Soon after I started this blog in 2005, I started posting videos by bands that I thought were seminal, or life-changing, at least for me. That hasn't been done so much these days, because of the ease of sharing music and video on the social networking sites, though I still get lots of hits on those pages. But given my current direction, here's a band that I find not only inspiring and motivating, but that actually helps me concentrate my psychic energies in ways that I find intuitive and correct. Therefore, meet Rudra - a Vedic metal band from Singapore!
I wish I knew more about this band - if you do, drop me a line! I do know they've been around since 1992 or so, have released six albums, and have just finished a world tour. I only own and have listened extensively to their latest album, Brahmavidya: Immortal I, which was released last year. That will change.
I don't know if there are any other Vedic metal bands. I'm not normally a big metal fan, or haven't been - a lot of it leaves me cold. But the energetic black metal these guys play, blended with bits of Carnatic music, which I love, and rich with Sanskrit, not nearly all of which I have translated or even identified yet, is a perfect soundtrack for the wealth I get from the Vedas. I was usually disappointed with the lyrical content of the Nordic metal bands some of my Asatru friends like; a lot of their presentation seemed cartoonish. But these guys have good true content, true not only to the Vedic philosophies as I understand them, but to later, but still strong, aspects of the Hindu metaphysic - especially the warrior mentality, the karma yoga of the Bhagavad Gita. Nothing says Kurukshetra like - well, Kurukshetra!
Witness these lyrics from "Harrowing Carrions of Syllogism" on the above-mentioned album:
Mind creates a subjective notional world Limited by knowledge we see what we want to see The mind can't see beyond its thought constructs The lack of a valid pramana leads to self-deception Destroy your world by seeing yourself as the essence of the universe
Like the eye which can't see itself, the I can't see the inner I Without shabda, you can't know your Self Without shruti, you can't see your Self Manobuddhyahankaracittani naham Na ca vyomabhumir na tejo na vayu Cidanandarupa shivoham shivoham*
Destroy your world by seeing yourself as the essence of the universe Like clay in the pot, see yourself as the essence of the universe Vain reasoning is a bottomless pit Inflates the non-self with conceit
Shabda alone leads the mind beyond the limit of thoughts To the self which is beyond logic and reason Aham nirvikalpo nirakararupa Vibhutvacca sarvatra sarvendriyanam Na casangato naiva na muktirna bandha Cidanandarupa shivoham shivoham*
I present to you two excellent videos; the top one is "Hymns from the Blazing Chariot" from Rudra's 2009 album Brahmavidya: Transcendental I, and the one below is "Now Therefore" from the album Brahmavidya: Immortal I (and they play a lot better if you double-click and play them on YouTube). The first is a great depiction of the setting of the Gita, wherein Krishna tells of Arjuna of the karma marga - the path of action without attachment to results. Enjoy! The hippie myths of flowery Hinduism are destroyed on the Field of the Kuruks.
Sorry for the long silence, again. I've been meditating, studying, researching... and working.
I've been continuing my study of Sanskrit (slow but satisfying), and pursuing the essence of the symbols, people and forces that intrigue me, that pull me directly by the gut. I've been fascinated by the languages, myths, and truths of India, and of the forces other than human that mold and constitute our "world". I find that whereas once I read book and studied systems of training and knowledge to find some answer, some solution, now I am looking for language to express what I have seen and what I know to be true. Many of the most powerful symbols known to man have been misused, denigrated, and then ban. Witness the swastika, one of man's oldest solar designations, known as widely as the American Indians and still found in Hinduism and Buddhism, and whose powerful presence drew the intuitive knowledge of the turn-of-the-last century Germanic mystics like Guido von List and Karl Maria Villegut. These men had their spiritual fingers on a deep arising of the true spirit of many peoples, behind and Above many peoples, if they never succeeded in devising the complete systems they envisioned (yet, read aloud the powerful hymns, in mixed German and language unknown, in Willegut's writings, and they will move your "soul", if you have one). The swastika, taken as a symbol for peace by many including the British military early in the 20th century, became in Hitler's Reich a symbol for German nationalism, which it was never meant to be - and then after Germany's defeat, under the aegis of the Allies and their hidden masters, it became reviled as a symbol of evil, which is never was, never is....
But the symbol which draws me more, and which I wear every day, is the Black Sun. The Black Sun is a pattern, a design which drew me from the first sight and mention of it, in whatever obsure text. Its true origin is unknown, obscured by time and man; the best known current incarnation of it was on the embedded on the floor of the Wewelsburg castle which was the headquarters of Himmler's SS (and Himmler was among other things a student of the Germanic teachers, despite where his openness to "lower" powers led him, apparently). Seeking the emblem's sources, one is led to theories of a physical dead sun which is or was part of our solar system, or a sun inside the earth in unlikely meanderings... or perhaps the concept of a black hole, which could not be voiced in the astronomy of earlier times. The design itself seems to be a twelve reversals of the Sig or Sowilo Rune, itself a solar symbol in the Armanic and Older Futharks. But whatever its origin, it is a powerful symbol of a presence abiding in me and in the universe.
When I was young and quite dedicated, in a fairly unconscious way, to my current explorations, I find myself, having abandoned my first (pre-Zen) form of Buddhist practice, drawn to a moving meditation based on action - years before encountering the Bhagavad Gita, or the teachings of Gudo Nishijima of Zen as action. As my body became more purified (a state I wish I could regain, in my middle age!) I envisioned in the core of my Self a Black Diamond - and even voiced to myself, if no one else, the understanding that was I was practicing was the Black Diamond Sutra, which had no words, but consisted of the constant polishing of a that gem within myself, which shone with a nocturnal luminance. More like a black light, if you want an image, in the shape of a diamond, yet hard.
The black diamond was lost to me for a time, but resurrected in my last movements. After leaving formal Zen, I took up for a bit over a year, the Nine Doors meditation formulated by Edred Thorsson as part of the Rune Gild teachings. Those teachings, which appear to borrow in large part from Franz Bardon's excellent (if badly translated) works, brought a depth of visualization, of learning to perceive, inculcate and channel flow of energy ever-present but invisible to waking eyes, to my meditation process, already formatted by my years of Zen practice. And the Black Diamond began to re-emerge, and softened now, opened. Thus I perceived the Black Sun, which I was able to recognize when I read of it and saw its emblems.
And yet, in my search for language, for concept accessible to opened human minds, I could find little. Luckily I encountered a Tantric exercise described by Julius Evola in The Yoga of Power, a book which contains many other delights and which still draws me on. He describes therein a nocturnal sun, which rotates unseen in our world, though not the material one as we know it. First, let me mention another teaching of Tantra which I have also encountered elsewhere; the concept that man, when open to them, has four primary states of awareness, usually described as the waking state, the dream state, and the state of deep sleep - and a state called turiya, of a higher awareness that encompasses the crowns the others. this system never made a lot of sense to me. The waking state was obvious, and it was also clear that in the dream state and especially in deep sleep, repairs were done by autonomous and autonomic processes in my body and mind. But how could the muddled images of the dream be a higher awareness, let alone the delta-wave state of deep sleep? It seemed to me that as one moves through these states, consciousness itself was degrading, not purifying. Although of course I have long been aware that dreams can hold much significance, outside the neurotic drivel of the Freudians and most analysis. I should add that sleep has not come easily for me for a long time, and contrary to what one is taught of sleep's cycles, I normally seem to be dreaming every time I awake, although most often the contents of the dream are soon lost if I don't make an effort to retain them (and sometimes when I do).
The Tantric practice which Evola describes consist of envisioning, as one is drifting off - in the stage between wakefulness and sleep - a nocturnal sun, which arises in the east and parallels the course of the daytime Sun, while it is down. Envision this, devote oneself to its observation, and form the intent to maintain awareness of it while sleeping. When waking in the morning, observe this sun again, and form the intent to maintain awareness of it during the day, while it is invisible (on the other side of the "earth") but still present. The teaching of this? The dream state and the state of deep sleep are state of lowered consciousness for normal man, whose filtered perceptions are not capable of handing the higher states to which these states are doorways. By maintaining awareness of the nocturnal sun - which I imagine as white disk, like a purified moon, though quite distinct and separate from that lesser entity - one is able to open the doors between the higher states and the residual consciousness during sleep.
What I did immediately become aware of (hang me for a dangling participle!) was that I slept deeply, for almost twelve hours, on the first night of attempting this practice. And that the nocturnal sun became clear to me, and can be maintained during the day. Surely the linking of this to the Black Sun, the teaching of which are so elusive, are clear now. And now... the resonance of the Black Sun within to the bright but invisible sun without? That is the synthesis I'm working on now.
But find your symbols where you may - I don't know if my symbols are yours, or ever could be, though some appear to be universal, across cultures to the initiate - but rest assured that there are forces in this universe much more powerful than the mind of man, which threatens to destroy all. The religion of the worship of man is the "sin" of our Age of Iron, our Kali Yuga, which though it leads to eventual rebirth of the Universe (but not in the chronological sense!) is going to be anything but pleasant for those who cling to the Earth's "surface". And is my job, our job, whoever "we" are, to persist, to know, to live in or move from...?
Early this month, I atended the ninth (non-annual Moot) of the Rune Gild, at which that organization's "Yrmin-Drighten" (think "Supreme Leader") and founder Edred Thorsson asserted that the organization was completing a cycle at nine, and beginning anew. Though not quite sure what the cycle had to do with that organization (other than the number of the Moot, which are held seeming arbitrarily) since it is about 31 years old. I was intrigued because I've always thought of human life, at least, as appearing in cycles of seven. Of course, I wasn't thinking; the cycles of nine come from Astrology cum Numerology, and the idea is based not only on Neo-Platonic number theory but on the applied Gematria of the Kabbalah. In human life, those cycles are usually conceived as nine-year cycles. Which impelled me to further research when I realized that I, just completing this month, my sixth nine-year cycle.
And boy, does my cycle seem to have just ended! A cycle which began in destruction and desperation, bottoming out in 2003 with the death of my mother and the temporary loss of my liberty, during which I recreated myself through association with organizations. In 2004, I began sitting with the Nashville Zen Center, as every long-time reader of this blog knows. In 2006, frustrated with the apparent illegitimacy of that organization as it was, I myself became associated with the Atlanta Soto Zen Center, with its founding Abbott, Michael Elliston. Eventually my association with and promotion of the ASZC within the NZC led to the formal association of the two, and the adoption of a rigid Soto Zen protocol within the NZC that drove away many of its previous adherents. I myself opposed the formal association of the two, especially as it was occurring at a time at which I, ironically due to the better realizations of my own zazen (my own little 'enlightenment'), as well as disillusionment with what I perceived as personal meddling by the ASZC Abbott) was drawing away from the universalist, anatman-based philosophy of Zen. As you loyal readers also know, I was being drawn through my own perception of personal permanence and Jungian embededness, to the lore of Germania and the Asatru Folk Alliance, as well as my own local kindred. Eventually, not satisfied with the "right hand path" religiousness of most of the Asatruar, I sought back in the other direction, and joined the Rune Gild, the esoteric organization founded in 1982 by Edred Thorsson, Germanic scholar and author of Futhark and most of the materials on which the Gild is based.
The NZC survived my departure, due mostly to the continuing faithfulness of one of my best friends who had indeed supported by Zen practice most heartily throughout my tenure, and one of my newer best friends. But its future has by the departure from formal practice of the former, and by the rejection of the mess in Atlanta by the latter, been put on shaky ground. The ASZC itself has been split between a new Sangha and a New Order put by the Abbott on the stricter ground of discipleship to himself. Meanwhile, my local Asatru kindred has been almost inactive. Leaving me a man without active Association for the first time since 2004, with the exception of the Rune Gild. At events occurring shortly before and during the World Moot, which I am sworn not to divulge and would not anyway from loyalty to friends, the Gild itself has gone dark from the web and has undergone other changes which make my connection to it tenuous.
Meanwhile, in my personal life, my own cycles and those of the person whom I will always consider to be the love of my life, have interacted badly enough (thanks in a large part to my own end-of-cyclic apparent decimation) that it is clear, our relationship as it stood is at an end. We are connected in eternity (which does not mean a very long time!) and she remains my most supportive friend. That, in combination with my own unemployment since the first of August and a rapidly fizzling bank account, lead me to believe that without rebirth there can be no life at all.
So here I am, clearly having just concluded one cycle and at the beginning of a new one. In numeric terms, I move from my sixth to my seventh. In the major arcana of the Tarot, the change of cycles is from VI, The Lovers, to VII, The Chariot - which latter in itself indicates new beginnings. That double restart can't hurt me! at this point. In the Kabbalah, the movement is from Tipareth (the Sun) and Netzach, which perhaps ironically, is ruled by Venus and speaks of love in the human sense. The path between Tipareth and Netzach is Peh, the path of war, whose element is iron, whose animal is the wolf, and whose card is XVI, The Tower, a card of chaos. Which is, believe me, where I stand.
When I spoke to my friend last night, she told me that she has no expectations and no hope; that she just goes on one step at a time and deals with things as she perceives them to me. After meditation, my response to her is that without hope I never would have made it through last night. Hope springs eternal, as they say, and when it stops springing eternally, the spring is dead. Yet hope is one of those things that I regained when I began my own perception of the Eternal, not based on any creed. I believe that each one of us is in this incarnation for a reason, and will be back "again" (and I refuse the spiral mindfuck of 'what comes back' that leaves to religious absurdities. I do.) I believe that the adherence I need to make to my own purpose of life is to live it my own principles, without giving in to the pressures of society and my friends to follow various paths or to drink the Kool-Aid of one more single organization.
Currently, life seems to be a race between the destruction of either Western Civilization, or the World Itself, or my own. However, in a Vaishnavistic cycle of ten, the ninth incarnation of Vishnu was the Buddha, who came to mislead the world with false teachings, to purify the seed by drawing away the misled. The tenth incarnation is Kalki, who comes with a sword on a white horse, to put an end to the present age, so that the world can begin anew and apure. Kalki comes, children.
In the past few months, three untimely deaths have occurred in proximity to me; that is, deaths not of people to whom I was personally all that close, but who were dear to people whom I consider close. All of these deaths were premature, seemingly senseless. Two of the deceased I had never met, and the other had never revealed much of himself to me. In this strangest of times, I'm trying to decipher this message.
Death is no stranger. Probably the hardest thing I've gone through in this life was the death of my mother, eight and a half years ago. But hard as that was, and though I had the usual regrets, flogging myself over perceived lost opportunities and unmet obligations, she was eighty, and the last expression of her final illness was brief. There's more to come, and nothing unusual in that; some of the people I care most about remaining in this world, are in their eighties, including my father.
But 2011 has been a strange year, full of illness, disaster and now unseemly death. In short sequence, one of my friends lost a 23-year-old daughter who'd just begun to manifest heart problems. Then the 47-year-old husband of one of my closest relatives died in a few months of pancreatic cancer. Then, just last week, the infant grandson of a good friend died suddenly, SIDS. None of these deaths could have been foreseen at the beginning of this year; one of the deceased had barely been conceived. The feelings of the aggrieved are not unimaginable to me, but I know I have not had them.
It is unavoidable that I quest for meaning in all this - that I look for a message. Strange that in these last few months, I feel that I do know what happens after death. Not from any teachings, but from experience. I know that my mother was around for a while after her death, then she moved on from here. I'm not the only one who's had that experience. I feel that she moved into me, in part; there are parts of me that weren't there before she died. And also that she moved on into the world, into others. Ultimately, to move on and do what she needed to do next.
I do feel strongly that we survive our deaths in this world. It seems that we come here to do what we have to do. And we come back, eventually, to do what we need to do next; that these transitions happen in eternity, not in time, and my next manifestation may be in the past of "this" world, or in another. I do not feel the Buddhist doctrine of anatman - that there is no individual self. I feel strongly that there is. Nor do I really believe in moksha, release. I share the belief of my Germanic ancestors that life is a good thing, though hard at times - and that we come back to be in this world, without the need to escape it.
Not that we're not more than our little selves, you understand. That's a discussion for another time.
Nor is this the place to discuss the way we as a species value life so wrongly - that so many of us value its quantity over its quality. That we extend the lives of our old ones into misery, that we keep alive so many who are called to die, beyond their time, and in defiance of their well-being and our own. That we have through our misguided worship of human life in the abstract, filled our world (as of tomorrow!) with seven billion, in a planet that can at best support a few hundred million once the petroleum bubble of industrial civilization is burst - soon, now. That we have in our greed and ignorance condemned billions to die, not naturally, but of starvation, famine, and war.
No, I'm just left contemplating the death of those who died, seemingly for no reason - though there was a reason, I think they knew it before they came and have realized it now. Only to us, struggling to make sense of our own lives, do their deaths seem senseless.
But there is a reason, and a meaning, for us, too. If life was eternal - if we lived as our present selves, endlessly - it would cease to have meaning. Ask Lazarus Long. Death is the darkness, the shadow that enable us to see the shapes of life. Without it, life would have no definition. We would be unable to perceive our limits. The truth is, we can't right all of our wrongs (shouldn't that word really be 'wright', as in 'wheelwright'?). We don't have time to make all the changes we would need to make, to be perfect.
Without the limitation of death, we couldn't see. Anything.
So perhaps the death of others help us to see the shapes of our own lives. And not to despair of them. The deaths of others give our lives meaning - a chance to see the shape of things before our own deaths terminate our own ability to see, to change.
Not that this makes it any easier to lose a loved one. But our lives are not supposed to be easy, even if we tell ourselves that sometimes. And in the coming dark time, few of them will be, no matter how well or how poorly we think we've prepared for our illusory futures.
Shape the future in the present, with your own hands. Shape yourselves. In some sense, you've chosen the part you now play. Develop and deepen that character. You are the universe and also yourself. How would you like to live, today?
Some of you will think this post unspeakably arrogant. Some of you will think that I am merely self-deluded. There is no objective way for me to counter that you are not correct. But it's a subject that is incomprehensible to some, perhaps obvious to others - the moving beyond meditation.
To most of us who are or were regular meditators, the idea that meditation may or may not at some point in our lives become unnecessary or even inadvisable, is not one that is commonly held nor encouraged - certainly not by those whose livelihood, whose social position or even self-esteem is supported by the meditation enterprise. The majority of us come to it in the first place at a point in our lives where life without meditation, more or less what Socrates called the unexamined life, is either not worth living, or feels incomplete. Whereas Socrates was probably referring more to a kind of philosophical self-examination, the meditation which many of us have sought comes from both Eastern and Western traditions which encourage a kind of transcendence of the merely rational.
The traditional meditations - assuming we have a common enough understanding of that word to use it - of the West mostly died out or were killed off long before our era. The Druids and the shamans of Western Europe were annihilated by the demons from the desert in the form of the Christian Church by the end of the first millenium A.D., though they are rumored to have survived in pockets and in various schools of lore. The Church taught blind obedience to authority, and suppressed the pockets of revitalized meditative, Gnostic practices are they re-arose both from the traditions and from the natural inclinations of man who wanted something more than slavery.
There could be a lot of discussion of the relationship between meditation and prayer; at time the two merge, become the same. But that's a topic for another time, a totally internal navigation and distinction between inner and outer direction, a definition of greater subtlety than may initially appear, which is either best reserved for another time and space or left to the individual altogether.
While admitting the possibility of isolated and individual exceptions, sociologically speaking, meditation "returned" to America and the West by way of the East; beginning in the nineteenth century, for the most part, the teachings of the East, notably India, and to some extent the Orient, returned to the a West which was sufficiently "liberated" from the grasp of the Church (although arguably - as I will argue - subject to other forces just as mind-altering or oppressive or both) to consider non-Christian teachings, and to adopt them on a large scale. As a whole new world of prosperity and seemingly limitless possibility opened after World War II, particularly in the US, Eastern teachings flourished - from the "Zen" of the Beat Generation (check Kerouac'sSome of the Dharma if you want to see how far off-track from "real" Zen this really was) to the more authentic but somewhat watered teaching of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (see Transcendental Meditation). America was a gullible wonderland for false teachers who were able to slip in with the more credible ones, into a culture which had no antibodies, no filters for these charlatans). Even in the case of good teachers with good intentions (see Sunryu Suzuki and read Shoes Outside the Door), the traditional teachings fell into a cultural vacuum and became lost, distorted or perverted when the original teacher was gone.
This is not the place for a debunking of American Zen - which I maintain is to some extent a theatrical production, and is definitely as much of a reconstruction of medieval Japanese practices as Asatru is of ancient Nordic or Germanic ones. Modern American Zen, regardless of its relation to the original, culturally embedded teaching of Dogen, has a lot to offer. Like any other institution, those who rely on it for their identity or sustenance - the Priest class or its lay equivalent - pose a separate issue. Those who of necessity seem personal gain, even in the most non-materialistic sense, in issues so central to the self-realization of practitioners, always pose a danger, albeit sometimes unconsciously. Nevertheless, I have no doubt that direct and unfiltered meditation upon the "self" and ultimately through the "self" is a necessary step in liberation from what William Burroughs calls Control.
I stopped doing zazen meditation in the formal sense a bit over a year ago, several years ago after the activity in which I was engaged, on a subjective level, had become something entirely different anyway. Meanwhile over the last few years I had become engaged in Asatru, largely as a result of realizations I had during zazen. I hesitate to dwell too much on my subjective experience, both because of its intensely personal nature (which leads to and constitutes a kind of vulnerability) and because of its necessary uniqueness; I would and should not expect anyone else to duplicate my experience. Nonetheless, it has become clear to me on a level of intuitive perception that others have had experiences which are similar in type and direction, if not in content.
To put it briefly and in the context of a metaphor I have used often: after long periods of zazen (and again, this is for me) at some point the self - the consciously and socially formed sense of self, of identity, what Ramana Maharshi calls the I-thought, not just drops off, but breaks up. I tend to visualize it in reconstruction as the self exploding into a mass of ball bearings which go bouncing across the concrete floor of sheer being/nothingess. That is when one, or at least I, perceive(d) emptiness. But upon sticking with that - with staring into Emptiness, I came "in time" (or outside of it) to see another self, which I saw as a true self, emerging from behind the curtain.
One could certainly argue - and the argument has been made to me, rest assured - that the new Self I saw is false, and there will be a series of others behind him. The Zen metaphor is of an onion, which is pealed repeatedly until at the center is, again, nothing. Perhaps. Yet I am quite sure that the second self, I saw, is a true self which exists at a totally different level that the one I started with. I am someone, after all. Some distinct. No concept has been more harmful to us, especially to children as reared by this society (or fertilized and left to grow randomly like weeds, more like) than the idea : You can be anything! Nothing could be further from the truth. For the most part, you are what you are, and that is that, and much of succeeding in this life comes from accepting that fact.
Anyway - I am someone! I have genetic traits! And more than that, I have ideas and perceptions that are distinctly mine. Things I've always known. Things I was never taught but immediately perceived as true. Things that may be true for me, but not for you. Ways in which I am much more like my family and those more like me, than others). And I live in a world that tells me that that the ways in which I am unique or different, are wrong and unacceptable. But that is just one more circumstance of the life, existence and current manifestation with which I have to deal.
My intuition tells me that I am more than just this one mortal life, on earth. It has nothing to do with anyone's spiritual teachings - it is what I directly perceive, and more, know. What or who exactly that is - is to be examined further.
But back to meditation. By the time I left Zen, I was already quite involved in Asatru. I think that to the extent my culture and my genetic pool's cultural heritage has survived, it is there - this despite the fact that modern Asatru is of necessity a reconstruction, and the understanding of that heritage should be supplemented by the understanding of parallel developments (notably both paganized Christianity, which is the basis of Western civilization as we know it, and Hinduism, which represents the flowering of an unrepressed Indo-European heritage which is yet blended with another, authentically Eastern tradition). Not that I am not fascinated by other traditions. But the proselytizing, Universalist nature of the "demon from the desert" religions (and the Universalist though less messianic tradition of Buddhism) misleads us from the perception that most of the world's religions are True for their own people. All the indigenous, ancestral ones, anyway. And pretty much useless for converts.
Asatru is for the most part a right-hand path. A social religion, like most of Christianity. To get at its essence, at one's own essence, for those so inclined, it is necessary to go inner, inside, via the left hand - to accept one's one uniqueness and existence as more than a social entity - to approach god(s) directly. There are such paths available; I am a member of an organization called the Rune Gild, but there are teachings, paths to follow, made available to all. Such as Edred Thorsson's Nine Doors of Midgard. The Nine Doors is.. well, more than I can say in this space which I am making a vain attempt to limit. It involves a lot of Rune work on a lot of different levels, and a lot of meditation. In accordance with its suggestions, when I took up its program in June, 2010 - pretty much simultaneously with my last participation in organized Zen - I abandoned any practices outside of its tradition, which is the pre-Christian Western one. I think I accomplished a lot. I learned a lot. I am not through with it, yet.
Yet for the last couple of months, I find myself not wanting to do formal, seated meditation in any tradition. When I first started meditating, years ago, it was often hard to make myself go and do it, because it was hard. Now, it's not that - it just seems hollow. Shallow. Nothing seems different when I "meditate" than when I don't. It's as if the process worked its way into my consciousness until the states were no longer differentiated. I could speak more about this, but I won't, because most of you have no idea what I'm talking about, or have already decided that I'm delusional. That's ok.
I know people who are seeming addicted to meditation. Something is wrong with their day if they haven't done it. I remember that. And probably it's a necessary thing; it seems to me from my experience that it is necessary, to get a "benefit" (which Zen practitioners in particular deny seeking, so words fail) to do it regularly for some time - and to do it A LOT at certain times. It took me the experience of long periods of meditation, day after day, to have the experience described above.
I do know of long-time Zen practitioners, teachers, who have after many years and careers in meditation, have abandoned it. And not in exasperation, either. I only did it for a few years and can't compare myself to those people; I know only my own experience, but I know it well. And I won't say that I'll never meditate again; I undoubtedly will. As life demands; I have no doubt that the universe will call for such a thing. I'm just saying that right now, I don't feel the need to do it. I'm very glad I did what I did. And someday maybe I'll do it again.
Please don't be a slave to enlightenment. Unless you want to be. But like everything, it can be transcended, and then encountered again and again, as the wheel turns.
Perhaps my main reason for resuming these Diaries was to get some personal truths out of my head, get them expressed. By that I mean that, in contrast to those ideas that come and go, and change - as did my attitudes toward "politics" and "spiritual practice" during the course of the first incarnation of this blog - there are some ideas that remain constant. These I think are worth examining and expressing, because they have been around and reaffirmed enough in my consciousness as to actually express part of my "self".
One of the most resolute of these "fixed ideas" came to me as I was driving back to Nashville from Manchester last Sunday. I was on I-24, which is not the worst interstate in the world, but a typical melange of passenger cars, work vehicles, 18-wheelers, motorcycles, horse trailers, RV's, and whatever else might be out on a sunny Sunday afternoon. All that would be missing to call this Chaos would be to move it to Thailand and throw in a few pigs and chickens.
As I was alternatively passing and being passed in my Toyota Corolla by all these random entities, it occurred to me, as it occasionally does, that should one of the larger victims make a wrong move, or should I, I would be immediately annihilated, or mangled so badly I'd wish that I had been. As defensive driving courses (I'm sure) would teach you, right or wrong has no meaning in a crash. It's all down to vectors and force, the sheer laws of physics. Once the Mac truck hits a motorcycle, all the human, philosophical, spiritual, intellectual elements are gone - merely unevenly sized pool balls on a break.
When considering the origins of this mess, all sorts of philosophical, legal, historical and legal factors come into account. The selection of vehicles on the highway is the spawn of both the auto and transportation industries, and separate entities. But before we get into all that, what's the solution? It's not the reason behind the problem that matters so much as the solution.
The answer that comes to me, repeatedly, after thirty years or so of considering this mess, is to (1)remove the trucks from the highway, and (2) to mandate that everyone on it drive a uniform vehicle.
The early reactions to my hint about this blog entry, in the previous one, suggests that the readers thought I was going to be advocating mass transit. Which I am, where possible. Having lived in San Francisco with its amazing system(s), to return to Nashville into standardized American chaos, where each person drives his own 2,000-lb monster to work each day, was a re-entry shock (OK, it was as bad in Albuquerque - I'm abbreviating). OK we now have HOV lanes and the cars are a bit smaller, the fuel a bit closer to its true cost. But still..
But mass transit is not the total solution for passenger travel in all but the most concentrated parts of the US population. Although I believe that a corollary measure - a mandatory national rail system for freight - is essential. There's no way that a load of bricks or shit or computers moving from Atlanta to Nashville, or wherever, needs to be driven in a series of trucks. The trucks really only need to come into play once the cargo reaches the urban center or region of its destination. What to do with it, once it gets there, to keep these killer behemoths (the 18-wheelers) off the road during rush hour, is to do just that - to regulate which roads, and when the trucks can function for urban delivery. There is no reason I should need to compete with them at 8 a.m. at lunch or at 5. Or on certain roads, at all.
While the country is searching for ways to revitalize the job market (and THAT is a topic I can't even touch in this entry), how about instead of even more road work, build a national rail system? Harken back to the days of the WPA. Or Europe after WWII (after the Americans and British destroyed all the old systems)? Yeah, there's that nasty funding issue - we'll get to that. But do it! And make them (the corporations) use it!
As to the cars - why does my Corolla need to run the risk of being rear-ended by a 1978 Pontiac Parisienne? Why does a Dodge Ram compete with a Prius? (I'm out of step with modern vehicle names, so forgive my last of creativity). It comes to consideration of our fucked-up concepts of both personal freedom and free enterprise.
Are you outraged that the government might tell you what kind of vehicle to buy? Really? Have you been so indoctrinated by the religion of Consumerism that you believe that Freedom consists of your freedom to choose between an iPhone and an Android one, or between shaving creams, or cars? To choose one consumer product over another (all while the PC media whispers and shouts to you which one is "really" best)? While the government erodes your most basic rights - your rights to go to school or church with whom you choose, to join clubs of your peers instead of the homogenized mass - your freedom of association? Your freedom even over your own body - and I'm not beating the abortion cow here, I'm talking about your right to choose to live or die in a hospice or nursing home or a prison, or to bleed to death in some oil or battlefield? And you wanna choose between your Hundai or your Ford? Are you that far gone?
All these issues are going to be addressed very extensively in the articles that follow. But let me suggest to you how to begin to clear your head. It takes a while. Step one: turn off the TV. Disconnect the cable. Or make sure you DVR everything and edit out the commercials. And don't watch the news. Search for your info in print or on the internet, find a "cooler" medium (and read your McLuhan if you don't know what I mean). Get the voices of the Masters out of your head. [Zen is all about shutting up your own voice. That comes later. First get the others out.]
Back on topic: "We" need to require that only one make and model of passenger vehicle be made. The contracts can be allocated out among existing manufacturers; I don't care. Everyone needs to drive an identical box. This ensures that when those inevitable collisions ensue, the result will be more like a game of bumper-cars that the uneven carnage we see now. Make them relatively slow and extremely crash-resistent. And make them all the same size and weight. You can have whatever color you want.
And if you want to drive a motorcycle, fine. Take off all the safety requirement for those. It's a perfectly valid, high-risk option of personal choice. And there will need to be some pick-ups, of comparable size and weight with the vehicles. Level the field.
Think about it. Try to stop expressing your personality through your possessions, and learn to express it through your person.
But how is all this to be done? True, the existing government never could or would put it into place, for a myriad of reasons. Personal interest and corporate ownership, mostly. As well as the objections of a bunch of well-meaning "individualists" who have been so co-opted by the Powers that Be that they don't know what "rights" or "freedom" mean anymore. Take the Tea Party. Or the current unconscious Puppet of Those Who Really Control, the OWS mob.
That's all I can say here. Intrinsic in solving this pragmatic, logistical problem is liberation of the individual from the yolk of tyranny, counterintuitive as that may sound. But we'll be working on that, in the next few entries. Or next lot of them, maybe. Maybe interrupted by some fun.
I have decided, more than two years after putting this blog into remission, to restart the Ratzaz Diaries. I was moved to do so for several reasons. First, a lot of the conflict I was experiencing between my earlier posts and the later ones - and between myself and most of the original readership of the Ratzaz Diaries - has dissipated. That is, I no longer see the problems that we as a people (either as an independent culture or ethnicity, or as a species) as definable in any way by the culturally delineated conflicts between false poles - i.e., between Democrats and Republicans (who both work for the same masters), between Christians and non-Christians, etc. So that for me the idea of choosing at this point between Obama and Mitt Romney for example (and what a wonderful choice!) is meaningless. When Democracy has failed in its entirety. And when the only options most people are able to consider are the ones presented them thru media that exists only for the purposes of propagandizing the populace and keeping them ignorant and distracted.
I was in the act of leaving Zen behind, for example, when I wrote my last few posts. It seems sometimes that a break with a belief system is a lot like ending a bad marriage; the energy needed in order to mobilize to make the necessary change generates as either a necessary or collateral effect (I haven't decided!) to make for a bit of bad blood, that hopefully dissipates over time as we heal and move on. That is how I feel about my Zen lineage and background at this time; it was helpful to me and helped form me, and I learned a lot from it. Indeed, the experiences I had in zazen are what enabled me to move past it. And there are a lot of worse things going on in this world that Zen Buddhism! and not a whole lot of better ones, in fact. So if you're one of my Zen friends and I pissed you off, I apologize. Sit on.
Another reason for resuming this blog is that the lack of it - though necessary for a while - has frustrated me a bit in maintaining at least the illusion that I am communicating with people of like mind, people whom whether they agree with me or not, are at least willing to think about the issues. Which people are not normal nor have ever been, in the context of my daily existence. I appreciate and need your feedback, or at least your listening.
I've noticed that I tend, when I don't restrict my mind from doing it, to construct solutions to perceived problems of society or of existence, on a somewhat massive scale. A lot of them involve "what would I do if I were king of the world" type thinking which I have no ability to implement (arguably, a damned good thing). So my construct may appear as sky-borne pies to you and pretty useless. Yet when I break down the motivations for my thinking, I discover that at the root of it are conclusions about the most basic human values that are at great variance with the norm. One of the first things I intend to write after this brief introduction, are how I would change the US highway, passenger transit and freight systems to accord with economy, good sense, ecology and safety. Which, as I study it, involves an analysis of our perverted notion of freedom, twisted by consumerism. We have championed totally illusory and meaningless choice - between an iPhone and an Android phone, or between a Miata and a Dodge Ram, and abandoned some of our most basic and usually assumed rights, like freedom of association, the ability to live and work with the people we choose; the manipulated loss of this basic right has destroyed our communities and destructured society so that we can become a mass of mindless slaves.
Another issue I wanted to address, on a limited basis, is the horror of the US prison system - that wastes money and destroys lives, and is brought into being, controlled by the lowest and most base aspects of man. [This post actually goes on from here, but apparently Google is malfunctioning and posted an unfinished draft, which ends in the middle of this sentence. It may be time to find a different host for this blog, since there is plenty of competition now... and why in the hell did it take hours for someone to bring this to my attention... GRRRrrrrr....].
Yep, after thrashing it out and not reaching a resolution, the Ratzaz Diaries is on hiatus at this time. Due to intensive, extensive and accelerated personal renovation, I find that the things I want to express, at this time, are probably not something that most readers of this blog want to hear. And I really have no intention to just come on to intentionally offend people, at least not anymore.
A lot of you noticed a change in the contents of this blog, beginning last fall. I thank my last few years of earnest Zen practice for bringing me to a new perception of things. The things I perceive are not particulary Buddhist. So I have a real Catch 22 here. And I've learned that there really are evil entities out there, human ones, and you have to watch what you say.
Of course I do feel continue to feel the urge to express myself. At past times, in these Diaries, I was quite taken in by, well, the things we have all been taken in by (although not the demon of Grammar, apparently). I feel the urge to correct my mistakes, but it would seem simply mean to build an audience of people who think a certain way, and then tell them they are wrong, and that I was wrong. I may be developing a new blog, or perhaps even a full-blown website. Then again, I could change my mind tomorrow and post here.
I want to thank all of you who've been supportive or at least interactive for the last three and a half years on this blog. Continue to try to open your eyes. Don't believe anything anyone tells you, especially me. Find a path with heart.
Anyone who knows me knows that I'm anything but a pacifist. Peaceful, smiling compassion is not in my genetic makeup. I do believe strongly in fighting for a cause that you know is right.
As I imagine is true with most people, the ancestors I know best were soldiers. On my mother's side, her bloodline came to America in the form of a Hessian mercenary in the Revolutionary War, who came to fight for the British, but stayed on. Her genetic father was mustard-gassed fighting for the U.S. in WWI. My father and his four brothers fought for this country in WWII; all but one fought overseas, and all came back alive. I shall forever remain proud of all of those men, and for the women who supported them. Although the cause and the justification varied greatly in kind and in value, all were brave men and did what they had to do.
So some of you haven't been happy with some of my posts on the warfare of modern times. And it's true that my politics, as it were, have changed a good bit since I began these Diaries, notably in the last year. I think that I've become more reconciled to the inevitability of war; it is, at the bottom, an inextricable part of man's history, and ironically perhaps, of his civilization. As long as there has been Man, there has been War, and I believe there always will be. It's in his nature.
Yesterday morning I finished reading the American Heritage Picture History of the Civil War, with text by Bruce Catton. (If you follow that link, I think it's a different edition; mine was a two-volume set published in the sixties). If, in this age of digital propaganda, you want to read some real history, I suggest you go find a book - preferably an old book. The version of the Civil War that I hear is being taught in the public schools, where it is taught at all, is scarcely recognizable. Your children's teachers will tell you that the war was fought to free the slaves, which is was not.
You'll hear some old Southerners still arguing about who was right in that war; it's a bit late for that, and most sides had their reasons, neither was ready for war, and soldiers were misled a bit on both sides back then, too. Soldiers probably always have been. At least, in the day of my tribal ancestors in Europe, the chief who "declared" the war usually led his soldiers into battle. It's been a long time since the men who made wars had to fight them, or even since their sons had to fight, and that's the biggest shame of modern war.
But regardless of what you think of the screaming Secessionists in South Carolina who really made the rift final that led to the Civil War, there's no doubt that as to what the soldiers in the South were fighting for. Union soldiers were called up as an invasion force; the Southern soldiers were fighting to defend their homes. Under equipped and greatly outnumbered, and for the most part badly led, the Confederates won almost every battle but still lost the War.
It's really not at all hard for me to say where my sympathies lie here. I have two direct ancestors on my father's side, at least, who fought in the War; the father was killed after his own discharge, taking supplies to his soldier son's embattled and under supplied company near Chattanooga - on horseback from Warren County through the mountains. As a legal matter, I think the Southern states' right to secede from the Union was clear. And while the soldiers on each side fought bravely, how could anyone forget how Sherman re-invented Total War for the modern age with this march to the sea? At least Goebbels was honest about his motives!
I graduated high school in 1975, when the disaster of Vietnam was still fresh in everyone's minds and the military was not popular. Joining up was just not something you considered unless you couldn't go to college or couldn't get a job; and there were plenty of jobs. I fell into a lucky window of just a few years, of males who never even had to register for Selective Service. Would I have felt differently in a different time? Perhaps. I do know that the spectre of Vietnam was a dreaded one for almost everyone I knew. I would in know way denigrate the honor, courage or nobility of anyone who fought in that war; it's the people who sent you there, with whom I have a problem.
After Vietnam, bypassing Carter's and Reagan's minor excursions, by the next time the U.S. went to War, it had all gone to bad. Both Gulf Wars have been fought for money -- foreign money at that, lining the pockets of the warmongers. And there may be worse, more sinister forces than simply greed in play, I haven't yet decided. But assuredly, the soldiers who have been sent there (and yes, even the contractors who've had quite a few pieces of silver lain in their silk purses) have been used. Regardless of who or what you believe is ultimately responsible for these crimes against all of humanity, you need go no deeper than Dick Cheney and Haliburton to see who pulls the strings a few levels up from the soldiers. And be ashamed.
So please, on this Memorial Day, do honor and respect those who fought and died in years past for your liberty. Memorial Day was begun as a tribute to Union soldiers who died in the Civil War, and expanded after WWII as an occasion to honor all of our veterans, which is appropriate, I think. But don't stop at those who fought for the American flag. Honor your Confederate ancestors if you have them (and remember Jefferson Davis' birthday is June 3!). The photo at the top of this entry is from Carnton Plantation near Franklin, TN, site of a really stupid battle where lot of men died for nothing; such is the nature of War. That would be a good place to go today.
But, please: If your home, your family, your tribe are attacked, defend them with all your might. Fight for what you know is right. And learn to tell right from wrong. Know when you're being used. And when that happens, fight not the targets that the evil men chose for you, but the evil men themselves.
And now my favorite song about war, courtesy of the Dropkick Murphys...
I used to be a voracious reader of books; now, not so much. After staring all day at a computer screen, most of my free time is now used otherwise, with the result that I usually wind up with a backlog of books. And to tell the truth, most of what I've read lately has been disappointing. So much to my amazement, I picked up Gods and Myths of Northern Europe by H. R. Ellis Davidson where I'd left it months ago and discovered a nugget of scholarly and, may I say it, religious delight.
List most children growing up in America in the 60's and 70's, my access to the religious, mythological and folkloric history of the world came through (1) ridiculous Christian tales mixed with dogma, incoherently presented as "Truth"; and (2) tales of the Greek and Roman gods presented as silly stories, which were somehow supposed to enhance our understanding of culture and literature (which they may have, had we in fact been presented with any of that culture and literature). I may have heard of the Norse gods as a child, but I think I really discovered them in Thor comic books. And Thor was nowhere near my favorite; the rather pompous blond(!) superhero was nowhere as enticing as The Avengers or the X-Men for me.
All of which was really sad, but it just got worse. The next inkling I had that there were options to pursue, with regard to the the origins of our culture and mindset, were little pieces of Hindu art and lyrics from George Harrison albums, which led to the silly but fervent religiosity of the Hare Krishna's, and ultimately to my investigation of other religions from the East, and probably ultimately to Buddhism and Zen. So here I was, of German and English descent, being led in a big cultural circle which intentionally or not -- and more of that later, I promise! -- circumvented by true heritage, as a product of Northern Europe.
If you're of Northern European descent, the religion of your ancestors was that of the Celts or of the Germanic tribes. Although most of what we know of the "Norse" religions comes from the Eddas written at the end of the period of the northern gods' dominance -- when the stories had degenerated a bit -- they had their origins in the Europe of prehistory, in the same tribes which ultimately spread them to India where they (when integrated with the lost culture of the Dravidians) produced the Vedic period and all its children, including Hinduism and Buddhism. Which means that most of the gods of the Norse pantheon (which is usually presented by educators as sort of an alternate version of the Greeks and Roman pantheons, as opposed to an aggregate of the cults of separate deities, which it was) originated as German deities - Odin was prefigured by Wotan, a darker god.
If you are of Northern European descent, your lack of acquaintance with your true cultural heritage is a crime -- and I mean that literally. And there's no better way to catch up quickly than to find, if you can, and read a copy of Gods and Myths of Northern Europe. It looks like one of those little summaries of dry culture or myth that you read in high school or college because some instructor asks you to -- usually the quickest way to speed-ingest little summaries of some dry myth or the other. But those myths are dry because they're not presented properly, and because you don't have the background to understand them.
Davidson's book could easily be mistaken for one of those at first glance -- and in fact that's initially what I did. It starts out with a terse summary of the the Eddas, written by Snorri at the twilight of the myths themselves, and the little stories of the gods, without explanation or background are pretty much unintelligible and seem silly. So beware! because at this point I put the book down and only came back to it after reading some modern books on Asatru and wanted to know the scholarly versions of the myths. Whereupon this little book, after the first fifty pages blew me away!
Davidson not only presents the myths so that they make sense, she makes them relevant and real - and all this in a book published in 1965, before the rise of Asatru. For me, it brings it all home. Not only do I understand now more about the culture of my pre-Christian ancestors, but I see in them the roots of my own personality. The Nordic peoples were distrustful of authority but fiercely loyal to their kin and their own. I can relate not at all to the grovelling of the spawn of the desert religions, and can only respect and acknowledge the deep but foreign formalities of the Asian ones -- but the Nordic peoples, their stories and their yearnings, I feel in my heart.
My exploration of my true heritage has only just begun, but nothing in quite a while has so excited me. For the clarity to see, understand and accept what I feel in these things, I thank my Zen practice. And indeed, for these books - this little tome and the Icelandic sagas -- I thank one of my Zen friends, without whom I'd still be feeling that vague lack of cultural identity I've had til now. And now that my eyes are open, I have to know why this obvious connection to my past has been hidden from me, even denigrated.
Sometimes when one sees the truth, one doesn't like what is revealed. I'm often amazed at how popular "mystic" religion promote some sort of insight to be gained by practice or experience -- yet on the other hand tell you that they already know what the insight will be! What part of "unknown" don't they understand?
If you're not of Northern European descent, and you want true insight into a culture which is not your own, I still heartily recommend this book. Presented without paternalism, and indeed with a fascination which the excellent scholarship does little to conceal, this is the best introduction to the true cultural heritage of the civilization which has dominated the world stage for at least five hundred years, and is only now heading toward - obliteration? Hard to say. But maybe at least you can see now what is worth preserving.
Actually, dharma for four, yesterday (not these four; this pic is from the retreat). It's rained here every day for forever here, now - a rare event in recent years -- and I think yesterday most of the little Zennies took it as a good day to sleep in, or whatever it is people do when they're lazy. Personally, that's one vice I don't' have much temptation toward, so it's hard to know. Maybe they lay in bed counting their toes, or other things.
Not that I minded. To be fair, several of our regular sitters were out of town in exotic locations, either because they don't have to work, or their work takes them to such places. Mine, unfortunately, keeps me tethered.
No, the dependable Dharma for One comes on Thursday mornings, at the "Multi-Sangha" sit which was begun for a member of another group who's quit coming, and a member or ours who's done the same. They both have good reasons not to come; I don't, so I do. I actually enjoy that one. And of course my own intentional sitting alone on the other days of the week, at home.
It only concerns me a bit because the reason I do these group (sangha) sittings is, first because I enjoy the company -- a rare thing for me, who would rather be alone most of the time -- and because I want to provide an opportunity for people to sit zazen, and to have enough support to be able to get their own practices going. Not that I would proselytize for zazen. I've realized that most of the people who come to us come already knowing it's what they need to do. The rare ones who come for some other reason usually drift off to an easier, softer practice. There are plenty of people out there who will spoon feed you "Buddhism" if that's what you want. And there are other groups who will make you work, too, don't get me wrong. But there's no reason or purpose trying to convert anyone. As I said, they come.
And to tell the truth, there is a bit of "steering" to be done, if people are to get it right. People come wanting to solve their problems, or to get enlightenment. Or because they want to calm their stresses, or find meaning. All those things can happen, but not if you try for them. And ultimately the only real reason to sit zazen -- well, the real Zen teachers would say, is to sit zazen. I'd say it's to experience what's there, whatever that is, and accept it as it is. To stare at its uninterpreted face, nod, and say, OK. Let's go.
I've been saying for a few years now is that the main reason I thing it's important that people who want this habit, this ability and this perception, to have it, as that there are hard times ahead. For most of us, the end of times. And I don't mean just in the sense that we're all gonna die, eventually. I mean that the survival of the world as it is now, is untenable . The only way that the human race can survive, is that people will die, en masse. The earth will cleanse itself of its excess; either that or the planet, the host itself will die, and we the virus will die with it. I hope the former happens, given the choice. But it won't be pleasant. Could be no one reading this, including me, will be around in ten years, or less. Could happen. I still think pandemic, natural or manufactured, is the mostly likely option. Pick your poison.
I think that zazen will enable you to stare into the face of the most horrible of times, which is not death but the other stuff that happens first, and accept it. Not that you'll like it. You may still scream, and depending, you may still fight. That's good. You'll do what you'll do. But you'll understand what that moment is. And live in it. This I believe. That hasn't changed.
But something else has changed for me, lately. I'm observing that humanity has a habit of surviving when it shouldn't, and that so do its individuals and its cultures. And so I'm thinking that some of us will probably be alive in a few years. Maybe not me, but still us. Under what circumstances, I can't say. I just watched this wonderful German TV mini-series called Dresden. And since I was a child I've had this version of walking through a city in ruins. That, I think, is inevitable for survivors.
Because what I'm pretty sure won't survive, is multiculturalism. I don't mean that only one culture will survive; I certainly hope not, and if I had to make odds on what that would be, I don't like what I see. The world has more than enough Muslims, and they're growing every day. More on that some other day. And maybe not in this blog. But if there's any religion crazier than Christianity, it's Islam. That's just the truth. Deal with it.
I' m not a big fan of multiculturalism, or what's usually referred to as diversity, anyway. I got attacked for this last year, but I still stand up for it. What's commonly seen as diversity, is cultural homogeneity. I love true cultural diversity. I love walking the streets of an alien culture, when it can be done reasonably safely. It's getting harder to do. They've all been blended together, by force of law, and by the machinations of the international consumer machine that reduces Chinese culture to restaurants. We pick and choose here and there. We do it in our religions, too.
And yes, I think that when times get hard, we will break up into groups, and we will fight each other. That's not optimal; it's just inevitable. When times get hard, you will look out for you and your own, whoever you perceive that to be. It's in your genes.
So there really is a point, or two, to all this. More on the other stuff later.
The first is, if one of the motivations I have in encouraging zazen is that it will help people enable hardship, it would first be necessary that the people coming to it, come not for entertainment or out of curiosity, or for that cushy warm glow better supplied by brandy. It would be necessary that they seek it, as the old proverb says, with their hair on fire. Nothing else will get you where you need to be, to get to the bottom. Otherwise I may be enjoying myself and telling myself I'm making a difference, when in fact, I'm just wasting my time. I have to sit with that a bit more and see where it goes.
There's another point, too. It has to do with what you see when you get down to the bottom that you can get to in zazen, where form is emptiness and emptiness is form and yada-yada, and in which you realize that although you don't exist, it's all up to you. And you can build up with there with the values you choose, or which are so ingrained in you that if they're not there, you're not you anyway. And that's where I find my values don't have much to do with the "philosophy" of Zen, which I'm finding is a beast quite different from the practice -- and which I'm finding, to be honest, is neither interesting nor helpful to be at this point. I'm finding those values in quite a different place. Values that can help to rebuild a new world, or to try to preserve what I see to be the best of the old one.
But more of that later. I've pissed off enough PC Buddhists and others already, and this one is getting long (as they do when I don't write for a few weeks). Save your steam, I guarantee I can raise your hackles another time. But maybe not here; I haven't decided. See the previous blog.
Oh, if the title seems familiar; it's not that other multicultural Buddhism I'm referencing; it's this stuff; old school great stuff (you can skip the first 1:28 if you're in a hurry).
I've been so busy this month until now, that I'd barely taken notice of what time of year it was. April was never a very significant month for me until a few years ago, when it became a time of milestones. Six years ago my mother died, as part of a nexus of events which threw my life into chaos for a year or more and changed everything forever. A year ago, I had to have Ms. Johnson put to sleep. It was also in April three years ago that I discovered the Atlanta Soto Zen Center, an event which over time led to the changes in my own life and the lives of other Zen practitioners in Nashville which are probably the biggest stabilizer in my life today. Then there was this year's NZC retreat.
I came to this realization last night while watching Storm Over Mount Blanc, a surprisingly gripping 1930 German movie, my favorite so far of Dr. Fanck's mountain films - starring among others Leni Riefenstahl (of course!) and ErntUdet (who was, interestingly, Germany's number two flying ace in WWI, behind Richthofen, of Snoopy fame). The film is an amazing depiction of man against mountain, all the more interesting when you realize that there were no stunts, in the modern sense, and no special events. Real mountain, real glaciers, real athletes.
The film itself is full of storms, and it was after the movie, when I went to bed early, that the real storm moved in. I've always loved storms, but I was rarely uneasy; the tornadoes last week did damage to the homes of people I know. Which seems to be the metaphor for current unease about these Ratzaz Diaries, among other things.
I think I began this blog because I felt isolated. Maybe a bit because I still felt, in the aftermath of my mother's death two years before, I still needed someone to talk to, and although I had some people I cared about in my environment, I had to go out of my way to carry on an intelligent conversation. That is, I was surrounded by nutball right-wing Christians and nonthinkers of every stripe at work, and I was frustrated in my search for the "spiritual" path I was looking for in my return to Buddhism a year earlier. The earliest Ratzaz Diaries entries (go look!) were rants against Christianity and the Bush administration. I think everyone finally figured out the Bush administration -- eight years too late, at least -- and I rarely hear from the Christians these days, or at least the oppressive variety.
So the Ratzaz Diaries lacks a focus -- instead of lashing out, it is more likely to celebrate. Which is okay of course. But there's a more insidious issue; I have friends now, and what is more, because I still seem to be the main communications outlet for the Nashville Zen Center (since inability to communicate is probably my biggest gripe about the people I now call my friends, which is not bad, considering how I felt about most of the people in my environment 3 1/2 years ago when I began) -- I find myself being (shudder!) careful about what I say.
Because I never wanted to be a spokesman for anyone but myself. I never want my own opinions to be mistaken for the opinion of a group, especially the NZC, or any of my Zen teachers, or even of my friends. And I find myself in a position in which it's hard to make that distinction easily. My principal Zen teacher, Michael Elliston, has encouraged me to let my zazen take me where it takes me, even if it's not where I thought I was going. And in many ways, the way I would express what I've learned so far would not fit into any Buddhist text. Thanks also to Brad Warner, for writing the book which brought me back to Zen from the particular angle of learning from practice, and not approaching "from the top down" -- from theory. That has made all the difference.
I still shudder at almost every dharma talk. Except for rare, brilliant moments, like Saturday night April 11 at Penuel Ridge. But more on that some other time.
And really, my personal opinions are not as strident as they were in late'05. I voted for Obama, he won, and though I don't agree with a lot of what the present administration is doing, I really hate to think what could have happened if the Republicans had remained in power. Indeed, it is the failure of the Obama administration to pursue and punish the villains of the previous one that is my biggest peeve with it right now; I conceptualized and then failed to write "Leon Panetta at Nuremberg."
I had a "friend" from one of these "Buddhist" events who really wanted me to write about politics. And I did. And when months later I wrote of rediscovering my own ethnic and cultural heritage, she decided that I was some sort of White Supremacist or something (which was not at all based in what I wrote) and decided not to be my friend. Which of course she never was; I can't imagine every excising a true friend from my life for any opinion they might hold. And strangely enough from that episode, the Zen practitioners came to my defense. Which tells me a couple of things.
First, that I find myself sharing more of parts of myself with my fellow Zen people only. And that's a little scary really, because I never want to be seen, or to think of myself, as withdrawing into some sort of closed group, especially of others who share my opinions on something. But it's not really that -- it's the ability to see clearly I cherish, and at this point it's the people who've been practicing zazen for a while who can do that,. The "Buddhists" without the essential practice can never see that, because they've simply exchanged one set of delusions for another. I never said any of the things that my false friend thought I said; she was simply incapable of seeing what I was really saying.
But a part of me is not really content to let the Ratzaz Diaries go on being a shadow of its former self. So you tell me: can I continue to say what I really think without having my words be taken as the twisted manifesto of the Nashville Zen Center? I really don't mind driving people away from me personally, if they don't understand me. I do dread the thought of fucking with someone'szazen practice because they mistakenly take me as some sort of leader, and think that my thoughts have anything to do with the totally personal development and "blossoming" they can realize through their own practice.
I even thought of abandoning this blog to the lotus-sniffers and developing another anonymous blog to get a little more virulent. Opinions?
