Looking backwards and trying to capture You
philosophy
Is this real life or a Movie?
At Oakland’s Art Murmur, Steve and I were watching the plentiful people walk by The Wall, and he asked me if I thought this was all real or if it was maya, an illusion.
Without hesitation I replied that I thought most certainly it was all made up somehow and not the truth.
He agreed and then asked if I thought other people felt “all this” was a facade of sorts, as well.
I responded firmly that I thought most people were very invested in what was going on here as all and everything.
He smiled and said that almost all the people he has asked have responded the same way; to both questions
He says he has asked lots of different types of people.
The Teacher
For close to three decades
I sat in his class
Once a week, off and on,
Mostly on
And
Even when I wasn’t there
I was there
Even though I knew
It was never about him
This teaching where I sat for years being told I didn’t exist
And that it is
all
Interconnected with no separate such
Even having seen the box lowered into the ground and I throwing my dirt on that box
Him having passed and
I knowing the teaching was never about him
Still
It’s so comforting
now more than
ever to hear his voice
Flowers at Walgreens
3 feb 2013
I’ve gone to Walgreens a lot lately.
Because the tiny rose bushes are just $2.50
And they come in white, light pink, bright pink and red.
Those living eternal symbols were less than a cup of coffee
The kind I drink anyway.
I bought one of each in different neighborhoods
Because I kept coming back for more, and I was getting around.
In the stores I noticed things
So,
I’m just saying.
In the white neighborhood store, as you approach the checkout stand,
An impulse item you can buy is blond hair dye
Like, hey! I think I’ll dye my hair blond!
In the Latino neighborhood you can chose from 3 aisles
of valentine candy, flowers and what-not
That’s an aisle more than other stores
You can probably get these anywhere
I noticed them in the black neighborhood store
Black Marlboros. Black, like acknowledging what is
The package, your lungs, the smoke
Calling a spade a spade.
Flies
So, I’m a nice enough guy usually: certainly not a murderer or anything, but would I hurt a fly? Well, that’s where it can get tricky.
One fly comes and I’m cool. Ditto for two and three. Four flies starts to get worrisome. By the time there are seven flies in my kitchen, I am crazy with disgust for them and luckily it is time to go to bed.
I leave the kitchen door open, hoping to not find them there tomorrow. Hoping that they will somehow develop brains in the night that will lead them away from the closed window.
I get up earlier than usual the next morning, before the sun is up. All seven flies are asleep on the ceiling. Unmoving on the ceiling.I feel for them being asleep. I relate to them. I drink my tea and write some notes and they are still unmoving on the ceiling. I feel differently about them.
I leave to go to a cafe and come back to moving flies and, even worse, sitting flies on food left out.
Normally, I start killing at this many flies, but now, I don’t. I’ve seen them sleeping. Upside down.
Waking Up
After watching the digital clock for a while, she decides on getting up at four in the morning rather than lying in the darkness any longer. It’s the darkness in her mind keeping her up anyway. Better to turn on the lights.
She almost falls asleep on the train going to her morning class and almost asleep again coming home. So when she gets home, she lies down and goes to sleep.
She wakes up in the dark. This is rain dark, not night dark. Wondering why hunger follows afternoon naps, she opens the frig to find it mostly empty.
After the cashier has rung up the grocery cart with two hundred dollars worth of selected items, she realizes her wallet is on the kitchen table at home. She explains. She goes home. She comes back.
The cashier is kind, and he says, “No worries, You are not alone”, meaning this happens all the time.
Confused at the payment keypad between “CLEAR” and “ACCEPT”, she decides on “ACCEPT” because it’s green and likes that he has told her she is not alone.
Outside, near the entrance to the grocery store, someone has permanently written in once wet cement “The Dali Lama” under an also permanent sentence.
The sentence says, “Find hope in the darkness and focus on the light”.
Tonglen Practice
3/4 million (750,000) people can soon die of starvation in Somalia. There is a drought in Africa which has left the people without food.
there is food being given but
the pirate type controlling the country won’t let aid in
the big boats can’t get to the ports
even if they could, on shore
it is beyond food
some now need care before they can eat.
These Somalian people.
What now to do with the awareness of them and it’s effect on me
?
The tonglen buddhist practice is the only real thing
that helps.
Breathing in and breathing out with
attention
toward another with well-wishing
helps.
To feel better…
Because of you I got on my bike later today. I rode and I felt better in the saturated light of dinnertime September. The golden yellow of uncut dried grass made me pretend for a moment that I was in southern California where, if I took a left, I’d go into the desert and drive and drive, roadkill cafes and all, until I came to a creek amidst the boulders in somewhere, say Arizona, and unroll my bag and go to sleep under zillions of stars waking up the next morning not reading email.
Instead I contented myself with curving my bike into Temescal Lake Park where a lone mother and child were ending the day slowly.
It was enough just to get on my bike.
Just enough because you suggested the obvious thing I’d been missing.
To feel better you have to do things that make you feel better.
Profit and Loss
Profit and Loss
don’t matter much really
Not in the end, certainly.
It’s how you play
that counts
betweenstops 