On being "left to oneself"

 

Left to ourselves, we may see more. Left to myself, I see my unsettled mind, my disbelief of “answers,” and my own need to “make sense” frustrated. Yet I remain in the world that must make sense. One pretends that “it all makes sense” if one is to be able to cope—and survive—in the world. We close our eyes to our own inner protest perpetually. We “do what must be done” relentlessly, and, as it turns out, ruthlessly. And we suffer for it internally, if not externally. It is better to be “off the wheel” from the start rather than to “keep on rolling” endlessly in distraction. It may take a lifetime to realize this, which is to say, admit it. When one is in it and “on the ride,” the folly of “getting off it” seems obvious. One does not jump off the roller coaster at any point until it stops and the ride is over. It may be only then that one realizes just how unsettled one’s mind actually is, or all mind actually is. Where does “my mind” begin and the collective mind end? Are there no boundaries or are they already rather set?

Most of us never quite get to the point at which we decide that our life is to be left up to ourselves. I’m just about 74 and I have finally gotten to that point. I followed many paths in my life. I’m referring to what are called “spiritual paths.” I got as far away from doctrine as I could with Zen Buddhism mixed with a hefty dose of Daoism for the last 30 years, though I still certainly “followed” rigorously. When I stopped following and founded my own religion with its one and only member, I was no longer compelled to do anything, though I chose to still simply “observe” this person whom I call myself. “Choosing for oneself” is much different than following another, no matter how “true” or “well-established.” I would rather learn from my own mis-takes (purposely hyphenated) than blame someone else for misleading me. It only took almost 74 years to realize this, God (or no-God) forbid. I also realized that the phrase, “The truth shall make you free,” should be altered a bit to read: “The truth shall make you free—for the first five seconds anyway.” The truth is neither a formula nor a magazine subscription; one must have it in the moment, each moment, or it is but mere imaginal fantasy. It is not conceptual, but experiential, and experiential prior to any interpretation of the experience at that. So how does one experience without thinking, without defining the experience to oneself? That would be the unanswerable question.

 

HOW I GOT TO MEET THE FAMOUS ITALIAN CHEF, ARTURO

Back in the late 1950s my father was a big wig at the Italian-American Club and Restaurant in Albany, New York, peopled by many upper class Italians in many fields: business, academics, music, literature, art, the remaining arts, such a performing, and food, of course. The Italian-American Club had the best Italian food in the vicinity of Albany, NY. It's chef, Arturo, was world-known. People not only came from the Tri-Cities to sample his traditional Italian dishes, but from Boston, Chicago, New York and Senators and Congressmen from Washington DC itself. Arturo, in fact, even had a reputation as an international World Class Chef specializing in all dishes Italian, be they from the North or the South. As a result the Club thrived.

But is hadn't always been like that. The previous chef, who has also World Class had died and my father had been charged with finding a chef of equal or greater character and reputation and who was willing to work more for that than than for actual recompense. To be recognized and receive accolades was far more important to the American-Italian Club than to be highly paid. 

Those who had been chefs at the American-Italian Club, after a few years, often moved to even more highly celebrated Italian Restaurants all over the w0rld among the highly compensated Italian chefs in the world. The budget for hiring such a specialized chef by the Albany American-Italian Club was only diminished by the level of fanfare and attention given to the importance and international recognition given by restaurant gourmet chef by my father who faced with a such vital challenge as well as a rushed challenge. His times to travel around the world in search was quite limited as was any travel funds. So he stayed local, looking for the very best. He traveled all of the local area; going to many restaurants himself to check out fare of the various chefs. Eventually he found the perfect chef for the job and lured him away from his current employer.

His name was Arturo. He was the perfect Italian chef, able to make everything Italian, and quite well. After a brief period the contract was signed and he worked dedicatedly and devotedly for the Albany Italian-American Club. The only caveat was that he required that he worked mostly in solitude with his staff and never interacted with the public, including his patrons at the Club. So this caveat was put into force; the staff he worked with were tight-lipped on the threat of losing their jobs his customers, and the kitchen as arranged so the customers could not see into it. It was an effectively closed system.

Until I was eating dinner at the Club and my father decided I should go meet Arturo. We followed secret passageways until we arrived at the kitchen where he was cooking. My father was his friend and had hired him so it was permissible. We said hi and shook hands. He said "call me Artie." And then it was over; we had to sneak back. I understood all the need for secrecy at that point. Arturo was a black man.

Kindred Spirit

 

Earlier today I hiked up at Mt Toyon. I walked past the vista point with the bench and out “my” little remote trail, where I generally just stand and take it all in—the silence, the greenery, the trees, the grass, the bushes, the breeze, the view through the trees to the ocean. I feel how my body is in the moment, I settle down into it exactly where I am standing. I don’t consciously “merge myself with nature”; it just happens, like exhaling and inhaling: I take in the forest as it takes me in. I take in the silence as it takes me in. Yet, most strangely, I felt a presence, a person, close, but, looking around me and gazing up the path I had taken, saw no one. So I let that go and started walking back on the path I had taken there.

 

As I exited the path, I noticed a young woman standing there looking at me. Her presence was a surprise to me, though I realized I had already previously felt it. We spoke as if we knew each other well and deeply. She spoke of her current state of mind and I spoke of mine. She shared with me her view of how she was, in so many words, and of her interests. I was amazed at her honesty and place of self-knowing. There was what I perceived as an immediate trust between us and also our ability to understand each other. She carried with her a Buddhist meditation bench on which one sits and kneels. I was most impressed by this, for I had built one for myself probably forty years ago and had used it for the last thirty years before storing it in the garage, where it is now. We talked about many topics and our personal sense of things.

 

I have walked on Mt Toyon for ten years and have always wished to meet someone on the trail and to be able to engage in a deep and enjoyable discussion with them. And today it actually happened. The very fact that she goes to the same out of the way place in the forest where I go touched me. “Here is a person with whom I share something in common,” I thought. To be able to share a deep meditative state of mind and to be understood by another is quite rare. We seemed to be able to understand each other on a philosophical level. Compared to me, she was quite young, yet she expressed such depth and honesty as if she were without guile. It was a most pleasant experience that I appreciated. I gave her my card listing my various blogs, email address, and my quote: Too much irony makes one overwrought (which not every gets). It was a rare and special moment. I have my wife and a few other friends with whom I am able to share of myself on a deep level, but to come upon such a rare person in the forest “just like that” is a rare pleasure. I am grateful to her for her openness and trust.

Sitting on the Beach Out of Time

 

I find myself sitting alone on the beach of a tropical isle. The sun shines, the surf rolls gently, the air is warm. I am clothed in my usual tartan flannel shirt, grey shorts, and sneakers with white crew socks. I am comfortable upon a large piece of driftwood. I watch waves crashing upon the reef a short distance away. I do not know how I got here or where I am. I have no other belongings or gear or food. I seem to be sitting here out of time and space, surely out of the world as it is normally known by me. I seem to be quite physically alive yet wonder if I have not perhaps died and somehow been delivered of this place, which is of heaven at the moment. I am not worried right now about my survival, though I turn and look inland from the beach where I see a forest of palm trees and some thickly-leaved trees with underbrush. The land rises, becoming darker and rockier as it rises into a jungle before becoming steep, fissured hills and eventually much higher mountains. In fact I don’t know if this is an island; it could be a peninsula or even a coast, though from where I am, it is bounded by the ocean on three sides and I am unable to see a beach that doesn’t appear to curve around rather than extend itself straight in any direction. I would rather just sit here. I don’t really even want to know if I am dead or alive; I am just here.

 

I recall a few nights ago when I sat in my big recliner in front of the fire. I seemed to lapse into a kind of sleep. My eyes were closed. I sat there even as I sit here. What I first noticed was that my mind was a blank; I was not thinking whatsoever. I felt as if I had just vanished, as if I simply did not exist. I had no feeling, no preference or non-preference. As I said, it was as though I did not exist, as if I were not there, or even a ghost of the presence I once was. I don’t have that sense of no-being as I sit here now. My mind is not blank now. But the similarity is that I am out of time and place; that I am in a place that does not exist. But I am aware that I still somehow exist, for I am noting my thoughts and reflections, though, if I am out of time and space, that doesn’t make sense.

 

One thing I like about being out of time and space is that it puts me out of the world at large; out of its ebb and flow, out of its history, its interactivity. When I am in the world I feel defiant towards it and its inhabitants, its expectations, even its necessities. I have the thought that “I must survive” which means that I must consider what I must do to find water, food, fire, warmth, comfort, safety. But I also have the thought that it may be that I do not have to have the thought, that I may not even exist. What has come to my mind and my experience for some time is the Cartesian notion that “I think, therefore I am” in reverse: “I do not think, therefore I am not.” The truth of this thought has been borne out for me time and time again when, particularly in meditation, I had no thought of “I, myself.” When that happened, “I” did actually cease to exist. So, as I sit here, I do wonder if I have been overtaken by this “not selfness.” Still, I appear to see the waves rolling in and feel the warmth of the sun upon my skin. I realize that there are people in psychiatric institutions who are still alive in their bodies but have left themselves, have gone blank. Perhaps I am one of them who has simply “gone blank” and found myself here on this log in this place. What happens when one no longer lives in one’s memories or in the normal tensions of being in the world? We are led around in our bodies until life finally leaves them.

 

I used to walk back to my “perch” atop a redwood trunk far back in the Forest of Nisene Marks and sit there contented as if I could literally sit there forever; that this was “my spot.” I would only get up after a long time because the world called me with its social and existential responsibilities and practicalities; “everyone knows one cannot sit upon a tree trunk in the forest lost in nowhereness and everywhereness forever.” But sitting here on this beach is different; I didn’t walk here but, rather, just appeared here. Does that make any difference at all? And this “defiance” of the world, of being in the world, that I have; where did that come from? From my simple experience of being in the world and not liking it? From having to be born too early? For having to be born in the first place? Born into a physical body? After being free of such or being in another more preferable form? From having to live in fear of the pain of beatings? Or simply from the rejection felt from them? Does sitting here on this log then present me with some kind of a test in which I choose or reject life in the world for all the future? If it is such a test, I do not yet choose to make a choice. Perhaps I can just sit here for an eternity. My life has already felt as if I were sitting here for an eternity, waiting for a directive from On High; an On High that remained silent because perhaps it too did not exist. Is my test, then, to decide whether or not it does exist? Or to even realize for myself that it does or it doesn’t? If that’s the case, I still wait for such a realization—which may never come. And if it did, I just might not realize it; I might not even notice it.

 

Where I am right now may be like the holodeck on the Enterprise, a make-believe, manufactured reality of my own making. The sun may not set; it may stay just as it is. If it did get dark, I would probably be convinced that it had enough reality that I should begin at least to insure my own survival. That’s the natural response anyway.

 

Usually I just give up when nothing is there to say or realize. I am not interested in “wasting my time.” Buddha sat under the Bodhi tree, refusing to leave until he had clarity. Now clarity is not necessarily understanding; in fact it could be the very opposite of understanding. Buddha became one who lives for others without self-concern: a bodhisattva. Or so tis said. And I know that when I cease to think about myself, I no longer identify myself to myself, and the whole thing of me being “I” just vanishes: “I” no longer exist. In American culture, this is the opposite of what we see as “normal”; we no longer “assert ourselves” because we realize there is nothing to assert.

 

In the same vein, I see that nothing in itself has any meaning; it is as it is and that’s it. I may fit into the scheme of things, into the “great chain of being,” and be defined by its location primarily, but it “means” nothing at all. And even locating something as here rather than there, which defines to a certain extent, does not give it meaning. Now, just because it’s a fire does indicates that it will function according to its “nature,” which is to be hot and therefore possibly dangerous if one puts a hand too close to the flames. (Though the narrative stops here, it is not over.)

NO ACCIDENTS OR ALL ACCIDENTAL

It's been a while since I've been here but today I crossed paths with Scott and Emily at what is called the Buddha Bridge a mile or so beyond the remote parking area at Nisene Marks Forest State Park. I was blathering about the inherent absence of meaning in existence whereas Scott stated that there are no accidents, which is to say, to me, that there is inherent meaning in things, in what happens. I said that things or events have no meaning in themselves but, rather, are given meaning by ourselves. Scott seemed to believe that meaning exists independently of our response or interpretation or understanding of things or events. Perhaps it was simply the words we were using, for I see events that occur to be fate, which is to say happening as they happen. Jung had a term, synchronicity, which might be exemplified by an external occurrence that coincides with an internal state of mind. Two people were present as I crossed the bridge. They greeted me as I greeted them. Then we spoke at length about various things, kind of bouncing our thoughts and perspectives off of each other, all within the "container" of our instant relationship, our "connection," which was quite trusting, and if not the same track, was of the same spirit. To me it was fateful, which is to say it occurred and we all chose to participate with each other, which is what happened. Was our crossing paths accidental? Or was it fated? If it was fated, who fated it? Who meant it to happen? I say that I fated it and they fated it, causing it then to move beyond more that simply crossing paths. Now, some believe that "things are meant to happen" which coincides with Scott's sense of no accidents. But what if nothing had been said? Would we say that also "things are not meant to happen," which is to say that they still are happening but are happening differently? 

I definitely enjoyed this conversation with these people. Scott noted something about the validity and value of hugging people. This struck me, causing me to realize that I go off into my head, my thoughts, my talking perhaps even as a distraction. I became aware that the body also exists and seeks to participate, to be included. Scott added that it is the "heart," which then made me realize that, yes, this is another element of being that I sometime do exclude, perhaps because it is somewhat "risky" to extend oneself vulnerably in that way. At the end of our conversation, we hugged. It expanded my own level of trust and acceptance; it was joyous. I was very surprised at how I felt. I walked away with a smile. 

I think that when one opens oneself to others and they open themselves as well, there is a recognition of the other as oneself. One can intellectually believe this or even remember it, but at the moment in the situation, especially in the physical contact, it is real--not thought about or interpreted but actual. I gave Scott and Emily my card which has my email address on it and invited them to visit my wife and I when they are in the area. We could have a good conversation and enjoy the moment. And since I gave them my card which listed my current and past blogs, God forbid, I thought I might actually add to this blog. A personal touch.

As I have aged (today is my 73rd birthday), I have found myself to be interested in other people, in what they think, in how they feel, in what the world and their existence in it is to them. And I make a distinction between what it "is" and what it "means." I think that is the distinction I was trying to explain and understand when I spoke to Scott and Emily today. They are two very fascinating, sweet people.
I do give such meetings great meaning. I am grateful for such a fate. And am always aware of the quote on my card: Too much irony makes one overwrought.

IN MEMORY OF ALAN, OUR DEAREST FRIEND

Three or so months ago I was walking, as I often do, back in Nisene Marks State Park on a part of the trail that eventually leads to Maple Falls. Ahead of me I saw an older man clinging onto a branch with eyes closed, breathing heavily with a very pained expression on his face. I thought he might be having a heart attack. I stopped next to him and said in a loud voice, “How we doin’?” He, without opening his eyes, responded in a surprisingly strong, resonant voice, “OK. I’m just catching my breath, so you can go on ahead.” Feeling uncomfortable leaving him, I lingered a bit. Opening his eyes and noticing my UCSC T-shirt, he commented on the “Fighting Banana Slugs” and we both agreed it was a funny and most impressive mascot name for a college. Then he said, “I’m moving slower, so you best walk on.” He seemed much better now and was walking on his own, I imagined, to the bench not far ahead at the Porter House sign. So I proceeded to fall back into my regular pace and then, from twenty feet away, he yelled out a riddle to me, and I stopped to listen, also realizing that he didn’t want me to walk away but to walk with him. I stopped and he approached me, telling me jokes and riddles, at which I laughed. We arrived at the bench where he sat down. While walking, I recognized his face and his voice though I couldn’t place it. I told him so while he sat but he couldn’t recall me. He told me his name, which I remembered; he and his wife (at the time) had once, 35 or so years earlier, been my clients when I was a financial advisor. He later remembered me from est and his decision that he could trust a fellow est member with his financial information as well as his finances. Alan told me of his chiropractic and “healing” work, I told him of my various serious and chronic physical aches and pains, he assured me that he could “take care of that,” and I decided I would go and see him. I also noticed that the chronic pain in the occipital nerve in my head, and the level of pain in my neck and back had actually subsided in Alan’s presence as he sat on the Porter House bench. Alan told me that he often walked this trail at Nisene Marks and that he was getting better and better at it. He said he had walked one day for six and a-half hours and had the intention of hiking all the way to Maple Falls. At that point we parted, with him proceeding up a very steep hill and me looping down the hill to the fire road, over the bridge and back to the parking lot. Those few minutes with Alan inspired me to hike to Maple Falls the following week, which was harrowing and exhausting, shutting my body down for the next few days. I realized that I didn’t much care about going through such an ordeal but that I “did it for Alan,” which surprised and pleased me. I also absolutely enjoyed the falls; stripping down and standing under them.

From Alan’s weekly treatments for a few months I felt some improvement in body and mind. I believed that Alan was gifted in his intuitive and technical understanding of the body. My wife, Amy, felt that Alan was a breath of fresh air and loved talking with him and sharing his presence, as did I. We had him over to our house a number of times over a number of weeks for very lively discussions. Alan demonstrated that he was a person of "big mind"; he saw life in cosmic terms and great context. He was one who "prayed to God" with much faith and love. We joked about "knowing so much of everything and so little of anything." Alan was our dearest friend. We loved him very much.

A few days before the day of his death, I invited Alan to our house for some good conversation and some food. Alan, however, wanted me to first bring him to my “perch,” a redwood trunk not too far in from the fire trail "road" on the Aptos Ridge Trail. It was a short 15-minute walk from the fire trail, with some uphill hike on the way and a lot of downhill coming back. Alan was waiting for me when I arrive on 9:45AM on September 12. He hadn’t been on this trail before and he loved it, exclaiming again and again how beautiful it was, finding a redwood “throne” to sit on and claiming himself to be “king.” He was so thrilled and so much like a little kid that I said, “Alan, you’re just like a little kid. You have such wonder!” Alan smiled and said, “Ye must become as little children to enter into the kingdom of heaven!” I replied with my own wonder at his statement, “Then you’re right at the very gates, my Friend.” Alan proceeded along the path impressively, stopping two or three times to rest and seemingly not winded at all. We got up to the perch after 45 minutes and Alan stretched out on the large trunk with all the self-satisfaction of a little kid or a cat finding the perfect spot. He said, “This is now MINE. You have to wait your turn and I will NEVER leave.” I told him of my instructions to my daughter to inter my ashes in that very trunk upon which Alan sat so that I could “haunt” that spot forever. Alan said, “Well now it’s MY place too.” I said, "I suppose our ghosts will have to share this place eternally." He looked at me and smiled. I was so pleased that I had been able to share something with Alan that he so loved. On the way down from the perch, I told Alan he was mensch, a good man, one with a "good heart.” I think Alan was touched; for the first time, he said nothing.

I miss Alan. I felt like a child with him; we played like little kids in the forest. We laughed; we understood each other. We accepted and appreciated each other. He was a twin soul, my soul brother. Amy, my spouse, loved him too. I was overly critical of him in his passion and energy. He was so enthusiastic, so bhakti, so trusting and believing. I came to the realization that I saw in Alan myself as I had been a long time ago. He believed! He was inspiring! After forty years of Zen practice, I had come to neither be a believer nor a non-believer, “seeing through” both without great passion. Alan told me that he was a boddhisatva, to which I asked, “And why did you wish to be reborn?” Alan responded, “So I could have a body again.” In all my supposed “great wisdom,” I reprimanded him, saying: “I doubt whether any boddhisatva boasts of being one and I don’t think they do it just so they ‘can have a body again’.” In retrospect, I have to believe that perhaps Alan was, after all, a bodhisattva. He lived a life of service and healing. He taught me much about “being as a little child.” Alan was oil to this Tin Man.

Alan told me that he considered himself to “be Zen” more than anything else. He extolled Zen to me all the time. When I shared my own worldview with him, he wrote to me that it was “morbid.” I concluded that Alan was the quintessential “light seeker in the light.” My own was more "light seeker in the dark,” through paradox and irony, the contemplative via negativa, the apophatic (or “hidden”) perspective. Alan seemed to neither fathom nor agree in his light-filled state of mind and being. 22 years ago I wrote a Masters Thesis, The Rebirth of the Christian Apophatic Spirit: Embracing the Dark Night of the Soul, in which I explored the writings of St. John of the Cross and Buddhist parallels as well as Western mystics such as Meister Eckhardt.Twelve years ago I wrote a Doctoral Dissertation, Forty Days and Forty Nights in the Wilderness: Comprehending Myth in Today’s World, in which I recognized and described various essential and elemental archetypes of Nature and Being that presented themselves to me during my ordeal. Nine years ago I published a book, Depression’s Seven Steps to Self-Understanding: A Guide to Comprehending and Navigating Your Inner Journey, in which I recognized and explored depression as an expression of the soul’s needs in its journey through our lives and us. Alan was in the process of reading the latter two of these writings, which we had begun to discuss.

I never met anyone with such enthusiasm, faith, love, and passion. Alan truly believed. He was such a mensch, such a good person. Alan had FAITH! Alan was INSPIRING. Amy and I loved him. We do and will miss him. As already noted, Alan said, he would "like to be in a body" again. Even as I write this, almost a month after his death, I can envision a little baby somewhere, smiling already, and bringing hope, joy, love, and great heart and mind once more into the world.

REALIZATIONS OF PAIN

I do live “by pain” and now sleep by pain as well. Pain legislates my being, the rules of my movement, my life. Yet I count my blessings and am most grateful that the pain is far more moderate than severe, that I am allowed so much pain-free movement, that I am able to walk in the forest and at the ocean when I choose to go. So, yes, there is pain, but there is also much freedom from it. And for that I am most grateful and most fortunate and, yes, most blessed by God and all the gods and goddesses. I have not been forgotten by the divinities who look after me. True, I am severely reminded of my life transgressions, my hurting, usually not malicious or intentional, of others, and I am given the benefit of knowing on a certain level how others do actually suffer in their bodies, as well as touching upon the suffering deeply and sharply in their minds, hearts and souls. I so feel their pain, as is said. Not just the physical pain but the deep pain of loss and abandonment and loneliness and regret for harms that I have committed upon others in my life. To be able to feel and go through this while I am still alive is a great blessing and gift that allows me not to have to wander lost and alone when I finally do leave the body. This is not morbid; rather, this is good fortune, the greatest of gifts, allowing me to feel myself one with all other human beings and to have and feel deep compassion and understanding for all, even the worst of them. And not only compassion, but hope, and a sense that my suffering is not in vain but possesses the purpose of giving me understanding and acceptance of myself and others and of the way it is in the world, of what we have done to ourselves and each other, in the hope and faith that it can be unraveled and undone, that we can make it right for ourselves and for each other in our understanding and our forgiveness. For, though this pain may even cripple our bodies, which may be their ultimate fate, it can also free our souls and hearts to operate beyond the poor body, the recipient of the blows of physical life and its ever-unsatisifed yearnings and desires of even heart and mind. Such pain squeezes these desires and appetites out of us as we come to recognize how much of mind and thought is driven by the needs and desires of a sixteen year-old seeking to conquer the world in so many ways to capture sexuality, power, fame, wealth and health for himself. And so I once did in great confidence and some success. But this conquering mind by necessity, by reality, changes. Life itself aids in our realizing our limits as times proceeds, as we age. The pain and limitation help us to disidentify with the world of the young, the endless conquest of everything by sheer will and drive of the young mind and body. Yet, still, at age 72, it foolishly persists as if it were still eighteen. Such hard-drivenness takes its toll on body and soul, and one realizes such in due time: one is simply no longer who one was over fifty years ago. One loses the dexterity, the strength, the endurance, the flexibility, the utter prowess one once possessed overwhelmingly. One loses the sense of unlimitness and endless faith in one’s utter and inevitable success and ignorant fearlessness of youth, which is the exact reason why young men are sent to war as cannon fodder; older men are not so naturally inclined in this way.

One becomes able to recognize reality regarding oneself and one’s limitations. One notices others, that there are others, if one is fortunate. One realizes the value and benefit of living for them, even as equal or better than living for oneself only. One, if one is fortunate and blessed in life, finds that love of others transcends love of self, or, more truly, is the epitome of love of self, for the other is oneself. The greatest joy comes from helping another.

And all this has come to arise out of my own experience of my own utter pain that has such power in my life. I am grateful for what it has revealed to me and utterly so.