the walker

The New York Times has been running an excellent series on their web page entitled One in 8 Million. One of their recent posts really spoke to me, suggesting a type of existence that I long for. It tells the story of a 30-year-old waitress named Maggie Nesciur, who walks  up to 90 miles per week around the neighborhoods of New York City. She has never owned a pair of sneakers, and instead does all her walking in either cowboy or motorcycle boots. She says, “I don’t walk fast; I don’t walk slow; I walk at my own speed. I have to keep moving. If I’m not moving, my mind isn’t moving much either.” Well said. You can watch and listen to her story here.

the empty boat

I am always thankful to the patriarchs and Zen masters of the past for their pithy stories that so often illuminate the situations we face in our daily, modern lives. One that comes to mind is the story of a fisherman on a boat in a river. He’s skillfully plying his trade when he notices another boat rushing towards him from upriver. The fisherman yells to the pilot of the boat to slow down, but to no avail. The boat keeps bearing down on him until at the last minute the fisherman has to jump into the river to save himself, only to notice that the boat that was about to kill him was empty. All day yesterday I was thinking of that poor six-year-old boy sailing alone in a homemade balloon thousands of feet above the Colorado desert, frightened out of his mind and half-frozen with hypothermia. And what instead was the reality? Balloon boy, empty boat. Are we also shouting at the invisible captains of empty boats?

fat man with a laptop

Time for henry to dust off his keyboard. I was travelling through upstate New York with my family a few weekends ago, on the way to my sister’s wedding. We had stopped at a rest area along the New York State Thruway for a bathroom break.  As my wife took my daughter to the ladies’ room,  I took my five-year-old son by the hand and we walked towards the gift shop. We live in Maine, which is Red Sox country, and I know from being born and raised in upstate New York that every rest area along the Thruway sells I LOVE NY and NY Yankees merchandise. So as I walked towards the gift shop with my son, I said jokingly, “We’re in Yankees country now, buddy.” (Before I get to the punch line of my story, I should also mention that I was wearing my Made-In-The-USA navy blue Obama ‘08 t-shirt.) So as we walk into the gift shop, I notice a man sitting on a bench outside the store typing on his laptop. He heard what I said because under his breath but loud enough to be heard, he said, “You’re in REPUBLICAN country now. What a stupid t-shirt.” I should also note that he said these words with what can only be described as venom in his voice. At first I couldn’t believe he was talking about me. I passed him and continued on my way into the store, pretending to look at magazines and Mentos as my heart thumped in my chest. It was hard to believe that a complete stranger, and obviously a fellow American, would make such a comment to someone he didn’t even know. But these are the times we live in. I would like to say that I should have been brave enough to go back out and confront him, but I had my son with me and didn’t want to make a scene. I thought about the political rallies held recently in this country where people brought guns and brandished them freely. It certainly hampers political discourse if you’re not sure if your debating opponent is armed. Eventually we left the store and the rest area and continued down the Thruway, but it took a long time for that pounding in my chest to abate. As people usually do in these situations, I thought of all the snappy comebacks I could have made, the astute political arguments.  But as I hinted at in an earlier post on metta and democracy, I still have to believe that we are all citizens of the same country. I would have liked to sit down with my compatriot and have had a reasonable conversation. Would it have done any good? Was I right in pursuing the policy, so often used in these times when confronted with a political adversary, of  “do not engage?” My Christian and Buddhist beliefs teach me to have love and compassion for my neighbor. But how should I react when my neighbor, just by looking at me, has already judged me to be the enemy?

Vinalheaven 2008

Impressions of Vinalhaven 2008…black slugs on the green grass of the playground…listening to WERU in the car (Beck, Aimee Mann, Death Cab For Cutie, Johnathan Richman… “Time Has Been Going By So Fast”…Quarry swimming, laying in the sun on the warm granite…Funyuns…The Onion Field…bike riding…pineapple mimosas…lots of beer in the afternoon makes you a better swimmer…mango tango…wiffle ball lost in the bushes again, and again…TB Rays in first place…Wild Wild West theme for 4th parade… “wanted for incessant scratchin’”…bumper sticker:the truly educated never graduate…

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

bicycle utopia

In the same way I wonder why small, inexpensive homes have to be so ugly, I wonder why we can’t create a bicycle utopia in this country. I’m not an economist or urban planner, but I can’t imagine it would cost that much. I know it might be difficult in a place like NYC for instance to widen the road a few feet on each side to make a bike lane possible, buy why can’t we mandate that all new road construction include bike lanes? Then, let’s give every adult in the country a $500 tax credit to buy a bike with. Third, let’s try and implement the two-mile rule. Since it’s been shown that most of our driving occurs within a two-mile radius of our home, let’s encourage people to ride their bikes to their destinations instead. Perhaps we could invest more in public transportation (remember Bill Clinton’s promise of high-speed rail?) and zip cars for people to use on longer journeys, and redevelop, or “undevelop”, parking and vacant lots into gardens and green spaces. Then let’s put American ingenuity into creating clean-burning and recyclable energy solutions by asking (nay, demanding) that Detroit to stop making gas-guzzlers and instead produce more hybrid and electric cars. (Isn’t it sickening that GM/Jeep/Chrylser is now trying to subsidize their customers’ fuel bills for driving their gas-guzzlers with their “$2.99 Gas Guarantee?”) I don’t want to eliminate cars completely (except when I’m on my bike and they blow past me going 50 with inches to spare), but it would be nice if in this country we could break our blind faith in the idea, created and foisted upon us by the car companies, that a personal vehicle is necessary for freedom. I can be just as free riding my mountain bike into the woods and jumping into a stream. Using bicycles and public transportation when we can just might allow us all to take a collective deep breath of fresh air, instead of the exhaust fumes of the guy stuck in traffic ahead of us.

energy independence

I’m still amazed by the bicycle. It is a miracle of human ingenuity and design. In its ubiquitousness the bicycle is easy to take for granted. But is there a more perfect invention? If there is, I can’t think of one. When idle, it humbly stands by, waiting only for the application of human energy to spring to life. As I was riding my bike to work this crisp morning and the pickup trucks and SUVs with the American flag decals were blowing past me, I smiled to myself and felt secretly superior. It’s amazing how your perspective changes when you’re on a bike. When I’m driving my car, I feel relaxed and safe. The world floats before me as I glide down the road in my cocoon of steel and glass. Nothing can touch me. But when I’m on a bike, all motorists become my enemy. I sometimes get the feeling that they are actually trying to drive as close to me as possible, just to give me a scare. In this way, riding a bike while others around you are driving seems like an almost rebellious act. During my commute this morning I was thinking about this notion of energy independence. It’s a phrase that gets tossed around quite a bit these days, especially due to the current crisis we’re in. As Americans, it seems that most of us equate freedom with the ability to do whatever we want. More specifically, to drive whatever we want. We have come to expect cheap gas as a God-given right. Somehow the ability to waste things (money, gas, food, energy, etc.) is the luxury we have of living in a wealthy country. But the fact that the fuel crisis has made its way to places like Costco, where they are limiting the amount of rice you can buy, should show us that we’ve been on the wrong track for quite some time. I’d like to abolish the notion that patriotism equals gluttony. I know energy independence to some means drilling for more oil in places like ANWR so that we can power our ever-increasing armada of heavy, lumbering gas-guzzlers. Criticizing SUVs is old hat and so I won’t get into that here. But I wonder if we’ve turned a corner in our thinking about energy independence. To conservatives, a country full of solar panels, wind farms, and geothermal plants, with armies of tree-hugging, bike-riding hippies cruisng around and using their goddamn hand signals might seem like some kind of Ralph Nadar-inspired Hell. But isn’t true energy independence the most patriotic, conservative position of all? So declare your energy independence! Leave your car at home and bike to your destination. You’ll feel very patriotic. Flag lapel pins optional.

the bush money

That’s what we call it in my house. As in, “When the Bush money gets here, we can do (fill in the blank).” When I first heard that Congress passed legislation authorizing the rebate checks, I was ecstatic. Dreams of a sunny beach vacation for my family or a few new shirts from the Patagonia outlet danced in my head. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this money would be spent almost before it made it into my bank account. Unless I can somehow convert my ancient Accord’s engine to burn old socks for propulsion, I’ll be spending it on $4-a-gallon gas, and all the other bills that stem from this fact (food, electricity, water, heating oil, etc) The President has said that he’s simply giving Americans back “their own money,” but how can that be, when we are borrowing the money, probably from China, in the first place? There are some Buddhist organizations that I am fond of, and I would love to give a chunk of that money to them to help them build a stupa or make an addition to their meditation hall. I may still give $50 or $100 of “my own money” to these worthy causes. But the truth is that even though this is borrowed money, my family needs it too desperately to be able to give much of it away. We’ll use some of it to pay for our rather modest weekly vacation rental cottage on an island off the coast of Maine this summer, but other than that, we’ll pay bills, which is probably what most Americans will end up doing. Sorry, Ocean Palm Motel and Patagonia; I need to eat.

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.

naked haiku

I don’t have anything to say today, so I give you a journal entry of Zen master Soen Nakagawa Roshi, from his book of poetry and prose, Endless Vow:

Summer 1938
(Another trip to Manchuria)

Deep at night I had a dip in a hot spring, surrounded by the vast plains. I looked up at the constellations; the stars were dancing in the field of the sky. I was totally absorbed in “this Matter” and vowed to settle in a hut on Mount Dai Bosatsu.

Distant thunder
various races naked
in the stone tub