networks of affection

I wish I could write like Rebecca Solnit, but I can’t so I’m just going to quote a few lines from the opening pages of her new book, A Paradise Built in Hell. To me, this is what true citizenship is all about, not about shouting people down and threatening “we surround them.” Listen:

“When Cain asks God, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” he is raising one of the perennial social questions: are we beholden to each other, must we take care of each other, or is it every man for himself?…Most traditional societies have deeply entrenched commitments and connections between individuals, families, and groups. The very concept of society rests on the idea of networks of affinity and affection, and the freestanding individual exists largely as an outcast or exile. Mobile and individualistic modern societies shed some of these old ties and vacillate about taking on others, especially those expressed through economic arrangements-including provisions for the aged and vulnerable, the mitigation of poverty and desperation-the keeping of one’s brothers and sisters. The argument against such keeping is often framed as an argument about human nature: we are essentially selfish, and because you will not care for me, I cannot care for you. I will not feed you because I must hoard against starvation, since I too cannot count on others…but if I am not my brother’s keeper, then we have been expelled from paradise, a paradise of unbroken solidarities.”

When I see what happened yesterday in Maine, when equality was defeated by bigotry and intolerance, and when I see the talking heads on cable TV shouting at us and one another, I wonder: Where are the networks of affection and affinity that are supposed to bind us as a society?

hiatus

I had some minor surgery last Friday, so I took this past weekend to recuperate. While I was flat on my back, gazing out the window at the sun-dappled leaves and listening to the birds singing, I was able to start and finish five books. They are: The Happiest Man in the World by Alec Wilkinson, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, Into the Wild by John Krakauer, Kon-Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl, and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick. All highly recommended. I can’t wait to fully recover so that I can get back on my mountain bike and resume my search for the perfect swimming hole. I’ve lived in Bath now for almost ten years and I’m just now really starting to appreciate the diversity of the landscape. The Kennebec can look foul one day, and as beautiful as the Seine the next. I might take a hiatus from this blog for awhile, too. It’s too beautiful outside to spend time at a computer. I hope you all can find your own private Eden this summer, too. Cheers! – henry

creepy naked guy

I have been on a quest lately to find a swimming hole within biking distance of my house. Living in Maine, and with the multitudinous rivers, streams and ocean inlets in my general vicinity, this would seem to be an easy task. But not so. Of course there are various places to swim, but I’m looking for a place a little more secluded, if you know what I mean. Thoreau and Ben Franklin are on my side in this quest for a place where I can indulge in an “open-air bath.” But there’s always the chance that I might get caught and viewed as some kind of freak. I had an experience last summer where I drove out to a secluded pond near my home. I hiked about a mile into the woods, and jumped into the water. Not seeing anyone around, I took off my bathing suit and threw it onto the rocks onshore. It was dusk, and the chances of anyone happening along were slim. And yet, who should appear out of the woods but four women. I was floating about twenty yards offshore and they called out to me, asking if I would mind if they joined me. Of course I agreed. What else could I do? They didn’t notice my state of undress, and, clad in their various swim attire, they jumped in as well. So here we have a great moral dilemma. Does a man, floating naked in the middle of a pond, admit to his newly manifested female companions that he is in fact naked and that perhaps they would like to take their leisure elsewhere? Or does he pretend that everything’s fine, just fine, nothing to see here? Well, I opted for the latter choice. But when the sun started to go down and the water got chillier, I had to make a decision. I slowly paddled towards shore, and gingerly retrieved my suit from the rocks at the water’s edge. You probably don’t know how difficult it is to put on a swimsuit while you are trying to tread water, but let me tell you, it’s not easy. As I climbed out of the water, clothed, I heard giggles behind me. They knew what had happened. I distinctly heard one of them say, “That must have been a thrill for him.” As if I was some kind of pervert. As if it was my plan to go skinny-dipping in a remote pond and hope that some women came along. Please. And yet, they had come out of nowhere, intruded on my privacy, and here I was, feeling like the creep. I remember swearing to myself that I would never let this happen again. But here I am, one summer later, looking for some kind of swimming hole utopia. I’m a married father of two, not some weirdo hiding in the bushes. All I want is someplace where I can be alone and feel close to nature. People can legally go off into the woods, drink a few Buds, and fire shotguns at innocent animals, or tear across frozen lakes on loud, belching snowmobiles, or plow through the woods on ugly, dangerous ATV’s, and all this is legal. And yet I, with my low carbon footprint, am some kind of freak. A man who goes into the woods with a gun to kill animals is called a sportsman. But a man who goes into the woods to swim unencumbered in a secluded pond is just a creepy naked guy, apparently.

baking bread, naming trees

I baked two loaves of bread the other day. This might not seem like such a radical thing. People have been baking bread for centuries. I got the idea from the book I’ve been reading, The Freedom Manifesto by Tom Hodgkinson. In it, he says “if you can make bread, you can do anything. It’s amazing how much confidence baking bread gives you.” My family and I have been eating this bread, which is so much more substantial that supermarket bread, for three days now, enjoying it with our dinners or toasting it for breakfast. It’s a gratifying sight to see your three-year-old son eating the bread you baked. I’ve cooked many meals for my family but for some reason making bread has been the most fulfilling cooking I’ve ever done. And it’s thrifty. Another of Mr. Hodgkinson’s mantras is to “reject waste, embrace thrift.” He advises us to throw out the telly and stop buying magazines. These devices just entice us to buy things we don’t need. Ride a bicycle, the thriftiest invention ever! I just saw an ad on television for Lowe’s, a chain of home improvement stores. Spring is here, and so now we must start our “outdoor projects” Gene Hackman, their paid spokesperson tells us. We are forever working, even during our leisure time. “Let’s build something together” Mr. Hackman exhorts. More like “Spend a lot of money at Lowe’s, using your Lowe’s credit card, and then go home because now you’re on your own, friend.” Commercials never tells us that spring is here and now it’s time to lay in the grass, do nothing, and watch the clouds pass overhead. For the stores, there’s no money to be made in promoting idleness. But it feels so much better to be thrifty than to shop. Shopping will never gratify us. That’s why we keep doing it. If we were ever really gratified, we’d stop shopping tomorrow. But that’s not in the stores’ best interest. To always keep us wanting for more is their philosophy. But what a sweet victory thrift is over waste! For example, I found a free book in a donation bin a few days ago, a guide to identifying trees of North America. It’s one of these old fashioned Golden guides, with colorful drawings instead of photographs. I didn’t pay a cent for it, and yet my children and I have been enjoying looking at trees and trying to find them in the book so as to name them. We found out that the tree in our front yard is (probably) a Norway maple. We’ve lived in our house for almost ten years and never knew that. For the longest time the tree in our front yard was just named “tree.” But now it has a name. And just yesterday my son said that when he got out of preschool he wanted to “look for trees.” Now that’s much better than television.

freedom manifesto

I’ve just started reading The Freedom Manifesto by Tom Hodgkinson. His earlier book, How to be Idle, has been a major influence on my life. Like Linji’s business person, Hodgkinson is a great proponent of lounging, napping, drinking, playing music, bicycle riding, putting on parties, and basically saying “bollocks” to consumer society in general. He is also the editor of The Idler magazine (see the link on my sidebar) in the UK. I could probably quote the entire book here if I’m not careful, and since I suggest you read it at your earliest convenicne, I won’t do that. But let me just quote you a brief passage from the first chapter. Talking about the ways we might alleviate the anxiety that modern society produces in us, he says: “I have managed to cut down to one newspaper a week, which leaves a lot more time to concentrate on the important things in life, like drinking and music.”

A good first step…

spilled wine

This past week, I had the occasion to come across a small book that I found in a used book shop while on holiday with my family in Portsmouth, NH . It is entitled A Record of Awakening by David Smith. The subtitle is Practice and Insight on the Buddhist Path. Written in his own hand, this self-described “ordinary chap”, a gardener from England, tells of his deep awakening while practicing the Way at a Threravada Buddhist monastery in Sri Lanka. I won’t be a plot-spoiler, but suffice to say that if you are sincerely interested in the Dharma, this may be quite an eye-opening book for you. It was extremely inspirational to me, an ordinary chap myself, to read the story of the enlightenment experience of someone who had no advanced education or special knowledge, just a sincere desire to awaken. At the end of his account, he gives a few words of final advice, and one of his phrases resounded very deeply with me. He says, “Immerse yourself in the Dharma, dive into it like you would a pool of cool water on a hot summer’s day, but never get out!” This past weekend I also had the occasion to experience a brief illustration of why it is so important to practice. I was at my in-laws’ house and as I was pouring red wine into a glass, it spilled all over the countertop. As I attempted to clean up the mess, I knocked over the wine glass and it almost shattered. I swore out loud, anger flashing. My daughter was right behind me, and heard me. She wanted to know what the matter was. In that instant I realized how foolish I must have looked, getting so upset over some spilled wine. That ever-present Me was wronged once again, by these mindless, inanimate objects. Upon reflecction, I saw the folly of thinking that we can somehow control every situation we find ourselves in. Shouldn’t we expect that if we open the bottle carefully, and slowly tip it towards the glass, that the wine will flow smoothly? But no. Despite our best plans, the wine spills or our car refuses to start or we lock ourselves out of our house or we lose our eyeglasses. But just who is it that gets so angry? I think practicing the Dharma can show us that there’s no one here to even get upset. Or maybe that I shouldn’t be drinking wine.

day four – one thing

Multigrain pancakes for breakfast, then a 20-mile bike ride. Bright, sunny day. My Soen Roshi diet is pretty much out the window. I was going to attend a sitting group this morning, but I realize I have a greater affinity for solitary meditation. I’m more of a Bodhidharma kind of guy. I checked out a copy of the Mirror of Zen by Korean Zen Master So Sahn. I started reading it, and page one stopped me in my tracks:

“There is only one thing, from the very beginning, infinitely bright and mysterious by nature. It was never born, and it never dies. It cannot be described or given a name. What is this “one thing”?

Like Joshu’s “Mu!”, this question is like a hot ball of iron in my gut that I can’t get rid of.

renewal

Lately I seem to be more of an aggregator of information than a creator of original content. But like a good book that you thrust into a friend’s hands with a “must read this” plea, I feel like sharing these bits of wisdom that I come across in the hopes that you might glean some spark or insight from them. As for my own vows, it looks like another time for renewal. Like Soen Roshi, I too have been consuming the metaphorical demon rice cakes. Even though I have been swimming 30 lengths in the pool on my lunch hour, I still can’t seem to turn the corner on my exercise regimen. I am trying to use the Marathon Monks of Mount Hiei as my inspiration for my nascent running program (four miles every day no matter what) but that hasn’t gotten off the ground yet. I’m doing about three days a week worth of running and walking. I know my mood improves when I exercise, so I have to do it, come rain, shine, or darkness. My diet at first glance appears good, but too may late-night Red Sox games have done damage to my willpower. Today I’m buying a cookbook called Three Bowls: Vegetarian Recipes from an American Zen Buddhist Monastery by Seppo Ed Farrey and Nancy O’Hara that I hope will help my diet. In the Buddha’s time, it was common for monks to eat only one meal per day, and to eat nothing after noon. Extreme, yes. And not very conducive to a householder’s life. But I’ve got to find some way to make my vows stick.

nabokov’s sandwiches

Perhaps due to my own dietary struggles, I’ve always been fascinated by what others eat, especially creative or spiritually advanced people. Maybe I believe that there is a direct correlation between someone’s spiritual or creative achievements and what they eat. Either the food produced the state of mind, or the state of mind in a sense dictated the diet. In either case, I love the little details. Take this, again from Eido Tai Shimano Roshi’s introduction to the book Endless Vow: The Zen Path of Soen Nakagawa, “Even at Ryutaku-ji, Monk Soen went his own way…His strict diet, which he had devised for himself while living in his hut on Mount Dai Bosatsu, made it difficult for him to take his meals with the other monks. He ate no cooked food. When traveling by train or boat, he took no meals in restaurants and bought no prepared food; he would pick up banana peels and apple cores others had thrown away, wash them, and save them for his meals.” This was the diet of one of the towering figures in the transmission of Zen Buddhism to the West. Or I’ve heard the story of a Korean Zen master, who, when on an isolated retreat in the forest, ate nothing but boiled pine needles, so much so that his skin turned a peculiar shade of green. When Vladimir Nabokov was living in Cambridge, MA during the 40’s and cataloging butterflies at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Biology, he used to pack a “flask of milk and a few sandwiches” for his lunch. First, I love the phrase “flask of milk”, but I have always wondered what was in those sandwiches. I’d like to find out and make my lunch out of that same, bright stuff.

up a tree

I have been reading an excellent book entitled Subtle Wisdom by Ch’an Master Sheng-yen. Ch’an is the Japanese equivalent of Zen, although technically Ch’an came first when Bodhidharma, the first patriarch of Chinese Ch’an (Zen) Buddhism, brought the teaching from India. In the book, Master Sheng-yen recounts a popular story in Buddhism about the government official who pays a visit to the eccentric Master, who just happens to live in a tree. The official said, “Master, you are in a very dangerous situation.” The Master replied, “I am not in any danger. You, however, are in a dangerous situation.” The official, perplexed, asked, “How can I be in a dangerous situation. I am the leader of the local government. I have people at my disposal to protect me and keep me safe. How can my situation be dangerous?” The Master replied, “Earth, water, fire, and wind constantly vex you. The process of birth, old age, sickness, and death can affect you at any time. Greed, anger, ignorance, and arrogance are your constant company. How can you claim that you are not in a dangerous situation?” The official, understanding, replied, “Indeed Master, I am in a position far worse than yours.” Thoreau moving out to his cabin at Walden Pond was like the Master living in his tree. I’m sure he received many visitors from nearby Concord and elsewhere who thought he was crazy. But I think Thoreau knew the secret, just as the Master did, that only by giving up our attachments to the things that are supposed to set us free can we achieve true liberation. (In Thoreau’s time, it was the post-office and the newspaper. In our time, it’s our cellphones, Blackberries, and yes, much as this blogger hates to admit it, even our computers) I’m vexed almost every morning by anger, ignorance, and the need to get my daughter on the school bus by 7:50 am. The morning routine in my house can be a real crucible of vexations, I can tell you for sure! I suppose if someone were to ask me if I am a Buddhist I would have to say yes, but not a very good one. But I have faith in the possibility of enlightenment. I don’t know if I’ll ever live in a tree or a cabin in the woods, but Buddhism teaches me that no matter where we are, we can learn to be free not from the vexations themselves (because those will never cease) but instead free of the effects those vexations have on us. With this freedom, we can respond to anything that comes along, without being troubled.