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

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.

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.

the wicked bean

I remember a line spoken by a character in Jonathan Franzen’s novel The Corrections that says, roughly, “I can’t wait to go to bed at night so I can wake up in the morning and have coffee.” I may not have the words exactly right, but I agree with the sentiment. In contrast, Henry Thoreau said that water is the only drink for the wise man. I have been at war with these two sentiments my whole life. (And if you throw beer into the mix, you have a three-way smackdown) I have tried at various times in my life to give up coffee, using tea instead as my morning fix. I love good tea, but nothing beats the thrill of coffee. Judith Warner, a columnist for The New York Times and a much more eloquent writer than me, wrote a great blog post on the joys of coffee. I wonder what humans did before coffee. How awake could I become without coffee? But these are idle thoughts. With two small children and a demanding job, I’d decompose into a puddle of goo without my coffee. Someday I might be free of the brown, bitter beast, but for the time being, I’ll look upon my morning coffee as a joy rather than a shackle.

one book

They say everyone has one book in them. At age 40, it might be too early to start thinking about posterity, but I often wonder what my one book will be. Unless I receive a sudden literary genius injection, it probably won’t be Ulysses or Moby-Dick. One thought comes to mind. As a parent, I have a worldview or life philosophy that encompasses my beliefs, personal ethics, and habits. This worldview is like an inner voice that guides my actions. We all have one, and of course it changes over time, but I try, every day, to instill in my children a little bit of that worldview. For instance, when my daughter reports on the misdeeds of her classmates (“Jacob stuck his tongue out at the teacher during story time”), I try to use that as a teaching moment about correct behavior. But sometimes, as all parents realize sooner or later, your better judgment can be overridden by frustration, sleep-deprivation, stress, or any combination thereof. That’s when you might resort to yelling something that your parents used on you like…”If Jacob jumped off a bridge, would you jump too?” (That was a classic in my family, and not quite the message I’d want to send). What I’m trying to get at is that sometimes there’s a disconnect between your inner wisdom and your outer action. I guess right now if I had to choose, the one book I would write would be an explanation of my worldview, kind of a daddy’s wisdom book, for my kids to have in perpetuity. Not that mom or dad is always right. Certainly not. But at least if you write something down and it expresses your general philosophy of life, you or your children can refer back to it, and you could even say, “Well, that’s what Dad was trying to say.” But come to think of it, if this blog gets stored in the bowels of the WordPress server farm for all of eternity, then maybe I’ve already started writing that book to my children, right now, every day. And I can still hold out hope that one day I’ll finish my million-dollar screenplay.

the businessless person

“As I see it, there isn’t so much to do. Just be ordinary – put on your robes, eat your food, and pass the time doing nothing.” These are wise words from Chinese Zen Master Linji, the founder of the Rinzai school of Zen. Linji invented the term “businessless person” as his explanation for what the ideal person could be. This was a person who wasn’t striving after anything, not even the Buddha or enlightenment. When I came across this teaching, I recognized parallels with my own personality. I sometimes want to be that businessless person. I sometimes want to escape all the demands that are put upon me and just stop. I would like to live like a wandering monk, living on whatever came my way, desiring nothing, living a life of quiet contemplation. There is a character in Hermann Hesse’s novel Magister Ludi (The Glass Bead Game) named Elder Brother, who has built his own little bamboo grove and spends his days in isolation and contemplation, mastering the yarrow-stalk divination technique of the I Ching. The idea of the businessless person is in direct opposition to the world in which we live. If you aspire to “do nothing”you must have a serious character flaw. But I think this would be a totally liberating way to live, and I admit that sometimes I daydream about just such an existence.

dreamworld

This has been the hardest vacation in my life to come back from. I can’t really say why, but this whole week I’ve been in a daze. It’s common knowledge that when you go away and step outside the everyday patterns of work and family responsibilities, your body and mind start following what are probably their more natural rhythms. When your first arrive at your destination, you look at all the poor folks who are just ending their vacation and you take pity on them, not fully realizing that you too will be just like them in a week’s time. In our case, when we stepped off the ferry onto the island, we saw all the people lined up with their cars stuffed to bursting, waiting to get back on the ferry for the trip back to the mainland and the real world that accompanies it. We were giddy. A week later, we were the sad sacks waiting in line to sail back to reality. But the week in between was magical as always. The weather cooperated most of the time. We rode our bikes, swam almost every day in the quarries, read books, and slept as late as we wanted. My children became island kids for a little while, and my wife and I wondered, as we always do, what it would be like to live on an island and pursue the contemplative, artistic life. Probably very hard. My fantasies of being a published author resurfaced. Vacations always force me to challenge the expectations I have of myself, making me see the dichotomy between what my life is right now, and what I’d like it to become. Reading and writing books sounds like a great way to earn a living. I imagine my kids gently knocking on the door of my study (oh, to have a study!), asking me if I’m done with the day’s writing so I can come outside and play with them. I’m going to read A Wrinkle in Time and Island of the Blue Dolphins next to inspire me to write a children’s story. When I was younger, my mom used to call me the Absent-Minded Professor. I guess that description still fits. If I had my way, I’d live in my own mind most of the time, but the pressures (and joys) of work and child-rearing intrude on my private little dreamworld. The greatest pleasure of any vacation for me is having the space and time to allow that dreamworld inside myself take a more prominent place in my daily life, if even for a few days or a week. Swimming naked in a quarry isn’t a bad perk either, although I couldn’t help noticing upon my return that all my swimming didn’t end war. Guess I’ll have to keep at it.