Thank you Fred Phelps

Not for dying. Oh no, I don't ever want to be thankful for someone's death.

But on this day of the infamous reverend from Topeka's death, I do want to say thanks.

Thanks for exemplifying for so many just how ugly and consuming hatred is. Thanks for showing people who were either indifferent or uninterested in gay issues in general that things like marriage equality, protection of our families, and our spiritual lives had value.

Thank you for nudging people from that state of apathy into one of support, one in which people could vote in support of marriage equality and housing rights and job security because you revealed so eloquently just how vile and mean-spirited it was to oppose them.

Thanks you also for showing people what your beliefs really looked like when they were no longer confined to the space between one's ears, or even the space between the walls of their church or congregation. Because certainly many had heard those words from their spiritual leaders, but never so publicly, never with such prosaic venom.

You brought true awareness to many that needed it. You nudged them out of a dangerous delusion. And you exemplified that hell is not a place, but rather a state of mind, one that consumed yours until the end.

Yes, you made life miserable for many people. You and yours brought great harm to others, embittered many, and for that you will experience (or have experienced) the consequences.

But make no mistake, by being that person that you were, you helped many. I suspect you even brought a few alienated families together, reintroduced conversation to families that didn't talk.

Some people will only always see you as evil, that nothing good ever came from you. But I see it differently. Granted, I would have preferred your help on different terms. But help is accepted regardless.

And I know that some may attack what I say here. Perhaps it's because they still feel that bitterness you brought to them. But just like you discovered, and I think you did, you cannot fling the fire of hate without first getting burned yourself.

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.

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.

Death waits for no one

When the news was released, crowds spontaneously gathered at the critical spots, some sooner than at others. The obvious first location was the White House from where the news came – Osama bin Laden was dead. Finally dead. Finally. Dead.

As I write these words, I am struck by the thought of how we view death. That it really isn’t there. That somehow, we and others escape it. Because when it does occur, we respond with shock, horror, dismay, and sadness.

Or if we harbor hate, then with glee. The water dipper couldn't look any clearer now.

Not with equanimity, not with mere observation. Death waits for no one.

Except when it is someone we collectively revile, who has come to stand for a communal feeling of being so deeply wounded that we cannot see the reason or the rhyme.

Gradually, people began gathering at other critical spots: Times Square, Ground Zero. More slowly did they congregate in Shanksville, Pa. I wonder what they did inside the Pentagon.

It was revelry. It was celebratory. It was, like it or not, human. Yes, I let out a brief “whoop!” when I heard the news. But that was it. It was gone. Spent. I did feel a bit of shame at the exclamation. But I am, after all, an imperfect human. And despite what Susan Piver says, and she says many wonderful things, it’s not a problem. It just is.

And I have often pondered what drives a person such as Osama bin Laden to scheme such violence, to nurture such hatred.

And I also often think about what makes us so blithely ignorant of how our actions impact others.

My favorite verse of the Dhammapada is right up there at the right, and it says it all. Everything begins with a thought, followed by a word or deed. Intention arises and we decide whether to act on the intention. But many of us are so automatic that we don’t even understand how the intention arises – we just act.

And actions, mind you, bring results.

Yes, Osama bin Laden was an evil and twisted man. He created great evil in this world. Like a true megalomaniac, he had no thought for others: it was all about him and his vision. Seriously, there are great parallels between bin Laden and Hitler. Hitler at first thought he could do something to elevate Germany, which had been seriously done a major wrong by the Western powers following WWI. But he became obsessed with mind, a mind that sought only to satisfy its cravings. Bin Laden was no different. The narrative quite similar.

And our reaction to the “end” is also eerily quite similar.

There is nothing new. It’s all the same being replayed over and over and over. And each time it happens, we have a choice. Will it be to respond automatically just like always? Or to intellectualize everything, to speak in platitudes so far removed from any actual emotion that we become dead inside while at the same time patting ourselves on the back for saying the right thing, the correct thing, the Buddhist thing.

Or will it be to say, “Wait, not this time. I want this to end.”

Many thanks to Nathan at Dangerous Harvests, to Justin Whitaker who told me about Susan Piver, for William Turner at Being Buddhist, Kyle at The Reformed Buddhist, Adam at Fly Like a Crow, and Maia Duerr at the Jizo Chronicles (Jesus was a very wise man).

The referees are winning the game

Over the long weekend I learned that a former colleague and friend had died of lung cancer. Dick Bolton was a photographer extraordinaire, but more than anything else, he was a compassionate human being. I worked alongside Dick right around the turn of the century while I was working at The Morning Sun, a smallish daily newspaper in Mt. Pleasant, Mich. It’s right about smack dab in the middle of the Lower Peninsula.

Dick loved to talk, but he also had a knack for directing conversations where he wanted them to go. Not because he wanted you or anyone else to reach the same conclusions he had, or agree with his perspective; in fact, Dick would slyly take positions contrary to his own personal view just to watch how you would react. Dick wanted people to communicate. He sought to understand rather than to be understood.

He was also a bit of an imp, whose sly comments at times cut so deeply to the reality of a situation or person, you could easily miss his point. Another former colleague of mine, Lisa Yanick Jonaitis expressed it best when she described a particular trait Dick had when he was out at a high school football game shooting photos for the paper. The sports writers would call him and ask who was winning the game. “The referees are,” he would reply and say no more.

Dick knew I practiced Buddhism, but rarely would directly ask me anything about it. And when he did, after hearing my response, he would lament out loud that he wished some of the Christians he knew had followed such guidance. He also had a somewhat annoying habit of talking to me about women. He would go on about something about women in a vein that was clearly the type of conversation that two straight men would have, and after he would finish, I would look at him with this annoyed expression, wondering why isn’t he talking about this with the guys at the sports desk?

My most memorable experience with Dick was on a road trip assignment he and I took to the wine country of Northern Michigan. We visited three wineries: I did the interviewing while he shot the photos. They were beautiful photos. We had a room at a tiny hotel in Leelanau that was along the river right by a weir. The roar of the water going over the fall provided a constant and soothing white noise. Across the river we had dinner at a restaurant that started off with three or four martinis and led to a bottle of wine to go with a couple of massive steaks. We barely were able to stumble back to the hotel room, which required that we walk across a walkway over the top of the weir.

The next morning, before driving back to Mt. Pleasant, we drove out to Frankfort to the Lake Michigan shoreline. The beach at a small park was empty – it was mid-September – but just to the south we saw a group of college kids – two girls and a guy – walking along the edge of the waves as they broke upon the shore. We both gasped when we saw all three disrobe to begin frolicking naked in the surf. I remember Dick saying to me, “Well now, there is something for both of us.” We both cursed the fact that we didn’t have binoculars, but we got a decent look using the telephoto lens on his camera. We sighed, then went to his van to begin the drive back to Mt. Pleasant.

It was only within the last year that I had re-connected with Dick via Facebook. That was also when I began to realize he was battling cancer. As one of the phrases in the Five Remembrances states, we are of the nature to be sick, we have not got beyond disease. And of course, this is followed with death.

Death really isn’t so bad and doesn’t worry me much. It’s the dying part that really sucks. But from my perspective, Dick Bolton managed dying very well. And that counts for a lot.

Visiting the dead

Today I visited an unmarked piece of ground. The photo accompanying this post is of my daypack on the ground in Mt. Olive Cemetery on the west side of Chicago. The day pack is lying in about the spot I think where a great-uncle of mine was buried back in 1917. The grave is unmarked in one of the oldest areas of the cemetery, way in the back almost against a fence that separates the Mt. Olive Cemetery from another cemetery. I had to guess as to the location.

What sent me to this cemetery was a request from one of my sisters. She had some information on this great-uncle, Frank Harrold. I knew a little about Frank as well. I knew that he occasionally traveled as a hobo, hopping trains in the early 1900s. He fell off a train one time, and I believe a rail car ran over his arm. It had to be amputated. A journalist from the Chicago Tribune interviewed Frank at the hospital while he was recovering. That was 1905 when Frank, I think, was 19. That will be my next endeavor, to find a microfiche with that 1905 article.

My sister sent me a copy of the receipt for Frank’s grave, which included the plot number. It was $10 for the plot and another $2 for the interment. The total bill was for $40.50, paid on Aug. 31, 1917. I don’t know how Frank died. It might have been in the war, or it might have been from the flu. I went into the cemetery office where a man kindly looked up the plot number, found it on a cemetery map, gave me directions to the spot, plus listed the names of several of the graves to either side of the spot.

You see, he told me, it might not be marked. That’s one of the oldest areas of the cemetery. You ought to be able to find a few of these names, he said, so you can locate this grave.

I drove to the very edge of the cemetery, past a few other gatherings of folks who were there for burials, others there to visit graves. When I found the section the caretaker had directed me to, I saw mostly grass with just a few old headstones. None of the headstones had any of the names the caretaker had given me. I wandered about to make sure I was in the correct area; I seemed to be as the few headstones that were there had similar dates of 1915, 1916 and 1917. That’s when I found these round, concrete cylinders embedded in the earth, each with a number on them; the plot numbers. But alas, some of these were missing as well. Frank was buried in spot number 195. I found one of these cylinders with a 189, then a 190, a 191 – good, the numbers were going in the correct direction. I was in the right spot. Then 192, but that was it, just a broad expanse of open ground, no more cylinders.

I then paced off the distance between each cylinder, which was about one good stride. They packed them in close back there. And so I counted three more strides beyond number 192. That must be it, a bit of ground covered with leaves. I brushed the leaves away with my hand, looking for any sign of a number cylinder, but there was none. I laid my daypack on the ground in that spot, placed the copy of the plot receipt on my day pack, and took several photos in various directions.

And that’s when the thought occurred to me about what that piece of ground was all about. It’s just a piece of ground. And if my great-uncle’s remains were under that turf, it would just be bones. Not Frank, because he was gone. And this spot of land was just that, a bit of dirt with some spotty grass, covered with decaying leaves. Was there ever a headstone to mark this spot as the final resting place for Frank Harrold’s remains? Something told me, probably not. Did anyone come to his grave during those first years after his death? Was there a wreath ever laid across it? Again, something told me probably not.

Over against a fence I saw a pile of concrete cylinders. I looked at them, pulled some of them out of the dirt where they had laid for so long they were partially submerged in the turf. The numbers on the ends had almost completely eroded away; none of them had the number 195. But why were they so carelessly discarded against the fence? Were they ever properly placed in the ground to mark the correct plot, only to be removed later, perhaps because they damaged a lawnmower?

I looked upward at the leaves that were still in the trees and I thought about what the Buddha said about questions; that most are like the leaves in the trees above our heads, so many and most irrelevant. Just because a question is asked doesn’t mean it warrants a response.

Maggavagga: The Path

Anyone who desires to practice Buddhism needs to have conviction; a steadfast belief that what he or she is doing will bring the desired results. Thanissaro Bhikkhu in part three of “Wings to Awakening” says this about conviction, that it has three parts:

“(S)ocial (whom to trust), intellectual (what to believe), and practical (how to act as a result). Because conviction is focused not on a descriptive proposition but on a course of action — the skillful mastery of the processes of kamma in a social context — these aspects are inextricably intertwined. The social aspect comes from the need to associate with people who have already mastered these processes, learning from their words and emulating their actions. The intellectual aspect — belief in the principle of kamma — is necessary because the development of skillfulness within the mind requires that one understand the nature of kamma, take responsibility for one's actions, and have conviction in one's ability to benefit from developing one's skills. The practical aspect is necessary, for if one does not follow through in developing skill, it shows that one's conviction in the development of skillfulness is not genuine, and that one is not fully benefiting from one's beliefs.”

It is with this in mind that I approach Chapter 20 of the Dhammapada, the Maggavagga, or The Path. Because in the Maggavagga, we get a series of verses that repeat the basic concepts of the Buddha’s teaching: The Noble Eightfold Path; the Four Noble Truths; the doctrine of anatta, or not-self (here is a delightful cartoon that explains succinctly the doctrine of not-self or no-self); the nature of dukha and the deluded mind.

“Of paths, the eightfold is best.
Of truths, the four sayings.
Of qualities, dispassion.
Of two-footed beings,
the one with the eyes
to see.”

The Buddha acknowledges that there are other paths, other doctrines, other dhamma. But he determined that the Noble Eightfold Path was the best the follow, a path focused on developing skillful thought, action and speech. By following the Noble Eightfold Path, the Four Noble Truths are realized, which then leads to dispassion. With dispassion, one sees how things really are. (skipping verses again)

“When you see with discernment,
‘All fabrications are inconstant’ —
you grow disenchanted with stress.
This is the path
to purity.

When you see with discernment,
‘All fabrications are stressful’ —
you grow disenchanted with stress.
This is the path
to purity.

When you see with discernment,
‘All phenomena are not-self’ —
you grow disenchanted with stress.
This is the path
to purity.”

Just about everything we do every day is a fabrication. My job is a fabrication that is driven to create more fabrications. That does not mean my job is not real. It just means our economy only exists because as a societal group we agree to a large extent that it does exist. If our mass agreement stopped, it would be gone, it wouldn’t exist. In poker, equivalent straight flushes are ranked on the suit of each hand, so a straight flush of spades will beat an equivalent straight flush of diamonds. The concept that spades are superior to diamonds in poker is a fabrication. The concept of spades as a suit is a fabrication. A playing card is real because it's matter, but any attempt to qualify the playing card as valuable or worthless requires a fabrication of thought.

“There are no sons
to give shelter,
no father,
no family
for one seized by the Ender,
no shelter among kin.

Conscious
of this compelling reason,
the wise man, restrained by virtue,
should make the path pure
— right away —
that goes all the way to Unbinding.”

Death waits for no one, and no one is exempt from death. The Buddha commented on this frequently, instilling the notion that one can use death as a motivator and even as a teacher.

So I follow the path with conviction. And each step along the way, my conviction becomes stronger. It still wavers from time to time. Maybe I skip a day of meditation. Perhaps I stray from the path, misled by another. But eventually I return. It is a path that works.

Jaravagga: Aging

It’s been a long day. Nothing particularly taxing, just long. I’m tired, feeling run down, and anticipating my task for the night. I sigh. And I’m not terribly motivated; haven’t been all day really. But dutifully I sit at the computer and I look up the next chapter in the Dhammapada and what do I see? Commentary on old age.

Fer crying out loud, do I really need this? And frankly, this chapter is not all that inspiring. I mean, how can you get jazzed up about anything, how can you fire up any intensity or resolve, when faced with verses like this:

“Worn out is this body,
a nest of diseases, dissolving.
This putrid conglomeration
is bound to break up,
for life is hemmed in with death.”

Oh yeah, this Buddhism shit is real fun. Get to meditate on how my body is a bloody mass of flesh and slimy sinew and gooey oozing shit like pus. Mmmm. And then I die!

I get all that. Believe me. At 51, I’m dealing with a body that is slowing down, getting achy and unwilling to do what it used to. I’ve slipped from – dare I say? – a dashing slim man of 6-feet-1 and 185 pounds who kept in good shape and could bed just about any man I wanted, from that I’ve slipped into this tired heap that’s about 215 pounds and lucky if I can get a smile out of a cute guy. In the gay world, I am now known as a bear, which just means I’m fat and hairy.

I still work out to stay in decent shape, swim several times a week, plodding my way through the water getting in about a half-mile in 30 minutes. But about all I can do now is swim and use the elliptical machine because anything else hurts. My right ankle and my left shoulder both have arthritis. Let’s see, what else can I bitch about? Oh yeah, my feet, ugly skinny things are gnarled so bad that I need to wear orthotics. And being 51, I can have issues with flatulence. Doesn’t help much on a date.

And that’s what I observe about my own body. I watched as my mother’s health deteriorated, slowly at first, but in the last two years of her life, it was quite rapid. And when she died at 89, I stood for a moment in the hospital room where she lie, alone, and meditated on her corpse. It was actually quite a special moment. When my mother died, I felt relief – her suffering was over for now.

Mick Jagger had it right when he sang, “What a drag it is getting old.” Wonder how he feels about that line now?

“Through the round of many births I roamed
without reward,
without rest,
seeking the house-builder.
Painful is birth
again & again.

House-builder, you’re seen!
You will not build a house again.
All your rafters broken,
the ridge pole dismantled,
immersed in dismantling, the mind
has attained to the end of craving.”

It is very unlikely I will find release in this lifetime, so I am destined to build another house – a bag of bones with ooze and blood and guts and shit and piss and … blech – that will also eventually fall apart into ruin.

I just try not to dwell too much on it for now. Death can be a powerful motivator, a force that can get us to do the right thing right now and not delay. But tonight I’m tired, and I think I’d like a glass of wine.

Death as a teacher

Jack Daw over at Sweep the Dust, Push the Dirt, always has great posts, but lately he’s written a couple that have really sparked my thoughts, prompting me to share my own experiences on these topics. His post regarding death really struck a chord with me. In particular, his mention of the Five Remembrances, which I know as the Five Recollections, prompted me to resume something that had been missing from my meditative practice for quite some time.

Contemplating death ought to be an important part of anyone’s Buddhist practice, but as Jack points out, it’s a subject often treated superficially, if it gets any attention at all. Yet our serious contemplation on this subject can be transformative, as indicated by this passage, taken from Ten Dhamma Talks by Sister Ayya Khema:

“If we really believe in our impending death, not just use the words, our attitude towards people and situations changes completely. We are no longer the same person then. The one we have been until now hasn’t brought us complete satisfaction, contentment and peacefulness … If we were to remember each morning that death is certain, but now have another day to live, gratitude and determination can arise to do something useful with that day.”

Let me take the risk of boring all of you with my personal journey with death. Fair warning, I’m afraid this is going to be a long post. But death has been one of my teachers for a long time, despite the fact I was, for the most part, completely oblivious to its lessons.

It was either Flag Day or Independence Day in 1968 when I awoke at home completely alone. It unnerved me a bit, as I was only 9 years old, that I could wake to an empty house like that. I don’t have a clear memory of how the news was eventually delivered to me, but I learned later that day that my father had a heart attack while he was putting the flag up on our front porch. He was in the hospital in something called intensive care. That was it, that’s all anyone told me. And for years I had no idea what a heart attack was, or that my father had a very close brush with death.

Fast forward to 1972 when I was 14. I was out riding my motorcycle around a lake where my parents were building their retirement home when I came upon a scene of people watching a rescue crew pull a body from the water. I watched and listened, gathering enough information to learn that a man was water skiing in an area of the lake that he shouldn’t have been, because when he fell, he struck his head on a stump in the water. It was the first dead body I had ever seen, yet my reaction to seeing the corpse was barely discernable. I didn’t know who this man was; but there it was – death.

I’m pretty sure it was that same summer when I begrudgingly helped my father and a brother-in-law dig trenches around what was to be our new home near the lake to bury Styrofoam around the foundation to increase the house’s energy efficiency. I hated doing this laborious work and wanted to be doing anything but that. My utter uselessness led to my father’s frustration and he angrily told me to get the hell out of there and do whatever I damn pleased. I did and went off riding my motorcycle. When I returned later in the afternoon, dad was lying in bed. Mom told me that he had angina; again, no real explanation of what that meant. But I remember quietly walking down the hall to peak into their bedroom to see him lying on the bed, resting. At that moment, I finally understood what a heart attack was.

An interesting aside: My father was born in 1910 when Halley’s Comet passed by the Earth. He died in 1986 when Halley’s Comet last passed by the Earth. It was a heart attack that killed him.
My father, I slowly learned, was a very compassionate man. We had Siamese cats, two of them. They both caught feline leukemia. When the first was so sick it was beyond help, he placed it into a large hat box, which he took out to the edge of the woods by our house where he would shoot it with my .22 rifle. But he couldn’t bear to see the animal as he shot it, so he left the lid on the box. Of course, he missed making a fatal shot. Up in the house as I watched out the window, I could hear the cat’s shrieking and reflexive thumping against the side of the hat box as my father fumbled with the rifle, a single-shot bolt action weapon, as he tried as quickly as possible to insert another bullet. When he successfully managed that, he pushed the lid off the box and fired point-blank.

When the next cat became so ill that death was inevitable, he and I together did things differently. He was a biology teacher. We went to his classroom and picked up a plastic funnel, a large wad of cotton, and a bottle of ether. We soaked the cotton with the ether, put the cotton into the funnel then placed the funnel over the cat’s head. It was so weak it just lied there. Slowly, quietly, it died.

I didn’t “come out” to my family until I was 35 years old, and the first person I told was my mother. I was quite fearful of her reaction as the Catholic Church was her life and we all know how accommodating the Catholic doctrine is of homosexuality. I had been away from home for a very long time and did not know that the priest in her parish at that time had brought a very positive message to the congregation about gays and, most importantly, AIDS. She showed me an article about the priest that mentioned another man named Mark who was living with AIDS. The writer quoted Mark as saying that he lived in a remote area and sometimes needed help with simple things like housekeeping or getting to the doctor. I decided to give Mark a call and offer my help.

I could tell Mark was suspicious of my intentions when I called him, but he agreed to meet me at his uncle’s house, as he did not want me to know where he lived yet. When we met, he revealed that he knew who I was, that he remembered me because we went to high school together. He was a year ahead of me, and we had never associated with each other, so I had no recollection of him. We became friends and I would visit him from time to time to watch movies and call him more frequently to chat.

One night I gave him a call to see how he was doing. When he answered, I could hear he was weak, his voice distant and faint. He told me he was having a bout of fever. I asked if he needed anything, but he didn’t reply. All I could hear was his wheezy, raspy breathing. I told him I was on my way over. It was about a 20 mile drive. When I arrived he appeared to feel better than he sounded on the phone. As long as I was there, he suggested, why don’t we watch a movie? During the movie the fever returned; I could hear his raspy and labored breathing. I moved from my chair to the couch where he lay, sat so he could lay against me and I put my arms around his chest. We sat like that and watched the rest of the movie.

It was very late when I left. He later told me that the following day he drove himself four hours to the V.A. hospital in Ann Arbor (he was ex-Navy, honorable discharge) where he was treated for PCP, a rare form of pneumonia that was a common killer among AIDS patients. A year later, he drove by himself from Michigan to San Francisco where he died a few months later.

At that time, I think every gay man thought about how he may die. We all, I think, wondered what we would do, how we would behave, when we received that information that many of us believed to be inevitable – that we have AIDS and were going to die. Getting the results for every HIV test I had was always a time when I had to face my mortality. And every time I wondered what I would do, how I would feel, should I learn I was positive. I’ve been fortunate when so many others have not.

And so when I came to Buddhism, my teacher impressed upon me how important recognizing the inevitability of death was, its utter certainty. And I realized how much I had already encountered death, and how I was continuing to encounter it. I just hadn’t always been paying attention.

My teacher talked about how monks would go to cemeteries in the middle of the night to meditate and contemplate death. I couldn’t do that, but interestingly, I had a book about homicide reporting – I was a police reporter for a newspaper at the time – that had all kinds of grisly photos of corpses in various states of decay. I didn’t like looking at those photos because my monkey mind always set an emotional trap for me, leading me to think about that “poor dead person,” how they “must have suffered at the hands of their killer.” But the point of meditating on death, my teacher emphasized, it to realize that our body is not who we are, it’s just a body. And the photos of decaying corpses and dismembered homicide victims in my book were not images of people – they’re just bodies.

I have a different attitude about death now than I did in the past. But there is still something very important for me to do that I haven’t done, and that is use death as an appropriate motivator. Death can be a useful tool to prompt us into action, to take the steps we know we ought to, but just haven’t gotten around to taking.

The notion that death waits for no one is a worthy one for contemplation.