Sesshin

We are not supposed to do internet or blog stuff ("journaling") during this intense period of study and practice nor wear strong perfumes, speak, or otherwise distract from our primary task. Which is? 

So what am I doing? Blogging, journaling, distracting as it were. Is that my task?

I've learned enough so far in this practice period, and remembered enough of my previous practice and how things sometimes went awry to -- I think -- make good use of this intense period of Sesshin to reinforce lessons learned and stay focused on what needs doing, reality vs illusion (hint: there's no not-illusion, no not-reality), and carry on.

I have a ton of text to study and restudy. There is a whole long list of neglected things to get done. There is a frequent schedule of zazen and liturgy practice. Because I'm not cloistered -- but of course am under travel and other restrictions because of the COVID -- I still have day-to-day household duties and chores that can't be set aside for Sesshin. And Ms. Ché is having some trouble with controlling her diabetes -- we don't know what's going on -- and has to be monitored closely for signs of either extremely low or extremely high blood sugar. 

In other words, I'll be adapting to the schedule of the Sesshin, and I'll be continuing most day-to-day requirements, and I'll be studying intently. 

One of the teachers used the metaphor (analogy?) of metamorphosis. We come out of the cocoon of Sesshin a different and arguably more beautiful being, no need to force it, it just happens on its own. 

Having been through the process a time or two, I'd say yes, but take care. I never did it in community before, nor did I have a Zen Master teacher to guide me. Even with them, there may be plenty of bumps o the road ahead. Take heed.

Future posts -- until the end of the Sesshin period -- may be very brief or there may be none at all.

Visions of Gary

Japhy Ryder, a character based on poet-environmentalist and man of letters Gary Snyder, figures prominently in Jack Kerouac's Dharma Bums (1958). He's presented as the epitome of the Zen Lunatic, a frequently encountered order of beings in the book. Japhy is Zen, he is a lunatic, and wiser than a god and more down to earth than cornpone. He can do anything. He can be anything. He is the center of Ray Smith's (Jack Kerouac's) world in the book, and Ray/Jack cries when Japhy sails off to Japan to become a Zen monk -- on a foundation grant.

I've been asked "Did you know Gary Snyder? Did you ever meet him?" And the short answer is "No," but then someone will tap me on the shoulder and say, "Actually, you did. You just don't remember."

OK. Where, when, how?

In the mid '80s I was deeply involved in the Sacramento arts and cultural community, and part of that meant I was going to meetings and receptions and such practically every day and night that I wasn't involved in rehearsals. 

Gary Snyder at the time was a member of the California Arts Council and if I recall correctly (ha!) he was teaching writing at UC Davis, and that meant that from time to time he would come down to the Valley from his ranch up in the Sierra foothills and mingle a bit with us lowlanders. What I can visualize are the flyers and ads for the retreats he would hold for writers and Zen bhikkhus at his place up the hill, and how they seemed at the time to be wildly expensive ($150 for a week? Ack!) 

But he was a celebrity, a major literary celebrity in our midst, and some people said he was worth every penny. 

I still say "No," but I'm told "Yes." 

I was colleagues with some of the staff of the Arts Council and knew a member or two, and I was sometimes invited to their events. I worked on projects with some of the faculty at UC Davis. And what is suggested is that my contact with Gary Snyder happened at a couple of receptions for artists and writers sponsored by the Arts Council or UC Davis. Those events are something of a blur to me these days. There were often hundreds of people drinking and mixing and mingling and laughing and carrying on the way they do. Apparently Gary Snyder was pointed out to me, surrounded by a cloud of worshipful fans, very barely visible, blondish bangs, crusty hooded eyes, and a toothy grin flashing now and then. "Don't you want to meet him?" "Not really," said I. "He seems to be having a good time, though. Loves that adulation."

Apparently I was taken over to the cloud and introduced to him, apparently we nodded to one another and maybe shook hands, and that, as far as I can tell, was that. We retreated to our corners. It may have happened pretty much the same way a time or two after that, but I honestly don't recall. 

Let's say we didn't hit it off. Part of it, I know, is that I was very anti-celebrity in those days. I was much more interested in helping to build up the talents of the many folks who weren't celebrities but who were creative and eager and had much to offer -- if only somebody would pay attention. Of course, then as now the conundrum was that if you're not a celebrity no one will pay attention. I had no inclination to fawn over any celebrity in those days and tended to try to avoid them as much as I could, and when I couldn't, I kept any contact to a minimum. "Hullo, howareya, nice to meecha, bye." 

I knew who Gary Snyder was, knew some of what he was famous for, and I knew he was the inspiration for the character Japhy Ryder in "Dharma Bums."  I would learn later that he really didn't care for Jack Kerouac's depiction of him in the book and he was annoyed that he had to dispel misconceptions about himself and his Zen lunacy based on what Kerouac had written. He wasn't really like that. You see. Kerouac wrote a novel not a first person non-fiction report. It wasn't journalism. It was a story, much of it invented. 

And I think maybe he was annoyed that Kerouac became obsessed with him. It went well beyond friendship into realms that are hard to quantify. I don't know what was going on in Jack's mind, but from the novel, there's a suggestion that Ray/Jack wanted to become Japhy/Gary. And so maybe Gary Snyder couldn't escape to Japan soon enough. 

Leaving Ray/Jack on the dock to cry bitter tears of loss and longing.

This was always the thing with Kerouac's writing. There is some deep-seated longing for... something unnamed, even unmentionable... in the characters Jack bases on himself. There is someone else who exemplifies what he wants to be, particularly Neal Cassady and Gary Snyder. They are these bigger-than-life shining, incredible characters who completely dominate Jack's character. They take over everything, life itself, they are life itself, and Jack's character wonders why he isn't like them, can't be like them, and who made them this way in the first place.

Japhy/Gary is wild, untamed, gritty, funny, and wicked. Wicked smart to a New Englander like Kerouac, but wicked bad too, given Kerouac's strict Catholic upbringing. Was it the Zen that made him that way? 

Japhy/Gary is wild and uninhibited and would drink and do drugs and get naked and sing and dance and fuck with abandon right there in front of everybody, and Jack's character would be amazed and wish he could be like him and would try and fail and be mortified. How does a Zen lunatic do it?

Snyder insists he was not like that, not really, though there may be pictures and receipts. The issue is that Kerouac was writing a novel about events in the mid 1950s, while Gary was still a graduate student at UC Berkeley. The wild man, the untamed Zen lunatic that he describes Japhy to be is almost an impossibility in that context. That kind of non-conformity would have been stamped out almost instantly in those days; it could not have happened. Period. 

Just look what happened to Mario Savio and the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley a decade later. There could not have been something even wilder in Japhy's time. 

The Gary Snyder I must have seen 30 years later was diminutive, smartly-casually dressed like the professor he was (with a twist, like monk's cloth wide britches and huaraches or hiking boots.) He laughed easily among his cloud of fans, he drank the way most people did in those days, and he adored being adored. He was used to it. 

In other words, there was nothing really abnormal or particularly noteworthy about him at all.

I still say I never met Gary Snyder, never knew him, but memories get jogged and come back and I find out that things I was sure never happened actually did. Things I had forgotten were still vivid in other people's memories. Life once led but left behind is still the active narrative in some minds.

Gary is 90-something now and I assume still lives up at his ranch or outpost or retreat in the Sierra foothills. He will probably live forever at this rate.

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Little bit of an Update: 

After I wrote this post I went to the Google Machine to see if I could pin down any real memories of Gary Snyder, and I came across a link to a story in the Nevada County Press or whatever about a film of a conversation between Gary Snyder and Jim Harrison. The story was from 2019. I found the film, made by Will Hearst III in 2009, "Practice of the Wild", and I was more or less stunned. Yes, I had memories and visions of Gary from way back, but mostly in the mid-'80s when he was actually around in the same places I was quite a bit. I recalled several times we met, despite his cloud of worshipful fans, and even without them when they weren't there, and I managed to recall who among my friends and colleagues were his friends or colleagues. And no, we didn't get along.

It was a strange feeling, very strange. How very much I have forgotten. I'm reluctant to say that whole phase of my life is gone, but realistically, without a trigger, it is.

 Hm.

A video that won't embed:

https://youtu.be/oFg7K4vAGnk?t=880

Another addendum:

From Jack Kerouac's long letter to Gary Snyder, December 1957:

.have no time now, just adding p.s. to Allen’s letter, I haven’t written to you for the odd Mexico reasons of no post offices and stamp facilities for overseas etc. and couldn’t get up in time …….but I think of you all the time….more than you know—— On Desolation, well I’ll tell you later, it’s a long beautiful tale quietude….Meanwhile I have been writing furious, for this  year for instance I have three new novels and new perms (poems??) and now all of a sudden 2 contracts with publishers in NY here this very day it’s taking place…..have great new way of transliterating Diamond Sutra that will at last spread the diamond sutra in the west and maybe even in the east, all Sanskrit terms out of it, but translated into simple English, I cry when I read it sometimes and I read it every day……that too I’ll send you later….meanwhile be you the Gary Snyder of my dreams…be you sad deep Gary, sad funny crazy Gary, and be bejesus god we’ll go climb mountains again soon              Jack

Emphasis mine. I just sit with that in wonder.

 Further noting: A) One of my tasks during this practice period and Sesshin is learning to be less judgmental of others. I have a long way to go. 

B) Reading Jack's letter to Gary, however, brings forth some judgement. 

If I were a Zen master receiving this letter, as Gary Snyder was in the budding stages of becoming, I would be alarmed. I mentioned earlier that Jack had become obsessed with Gary, almost as if he were determined to become Gary Snyder somehow, absorb him, devour him. And this letter is, I think, proof. What is a bhikku to do with something like this, let alone a Zen master? Would it even be possible for Gary to (gently) guide Jack away from this obsession? Maybe. I don't think so. I'm not at all sure Gary had it in him -- even as a Zen master -- in any case. The course of gentle guidance was always in conflict with Gary's determined forcefulness. I can well imagine Gary giving Jack the back of his hand, hard, with no explanation and storming away. 

This brings forth so much sadness and compassion for both of them within me. It's hard to bear without breaking down completely. It wasn't long after this that Jack went on his long drunken bender into madness and death. 

And Gary became the iconic Man of Letters he is today and likely always was or saw himself to be. An image, perhaps, not a being. 

Which is what I encountered in the person thirty-forty twenty-five-thirty years ago and... found wanting.

This is one of those rounds of the Dharma wheel I continue to work with/on. For-ever.

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On the other hand (remember, Zen is contradiction) if I were a Zen master, which I have no intention of being, I wouldn't be alarmed by that letter from Jack at all. No, I'd figure instead that he was making progress and his expressions of devotion to Gary were positive signs of immanence and Awakening. Or maybe not. People come to the Awakened Mind in their own way and their own time. Expressions of devotion to someone else can be over the top and it's OK. Like everything else, that too will pass. 

If Jack would sit for a while... just sit with no expectations... he'd come around to see what he needed to.

So... Another Bite At the Apple So To Speak

Chapter 5 of A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life (Guarding Alertness) was the study we were engaged in when we were treated to... The Man Who Knows Everything the other day. Apparently, I wasn't the only one who had, shall we say, a negative reaction to his presentation and had to work through some things during and afterwards to guard their own altertness in the face of his onslaught. Hm. Well, anyway, last evening we had another Dharma talk on the same chapter, this time from one of the center's own staff a teacher, prison counselor and priest, the same one with whom I had practice interview a few days ago, and his focus was on one aspect of the chapter, an aspect I really hadn't noticed previously (no surprise):

Procrastination

A very commonplace human trait, no? Well, yes. Oh yes. How well I know! We put off tasks -- or a least I do -- sometimes over and over again because..... ? Well, why? 

I thought of one of many things I've been procrastinating over, this one for more than a year: trimming some of the dead branches from the trees around our place.

It's a complicated, potentially dangerous task that requires:

• planning
• preparation
• proper tools
• right state of mind
• agility
• confidence
• determination
• energy
• skill

Hopefully a helper, too. Well, my helper hasn't been around for quite some time. Exactly what happened to him, I'm not sure. But I haven't seen him, and I'm afraid he may have passed away. The last time I saw him he was not well, and what with the COVID and all... He stopped coming around and no one I've talked to has seen him for months.

As for the other things, I have assembled tools, done some planning, but I'm not very good with much of the rest. I cut down one branch last year that was touching an electric line, and I wouldn't say it went exactly well. I think I missed getting brained by the falling branch by a couple of inches probably because I'd miscalculated where I should place the ladder. As it was, the falling branch ripped my shirt and put a welt on my back. It wasn't a serious wound, but it gave me pause. 

I don't have a lot of agility because my joints have stiffened, but I can get around and climb a ladder and such. I may be slow, but I get there eventually. My confidence level -- that I can do these things -- is not quite as high as it once was, but as a rule, if I set out to accomplish a task I believe I can get it done. If I start, I am generally determined to finish and usually do so unless something completely unexpected interferes. 

My energy level is better since I started taking prednisone again last fall when I was feeling immense fatigue almost all the time. It's a consequence of my condition and the medications I take, and there's not a lot I can do about it. Low doses of prednisone, though, help. Fatigue is going to dog me no matter what. But we learn to cope with it -- well, that's something of a stretch. Let's say I make do.

My skills are so-so. I can do the task, but not as well as a professional might. This has been my way through thick and thin most of my life with pretty much anything. I can do things. But do them well? Enh. Maybe. Maybe not.

State of mind is the one that has kept me procrastinating, I think more than anything. If I don't feel I'm ready, I'm not going to do it, whatever it is, and getting ready can take a long time. Or readiness may never come.

I'm procrastinating. I admit it. It's no shame in my view. I'm simply not ready to take on this important task of trimming dead branches yet. I may never be. My intent may be there, but if I don't feel I can mentally and physically accomplish it with relative safety for myself and others, I won't do it. Some would call that "wisdom." Others might say "cowardice."

Huh. Back to the Beginning Again

That's pretty much how this practice period has been going. I keep circling around, not to start over so much as remember the shreds and tatters of the Dharma I lost along the way, go back and pick up some of and then some more of what I left behind, not to have it as in possession but to  recall and incorporate it into my present being. 

Sitting Zen opens the doorway you might say, and my sits are just to sit. Doorways open or they don't but when a doorway is opened, there's no need for a longer sit at that time. That's why they vary in length, up to an hour but usually much shorter. And more frequent than the zazen schedule at the zendo. Chopping wood and carrying water is practice just as sitting is. "Chopping wood and carrying water" is a metaphor for daily activities, doing what needs to be done, while practicing Zen; in fact, the activity itself becomes  practice. Eventually, your life and being, my life and being, is practice. 

Years ago, I was there, or as nearly there as I think I was able to get. I'd absorbed as much of the sutras and the Dharma and the Buddha nature of all beings and non-beings as I was going to at the time, and in my sits I had entered The Void, where there was nothing, no thoughts, images, plans, desires, distractions, or delusions. Just pure emptiness. 

If I had had a teacher at the time, I have little doubt that I would have been told that "The Void" I encountered was a delusion. Quite likely dangerous. And I should let go of it. In fact, I may have encountered that idea in my studies without a teacher. At any rate, whenever I sat in those days, I would immediately go to Void state, whether or not it was a delusion, and from my perspective, it wouldn't let go of me. 

This happened toward the end of my year or so residence in San Francisco. I'm not well-adapted to living in cities at all, and at the time (mid-late '70s) San Francisco had a distinctly odd vibe. There was all this alternative New Age pseudo spirituality going on, and there were hustlers everywhere of every kind imaginable. It was a cacophony of yada yada all the time. The Counterculture had mostly imploded, but its echoes lingered and San Francisco was still the heart-center of what could be, what ought to be. The City was filthy, deteriorating and unhealthy, however. Not at all the image it liked to project. That perception may have been a factor of where I was living, too, on the border between the Tenderloin and Nob Hill, a territory filled with dregs and aspirations and desires.  I tried to keep my path narrow, but I couldn't keep it narrow enough, and in the end, it was simply more than I could bear with any kind of equanimity to be there. 

Mantra

 "All equally empty; all equally to be loved; all come a Buddha"

This is the "prayer" Jack Kerouac (as Ray Smith) gives Gary Snyder (as Japhy Ryder) in "Dharma Bums".

It has become my go-to mantra during this practice period somewhat randomly as well as intentionally when I get all judgmental about others as I sometimes do. As I did yesterday. Oh my.

There was a Dharma talk by a big Sanskrit scholar from out of town, and it got me so, shall we say wound up that I clicked off the Zoom, went to the other room and fumed for a while. And then when I clicked on the Zoom again, he was still there with his "I know everything about everything, and you don't" attitude and presentation, and I just wanted to push him off the engawa into the mud in the hopes that he'd come to recognize a scrap of reality for once in his life. (There's a story about a Zen master in Japan whose disciple asked a question and in answer, the master pushed him off the veranda of the zendo and into the mud after a rainstorm. The disciple gained enlightenment at that moment: "Mud is better than words." It may be a subtle thing, but it is very Zen.)

This scholar much beloved at the Zen center hosting this practice period went on and on using several trillions of words an hour and seemed to say... well, approximately nothing. The text of A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life is not so much opaque as it is indirect as I alluded to in a previous post. This makes it useful to some, not so much to others, but not something that needs or benefits from having every jot and tittle dissected, examined, and then re-animated "correctly". But dude is a PhD scholar. In the academy, it's what they do, it's what they have to do to make a living. And then there will be endless arguments over what constitutes "correct." So on and so on and so forth and so forth, endlessly. But... but... dude reads and speaks Sanskrit; reads and speaks Pali. He knows whereof he speaks. And you, benighted ones, don't. 

Face it!

Well, by the end of his... talk... yes he did end it because he had to go on to another very important meeting... I was laughing so hard. I know it's bad. My whole reaction to this talk ran counter to our teachings of equanimity, charity and wisdom. Among other things. And not judging or bad mouthing another. But there I was, laughing my fool head off as he prattled endlessly and so many of the other participants (a number of whom are PhDs themselves) cooed and bowed before him. Not me. Nope.

So bad I was. And the more I held on to this reaction of mine, the more it seemed to eat at me. Why? I was outside doing some work-practice putting the side yard back together after a succession of wind-storms, and I was still thinking about this talk-waste-of-time, rolling it over and over in my mind, while I was supposed to be in Zen space doing the work that needed doing, and I sat down in a chair in the yard to catch my breath and practice zazen for a moment, pondering how stupid I was to hold onto, to be attached to my reaction to this Dharma talk, and almost immediately came the mantra:

All equally empty; all equally to be loved; all equally come a Buddha

It's obvious how spare and lean that is. It's very Zen. Also, words are left out and the mantra is a question, too... "all" what? for example. And for me, it is a nearly perfect distillation of the teachings over the ages, starting -- but not starting -- with the teachings of Sakyamuni Buddha himself. It's like the whole of the rule and the law of the Bodhisattva way of life. Shantideva's instructions boil down to just about that. But sometimes it might take a whack over the head, a sudden toss into the mud, or a trillion words to get to that realization.

And with the mantra, my reaction was gone -- not gone, because I can still conjure it up as I had to do to write this. The point is, my reaction isn't in control of my mind any more. And that, dear friends, is what all of us are getting at one way or another in our Zen or other Buddhist practice.

May we live long enough to bring all beings to Awakening on the path to Buddhahood.

And So...

Round and round. The enso is the image of a usually incomplete circle rooted in the Zen conception of our path on earth. A Dharma Wheel of sorts, but not exactly. It doesn't have spokes. Just a void in the center and a circular path around it. And another void on the outside of the path.

 It's the image of the circle I've been going round for ages. I'm about to take another lap.

Study, yes much study this time around, and all of it, well almost all, reminds me of just how much study of the sutras and the Prajnaparamita I've already done. Is there anything I haven't already read? Any talk I haven't already heard? Any awakening I haven't already experienced?

Of course there are plenty of them. Oh, so many. But at some point the Zen master pushes the student off the veranda and into the mud. Mud is better than words. That's satori.

My study texts this practice period are growing in number. Good thing most of them are online and I don't have to carry around a rucksack full of books, which, back in the day, I basically did. There were so many books, so many sutras, so many commentaries on the sutras, so many practice manuals and so many commentaries on the practice of Zen, so many haiku expressing the essence of Zen, and on and on and on, words, words, words.

Texts:

Before I started this practice period, I read Big Sur by Jack Kerouac and saw the movie of the book several times. It's the somewhat fictionalized story of Jack's deterioration into alcoholism and madness after the success of On the Road. This bhikkhu, Jack, went to pieces. Success made him crazy. Or did it? 

The expectations that others placed on him because of his success with On the Road were closer to the source of his mental and physical collapse. But those expectations weren't exactly the reason why. 

Perhaps unknowingly, he'd created an image of himself in the book (On the Road) that was nothing (much) like him. In some strange reversal of roles, many people seemed to believe he, Jack, was like the character Dean Moriarty (Neal Cassady) which is just completely backwards. I didn't read On the Road back in the day; I can't say why. What I can say is that I purchased three Jack Kerouac novels one summer day in 1964 or 65 at Tower Books. They were: Dharma Bums, Big Sur, and Desolation Angels. 

Why those and not others? Who can say? By the mid-'60s, Kerouac had published a fairly large body of work, but I remember on the shelf at Tower there weren't that many of his books. It's possible only those were there at the time, though I imagine that as his most popular work, On the Road  was also there.

Whatever the case, I read -- no, I practically devoured -- Dharma Bums first. My god, what a story, what a tale, what astonishing journey, upanddown California, mountains, valleys and coastline, and back again. Scenes of endless parties in Bay Area shacks, Oakland, Berkeley, Marin. Trails to nowhere and the sea, mountain climbing in the highest high Sierras; tramping on freight trains to the moon.

Hiding out in a fire lookout shack in the Cascades, cruising through the Skid Row of Seattle. What a tale, what an amazing adventure. Throughout, Jack (called Ray) and Gary Snyder (Japhy Ryder) commit Zen lunacy, practice Buddhism, become Bodhisattvas, and revel in their Awakenness and eccentricity. Wow. Where did this come from? Zen? What's Zen? I had only vague notions of Buddhism at the time, but Zen? Nah. Nothing. 

Practically everyone from that Beat era is dead now, but Gary Snyder is still alive, and supposedly he doesn't like being categorized as a Beat poet, though he is an acknowledged Zen Master. If it hadn't been for him, it's unlikely many of the Beat writers would have delved into Buddhism as deeply as they did.

But in my adolescence, none of this was known to me. I wanted to find out. What is Zen?

I started reading Big Sur and I stopped and didn't pick it up for a long time because it was tough, hard, hard, hard on the psyche and the emotions, and still there was Zen, which I realize now was what kept Jack from going completely over the edge at the time, but later it wouldn't/couldn't save him.

Finally, Desolation Angels: I may have got only five pages into it. It's something of a sequel/continuation/ expansion of Dharma Bums, focused on Jack's time at the fire lookout shack on Desolation Peak in Washington. I've figured out this was in 1955 or 56 (but I'm sure adepts know exactly when Jack went up to Desolation Peak). So it wasn't long before he hit it big in the literary firmament. Zen is not only still there, it is at the core of his being on top of the mountain.

So OK, I've said many times now how important Kerouac was to my interest in and discovery of Zen and the Bodhisattva Way and all that. 

For this practice period, Dharma Bums became one of my texts, and I finished re-reading it a couple of days ago. It's as inspirational, aspirational, and as moving now as it ever was back in the day. A Zen lunatic bhikkhu wandering, wandering and never quite finding what was already there. When I finished the book, I realized, perhaps for the first time, how closely my own wandering mirrored his. Perhaps it was for the same purpose. I don't know. 

Other texts: Shantideva's A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life, the primary text assignment that we were given. I've read it in the Stephen Batchelor translation and listened to two versions in audiobooks. I had only read excerpts in the past, and having now read and heard the whole thing, I'm not sure it's particularly helpful. Setting aside the florid language, it seems to have been written to avoid the point rather than to make it. To hide it, if you will behind a screen of beautifully carved marble and gem encrusted draperies, Not unlike Indian architecture, often very beautiful but very concealing. And, too, it's not unlike the way I've experienced how East Indians avoid direct statements when speaking about pretty much anything, always curving around or sidling into whatever it is. Shantideva does that too, and for me, it's annoying and frustrating. But that's my Western mind putting up barriers.

When you can sit with two of my other texts this practice period, the Diamond Sutra, and The Platform Sutra, and be relieved by their utter simplicity and straightforwardness, Shantideva's indirection is perhaps unnecessarily burdensome. Although both sutras have extensive commentaries, you don't really need them to grasp the meaning of the texts. It's right there, unhidden, though complete understanding takes some effort. Both Sakyamuni (as the World Honored One in the Diamond Sutra) and Hui-neng (as The Master) in The Platform Sutra make it if not easy, at least comprehensible and direct. 

There are probably a dozen other Buddhist texts I'm using as guides and helps during this practice period, and I'll be meeting with another Dharma teacher later this week so there might be more texts added to the pile, but that's OK. Mud is still better than words, but the words are there -- and are still needed -- so long as we are thought-ruled creatures. 

Other realizations (satori): the sentient beings we as Bodhisattva vow to Awaken and liberate: nearly all of them are already Awakened and liberated. They can teach us, and many do if we pay attention. Those who aren't and need our help are becoming more and more difficult to reach. (I might expand on that another time.)

Another: Bodhisattva's deep compassion for all sentient beings is not fundamentally in the material world. It is a matter of mind-Awakening more than anything else, so that in many cases, Bodhisattva compassion, bodhicitta, doesn't involve physical charity or even concern for physical/emotional well-being at all. Satori:  I've been doing it wrong all these years. And I, praise be, am not the only one. 

Buddhism Without Laughter is Like Revolution Without Dancing

So. 

Did my first "Practice Interview" yesterday with one of the Dharma teachers for this practice period. I told him he was the reason I was there because I'd listened to a podcast of a Dharma talk he did about a year and a half ago. The topic was the Diamond Sutra -- which I'd been googling for information -- and his talk had been enlightening partly for what wasn't said rather than what was directly stated. It wasn't a particularly organized talk, it was more spontaneous and was just what I needed at that moment. 

When I got an email about this practice period, I said to myself, "All right, why not? It's time." So here I am.

I told him the brief version of my many years of practice, how I came to the practice, where I was in the practice, and some of what I was gaining and hoped to gain from this practice period. We talked about Kerouac and Dharma Bums and I said that it was probably time for me to have a teacher and join an active sangha. He saw that it was probably so.

I asked how his mother was doing. It seemed to startle him. When the practice period began he said he'd just come back from Los Angeles where he'd been with his mother through surgery, and I'd thought about him and his mother from that point on. Even when you are detached in the Buddhist sense, the loss or well being of your mother and those closest to you is going to be felt. Compassion and concern and respect are called for from those who are aware.

He thanked me and said she was doing well, and I told him I was glad for that, and we moved on. 

He suggested I read the Platform Sutra if I hadn't already. Best, he thought, if I came to it fresh without advance conceptions or knowledge. If I hadn't read it before its effect would be greater.

So I'm reading it now, and it's fascinating. I didn't read it before. No. But I'd heard the story, it's often used as a metaphor. And much of the Dharma teaching is very familiar. For the most part, it is the Zen practice I've been engaged in for so many, many years. There are some gems, real gems that'd I'd missed, and I was delighted to find them in the Sutra.

He suggested I arrange for interviews with other Dharma teachers during the practice period as well, which I've done with one other so far. Slots fill quickly. 

We chatted some more and he said he'd like to take it up with me some more at another time, and I was agreeable, and after our time was up for this interview we bowed said goodbye for now. 

What was striking to me was that we laughed, genuinely, at our foibles among other things, and to me that is a core and necessary feature of Buddhism. For without laughter, what's the point, eh?

Without dancing, why bother with Revolution?

Zen Not Zen -- Another Approach

 I don't know what Zen is. It's a contradiction.

I'm becoming convinced that the Zen practice period I'm participating in is not all that Zen when you strip away some of the Japanese-ish names, robes, forms and rituals. It's more in the Tibetan tradition with a large helping of Western counseling and psychological conditioning thrown in. 

It'a a hell of a lot more complicated than Zen -- which I understand is a distillation of Mahayana Buddhism passed from  India through China to Japan and from there to the West where it has.... hmmm, mutated?

Tibetan Buddhism is more of an elaboration than a distillation of Mahayana Buddhism with some other elements added. 

In other words, Zen is lean, very lean.Tibetan Buddhism is not. And Mahayana, as it developed in India after Sakyamuni's Enlightenment and Buddhahood, is extremely complex to the point of nearly incomprehensibility to Westerners. As a side note, there are now proportionately more Buddhists in the United States than there are in India. Go figure. Oh, and about 3/4 of the US Buddhists are not Zen.

Zen practice in the context of this practice period is actually not that important to the program. One of the indications, for example, is the usual near-emptiness of the zendo during practice. I understand there are people sitting behind the camera, but we don't see them on the Zoom and don't know they're there unless they come forward to participate in formal ritual. Otherwise there may be no more than two or three people visible in the zendo during zazen. On occasion there's only been one.

There's been a big fall-off in zazen practice participation by those of us on Zoom, largely because, I think, there is little visible participation at the zendo. 

Sitting Zen is critically important; it's the key to the practice, and if it is not being done, as it appears it is not, at least by many of those participating in this practice period, then it's not Zen. Study is important, receiving teaching is important, samu (righteous community work) is important and all the forms and rituals are important, but none of it matters much if you're not sitting Zen. For it is through sitting Zen that you open up to the contradictions and the coherence of the practice and instruction as a whole and to the Bodhisattva way that is the purpose and practice you're bound for. 

I can't tell you how much of a difference my own sits have made in my ability to absorb and comprehend the teachings. Samu too. All of the Zen stuff is bringing me back to where I was in my practice before I "entered the void" -- which I will try to get into at some other point. 

I'm not terribly rigorous about sitting, but I do try to make at least three sits a day for varying lengths of time, and I witness nearly all the rituals, chants and liturgy. I was very moved by the Buddha Birthday ceremony the other day, as it was almost the first time Sakyamuni Buddha had made a physical/spiritual appearance in the zendo. And then as soon as the ceremony was over, he  was taken away. How transitory we all are!

I have not yet taken the four Bodhisattva Vows, and won't until I am ready. Which may or may not come by the end of this practice period. 

Our text is The Bodhisattva Way of Life by Shantideva, c. 800AD. I've read it in the Stephen Batchelor translation and listened to two other translation in audiobooks. Condensed, it's pretty straightforward about righteousness as a Bodhisattva or becoming a Bodhisattva in the material world. Which is one's purpose as a Mahayana Buddhist. 

Soto Zen which we are sort of practicing is Mahayana Buddhist, and Bodhisattva living is what the Zen practitioner is meant to do. Shantideva makes the argument for it in rather florid Old Indian style, but it is up to the lean Zen practitioner to do it. 

To do it and to fit the Bodhisattva way into a contemporary context is perhaps the central problem. In medieval Japan, that context was dominated by samurai and shoguns and whatnot. The life of the common people was largely devalued -- as was the case in India during Shantideva's time and during Sakyamuni Buddha's time as well. The Bodhisattva's way is intended as a means to convince primarily the aristocracy to be better toward all sentient beings, rabble in the streets included, than they were or than they necessarily wanted to be.

Of course we aren't living in Old India or medieval Japan. We live in a contemporary and often quite vile world of pandemics and exploitation to the point of ruin of the earth and the people in it, the collapse of reliable institutions and systems, and widespread grief and despair. The need for Bodhisattvas could hardly be greater,

A Zen approach would ordinarily be the simplest and most direct. But that's seemingly not the way this practice period is going about it. "Round about" is more like it. 

The Bodhisattva way is to deliver or "save" all sentient beings before the Bodhisattva achieves Buddhahood for him or her self. In other words to help and serve before being served. Many have expanded the call to save all sentient beings to include the Earth as a whole, sentient and non-sentient beings and all living beings together with the earth, the air, the water, and everything necessary for living beings on Earth.

That's a big task, an impossible task, but a Bodhisattva vows to do it to the best of his or her ability come what may.

And so here we are, Not-Zenning or Zenning our way to Bodhisattva-ing in the world as it is.

Bluntly --- and not boastfully --- I've been doing this for nearly all my life. At some point, I stopped regular sitting Zen practice (and I know when it was and to an extent why) but continued to live Zen and the Bodhisattva Way, as imperfectly as I did, whether I was sitting Zen or no.

Once you're in that space or frame of mind, you can't really stop. You'll continue to do it, no matter. 

But here I am nearly back to the beginning of my Zen practice, in a somewhat not-Zen context, relearning or learning for the first time some of the deeper meanings of the teachings.

Living as a proto-Bodhisattva without the vows and without a teacher has had its hazards and many missteps along the way. I know I'm not much longer for this world, but what time I have left is needed for that Bodhisattva task ahead.

How it will manifest remains to be seen.

Restoring Bodhicitta

So, like I said, I started Zen practice nearly 60 years ago, inspired by curiosity about it from reading Jack Kerouac's novels (I bought Dharma Bums, Big Sur, and Desolation Angels at Tower Books) one summer, either 1964 or 65, I forget which now, and looking around for some kind of information/insight to what this "Zen" might be. 

Realistically, there wasn't much information available back then. After all, there was no internet, no Google, no YouTube, no Zoom. no videos, no email. I could go to the library and seek out books, if there were any, or I could contact one of the few Zen centers then in the United States and hope to receive some information and enlightenment.

I don't remember the exact process I went through. If it was the summer of 1964, I didn't have a car and couldn't drive, so it was difficult for me to get around. In 1965, I did have a driver's licence and access to a car sometimes. I only had my own car the next year, 1966. What I remember doing is contacting the San Francisco Zen Center by letter, asking for information/guidance and receiving a booklet about Buddhism in more or less general layman terms, and some specific information about Zen practice and nice hand-written letter from somebody named Richard or Robert or something with an invitation to come to the Center for more direct experience. And don't hesitate to contact the Center if I had any questions.

I wrote back saying I was in high school and was not able to come to San Francisco on my own nor could I possibly live there. Was there a way for me to learn and practice Zen from a distance? Apart from actually being at the Center?

The answer came back yes. With provisos. I could learn the practice, ie: how to do it, and I could learn the precepts and vows, and the Life of Buddha, on my own with minimal instruction, as it was very simple just to sit in meditation (as it was referred to then), and as long as I could read and follow instructions I would at least be able to begin. But unless I was prepared for the rigors of Zen practice and unless I was guided by experienced teachers, the best I could do would be an initial and maybe momentary enlightenment, maybe not even that. Yet the sitting itself and the intention was often enough to spark a real difference in perception and life. Did I want to try?

I said yes. 

Instruction came via US Mail. Brief life of the Buddha. Precepts, vows, the Three Treasures, etc. And references to other books and works I was to seek out. But most important was to sit. Just sit.

And sit I did.

I set up a corner of my bedroom with a cushion on the floor, an Oriental scroll on the wall, and a footstool on which I placed some Chinese and Japanese knick-knacks we had in the house. The scroll, I think, came from a visit to Chinatown in San Francisco some years previously.

And I sat. Well, at first I tried to, but it was difficult. It was particularly difficult to master the right position and posture on the cushion. Wrestling with legs going every which way, sitting up straight without a back rest, wondering what to do with my hands, whether to have my eyes closed or open, and just taking the time to sit rather than not was a challenge. Letting thoughts come and go while sitting was a challenge. All of this was taking place without a teacher at hand, no guided meditation recordings, and in a somewhat chaotic home environment in the heat of a Sacramento summer without air conditioning, or if I remember correctly, without even a fan in my room. 

Let me tell you, this was not a project or practice for the faint hearted. 

After the initial challenges though, I found I was able to do at least one 20 minute sitting session every day. My intention was that these sits would lead to enlightenment. In the Buddhist sense. 

Which I didn't understand.

Oh my no. I had essentially no idea what this "Enlightenment" was supposed to be. And was "satori" the same thing? Yes, no, maybe? 

Yes, I experienced satori, or what I thought satori might be, sudden insight into the deeper nature of things that I hadn't realized before. But was this Enlightenment the way the Buddha was enlightened? I didn't think so, and it wasn't possible to find out. So I went with satori and didn't worry a whole lot about Enlightenment because it would come or not on its own. Right?

One of the precepts was that of regular practice, sitting without an end to be gained, just to sit and by sitting possibly clear your mind. The mind was both the enemy and the primary resource, necessary and deceptive. Deceptions and delusions arose in your mind and could only be tamed by training your mind to recognize the illusory nature of thoughts and the often destructive nature of emotions. 

You don't become enlightened by sitting in meditation (not referred to as meditation any more) but sitting can be a pathway toward enlightenment. It can help open the door as it were. Enlightenment comes on its own because in essence you're already enlightened, already a Buddha, you just don't know it. 

 And so on. 

The rigor of Zen comes from constant and consistent practice, study and work. Zen is simple but demanding. You can do it on your own, but it will be more difficult, at some points impossible without a teacher and sangha.

At the time, Zen was very strongly linked and tied to traditional Japanese culture, art and architecture. Zen Buddhism wasn't as widely practiced in Japan as Shinto and other forms of Buddhism, but it was perhaps the most influential practice because of its adoption by members of the Imperial Household and much of the Samurai class during the feudal period. It was still an important and influential Buddhist practice in Japan.

For me, learning Zen meant learning about and adopting portions of that Japanese cultural and artistic framework, the "style" if you will, which at the time was considered eccentric and exotic to many western eyes. 

So I did what I could to "be Japanese" but ultimately understood that the style was perhaps the least of the Zen characteristics. 

Neither Zen nor any other Buddhist practice was widely known in the United States at the time, and Zen being the practice of the upper classes and elites it was perhaps the least known because most of the immigrants from Japan were not Samurai, were not of the highest rank, were not royal. Far from it. Most did not bring Zen with them, and most did not adopt it once they were in the United States.

What appealed to me about Zen was not any of that, any of the deeper social significance of Zen and Zen practice, or anything about social stratification in medieval Japan. It was, perhaps in the back of my mind, but not paramount. No, what I was looking for and what I saw in Zen early on was a spiritual means to "calm my mind." Given largely chaotic adolescence and home life, I saw Zen as a practical and spiritual means to shut it down, withdraw, and restore or come to an Awakened Mind -- Bodhicitta (not, however, knowing what that meant.) 

At the lowest level, it worked. Almost like magic. A Zen master would say that was a sign of danger. That I was probably straying too far from the Dharma Path. But that, in a sense, heading off in whatever direction I found was what I needed to do. 

The Buddha was within me, the Dharma was me, the Sangha was with whomever I found on the Dharma Path even if they didn't know it.

And so, close to 60 years later, I'm back near the beginning of that journey. 

Not starting over but renewing. Restoring. Re-committing. 

Soooo.....

Nearly every Buddhist teacher I've ever seen or listened to starts most talks with the extended "Sooooo...." often followed by a long pause before offering something along the lines of a koan, a puzzling but universal truth, or contrary-wise, a generous welcome and asking for a count of one sort or another. "How many of you have done X, Y, or Z? Hands?" Usually all three in sequence.

This is standard. It's what you do when sitting on the raised cushion before an assembly of disciples and students. "Soooo........" Even the Dalai Lama does this. Or even especially he does it...

We've been studying the Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life which I recall reading some excerpts from many years ago, but I had never read the whole thing, and now that I have, I understand why it was excerped rather than presented whole back in the day. Shantideva wrote in the 800s AD in India, and his audience was pretty clearly other privileged princelings of the region and era like his former self. He wasn't writing for the rabble in the streets -- who couldn't read anyway, so what would be the point, right?

So when we approach this work, we're approaching as if he'd written it for us -- we, the equivalent of the street rabble yet we who believe we are as high and mighty as the princelings of Old India -- when he didn't. I'm struck by how often Shantideva lards his work with line after line of praise and flattery and images of showers of gold and jewels and scented waters that would appeal to the vanity and pecuniary interest of the princes and kings of yore. For us today, this is nonsense, this is bullshit. Manjushri Bodhisattva would cut through all the not necessary bullshit, no? Yet line after line, there goes Shantideva again. What is he doing?

In a flash of insight (sometimes called satori, but maybe it wasn't) it occurred to me he was trying his best to appeal those myriad princes, kings and potentates of Old India and convince them to be better, behave better toward that rabble, themselves and one another and learn to act in the Bodhisattva Way, the way of compassion for all sentient beings (and later, for some, non-sentient and non-beings) and the way of complete dedication to bodhicitta -- bringing enlightenment and end to suffering for all beings and the whole wide world. The basis of Mahayana Buddhism of which Zen claims to be a part.

Shantideva was trying to argue, persuade, and cajole his peers to be better, show themselves as better than they had been, to learn, grow, and unselfishly give and be bodhisattvas themselves.

We are not his peers. This does not diminish his teaching or argument in any way. What it means is that our approach to the Bodhisattva Way of Life must be from a different direction. Most of us are not in charge of much of anything. Few of us have power over many others. For the most part we do not determine conditions of life or death for someone else. Therefore we do not live the lives of princes and potentates -- though our egos may tell us otherwise (smile emoji).

So how should we approach it? What does bodhicitta mean from the bottom up rather than the other way around? What does it mean to bring enlightenment and an end to suffering for all beings when you're not a prince or king or potentate -- and you don't have the power to do it?

So what do you do when you're functionally powerless even over most aspects of your own life, yet you are called upon to adopt the Bodhisattva Way and act on bodhicitta on behalf of everyone and the whole globe?

Especially what do you do when your betters, if you want to call them that, those who do have power and responsibility, act as if they don't. And in many cases behave worse than the worst of the potentates of old?

This is a consideration that I have yet to see enter into this practice period or indeed into much of Zen practice at all. Often enough, even Sakyamuni Buddha doesn't enter into it, either. The Bodhisattvas, on the other hand, are usually everywhere. Oft-times I wonder if I'm practicing Buddhism without Buddha. Or rather All-Buddhas/No-Buddha. (When someone asks me, "What is Zen?" I might say, "I don't know what Zen is. It's a contradiction.")

The class issue, I think, is important, and it runs through Buddhism and every branch of Buddhism from the outset, though often it's ignored today. Or rather it is pretended not to matter. 

After all, Sakyamuni Buddha was a prince, groomed to be king. His rivals and most of his followers were of the ruling class of his time and place as well; according to tradition, he learned from and opposed the Brahmans of his era (though others contend there was no such class in those days).  He may have wanted Enlightenment to be shared by all, and he may have sometimes been seen among the Lesser Orders, but he was not one of them, nor were most of his followers. They were aristocrats. 

Shantideva's situation parallels the Buddha's. He lived many hundreds of years after the Buddha and in a different part of India, but he, too, was a prince groomed to be king who renounced his titles and temporal authority to become a mendicant monk like the Buddha. He wrote extensively, which the Buddha (apparently) did not. He wrote what look like appeals to his aristocratic peers to become Bodhisattvas, Awakened Minds and Hearts, compassionate toward all beings. On the way to Buddhahood.

"All equally empty; all equally to be loved; all equally come a Buddha." The prayer given by Jack Kerouac to Gary Snyder as recorded fictionally in "Dharma Bums" (1958).

That is as concise a distillation of the Bodhisattva Way as I've seen. 

Sakyamuni and Shantideva were arguing strenuously for their aristocratic class to be better, to become bodhisattvas and act with humility and compassion toward "all sentient beings" which includes the rabble in the streets, but except in the abstract, do not become "of" them. The abstract being the realization that all are equal because all are One-NotOne.

And I look around at the others I am among in the Zoom practice period and I see that the vast majority are professional women of a certain age, mostly in the helping/caring professions, and, from what I've seen over time, that is the class (if you will) that this center focuses on. They are the ones to be reached and persuaded to be like bodhisattvas. To follow the Bodhisattva Way and become Buddhas.

They aren't aristocrats in the sense of having much temporal power in the political sense. But actually, they do have a lot of power, indeed power of life and death if they want to use it, in their capacity as healthcare professionals. 

And as I have listened to them talk in Enso meetings, oh, do I hear the same arguments over and over, the same woe is me, the same lack of understanding or rather lack of Enlightenment when they argue with themselves and their beliefs too much. Roshi advises "Don't overthink it..." but I'm not sure that's heard. Or if it's heard, it's not understood, not yet. For the rational argument is often a refuge when the Three Gems aren't enough. 

In my early practice days, I was instructed those precepts ("Buddam saranam gacchami, Dhanam saranam gacchami, Sangam saranam gacchami," or "I take refuge in the Buddha, I take refuge in the dharma, I take refuge in the sangha") could be interpreted this way: "The Buddha is within you, the Dharma is you, the Sangha is with anyone you find on the Dharma Path, even if they don't know it."

For me, much of this is old hat. I learned a great deal -- sometimes unknowingly -- as a wandering bhikkhu for so many years. Some of the people in this practice period have long experience practicing zazen -- one of the teachers said she was taught zazen practice at the Berkeley Zen Center in 1971 when she was 19. And she's been doing it ever since. 

Another has talked about her experience at the San Francisco Zen Center beginning shortly after Suzuki Roshi died, also in 1971 I believe.

I go back before that, 1964-65, also through contact with the San Francisco Zen Center, but not through physical presence at the SFZC. No. Even when I lived in San Francisco, I chose not to visit the Center, in fact, I consciously stayed away, though I continued to practice. It had become a very fashionable and "hip" religious institution in the city, as had at the time the People's Temple and other New Age, New Consciousness institutions of Spiritual Growth and Perpetual Development (yada yada.) I saw them all as money-making businesses, some of them outright scams. Cynical, I know. But something had really changed from the early days, pre-hippie, pre-New Age, etc. of Zen in San Francisco and what it became and what it was by the mid-70s when I lived there. It had become so fashionable that people jockeyed to sit zazen at the new location because, you know what, they might be sitting next to someone famous! Damn, at the time, I was working with famous people every day, and I was not inclined to sit with them in the zendo.

So I continued regular practice on my own until I left San Francisco just before the People's Temple disaster.

Then I continued wandering and intermittent practice. Satori. Another instance of sudden "enlightenment:" I realized why I stopped regular practice once I moved out of San Francisco and went roaming all over the country. A long strange trip.

Which is off track and not the subject of these posts... (wide grin emoji)

One Hour Sit

It was imperfect -- oh my yes -- but I did it. A whole one hour sit -- this time with no kinhin break in the middle. How about that? 

Imperfect for several reasons. First that I wasn't fully engaged in the sit for at least ten minutes maybe more. I was sitting before my Zoom screen, but doing other things on the computer as well such as making sure my Zoom picture was showing up, counting the number of participants in this sit -- less than 40 -- and pulling up an audiobook reading of A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life by Shantideva (c. 800 AD) the text we are studying for this practice period. Once I got that going at very low volume, I settled into my cushion and from the heart called out for bodhichitta, Buddha Mind, Awakened Mind, and compassion. For all sentient beings. Which is our task, if you will, during this practice period and at all times.

Well, one thing led to another. 

I sit in a very confined space. It's our entrance hall, about 5 1/2 feet wide and 7 feet long. I sit on a cushion on the seat of a straightback antique oaken kitchen chair. The laptop is on a metal-framed glasstop garden table, none too stable to tell the truth. There are sunflowers reverse printed on the glass.

There's a full-length narrow window beside the door, a long hand-carved bench from Claudio's Place is against one wall and on it a large number of art and other items are placed; there's an antique oak hall table on which a sculpture of a tree root by a Native (Navajo) artist is placed, a metal three-shelf rack with lots of magazines, a clothes hanging shelf with four hooks and many jackets, on the shelf is an Apache carving of crown dancers, there's a number of large format photos -- black and white landscapes, including an Ansel Adams photo of what may be Kerouac's "Matterhorn" he described climbing in "Dharma Bums", and a photo of an interior room at Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon -- as well as smaller works, prints, paintings, needleworks, and other sculptures. There are three clocks. One of which I can see from the corner of my eye when I sit.

Today, I put up a screen of sorts between my sitting place and the living room. The screen consists three silk khata scarves from Nepal hung from a spring rod across the passageway. The house is largely adobe, and the passage between the entrance hall and the living room is about 2 1/2 feet deep.

So I'm sitting. Just sitting, listening or maybe half-listening to the reading of A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life -- I've read most of it and heard parts of it read before -- and suddenly it occurs to me... So much of the stuff surrounding me is hand-made from natural materials by artists and craftspeople. I started with those silk scarves.

Compassion for the silk worms that spun the silk for the cocoons to house their transformation into silk moths, but most of which do not survive the silk making process. The handful that do go on to lay the eggs for the next generation, most of which do not survive to lay the eggs for the following generation. This has been going on for many hundreds, indeed thousands of years. Compassion, much compassion for these tireless insects whose finest threads are unraveled to make the fibers which are woven, they say by hand, in Nepal, to make the cloth for the scarves which are cut (but not sewn) and block printed with Tibetan Buddhist chants and symbols before being bagged and sent around the world. Compassion, so much compassion. I considered all the people and beings involved in creating these three khata scarves and getting them from Nepal to me in far-distant rural New Mexico. I thought to release all of these beings from suffering. 

On the wall are three needleworks, all done by hand. One is a beautifully embroidered Irish prayer -- "May the road rise  to meet you...", another is a welcome, another is a motto: "Life's greatest treasures come from the heart." With lots of flowers and pretty things around it, a gift from a good friend in town. Each was created by a talented someone, using materials made by others, so many people, some animals (wool) and plants (cotton and linen). And the sculptures, four, all by Native artists, carved from limestone, marble and wood. On and on around the room. As I sat, each of the items I kind of take for granted as I pass through every day is almost certainly the work of someone we know or someone we could know, and my heart welled up with compassion for all of them and for all the animals, plants and stone that went into the works now enlivening our house. "All equally empty, all equally to be loved, all equally come a Buddha." 

Another sit will start soon but I think I'll miss it as I process what happened with this one...

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Note: I didn't make the evening sit, though I looked in on it a couple of times. Again, few participants. 

Impressions of Zoom Ango

Hm. Not quite a week into the program, I think I've got a handle on at least some of what's going on. Ango is a study-practice period in Zen monasteries, and this one will be going on for close to a month. Today is Easter, so there is something of a pause -- though we are free to continue practice as we see fit on our own, and there will be several Zoom sits during the day and evening.

"Practice." It consists of hours of sitting Zen, walking Zen, working Zen, and Zenning out. And immersive study. Textural study, dharma study, Bodhisattva study, listening, reading, thinking, and on occasion speaking about this study.

Years ago, one of our cats, Joe, was a Zen master. Joe would spontaneously go into a Zen state and calm everyone and had cat-compassion for everyone. He taught other cats to Zen, too, particularly the hyperactive ones, and Larry was one of his students. Larry was wildly hyperactive and always on edge. Larry learned after many failed attempts that he could sit Zen like Joe, and after Joe passed, it was up to Larry to teach the others. It was something to see. Larry still practices with complete assurance. Others are less likely to, but some of them can, and when they do, in the cat-sangha, there's an incomparable peace and quiet that descends on cat-landia.

Practicing Zen in the monastery is very strict, patterned, ritualized and somewhat... I don't want to say "empty" but maybe that's the right word. There are about a dozen residents and staff at this Zen center, and they go through the rituals several times a day, much as you might see at a Catholic church -- like today at Easter. By performing these practice rituals over and over again, they increase compassion in the world for all beings according to the dharma and bodhisattvas. Practice itself is the increase of compassion. 

Intellectually, this does not make sense. Practice -- on the material plane -- increases or decreases nothing except perhaps one's personal condition. 

Practice

I've been in ango (intensive Zen practice and study period) for the last three four days. It will continue for the next three weeks, seven days a week. It's the first time I've done it, and at first it was very uncomfortable. It's become less so, but it's also difficult to maintain the schedule of sitting and walking meditations, the Dharma talks, study of the Dharma text (A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way, Shantideva) and the many other activities that are part of the ango.

I started Zen practice nearly 60 years ago inspired by Jack Kerouac's descriptions of his own Dharma journey and Zen, and with minimal instruction on how to do it from the San Francisco Zen Center, at that time one of the only Zen Buddhist institutions in the country. I learned sitting meditation (Zazen) with relative ease -- well, at first no -- and continued more or less regular practice for about 10 years when significant life changes meant that Zen practice became very low priority. In some ways, that was a mistake, but there were many other mistakes to come. I've intermittently practiced sitting meditation since then, but I felt something important was missing. At one point, I recalled that one of the Dharma teachers, it may have been old Dogen himself, had said that meditation was good but meditation without study and learning is dangerous. 

Practice untethered is akin to swimming in a void. Not necessarily a bad thing, and yet quite clearly potentially dangerous. And that was what I was doing. Not just swimming in a void but going off in all sorts of directions that were essentially either deadly or dead ends. The void, after all, provides no direction. 

Practice of zazen at best was intermittent during that period, indeed sometimes only once a year if that, and often enough simply automatic. I knew how to do it, so once I sat in the proper position and set about breathing, the broiling boiling mind settled quickly and the "emptiness" returned, pfft, just like that, and I felt, wrongly, that I had accomplished what the zazen practice was meant to do. Ta da! Enlightenment?

No. I was very far from that, and because I had largely neglected study and learning, and my sangha was scattered, I had no real conscious idea what the practice was meant to do or what the point of Buddhahood was. I had an idea but it was not in my conscious mind at all. I was acting on that idea unknowingly and chaotically, scattered as my sangha, devoid of conscious study, devoid of Dharma, just doing and being whatever the moment called for in zazen. Or soI thought. 

And there was always the question in the lower depths of my fragmented mind, "What of the Bodhisattvas?"

In my Catholic incarnation, I was drawn to St. Francis, and would have been a lay Franciscan had I stayed with the Church and followed in the footsteps of the saint. In a virtual sense, I suppose I have done so, retracing his life and works in books and online and immersing myself in his teachings and struggles. In the end though, I was not a Franciscan, and I could not emulate St. Francis for more than a moment or two. He was, however, a Bodhisattva. Who may have become a Buddha.

No, my gravitation has for long been toward Buddhism, not religion; practice, not ritual; relieving suffering, not inflicting or causing it. (Francis inflicted suffering on himself through mortification of the flesh, and he was afflicted with some mysterious condition which put him in great pain and suffering when he wasn't punishing himself.)

I've just attended a meditation instruction session during the ango period. Oh. Well, I suppose I know how to zazen having done it intermittently for nearly 60 years. My ego says I don't need instruction, except that I have found it difficult during this period to sit zen for more than about fifteen minutes at a time, though the zazen sessions are scheduled for 45 minutes or an hour three or more times a day. Maybe I do need instruction? So I sat in on the instruction session, and it was good to have the reminders not so much on how to do it, but on what to do and to an extent why. It's not by any means just form and ritual. Though form and ritual are part of the process of sitting meditation ("zen" doesn't literally mean meditation. It's more in the nature of "calm" or "peaceful.") You do certain things in a certain way when engaging in zazen but you don't have to do it exactly that way, or necessarily do all the things you are supposed to. You don't have to do it in the zendo (the "meditation hall" of a zen center or monastery or temple.) You can do it anywhere and at any time under pretty much any conditions.

But receiving instruction this morning was illuminating regarding the details of what we do, and the underlying elements of why. A zazen sit or session can open body and mind to the reality and illusion of the world, and if we allow it, can help increase our ability to feel and act on compassion for the sentient world which is how we express our Bodhisattva nature, There's more to it,  but that's the essence. 

My own sense of practice was quite different. Not wrong so much as directed inward rather than outward.  And not at all focused on Bodhisattvas or the Bodhisattva Way -- which, of course, is the theme of this practice period, ango.

The next zazen session will be in a few hours. Maybe it will be... easier? Easier to sustain, let's say, for the half hour or forty-five minutes it will last. 

----------------------

NOTE: I sat for half an hour -- with many distractions taking place -- but it was a two hour sit with Dharma Talk, kinhin (walking meditation) and liturgy (which I may or may not describe in time). So. Looks like I've got a ways to go yet....😉

Sesshin-ouaciana

When he woke from the glass dream, the backdeck beside the stretched out boxer-dog was surprisingly cool in the morning seabreeze, cooler than in the house for sure. He was happy he went wandering into undiscovered country of sharp edges and shallow angles across the freeways and railroad tracks. The aroma of rose petals and nightblooming jasmine still lingered in the air. He shivered as he woke up remembering, not from the chill breeze but from exhilaration. 

He'd done something, gotten out of his angst, and entered otherworlds of which he previously knew not.

He would do more. 

He entered the still hot house from the side door into the garage, then through the kitchen, padding on his Hush Puppies into the silent living room and down the hall to the bathroom where he relieved his overfull bladder in the toilet and brushed his teeth in the porcelain basin, checking in the mirror to see if he was still there. Wisps of whiskers decorated his face, but at fifteen-sixteen he didn't much care, he would shave perhaps in a few days or maybe not. When he shaved he usually cut open a pimple or two with blood dripping down his face reminding him of a time in another suburban house in another suburban city in another part of the state long ago, only not that long ago in the vast eternal scheme, where he'd wake up bloody-faced and in shock after a cat had taken umbrage at his face lying still on the soft pillow and had attacked with claws out and screaming. Practically every morning, claws out and screaming the cat attacked the boy's face and every morning he had to clean up the blood on his face and place antiseptic on the scratches and cuts. There was blood on his sheets and pillowcase too but he couldn't replace them every day, so he just turned them from one end of the bed to the other, over and over, hiding the blood stains that never completely came out in the wash. 

Cats. And he loved cats.

As he cleaned up the morning after his bhikkhu wander, he had the kernel of an idea. In Big Sur, Jack repeats mention of Zen practice and Buddhism, how despite Jack's falling into madness at the crashing Pacific shack in the rat canyon, he could sit in meditation as he'd learned to do and for a time all the madness and crashing and fear would pass.

Dharma Bums was nothing but constant Zen. In its own way, On the Road was Zen, too.

What was it he wondered this Zen, and why was it so attractive? Who could tell him? He'd found the address of the San Francisco Zen Center, one of the rare Zen practice locations then in the USA. He decided to write his query. What is Zen? Can I do Zen? Where? How? In what way? I am so far away.

His letter went out on a Thursday. He received a response the next Tuesday, a handwritten note from someone named Robert or Richard or something, not Japanese but Anglo, "So glad you wish to know Zen, and learn to practice." With it came some scraps of literature, how to sit and be still and various suggestions for freeing your mind and concentrating on breathing. 

All of it charming and yet it seemed so strict. He couldn't go to San Francisco, absolutely couldn't live there. Didn't have to. Practice wherever you happen to be, take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha. The Buddha is within you, the Dharma is you, the Sangha is whoever you happen to encounter on the Dharma Path whether they know it or not. 

Correspondence continued back and forth with Robert or Richard or whoever it was at the San Francisco Zen Center for two or perhaps three months in the summer and fall, and then trailed off to nothing at all because there was no longer a need. 

The angst-ridden teenager took to heart the brief instructions on How to Zen, and he set up a small meditation corner in his bedroom, a cushion on the floor, a scroll on the wall, and a bell. He learned to bow but he never did it well, always trying to bow too low or not low enough. His first attempts at sitting meditation, zazen, were rough as he wrestled with trying to establish and maintain the lotus position, but Robert or Richard or whatever his name was at the Zen Center said the boy didn't have to do that, no, sit with your legs crossed or sit with them under you, kneeling, or even sit in a straightback chair; it didn't really matter. As long as you could sit undisturbed and reasonably comfortably, quietly for ten minutes, twenty, as long or as short a time as seemed valuable, concentrating on your breathing and letting go. That's all. No wrestling, no trying, desireless being and not-being.

Thoughts and ideas and urges would flood your mind as you sat in meditation, don't try to overcome what comes into your mind, just let it come and let it go, and over time as you sit in meditation (zazen) the flood would abate on its own and continue until... there was nothing. Your mind would be free. Just sit. Breathe. For as long as need be, no longer, and then you can go back to your life and its many requirements and demands and they become part of your practice as well.

Each movement and non-movement can be practice, is practice, and doing this or that whatever it may be -- whether walking to the corner market or picking up a few things for lunch or bathing the dog or yourself, whatever it may be, driving up to the mountains for a retreat or intensive work and study and sitting in sesshin, whatever, it doesn't matter, it isn't matter, it's transformed and it's part of your practice. 

When these were totally new ideas, the boy had difficulty digesting them or understanding them (you can't understand them just be them do them) but nevertheless persevered in practice more or less as instructed, for the initial period relentlessly, three times a day, sometimes more, sitting in meditation for up to half an hour, forty five minutes, till cramping set in and he had to break off and spontaneously discovered walking meditation, kinhin, just walking and paying attention, not wandering mindlessly, was practice too and relieved the physical cramping attendant on sitting meditation. 

He thought of his ramble that night into the sharp-edged and shallow-angled neighborhood across the way and of the scent of jasmine and rose petals. These were thoughts and memories in his mind. While sitting he let them go, but while kinhin, they would not go away. 

He would retrace his steps, but first he would practice in his own neighborhood, saving till later or possibly not at all the miles-long walk and wander he had gone on before.

Practice, practice, practice.  

Whacked On A Backdeck -- Like Unto A Glass Dream

 Sleeping on the backdeck by the dog. Dreams by the backdeck dog made of glass below the glass sky. There is no substance to the sky, yet in dreams the sky is made of glass or crystal through which the dog on the backdeck and I can swim as if through water, but it is glass, nothing but crystal glass upon which the glittering gems of the stars and the planets are placed one by one in their myriad billions.

I am glass, the dog is glass, the sky is glass and the stars are placed one by one as gems on velvet cloth. Some are blue, some are white, some are red and green and orange and yellow. There are planets roaming through the crystal sky and now and then a shooting star shoots and dazzles and fizzles away. That is the sky.

And when the sky and the dog and I are whacked, sometimes by the shooting stars falling in the sky, we shatter like glass and fall to the ground in glittering shards like the stars in the sky placed one by one on the black velvet cloth of eternity.

Reconstituting themselves, putting themselves together, the sky and the dog and I return to our places in the dreams on the backdeck after bhikkhuing through unfamiliar neighborhoods of sharp edges and shallow angles. 

Bhikkuaciana

 Wandering through brilliant-lit suburban night streets, jet engines on stands roaring in the maintenance sheds across the widest avenue waiting for the call to Vietnam and Cambodia and Laos, the War Over There, the perpetual War Over There, tramping one foot after another through unknown, sharp-edged, shallow angle suburban night streets. Where is he?

Lost, hard to say, hard to fathom, hard to imagine, wandering long curving arcs, rose and jasmine scented, fresh grass mown that day, piles of yard rakings placed neatly by the curb. It's another slightly sinister world. Bhikkhu on the road, not quite a dharma bum but on the way. Toward the sounds of furious jet engines screaming in the night. Is this what they hear Over There when they're trying to sleep to tend their rice paddies, when they're combing their young girl hair? Is this what it sounds like when the fighter jets swoop overhead and the B-52s come with their endless bombsupply of jasmine and rosepetals?

Jasmine and rosepetals. 

Closer wandering to the sounds of the furious jets roar. A sharp angled house by the corner, long and low and lean, shallow angled roof projecting beams, fireplace prominent on the lowslung frontporch. Remember the Jeepster in the driveway. Dark blue undercarriage, off gray-white above. He's seen it before, somewhere, perhaps by the highschool to pick up one of his student friends, he doesn't quite remember, but he's seen this dark-night below Jeepster before.

Hello, he nods in recognition that isn't recognition at all, hands folded in front of him, bhikku-ic.

He'll have a Buick one day and he'll drive it to Big Sur.

The sea breeze isn't strong enough to blow away all the daytime heat, and he sweats some through the striped cotton longsleeve shirt he wears. White and blue stripes. 

In the end, as lost as he is, he finds an exit and walk-stumbles back from this strange neighborhood to his own, barely noticing the railroad tracks and the pedestrian overpass that he negotiates on his way toward curling up on the backdeck of his slightly more pretentious suburban house with his dog Sindy.

Kerouaciana

 I don't think I finished reading Big Sur when I was an angst-ridden teenager. At least I didn't remember anything in the book after the beginning of the Shakespearean Mad Scene and I probably stopped reading at that point because it was too powerful, honest and painful, and I wondered what it would be like for someone performing it on stage which a powerful angst-ridden pre-alchy actor could do like James Dean or someone, but he was already long dead so what would it be like with Martin Sheen, say? Oh, I don't know and didn't think about it too much.

What was evoked as I read through to the Sea poem this time -- I stopped there to savor it for later -- was watching my lanky teenage self lying propped up on the bed in my room reading Big Sur by Jack Kerouac, the light on the four-drawer maple dresser by my bed glowing yellow, seeing myself reflected in the black back window at night and watching myself from the outside like a voyeur peeping tom looking in, and thinking, "I could slip out the window and go walking the rest of the night and no one would know." 

And I did if not that night then one summer night when the seabreeze kicked in and it was cool enough in the black heavy night to go walking for a while. Removing the screen and cranking the window open, slipping back to the dresser to turn off the light and to the door to make sure it was shut and the breeze couldn't blow it open, I shinnied out the crankopen window and plopped down into the ragged bushes below my blacknight window and staggered out and wended around the house to the sidegate opened quietly, the dog on the backdeck muffed as I passed, and down the walk to the suburban street of plenty of ticky-tacky houses by the freeway to Paradise.

I could hear the trucksandcars whooshing on the freeway past the ruins of the Jap assembly camp where the wretched Japanese American families from the rich cities and up and down the farmvalley were herded before being railroaded off to the tules and sand-mountains and tarpaper bedrooms the Army hadn't even set up for them yet. 

I walked the night toward what? I didn't know where I was going, I wasn't going anywhere in particular, but soon enough, I found myself on the pedestrian bridge over the freeway, the one I trod to 1959 highschool when I walked which wasn't that often, but I did it sometimes just because I wanted to. It was five miles on the pedometer, from the crisscross glass of the front door of the house where I lived in the suburbs to the back door of the school or the swimming pool I'm not sure which. There wasn't a backdoor -- newer schools in California didn't have them or any doors except those to the classrooms and gyms and offices and such everything open to the wind and rain and awful summer heat.

I didn't go to the highschool this time but wandered off the main road into the sharp-edged military suburban housing tract where so many of those I went to school with lived. 

Way too easy to get lost in the maze of arcing streets late at night. And I did. Thinking about Big Sur and Raton Canyon and the cruel Pacific and the fog-beaches and rock-heads and gulls swooping. 

Madness wouldn't come till later.

Time Passes

Jack references his appearance with Steve Allen and the clothes he never wore again in Big Sur.

 I'm back in my Kerouac Phase, maybe because Ferlinghetti died not long ago, and as the godfather of the Beat Generation along with Burroughs and others, something went away when he passed. Gary Snyder is still around so there's that and the Works, oh the many Works, live on.

I'm re-reading Big Sur. The movie (I didn't know there was a movie) has been playing over and over again on one of the Roku channels, and the more I see it, the more I like it, but it's not the book, not really, so I'm reading the book again for the first time in almost 60 years. 

Almost 60 years. I read it first in the mid-60s, about the time I first looked into and then took up the practice of Zen, not consciously influenced by Kerouac, but maybe subliminally so. The Zen is vaguely referenced in the Big Sur movie though it's a big part of the book. Kerouac as a Zen practitioner is sometimes hard to fathom, and I don't think anyone, let alone Jack, has ever resolved the contradictions between his deep Catholicism and his Zen practice and searching. 

Dharma Bums I read first before Big Sur, well before it, and Dharma Bums I think was the real spur to my investigation and practice, but I went off in a totally different path than the Dharma Bums, Jack and Gary, and I haven't been to Japan or even more than momentarily wanted to go. This is partly because when I was first looking into becoming a bhikkhu  or just engaging in the practice of Zen through correspondence with someone at the Zen Center in San Francisco -- I don't remember his name, but he was Anglo, not Japanese, and we exchanged letters for several months -- I learned that I could practice without becoming a bhikkhu in the formal sense, that I didn't have to join the Center, and that my sangha was wherever I found others on the Dharma Path -- even if they didn't know it. 

So part of my search ever since has been for others on the Dharma Path, even if they don't know it, and also spotting some of those who claim to be Dharma adepts, Roshis and so forth, who are little more than con artists.

Yes, even Buddhism has its share or more than its share of con-men and -women whose main objective is to fleece the rubes and keep them coming back for more. It's a business.

Big Sur is in part the story of Jack's falling into drunken madness after the success of his magnum opus, On the Road around 1960-something or other. He couldn't handle fame, no, fame was eating him alive. No, he was being eaten from the inside out by... something. He took up drink, but he'd always been a drinker. Drugs too. Anything to get through, and in his novels you can see how it happened, not even consciously, he just fell into the habits of escape that were available/acceptable at the time. 

In Big Sur, he tries to make sense of it and break free and fails. Which is so much a part of what makes the book so powerful, perhaps the most deeply felt and honest of his many Works.

So anyway here I am back in a Kerouac Phase, re-reading, re-capturing some of what influenced my youth. Even pulling up pictures from my high school yearbooks, surprising myself at how many of those long-lost souls' names I remember, and surprising myself at what I looked like then. I resembled, in some lights strongly, Rennie Davis who also died recently, which is probably why, surprisingly, Jerry Rubin sat with me for a while at a house on Steiner St in San Francisco talking about anti-war theater actions he'd taken in the Bay Area and speculating on what could be done in the Central Valley where there was no anti-war movement or even sentiment to speak of. No, the crisis issue was the plight of farmworkers and the marches and actions of Cesar Chavez to organize the campesinos and preserve their lives against the shotguns and greed of the owners. The war was far away -- but not so far, really -- the farms and orchards were right there.

And yet we would do anti-war theater in the Valley, even within shouting distance of The Base from which Colonel DeVoe would fly his B-52s over to Vietnam to "bomb the shit out of the Gooks," even though he knew it was awful and his job, and if he didn't do it, somebody else would, so what could he do? Bomb the shit out of the Gooks.

Chop wood, carry water.

Was he a bhikkhu on the Dharma Path? I don't know. But I liked him very much. One of the many contradictions of an era now passed. 

People make pilgrimage after Kerouac or Ginsberg or Burroughs or whathaveyou today, and I don't really understand it. Well, but I do. Yes, I've been to Big Sur, but not -- I thought -- searching for Jack, or really searching for anything. Drove down the entire length of the Coast Highway one wild day/night in the 1951 Buick Roadmaster in 1969, around and around the same curve and over the same arched bridges again and again, past Big Sur and the Hot Springs and so forth, down and down the coast, the ocean on the right, moon up above, following long trod path till we got to Los Angeles and found so many angels dead or gone or never were. It had been my lost home, ten years before, and now that tie was broken. I saw it for the first time for what it was. "LA Plays Itself". Wasn't pretty.

So. 

The Water Heater Analogy -- or is it a Metaphor?

 The other day we had to have our water heater replaced. We knew it was coming. A repairman came a couple of years ago to fix the gas inlet and he couldn't do it. The problem was that the water heater was so old that his parts didn't fit and he didn't know where to find ones that did. He called in to his company and they didn't know where to get parts either. I said I'd try to find something since I have some contacts in the old appliance realm. I checked with the local hardware store -- which used to have lots of old stuff. Well, no. They'd got rid of most of their old stock, and the parts they have now were the same as the plumber had, and they wouldn't fit. Try a place in town (Albuquerque) they said. A couple of them still have old stock.

So I go into town. At the recommended place. they said yes they had the part I needed (a reverse thread nut) but they only sold it with a complete replacement kit for the firebox. Oh. How much? $108. The part I needed was about $1.35, but what the hey? So I got the kit, called the plumber -- who was shocked I found the parts -- and he came back and put the whole kit in the water heater, and it worked fine, better than ever. But he said at max, the WH would last maybe three more years, and I'd better start saving up for a new one. How much, I asked. He said at least $1,500, probably closer to $1,800 to $2,000.

Yikes. 

Well, but that's the way it goes.

So maybe 2.5 years go by, and by golly, the pressure relief valve goes out, water -- hot water -- spraying everywhere, and there's no way to stop it. Nowadays, it wouldn't happen quite that way, but I'll get to that.

You see, this is an old house, and things have been cobbled together, often self-built and repaired over more than 100 years, and so things aren't necessarily well-planned or thought through. For one thing, even though the water heater was installed in 2005, it was an older model, and it wasn't put in properly -- though it was supposedly done by professionals. There was no shut off valve, for example, and there were other issues. So in order to stop the water spraying all over the laundry room, I had to go out to the driveway and dig out the meter box which was buried in gravel. Initially, I couldn't find it. But then I did and dug and scraped until the cover emerged, and I couldn't find the tool to open it. I used to do it with a big screwdriver, but I couldn't find that either. So I called the city (yes, though we live in a rural area, we are technically in a city, and the city provides water to our section.) They sent a guy within 10 minutes and he had to struggle some to get the water off, but he finally did, and we started cleaning up the... mess...

I called the new plumbers we'd been using, asking if they could send somebody. Well, yes. They could but it might not be until late, maybe 5p or even later. Would that be all right?

I said I'd check locally, and if I could get somebody sooner, I would. Fine. I called several local plumbers, and as I expected, the answer was nope, or there was no answer at all or no call back. One didn't even have a phone number listed. What fun. 

So I called the other plumber back. I knew they were more expensive, but if they could get somebody out here, that would be cool. 

I'd called at 8:00am. At 1:00pm the plumber assigned to us calls, and we discuss what's wrong, and he says welp, he can fix the pressure relief valve ($7-800) or he can replace the whole thing ($2100). What did I think? I said welp, it's old, and we'll have to replace it soon anyway, let's do the whole thing. Can he put a shut off valve on it? Yup. Everything to code, and a very high-end water heater. 

Wow. That's more money than we've got on hand, but you do what you gotta. 

So after several more conversations about household heating and cooling, how much room he will to work and what size the heater is, he says he'll pick up a water heater and parts and be here in about an hour. Sure enough, he shows right on time, and after checking out the situation gets right to work. 

About 3 hours later, the city worker comes out and turns on the water at the meter, and ta da, a fancy new water heater is installed, with a shut off valve, a drip tray, a copper line from the pressure relief valve to the outside, an alarm if it leaks, and all sorts of other things which I wasn't expecting, including the fanciest earthquake restraints I'd ever seen. The water heater works electronically, no pilot light, and there are special instructions for shutting the dang thing off. Not at all like the old one. Steep learning curve for me. But oh well. 

He walked me through the basics and pointed out the instruction manual. It's guaranteed 6 years, he said, installation guaranteed for a year. If anything goes wrong, no charge for parts or labor for the first year, then labor only for the next five years. He said it would probably last for 15 to 20 years, but we should think about replacing it before that.

Otherwise, the price complete was indeed $2,100. 

We chit-chat a bit while he's preparing the bill, and it turns out he's from South Africa and he came to the US in 2016. Whoa, mercy. Got in just in time. He did an excellent and very thorough job. He asked if we wanted him to clean up the water which was still puddled here and there in the laundry room, and the mud he'd tracked in from outside. I said no, he'd done his part. We'd take care of it.

And so, we thank him profusely and at about 6:00pm, he drives away to his next job, a broken refrigerator water line. Time to start cleaning up.

We now have hot water to clean up with. Everything works except one faucet in the bathroom which now leaks which it didn't before. Hm. Well, I can fix that, eventually. 

Now why is this a metaphor for our national condition? 

For one thing, the last four years have been a mess and the government is partially -- some would say completely -- broken. There's crap all over the place, and a big part of the project for the Biden regime (yes, they're all regimes now) is repairing what's broken, replacing what doesn't work any more, and cleaning up the mess left by Trump and his fans. No easy task.

Biden and Harris seem ready to start. But there's so much work to do, and whatever gets done is going to be different than we expect. It's going to be more complicated, better in some ways, not so much in others. It'll look good, probably, but it may not last very long. It'll take professionals, not grifters, to get done. 

We've known this would happen, would have to happen, sooner or later, and we've been prepping, somewhat, not very well, but still...

What needs doing -- like replacing the water heater -- will take care of a little bit of what ultimately needs to be done. Biden and Harris say they are focused on controlling the virus, rebuilding the economy and fixing broken institutions. OK. That's really a much bigger job than I think they can handle, but what do I know? There is so much that's gone sideways, not just since the advent of Orange Man Bad in the White House, but for a very long time. Fixing it isn't going to happen overnight, and the crew coming in is more like a restoration effort, not a renovation/repair/rehabilitation outfit. But again, we may be in for surprises. 

A simple fix of the water heater would have made me happy. We got a deluxe fix. But it's not going to last forever. Nothing does.