Song Writing 101 (Work Very Much In Progress)

All words by anonymous lawyer who was a victim of a spear phishing cyber attack and had random lyrics imprinted by a rogue AI into his server
Music by another anonymous lawyer who can actually play guitar.

It's Not Like

Its not like we were into it
Its not like we care
we threw out words with carelessness
lost in the air

I don't remember how much it hurt
except when it does
can't spit out the question
with you i feel that old connection
my breath is all used up

Oh come on
lost healing
come on
we'll try to forget
come on
romanticizing cheating
come on
cowards bleeding
come on

Its not like we were into it
Its not like we care
we threw out words with carelessness
lost in the air

I don't remember how much it hurt
except when it does
can't spit out the question
with you i feel that old connection
my breath is all used up

Oh come on
lost healing
come on
we'll try to forget
come on
romanticizing cheating
come on
cowards bleeding
come on

Carriage House Blues

Alone is the news
Except for the stream
who think I own the goddamn place
For once I don't remember their names
Living the dream
down the drain
its all the same
Carriage house blues

Always full of clues
vodka tequila and stout
and the people who drink too much wine
can't remember their names
living the dream
down the drain
all the same
carriage house blues

There was that hippie
said I was 189
never had to wait in line
for once i lost count too
she always got me through the last set
what was her goddamn name?
living the dream
down the drain
all the same
carriage house blues

always looking for something
they thought I used to be
looking different in the day
shouldn't have read my resume
they thought I owned the goddamn place
living the dream
down the drain
Can't remember their name
carriage house blues

Why I'm Having a Difficult Time Being Alone (Updated Again)

I must be sending out some sort of distress signal because almost every old girlfriend I've ever had has contacted me in the last couple of months.

One now lives in New York City and works for Goldman Sachs.  She hasn't seen me since law-school.  After she shared the story of the trials and tribulations of her various adventures since she knew me, and the multitude of her current adventures, she expressed shock about what I had been up to for the last ten years or so.

"What happened to you Mike?  I remember you as being the quiet shy intense guy who was perfectly content being alone with myself in his basement apartment playing his guitar and reading."

She never knew how much I hated that guy.   The old me.   How ashamed of him I was.  How much I now never want to be that guy again.  I put so much distance between myself and that Mike that even though that old Mike probably had redeeming features I want absolutely none of it.

And its not like I can really get away from him.   But because I have neglected him for so long he has morphed into something else.   Something that when I'm alone at night visits me in my sleep, wakes me up and makes me feel so empty.  Something that is destroying all my relationships now with his need, his anger, his jealousy, his pain.

The old Mike had a difficult time connecting to people.  Especially women.  He always felt like an outsider because he was always the one without a girlfriend.  The one his friends stopped trying to set up.

I don't want to be alone with the old Mike. He scares me.  I don't want to turn into him again.  Old Mike never had a women.  So if I have a woman, I am not the old Mike via simple logic.  And you know how much I like simple logic.

But it is more than logic.  It is a gut feeling.  The presence of a woman, the right woman in the right relationship will fill me up and make the old Mike go away.  Therein lies the rub, for its difficult to sustain the right woman in the right relationship so that I can continue to obtain the emotional connection with her to keep the old Mike at bay.  And women are not stupid.  They want someone to love them.  Not be emotionally attached to them.  Well some of them anyway.

Old Mike existed alot in his head.  He had a hard time connecting with people.   And a mind left to itself without connections to the outside world is an accident waiting to happen.  Its fragile.  Very fragile.

So in the words of Vladimir Lenin, "What is do be Done?"  What is your simple plan?  What is the simple logic?  At the Art show at the Black Sheep last Friday I was once again reminded of the fact that there is beauty and music all around me.  All I have to do it reach out from the confines of my mind and I will make the necessary connections.  I can connect with the entire world and lessen the burden on any individual woman.:-)

Additionally, feel all those past selves still living in you.  Reach out to them.  Love them.  Make space for them.  Not just them but all the selves you see around you.   Make that your practice.  Its what you are tying to do anyway, so just get to it.

And of course, I just need to lighten up about this, don't I?  If I can put all this energy I have into something more constructive than creating artificial dichotomies, then maybe I would get somewhere.  For example, exactly where I am right now instead of creating all these ideas about myself and my past and my current relationships.

69 Marxists (Updated Version for Black Sheep Art Night 6/23/17)

69 Marxists joined hands together in a circle conducting a seance. Their efforts to channel a perfect society were interrupted by the noises emanating  from the Polynesian dance class next door.

Marx turned to Engels, and gave him that look like, "dude, you should have rented a quieter meeting hall," to which Englels rejoined, with a chagrined smirk, that this was all they could afford because his parents cut him off and he, after all, was the financier of this little endeavor.  

Meanwhile the Polynesians next door must have been reaching some sort of finale because the intensity and volume increased with such a pleasing crescendo that its concomitant effect was an increased sweating on the palms of the seance participants which in turned caused many of them to break their hand grip with each other.  

And of course you know what happens when sweaty palms break up a seance, but if you don't I will tell you: it breaks the spell and whatever you were summoning is not summoned and instead remains in whatever separate dimension it was before.  But you already knew that.  For whatever perfect society Marx and Engels were conjuring obviously never occurred, present society abundantly included.  Now I know you could try and blame that on the Polynesians, but that would be a mistake for a variety of reasons, namely because there were not any actual Polynesians in the next room.

That's right, there were no scantily clad hula dancers next door making the music.   Had they known this, Marx and his cronies might have been less excited and perhaps able to complete their summoning.  We could all now be living the dream in perfect economic equality.  The world will never know.

What we do know is that unbeknownst to Engles when he rented the room, the landlord was actually a small computer start-up that was several years ago acquired by Alphabet f/k/a Google.  This company had developed a working prototype AI for applications in the online dating business.   Google purchased the company hoping to compete with Match.com and Tinder, but the fledgling business, MindandBodyMeld.com was never a commercial success.  What is important for our little story is that though the startup's business moved locations, its original routers were never disconnected from the room adjacent to the Communists.   And yes, this is the room where the Polynesian music was coming from.  The routers still contained the original AI programming that had morphed into something something completely different.  The new AI adopted the preferences of its last client, who happened to have a thing for Polynesian women.  In an effort to satisfy its last customer, the AI had adopted the character (and music) of the classic Polynesian hula dancing female.  This explains of course the presence of the music interrupting the efforts of the Marxists.

I am not sure that this chain of events has any significance or symbolism.  It just goes to show you that even those with the best intentions can have their plan thwarted by random acts of artificial intelligence.  Get used to it.   Similarly, before you go on a rant blaming some ethnic group for your woes, you might want to consider that it is actually a rogue AI, and before you start building your walls you might want to walk a mile in their virtual shoes.  

CHOD Practice Journal (Work in Progress)

Feeding your Daemons.

Day 1  (6/21/17) (3:45 am):

1:  Find the Daemon:   Setting the stage:   Nine breaths, facing the empty chair.  Dedicate the practice to all beings.   The daemon was immediately felt.  Unlike other times where there was a distinct sensation in my body, this presence was completely separate from me and sitting in the chair.  The only bodily sensation I had was a tingling of fear.   The daemon was a tall brown tentacled creature--something between an octopus and an alien.  Its tendrils flailed out in all directions.  I asked what the deamon wanted/needed from me.  There was no response but I started gagging as if the tentacles were shoved down my throat.  My neck was thrown back.

I felt like I was choking and stopped the connection.  I remember thinking that I would do this tomorrow.  Baby steps.  What was particularly disconcerting was similarity with the same gag reflex I experienced during the last Reiki session.  When the throat area was energized, there was the memory of crying out for "mommy."  Then a white light and a huge (as reported to me) energy release.  It was like a hard boot on a computer.

2.  Personify the daemon and ask what it needs
3.  Become the daemon
4.  Feed the daemon.
5.  Rest in awareness.

Day 2 (6/22/17)  (2:43 am)

1.  Woke up to a dream involving the louver.  We were in a room filled with drapes and carpet. There were other people around.  She was being cold to me.  I was trying to appease her.  There was money around, I was trying to collect it to give put it on a small collection bowl on a shelf for her.  M from work kept trying to interrupt what I was doing and I became angry with her.  Eventually I yelled at her.  Then I woke up with a pain in my midsection about 3 inches above my navel.  It was the pain I felt with the louver.

Unlike yesterday, this was a body sensation.  There were no daemons. This was just me.  I felt that I needed to be kind and gentle with my pain to give it a voice to speak.  I was very tired  so I laid back down and attempted a gentle conversation with it, softening at same time.  I thought of how my relationship with the pain has changed.  This is the reminder that I am alive. My friend.  My loss.  It was not ready to speak with me, but I felt its deepness and how it touched me on so many levels.  I only feel the grief of the pain because of my love for her and how much we shared.   I am not ashamed of it or turning it away.  It was real and it touched me deeply.  It was part of my life for a significant period of time.  The intensity of my grief over the loss is a reminder to what it meant to me.  May I love all of life with that same intensity, and feel the pain of living/reminder of living always.   May it overwhelm me and take me in its loving arms.

I went back to sleep and had more dreams.  When I woke the pain was still there, but it had spread out to my entire body.  I will try to give it a home for as long as it wants to visit me.

Day 3(6/23/17) (4:00am).  The reins did not hold.  The horse was out of the barn into the pasture, down the road, up the trail, and down by the beach.  It is still running.  Maybe if I'm lucky, there may be a nap time in my future.
 

Remembrances of Things Present--And an Earnest Reminder for the Future,Got that Dumbfuck? LOL (Updated Yet Again)

Memories are a complex phenomena.  They exist side by side with the truth, marching together in an uncomfortable dance.

When memories are taken as truth, they go unquestioned.  This may lead to fixed assumptions, all or nothing thinking, which may have unintended consequences on future decisions.  It may lead to poor decision making.  Or indecisiveness.

In my world, as I have recently experienced, there is a deep part of Mike that probably knows the truth.  This deep part of Mike probably has an accurate recollection of not only historical events, but probably has a fairly good instinctual and intuitive read on people.  This deep part has truthful memories.

Then there is the day to day Mike, who is sort of groping along with things.  The day to day Mike thinks he knows what the truth is, but his fixed assumptions about the past, and about other people can be inconsistent with reality.  Left to his own devices, the day to day Mike is generally indecisive if his version of the truth (and memories) are inconsistent with the real version of the truth from the deep part of Mike.  In other words, indecisive, equivocal, vacillating Mike is a state where his day to day truth is inconsistent with his deep version of the truth.  And therein lies the kicker, for the deep version of the truth has a very quiet and subtle voice.  By contrast, the day to day Mike can be loud and obnoxious.  And an asshole.  And insensitive.  And inattentive.  He can ignore the voice of his inner promptings.   Still, the day to day Mike generally is not stupid.  Hopefully in the future he will recognize that where there is some sort of indecisiveness, he needs to slow down and pay attention to his inner voice.

This reminder is not made without a great deal of seriousness.   For the first time in a very long time, I have begun to sober up.  And this has nothing to do with wine. For the past six months I have been slowly killing myself in a variety of ways.  For when the inner voice is ignored for a prolonged period of time, or where the day to day Mike is operating under a profound delusion, the inner voice will start to shut things down.  I do not understand this process.  I only know that I have experienced it.   It started slowly at first.   But let me tell you the ending before I start.  The ending is that I was saved from my delusion by two people.  One who saved me out of of genuine concern and intimate knowledge of what I was doing to myself.  When she found out her immediate reaction was, "has anyone told Mike about this?   She did this after I broke her heart.   Several times.  Bless her heart.  She knows I'm a sensitive nut.  Shit, I'm even trying to write poetry.   And sure, I like to have fun and have a little wine, and lose myself in the dance, but not with that kind of edge to it.  Where people start to get hurt, my fun stops in a heart beat.  So she called me over to her house and sat me down and told me she had something important to tell me.  I still remember the gravity of her delivery.  The racing of my heart.  It was something like when Cindy called me the other day after texting me to call her right away.  Cindy's first words were "there has been an accident."  From then on everything was in slow motion until Cindy completed the sentence "involving my father."

 The other who saved me did the right thing without knowing about it.  He didn't know me, evidently.  But at least he shared the information with someone who did.  Without their outside intervention, who knows where I would be today.  That is the ending.

To describe the beginning and the middle, I'm going to be a little obtuse.  This is personal after all.  It involved a complete indecision and vacillation between two women.  There was no resolution of the indecision.  Indeed, there could not be a resolution.  Because in retrospect, one had reign over the day to day Mike.  The other ruled the deep part.  As I have said above, you know how that will end.

I was saved.  Like a flash of lightning,  the truth was revealed about one of the women.  Maybe not so much the truth, but the fact that I had been deluded about her.  The truth didn't really matter.  Hell the hippie chick probably dwarfed her with her adventures.  But at least that was all out in the open.  I knew what I was getting into.  When the delusion was lifted, it all made sense.  Memories came back to me that I had suppressed.   I likely was being blamed for her inability to honestly share and address her pain.  Easier to lash out that to feel what is within.  And I was susceptible to that line of attack.  And of course, I had no problem sharing my pain because everything to me matters in large amounts.  I'm on the drama team.  I'm a star performer.  lol   And you can block me only so many times after calling me "emotionally abusive" for sharing what amounted to my hurt that I begin to get the message.  If there is a problem with me, it was a problem for me in that relationship. But we will have to save that dynamic for another day.  I don't blame her at all.  I have not walked a mile in her moccasins.  And her husband could have been a monster.  But what was important for me is that my inner voice gained its voice.  And I stopped killing myself.  At least for now.

Somebody Saved Me by Pete Townshend (edited)

I stood at the door beside her
But she wouldn't let me pass
I was such a bore and I lied to her
I said I didn't really want her ass
I went away in the mud and rain
The gang became snide and laughed
I was slayed, but I smiled and the pain
Began to subside at last

And when I got back to my hotel
I wondered if the thunder meant I'd landed in hell
And on the forecourt I slipped and fell
I cracked my stupid head and I heard a bell
I thought, hey

Somebody saved me, it happened again
Somebody saved me, I thank you my friend
Somebody saved me, from a fate worse than heaven
'Cause if I'd had her for just an hour
I'd have wanted her forever
Somebody saved me

You would have thought that I'd have learned
Twenty years ago or more
A beautiful girl raised her mouth and yearned
But I didn't know what lips were for
I ran away in the mud and rain
The weather here is never too bright
She'd had an affray with her man and came
For solace and the means to fight

She finally bored with seducing me
And took up with some geezer from the Ealing scene
It nearly killed him like it would've killed me

But somebody saved me, it happened again
Somebody saved me, I thank you my friend
Somebody saved me, from a fate worse than heaven
'Cause if I'd had her for just an hour
I'd have wanted her forever

I don't know about guardian angels
All I know about's staying alive
I can't shout about spiritual labels
When little ones die and big ones thrive

All I know is that I've been making it
And there've been times that I didn't deserve to
Every show there's been more faking it
But right at the point of no return

Somebody saves me, again and again
Somebody saves me, I thank you my friend
Somebody saves me, from a fate worse than heaven
'Cause if I blew it for a single moment
I'd blow it forever
But somebody saves me

I took up the connection once
Made me feel quite aloof
I never could queue to collect my lunch
While I was pursuing the truth
So I left my folks in the mud and rain
It always rains in Sunnyside Road

Ruben and Cherise and my Guardian Angel Kroeter

Spiders, Spiderwebs, Fireflies.

S:  You are like a firefly that flitters from here to there and everywhere.

FF:  Give me an example?

S:  You can't sit still even to eat.  You sit there, take a bite and walk back into the kitchen; then you go to the bathroom, then the bedroom, now you are back sitting with me.  But there is more, even your eyes are darting everywhere.  Always looking for danger, always thinking of your next step, the next move.  And I'm looking at you waiting for you to stop.  Waiting for you to look at me!  I say, I'm sitting here, I'm here with you, look at me.  I'm here.  I'm trying to connect with you.  Where are you?
But I know you can't help it.  You are all over the place.  You are so funny.

FF:  But don't you like that?  Or do you like that?

S:  I do and I don't.  I just find it interesting.  You are a firefly.  I want to catch you and put you in a jar so you can illuminate my way at night.  Don't worry, I'll put a hole in the top of the jar so you can breathe.  I'll put you in the bed with me.  You can be my nightlight.

FF:  Ah, so you are a predator?

S:  Maybe.  Maybe I just want a project in some way.  You are my project.  I keep thinking maybe I can help you.

FF:  What are you going to help me do?

S:  Sleep, Find peace, Be happy, Relax.  I don't know.  Its a maternal instinct. I always felt I could help you.  You have helped me in a lot of ways.

FF:  Does your desire to assist me intensify when you think I am in more distress?  Because sometimes I can sleep.  However, as you are aware, this is not one of those months.  I'm always looking for a safe place to sleep, where no one can get me.

S:  That's why I want to put you in a jar!  You are such a child sometimes.  You think like a child, get angry like a child, wear your heart on your sleeve like a child, make love like a child with all your heart, argue like a child, get hurt like a child, throw a tantrum like a child, get sad like a child, get scared like a child, and late at night when you are alone, you want to crawl into bed with your mommy don't you?   That's why I love you so much.  That's why I want to protect you.  But you are more than that.  For your ass doesn't always light up.  Sometimes its so dark.  I get a chill when that happens.  Its like a total eclipse.  Then I wonder why I even bother with you.  You cause so much pain when your ass is cold.  Makes me question everything about you.  Then I try to remember all the good things about you.  I try to remember what it is like with you when your ass shines brightly.  Its so hard sometimes.  But still I can never forget you.

The Recent Lucid Dream, A Non-Sequitor

I was in a Zen temple.  The Grateful dead was playing or what was left of them on a small stage.  This was basically Bob Weir and some session musicians.  They sounded great.  I remember doing somersaults I was so happy.  Then I was out back on the veranda talking to someone.  I asked that if he wanted to get Bob Weir's autograph with me. Then I realize it was Bob Weir.  We both laughed hysterically.

You're Still Standing There by Steve Earle

I've spent my life following things I cannot see
But just when I catch up to them, they slip away from me
Now I've been down a thousand trails I've never walked before
And I found out that without fail, they lead me to your door

And the world keep turning round and round
It leaves me hanging in the air
My heart keeps turning upside down
You're still standin' there

Now lately I see all the signs, I feel it in the wind
And the same thing happens every time that you come back again
Now I'll admit that there are nights when I sit up and cry
But sometimes I turn out the lights and pray you'll pass me by

And the world keep turning round and round
It leaves me hanging in the air
My heart keeps turning upside down
And you're still standin' there

Now since you've gone my empty arms have nothing left to hold
And your memory cannot keep me warm but it never leaves me cold

And the world keep turning round and round
It keeps me hanging in the air
My heart keeps turning upside down
You're still standin' there

And the world keep turning round and round
It leaves me hanging in the air
My heart keeps turning upside down
You're still standin' there

The May 2017 Sesshin

Note to self:  when you are going through a period of change, its probably not the best idea to go to a 6 day sesshin.  Now I know you went there with the best intentions, all about encountering the self and having it be a little sanctuary and all, but duh, think about it dude.  It also tends to magnify whatever is going on inside you so that there is no escape.  Which sometimes when you have the space to deal with it can be very liberating.  And other times, give yourself a break sometimes dude.  I thought we weren't going to be so hard on yourself and cut yourself some slack until you get more grounded.  What is going on with you is good.  You can feel it can't you?  So just continue to go with it slowly.   And at least you did leave early.  And fuck the wave and the anal people who get put off by your leaving, and you know who you are....ED!!!   lol

Now we continue to our original scheduled programming:  The hidden lamp, the treasury of love buried deep in the heart of the princess in the bottom of the sea, love presented to the awakened one.

I have been through this before.  Mike in love, so to speak.  The first time this must have started was with Anne B.  Poor Anne B.  Can you imagine what is was like to be with this force of nature of the 20 year old Mike pursuing you?  He was caught up in forces he had no idea, the pulling in pushing away devouring force that both loved and hated you at the same time.  And most of the time he just wanted to steam roll you over and over and over again until there was nothing left of you, nothing left of him, but a steaming carcasses.  You were perhaps wise to pull away, as if your own sense of self preservation took over.  Not that it didn't hurt him and start the weird dynamic which is still with him to some degree that he has to reel it in, all the time, as if his true self and expressions drive people away. And if he sees that dynamic in other people, he runs as well.  Like I said, if I haven't said it before, there is nothing rational about him.  Definitely not this part.  But he can't cut off his right hand so to speak.  And you cannot avoid the red thread of what you are.  And I still am not comfortable in letting the USS Freak Flag fly.  Probably for good reasons.  Because after all Mike you can still hear the mantra coming from everyone in you late teens early 20s  and beyond that you are just too fucking intense.  Way too intense.  With self destructive elements thrown in for dessert.  Tone it down dude so you can relate to people, right?  They don't need all that emotional garbage. I don't need that emotional garbage.  Got to tone it down, right. Let the love in, to yourself for starters.

And the memories flooded back to me.  Some funny, some not so funny.  The times she used to do the things that she thought would slate my thirst for a bit, only to have the fire hydrant go off, but then much to her dismay and fear, be ready to go again too soon for her comfort.  Such things still which I don't have an appetite for to this day, even though every other human male seems to enjoy them.

And I pursued her relentlessly.  These days it would be called stalking.  To the point where I was calling her friends asking for advice.   And I laugh at myself now, but I remember talking to Stephanie B, and she looked at me with more understanding that I deserved at the time saying how she could relate to me because things had opened up to me for the first time.  Yea right.  That's one way of putting it.

So then came the older women.  Not as much pressure with them.  It was unwritten that things weren't going to go anywhere with them.  Too much of an age difference.  The pressure was off.  And when there was the potential for something more, with a different Stephanie B, I ran away rather than get anything started.  But there were probably other reasons.  Older reasons.

And then there was the business arrangement, and then there was the surrender to ecstasy, but those will have to wait for another day.  Because what is important to you Mike, for your life right now is the dynamic that started in you with Anne B.

But enough of this I say, for I was sitting in sesshin, feeling drawn back into my reptile mind of panic, when like a bolt of lightning Wendy M. confronts Elihu during his dharma talk.  And while he is talking about avoiding putting rat turds into the perfect pot of stew, this obviously hits a nerve with her and she lashes out:  "You cannot mess it up.  It is perfect.  So many times in my childhood I have been told the same thing but I know now that you cannot mess it up."  And the words came from her heart and were true, and they were false, they were rat turds at the same she uttered their unmistakable truth.  For that my friends is zen, embodied right then and there on Friday afternoon about 3 pm, that the truth is uttered while simultaneously being a rat turd at the same time.  This was the essence of zen unfolding right before me then and there, Elihu being correct, and deadly wrong at the same time, Wendy speaking the truth/falsity at the same time side by side in perfect unison.

And then the drama continued.  Elihu telling Wendy, "enough."  And it was not enough for her.  She went on.  For she had studied with Joko Beck, Elihu's teacher who is now dead.  And she lashed out at him in ways that must have hurt basically implying that he was no Joko Beck, that Joko would not have made the same mistake he did, and then Elihu saying that it was not what he is saying that is what is written by the zen masters, and Wendy without missing a beat saying that the zen masters are dead and it is all about the living right here and now.  And I saw the venom in what Wendy was saying, and how much it must have hurt Elihu, and how I do that to people as well, throwing rat turds around indiscriminately.

And how then, in this silent retreat I went up to Wendy and thanked her for the "blessing" and she looked at me strange, and not just because I spoke,  but because it was a blessing, it was a rat turd, and I will eat them with pleasure, in or out of the stew.

The End of the Road, Part I

A man wearing a tie leaves his office preoccupied.  He finds his car in the parking lot and rummages around in the back seat filled with the files of paper, dirty clothes and other debris.

Another man wearing a fast food workers' apron and cap walks by the man wearing a tie.  He too is preoccupied.   But unlike the man wearing a tie, he is sweating in the hot sun.  The bus stop is far from his employment.  He is late for work and uncomfortable passing the man in front of the glass office building.

The man wearing a tie wants to say something to the man wearing the apron, but doesn't for some reason.  He drives off in his car.  Travels to the end of the road and breaks down.  He is ashamed of himself.  His life.  And its not just the mess in his car.  He thinks of the man in the apron again and the sadness on the man's face.  That man did not have a car.  Without thinking, he turns his car around and drives back to the man wearing the apron, who by now was several blocks away.

He parks his car ahead of the man.  The man with the apron looks around nervously as the man with a tie comes out of the car and towards him. But it happens too quickly for him to react.  He looks and sees that in the approaching man's hand is money.  He takes the money.

Neither of them say a word.  For the first time both men smile.  "God bless you," he says looking up to the sky, but the man with a tie is already back in his car, driving away.

Back in the car, the man with the tie wipes the tears streaming down his face with the tie.  He wonders if his new friend will be walking by tomorrow.

Rat Turds

In the mythology of Buddhism,  the original Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, purportedly sat meditating underneath the Bodhi tree for 49 days, and on the morning of the last day, achieved enlightenment.

Here at the Prairie Zen Center in Champagne, we sit in a room meditating facing a wall for 4 or 6 days. In zen parlance, its called a sesshin, or meditation intensive.   Something similar to what the original Buddha was doing sitting under a tree.  However,  using simple math, our 5 or 6 days is far short of the Buddha's 49, so there are no illusions that anyone is going anywhere or achieving enlightenment or anything.   But of course, there is really nothing to achieve.   Its right there in front of us waiting--you just have to eat the rat turds.

I found out about the rat turds on day three of the retreat.  Though the retreat involves a lot of silent meditation (typically about seven hours a day),  each day in the afternoon, the periods of quiet mediation are interrupted by a half hour dharma talk by the teacher (Elihu) to assist with the the otherwise silent mediation period.  Sometimes there is a brief question and answer period as well. The dharma talk of the day concerned the "Heart Sutra" which is the fundamental chant/mantra in Buddhism--something like the "Our Father" of Christianity. It goes in part, like this:

All things are empty:
Nothing is born, nothing dies,
nothing is pure, nothing is stained,
nothing increases and nothing decreases.
So, in emptiness, there is no body,
no feeling, no thought,
no will, no consciousness.
There are no eyes, no ears,
no nose, no tongue,
no body, no mind.
There is no seeing, no hearing,
no smelling, no tasting,
no touching, no imagining.
There is nothing seen, nor heard,
nor smelled, nor tasted,
nor touched, nor imagined.
There is no ignorance,
and no end to ignorance.
There is no old age and death,
and no end to old age and death.
There is no suffering, no cause of suffering,
no end to suffering, no path to follow.
There is no attainment of wisdom,
and no wisdom to attain.

The dharma talk from the teacher explained our relation to the Heart Sutra using a metaphor that we are like a perfect stew, but we throw rat turds into the stew from our own suffering.  That hit a nerve with W. one of the meditators who reacted like a bolt of lightning exclaiming:  "You cannot mess it up.  It is perfect.  So many times in my childhood I have been told the same thing but I know now that you cannot mess it up."  And the words came from her heart and were true, you cannot mess up the stew, but having spoke this truth, the stew was full of rat turds.  For like life,  Zen has it both ways, and it unfolded before me that Friday at 3:00 pm in the afternoon:  Elihu and Wendy parading side by side in perfect union.

And then the drama continued.  Elihu telling W, "enough."  And it was not enough for her.  She went on.  For she had also studied with Joko Beck, Elihu's teacher.  And she lashed out at him in ways that might have hurt basically implying that he was no Joko Beck, that Joko would not have made the same mistake he did of thinking you could mess it up and then Elihu retorting that it was not what he is saying that is what is written by the zen masters, and then W without missing a beat saying that the zen masters are dead and it is all about the living right here and now.  And I saw the emotion in what W was saying, and how much it could have hurt Elihu, and how I do that to people as well, throwing rat turds around indiscriminately.

And how then, in this silent retreat I went up to W and thanked her for the "blessing" and she looked at me strange, and not just because I spoke,  but because it was a blessing, it was a rat turd, and I will eat them with pleasure, in or out of the stew.  Its all we have.

Vis-a-Vis Open Mic Mantra (Demo Project Open Mic. June 2, 2017)

In a zen retreat, you find yourself staring at the same wall, meditating, day in day out.  In that process, you become very familiar, almost intimate, with the cracks, angles, lines, and corners of the wall. While the mind wanders, the consistency of the angles, cracks and lines provide support.  The brain resonates with the simplicity of the shapes in juxtaposition to usual more erratic thought activities.  It allows other processes to unfold.  The lines become everything and nothing.

Note:  Underlined portions are to be read in earnest, Earnest.   Non-underlined portions are to be chanted as if in a mantra, silly.

Peak indifference

Breath, relax, line angle, focus, breath, eyes relax, line, breath, line angle

Experiencing fully automated luxury communism

face relax, sound birds, line, angle, breath, sound cars, cars accelerating, breath line angle

Writing part time optimistic tropes of unmitigated disaster

room ceiling sky breath line angle, breath line angle, breath line angle corner

An activist in residence, ensconced  

expand, dilate, line line line, corner, corner, corner, corner

Give it away quickly, before it grows stale

line line line corner indentation line line line line line

Welcome everything, push away nothing

line line line line line

Loving Awareness

kensho.