Picasso
Picasso
Wednesday, July 6, 2005. This morning I put on my old African hat that I used to wear so much, but haven't for quite a while. When I stepped up to the counter at Starbucks Erin said, "I like your hat." I said, "I like it too." At that she laughed and said, "I'm glad that you like the hat you're wearing."
I sat facing a wall to minimize the complexity of the visual field and began contemplating how the world of words that we humans are so devoted to has almost nothing to do with the world that we can sense. I did this by looking at something, e.g., a table top or the back of a chair, and thinking of various words I could use to describe what I was seeing. By doing this it becomes experiential rather than a conclusion or principle. I was experiencing it as an ongoing process. In the world of words there are rules of logic, grammar, reason, trains of thought, all that sort of thing, all beyond the present moment. In the world that I can see there is no reason, no logic, no conclusions, just a continuous process of unfolding events. There is no need of "proof" or call for "judgment" or decision-making, no "points' to be made. Nothing needs comment. It becomes clear that there is no way to communicate this experience to another. What you see is what you see. You see what is there where you are looking at the moment. There is no need to communicate it.
I finally received the announcement of Elaine Hanowell's show at Foster-White Gallery in Seattle. It has a photo of some of her carved wooden sculpture. I was so impressed. She is a real artist. I'm sorry I won't be in town for the opening, but I will definitely see the show when I get back.
After two days of struggling with the gazebo kit I finally concluded that something was wrong, that either the wrong parts were put in the kit or the parts were mislabeled, anyway, it was not going to go together without some modification. I got a tube cutting tool and took about an inch off eight separate tubes and then tried it. It was closer to fitting but still needed more cutting. I cut another inch or so off eight tubes. So there is the tube frame sitting there with 16 little pieces laying around it. The wind was picking up so I left it like that. Today I got back to it and was able to get the tarp on the frame with no trouble. There was a slight bit of tension in one direction but it seemed good enough. So I finished assembling it, raised it up full height and secured the fixture at the apex with nylon chords to the heavy cable-spool table so it won't blow away. I will nail down the base on each leg as well. Boy, what a hassle that was. Looks pretty good now. Provides some shade on the deck.
Monday, July 4, 2005. As usual, the weather here goes from wet and cold to too hot. This summer has been so wet and cold that I have done almost no work outdoors. Yesterday was pretty nice but I really felt under the weather. Today I feel better so I started assembling the new gazebo I bought. It is supposed to take two people but of course I am trying to do it myself. I am getting exhausted and am covered with sweat. I'm roasting in the sunlight out on the deck where I'm assembling it. The idea is to provide some shade out there. This will be about the fifth or sixth structure I've put up out there. They all blow down. We get fierce winds right here. So far the wind has demolished everything I've put up out there. I had decided that the thing to do was to frame it in with heavy lumber and attach it to the house and deck or through the deck to the ground. But, these "Made in China" gazebo kits were so cheap I got suckered in again. Of course it doesn't go together easily. You put together a framework of metal tubes first, then you simply attach the cover. Of course the cover is a little too small so you have to pull for all your worth to attach it and in doing so you pull apart what you had done so far. I give up for a while. Maybe it will stretch with time.
Sunday, July 3, 2005. This morning I was watching people sitting reading newspapers. There they are, sitting, holding up these thin sheets of paper with lots of writing on them, looking at the writing. That is all you can see. So what is going on there? What is going on in their minds? How is it that things written about can become so interesting? People care so much which team wins what game, who is appointed to a government seat, whether they have caught a murderer. Of the tens of thousands of murders in this country each year one at a time is selected for top billing in the news. Remember before the 9/11 event when day after day for months the big news item was Gary Condit and Chandra Levy? They couldn't find her and he wouldn't talk. Nothing actually happened. But every day the TV news would include interviews with various people who gave their opinions about the matter.
Saturday, July 2, 2005. I was looking through some old messages from Weston and found this with the photo.
yeah, ben's still working at the same place here with me. in fact, he works right behind me. here's a photo of our office captured by the security camera about a month ago. i'm on the left, another guy is on the right, and you can see the back of ben's head between us. the chair in the foreground is my chair (i work kinda underneath the camera). the other guy works in the corner there where his chair is. as you can see, ben doesn't take his work seriously like we do.
Friday, July 1, 2005. Sometimes living with animals is difficult for me. This morning while Sitka was roaming around in her favorite field at the end of 7th Av, she caught and ate a rodent. As she chewed it some of it fell out of her mouth on the ground. She ate it all up. I was kind of disgusted watching this. Then we got home and I made breakfast and sat down on the floor at the little table to eat. I look over to the right and there is a dead bird laying there. Jeez. Both these creatures are killers. Well, that's the way they would live entirely if humans weren't feeding them. Of course I realize that we humans are the biggest killers around, it is just that I don't participate myself.
Thursday, June 30, 2005. I am very slowly learning to speak some Russian by listening to a CD. Once in a while I say something in Russian to Heather. At first she said she thought I was testing her to see if she really knew Russian. Since then, a couple times when I have said something in Russian and she immediately answers in Russian other people will seem surprised that she understood. Funny. In my mind she is very good with the language. I just assume she knows it very well. She is my local expert on the subtleties of pronunciation, something I find very difficult. There are some words on the CD that no matter how many times I listen to it I still have no idea what to do with my mouth to make the sounds. She recommended that I learn the alphabet because the written language is phonetic. Maybe I will, though even the long alphabet is intimidating. I suppose she could help me learn to associate the proper sound with each letter.
I find the Chinese is the same in that I just can't seem to hear it correctly. As an American I am just not used to listening for the pitch changes that are so crucial to the meaning. I haven't gotten very far with either language. It is quite a challenge to be able to develop the ear for them.
This morning I talked for quite a while with Gregg at Starbucks. The weather is such that it is pleasant to sit outside now. Actually we sat there until nearly 11am. During the conversation it came up about how meditation allows you to step back a bit from your thoughts and learn to see them as quite unintentional events that just come into being and fade away, like a bird flying by or a cloud drifting by. In the process you begin to realize how you used to take these thoughts so seriously that you might even say that was your whole life! And we talked about how you can see how people who don't meditate are so caught up in believing in their thoughts. There is nothing you can do about it. People keep creating definitions of themselves, dedicating themselves to viewing the world in terms of their likes and dislikes which they cling to, believing fiercely in their opinions and conclusions. Rather than give up on these thoughts people often try to force things to fit their beliefs. People so often are busy trying to "do something" about their situation. In Buddhism this very process is recognized as a cause of much delusion and suffering. Humans can't seem to be content, can't just accept what is. Instead it has to be judged, evaluated, and something needs to be done to "improve" things. And all this judging and selecting of good and bad leads us into a continuous striving for pleasure and looking for satisfaction in the external world. If things are not at peace in the inner world this will never work.
I'm just beginning to get an inkling of what is going on. It seemed so hard at first to just sit quietly and with alertness, with the only thing you are 'trying to do' is pay attention to your breathing. To be alone with yourself, not moving, in a quiet place, and learning to notice and accept what goes on, without judging; this is very difficult. It takes time and practice. Eventually you just begin to see how futile it is to 'not accept' or 'condemn' or 'judge' your thoughts. They are just thoughts. If you try to pick and choose you get flustered, frustrated, torturing yourself, over what? Just phantoms, dreams, figments. Thoughts come and go, feelings come and go. They never stay. We can obsess and repeat a thought, over and over, even wish to hang on to it. We seem unable to believe that things are perfectly fine just the way they are at the moment. Look anywhere else and you are lost.
A little thing I have noticed. When I am waiting in line to get coffee at Starbucks, sometimes I will think of some "clever" remark I could make when I get up to the counter, which might get a laugh. I am then challenged with trying to remember it until I get up to the counter. In the process I have to shut out everything else, can't be distracted. Then when I finally get to the counter, in so far as I am determined to spout out my "oh so clever" remark I am unable to respond to the greetings I might get. They almost become an annoyance, interfering with what I wanted to say. So I have gradually learned to empty my mind and be more open to what others have to say.
Wednesday June 29, 2005. R___ has noticed the extent to which some of my shirts are covered with dog and cat hairs. So this morning he said, "I got you a present," and pulled a lint brush out of his jacket. It was still mounted on the cardboard display card. I tried it. It takes a while to learn how to use it, steep learning curve. If you swipe in one direction it will pick up lint and hairs. But if you swipe it in the opposite direct ion it deposits all the stuff it collected. R___ explained that you have to wipe it off on something else. I reached for his pant leg.
After he left I was getting up to leave and walked to the trash can. Before I threw away the piece of cardboard the brush had been on I read what was written there. There was a list of features. One item said, "Can be used with right hand or left hand." Very impressive feature. I'd like to point out to the reader that my writing here can be read with the right eye or the left eye or both the right and left eye together, at the same time.
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A true friend is one who will tell you when you have a booger hanging off the end of your nose.
I no longer have the strength or will to deal with people who judge, criticize, complain, and especially who rant and rave and yell at me.
In reading poems from 7th century Chinese ch'an masters I keep running across the term wu-wei which is translated as 'nothing to do' in English. This is the very realization that Gregg had years ago. Right on, Gregg! See you tomorrow.
At the sesshin I had a problem for a few days with the total lack of privacy. I found a little wickiup built of driftwood on the beach. I made some improvements and during the free periods would crawl inside. No one could see me in there. I felt a certain freedom.
Below is how it looked from the inside looking out.
Tuesday, June 28, 2005. I have certain relatives that harbor hostile feelings toward me. They get together and support each other in this respect. You see, if they can agree, then it proves that it is my fault that they don't like me. Then they can get on my case and feel like victims at the same time. Works out pretty good. Perhaps I'm peculiar in this respect but I'd rather spend my time with people (and even relatives) who like me. I'm going to Ben's wedding in Twin Falls. He writes, "Wow... That's a long drive... Well I'm really glad you're coming." Now there is a relative I can dig. He has changed his last name to McCarron. So has Weston.
When I talk with Bill, Linda, Rich, Gregg, Josey, Paul, Floyd, Julie, Bob, Jack, Billy for example, I have the comfort of knowing I'm with people that like me. So I seek out their company.
My garden is doing well. All the plants are very healthy as you can see.
Here is the MUG Award they gave me at Starbucks.
Here is the view of Seattle and Mount Rainier at 5am from Camp Indianola.
I have had such poor luck with the stock market lately that I have been down to one stock for many months. Well I stopped by to visit Larry the other day and he gave me a hot tip. I went for it, buying 200 shares. In a few days it had gone up by about 40%! So, I thought, "I don't want to pass up an opportunity like this," so I bought 1,000 shares. The value plunged and stayed there. I lost about three times what I had gained. I finally gave it up as a lost cause and sold all of it before I lost any more. I think I will close my E-Trade account and turn it all over to Cheryl.
Monday, June 27, 2005. I was concerned about how to dress at Ben's wedding. I gave away my dress clothing and hate dressing up anyway. To my relief he informed me that his best man has dreadlocks and the ceremony will be barefoot!
Here's something that Jack read at the sesshin.
PRESCRIPTION FOR THE PENETRATING-ONE'S-NATURE-AND-BECOMING-A-BUDDHA PILL
My name is Yusuke Odawara.
I've been a pharmacist since before my parents were born.
Although soliciting is prohibited in this country,
listen to me for a second about the effects
of a certain medicine.
The pill I'm talking about is called
Penetrating-One's-Nature-and-Becoming-a-Buddha.
It's got Direct-Pointing-at-Human-Mind in it.
If you take this pill, you'll get rid of the diseases
of four sufferings and eight sufferings.
You can rest easy, far from the drifting and sinking
of the three worlds,
and get relief from the aches of going round
in the six realms.
The medicine is Prince Siddhartha's.
He's the son of King Shuddhodana from Kapilavastu, India.
At birth, the prince walked seven steps and said,
"Alone above and below the heavens,
I am the honored one."
As you all know, one day he suddenly left home and went to Mt. Dankada
seeking special herbs.
He had a difficult, painful time.
Out of this there later came four kinds of pharmacological texts
with more than five thousand and forty volumes.
At about that time he had sixteen apprentices and five hundred students.
They transmitted the Becoming-a-Buddha Pill, which is the essential cure for
the suffering of sentient beings.
There were four times seven, count them, twenty-eight masters in India.
The twenty-eighth, great master Bodhidharma, transmitted it scrupulously.
There were two times three, that is, six unique masters in China.
The school split into five and then seven houses, while this and that were going on.
For instance, Shen-kuang's arm-ache was cured.
So was Hsüan-sha's sore foot, Yün-men's limp, and Pai-chang's nosebleed.
Lots of other things happened — too many to talk about.
National Teacher Senko first brought this pill to Japan.
Twenty-four branches of pharmacists were started.
Later, Daito of Murasakino got an imperial appointment.
Phamacists peddling the Exoteric Pill and the Esoteric Pill came along to
challenge and compete with the Becoming-a-Buddha Pill.
The emperor ordered a contest between Daito, and the pharmacists of Mii
Monastery in Nara, and of Hiei.
Daito won.
The cloistered Emperor Hanazono sent a messenger to Ibuka, Mino Provice,
summoning Daito's heir, National Teacher Kanzan.
The emperor took the pill and rewarded Kanzan with an imperial cup.
Now I run that Hanazono Company, the Original Family Store.
I'll tell you the recipe for the pill.
First, cut Chao-chou's cypress with an axe and pound it in the sixth Ancestor's
mortar.
Then add Ma-tsu's West River Water,
knead it on Daito's octagonal board,
put it on Hakuin's one hand,
shape it into a ball with Chü-chih's finger,
wrap it with Hsüan-sha's white paper,
and write on it:
"Penetrating-One's-Nature-and-Becoming-a-Buddha Pill,
Manufactured by Hanazono Company,
Rinzai County, Zen School."
When you swallow this pill, you'll throw up swollen knowledge,
and the cathartic effect won't fade.
Chew it well, chew it well — it will stay with you coming, going, standing, or
sitting.
Gulp it down, let it rest below your navel.
Then even in heaven, pleasure won't matter to you.
Even in hell, you won't have pain.
I don't mean to slander, but recently something called the Six-Character Pill
has come into the market.
Now if the common, everyday person takes that pill before breackfast or after
supper, it will give him a little boost,
but it's no good against the agony of death.
Even so, peoiple in the world call it the "Chanting-Buddha's-Name-at-the-
Moment-of-Death Pill,"
The price of that pill is three pennies, but my Beconing-a-Buddha Pill doesn't
cost a cent.
Well, that's my little pitch.
I can't keep myself from saying, "Won't you take my pill?"
Hakuin, (1685-1768)
Here is a picture of one of the paintings I have been working on.
I emailed a picture of this painting to R___ and he responded with this:
"But back to your painting. I was very impressed with your rendering of the hypnotized 'Herzogian' zombies -- this is as good as some of Magritte's best stuff, and one of the most fascinating aspects of the painting is the fact that it is bursting with rich, mute, symbolism. The addition of the explicit vector symbol (--in my humble, and not offended, opinion--) limits the painting's potential in that makes the symbolism less mute; it limits the freedom of the viewer to explore in their own way the picture's possibilities in childlike wonder and awe. Once you add the vector symbol, you've taken a move from visual representations to cerebral symbols. This is the movement from the unconscious/right-brain to the conscious/left-brain; a movement toward 'deconstruction,' and the result in my view subtracts from the painting's aura of deep somnambulist mystery.
Don't get me wrong. This is still a wonderful painting. It should probably be hanging in a gallery or museum, instead of in your workshop tempting you to fiddle with it. Thanks for letting me see it! "
Yesterday R___ sent me a picture of Bruegel's Tower of Babel painting. I have a print of the same painting in a prominent place. I took a picture of it and sent it to him. He claims there is no such thing as a coincidence. I saw him this morning and asked his opinion about the sort of interaction with my daughter that is so difficult for me understand. Some time ago I mentioned in a phone conversation with a daughter that years ago she never called unless she wanted money. I suppose that was something I should not have mentioned. Anyway, she did not like hearing that and responded by telling me that she had only asked me to help her once and that I 'freaked out' and wouldn't send the money. And she said that during that period she remembered my send a few monthly child-support checks and then I quit.
Well, I knew this wasn't right but didn't say that. I did say that sometimes people's memories are flawed and that that wasn't the way I remembered it. She didn't like hearing that either. Well I didn't care for her characterization of me at that time either. "Freaking out' and refusing to send money, etc. I happen to have a pretty good memory for many things and am often shocked at how inaccurate are some people's memories. There are many cases where memories can be verified. Well it just happened that I was in the middle of a house cleaning effort at that time and that evening I picked a box of stuff, turned on the TV and sat down to go through the stuff, hoping to be able to throw most of it away. The bottom layer of stuff in the box was a bunch of bank statements still in the envelopes from the very time period we had been talking about. I opened every envelope and those were the days when the canceled checks were in the envelopes. Many of the envelopes contained at least one check to the daughter. First there were several checks at various dates for unusual amounts, like $352, which were obviously responses to requests for rent money or such things. Then there was a period where I was, at her mother's request, sending child-support payments directly to the daughter. This was over a period of certain years. There were I think 32 checks in all made out to her. Plus there were many checks to her mother and her sister during that time.
Although I rarely discuss such personal things with my friends I had happed to mention this situation to R___. He said, "You didn't tell her about the checks did you?" I said, "I already sent an e-mail message. Her mother had suggested that I let her know." I realize that people don't like to be corrected or to be 'wrong', and I seem to have a less than average fear of being 'wrong' and actually appreciate being corrected in many situations, although I realize that it can be embarrassing in some situations and most people would rather not hear about it. (I just remembered, the last entry I wrote on this page I included a description of having been mistaken and being grateful for being corrected. I didn't feel even the slightest embarrassment about having been wrong.) But in my naivety I figured the daughter would be glad to hear that I was not so mean as she thought, even though it meant her being 'wrong'. I wanted her to think better of me than she did. I had felt pretty bad when she kept repeating, "You freaked out and didn't send the money." Actually, although I very clearly remembered her calling to ask for money, especially the way she would seem interested in how I was doing and the money thing would be put off 'till the last, I also realized that it might have been around that time that I had tried to get her mother to quit sending her money so that she would be motivated to get a regular job and take care of herself. Her mother had asked me to send the checks to the daughter because she had been sending them right off to the daughter anyway. I may have stopped sending them to the daughter and sent them to the mother in hopes that she could restrain herself from sending it right off to the daughter. In my opinion she was doing her daughter a disservice by send her so much money and enabling her to not get more income herself. So I realized that she may have accurately remembered a time when I at least gave her some static about wanting us to pay her debts.
Well some time later I was talking on the phone with her boyfriend and asked if he had passed on the email message to her. He told that she read it and was furious and said she was never going to talk to me again! Boy, was I shocked. I never expected anything like that. I asked if it was because the message showed her to have been wrong. (By the way, I was careful in the message not to mention any blame or right or wrong. I limited it to describing the time period, the number of checks (30 some) and the total value ($4,000 something). I didn't mention the obvious responses to requests.) The boyfriend said that she had said that $4,000 was nothing compared to what I owed them. I was shocked at that. What did that have to do with it? I clearly described a brief time period. From his tone I had the impression that he considered her justified in her anger. Boy. I thought, "She prefers to think of me as ungiving, etc." He added that she was very forgiving, but added that another of my daughters was not so forgiving (which I knew). Oh boy. After that conversation I kept asking myself, "What was she forgiving me for? What did I do wrong?"
So this morning I told R__ the rest of the story and asked how he knew I shouldn't have mentioned the checks to the daughter. He said it was part of growing up and becoming independent to think you don't need the parents and even to put them down. He told me not to try to make them think well of you or defend yourself but take all the blame, be the bad parent, then they will let up on you. He said, "Maybe you don't mind so much being proved wrong but it is very painful to most, especially for your children." (I paraphrase, awkwardly I'm sure) He also said that he realized that althought I thought it was good to 'get the facts straight', that people remember things wrongly because they want to believe that is what happened. Here I, in my silliness, thought the daughter might be relived to realize that I was not as bad as she thought. No, she wants to think I was so mean.
Saturday, June 25, 2005. Ben wants me to come to Twin Falls for his wedding. The trip is over 600 miles which makes things seem pretty difficult for me. I really don't like driving and I particularly don't like paying to stay at a motel. I used to just crawl in the back of the car and sleep there but I guess I'm getting so old that that doesn't appeal to me any more.
Because of my breathing limitations I was concerned about the elevation of Twin Falls so yesterday I drove to a ski resort in the cascades to see how I would do. I missed getting on the ferry by three cars and so I went up to the ferry building and there was Mitch and his daughter Sara. He was going to go with her to see that she knew how to get to the art school she will be going to. She is so shy. And a gifted artist. We talked until it came time to board the next ferry. They were on foot and I went back to my car. On the car deck I ran into a Buddhist monk that had given a talk at the Bainbridge Library. He and another guy had their monk's robes on and were greeting me with gashos.
Once on the ferry I joined Mitch and his daughter and showed Mitch the route I was going to take to get to Stevens Pass. I planned to take SR 20 a ways east and then head northeast to the pass. Mitch pointed out that that last part was not a road but was the colored border of King County. I got out my glasses and sure enough, not a road at all. He suggested I take 20 to 405, head north to 522 and then get on 2 to get into the mountains and get to Stevens Pass. I was sure glad I had talked to him.
The scenery got very nice as I got into the mountains. I was impressed at how steep they were. I kept wanting to stop and get out and walk around but there were few places you could do that. And once you got out the traffic noise was pretty bothersome. Seems like everyone was in such a big hurry. I did get off the road at a few places, campgrounds mostly and took some walks through the forest and down along the river bed. There was a wind which made a wonderful sound in the trees.
I finally got to Stevens Pass. It is a ski resort. I parked and tramped up the big staircase to the resort. There was a plaza with shops and restaurants and so forth, all closed and not a soul in site. I felt pretty good so I walked around roads between the ski lifts for a while. All of a sudden I heard voices. Then I spotted a young Chinese couple coming down the slope. We went and sat at a table and talked. She was from Beijing and now lived in Seattle, near Green Lake, he from Vancouver, B.C. He barely spoke any English but was doing his best to construct some sentences. She spoke pretty good English. We had a very pleasant time. I liked her a lot. She thought I was very funny. He wanted to know "what I thought about her" as he put it. He said that he had asked her to marry him and she turned him down. That was the topic for quite a while. And then we discussed English, Chinese and Spanish languages. We had a very nice time. I was encouraged that I couldn't even tell the difference in the thinner air. This was at 4,000 ft.
I got in some terrible traffic on the way back. I had dinner at the Uwajimaya market. Had to wait through two ferry loads. By the time I got home it had been 12 hours. Sitka was all excited and both she and the cat were all over me. I discovered that the back door was wide open.
Yesterday when I sat down at Starbucks the manager came over and handed me a folding card. It had a statement of how much the staff appreciated my presence there, my good humor, my concern about and repair of the hardware (tables, etc.). There was a MUGS Award pin as well, the kind that employees earn and wear on their aprons. I stuck it on my jacket pocket.
On Thursday I got there about 6:30, had a long talk with Rich, then Paul came to see me, then Kurt sat and talked with me, then Gregg arrived from Bainbridge. I didn't leave until 9:30. I was there 3 hours!
Over recent months Tempera's critical and judgmental nature has been coming out. She takes issue with things I say, criticizes me a great deal, passes severe judgment on me. Sometimes some really nasty remarks pop out of her mouth, often regarding her take on my relations with kids and grandkids. I don't know where this stuff is coming from but it is not good. And now she has begun making such remarks to others. There's no call to behave like that.
Saturday, June 18, 2005. I find I am still quite exhausted after the sesshin, in a way I'm not familiar with. I feel a bit dazed or confused, weak and unmotivated, but not sleepy. It has not even occurred to me to work on drawings, paintings, sculptures or write anything, until now.
I'm a little hesitant to try to describe my experiences during the sesshin. But there were a few things I thought I might write. I was given a koan to concentrate on along with my breathing. After a few days I rather suddenly experienced a much deeper concentration. When thoughts arose, such as insights, concerns, hopes, memories, plans, and any of the ideas that I am used to taking so seriously and hanging onto and developing, they just seemed to be silly and totally trivial and not worth giving the slightest energy to. It became clear that they were using me, that they were unintentional, appearing out of nowhere, and in this state, were really of no concern to me. Although I have had such an understanding in the past, it was now an immediate reality. As soon as a thought arose I dismissed it and it was gone in a matter of seconds.
The only time we could talk was during dokusan, the private interviews with the roshi, and this amounted to just a few minutes once a day. When I told him about the fantastic visual images passing through my mind he dismissed them, saying that the mind creates all kinds of strange effects and I should just disregard them and go back to the koan and breathing. He seemed pleased that I was experiencing how useless and trivial were the thoughts the thinking mind produced. He kept telling me that this was just the beginning of understanding and to keep to my purpose and gave me a couple questions about the koan to try to find answers to. He assured me that I was on the right path and encouraged me to continue with the concentration and that we can keep in touch.
One thing I noticed was that my old 'paying attention to where I am looking', which is what led me back into this zen thing, was still right on and completely compatible with this new experience of intense concentration.
While sitting I could feel and see that my hands were greatly expanded. They looked like they must weigh twice what they usually do. A similar thing was happening to a lesser extent with my feet. While there was a lot of sensation in the neck and shoulders I regularly felt a ring of tension around the base of my neck. And it seemed to be accompanied with fear. The roshi said the ego was reacting with fear of loss of control.
For months now I have been experiencing moments of missing Little Kitty terribly. That feeling came up during the sitting sessions and I ended up crying for about 20 minutes during one of the sitting sessions. She was such a joy to us all and I still miss her greatly.
For those that are not familiar with sesshin, your time is scheduled from 5am until 10pm, there is no talking unless necessary, you sit in meditation about 8 hours a day. The sitting meditation is in periods of about 25 to 30 minutes with about 5 minutes of slow walking meditation. Meals are very formal and in silence. Some time is spent chanting. Once a day the roshi gives a talk to the group for about half an hour. Once a day you have an opportunity to talk privately with the roshi for a few minutes. There were three hour-long rest/work periods each day. My job was washing lunch dishes.
I had considerable trouble hearing instructions during the sesshin and, being a beginner, I did not often know what we were supposed to be doing. The woman seated next to me was extremely helpful. Her name was Jana (still is) and she is a teacher from Portland. Here is a picture of her with the roshi (Jack) in the background.
Here are Jana and Jack sitting together.
Here they are again.
Here's a picture from the two day zen retreat I attended on Vashon Island. Some people had left before the photo was taken. I'll be attending a week long sesshin at Camp Indianola this month.
Friday, June 17, 2005. Just got back from the sesshin, 6/10/05 to 6/17/05, Camp Indianola. We sat in meditation for 8 to 10 hours a day. Here's a picture of the group. The roshi is the guy down front in the middle.
Here's a picture of Father's Day card I got.
Wednesday, June 8, 2005. When I was over at Gregg's house a couple weeks ago he showed me a book he had checked out of the Bainbridge Public Library. It was entitled Samadhi and had nice photos of holy men of various sorts in India with a brief description followed by quotes of various lengths.
This morning R. brought me a library book he thought I might enjoy. It was the same book!. I said, "That's sure weird." He said, "No it isn't."
When we talk, write, read or just think in words we routinely mistakenly take that for the 'reality' that we are talking about. That is the 'meaning' in words. When we hear a foreign language we just hear sounds, syllables, often sounding very rapid. As you learn the language you tend to lose track of the sound and follow only the meaning. Sometimes a listener was totally unaware that the speaker was talking in an extremely loud voice. They were only aware of the meaning.
In drawing we make lines rather than words. And here too we tend to lose sight of the lines and think only of what is being described as though it were a real subject. Just as it is important to keep in mind that reality is not words, so it is important to see that lines are simply lines. The skill is to be able to draw lines that have certain properties of objects. These include an apparent position in three dimensional space, an orientation with respect to gravity and an apparent size. You can then build your subjects out of these elements.
Here's another picture. I just couldn't resist.
Thursday, June 2, 2005. This morning Sitka and I spent quite a while walking about in the field at the end of 7th Av. The grass has grown so high that sometimes I can't see Sitka for a while as she noses around. There are thousands of flowers there, of several different species, and no bees. I finally saw one bee. He was black with yellow "shoulders". A while later, as we were heading back I spotted another bee. It was the same kind and it was sitting on the yellow center of a white-petaled daisy. I stopped and watched him. He never moved. I bent down closer and poked the flower. He fell off on the ground. He was dead.!"
Just a moment ago I was sitting here typing and there was a rather loud noise. It sounded as though a heavy piece of lumber that had been leaning against the house slid down along the wall and hit the deck, something like that. Sitka and I rushed outside wondering what had happened. We went clear around the building and couldn't see anything. Then we heard some animal scrambling around up in the attic. It must have been a squirrel or something. But squirrels don't move lumber around. Beats me what happened. It will forever be a mystery.
Saw Suzy at the market. It seemed to mean a lot to her when I told her I missed seeing her. She used to work at Starbucks. She left shortly after the new manager arrived. She said she was subbing at Breidablick.
Another dark,damp day. I'm getting fed up with the weather lately.
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To see a video about the company that Ben and Weston are working for, click here.
Wednesday, June 1, 2005. Just picked up my car at Ken's NW Auto. It is running great now. The bill was over $600. Oh well, the car has really not cost much at all in service in all these years.
I stopped in Starbucks after picking up the car. I usually sit facing the interior of the store because the view out the window is so busy with the parking lot and all. But, this afternoon it was not very busy and I sat facing the windows for a bit. There was a woman sitting at a table outside reading and writing. She had her back to me. Beyond her I saw a short heavyset woman coming toward her across the parking lot. She was particularly noticeable because of an extremely jerky walk. It almost seemed as though her purse, which she led by her right hand, weighed a ton, yet you could tell that it wasn't really heavy. It was something in her attitude or mentality. She appeared very scattered, as though trying to live anywhere but here and now. She dumped her baggage off at the table and came in to buy some stuff. Next time I noticed her she had returned to the table with an espresso drink, soda pop bottle, and a big submarine sandwich. She sat down and rapidly pulled the wrapping off the giant sandwich as she was looking at a piece of paper on the table. She took a humongous bite out of the sandwich, as big a bite as was physically possible, and began banging on the piece of paper with her first finger so hard I thought she would break her fingernail. Meantime she was already taking away with her mouth just totally stuffed with food. She managed to get a few clumsy chews in between all the verbiage and then took a drink of soda pop. Jeez, what must have been going on inside her mouth? It must have been full of soggy bread now.
So she is still chewing away with her cheeks pushed out, her mouth still packed with food, and what does she do? She opens her mouth and stuffs the end of the sandwich into it and bits off another huge piece! And she immediately starts taking again while banging her finger down on the paper. I couldn't help thinking of James Joyce's character who lived so many feet from his body. She was about as scattered a person as can be, trying to do several things at once in a state of hyper-oblivion.
Monday, May 30, 2005. If you sit still, close your eyes, in a quiet place, then it is your thoughts and internal body sensations that become your center of attention. If it is not quiet you can wear earplugs.
In that setting you have a couple options. You can either attempt to control the focus of your attention or just notice whatever you are aware of from moment to moment. If you opt to try to intentionally direct your attention you will discover that you cannot do it for very long, at least at first. But similarly you will find that you cannot simply pay attention to the thoughts and sensations that arise without sort of blanking out. You will suddenly realize that you were 'lost' for a time and can't even remember what you were aware of.
Even though you are sitting still there is the movement of breathing going on. It is common practice to attend to your breathing.
Your posture is something that you have quite a bit of control over. It is much easier to concentrate the mind if you are sitting up than when you are laying down.
Part of the skill of observing your thoughts consists of not caring what you think, not taking your thoughts seriously and certainly not taking action based on them. Just notice what you are thinking, that is, to look at them not as your thoughts but just as passing phenomena. Don't think of them as 'your' thoughts or as good ideas, but just things that come and go.
Saturday, May 28, 2005. In the field at the west end of 7th Av NE there are a lot of wild flowers in bloom right now. No bees. Since I have been home I've been keeping an eye out for bees here. I finally found one bee visiting a blooming rhododendron. We seem to have a shortage of bees this year.
At least in this country we never see commas in street addresses. In the case of mine, 24440, it would work a lot better if it were written 24,440 and spoken as twenty-four thousand four hundred forty. I have a feeling it would confuse people though. It often happens that when I give my address over the phone they write down 2440. They hear 444 as 44. I suppose I could say, "twenty four, four, forty." But anyway, why don't we use commas?
Friday, May 27, 2005. Yesterday I stopped at the market in Winslow to buy a couple bottles of Roma. I had parked diagonally in a shady area down the street. When I was leaving I was in the car putting the seatbelt on when I noticed an old woman standing at the passenger's window. It was open a ways. She was saying something but she spoke softly and my hearing is not good. I finally gathered that she wanted a ride 'up the hill'. I let her in. She said she was 86 years old and that she walked 4 miles every day but that day she had been walking with some people who went a lot further and she was tuckered out. I had trouble understanding where she wanted to go but finally realized that what she called the 'mall' was the group of shops near the Safeway on High School Road so I drove her there. She said, "My name is .............., it means remembrance." She was so grateful. She was concerned that I was going out of my way and said, "You don't have to do this." It would have been a long uphill walk for her and the day was very hot. I was glad to help her. Her face was sagging and wrinkled but her eyes looked very bright.
This morning I was reading what Hui-neng had to say about the mind, the inner self, the body. Again I wondered about how these enlightened folks rarely have anything to say about the outer world, other than to refer to greed, desire, attachment, etc. as the source of all suffering. Sometimes it seems rather weird to me, but then I have been conditioned to value externals so much. I ordered a cheeseburger at Dairy Queen and was sitting there eating and looking at the beautiful sunshine out the window and something dawned on me. In this culture we believe that happiness comes from from outside ourselves. You will be happy when you get the proper house, boyfriend or girlfriend, the right car or truck, the right job, the right home entertainment center, all the latest electronic entertainment paraphernalia, the good looking body, some new clothes, costly meals, etc.
On the financial news on TV today I heard this. "Americans have an increase in earnings right now and that is good for the economy. They are not saving, they are spending. Economists know that the cure for stress is retail therapy." I changed the channel and there is the husband sitting on a couch, live, unrehearsed, holding a baby and there are other kids playing around. The wife comes into the room with a microphone battery pack on the back of her pants. She is blond, skinny with large breasts, tight clothes on, pretty face. She sits down on the couch and asks what they are going to do for the day. He doesn't know. She says, "I know, let's rent 6 movies and we can spend the whole day watching movies." It is really sad.
Now just what is this 'happiness' we are seeking? Is it not a feeling, something we experience inside? And is it not fleeting? The feeling fades. No feeling lasts. Just like thoughts, they arise and they fade. Now it is important to realize that these 'good' feelings will arise in you without your having to possess or own things. Sitting at a window on a ferry in the sound, suddenly a seagull sweeps by the window, stiff-winged, gliding on the air currents around the ferry. You feel a thrill at the wonder of flight. And in this case you are content to let it go. In many cases you like something, you feel good when you see it or hear it, so you try to obtain it, repeat it, acquire it, buy it, possess it. Then comes anxiety, fear of losing it, dependency on it, all these very unsatisfactory feelings. Do we openly admit that this is part of being attached to external things? Do we accept that there is always suffering involved when we seek happiness in externals? I don't think that is commonly understood here.
Suppose you could be in a state of complete bliss, contentment and satisfaction and own nothing more that a few books, clothes, a bowl? There are many such people in the world. They have achieved an inner peace unknown to those of us who struggle to satisfy our small little egotistical concerns.
So, my point here is that this 'happiness' is internal. It does not depend on outer things. It is an inner state. What is your inner state right now?
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Someone I know is in Calcutta now, working as a volunteer at a school for orphans. He says that these kids have nothing yet they laugh and play games.
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So if you are looking for external things and situations that 'make you happy' you are counting on externals to create an inner state.
Also you think you know what will make you happy. You want to control things. You need to be right. You cut yourself off from experiencing by doing that. You long ago came to conclusions about yourself. You like this, you don't like that. You're good at this, you can't do that. But these are nothing more than notions, thoughts. But you have a need to believe that you are right, your thoughts are valid, truth. But, down deep you realize that you don't always like the things you say you like and you hate to admit it when you enjoy something you were sure you didn't like. You want to believe you already know all your likes and dislikes because you need to feel that things are fixed, stable, known beforehand. You think that will provide security. But of course it doesn't. Instead your mind dwells on fears. So you cling all the harder, building up safeguards, insurance, avoidance. You can never give it up. You can never accept that none of this is you. The fixed ideas you have are as part of the external world. They are conclusions based on experiences. You can 'prove' they are correct. Does it ever occur to you that some of these ideas are very unpleasant and bring nothing good into your life? Would it not be wonderful if you were wrong? What if you could rid yourself of these fearful thoughts? If you found a thorn in your shoe would you not remove it?
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You know how we can be tormented by our endlessly wandering minds? Is that part of the inner or outer world? It is part of inner world. And it can be a source of great misery. Enlightened people are free from the torment of the thinking mind. This seems to be step one, to not be carried along by the stream of thoughts.
Thursday, May 26, 2005. Ah, what a day. A roaster. In the morning, Julie's daughter came in again with her little baby girl. They sat next to me and when I said, referring to the baby, "She has such a beautiful face," she said, as before, "Thanks." I know that is a common response but I was tempted to say, "I mean the baby, not you." When people compliment Sitka I never say, "Thank you." It is so funny that I knew her daughter before I knew Julie and had no idea they were related. Her daughter is quite beautiful herself. She is a pre-med student at Washington State. She left today.
Then in walked Josey with her daughter Kate, just back from Marine boot camp and in her uniform. She looked so good. She has lost a lot of weight. The top to her uniform was taylored to her figure, being very narrow at the waste. Curt asked her what her plans were with the Marines. She said she was going to go to a military language school in Monterey. Curt is a marine engineer, i.e., he designs things for boats. His latest invention is a 'kite' that mounts on a modern fiber cable, a replacement for the usual steel cable used by tug boats to pull barges. The kite functions to carry the light-weight fiber cable down so that there is some room for tension release when a sudden shock hits the cable, as happens during turns. They are dealing with huge forces here. The tug boat engine might be 14,000 horsepower.
I took the ferry to Seattle in the morning. Wandered around Daniel Smith's for a while. I enquired about their supplies for etchings. The press is the only real expense. Meantime, I could make some prints by hand with linoleum blocks. I have everything but haven't used the stuff for years.
Went to Seattle Pottery Supply and bought an adjustable sculpting stand and a few bags of Vashon Orange, no grog. An employee carried the stand out to my car while I was loading the clay. He handed me the two parts, the base and the moving part. Later, when I took it into the shop I discovered that the pin was missing. I called the shop and a girl went out to the parking lot and found the pin! It had been there undisturbed for 5 hours. She said she would mail it to me. Meantime I fashioned one out of welding rod.
On the way back on the ferry I examined the coastline north of downtown Seattle and realized that I have been to so many areas that were visible from the ferry, I recognize key landmarks and know what it is like to be there. As we approached Bainbridge I noticed the same thing. I could pick out places I had been along the coast and knew what was there.
Very hot day. It started to cool off in the late afternoon. I took Sitka and went down to Stabucks about 5:30. We sat outside. Jessica came out and talked with me on her break. She told me that Candice's dog had died. I know her landlord had told her she couldn't have a dog there so she had her boyfriend taking care of it. There is some mystery about the death.
Sitting there outside I was reading from Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. His descriptions are rather open-ended, leaving a lot of room for you to fill in with your imagination. The result was that, after an interruption (one of Sitka's fans was rubbing her ears and introducing her friend) I thought I had accidentally skipped ahead in the book because I couldn't recognize that I had just read the lines I was looking at. As I looked back over the earlier pages much of it seemed unfamiliar. Very strange experience. I put the book down and just sat there for a while. A young girl with chubby cheeks and a turned up nose walked by with pants that barely covered her crotch. Domino's delivery cars pulled in and out. A kid with loud music (if you could call it that) playing in his car drove by. He turned onto 7th and roared off with his custom exhaust making a horrible racket. Then the Indian kid that works at his parent's gas station there took off in his hot car. It made a huge deep sound, like it was very powerful. An SUV drove by with a small dog in the back that went ballistic at the sight of Sitka. Sitka just followed the car with her head. A heavy-set woman walked toward her car with her coffee in hand. She had a relaxed, care-free style. Her baggy black pants were rolled up to the knees as thought she had been wading. Her t-shirt said, "I like toast," in big black letters and she wore a red bandana on her head. There were whispy white clouds up high and a gentle breeze. It was warmer outside than in Starbucks. They had the AC on. There were two Chinese people sitting in a black Honda. The back windows were rolled down and the front windows were nearly closed. The man was very big, heavy, and bald and wore a baseball cap. He sat behind the wheel. He called someone on a cell phone and had a very loud conversation in Chinese. He sounded quite upset. This went on for quite a while.
I saw Roger a few days ago. He had just taken a flight to Austrailia, nonstop from Seattle. He said they loaded up with 330,000 pounds of fuel.
Wednesday, May 25, 2005. Gregg invited me over after the morning life drawing class. We had a curry dish he had made the day before, vegetables and wild rice. Then we drove down to Port Blakely. At one time it was a booming port. Now there is little left of the old structures. Bainbridge Island recently bought some waterfront land at the point to the north of the harbor and made it free access. We went down onto the beach at the point. He had picked that day because the tide was very low. We spent a long time on the rocky beach, looking around in the tide pools. Although it was a beautiful sunny day out there was a brisk wind and I was glad I had brought my jacket. I had a couple magnifying glasses with me and we spent quite a while sitting examining little rocks. You can see Seattle in the distance. Sailboats passed silently now and then and there were great container ships in the distance. We sat right there at the water level watching. It was very pleasant. Back at his house we sat in the cabin of the sailboat he is working on. I finally got to see all the details he had told me about. The boat has a huge keel and is on a large trailer so we had to climb a ladder to get up in the boat. When you are in the boat you ar about two stories up. We sat in there swapping stories for quite a while. It was like kids in a treefort. It was 5:30 by the time I left. It was a good day. I'm so glad to see the weather changing so that it is nice outside.
Tuesday, May 24, 2005. Been enjoying reading records of the talks of Hui-neng, an ancient Chinese patriarch. Sometimes such things seem so odd to me, having grown up in this modern American age of electronic communication. Also working for years in electrochemistry the notion of an objective external world is deeply embedded in my mind. I was led to believe that paying attention to and thinking about the external world was the only sensible thing to do. I also looked to the external world for satisfaction and fulfillment. well, it can keep you busy, that's for sure.
Someone sent me this message:
I was consulting another book, edited by Kornfield, Living Buddhist Masters (1977) where he was interviewing and profiling a handful of Theravada Buddhist monks and abbots in Burma, Laos, & Thailand. In his intro, he discusses the difference between ‘concentration’ (Samatha) meditation (upon some object), and ‘insight meditation’ (Vipassana).
“Insight mediation, also called process meditation, does not fix the mind on one object. Instead, it develops the quality of concentration on changing objects as a tool for probing the nature of the mind-body process. Insight meditation is practiced by developing bare attention, a seeing-without-reacting to the whole process of our world of experience, to consciousness, and to all the objects of consciousness. Rather than fix the meditation on one object, the ongoing stream of the changing mind-body continuum becomes the meditation object, and through balanced, clear observation comes insight and wisdom into what we really are.”
Let me know if this has any resonance with what you meant by ‘the ticket’ (viz., scrutinizing your ‘processes,’ ‘seeing into your own nature’)
I wrote back:
"His description of Vipassana meditation sounds exactly like what I mean by experiencing myself and the world as process. Awareness of one thing after another without holding onto anything. It also involves a sort of indifference, that is, nothing seems special, everything is of equal interest. Although things seem different from one moment to the next there is a sense of continuity."
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Paying attention to the inner world is just not part of our culture. I was led to believe it was a useless and morbid activity. Now I realize that what was referred to there was "thinking" about one's self, not simply observing. Oddly enough, most authors of authoritative books on psychology have hardly ever paid attention to what goes on in their own minds. Instead psychology is a sort of human behavior study with pet theories, as though it was all outside of themselves.
Even feeling the inside of our own bodies is rarely if ever mentioned. At the slightest sensation we experience fear and take pills. We live in fear of own bodies. We see our bodies as though from outside, as part of the external world. This afternoon I watched a long advertisement for an exercise program you can order on CDs. It is by a black fellow who originated this Tae Bo or something like that. The commercial showed all these people working out and showing before and after pictures and giving testimonials. Meantime the soundtrack was going on and on about how much weight was lost, how good they look now, how you can have the body you always wanted. It was all, totally about "looks", how your body looks in the mirror, looks on the outside to others. And the workout is very aggressive looking, like simulated combat. Brother, the amount of money, time and effort put into trying to create an image. They think that will satisfy them.
I was just down at Starbucks. A body builder walked in. Big bulging muscles. He wore a little shirt with no sleeves so you could see all his big muscles. He held his arms out to the side. He was proud of his big muscles.
So, all these things about experiencing yourself as a process and feeling a continuity through all the changes from moment to moment, all this sort of stuff, observing passing thoughts with detachment, what does this stuff matter in the 'real' world of externals? They probably seem like nonsense to most contemporary Americans. But not to Americans like Walt Whitman or Emerson.
"Familiar as the voice of the mind is to each, the highest merit we ascribe to Moses, Plato, and Milton is, that they set at naught books and traditions, and spoke not what men but what they thought. A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. " Emerson
"To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, — that is genius." Emerson. "And what I assume, you shall assume, ..." Whitman.
Here is a question: where are all these things taking place? Not in the external world. Are they 'real', as real or more real than what we see around us? Or are they just phantoms? Or is this so called external world nothing but phantoms? Can we even see this external world without it being rapidly painted over with notions, opinions, speculations, desires, fears? What we see for a moment is supplanted by thoughts.
If you ask yourself, "What am I?" and just stay with it for a while, trying to get a grasp on what you experience, do you realize that you really don't know? "Who is it that is looking out of these eyes?" "Who is noticing these thoughts?" "What do I mean by 'I'?"
These are not questions to be dismissed lightly. But then I suppose they are for many people. The contemporary conditioned mind has a ready and rapid opinion as a reaction and can easily dismiss it as nonsense. That conditioned mind is not your mind but a phantom made of rules and opinions, words of authorities, accepted unquestioningly in moments of fear.
Are thoughts insignificant? Well, consider that almost our entire lives in this culture take place in interaction with a world that is a product of human thoughts. And they are the type of thoughts in service of and driven by such things as ambition, fear, competition, comparison, judgment, greed, selfishness, lust, gluttony, anger, obsession, aggression, etc. Many of these tendencies are admired as virtues here. Aggression, ambition, competition are requirements for 'success'. These are the values with which Donald Trump judges the candidates on The Apprentice. They sit at the table insulting and criticizing each other and blowing their own horns and are admired for it. The bigger the ego the better. Lying, deceiving, cheating, calculating are requirements to win on Survivors.
Who was it that said, "People with opinions just go around bothering each other," ?
Here is a picture of my shoulder where they made the excision.
Here is the latest on the coffeehouse painting.
Friday, May 20, 2005. Two practices that I think are important are (1) to experience yourself and life as a process, and (2) to pay attention to where you are looking.
You know how sounds come and are gone? They very much exist only in the moment. With sight it is easy to just look at the world as though it is just all this stuff out there all the time. Paying attention to where you are looking from moment to moment introduces the experience of the process in the present moment into seeing.
Here are two of my conclusions. (1) You can only see and hear in the present. (2) In terms of perception there are only specifics.
When we talk we use words like 'man' and 'tree'. And we can speak about these in general terms like trees have leaves and men have arms and legs. But you cannot see a generalized tree. There are no trees to be found other than specific trees.
Tuesday, May 17, 2005. Haven't been writing stuff for my website as much lately. That is partially due to a drop off in readership. It is like I'm interested if you are interested.
Went to Zenkai at Three Treasures Sunday and finally got to meet with Jack again. I told him I planned to attend the week long sesshin in June. We related pretty well, had interesting conversation. He understands well some of my perceptions. I mentioned several ways in which my experience of thinking and words as rather trivial and unreal has been growing. He pointed to one of the tulips in a bowl next to him and said, "I could say,'There is a red tulip,' but of course it is not a red tulip." I laughed. He really does get what I mean. I told him that I was living more in the present. He asked, "How do you know that?" I was impressed.
I manged to get there well before 6:30am and claimed a spot near where he would be seated so that I'd be able to hear him. I claimed it by replacing the zafu with my new wooden stool. Near the end of the day he gave a long talk about a member of the Sangha who had just died of cancer. At the very end he turned to me and said or asked something. I could tell that he was looking at me but what he said sounded like, "Is there something cooking?' I sat there thinking, "He must have said something other than that," and I never said anything. My eyes sort of twitched and I looked off to the right. When I looked back he was making some kind of motion with his head that I didn't understand. Then he went on to other business and then we resumed sitting. That stupid response has bothered me since. I certainly should look into getting a hearing aid.
Two weeks passed after the biopsys with no word. It was an interesting experience. I noticed that I would think worrisome thoughts and then think other things. After a day the worrisome thoughts were rare. But the potential problem was in the back of my mind. When the phone would ring I would imagine that it was the dermatologist. They did finally call yesterday and I went in for in-office surgery this morning. She and the nurse were chit-chatting while she was cutting away on my shoulder. I made a funny noise and she asked if it hurt. I said, "No, but with you guys chatting away I wonder where your mind is." The nurse said, "This is the only time we have to talk." I ended up joining in. We talked about pet animals mostly. They did my back as well. I go back in a week to have the stitches removed.
I left there and went to Starbucks. Faith was giving Heather her 6 month interview at the next table. That was interesting. I asked Faith if all her employees got along pretty well with each other. She said they did. I remembered then that Suzy had quit after Faith took over. Then in walked the lady with the great posture and long neck. Her husband was behind her with a little baby in a carrier. The last time I had seen her she was due any day. She had carried the pregnancy so well. Here they were with their baby. Everyone was delighted. She was beaming. It was a beautiful baby, named Jacob. I said, "So that's what came out. Now we can see what he looks like." She was so happy with the baby. It was a delight to see them. They never stay.
Here is how the coffee house painting is going. Actually it has changed even more since this photo.
Yesterday the sun came out briefly after a rain. Steam was rising off everything. I managed to got some of it .
Friday, May 13, 2005. For some time now when I am 'seeing' I try to think of relevant words to describe what I am seeing. The words invariably seem so ridiculously simple and pointless in terms of one's direct experience. This afternoon while standing in line at the market check stand I was observing the various colors around me, particularly the colors of clothing. While looking at a color it is just simply that color. You don't have any difficulty perceiving it. It is what it is. But, as soon as you try to apply a name. like salmon, navy or magenta, to a color or analyze in terms of hue, luminosity and brilliance, or imagine what pigments you might try mixing to produce the same color, then there is difficulty and effort and dissatisfaction. There is no perfect answer. You can experience how all the tension and dissatisfaction is the result of thinking about the color.
Whereas, at least in my case, it requires some effort to apply words to what I am seeing, or hearing, thinking of words comes automatically when I look at written words. This is known as reading. In the speed reading class we learned to refrain from pronouncing the words to yourself. It slows you down. So today while sitting reading in Starbucks, I tried, for the second time, to do just the opposite, i.e., to read very slowly and pay a great deal of attention to my sub-vocalizing or the words. I felt like a child learning to read phonetically.
In the process an interesting thing happened. I began to realize that the 'meaning' of each word was the result of associations made, mostly long ago. They came largely from listening to people speak. They rarely had anything to do with anything you can see or touch. They were 'concepts', whatever that is. It was a strange and very interesting experience. It is like getting to the bottom of what language is about. I sense there is a connection between how we learn a language and our concern about what others are thinking.
One thing I noticed was that many words, particularly prepositions, are required simply to satisfy the logic of grammar. The language has requirements such as making complete sentences that are strictly a matter of grammar. Other words could be related to experiences that were not sights or sounds but were definitely experiences. Examples are 'memory', 'fear', 'embarrassment', 'knowledge'. Others have a clear meaning but don't immediately relate to an experience. Examples are 'mistake', 'enterprise', 'eloquence', 'complexity', 'purpose'. It is very difficult to describe but is quite an experience to read so slowly that you explore the personal meaning of each word. I began to realize how personal all my understanding of words is, how it depends entirely on my unique experiences with the words. Each word has a 'meaning' and the way they are strung together has meaning.
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For several days I have been bothered by a foul, rotten odor in the living room. I notice it when I sit on the mattress to eat at the little floor-table. I washed Sitka, I washed the covers on the mattress, I mopped the floor, and still, the foul smell persisted. Tonight I found the cause. There was a rotten corpse of a big rodent that the cat had brought in behind the rolled up rug where it was not visible from where I sat. That was the cause. It smelled awful. Fuzzface has been real busy lately. This morning I found a dead mouse on the mattress in the living room and last night I found a dead bird under my bed.
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A couple mornings ago there was a guy with bald cap and a fake moustache on Imus in the Morning who was doing an imitation of Dr. Phil. He sounded just like him and his responses to people on the program were so like Dr. Phil he just had everyone in stitches. You just couldn't stop laughing. He just went on and on. It was one of the funniest things I've ever seen. The guys on the show were begging him to stop. They were laughing so hard it hurt. Good imitation is a real talent. David Gregory, NBC White House correspondent, can do a terrific Tom Brocaw.
Tuesday, May 10, 2005. I have been uncomfortable with the shoulders, neck and head level of the very first figure I drew in in the coffeehouse scene. So I lowered the shoulders and painted out the head and neck. I will put them back in at a lower level.
Here is the new guy getting started.
Here is a close up of the new guy.
Here is another one that is under way now. It is an old one being reworked.
Here's a happy birthday wish for Andrea.
Here's the latest on the coffeehouse picture. I've been working on other things, but this is the only one I have been documenting. The subject has changed very little. Some of the elements have been getting clearer and more solid looking so that there is more of a feeling of solid objects in space. There is still a lot to do.
Saturday, May 7, 2005. This morning when I took Sitka to the large vacant area at the end of 7th she became very involved with a scent near the base of the hillside. She kept running back and forth with nose to the ground and periodically stopping, raising her head and looking around. I thought, "Oh no, she smells a pheasant. She'll scare it out and it will run toward the highway with her in chase." So I began yelling and clapping but couldn't get her attention. Then I spotted the pheasant. It was walking in spurts up the hillside and laying low. After several anxious minutes I got Sitka to come to the car. Boy, was she excited. Her hunting instinct had been aroused.
I felt like taking a trip over to Seattle so off I went. I parked at the garage on Union and walked up to Pike's Place Market area. I began looking for small but descent Buddhas and woodblocks to accompany chanting. I found some great woodblocks in an import shop, Hands of the World, where I had made several purchases. They also had brass bowls as are used in zendos but I don't need such a thing and they run over $50. The woodblock was in the shape of a frog. And it has a washboard like spine that produces a ribbit sound when rubbed with the stick. I just want to hit it for a loud bonk but the frog sound is very amusing.
In the back room of this store there are several smallish brass Buddhas on a shelf. As I stepped up into the room there was a man in a peculiar Asian-looking blue jacket walking ahead of me toward the Buddhas. He picked one up and examined it. I was shocked when I saw his profile. He looked very much like Jack, the roshi. But his face looked more reddish and he seemed older. I was perplexed. I kept staring at him. He was looking at Buddhas. Not many people do that. I looked at his wrists. Sure enough, they were unusually thick, just like Jack's. He showed the Buddha to a large fellow with a white beard that was with him and said something. His voice had that slightly muffled quality typical of Jack's voice. He set the statue down and turned around and looked me right in the eye. His expression was calm and open and somewhat indifferent. I looked away. It was so unusual to have any stranger look you right in the eye so directly. I didn't say anything. I felt really lame. I went to the counter and purchased the frog. When that was done I looked around and they had gone. Well, that ruined the rest of my time there. I couldn't get it out of my mind. I had intended to spend time observing people. Instead I kept thinking, "What if that was Jack? What will he say when I see him? Will he think I was pretty lame for not recognizing him?" On and on, such nonsense. Finally I tried to figure out where they might have gone and went to that area. Sure enough, there was his friend, standing outside a Mexican import shop. As I approached the shop out he came. He walked right by me and again looked me right in the eye. Damn, I was still unsure though my immediate impression was that he merely bore a strong resemblance to Jack. After that I ceased thinking about it. I had decided it wasn't him.
I listened to the Chinese violinist for a while again. I say violin because he uses a bow but beyond that there is little resemblance to a western violin. He is very accomplished but I notice that most westerners walk by him as though they don't appreciate what he is playing. It has taken me a while to be able to hear what he is doing. After walking to the art museum and checking out their permanent collection again I then drove to Uwajimaya, the giant Asian supermarket in the International district. I had lunch there. I ordered oyako donburi which consisted of chicken, egg and vegetables on rice. I asked how to pronounce it. The accent is on the first syllable of each word and the pitch falls through the word. The o in donburi is as in the word 'own'. The letter r in donburi is trilled slightly. When pronounced properly the sound is very Japanese. I can understand why Japanese have trouble with our r's. The name of the dish translated as parent and child, referring to chicken and egg.
The name of complex, Uwajimaya, has accent on the first and next to last syllables. So the ending sounds like maya in Mayan Indian. I got my order and sat at a long table to eat. There were some, I thought, very attractive young Asian women sitting at the next table. Some Japanese women have faces like simple curved masks. The eyes are simply dark slits. There is no bridge to the nose. A large Caucasian, or perhaps Jewish young woman with dreadlocks caught my interest. She was ordering some food. She came and sat across from me. She looked at me and smiled. She had a tray of sushi. She began carrying out this elaborate ritual with various seasonings and putting an entire sushi piece in her mouth in one piece. I was impressed that she knew how to do this. Suddenly one of the chopsticks flew out of her hand onto the floor. She said something like, "Oh shit." She began packing up all her foodstuff, picked up the chopstick and slipped it and the other one back into the paper wrapper, got up and walked off taking everything with her. I bought a bowl as well while there. That meant that I got the first hour parking for free.
From there I parked near Liberty Bay Books and walked to the Foster White Gallery. They had some very nice glass work and a bunch of worthless paintings. These 'worthless' paintings were priced at $6,000 to $10,000. And several had sold markers on them, the little red circle. One of the young women that worked there came back and asked my opinion of the art work. I was pretty honest with her. I refrained from saying about this one guy's work, "If I had those pieces I could use the canvases." I told her I knew the woman that was going to have the show of wood carvings there soon. She knew who I meant and explained that they have three galleries and that show would be at the one on Fifth between Union and University.
As I walked to the bookstore I could see my reflection in the big windows and realized how I have developed a huge pot belly lately. That is always how I gain weight. My appendages are still skinny.
Friday, May 6, 2005. I finally opened The Course in Miracles and read the first exercise in the Workbook section. It has you look around and say, "That building there doesn't mean anything," and "That shoe doesn't mean anything," etc., applying that thought to anything you see with no exception.
Well, there you go. It sounds just like my experience when I am in what I call my 'seeing' mode, as opposed to 'thinking' mode. Everything seems without meaning and no particular thing seems more important than anything else. There is a sort of 'evenness' to what I see. I suppose you could say that when I start seeing 'meaning' in some particular thing is when I lose it and shift into thinking mode. I can't help thinking of the soap opera line, "I thought that 'meant' something to you."
So, this seems pretty familiar to me. But I've never done it as a mental exercise. Something that surprised me was they said not to try to apply it to everything you see and only do it for a minute or so and a couple times a day. And I gather that it is only for one day. They have another exercise for the second day, and so on.
Dark and cold today. It was very pleasant yesterday. And there was a north wind. I didn't notice the wind direction this morning. I did notice some of the outside table legs are loose again. I'll try to remember to take my Allen wrench set down there and put lock washers on the rest of the screws.
This diagram compares the shopping habits of men and women.
I tried TV watching this afternoon and felt particularly disgusted. I noticed that I have a very negative response to the vehix.com ads. Later I realized that all their ads show the prospective buyer as concerned only with the external appearance of the car. I recall how odd it seemed to me when I used to do architectural renderings that the main concern of my clients was how the house or building looked from the outside. Now in the case of a car or a house you spend almost all of your time inside the thing. It seems to reflect our concern about how such things that we identify with appear to other people. In other words, what do other people think of us? And we imagine what they think. We think for them. A young guy with a hot rod car imagines that spectators are thrilled when they see (or hear) the car. Most the people that see it wouldn't want to have that kind of car, just don't care for it at all.
The same thing is true of so many things we spend money or time on. How about six pack abs? Isn't that all for looks? And those ridiculous high heeled shoes that women wear. And women's makeup. So much of our concern is about appearances. How pointless.
Do you ever notice what you think when you see someone with a bunch of tattoos, nose rings, strips of cloth hanging all over their pants? It is that thought that these folks are concerned about. That's it. What do you think when you see a guy in an expensive suit get out of an expensive car? Well, many women would think, "Hey, that's a guy I'd like to know." It does work if you want to manipulate people. You put a lot of effort into putting together an impressive resume, you get a better job. So, in a way, the way many folks see life it is all about getting your way with others, getting what you want from them. Money, respect, admiration, applause, support.
I've often been tempted to ask scholars, "How would you feel if you understood the greatest thing that could ever be known but couldn't tell anybody?" Or, "How much effort would you put into this book-learning if you were completely alone in the world, the last man alive?"
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With regard to painting and drawing, my experience has been that there are several ways to think while working that help produce the effect of solid objects in space. One is two work the surface gradually outward from a point in a continuous manner, building a continuous surface on the object. That is as opposed to jumping around from one place to another. Another is to continuously visualize the direction of a line normal to the surface of the object. It can be thought of as the direction the little plane is facing. It can also be thought of as a line perpendicular to a plane tangent to the surface. Another is to imagine that as you lay down the pigment on the surface of the imagined object that you are touching the object and moving your finger a long it. Another is to watch the mark grow as it is laid down. This generally requires slowing down. Another is to imagine lines extending beyond objects and seeing where they would go, especially in relation to the painting's (or drawing's) surface.
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Had lunch yesterday at the new Poulsbo Deli, where the old New York Deli was. I had a hot pastrami on rye. It was real greasy but very tasty.
Another message from Ben:
It's so funny sometimes how twisted stories get by the time they hit newspapers. This one is not half as bad as others that have come out. Article.
Thursday, May 5, 2005. Well I finally saw some of American Idol. Linda had given me the time and channel. I don't think I have ever watched anything on channel 13. I watched 20 minutes of it. Three people sang. The background is chaotic, red and blue flashing lights, to me annoying to look at. After each song there were three 'judges' sitting there and they gave their opinions. I just don't get it, why this program should be so popular. There must be a big money thing for the winner. Why do they use the term 'idol'? Is this the result of celebrity worship? So today the news is full of discussion about Paula Abdul, one of the judges, having an affair with a contestant. Do men watch this stuff?
Gregg stopped by for a couple hours. He brought his dog, something Sitka enjoyed.
Tuesday, May 3, 2005. When I arrived at Starbucks this morning people were greeting me as Sunshine. Julie explained that Faith has been assigning nicknames lately and mine is "Sunshine". Gosh. She was very grateful for my having repaired the outdoors tables for them.
I've been trying out the new meditation stool. It is pretty tall by design. It is easier to shorten the legs than to lengthen them. But it seems to work pretty well as is. The wood is some of the new curly maple I got from Mike. Floyd has started buying maple from him for his turning. I had given him some of the maple that I had picked from my firewood and he said he has made one bowl from it so far and it is very interesting looking wood. Anyway, I want to get the stool down right before the week-long sesshin in June. A common complaint is pain in the legs from so much sitting. I think I can beat it with the stool.
Here is a message I received from Ben:
Here's the story that was aired locally about our company, World Radio Link. We've had quite a few reporters around lately and stories in various newspapers, magazines, radio programs, and I think this was our first TV coverage.The LA Times will be releasing their story some time this week.
To see a video about the company that Ben and Weston are working for, click here.
Monday, May 2, 2005. Been sleeping an awful lot lately. Made an appointment with a dermatologist regarding a little red sore spot on my shoulder. She thought it might be cancerous, basal something, and took a biopsy. Then she found another like that on my back and then a mole on my arm that she thought might be melanoma. So she took three biopsys. Boy, that put a damper on my day.
Thursday, April 28,2005. Zazen and dokusan from 6:30 to 8:30 with Jack was listed for Wednesday evening. Went to figure drawing class from 9:30 to 12:30am, then home to be with Sitka a while before leaving again. Then off to Seattle on 2:55 ferry. Parked on Union and went to SAM, renewed membership and looked around. They had their 19th century French paintings out in one room. I found that real interesting. Also checked out the Italian stuff, 15th century and earlier. They looked more clear and solid to me than usual. Hung out at Lark of the Morning for a while talking with the owner about Indian instruments, then had a whopper at Burger King near the zendo. I walked in just before they started sitting and ended up sitting as far as you could get from Jack. He speaks so softly that I could not make out a word the few times he spoke. I don't know what he said. I ended up just sitting for two hours and never got to talk with him. I was told that he wanted to talk (dokusan is private interview) with the people who were his regular students and who were working on koans and would see me if he had time. He didn't. This was the first time I had heard about the ceremony in which he accepted you as a student and you accepted him as your teacher. Also I didn't know that he worked with koans. Well, I'll have to say that after having checked out several Buddhist groups in the sound area he is the only person I have met that I would turn to as a teacher.
I took my little stool along and sat on that. For once I wasn't left sitting rubbing my numb leg while everyone else got up for kinhin. I could sit on that thing for hours.
This morning Erin came over and said she had seen me on the ferry coming back from Seattle. I asked why she hadn't said anything. She said she was waving away but couldn't get my attention. Floyd came in and they started talking. Turns out they had known each other for years.
Here's a couple drawings of the model we had Wednesday. He brought his own reggae music with him. As you can see, his head is shaved.
I said, "This is the first time I've seen a Rastafarian with no hair." He said, "It's genetic. I used to have hair down to my here," as he indicated his waste. Then he rubbed the top of his head and you could see that he was balding quite a bit. I think he said that his father had lost his hair early.
The coffee house picture is coming along slowly
Meantime I've been working on another one as well.
Tuesday, April 26, 2005. The weather was pretty nice and I was out in the back part of my lot doing some clearing of trails and planning to make more trails. Sitka thought that was great. The riding mower won't start. I'm afraid it is the result of my having carelessly parked it so it wasn't well protected by the overhanging roof on the pump house.
I stopped at a signal and heard reggae music coming from my left. I turned and saw a big very black and shining face with dreadlocks and thick bushy mustache and big beard. It was a Rastafarian from Jamaica, mahn.
Monday, April 25, 2005. I have been working on paintings a bit the last few days. It is a slow process. I use a very small brush with thin paint. I am able to maintain the feeling of reaching into the distance, that is into an apparent space behind the surface of the painting, and carefully and slowly deposit paint strokes onto the apparent surface of imagined objects in that distant space. It feels as though I am wiping the paint off the brush onto the object's surface far behind the surface of the painting. As the objects develop it becomes easier to maintain that feeling and as the object begins to look more solid so I feel the brush in my hand more and the object takes on a solid tactile appearance.
As I improve in this process I am more and more able to see and appreciate how the same effect is present to be seen, but is generally not seen, in the work of many famous artists. Velasquez, Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Goya, Picasso, Modigliani, Titian, David, Poussin, Van Gogh, to name a few. There it is. I can see it now and couldn't before, or rarely. And I have yet to find another person who knows what I am talking about. At it's clearest, the result is that the painted objects seem to be sharing the same space as you are. Say, that makes me remember an important thing. As you work on becoming more physically present then objects around you become more defined in shape, size and location. Your body becomes the reference. An object is a certain distance from you. Similarly, as you make yourself more present in front of the painted surface, such as sensing the distance from your face or eyes to the painting surface, the painted object and the space it seems to occupy become part of your continuous spacial perception.
A somewhat unrelated but consistent phenomena is that if I happen to have a radio or TV going while I worked on a picture, then, any time I resume work on it I remember hearing the people talking that were talking at the time on the radio or TV. Similarly if a certain topic unrelated to the painting subject was on my mind at the time I was working on it, then when I approach the picture later I remember those thoughts. There could be years of time difference between the experiences.
Had lunch with Gregg at the New Rose Cafe in Bainbridge Gardens. We talked almost entirely about zen related things, perception, awareness, drawing. I'm rather amazed at how similar our interests are. It is a nice place to walk around in after eating. He knew the historical background of the location. We don't get much chance to talk at the figure drawing class.
I'm still fascinated with the "Disappearance of the Universe" book. Tonight I looked up The course in Miracles on the internet and read some of their material. I guess I will order the book. Just a moment ago I read that the first lesson says, "Nothing I see means anything". This is exactly my perception years ago when I looked up from reading a book on electrochemistry and began looking at the colors around me. I was sitting at an outside table at a mall. "Here I am in this beautiful, rich world that I can see around me and none of it 'means' anything. It is just there to be seen," When I mentioned this to Marc years ago he took issue with my using the term 'meaningless' as something positive or valuable. I still have this understanding; when I really can see clearly I am not bringing any psychological baggage into the experience. I am open. The second I start seeing 'meaning' in things is when my neurotic, screwed up attitudes come forth in the form of interpretations and I become concerned about being 'right'. This being "right' about judgments and opinions is a sure fire method of creating chaos and misery in your life. It is all an ugly manifestation of the ego, that miserable, isolated individual dominated by fear.
When I described my experiences with seeing, Eshin (Vancouver Zen Center) suggested paying attention to what took place during the transition from seeing to thinking, how I lost it. That is quite a challenge.
Sunday, April 24, 2005. Felt peculiarly lonely at times today. Went three times to Starbucks. Still won't read at home, only at Starbucks. Have been fascinated with that strange book "The Disappearance of the Universe." Saw Bob this evening and told him he might be interested in the book. Talked with Candice for a while. I like her. Went to Bad Blanche's furniture store to look over the Buddhas they had there. They are Chinese. And they look Chinese. The Buddha was Indian. In Thailand the Buddhas look Tai, and so forth. The usual depictions of Jesus that we see here look Nordic. So, I am working on an American Buddha face. I want to portray the calm and peaceful feeling but with Western features and stylized rather than naturalistic.
Lately when I look at pictures of paintings on books the depth gets clearer each day. Likewise objects around me appear more three dimensional, i.e., I can more readily perceive their form, particularly if they are elongated in the direction toward and away from me. Also, very interestingly, the old sensation that I had with frequency as a kid is returning, that I 'see' imaginary lines in the air that extend lines of an object beyond the object's limits. A straight bench has lines extending across the room toward me passing right by my body. When I was a kid I respected those lines by not stepping where they passed over the ground or floor. Actually they are often not lines but planes.
This seems to be connected with my rather frequent considering of the notion that the world you see is in your mind. I know this is a strange and esoteric idea but I am not the first one to think of it. Lately I encounter it in my reading rather frequently. That perception first came to me when I was 19 years old and was considering how the world would appear very different if we could see ultraviolet light. Upon thinking that I had some kind of unusual experience. But when I mentioned my feeling to others they just dismissed it. Someone pointed out that it was simply an old philosophy called subjective idealism. Giving it a mundane label like that finished it off as an experience.
Mike got a new load of maple in and I picked out a few pieces. I thought I might make another meditation stool but ended up getting five pieces. I called Tempera and discussed some furniture items I they would like. They are very pleased with the power mower.
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Since I have been in the area I have been around to several Buddhist groups in the Puget Sound area. At this point I tend to favor The Three Treasures Sangha in Seattle. I've gone more often to some other groups mostly out of convenience. I have just recently become familiar with the Puget Sound Zen Center on Vashon Island and am attracted to the people there as well. It can get pretty confusing to spend time at several places in the same time period, going from one to another. For a large list of Buddhist organizations in the Northwest click here. There is another place I'm attracted to but am repelled by a certain cranky individual there and that is One Drop Zendo.
Friday, April 22, 2005. Here is an e-mail message I just sent to Koshin.
Koshin,
One late afternoon in 1962 or '63 in was sitting on the bed in my recently acquired girlfriend's house on Graceland Ave. in Laguna Beach, CA when I noticed a short Japanese man in black robes with a shaved head enter the house next door. My girl friend was there and I asked, "Who was that?" She answered, "He is a zen master. He comes there every week." I had heard a bit about zen. I think I had read Allan Watt's tiny book, "The Way of Zen," a few years before. The same time the following week I observed several people going into the house next door and the same Japanese fellow in the black robes. The house had a large front room that could accommodate a large number of people. After a while I said, "I'm going to go over there and see what's going on."
I walked up the stairs to the front porch and knocked on the door. The door opened and a man was standing there with his finger to his lips indicating that I should keep quiet. He opened the door and gestured for me to enter. It was rather dark in the large room and there were many people sitting cross-legged on the floor around the perimeter of the room. There wasn't a sound. I was led to a vacant spot with a cushion. I sat down with my legs crossed, something I was quite used to at the time. The man who had let me in went and sat down somewhere. So there I was, siting with a bunch of people I didn't know, none of whom made a sound or moved a muscle. I had no idea what was going on. I didn't recall Allan Watts mentioning anything like this.
Of course I had no idea how long this would go on, this silence and stillness. My mind was going nuts. I became rather panicky. What was going on here? What were they doing? How long were they going to sit there doing nothing? After what seemed an incredibly long time a bell rang and everyone stood up. What a relief. But still no one spoke. They began walking slowly around the room in a line. After a while everyone stopped in front of their cushions and resumed sitting in silence.
Aaaahhh, what did I get myself into? I was going nuts. I began to realize that something else was going on then. There was some bell ringing in another room and people were quietly getting up, one at a time and going somewhere in the rear of the house. I could hear a little rustling of clothing, soft foot-steps and faint bell ringing, none of which meant anything to me. I had no idea what was going on. After a while I was startled by someone tapping me on the shoulder. I looked up and they were gesturing for me to follow them. I got up and was led to a door in the rear of the house. I opened the door and there was the Japanese man in the black robe sitting on the floor. He gestured for me to enter and sit down in front of him, which I did. I must have had an expression of total bewilderment on my face. He asked me some questions. His English was very hard to understand. I believe he asked me if I knew God. I said no, thinking he meant did I know God personally, like some kind of mystic or something. He went on and I think he may have given me what he called a koan and then dismissed me. I went back out and sat on my cushion. I had no idea what a koan was. I don't remember at all what happened the rest of that evening.
I think it was some time after that that I began sitting with the Roshi at his place in Gardena, in the garage. Eventually he married us, that is, the same girl-friend from who's window I first saw the Roshi and myself.
Tanner
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I took a Jungian personalty type test the other day. Marc J. referred to it as Keirsey's test and said that my type is called "artisan". So I thought it was time I took my rightful place among other prominant "artisan" types.
Here is a website of a fellow who claims to have known the protagonist of Somerset Maugham's novel in California in the 50's. Click here
Thursday, April 21, 2005. I rather hate to admit it but I'm not really interested in the SIMS meetings that I've been to so far. Last night there was so much chatter and discussion among the dozen people, it turned me off. It didn't have anything to do with what I was looking for. They were nice enough people but it was just not my thing. I did enjoy listening to their head man, Rodney Smith, months ago, but the zen schools are more my thing.
A subject that I can get into is mind. What is mind? To me, that is a serious question. It is really a mystery to me. Mind is something I can't get hold of. What is it? Where is it? Is there an answer? I think there is but is not expressible in words. I imagine it is an experience.
When you are in a perceiving mode, when you can see, you can get an idea of the value of words and ideas by trying to overlay what you are seeing with labels and names. Immediately you see how trivial the words are. They are of no use to you except when you want to communicate with someone else. As I drive along and I see a grassy slope and I say to myself, with my inner voice, "Grass, green, lots of it," It seems absurdly empty compared to what I can see. A half mile down the road is another grassy slope and all I can do is repeat the same silly words.
If I tell someone a story in words they will visualize something that will include much detail that was never mentioned in the story. You fill in the blanks.
We have had a couple beautiful days now. Clear and sunny. A bit cool in the shade and a little windy, but very pleasant. The sun is going down now. I was just out in the yard, just standing there with the dog and the cat. They are both there with their furry coats, their cold wet noses and luminous eyes. It is so nice to see them and touch them.
How is it that when I look at prints of paintings in books, ones that I have looked at over and over for years, I now see so much more in them? In many the subjects look so solid, tangible, tactile. I see them more as solid volumes in air. It seems to have something to do with the sensations I have been feeling in my shoulders, as though I am breaking down chronic tension that has blocked the flow of energy from my torso to my arms and hands. When I draw nowadays I have such a clear sensation of drawing with my hands. Things seem more detailed than they used to. You know, there are no generalizations in nature. Everything is specific. Only words are general. Perception is specific. There are no trees to see other than specific trees.
It has been good for me to work with my hands, particularly working with clay. I can recall years ago, feeling ill at ease using my hands on a calculator or a mouse. I don't feel that any more.
I am becoming lazy. I know I should do things and I just don't. A simple thing like picking up a piece of paper on the floor, I will put it off for days. I don't finish things. I just disconnected the pump in the fish pond, siphoned out a lot of water and refilled it and walked away without reconnecting the pump hose to the biofilter. Why I don't know. Just lazy. The rear view mirror fell off of the windshield a couple weeks ago. I got a kit to reattach it but just never get around to it. The sleeping bag is still in the rear of the jeep since the retreat. The table I'm sitting at here has an assortment of papers that need to be filed or thrown away. Many have been there a year or so.
A while ago a fellow was aggressively picking my brain about consciousness, Buddhism, that sort of thing. He kept asking questions and trying to catch me in a contradiction, getting pretty intense. I wasn't bothered in the slightest. In fact I found it stimulating. The next day he apologized. I guess he assumed that I found it unpleasant. I assured him it was fine with me. I didn't feel the slightest threat by these intellectual challenges. I'm not sure why. I know in some cases it was like, well suppose I said there was a window over my kitchen sink and someone said, "No there isn't." Well, I am 100% sure that there is so there is no sense of threat at all. It's fine with me if they want to insist that I am wrong. It's a free country. Let them think what they want. In a case like that you would immediately know that they are saying something that is wrong.
Went to Vashon yesterday. Left at 3:30, just made the 5:05 ferry from Southworth. Bought a 16oz. container of chili at the Thriftway market and sat outside at the Malt Shop under the trees and had my little dinner while I read from The Razor's Edge. Entered the zen center at 7. Nice to see Koshin again. There were a few people from the retreat there. And the guest speaker from Vancouver was there. We sat, chanted, had ceremonial tea, and then listened to the talk. He talked about sitting, breathing, the mind. He referred to sitting as mostly physical after a while. (I remembered telling Jack, "This is a very physical religion.") Breathing out as letting go. Letting go of the self, the little self, the ego. Making relation with what is happening where you are at the moment. Making relation with objects is much easier than with people. I think he mentioned consistency. He mentioned seeing, hearing, etc., the importance of paying attention to the senses. Gradual change. Gradual adjustment. He described giving yourself completely to the present, to an event, an object, etc. Not just hearing a sound but becoming the sound. The subject-object experience is lost, there is only the sound. The self is lost.
He stopped and asked if there were questions. I said I had a question. I described my experiences with seeing vs. thinking. He said, "Is there a question?" I had to laugh. I said, "Oh, that was a statement. Well, what do you make of that?" He talked about paying attention to just how it was that I moved away from seeing into thinking, and vice-versa.
After sitting some more well all got up and milled around in the kitchen, talking freely. I met a woman who does woodcarving. Apparently she is quite good at it. She said she learned it in Indonesia. She has a house on another island near Vashon. She is having a show at a major gallery in Seattle this summer. She is an important person at PSZC. I hung around listening to conversations until after 9, never giving a thought to the ferry schedules. As I left the zen center a ferry was just leaving the island and the next one would not be for a couple hours. I drove to the ferry landing and sat in the car and finished reading the novel under a flashlight. It was midnight when I got home. Sitka was excited. But she seems to be getting used to my being gone for longer periods.
It was beautiful on Wednesday. This morning, Thursday, it is dark and cold out.
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An experiential experiment. There seems to be yourself and the world outside you. You can see the world outside. You can feel the inside of your body. You can see parts of the outside of your body in the outer world, e. g., your hands and feet. You can sense the oval shaped window in the front of your head. It is through this window that you see the external world. That oval is the boundary between the inner and outer world. You can feel the edges of this window as part of your own face. This oval window has its place in your face and in the external world. It is part of the external world. It is part of your body. Your body is part of the world around you. You are the world around you. It is all one continuous world.
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Another experiment. Where are you looking? Focus on a tiny area on the surface of an object. Now move that focal point to other places. Keep it moving, focusing on one small area to another, right on the surfaces. Follow edges of abjects. Jump from one object to another. Now just let you focal point drift where it will. Don't move it intentionally. Just let it go where it goes. But notice where you are looking. Just follow the focal point around with your attention.
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R's Chinese stone Buddha head from Bad Blanche.
A bright sunshiny day
Monday, April 18, 2005. Just got home, unloaded the groceries and sat down at the computer. No messages. The cat jumped up on the table and walked in front of the keyboard to his position near the window. Rather than jump up onto the window sill he is sitting on the table facing the window, slowly opening and closing his eyes. The sky is somewhat free of clouds today and there is sunlight coming in the window landing on the table where he is sitting. I put my hand out and rubbed his left cheek for a while. He carefully adjusted the position of his head so that my moving fingers hit slightly different spots. Then he lifted his head back and opened his mouth in a big yawn. His long sharp pointed teeth stood out in the bright light. Wicked weapons they are. His mouth closed slowly and he lowered his head and looked at my fingers. Then he lowered his head a bit and his little tongue slowly licked my first finger a few times. It was done so gently that I barely felt the abrasive rasping effect he can have with his tongue. The sun was shining on my now moist finger. I said, "Thank you Kitty," in a soft voice. I'm glad to see some sunlight for a change. The cat has now jumped up onto the sill and is stretched out in the warm sunlight, his dark tail hanging down. He doesn't mind if I pull his tail.
I sat in the sun outside Starbucks reading "The Razor's Edge". It has been a long time since I have read a story, a novel. It is almost as though I am living in the world he is describing. It almost feels as though these things have actually happened. I've never had a similar experience watching a movie. They create a different effect. I don't care much for movies in general. But I have some wonderful memories from novels I have read in the past. I read the Lord of the Rings trilogy in the 60's and I just couldn't wait to get home and plunge back into the story. I was so sad when it was over. I have seen cuts on TV of the recent movie made from those novels and they seem so horrible I never want to see them or any part of them.
I plan to go to Sid and Carol Miller's house this evening on Bainbridge. They are with the Seattle Insight Meditation Society. They have never seen me and I realize I feel embarrassed about being old and grey, as though I should be young and hardy. I do notice that people pay less attention to you as you get older. Younger people are more interesting.
The dark, the hurt and the dying
I just got home and, as I often do, I was in the kitchen putting groceries away in the dark. I tend not to put lights on unless I need to. I had left the front door open as I often do on coming in so as to let some fresh air in. I put some food in Sitka's bowl. She went toward it and then lifted her head and walked toward the living room. I thought she didn't care for the food. As I approached the living room I suddenly realized that there was a large black dog standing in the middle of the dark room. He stood very still. So did I. Sitka approached him and he began to move. Of course, it was the big black lab puppy from down the road, the one that used to beat me up with affection. He has calmed down over the months. He loosened up and started whacking things with his vigorous tail. I hurried out the door and the two dogs followed. I wanted to get him out of the house before he wrecked the place. We wrestled a bit outside while Sitka barked her jealousy.
Jessica has drawn a picture of a cup of coffee on one of the chalk boards at Starbucks. It is so good. It is a delight to see.
I went to Banes & Noble to read this evening. It was "The Razor's Edge" I wanted to read. It is odd that I just won't read at home anymore. I usually spend much of my time there looking at people and making mental notes for my art work, but this evening I was absorbed in reading as are most people there. I sat at my favorite table which offers a good view of the tables. A woman in her early twenties was sitting at a nearby table. She was so absorbed in her reading that I never once saw her look up. She had quite stack of books, mostly hard covered. She had an attractive and interesting face. Her red hair was tied up in back. After a while she was joined by a young man in rough clothes, as though he shopped at army surplus stores. He had disheveled hair and had a slight build. I was struck by his features. His nose, cheek bones, lips, jaw were delicate and graceful in form. His eyes in particular were striking. I can't find words to describe the impression his eyes made. I couldn't help thinking how attractive he was in a strange way. His face reminded me a bit of the gaunt circus people Picasso painted during his "Blue Period". They left and left behind a pile of books and a bunch of magazines on the table. I got up to go to the men's room and noticed that the book on the top of the stack was on quantum physics. I was shocked. "That little girl was reading quantum mechanics?" Actually it was not mathematical physics but popularized science written by a prominent physicist. I looked through the stack and there were a few books on physics and several on psychic phenomena and one on the spiritual teachings of Native Americans. I realized then that her interest in quantum physics was due to the appeal it has had for psychics, especially the widespread applications of Heisenberg's theory of indeterminacy. The young woman had been looking at the books. The young man had left the collection of magazines. They were all on the subject of art.
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A close friend of Jan's was dying. I sent her the message, "I'm sure it must be a difficult time for you having your friend dying. But there is much to be learned from such an experience," last night. This morning I got the message from her, "Yes, I was with her right before she died yesterday. She died at 7:37. When she said she was scared, I told her to remember when we were learning to swim and we were afraid to let go of the side of the pool. I told her that she could let go and the water would carry her. She seemed to breathe more easily after that. ...."
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I tried to keep an eye out for Pat this morning, although I was quite absorbed in the novel. I wanted to apologize to him for not responding and embarrassing him when he tried to introduce his friend. He never showed up, which is very unusual. I was worried that he might be so upset with me that he is now even avoiding coming to Starbucks. This is a terrible situation. I've only had the kindest feelings toward him and because of a stupid misunderstanding he feels hurt that I was so rude to him. From his point of view, I can't blame him. He never knew that I had been careful to remove my earplugs when I saw him approaching. How would he ever guess that I never heard him talking to me? I wasn't being rude at all. I've never had any ill feelings toward him. I just didn't notice him come in and still had my earplugs in when he came over. I never knew he was there.
This afternoon I was standing outside Starbucks talking with Candice. In the bright light, and so close, I was struck with how dramatic an impression her face makes with the pale blue eyes, shapely lips and coal black hair. Every once in a while she makes these strange sort of spacey philosophical comments that stand out to me, like, "What is time anyway?". Tuesday I'm going to lend her a book on Buddhism or something like that.
Turning over a new leaf
Sunday, April 17, 2005. For the fourth time now the file 'index.html' has become too large so I renamed the content and created a new blank 'index.html'. For some reason the 'center' tag won't work now. I can't figure out why. Oh well, I'll just have to let it go for now.
I don't really have anything much to write about this morning. I just want to have some content on the new index page. I was just thinking of mentioning something interesting that Rich told me this morning but he is not comfortable being quoted on my website, so I won't. He would like to think that when he is talking to me it is just between us and is not meant for public distribution. Well here I am paraphrasing him. I just can't seem to avoid mentioning him. So I guess I will just have to stop writing, or at least stop posting it on the internet. Why am I posting this stuff? That's a good question. It has become sort of a job for me. I put more care into what I'm writing when I intend to post it. Also I am silly enough to think that some people think that what I have to say is interesting. The fact is I rarely hear from anyone about my website. When I ask, "Did you see my description of such and such on the website?" the answer is almost always no. Oh well, I like to write and it gives me something to do.
It has been a long long time since I have read any fiction but I have become quite fascinated with reading "The Razor's Edge" by Somerset Maugham. I'm spending more time reading than normally. But still, I only read at Starbucks. At B&N I look at pictures in books sometimes, but rarely read.