We were on a tight schedule, and Highway 1 twisting along the coast of California is not exactly a quick drive, so we didn't have a whole lot of time to gawp in wonder, nor did we stop particularly close to the Bixby Canyon Bridge of lore and legend and practically every fast driving commercial and movie we've ever seen. That's how my travel companion knows it, whereas I see it as an emblem or avatar of Kerouac's "Big Sur" -- the creative non-fiction novel of his descent into alcoholic madness after the publication and sudden success of "On the Road" in 1957.
Jack Kerouac went to dry out in Lawrence Ferlinghetti's cabin or shack located some distance up the canyon from the bridge, but its presence is a character in the novel. He and those who came to visit him in the shack (and who brought him more liquor) passed under it and it figured as an arcing force throughout the novel.
Many make pilgrimage to the bridge during the year, and when we arrived, many were already there, performing ceremony and worshiping. So we didn't stop at the first turnout. It was pretty much full, and we'd already encountered stupid people in the road not far from it.
We stopped at the second turnout -- which is where the picture above was taken. The bridge is barely visible in the distance -- something I like.
There were pilgrims, but only a few, at the second turnout, and we had an interesting encounter with one who thought he was a comedian. There is a steep cliff after all below the turnout. Someone could fall.
We took many pictures, I took deep breaths, became somewhat emotional and then we continued on our journey.
In some ways, the whole trip is pilgrimage.
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Note: Alternate names: "Bixby Bridge," "Bixby Creek Bridge," "that famous bridge neat Big Sur," "Big Sur Bridge", "that bridge on Highway 1," "Rainbow Bridge" etc., etc.
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While I was going through some of the literature we brought back from our trip to California, I came across a reference to this:
In some ways, it's horrifying. In other ways, aww, kinda cute and kinky, no?
When I first saw the reference, I thought "Wow, is that the ranch a little further up the canyon from Ferlinghetti's shack where 'Ti Jean' went to dry out and where that sad donkey who came to greet him lived?" But no. This is on top of the hill with a view of the canyon and bridge, not in the canyon by Ferlinghetti's shack.
I started Zen practice when I was in high school -- in the early-mid '60s. The high school period was a really bad time for me. I won't go into details at this time, but I may at some point. Now that I have "let go" of it I can speak of it, but for now, no.
In fact "letting go" was part of my impetus for practicing Zen. And indeed, in my mid-twenties, a point came when I could do that. Almost all of the bad things that had practically consumed me, indeed, practically killed me, before that moment (and it was a moment) I "let go" went away as if they had never been, and through Zen practice one learns that those bad times had never been. The sense of liberation was profound. And that's when I gave up and let go of Zen practice as well.
It was available at any time, but I felt it wasn't necessary any more.
I went on a wholly different path, a pilgrimage of sorts, which ultimately led me to where I am now, circling back to my youthful Zen era.
The Enso is apropos, no?
The dharma talk I mentioned and criticized and reconsidered in the previous post was in part about pilgrimage and how in many cases the pilgrim is a "nobody" (consider the word) among "nobodies" on the way to something/nothing different, or not. We don't have to get into the details of "some/nothing." It's not really a contradiction, but some would see it that way. The dharma talk proposed that all of us are ultimately on pilgrimage, even if the pilgrim is only taking one step. That step itself can be or represent the whole of a pilgrim's passage.
In Zen practice, the pilgrimage is an important activity, and many Zen practitioners, sensei and roshi go on pilgrimages to Japan, to India, to Tibet, and some now to China (other places too, but those are mentioned frequently) to, I suppose, inhale the same air as the Buddha, trod the same paths as Bodhidharma, explore the same hills and woods as Dogen and thereby... wait, what's the point of it?
Hate to say it, but there is no point. One goes on pilgrimage... because one goes on pilgrimage. The choice of where to be a pilgrim -- if there is a choice -- is almost always a product of desire. And desire, as the Buddha discovered, is the source of suffering.
Letting go of desire relieves suffering and... can lead to enlightenment.
Yet in my mid-twenties I began a life-pilgrimage not driven by desire, at least not desire I was conscious of, that was often a wild ride, yet was always instructional. Every step -- well, nearly -- a learning experience.
Much of it was risky as if on a mountain precipice. Teetering so close to the edge, then somehow falling back toward if not exactly to safety, then teetering again. And again and again.
The nature of a life's pilgrimage can be that of risk, but it isn't always. A single step, for example, can embody an entire pilgrimage, and that step may or may not embody risk. The individual experience is what it is. We don't know and can't say in advance what it will be. Afterwards, we won't necessarily know what it was. In some Zen traditions, we never know and can never know. It never begins, it never ends.
But I don't much want to get into that right now. There will be a time for koans and contradictions. But not right now.
Instead, for the moment I want to focus on the "Y" of Zen -- the "why." Note: "I want to..." is an expression of desire, and I accept that for the moment.
And because it's Halloween and the little ones are swarming at the door, I'll have to put off that "why" for a little while longer.
Zen Buddhism has often been referred to as a form of psychotherapy rather than a religion, and its practice is seen as a form of self-discovery and repair rather than idle ritual.
Zen practice can be alarmingly difficult, even brutal, particularly in sesshin, but typically it's not. Most people who practice Zen are not destined to become monks or nuns, nor will they become sensei orroshi (teachers or wise leaders). That is neither their purpose nor ambition in practicing Zazen. The goal, if there is a goal, for most Zen practitioners is an inner peace which may -- or may not -- be or lead to satori, sudden enlightenment.
I found in practicing Zazen many years ago that the presence of any desire inhibited practice. One cannot desire enlightenment, for example, or desire to count one's breaths, or desire to clear one's mind. These supposed benefits or objectives of Zen practice cannot be desired while in sitting meditation or the whole point of the meditation is lost. In fact, it quickly becomes apparent that meditation itself is impossible in the context of desire.
This is a conundrum and paradox in the Buddhism, one that the Buddha himself wrestled with constantly -- until he didn't. Desire itself, he learned, was the cause of suffering. Lose desire and you lose suffering. But how do you do that?
Luckily we have guides including the Buddha. In Zen many additional threads are woven together. In other words, we learn to practice not just from the Buddha but from a long lineage of disciples, devotees, teachers and masters, each of whom provides a distinct and ultimately necessary insight into the practice we call Zen today.
Why Zen then and not some other Buddhist school or practice? There are quite a few different versions of Buddhism after all. Zen is often considered the severest and most difficult. Oddly, or perhaps not, I didn't find it so at all.
In fact, it seemed remarkably easy.
That's not to say there wasn't inner struggle. Of course there was and still is. Sitting meditation (Zazen) itself, however, is not really hard to do. It's hard or impossible for me now to assume the correct posture sitting on the floor on a thin cushion. Nope, no can do. But it's not necessary. Sitting, yes, but not necessarily on the floor in the lotus or semi-lotus position. No, any position that is not too comfortable for you (so you don't go to sleep!) in a chair or sofa or bench or what have you is fine. The proper Zen meditation position (which I won't elaborate here, but which is quite detailed and complex, at least at first) is a necessity only for monks and nuns in training, and even then, exceptions can sometimes be made. The notion that every Zen practitioner must adhere to the proper form of sitting is laughable.
One sits as one will.
One sits though, and one allots a length of time, usually half an hour, for quiet meditation as one sits. Typically, the meditation period is announced with a bell or other signaling device at the beginning and end of the period. Years ago, we kept a small brass bell for the purpose, but now we use a Tibetan "singing bowl" -- from Nepal, of course. Anything can be used though, anything that makes a distinct sound when struck, preferably one that holds a tone for a time.
One sits, eyes closed, head down; one focuses on one's breathing and counts one's breaths. That, almost entirely, is it. One does that for half an hour and at some point during the meditation, without really noticing it, one stops counting, one stops noticing one's breathing, one is liberated from thought, concept, presence, and perhaps only momentarily one stops being "one."
Of course when you're doing this at distance, not in company with a sangha or in close communication with a roshi or sensei one doesn't really know whether what one has experienced in sitting meditation is this or that. And in the early-mid '60s, while there were a number of Zen communities in California, they were not directly accessible to me, so I had to do a remote and individualized practice which at the time seemed perfectly acceptable. I started on my own using a thin book as a guide, and then corresponded with a Zen teacher affiliated with the San Francisco Zen Center who encouraged my individual practice and didn't seem at all put off that I was doing it on my own. Many people did.
I'm not sure whether I still have the guide book (I suspect not, but with thousands of books accumulated over the years and no card catalog to sort them, who knows?) but at some point, it seemed unnecessary, even superfluous to my practice. Once you get into a sort of meditation groove as it were, guidance becomes more and more problematic.
That's because one's path in meditation is one's own. There are no universal absolutes. Satori is what it is, but it isn't necessarily the same for each individual. The Buddha seemed to understand that. My own Zen teacher certainly understood it. And when I reached a point we no longer needed to correspond, I honestly didn't know whether I had reached satori or not. And here's the thing: It doesn't matter. Because one still chops wood and carries water before as well as after enlightenment.
I thought of attending a dharma talk at a Zen center in Santa Fe a couple of weeks ago. The topic was interesting: The freedom to be Nobody. Turns out I didn't go. It's an hour-twenty to get there, maybe more giving allowance for traffic and possibly getting lost, and I ran out of time. But that's an excuse, as I could have arranged my time more carefully that day than I did, and I could have made it before the start of the talk.
I was put off, however, by some of the non-welcoming attitude, shall we say, of the Center's operation as reflected by its website. Certainly a serious Zen community will have rules, but in this case, it seemed obsessive to the point of absurdity. The dharma talks supposedly welcome anyone who wishes to attend, oh but...
One must arrive by a particular time, one must park in a particular place, one must dress in a particular way, one must observe particular rituals and practices that one might not be familiar with at all, one must engage in zazen as well as kinhin, one is expected to give danato the speaker... wait, this is crazy. This is not a welcome to anyone who wishes to attend. This is a barricade against that very thing. Deliberately so. It's clear enough to me that this particular Zen Center desires most of all to keep people in general out, and wishes to welcome only a select class of participants and only on very strict terms.
If you don't follow the rules pretty much exactly, you are not welcome.
No, I'd put it more generally: you, a "nobody", are not welcome there at all.
Ironic given the topic of the talk.
A few days later, I listened to the talk on podcast, and I was not sorry I missed it. Well, there are many points at which Zen by its nature is a contradiction. The contradictions and occasional absurdities are part of the practice, and the whys are interesting, but I won't get into them here.
In the case of this talk, which I intend to listen to again, the speaker was not prepared, ran off on several tangents that weren't necessarily interesting in themselves, and ultimately he indulged his own personal desires (yes!) because he didn't know what else to say.
In fact, I'm listening to the talk again now because I suspect I must have gotten it wrong. We'll see.
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RECONSIDERATION: All right. My first impression of this dharma talk was wrong. I have listened to it again, and for all its faults, the talk is actually on point, coherent and.. helpful. As a Bodhisattva, the speaker is illuminating the Diamond Sutra with many different lamps in many colors. As a "nobody" on pilgrimage, you may not be welcome everywhere or anywhere, but what's to worry?
I listened before with one ear closed, and I missed much of the talk through distractions, of which there were (are) many. I listened with both ears today, and found a far more complete.talk. Letting go is a perpetual issue. It may have been simplistic and based in desire, but it was fuller than my initial impressions, and it was not because he didn't know what else to say or because he wasn't prepared.
I may have more to say about pilgrimage and letting go in due time. Which also has to do with my continued reluctance to join a sangha.
Living in New Mexico, one is confronted with the reality of poverty all the time. It is inescapable, a fundamental fact of life. This is poor country. It's a hard land for one thing. The persistence of the drought, and more federal government budget cuts, are making things harder -- among many other factors contributing to poverty in New Mexico.
Now and then, I feel a pang of guilt because we're not that bad off, all things considered, and some people around here think that because we came out from California, we must be ricos. Well, no. Far from it, but at least for now, we're not struggling financially. It's nearly the first time in our lives that that wasn't so.
Of course, one of the reasons we're not doing so badly now is that we tend to "live poor" -- because we've been poor. Oh, very poor indeed. We have known hunger and near-homelessness from time to time, sometimes with seemingly nowhere to turn for assistance. We can look back from our relative comfort today and easily think it is a damned miracle we've survived at all. It often wasn't easy.
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This time of year, pilgrims are marching toward their various destinations, be it Tomé Hill or Chimayó or wherever else they are impelled to travel as a sign of their faith during Holy Week. There was a modest but very faithful procession yesterday passing by the cemeteries and cattle pastures near our place, headed out to the spare tin-roofed adobe Catholic church that serves this area. Periodic pilgrimage is a way of life.
Most of the pilgrims are poor people or the descendants of poor people, often Indios or Hispanos -- or as sometimes happens, they are not poor people at all but simply more well-off Anglo seekers of something that's missing from their material lives. The pilgrimage experience gives them an opportunity to be in touch with the Divine for a moment, or at least to sense the Spirit That Abides.
We have not gone on pilgrimages as such, though we have attended some of the solemn processions and the more cheerful Fiestas in various parts of New Mexico, and we have been to El Santuario and chatted with Father Roca -- who kindly blessed us and insisted we take with us a scoop of Holy Dirt and a vial of Holy Water for our travels.
The hike up Tomé Hill is one of the (many) destinations we've put on our bucket list. Unfortunately, we couldn't do it this year due to health issues, but maybe next year. Of course that could turn into something like our endlessly delayed plans to attend the Burning of Zozobra.
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Despite the fact that Santa Fe is awash in ricos, there are lots of poor people, too, as there are everywhere else in New Mexico. In our area, there are a few very rich and prominent ranchers, an assortment of more or less middle class suburban pseudo-ranchers (most of them government drones), and lots of poor people getting by as best they can. It's not easy. Some may get benefits of one kind or another, but the amounts are typically so miserly, they must count every penny, and despite the existence of food pantries and a lot of generous charity through civic and religious institutions they may go hungry during the month or go without heat during at least part of the winter. I know of people who don't have electricity or running water in their self-built homes because they can't afford it, not because they are trying to live off the grid or aspire to recapture the essence of primitive living. We may live in a pioneer house, but it's on a paved street (in some areas a rarity).
There are people who have these luxuries, plus a car or maybe two and a connection to cable or satellite teevee and a cell phone, maybe even a computer, who are barely getting by just the same. One of them lives down the street from us. He was injured in an on-the-job accident years ago, hit on the head by a falling roll-up door, brain damaged, but he was not able to get disability until late last year. Once his minimal savings were gone, he had to rely on others to help him, and so they did. Neighbors and relations chipped in, took care of him, made sure he was fed and cleaned, paid the bills that had to be paid while letting other things go; they even took care of his dogs. He hated being a burden on others, but he didn't have a lot of choice. Finally, he was approved for disability after years of being denied, and he will now have enough (he thinks) to pay his own way. No one expects him to pay back what they spent and did on his behalf.
This sense of community and looking after one another is part of the reality of poor living, something that ricos are forever trying to thwart or interfere with. They hate the fact that poor folk are often far more willing to look after one another, without any expectation of reward or return, than are the ricos themselves. They don't understand it, and they are afraid of it.
We live in a community that is tightly bound to one another in many ways, and to an extent -- because we're from California -- we're still not fully a part of it. I suspect if we were from Texas, on the other hand...;-). Some of the locals are suspicious, some try to figure out an angle for profit, others think we're just so rich and uppity we wouldn't want anything to do with them. Some have become fast friends.
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During the Papal Festivities, Francesco, Il Papa, expressed his wish to have a "poor church for the poor." Yes, well, I have my doubts about that, but the impulse is probably genuine, at least as genuine as anything gets at his level in the Church hierarchy. His insistence that he took the name Francesco from St. Francis of Assisi is interesting (I would have thought Francis Xavier, he being Jesuit and all...) and quite charming, but... well... it's a little hard to imagine the princes of the Church, led by the Pope, actually following the Little Poor Man's path. No, I think they wouldn't. They've (Gosh Almighty!) worked way too hard to get where they are and have what they have (sucking up to Ratzinger, come on!) to go the Poor Man's route, but you never know.
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Of course the Church is mostly theater, always has been, as is obvious in its Protestant evangelical kindred, though the Catholics are no slouches when it comes to Spectacle.
Theater can be accomplished on a fairly low budget though, and if the Church wants to, it can reflect on the Poor Theatre of Jerzy Grotowski -- as well as many others over the years -- as a means to explore what a Poor Church might be.
The pilgrimages and acts of the penitentes in New Mexico are examples of Poor Church theater, at least the way I look at it. We were at a Christmas event last year where a version of a penitente chapel (morada) was displayed. "Notice the bloodstains still on the doors?" Uh, yesss.... and the point would be...? What I was intrigued by was not the blood, it was the images, the retablos and bultos, that covered the walls of the shrine and decorated the altar. They were all native New Mexican made, some very old, though most probably dated from the 1950's or so. They were beautiful in their simplicity and naiveté, so much so I wanted to take some home -- though our own nicho does not lack for sacred images and statuettes. It's just that our nicho has so few actual New Mexican items. Most of them come from varied sources in California, though the pressed tin Our Lady of Lourdes is originally from France, and some of the santos and other images are from (Old) Mexico.
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We have a lot of New Mexican made pottery, however, mostly from Acoma Pueblo, so there is that! Of course most of it is still in boxes... somewhere... There are unopened moving boxes stacked in the house and out in the storage building beside it. There are more in the garage and the shed and the studio. There are some still in California, too. Sometimes I ask, "Where is... X or Y or Z?" And the answer is usually, "Oh, it's probably still in a box somewhere in storage." Any idea where, exactly? "Well, no. Not exactly. It might still be in California...;-)."
I've been meaning to go back to California since February but haven't done it. I figure three or possibly four trips in the van should empty the storage unit there, or I could rent a truck and do it in one trip though I'd have to figure out the logistics of getting there and back without flying. I would rather not fly again if it can be avoided. My last couple of experiences with airports and airlines were so annoying I swore off flying for good.
Of course the fact that I can even mention these sorts of conundrums and annoyances indicate how far from actual poverty we really are.
That could change at any minute though, due to the fact that I don't have health insurance (yet) and because of any number of uncertainties. You never know.
Jerzy Grotowski's "Towards A Poor Theatre" was a big influence on my thinking about and doing theater. And on living, too. I think it's telling that Grotowski's approach is still considered "experimental" or "radical." But his ideas and methods came out of a long tradition of theatrical artists breaking free of convention, using what was at hand -- and particularly their own bodies and voices -- to create a living partnership with the audience. One of the keys to this approach is to dissolve the boundaries between the stage and the People, or if the boundaries must be maintained, to make them strict and obvious.
Breaking free of convention became the central idea of the kind of theater I wanted to do and eventually did do. But when you are fighting against convention and expectation in theater, you are almost by definition doing and living Poor Theatre.
