther
Like Pericles

Come join the murder
Come fly with black
We'll give you freedom
From the human trap
Come join the murder
Soar on my wings
You'll touch the hand of God
And he'll make you king
And he'll make you king

On a blanket made of woven shadows
Flew up to heaven
On a raven's glide
These angels have turned my wings to wax now
I fell like Judas
Grace denied

And on that day he lied to me
Like Martin Luther
Like Pericles

Come join the murder
Come fly with black
We'll give you freedom
From the human trap
Come join the murder
Soar on my wings
You'll touch the hand of God
And he'll make you king
And he'll make you king

I walk among the children of my fathers
The broken wings, betrayal's cost
They call to me but never touch my heart now
I am too far
I'm too lost

All I can hear is what he spoke to me
Like Martin Luther
Like Pericles

Come join the murder
Come fly with black
We'll give you freedom
From the human trap
Come join the murder
Soar on my wings
You'll touch the hand of God
And he'll make you king
And he'll make you king

So now I curse that raven's fire
You made me hate, you made me burn
He laughed aloud as he flew from Eden
You always knew
You never learn

The crow no longer sings to me
Like Martin Luther
Or Pericles

Come join the murder
Come fly with black
We'll give you freedom
From the human trap
Come join the murder
Soar on my wings
You'll touch the hand of God
And he'll make you king

Come join the murder
Come fly with black
We'll give you freedom
From the human trap
Come join the murder
Soar on my wings
You'll touch the hand of God
And he'll make you king
And he'll make you king

WW: At it again

(The beavers. Like all rodents, apparently created for the express purpose of sowing chaos.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Delate Wawa

The hardest thing in this world, is to live in it.

Be brave.

– Buffy the Vampire Slayer


(Photo of young Iranians standing against the forces of autocracy courtesy of Samoel Safaie and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Winter day on the pond

WW: Great blue heron

(Ardea herodias. Standing about two feet tall here.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

St. Valentine's Day Meditation

Love is an act of courage, a losing bet that makes all who place it holy. Absurdity, sacrifice, and heartbreak are integral to it; marks of valour, not folly.

Those who refuse to honour it are first damned and last saved.

– From the journal of my 100 days of solo meditation in the forest, the story of which – 100 Days on the Mountain – I'm currently shopping to publishers.


(Photo of traffic signal trafficked for St. Valentine's Day – a lighthouse in the trackless night – courtesy of François Detemmerman and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Ochre star

(Pisaster ochraceus.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Cross X

I've been listening to a podcast about cults, the primary sin of which (as well as many so-called mainstream congregations, including some that claim to teach Zen), is clerical abuse. Regular readers will recognise this as one of my hot buttons.

The hosts of the show (Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and Manipulation) are both cult survivors – one of a Mormon offshoot, the other of a radical Protestant church. Their personal experience lends valuable insight into the journey their guests have made to end up in front of their microphones.

The manner in which larger society receives cult survivors also comes up. I find this particularly interesting, since it's clear to me that if you drill deep and with unflinching honesty, a whole schedule of self-destructive behaviours – cult membership, suicide, abusive relationships, depression, personality disorders, addiction, most crime – usually originate in social violence.

And former cult members, like spousal abuse survivors, are prime targets for lazy critics. You were weak, stupid, cowardly, you gave tacit consent, and therefore you remain entirely responsible for any misdeeds you committed, or enabled others to commit.

The reflexive question survivors typically face is, "Why didn't you leave?" Moral equivalent of Groucho's "answer yes or no, do you or do you not still beat your wife?"; this challenge is impossible to answer without incriminating yourself. The question itself reads unfinished; it wants "…you idiot" at the end.

But as the hosts of Trust Me point out, it's much more productive to flip it:

"Why did you stay?"

Implied judgement is still there, but whereas the first query rings with fault and blame, this one accepts the equal possibility of decency: Why were you loyal? Why did you commit to this? What did you invest? Who were you afraid to hurt or disappoint? What dissuaded you from acting in your own interest?

Like all penetrating insights, this one is applicable to a lot more than just cults. In Zen we're taught that our true motivation for any act, casual or momentous, is almost always occult; layer upon layer of mind functions work in the dark, so that by the time thought hardens into action, we may be entirely ignorant of its origins.

Nowhere is this more evident than when I confront others in judgement.

Worst of all: when I stand in judgement of myself.

Therefore, henceforward, when interrogating others on past decisions, instead of asking "Why didn't you leave?", I will undertake to ask, "Why did you stay?".

Even when the accused and Crown Counsel are the same person.


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

WW: Okanogan cactus

(Opuntia fragilis or x columbiana, depending where you sit in that debate.

It's important to know where you sit when Opuntia's about.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Hermit Rule 26

Liberate yourself from everything that doesn't concern you.
Don't depend on people or on situations.
Look for your refuge and your help only in God.

– A Franciscan hermit in my Bluesky sangha.


(Photo of a lotus on the grounds of the Franciscan Monastery (sic) of the Holy Land in America courtesy of Clare Tallamy and Unsplash.com)

WW: Disturbing kleenex box

(This household object sends my mind on a variety of creeped-out tangents. Seems it keys neurons connected to a shelf of shadowy childhood nightmares. Maybe it's just me.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Hero Practice

They warn you not to meet your heroes,
to leave them unknown quantities,
to avoid disappointment.

But have you considered this:

Meet your heroes.

See them.

Accept their humanity,
the very unremarkable nature of them.

Stare reality in the eye,
that heroes live in this world with us.

They are from here,
made of the same material,
worn by the same forces.

Raised here, hazed here, as convoluted and unsavable as the rest of us.

Penetrate the nature of heroism;
have you run off half-cocked without doing this?

Did your heroes disappoint you?

Or was it you?


(Photo courtesy of Esteban López and Unsplash.com.)

WW:Winter evening on the bay

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Street Level Zen: Effect

"It's not that the wind is blowing. It's what the wind is blowing."

My friend Brent.

[Who informs me now that he originally got this mot d'ordre from comic Ron White.]


(Photo of dust storm swallowing Phoenix, AZ courtesy of Wikipedia Commons and a generous photographer.)

WW: Winter waterdog

(Taricha granulosa. One of the many good things in life.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Good Video: Не могу оторвать глаз от тебя

Though it's generally unknown to Western Buddhists, Russia is one of the formative homelands of our religion. Not only has Buddhism been practiced there for as long as many another Asian nation – for example, the Volga republic of Kalmykia is the only region of Europe to have a historical Buddhist majority – Russia also hosts today what is likely the most fervent and productive conversion movement in the Eurosphere (i.e., nations with white majorities).

I was reminded of this while, for the first time in years, rewatching the above video. I originally encountered this song via primeval Internet radio, and it first appeared on Rusty Ring away back in January 2011, at the bottom of my third-ever post. (Those earliest articles sometimes ended with a premium, called the Cereal Box Prize. When, inevitably, finding and formatting this treat began to eat appalling amounts of blogging time, I abandoned that quirk, though not without regret.)

But having listened to Не могу оторвать глаз от тебя again (and remarveled at that awesome video), I figure it's due for a 14-year bump.

Аквариум (Aquarium) are a seminal Russian pop group, with roots deep in the perilous (for rock musicians) Soviet era. Today they're one of a handful of contemporaries routinely compared to the Beatles. Although founder Boris Grebenshchikov's precise religious convictions remain elusive, he's published multiple translations of Buddhist and Hindu texts and has a long history of including consequent themes in his music.

Just what (or whom) he is singing to here is a bit enigmatic. That chanting refrain suggests your standard love poem; you know, to another human. But the moiling mysticism of those verses opposes that hypothesis.

Still, his repeated second-person appeal at least seems to rule out a Buddhist theme; the author is clearly addressing an interlocutor he can see and calls "you". Our religion generally, though not categorically, refuses to speculate on such things.

The Eastern church, meanwhile – Russia's majority faith – has spoken of and to God in tones very like these for two thousand years.

So there it is: the song is Christian.

But what about that video? Seriously, fellow Buddhists, what about that awesome video? That's not just patently Buddhist, that's outright Zen.

Bodhidharma if ever I saw him.

So maybe "you" is enlightenment. Or the Path. Or the Great Matter. Or Kanzeon. Or some other glib Buddhist euphemism for God.

I don't know.

(See what I did there?)

Anyway, it's in front of you. Watch it. Hear it. See if it doesn't key your bodhisattva nature as hard as it does mine.

The video is of slightly – if very – higher quality than the one shared all those years ago. I was unable to find better, even on our Currently Superior Internet. But no trouble; it still works.

More irksome is the lack of reliable English interpretation. I can grasp the thrust of these lyrics, but my Russian is not up to translating them, at least not accurately. But I can tell that the translation supplied here is a little better than several others I found, by a slim margin.

I'd bet all were generated by artificial ignorance. Buy human, folks.

But for the moment, it seems our only recourse is to accept the best of them, however flawed. Just bridge the gaps with your koanic intelligence.

It's worked for me for 20 years.

WW: Licorice fern

(Polypodium glycyrrhiza. Common fern of the North Pacific Coast, usually spotted as an epiphyte of broadleaf trees. When growing on a rock face, as here, you're looking at a site that gets above average rainfall. The common name reflects the use of its rhizomes as a "chaw" and tea mixing ingredient.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

A Precept For The New Year

"Here’s my new year’s wish to all those of genuine good will and decency:

"May you have the strength and the courage to oppose what should be opposed."

Heidi Li Feldman

(To my sister's succinct and sufficient statement I would append that this be a precept to our enlightenment practice, a reaffirmation of the call to right action, for the impending year and those that follow.)


(Photo courtesy of Sneha Cecil and Unsplash.com.)