Self grasping

"Absolutist notions cannot stand up to scrutiny by reasoning because they are antithetical to the fact that everything exists by depending on other factors" (p.229, Dalai Lama & Chodron, Searching for the Self)

    Inherent existence and its notion can be quite tricky, and it sometimes seems difficult to quite get the idea. While trying to deny the essentialist notion of an absolute soul or spirit, I wonder how it's possible to avoid the other extreme of nihilism. I would like to venture a few points here.

   Self-grasping can be subtle, and can take the form of believing in one's own narrative. Even the simple idea of a feeling state (sadness, for example) can be quickly transformed into the idea of an "I" as a sad person, which in turn projects this idea into the future and even into space itself. Sadness is seen as something graspable, when in fact it was only really starting a sensation, only to later be endowed with perceptions, interpretations and language. By the time anything even gets to the level of language, there is already a sense of it being a kind of thing, rather than simply a process or a set of conditions that come together in a certain way.

   I wonder if there is any way that we can live without these reified ideas, but it would be absurd to try not to use conceptualizations. I think the important point is not to confuse the "map" with the "territory". It can be a real source of suffering to try to get rid of language and narrative, and sometimes these things can be fun to work with and great ways to communicate with people. As Adyashant notes in his book Falling into Grace, language becomes more like a playful interaction than anything else, especially when we realize that language doesn't point to concrete experiences at all: language is always signifying things that have already passed and are being summarized by the brain through the filter of concepts.

   In fact, there is no need to get rid of delusions if we know that they are delusions, and in fact this reduces the power to be attracted to them. On the other hand, trying to rid the mind of delusions is like trying to empty the contents of a dream: it reinstates delusion as having some substantial nature which it actually lacks, just as a phantom limb or a nerve pain sends signals to the brain without referring to an actual object of pain.

Finding Light in the Mundane

 Sometimes when we are not looking too closely at the details, we can see the intention. I recognized recently how even when I am lost, there is some part of me that is somehow reaching for the light, just the same way that a plant gropes past the rocks into the sunlight. It reminds me of an idea from St Augustine--namely, that there is no such thing as "evil", only a kind of misplaced good or ideal that might just happened to be channeled into something worldly but is always somewhere in the spirit realm.

   One can interpret all activity in a worldly or a spiritual sense. If I am interpreting my behaviors only as impure or "of the world", I miss out on the underlying spiritual aspirations. Something as simple as gardening, for example, may be seen dismissively (perhaps) as "digging in the dirt" or only in terms of planting vegetables and flowers, but on another level, it could represent and embody many spiritual aspirations. We see this symbolically in the form of "planting karmic seeds" in Buddhism, but also in the way that cultivation embodies the principles of cause/condition, impermanence, dependent origination and so on. Gardening is one concrete way of realizing such kinds of principles. What I am trying to argue here is that even the most mundane experiences could, when looked at deeply, be interpreted in a spiritual sense as long as one is willing to use their imagination to seek something below the surfaces.

  This makes me wonder whether everything could potentially be a spiritual practice. I believe so, if pursed with the correct and proper attitude. But perhaps the biggest habit I should engage in is to see how deep down, sentient beings want to find the light.

Kindness or Knowledge?

  One thing I have observed in myself recently is that I judge myself for not having a lot to say on topics that interest my friends. I will often accuse myself of being vacuous or simply not having the same concern for things that others do. But I have begun to wonder, what is more important: being knowledgeable or being kind? Can one be kind without being knowledgeable about topics that concern others? 

   We even have a term called knowledge economy, which suggests that knowledge is what drives us, but we have hardly heard of the term "heart economy" or "kindness economy". Is this perhaps because we don't think that kindness contributes to our world as much as knowledge does? I think, to the contrary, that kindness can allow us to be more present toward the other and find a common ground even when another person does not share the same interests as we do. After all, the term "kind" seems to derive from "kindred" which suggests a kind of innate link that we have with others. 

  Sometimes, I have to have faith that simply being present is enough to help another heal in deep ways, which transcends the idea that interactions are only about knowledge exchanges.

Showing Up for the Unexpected

    I sometimes marvel at the ways in which the mind creates its own shackles or "hells". Old unpleasant memories are experienced "anew", under the often mistaken assumption that they will generally recur again and again. Yes, it recurs, as long as we remember it, but is it necessary for it to happen in this same way? We can never tell, and each experience is subject to causes and conditions that are unique to itself, and which simply cannot be recreated.

   When the mind is open and truly authentic, not giving into the false desires to please others and be recognized, then there is this still and quiet peace that is beyond striving itself. It can be found everywhere, even in the deepest state of boredom, depression or anxiety, if only we can inhabit those feelings rather than push them away. Yet--and here is the paradox again--that stillness does not actually reside in any form, or in any emotion. The stillness comes from the simple act of allowing whatever arises to stay in mind, knowing that the mind is not subject to the fluctuations of desire and phenomena. This is where we can be nonjudgmental, because we are no longer subject to fluctuating emotions based on the external conditions.

  An important aspect of being present for the unexpected is that we learn not to "expect" secretly: that is, the unexpected is not something surprising or magical. It's just the reality of emptiness--the fact that we are not in control of what will happen and cannot predict what will happen in the future. In this way, we can truly be available for whatever happens without an attitude of trying to fix on what will happen using our previous memories to guide us. We are simply allowing things to be exactly as they are, to unfold exactly as we expect them to unfold.

Face Saving

 It's evident that face is an important aspect of one's self-esteem. But as I mentioned in the meditation group tonight, I wonder if all the face saving we do is just a farce to show the fact that we believe in a permanent self. But if I am able to recognize that my mistakes are temporary, and develop the proper contrition about them, then there is no need to dwell on face at all. The feeling of dwelling on self is replaced with a strong desire to change and fix one's behaviors so that they can avoid making the same mistakes again.

   Face is tricky because it is always based on something we already did in the past. Past is past, though, and whatever conditions lead up to the current, these two will pass again. So when we base our current image of ourselves on something past, we are missing the chance to take action in the present and maximize our being in the world. It's much better to review what one has done and ask the question, "What can I do better next time? How might my past failures be an impetus for me to do so much better in the future, to become a better me?"

Dependent Arising and Illness

  We sometimes think of illness as the payment of karmic debt. For instance, we might attribute a person's illness to poor lifestyle or diet, without factoring the way that illness is often a combination of unforeseen circumstances that come together in some way. I tend to think that illness brings people closer to a compassionate view of life. It is not a form of punishment at all, but a way of viewing life as fragile. Pema Chodron remarks about afflictions such as anger can help us reach a more raw and vulnerable state of being, where we realize our own fragility and desire for happiness. In Welcoming the Unwelcome, she remarks, "We know that, at the most basic level, every living being desires happiness and doesn't want to suffer" (p.26).

    How can we welcome or embrace illness? One possibility is to see it in terms of the twelve links of dependent arising. When I see illness as something inherently existing, as something that "invades" my body, I create a dualistic rejection: the sickness becomes the terrible Other that is part of me yet not me. We see a lot of so-called "body horror" movies that illustrate horrific transformations of the body that lie beyond our control (see my earlier blog entry about the movie The Fly). Yet, from the perspective of the twelve links of dependent arising, this is fundamentally a form of ignorance. We mistakenly believe that something we generate mentally is actually outside of us attacking us, when in fact, all pain can be seen as sensations starting from the mind.

    By the time I have separated the sensation from the self, I have already concretized it and reified it. Perhaps I start to google possible "causes" of this illness, which serves to confirm me to a fixed narrative of how to respond to it. If, for instance, I attribute the pain in my leg to something malevolent like a spider or even a demon, I have succeeded in externalizing an reifying the pain into a story in which I play the victim. But I don't realize that the body sensations have no relation to physical things at all. The physical simply serves the confirm an illusion of self-sufficient reality that isn't in the experience itself.

    Mind can respond to sensations in both gross and subtle ways. As long as I make a choice to harmonize with the experience by minimizing the thoughts I generate about it--by seeing the experience directly, rather than embellishing upon it---I can develop a more harmonic relationship to the arising moments. This can help to calm me in the face of illness, and prevent me from mistakenly thinking that illness is some kind of objectively existing concept, rather than the result of interdependent conditions that does not have a single ultimate casual source or ground.

Pema Chodron (2019), Welcoming the Unwelcome. Shambhala

Why the Wheel of Life?

 In The Wheel of Life, Dalai Lama expounds upon the reason why we have the 12 Links of Dependent Origination. He spells out something that I always wondered about before, even though it was never consciously verbalized, and that is: if we understand causality sufficiently (the idea that X cause creates Y result), then why do we even need a "wheel" that describes how the intention, deed, and future result connect? Is it necessary to break the wheel of change and life down into its components? Here is what the Dalai Lama notes:

"In order to reflect on the fact that things--the subject upon which a meditator reflects--are empty of inherent existence because dependently arisen, it is necessary to identify the subjects of this reflection: the phenomenon that produce pleasure and pain, help and harm, and so forth. If one does not understand cause and effect well, it is extremely difficult to realize that these phenomenon are empty of inherent existence due to being dependently arisen" (p.35-36)

In other words, being steeped in an intricate and complex idea of how cause and effects co-arise in a given situation can help us to develop a more nuanced and subtle way of looking at the world that is steeped in causality. We might think of causality as a simple, linear relationship, but this does not capture the ways in which all phenomena are literally surrounded by agents of change and thus are bound to shift. In addition, without a causal mentality, we are liable to feel that some things are not subject to cause and effect: for instance, the objects or things in our lives that symbolize security or longevity. Diamonds are often symbols of things that are meant to be 'forever' simply by virtue of their durability, but even a diamond can lose its luster, become softer over time, or transmute into something else. 

There is nothing that is immune from cause and effect, and many times, we are only seeing the tip of an iceberg when it comes to causality. Even something as casual as thought can create an unexplainable effect of generating something unexpected or unwanted in the future, so the theory of dependent origination forces us to look more carefully at our thinking to discern all the ways they impact us, by creating their own unique thought habits.

Dalai Lama, (2015), The Wheel of Life: Buddhist Perspectives on Cause and Effect. Wisdom Publications.

Being Late for the Stern Meeting

  I had a dream last night that seemed terrifying yet mundane in its own way. I was trying to get to some work related meeting but, due to unforeseen circumstances, I somehow forget or don't know where the meeting room is, among a vast network of rooms in this immense white, swirling tower. When I finally get a tip on where the meeting room is, there are only five minutes remaining of the meeting itself. I am met with many stern faces, all of which resemble a kind of miniature United Nations, and I feel as though I had let down my former manager.

   I am not so sure how to analyze this, other than to say that perhaps it's the nightmare of the ego that is always trying to keep a tight hold on itself. We often describe ego in terms of space, as in the expression, "he or she cannot even fit their ego through the door", but we rarely ever think of ego temporally. Is it possible that perhaps an obsession with keeping time, managing time, being "on time" etc. be expressions of a kind temporal ego. And how we can escape the bounds of this temporal ego is only by realizing that it is just the self under the delusion that time completes things. This is, for instance, the expression of someone who is forever trying to accomplish things and meet deadlines, only to find that there are others just around the corner.

  I don't think we can ever return to a time when time is not important. However, it may be useful to check in sometimes and realize that time (the clock time, etc.) is a collective agreement about how people allocate their resources and work together to achieve mutual goals. Beyond that, the time of meetings and deadlines is not so real: it does not actually have a hold on us, since we are simply not defined by time.

   If we sometimes don't allow time to dictate our value or our sense of worth, we might find ourselves breathing more deeply, and realizing that all that is real is this now--the now that you are immersed in fully as you read these words. All else are temporal illusions and vain strivings, because they are only relative goals. And they cannot define who we are in the moment, no matter how hard we try to keep up with time.

The First Link: Ignorance

 In the introduction to Dalai Lama's book, The Wheel of Life: Buddhist Perspectives on Cause and Effect, Jeffrey Hopkins remarks how ignorance is a "misapprehension of the status of phenomena", meaning that "we superimpose onto phenomena an over-concretized status that they do not actually have" (p.3), which is later phrased as "the conception or assumption that phenomena exist in a far more concrete way than they actually do" (p.4). 

This is actually a very succinct and workable definition of ignorance, which entails many things. Firstly, it suggests that ignorance arises from an overinvestment in an idea of a substrate--something that makes things seem more separate, more distinct, and far more enduring than they actually are. In Falling from Grace, Adyashanti describes this as a tendency for the ego to depend on a sense of separateness to derive its existence. Even self-deprecation can serve this function. For example, by solidifying the view that I am 'incapable' of doing something and therefore not trying to do it, not only may I avoid responsibilities that seem difficult for me, but I am also reifying my refusal into a concrete self.

What then does ignorance mean in daily life? It means thinking things are unconditioned, when in fact everything is conditioned and is in fact, a series of complex, interlocking factors. A person might mistakenly think they are different or somehow above this, but if we honestly face ourselves, we find that we are just as vulnerable to time, change and contingency. A good day might be followed by a bad, or a promotion might later turn into a lay-off. The more we try to grasp favorable conditions, the more likely we will face the pain of loss at a later time. Under this view, my suffering comes from the assumption that I can grasp certain things and keep them a certain way forever, for my benefit. In fact, even this "I" is a problematic concept. It too is subject to cause and conditions.

Language often encourages ignorance as a tendency, even though there is no such thing as "ignorant people". We often hear people reify others actions into distinct selves--as when we say, "so and so is stupid', or ignorant etc.. In fact, these concepts inadvertently fuel the very thing that they criticize by serving to limit the self-image of another person. It is a form of wanting to hurt someone else by saying "this person is only this, and can be nothing more", which justifies throwing the person in the proverbial garbage. In addition to serving as forms of cruelty and aggression, verbal attacks can serve to solidify the view that self is some kind of a thing or an object. And we are also aware that people under the spell of anger will tend to objectify others, since it makes it easier for them to hate the other. 

Can we revolutionize language in a way that does not turn people into abstract things? Alfred Korzybski, the founder of General Semantics, certainly tried to do this through the imposition of a null-A (non-Aristotelian) language that tried to remove the categorization of things into static qualities. While I doubt that our language will radically change (since we still use language in the service of a general ignorance), it seems that he may have been right to suggest that we take categorical language with a grain of salt.

Dalai Lama (2015) The Wheel of Life: Buddhist Perspectives on Cause and Effect. Wisdom Publications

Adyashanti (2011). Falling into Grace: Insights on the End of Suffering. Sounds True

True Harmony

 Walking home today from dinner (and the previous Buddha class), I had the following reflections:

a) I want to be able to spell out the Twelve Links of Conditioned Arising and articulate their meanings individually, so that I and others can understand it more clearly.

b) Harmony: what is it? What does it mean to harmonize?

And, in regards to b) I wanted to say that people typically think of harmony as being the willful imposition of some kind of order onto other beings. We think "harmony" and subconsciously we then associate it with trying to oversee order. But I start to believe that this assumes that there are separate beings that are being orchestrated. The view of harmony thus contains a seed of disharmony: I want these otherwise independent, self-existing entities to go a certain direction that might be against their own being.

The true nature of being is continued arising and perishing. Things don't exist in isolation; they are shifting movements, like the shadows. So everything is already intrinsically harmonious. Nothing stays for longer than it needs to stay, and even if we think otherwise, it is because a new conditioned thought has arisen in that moment. And this is really already deeply harmonious.

When I imagine that I need to make the world harmonious, I am imposing an artificial will: trying to arrange experience as though there were a being capable of orchestrating things. But if I recognize that things happen as they do because the complex causal factors made them appear, I am no longer at odds with the universe. I see things arise and perish immediately, and the only way I would be disharmonious with it is if I imagine a separate self that is not "one" with it at all. Or, conversely, I imagine separate selves that exist independently of each other.

Well, next topic will hopefully return to item a)!!

The Faces of Despair

  Sometimes suffering is like a crucible through which we can observe what bothers us. I have observed within myself two forms of extreme suffering, which turn discomfort into something truly terrible. The one is what I call "the dire need for recognition"--a wish that others validate who I am, particularly when I am in prolonged social situations. The other is the belief that discomfort is permanent. This second form of suffering is more pervasive than the first, and certainly more subtle. I will talk about these in the next sections.

   I think the wish for validation somehow comes not only from just "wanting to have a face" but also comes from wanting to feel connected with others, yet not knowing how to do so if I am only in the position of a listener. This comes from a limited view that only "speakers" are the ones who have a valid place in a social setting, which is inaccurate. Without listening, speaking would not have much of a meaning. And I think that even if a person is not the best listener, at least their being in that situation gives them an opportunity to learn from others in some significant way. When I am able to focus on my meditation during those moments, I begin to realize that I am also identifying myself with some notion of a face: the image of how I think others see me. And when I don't feel that I have a favorable or positive face to others, I feel a pressure to manage the face by speaking our or saying something important or profound. But what if this were not my real nature? What if the true nature were something deeper, which does not depend on others for affirmation, since all these affirmations are merely phenomena?

  The second is a more pervasive belief in the permanence of suffering. I believe that something is going to last forever, when in fact it is only the result of temporary conditions that arise in one isolated moment. Now here's an exercise: the next time you feel some kind of vexation, loneliness, despair, etc. try to "estimate" how long the feeling will last, and write it down somewhere. Then, time how long you have that exact feeling you are having. Afterward, compare the time you predicted to the actual time when you felt bad. How was it for you? Chances are, when we are in a bad mood, we imagine something to be longer in duration than it actually is. And that is because we imagine something bad to project onward and forward into the indefinite future when in fact it's rarely ever going to last that long, whatever we are feeling.

Blank Page Anxiety

   The anxiety of the blank page: and how to pluck the courage to overcome such anxiety? It comes from realizing that all words are formless and relative. By no longer thinking of words as "the truth", I see that they are a little bit like the beautiful traces made by cloud chambers: hinting at something but as yet indeterminate. When I let go of the anxiety associated with wanting to find the right words to convey meaning, then I see that the words themselves are spontaneous and magical.

   Same with meditation: I must give up the desire (conscious or subconscious) to make meditation "go a certain way", opting instead to let it unfold just the way it needs to be. Even if I am having a hard time with posture, scattered thoughts, etc. the dedication to that one method of being present allows me to keep returning to the base line. In this way, I can't go wrong.

    The point is not to see the various colors and forms and make a design of it, but to see past the forms, to know that they are like kaleidoscopic colors. Who can be afraid of those forms knowing they are constantly shifting and changing according to the contingencies of the moment?

Nodes of Life

  Various things intersect in unusual ways. We are all meeting points, as in a grid. I can't say how I will contribute to someone else's life, but the important point is to know that there is no fixed coordinate on the grid. That is, I might play the part of king one moment, then play the part of clown the next. And this could go on indefinitely, in fact, playing different parts until we realize there are no parts that are uniquely ours. This pantomime plays on, loosening the hardened spaces that we claim as "our own" only to realize we are not as unique as we would suspect.

  If I can experiment with this idea, I can then realize that I am not in any way bound to identify with these characters, but also know that I need to play certain parts, as does everyone. There is no time when I am not someone to somebody, since we all have faces to show to others. The important principal is to show a gentle face as much as possible, so that all people can be at ease and there are no confusions or misunderstanding about the value we have in this world.

Break Time!

    What is a break? What is the phenomenology of "taking a break"? Or what about the unexpected break--those moments when you are prepared to do something only to find that it was canceled or postponed unexpectedly? This happened a couple of times to me recently: when I was about to go to a Buddhist class that is 3 hours long, I realized too late that the class was cancelled that day. And then I had this enormous amount of time available for me. What to do with it? Actually it didn't matter. The point is that I had this energy that was supposed to go to one thing, being channeled into the focus of non-doing. I think this is a kind of interesting paradox.

     When I expect things to be a certain way--as dictated from outside, for instance--I become attached to the form it will take. I am no longer free in those moments; I become a kind of slave to the form. Now, this works the other way too. Let's say that I did not have anything planned at all that day and knew about it beforehand? Would I be as free from form as if I had something to do? Again, what often happens in this case is that I become attached to "no form", or at least a false sense of freedom that comes from negation of doing. This just leads to a free-floating kind of boredom and anxiety that wonders "what to do next". But if, somehow, I am able to feel the potent energy that is in this moment without attaching to a form of "what it is supposed to be" and not attaching to its "lack of form", then this energy is extremely powerful in itself. It is a kind of invigorating potency that I can't describe. It is the sense that even though we are suffering, we can still feel the determination to come out of suffering.

    I think this is what it means when the Zen masters talk about "busy doing nothing". The doing nothing part does not emphasize "nothing" (as though it were a negation of doing), and nor is it a form that the doing attaches to. In fact, there is an act of doing, but the doing works on things that have no substance at all: like bubbles or reflections in a mirror. But, it does not fall into the despair of "there's nothing to do". Instead, it is able to stay with the determination of doing, even when there is no object on which the doing is directed. The whole of doing is only one of many revelations that doing has no substantial self. Doing is pure doing in this moment.

Amae and "Independence"

   In The Anatomy of Dependence, Takeo Doi describes an "ideology of amae" which, at least in his mind, stems from the longing to feel cared for, rather than simply be left to take responsibility for all that happens to oneself. Taking responsibility, being "independent" and so on often come from the painful realization that "God cares for those who care for themselves". Perhaps, however, we can best think of this concept of amae or ameru as a kind of overarching benevolence that we sometimes feel with others who are older and wiser--a sense that all is well and "ends well" in the universe, or that someone out there is taking care of us. I have always wondered, however, what's the proper balance between self and other power? That is, when does too much self-reliance lead to a kind of pride or arrogance in one's own abilities, and when does too much other-reliance lead to infantile wishes? Perhaps the notion of gratitude would help us to answer this question.

    I listened to a video of Master Sheng Yen about a week ago, where he talked about how, nothing we have achieved in our lifetime is due to our own abilities alone. In fact, he went on to suggest that, compared to what we have received from others in this lifetime, our own contributions are quite miniscule in comparison. Rather than being a plea to stop trying and simply let others care for us, perhaps what Shifu is suggesting is that we are all deeply interconnected. Everything we do, no matter how much of an accomplishment it is, is a contribution to something greater than all the parts put together. Gratitude, no matter how deep, cannot possibly repay all the kindness we have received from others. But sometimes this realization is not so much about 'trying to pay back' to everyone as it is recognizing that we were never separate beings from others. With this spirit, we can be comforted by the reality of our interbeing, and this is perhaps where the soothing calm of amae might come into play. After all, even when we are achieving a lot of things, we are still deeply at the mercy of circumstances that are beyond our control or full understanding. And we don't need to panic at that thought. Rather,  we can even truly rest in that understanding, knowing that even when we are exerting ourselves, we are still being sustained by something deeper.

   From this perspective, perhaps amae is not incompatible with independence. In fact, it could result in a more grounded view of independence, one which acknowledges its limitations but also tries not to take on more than what it can manage to do at any given time. We sometimes need to give ourselves amae--that is, to tell ourselves that, as long as we have this moment (which can never be taken away from us, no matter what the conditions), that is a guarantee of our fundamentally being ok.

The Fly

  Back in 1986, I had become something of a science fiction fan, at the encouragement of a librarian in my junior high school who introduced me to the books of Robert A. Heinlein. I seem to remember that time period (1986-1987) to be exciting times, mainly because I used to buy these magazines called Analog and Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction at the corner magazine store for, like, 2 or 3 dollars (magazines aren't that cheap nowadays). There was one particular movie that was popular back then, David Cronenberg's The Fly, that had an impact on me, as well as a little-known song by Bryan Ferry called "Help Me" that was part of that soundtrack. 

    The story of The Fly is essentially about a scientist who becomes (in a drunken stupor) part of his own experiment, by putting himself in a teleporter that synthesizes different molecules into something enhanced. What he doesn't realize is that a fly had entered the same teleporter as himself, so parts of the fly's DNA become fused with his. This is sadly a love story as well, and the leading lady of this movie has to watch his slow deterioration into a monstrous fly without a conscience. To me, this movie comes closest to being a Kafka-style science fiction movie. It had both elements of pathos and horror combined.

  I think of this story as the horror of becoming dependent on someone else for help even when the helping person is horrified of who the other has become. Yes, this is certainly a metaphor for ageing and death, but I also think there is a deeper metaphor for how we contain irreconcilable opposites within us, and are afraid of transforming into something darker than our "best" or "most favored" parts. This is the dilemma of being both a witness to something horrific as well as being consumed by it at the same time.

In Buddhism, we probably have to go through all the forms of suffering to reach enlightenment. The hardest is to realize that we are prisoners to our own bodies when we are ill--yet to know that from a practice perspective, we are really not bound to the body at all.

The World's a Taxi

  In the middle of the night, just outside the hospital, this survivor sees a taxi. He hails it, knowing that it will be his only chance of getting home and back to a normal state the next day--at least normal enough to resume work and put on an air of everything being ok. After all, things are ok, aren't they? He feels grateful that in the end, the taxi ride was only $20. Only $20...

 Taxis and hotels, for me, symbolize the transitional nature of reality and the world. Anytime you see a movie that involves either of these elements, you are bound to find intrigue and even a touch of sleaziness, since they are transitional realms between the civilized world and the underlying chaos. But at the same time, anytime there is a disaster or an unexpected circumstance (like a breakdown of the transit system, a winter storm, or a late night falling out), there is bound to be a taxi somewhere in the corner, waiting patiently for you to give them your money. Here, taxis become reminiscent of the Hermetic messenger or the boatman who is thought to take people to the realm of Hades. It is the messenger between two or more different worlds.

  Life is unexpectedly merciful in all the weirdest ways. It's the unexpected mercies that remind us of grace, and how, no matter how much a person tries to control their circumstances, nothing is fully in a person's control. In my vignette above, I see the grace in the facticity of hospitals: always being 24 hours open for people. But also, "normalcy" is just around the corner from the most dire circumstances. Order lives beside chaos and vice versa--they are intimate strangers, in fact. And of course there is the mercy of knowing that what seems a costly trip was not at all costly from the traveler's perspective. It's important to pay attention to these small moments of mercy whenever we can.

   Buddhism talks about the ferry that takes people to the other shore, which means Dharma teachings have a way of transforming a person's mindset away from samsara and into nirvana. When stagnation becomes transition, we are aware that our situation is always changing, and we are connected always with other beings who can help.  Dharma is like a cool water that splashes over a hot and unbearable situation, because it cuts through the illusion of isolation. It reminds us that we are not trapped individuals, not trapped in any situation except for the illusion of solidity and permanence. 

Sometimes we need to take a ride in the mysterious taxi late at night, to remind ourselves of the long dream we are sharing in this life.

Karmic View of Illness

  It's hard to relate to the fact that pain and illness are natural functions of life and having a body. More and more, people attribute health to some kind of personal responsibility, which suggests that we can somehow control our bodies or even decide when we will be ill. Karma is much more complex than that, and I tend to think of illness more as an opportunity to see how our practice takes us rather than as a punishment. In addition, from what I understand of Buddhist teachings, we might even be paying back our karmic debts by suffering the symptoms of an illness. So it's perhaps best to see the manifestation of illness as a kind of natural movement, much the same way as water moves across a stone in order to erode it and wear it away over time.

    I recently read an interview with a famous person who mentioned that he may have caused "damage" to himself through reckless behavior when he was young, thereby precipitating a genetic illness. I wonder about this: can we blame the younger part of ourselves for something that is happening to us now? If so, how? Could that younger self have "known better", as though they could fast forward to a different time in the future and see what unfolds? Time doesn't work that way, and the mental trap here is trying to juxtapose one thought of what is happening now onto another state that has already passed. Is this act of juxtaposing one thought over another a sincere practice (similar to repentance), or is it sometimes indulging in wistful "what if" thinking? Unless there is something we can constructively do with the reflection and rumination, perhaps all it really serves is to re-envision life from a presumably more powerful perspective.

   Illness is part of life, but we don't need to suffer if we embrace it. It means letting go of the idea that a separate self creates illness. Illness is the culmination of many factors, and few people recognize that the chief cause of illness lies in some form of mental stress. If our minds are balanced, our bodies will also achieve the proper balance of diet, exercise and rest. Without the mental balance, we add pressure to our lives and fail to take care of our bodies.