The Paradoxical Commandments

Back in the 90s, when I was teaching school, I often encountered the following lines (or edited, unattributed versions of same). Usually they came in memo form, from superiors and their tacksmen, urging that we frontline troops give it our all with no thought of credit or reward.

Coming from that source I was sceptical, to put it mildly.

Yet while my Zen practice was still years out, I couldn't help but detect something deeper in this list of exhortations. The writer's clearly expressing a higher cause – the sort of thing that visibly exasperated management in the 80s and 90s.

It was only later, after I'd become a monk, that I encountered the authentic text and its attribution. The piece, originally called Paradoxical Commandments of Leadership, turns out to be the work of a 19-year-old named Kent M. Keith. His target audience was student government in the turbulent 60s. Thus, viewed in its intended context, it amounts to a rousing manifesto for revolution.

Ho, if those old school administrators had only known! (Better still: if we had.)

On a more contemporary note, it's also a detailed elaboration of a dependent vow in my Rule:

"I will do what I can, even if it's unlikely to succeed."

Viewed from that angle, Kent's meditation addresses harm and resentment carried from past actions and incidents, in almost therapeutic tones that quite move me.

Because it's just as I suspected back then: far from demanding obedience, this text is genuinely subversive. It directs the reader to ignore convention and embrace a more ambitious objective.

One beyond managerial jurisdiction.

So have a look. And if Kent's words spur you to commit insubordinate kindness, well, that's hardly my fault, is it?

I just faxed on the memo.


Paradoxical Commandments of Leadership
by Kent M. Keith

01: People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centred.

Love them anyway.

02: If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.

Do good anyway.

03: If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies.

Succeed anyway.

04: The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.

Do good anyway.

05: Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.

Be honest and frank anyway.

06: The biggest men with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men with the smallest minds.

Think big anyway.

07: People favor underdogs, but follow only top dogs.

Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

08: What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.

Build anyway.

09: People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.

Help people anyway.

10: Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth.

Give the world the best you have anyway.

(Ed. note: this last line is fundamentally the dependant vow I quoted above, stated differently. Coïncidence? Maybe.)


(Photo courtesy of Miki Yoshihito and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Self-portrait, autumn 2026

Hermitcraft: Curried Jack

I always eat my jack o' lantern. Jack pumpkin is cheap per-pound, but grainy and bland compared to food-meant squash, so the uninitiated are often counselled to eat one of those instead and throw Smilin' Jack on the compost.

But ingratitude to that degree my Scottish soul hard abides. Indeed, I've been known to buy several of these giant gourds and carve just one, keeping the others in a cool dark dry place for the months beyond.

The trick to making meat of this vegetable is knowing how to draw out its qualities, and/or to use it in robust dishes where its colour, texture, and restrained sweetness add value.

Which is why I appealed to India for help.

The following simple and quick recipe coalesced in my kitchen about 25 years ago. It's a hearty and healthy Punjabi approach, vegan in its native form, with a widely available North American masala, and I look forward to it all year. (Note that I forgot to scatter the peanuts on this one before I took the photos.)

Curried jack can be served alone as a side dish or over rava, rice, or diced potatoes for a main course. Don't skimp on the spices; too much is enough. Also, I'm fairly spicy for a white guy, so if you aren't, go easy on the jalapeño, black pepper, and ginger.

Finally, like all highly-flavoured dishes, this one is markedly better the next day or later. I seldom get my act together effectively enough to make tomorrow's supper today, but if you're having guests or carrying to a potluck, this is the master stroke. Any road, the unlikely leftovers will be incandescent at next day's lunch.


CURRIED JACK

Serves 2-4 as a main dish, up to 8 as a side.

Ingredients in order:

1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper
1 teaspoon powdered turmeric
1 teaspoon whole brown mustard seed, or substitute yellow
1 tablespoon neutral vegetable oil or ghee
1 clove garlic, minced or pressed
1/4 to 1/2 cup chopped onion
10 jarred jalapeño rings, or 5-7 fresh, chopped small
1 1/2 teaspoon grated fresh gingerroot
3 pints peeled and roughly diced pumpkin
1 16-ounce can of diced tomatoes
1 large bay leaf
1/2 teaspoon ground thyme
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/2 cup sliced celery, chopped cabbage, or frozen peas
1/2 cup peanuts (or substitute cooked pulses or meat at the appropriate time)

Rava, rice, or diced potatoes for bedding.


Take a large saucepan or skillet with tight-fitting lid and chafe it over low heat until evenly warmed.

Add the ground cumin, fresh-ground black pepper, powdered turmeric, and whole mustard seed. Move gently with the edge of a spatula until spices are lightly toasted and fragrant, about a minute.

Add the vegetable oil or ghee and stir in the spices to blend.

Add the minced garlic, chopped onion, and grated gingerroot and stir them into the masala mixture.

When the garlic and onion have softened and become translucent, add the diced pumpkin and turn carefully and well to fully distribute the spice mixture.

Turn the heat up to medium and add the canned tomatoes, ground thyme, and lemon juice, turning again to integrate. Don't worry that the tomatoes don't seem to moisten things much; the next step will take care of that.

Add the bay leaf and seal the whole under the lid, 5 to 10 minutes. Shake often to heat evenly and prevent scorching.

When the pumpkin has raised steam, add the green vegetable, lower the heat to medium-low and turn the lot well.

Fit the lid again and allow to simmer until the pumpkin is completely tender and translucent, about 20 minutes, turning from time to time.

Scatter the peanuts over the top and serve over rava, rice, or diced potatoes, if a main course.

WW: Autumn centrepiece

Just Enough

Oryoki reminds me of Dorothy Parker.

Among the many anecdotes from Parker's life – most of them entered into the record by the subject herself – my favourite entails the strategy she used to attract men during a particularly dry spell in that department. It seems members of the opposite sex were simply walking past her without slowing. So Parker wrote a single word in large block letters on an index card and posted it on her office door.

The tactic proved immediately and continuously effective. By her own account, into her office flowed an endless stream of "…older men. Young men. Rich men. Poor men. Married men. Unmarried men. Men who were not too sure."

Whatever, one wonders, could Parker have written on that card to produce such results?

It's elementary, really.

MEN

I think about this epigram in my Zen practice. How perfectly it encapsulates the literal meaning of oryoki (応量器), which I'm told ultimately comes from the Chinese for "the bowl that holds just enough". (Yes, I'm aware that the way we use this word in modern Soto means exactly the opposite. More like, "how many ways can we complicate things normal people do quickly, easily, and naturally". But that's religion for you.)

But this notion that needs are finite and definable – and that serving more than a bowl can receive just results in more dukkha – is inspired. And in the end it even accomodates the current use of "oryoki" – which refers in Soto to the intricate, shame-manufacturing rituals our zendos impose at meal time – because they are in fact the precise amount of attention required to get the whole sangha through a meal in little time and with the least amount of fallout.

It occurs to me that our world has largely forgotten this value. Notions of effective action, and our duty to produce it, have been tossed aside and replaced with an odd and very irritating loyalty to stasis; the belief that "just enough" means holding to a conservative present, in which change itself is tolerated only if it results in shrinking our servings even further.

We leave ten thousand bowls empty and call it discipline, at the insistence of leaders who empty ten thousand bowls into one and justify it as their imagined right.

This is not just enough, in either the positive or negative sense.

As for me, I find living the oryoki model challenging. It's not that I'm greedy – I'm not, by nature – but I'm scared. I want a bumper, a safety net, and famously, when you surrender to that goal, you never reach it.

So I do my best to pose the oryoki question often: "Do I have enough in this moment?" It works well for small stuff, like lunch, or attention, or diversion. When it comes to the wherewithal of survival, it's less productive.

But in true Zen style, just asking the question – just that – broadens the view.

Just enough.


(Photo courtesy of Shigeru Sakuma and Unsplash.com.)

WW: Bedtime for the Venus flytrap

(The 2026 Venus flytrap season is wandering to an end. It's been a rousing year: at last count mine has got 15 open and functional traps, about twice as many as this time last year. I can think of a few reasons, mostly the plant finally finding a rhythm here after a few years of settling in. We're also enjoying an unusually sunny and dry autumn this year; the region looks more like Central Canada than the North Pacific Coast.

Venus flytraps [Dioneae muscipula] are native to the Carolinas, where winter isn't trivial, and usually by this time of year mine lets me know it's ready for its winter torpor – the not-quite-hibernation it falls into during the darkest months. Then I put it in a cold room with mostly indirect sunlight, and it stops growing – without however dying back – till spring. And in fact the recent traps are only half the size of the ones it set last summer, a sure sign of impending sleep. But those smaller traps have also matured and opened for business, which is a contradictory indication.

So I'll wait a few more days before putting it to bed.)

Getting On With It

"Well, never mind.
We are ugly, but we have the music."

Leonard Cohen

(Tōsendō Rifū's Wakashu and Itinerant Monk Playing the Shakuhachi courtesy of the Honolulu Museum of Art and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Mystery shelter

(This temporary structure lies in the middle of a forest, where it has apparently been temporary for decades. It's the sort of building often erected for a greenhouse or potting shed, or makeshift housing for someone on a longterm outdoor job. None of which applies here, in a mature bigleaf forest with no vehicle access [or even footpath, at least not anymore] to the site.

The tarp stretched over its impromptu wooden frame has mostly rotted away from all but the near wall, and a thick lawn of forest duff, grass, moss, and ferns, a good 8 inches deep, has accrued heavily on what remains of the roof.

Kids' playhouse? Teenager's summer retreat? No idea. But heck, I'd live there.)

The Nutshell Koan

This koan-calibre meme has been making the rounds on the Fediverse recently. The insight here is unmistakable, and like all incisive analysis, reveals new facets and angles as it's turned in the light.

It's also universally applicable, so if these terms are unacceptable, you'll have to find another planet to do business with.

WW: Autumn resistance

(Courtesy of Ginkgo biloba.)

Geese

After dinner I set the dishes to soak and stole a walk along the Snake, nostrils filled with an evening bouquet of willow and grass, and a late June river now warmer than the wind.

Mid-channel, where a less sensitive fisher might have cut doughnuts and shattered the day's-end respite, a lone jet sled planed, sedate and respectful.

As it passed, a black periscope suddenly rose out of the weedy bank, then two more: the half-honking sentries of a squadron of Canada geese. Odd, there in canyon country, where such large, horde-inclined birds might be supposed few and temporary. But these were clearly local, bedded down in the casual trust of home. I later learned this resident flock was new, having landed one spring day, literally out of blue, and set up a permanent summer headquarters.

Military types, geese. Not the cocky commandos of war movies, but the steady, steely soldiers of real life, more resolute than brave, given to objectives and logistics and calculated risk. No other culture could sustain a nation like theirs: bulky, soft-sided airframes blacking the sky twice a year as they cross and recross a predatory planet. Evidently, Chief Timothy State Park was one place in the Snake River Canyon that met their criteria: food, water, and cover, with a wide approach that favoured landing and take-off.

And, critically, an acceptably low incidence of shotguns.

(Adapted from Rough Around the Edges: A Journey Through Washington's Borderlands, copyright RK Henderson. Canada goose courtesy of Albert Stoynov and Unsplash.com. Snake River at evening courtesy of David Dugan and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Indian summer dahlias

(D. coccinea.)

Disclaimer

WARNING: this book contains descriptions of defecation, the 1970s, and Zen. Sensitive readers may wish to look elsewhere.

I've been vetting disclaimers for the title page of 100 Days on the Mountain, the book I've written about my forest ango. The above draught covers the bases, but I worry some might still sue me for marketing a supposedly Buddhist memoir that's "too country, too prosaic, and too real."

OK… but that's also a succinct summary of my readers.

(Photo of me on the last day, sitting zazen in my meditation shelter, taken by the friend who drove out and picked me up. Note water cup on its designated branch.)

WW: Half moon over the pond

(Not bad for handheld.)

Suchness Haiku

From the nostril
of the Great Buddha comes
a swallow

Issa

…demonstrating again why he's the greatest haikunist ever.


(Photo of giant Buddha statue on the Hill of the Buddha, Sapporo, Japan, courtesy of Unsplash.com and a generous photographer.)

Street Level Zen: Progress

"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them."

Albert Einstein


(Photo courtesy of Michael DeMarco and Unsplash.com.)

WW: Rose campion

(Silene coronaria. Snapped on slide spoil at the base of a Puget Sound bluff and entirely unretouched. Neither native nor quite invasive, this beautiful Eurasian blossom is common on poor, disturbed soil in this habitat.)

Yogi Berra-roshi

Major League baseball player and manager Yogi Berra was an iconic figure in the America of my childhood. Not so much for his stats, though they were impressive, but for his way with language. Several of his declarative statements – "It ain't over 'til it's over;" "It's déjà vu all over again;" "When you come to a fork in the road, take it" – have become clichés in American English, declaimed by speakers who neither realise the syntactic complexity in what they've just said or know who they're quoting.

And there are many more of these Yogiisms. So many that entire books, and even websites, are given to preserving this wisdom that flexes so many neurons we seldom use. But at least one of Yogi's aphorisms has always intrigued me.

"We made too many wrong mistakes" was his response to a journalist who asked why, in his opinion, his team had lost a game. It got the usual good-natured laugh from fans, but I maintain this is perfectly logical and not a malapropism at all.

Because mistakes are not created equal.

Sometimes you defer to another's opinion, even though you know his or her proposal is non-performing. In other moments you allow your own arrogance or apathy to determine a course of action without due consideration. Or you fall back on a method that already hasn't worked several times, in the lazy hope it magically will this time.

These are wrong mistakes, made against better judgement or scruples, arising from beginningless anger, greed, and ignorance, predisposed to fail or complicate other issues.

Then there are instances where you try a thing that should theoretically work, though you can't control all the variables. Or you press a strategy that's borne fruit other times, only to discover its limitations. Or you set an untried course because the standard response is unethical. You take your best shot, something else that might work, in the conviction that the experience will ultimately lead to a principled alternative, whether the present experiment pans out or not.

Those are right mistakes. You make them in good faith, for good reasons. And pass or fail, that kind of mistake clarifies data and contributes to future endeavours.

They are in fact the driving force of progress, without which we stagnate and die.

So I try to apply the Yogi Principle to innovations in my Zen practice. Am I yielding to a wrong temptation – how does it fare on the Eight Worldly Dharmas scale? – or is my proposed change grounded in a genuine desire to optimise my well-being and that of others, now and in future.

It's easy for eremitical monastics to wander into cul de sacs, given the paucity of human sangha around us. So you've got to keep your own ego in view, and that of teachers and other influences.

Because ninety per cent of this game is half mental.


(Photo of 1951 Yogi baseball card courtesy of Bowman Gum and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Kintsugi bowl

(A few years ago my sister gave me a kit for making a kintsugi bowl, probably because she knows how deeply that artform speaks to me. I greatly appreciated the gift, but for one reason and next – mostly that the skills required are fairly wide of my talents – I ended up offering it to an artist friend, in a bid to fulfill the kit's destiny. My friend agreed to assume this responsibility on one condition: that I take ownership of the finished article.

And now it resides with me.)

WW: Skeleton house

(The past decade has seen the rise of a strange new cult where I live: skeleton houses. Why here? Why now?

I don't know, but I'm about certain it started with people erecting prodigious osteology in their yards for Hallowe'en and then deciding just to leave it up year-round and skip all that work in future. Like they started doing with Christmas lights when I was a young man – up and lit all year.

And now these spooky giants haunt the county. Every time I pass a new one I'm back in the rollicking days of the Black Death, when we carved, painted, and drew Old Boney everywhere to remind the rich and powerful what their riches and power are worth.

Hmm. Might've answered my own question, there.)