Running and the art of meditation

Years ago, I used to run. Not marathons, or even very long distances. I pretty much stuck to running 1 mile each time. And I never ran in a race. This was 30 years ago. I was young and full of spit. And I was also running at the time in high altitude. So while not great, I felt pretty good that I could run a mile in less than 9 minutes at 7,000 feet.

And oh yeah, I smoked at the time too. (Sometimes I ran while under the influence of certain, um, chemicals - and in hiking boots)

But my ankles started to get cranky with me, so I stopped running and switched to swimming. Running is so much easier though because you don't need a special place to run. To swim, however, you need a pool.

"Hey Rich, what's this got to do with Buddhism?"

Um, maybe nothing at all. Maybe everything.

Fully worn out is this body,

a nest of disease, and fragile.

This foul mass breaks up,

for death is the end of life.

There you go, does that cheer you up?

Last December, I broke a bone in my foot, a small stress fracture. I did it while walking on a treadmill. Went to a foot doctor who fitted me with new orthotics. Told me I'd be able to run again.

So I was all geeked up and feeling like, wow, I can run again, maybe I'll even train for a marathon!

Then I had a heart attack in March. But that was not going to deter me, particularly when the docs said there was no blockage in my heart to worry about.

I've been training for my first 5K, which is this Sunday, since late April. I'm not quite running the entire distance yet, so my time is between 40-41 minutes. But I'm feeling pretty good about it. I'm finding that I don't mind running so much, and I've learned to pace myself without pressure to run too fast.

I've heard of people who use running like meditation, or they meditate while they run, or they get all Zen while they're running, or whatever. I don't do any of that. I just run, try to pay attention to what my body is doing, the rhythm of my movement, the flow of my breath, even with all types of crazy shit going on inside my monkey mind. To me that's meditation: being aware. For a long time I used to think the goal of Buddhism and meditation was to turn off the mind's internal babble. But now I realize I don't need to try and turn it off; rather, the more I pay attention to it, the more it turns off on its own.

Thinking, at least for me, leads to self-absorption, and that hinders compassion. It's hard to be compassionate when you're obsessed with your self, what people think about you, how you think they perceive you or think about you: It's all a mass of mental knots that stress you out.

"Hey Rich, what's the photo with your post got to do with any of this?"

So glad you asked!

While on a run, I was loping along the east side of Diversey Harbor here in Chicago when I see this raccoon up ahead. As I get closer, the raccoon isn't moving. Dead? No, it raises its head to look at me, but still doesn't move. I jog by, see it splayed out in the grass. It's injured.

I stop about 20 feet beyond it, look at it, see that it's very stressed. We are quite close to Lake Shore Drive; my guess is the raccoon was attempting to cross the drive, got hit, managed to drag itself this far. It's hind legs weren't working.

Without thinking, I just started talking to the raccoon. And I was pretty blunt. Heck, the raccoon was probably going to die, its injuries mortal in nature, so I said that to the raccoon. I think it agreed with my assessment. I called animal control because I didn't want anyone else messing with the animal. People can be assholes. The guy at animal control took my information and said he would call someone from the wildlife division. I told the raccoon; maybe they could help you, I said.

The raccoon started to drag itself across the sidewalk toward the harbor. It was going to deliberately throw itself into the harbor. Was I about to witness a raccoon suicide?

You know the end is near, don't you, I said to it. It's alright, we all have to go someday. Wish I could help you.

I spoke quietly, gently. It dragged itself a little more, then paused at the edge of the cement wall. That's when I took the photo. It paused for a moment, heaving from the exertion, then pulled itself over and plunged into the harbor.

I peered over the edge, saw it paddle with its front legs, the rear legs still useless. I bet that cold water feels good, but if you take off, the wildlife people won't find you and fix you.

It looked up at me as it paddled along the edge. Screw the wildlife people, I don't need them, it said.

Oh, wait, it didn't say anything. Raccoons can't talk. It just looked up at me and swam away.

I have no idea what happened to that raccoon. My presumption is the injuries were fatal. I just hope that in its last moments, my presence brought it a little comfort, reduced its stress just a tad as it faced the end. Because, you know, when I die, I hope someone will be there with me too.

And now when I run by that spot on my loop, I put my palms together and bow my head in respect for the raccoon who gave me a lesson on both life and death.

Don't get lost in the details

For 2 years in a row, the date March 9 has brought me face-to-face with the frailty of the human body.

This normally inconspicuous date has also held for me interesting coincidences.

On March 9, 2012, I awoke shortly after midnight with a splitting headache. It was the worst headache I ever had in my life. It was as though a large Bowie knife had been shoved through my skull. My vision was distorted by shimmering lights, like an aura. Because I had lived with migraines most of my life, I deduced it was just an exceptionally bad migraine. I took some Excedrin and went back to sleep.

Later that morning the headache persisted. I stayed at home and worked, but the throbbing pain in my skull was getting to me. I took a handful of aspirin later in the afternoon. The pain diminished slightly. I was beginning to notice that I had lost vision in my left peripheral field. It was the normal blind spot I get when having a migraine, so I thought.

The next day, the headache and the blind spot were still there. Perhaps this was not a migraine. I called one of those "phone a nurse" lines and described my symptoms. It was suggested that I get to an emergency room. I drove myself there. They did a CT scan. They told me I had a stroke.

On March 9, 2013, I woke up feeling fine. I went to make the coffee. I returned to my room and started my laptop, started to look through my email. When I heard the coffee had stopped brewing, I went and got a cup. I poured the soy creamer into the mug and then added the coffee like I always do every morning. I took the mug of coffee back to my room, took a sip, set the mug on the side table, then sat in the chair to resume web surfing.

Suddenly there was an intense pain in my chest. It was as if a giant hand wearing one of those metal medieval jousting gloves had gripped my chest all about the left breast and was squeezing with the pressure of an hydraulic vice. The pain radiated to my left arm, went under through the arm pit, then down my arm to my fingers. This intense pain went up the left side of my neck as well to my jaw. My breathing became shallow, I felt clammy.

I knew what was happening. I stood up, went to my medicine cabinet, grabbed an adult aspirin and chewed it. I returned to my chair and focused my mind on the pain, on my heart, on the blood vessel that was shutting down. I waited a few moments, but the pain was not subsiding. It was steady; a black knight had me in his grip and he was not letting go. Mara be damned. I was going to have to go to the emergency room. Again.

I told my roommate what I thought was happening and he and his boyfriend drove me to the emergency room. I never felt like I was going to die. But I was thinking about the irony.

Two hugely significant medical emergencies in my life, both occurring on March 9. In both incidents, I had Phô for dinner the night before. In both situations I had recently picked up my friend Curt at the airport upon his return from Malaysia where he had spent three months. And on both occasions, Curt returned from Malaysia with some type of lung infection.

Coincidences. Silly facts to mess with your mind.

At the emergency room, it had been at least an hour since the symptoms first showed and my chest was still gripped with pain. This is not a hackneyed metaphor. It literally felt as though my chest was caught in some giant vice. My blood pressure upon arrival was 188/107. They gave me a nitro. A swelling headache developed, but the chest pain had only slightly subsided. Morphine was next. At last, the pain was receding.

They drew blood to see if the tell-tale enzymes would show up indicating a heart attack. It could be severe angina or some other less serious event. These enzymes show up when there is heart tissue damage, and the only thing that causes that type of damage is a heart attack. The first draw was necessarily zero, but it would be the second draw that would reveal all.

Nammo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhasa. Say it three times. Say it six times. Say it a hundred times. I wasn't afraid. I knew I wasn't going to die. But I was embarrassed. And I was confused. I don't follow the best diet, but I eat reasonably well and I exercise a lot. My cholesterol numbers are fabulous. My EKGs have been normal. I have never felt chest pain while exercising or exerting myself. All I did was sit down after getting my coffee. Now I was annoyed. They told me I would be spending the night for observation in a regular room. Dennis and Stephen went home to get me some things.

Then the first enzyme test came back. They were canceling my room. They were sending me to ICU. The enzymes were there. I was 54 years old and I had a heart attack. My father was 58 when he had his first one. My brother was 62 I think when he had his, one that required a quad-bypass. But this couldn't be. I knew I didn't have blocked arteries. I just knew it! But what was happening?

An angiogram done two days later confirmed my belief; there was no arterial blockage. They started talking about a spasm, like a cramp in the artery that caused it to pinch shut, blocking the blood flow just as effectively if it had been blocked with plaque. But there was a problem with this diagnosis. Had it been plaque in the artery, they would cite a source, whether it was my diet or something else leading to the plaque buildup. There were procedures for this, whether surgery or angioplasty, doesn't matter - there was a protocol with that scenario.

Without the plaque, well now, they couldn't tell me what caused the spasm. And without knowing what caused the spasm, they couldn't very well tell me what to do or not do to prevent it from happening again.

It was like the stroke all over again. The stroke was caused by a blood clot - at least that's what they tell me - but they could never identify the source of the clot.

My roommate Stephen said it best: "You are a medical mystery."

Fuck that.

But now, when I chant the Five Remembrances, the significance is hard to ignore. I got things to do. And not silly things. Now the Bhaddekaratta Sutta has meaning unlike anything its held before. And yet I am still the same person. I'm not quite acting differently, not yet. But I am looking at others much differently. And I'm looking for opportunities. Opportunities to help. Opportunities to be kind. Opportunities to smile. And most important of all, opportunities to be present.

Expect some more of the same, but a little bit different.

Guilty of simply being

Amelia is a blogger at Huffington Post and under this pseudonym she has been writing about her 7-year-old son. The kicker here is that her son self-identifies as gay.

"Huh? What? That's nuts! How can a 7-year-old self-identify as gay? He hasn't even hit puberty!"

o_O

I know. It's really amazing some of the things people say. Because I find it completely plausible that Amelia's son identifies as gay despite his age. I knew I was gay when I was 4 years old. I just didn't have a word for it. Being gay is not about sex. Our being gay is about who we are as a human being, it's a fundamental trait about ourselves that we intuitively know. We don't need anyone to tell us who we are, we just know.

The words come later. I knew I was a boy even before people labeled me as "boy." And when people started using that word, I began to use it. But I was a boy before I learned that word. Learning the word did not make me a boy.

And I did not become gay once I knew the word. I knew already who I was. Had I known what "gay" meant when I was 4 years old, I would have readily accepted it as a label for who I am, just as Amelia's son accepts the word. By the time, however, I did learn about words like "gay" and "homosexual," I was also learning about words like "fag" and "sissy." So even though I intuitively knew those words were about me, I did not "identify" as such. Rather, I became a ghost.

But enough of that. I want to get to Amelia's most recent post in which she talks about the conversations she knows she'll have to have with her son even though she dreads the moment when they will occur. Nothing very surprising here, these are the conversations we all know about. That yes, there are people who hate us even though they never met us. That we can't give blood, even to a family member. That we cannot marry the person we love. We might not be able to visit that person in the hospital too, and when they die, we might not have any say about what happens to them.

That's not what caught my eye in Amelia's post, however. It was this line:

"My child is guilty of nothing but simply being."

This is such a beautiful statement and its sentiment is at the heart of why Buddhism has been a lifesaver for me. Because unlike other religious doctrines, at least in my experience, Buddhism allowed me to simply be. It showed me how to be a human "being" rather than a human "doing." And it showed me how to escape the pain I was fettering myself with.

Life is unsatisfactory and events seldom go the way I want them to.

The angst I feel day to day about this is self-created because it's my choices that have brought me to where I am right now.

If I can learn to make better choices and become less attached to things and feelings that are merely temporary, I will be happier.

By following the Buddha's path I will free myself of this self-induced drudgery by accepting things as they really are and understand better how my actions now influence what happens next.

So simple, but as Amelia and the world show us every day, not so easy to implement. Dealing with the world around us is no easy task. And for children who identify as gay, it can be brutal. That's because the world is ruled by delusion. Most people are either incapable or simply refuse to see things as they really are. But once you start doing that in even the smallest ways, the transformation is incredible. And what is more astounding is as we begin to see things as they really are, something begins to bubble up from deep inside us, something that was always there, but was blocked and smothered by our deluded egos.

Compassion. And once we have compassion, it doesn't matter what the world throws at us. We become unflappable.

If you haven't read Amelia's blog on Huffington Post, you should. It's a delight.

Bid adieu to your ennui

It has been months since I posted something, and even before that last post, my contributions to this blog have been sporadic. And to some extent, uninspired. There was something creeping into my life. It's called ennui.

I knew it was there, but last night as I walked through Boys Town feeling morose and unwanted (I was totally channeling Linda Ronstadt), I overheard a couple gay boys at least half my age chatting behind me: "We're celebrating our six-year anniversary," said one.

Bitch.

Then I read a message from someone I've been texting with and whom I was planning to meet in a couple weeks: "I hope you aren't expecting anything more than conversation when we meet."

Double bitch.

And this all leads me to recall a conversation I had earlier in the evening. I was dining at a vegan restaurant in Old Town with a colleague from work. She and I had a wonderful time: the food was excellent, I brought a fabulous wine to share, and our conversation was bright and happy and thrilling. Being the social media fanatics she and I are, we both checked in on FourSquare and we got a special - free desert.

When dinner was over and we examined the desert menu, I suggested the blueberry cheesecake because I thought the blueberries would go well with the remaining wine. My mind was totally in the realm of cheesecake and all that word means to me. So when the cheesecake was delivered to our table, its appearance immediately struck me as odd. And when I tasted it, the texture was not at all what I expected.

I was disappointed. I said as much, noting that it was good, but it was not what I expected at all. My friend gently reminded me that we were dining in a vegan restaurant, so traditional cheesecake would not be served. I said to her, "You know, it's funny how it is most often our expectations about something that create our disappointment, not the thing itself. This cheesecake is really quite fine, but because I had expected something creamy and smooth and decidedly not vegan, I was unhappy."

Yes, our expectations. Not the thing itself. This is so basic Four Noble Truths kind of stuff that I feel like I should cancel my subscription to the Dhamma and quickly find a bed of nails to lie on. It's just as my friend Curt recently said: "We've got to get you out of this rut you're in, Richard."

And that word "rut" was so apropos. I had been in both a mental and sexual rut, honing in on deliciously young men whom I was successfully converting into a series of trysts. It was making me feel adequate because look at me! I'm a 54-year-old man and see this cute 20-something with me? But the trouble has been most 20-somethings aren't ready to settle down into anything long-term; they want to play just as much as I do. And the ones that say they do want something long term, well, have you ever tried having a conversation with someone who is less than half your age? I often can't even find any musical interests that we share in common.

So there it is - ennui staring me in the face. And it's because I've been spending a lot of time on the outside of me. I've been kicking my ass in a good way at the gym, losing weight and toning up. I've started attending a yoga class that has really helped my flexibility and my overall sense of health. And while I have been chanting and meditating, it's not as regular as I feel it should be. And frankly, I haven't read any Dhamma since ...

My friend Curt is right. I need to find a way out of this rut of endlessly pursuing younger men with whom I have nothing in common other than an overactive libido. Because that day will come when I no longer got it going on. Maybe it's because of my stroke earlier in the year. You'd never know just by looking at me that I had one. But there may be a thought nugget inside my mind that is telling me to live it up as much as I can because I may not be so lucky with the next one. It's as though I'm Jack Nicholson in "Five Easy Pieces" when he attempts to reconcile his relationship with his father who's been incapacitated by a devastating stroke.

So there it is. There it is, really, for all of us. Because in some manner, we are all creating our own disappointment with everything, our own dissatisfaction, and we're doing it via our expectations.

Debating a monk is dukkha

Have you ever tried to point out to a monk that he just might be full of shit? It’s not an easy thing to do, because let me tell you, some monks are very adept at turning the tables and making you out to be the problem, that it’s your delusion operating here, not theirs.

I stumbled into such a debate after seeing a post on the Heartland Singapore Facebook page. It was referring to a post at buddhavacana.net, which appears to be a message board. There are other, blog-like pages on this site, but it doesn’t appear to be very active. Anyway, you can read my heresy by following the link I provided.

The gist of this began with a question emailed to the monk administering the page: “Can a gay person be ordained as a monk/nun?”

Bhante Shi Chuanguan replied with this: “Heterosexual men and women have to transcend their heterosexual desires if they are going to be ordained. Similarly, gay person can be ordained as a monk/nun, as long as this person can transcend this inclination.”

Me thinks I detect a double standard here.

As an aside, the Venerable Ashin Sopaka had a very pithy comment on the Heartland Facebook page, to which I will return later. But my response on the forum was to say I thought the answer provided, as well as an answer provided by another presumed monastic, was drawing a distinction between straight people seeking ordination and gays seeking ordination, that each was to be treated differently.

The Bhante said that straights had to “transcend their heterosexual desires,” while a gay person had to “transcend this inclination.”

This inclination? So the straight person need only renounce his or her sexual desires, while the gay has to renounce being gay? In other words, renounce his or her sexuality. What’s up with that?

You can read my entire reply on the message board, as I waxed very eloquent and pontificated like a true queen in heat. Perhaps that was a bit rash, because Bhante replied and suggested that, “Your inference that there is such a prejudicial idea is what is prejudicial.”

Moi? OK, OK, you can read my reply to that bit of obfuscation, because clearly this Bhante wanted to paint me the ignorant dualistic thinking bitter fag and a poor victim of all that nasty hate in the world, which, I would point out, often begins with narrow-minded and atavistic interpretations of religious doctrine by Paleolithic thinkers such as him. But I digress.

What I want to do is now return to Ashin Sopaka’s comment on the Heartland Facebook page. Ashin Sopaka succinctly points out that apparently the requirement to enter the monastery and seek ordination is to already be an enlightened being. Doesn’t the requirement that a gay first “transcend this inclination” mean that one must have renounced all notion of self, which can only be achieved upon enlightenment?

Seems to me that all the monastic code requires is that the monk or nun abstains from any form of sexual activity. That living in a monastery is the venue through which a monk or nun practices the doctrine to eventually transcend all fabricated notions of identity, whether they are sexual or otherwise. What “inclinations” remain in the unenlightened mind is irrelevant to anyone else in the monastery, as it is the duty of the monk or nun to peel back the layers of delusion and clinging within his or her own mind to ultimately attain freedom.

I’m sure Bhante Shi Chuanguan is a very wise man and knows his Dhamma pretty well. But his understanding of gay people, in my opinion, is no better than your average homophobe.

Update: I am pleased to say that Shi Chuanguan replied to my comments in a manner suggesting that we are coming together to a closer understanding.

It’s not always about me

Next time something you would label as “bad” happens to you, take a look around. You’re in that situation for a reason. And that reason might be an opportunity to be helpful to someone else.

When I was hospitalized following my stroke, I was placed in a room with another man who was really sick. Not that I wasn’t really sick – people are usually not admitted to a hospital unless they are really sick – but my roommate was pretty miserable.

His name was Tom, and I guess he was probably in his 30s. Shortly after I arrived in the room, he received some visitors. I quickly discerned that Tom’s visitors were his fellow residents from a group home for developmentally disabled adults. Over the next 24 hours I also picked up that Tom had a severe lung infection. He had a tube in his chest to drain fluid, but each time a nurse came in to check him, he or she would comment that there wasn’t much drainage.

Tom and I gradually got to know each other. I explained to him my situation and he explained his. Tom wasn’t stupid, but it was evident to me why he lived in a group home.

Eventually, the doctors began talking about getting Tom into surgery because not only was the fluid not draining from his lungs, it was solidifying. Tom was miserable, in pain, and frightened by the idea of surgery. “I don’t want to die,” he said.

The surgeon did a fantastic job of explaining to Tom why he was recommending surgery, doing so using imagery that Tom could understand. The liquid in his lungs at first was like liquid Jello, but like Jello, it was beginning to solidify into a wriggly mess in the lining of his lungs. If nothing was done, that Jello-like stuff in his lungs would eventually become like Jello left out in the air – it becomes hard and stiff. What the surgeon wanted to do was open a small hole in Tom, stick something into his lungs and scrape this gunk out of his lungs.

As all doctors must say, the surgeon said there were risks involved. But with someone like Tom, enumerating these risks, while legally required, just frightened him more. His sister, whom I also got to know, did her best to explain to her brother that while these risks were real, the surgery could make him feel better.

Tom was lost in a thicket of views. He didn’t know what to do. He would agree to the surgery, but it was evident he was simply agreeing with what the adults around him were suggesting. So he was saying what they wanted to hear. It was clear, however, that Tom was scared shitless.

After he and his sister talked some more about the surgery, she got up to go to the cafeteria. When she was gone, Tom said, “Richard, what do you think I should do?”

Me: “Tom, do you like the way you feel right now?”

Tom: “No.”

Me: “You’re in a lot of pain right now, aren’t you?”

Tom: “Yes, and it’s not getting better.”

Me. “Right, it’s not getting better. And I know you are in pain, because having a chest tube stuck inside of you like you have is one of the most painful things to go through. And I must say you have been really strong dealing with that, you know that?”

Tom: “Yes. But I don’t want to be like this.”

Me: “Well, if you don’t have the surgery done, what will happen?"

Tom: “I won’t get better.”

Me: “That’s right, you won’t. And what did the surgeon say if nothing was done?”

Tom: “The stuff in my lungs will get hard and I will get worse.”

Me: “Yes, that stuff will get hard and you will get worse. And what else did he say?”

Tom: “I will die.”

Me: “So you know that, you know you do not like how you feel right now, and you know if you don’t do anything about it, it will get worse and you will die. But if you have the surgery, what can happen?”

Tom: “I can get better.”

Me: “You will get better."

Tom: “But I could die in the surgery.”

Me: “Yes you could. But that’s a maybe. You know you will die if you do nothing. You know you won’t get better if you do nothing, right? So let me ask you this. Are you willing to go through some more pain for a short time after the surgery, but knowing the pain will go away and you will feel better?”

Tom thought about it for about 10 seconds and then said, “I’m going to do the surgery.”

The day Tom was wheeled into surgery was also the day I was sent home. I gave his sister one of my email addresses to let me know how things turned out. A couple days later I got her missive explaining that the surgery went well and that Tom was rapidly recovering. She thanked me for being a calming presence for Tom and helping him sort through this frightening experience.

Did karma put me in that room? I can’t say. But I can say this. I was there and I had a choice. I could either dwell in my own world of woes – and I might even have had a legitimate reason to do that – or I could recognize an opportunity to alleviate someone else’s suffering.

We face these choices every day. They may not be as grand as my situation, but we face them nonetheless. All it took was a small step outside of my inner world and be aware that it’s not always about me.

Photo courtesy of my friend Jimmy Huang.

Selfishness disguised as compassion, or kamma can suck

For the past several days I’ve been struggling over what to do with my cat, Symba. He’s been sniffling and sneezing and losing weight, which I largely attributed to some type of severe allergy or sinus infection. However, there was a key symptom I wasn’t paying attention to: Symba’s breath was awful smelling, like rot. Everything else was beguilingly normal; all his other body functions were operating, shall we say, unimpeded. And he was especially perky whenever I fed him and Tazz, my other cat, soft food.

When I finally took Symba in to see the vet, the news was dire. It wasn’t merely nasal congestion or some allergy going on. It was an infection, but it was in his mouth. He had already lost several teeth, his breath smelled rotten because of all the pus building in his gums and even the roof of his mouth, which was starting to look like maggot-ridden hamburger. The swelling from the pus on his right cheek was so intense it was ready to burst through the outside of his cheek; the vet showed me the spot where hair was starting to disappear. That’s why he was constantly rubbing and grooming that side of his head with a paw. And that’s why he showed excitement when I brought out the soft food, because his mouth hurt so much to eat dry food.

I was overwhelmed with sadness, but it wasn’t for Symba – it was all about me. I hadn’t recognized it fully, however, at that moment. Oh, I knew I felt guilt for not paying closer attention to Symba’s symptoms. And I felt guilt over not listening to a vet 8 years ago who told me that Symba was developing gum disease that ought to be taken care of. But when he told me that it would cost $150 to clean his teeth when I hadn’t gone to a dentist in years to take care of my own teeth, I said no. Now I was looking at major surgery for Symba to the tune of at least $900, potentially more.

There was the possibility, the vet told me, that Symba’s problems were entirely restricted to this awful – and I mean AWFUL – mouth infection. She said there was a possibility he may have bone cancer in the jaw as well. If that were the case, she recommended putting him down. But there was a catch. She would need to begin the surgery on his mouth before she could see and determine if cancer were present. And even then, it may not be immediately obvious, which would then necessitate a biopsy. Biopsy results could take a couple days, meaning the mouth surgery would be completed and a few days after his return home, the biopsy result would be available.

This all meant that I could end up spending more than $900 only to learn later that Symba’s days were over. That bugged me. Really bugged me. But a voice inside reminded me had I listened to that vet 8 years ago and paid the $150 then, I wouldn’t be faced with $900 now.

This was all on Thursday. The vet told me she couldn’t do the surgery until Monday. If all went well, Symba could be home that evening. If it were just the mouth infection, she said his prognosis was actually excellent. Symba wouldn’t have any teeth, but should fully recover. They had a plan, also, that would allow me to pay for the surgery over time, interest free. I qualified, so I agreed to schedule the surgery for Monday with the knowledge that I still had the weekend to think things over.

That evening I had dinner over at a friend’s house. He gave me very practical feedback. I don’t have $900, this would add to my debt load, even if only temporarily, he told me. Symba was 15 years old, he’s lived a good life. I gave him an excellent home, took care of him and loved him. I shouldn’t feel guilty over not addressing the gum disease issue in the past. I also had my own life situation to consider. My cat food costs would like go up after this because I would need to buy soft food more frequently, so long term my expenses would rise. I needed to think about myself in this situation as well.

It was all very persuasive. My friend made excellent and valid points. I didn’t have any money, no savings at all, and Symba was 15 years old, at the high end of a cat’s normal life span. Even if the surgery was successful and there was no cancer, how many more years would I be giving to Symba?

Friday I worked at home, although frankly, I was not very productive. I struggled with my decision. I couldn’t ignore the cost and the impact that would have on me.

Symba seemed to sense something was troubling me. He came out of his corner where he’s been spending his days, the lower shelf on a small case where I keep grocery bags, and came into my home office. He looked at me, meowed loudly (I think he’s deaf now, and that may be the result of the infection as well), then jumped into my lap. I reclined back into my chair and he laid his frail body against me and began to purr. I understood now why his fur was so ratty looking; he wasn’t grooming himself because of the mouth infection. I knew why he had lost weight; because it hurt his mouth to eat the dry food. I was overwhelmed with sadness and guilt. I apologized to him. I did this to him. I had failed. And the decision to have him put down was beginning to take shape.

But it was still all about me.

I was ready to take him to the animal hospital that moment and have it done. But there was somebody else I wanted to talk to first. Benny. So I left a message for Benny to give me a call. While waiting for Benny’s call, I drove to Whole Foods to pick up some items with the idea that I would park my car on the street when I got back, making it easier to bring Symba down to the car to take him to the vet. But when I returned from Whole Foods, there were no street parking spaces, so I drove back to the alley to my garage.

Back inside, I tried to do a little work, responded to some emails, and then Benny called. We chatted for a bit and he said something that surprised me. Benny’s known about my Buddhist practice, I even tried to teach him meditation but he didn’t stick with it. He said that my dilemma sounded like something I should meditate on.

Duh. When was the last time I meditated? My practice had really gone to shit. It must have been weeks, perhaps months, since I last mediated. What was up with that? After my call with Benny, that’s exactly what I did, I went to the cushion.

It was a struggle. My mind was all over the place. Rather than attempt to “think” about anything, my decision or whatever, I just brought my mind back to my breath. Over and over it would run wild into this or that thought, and I would each time bring it back to the breath. By then end of the session, I had achieved some semblance of mental calm. I then began my normal routine of chanting some Pali verses after the silent sit. Needless to say I got a bit choked up when I said out loud, “May all beings be free from suffering.” But what really got to me was reciting the Five Recollections.

“I am of the nature to grow old, I have not got beyond aging.
“I am of the nature to be sick, I have not got beyond disease.
“I am of the nature to die, I have not got beyond death.
“All that is mine, beloved, and pleasing, changes and vanishes.
“I am the owner of my kamma, the creator of my kamma, born of my kamma, related to my kamma, abide supported in my kamma; whatever kamma I create – skillful or unskillful, light or dark – to that I fall heir.”

My voice trembled as I recited this, but something was coming up. Something was rising.

I went back to my computer and began a search with the terms “euthanizing pets Buddhism.” The discussion was all over the place, but I began to see a common thread. And in particular, it was discussion on how our sense of compassion may not really be compassion at all, but a mask to cover up selfish intentions. We tell ourselves that our beloved pet is suffering and so we seek to end that suffering. At the other extreme is the notion we should never euthanize our pets because they have their own kamma to work through and by euthanizing them we’re interfering with that. I found that argument to be bullshit, largely because it presumes that we “know” what kamma the animal has and must deal with. Now that is ego to the extreme. Plus, such a position logically leads us never to intervene when anyone is sick because we might be interfering with their kamma. That’s just crazy.

But the notion that the option of euthanizing an animal was merely a smoke-screen covering up our own discomfort with disease and death was resonating with me. The more I began to re-evaluate Symba’s symptoms, the more I began to see that the likelihood he also had cancer was extremely low. I’ve had pets that were on death’s door because of either feline leukemia or another terminal illness. It was clear that they were close to death because they weren’t eating, some couldn’t even lift up their head and they could barely respond to any type of affection.

Beyond the fact that he had a horrible mouth, Symba was still Symba. He remained affectionate and even playful, particularly if he knew I was preparing soft food for him.

We all get sick. Sometimes really, really sick. But we don’t die from every illness. Not every illness is fatal. In fact, we recover from really major illnesses all the time.

And so do animals.

I do have responsibility for Symba’s illness. After all, I cannot ignore the fact that I did not heed the advice of that vet 8 years ago. Symba’s and my kamma are connected. And this got me thinking of the simile of the salt crystal. I can’t erase my negligence and selfishness entirely all in one sweep, but I do have an opportunity to remedy this and eliminate not just my kamma but Symba’s as well. And when I came to that realization, this burden I had been feeling was completely lifted. I felt light and at ease, like a shadow that never leaves.

So I will be bringing Symba in on Monday morning, but it will be for the surgery. Certainly there is the possibility that he has cancer and in that case, we’ll put him down. But I truly believe that is a slim chance. Despite that, I am comfortable with my decision. Symba doesn’t want to die and he doesn’t need to now. For me to think I would be doing him a favor by euthanizing him was delusion.

This time the decision was about Symba.

What matters more?

I’ve been visiting Boston and on Monday, I was hanging out in a Starbuck’s on Central Square drinking coffee and reading “Buddhist Warfare,” about which I will soon be blogging. I found a spot by the window and settled in to read and jot down notes. A few seats over was a young woman reading the Bible and jotting down notes as well.

She eventually initiated a conversation with me, asking whether I was “studying” Buddhism. She was interested in Buddhism and wanted to know more. I said that I was studying the book I had because I needed to know what was in it so that I could be fair in criticizing it.

“But, yes I am Buddhist,” I told her.

She appeared somewhat surprised and asked me how long I had been Buddhist and when I answered, she then asked what had brought me to Buddhism.

“Pain,” I replied. “Seeking a way to end suffering.”

She nodded and said, “I see.” She agreed there was a great deal of suffering in the world. I realized my response came off as a bit vague and esoteric, so I went on to say that “suffering” in the Buddhist sense covered a lot of territory, and included things like when we’re happy, it doesn’t last, or that we try to avoid feeling unhappy, we try to avoid people we don’t want to be around, etc. That, in short, life was a ride of sorts filled with ups and downs and in general was unsatisfactory. “We desire things and even when we get them, we want more, we’re never satisfied.”

That seemed to make a bit more sense to her, and she answered with how her faith – she identified as being Seventh Day Adventist (I think I threw her off as well when I said that I knew what a Seventh Day Adventist was because I had dated a man in the past that was one) – helped bring her hope, that the Bible stories filled her with awe and wonder. That was her remedy, it seemed, for suffering. So I asked her, “What if you avoid doing things that cause suffering or pain in others? Would your own suffering be lessened?”

A puzzled expression immediately occupied her face. “I’m not sure what you mean by that?” Well, I guess I’m not as clever as the Buddha, I thought. So I explained that the Buddha taught that we create most of our own suffering through our actions, often by adding to someone else’s suffering. So if we avoid doing things that bring suffering or pain to others, would that not in turn reduce our own pain and suffering? “If I go outside and call someone and awful name, that person might hit me, right? There are consequences to our actions.”

“Oh yes, there are consequences,” she said. “In fact, sinning brings us death.”

I knew where she was going with this, so I played dumb. “How does sin cause death?

She started flipping through her Bible and I could see she was in Romans (do I dare tell her I think Paul was a misogynistic kook?). She asked if she could read something to me, but I said why does she need to do that? I was very familiar with the Bible, having read several versions, everything from the King James to the NIV. “I’ve also read the Book of Mormon. Although I’m impressed that you’ve read some of the Koran because I am very ignorant of Islam.”

I could tell she was disappointed that I didn’t want her to recite the Bible to me. I said that I knew the passage she was looking up, that it was about “the wages of sin is death.”

“But what if I said to you that birth is the cause of death?” Again, that puzzled look. “Surely you can agree if one is never born, they will not die. So being born causes death. After all, there are people who do not sin, and yet they still die.”

“Hmm, there are people who do not sin but still die,” she murmured. “That’s interesting. Can you name some?”

“Sure, how about Jesus? And what about Mary? They were without sin, weren’t they?”

I’m surprised she didn’t bring up the notion of Original Sin. Instead, she asked whether I believed that Jesus had really lived. Of course, I said, I believed that he lived and he was an important teacher. That, in fact, there are parallels in what Jesus taught to what the Buddha taught. But I also believed that much of what Jesus said was manipulated by others for political reasons. “They needed someone like him, because they wanted to get the Romans out of Palestine.”

I also told her I had a great deal of respect for the Gospels, although the rest of the Bible I considered fantasy. Oh, but the Old Testament was filled with examples of prophesies coming true, she said. An old trick, I replied. Anyone can write a history hundreds of years after an event and make up connections and quotes to show that someone “saw it coming.”

I thought she would counter me with the belief that the Bible was written by God and therefore could not contain factual errors. Instead, that frown of confusion returned. She did in a round-about way ask whether I believed in God.

“It’s not important,” I said. “If I live a moral life and behave well toward others, I will ease my own suffering and the suffering of others, I will increase my happiness right now. And when I am about to die, I won’t fear death over things I might have done in the past, so my dying will be with ease. And if there is an afterlife, I can be assured of a pleasant afterlife because I behaved correctly right now. But believing in the afterlife won’t make it happen on its own. What matters is how I act right now, because that sets up what will happen to me next. So if there is an afterlife, I’m OK. And if there isn’t one, I’m still OK. I don’t need to believe in a heaven. I don’t need to believe in a God. What matters is what I do right now.”

Again, that pondering frown. I was prepared for a reply about facing the wrath of God if I was wrong about whether there was a god. Surely, I would say, her god was a bit more emotionally stable than a spoiled 4-year-old. Instead, she returned her focus to her mini laptop to look something up. The conversation was over. Just like that.

Later I began to wonder why she closed up. Had I created doubt within her about her own beliefs? No, I don’t think that was the case. My conclusion is more cynical. I believe she viewed me as a waste of time. Her interest from the start was more likely to evangelize, to convert me to her way of thinking. When she saw she would fail, she merely stopped engaging me. There was a time when she asked me what type of Buddhism did I follow; I told her the Thai Forest Tradition, or Theravada. She asked me to spell that and she did a Google search. Lord knows whatever she might find in her search results, but at least I can count on the Access To Insight website showing up in the top.

When I left Starbuck’s, I told her that I enjoyed our discussion and hoped the rest of her day went well. Our discussion was pleasant; whether I was skillful I’m not certain. But I always think that it’s a good thing when I don’t piss someone off and they don’t piss me off.

Why couldn’t I help you Lance?

I would not normally write about and identify any of the children I used to work with, but in Lance’s case I’m going to make an exception, because, you see, Lance is dead.

The details are hazy as it happened many years ago, but as I recall, Lance took a pistol and shot himself in the head. I think he was 15 at the time. The specifics are immaterial, and when one doesn’t know all the facts, the facts become mixed with rumor until truth can no longer be separated from fiction.

All that matters for now is Lance is dead. And while it remains speculation, I have a pretty good idea as to why.

Lance was a handsome, energetic, athletic and mischievous boy from Texas. His smile was infectious. He honestly tried to please others, but like many boys his age diagnosed with ADD, his mouth and actions often got ahead of his brain, leading him to say and do things he quickly regretted.

He was a student at the private boarding school where I worked as a cabin counselor. The school, up in the mountains of Northern New Mexico, was for teens diagnosed with learning disabilities. It was a beautiful natural setting that offered tremendous opportunities for outdoor activities in the surrounding national forest. I took students on many hikes and backpack trips into the mountains there and not just for recreation. I’ve always believed that the wilderness is an effective teacher of many things; it will humble the most arrogant teen and in the flash of a moment, will show you death for what it really is.

I liked Lance. I remember on a hike one day up the steep slope of a ridge by the school, we encountered a rock outcropping that was about 12 feet high. You could walk around it, but it was an excellent opportunity to do a little free climbing without any serious risk. I was amazed at Lance’s agility as he easily climbed up the rock face, finding the right handholds and swinging his body up to another tiny ledge where he paused briefly horizontal to the ground before using his wiry strength to pull himself to the top of the outcropping.

It really was a beautiful and awe-inspiring site.

Later in the year there was hushed talk about an incident between Lance and another boy in his cabin. Lance’s normally bright demeanor was subdued and gloomy. The once loquacious boy had become taciturn and morose. I was just 24 years old at the time, struggling with my own sexuality. Intuitively, I sensed a similar struggle within Lance. So I took a risk.

Lance’s cabin counselor agreed to let Lance come over to my cabin after lights out to chat. Talk about an uncomfortable meeting. I let Lance know I knew what occurred between him and the other boy. I also let him know I wasn’t going to tell him that there was something wrong with him. Rather, I wanted to find out what he thought about the situation. How was he going to deal with it? What happened, I said, didn’t mean he was gay. But the incident wasn’t going to go away.

There was one other time I approached another boy, also from another cabin and at the request of his counselor. (Was it that obvious to others? “Send the kid to Rich, he knows how to deal with that kind of thing.”) In that situation, I made an obvious mistake. The boy’s reaction to my inquiries, despite how oblique they were, clearly let me know I was making a mistake.

With Lance, however, I believed I was right. He gave me the non-denial denial, never clearly denying what others were saying had happened, nor clearly denying that he had sexual feelings for other boys. But he remained closed up. Never had I seen someone suppress their tears so effectively. He wanted to tell me something, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it. I told him that anytime he needed to talk about anything, I would be there.

That was late in the school year. Lance brightened up a bit and finished the year on a good note. He opted to return to public school the following fall, so he did not come back to our school.

About six weeks into the next school year, I was doing something in the office when someone grabbed me and said, “Hey, Lance is on the phone, he just called and asked if you were there.” At the time, I thought it was odd for Lance to call like that. But I shrugged it off. I took the phone and asked Lance how things were going at his new school. Not so well, he said. He was calling from home, he had just been suspended. His parents weren’t home yet. He was worried how they might react.

I think I asked Lance what had happened at school to get him suspended, but I can’t remember whether he again evaded my question or gave me an answer. I remember telling him he would get through this. And I remember telling him thanks for calling and asking for me. I told him I liked him, he was a good kid.

A week later I heard the news. Lance had shot himself dead. He did it on the same day that he called the school. He must have shot himself shortly after the phone call.

Long pause because I’m crying right now.

I don’t blame myself for what happened to Lance. But goddamnit, what a fucked up situation that was. It was the 1980s when everything said about gays had AIDS connected to it. I was in my 20s, confused about my own sexuality trying to talk to a 14-year-old who was just as confused. I was deathly afraid of anyone finding out. My position at the school would be ruined. Even though I had never done anything in the least inappropriate with any of the boys at that school – and while I worked there I had personal knowledge of at least three other counselors who had sex with students, two involving male counselors with female students and the third a male counselor with a male student (and there are a couple other instances that while I didn’t have personal knowledge, I have strong evidence, a lot can happen in five years) – I knew that if someone were even suspicious of me being gay my life would be ruined. Or at least, that’s how I thought.

Lance must have been thinking the same way.

So much suffering, and what the fuck for?

Much of this came to me during my morning meditation today. Normally when I finish meditating, I always recite the Loving Kindness chant. But today, I just couldn’t get through it. Not only couldn’t I remember the verses in the right order, I was weeping as I tried to say them. And when I went through the Five Remembrances, I was struck by the last line.

“I am the owner of my Kamma, made of my Kamma, born of my Kamma, related to my Kamma, abide supported in my Kamma. Whatever Kamma I create, wholesome or unwholesome, light or dark, skillful or unskillful, to that I fall heir.”

It’s the part “… related to my Kamma, abide supported in my Kamma …” I asked my original teacher long ago what that meant. He said that being related to your Kamma literally means my relatives are manifestations of my Kamma, and the last part had to do with all my personal relationships. My friends, the jobs I had and the co-workers I have, that also is my Kamma. And as we continue to create more Kamma with our present actions, we constantly create for ourselves situations and relationships that allow us opportunity to undo past Kamma.

When you look at Kamma this way, you see how we are all in our own personal version of Bill Murray’s “Groundhog Day.” This endless cycle of rebirth plays on and on until we get it right, until we stop making Kamma and find release.

There are a lot of us in this world who behave like oxen, dragging a wagon full of woes behind us. And instead of unhitching ourselves from these carts, we spend our time throwing more shit onto someone else’s wagon. We protect our own wagons, having become fond of our woes, rather than abandoning them. I do the same thing. I want to stop. I want to help others stop.

I don’t know how to finish this post, so I’m just going to stop.

Dukkha isn’t always a drag

There’s a saying that I often find instructive: If you want to make god laugh, make some plans.

While it’s good to have a plan, an idea of what you hope to do or accomplish, experience tells us that our plans seldom go as designed. If our plans aren’t flexible, when things go awry we can become confused, frustrated, even angry. Often we are the cause of our plans falling apart, but there are occasions when the world around us can throw a kink into things.

My recent trip to Boston revealed much to me in terms of how things can go and how my attitude influences outcomes. Originally planned as an arrive Thursday, depart Monday itinerary, a blizzard arriving Sunday night completely shut down Logan International Airport, stranding not only me, but thousands of others. Attempting to contact a travel agent at American Airlines to find out when I could fly back to Chicago was unsurprisingly frustrated. Sunday night, when I learned my flight on Monday had been canceled, I was on hold with American for 1 hour and 27 minutes before I finally gave up. I called again Monday morning and was on hold again for nearly an hour before I was able to talk to an agent.

Before the agent answered, I made some key decisions about how I was going to behave. First, I put myself in the agent’s shoes. By the time he or she would speak to me, the agent undoubtedly had spoken with hundreds of other stranded travelers who were tired, confused, angry and perhaps even hostile over their predicament. I told myself that I wasn’t going to add more by being a complaining drama queen. So when the agent answered, I said hello to her, and let her know I was sympathetic to her situation. After telling her I was aware that she had probably been dealing with a lot of angry and frustrated people, all I wanted to know was when I could return to Chicago. The earliest flight she could get me on was Thursday, Dec. 30. I said that was fine, I completely understood the situation. She told me she couldn’t get me a seat assignment, but a notice would be emailed to me shortly. I thanked her and wished her a happy new year, then hung up.

When my email arrived confirming my booking, I saw that I was assigned a seat in first class. That won’t happen, I thought to myself. But I did have three more days in Boston to explore, so I made a decision I would enjoy myself.

I took some good photos, persisted in my search of a good used book store until I found one, and had a wonderful chat with a taxi driver in a pub in Cambridge. There were other events that I had hoped would occur, but which did not. Oh well, here I am, the moment is now, where does it go?

Equanimity isn’t always so easily had. But it is critical to following the “middle way.” There’s a sutta in the Anguttara Nikaya Book of Fives on subduing hatred, but really it’s about how to deal with an annoying person. Step two was the most useful for me in my situation in Boston: “When one gives birth to hatred for an individual, one should develop compassion for that individual. Thus the hatred for that individual should be subdued.”

I didn’t hate the travel agent, but by developing compassion ahead of time when I was rearranging my travel I was able to be a pleasant person with her when she had probably already been dealing with rude people. I wasn’t going to add to her dukkha by sharing my own dukkha.

In Wings to Awakening, Thanissaro Bhikkhu describes equanimity as “an attitude of even-mindedness in the face of every sort of experience, regardless of whether pleasure and pain are present or not.” He explains that there are three steps to developing what he calls the “equanimity dependent on multiplicity.”

1) development, or a conscious turning of the mind to equanimity in the face of agreeable or disagreeable objects;
2) a state of being in training, in which one feels a spontaneous disillusionment with agreeable or disagreeable objects; and
3) fully developed faculties, in which one's even-mindedness is so completely mastered that one is in full control of one's thought processes in the face of agreeable or disagreeable objects.

The weather did more than just disrupt my travel plans. My two cats back at home were going to run out of food before I could return. This was a situation ripe for me to get all bent out of shape over, largely because I was practically powerless to do anything about the situation. Isn’t it funny how the situations we have the least control over freak us out the most? It was my acceptance of the fact, I believe, that I was completely powerless over the demise of my cats that helped me develop the equanimity to deal with the situation. A phone call to my landlord, who luckily was back in town, to coordinate letting someone into my apartment to check on the cats, plus the willingness of friends to help combined to easily solve my dilemma.

Of course, what would I have done had my landlord not been in town? No one else had a key to my apartment even if they were willing to check on my cats. What would I have done then?

This type of questioning is pointless, really. Because it did work out. And why did it work out? I would dare say that it was the result of my past actions, my kamma. Had I behaved like a prick with the people I know, had I been an awful or even just a disagreeable tenant with my landlord, then when I needed help from others, things would likely not have worked out so well.

Which emphasizes how important it is for us to consciously develop equanimity – we have to make the conscious effort to view both the good and bad in our life with a dispassionate perspective. A pleasurable event may lead us to an unhappy situation later on if we allow the pleasure of the moment to distract us from making skillful decisions. Just as an unhappy event may actually lead us to a better situation in the future if we avoid wallowing in self-pity.

Oh yes, and another thing; the first-class seating on my return flight was not a mistake.

Just be a mensch

As I continue to research the Tipitika and the writings of other significant Buddhists on the issue of racism and bigotry – a trending topic from time to time in the Buddho-blogosphere – I thought I would take a bit of a diversion and address a question Terasi posed here.

The gist of Terasi’s question is what does Buddhism offer in terms of practical daily applications? I’ve heard from others about how Buddhism strikes them as being very esoteric, with lots of talk about how to attain Nibbana. But if a person is struggling with their job, or without a job, can Buddhism help with that? Can Buddhism help someone who needs to develop the motivation to stick with an exercise regimen? Can Buddhism help you get out of debt? Can Buddhism get you a salary raise or a promotion at work?

The answer to these and similar questions is yes, but Buddhism won’t get you these things in a direct way. Rather, developing a skilled Buddhist practice that focuses on your personal development into a decent human being will create an easier world around you through which you can maneuver. The problems you face in the world will diminish (but not disappear) as you develop a skilled Buddhist practice because you won’t be creating so many of them anymore. And when that happens, you are better able to help and assist others.

But that’s all high-brow holiness, you’re thinking. I just want to get a better paying job so I can find a better place to live for my family and have our needs met, you say.

Actually, it’s not high-brow at all. It’s very practical. Let’s start in the Digha Nikaya with the Sigalovada Sutta: The Layperson’s Code of Discipline (DN 31). This portrays an encounter between the Buddha and a young man named Sigala, the son of what we would probably call a very middle class father. The Buddha instructs Sigala on proper behavior that will not only protect his reputation, but preserve and expand his family’s wealth and status.

There are four vices that Sigala must eradicate from his behavior and character: killing, stealing, lying and adultery (sexual misconduct). As the Buddha tells Sigala, “These four evils the wise never praise.” By avoiding these vices, others who may be able to benefit you take notice and are willing to assist. But if you exhibit any of these vices, then those who may be able to assist you will withhold their aid when you need it.

Next, the Buddha tells Sigala that he must be sure that his actions are not being led by desire, anger, ignorance and fear (Right View and Right Intention). If our motivation for acting is rooted by desire, anger, ignorance or fear, we will do something that we may later regret; we will bring harm to ourselves, to others, or perhaps both ourselves and others.

This is followed by the Buddha’s description of the six ways we lose our money and good reputation: heavy partying, hanging out late at night, frequenting nightclubs and discos, gambling, associating with companions who are no good, and being lazy.

My favorite part of the sutta is when the Buddha describes to Sigala the four types of people who act like your friends, but who are really enemies, followed by the traits of true “warm-hearted” friends. The former will ruin you and lead you to make wrong decisions, while the latter will protect you and encourage you to make good decisions. There’s even some advice on money management.

The wise and virtuous shine like a blazing fire.
He who acquires his wealth in harmless ways
like to a bee that honey gathers,
riches mount up for him
like ant hill's rapid growth.

With wealth acquired this way,
a layman fit for household life,
in portions four divides his wealth:
thus will he friendship win.

One portion for his wants he uses,
two portions on his business spends,
the fourth for times of need he keeps.

In the last section the Buddha describes the qualities of good parenting, followed by the qualities of being a good son or daughter.

While the Sigalovada Sutta is overtly directed at lay followers, all the suttas – even the ones that are focused on the Jhanas – contain information and guidance that have practical application in our daily life. A good one on this point is the Bhaddekaratta Sutta: An Auspicious Day (MN 131).

In this sutta from the Majjhima Nikaya, the Buddha delivers the most basic guidance of the Buddhist practice: Do not dwell on the past, do not live in the future, pay attention to what is happening right now. The past is over, but what you did in the past is why you are where you are right now. Worrying about the future will not improve your future, nor deliver you to a more desirable future. Rather, by paying attention to what you are thinking, saying and doing right now so that you act skillfully will bring you good results and deliver you to a future filled with happiness.

So while Buddhism doesn’t provide a direct route to achieve material and worldly goals, by following the path faithfully and earnestly, we experience good results more frequently and negative results less frequently. And when opportunity knocks, we find ourselves more aware of the opportunity and better prepared to take advantage of it.

I know you are, but what am I?

No, this is not a post about childish teasing or catty comebacks. This post is about anatta – no self. It’s an important Buddhist concept, but it’s also a beguiling one. Some confuse themselves by devoting a great deal of energy into solving the apparent riddle that if there is no self, “then who am I?” Others take the extreme, almost nihilist and literal view that no self means there is no individual identity at all, “we are all one with the trees and the molecules and the air that blows.” This can lead to the very wrong conclusion that “we don’t exist.”

As Thanissaro Bhikkhu writes in “No Self or Not Self?”:

“If there's no self, what experiences the results of kamma and takes rebirth? Second, it doesn't fit well with our own Judeo-Christian background, which assumes the existence of an eternal soul or self as a basic presupposition: If there's no self, what's the purpose of a spiritual life?”

As an aside, there’s been ongoing discussion about the “difference” between Western and Asian Buddhism, causing many to assert that we ought to stop this “meaningless” discussion and just talk about Buddhism (I’m afraid that at times I have been one of these, “can’t we just talk about Buddhism?”). But the dichotomy is real, and Thanissaro Bhikkhu touches on this when he talks about Westerners’ “Judeo-Christian background.” Folks, this perspective, this ken, is fundamentally different from the Hindu influence found in South Asia and the Confucian influence found in East Asia. These varying cultural backgrounds have real influence on how we not only perceive the world around us, but how we categorize and “understand” these concepts.

But once again, I digress.

The Buddha knew that to answer such questions like “Do I exist?” or “Is there a self?” was to lead one into a rabbit hole of circular intellectual activity. To directly address the issue of self or no-self was to continue one’s attachment to either concept, which was a source of suffering. The Buddha’s teaching is all about how to end suffering, so to dwell on issues relating to “self” would have been the antithesis of his teaching.

And yet, the Buddha was always talking about the self. Or was he?

In the Dighanaka Sutta: To LongNails (MN 74), the Buddha tells Aggivessana: “A monk whose mind is thus released does not take sides with anyone, does not dispute with anyone. He words things by means of what is said in the world but without grasping at it.”

Bhikkhu Bodhi explains that what the Buddha is telling Aggivessana is that “an arahant may use the words ‘I’ and ‘mine’ without giving rise to conceit or misconceiving them as referring to a self or ego.” The Buddha states similarly in the Samyutta Nikaya and the Digha Nikaya when he says, “These are merely names, expressions, turns of speech, designations in common use in the world, which the Tathagata uses without misapprehending them.”

Let’s make it simple. The image I selected for this post is of me when I was 4 years old. I say it is an image of “me,” when “I” was a little boy, but the boy in that photo is completely different from who “I” am today. And not just because I am 52 and have different likes and dislikes than I did then. I am so different that I am completely biologically different now from when I was 4; every single cell in my body is different now. In fact, every 7 years, my body completely rebuilds itself with new cells. So biologically speaking, I am not the same biological living mass of matter now as when I was 45.

Yet here I am. And those who have known me for more than 7 years would look at me and say, “there you are.”

This is the source of dukkha – that we are impermanent beings living in a world of impermanent phenomena. We are constantly changing, as is the world around us, and yet we speak and act as though everything was permanent. How have you been? It’s good to see you again. You’re looking the same as ever. Ah yes, it’s the same you.

But like an arahant – despite the fact I am not and nowhere near being one – I can cultivate an attitude of ease and accept that this is how the world works while still gaining wisdom about the impermanency of self. And so yes, I tell others I am gay; I love another man who makes me feel comfortable and brings me happiness and joy, and I hope I do the same for him. I love to cook and enjoy having friends over for dinner. I am a Frank Zappa aficionado; I enjoy wine; I like to ride my bicycle along the Lake Michigan shore here in Chicago; and I am going to have fun when I go to see Scissor Sisters next week.

Things have changed

I want to thank the Rev. Danny Fisher for turning me on to this video. I have always loved Bob Dylan.

What is love?

Love is a tricky – and sticky – emotion that does everything from creating bliss to confusion and even anger. And when we lose love, the sorrow can be overwhelming. It is one of the sources of dukkha that the Buddha talked about: we fear separation from the beloved.

From the Sammaditthi Sutta:

“And what is stress? Birth is stressful, aging is stressful, death is stressful; sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair are stressful; not getting what one wants is stressful. In short, the five clinging-aggregates are stressful. This is called stress.”

And from the Maha-parinibbana Sutta:

“Yet, Ananda, have I not taught from the very beginning that with all that is dear and beloved there must be change, separation, and severance?”

The entire Piyajatika Sutta is about this, describing how it is the people we love and care about that are the primary source of our sorrow because any change in them, their loss, or even just the thought of losing them, causes distress.

I have been reading the Lotus Sutra, which has a really quite amazing chapter in it regarding love called “Belief and Understanding,” also known as the “Parable of the Destitute Son.”

The Cliff Notes version of this chapter is a wealthy man loses his son while his son is still a very young man. The son abandons the family to wander about, eventually running out of luck to wind up living destitute. The father gave up searching for him and settled in a town where the father became enormously successful in business – so successful that even the heads of government paid homage to him. Fifty years after his son disappears, the son returns, although he cannot remember who his father is or what he looks like. He sees this rich man and thinks he’d better leave or someone might think he’s trying to steal something. The son attempts to sneak away, but his father sees him and recognizes him. He sends out servants to stop his son, but the son becomes so frightened, thinking that he’s being accused of stealing, that he passes out from fear.

The father realizes that his son has lived for so long away from home, and has lived such a hard life, that the son would never believe that he was heir to this rich man. So when the son wakens, the father tells him he is free to go. This overwhelms the son with joy, that he isn’t going to be imprisoned and falsely accused. The father then sets out to slowly express his love, first by showing the son compassion, offering him a menial job of sweeping dung, providing him with very basic housing. Over time, the son comes to trust and respect his father, but refuses to come live within the household, staying instead in his tiny hut. But after 20 years, the son’s responsibilities have been elevated to the point that he is then tasked with taking an accounting of his father’s wealth without any supervision. The son honors the task and takes an honest accounting, not stealing anything. Then just before the father dies, he reveals to everyone that this ragged man is in fact his son and shall inherit all his wealth. At this time, the son is ready to recognize his true father and accept the love that he’s offered him all along.

This is a really powerful parable for me because it shows so well how someone with such deep love for another can have the resolve and the patience to express it, to do so without pressure, without clinging, by leaving the object of that love – the man’s son in this case – completely free. It is very difficult to love someone in this manner, but it is the only true way to love someone.

I would like to thank my friend Jimmy Huang for the image posted with this blog. He has an amazing eye for photography and he has graciously granted me permission to use his photos from time to time.

Do not go by what is said

Hegemony: (from Merriam-Webster) 1: preponderant influence or authority over others: domination 2: the social, cultural, ideological, or economic influence exerted by a dominant group. (from the Free Dictionary): ascendancy or domination of one power or state within a league, confederation, etc., or of one social class over others.

Projection: (Merriam-Webster) a transforming change; (a) the act of perceiving a mental object as spatially and sensibly objective; also: something so perceived; (b) the attribution of one’s own ideas, feelings, or attitudes to other people or to objects; especially: the externalization of blame, guilt, or responsibility as a defense against anxiety.

It is important that we understand these two terms in advance because my post (I apologize now for its length) is about how these two terms have been functioning in Buddhism of late; and not just Western Buddhism – I mean all of it.

I was struck by five different posts this month by five different bloggers because I discerned a common thread through them all. But indentifying this commonality has proved more difficult than I anticipated (and when you finish reading this, you may still be struck with a feeling that I haven’t quite nailed it yet). I think that difficultly lies in the fact that what each writer has brought up is a reflection of the essence of dukkha, although it was experienced differently by each person. The blog posts are:

1. Ajahn Sujato’s post on projection.
2. Arun’s post at Angry Asian Buddhist titled “All the Same”
3. Shravasti Dhammika’s post at dhamma musings called “Vandals In Sandals - And Robes”
4. John’s post at Sweep the Dust, Push the Dirt titled “Buddha’s Afterbirth: Organizational Buddhism”
5. Nate’s post at Dangerous Harvests called “Sangha? What’s Sangha?”

What is dukkha? “Now this, monks, is the Noble Truth of dukkha: Birth is dukkha, aging is dukkha, death is dukkha; sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, & despair are dukkha; association with the unbeloved is dukkha; separation from the loved is dukkha; not getting what is wanted is dukkha. In short, the five clinging-aggregates are dukkha.” (from Setting the Wheel of Dhamma in Motion, SN 56.11)

In other words, dukkha encompasses everything in life that bums us out for whatever reason. And often, the reason we are bummed is results don’t match our expectations.

Sujato’s blog spells it out right from the start:

“I’m struck, again and again, at the vast gap that exists between how the Sangha is seen and the reality of what it is. Not just the Sangha, but Buddhism in its historical manifestations is almost completely unknown, it seems, to almost all practising (sic) Buddhists.”

At the heart of Sujato’s post is the concept of projection; the assigning to another person, group or institution our own concepts and ideas of who or what the person, group or institution is and how he/she or it is supposed to behave. As Sujato indicates, a projected expectation is frequently non-reality based; but sometimes the expectation is appropriate and the target of the projected attribute is failing to live up to a reasonable expectation.

On one hand, Sujato asserts (and I think rightly) that lay practitioners perceive monks as someone larger than life, someone above the rest of us. And to a point, this is an understandable perception given the plethora of monastics who deliberately project themselves as someone superhuman, all-knowing, and the keeper of a practice that is superior to all others.

They might say, “My dhamma is better than his dhamma,” or “Don’t do that, you don’t have to, we do it this way,” or “That group is wrong, we are right,” or “You’re wasting your time with that, all you need to do is this.”

In fact, the Buddha warned about these types in The Greater Discourse on the Simile of the Heartwood (MN 29).

I agree with Sujato that this misperception of the monastic community appears to be more of a problem with what is euphemistically known as Western Buddhism, as there are non-Asian practitioners who are uncomfortable with some of the ritualistic decorum often extended toward monks and nuns. As an example, Sujato describes how the Sangha in Asia had been an integral part of the community, a place that laypeople frequently visited, supported, sent their children to for education and sometimes for temporary as well as permanent ordainment as monks or nuns.

“Now, for the majority of urban Buddhists, contact with the Sangha is far less organic; just occasional ceremonies or teachings,” Sujato writes.

In fact, there has been recent discussion about abandoning the cultural baggage that is often attached to Buddhism, stripping the practice down to its bare essentials of dhamma study and meditation. It seems to me that these folks just don’t want Buddhism to be fun.

This has led to a de facto segregation of the Western Buddhist community with non-Asians creating their own groups and, to some extent, a Buddhist, cultural elite that deigns to control the direction of Buddhism in the West. And that brings us to Arun’s post, as this has been a topic over at the Angry Asian Buddhist for a while.

“When I write about the marginalization of Asians in Western Buddhist institutions and dialogue,” writes Arun, “a common retort is that Buddhism has nothing to do with race—it is about the path to the end of suffering. We all suffer regardless of our race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and many other factors. The promise of Buddhism is likewise applicable to all of us, regardless of our race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and many other factors. In this sense, we are all the same in our potential to attain complete liberation. I couldn’t agree more.

“This ‘all the same’ line is, however, a non-response to the issue of the marginalization of Asians (among others) in Western Buddhist institutions. At both the institutional level and at the level of discourse, we aren’t treated the same.”

This is an appropriate time to bring up the other term I presented at the start of this blog – hegemony. In the West the hegemony is based upon that of white, European culture and has at its roots a Christian ethic; but in America, it takes on an additional flare of individualism. In East Asia, I would hazard a guess that the hegemony there is driven by Confucianism, which has a decidedly different social perspective to that of American individualism.

A prevailing hegemony can have the appearance of being racist, but this seldom has to do with the fact that the hegemony is being guided by racist doctrine. The prevailing hegemony in Germany during the 1930s and 1940s – Nazism – was in fact rooted in a racist doctrine. But that’s not the guiding force in present day America. Reactions to non-whites in America can appear racist at times, but that’s not because the American hegemony is built upon racism; rather, it’s because the hegemony nurtures and supports white privilege, a concept Arun has also blogged about in the past. And white Americans can take advantage of the white privilege inherent in our culture without being deliberate or even aware of it.

When I first came to Buddhism, I joined a group that had a Thai majority of members, but which also had a significant white membership. The head monk, in fact, is a white, American-born man. But he was ordained in Thailand, having spent years in the forest monastery culture there, so when he returned to America, he brought with him a practice that had melded with it Thai culture and even Hindu culture. He showed us how to embrace this without giving it meaning; in other words, he showed us how to recognize its significance as well as its emptiness.

He explained that the bowing down before a Buddha statue was not an act of obeisance as if the Buddha was a deity, but rather an act of respect. He used the example of a parent’s or grandparent’s grave. If you had respect for them while they were alive, you often continue to show that respect by assuring that their grave is kept nice. On special days you may put flowers on the grave. If the headstone becomes dirty, you clean it. And you spend silent moments occasionally in reverie at the grave, remembering what your parents or grandparents taught you. If you do not live near the grave, then perhaps there is a special photograph of them you keep, or a photo album. That is what we do, he said, when we pay respect to the Buddha image or a Buddha shrine; we are showing our gratitude for the Buddha leaving for us the Dhamma. When we chant, we are not praying because there is nothing out there to hear our prayers. We chant because it reminds us of the Dhamma and focuses our minds.

After a trip to Thailand, I asked my teacher about the ubiquitous spirit houses I saw there, many of them with rotting fruit left on or near them. He explained that again, this had nothing to do with Buddhism, but represented a blending of Thai and Hindu culture. The Buddha spoke of the devas that live in the forests because he knew that acceptance of these minor spirits was part of the Indian culture. Many Thais also accept that the forests are filled with devas or other minor spirits. When land is cleared to build a house or a business, the forest homes of devas that lived there are destroyed. So a spirit house is placed on the property – its size and how ornately decorated usually related to how much land was cleared and how wealthy the landowner – to appease the devas so they don’t cause the property owner any mischief.

My teacher then made the comment that it would be nice to have a spirit house for the monastery. Later, at an import shop, I found one and purchased it for the monastery.

But many non-Asian Americans are not comfortable with these cultural additions, either because they are suspicious of them through giving them more significance than they really have (for example, many Asians may use the term “pray” to describe chanting because it’s the best English word for them to use instead of the word in their native language, but to non-Asian Americans, the term “pray” has a very specific definition of being an entreaty to a deity or other higher power), or because they don’t understand them and don’t want to bother understanding them because they are alien and “not American.”

Perhaps it would be helpful to use a model from popular culture to further explain the American cultural hegemony. Think of America as being like the Borg from the Star Trek series. The Borg has no cultural identity of its own; instead, it absorbs other species into the collective, retaining only what is considered useful and discarding anything that might contradict in appearance the current state of Borg identity. That is American culture in a nutshell.

So some white Americans attracted to Buddhism began to affiliate in groups that dropped the Asiatic trappings of the practice. Some of these individuals became quite expert in the Dhamma as well as in certain aspects of the practice, usually meditation. By virtue of white privilege, the voices these individuals had eventually rose above the rest, and with that came influence. In America, prestige comes with influence, and often with prestige comes snobbery. I may be wrong in this assertion, but I cannot think of a single significant and influential voice in American Buddhism that comes from an Asian American. Every significant Asian voice I can think of is either that of an individual who may be an American citizen now or lives in America, but all were born in Asia.

That, in and of itself, should not be a problem. But as Arun points out, when the editorial boards of the most influential Buddhist publications lack an Asian presence or voice, it’s not unreasonable to conclude that it may be, in fact, a problem. Imagine what our health care services and outcomes would look like for women should the health care industry and Congress be dominated by white men.

Oh, wait, the health care industry and Congress are dominated by white men. And it’s a demonstrable fact that women’s healthcare is not on par with men’s, nor is healthcare among minorities on par with that for white men.

Before I go on, however, I must point out that the marginalization that Arun speaks about is not a one-way street. When it was no longer convenient for me to visit the monastery I had been visiting because I had moved to another area of the state, I began to wonder if the positive experience I had with the former was an anomaly. I’ve written about my experiences in previous blog posts, but portions of these experiences are worth mentioning again within context of some of Sujato’s points.

Unlike the dhammasala I had previously attended, the groups I found in my new locale were overtly organized around a particular ethnic group and seemed to function primarily as isolationist community recreation venues. One was a Cambodian group, the other Lao. While the monk at the Lao temple was very welcoming and encouraged me to visit him, the members of these congregations, while polite and friendly, always treated me like a visitor.

In his post, Sujato talks about how some monks are ill-equipped to deal with the inappropriate expectations placed on them by the lay community as well as poorly equipped to follow the monastic code. As Sujato said, monks are people too with human emotions and desires. I saw that with the Lao monk I mentioned. He was deeply grateful for what Buddhism had provided him. He told me how he was a very reckless young man (when I met him, he was still quite young, in his 20s) who partied and treated his girlfriend badly. The monks in Laos took him in, cleaned up his act and educated him. He was ordained, then brought to America, barely able to speak English, to minister to the Lao community in that area. He was left on his own most of the time. He told me he was lonely a lot, which was why he enjoyed my company so much, besides the fact I was helping him improve his English. But the young Lao man was still very much alive inside this monk. He surreptitiously drank beer. There was another monk that eventually came to join him who wanted me to buy him lottery tickets. All of this conflicted with what I projected as proper monk behavior. Sujato writes that this is a significant problem within the monastic community in Asia and Australia, but he has a perception that it is not such a problem in America.

Shravasti Dhammika provides an extreme example in his blog post “Vandals in Sandals – and Robes.”

“Recently two Sri Lankan Buddhist monks led an unruly crowd to the Jesus Never Fails Good News Centre in Battaramulla on the outskirts of Colombo and after a noisy protest, proceed to smash the place up. The monks were, (I will not use the honorific ‘Venerable’) Athraliye Ratana and Ellawala Medananda, both of who also happen to be members of the Sri Lankan parliament. What on earth, you might ask, are Buddhist monks doing sitting in parliament and inciting vandalism? Well, some monks in Sri Lanka are quite literally ‘looking for a role’.”

Faced with the reality that there were no other non-Asian members of these groups in my new locale, and only the very young spoke any English, as well as the fact that I am gay, I sought a graceful exit. I wasn’t feeling much like Rosa Parks.

The white groups weren’t any better. All they wanted to do was meditate, then talk about Buddhism as if it were an intellectual exercise. They had read a lot about Buddhism, but very few had actually taken the further step of reading any of the Tipitika. And these groups, I found, were often very resistant to any type of discussion that was outside the realm of what their paradigm of Buddhism was all about.

Which brings up John’s post, “Buddha’s Afterbirth: Organizational Buddhism.” I strongly identified with a couple comments John made in response to another’s questions about his “style” of practice.

“Any large Organization Buddhist group that I have sat with eventually put restrictions on practice. Some more so than others but there was always a ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ way… If I walked into a ‘proper’ zendo and asked to practice in a way that was different from but not distracting to the group, I would be told ‘no’. Why? Because it is not the way ‘they’ do it.”

This can be a problem for those of use who feel a stronger affiliation for the Buddha and Buddhism than we do for any Buddhist doctrine or group, as well as those of us who have a deeper understanding of the Kalama Sutta (AN 3.65) than, perhaps, others do.

In my continuing search for a sangha here in Chicago – you would think it would be easy in a city like this as there are plenty of them – I’ve recently started participating with a group that practices the Nichiren method of chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo. I really enjoy this activity, as I’ve always liked chanting. It is an exceptional practice to help focus the mind. The group I chant with is also affiliated with Soka Gakkai, which is headed up by a rather charismatic figure in Japan.


Please spare me your warnings. I am well aware of the perception Soka Gakkai projects to some other Buddhists, as well as what some other Buddhists project on to Soka Gakkai. Some have even likened it to the Chinese cult of Falun Gong. But one of the questions I ask as a measure of what this group is all about is do this group and its activities cause harm to its participants? To myself? To others? So far, the answer has been no. Having said that, I remain dubious about further engagement with the group beyond chanting. And it’s not like I haven’t been invited, or even encouraged, or that attempts to tell me that I don’t need to practice any other way haven’t been made. I shared with one woman how I really liked the way the chanting focused my mind so that my silent sitting meditation was more productive. She said that I don’t need to meditate that way anymore because all I need to do is chant Nam Myoho Renge Kyo.

My response was a silence that I’ve learned from hanging around a lot Asians. It’s that Chinese way of expressing, “No thank you,” without having to say anything at all. My message was received, and there’s been no more pressure since. However, I would be naïve not to anticipate future attempts to pull me into the fold. And I’m alright with that. These people are friendly and they are happy. They believe in their practice, and that is how it should be.

Nonetheless, my search for a sangha continues. This raises the issue as to whether a “real” sangha is needed at all. Yes, I am aware that the Buddha attained release entirely on his own by just sitting under a bodhi tree. But he did agree to form a monastic community, and he taught that his path was the Triple Gem of the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha.

Which brings me to Nathan’s post at Dangerous Harvests, where he asks, “Sangha? What’s Sangha?” Like Nathan, I was struck by the plethora of discussion on this topic. There are those who assert that the iSangha is sufficient, while there are those that hold that only a “real” brick-and-mortar sangha can safely keep the practitioner on the right course. And then there are those who say to hell with it all and, like the solitary person who holes up in a cave on a mountainside, simply sit and seek enlightenment all on his or her own.

There is merit in all of these responses; each method can work for some on their own, and each method can work coordinated with any or all of the others. We have the Buddha’s teaching style as the example to follow, because, while the Buddha was skilled at many things, he was exceptionally skilled as a teacher, providing the right teaching for someone at the right time. While he taught one way to the Kalamas, he used a different technique with the infamous debater Saccaka, and still another method when instructing his son Rahula.

In reference to John’s post at Sweep the Dust, Push the Dirt, Nathan writes:

“John’s definitely poking into one of (the) main problems with organized religion: its tendency to fossilize around a set of rules and regulations that often places troubling limits on individual practice and spiritual understanding. And when you’ve lived through some organizational scandals, or have felt a great lack of support from a spiritual community, then it can be difficult to see how a well functioning group can propel your life in amazing ways.”

So true, so true, so true. Which is why I continue to search for my sangha. Granted, I am very grateful and hold a debt of gratitude for the iSangha I have found (read this post at the Smilin’ Buddha Cabaret about the difference between gratitude and being grateful) and while I have not met any of them personally, I consider each my friend. And the article swap has been a great exercise in sharing our experiences and growing from others’. But for me, it’s not a sangha.

I have a remarkable memory from that first sangha of mine. I had only briefly visited the monastery in the past and was not affiliated with it at those times. But the bottom had fallen out of the bucket of my life, and I instantly knew where to go. When I arrived, the monk was out on a hill with some other people speaking to them as they worked at building a gazebo. I walked out there, introduced myself, and the monk replied, “Yes, I remember you,” and then he walked away. One of the others handed me a hammer and some nails, told me what to do, and then returned to his work. I then sat on the ground in the hot sun and pounded nails.

It was one of the best Dhamma lessons of my life.