Jack: Zen teaching can be misleading in its gross form.

My aging dad doesn’t cling to much of anything anymore. He is often quite indifferent about life and living. His greatly diminished alertness has made him indifferent to bills, gifts, wants, etc. — even conversation at times. He truly clings to less and less.

A friend of mine works for a boss who is an incredible jerk, who blows up one minute, forgets it the next, and denies any knowledge of it (perhaps truthfully) the next day. His “living in the moment” wreaks great misery on those around him while completely insulating him from any awareness of the train wrecks he’s caused as he steams full ahead in this days warring.

Jack: Part of the scripture recitation for the weekly meditation at the priory is Dogen’s Rules for Meditation. Dogen is pretty obscure for me in general, so I’m not very surprised when I find that I don’t understand something he writes. One of his statements has always seemed particularly incongruous, though. He states, “Training is enlightenment.” I train, but if what I do is enlightenment, then I’m not sure enlightenment has much to offer. If it doesn’t get any better than this, then I’m not sure why I’m making an effort.

Mentor B. I too found that bit from Dogen confusing. And frankly, I don’t read much of his material anymore. It may all be entirely correct, but it is so inscrutable it mostly doesn’t help me. Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching, or Richard Bachs’ Jonathan Livingston Seagull are somewhat inscrutable too, but they both touch a space that lights a fire of inspiration. Dogen doesn’t.

Mentor B. is a good friend who has kindly agreed that I can include some of our informal conversations as part of this blog. Mentor’s path is Buddhist though other paths were traveled too as part of the search for truth. Mentor’s interests span everything from art to science to philosophy. Mentor’s wisdom is that of a lay traveler, not a monk, so the words recorded reflect insight of experience rather the authority of sutras or the doctrine of any particular lineage.

Mentor’s ephemeral presence here will mostly reflect Buddhist related material. In real life, the conversations cover a much wider range.

Welcome, Mentor B.

Recently a couple of incidents underscored that equanimity is a practice rather than an endpoint. Prior to this, I had viewed it as an eventual result of practice — rather than a practice itself.

The first occasion was a mind storm while running. It was the usual gloomy doom musings of the mind that show up now and then. Like a gathering thunderstorm where the clouds and cooling sweep of the wind spawn ever increasing condensation and precipitation, thoughts swept through consciousness finding signs of impending calamity everywhere. As I realized what was happening, I also realized I had choice about the matter. I could indulge this runaway train of thought sounding its horn of urgency or I could deliberately choose a path of equanimity by focusing on what I was actually doing. With some effort I chose to pay attention to the moment, the natural setting of the run, the breath as it changed cadence in response to variations in slope and pace.

As I was walking recently with the monk who teaches me Buddhism, he characterized his undergraduate training in psychology as being Skinnerian psychology.

As I reflected on this later, it occurred to me that Skinner’s psychology of behaviorism was the ultimate extension of the principle of conditioning that the Buddha spoke about.

(As noted on the Blogmandu roundup for October 30) The author of Open Letter to Rational Pundits takes the atheists to task for their efforts to convince Christians of their folly by rational arguments. In an ironic way, the rant demonstrates both irrationality and a very limited “stage of development,” at least in this post. There’s little intellectual content presented, just the teenage overuse of the “f” word as if its shock value will somehow carry weight. On the the development scale, we’re probably at a preteen level. If that’s what Wilber’s integral philosophy produces, then it’s more bankrupt than I’ve thought.

Seeing Red re (Product) Red on Thoughts Chasing Thoughts is a good read on the recent program to provide AIDS relief in Africa. And it correctly identifies some misgivings about the effort to commercialize charity and whether or not it is efficient or transparently honest. You need to read that article before this one for some things to make sense. It’s a pleasant read, and I like the contrarian point of view expressed because it adds perspective to a new charitable fad.

I’m not persuaded that AIDS relief is the most import issue for Africa’s needy. I’m not convinced more money for medicine is THE issue for AIDS relief. Doctors, nurses, infrastructure, refrigeration, etc. might be more limiting than the drugs themselves. But what the Buddhist hell, increasing the funding for this probably won’t hurt either, particularly if it’s added money rather than money carved from somewhere else.

This post is a follow-on post to an earlier one that discussed the sense of the sacred.
I’ve finally figured out in my mind how to lay out a 7 cicruit Cretan labryrinth in my back yard with temporary materials that won’t kill grass as I try it out. These Christian meditational labyrinths are not a maze; once you enter, you will inevitably find your way to the center, though it may not be obvious, and you will seem to be going the wrong way sometimes.

A recent story about NBC pulling the plug on a Maddona video scene in which she mounts a cross triggered a bit of reflection on culture, freedom, and a sense of the sacred. It was similar in a way to cartoons about the Prophet Mohammed that stirred up violence in the Muslim world. In retaliation, one Muslim museum sponsored a cartoon contest on the Holocaust, which struck me as repugnant while the Prophet cartoons did not.

I’ve struggled with this quite a bit during my life. I have a scientific bent. Science has a stellar track record is demolishing sacred cows. It has systematically destroyed our myths about who we are, what our importance is, and our place in the universe. Now it threatens to define life itself as nothing more than DNA strips to be manipulated at will by those with its tools in hand.

In looking at mostly Buddhist blogs recently, I’ve noticed many of them bent toward politics. There is the usual decrying of Bush, the U.S. involvement in Iraq, the Republican scandals with the expected antidote of voting the Republicans out of office and replacing them with Democrats. Mind you, I’m sympathetic with everything they say, and at the same time I’m not too excited.

Only a relatively small portion of the American electorate can think. Those are reachable. Most others fit the category of the quote by A. E. Housman