Another Dem Political Disaster In the Making

I rarely comment on politics anymore as the situation has been dire and dismal for too long and I'm too old, grumpy and cynical to even bother with it any more. 

As far as I can tell, the Dems are done. They did what they saw themselves elected to do, passing the COVID relief plan of 2020, and that's it. Done. Going home now. Bye-bye. The Congress starts its LOOOONNNNNNGGGGG vacation tomorrow, and they, our elected representatives in the two Democrat controlled bodies, are outa here, so long, too bad about all the things they didn't get done. Maybe next year, eh?

It truly is shameful, primarily for the Dems' failure to recognize that anything is urgent enough to keep them from going home for the summer and letting everything burn while they do whatever it is they do during the hot months. 

Nothing at all is urgent enough for them. Certainly not the looming eviction tsunami. Climate catastrophe. COVID resurgence. Sputtering economic situation. Federal voting rights protections. The faltering lost in the weeds infrastructure half-plan. And on and on and on.

Enh. Too much trouble. Going home now. Y'all can fend for yourself. mkay?

I'm old enough to remember the catastrophic Democratic wipe out in the elections of 2010. At the time, I speculated that it was deliberate. The Dems did not try to hold state and local offices, and they failed to hold on to their congressional majorities, largely it seemed to me because of gross policy failures to adequately address the financial and economic meltdown of the failed previous administration, and perhaps worse, the imposition of what was at the time a very unpopular health insurance mandate (which was not yet in effect) on a long suffering and fearful population. 

This was like a one-two "fuck you" punch to the public, and the public responded by voting them out. 

Bye-bye, so long.

And as is so often the case, those superfluous Dems turned around and blamed the voters for failing to show up at the polls. 

The 2010 R take over of state houses meant that they would be in charge of gerrymandering election districts for the next ten years, possibly longer -- it will be twenty years because Rs still hold the majority of state houses -- and now with voter suppression all the rage among Rs, the outcomes of elections will be determinable by R legislatures and/or election officials regardless of the actual votes. 

It would be astonishing if we hadn't seen this sort of dereliction by Democrats before. In fact, it's so frequent, it's considered normal. Dems don't have a follow-through. They present X+++ as their Plan, they do Y-, and then they go home -- either voted out or as in this case simply because they want to. Nyah. Nyah. 

It's always the voters fault when they do this, never their own.

A lot of internet opinionators hate on the Dems for everything because it's their brand to do so. They claim to be "progressive" or something but objectively they're R shills in "progressive" drag, and they've been around in one form or another since before the internet was born.

And these days we should understand that a lot of Democrats, some in powerful positions in or out of office (particularly but not exclusively in the media) are ex-Republicans who are still ideologically aligned with conservative political and economic ideology. I like to think of Markos over at Daily Kos in this way. He was a die-hard Republican who "switched" during the Bush2 years, especially in support of the Dean campaign in 2004. Dean himself, though nominally a Democrat, was for all intents and purposes a Rockefeller Republican like his parents. Ie: he came from money, was raised in a Republican household, was basically conservative in ideology though with many old-line progressive attributes (Progressivism was originally formulated and implemented within a Republican political context), and had he been elected, he would have governed as a progressive Republican, in contrast to Bush2, who was essentially a corporate shill and war-monger, in other words, a representative of the un-progressive wing of the Republican Party.

Markos likes to claim that his site is intended to help elect "more and better Democrats" -- which it has utterly failed to do. Instead, his and many other ostensibly Democrat-aligned sites on the internet have served to elect many more -- and often worse -- Republicans who have turned into bat-shit fascists. 

I have often criticized Daily Kos for failing to even name a Democrat on its front page, even during election season, while featuring and amplifying Republicans endlessly. Interestingly, the tactic of constantly writing and talking about Republicans while ignoring Democrats doesn't seem to work very well in electing "more and better Democrats," does it?

But since the Republican Party has essentially taken over the Democrats, indeed become "Democrats", we're really dealing with two branches of a Uniparty that both serve corporate interests quite shamelessly, leaving the public to fend for itself. Relying on politicians of either party to serve the public is a fool's game. We haven't seen that happen for generations. And even then, political service to the public was limited.

The failure of Democrats in Congress and the White House to substantially move government from inappropriate corporate service to long-neglected and necessary public service -- again -- is likely to lead to yet another mid-term blow out election for Republicans which signs and signals suggest will be the last more or less "free and fair" election this nation/empire conducts.

Any future election will be an overt sham intended solely to preserve an illusion while protecting and perpetuating neo-fascist oligarchic rule regardless of which team nominally holds power. I think many would say this already happened, perhaps with the Bush v Gore decision of the Supreme Court in 2000.

There's no going back.

Every attempt at restoring some kind of public service -- as opposed to corporate service -- ethic to government since then has failed.

There is no sign any such effort will succeed in the future. Every sign suggests the opposite.

Thusness, Zen and Not Zen

I was considering a lot of Zenish nonsense not long ago and found some wonderful archival videos (home movies and tv film excerpts) of the San Francisco Zen Center and Tassajara from the 1960s that was very evocative and memory jogging. What I liked especially were the segments featuring Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, the Japanese founder of the Zen Center.

I was driven to find these YouTube videos by part of a day-long intensive program through the New Mexico Zen center I associate with that featured Kazuaki Tanahashi, a Japanese Zen artist, writer and elder who had been a colleague of Suzuki Roshi and who became part of the San Francisco Zen Center after Suzuki Roshi's death in 1971. He shared some of his memories of those long-ago times, and I sought to rekindle some of my own. The videos I found more than satisfied my interest and curiosity, and I suspect I'll go back to them many more times. This is one of the playlists I found consisting of segments of a KQED documentary from 1968, close to the time when I first got in contact with the SFZC (c. 1964-65). The film above is quite long but includes most of the clips on the playlist as well as quite a lot of other archival material.

Zen has evolved so much in this country since then it's sometimes hard to believe it's the same practice, and I believe that in many centers these days, it's not. Sukzuki Roshi might laugh, I think, at what passes for Zen these days, and yet he'd probably say "Why not? Sure." Zen Not Zen.

Zen practice had been evaporating in Japan since before the War in the Pacific, and after the War it seemed close to disappearing altogether from the land of its birth in the 1200s AD.

This is kind of ironic given Zen's cultural grounding among samurai and the shogunate; ie: warrior culture. It was in effect Buddhism for warriors and rebels. 

And that was the essence of what Suzuki Roshi brought to the United States starting in the late 1950s.

That was still the essence of what I came across through the SFZC in the mid-1960s.

In those days, Zen was sitting practice (zazen) and other Japanese Zen rituals, study of the sutras, Dharma talks which involved extensive Q&A with participants, and learning to live a fulfilling, happy, and 'generous" life. It was not psychotherapy, grief counseling, or rehab. It was practice, training. It was based on Japanese Soto Zen practice, but it was not monastic Zen, at least not for lay people though some monastic practices were incorporated. And after the Tassajara retreat opened, monastic Zen was offered to those who were interested and could withstand the rigor.

But for the most part the rigors of the Japanese monastery were applied lightly if at all, and the practice was less about form and ritual than it was about doing more or less what came naturally within the structure of Zen. The structural outlines of Japanese Zen practice were there, some of the fashion and props, but most of the practice was involved with the rebel counterculture of the era, and that meant many modifications from the stricter Japanese Zen observance, even if those who were involved with Zen practice in San Francisco and Tassajara didn't quite know what was being modified to accommodate them, how or why.

Following those outlines kept Zen in America sort of Japanese yet not. Zen was becoming Americanized, and after Suzuki Roshi's death in 1971, the San Francisco Zen Center became something else again under his successor, Richard Baker. Something Big. Important. And Eccentrically Fashionable. It was "out there" in the sense that Zen still wasn't commonplace, but it was attracting the rich, the famous or would-be famous, and the well-connected. It was a hotbed for striving to see and be seen among the powerful and influential in California and San Francisco society and what was left of the counter culture. And it began to change.

When I lived in San Francisco in the mid-1970s, I consciously avoided the San Francisco Zen Center though some of the people I worked with attended zazen there (At the Page St. facility) more or less regularly and encouraged me to attend as well as I'd been introduced to Buddhism through the Center when it was at the Sokoji Temple in Japantown. I declined. At the time I was practicing zazen on my own, usually in my apartment on Geary St., but not infrequently in Union Square or in North Beach, Fisherman's Wharf, and other destinations where the cable car or 38 Geary bus would take me. (I had a car but hardly ever used it in the City.)

I had learned very early on that zazen practice did not require a formal set up, a zendo, a cushion, or really any of the trappings of traditional Zen practice. It could be done anywhere, any time, for as long or as short a time as one wanted or could, and in any position. Full lotus or no lotus or anywhere in between, or lying down, sitting in a chair, it was fine. The point was to sit without conscious desire or aspiration, without conscious thought, just sit. Once you learned to do that -- it takes practice -- you've found your center, and once you do, you can return to it pretty much any time under almost any circumstance. It was liberating. 

After 10 years or so of regular practice I entered into what I called The Void whenever I sat zazen. It's a state we were warned about because it could be (probably was) a delusion and it was best to let it go if you wound up there. Well, needless to say, striving to "let it go" merely reinforced it in me, so I let go of regular zazen practice instead. 

Afterwards, I engaged in zazen practice a few times a year, always encountering The Void, and being wary about it. I didn't have a formal teacher, so there wasn't really anybody I could discuss it with. 

But I think these encounters with The Void changed me significantly.

After I returned to regular practice this spring, I did not encounter The Void -- so far as I know, and things may have been happening that I was not aware of consciously. I did mention it to one of the teachers, but she didn't think it was particularly worrisome. I found sitting zazen to be easy most times, and that the way of zazen practice was akin to a body memory in me. It centered me. And it was almost automatic. 

I sat to sit, no other aspiration or motivation, and each time it was like a renewal.

I usually didn't sit for more than 20 minutes at a time, sometimes quite a bit less, but I found myself sitting throughout the day, not just at scheduled zazen times. I still do. It's still refreshing and centering and enables me to continue my tasks in a "proper" frame of mind, which means focused on the now and what is real in the now, not wandering (too much) off on tangential matters.

Richard Baker, who took over operations of the San Francisco Zen Center after Suzuki Roshi died in 1971, appears in a number of the films from the '60s. Though I don't recall ever meeting him or Roshi for that matter, I recognized him immediately even when he wasn't identified. Though advanced in age, he's still around I understand, founder of Zen centers in Colorado and Germany between which he spends his time, an honored if somewhat tarnished elder. As far as I know, the Zen center I associate with in New Mexico was started by him after he left SFZC in the '80s, and gifted in the '90s to the current roshi.

Baker took SFZC into realms and in directions I have a hard time thinking Suzukl Roshi would have imagined, particularly when it came to raising oodles of money, going into business, numerous businesses, buying lots of property and otherwise becoming a significant economic and cultural force in the City and the Bay Area. Numerous offshoots were set up around the country as Baker's vision of expansion came true. Much of it wasn't really Zen in traditional sense at all.

Zen Not Zen.

But it was very rewarding financially and very appealing to some people of wealth, fame, and/or power and that helped keep the expansion going for some time, even after Baker Roshi was asked to resign as abbot. 

I won't detail the scandal or scandals to come at SFZC, but I will say that abuse of authority at Zen and Buddhist centers, monasteries and temples is not unheard of and in fact seems to closely parallel financial and sexual improprieties and scandals that have riven most religious endeavours -- probably throughout history. I'm pretty sure it's in the nature of the beast. Zen abbots and roshis are often granted enormous spiritual, moral, and temporal power and authority over their followers and over quite a lot of property and investments. They are supposed to act with wisdom, and most do, most of the time (at least we'd like to think so), but the kind of power and authority religious and spiritual leaders have or can acquire may lead to significant abuse, too. Zen monasteries in Japan can be notoriously abusive to monks and sometimes lay people as well. Mostly it's been forgiven or excused, or even routinized, but the power abbots and roshis have over participants and monks is nearly absolute, and that too often leads to inappropriate action and uproar.

So in some ways, I feel lucky to have encountered SFZC relatively early on, before it became famous and fashionable, before it expanded into Marin, Berkeley, and other locations, before Tassajara, before it was what it became and to some extent still is. I'm grateful that my first encounters with Buddhism and Zen were through Suzuki Roshi, not through some of his successors -- although apparently I was corresponding with Richard Baker when I contacted the Zen Center '60s, all the literature I received was either Suzuki Roshi's own work or that of previous Buddhist and Zen teachers.

As for Suzuki Roshi himself, I think I must have seen some short films of his Dharma talks back in the day, probably at the Midnight Movies which I attended fairly regularly in the late '60s. When I see the clips now, though I may not remember the individual clips, I do remember the settings, the man, and the sound of his voice rather clearly. "This I've heard before" even though it may not have been that particular talk. 

The zendo at the Sokoji temple in San Francisco looks identical to my memories of it -- even though I'm almost certain I was never physically there. I probably saw films of it, again at the Midnight Movies, and that's what I remember. There is a bare possibility I was there once during a visit to San Francisco with my mother when I was 16 or maybe 17, as we would sometimes go on adventures in the City, but I don't remember seeing the outside of the building (very distinctive) which I'm sure I would recall if I'd been there. 

I have no memories of Tassajara as such. When i see films of it, it's an unknown place to me. I was aware of it, though, soon after its acquisition and I can recall meeting some people who had been there. I was encouraged to go to the Zen Mountain Center myself, but I never did.

As for Green Gulch Farm in Marin, until I heard Wendy Johnson talk about it during an intensive workshop this spring, I can't say I'd ever heard of it at all. Isn't that something? How could I have been so oblivious? However it came about, I was oblivious to Green Gulch and to the various business enterprises SFZC set up around San Francisco and the Bay Area, as well as to the various centers and temples that sprang up around the Bay Area led by former students of Suzuki Roshi and Baker Roshi.

Much of the history of SFZC under Baker Roshi and his successors is still around, the players are still active, and their influence is strong. I'm convinced there wouldn't be more than a tiny bit of Zen in the US or much of anywhere outside Japan but for them. I saw a statistic once indicating that there were more Buddhist practitioners and Zen practitioners in the United States than in Japan and that Japanese Buddhism is slowly fading away. Zen was never a popular practice in Japan in any case, as it was meant for the upper classes where it has largely stayed. Some of what passes for Zen in the United States is also very class conscious and seeks to appeal primarily to the upper strata -- where it's had some success.

In Zen, lineage and history are very important. Though it may be convoluted, you can trace any number of Buddhist endeavors right back to Shakyamuni Buddha or his immediate successors. Some lineages may be partly legendary, but others are extensively documented and there is no doubt of their authenticity.

Those lineages can show how and when the practice was modified and by whom. Adaptations and modifications were going on all the time and still are. Various schools of Buddhism and Zen have developed over the centuries, and they sometimes dispute vigorously and occasionally violently with one another. 

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, Buddhists generally make terrible national rulers. Buddhism is not a governing ideology or philosophy; often it's just the opposite. Not anarchy as such, but rebellion, individualism, and practical autonomy are core principles. Gautama Buddha was, after all, a rebel, and his followers were rebels back in the day, and many stories from Buddhist history are of rebellion from whatever Establishment then existed. Even as part of the Establishment, Buddhists are intrinsically rebelling against it. 

Buddhism concentrates attention on the individual coming to "know" him/herself from the inside out, and from that knowing, coming to realize how interconnected all people and things -- physical phenomena -- are. In the end, you come to the realization that at the ground state of being there is no separation into individuals. Everything is one thing, and one thing is everything. 

But you can't do much with that realization as it has no practical application in everyday life. So Buddhists are encouraged to see their autonomous existence as connected with all of existence and thus be compassionate toward existence as one would be with oneself.

It doesn't always work on the individual level, and it seems impossible to work on a large scale. 

Thusness.

(Which will have to wait for another post)

The Zen of Being Assaulted, The Zen of An Assault, The Zen of Being

Those of us who practice some form of Buddhism -- for me it's a sort of slap-dash version of Soto Zen -- do so with the certain or uncertain knowledge that things as they appear to be, things as they are, aren't.

Maybe it was that suspicion that led us to Zen or Buddhism in the first place, the suspicion that what we could perceive was not all of reality, wasn't reality at all. Through the practice of Zen -- or most any form of Buddhism and many other spiritual endeavours -- we come to a better understanding of the incompleteness of ordinary perception, and if we're diligent or lucky enough, we might gain the ability to perceive much deeper or more fully into 'what is.' Suchness.

The practice is a form of training that alters our consciousness, and for most of us, there is no going back once that's happened. What we perceive and the way we perceive it goes through a transformative process which I can't explain though i have experienced it a number of times over the decades  - satori and samadhi they call it -- that is often taken as 'enlightenment' though I doubt it's anything like that of Shakyamuni Buddha's Enlightenment. Or maybe it's the same. I don't know. It can be debated to the finest of grains, and yet cannot be resolved. We know it when we feel it, but what it is, who can truly say?

I came to Zen at a difficult time in my life, the dreaded teen-age years, awkward adolescence. Zen practice helped to get me through it, and it's helped to ground me through an often chaotic life ever since. I'm grateful, since otherwise I probably wouldn't be here to tell the tale. 

Part of Soto Zen and much of Buddhism in general is the recognition that our Buddha nature is to serve. This is often expressed as following the Bodhisattva Way, living a Bodhisattva life. That was the study we engaged in during the intensive Spring Practice Period Ango I participated in earlier this year. 

Shantideva's A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life was our text. He'd run away to a monastery -- run away from the kingship he was supposed to assume on his father's death, run away to the largest and most famous Buddhist monastery and teaching institution Nalanda -- where he found himself beset by bullying and self-doubt. He felt he didn't fit in on the one hand and he was the victim of constant abuse on the other. He felt like leaving the monastery, running away again, but what would be the point? Instead, he stuck it out and in the process formulated the Guide which he presented as a teaching to the other monks at Nalanda, probably to much mockery and derision, but which has long survived him and them and Nalanda itself (destroyed during the Moslem invasion and conquest of northern India in the early 1200s.) 

While bemoaning his fate throughout the Guide, Shantideva argues compellingly for keeping on with the practice and developing bodhicitta, awakened compassion on behalf of all sentient beings, perhaps most especially those which had been his tormentors. 

It's not really necessary to go into all the details, for we have other things to do, but the point is that one on the Bodhisattva path is called to serve with compassion those they meet along the way with the intent of bringing them along to Enlightenment or at a minimum helping them to do so.

I never knew I was on that Bodhisattva path myself, because that really wasn't a conscious part of my practice; compassion, service to those I encountered along the way was simply what I did naturally, or so I thought, and there was no great argument or self doubt about it.

And so time passes, much time, and time came to a few days ago, and an encounter with someone new to me, a youngish man maybe 30 years old, tall, muscular, blond, standing across the street from my house staring at me as I trimmed weeds in my front yard. I greeted him simply and informally and asked if there was anything I could do. He stood still for a moment then came threateningly across the street, getting right up to me, and after some back and forth it appeared that 1) he was on drugs, possibly meth, and not fully aware; 2) he was delusional, paranoid; 3) he had a violent intent. 

What was I to do? I'm a pretty frail old man these days (though I don't like to admit it), and he was young and strong and full of rage and paranoia and whatever substances he had ingested or injected. I asked him, "Is there anything I can do for you?" He fumed and raged some more, ordering me to stay away from the children who lived in the house where he was staying and threatened dire consequences otherwise, and I told him not to worry, I had no interest in the children and that I was going in to my place now. He stomped away back into the house where he was staying.

I didn't think that that was the end of it. I thought there would be more somehow, when or where or how I didn't know, and fleetingly I thought I had met the image of Death -- and not for the first time -- and that he would be back.

Sure enough. 

The next day, I was sitting in my chair in my living room taking a break from trimming weeds in the back  when I sensed someone standing behind me, and I turned and it was him. He'd come into my house through an unlocked gate and door to the laundry room and kitchen, quietly -- I had no idea -- and stood with a hammer or ax in his hand, breathing hard, ready to commit mayhem and violence. I got up and told him to get out of my house. He advanced on me, threatening without words, waving his weapon around, breathing hard, eyes riveted on me. He got within inches of my face. I could smell chemicals in his body, alcohol on his breath. He advanced and retreated, waving his ax or hammer around, passing it from hand to hand, threatening me with it. He said little, maybe nothing most of the time as I remember almost nothing of what he said. The closer he got to me, the more threatening he was, the less I felt fear. 

I said, "What's wrong? You can tell me. What's wrong?" When I did, he seemed to calm down for a few moments, but then he would become emboldened and puff up and wordlessly threaten me again, and I repeated "What's wrong?" several more times. Each time, he would seem to calm down for a moment or two. He went to the french door in the living room and I said, "You can leave that way if you want." He opened and closed it several times and seemed to be bewildered by how to work it and the screen door beyond. He motioned me to come to the door, and I did, and I tried to show him how easy it would be to leave that way, but he pulled me away from the door and shoved me back toward my chair, threatening with his weapon, which I saw now was a tomahawk, and becoming more and more agitated. I asked him his name; he said I didn't need to know. I asked him again what was wrong. He said nothing. I asked about Barbara who lives across the street. He said she wasn't there -- and I flashed on a vision that he'd murdered her. I asked about the kids, Barbara's kids, and he became enraged: "What do you want with them?" and became threatening again. He told me to sit down, pushed me into my chair. "What do you need? How can I help?" I asked him. He breathed hard, waved his weapon around and all of a sudden hauled off and whacked me hard on the forehead with it. I got up, shocked, blood gushing from the wound, and shouted at him "Get the fuck out of my house, NOW!" He retreated, bewildered, but he didn't leave. "Look what you did! GET OUT!" I shouted as blood dropped in big splashes on the floor, down my face and arm. As I shouted at him, my wife came from the bedroom where she'd been napping. "Who are you? What are you doing here? Get out!" she shouted at him, and he seemed to retreat somewhat further, but he didn't leave. She shoved him, but he stood still. I looked around, saw my phone on the chair arm, and took it into the bathroom and locked the door and called 911. 

I could hear my wife at first shouting then talking calmly to the man with the tomahawk in the living room as I reported what had happened to the dispatcher. I staunched the blood from the wound with paper towels while I talked to the dispatcher and listened for anything in the living room. 

I heard my wife say, "Is there anything you need, anything I can do for you?" meaning the man in the living room, the man who had assaulted me. I did not hear him speak at all. But later she would tell me what he was doing: going to the french door, opening and closing it, and seeming to be bewildered by it. Then he went to the front door, she said, puzzled by how to work the lock on the screen door. Then she said he went toward the bathroom door, and she saw an opportunity to escape. She said she ran across the street, calling on Barbara to help but realizing eventually that Barbara wasn't there. She said she saw the man with the tomahawk coming across the street toward her, and she realized she was in a sense trapped and she had to be calm. Suddenly, she said Barbara's huge Pyrenees dog appeared beside her and sat down as the man got to Barbara's front gate. "Is this your dog?" she asked. "Yes," said the man. She said, "You know he gets out and runs around. You really need to keep him inside the gate or he'll get hurt." She said she showed him how to keep the gate latch closed as she inched out of the yard while he went inside it with the dog. They passed so close to one another they touched. He didn't seem to know who she was, and he didn't try to harm her. She would tell me that she thought Douglas, the dog, was her angel at that moment. She said with the guy inside the gate, she could escape and she ran across the street to the house next door to ours trying to raise help, but no one came to the door. The first police car arrived seconds later -- no more than five minutes after I called -- and my wife told him where the man was. He took his AK style rifle and went to Barbara's house where the man surrendered without a fight.

Shortly many police and sheriff's deputies arrived, my wife came back to our house, and I could hear her say through the bathroom door, "Are you all right?" and then "The police are here." I was still on the phone with the dispatcher, who was talking to the police and with my wife. 

I said, "OK," and still bleeding and woozy, I came out to witness the rest of the drama unfold. 

There was of course quite a lot of drama to come, but it was anti-climax, so it's unnecessary in the context of this story.

I'm OK, and I'm extremely grateful that my wife was not harmed and was able to handle the situation so calmly and well. She said she was trained to do it when she worked at the courthouse in California, and she was surprised and delighted that her training came in so handy in real life. 

We had used similar tactics in dealing with this violent stranger. Be calm, express concern for his well-being, offer to help, don't agitate him, don't threaten. My approach was through my Zen training and practice, her's was through professional situational training in a courthouse setting. It's not much different. Someone is violent and seemingly out of it, you do better to try to empathize than to confront and further agitate. 

The fact that I was assaulted and wounded in this encounter with a "demon" was in a Zen context something like the shock that sometimes accompanies Zen training -- of which there are many stories. The shock from the Zen teacher whacking the student or pushing him into the mud or from life-experience is supposed to lead to satori -- sudden enlightenment -- and sometimes it does. Physical wounds can happen, but they heal. The point is to awaken. And by awakening, more fully take in the nature of things. 

I see what happened in those terms, and the awakening is still unfolding. So many layers of lessons. What happened was not the first time I have faced "Death." Far from it. Each time, I learn, but not always as quickly or as much as I should. The lessons and awakening and enlightenment this time is coming in spurts, not all at once, as each layer peels back. I physically sleep a lot since the events described, and I see it as symbolic of my non-awakening. And then when I'm awake, realizations tumble down on me. So much illusion and delusion still to dissolve away.

Just a part of the realization, the Zen of Being, is that "I" am not. Not separate, that is. Each element, every participant, was "me." I confronted myself, I was saving myself, I whacked myself on the head with a tomahawk, I was my attacker, I was my wife, I was the police and medics who came to help. I was the ER personnel who seemed overwhelmed by the crush of patients,  and I was every one of those patients. 

I've since talked to Barbara our neighbor with whom this stranger was staying. He's now in jail on a no bail warrant, and he probably will not be released before trial. Well... you never know. Judges in New Mexico are notorious for releasing people they shouldn't. Barbara says he's an old friend of the family who'd been in rehab but had gone AWOL and he had discovered his brother in bed with his girlfriend. Which was why he was staying with Barbara and her family. Further, he was diagnosed schizophrenic and had not been taking his medication since departure from rehab. He'd self-medicated instead. He'd always been nice to her and she let him stay at her house out of loving kindness  -- and in hopes that he would be able and willing to help her get the house fixed up. But he'd been acting odd since he got there. She knew he'd been partying and suspected he'd taken some drug but she didn't know what. She did not, she said, expect him to be violent, though she said he'd run off a pizza delivery guy and another friend of the family who came to visit. She said he was seeing every man as a predator. But she was shocked he'd invaded my home and attacked me. 

She wanted him to get help because "he's really a good guy" and he's fine when he's taking the right meds and stays away from drugs he shouldn't be taking. But this time he went way over the edge, and she was really sorry for what had happened to me. 

Of course, we hear these kinds of stories a lot, and many of us become numb to them. Too many "really good guys" turn into violent monsters, no? Statistically, no. It doesn't happen a lot. It happens much less statistically than it used to, but it still happens, and the victims are multiple, often whole communities with tragic consequences. "Something should be done," but nothing seems to work, right?

Well, actually, some things do work, and they're not always what we think. The guy who assaulted me is in custody, and he should stay there for a long time. Some are saying permanently, and in a sense I agree. But not in the sense of imprisonment, because I don't believe in imprisonment except for the most incorrigible and the most dire crimes. 

No. If this guy is schizophrenic and if medications do work (I've known a number of schizos who are fine on appropriate meds) then he should be confined for so long as necessary to 'train' him to use the correct medications essentially automatically. And to stay away from self-medication substances. As you might expect, there's a Zen program for that. 😃

There are still many more layers to this incident, and I might describe more in time. But for now, let us be grateful.

Side Note on the Insurrection

I don't know that I've even mentioned the January 6 Storming of the Winter Palace on these pages, but it's not for a lack of interest. The whole thing has to do with the notion that the Government of the USA is frail and fragile and brittle and truly easy pickings for the likes of the Ubermenschen who want so badly to take over.

Out here in the wilderness we have what I can only call cells of would-be Ubermenschen arming up and meeting together to strategize what to do when called by Higher Authority. Do they seize the water tower? The Animal Control truck? How about storming the community center? The tire store?

I don't know what they're doing really. All I know is that there are plenty of them, and they like the idea of being heroes for a cause they think is just. They have their reasons. No one else may agree with them, but they have their reasons, and they believe in their own righteousness -- as well as the evility of practically everyone else.

I was doing a drive by of nearby places just to see what's new. Counted five new residences, oh my. But I also saw ten places where the US flag was flying where I hadn't noticed it before. I know some of them have been Trumpist gathering places since before the 2016 election. But others, no.

There was a time when I saw big ol' truck driving around with Stars and Bars, but not now. Instead, we see trucks with US flags flying, and now houses and barns and gates and such flying flags, too. Just the US flag, no Stars and Bars, no Trump flags. Long after the 4th of July.

"Patriots," right?

Even in the wilderness....

Some House Thoughts -- and Ruminations on What the Tiny House Movement Has Become

 Since I've been feeling better lately, I've got to thinking again about doing a full renovation of our house one more time. It's been fifteen years (!) since the last one, and it's showing its age. Things have deteriorated partly because when I was ill, I could not take care of things properly even with help. It was all "too much."

Now I see how much needs to be done, starting with a new roof, and I've been calculating how much we can afford. Given the jump in the cost of lumber and the unavailability of other equipment and supplies, let alone finding an honest contractor, maybe not much. We'll see, we'll see. In a sense, we might be lucky because the house is largely adobe, but it will still need a lot of lumber, and I'll get to why in a bit. 

Meanwhile, I've thought quite a lot about what's become of the tiny house movement in the 20-some odd years since Jay Shafer began it with his Tumbleweed Tiny Homes. And what's become of Jay Shafer?

The first models I recall were "cute Victorian" and very small, all wood, and perhaps deliberately uncomfortable. They were made on trailers because they were supposed to be alternatives to travel trailers, meant to be towed behind a sturdy pickup, to take you anywhere and provide you with cool and unusual temporary housing unlike anything else then on the road. 

They were uncomfortable because sleeping was always in a loft, often under eaves that sloped sharply guaranteeing bumped heads, accessible by ladder only, and in early models with little or no ventilation ensuring that heat would collect in the loft making sleeping there impossible during the warm months. Later, ventilation and even air conditioning were integrated, but for many people, the loft sleeping areas were still uncomfortable.

Jay's ideas were considered brilliant and radical back in the day and they triggered many. many imitations and evolutions. One of Jay's ideas was that the tiny house was meant to be self-built (probably with friends, and only by necessity with professional help.) The result was limited in size because of regulations governing what could be towed on the highways without a permit. One was supposed to travel with one's tiny house to destinations of beauty, peace, and contemplation. There was something sort of Buddhist about the idea, meditative, liberating. Jay himself often came across as a Zen sprite. Meant to inspire.

Self-built tinys (Tiny Homes On Wheels-- THOWS) are still a thing, but not to the extent they once were, partly because it's difficult or impossible to get ready-made trailers to build on, and custom trailers are very expensive. The planning and work itself is difficult, well beyond the skill level of most do-it-yourselfers, and in most cases, the whole project is going to cost a LOT more than anticipated -- or than a decent used travel trailer that can be reno-ed into a tiny home on wheels.

The typical tiny home today is not cute, is not "Victorian," is nothing like Jay's original plans and ideas, is much large than the early tiny homes, is built by specialists, and costs a veritable fortune in order to create a slice of a contemporary high end house to haul with you when you go for a jaunt. And it seems most never move after their first giant journey from the factory, partly because they are too heavy and awkward to be taken on the road. Most cost in the $100,000+ - $200,000+ range and are permanently confined to "villages" and as accessory dwellings on private property. The whole idea Jay started with proved to be impractical for most of those who took up the idea and propagated the Movement.

Defenders like to say that though the cost is high per square foot, it's about the same as an Airstream, and the result is far sturdier and home-like. It is honestly not as transportable, however. A tiny home is meant to resemble a slice of an expensive contemporary suburban home, not an aluminum sausage, after all. And if you can get one built for about the cost of a new deluxe Airstream travel trailer, why not?

Many of those who have taken over the tiny home market are high-end builders who sell exclusively to well-off clients who, let's face it, are looking to show off and often to profit from the gullible followers of the Movement through AirBNB rentals.

They can pay $100,000 or more for their THOWs that never move because they can rent them for a couple of hundred or more per night to those who want to "experience" the Movement. It's a profitable business for some, not so much for others.

The point of building on a trailer was so the little houses could be towed around, but they were found to be so heavy and awkward in movement that after the first flush of enthusiasm, they largely stopped being towed, even though many were still built on trailers and these days RV certification is considered sine qua non for tiny homes. 

Jenna Spesard went on a "Tiny House Giant Journey" in her Tumbleweed tiny for years and ultimately gave it up. It was uncomfortable, impractical, expensive, and far more limiting than she had imagined. The Dream was one thing. The Reality was something else again. Nevertheless, she is still very active in documenting alternative lifestyles, including tiny home living, and has a reputation as a survivor.

As is, for he record, Kirsten Dirksen.

Bryce Langston likewise with his "Living Big in a Tiny House" series on YouTube is a long-time tiny house documentarian and advocate. He's documented an enormous number of tiny homes in Australia, New Zealand, British Columbia and the United States, always with enormous enthusiasm and interest, and he's documented some of his own builds including a couple of failed ones (a tiny he commissioned in the US that was apparently never finished and was abandoned when he and the builder disagreed over something, and an ambulance build that was never finished because -- apparently -- the vehicle kept breaking down.) Most of the tinys he documents are not moved once they are emplaced, and they are usually placed on land owned by a relative or the owners of the tiny, generally out in the country somewhere.  Very few are found in urban or suburban contexts. That's partly because of zoning and other regulations that disallow them for long-term location on private property or for long-term (sometimes even for temporary) residential use.

An exception to the common prohibition on tinys in an urban/suburban context is the relatively recent use of tinys to house the homeless. This is always difficult, always expensive, but it is showing up more and more in urban areas beset with a growing homeless population. It has been modestly successful in some places, in others, it's little more than a horror-show. 

Some of the worst examples I think are in Los Angeles where acres of concrete or asphalt paved parking lots are dotted with grim pre-fab mostly metal sheds that resemble nothing other than individual prison cells not meant to "house" anybody but just to store them away for a while -- out of sight, out of mind. 

They're horrible, and they should be shameful, but it's LA, and LA, as always, plays itself.

So what to make of Jay Shafer's impulse to build tiny houses back in the day and what it's become? I've always felt there was something ridiculous about it. It's re-inventing the wheel, self-indulgence too. On the other hand, initially it was charming, even for a time delightful, as this sprite, Jay Shafer, came up with sweet little houses that could be towed from place to place and could provide a slice of old-fashioned simple living (a key concept almost absent from the field today) for those on the road to adventure. It wasn't camping or RV-ing. It was compact cabining or even pioneering. 

Jay ran into problems with regulations almost immediately because his tinys didn't fit any known building concept or code at the time. There was no proper way to categorize what he was designing and building, so there was no proper way to permit them. Without proper permits, they couldn't be placed on land, and legally they couldn't be towed. They were in limbo. 

So ultimately Tumbleweed, the tiny home company he co-founded, settled on providing plans for self-builders and building a few tinys themselves and getting them certified as RVs, meeting RV standards and codes, but with understanding that once they are delivered, they are probably not going to be towed again.

Some builders and owners have ditched the THOW concept altogether because they never had any intention of traveling with their tiny. Instead they simply want to build and live in a small house or have a small house (casita in New Mexico) on their property for occasional guests or to rent out. Well, good luck!

In many parts of the country, it's not possible. A "dwelling unit" is required to be of minimum size (generally 600sq ft, but often more) and only one is permitted per property; accessory dwelling units smaller than the minimum are often not permitted at all. And tinys are almost never more than 350 sq ft, often much smaller. 

Where they are permitted (and more places are allowing them due to a critical housing shortage)  it's typically out in the country somewhere. And out in the country, it's kind of absurd to spend $100,000 or more for a tiny that may be no more than 300 sq ft, when an entire 1,200 sq ft or large mobile home can be purchased and emplaced for about the same cost. 

What would most people rather live in and why?

Of course Jay Shafer never envisioned the $100,000+ tiny home (or at least I hope he didn't.) And his point with tiny homes (simplicity!) has been largely lost.

And what's happened to Jay Shafer? From what I've read, he's essentially disappeared. Gone into hibernation mode. Not active on social media, disabled email, silent companies. And not for the first time.

From what I saw of him prior, he struck me as possibly bi-polar, and if that's the case, I can understand why he might go into a slow-down, quiet-down phase of life. But I also think what the tiny house Movement has become (a plaything for the rich; storage bins for the homeless) must be very disturbing to him. That's not what he intended. 

Much of the initial idealism has disappeared replaced by... showing off.

Our house is not tiny -- for us, it's big, one of the biggest houses we've ever lived in, so big a couple of rooms are closed off more or less permanently; it's old and creaky and needs renovation; hard to heat in winter, hard to cool in summer; leaky roof, leaky pipes, ancient electric (knob and tube in some places!) flooring needs replacing, and realistically, the whole kitchen, laundry room, and entrance hall (once an open porch) needs rebuilding, sewer lines need replacing, be nice to have a new bathroom. We have a couple of small buildings on the property that could be renovated into tinys, but I don't think we'll do that. At one time, I thought we might, but not now. 

What comes after the Tiny House Movement? Can it continue to evolve? I don't know. Right now, I don't know whether we'll be able to once again renovate our home, either. 

Right now, it's not at all clear what the future may -- or may not -- hold for us or anyone else.

Here's an interesting discussion that went on over a number of years regarding Jay Shafer and his work, including his $5000 tiny created in 2018:

https://tinyhousetalk.com/jay-shafers-designs-and-builds-a-5000-tiny-house/