nothing

I practice meditation ~ some people tell me that I’m wasting my time ~ what good is sitting doing nothing ~ I’m no expert and I have no answers ~ in fact, sometimes I have my own doubts and stop practicing ~ writing it down is a way of explaining it to myself ~ if reading someone else’s explanation about doing nothing sounds like a waste of time ~ feel free to move on ~ who can blame you. Nothingness is a necessary state for something to happen ~ Buddha said something like this over 2,500 years ago ~ lately, practitioners in the field of neuroscience have been re-discovering the teachings of Buddha ~ I find this strangely reassuring. At the earliest stage of experiencing something ~ nothing is happening. Between each event arriving at the senses ~ the lenses are wiped clean ~ even a simple nerve cell has to return to a neutral state before it can receive and transmit a clear signal to the brain. Buddha taught that the mind and body are in a state of perpetual renewal ~ and that meditation is simply a period of doing nothing to interfere ~ just sitting and watching instances of thought and feeling appear and disappear ~ without judging or criticizing them as they go ~ I find that sitting still and doing nothing is just about the hardest thing in the world to do.

zen practice

Nobody takes turns talking in my head ~ everyone keeps shouting at the same time ~ it doesn’t matter though, no one is really listening ~ sometimes, during practice, I catch a riff ~ today it went like this:

Hey, I practiced a little longer today ~ Yeah, well .. if you keep practicing out here the neighbors are going to think we’re nuts ~ I don’t care, I like being outdoors, besides ..I stopped feeling like I was living in a fishbowl a long time ago ~ Oh yeah ..then what made you bring it up? ~ Just an observation ~ No it wasn’t ..you were obsessing ~ OK, I was observing myself obsessing ~ A lot of good that’ll do ~ Actually, non-judgmental observation is an excellent way to practice ~ Who told you that? ~ Jisho Perry ~ Sounds like an excellent way to practice rationalizations if you ask me ~ That’s because you don’t practice enough ~ Hey, there is no such thing as ‘too much’ or ‘too little’ ..it’s just practice, remember? ~ Where’d you get that idea? ~ Jisho Perry ~ Do you believe everything he tells you ?~ No ~ Yes you do ~ No I don't ~ and so it goes ~ No wonder I don’t do this more often.

Animal poo

For the past couple weeks I’ve been walking up a road that leads to a canyon behind me. A fine yellow powder covers the road and makes me wonder ~ I look up at the oak trees ~ but they are not like eucalyptus trees that leave pollen all over my deck. Oak trees don’t shed like that. I ran into Bob today, a retired dentist who lives across the way. I like to call him ‘Dr Jones’ the way they do in the Indiana Jones’ movies. Anyway, the oak trees belong to him and he tells me there’s an ‘oak caterpillar’ eating the leaves ~ he points out a couple of trees that I hadn’t noticed ~ they’re almost bare. It turns out that the yellow powder I’d been wondering about is the excrement from this leaf-eating activity ~ and I’m like euwwww. The nearest cross-street is called Anapamu ~ which I jokingly pronounce ‘animal poo’ to friends of mine from out of town. I guess I’m not joking anymore.

Slip stream

There’s a stream running through my head. I sit and watch it go by ~ one flashing instance after another. When I try to push it ~ or tweak it ~ I disperse it. Now I’ve got several streams running through my head. I see images of my father holding me on his knee ~ zen master Jisho walks by but can’t stay for tea ~ my neighbor Don appears telling me it’s going to be a good day. I see images of Big Sur smoldering and feel anxious about going. Now I’m trying to peak at instances that haven’t arrived yet. Jisho's voice gently tells me I’m leaning too far ~ but it’s too late ~ I’m tumbling head over heels ~ hoping to land in instances closer to home. Doctor Jones tells me to get a grip ~ I'm having an out-of-sequence experience ~ I see the warning signs ~ curva peligrosa ~ I swerve to avoid them and sirens wail ~ a police car roars by like a freight train. I drive along the shoulder until I come to an off-ramp and disappear down the side streets.

Smart people

Video exchange ~ that’s the deal ~ for one fee I get to see as many videos as I want ~ but not at the same time ~ I have to give one back before I can take the next. So, tonight I’m all psyched to see the third season of ‘weeds’ ~ I make sure to put the old video ‘smart people’ in the car before I leave. I arrive at Blockbuster and go directly to the aisle I want ~ the videos are a little mixed up so I shuffle them around until I find the one I’m looking for ~ disk three. I go up to the counter and realize I don’t have ‘smart people’ ~ must’ve left it in the car ~ so I put down weeds ~ go outside and proceed to tear the car apart ~ no luck ~ I must’ve left it at home. I finish shopping then go home and tear the house apart ~ twice ~ and give it up for lost, figuring, this time ~ before I see weeds ~ I’ll have to pay full price for the other video. I take my credit card, go back to Blockbuster, pick up a copy of weeds, and my copy of smart people is sitting right behind it.

Wine country

Water from the Pacific Ocean hits the coast and vaporizes ~ the vapor gets sucked up by thermal drafts and separates into molecules ~ the water molecules get carried away by the jet stream and turn into clouds that rain over the vineyards of California ~ the rain water gets sucked into grapes and the grapes are turned into wine ~ the wine is consumed by people on the coast who dutifully return it to the Pacific Ocean where it crashes into warm coastal air and vaporizes again ~ so, I think what I’m trying to say is ~ the next bottle of wine you drink may have originated in your own backyard.

Letter to the editor

The Los Angeles Times printed my letter today. It's a response to an article written by economist Dan Ariely, titled ‘Deconstructing confidence’ [link].

Letter:  Dr. Ariely, If exposure to uncontrollable events leads to helplessness ..I’m not sure government regulation is the proper antidote. It seems like this would reduce our sense of control even further. I agree that we’ve experienced an alarming sequence of disasters over the last decade. But, I also believe it’s the experience of overcoming events like these that bolsters confidence ..not relying on ‘government planners’ to circumnavigate them for us. Besides, no one is ever going to eliminate unpredictable events and setbacks. The best we can do is prepare for them by fostering a sense of resilience. That seems like a far better antidote to feelings of helplessness than government regulation.

Deconstructing

Another newspaper article caught my attention [link]. Dr. Ariely, a noted economist, cites a landmark study in behavioral science to support his call for more government regulation. While I’m neither for nor against regulation ~ he chose to misinterpret a study I’m familiar with ~ and I need something to write about ~ so bear with me ~ there's a point here somewhere. In 1965, researchers discovered that lab animals, who experience a sequence of uncontrollable events, do not learn future tasks as well as their peers with no such experience. They called this condition ‘learned helplessness’. So now, according to Dr. Ariely, learned helplessness is the reason why Americans are not responding realistically to current economic conditions. Over the last decade, we’ve experienced too many uncontrollable shocks ..things like the Internet crash and the housing collapse. What we need now are more ‘government planners’ to circumvent these things for us. I don’t know, for some reason this doesn’t sound like the proper antidote ~ and ~ pay attention ~ because here's where Dr. Ariely parts ways with the scientific community: the investigators originally working on learned helplessness, discovered that it mimics depression ..and began looking for ways to alleviate it. They found that it takes only a few successes, in situations that people previously considered insurmountable, to restore confidence ..and foster a sense of resilience to future setbacks. Since I don’t think we’re going to eliminate setbacks anytime soon, resilience seems like a far better antidote to feelings of helplessness than government regulation.

Through the looking glass

I wake up to the fragrance of incense, baked cookies and ganja drifting through my bedroom window ~ I throw on some overalls, splash water on my face, pop a couple chewable vitamin C and go investigate ~ my neighbor is playing a wooden flute while a member of his band gently strums a guitar. I'm reminded of meditation time at the Ashram ~ with a twist ~ without words I sit and listen ~ feeling hypnotized ~ Anahstasia passes me a bowl ~ I breathe in deeply and close my eyes ~ a note is struck on a cymbal and the music moves in another direction ~ I follow ~ letting go of my plans for the day ~ I sit and watch them fade away ~ the cymbal rings again and the music moves in a different direction ~ then suddenly ~ flash ~ We’re walking through the redwood trees on cold springs trail ~ I feel like I passed through the looking-glass ~ and popped out here ~ good thing I slipped on a pair of Merrells this morning ~ I try to mention this but my lips are numb and my tongue is heavy ~ I hear their children laughing from the tree limbs above ~ and I’m reminded of the elves of Lothlorien ~ the stewards of the forest appear ahead ~ smiling and welcoming us to join them in a drum circle ~ I bow in greeting and find a place to sit ~ hoping this isn’t a test or something because I don’t know anything ~ and there wasn't time to study.

Reading minds

I ran across an article in today’s paper that caught my attention. It says that army scientists are looking for a way to capture human thought ~ using brain waves ~ in order to help soldiers returning from Iraq with head injuries. Since I somehow consider it my life’s work to debunk overreaching statements like these ~ I thought to myself ~ I know brain waves are good at tracking levels of attention ~ and biofeedback is used to help people with ADD. However, I can find no evidence to suggest that brain waves somehow represent the vicissitudes of human thought. This project has no merit. The only reason the military would consider such a possibility is in search of a better method of mind-control ..which is precisely what they were after, without success, when they conducted unorthodox experiments using LSD back in the sixties. They’re obviously not doing this in the interest of science ..so I certainly can’t believe they’re doing it for the benefit of soldiers returning from Iraq.

Observation deck

The bubbles on the surface of my morning coffee are reflecting different colors ~ I move in for a closer look ~ fine little twinkling stars of violet and green ~ how come I never noticed them before ~ I think back to last night but there’s nothing there to suggest why things would look out of the ordinary today. Perhaps I’m getting a contact high from the smoke drifting by ..and I remember that Cezar is back from Texas. He played Oz fest ..says he’s second only to Ozzy Osbourne in the number of festivals played ~ I congratulated him on that accomplishment, but now I’m wondering if it only means that he’s, like ..the second oldest metal-head there.

The coffee tastes the same ..

Ron comes over and sits down ~ I ask him where he’s been for the last couple weeks. Bisbee Arizona ~ opening another branch of his new-age spiritual center. I’m like ~ Ron, are you out of your mind ..? Those are like traditional God-fearing Christians down there ..with military weapons. I know Lee, we’re really only expecting a small handful of people ..That’s not my point Ron ~ I’m talking about right-wing paramilitary groups who take turns guarding the border ..they’re going to mistake you for a foreign infiltrator and vaporize you. Now Ron is looking at me like I’m the one who’s missing the point. He goes ~ Nah, Bisbee is like the new Santa Fe ..lots of art galleries and antique stores ..stuff like that. And I’m like ~ Uh huh, well ..don’t try spreading the word too far from town ..seriously .. don’t make me come down there looking for you. These are dangerous times for paranoiacs like me.

Drawing by Nicolas ~ age 15

China cat

Rio Bravo

The war on drugs is claiming more lives than the war in Iraq. In the last eighteen months, 4,000 people have been killed across the US-Mexican border .. I’m talking innocent men, women and children .. many of them shot dead with US supplied weapons. There are so many gun shipments headed that way; they’ve begun calling the Rio Grande the Iron River. It’s enough to supply an army ..and balance the trade deficit. In my opinion, drug traffickers have the upper hand .. they follow the laws of nature and principles of economics ..which trump the laws of US legislators every time. High priced intoxicants head north while high-powered weapons move south to ensure the supply chain. US Border States are wide open for gunrunners. We build toll bridges, fences, guard towers ..patrol them with thousand and thousands of border guards .. yet we've accomplished little to stop another force of nature ..human migration. It’s like trying to package water. So, I guess this means we’ll kill 4,000 more people next year in another senseless war.

State of mind

Re: Suspect’s state of mind

LATimes ~ Anyone who tells you they are suffering from ‘paranoid delusions’ is probably not. It shows a degree of lucidity not commonly found among sufferers. However, it is the type of fabrication commonly used by sociopaths ~ someone pursuing profits without concern for the harm they’re doing others. Bruce Ivins clearly had a financial interest in the hoax he was perpetrating ..and a sociopath’s disregard for the consequences. I believe his erratic behavior was engineered ..perhaps as a pretext in the event he was caught.

A letter to the LATimes

Lord Bacchus

My neighbor Dez has a big Doberman, with a bad temper and ferocious bark, in his back yard. His name is Lord Bacchus and they don't like it when I refer to him as just Bach. I forget the reason why so I looked it up just now to see if I could find out. Turns out that Lord Bacchus is another name for Dionysus ..the God of wine and ritual madness. So now I'm grateful to them for keeping me from offending the deities of revelry. Lord Bacchus ..the dog ..has a nasty habit of barking at anyone who passes by ..friend or stranger ..he doesn’t discriminate. The other neighbors are pissed because he can't seem to get it through his thick skull that we live here too .. barking at us doesn't do any good. I think that’s precisely the reason Lord Bacchus keeps barking ..it doesn’t do any good .. and it really pisses him off that, as hard as he tries .. we keep coming back. We don’t learn. So now I’m afraid he’s going to escalate ..going from threatening bark to gnashing teeth.

Observation deck

Did ADD start with tree shrews or humans ..? Do intoxicants play a role in maintaining the ecosystem or are there giant squid lurking beneath the surface ..? I wonder if I’m sufficiently hydrated or having absorption problems. Am I forgetting something ..? Oh, yeah ..I wonder if fence-sitters are the same as flip-floppers. I hear sirens ~ no, those are my ears ringing. What brings some thoughts to mind and buries the rest ..? What’s with all the annoying questions ~ and so few declarative statements ..? Could be self-doubt ~ or the process of analytical-thought. I don’t know which. Where am I going with this ..? I have no idea. Oh shit, I also don’t have time to chat with my neighbor right now ~ but it’s pretty obvious I have nothing else to do ~ better think of something fast ~ nothing comes to mind ~ except maintain eye contact and smile a lot ~ but not too much otherwise he'll think I’ve lost my mind ~ oh, and don’t forget to nod at the appropriate times.

Photo of a tree shrew ~ the first mammal to be able to focus attention ~ and shift attention ~ with equal ease. I admire these little creatures.

Laura

Tropical storm Laura passed through town today ~ in her hand was a pre-paid attorney's plan. Looks like someone's in for trouble ~ I’m not going to go into that now however. We had breakfast at IHOP. Although she prefers the hot salsa heuvos rancheros at Rose’s ~ so do I for that matter ~ my stomach won’t allow it. Afterwards we collapse into lounge chairs on the deck ~ she plays a CD she bought from a singer she saw performing at the airport in Austin ~ Amanda Lepre ~ a folk rock artist who plays a mean guitar [see video below]. We talk about life in Austin ~ and how US drug policies are turning her trips to Mexico into some kind of obstacle course ~ where military checkpoints send her back and forth to get the proper visas and identification to continue her trip south to the town of Monterrey ~ where she was born and raised for god-sake.

KT Tunstall

There and back

I walk a lot ~ Arroyo beach is only ten minutes by car ~ Romero canyon fifteen ~ where I go depends on my mood ~ it doesn’t matter to my dog ~ both places are pretty cool. One day I wondered what it would be like to just walk out the door ~ and keep going. I found trails leading up the steep hills behind me ~ some great athletic fields at the high school down the road ~ and a whole new world of smells for my dog. So today, we head for the hills ~ pass the funky little houses ~ say hello to Marlene ~ and run into Hawaiian Joe ~ we share a little smoke ~ he heads home ~ and I change my mind and head for the high school ~ figuring it’s flatter and better suited to my revised condition. I walk across the athletic fields ~ and do a 100 yard dash across the spongy grass of the football field ~ going “hey, this isn’t so bad ..!” I run up and down the bleachers a few times ~ sit on the rim ~ and it occurs to me, the way things do when I’m high ~ the reason I love coming here is because it feels so liberating ~ I’m not confined to a narrow trail ..! I take a 360 degree look around ~ and there are, like, more than a dozen different directions I can go ~ each one an interesting way back home. There are woodsy areas ~ funky little residential alleyways ~ and it blows me away. I’m stoked by the opportunities afforded me when I’m not behind the wheel of an automobile.

Morris

The telephone wakes me ~ Roman says he found a sweet deal on PC’s ~ Dell has lowered the price of desktops with XP ~ which is good to hear because Adobe CS 2 won’t run on Vista ~ and I’m a cheap bastard ~ I tell him to email me the quotes and hang up. I’m drifting back to sleep when I wake with a jolt ~ I forgot to check-in for jury duty last night ~ so I’m dialing and hoping they don’t do jury selection on Friday’s ~ they tell me to report at 8:30 ~ it’s almost 8:00. I pop a couple vitamin C ~ walk down Anapamu street (because it’s closer than parking) ~ stop at Starbucks ~ enter the courtroom and sit in a panel so large, I wonder if Michael Jackson is back in town. They tell me it’s gonna be a three month trial ~ I tell them I have workshops scheduled in October and I’m excused. I go to the library to read the paper and I meet someone named Morris. He’s talking with clients and members of his technical staff on a laptop. We go outside and chat ~ he’s riding a recumbent bike and I go: “are you on the road ..?” and he goes: “no, the high seas”. I find out that his boat is moored in the harbour for repairs and next week he’s sailing to San Francisco to meet with clients in the bay area. I’m like: “looks like you’ve taken the place out of workplace” ~ and he’s like: “ ..yeah, I’ve taken the work out of it too.”

Shoot out

When I hear about innocent people getting gunned down on the streets of a border-town (see Ciudad Juarez) ..I don’t immediately think of ‘those damn drug traffickers’ ..I think of the US legislators who persist in keeping drug laws on the books ..making smuggling a high risk venture ..commanding high prices for it’s contraband .. enriching drug lords so they can afford private armies to protect their ‘illicit’ enterprise .. and out-gun local law enforcement officials in charge of fighting this fruitless war on drugs. I don’t think it’s the bullet that kills ..it’s a chain of command that begins at the head.

Summertime

Images flash by like scenes from Mad Hatter’s ride ~ one moment we’re sitting on a bluff overlooking the ocean ~ next moment we’re swimming through a school of silver fish ~ we dry out on a sandy beach and follow the strand toward State Street ~ inline skaters streak by leaving jet trails behind ~ outdoor vendors fill the marketplace ~ selling strawberries the size of pomegranates ~ everyone smiles as they pass by ~ discount dude offers me a deal I can’t refuse ~ I look around but Jim’s disappeared ~ a group of performers, dressed like wolves, are creeping up the street ~ they got silver hair, spiky teeth, pointy finger nails and long coat tails ~ handing out free CD’s by a group called Jezebel ~ one comes up to me licking blood off of her fingers ~ Jim pulls me away ~ and we enter a theater under renovation ~ on stage a woman, wearing a long black dress and work boots, plays Mozart on the violin ~ next, we're sitting on the pier at midnight ~ playing chess ~ drinking wine ~ slamming pieces down and hurling insults each time.

Johnny

Johnny is a successful entrepreneur ~ he had an idea ~ took it to investors and attorneys ~ and created one of the first online social networks for entrepreneurs like himself ~ however, you won’t find him on there ~ he’s uncomfortable with people ~ except when collaborating on a project ~ then he’s awesome ~ I got to know John a bit ~ he’s pretty accessible ~ I was surprised to learn that both his parents were drunks ~ it reminded me of how some kids learn to live inside their heads ~ where they calmly sit and watch shit pass ~ and they learn that shit always passes ~ and finding a safe point of re-entry is most assured ~ so they move in and out of both worlds without much difficulty.

Fire update

The monks are doing well today ~ tired but well ~ it's hot and windy ~ and they’re on constant fire watch. Funny, they say they're under mandatory evacuation orders ~ as well as hard road closures (?!) ~ which means that, even if they wanted to ~ they're not getting out ~ and no one is getting in ~ they have plenty of supplies ~ the water system has been slightly damaged, but they are getting 5 gallons a day from it which is enough. I sit and think they're going to be OK.

Click on photo to enlarge.
Report from Tassajara. Photo courtesy of ZenCenter.

Tassajara

The atmosphere is still unstable ~ winds shift and flames whip around the Zen center from all sides ~ things may be quiet on the coast ~ but not for the monks at Tassajara ~ unsure which direction the fire will advance ~ they have strategically placed foam packs and sprinklers on the roof ~ jury-rigged from garden supplies the week before ~ but the fire breaches the perimeter on the north side ~ torching the bird house, a compost shed, a wood shed and the pool bathroom ~ the radio-phone and half of the lower garden are also destroyed ~ the sprinkler system keeps working ~ humidity arrives ~ and the flames retreat ~ sparing the rest of the monastery ~ so the monks take refuge ~ for now anyway.

Click on photo to enlarge.

Reports from Steve Harper on the coast and the monks at Tassajara ~ Photo courtesy of ZenCenter