A Bodhisattva's Version of Einstein

The method taught by awakened sages
to develop this skilful mind of kindness
is to cut the root of all selfish projections
by repeatedly and intensively studying Perfect Wisdom,
meditating single pointedly on its essence
in a state of contemplative stillness and stability.
With the clarity and honesty of such concentration,
projected worlds of self-serving desire will melt
in the sunlight of meditation, like structures of ice,
revealing the magnificent secret of our existence,
its total significance and absolute justification,
which is active compassion for all conscious life.

- Je Tsongkhapa

Awesome

It is 11:52 a.m. on January 31, 2008. I have caught myself saying "awesome" at least five times in the last 48 hours. Now, if this was, say 1984, this would be cause for concern - only five times in the last 48 hours? That indicates a distinct lack of awesomeness in one's life. But it is now 2008, so... wherefore so much "awesome"?

I should point out that 2008 was heretofore characterized by an increase in my use of the word "sucks". Again, another word I have not used with such frequency since the 80s. But with the Writers Strike grinding on, and having to move without having a real job, well..."sucks" seems to have been the word of choice, the mot du temps, if you will.

I will also point out that I have not used the word "awesome" for anything that is actually awesome. And not in the grammar police - hey you're saying awesome when the thing your talking about is not actually full of awe or awe-inspiring, but in the usual "pretty cool" or "that doesn't suck" sense. It's pretty much just been in the "thank you for doing what you normally do in the course of your job" sense. And, really, that must stop.

Or must it? Maybe people just being normal and helpful is a cause of "awesome". Maybe we all deserve to be called "awesome" a bit more often in the course of daily life. Life is hard enough without feeling like you suck. (And for the sake of this post, of course, I'm assuming that it's a choice between the two.)

Awesome, on the other hand, takes some skill to pull off. In the wrong mouth it can sound disingenuous, or just plain meaningless. But there are some... My manager is one of these people who can pull it off, once you know him a little. The first time he ever called me, after reading my spec script, he left a message that began, "I read your script, I think it's awesome." And I thought, "'Awesome?' Who is this guy?" But, later, after talking to him, I believed him. I still believe him when he says awesome. Other people believe him, too. This is why he is good at what he does. He can turn a no into a yes with his enthusiasm. And, yes, that's awesome.

But me? I'm a little less effusive, most of the time. "Calm," I've been called. (Which means, maybe the meditation thing has been working?) So maybe "awesome" doesn't fit so well with me. Or maybe I should just reserve it for something actually awesome. This suits the grammar policewoman in me. Word choice is important. As Peter O'Toole's character in The Last Emperor says, "You have to be able to say what you mean, otherwise you can never mean what you say."

We can all be kind of like the Boy Who Cried Wolf, except we cry awesome or sucks when things actually aren't or don't. (Don't get me started on the use of "less" when you mean "fewer" or any various other grammar pet peeves).

I mean, not to get all, English major seminar in Semiotics on everyone, but, though I realize that, in reality, language only refers to itself (and from a Buddhist perspective, language is kind of the problem, in that we think that just because we're able to give something a name that it actually exists (it doesn't)) - for the moment, we're stuck with language. So we might as well make the best of it. At least I might as well. Who am I to tell you what to do?

So I'm going to try to say what I mean. And try to not sound like a high school freshman.

Was Einstein a Bodhisattva?

Kinda starting to think he was. As I was preparing to teach Great Compassion in meditation class tomorrow, I came across this quote:

"A human being is part of a whole, called by us the 'Universe,' a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest -- a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

Amen, brother.

More on this later...

Who am I anyway, Am I my resume?

It's times like these, identity crisis times, when I believe one should take refuge in musical theatre. Nothing says unemployed in show business like a number from A Chorus Line.

Nothing says you're not the first one to have a broken heart, and you're probably a better person for it, like The Fantasticks -- "Deep in December, it's nice to remember:Without a hurt, the heart is hollow...."

A line on the efficacy of revenge in response to betrayal? Okay so you have Macbeth...out damn spot...blah, blah, blah. But even better, from Sweeney Todd --"The history of the world, my pet, is learn forgiveness and try to forget."

You know what I think it is? I think it's the rhyming. Nothing helps life seem to make more sense than a good rhyme. A rhyme is like a nice little bow made out of language. Which actually works for us because we can't look at our life directly, we have to talk about it with language. If we can fit our life into an understandable storyline, we feel better. If it fits into a description we can understand, we feel okay.

I think for writers, it might even be possible to say that, we wouldn't even care...or maybe...bad things suck a lot less...if we can fit those certain events into a well-written narrative. And if that narrative is set to music and rhymes, well, really, how bad could it be? Sure you've been wrongly accused and spent 15 years transported to Australia, and now you've just murdered a bunch of people, including, accidentally, your wife...but Stephen Sondheim is making pithy rhymes about you, so it's all coming together in a nice little bow!

But maybe this is true for all people -- if we knew the hard times and suffering would all be worth it in the end, would lead us down the road we were supposed to go down -- then we would probably accept it happily. After all, every biopic needs scenes of struggle, otherwise the inevitable triumph would seem flat and less...triumphant. No one wants to see a movie where the protagonist triumphs over easily surmountable odds. In real life, however, that's exactly what we want.

But that's exactly what we don't get. We don't get to flip to the back of the book, skip to the end of the movie. So what do we do? Maybe we start by not expecting to go in any particular direction, for things to go in a particular way.

My first Buddhist teacher always responds to whatever news I give her about myself, with the following phrase: "Oh, good!" This is especially true when things go wrong. Or "wrong".

We train, as Buddhists, so that whatever comes we try to think, "Oh, good!" Oh, good...I'm learning patience. Oh, good...I'm learning how expectations can set you up for disappointment. Oh, good...this makes me want to attain enlightenment as soon as possible. It definitely helps. But it takes practice and a certain amount of mental stamina. Otherwise you get my to-date, favorite subject line generated by Yahoo! Mail's random subject generator (see note below), "Oh, no! Not another learning experience!"

But if we think about it, we have a choice, another learning experience, or another disappointment. Oh, good! or Oh, crap! And what we hopefully start to learn, is that the situation responds to our choice, it responds to us...and not vice versa. It's actually the happily accepting that takes us down the road we're supposed to go on.

And that is the ultimate reason for hope. Oh, good.

Note: If you have the beta version of Yahoo! Mail, click on the "Subject" button, and Yahoo! will generate a subject line for you. It's endlessly entertaining. Today's favorite: Hold me closer, Tony Danza.

In Retreat on Craig's List

It's Lam Rim retreat week at my Buddhist Center. At our center, retreats are structured to accommodate those of us who hold down that inconvenient obstacle to total retreat, namely, a job, so there are sessions before and after work, as well as during the day. (A job, by the way, is in no way an obstacle to meditation practice, we need other people with whom we can practice patience and develop love and compassion for. No other people = no enlightenment. (In fact, Buddha said that, one day, all living beings will become enlightened, and when there are only a few unenlightened ones left, the Buddhas will appear as ordinary beings, angry, difficult, rude, delusional, you know...ordinary, so that those who remain will have someone to practice with. So, you never know, you could be the last one. Or maybe it's me, I really don't know.))

And now I will pull my post back from the tangent, in the same way I'm supposed to be pulling my mind back from delusion, by saying that, even if my body is not in formal retreat, I can still keep retreat in my mind. I do that by avoiding distraction, and continually pulling my mind away from delusion (mainly anger/aversion and attachment), and re-placing it on minds that create happiness and inner peace.

That task, this time around, is complicated by the fact that I am looking for an apartment. And if there's anything that generates both aversion and attachment in your mind very strongly and at the same time, it's looking for a new place to live. Must have air conditioning! Can't possibly live that close the freeway! Will be blissfully happy forever if it only has a dishwasher! Who the hell would swim in that pool?

It also forces you to define yourself in ways that maybe you haven't thought of before, with the totally false promise that if you figure it all out, exactly who you are, exactly where you want to live, and if you can afford it...that you will be happy for all time.

So...am I edgy enough for Silverlake? Hip enough for Los Feliz? Urban enough to scale the Hollywood hills away from the valley, or, banish the thought, have I really become a valley girl in my heart after all? Valley hai will find you.... mmm....actual yards....plenty of parking...apartments with air conditioning... attachment. attachment. attachment.

Because, in reality, everyone, including me, is really like a turtle. We carry our happiness or unhappiness around with us like a shell on our backs. Our circumstances are only incidental.

So, I will remind myself that a one bedroom apartment, in select valley or Los Feliz/Silverlake locations, with air conditioning, remodeled kitchen with dishwasher, yard or garden, on a street where my cat can run around safely, in a quiety building where I can meditate or write without interruption, with paid utilities, for $1,000 or less, is not - even though it seems that way - is not, in fact, Nirvana.

Lovely Intangibles

I know Christmas is over... but I wanted to remind myself of the truth of this little exchange from one of my favorite movies... Miracle on 34th Street
(my apologies for the formatting, can't quite figure that out, yet)

FRED

Faith is believing in things when

common sense tells you not to. It's

not just Kris that's on trial. It's

everything he stands for. It's

kindness, joy, love, and all the

other intangibles.

DORIS

Fred,you're talking like a child.

You're livingin a realistic world!

Those lovely intangibles aren't worth much.

You don't get ahead that way.

FRED

That all depends on what you call getting ahead. Evidently, we have different definitions.

DORIS

We've talked about some wonderful plans.

Then you go on an idealistic binge.

You give up your job,throw away your security...and then you expect me to be happy about it!

FRED

Yes, I guess I expected too much. Someday, you're going to find out that your way of facing this realistic world just doesn't work.

And when you do, don't overlook those lovely

intangibles. You'll discover they're the

only things that are worthwhile.

I am my own avatar...

Life is much easier when you don’t take it so seriously. I’ve often thought we should approach what happens to us as if we were playing a first person POV video game, taking on challenges as they come, delighting that they take us to a higher level of play, and experiencing the whole thing with the amused enjoyment of someone who knows it isn’t real – or, as my Balinese dance teacher used to say – “always with little bit smile.”

When life turns into a screenplay you don’t want to write....

Here’s how the new year started. My roommate and friend revealed that she is expecting a baby in May. There’s no guy. Well, there’s a guy, but he went into a small room and came out of a small room, and that was the extent of his involvement. She turned 40 this year, and is someone who has always wanted to be a mother. It turned into a now or never kind of thing.

The next day, I read in the news, that another friend is marrying the mayor of San Francisco.

Surely there is a screenplay in here somewhere. Juno meets the Big Chill? But not the kind of screenplay I would write.

Meanwhile, I’m in search of an apartment and a job, and at the ripe old age of I’m-not-telling-you-how-old-I-am, feeling a little bit like a failure for currently not having achieved any of the external milestones of what is commonly known as “life”. Yes, I know there’s a strike on, but still, you know what I mean... No job, even if for just right now, no husband/boyfriend, family, house or German car.

I had a German car when I was 16. I feel like I’m backsliding.

So, please, you writers who write this kind of thing, please jump in. There’s a quirky heroine in need of life-changing plot points, development, catharsis (I won’t say happily ever after... let’s at least try for some realism). All character notes welcome.

In the Doldrums

The doldrums. If I were a sailor, that’s where I’d be. Inactivity, stagnation, listlessness – oh, yes, those are the classic definitions. But I’m really in “a belt of calms and light baffling winds north of the equator”. The equator part is more metaphorical. But “light baffling” might be the most apt description. When you no longer know where to go or what to do.

We’re entering the third month of the writers strike. The picket line – despite the activity of walking in circles – might also be described as a place of non-movement. There’s an odd atmosphere of stasis in a group of people who are not working, and also not looking for work. This is an odd predicament for an American. Like it or not, we’re all still operating under the hegemony, the weight, of the Protestant work ethic. It’s an invisible force that only makes itself apparent if you’ve ever spent a significant time living or working abroad in a country that does not have this particular neurosis. Upon returning to the States, that peculiar ethic settles back on your shoulders, an invisible heavy weight. “Succeed.”

So, not working and also not looking for work produces an almost indescribable mental state. Of course people are writing, blogs, spec scripts, novels, what have you. But, you know work is work. The thing that lets you pay for food, shelter and what not.

So, how to not go crazy? How to keep moving, when outer movement is impossible?

Go in.

Maybe the opposite of the Protestant work ethic is meditation (Buddhist or otherwise). Or as we used to say in improv, “Don’t just do something, stand there.” If we give up outward striving, or are forced to put it on hold for a while, we can dwell in frustration, or we can give up striving, give up grasping.

Many times in Buddhist texts and art, grasping is depicted by a monkey in a tree, trying to pluck a fruit that is just out of his reach. I think this is how we feel most of the time, whether we’re working or not, succeeding or not. There is always one more thing that needs doing, one more thing that needs accomplishing, or fixing before we can be utterly happy, content, fulfilled.

Of course we still want the fruit. But maybe the fruit really comes from is getting down off the tree, sitting in the grass, breathing a little bit. Because the only people who have everything they want are the ones who want what they already have.

Not sure how that pays the rent. Still trying to figure that one out. Stay tuned.