On "Know Thyself"

IN Buddhism, the question of "knowing thyself" is fundamental because there is nothing knowable literally or figuratively outside oneself. Everything we think or think we know or perceive is purely a product of "ourself". And as we explore the Buddhist conception of "self" we come to realize there is no "self" or anything we consider real. It is all fundamentally illusion or delusion that we ourselves create out of... nothing. And the Buddhist insight -- which liberated Shakyamuni Buddha -- was that "nothing" was the ground of existence, that everything we perceive or think we know and everything beyond it arises from and ultimately is "nothing."Including we ourselves and Shakyamuni Buddha and all the Buddhas before him and all the Buddhas to come. And then, if this is true, and it is true, then everything, including oneself, is a unity, All arise from the same empty source; all partake of the same empty source. All is simultaneously the same empty source and the illusion/delusion of individuality and separateness. 

This is not actually a difficult concept to grasp and it has become a routine concept in scientific exploration. For example, the deeper scientists probe atomic structure, the less one finds; there is nothing there. No substance, no energy, nothing. And from this primal nothingness arises everything, which, on the deepest level, consists of... nothing. 

At the same time we perceive things as individually separate and distinct and we experience ourselves as not the same as the other. Buddhists will say this is an illusion created in our minds, but knowing as much does not in any way change the fact that this is how we perceive, and therefore understanding our perceptions of what "is" requires that we know ourselves as deeply and thoroughly as possible.

And that, as Shakyamuni Buddha in his time knew better than anyone, is difficult, almost impossible for most people. One tries practically any strategy not to know oneself fully. One recoils from that knowledge. 

One pretends that false knowledge, illusion/delusion, is real.

This happens over and over again throughout one's life and there is no easy way past it. It's simply a fact of being alive. 

One could ask, "Does a stone know itself?" Well, how can a stone not know itself? A stone, not being alive, has no illusion or delusion of "self." No pretense. A stone does not have to explore. A stone simply and fully is, which ultimately resolves to... nothing.

A living being like ourselves must let go of illusion/delusion in order to come to knowledge of oneself, and it is very hard, for most people, impossible to do.

And yet, we study and sit, and act in the world of illusion and some of us, over time, get to know ourselves deeply and fully. This was the World Honored One's insight and enlightenment. He got to know himself, and how his "self" created the "reality" of his experience in the world of illusion. He came to understand that he had a role in that world of illusion: to teach.

And this he did through the rest of his life, and this he continues to do through the sutras and practice of Buddhism and all its variations.

One of the first teachings I received was "Don't get caught up in the commentaries," of which there are many. In fact, most of the sutras are buried in commentary. Find the gem of the sutra, it's there, and follow its guidance. Don't worry about what anyone, even the ancient sage, has to say about it. 

I've stuck with this teaching ever since, generally ignoring the commentary. It's served me well, but as I get older, I'm more interested in what the sages and others have had to say about the sutras and the koans to compare and contrast with what I have learned from them.

Some of the commentary actually gets to the nub of things.

But most seems to be intellectualizing for its own sake, obscuring the point, hiding it. As if in fear of the consequences of knowledge.

For there are consequences.

The only knowledge one can truly gain is self-knowledge. And self-knowledge requires understanding our delusions of "self." Who we think we "are" is not who we are. The understanding is that we create an image of "self" that is not real. And our created image can be so far from what we truly are that there is little or nothing (ah, that word again!) that connects them.

Let go.

Oh, it takes time, so much time. Let it. Most of us won't have so much time, but don't fret. Our singular lives are not all there is. Our lives connect to all other lives, and if we have descendants, the connections are direct,  and time is ultimately infinite. So there is time enough to learn enough.

It just may not be your singular self that does it!

Self-knowledge often comes in a series of "moments." Satori in the Japanese terminology, "sudden enlightenment." Seeing ourselves momentarily from Outside ourselves. Sometimes seeing what others see but more often seeing more deeply into our own self, recognizing what others may or may not see.

So it goes. It takes as long as it does. It's unlikely that most of us will complete the task in a lifetime. 

Frustrating, yes?

Certainly. 

Yet we continue on.

Rohatsu Sesshin

Ah well. Here we go again with the Buddhist retreat thing. Yah. This time a "silent retreat" -- right -- meant as a celebration/commemoration of the Buddha's Enlightenment. A week of meditation and consideration focused on Dogen's text of Mountains and Waters Sutra translated by Kaz Tanahashi.

Mountains and Rivers... Meditating yesterday with a rotten old text, wonders of the world as it is or was back in the '30s when the text was written ostensibly for young people, explaining the world and history while admitting vast ignorance about just about everything. Mountains and Rivers were brought into the picture with the acknowledgement that the mountains which seem so rooted and permanent -- because our lives are so short -- are worn away by the waters until in time they disappear as if they never were, and then are reborn by forces deep within the Earth that force and twist and uplift the very living rock into new mountains that are then worn away by the waters. Over and over in an endless repeating cycle.

And that is the theme of this Rohatsu sesshin.

Dogen says mountains walk, and they do.

The realization is a step toward Enlightenment. This realization is Enlightenment. But in Dogen-speak there is neither Enlightenment nor non-Enlightenment. The Koan of the Ox Through the Latticed Window, no?

And yet our ancestors knew for a fact that mountains walk and you could say they run, given the right perspective and time scale. Our perception is too limited to witness it in its entirety, but it happens just the same.

Now I could go on and on about the limits of perception compared to the vastness of reality, but now is not the time for that. Been down this road before, however. Trodding it one more time.

Refuge

 "I take refuge in the Buddha; I take refuge in the Dharma; I take refuge in the Sangha."

The simplicity is stunning. The Three Jewels of Buddhism:  Sakyamuni Buddha himself, a real person who lived and died 2500 years ago, who came to Enlightenment, renounced his titles and status, lived as a Bodhisattva and taught, died and entered Nirvana. The Dharma is composed of his teachings and those of other Buddhist teachers. At their core, these teachings consist of the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path and pretty much that's it.  The Sangha is the community -- any community -- of practicing Buddhists.

I was taught many years ago that "The Buddha is within you, the Dharma is you, and the Sangha is with whomever you find on the Dharma Path, even if they don't know it."

In other words, the trappings of Buddhist belief and practice are nice but not necessary, because everything which constitutes "Buddhism" is already there, present and potential, within the container you call "Me" and I call "You" and immediately adjacent to it.

You don't need Zen; Zen doesn't need you. 

I'm nearing the conclusion of this practice period, and there were a number of times when I was about to quit and didn't. At this point, my intention is to stick with it to the end -- and beyond. Not so much as a Zen practitioner, although once started, it never really goes away, but as someone on a Bodhisattva path nearing the end of his journey in the material world.

I was asked what brought me to this particular virtual place at this time? I could point to a specific individual with this institution I'd encountered online with whom I felt both compassion and communion. That aside, though, my interest was spurred by my isolation over the last year and more due to the virus. I am high-risk and cannot be vaccinated before May at the earliest, probably not till June because the medications I'm given interact with the vaccine to essentially neutralize it until such time as the strength of the medication diminishes sufficiently to allow the vaccine's anti-body production to function. Etc.

In practice, this means that no matter what, I cannot socialize or otherwise engage with other people more than very quickly and at a distance. Mostly not at all. So I've been essentially homebound for more than a year, and I didn't realize how socially active I'd been previously and how important those interactions were to fulfilling Bodhisattva vows, no matter how imperfectly.

Hm.

So if I had to declare a "purpose" to participating in this (virtual) practice period, it would be renewal and restoration of a sense of sangha, community of fellow practitioners on the Dharma Path.

Hm.

How do you practice the Bodhisattva's way of life under these conditions? You can to a very limited extent, but not much beyond that. And that's OK. You do what you can within those confines. And if it means breaking free in some ways, you do that.

Zen, at least the Zen I encountered decades and decades ago, is very precise, simple, yes, but precise, and the precision is part of the practice. Suzuki Roshi would probably say precision is the whole of the practice. Get the forms right, which isn't easy at all, and you're Zenning, doing Zen. Are Zen. You see that even now, getting the forms right, practicing, practicing, practicing, to get the forms right, the signs right, the precise Japanese style, words or rather syllables, just the right arrangements of flowers and candles and bowls and statuary of just the right colors on just the right height tables. I could go on and on. Getting the style just right is practice.

Moving a Piano

 Sometimes Buddhism is like moving a piano

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?

Unless We Are Japanese

Much of Western Zen practice is modeled on that of Japan -- as would be expected given its origin in the West among immigrants from Japan in the 19th century. Too often, though, I think Zen practice in the West is completely divorced from its Japanese cultural, political and economic context, though not necessarily divorced from its history.

The history points to lines of transmission of the dharma from the Buddha through various teachers in India, then China, thence to Japan where three main schools of Zen developed from Chinese Cha'an Buddhism, and so here we are today. Most Western Zen practice amalgamates these Japanese schools without getting into the weeds of how they came to be and what their differences are and the many and sometime bloody struggles between them.

When the roshi tells you about the peaceful intent of Zen Buddhism, question it.

I've mentioned that Zen is in some respects a warrior cult, and Zen monasteries are partly modeled on samurai training. Zen's origins in China provide the foundation, but the development of Zen in Japan was  closely tied to the samurai and feudal Japanese culture. Zen flourished (and was sometimes repressed) under the Shoguns, particularly so, it would seem, under the Tokugawa Shogunate, the ruling power in Japan from the 1600s until the Meiji Restoration of Imperial rule in 1868.

Zen declined from that point as did all Buddhism in Japan. The Imperial Shinto cult took its place. After the War in the Pacific, as it is called, the Imperial cult declined, but Buddhism, for the most part, did not revive much. Irreligion and secularism became the model to follow under American occupation after the war, but gradually Buddhist and Shinto practices reasserted themselves.

Zen, it must be understood, was never universal or even the dominant school of Buddhism in Japan. It isn't now. It is a special practice meant for a certain class or quality of individual. In old Japan, that was generally the samurai and some elements of the Shogun, Daimyo and Imperial households. In other words, very much upper class. Of course the lower orders could practice zazen, anybody can. But the hierarchy of Zen teaching and transmission, and admission to the monasteries was not open any but the "right sort", and the right sort usually meant high born and wealthy.

Monastic Buddhism can be criticized for being very class conscious. It's hard not to be, I think, given the Buddha's own princely origins. His example may apply to all classes, but he couldn't help being the aristocrat he was. His monastic life was outwardly poor and simple, but it was an aristocrat's expression of poverty and simplicity, not at all something grown from the bottom of society.

And so it has been with most monastics in the West as well as Asia. I don't criticize Zen or Buddhism for its classism, but I do acknowledge it, just as I would with Catholicism or any other religion.

St. Francis, my adopted patron saint, was also the son of an Italian merchant-aristocrat and a high-born French woman.

To see these high-born men and women putting on robes and going out begging is rather stunning when you think about it. But that's the way of monastics. Has been for many long centuries.

That aside, I think it's critical to recognize -- and honor -- Zen's Japanese origins without necessarily "turning Japanese." We in the West don't have more than a very superficial and probably erroneous understanding of Japanese society and culture and how Zen is integrated within it. We may be able to see and touch its outer shape and form, but Zen teaches us that's an illusion. We see nothing, really, because there is nothing really there.

Why would we put on robes or go on pilgrimage or chant the sutras? There's nothing to find, is there? No merit is gained.

There's nothing to learn, nothing to gain, nothing to have, nothing to be. Zen teaches knowing nothing.

There's a cow-kitten at my feet playing with a catnip fish taco.

That is Zen.

Other household cats will practice zazen randomly. We could ask "Does a cat have Buddha nature?" But why? Do the cranes flying overhead know and practice the dharma?

Pondering the Question of Tibet

As we know, China is the rising super-power while the US continues to falter and decline. The Chinese have created a nigh-on miraculous transformation of their society in a very short time, and this isn't the first time they've done it. The whole Mao-ist revolutionary period was one enormous transformation after another, almost unprecedented in world history. The current rise of China would be unbelievable if we didn't have the prior examples of Chinese transformations to consider.

Part of that transformative process has involved Tibet, a supposedly autonomous province of China that has been subjected to repeated waves of "reform" by the Chinese under Mao and every subsequent central government with the stated objective of getting rid of Tibetan barbarism, backwardism, and worse, while bringing the benefits of modern civilization to uplift the Tibetan masses and guide them into the 21st Century -- while preserving as much as possible of Tibet's unique and ancient culture.

That has meant in practice overthrowing rule by the lamas, exiling the Dalai Lama, disrupting and partially destroying the lamasery system, freeing the Tibetan peasantry from what had amounted to serfdom and in some cases outright slavery, bringing codified law, plumbing, drainage, electricity, roads and railroads, universal education and so on to the masses, instituting public health practices and much more in what is objectively a colonial/imperial project, driven from Beijing, to integrate Tibet into the Greater Chinese Domestic Empire.

In the West there is a highly romanticized notion of what Tibet was like prior to the Chinese revolution. We are ledto believe it was some sort of primitive paradise under the lamas, happy people spinning prayer wheels all the live long day while the Dalai Lama and his lines of Buddhist monks and nuns preserved, protected and defended ancient peaceful Buddhist practice from the Potala in Lhasa to the hundreds of lamaseries throughout the country.

Truly, that romantic version of Tibetan Shangri-la is... off the mark by quite a bit.

The Chinese knew how phony it was, but so did numerous Western travelers and observers -- prior to the Revolution, that is. Tibet as it was, and as many observers testified, was demon-haunted, riven with violence and intense poverty and disease, grossly and deliberately kept backward by the lamas, and despite the constant spinning of prayer wheels, was a society that was too often behaving the opposite of Buddhist practice.

Chinese intervention was not welcomed, not by a long shot, but resistance was futile, as is so often the case with colonial/imperial projects launched from powerful centers. There was-- and still is -- resistance though, and China has not been able to fully transform Tibet into a glittery simulacrum of what so many people seem to believe it once was. It's an uncomfortable hybrid of Chinese driven "progress" and oppression together with surprisingly strong remnants of its former lama-driven but essentially cruel feudal past.

This is the Chinese propaganda version of the Tibetan transformation since the Revolution:



Nice, right? Well, it's not quite like that. The gloss is not quite so shiny, and the benefits of living under strict Chinese colonial control are less than ideal for many Tibetans who face severe restrictions on their freedoms of belief and action and punishment for disobedience and resistance.

This is the Dalai Lama's propaganda version of Tibet Today and Yesterday:



Horrible, right? Well, it's not quite like that.

A different take:



Like most colonial projects, Tibet since the Chinese take over has been a mixed bag. There has been immense material progress while suppressing the lamaseries. There has been resistance and acquiescence. The Chinese have sought to sanitize and monetize the Buddhist, lama-dominated  Tibetan culture while exploiting the land and people for the benefit of China. All of which is typical of colonial projects undertaken in the West over the past centuries.

In addition, Han Chinese have emigrated to and settled in Tibet in numbers sufficient to make them the majority of the population. It's not clear to me whether they are unwelcome, any more than it was obvious that the British were unwelcome in all of their various colonies during the Imperial period.

Colonization is a mixed bag.

This is something I sometimes get into with regard to my Irish ancestry. Ireland was for 800 years a colonial possession of Britain, and for much of that time, the British behaved badly to say the least. Eventually, the Irish achieved a rough form of autonomy and then independence from Britain -- except for those in Northern Ireland who are still to this day subject to the Crown.

The Irish Republic, however, is almost as proud of its British heritage and legacy as the home country is.

You would think that once Ireland achieved independence, the Irish would reject pretty much everything the British imposed on them, and they haven't. Not even close. Same with India, Ceylon, Burma, Singapore, etc., etc. The United States, among so many other former colonies, treasures its British colonial past.

And so it goes. From the outside, it looks like that's the course Tibet is on as well. Ultimately, China's colonial impositions will be put in an overall positive context while acknowledging the bad things that happened.

Under the lamas, Tibet was a cruel and brutal feudal and demon-haunted place, not at all like the Shangri-la paradise of lore and legend or as hinted by mostly Western "Free Tibet" activists. The lamaseries had so many thousands of monks and nuns in part because they were places of refuge ("I take refuge in the Buddha; I take refuge in the Dharma; I take refuge in the Sangha.") from a truly awful outside reality, full of suffering and woe. The Chinese disbanded and destroyed many of the lamaseries -- and preserved others -- while transforming the domestic society into something more closely resembling the modern material societies in China and elsewhere.

Is this a good thing? Not entirely, and not necessarily in any case, but given their druthers -- which is unlikely -- I doubt that most Tibetans would want to go back to the way things were before the Chinese took over.

They, like most colonized people, like much of the material benefit that comes with colonization. They like running water, decent housing, electricity, paved roads, automobiles, and electronics. They like education and opportunity where once there was none outside the lamaseries. The elements of progress make their lives easier and potentially more rewarding. They like the end of arbitrary rule by cruel landlords. lamas and village chiefs. They don't like the oppression and suppression that seems to be built in to the Chinese psyche. They don't like having their faith and beliefs challenged by modernity and materialism, even if they like the benefits. They don't like their traditional ways of life being replaced by... what? Colonialism always leaves the question open.

I ponder the question of Tibet these days because of my slow-walking return to Buddhism after so many years in another realm of existence altogether. Tibet is a primary Buddhist center, both for philosophy and practice, and the Dalai Lama is the principal Buddhist spokesman in the world today, widely revered even by non-Buddhists.

Buddh...

This is our Buddha shrine. There's more to it, but you get an idea. It combines some of the aspects of the Buddha stories including the elephant, horse, other animals and plants, followers, centered meditation, and so on. It's not a place of worship, it's a place of reminder. As are a number of other shrines in the house, some focused on Native elements, some on St. Francis, some of them unfocused, such as the one in the bedroom that includes several carved birds, a dinosaur model, a tiny black and white cat, and cornmeal offering.  Not to forget the skull images from Dia de los Muertos. Of course.

This is New Mexico where a polyglot amalgam of faiths is relatively commonplace. Honoring tradition is a basic cultural element in these parts, and tradition plays a huge part in faith communities. What was done hundreds of years ago is for the most part the same cycles and rituals done today.

I don't know the history of Buddhism in New Mexico, but there is a strong and growing community of practicing Buddhists and a diverse community of laypeople professing some aspect of Buddhist practice. I wouldn't call it "belief" because there isn't anything in particular to believe in Buddhism. One practices. One sits, one meditates for varying lengths of time, one goes about one's day. One studies the sutras or not,  one questions, one takes action to be kind, compassionate, joyful, and "detached." One is not what one does or says or thinks or believes. All of that is illusion.

Even the concept that one is is an illusion. But this path of thought cannot lead to Enlightenment. It is more like an eternally turning wheel, not the Dharma Wheel, but not not it, either. Letting go of the concept of Is-ness is itself an element of Buddhist practice, but even perfect letting go is not sufficient in itself to achieve Enlightenment or Buddha-hood. Not that that is necessarily desirable in and of itself. It is simply something that may happen -- or not.

I've had the Diamond Sutra on speed dial lately. It never struck me as particularly profound, and I'm not sure it's meant to be. It's more in the nature of a reminder of how transitory our corporeal existence/experience is, and how false in some ways (all ways, no ways) it is. We live in illusion, creating that illusion as we live.

A talk on the meaning/not meaning of the Diamond Sutra is appended herewith:

Zazenkai: Inside the Buddha’s Body

(email sign up required to listen, but it's relatively stress -- and marketing -- free)

Chopping Wood and Carrying Water

Before Enlightenment: chop wood, carry water.

After Enlightenment: chop wood, carry water.

Well, that takes me back a long way, fifty years or more, when Ms. Ché and I sat in meditation in our tiny studio on Hunter St. in Stockton, CA.

Zen.

At the time, the practice of Zen meditation (Zazen = Sitting Meditation) wasn't commonplace, but it was no longer wildly exotic nor confined to strictly Japanese Buddhist communities. It was available to other seekers, and even if one didn't have a Master, one could practice on one's own or in lay communities, no Master required. Not unless one was a novice monk or nun. In which case, one had a hierarchy and a rule to understand and follow along with one's practice of meditation: the garments, the positions, the bows, greetings, chants, and on and on and on.

Enlightenment (Satori = Sudden Enlightenment) was possible whether you were a monk or nun or not. It was always my belief, whether wrong or right, that the monastery and nunnery could delay enlightenment, in fact may have been designed to do so, in an emulation of Sakyamuni's -- the Buddha's -- long quest for his own enlightenment. He had to experience everything and go through the literal and figurative fires of hell before he was granted nirvana. Many Buddhist devotees, in his time and now, seek their own enlightenment by following his path as closely as possible. The monks and nuns are most adept at it. In his own time, many of the Buddha's followers were "granted monkhood" by the Buddha himself. It was considered the highest favor and the highest calling of a mortal being.

But not everyone could be or should be a monk or a nun, for society would not be able to function if they were. Buddha -- generally pronounced "Buhddh" (no "uh" ending) in Hindi and other Northern India languages -- acknowledged as much in his own time, and encouraged leaders and kings to adopt the core Buddhist principles and practices while continuing to serve their communities and people in their roles as kings and princes and headmen. Women could be ordained as nuns, but their social role, though important, was subsidiary to that of men, and would be for many years to come.

Nowadays, many of the most honored and venerated Buddhist scholars, thinkers, and practitioners are women, most of whom are nuns but some are lay women who have achieved enlightenment.

The final episode of the Indian TV series "Buddha" was a presentation by its producer, B. K. Modi, who saw that his calling was to help restore Buddhist thought and practice to India and to help spread it throughout the world. His biographical series about the Buddha was a step on that path.

Comparatively, India has few Buddhists today, while other countries, near and far, have proportionately more Buddhists, approaching 90% in some places. We may ask why that is so.

According to what little history I've read about it, Buddhism was suppressed in India from before the time of the Mughal conquests in the 12th century until the establishment of the British Raj in the 19th century (when the Crown took over rule from the British East India Company). There was a slight revival under the British, but after Independence, Buddhism became more widespread especially among the Dalits (formerly Untouchables.)

The suppression of Buddhism in India contrasts strongly with its flourishing in Nepal, Tibet, Sri Lanka, China, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Korea, and Japan. Everywhere Buddhism flourished, a somewhat different form of the practice was developed.

Our introduction to and practice of Buddhism was an Americanized version of Japanese Zen. I wouldn't say we necessarily achieved Enlightenment, but the practice had a profound effect on our lives which continues to this day, even though we haven't practiced for many years. Correction: Ms. Ché sat in daily meditation at Naropa last summer, and she intended to set up a meditation space at home when she got back, but for whatever reason, she hasn't done it yet.

What has happened, though, is a gradual transformation of our house to accommodate the possibility of a meditation space in due time, and a restoration of Mindfulness in our daily activities. Ie: Meditation without (necessarily) Sitting.

Still we chop wood and carry water. That is fundamental.

One origin of the precept is as follows:

https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/a/22327

A young boy became a monk. He dreamed of enlightenment and of learning great things. When he got to the monastery he was told that each morning he had to chop wood for the monks fires and then carry water up to the monastery for ablutions and the kitchen. He attended prayers and meditation, but the teaching he was given was rather sparse.

One day he was told to take some tea to the Abbot in his chambers. He did so and the Abbot saw he looked sad and asked him why.

He replied every day all I do is chop wood and carry water. I want to learn. I want to understand things. I want to be great one day, like you.

The Abbot gestured to the scrolls on shelves lining the walls. He said, "When I started I was like you. Every day I would chop wood and carry water. Like you I understood that someone had to do these things, but like you I wanted to move forward. Eventually I did. I read all of the scrolls, I met with Kings and and gave council. I became the Abbot. Now, I understand that the key to everything is that everything is,'chopping wood and carrying water.' and that if one does everything mindfully then it is all the same."

Buddha

Lately Ms Ché and I feel like we're coming around full circle in some ways. Buddhism has re-entered our conscious lives. It never really went away, though our lives veered strongly in other directions between the time we started Buddhist practice in the late 1960s and now. Oh my yes.

In the interim we sort of drifted between a Franciscan-ish Catholicism, Native American-ish spirituality, and a kind of strict atheism. God, what God? I know of no God. Etc.

But underneath it all was a core of Buddhist thought and practice dating so far back in our lives that we forgot its origin -- must have been Japanese in our case, Zen, sitting meditation, satori, and semi-enlightenment, flashes, coming, going, dissolving, reconstituting. Very California when you get down to it. Zen masters and other spiritual teachers including Gary Snyder and some of his disciples. This was a long time ago. I feel every moment of the time that has passed. So many years but yet it seems to be only yesterday.

So we live our lives of Adventure, dashing around the country, seeing sights, meeting people, working in a wide variety of environments, living a kind of dream we never quite awaken from. So many aspects of a dream never deferred but always present. Even our retirement to the New Mexico wilderness is part of that ongoing dream. An illusion.

And then the signs... For a time, we were beset with Adventists, Witnesses, and Mormons. I tell you it  was a constant circus parade at our front door. "Come! Join us! God awaits!" The Catholic church down the road, modest and plain, run by Carmelite monks, seemed calm by comparison. Oh they had their issues, one being abortion, that sometimes got them so worked up it was a strange and bewildering environment. If it had been a Franciscan run church, like the Cathedral-Basilica in Santa Fe might have been if history hadn't intervened, maybe, maybe... oh, but they have their issues, too, which I won't go into here, but will just say that their bankruptcy has been driven by many years of priestly abuse of parishioners.

So a household Franciscan observance/altar was set up in a corner of the living room, and we included many Native American elements in it. Well, it seemed only natural. Then we added a Native section that just kept growing, so that now the Franciscan part, while still important, is the lesser of the side-by-side home altars.

St. Francis is not as highly regarded in New Mexico as he is elsewhere, in part because it was the abuse by Franciscan priests that touched off the Pueblo Revolt in 1680. The stories I've heard of what the Franciscans did to the Indians are almost impossible to imagine. Their cruelty was way over the top. To my mind, this wasn't Franciscan at all. Something deep-rooted and thoroughly evil had replaced the compassion and charity and love the Saint had preached.

I'd say in a way, New Mexico -- Spanish and Native alike -- has never forgiven the Franciscans for what happened. As a consequence, St. Francis's presence is minimized though the Santa Fe Cathedral Basilica is dedicated to San Francisco and there is a looming statue of him in a side courtyard. Ave.

In California, it's not that way, so we brought some Franciscan thought with us and we honored the saint in small ways. Of course the Cattery is the main Franciscan observance but let's not get into that right now. (Cats!)

Ms. Ché spent part of last summer at the Naropa Institute (as we still call it, though it is a University now) in Colorado. It is a Buddhist-founded institution, a Rinpoche, I believe, being the inspirational and spiritual founder along with Allen Ginsberg and a number of other creators and writers. Ms. Ché says it's not part of any Buddhist order, but Buddhist practice -- on one's own and in community -- is encouraged in any form of devotion and meditation one chooses.

Well, that brought back many early memories for her, and she said she felt refreshed and alive once she got used to it. Again.

As I say, Buddhist inspiration has never really left us, it just went dormant. For decades.

Time passed, and it was clear Ms. Ché yearned to recreate at home some of that spirit she reconnected with at Naropa, and every now and then a little clue would emerge. Years earlier at the Mabel Dodge Luhan House in Taos, poet Jimmy Santiago Baca asked me, "What is a Bodhisattva?" For heaven's sake. Why would anyone ask me that? But then I realized it was a koan, and stumbled around coming up with a patched together "Devotee/practitioner on the way to Buddha-hood" answer. But it's much more than that. More and other. Both. Never mind.

So while I was cruising around Netflix one day, I stumbled on a 2013 TV series from India, "Buddha". Started watching it and saw promise. We're up to episode 36 now. Siddharth has achieved enlightenment and is starting to spread the word and spirit. He is now "Buddha" -- The Enlightened One. There are 20 some episodes left in the series. We try to see one or maybe two every day. And it has reconnected us with long ago Buddhist inspiration. I think the series was designed to introduce Indians to Buddhist thought and practice that once was prevalent in their land but has mostly been pushed out. I understand it has partially returned among Dalits, but not so much among the higher caste Indians. Perhaps now is the time.

Active Buddhist communities are all over Northern New Mexico and into Colorado, but out here in the wilderness, we might be something of a singularity. It's hard to say. There are many Catholics, a few Native spiritualists, and that plethora of Witnesses, Mormons, and Adventists I mentioned earlier. If there are Buddhists, they keep a low profile.

Maybe some of the cowboys sit in meditation from time to time, though. I wouldn't be surprised.




Michael Stipe, "I am not a Buddhist," but then he is.

The Dharma, "The Dharma Bums," Prefiguring the Rucksack Revolution, and How We Got Here -- Or Something

This is the one I recall reading c. 1962 or 63; the cover illustration and blurb are simply silly

Jack Kerouac wrote "The Dharma Bums" in 1957 and published it in 1958 after the wild success of his first second published novel, "On the Road," which became a defining work of the Beat Generation. Most of the incidents described in "The Dharma Bums" apparently take place in California in 1955 and '56 with excursions to the South and Southwest and finally to the Northwest Desolation Wilderness where the novel's ending is set.

The key characters are novelized versions of Jack Kerouac himself (as Ray Smith) and Gary Snyder (as Japhy Ryder.) Ray is in his thirties, getting close to middle age, while Japhy is still in his mid twenties, or at least, those were the ages of Kerouac and Snyder during the period of the novel.

Japhy's on the Dharma Path and he lives in a shack out behind a big house on a hill while he goes to classes at UC Berkeley, drinks tea, meditates, contemplates Nature, expostulates and has wild parties and orgies and stuff.

Ray's on a Dharma Path as well, but in the telling of the tale, he's just a bum who drinks and writes and meditates and travels around with his rucksack meeting people, Bodhisattvas and Buddhas all, along the way.

Japhy has a purpose and will wind up going to Japan on a fellowship to study under Zen Mountains and Masters and become one himself. Ray just is. And you sort of know that like Kerouac, he will eventually drink himself to death just as the Rucksack Revolution that Japhy predicts and prefigures is about to climax and thence to peter out.

We know, because we've lived, what happens to these people.

Gary Snyder is now an old man, but he's still going strong they say, living a not-so-primitive life, surrounded by acolytes and devotees, probably none of whom remember him from back when, but that hardly matters as his diamond life has been one of constant becoming. There may or may not be a handful who have stayed with him since those Dharma Bum days, but most I would venture have long since, like Jack Kerouac, died off. Snyder is an honored elder in other words; the others are mostly long gone.

I read "The Dharma Bums" when I was maybe 14, I don't know exactly. It was a period during which I devoured everything I could get my hands on of Kerouac's work, and it continued pretty much consistently until I was 18 or so, when my attentions were focused elsewhere. I think I read "The Dharma Bums" first, then "On the Road," then "Desolation Angels" but the sequence could have been different as my memory has faded over the years and I can't even be sure that I'm remembering events and not imagining them. So much of my life has been an adventure, you might say, and I haven't kept good records.

When I was 14, of course, I could not and did not understand a lot of the references to Buddhism in "The Dharma Bums," and in re-reading it recently, I find some references are still a bit obscure, though most are easily digested now. I didn't really understand the point of the novel either. A travelogue, yes, but obviously something more as well, but I had no idea what. In re-reading it, of course, it is much clearer, and the point -- such as it is -- is obvious. It was probably not meant for a 14 year old to understand in any case.

The writing is as strikingly visual now as it was when I was merely a lad, and re-reading it is a powerful reminder of how penetrating those visuals were and are; the descriptions of place are so strong and I have been to so many of those very places or places like them or near them, that I feel I'm living the novel as I'm reading it. I recall some passages in re-reading that had a powerful present impact when I first read them, but much more often, it's simply words and phrases that pop out at me, not whole passages, and they trigger memories or just their presence within. Clearly, although I didn't understand much of the book, I internalized many of its elements.

That may well have happened to many others who read it around the same time and later, they would read the book and internalize its elements without necessarily understanding them or needing to. The book is a travelogue of sorts (as was, of course, "On the Road") but it's also a meditation on the meaning and discovery of existence and its illusory nature. The Dharma Path is the Buddha Path, and the wanderers in "The Dharma Bums" see themselves as Zen Lunatics sent out to bring joy and find enlightenment and to discover the illusion of their own existence and that of every other.

It's all an illusion, you see?

Practically everybody Ray-Jack encounters on his adventures as a Dharma Bum is a Buddha-Bodhisattva, which is something you discover when you're on that path, but it is a path not many are on at any given time, and while Ray-Jack discovers he can't fall off a mountain, he does fall off the path (it seems to me) more often than he realizes. That's part of the journey. If you're going to be a Zen Lunatic, you cannot always be what you think you are, nor can you always stick to the path you think you're on. As a Zen Lunatic, you are bound to diversions. Many and frequent. And so it is for Ray-Jack and for Japhy-Gary (who is at one point, just one time, called "Gary" in the novel).

Ray-Jack Writing-sleeping, posed for the photographer no doubt.

When you become famous, as Ray-Jack became famous shortly after finishing "The Dharma Bums", you have to pose for pictures like this. It's part of the job of a famous writer.

Gary Snyder having tea in his Dharma Shack, c. 1955?

Whether the picture of Japhy-Gary is posed for a famous-writer photographer, I can't be sure. It's posed, yes, but it has the feeling of a snapshot rather than a professional production, and that's probably intentional, no matter who took the picture or why. I wouldn't be surprised if it was in LIFE magazine, just because and for no other reason at all. Gary Snyder may have been only 25 or so, but he was already a Buddhist Master or near-master. At least in the context of the USofA where Buddhism was still exotic and Anglos practicing Zen were practically unknown -- which Kerouac in his silliness and word-crafting might have written "unkoan" if only because he liked the sound of it and to drive his editors nuts.

They had editors then. I'm trying to imagine how his editor approached something like "On the Road." I can't quite grasp and the story -- which I'm sure has been told somewhere -- probably isn't all that interesting. You do what you do. But I've seen a posed picture of Kerouac transferring the text of "The Dharma Bums" from scroll to typed pages in standard format. In other words, he didn't just turn in a scroll of teletype paper to Viking or whoever his publisher was; he sat down and typed the whole thing all over again on pages of 8 1/2 x 11 typing paper like any other author and turned in the manuscript for publication just like anybody else looking to be published at the time. It's interesting to me, that part of the process, because the vision I've had is not that. It's a vision of Kerouac defiantly submitting his scroll(s) for publication and daring anybody to do anything about it.

The standard form manuscript of "The Dharma Bums" has been sent around to various literary events and memorials and museums and such, and I think I posted an image of the first page of it previously. The scroll has disappeared. It was sold, apparently, at auction and the buyer was "undisclosed." Wherever it is, and whoever has it, may it be enjoyed.

Jack Kerouac's notebook wherein he declares "The Dharma Bums" complete (clickage will embiggen)

Kerouac says he wrote and finished "The Dharma Bums" in 12 days; it reads very much like that's the case, and I'd say -- but for a purposeful delay to finish reading it -- it took me just about as long to read the novel this time. I have no idea how long it took me to read it when I was a kid, and I suspect, because many parts of it didn't ring a bell this time around and seemed to be all new to me, that I skipped through it back then. That could be my failing memory, too. But I suspect I didn't read it closely in any case, and even this time around, in re-paging through it for this essay and other things, there are whole passages I know I read that I don't remember.

I did delay reading the last two chapters this time around. Purposefully. I knew the story had to end but I didn't want it to end, and so I slowed then stopped reading it. Set the book aside and tried to take in the bloody horrors going on in so many places this horrible summer. The contrast between the vision, Kerouac's vision, I was reading and the reality outside it could not have been stronger. I have some idea what was going on in the country and the world in 1955 and 56 when the novel is set, and neither the world nor the nation were at peace.

Yet somebody on a Dharma path at that time would not have been numbed by the abundance of bloodshed along the way, at least I don't think so. There would have been terrible things, yes (Emmett Till, anyone?) and Kerouac himself mentions passing by Alamogordo and having a vision relating to the Bomb:

From that desert in Arizona he roared on up to New Mexico, took the cut through Las Cruces up to Alamogordo where the atom bomb was first blasted and where I had a strange vision as we drove along seeing in the clouds above the Alamogordo mountains the words as if imprinted in the sky: "This Is the Impossibility of the Existence of Anything" (which was a strange place for that strange true vision) and then he batted on through the beau­tiful Atascadero Indian country in the uphills of New Mexico beautiful green valleys and pines and New England-like roll­ing meadows and then down to Oklahoma (at outside Bowie Arizona we'd had a short nap at dawn, he in the truck, me in my bag in the cold red clay with just stars blazing silence overhead and a distant coyote)...

Breathtaking.  Of course, I quibble. "Atascadero" is a place in California. A well-known place at that. Atascadero is not the name of the Indians who live in the beautiful uphills of New Mexico; he must have been thinking of "Mescalero" -- but does it matter? Even more interesting, this was pre-Interstate Highway, and so I'm wondering the route his truckdriver benefactor Bodhisattva took him through New Mexico on his way to North Carolina because it seems he bypassed Albuquerque. Which was certainly possible to do...

He saw the words as if imprinted on the sky: This Is the Impossibility of the Existence of Anything as he passed near the site of the Trinity blast, which he declared a "strange vision" yet it's perfectly apropos it seems to me.

As I've reported, I've been to Trinity Site itself a couple of times, last April most recently, and I was nearly struck dumb by the stunning display in the skies that day, the clouds dancing and the slashes of virga in many places and the wind blasts, the shafts of sunlight on the sere ground, the subtle illuminations on the mountains. I'd never seen anything like it, I imagined anything like it. The visual image was even more intense than a painting, than a movie, than any description I could try to give. And I was in the midst of it, in the midst of a crowd, and I wondered if any of them could see what I was seeing, and if they could, whether it had the same impact or any impact for that matter.

The blast site itself is on a kind of upslope ledge against and below the mountains, and from this ledge there is the possibility of a sweeping view into the Jornado de los Muertos, the plain below where many are said to have died due to the lack of water for people and animals passing through. There is the possibility of a view because sometimes there will be too much dust or cloud or other stuff in the air to see much of anything below except maybe the mountains in the distance. So you might go out there and feel enclosed rather than exposed to something grander.

But in April, the view was grand. And yes, I digress, but so what?

Desolation Peak Lookout, Mt. Hozomeen in the background. Photograph by: Basil Tsimoyianis; Creative Commons license

This is where Kerouac spent his summer of 1956 after Gary Snyder sailed for Japan. Ray-Jack made it to the top of A Mountain, barely, and he stayed there for his allotted time and then he made his way back down the mountain.

I delayed finishing "The Dharma Bums" because I knew it was coming to an end and I didn't want it to end. It had been an extraordinary journey to that point, and I had a heart-wrenching notion of how it might conclude though I knew -- because Kerouac had already told us -- that Ray-Jack would leave the mountain lookout on Desolation Peak and go back into "the world." That's what a Dharma Bum does, even after being on the mountaintop for 60 days or however long he was there.  

He goes back into the world.

The last few chapters of "The Dharma Bums" are pure poetry, practically decorative yet highly evocative, and as is the case with everything else in the book, exceedingly visual. You are there. I was there. To wit:

(The initial passage of Chapter 34)

August finally came in with a blast that shook my house and augured little augusticity. I made raspberry Jello the color of rubies in the setting sun. Mad raging sunsets poured in seafoams of cloud through unimaginable crags, with every rose tint of hope beyond, I felt just like it, brilliant and bleak beyond words. Everywhere awful ice fields and snow straws; one blade of grass jiggling in the winds of infinity, anchored to a rock. To the east, it was gray; to the north, aw­ful; to the west, raging mad, hard iron fools wrestling in the groomian gloom; to the south, my father's mist. Jack Moun­tain, his thousand-foot rock hat overlooked a hundred football fields of snow. Cinnamon Creek was an eyrie of Scottish fog. Shull lost itself in the Golden Horn of Bleak. My oil lamp burned in infinity. "Poor gentle flesh," I realized, "there is no answer." I didn't know anything any more, I didn't care, and it didn't matter, and suddenly I felt really free. Then would come really freezing mornings, cracking fire, I'd chop wood with my hat on (earmuff cap), and would feel lazy and won­derful indoors, fogged in by icy clouds. Rain, thunder in the mountains, but in front of the stove I read my Western magazines. Everywhere snowy air and woodsmoke. Finally the snow came, in a whirling shroud from Hozomeen by Canada, it came surling my way sending radiant white heralds through which I saw the angel of light peep, and the wind rose, dark low clouds rushed up as out of a forge, Canada was a sea of meaningless mist; it came in a general fanning attack adver­tised by the sing in my stovepipe; it rammed it, to absorb my old blue sky view which had been all thoughtful clouds of gold; far, the rum dum dum of Canadian thunder; and to the south another vaster darker storm closing in like a pincer; but Hozomeen mountain stood there returning the attack with a surl of silence. And nothing could induce the gay golden horizons far northeast where there was no storm, to change places with Desolation. Suddenly a green and rose rainbow shafted right down into Starvation Ridge not three hundred yards away from my door, like a bolt, like a pillar: it came among steaming clouds and orange sun turmoiling.

What is a rainbow, Lord?

A hoop

For the lowly.

Is it any wonder I didn't want it to end?

But it had to, for "The Dharma Bums" is only a novel, no? It had to come to an end, and it the end, though I shed a tear or two, the ending seemed perfect:

"Japhy," I said out loud, "I don't know when we'll meet again or what'll happen in the future, but Desolation, Desolation, I owe so much to Desolation, thank you forever for guiding me to the place where I learned all. Now comes the sadness of com­ing back to cities and I've grown two months older and there's all that humanity of bars and burlesque shows and gritty love, all upsidedown in the void God bless them, but Japhy you and me forever we know, O ever youthful, O ever weeping." Down on the lake rosy reflections of celestial vapor appeared, and I said "God, I love you" and looked up to the sky and really meant it. "I have fallen in love with you, God. Take care of us all, one way or the other."

To the children and the innocent it's all the same.

And in keeping with Japhy's habit of always getting down on one knee and delivering a little prayer to the camp we left, to the one in the Sierra, and the others in Marin, and the little prayer of gratitude he had delivered to Sean's shack the day he sailed away, as I was hiking down the mountain with my pack I turned and knelt on the trail and said "Thank you, shack."

Yah. How many times have I... ?

Then I added "Blah," with a little grin, because I knew that shack and that mountain would understand what that meant, and turned and went on down the trail back to this world.

The Rucksack Revolution was yet to come. "The Dharma Bums" is a pre-figuring journey through time and space and spirit that blazed the path, though many at the time -- like me -- had no idea it would be so. It was a novel, a Beat novel, like jazz and dancing down a mountain, not meant to do anything at all, just to be.

And so it was.

Kerouac said "The Dharma Bums" was better than "On the Road"

 SUNDAY, DEC 8, 1957 -- Quiet Sunday, my work done -- I think DHARMA BUMS is not as dramatic as On the Road but it's a better book (more important) -- technically almost just as good in any case -- If Viking doesn't want to publish it, they'll be mistaken & sorry later on --

.... 

Wrote Dharma Bums from Nov. 26 to Dec. 7 -- 12 days 

^THE DHARMA BUMS, for me, is better than ON THE ROAD.... in the end... because what Neal was, a mad holy hepcat, wasn't as great as what the dharma bums were, religious heroes of America, preaching kindness and mindfulness (that's what Neal could have been)-- oh well, it probably stinks--------------

"The Dharma Bums" is so pure and clear by comparison to either "On the Road" or "Desolation Angels." And yet... there is a sadness to it. That's part of the Dharma too.

A Passage

This passage just whapped me up side the head (From "The Dharma Bums" by Jack Kerouac, 1958):

[Japhy and Ray are up in the mountains above Bridgeport, CA, on a hiking adventure, about to make camp for the night. Ray says:

  ...I have a prayer. Did you know the prayer I use?

What?

I sit down and say, and I run all my friends and relatives and enemies one by one in this, without entertaining any angers or gratitudes or anything, and I say, like, "Japhy Ryder, equally empty, equally to be loved, equally a coming Buddha," and then I run on and say, "David O. Selznick, equally empty, equally to be loved, equally a coming Buddha," though I don't use names like David O. Selznick, just people I know, because when I say the words "equally a coming Buddha" I want to be thinking of their eyes, like you take Morley, his blue eyes behind those glasses, when you think "equally a coming Buddha," you think of those eyes and you really do suddenly see the true secret serenity and the truth of his coming Buddhahood. Then you think of your enemy's eyes.

 Anybody can do it.

Name. Name any name, make up a name, name a group, name your enemies, one by one and in batches, and think and say: ")Name(, equally empty, equally to be loved, equally a coming Buddha" and think of those eyes and suddenly see the true secret serenity and the truth of their coming Buddhahood.

Namaste.

"The Dharma Bums"

Clickage will make the image big enough to read the dialog. It's funny.

As something of an antidote to this Blood Summer, I ordered a couple of books from afar (no, I don't use Amazon, these were ordered from Abe Books): "The Dharma Bums" and "On the Road -- the Original Scroll" both by Jack Kerouac -- and they came yesterday. There was a yellow card in my post office box with a whole series of hand-written numbers scratched off, and at the bottom was my box number with a (2) beside it. That's how they let you know you've got to go to the counter and pick something up. They don't actually tell you that, they just leave the yellow card in the post office box, and one day when I was laid up Ms Ché checked the mail in the box and found one of those yellow cards and she didn't know what it was. She thought it was maybe a mistake so she left it there and it stayed there for days. She was expecting a package though, and she said to me that it hadn't come, and she wondered what happened. I said that when there is a package, they'll leave a yellow card sometimes and you have to go to the counter to pick up whatever it is.

"Oh. There was a yellow card in the box the other day. I didn't know what it was, so I left it there. I thought it was a sorting thing or they made a mistake or something."

No, that's how you find out there's a package. So when she went to the post office that day, the card was still there and she took it to the counter, and sure enough, there was her package, waiting.

Yesterday there was a yellow card in the post office box and I took it to the counter and the woman at the counter said, "Good morning, Mister Ché. I see you have a package." and she took the yellow card from me, "No, I see you have two packages! I will be right back." And she disappeared around the corner to where the packages that have arrived are kept. Sure enough, within a few seconds she returned with two bubble packs, looking about book size, and placed them on the counter. "Here they are, Mister Ché. Will there be anything else?" I told her that no, I was fine, and then I dropped a few of the other mail pieces that had been in the box, "except I'm dropping everything this morning." She laughed. "Would you like some stamps?" "No, thank you. I'm fine." As I picked up the things that had fallen on the floor and scooped up the bubble packs from the counter, she said, "Well you have a very nice day, then, and we'll see you next time."

There are times when I've had my differences with the Post Office, like just a few days before, but this was not one of them, and I wished her well. I think her name is Lorene, but I get her confused with Mary who is also quite friendly and well-wishing and they don't wear name tags so I'm not sure which is which. I wished her well as well and went on my way.

When I got home I opened the bubble bags and there were the books, new Penguin editions, large format paperbacks, really quite nice, and they made me smile and then I laughed out loud when I read the cartoons on the end flaps of "The Dharma Bums." I will attempt to scan and add them to this post in due time.

"The Dharma Bums." It was, as far as I can recall, the first Kerouac book I read, but it may have been the second, after "On the Road." One loses track. It was a long time ago. At least 50 years ago. I opened the book yesterday and skipped over the scholarly introductions (imagine "scholarly introductions" to a Jack Kerouac novel fifty years ago!) and went right to the meat and was transported in a sense back to that time fifty or more years ago when I first read it.

And I've been more or less devouring it ever since -- well, except for this break to write something about it. It's an odd sensation because I read the book all those years ago and it made quite an impression on me, but I didn't actually carry it around with me and use it as a kind of talisman or bible or anything, I just read it and said, "Whoa," or maybe "Wow." As I'm reading it now, the words and images and sometimes whole passages are firing off in my memories, "Oh yes, I've been here before..." oh yes. Absolutely. But here's the thing, what Kerouac is writing about, the places at least, are places I have been, or near where I have been, like Berkeley and Santa Barbara and Los Angeles, and climbing in the Sierras and San Francisco and so forth, and North Beach and all of that, I've been there, spent lots of time there, traveling up and down the state of California and eventually traveling into Oregon and Washington, and up into the mountains and getting drunk on cheap wine in San Francisco with friends and talking all about everything far into the night with friends I thought were smarter than me and certainly much more fashionable, some of whom even became famous.

I didn't know anything about Buddhism when I first read "The Dharma Bums," so many of the references and even the title went right over my head, or maybe they entered somehow and germinated there eventually, because as I read it now, I know what most of the Buddhist terms refer to like "Bodhisattva" and so forth, and the various things you do when you're a "Zen Lunatic" and what not. It's all very familiar to me now but I can't imagine I knew anything about it when I was 14 or whatever when I first read the book, so I've been trying to figure out how I might have imagined what all this foreign gobbledegook meant at the time, and I can't do it. It couldn't have meant anything, and yet it must have, because now it all seems just right.

Practically everything seems just right now.

It's surprising and a little bit scary.

I realize I'm writing somewhat in the style of Jack Kerouac right now. It's because his influence is very strong on me and it's a style I've always liked. It's a style that always seemed very real and honest to me, far more so than the styles of so many tamer novelists who make their livings churning out the same thing over and over again that never actually says anything. Kerouac is saying something different and whipping you about this way and that and making you look at things you may never have seen before -- or like me, you may have been seeing or doing them all your life but never actually paid attention. As I re-read "The Dharma Bums" I wonder if he actually had more of an influence on my life than I could even imagine.

No, I say to myself, just because I have been to some of these places, done some of these things, known some of these people -- well, people like them or people who actually knew the people he's writing about  -- it doesn't mean very much in the vaster scheme of things. Everybody could say the same thing, couldn't they? They did and they knew many of the same things some novelist or other did and knew as well, didn't they? We're all related in some way like that, aren't we?

I don't know.

I don't know. And so I'll read some more and see how much more I remember. It was fifty years ago or more after all, and who can remember everything?

One thing I keep thinking about which may not mean anything at all is that Kerouac wrote "the Dharma Bums" in the mid or late 1950s and I read it in the early 1960s and I felt it was very contemporary, that it wasn't about a previous time at all. And I feel the same way about it now, it's not about a previous time or an earlier, safer and saner and more innocent era, it's about right now, today. These things and these people are going on right now, today, in some of the same places, in contrast to the chaos and the bloodfest our rulers are delighting in. Of course it was different then, but it wasn't. Not really.