MAPLE FALLS

He had been walking back in Nisene Marks Forest for eleven years but only today finally hiked the trail to Maple Falls. It had always seemed too far and unreachable before. He had tried once by following the creek itself which meandered endlessly with steep cliffs on both sides, the trail high up on the left. But then he had recently run across an old acquaintance on the path leading towards Maple Falls. Alan had been his client thirty-five years ago when he was a financial consultant. He knew that he had known Alan in some capacity but couldn't quite remember until Alan dreamed of how they had known each other. As he walked in the far forest, he saw an old man like himself ahead of him on the path; he was holding on to a branch to support himself and seemed to be out of breath or in pain or both. As he passed the old man, he asked, "How we doin?" The man instantly started telling jokes, and said, "You walk on ahead." He hadn't recognized the man as yet but felt concerned about him as he seemed to strain for breath. The man again said,
"You walk on. I'm ok. I just have to stop every so often. You go ahead." He reluctantly did move on ahead, but after a few steps, the man yelled to him another joke, and then another joke. He realized that he should and actually wanted to walk with the man, however briefly. After a few minutes of banter, they reached the bench at the Porter House location and sat down. He then realized that he knew this guy from a long time ago. When he said his name, he recognized the name. Alan told him that he had been a chiropractor and homeopath for forty-four years and still was. He told Alan of his own chronic agonizing pain in his back and neck and Alan told him that he could help with that. Just being in that moment with his old friend seemed to have substantially reduced his own level of pain. They parted.

He realized that Alan was heading up that very steep hill that led to Maple Falls, and thought, "If Alan has the guts to do that, I do too." It was Alan that inspired him to do it. The next week he attempted the long hike but found himself too exhausted before he got there and had to turn around and come back. But today, knowing and feeling comfortable with most of the path, he had made it. It had been most difficult for him particularly because his knees are weak and stiff, and the path went up and down steep, slippery cliffs and over ten-foot round redwoods.

Upon arriving he was warmly greeted by a young woman who was twenty-two and a recent graduate of the University of Florida. They sat on a log and talked about many things. She reminded him of his daughter, though he was old enough to be her great-grandfather. There was a resonance, an easyness in their communication. That he could interact with her, this young woman, in such a connected way gave him much joy and also much pleasure that people like this still exist in the world and have a whole life ahead of them. He felt happy for her and glad that she was in the world. But he also found himself almost embarrassed about what he said, what he talked about, and that he may not have said things as he wanted to say them. He was well able to "engage" and "converse," but he was also aware that he had "run out of words," which is to say run out of any creative thought within the last year or so, in spite of his ability to blither and blather. His whole purpose in life was to somehow get at what it is and also to convey to others that he was interested in them, their thoughts, their feelings, their lives. In fact to him a few other with whom he "resonated," were more interesting to him than himself. After all, he had lived with himself for a long time. And there were things that he hadn't said that would reveal an entrance to them into his own being. He had discovered that what was most important was to be able to share in being, in life, on a level most people were unwilling to go for fear of the unknown, of their own unknown, and of the pain this brings. It is always the cracking of the shell. People "show interest," which is not the same as "being interested." To share the beingness that is common to us, yet absolutely individual and unique to each of us, was and is his purpose, his nature.

And after she left, he stripped down not completely and walked under the icy waterfall for perhaps two minutes, letting out a gasp and a sound from the center. He wondered why he hadn't invited her to go under the falls and had said that he was "too old" for it. In retrospect it would have been too forward, too intimate, though it would have been great fun. As he was standing under the falls, three more people arrived: two young women and a young man. Seeing his example, even as another person had inspired him to finally do it, they got under the falls for the most part; more for the selfie than the exhilarating experience it seemed to him. He asked the guy where he had come from to be there: "Israel," he said. And then as he (the narrator) sat on the ground, having put on his socks and shoes, he realized he didn't have the strength to get up. Having been asked by the Israelis to take some photos of them and having done so, he asked the young man if he would be willing to help him up, which he did, which proved somewhat difficult since he was 225 lbs. and the man helping him probably weighed in at maybe 110. 

He is aware that, on one hand, he avoids "social convention" since it is so superficial, and is thus drawn to his practice of walking solitary in the forest, especially to his high redwood "perch" in a remote area where he sit and writes in his journal, surrounded in stillness and silence except for the breeze that moves the trees. But on the other hand, he greets other people heartfully that he sees on the trail, who approach and pass not even a foot away. He talks with people inimately as best he can when the opportunity arises. Such intimach is not in the topic or the words themselves but in how they are spoken and from where they arise within him. Sometimes this is matched, sometimes not. But one's greatest enjoyment in life is to be who one is and to share oneself and receive others.

ENLIGHTENMENT

In the 60s, 70s, even the 80s, people, my generation, talked about "enlightenment" rather frequently. It was a spiritual goal; something to be definitely attained as well as possible to attain. However, it never struck me as real, as a particular state to be attained or attainable, for that matter. I had a different point of view, seeing such a quest as a denial of the present moment and oneself as one is within it. I found myself engaging in the practice of what is called Buddhist meditation, particularly zazen, off and on, sometimes rather steadily for years, over the last forty years, mostly alone rather than in groups, though I was a Zen monk in a Zen monastery for awhile. But even "sitting," as it is called, seemed more like a kind of self-hypnosis more than anything else, which would have been my own fault since I had no teacher other than myself. I found American and European Zen people to be saner than most but still hung up with the notion of attaining enlightenment, which I found to be strange, if not un-Zen. To me, zazen was a deepening self-observation on many levels that could lead to a greater self-understanding and perhaps did. I ceased this practise awhile ago since it had become more Zen naptime than anything else. I may actually have attained what is called enlightenment, which is, to my mind, not quite the same as satori or nirvana. Now I will say what my experience of enlightenment is: Enlightenment is the realization of how utterly endarkened we are. We simply have no idea of how ignorant and unaware we are of anything. 

People who deem themselves "awake" are quick to say "It is as it is," as if they actually know how it is. My response to them when they so glibly say this is,
"Well, just how is it, then?" As it appears, as we think it is, as we believe, as we interpret, as if we have any inkling whatsoever of what is happening? I have spoken of this ad nauseam here before. We even think that we know what we are, much less who we are! What I do know is that I do not know these things. This is not to say that I do not know how to operate within the culture and society, as insane as they may be, because I can walk and talk and type these words and relate with other people. But what I relate is within the social-cultural context or even perhaps somewhat more abstract than that, "philosophical" as they say, perhaps giving an impression that I "know what I'm talking about." This is all about surviving on a somewhat more "sophisticated" level, as determined by such things as opportunity, which is generally determined by such things as race, gender, economic class within the culture and society. 

It may be apparent that I pretty much just follow my thoughts when I write; direction perpetually changes. My thinking is circuitous rather than linear; I end up back at some kind of beginning again, which I like. And this happens pretty much of its own accord; I am willing to let my mind or whatever it is speak as I write it. Sometimes it just stops and I run out of words. I haven't written in this blog for a rather long time; I actually ran out of words. But I did have a "new realization" about "enlightenment," though it is more of a new metaphor, perhaps more accurate in this moment for me, than any of my previous hackneyed cliches. It is nice to write again, though, in truth, I write every day in various other places: two or three computers and a handwritten journal I keep in my car. I tend to keep my own counsel, as it were, those it is well-known that those who keep their own counsel often fall in with the wrong crowd. 

Those who see enlightenment as something real to be attained will see me probably as simply ignorant, defiant, a non-believer, unenlightened and unenlightenable. They will be quite correct in that, though I should say that I am a believer in Fate, in God, in the gods, etc. I have prayed readily in times of desperation and have believed. All is my world. When others have suggested I am a pantheist, I have responded that I am more of a "pantyist," which, though not PC, makes me smile. It would be nice, I suppose, if I could "pin myself down" as to what I am, who I am, how it is, etc., but "amness" and "isness" are not like this. We are more ghosts of ourselves, imaginations of ourselves, possibilities, pasts and futures in our own minds, than we are who we think we are. Enlightenment pins nothing down but pulls out any pins there may be and makes us even as the wind in the trees.

A BRIEF STORY OF MY BONES

My bones torture me in the night. They make pains in my neck and back beyond my imagination. I can literally hear them twisting and growing there, as though they are aliens moving within me, causing my bones to be as a cage that closes tighter and tighter upon my body, crushing me totally. Though, with the proper medication, I am able to sleep for six hours if I am fortunate, before the pain enters into my dreams first, making them into nightmares of true pain in which I am wounded and tortured, being twisted and stabbed and burned, and then I am awakened as I realize the dream is not a dream but is actually happening to my body. Realizing the actual pain I am in, I rise and only then does it subside a bit as I do my best to move my body around, stretching here and there. My bones, it appears, are to subdue my spirit, to kill my creativity if they can. This disappoints me for my bones have always been my allies, my friends. It is true that I have put them on the front lines of my physically demanding existence. It is true that I have at times stretched my body to the limit chopping, chain­-sawing, carrying and splitting with a hand-held axe very big blocks of wood, with nary a thought of the effect on my body and my bones. I have done insanely dangerous and stressful activities with my body and its skeleton time and time again when I was younger and even not so young. And my father also flayed my back and ribs as hard as he could hit with a thick belt upon my back and ribs for years on an almost daily basis. I know that this damage my spine and cracked my ribs; my spine, to protect itself, started creating new bone over and within the old to strengthen and protect itself. My whole body sought to protect itself since I could not. And so I should feel compassion and love for this body and these bones that tried to protect the child of which they comprised, but they could only do so much. So, though my bones seem to literally crush me now, they have only functioned to help and protect me all along. I have no real right to condemn them or what they are doing, the action upon which they have been set for a very long time, which I only became aware of ten years ago. And, in their steady movement, I am crushed though not smothered. The pain distracts a great deal but I remain able to think and to write. And so I am grateful to this body for its loving action and overstated protection. It has, time and again, saved me from literal death. As a young child, my body moved in the water, even though I had not yet learned to swim, and moved me back to land where I could safely stand. I have had more than nine lives, my guardian angel, my instinctual second sense has always been right there at my side and in my body instantly. So much of the universe moves for my benefit and safety. Perhaps it is even what is called God. Either way, I am grateful and will remain grateful, for my body now bends under the pressure and the pain in my neck and spine, and now both shoulders and arms. Of course I always hope for improvement and believe that it will come. I have prayed when the pain has been utterly unbearable in the middle of the night. I thought even that my prayer had been answered by the next morning and I was grateful and willing to believe in the God though not in the religion. Now the pain is back on an even greater scale and I feel it torturing my body. Moving this way or that, even slightly, brings it to the fore in my neck, back, and arms. However, it was in the nerves in my head and it is not there now, and I am very grateful for that, for that causes a severe headache. With all this I will take a walk in the redwood forest today and sit on my redwood “perch” quietly and peacefully without moving in the enveloping great silence of the forest. One must know how to suffer properly and with gratefulness and understanding.

INTERLUDES

At times I experience what I call an interlude in my train of thought which is essentially constant. In this interlude it is as though my thinking stops, though I am aware that it has stopped. The interlude expresses as a kind of suspended animation, as if I suddenly find myself floating soundlessly in deep space. In this interlude I see with my eyes but do not define or register; I just see trees moving (in the wind) or even people moving their mouths and making sounds (words). It is a most pleasant experience in the sense that everything just stops and I find myself floating soundlessly, without gravity holding me down, without thought driving me on. I hope this is what happens at death—that everything just stops and one floats without thought in pure silence; without worry, without even any sense of oneself at all. I can generate such an interlude when I go deep into the redwood forest at Nisene Marks, walk up the trail, and sit on my redwood “perch” high above the remote trail below. The silence and stillness there are so palpable that I find myself in an interlude. But today, as I worked at my desk here in my office, I looked out my window, saw the trees moving silently and it happened again without having to go into the forest. I suppose the forest, with its silence and stillness, has been somehow “absorbed” into me, even into my being, as it were, and now emerges into my consciousness when reminded by certain natural occurrences, such as the trees moving in the wind. And I suppose that this is not particularly new to my experience, since, as I was once told by my mother, I would lie in my baby carriage for hours, mesmerized, watching the leaves fall from the maple and oak trees in the park where she brought me. It may be that I have always had such interludes occur but was never aware of it as I am now. These interludes are almost trancelike, like a form of hypnosis—one which I prefer to being perpetually occupied by thoughts and at their mercy. Such interludes have also occurred, now that I think about it, during my long practice of Zen meditation, which is simply sitting and letting thoughts flow without following them, just kind of watching them and watching oneself as if from a distance. Such interludes were never intended but simply occurred when there was a sudden “break” in the clouds of constant thought. I would prefer to be able to live in this kind of thoughtless mind, which is quite peaceful and clear: one is able to see things simply as they are. One still has the ability to relate appropriately and necessarily with the vagaries and demands of existence, but one is of a different mind as well, not getting pulled into the drama of existence or even that of one’s own life, one’s own self. And one is not aloof or withdrawn, but is still active and participant in the world, though without the “attachment,” the emotional ups and downs, the anger, the disappointment, the hopes, the despair. One remains affectionate and loving and able to express gentleness and tenderness to others, as well as able to not fall into identifying with the occupying thoughts of another, which is the general social and cultural activity that misleads societies and cultures into their own particular lost worlds, if not hells.

PITYING THE POOR OYSTER

At a certain point he had lost his propensity to believe. It was not any particular decision or conscious awareness; he simply reached a point at which he saw through belief itself to its inherent lack of reality, its emptiness, pointlessness and foundationlessness. He was neither agnostic nor atheist, which to him, were simply more beliefs, more labels for believers, even believers in non-belief. He did not feel “lost” or “rudderless,” but rather perhaps afloat upon a great sea, heaving high and falling low, which was no belief on his part, but rather a sense of the circumstances or situation of being in life itself. He was aware that various philosophers and philosophies had said such similar things, used much the same metaphor for existence, but it was not his belief; it seemed more his observation, his metaphor for existence, to him. He asked himself, “So, is one’s metaphor, one’s explanation for what one observes or senses to be considered as one’s belief?” His response: “Only to the extent that one finds oneself clinging to such a metaphor or observation or sense.” He felt that metaphors or observations or senses were not concrete or otherwise solid, but were changeable and passing, or at least open to such change. Certain things that he considered to be perhaps “truer” than other things were “observable facts within nature itself,” such as regeneration of life in a similar form: leaves on trees, corn, animals, humans. To him this was not “belief” but was real and obvious as well as “provable.” So if a tree is “reborn” each spring with a new layer of bark over its older layer, to his mind it was still the same tree in essence, though now with new bark on the outside and new leaves on the branches. Humans were born as babies. It was logical to him that they should in essence be much like trees that retained the “same basic identity” from life to death/dormancy to life.” He had to admit though that he was using the “progression of nature” to present his own belief in a kind of “conscious immortality,” or at least a certain kind of awareness stretching through numerous changes within a particular species. But, as initially stated, he had lost his propensity to believe, while still keeping at least a few “essential beliefs” in place. But he knew he was in fact still a believer, God forbid. There could be no denying it. With such a context still intact, the world remained his oyster, though he still rightfully pitied the poor oyster and himself feasting on it.

BIDING TIME

As it is true that we make ourselves, we also must unmake ourselves. Our lives ultimately do us in, closing around us until we just can't live them. To the extent that we are compelled to "put ourselves together," such is done in the awareness that it is all a farce. If we are of this mind, we are unable to see "the point of it all," including the point of our own existence. I am one who has fervently believed so many things that explained life and "the point of my own life." I believed I "knew" so many things about Truth and Reality. And I was certain. It all "made sense" and was "quite logical" to believe what I believed. It was certainly easier than not believing, than not have any particular "point" to my existence. Belief and hope are a very weak crutch. And without them I found myself in despair. When one is young and healthy such despair can be quite fashionable; one can praise the "darkness" and romantically feel the pain of such lostness. But as one fades to oneself and loses any momentum, which is actually faith in the "proper turning out of things," there is nothing to hold onto any longer. And I don't believe that this nothingness is any kind of a passing state; one does not "get better" in life. Living loses any inherent fascination for us; we bide our time.

A BRIEF MOMENT

God is not quite reaching to save me but then this is something that I have to deal with and get through before life gets through with me. The situation is not ironic at all; it is simply the process of life—which ends on the physical level. It is not personal but much greater than that. It often feels personal, partly because I was indoctrinated with this notion of a “personal God who cares about me.” One who believes such things, even “just” deeply and even if they “understand” it is false, is bound to have expectations and consequent profound disappointment as well as disillusionment, for it is a most insidious illusion. However, life is not unfortunate; it simply is as it is. Life is not to be blamed. False teachings of a God of Illusion by religions of delusion are to be blamed. The fact that we are stupid and unable enough to possess the discrimination through which to think adequately is absolutely unfortunate. But some of us are able to escape the cave and its darkness and falseness, finding ourselves initially absolutely blinded by the light of the sun, which may last lifetimes and lifetimes, but ultimately we do see. All is not lost.