The Secret Meaning of Life

John asked yesterday, what do I think about, instead of a walking trip, a biking trip? My answer, immediately, was "a walking trip." I suppose in my say-yes-to-life efforts, I ought to jump at the idea of something like a biking trip, something far enough outside of my thinking that I never, ever would have considered. But the thing is, I have for so long wanted to go on an incredibly long walk. If we walked to Nashville, I would never say, now let us do this on bicycles, whereas if we rode bicycles to Juno, Alaska, I would (after a year of recovery at least) say, Now I would like to walk as far. (Because, apparently, I speak like A.A. Milne.) John pointed out that a biking trip would be much faster than a walking trip. I countered that a flying trip would be faster still (John thinks that flying is the worst form of travel, since you pass the journey by.) And that got me thinking of the book of traveling stories I want to compile. I always think about the journeys I would like to take, and about how I will one day have enough stories to compile. But really, I do. I just always feel like there should be something more. As if I will finally find do the thing that makes everything and myself feel completely different. But even though I am already a completely different person from the Court who hit the road in 2007, I have never felt like anything other than myself. Life just feels like living. I can put myself in the weirdest situations, can chase high adventure on the seas, or in the city, or on a farm, or even (if I get around to making my hot-air balloon) in the air. But once I have, and I come home, waking up in a bed will still feel like waking up in a bed. And though that may be magical after living on a bicycle for a year, eventually the magic will wear off. Because it does not matter what you do with you life. If you are a musician, a veterinarian, a hobo, a housewife, a film director, a banker, or something else entirely, the only thing that matters is how you feel about being that thing. I once had a job that required me to vacuum a department store from 7-9am. I enjoyed it quite a lot. Jeremy hated it, and quit after two weeks. There is no miracle path to happiness. (There is just the regular path to happiness. And you walk it every day.) It does not matter what it is you want to do with your life. It only matters that you do what you want to do with your life. If you do not want to do something, do not do it. Now of course there is such things as concessions and sacrifice. If you have children, you must provide for them. If you want a house, there are things to be done in order to obtain one. So it is true what we have heard: sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do. But you don't always or forever have to do things you don't want to do. If you make your bed once, you do not have to sleep in it a thousand times.

The Return of Court Anonymous, pt 1

Last night, John, Oshin and I went into Nashville to watch the Music City Roller Girls defeat the Boardwalk Bombshells of Santa Cruz. We met up with Scott there, and he returned to the house on Fleet Town with us. Today, rather than staying here and working with them, I am going into Nashville with Jason and Violet to see The Avengers. Lately, I have been feeling down about not getting more done at Rosewater. But I do not feel bad about going into town today, nor about leaving my friends behind to work without me. I am not shirking responsibility, and I am not seeking entertainment. My reason for why I am going can be explained by an examination of the Fifth and Sixth Secondary Downfalls of the Bodhisattva Vow (which I will do in the near future; after this blog, I am going to begin anew my exploration of these "downfalls," which is something I first began in 2006). But this post is actually about something else. Why I, Court Anonymous, Am Not A Leader: Because I do not care to be. I do not have the answers and reasons to tell people what they ought to do. Nor do I aspire to. The thinking described up to this point has led me to return to Geshe Kelsang Gyatso's book, The Bodhisattva Vow. Reading less than a page made me realize how undisciplined my mind has become. It was my mental- and self-discipline that revealed to me what I believe is "my path." It is the greatest talent I have. If I have anything to offer The World, it is this. If I feel comfortable to lead in any way, it is by example rather than edict. Rosewater is not a thing we are all working toward (that, I feel, would be a commune). Rather, what we are all working toward is what will make Rosewater. We each want something more in life, and this property is a place where we can work towards these things we want. I personally feel like I have more to offer than what our current system allows for. I feel that within this system I have to make compromises and allowances that leave me feeling like my offerings become weak and distilled. I believe that the world we live in is what we make of it, rather than we being what we can make of ourselves within this world. I believe we each have something to offer, in that we each have some thing (or things) about which we are passionate, and that we can find a way to follow and develop this spirit (as opposed to limit or extinguish it in the name of the status quo). I am not excited about building cabins. That is not what I have to offer, though I can help in their building--and I will be glad to. The idea of accomplishing this interests me, but it is not where my spirit leads me. I do not care if no cabin is ever built (which I am afraid is why no cabin is being built). Where, then, does my spirit lead me? Well at the present moment, I want to rediscipline my mind. This may require a cessation of drinking, and reinstituting my quasi-vegan diet (both of which I might discuss in my discourse on the Second Secondary Downfall). But certainly it will require re-reading The Bodhisattva Vow, and Shantideva. It will also surely involve non-Buddhist actions (since, you know, I'm not actually a Buddhist), such as applying myself to the tasks at hand with Rosewater. Doing things I don't want to do, when all I want to do is sit at home reading or playing video games. This being-myself is what I care to do, and the only example worth setting. A subtle leadership: do not do as I do, studying Buddhism; do as I do, making every effort to be yourself as well. Find (as Sir Ken Robinson calls it) your Element. Self-discipline is mine.

The Object of Success

I have long been convinced that one of the biggest differences between people is the perception of the object of success. Now, reading Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers, the subject is once again on my mind. In 2008, I moved to Seattle. I was in my early thirties at that point, and had lived in four states in the previous year. Washington was my fifth, and I planned to stay for four months before making California my sixth. I was going to be a monk. By comparison, Jenny was in her early twenties and, except for trips to Disneyland, she had never been far from Washington, and did not plan on that changing. She looked forward to being married and having children in the not-too-soon-but-not-too-distant future. We were an unlikely couple. Travel is not my passion. If it were, I would be writing from the road. But I love to travel. I like to see new places, meet new people, and do unusual things. Actually, what I love is gaining new perspectives. New people, places, and things provide them. Hiking up a mountain in a rainforest is a cool thing to say you've done, but slipping and falling, sliding downhill, and emerging from the canopy covered in mud and sweat is an experience that cannot be conveyed. It is the awe of life that I care to maintain. For that, discomfort is an acceptable concession. Travel is not Jenny's passion either. When she deplaned with me in Texas in June 2009, the instant sweat offended her. My father picked us up in a car with no AC, and when we stopped at the nearest air conditioned bar for a pitcher of beer, I half expected her to tell me she would just stay there for the week. But she was impressed by the attitudes of corner-shop cashiers ("They're so nice!"), surprised by political rhetoric ("that nigger..."), and when she saw a firefly for the first time... The look on her face was the revelation of magic in the world. She returned to Seattle with new perspectives. But she loathed the airport hassle on the way home. This is the significance of the object of success. It doesn't just impact what we choose to do. It determines how we feel about it. My Seattle days are behind me, but Jenny and I are still in touch. Yesterday, over the phone, she told me she is happiest when she is gardening. I told her she should quit her job. "I can't do that," she replied. "I have a 401K." She clearly has a model for success different from mine. I do not understand the motivation she gets from a retirement plan, but I do understand the way that life appears to chase after success like an apple chases the ground. Why would we go any other direction? How can we not? You can catch an apple mid-fall, but you cannot stop its inherent motivation in that direction. Success does not have actual physical properties. We each have a different object of success, and yet we take it largely for granted that we are all moving in the same direction. Sure, we understand that we have various goals; however, we are all moving toward The Future, and our concept of success is the very description of the future we are each moving toward, whether we make it or not. I have been told by Jenny and by many others that I am mistaken in my trajectory, that I will eventually get my head out of the clouds and accept the inevitable Future. I have said the same thing to those people and others. . .. ... .... ... .. . .. ... .... ... .. . .. ... .... ... .. . Another example: Occupy Wall Street vs Occupy Nashville. Six months after the official start of the movement, Occupy Nashville is limping. I am encouraged by a point made at the last general assembly: the real work being done is not by the people coming by twice a week to talk about what we are doing; it is by the people who come by once a month to talk about what they've done. The Nashville movement is not dead. But when compared to the general assemblies of October and November, the current meetings are underwhelming, both in attendance and potency. On the other hand, Occupy Wall Street, the spark that lit so many short fuses last September, is still flourishing. (I started compiling a list to support this, but really you should just check out What the Fuck Has Occupy Done?) The significant factor is solidarity. What is solidarity but a shared object of success? We, as individuals, still have our own independent ideas for the future, but on the plaza, on the streets, we meet as Occupy Nashville with a shared intention. Well, we did. The power of the people is an incredible thing to witness, especially from within. Occupy Nashville was a great source of empowerment. In fact, people felt so empowered as to believe that their hopes and dreams were nearer than previously believed. Personal and organizational interests brought Occupy Nashville to its current, splintered state.* *This is not a bad thing. The successes that past and present ON contributors are working toward are simply outside of the scope of Occupy. Most of the people I have met through Occupy Nashville are working with great motivation toward both subtle and dramatic change.

get thee to a monastery

I've had difficulty explaining this in the past, but this image from postsecret.com revealed how simple it is to just say it.
The monastic life appeals to me. I enjoy solitude, I enjoy silent contemplation. I would make a very good monk, I think.
Only problem is, I am not religious.

I dropped out of college in 2001 with the very specific goal of becoming a monk. I was going to join The Brothers and Sisters of Charity, a Catholic monastic community. Because my beliefs allow an appreciation of different perspectives, I figured being a Catholic monk was as good as anything.
This is how I learned about cognitive dissonance first-hand. At first I thought something was wrong with me. I felt ill, uneasy--was I entering a new phase of depression? Was I sick? But after several months and a conversation with Michael, I realized I was just trying to believe something I genuinely did not believe. My mental faculties were affecting my physical faculties. Or at least, this theory explains why I no longer felt this un-ease the day after I decided to not become a Catholic monk.

And then I floated aimlessly--by this point I had entered management at a store in Nashville, and I was dating Katie. I still followed my philosophical interests, but entertaining the idea that I would marry Katie effectively nullified the idea that I'd be a monk.
And then madness--my depression became an insurmountable obstacle. I had gotten stuck in a rut, and generally thought, "I'll do what's important later." Living a life without meaning, it turned out, meant I found life to be (duh) meaningless.
Kate had gone to London and, even though we still suspected we'd still get married, we weren't together any longer. A serendipitous trip to Bridgeport had redirected me to Buddhist studies, and to The Nyingma Institute.

The rest of the story is long, and is just a story. The fact of the matter is, I still feel like this is the life I'm best suited for, and I don't know how to live it. Nyingma is still an attractive idea, but Berkeley is not on my radar right now. The question is not, where can I go to live like this? It is, how can I live like this, everywhere I am?
It's easy to have a goal, when there's an established path (e.g., If I were Catholic, I could follow the example of other Catholic monks). But without a literal role-model, I am not sure what I'm looking to become.
My beliefs, at least, tell me that I will become whatever I become, and that if I "follow my heart," then I'll continue to be where I want to be.
So far, so good.

bodhisattva (detail)

[from my livejournal post 5/26/2008]

Basically, life is getting more real. Happiness, disappointment, diseases, and life goes on. Books become escape, and aren't actually lovers and children. They are books as sadly as television is television. Everything is as it is, rather than how I saw it or experienced it.
It feels like the start of a fall, when your feet are still technically on the ground, when it's just so barely beyond the horizon of potential recovery. But it doesn't feel like falling, it just feels like that exact position, before your brain even deals with noticing you can't do anything, before even notices what you might do if it weren't that moment too late.

But it doesn't feel bad.

Also, I'm redefining my life. I started with the idea of love, and now I'm on to exploring heroes. It's like sound, and peeling away all the dark grey and red and yellow-ochre and dark green and steel-blue tendrils, everything that's attached but you know is not quite purely the sound, until all that's left is the only-thing-worth-living-for, comfortably-reassuring "om." It's remembering, step by step, in detail, that the "om" is in there, in everything, and that the panic or fear or happiness or whatever you're feeling is an illusion, because you know true peace and happiness and love, and you know "this" isn't it, no matter how good or real it feels, because even when you forget what nirvana feels like, you at least remember it feels better than this.
And also, since these illusions are there, then you have to understand it's most rational to assume you put them in there, for some better or worse reason. If you figure out which were for good reasons and which for bad reasons, and if you decide to replace the ones that were "for good," then still remember that you're placing illusions between yourself and nirvana. Remember it's unnecessary, and remember later why you did it, for what good reasons you did it. Because if you're not still pursuing that "good" goal, then your illusions aren't doing you any good any more. And remember that, ultimately, they never were, never are, and never will.

Help Wanted

I woke up with a stick in my ass (not literally; I haven't slept outdoors in a week), and decided to take it out on Twitter. Here it is, collected:

Why are our politicians so focused on creating jobs, rather than creating alternatives? And why are Americans waiting for them to do it?

Seriously, I don't give a fuck if you create jobs. I don't want a job. You're making a scenario in which I NEED a job.

What does it say about you, that you say I need what you can create in order to live? And you call yourself humble in the eyes of the Lord??

I don't need a job, I need food. I need a roof, and warmth. When taken for granted, a job seems like the easiest way to secure these things.
But the reality of the job is, you're asking me to expend so much of my energy for your benefit, in exchange for so little of my own. It would be different if it were a job I cared about, cared for. But I am not encouraged to find that, prepare for that.
If I were, the education system would have greater support, and supporting programs. But no, even if I wanted to go to school, that is an extracurricular activity, on my own dime (or! even better! an opportunity to encourage our debt-based economy! once again, I work for you!).
I don't need a job, I need food. I don't need school, I need an education. Both of which I, collaborating with my friends and family, with people who are passionate and compassionate, can obtain without you--and, I feel, cannot obtain WITH you.

So you, standing there, thinking you're telling me why I should vote for you: tell me why I should vote for you. Why I should support you. Why I should even care about your America, when you don't seem to care about mine.

Inviting Fear, by Ajahn Amaro

Above all, a materialistic society desires certainty-it seeks to guarantee it; passes laws to enforce it; wipes our the pathogens that threaten it; and lets everyone have guns to protect it. Even the seemingly innocuous habits of inking in plans and clinging to beliefs and opinions are the reverse-image of the uncertainties that the heart yearns to be certain about.

Yet, if we seek security in that which is inherently uncertain, dukkha, or discontent, is the inevitable result.

Fear is a discomfiting friend. The impulse is to get to a place of safety, but where in the phenomenal world-either mental or physical-could that be? The insight of the Buddha, informed by his own experiences of exploring fear and dread, encourages us to make a 180-degree turn. Whereas the instinct is to shrink away from the threatening aspects of life, his injunction for those who wish to free the heart is to contemplate frequently the following:


I am of the nature to age, I have not gone beyond aging;
I am of the nature to sicken, I have not gone beyond sickness;
I am of the nature to die, I have not gone beyond dying;
All that is mine, beloved and pleasing, will become
otherwise, will become separated from me.



For that which is threatening to the ego is liberating for the heart.

By turning to face the inarguable facts of nature, the habit of investing in unstable realms is interrupted. It shines the light of wisdom on the issue, reveals that we've been looking for certainty in the wrong place, and thus frees up the attention to realize where security can be found.

This needs to be examined in the light of personal experience, but in traditional Buddhist terminology, such security is said to be found in the Triple Gem: the Buddha-the awakened, knowing faculty of the heart; the Dharma-the truth of the way things are; and the Sangha-the noble, unselfish response. For when the awakened heart knows the way things truly are, what springs forth is harmonious and virtuous action. Undiscriminating awareness is dependable. The reality of Nature is dependable. Harmony is possible.

How can we arrive at such security?

There are many ways to meditate on fear. One is to wait until it appears adventitiously. Another is to invite it in-when we send out invitations we can be a little better prepared for who shows up at the party.

Perhaps for both methods of approach the first thing to bear in mind is that fear is not the enemy-it is nature's protector; it only becomes troublesome when it oversteps its bounds. In order to deal with fear we must take a fundamentally noncontentious attitude toward it, so it's not held as "My big fear problem" but rather "Here is fear that has come to visit." Once we take this attitude, we can begin to work with fear.

*

Begin by sitting quietly and focusing the attention as clearly as possible on the present moment, using a simple tranquil object to establish equilibrium-the natural rhythm of the breath is good for this purpose for most people, moving in the empty space of the heart .

*

Once such centeredness has been established, deliberately bring to mind something that will arouse a fear reaction. For example,

"Anthrax in the mail"
"Nuclear war"
"Suicide bombers"

-or any other memory, imagined possibility, or Image that triggers the compulsive effect.

*

Once the seed crystal has been dropped into the mental pool and the consequent flow of thoughts and images has begun, make a definite and concerted effort to withdraw the attention from the stories the thoughts are telling. Bring it instead into the sensations of the physical body.

Where do I feel the fear? What is its texture?
Is it hot or cold?
Is it painful? Rigid? Elastic?

We are not necessarily looking for verbal answers to all these questions; rather, we are just trying to find the feeling, accept it completely, and not add anything to it.

"Fear feels like this."

Many find that fear locates itself primarily in the solar plexus, sitting like a tightened knot in the belly. Just feel it, know it, open the heart to it as much as possible. We're not trying to pretend or force ourselves to like it, but it is here-right now it's the way things are.

*

Let this process run for at least ten minutes, then consciously let it wind down-not suppressing it, but, as when it's time for guests to leave, make the hints, and let the event wind down naturally. It might take a while, but that's fine; just let it run out at its own pace. During this time, reestablish the breath as a focal point, and use the exhalation to support the fading of the fear-wave.

*

Once it has come to an end, focus the attention on the feeling of the breath, moving as before in the empty space of the heart. Let the heart be clearly conscious that the fear cycle has come to cessation: it arose out of emptiness, returned to emptiness. It was florid and impactful in its appearance, but the overarching quality, now having been seen directly, is its transiency.

Now we know ...

The effect of this practice is to train the heart, so that when the next wave of fear arises, from whatever quarter, something in us knows. The intuitive wisdom faculty is awakened and recognizes: "I know this scenario-don't panic-it looks impressive, but it's just the fear reaction." It becomes vastly easier to avoid being sucked into the vortex of anxiety.

The feeling is not pleasant, but the heart knows, with absolute certainty: "It's only a feeling." And if action needs to be taken, then that action will be motivated by wisdom, kindness, and sensitivity to time and place rather than by neurotic reactivity and habit.

Amaro Bhikkhu is co-abbot of Abhayagiri Monastery in northern California, in the lineage of Ajahn Chah and the Thai forest tradition. He has been a monk for twenty-three years.This article was published in Tricycle Magazine.