Nice hot 4th of July in Walla Walla, WA. There is a smallish group of Buddhist leaning folks here that meet weekly for a meditation and sangha get together. Seems to be about 25 or 30 people that are active in the sense that I’ve seen them at the meditation group or at events they have held. So far my experience of them has been a big yard sale to raise money for the rental of their meeting location and to help support an effort to bring meditation/dharma into the Washington State Prison, which is located here.

Most recently I was kindly invited to the home of a couple in that sangha for a 4th of July pot-luck gathering. There were about 16-18 people there and it was a delight. Good folks, good conversation and a few sparklers being lit as the evening darkened. Someone said that it had been many years since they had held a sparkler and I realized I don’t think I ever had. My little friends and I thought it more celebratory to throw .22 caliber rounds at the pavement to get them to fire off.

Kind of a Darwinian thing, in retrospect.

In the mornings I’ve gotten into the practice of going for about an hour-long walk in a Cemetery near my house. Large, well maintained and founded 1853; so lots of pioneers, settlers, immigrants and the history of the region is written out in the tombstones. Of course like all histories it deals primarily with the culture that dominates, nevertheless it is a “living” story of humans and how we deal with death conceptually; in fear, worry, doubt, hope, assurance, insistence, punishment, reward and sometimes all of those elements together in the swirl of our karma’s.

This morning there were lots of joggers, even some biggish groups of them, and bicyclists and other singular strollers, as well as the maintenance crews doing the mowing etc: During one very quiet spell I heard a young woman’s voice singing and talking in a higher pitched tone and then I saw her, walking down the lane I was walking along, pushing a baby carriage fully equipped  for a long morning stroll; snacks, drinks, a little music (Nice mellow big band jazz, of which I approved.) and with a baby in it.

My heart bounced in Joy!

I had been listening to a Dharma talk in the first half of my walk given, by a good spiritual friend, to the Sangha in Sandpoint a couple of years ago. This talk was part of a series he did on the “Exhortations to the Dying and Dead”, which is a very important aspect and integral part of all Buddhist teaching, irrespective of sect or lineage.

Suddenly, or so it might seem, I was shown the totality of my experience and once again, the benefit of having a context for my life. Not the meaning, but the purpose of it.

The open circle we are not stuck in.

As I passed the young mother and her baby, I said, “A beautiful morning made glorious by a mother singing to her baby in a cemetery.” I often speak out of turn, and sometimes I really can’t help it.

She said, “Oh. Thank you.”

The wood is green then dries.

Used for good it burns as Fire.

Ashes left, fire gone. No

Sign of wood; ashes blow.

No fire now, it was just Time.

We pass through and change.

Summer. The days in the 90’s the nights in the 60’s. Good sleeping weather when I sleep. For as long as I can remember I haven’t slept well, three or four hours a night with some napping in wee hours of the morn’ and that’s it. There was a time when I was bothered by that and would try to “power sleep”, trying to force sleep. Never worked. I’ve seen all sorts of sleep experts and about 20 years ago when “sleep disorders” officially became a “thing” I was evaluated.

One doctor explained that he would check me into a hospital and I would have different things attached to my body and my sleep pattern would be monitored by experts from an adjoining room. I repeated what I’d told him fifteen minutes earlier; that I only slept three or so hours at night in my own bed, and can’t sleep at all in hotels or the homes of others. He then said that they could send a team and their equipment to my house ( 2 small bedrooms 900 sq. feet.), and someone would be in my bedroom with the equipment monitoring my sleep pattern.  At that point I gave up and commenced to explore some alternative thinking about the conditions of sleeplessness.

Sleep disorders do exist and they can exact a heavy toll physically and mentally/emotionally and there are many effective methods to help those suffering from the rather wide range of sleep problems that present in our modern times.

However, I began to see my condition as partaking of a more spiritual aspect and as can happen, presenting in a physical way.   I know, I know; or the subtle ways of madness.

At some point, I started looking at sleep as a spiritual practice, I had read some Buddhist writings about the night-time as being the beginning of the meditation “day”. So, that bade me to go to bed and start to practice a body awareness and some scripture recitations and mindful mantra’s and to just be willing to relax and see what happens. That was to become a source of getting some sleep the majority of nights and a reduction of stress when I got up for an hour or two, or three; and just relaxed, perhaps read, or meditated a little, or sometimes worried (If warranted, sometimes just to keep my chops up), or just putter around and write nonsense, (Harrumphh!) until I felt tired again. Then I usually got an hour or two of  more sleep/rest.

There’s always that bit of a niggle that my sleep habits are a also a good explanation (excuse?) for the more glaring personality traits I may exhibit from time to time. You know, charming, adorable, even keeled, super knowledgeable about Everything, and few others (I just can’t think of right now.)

Nevertheless, seriously, I have experienced that the less I worry about sleeping, my chances of getting some increases. I’ve also found that just laying down for 15 to 20 minutes anytime during the day and just relaxing a little, allows the mind to refresh itself. I know that’s awfully glib, but I’m confident that if any one tries this, oh, say thirty or forty times,within as many days, one may begin to see what that’s like.

It’s that whole “Intentional” thing that was all the rage a year or two ago. It seems that a lot of good ideas or small techniques become a thing for while and then they fade away. Most people try them a few times, or once,  and if the results aren’t quick and dramatic then on to the next new Thang.

So I suggest to lay or sit down and relax with the intention of letting oneself and one’s mind “just be” and to do this maybe 15-20 times and perhaps one’s own mind will direct one into a suitable method. I used to do that when I got home from work, just laid down and watched the mind reorganize itself, by itself, and I was always refreshed.

Trusting and allowing

Our minds and bodies are actually designed to help across a broad spectrum of the life experience, without our direct input, if we just start out with a little time and a small intention to just be still and quiet, at rest, but with dignity, for a short while and the small natural healing just…

Awareness don’t have  

No “*” in it

but,

Neither does the Brooklyn

Br*dge, so get 

Off that H*gh horse,

’cause there’s no

“*” in Me.

I have been living in Walla Walla, WA for a little over two months. Nice small town of 30,000 or so people. A few miles to the East are the Blue Mountains and bits of Oregon ( Wallowa County, where I lived the past year.) and then Idaho.

Walla Walla is a clean little place that is a blend of of ranching, farming, 120+ wineries, and two small Colleges (They all call themselves Universities nowadays, shrug.), with good reputations  and a well-regarded Jr. College. So, there is just enough culture for those that want it plus some reasonable restaurants for those that care, and a few great Taco trucks, my favorites, and a handful of good working class places to eat. Lots of vegetarian choices because there is a strong 7th Day Adventist culture in the area, and lots of small “truck” farms with lots of fresh things available. Also informing the local culture a long established Latino community.

I’ve found a small local Sangha that I sit with once a week, and go over to the Wallowa Buddhist Temple in Joseph every few weeks to keep up connections with my friends there, and I’m a few hours away from some other good spiritual friends in St. Maries and Sandpoint, ID.

I seem to be well situated and hope to be able to figure out my next step, (With any luck, the last one), before the Fall/Winter. I can certainly see myself living here, it’s slow, and peaceful with four seasons, none too harsh, and two airports very close-by; so it’s almost all positives, at some point it would be nice if I can get a small job or activity to supplement cost of living and that all sort of thing; but that will become a little clearer as I get to know the area better.

For now I’m comfortably ensconced in a nice small house and have sorted through all my stuff and, reaching a point where I feel a bit of manageability in my overall situation.

I got to sort through the past, accumulations and memories, and get a bit of perspective on the last three years since Linda died. It’s taken this long for me to get little clarity on how “spun out” I’d been.

Birth. Old age. Disease. Death. With any luck our lives bracket these constants in that order. So far so good. I’m waiting on a CT scan for some information but seem to be in generally good health, memory slipping at what I hope is the normal pace but I’m not really worried about anything. I had 34 years clean and sober a few days ago and I was reminded that I was perfectly willing to die on the streets of San Francisco in 1981 until I asked for help, and then was finally able to accept it completely, and participate in it, in 1983. All these years have been a bonus and every minute a blessing of some sort.

Despite of the suffering I brought on to myself and others, I was able to encounter the Buddha Dharma. And, and, I was able to hear and see enough to realize that it was not only the way out of my predicament(s), but also the very vehicle to transport me into a new way of being, and relating, to myself, the world as constituted (In other words, Life.), and all my co-inhabitants of this endless opportunity (In other words, Life.) to cleanse my heart and help others.. That was shift for of 180°, in all directions.

So, musing on past, seeing more clearly the present and worrying less about the future causes less preference , insisting and picking and choosing. I am still very much a “picking and choosing” machine, but now that the batteries are running low It feels more natural to not spend so much energy on my little preferences.

It feels good to be typing this blather, so there may be more.

My address has changed 5

Times in the last 3 1/2

Years, and today I am

No further along than

I was, but I’m mostly

Here. To clarify;

Not Now, rather,

Here.

The last several weeks have been interesting and very helpful to me. I went to Bay area for a few days and connected with a few friends, went by my home temple and spent some time with my teacher and also visited for a very short time with an old friend from back in the Tahoe, South Miami Beach, NYC days. He was passing through, coming from Miami for some Tahoe snow. We managed to spend 45 minutes just enjoying the re-connection after some years and then parted and went our ways, going in different directions.

At the end of that I traveled north to Shasta with another old friend from those days with whom I’d reconnected after many years, and we caravanned as far as Redding and got some rooms and spent time catching up.  It was my 25th anniversary of having taken the Buddhist Precepts in a series of five formal ceremonies (Jukai, in Japanese), extended over a seven day retreat at out monastery, Shasta Abbey (Soto Zen tradition). My friend was going for the first time and had no idea of what it would be like, but was determined to take this big step of formally becoming a Buddhist and receiving the Precepts.

The week went very well but like all retreats it was draining and exhausting, yet in a very good way. Towards the end of the retreat I took a fall off a ladder and ended up in the emergency room and after a series of scans and poking and proddings, was pronounced bruised and ambulatory and given medicine and some good advice. The medicine from the hospital, and the good advice from  two old spiritual friends, two monks from Shasta Abbey, who had accompanied me to the hospital and helped get me oriented afterward.

The experience of the retreat and the fall and the various side effects of both, and all that activity set on top of a long road trip, preceded by a long personal retreat and a long cold Winter, seemed to set into motion a few internal things that I will have to explore further. Within all that, it looks like I’ll be moving to Walla Walla and experience life in that setting. Currently the plan has me moving there in May, which will give me a chance to settle a lot of loose ends concerning the house that Linda and I shared in Tekoa,Washington, and gathering up a lot of stuff as well as a general re-orienting of what the base of my life will be.

All indicators, nudges and niggles seem to be pointing me into a further and deeper commitment to the practice of Zen and its application in life.

Combining ceremony and meditation; making my daily life a ceremony (offering) and my meditation and the Precepts a reminder of how to conduct that ceremony.

That should keep me busy ’til I can’t no more…

The dream points out the dream and waking

Up I see that this is the dream, and my

Body and mind are the way.

No problem, nothing to discard, the 

View has changed. From

Here, I go.

Winding down from personal retreat. The first several weeks were on a schedule of meditation and ceremony and bowing for all but one day each week.Then when I got sick with some bug, it changed and became much more fluid and quite intense in a way I hadn’t experienced before, I seemed to just sort of stay in a hyper-aware mode that was very interesting and at times discomfiting.  A few days ago that too has edged away and I think I’m sort of done with this little Winter Withdrawal. I could have been more rigorous in maintaining the schedule when I was feeling puny, but a good friend reminded me that this is the Middle path. So, it was time well spent.

In a conversation with someone last week, I mentioned that I was concerned  with the fact that I would be moving one more time this Summer, which would make five moves in the 3 1/2 years since Linda died. My friend said, “So what; you can move ten times, who said you have to stay in one place?” Good point.

I have decided to cast a little further afield in my looking for a place. This Winter in the Wallowa Valley of Eastern Oregon was a little more stark than am willing to commit too. I’m exploring other options that will put me in a milder Winter but not too far away. I like the area and want to stay close to the local temple but maybe with more mobility and choices. I’ll find out a lot more in the next two months.

I realize once again, that the “problems” that are in my life are all a result of things I set into motion (karma) and all the consequences are reaped in feeling (s). That is the nature of Karma.

We set things in motion and the feelings we reap induce further actions we “feel” we have to take and then, we’re off to the races. That is how we suffer.

I’m reminded that the three basic “engines” of our suffering are greed, hate and delusion. Of those three, Delusion is the most difficult to see because its main activity seems to be trying to reconcile our Greed and Hate through rationalizing them with a complex story (ours), that this is how life is. This results in an insistence of how things are and not, which activities make it that way.

We want this; but not that.

Although we may get what we want it will change and 

We don’t like that. So we fix  the Change because it looks

Like Muddle, because we forgot it was a-a-a-

Part of our Plan and the

Muddle and plan don’t seem

Con-nected.

Or even dis-

Now we have This,

Not That.  There that’s better!

For now.