tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84855832441992369962024-03-18T02:47:49.121-07:00The OutsiderIncendiary reflections of a politically incorrect Buddhist.Paññobhāsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14148206217028034038noreply@blogger.comBlogger435125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8485583244199236996.post-27770801764389294402023-07-16T14:10:00.000-07:002023-07-16T14:10:02.638-07:00Theravada vs. Sarvastivada vs. Archaic Buddhism<p><br /></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>Orthodoxy is the diehard of the world of thought. It learns not, neither can it forget.</i> —Aldous Huxley</blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>Orthodoxy is my doxy—heterodoxy is another man’s doxy.</i> —William Warburton</blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><p> Those of you who are familiar with the history of early Buddhism may know that around the time of the 3rd Great Council, held during the reign of the Indian Emperor Ashoka, a schism occurred between the Theravada and Sarvastivada schools of Buddhism. The orthodox Theravadin version of the event is that certain non-Buddhist heretics had infiltrated the Theravada Buddhist Sangha, and were purged at the 3rd Council, presided over by the Paul the Apostle of Theravada, ven. Moggaliputta Tissa, with the blessings of the Emperor himself. So one of the main purposes of the 3rd Council was to drive the monks favoring Sarvastivadin ideas out of the Sangha of the Theras, and presumably to formalize Theravadin Dhamma with the help of a new Abhidhamma Pitaka.</p><p> Historically these “heretics” wallowing in pernicious wrong view then migrated in a northwesterly direction, so that the area now known as the Punjab became a stronghold of Sarvastivada, and the later Kushan Empire, with its capital in what is now Peshawar, Pakistan, converted to that school. The Greeks who ruled that part of the subcontinent before the Kushans may also have favored Sarvastivada.</p><p> Of course the orthodox view of Theravada is biased and uncharitable towards the banished side of the schism, not even considering them to be Buddhists in good faith. I seriously suspect that the orthodox Sarvastivadin version of the story would not be extremely charitable towards the Theravadins.</p><p> Theravada Buddhists, especially Asian ones, tend to be of the opinion that Theravada is the pure, pristine version of Buddhism, the genuine teaching of Gotama (not Gautama) Buddha before heresies like Sarvastivada and Mahayana corrupted it. I used to believe this sort of thing myself, before I began a serious study of the Pali Tipitaka. But if we consider a comparison between Theravada and Sarvastivada we may see that probably neither side was endorsing the 100% pure genuine article of Buddha-vacana.</p><p> The most obvious difference between the two closely related schools is found in the name of the non-Theravadin branch: “Sarvastivada,” or “Sabbatthivada” in Pali, literally means “the Doctrine (that) All Exists.” This means that the Sarvastivadins had a more or less Einsteinian conception of time, so that past, present, and future are all equally real, in a sense. The Theravadins mocked this idea, preferring a more Newtonian idea: only the present moment exists, and the past and future are completely nonexistent.</p><p> The only text of the Abhidhamma Pitaka that I have read in its entirety, in the PTS English translation, is the Kathavatthu, or <i>Points of Controversy</i>. This strange book is a guidebook for Theravada Buddhist polemicists, telling them how to refute various heretical doctrines championed by other schools of (early, pre-Mahayana) Buddhism existing at around the time of the 3rd Council, say mid-3rd century BCE. This in and of itself is very strong evidence that the historical Buddha never taught the Kathavatthu, but devout Burmese Buddhists will say that the Buddha had prophetic powers and could foresee these wrong views and provide solid arguments against them…despite the fact that not engaging in such debates was a fundamental tenet of the earliest Buddhism. Anyway, the way to refute the Sarvastivadin doctrine that past, present, and future all exist is by pointing out that they are insisting that what doesn’t exist (i.e. past and future), exists, which is self-contradictory, nonsensical, and invalid. It is unfortunate that rules of formal logic were unknown to pre-Mahayana Buddhists. The whole Kathavatthu consists of specious reasoning like this.</p><p> Another fundamental teaching of Sarvastivada appears to stem from the former one, namely that all <i>formations</i> are impermanent, but the elemental <i>dharmas</i> of which they are made, are permanent. So unlike the Theravada notion of all things, even elemental ones, physical and mental, blinking in and out of existence trillions of times per second, the Sarvastivadins declared the permanence of elemental matter and mind.</p><p> There are other differences between these two schools; for example the Sarvastivadins were allegedly obligate vegetarians, whereas the Theravadins were and are not. Also the Sarvastivadins had an almost materialistic conception of karma, and every single book in their version of Abhidharma differs radically from the books of the Theravadin Abhidhamma—this point in itself being good evidence that the Abhidhamma Pitaka simply did not exist prior to the 3rd Council—but the differences already mentioned are enough to demonstrate a point I intend to make.</p><p> The point is this: that most differing points of view belonging to the various schools were differing interpretations of already existing texts (though at the time the “texts” were probably memorized and not written down), not the radical changing of central doctrines. THAT was mainly what the Mahayanists succeeded in doing, which separates them from the earlier Shravakayana or “Hinayana” schools.</p><p> I’m pretty sure that the Buddha did not categorically declare that past and future do or do not have some metaphysical reality. He did have some prophetic power, accepted even by the Theravada Buddhists, so he could see the future, which to a Theravadin absolutely does not exist; but the Theravadins claim that in his omniscience he could extrapolate a current situation into its extremely probable if not inevitable future state. The Sarvastivadins might have the advantage of interpretation on that one.</p><p> But since there is no formal declaration one way or the other in the early, core texts, different monastic scholars could come up with different grand unified theories to tie everything together and explain the entire cosmos to the satisfaction of an ancient Indian intellectual. The same goes for the interpretation of the impermanence or inconstancy of sankharas or conditioned things; though in THAT case the blinking on and off theory of the Theravadins might come closer to the original spirit than the idea that only combinations of elemental dharmas are inconstant—sort of like a 19th-century physicist insisting that molecules are not eternal but that atoms are. Radical divergences between rival schools as found in their scriptures tended to rely on apocryphal texts, if not on varying interpretations of an ambiguous statement.</p><p> Situations like these weakened my faith in orthodox Theravada almost from the time that I began seriously studying Theravada. It seems very likely that Theravada is not necessarily the closest school to the authentic teachings of the Buddha (though Buddhistic scholars like A. K. Warder are of the opinion that Theravada was one of the most conservative schools of ancient India), but rather that it survived, and the other early schools did not. I doubt that the Buddha really taught the blinking on and off trillions of times per second theory, for example—a theory with some serious logical defects, not the least of which is the following: if everything blinks out of existence every moment, then what is the cause of them blinking back into existence again? Theravada categorically denies the reality of the past, so even the past moment cannot cause anything in the present because it would be a nonexistent cause and thus no cause at all. Also, how could anyone observe this blinking on and off when the process of observation itself would be nonexistent during the “off” times?</p><p> Choosing a school of Buddhism during its first few centuries of existence would probably have been more a matter of geography than of discriminating among the philosophies. Probably the gradual separation of Buddhism into various schools was caused by isolation and a kind of genetic drift: monks could not travel any faster than a monk could walk, so there was not much exposure to alternative points of view in early monasteries, except in the larger cities, the universities, and the main pilgrimage sites like Bodh Gaya and Savatthi. Local teachers would naturally have some authority at their own monasteries, which would tend to vary from what some other teacher was teaching many miles away. So whatever school of Buddhism was prevalent in a person’s native area of India was likely the school of Buddhism that he would follow. Religion is still this way today, and a person’s religion tends to be more a matter of geography than theology.</p><p> So Theravada adhered pretty closely to the core texts of Buddhism, that is the state of Buddhist texts before the first schism about a hundred years after the Buddha’s parinirvana, and eventually cooked up a grand unifying theory to bring the texts into some semblance of harmony. Or rather, Theravada cooked up more than one such theory and purged the ones that did not command the majority of monks, or that did not persuade the elders calling the shots, like old Moggaliputta Tissa.</p><p> I think the world had some pretty good karma in that of all the early schools Theravada is the one to survive. (I have read that Sarvastivada <i>technically</i> still survives in a few monasteries in Japan, there called the Ritsu or Rissu school, but it has been overwhelmed by Mahayanist culture and hardly represents a pale shadow of the Indian heretics purged at the 3rd Great Council.) Buddhism, as it has spread into different cultures, has mutated into some forms barely recognizable as Buddhist, but the core texts are still there, even if surrounded by non-core interpretations and some apocryphal suttas.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE1W2yw3aXvsDYi7o7dlknq0b0a9BbEbcxFRE9dy90z4tjpsalQ0XMjBsgEiNMbfB7IGg5ZPmx_6KN1WxRl_V-SACiMBaiymikEKEFQAhPQdIc_y2dnZF4Yx0C7q_vQ2qvCKWXPjQ-IxGTUEL-lTjWeZiJ0IC6GykymyfFGhmYXW-Bw6beO-8PWTtmHro/s1280/Ashokan%20inscription.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="848" data-original-width="1280" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE1W2yw3aXvsDYi7o7dlknq0b0a9BbEbcxFRE9dy90z4tjpsalQ0XMjBsgEiNMbfB7IGg5ZPmx_6KN1WxRl_V-SACiMBaiymikEKEFQAhPQdIc_y2dnZF4Yx0C7q_vQ2qvCKWXPjQ-IxGTUEL-lTjWeZiJ0IC6GykymyfFGhmYXW-Bw6beO-8PWTtmHro/w640-h424/Ashokan%20inscription.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div>Paññobhāsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14148206217028034038noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8485583244199236996.post-47563222844751157722023-07-09T14:08:00.001-07:002023-07-09T14:08:54.639-07:00How the World Is Run by Mediocrity (and Rightfully So)<p><br /></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>Many highly intelligent people are poor thinkers. Many people of average intelligence are skilled thinkers. The power of a car is separate from the way the car is driven.</i> —Edward de Bono</blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><p> As many of you know, since I stopped being an ordained monk I’ve been working at sheet metal shops, first one, and now another that pays better. One thing that I’ve noticed since working at such places is that the people that work and do business at such places are pretty much average with regard to intelligence and pretty much everything else, and that it is people like this that are the backbone of a civilization, including a technological and industrial one.</p><p> Setting aside higher management, who statistically, I suppose, are placed a bit farther to the right on the statistical bell-shaped curve, most of the people who work at a place like a sheet metal shop are guys who got C’s in school, didn’t go to college, tend not to be very talented at innovative problem solving, and drink lots of beer. They’re average guys, statistically speaking; though of course we’re all miraculous in some way. But even though they are average with regard to innate talents, they are able to do really impressive things, things so impressive that our extremely complex society functions relatively smoothly.</p><p> Consider operating a forklift. It is a skill that must be learned, though some people are naturally better at it than others, even with training. Operating a forklift at a sheet metal shop may require picking up 30-foot long panels or other long metal and moving it around without destroying anything. Also it may require moving large coils of steel weighing almost five tons each—again without destroying anything. Sometimes it may even require loading many hundreds of pounds of metal onto a very sketchy-looking vehicle, after which another person of average intelligence will manage to get the loaded van or trailer or whatever to a worksite (again without destroying anything). Operating a forklift, even while doing routine tasks, can be scary for me even after having a certification for well over a year.</p><p> Then there are the other machines that are required to produce corrugated roofing, trim, and so on. They are big, expensive machines that cannot be run by some untrained person off the street, even though that person might have a university degree and be relatively very intelligent. (Such a person could be trained more quickly, and with fewer mistakes, than the average guy, but still he would probably destroy something if he tried coming in off the street and operating such a machine without at least a week of intensive training.) Also there’s the multitude of 18-wheel semi trucks that all require skilled drivers, let alone all the construction workers to install the metal roofing components after they have been manufactured and delivered.</p><p> So what has impressed me about the human race since I began working as a blue-collar semiskilled laborer is that even a person who got C’s in school and is pretty much average can master one or more specific tasks that most other people can’t do—like backing up a huge trailer truck or bending metal on a brake without crushing his own fingers. It appears that how our species has created and maintained an industrial and technological society is by having people with average intelligence, and thus not too bright, master a few impressive skills each, which dovetail with all the others to cause our material world to flow relatively smoothly most of the time. It causes me to have more respect for the average guy. Just about any guy of anywhere near average intelligence can do something that most people can’t do, like fix a hydraulic motor, or troubleshoot an electrical system, or play a guitar, or grill a steak to perfection. Many if not most of us are driven by society and our own nature to master some potentially impressive skill.</p><p> I have read and heard, though, from multiple sources (including Jordan Peterson), that there is a minimum level of intelligence that allows a person to master a modern technological skill. If I recall correctly the cut-off is at around an IQ of 88 to 90. Thus I have also been informed that an average national IQ of around 90 is the minimum for a nation or society to be able to maintain a modern level of industry and technology. No matter how intelligent the leaders are, the average guy has to be able to learn those mundane but impressive skills that keep the civilization moving forward, or at least holding steady.</p><p> The purpose of this post is merely to share this little insight I had since I started working at a sheet metal shop, and it is not to get into the issue of human biodiversity or "race realism" (a topic I discussed quite a lot during the first year or two of the existence of this here blog), but I may as well point out that Rhodesia/Zimbabwe and more recently, South Africa appear to be cases in point with regard to a minimum average level of cognitive abilities being necessary to maintain a modern, western-style industrial civilization. After the Europeans (with an average IQ of 100, since the scale is calibrated that way) were mostly driven out of skilled professions in those countries, and were replaced by people who not only were not skilled but less capable even of becoming skilled, both nations began an inevitable decline into a pre-industrial level of society. Some would say that it was little or nothing more than the corrupt nepotism that replaced meritocracy that has resulted in the decline, but even the corrupt nepotism was the result of a lower level of cognitive ability even at the highest levels. But again, my purpose here is not to wrangle with the “Africa Question.” As I've said before, everyone and every ethnicity excels at <i>something</i>, and it is probable that the ethnicity best equipped to run a modern, technological society is the one which invented it, and that is the European "race." Other ethnicities excel at other things.</p><p> One other little offshoot or digression of this idea of average people each cultivating some valuable skill through application of average intelligence and much repetition, and thus making a valuable contribution to keeping technological samsara going (which I must admit is preferable in many ways to pre-technological samsara), is that, as suggested by the opening quote, some very intelligent people are less skilled in their thinking than the average forklift operator. Lately this is largely due to indoctrination (by the educational system), propaganda (by the mainstream media), and peer group pressure turning otherwise intelligent people into fools that in most respects are worse than useless to a properly functioning society. Intelligent, educated people can easily deviate from empirical common sense through their preference for elegant-sounding theories over ugly, dirty facts (which helps to explain why human biodiversity is absolutely taboo in the postmodern west), which is already somewhat of a handicap which causes the ruling elite to become clueless with regard to what is actually best for society. So it is heartening that we can fall back on the average guy, who admittedly watches TikTok, plays video games, and drinks much beer, at least to keep the warehouses stocked and the trains running on time.</p><p> </p><p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV99ZV6hm6iyr50fTAWpDTqdecXDxtHzZ0cdgp2vq39Px6AIk1oEhl_HNzcDFLhCa6sVo1-dYzhAILZXQ1cRrEvChE59yBybnbsZt4nkZR0a-5y-OzMAIRRSTWbYrNEXlLYBGrl4pdBSyhLAFB3pT0iMntYQba6x5ZFv5UVyINKfr3kpIJDshWpHACUYU/s3060/roll%20former.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2386" data-original-width="3060" height="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV99ZV6hm6iyr50fTAWpDTqdecXDxtHzZ0cdgp2vq39Px6AIk1oEhl_HNzcDFLhCa6sVo1-dYzhAILZXQ1cRrEvChE59yBybnbsZt4nkZR0a-5y-OzMAIRRSTWbYrNEXlLYBGrl4pdBSyhLAFB3pT0iMntYQba6x5ZFv5UVyINKfr3kpIJDshWpHACUYU/w640-h500/roll%20former.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div>Paññobhāsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14148206217028034038noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8485583244199236996.post-43565284519177131472023-06-18T13:55:00.000-07:002023-06-18T13:55:01.392-07:00The Higher “Self”<p><br /></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>Man is dragged hither and thither, at one moment by the blind instincts of the forest, at the next by the strange intuitions of a higher self whose rationale he doubts and does not understand.</i> —Loren Eiseley</blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>Never travel faster than your guardian angel can fly.</i> —Mother Teresa</blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><p> Not long ago a person asked me if I had experienced anything paranormal when I was a monk. Strangely, most of the experiences I have had that might qualify as paranormal have been while I was a layman, both before and after my thirty years in the Sangha. For some reason, when I was asked this question a sort of event that has happened before and during my monkhood came to mind: At times when I have been in a very dangerous situation and close to death, potentially, I stop thinking, my mind becomes crystal clear, and my body seemingly automatically does whatever is necessary to keep me alive, and only after the danger is past, generally after a few seconds, do I begin thinking again and resume a “normal” state of mind. As a young man this usually involved driving too fast and hitting a patch of black ice, causing my vehicle to start sliding out of control. When I mentioned this to my questioner, another man participating in the discussion, who had seen military service and had been in battlefield situations, remarked that the same sort of thing had happened to him in very dangerous predicaments. Also my fiancée told me once that this has happened to her also, in one case when the saddle on a horse she was riding came loose and she was hanging upside-down from its body as it ran through a forest.</p><p> One such event that happened when I was a monk in Burma, the most recent time it has happened (largely because I am not flirting with death nearly so much as in my younger years, except maybe by eating lots of carbohydrates), has been described by me recently in a video, soon to be uploaded onto Bitchute and YouTube. It is a video recounting all the paranormal events in my life that I remember—so again, I am assuming that such events are indeed paranormal or “supernatural.” Anyway, it involved me losing my footing on a very steep slope in a forest at night after I had climbed the slope in order to put out a fire. As soon as my footing was lost and I fell on my back and started tobogganing down the hillside, that silent crystal clarity came over my mind, and my body automatically did whatever was required to keep me alive: I spread-eagled to maximize drag and slow my downwards course, I let go of a bamboo pole in one hand but kept a firm grip on the candle in the other hand (if I lost THAT I’d be stuck on the hillside all night, being unable to see my way to continue climbing down), I grabbed at every vine as I slid past (though all of them broke), and so on. Only after one foot stopped against a clump of bamboo did I resume a more or less normal state of mind, along with thinking.</p><p> It may be, for all I know, that scientists have studied this sort of phenomenon and have a purely mundane explanation for it. It may be that one enters a very heightened, almost mystical state of consciousness in very dangerous situations that, it may be, uses much more energy than does the normal waking state, which could explain why we are not in that state all the time. Usually being semiconscious is good enough for us to survive and reproduce, biologically speaking. But the absence of thinking, the body automatically doing whatever is required, as though some higher power has taken control, and the feeling that the state, almost a mystical state, is always there, in a kind of detached or latent form, suggests to me that it is not entirely a mundane way of being.</p><p> In fact I would guess that this is a bit of circumstantial evidence for some kind of higher self or “soul” which lets us act according to our ego’s thinking mind and habits and defilements, but which steps in, so to speak, to protect us when our time for dying has not yet come. That would account for the intuition that it is always there. We just don’t notice it because it is outside the sphere of our thinking and feeling ego. A Christian might consider this evidence of an eternal soul, or maybe even of God or some saint or angel interceding to protect us. A pagan likewise might consider this to be a god or guardian spirit protecting us. But although a Buddhist might be able to accept the possibility of a higher being like a deva stepping into our situation to protect us, that same Buddhist would probably balk at the idea of a higher self or soul. Basic Buddhist orthodoxy denies the existence of a higher self or soul—of <i>any</i> self really.</p><p> I used to think about this rather a lot, and it still strikes me as odd. From a philosophical perspective a Buddhist can say that neither a self or a soul exists in ultimate reality; BUT, from a mundane, conventional perspective a self certainly can be said to exist—but still not a <i>soul</i>. Devout, orthodox Theravada Buddhists cannot accept the existence of a soul, or a higher self, even from a conventional point of view. This strikes me as possibly some sloppy thinking. Why not accept a soul in a conventional sense, while admitting that it isn’t ultimately real?</p><p> It may be that Seth, a multidimensional being supposedly channeled through a woman named Jane Roberts back in the 1970s, is right when “he” posits the existence of an “Overself” which contains within it all the existences we go through in the round of rebirth. (One problematic aspect of this is that it would contain our final existence, the existence in which we become enlightened and leave Samsara. Maybe that would be the temporal end of that Overself.) If we assume that Einstein was more or less correct, and that time is the fourth dimension essentially no different from the three dimensions of space, then such a being would seem more possible. One simile for it that I recall is that each of our lives would be like a finger on a hand, with the Overself or “soul” being like the entire hand, including all the fingers. After one dies, according to the theory, one re-merges into the higher self and then begins preparation for the next life. But that too is unorthodox heresy, pernicious wrong view, for a devout Theravada Buddhist.</p><p> Although some Pali texts describe how rebirth functions very differently from this, and nowhere that I know of is the existence of even a conventional, virtual soul endorsed in those texts, the whole idea of a higher self would become significantly less heretical if we accept that the entire phenomenal universe, Samsara itself, is a manifestation of delusion. Individuals and selves clearly seem to exist from our samsaric perspective, but no self, including a relatively higher Overself, would be ultimately real. It too would be conditioned, impermanent, and ultimately Void. (There is the idea that any entity which transcends our three-and-a-half dimensional universe would transcend impermanence, though it still would have a beginning and an end in the dimension of time, as with any other dimension.)</p><p> So I am open-minded about the idea of a higher yet still samsaric and ultimately unreal higher self or soul. Hindus obviously endorse the notion, let alone all the Abrahamic folks insisting upon an eternal individual soul. It does help to explain certain things, including my own intuitions, and that seeming higher power that takes control of my body when I’m hurtling towards death.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRbtyiNh5XyYygY29c5ICDuRnC8IHCwbLewIrT_2TLTh71_KI2zxB4hWzOLPWHee9XCj93lT74PPmGlSUljOcHwMpAwfFN_Ky1SWRDUZNo9xDJEJAjvU51YbAy25C-b07W2RwNdVd5KJswCQf16qgdLTPqhwZWHF9yKDsV6cXuwLE1frSytvPJ9tQG/s478/gif-car-truck-bike-5965754.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="250" data-original-width="478" height="334" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRbtyiNh5XyYygY29c5ICDuRnC8IHCwbLewIrT_2TLTh71_KI2zxB4hWzOLPWHee9XCj93lT74PPmGlSUljOcHwMpAwfFN_Ky1SWRDUZNo9xDJEJAjvU51YbAy25C-b07W2RwNdVd5KJswCQf16qgdLTPqhwZWHF9yKDsV6cXuwLE1frSytvPJ9tQG/w640-h334/gif-car-truck-bike-5965754.gif" width="640" /></a></div>Paññobhāsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14148206217028034038noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8485583244199236996.post-40807547174808619932023-05-29T13:30:00.001-07:002023-05-29T13:30:38.715-07:00My Apologies<p><br /></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>How did it get so late so soon? It's night before it's afternoon. December is here before it's June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon? </i> —Dr. Seuss</blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><p> This is just a small announcement concerning this blog. No, I don’t intend to stop writing on it. BUT, as you may have noticed, new content has become more sporadic over the past year or two, in fact ever since I stopped being a monk and, also, a member of the leisure class. Now I have to pay bills, work for a living, interact with other humans to a higher degree (including my sweetheart)—and I also have increased my video content, thereby allowing me less time and energy to write.</p><p> Beyond this, the time and effort dedicated to navigating Samsara in a reasonably responsible way, as a householder, have allowed me less time to philosophize. It’s no wonder that philosophers tend to be renunciants or else members of an aristocracy that are not required to work for a living.</p><p> So I have the choice of writing less often for this blog, or to hastily slap together something in order to maintain my routine of posting something at least once every weekend. So, as you may have perceived, I have chosen to write somewhat less for this blog. Better quality than quantity, I suppose. On the other hand, I am uploading content on YouTube and Bitchute at least once a week now, with most of it being Buddhist Question and Answer videos, interviews (including people other than my friend Brian Ruhe), and discussions of Buddhism and Buddhist texts. </p><p> I sincerely apologize for the decrease in written content, and the decrease in careful thought and planning that go into what I’ve been writing lately, as of course I no longer sit around all day in a cave or meditation cabin, thinking about what to write.</p><p> Anyway, by way of an update on my lay life, as opposed to the life of this here blog, I do hereby announce, for those of you who don’t watch my Q&A videos, that last month I proposed marriage to my sweetheart, she said “Of course,” and we are now engaged. Also, yesterday I wrote a letter of resignation to my current employer, as I was offered a job doing pretty much the same work at a different sheet metal shop but paying much better. So I’ll still be working at a sheet metal shop, but making better money and having more paid time off, so <i>maybe</i> I’ll be able to take the time to edit books, or write more involved blog posts, or something.</p><p> Aside from dedicating more time and energy (both physical and mental) to making a living and all the other things laypeople are required to do, my life has been relatively happy and fortunate. Also I finally have grown a beard (when I was younger I always thought I could never grow a good one), and have healthier skin than I had as a monk, though thirty years of sitting for hours a day in the full lotus seem to have weakened my lower joints somewhat. I hobble and limp around sometimes now, which was not the case when I was a monk unless I happened to be experiencing a bout of gout at the time. I’m getting old. To this day I have no regrets over submitting my resignation to the Bhikkhu Sangha.</p><p> And so, worry not, I am not ending this blog, though as a layman with bills to pay I have to practice a kind of “time triage” and do what appears to be most urgent, with, I have to admit, plenty of time for rest and relaxation. And who knows, maybe someday I’ll edit, and maybe even write, a few more books. Be happy.</p><p> </p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQnx9BjYExNFAU6i0w447_96y7afr-8fcEPCQHN4UpnUDzYi1ky3-Xt6FWIK7S7uTyQySTFOoEpqzQCoHsCIBh-dIh9APpsgjjmOqLiNh76iTE3fCKlq7vObCUOXvEvjuPkGzazgstVj05Uw5UwJNAPcQxtcl3MdM32p9R5fj6u2TAjZAtCXs4g6i4/s2500/Screenshot%202023-05-24%20at%204.46.26%20PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1406" data-original-width="2500" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQnx9BjYExNFAU6i0w447_96y7afr-8fcEPCQHN4UpnUDzYi1ky3-Xt6FWIK7S7uTyQySTFOoEpqzQCoHsCIBh-dIh9APpsgjjmOqLiNh76iTE3fCKlq7vObCUOXvEvjuPkGzazgstVj05Uw5UwJNAPcQxtcl3MdM32p9R5fj6u2TAjZAtCXs4g6i4/w640-h360/Screenshot%202023-05-24%20at%204.46.26%20PM.png" width="640" /></a></div>Paññobhāsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14148206217028034038noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8485583244199236996.post-77190711788680689322023-05-21T11:46:00.002-07:002023-05-21T11:46:59.535-07:00The Past Lives of My Father<p><br /></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>If we could see ourselves... as we really are, we should see ourselves in a world of spiritual natures, our community which neither began at birth nor will end with the death of the body. </i> —Immanuel Kant</blockquote><p></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><p><i>As we live through thousands of dreams in our present life, so is our present life only one of many thousands of such lives which we enter from the other more real life and then return after death. Our life is but one of the dreams of that more real life, and so it is endlessly, until the very last one, the very real life of God.</i> —Leo Tolstoy</p></blockquote><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>It is the secret of the world that all things subsist and do not die, but only retire a little from sight and afterward return again. </i> —Ralph Waldo Emerson</blockquote><p></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>I could well imagine that I might have lived in former centuries and there encountered questions I was not yet able to answer; that I had been born again because I had not fulfilled the task given to me.</i> —Carl Jung</blockquote><p></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><p><i>Whether or not we believe in survival of consciousness after death, reincarnation, and karma, it has very serious implications for our behavior. </i> —Stanislav Grof</p><p></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p> As I keep saying over the years, I had a weird father who was a major influence on my mind when I was growing up, and who helped me to become a Buddhist monk—not deliberately, as he felt I had taken a rather extreme and unnecessary step in life, but nevertheless, he was a major inspiration in my search for a reality higher than worldly “normality.”</p><p> A few posts ago I included the first chapter of his “occult” autobiography, mentioning spirits, a friend with some sort of psychic powers, and getting his skull broken twice (he had it broken again in his adulthood, not mentioned in that chapter). In this post, because I am still thinking of him, I will mention the past lives he claimed to remember, mainly through hypnotic regression.</p><p> He himself was an amateur hypnotist among other things, and he occasionally sought ought some other hypnotist to put him into a hypnotic state (he was never very good at hypnotizing himself, though he taught others, especially female spirit mediums, or channelers, to do it). I was brought up on these stories, including past life regressions and astral traveling, as well as experiments in witchcraft and ESP, seances, communications with the dead, and on and on. He also had some exciting war stories from World War Two, some of which also included shades of the “occult.” One of these stories recounted his experience in the Battle of Hürtgen Forest, during the Allied invasion of Europe. He was a combat medic at the time, and he and another medic were helping a wounded soldier move eastwards with their unit; and because they were helping a wounded man to keep up they fell well behind the main unit. They were walking through snow, at night, in a forest interspersed with clearings. At one point they arrived at a clearing that the rest of the unit had already entered. My father froze, feeling a deep foreboding about that clearing; he looked at the other medic and he also seemed to agree. So, they began edging around the clearing through the trees. But after a few steps my father felt the warning again, so he, the other medic, and the wounded man began moving around the clearing in the other direction. Shortly after this a man in the clearing stepped on a Bouncing Betsy anti-personnel mine, which shot into the air, exploded in mid-air, and wiped out a number of the men there. The clearing was a minefield.</p><p> Anyway, largely because of his memories under hypnosis, though for other reasons also, my father was a firm believer in rebirth, in life after life. In fact he was persuaded that I am a reincarnation of his own father, thereby making me my own grandfather—though I have no memory of being my own grandfather, and many of our resemblances may simply be genetic.</p><p> As for myself, I accept some kind of rebirth as a working hypothesis, even though I could not prove the case one way or the other. There are certain cultures and certain times in history that call to me, with which I have a deep interest and “resonance,” while other cultures and times do not appeal to me at all. I suppose I’ve mentioned some of my hypothetical past lives at one point or another (possibly several times) over the courses of this blog and various YouTube videos. I think I may have been a prehistoric shaman on the outskirts of the Indus Valley Civilization who worshipped cobras and took psychoactive substances to induce mystical states. I could well have been a Greek living around Naples/Neapolis during the late Roman Republic or early Empire. I may have been a corrupt Catholic friar or monk in 14th-century England, and I may have met my current fiancée then. I suspect also I may have been Japanese back around the 17th century, possibly of the Samurai class but not a warrior, possibly just a peaceful school teacher. But this post is supposed to be about my father’s past lives, so I move on.</p><p> The most recent past life my father knew anything about was as a “crazy Frenchman” with a name like Henri Moreau, who was hanged by the neck at a young age in early Montana Territory, for branding cattle that were not his own. He first heard about this one from his “spirit guide” or “guardian angel,” a dead Vietnamese Buddhist monk with a name like Tai Sing, who was channeled through my father’s second wife, a talented psychic, and not my mother. He had a strange story related to this life, dating back to the birth of my younger brother. While my mother was in labor my father was walking down a corridor at the hospital, and saw a young nurse walking towards him down the hall. She seemed very familiar to him, he was struck by this, and he stopped in his tracks. As she approached he asked her, “Have we met somewhere before?” She said, “Not in this lifetime.” So my father replied, “Then where?” And she said “How about Montana?” This could be some kind of coincidence, but my father clearly considered it to be significant. Even so, he had scarcely any memory of his life as a mentally unstable cattle rustler.</p><p> The one life my father claimed to remember most vividly was a Scotsman named Jason Haskell, who lived around the late 18th century. Under hypnosis he had a number of memories regarding this life, all of them emotionally intense. (I have read that the memories that are easiest to remember from past lives, possibly because they are more “karmic,” are the most emotionally intense ones.) One of his first memories from this life involve him lying on a cot or bed in an abandoned hut or cottage. He was very ill with smallpox, and everyone around him fled and left him to his fate, out of fear of the disease. He lay there raging against the people who abandoned him, and swearing revenge. He had a pock-marked face for the rest of this life.</p><p> He survived the smallpox, and his next memory is of lying on a grave, crying his heart out. It was the grave of his sweetheart, and my father thought that it was Jason Haskell who killed her, possibly because of the previous abandonment. This has struck me as somewhat in violation of the Buddhist conception of karma and rebirth, as a murderer would presumably go to hell due to such weighty karma. But my father always had a strong mixture of good and bad karma, and went through life like a bull in an ethical china shop; and after all, in the next life after that, presumably, he was hanged for cattle rustling while still a very young man. Much of the retribution for his misdeeds have apparently been fulfilled over the course of a very rough life. In his life as my father, when he was in his thirties he had had a broken bone for every year of his life, including three skull fractures. He was a bar brawler and womanizer who killed enemy soldiers during wartime, but he had a deep, sensitive nature, and did much good in his life also. But back to Jason Haskell.</p><p> Haskell became a professional sailor, and this is a recurring theme in my father’s past lives, including his most recent one as my father: a thirst for adventure, exotic lands, and exploring frontiers, inward or outward. His next memory involved a storm at sea on a wooden sailing ship. Some large blocks of marble were being used as ballast (plus maybe they were intended to be sold somewhere), and during the storm one of them had broken free of its moorings and was sliding back and forth in the hold of the ship. The men were desperately trying to secure it again, down in the dark hold, before it beat a hole through the hull of the ship. One man was pinned, possibly crushed, by the block of stone catching him against the side, and my father remembered Jason bellowing “Bring aft a light!!!” over and over, in an attempt to help the crushed man and secure the ballast.</p><p> His final memory as Jason Haskell involved Haskell taking part in some sort of exploring or surveying party somewhere in the southern Himalaya mountains, like northern India, Bhutan, or Nepal. He remembered vividly the velveteen breaches that Haskell wore, his shirt, and so on. They were riding on horseback through obscure mountain paths, and Haskell happened to see a small brass bowl sitting by the side of the trail. He remember that vividly as well, and said it was a plain brass bowl with two lines inscribed around the brim on the outside. He wanted to take it as a souvenir, but a local guide sternly warned him not to touch it, as some shaman had put it there to collect rainwater or some such, and it would be a grave offense to mess with it. Haskell, my pre-father, was unimpressed by the warning and picked it up anyway. Later that day, as they were stopping to set up camp, Haskell was bending over to put his horse’s saddle on a stump or rock, when an arrow came shooting out of the bushes and caught him under the shoulder blade, with the head of the arrow emerging from the front of his neck. His hypnotic regression would always end at this point, with him being jolted out of trance, coughing and choking.</p><p> At one point my father, in the presence of another hypnotist, wanted to know what was the turning point in his lives: the one life or even moment that set him upon the path of becoming who he was that day, John Reynolds of Aberdeen, Washington. So with that in mind, he was hypnotized, and he regressed back to ancient times. He was apparently a Roman soldier, armed with a little sword about a foot and a half long, and he and the rest of the army had been ordered to essentially slaughter an entire barbarian village. (This sort of thing happened rather a lot in ancient times.)</p><p> My father described the barbarians as mostly blond, with the men having long hair, so I assume they were some Germanic tribe, one of the arch-enemies of the Romans in the west. Like the rest of the soldiers he dutifully went about butchering the people of the village, slashing and stabbing. Eventually he had a teenage boy by the hair and was raising his sword to finish him off…when he noticed that the boy wasn’t screaming and struggling like the rest. He had a world of sorrow in his eyes, and he had simply given up in heart-broken despair. This moved the soldier’s heart to mercy, possibly for the first time, and he spared him. He let go of the boy’s hair and waved him off towards the nearby forest. The boy’s eyes widened at the realization that his life might be spared, and he took off running for the safety of the forest. My father would say that after this moment of compassion the hardened heart of an ancient legionary returned, and the soldier felt actual guilt for disobeying the order and letting the boy go free; and he went out into the forest looking for him to do his duty of killing him, but he never found him. So I suppose this was the first inkling of compassion, the first glimpse of “opening the heart chakra” in the evolution of my father’s spirit, so to speak.</p><p> I think it was on the same day, with the same other hypnotist, that my father also wanted to go back as far as he could, and remember the earliest memory from a previous life still accessible. He was regressed to a shady, green past: my father remembers feeling very small and looking up through fern fronds at the play of sunlight on the forest greenery. That was all there was to it, and there’s no telling how long ago it may have been.</p><p> So anyway, those are the past life memories that I was raised on as a boy, sitting on my father’s lap. I personally am not a good hypnotic subject (which helps to explain why I was never very good at certain types of meditation), and have never had past life regressions through meditation, and so all I have are intuitions regarding my own previous existences. But even with regard to my father’s sometimes vivid memories, who knows if they are real memories or just figments of an imagination in trance? Possibly both at the same time, even? Who knows. But still, as a Buddhist, and having read plenty of literature on the subject, and on related subjects, I continue to use the idea of rebirth as a convenient and even plausible working hypothesis. Besides, if the First Noble Truth is true, and to exist is to suffer, and if there is nothing but endless Void after death, with no afterlife at all, then the logical thing for all of us to do would simply be to commit mass suicide, and escape from unease for once and all. I’m certainly not encouraging <i>that</i>. Be happy.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGOaj60nalKGDiY5ur3jXPxYH09AF3ZStxtjmeO_e7O6q-GTW1M_su6vvPc507ht-rBINIvbiYcgEnVbKKF6wmusgWo9FbqcXy2tQVMUb_JD1Ahy7w7BGp-S-awz7-m38HaEdvG94iE3AkqpZnEx9oXCpg6akYc5i4Z5-a89f7kBlct_ytmFozZMUk/s736/past%20lives%20of%20my%20father.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="468" data-original-width="736" height="406" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGOaj60nalKGDiY5ur3jXPxYH09AF3ZStxtjmeO_e7O6q-GTW1M_su6vvPc507ht-rBINIvbiYcgEnVbKKF6wmusgWo9FbqcXy2tQVMUb_JD1Ahy7w7BGp-S-awz7-m38HaEdvG94iE3AkqpZnEx9oXCpg6akYc5i4Z5-a89f7kBlct_ytmFozZMUk/w640-h406/past%20lives%20of%20my%20father.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Paññobhāsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14148206217028034038noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8485583244199236996.post-19355873536064452072023-05-07T20:07:00.001-07:002023-05-07T20:07:25.219-07:00U Makuta<p><br /></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>Hatred is never appeased by hatred in this world; By non-hatred alone is hatred appeased. This is an Eternal Law.</i> —Dhammapada, verse 5</blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><p> Lately the topic of hatred has been in my mind, and I have tried to remember someone that I have hated. There are lots of people in this world that I consider to be bad people (most of those who immediately come to mind are politicians), and there are some people I do not like, and quite a few that I’d prefer to have as little to do with as possible; but I’m not sure if I can remember really hating someone. Probably when I was a kid I hated people, like the playground bully or some such (children can be really childish for some reason), but I have been searching my memory for someone I’ve really hated during my adult life.</p><p> I suppose I should give an example of hatred, so it can be differentiated from mere dislike, or disdain, or contempt. Let’s say a person that one dislikes, that really causes trouble and is very unpleasant, is hit by a car and is lying in the road with both legs broken. Someone who really hates that person might rejoice at the sight and walk away laughing, not willing to lift a finger even to pull the dying wretch off the roadway. Something along the lines of <i>that</i> would qualify as genuine hatred.</p><p> For starters, I have too much empathy to feel pleasure in another’s pain. I know that there is a deep, subconscious connection between people—between conscious beings of all types—and I feel deep uneasiness even at the thought of shooting a predator threatening my dogs. Even if it has to be done, like harming someone in self-defense or in defense of my woman or our home, I’d still feel that deep unease while doing it, knowing that I’m harming myself at the same time. Also, I suppose I have been fortunate enough, or have earned enough merit, that really noxious, toxic people tend not to bother me much, and certainly not in a prolonged, chronic way. So to some extent I suppose I’ve been sheltered enough that there’s nobody I’ve ever had good reason to hate. I was not abused as a child, I’ve never been tortured physically or mentally by a really evil person, and I’ve been pretty fortunate.</p><p> So I guess one person that I came the closest to actually hating would be a Burmese monk named U Makuta. I doubt that he’s alive now, as he was considerably older than me when I knew him, and that was many years ago. He was my next-door neighbor at a Buddhist monastery in central Burma called Kyauk Hsin Tawya, or Stone Elephant Forest Monastery.</p><p> In my younger years especially I was an extremely strict monk, fiercely strict at times. Partly because of the karma associated with this, and partly because, perhaps, I was a criminally lax monk myself in some former existence, I tended to have the laxest, worst monk at any monastery as my next-door neighbor. At Kyauk Hsin, the first monastery I lived at in Burma, it was this U Makuta.</p><p> The first time I ever saw him was just a few days after I arrived at Kyauk Hsin, while I was walking for alms in the village of Laymyethna with the rest of the monks of the monastery. U Makuta was in the village in question and joined our file of head-bowed, bowl-carrying bhikkhus. Immediately I noticed that he was chewing betel while walking for alms, and spitting ketchup-like, thick, red betel spit on the ground as he walked, and he had one or two red streaks of said betel spit dripping down his chin. It stuck me immediately that the fellow was shameless, and I disapproved of him in my heart.</p><p> Before long we became next-door neighbors, as I’ve already mentioned. I lived in a small cave called Mandalay Gū (Burmese for “Mandalay Cave”), in a small gully on the outskirts of the monastery grounds, and U Makuta lived in a cabin on top of the rise above the gully. My gully continued downhill maybe one hundred yards past my cave and joined with a larger gully. This larger gully had been dammed, creating a reservoir. (This was a good idea in central Burma/Myanmar, as it is semi-desert there, and very dry.) Anyway, U Makuta made a farm on the other side of the dam, where the ground was watered by the reservoir. He had chickens and grew a variety of food crops there in the gully—which of course is against the rules of monastic discipline. A monk is not allowed to dig the ground or damage green plants, the rules of discipline are so strict. They’re so strict in fact that most Burmese bhikkhus, and most Asian bhikkhus in general, hardly even try to follow the rules of discipline conscientiously. But Kyauk Hsin was a relatively strict monastery, and U Makuta was, as I say, the least conscientious monk at the whole place.</p><p> The thing is, he had been a subsistence farmer for most of his life, and when he got older he was ordained as a monk, as is common practice in Burma. Part of the problem was that, even according to the Pali texts themselves, monks who are ordained late in life tend to be set in their ways and difficult to train. There’s a saying in Burmese: <i>Taw htwet, apyaw hket</i>, which means something like, “One who ordains late in life is difficult to admonish.” So U Makuta left the household life and remained a farmer. He was essentially a layman with a shaved head and a reddish brown toga. Once I walked past his cabin and saw a bare-chested man wearing a blue turban made from a towel and digging what looked like a raised bed for melons; when I looked closer it turned out to be my problematic neighbor U Makuta.</p><p> He started out being friendly. Early on during my stay there I heard shouting down in the big gully, so I looked to see what was going on. It was U Makuta swimming in the reservoir and laughing and shouting loudly. When he saw me he invited me to join him in the water…but of course playing in the water is yet another action prohibited by the rules of discipline, in the Patimokkha. I just scowled and ignored the invitation.</p><p> As it turned out, at the base of the dam blocking the gully was a shallow well where monks, including me, could bathe. There was a big flat rock next to the well, and a bucket and rope, so one would just fling the bucket into the well, with water almost at ground level, and then pour the bucket over one’s own head. It was just a short distance from my cave, and I started bathing there. Then one day I notice that someone had constructed a frame of poles over the flat bathing rock. I was tall enough (by far the tallest monk at the monastery) that it was in the way of my bathing, so I kept moving the horizontal poles overhead out of my way. This continued for maybe two weeks. Finally one day I went to bathe and found U Makuta there lashing the frame together with cords made of vines, with living gourd vines trained up the sides of it. After he had finished his work he gestured with his hand to inform me that I could bathe now. </p><p> The fact that this old buffoon was commandeering the bathing spot to turn it into a gourd-growing trellis, let alone the fact that he was little more than a shaven-headed farmer, caused something to snap in my mind. I walked over to the bathing spot and began yanking the vines out of the ground, of course thereby breaking the rule against damaging green plants myself. While I was systematically removing the gourd vines from the bathing area U Makuta was making sounds like, “Eck!…Ack!…Eck!…Ack!…” And then came the miraculous triumphant crescendo: I reached up to the roof made of poles, gave one yank, and the whole trellis came crashing down. He had lashed the horizontal roof poles together, but had neglected to attach them firmly to the vertical support poles. At this U Makuta said something like, “<i>Blah blah blah blah Sayadaw!</i>” (no doubt meaning “I’m going to go tell Sayadaw!” though I understood almost no Burmese at the time), and rushed off to our abbot sayadaw’s cabin. Evidently the abbot, the late venerable Kyauk Hsin Sayadaw, told him to leave me alone, as I was all alone in a strange land and under a lot of stress. At the time I couldn’t speak Burmese, nobody else there spoke English, and so I had to communicate in broken Pali with the assistant sayadaw, and could occasionally speak English to a few college-educated visitors. So he left me alone, moved his gourd trellis elsewhere, and avoided me as a wild foreign barbarian. A year or two passed, with us meeting civilly at monastic functions but otherwise scrupulously avoiding each other.</p><p> At the bottom of my little gully, just short of where it joined with the big one, was a clump of bamboo. It was one of the few bamboo trees at the whole monastery, as the aridity was not favorable to that sort of plant. (The monastery “forest” consisted largely of scrub trees like acacia, cacti, and large spiky plants like agaves.) I also noticed that someone had been cutting the bamboo, preventing the clump from getting very big. I wondered about that.</p><p> Then one day I decided not to go for alms in the village and simply to fast that day. The trouble at the time was that I was relatively famous in that area, being the only exotic foreign monk, and so crowds would start to accumulate if I took the same alms route too many times. Too many people wanting to put food in my bowl was trouble, as Burmese villagers tend to suck at simple engineering problems and cannot appreciate the fact that fifty people can’t each put in five percent of a bowlful of food. The alms routes were getting “hot” in this way, and so that one particular day I decided to go without food for a day or two, and let things cool down.</p><p> Through karmic coincidence, this was the day that U Makuta decided to harvest the bamboo. He didn’t know anything about my decision to stay at the cave and fast that day, and at the time I was usually walking for alms a mile away, he came down the stone steps into my little gully armed with a machete and a mattock. I didn’t make the connection right away until I heard the sound of chopping down the gully.</p><p> Again something snapped inside me, and I became pretty much hysterical. I rushed out there to catch the guy red-handed, chopping the bamboo. I began bellowing at him in rage—I don’t remember if it was in very broken Burmese or in English—and essentially charged at him. He was alarmed, naturally, at being attacked by the large, pale, hairy barbarian, and held out his hands, one of which was holding the mattock. I snatched it away from him, raging and bellowing, and drove him out of the gully.</p><p> A little later that morning the assistant sayadaw came to meet with me. He was sympathetic, knowing of the hardships I was experiencing with isolation, blazing heat, diarrhea, and so on, but he told me that I really ought to return U Makuta’s mattock. When I snatched it from him I didn’t think that I was depriving someone of their personal property, essentially stealing from them, which can be an extremely serious offense against the rules of discipline. I thought maybe it was monastery or Sangha property, but I found U Makuta’s name engraved on the blade. For awhile I was really worried that maybe I had just excommunicated myself from the Sangha for stealing; though it turns out that there is a loophole that states that a monk can take another monk’s property from him if it is grossly inappropriate for monks to own, like a gun, or a heroin rig, or, presumably, a digging and plant-cutting implement. Besides, at the time I wasn’t aware that it was his own personal property. But, with the occasional lapse like the gourd incident, at the time I was extremely strict, and I was very anxious about the possibility of having expelled myself right out of the monkhood.</p><p> I was fairly ashamed of my conduct after the hysterical rage subsided, and when the assistant abbot asked if I had gone for alms that day I pointed at the scroungy dog who regularly ate my leftovers (his name was Kang), then at myself, and explained that neither of us animals had eaten.</p><p> Anyway, that sealed our dislike for each other completely, and we avoided each other even more scrupulously than before, and we never fought again, or rather I never attacked him again. Our enmity became a running joke at the monastery. After another year or two I moved away to a different place, looking for a good forest for solitary practice, and we saw each other (from a cool, standoffish distance) only a few more times, when I would return to Kyauk Hsin for a visit, or to do ritual penance.</p><p> So that is the tale of possibly the one person I have come closest to hating in my adult life. There were plenty more genuinely rotten monks that I have met, including one or two really famous ones (in Burma anyway) that I thoroughly despised. Ironically, after returning to the USA (a known graveyard for monks), I also began to lapse woefully in my monastic discipline, at least with regard to certain aspects of it. Finally the laxness I was slowly descending into became a deciding factor in my disrobing.</p><p> But getting back to disliking or despising certain extremely lax Burmese monks, I doubt that I could see even U Makuta lying on the ground with broken bones and blood pouring out of him and feel any satisfaction or gladness. That deep empathy I feel would trump any external circumstances.</p><p> I began this little tale with verse 5 of the Dhammapada, and now I end it with verse 6:</p><p><br /></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>There are those who do not realize that one day we all must die, but those who realize this settle their quarrels.</i></blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG2ucmkdXxHYabCKsnY_c6SvcgDBt8wmPu3verfqeU306tIrviZ6zy14af5-O8fo5mDYjckgNPzgjK2m3osYFHGEwMgvJLOFveGS8xq9Z3jyetfQO2wUQ1vyiaVz_lZGAHYdG2PUvk3l_B05NKuayzhi6wAiKX7gVl5EioQC8MQjKYtBCQo4G8EuBa/s4000/mandalay%20cave%20compound.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG2ucmkdXxHYabCKsnY_c6SvcgDBt8wmPu3verfqeU306tIrviZ6zy14af5-O8fo5mDYjckgNPzgjK2m3osYFHGEwMgvJLOFveGS8xq9Z3jyetfQO2wUQ1vyiaVz_lZGAHYdG2PUvk3l_B05NKuayzhi6wAiKX7gVl5EioQC8MQjKYtBCQo4G8EuBa/w640-h480/mandalay%20cave%20compound.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>the entrance to Mandalay Gū, in the little gully at Kyauk Hsin</i></td></tr></tbody></table>Paññobhāsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14148206217028034038noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8485583244199236996.post-63167922366721339912023-04-30T15:44:00.000-07:002023-04-30T15:44:14.372-07:00My Father’s Paranormal Childhood<p><br /></p><p>"FREEDOM"—yells the orator, while the banner of the free</p><p> Floats high, serene, in majesty o'er the Penitentiary;</p><p>"Peace, Brother!" screams the Flower Child parading through the town,</p><p> "Give us peace, you motherfuckers, or we'll burn the bastard down!"</p><p><br /></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><p><i> When giving an account of how I came to be a Buddhist monk, or a strange person in general, I tend to begin my explanation with the statement that I had a weird father. He was definitely weird—among other things he was a warlock, hypnotist, and trainer of spirit mediums who could see ghosts and auras. He also wrote a lot, including some poetry, of which the above stanza is a small excerpt. But in addition to poetry he also wrote a kind of spiritual autobiography, which at present is unpublished. It’s one of the few material things I inherited from him after he died.</i></p><p><i> So, as a kind of taste or teaser of his unpublished little book, I include below the first chapter of it, recounting his childhood in the deep south during the 1920s and 30s. It also includes some social commentary, including some anti-racist statements which were typical of my father—people who grew up in the deep south before the Civil Rights Movement were not all horrible racists, and many blacks lived happy and fulfilling lives, even then, even there. I would imagine that even a few slaves in pre-Civil War times lived happy lives…though we needn’t wade into </i>that<i>.</i></p><p><i> Mind you, this chapter in his Life was long before he began experimenting with the Occult, as he called it. But you can see how he lived in a world surrounded by invisible forces, and influenced by them, even then.</i></p></blockquote><p><i></i></p><p><br /></p><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Would You Reap the Wind</i>, by John Reynolds</span></b></p><p><b>Chapter 1: An Unusual Youth</b></p><p><br /></p><p> I learned at my mother's knee that for the slightest infractions of the rules, God – a ferocious man in the sky – would strike me dead with thunder and burn my miserable soul in Hell's fire forever and ever, Amen. For real heinous offenses like sassing your Ma, he would break your back first, since it was in Holy Writ that sparing the rod would spoil the child. She, God's firm right hand, backed up said Law with her favorite weapon – the ironing cord – for the good of my soul.</p><p> My father, a very gentle, loving man, had a gentle, loving God.</p><p> So I observed at an early age that vicious people had vicious Gods, vicious dogs, and vicious children; and gentle people had gentle Gods, gentle dogs, and gentle children.</p><p> They attended the same Southern Baptist Church and worshipped a Southern Baptist God and everyone who did not was an unsaved sinner separated from the Lord by the sin in his heart. While still in my teens I rebelled against her and against her God and would roll my eyes toward Heaven and commit the ultimate sacrilege, saying, "Go ahead, God, strike me dead, don't disappoint her" – and then take my beating.</p><p> My father was a school teacher, an ordained Baptist minister, and had also been admitted to the Bar. He taught at Martha Berry School at Possum Trot, Georgia, near Rome, a religious boarding institution where you could start in the first grade and go clear through college without changing schools. The Bible was a textbook. They had a 35,000 acre campus. The boys' high school and the girls' high school were five miles apart. People sent their children there to keep them out of jail.</p><p> My uncle Gideon, a blacksmith, gave me my real moral values. There were only two. Things a real man will not do: fight a cripple, or beat on cold iron – a cripple being a physical or intellectual inferior, and beating cold iron meaning belaboring a hopeless situation of any kind.</p><p> Since I was a campus brat, Dr. Reynolds's son, I could never be accepted as one of the boys until I proved that I was the biggest misfit in the bunch. So, I established a pattern that has lasted me most of my life – glorying in my misdeeds, so I can be one of those Men among Men. </p><p> I never once ever considered myself an abused child; almost all children of my generation were abused children by today's standards. I got no more beatings than the kids I ran with, indeed fewer than some; and my mother had her redeeming features: To prowl the woods and mountains for days on end was OK, and I got my first rifle, a .22, at age eight, when most of my friends had only BB guns.</p><p> I never got a licking for fighting, only for losing – makes you try harder next time. Going to the doctor happened when you got born and again when you died, sometimes.</p><p> When I was eight, I was kicked in the head by a horse. They took me to the school nurse who pronounced that I wasn't hurt very much. Later X-rays, after I was grown, showed it was broken like an egg. The next year I was chopped in the head with a mattock – another head injury, this time a depression fracture. Again the school nurse took a few stitches and pronounced me alive. Again, no doctor. Kids have got to be tough. I don't know if one, both, or neither of these injuries had anything to do with it, but it was about this time that I started seeing auras and found that it gave me an advantage over others: I can't say I knew their thoughts, but I sure could see their moods. I could tell when they lied, were ill at ease, frightened – and later in life when they were bluffing. It sure gave me an edge playing poker.</p><p> My father had a firm belief in mental telepathy from an experience he had as a young man. (He was 46 when I was born.) As a young man he had practiced Law in Little Rock, Arkansas. His first wife and young son died of malaria. My sister Charlotte was in delicate health, and the doctors advised him to take her away from the low fever country and back to the mountains or he was going to lose her too. So he decided to move back to the North Georgia mountains where he had been raised as a boy.</p><p> He had a brother-in-law, John Wallace, also a widower with two sons, who accompanied him on the train as far as Memphis, Tennessee. John Wallace was his closest friend; he was also a periodic alcoholic, and Memphis was his favorite watering hole. My father advised him, "John, finish up your business and go home or you will get mixed up with your old crowd again and all kicked out of shape for weeks. Give yourself a break and go home." John promised faithfully that he would.</p><p> On his second night home my dad woke up from a sound sleep with the words "JOHN WALLACE NEEDS YOU" over and over like a telegraph in his brain. He was so upset by this that he could not get back to sleep. A few days after this he received a letter from his and John's mother-in-law. She asked what had happened to John; he hadn't come home. A day later he got her second letter: John Wallace had been killed in a barroom brawl on the same night, at about the same time, that Dad had received the message. He was a believer in mental telepathy all his life after that. My father was not given to tall tales or even exaggeration. I was raised on this story and firmly believe it to be true. </p><p> I was about ten when there was an article in the Sunday magazine section of the Atlanta Constitution about some mind over matter experiments some college professors were playing with. The paraphernalia was simple: You take a large cork – this is important for insulation – and you stick a sewing needle into it point up. Then take a piece of hard-finish tissue paper (we used onionskin typing paper), a piece four inches square, and fold it corner to corner and again corner to corner till it peaks up like a little pyramid. Balance it on the point of the needle, point up. Focus your eyes on the point and concentrate on motion. Some people can really make it spin, and others not at all. Women usually make it spin in one direction and men the other – though some like my dad could spin it one way, break it, and then spin it the other way. It was during these experiments that I learned to narrow my mind into a narrow beam and increase its power, like turning the nozzle of a garden hose, tightening it from a wide spray to a forceful narrow stream. At eleven years of age I started high school, where I had a ball by beaming thoughts at other boys during study hall and starting waves of coughing or running for the bathroom. My English teacher, Mrs. Titrud, or "Ma Tit," depending on if she was within earshot, figured out that I was doing something, but didn't know what. She was, I think, a bit psychic. She could see through me where the others couldn't. I did this thing with chalk while writing on the blackboard: I'd be sure the teacher was looking the other way, then I'd take my thumb and thump a piece of chalk like shooting a marble, and make it spatter on the blackboard near my face, and then glare at some kid in the class like he did it and watch him catch hell. When Ma Tit caught a kid goofing off, she would grab a handful of hair and slap the ears half off his head. I tried it in her class one time too many: she headed for the kid I was glaring at, stopped, and whirled around and grabbed my hair, and there went my ears. I always passed her English class because I was afraid to fail. She was the first female preacher I knew. I doubted the wisdom of God as a kid, for wanting her to preach his holy word.</p><p> When I was fifteen my father's contract was not renewed, as it was in the middle 30's and times were hard. We moved to the village of Cave Spring, where I went to school with girls. Cave Spring was a whole new world, not at all like the campus at Berry.</p><p> At the old school I had little need for money. Where would one spend it? Now I learned to hustle. I did chores for 15 cents an hour – got a paper route – worked for a landscape gardener who paid 20 cents an hour – relief lifeguarded at the swimming pool – gigged frogs and got 20 cents a pound for legs. </p><p> As a new kid I was an outsider, so I made a buddy out of James, who let's say was different. We were fifteen and I a senior in high school, James still in the sixth grade, his fourth year there. James was fat and wore glasses with thick lenses. He didn't talk much and before I arrived had no friends. Different I think was not the right word – James was downright strange. Bees would not sting him. Snakes would not bite him. I saw him catch bees and wasps and cup them in his hands, careful not to hurt them, then hold them up to his ear and listen to them buzz, and then turn them loose again. The first time I saw him pick up a cottonmouth moccasin and gently stroke it – it shook me.</p><p> He would not go fishing if the fish were not biting that day, and if I went without him I would catch no fish. </p><p> "How do you know the fish aren't biting, James?"</p><p> "I don't know, I guess it just ain't a fish bite'n day."</p><p> "How do you know the fish aren't biting?"</p><p> "You didn't catch any, did you? I just know."</p><p> Once I saw him eating poison ivy buds in the early spring. "You're gonna get that stuff in your mouth and stomach!"</p><p> "No: If you eat them this time of year, you don't get poison ivy in the summer."</p><p> "How do you know it?"</p><p> "I just know."</p><p> James was a water witch or dowser. It was limestone country. No water table. Water ran through tunnels or caves, through underground streams; you hit or you missed. He didn't use a forked stick like most others used. He would lay a willow leaf on his wrist and walk around; when he stopped, it was above water.</p><p> "How do you know?"</p><p> "The leaf curls down on my arm."</p><p> "But it didn't: I watched it."</p><p> He shrugged and said, "You don't see it, you feel it." </p><p> Whatever, he never missed.</p><p> His most amazing trick was the way he could find lost objects. He would take a green switch and follow it until he found your pocketknife or whatever else you lost. </p><p> "How?"</p><p> "I don't know. I just follow the switch."</p><p> And if you hid something, he knew it and wouldn't even look – he just knew it.</p><p> My mother somehow managed to raise the money and bought the town hotel. It was an old wooden building facing the town square, and with the hotel came Cora the cook. Cora was the closest friend I ever had in Cave Spring. She was in her 60's, a very large, very human black lady who soon became a member of our family. Not only was she a jewel of a cook, but she was also a jewel of a person.</p><p> For a room I had an old butler's pantry off the kitchen. It was small, but one of my chores was washing dishes, and I could come and go by the back door and avoid the lobby.</p><p> People who never experienced the old Jim Crow era South cannot seem to understand the relationships and close bonding that often developed between some blacks and some whites.</p><p> My grandfather on my mother's side was a Confederate veteran; Henry Wagoneer was black as sin: an ex-slave who had been my granddad's body servant. The black slave child who was born closest to your birthday was given to you as your personal servant. Henry and Grandpa lived together for 86 years. At that age Grandpa died, and Henry lived another ten years. Henry was his dearest friend, his severest critic, and his most trusted advisor. My grandmother died when my mother was four; Uncle Henry took over and mothered the brood. Grandpa was a large man of 6'4" in his bare feet; Henry was small, hardly 5'4", and was the only person in the world my grandpa would not dare to cross. </p><p> Contrary to what some folks think these days, Uncle was not a title that designated humble inferiority. It was given as a badge of honor and respect. My grandfather had been named John Baptist Roach; at an early age, resenting the Baptist bit, he had dropped it and picked up Higgens, his mother's family name instead – someone called him Baptist only if he wanted to fight. Uncle Henry, when Grandpa went on the warpath, would stand on his tiptoes, put himself in Grandpa's face, and poke him on the chest, saying, "Now you listen to me, <i>Baptist</i>," and Grandpa would back down and stand corrected.</p><p> As a child you might get away with a little sass to Grandpa, but any kid daring to lip off at Uncle Henry got slapped flat – not by Henry, but by the nearest grownup. My grandfather's last request was that his funeral be conducted with one half of the church reserved for the blacks and that Henry be a pallbearer. The family saw to it that his wishes were carried out. It was unheard of in Alabama in the 1920's – the white side of the church was not full, and the black side were hanging in the windows. </p><p> This was the John Roach who had stood on the floor of the Alabama legislature and said, "If Alabama is ever going to rise out of its economic depression, we are going to have to bring the blacks up too. You can't keep a man down in a ditch unless you stay there with him. If we keep blacks working for cheaper wages, we will get cheaper wages because then we will have to compete with them." Blacks respected him because he respected them.</p><p> On my father's side of the family blacks played an unusual role. His father was also a Confederate vet. Whereas my mother's side of the family owned 6000 acres and 59 slaves and sent their sons to the universities, Grandpa Reynolds's family was "cracker" type and owned six slaves, and Willis Hurd Reynolds could not write his own name. He worked in the fields alongside the blacks.</p><p> His wife Jane was educated, and insisted that all of her children go to school. My father's two eldest sisters were born before the Civil War; he was next to the bottom of eleven children, and after they were reared his mother took on four more, two of which were black. It seems there was a man who worked for them, black, who had twin boys about four years old; his wife died and he asked my grandmother if she would care for thin for a week because he had to go on a trip to arrange for their care. He never came back. It was Christmas time and my grandfather called them Tom and Jerry, as that's what he was drinking at the time. She raised them as family, and since there were no schools nearby for blacks in those days, she taught them herself. She must have done a good job because they turned out well, one even becoming a school teacher. They both called her Mom till the day she died.</p><p> I am not prejudiced because I was never taught prejudice, and it does have to be taught.</p><p> I go into all of this because Uncle Henry comes back into this story later, and it is the reason Cora so quickly became a member of my family.</p><p> Times were hard, and my father did not get his usual summer job teaching at the teacher's college. He was despondent and left home swearing that he was going to find some sort of job. He was gone a couple of weeks, and my mother did not know where he was. She did not hear from him. Just over the state line in Selma, Alabama, lived a man named Edgar Cayce who was getting some publicity as "the sleeping prophet." My mother felt he must be an Indian, as only they had this sort of talent – anyway, she wrote him a letter asking about my dad. The letter he wrote back was: "There is really no reason for me to answer this letter. By the time you get this you will have heard from your husband. He will be teaching summer school in Jasper, Alabama." The letter from Dad came the day before the letter from Cayce. </p><p> Now at the tender age of fifteen I believed in mental telepathy, mind over matter, and clairvoyance. But God was going the route of Santa Claus – no way. </p><p> Since my room was off the kitchen and my chores were washing dishes and maintenance, I hung out with Cora a lot in the kitchen, and Cora believed in ghosties and ghoulies and things that go bump in the night. I will admit that things were happening that I could not explain. On the wall of my butler's pantry stood a large wooden icebox from years before; it took up almost the entire wall. I used it for a closet and storage space. Sometimes at night coming from this old oak box it sounded like muffled voices, and sometimes boards creaked like someone was walking. I thought the old icebox was acting like a sounding box, like on a musical instrument. Cora thought ghost. That old building went back before the Civil War. Sometimes, maybe from the house settling, doors would open by themselves. Cora would pull up a chair near the stove – "Come right in, Mr. King, and sit here by the fire and warm yourself" – then she'd carry on a one-sided conversation with Mr. King. </p><p> I saw only an empty chair and heard only Cora's side of the conversation. She sometimes talked about the three dead Yankee soldiers that used to come and talk with her Ma. Well, two of them talked – the other one didn't have no head. I dismissed Cora's stories as flights of fancy, knowing she was completely an honest woman.</p><p> Story had it that Mr. King was a previous owner of the hotel who had been struck by lightning while sitting in the front lobby. I didn't see how this could be possible, as I believed that lightning doesn't move in horizontal lines and would have hit the highest point of the building – a hundred years or so can sure improve a story.</p><p> Something did happen that I won't even try to explain: Cora and I were sitting in the kitchen one rainy afternoon when a woman in high heels started walking around in the room upstairs. I knew the building was empty. I said, "Somebody's up there," and she said, "Mrs. King. That was her room."</p><p> "You might think it's a spook, but somebody real and alive is walking around up there." I went up and searched the entire second floor, complete with under the beds and in the closets. We were alone in the building. High heels make a distinctive sound; I can't imagine what else could make a sound like that. </p><p> Years later, after the war, I took my wife down to Atlanta to meet my folks. We went up to Cave Spring to see Cora. Irene, a Yankee gal from Maine, said, "What sort of a man are you – you shook hands with your mother and then gave a fat negro woman a big hug and kissed her." You just can't explain that sort of thing to a Damn Yankee. (In the South it's one word. The difference between a Yankee and a Damn Yankee is: Yankees stay home.) It was Cora, not my mother, who comforted me when fourteen-year-old Betty Caine broke my heart, or wiped my nose when it bled, or held my head when I got drunk. My mother would have killed me had she known.</p><p> I will always remember the incident of the peas. Yankees have one variety of pea – green – Southerners have many: blackeye, crowder, whippoorwill, butter peas, etc. I don't remember what kind of peas they were, be we kids didn't like them. Cora told my mother, "I bet you I can get them boys to eat them peas." My mother called her bet. She mashed the peas and formed them into patties which she fried and set on the kitchen table to cool. Then she left the room. When she came back, they were gone. We had stolen and eaten them. </p><p> I think I had a mother need in Cora. We could talk about anything. She had only gone to the fourth grade in school, but she had an understanding of human needs and human nature. I suppose now she's somewhere in a beautiful Heaven where there is no injustice, or hatred, or prejudice, a place she believed in with blind faith. I bet she's still laughing.</p><p> One day she told me about her Daddy's dream. Her father had been born a slave, the property of a real Southern Colonel. Col. Shorter was the founder of an exclusive girl's school in Rome, Georgia. My sister had attended this college, so I was acquainted with stories about Col. Shorter.</p><p> Her father was old and fat and blind, and when I came into the story, dead. He'd had a dream in which Col. Shorter had come to him and told him that during the Civil War, the family valuables had been buried by the left rear corner of the old carriage house. Sherman's army had looted and burned the property. The slaves had buried the stuff with her dad and another man, and they had gone away enjoying their freedom. No one else except the wife knew the location. But the wife died soon after. When Col. Shorter came home from the war, he assumed the stuff had been looted. Her father had assumed that the family had recovered the stuff. In the dream, Col. Shorter wanted her dad to have the stuff dug up and to give half to Shorter College and keep half for himself. He was old and blind. Her brothers laughed at a crazy old man's dream. "John, why don't you go dig it up?" I told several friends (one too many), but the Shorter plantation was miles away, and none of us had a car. Several months slipped away. We finally went, and we found the old foundation. We found the foundation of the old carriage house. We found the left rear corner. We found a big hole where someone had dug, a fairly fresh hole. There was a scrap of rotten wood, rusted metal corner irons and metal straps and an old iron hasp. Scraps of green waxed cloth. The treasure was gone – at least someone had dug up something. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitKhsQqYowteMUtc5kgHx702pSA_j-_e0aokECGupaIKDApoqLw7FYAA7tVRj3gUh8Pi9qOjKue6FXgWgCSRrCVu1KWey8GddwaopNv1DCT0p2kEFPWrCe99VH-8MUaX8ScwJdDXBEbO_JqOXMNP6iAoqzEJuFCO02ZoRLifbCqhQc0kLe3MjE79hp/s3014/little%20davey%20and%20big%20john.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2065" data-original-width="3014" height="438" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitKhsQqYowteMUtc5kgHx702pSA_j-_e0aokECGupaIKDApoqLw7FYAA7tVRj3gUh8Pi9qOjKue6FXgWgCSRrCVu1KWey8GddwaopNv1DCT0p2kEFPWrCe99VH-8MUaX8ScwJdDXBEbO_JqOXMNP6iAoqzEJuFCO02ZoRLifbCqhQc0kLe3MjE79hp/w640-h438/little%20davey%20and%20big%20john.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Little Davey and Big John, long ago<br />(I'm the one on the pillow)</i></td></tr></tbody></table>Paññobhāsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14148206217028034038noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8485583244199236996.post-78548941865385167122023-04-23T19:40:00.000-07:002023-04-23T19:40:07.332-07:00The Incarnation of Krishna Mulvaney<p><br /></p><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Classics of Political Incorrectness Dept. (21)</span></b></p><p><b><br /></b></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i> A few days ago when I was at work it suddenly dawned on me that the following story would be very appropriate as a classic of political incorrectness. First of all it used to be, at least, the most reprinted story written by Rudyard Kipling—more reprinted even than the classic “The Man Who Would Be King.” That little factoid was found in the introduction to an old collection of short stories that I inherited from my father, and which was published long before I was born. And in addition to being a classic of English literature, it also contains a fair share of: glorification of British colonialism and militarism, patriarchal machismo and “toxic masculinity,” racial stereotypes, a bit of male chauvinism and “fat shaming” of women, general rascality, and even the N-word, which, however, is usually spelled “Naygur,” and which is not directed towards ethnic Africans but towards Indians.</i></blockquote><p></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i> I can’t say if the following story is unequivocally a representation of better times, but it certainly is a representation of stronger, more vital times…at least for western civilization. Much of it is certainly adharmic, for example its mockery of Indian religion and its humorous tolerance of drunkenness and brawling, but it is refreshingly, delightfully politically incorrect. It represents, more or less realistically, the lives of British soldiers during the Raj, but now it’s trolling. I like trolling. Enjoy.</i></blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><i>"(The Kipling Society presents here Kipling’s work as he </i><i>wrote it, but wishes to alert readers that the text below </i><i>contains some derogatory and/or offensive language)"</i></p><p> </p><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;">The Incarnation of Krishna Mulvaney, by Rudyard Kipling</span></b></p><p><br /></p><p>Wohl auf, my bully cavaliers</p><p> We ride to church to-day,</p><p>The man that hasn’t got a horse</p><p> Must steal one straight away.</p><p><br /></p><p>Be reverent, men, remember</p><p> This is a Gottes haus</p><p>Du, Conrad, cut along der aisle</p><p> And schenk der whisky aus. </p><p> <i>Hans Breitman’s Ride to Church.</i></p><p><br /></p><p><b>ONCE</b> upon a time, very far from England, there lived three men who loved each other so greatly that neither man nor woman could come between them. They were in no sense refined, nor to be admitted to the outer-door mats of decent folk, because they happened to be private soldiers in Her Majesty’s Army; and private soldiers of our service have small time for self-culture. Their duty is to keep themselves and their accoutrements specklessly clean, to refrain from getting drunk more often than is necessary, to obey their superiors, and to pray for a war. All these things my friends accomplished; and of their own motion threw in some fighting—work for which the Army Regulations did not call. Their fate sent them to serve in India, which is not a golden country, though poets have sung otherwise. There men die with great swiftness, and those who live suffer many and curious things. I do not think that my friends concerned themselves much with the social or political aspects of the East. They attended a not unimportant war on the northern frontier, another one on our western boundary, and a third in Upper Burma. Then their regiment sat still to recruit, and the boundless monotony of cantonment life was their portion. They were drilled morning and evening on the same dusty parade-ground. They wandered up and down the same stretch of dusty white road, attended the same church and the same grog-shop, and slept in the same lime-washed barn of a barrack for two long years. There was Mulvaney, the father in the craft, who had served with various regiments from Bermuda to Halifax, old in war, scarred, reckless, resourceful, and in his pious hours an unequalled soldier. To him turned for help and comfort six and a half feet of slow-moving, heavy-footed Yorkshireman, born on the wolds, bred in the dales, and educated chiefly among the carriers’ carts at the back of York railway-station. His name was Learoyd, and his chief virtue an unmitigated patience which helped him to win fights. How Ortheris, a fox-terrier of a Cockney, ever came to be one of the trio, is a mystery which even to-day I cannot explain. ‘There was always three av us,’ Mulvaney used to say. ‘An’ by the grace av God, so long as our service lasts, three av us they’ll always be. ’Tis betther so.’</p><p> They desired no companionship beyond their own, and it was evil for any man of the regiment who attempted dispute with them. Physical argument was out of the question as regarded Mulvaney and the Yorkshireman; and assault on Ortheris meant a combined attack from these twain—a business which no five men were anxious to have on their hands. Therefore they flourished, sharing their drinks, their tobacco, and their money; good luck and evil ; battle and the chances of death; life and the chances of happiness from Calicut in southern, to Peshawur in northern India.</p><p> Through no merit of my own it was my good fortune to be in a measure admitted to their friendship—frankly by Mulvaney from the beginning, sullenly and with reluctance by Learoyd, and suspiciously by Ortheris, who held to it that no man not in the Army could fraternise with a red-coat. ‘Like to like,’ said he. ‘I’m a bloomin’ sodger—he’s a bloomin’ civilian. ’Taint natural—that’s all.’</p><p> But that was not all. They thawed progressively, and in the thawing told me more of their lives and adventures than I am ever likely to write.</p><p> Omitting all else, this tale begins with the Lamentable Thirst that was at the beginning of First Causes. Never was such a thirst—Mulvaney told me so. They kicked against their compulsory virtue, but the attempt was only successful in the case of Ortheris. He, whose talents were many, went forth into the highways and stole a dog from a ‘civilian’—<i>videlicet</i>, some one, he knew not who, not in the Army. Now that civilian was but newly connected by marriage with the colonel of the regiment, and outcry was made from quarters least anticipated by Ortheris, and, in the end, he was forced, lest a worse thing should happen, to dispose at ridiculously unremunerative rates of as promising a small terrier as ever graced one end of a leading string. The purchase-money was barely sufficient for one small outbreak which led him to the guard-room. He escaped, however, with nothing worse than a severe reprimand, and a few hours of punishment drill. Not for nothing had he acquired the reputation of being ‘the best soldier of his inches’ in the regiment. Mulvaney had taught personal cleanliness and efficiency as the first articles of his companions’ creed. ‘A dhirty man,’ he was used to say, in the speech of his kind, ‘goes to Clink for a weakness in the knees, an’ is coort-martialled for a pair av socks missin’; but a clane man, such as is an ornament to his service—a man whose buttons are gold, whose coat is wax upon him, an’ whose’coutrements are widout a speck—<i>that</i> man may, spakin’ in reason, do fwhat he likes an’ dhrink from day to divil. That’s the pride av bein’ dacint.’</p><p> We sat together, upon a day, in the shade of a ravine far from the barracks, where a watercourse used to run in rainy weather. Behind us was the scrub jungle, in which jackals, peacocks, the gray wolves of the North-Western Provinces, and occasionally a tiger estrayed from Central India, were supposed to dwell. In front lay the cantonment, glaring white under a glaring sun; and on either side ran the broad road that led to Delhi.It was the scrub that suggested to my mind the wisdom of Mulvaney taking a day’s leave and going upon a shooting-tour. The peacock is a holy bird throughout India, and he who slays one is in danger of being mobbed by the nearest villagers; but on the last occasion that Mulvaney had gone forth, he had contrived, without in the least offending local religious susceptibilities, to return with six beautiful peacock skins which he sold to profit. It seemed just possible then—</p><p> ‘But fwhat manner av use is ut to me goin’ out widout a dhrink? The ground’s powdherdhry underfoot, an’ ut gets unto the throat fit to kill,’ wailed Mulvaney, looking at me reproachfully. ‘An’ a peacock is not a bird you can catch the tail av onless ye run. Can a man run on wather—an’ jungle-wather too?</p><p> Ortheris had considered the question in all its bearings. He spoke, chewing his pipe-stem meditatively the while:</p><p><br /></p><p>‘Go forth, return in glory,</p><p>To Clusium’s royal ‘ome:</p><p>An’ round these bloomin’ temples ‘ang</p><p>The bloomin’ shields o’ Rome.</p><p><br /></p><p>You better go. You ain’t like to shoot yourself—not while there’s a chanst of liquor. Me an’ Learoyd’ll stay at ’ome an’ keep shop—’case o’ anythin’ turnin’ up. But you go out with a gas-pipe gun an’ ketch the little peacockses or somethin’. You kin get one day’s leave easy as winkin’. Go along an’ get it, an’ get peacockses or somethin’.’</p><p> ‘Jock,’ said Mulvaney, turning to Learoyd, who was half asleep under the shadow of the bank. He roused slowly.</p><p> ‘Sitha, Mulvaaney, go,’ said he.</p><p> And Mulvaney went; cursing his allies with Irish fluency and barrack-room point.</p><p> ‘Take note,’ said he, when he had won his holiday, and appeared dressed in his roughest clothes with the only other regimental fowling-piece in his hand. ‘Take note, Jock, an’ you Orth’ris, I am goin’ in the face av my own will—all for to please you. I misdoubt anythin’ will come av permiscuous huntin’ afther peacockses in a desolit lan’; an’ I know that I will lie down an’ die wid thirrrst. Me catch peacockses for you, ye lazy scutts—an’ be sacrificed by the peasanthry—Ugh!’</p><p> He waved a huge paw and went away.</p><p> At twilight, long before the appointed hour, he returned empty-handed, much begrimed with dirt.</p><p> ‘Peacockses?’ queried Ortheris from the safe rest of a barrack-room table whereon he was smoking cross-legged, Learoyd fast asleep on a bench.</p><p> ‘Jock,’ said Mulvaney without answering, as he stirred up the sleeper. ‘Jock, can ye fight? Will ye fight?’</p><p> Very slowly the meaning of the words communicated itself to the half-roused man. He understood—and again—what might these things mean? Mulvaney was shaking him savagely. Meantime the men in the room howled with delight. There was war in the confederacy at last—war and the breaking of bonds.</p><p> Barrack-room etiquette is stringent. On the direct challenge must follow the direct reply. This is more binding than the ties of tried friendship. Once again Mulvaney repeated the question. Learoyd answered by the only means in his power, and so swiftly that the Irishman had barely time to avoid the blow. The laughter around increased. Learoyd looked bewilderedly at his friend—himself as greatly bewildered. Ortheris dropped from the table because his world was falling.</p><p> ‘Come outside,’ said Mulvaney, and as the occupants of the barrack-room prepared joyously to follow, he turned and said furiously, ‘There will be no fight this night—onless any wan av you is wishful to assist. The man that does, follows on.’</p><p> No man moved. The three passed out into the moonlight, Learoyd fumbling with the buttons of his coat. The parade-ground was deserted except for the scurrying jackals. Mulvaney’s impetuous rush carried his companions far into the open ere Learoyd attempted to turn round and continue the discussion.</p><p> ‘Be still now. ’Twas my fault for beginnin’ things in the middle av an end, Jock. I should ha’ comminst wid an explanation; but Jock, dear, on your sowl are ye fit, think you, for the finest fight that iver was—betther than fightin’ me? Considher before ye answer.’</p><p> More than ever puzzled, Learoyd turned round two or three times, felt an arm, kicked tentatively, and answered, ‘Ah’m fit.’ He was accustomed to fight blindly at the bidding of the superior mind.</p><p> They sat them down, the men looking on from afar, and Mulvaney untangled himself in mighty words. ‘Followin’ your fools’ scheme I wint out into the thrackless desert beyond the barricks. An’ there I met a pious Hindu dhriving a bullockkyart. I tuk ut for granted he wud be delighted for to convoy me a piece, an’ I jumped in—’</p><p> ‘You long, lazy, black-haired swine,’ drawled Ortheris, who would have done the same thing under similar circumstances.</p><p> ‘’Twas the height av policy. That naygur-man dhruv miles an’ miles—as far as the new railway line they’re buildin’ now back av the Tavi river. “’Tis a kyart for dhirt only,” says he now an’ again timoreously, to get me out av ut. “Dhirt I am,” sez I, “an’ the dhryest that you iver kyarted. Dhrive on, me son, an’ glory be wid you.” At that I wint to slape, an’ took no heed till he pulled up on the embankmint av the line where the coolies were pilin’ mud. There was a matther av two thousand coolies on that line—you remimber that. Prisintly a bell rang, an’ they throops off to a big pay-shed. “Where’s the white man in charge?” sez I to my kyartdhriver. “In the shed,” sez he, “engaged on a riffle.”—“A fwhat?” sez I. “Riffle,” sez he. “You take ticket. He take money. You get nothin’.”—“Oho!” sez I, “that’s fwhat the shuperior an’ cultivated man calls a raffle, me misbeguided child av darkness an’ sin. Lead on to that raffle, though fwhat the mischief ’tis doin’ so far away from uts home—which is the charity-bazaar at Christmas, an’ the colonel’s wife grinnin’ behind the tea-table—is more than I know.” Wid that I wint to the shed an’ found ’twas payday among the coolies. Their wages was on a table forninst a big, fine, red buck av a man—sivun fut high, four fut wide, an’ three fut thick, wid a fist on him like a corn-sack. He was payin’ the coolies fair an’ easy, but he wud ask each man if he wud raffle that month, an each man sez, “Yes,” av course. Thin he wud deduct from their wages accordin’. Whin all was paid, he filled an ould cigar-box full av gun-wads an’ scatthered ut among the coolies. They did not take much joy av that performince, an’ small wondher. A man close to me picks up a black gun-wad an’ sings out, “I have ut.”—“Good may ut do you,” sez I. The coolie wint forward to this big, fine, red man, who threw a cloth off av the most sumpshus, jooled, enamelled an’ variously bedivilled sedan-chair I iver saw.’</p><p> ‘Sedan-chair! Put your ’ead in a bag. That was a palanquin. Don’t yer know a palanquin when you see it?’ said Ortheris with great scorn.</p><p> ‘I chuse to call ut sedan-chair, an’ chair ut shall be, little man,’ continued the Irishman. ‘’Twas a most amazin’ chair—all lined wid pink silk an’ fitted wid red silk curtains. “Here ut is,” sez the red man. “Here ut is,” sez the coolie, an’ he grinned weakly-ways. “Is ut any use to you?” sez the red man. “No,” sez the coolie; “I’d like to make a presint av ut to you.”—“I am graciously pleased to accept that same,” sez the red man; an’ at that all the coolies cried aloud in fwhat was mint for cheerful notes, an’ wint back to their diggin’, lavin’ me alone in the shed. The red man saw me, an’ his face grew blue on his big, fat neck. “Fwhat d’you want here?” sez he. “Standin’-room an’ no more,” sez I, “onless it may be fwhat ye niver had, an’ that’s manners, ye rafflin’ ruffian,” for I was not goin’ to have the Service throd upon. “Out of this,” sez he. “I’m in charge av this section av construction.”—“I’m in charge av mesilf,” sez I, “an’ it’s like I will stay a while. D’ye raffle much in these parts?”—“Fwhat’s that to you?”sez he. “Nothin’,” sez I, “but a great dale to you, for begad I’m thinkin’ you get the full half av your revenue from that sedan-chair. Is ut always raffled so?” I sez, an’ wid that I wint to a coolie to ask questions. Bhoys, that man’s name is Dearsley, an’ he’s been rafflin’ that ould sedan-chair monthly this matther av nine months. Ivry coolie on the section takes a ticket—or he gives ’em the go—wanst a month on payday. Ivry coolie that wins ut gives ut back to him, for ’tis too big to carry away, an’ he’d sack the man that thried to sell ut. That Dearsley has been makin’ the rowlin’ wealth av Roshus by nefarious rafflin’. Think av the burnin’ shame to the sufferin’ coolie-man that the Army in Injia are bound to protect an’ nourish in their bosoms! Two thousand coolies defrauded wanst a month!’</p><p> ‘Dom t’ coolies. Has’t gotten t’ cheer, man?’ said Learoyd.</p><p> ‘Hould on. Havin’ onearthed this amazin’ an’ stupenjus fraud committed by the man Dearsley, I hild a council av war; he thryin’ all the time to sejuce me into a fight wid opprobrious language. That sedan-chair niver belonged by right to any foreman av coolies. ’Tis a king’s chair or a quane’s. There’s gold on ut an’ silk an’ all manner av trapesemints. Bhoys, ’tis not for me to countenance any sort av wrong-doin’—me bein’ the ould man—but—anyway he has had ut nine months, an’ he dare not make throuble av ut was taken from him. Five miles away, or ut may be six—’</p><p> There was a long pause, and the jackals howled merrily. Learoyd bared one arm, and contemplated it in the moonlight. Then he nodded partly to himself and partly to his friends. Ortheris wriggled with suppressed emotion.</p><p> ‘I thought ye wud see the reasonableness av ut,’ said Mulvaney. ‘I made bould to say as much to the man before. He was for a direct front attack—fut, horse, an’ guns—an’ all for nothin’, seein’ that I had no thransport to convey the machine away. “I will not argue wid you,” sez I, “this day, but subsequintly, Mister Dearsley, me rafflin’ jool, we talk ut out lengthways. ’Tis no good policy to swindle the naygur av his hard-earned emolumints, an’ by presint informashin’ ”—’twas the kyart man that tould me—“ye’ve been perpethrating that same for nine months. But I’m a just man,” sez I, “an’ overlookin’ the presumpshin that yondher settee wid the gilt top was not come by honust”—at that he turned sky-green, so I knew things was more thrue than tellable—“not come by honust, I’m willin’ to compound the felony for this month’s winnin’s.”’</p><p> ‘Ah! Ho!’ from Learoyd and Ortheris.</p><p> ‘That man Dearsley’s rushin’ on his fate,’ continued Mulvaney, solemnly wagging his head. ‘All Hell had no name bad enough for me that tide. Faith, he called me a robber! Me! that was savin’ him from continuin’ in his evil ways widout a remonstrince—an’ to a man av conscience a remonstrince may change the chune av his life. “’Tis not for me to argue,” sez I, “fwhatever ye are, Mister Dearsley, but, by my hand, I’ll take away the temptation for you that lies in that sedan-chair.”—“You will have to fight me for ut,” sez he, “for well I know you will never dare make report to any one.”—“Fight I will,” sez I, “but not this day, for I’m rejuced for want av nourishmint.”—“Ye’re an ould bould hand,” sez he, sizin’ me up an’ down; “an’ a jool av a fight we will have. Eat now an’ dhrink, an’ go your way.” Wid that he gave me some hump an’ whisky—good whisky—an’ we talked av this an’ that the while. “It goes hard on me now,” sez I, wipin’ my mouth, “to confiscate that piece av furniture, but justice is justice.”—“Ye’ve not got ut yet,” sez he; “there’s the fight between.”—“There is,” sez I, “an’ a good fight. Ye shall have the pick av the best quality in my rigimint for the dinner you have given this day.” Thin I came hot-foot to you two. Hould your tongue, the both. ’Tis this way. To-morrow we three will go there an’ he shall have his pick betune me an’ Jock. Jock’s a deceivin’ fighter, for he is all fat to the eye, an’ he moves slow. Now I’m all beef to the look, an’ I move quick. By my reckonin’ the Dearsley man won’t take me; so me an’ Orth’ris ’ll see fair play. Jock, I tell you, ’twill be big fightin’—whipped, wid the cream above the jam. Afther the business ’twill take a good three av us—Jock’ll be very hurt—to haul away that sedan-chair.’</p><p> ‘Palanquin.’ This from Ortheris.</p><p> ‘Fwhatever ut is, we must have ut. ’Tis the only sellin’ piece av property widin reach that we can get so cheap. An’ fwhat’s a fight afther all? He has robbed the naygur-man, dishonust. We rob him honust for the sake av the whisky he gave me.’</p><p> ‘But wot’ll we do with the bloomin’ article when we’ve got it? Them palanquins are as big as ’ouses, an’ uncommon ’ard to sell, as McCleary said when ye stole the sentry-box from the Curragh.’</p><p> ‘Who’s goin’ to do t’ fightin’?’ said Learoyd, and Ortheris subsided. The three returned to barracks without a word. Mulvaney’s last argument clinched the matter. This palanquin was property, vendible and to be attained in the simplest and least embarrassing fashion. It would eventually become beer. Great was Mulvaney.</p><p> Next afternoon a procession of three formed itself and disappeared into the scrub in the direction of the new railway line. Learoyd alone was without care, for Mulvaney dived darkly into the future, and little Ortheris feared the unknown. What befell at that interview in the lonely pay-shed by the side of the half- built embankment only a few hundred coolies know, and their tale is a confusing one, running thus—</p><p> ‘We were at work. Three men in red coats came. They saw the Sahib—Dearsley Sahib. They made oration; and noticeably the small man among the red-coats. Dearsley Sahib also made oration, and used many very strong words. Upon this talk they departed together to an open space, and there the fat man in the red coat fought with Dearsley Sahib after the custom of white men—with his hands, making no noise, and never at all pulling Dearsley Sahib’s hair. Such of us as were not afraid beheld these things for just so long a time as a man needs to cook the mid-day meal. The small man in the red coat had possessed himself of Dearsley Sahib’s watch. No, he did not steal that watch. He held it in his hand, and at certain seasons made outcry, and the twain ceased their combat, which was like the combat of young bulls in spring. Both men were soon all red, but Dearsley Sahib was much more red than the other. Seeing this, and fearing for his life—because we greatly loved him—some fifty of us made shift to rush upon the red-coats. But a certain man—very black as to the hair, and in no way to be confused with the small man, or the fat man who fought—that man, we affirm, ran upon us, and of us he embraced some ten or fifty in both arms, and beat our heads together, so that our livers turned to water, and we ran away. It is not good to interfere in the fightings of white men. After that Dearsley Sahib fell and did not rise, these men jumped upon his stomach and despoiled him of all his money, and attempted to fire the pay-shed, and departed. Is it true that Dearsley Sahib makes no complaint of these latter things having been done? We were senseless with fear, and do not at all remember. There was no palanquin near the pay-shed. What do we know about palanquins? Is it true that Dearsley Sahib does not return to this place, on account of his sickness, for ten days? This is the fault of those bad men in the red coats, who should be severely punished; for Dearsley Sahib is both our father and mother, and we love him much. Yet, if Dearsley Sahib does not return to this place at all, we will speak the truth. There was a palanquin, for the up-keep of which we were forced to pay nine-tenths of our monthly wage. On such mulctings Dearsley Sahib allowed us to make obeisance to him before the palanquin. What could we do? We were poor men. He took a full half of our wages. Will the Government repay us those moneys? Those three men in red coats bore the palanquin upon their shoulders and departed. All the money that Dearsley Sahib had taken from us was in the cushions of that palanquin. Therefore they stole it. Thousands of rupees were there—all our money. It was our bank-box, to fill which we cheerfully contributed to Dearsley Sahib three-sevenths of our monthly wage. Why does the white man look upon us with the eye of disfavour? Before God, there was a palanquin, and now there is no palanquin; and if they send the police here to make inquisition, we can only say that there never has been any palanquin. Why should a palanquin be near these works? We are poor men, and we know nothing.’</p><p> Such is the simplest version of the simplest story connected with the descent upon Dearsley. From the lips of the coolies I received it. Dearsley himself was in no condition to say anything, and Mulvaney preserved a massive silence, broken only by the occasional licking of the lips. He had seen a fight so gorgeous that even his power of speech was taken from him. I respected that reserve until, three days after the affair, I discovered in a disused stable in my quarters a palanquin of unchastened splendour—evidently in past days the litter of a queen. The pole whereby it swung between the shoulders of the bearers was rich with the painted <i>papier</i>-<i>maché</i> of Cashmere. The shoulder-pads were of yellow silk. The panels of the litter itself were ablaze with the loves of all the gods and goddesses of the Hindu Pantheon—lacquer on cedar. The cedar sliding doors were fitted with hasps of translucent Jaipur enamel and ran in grooves shod with silver. The cushions were of brocaded Delhi silk, and the curtains which once hid any glimpse of the beauty of the king’s palace were stiff with gold. Closer investigation showed that the entire fabric was everywhere rubbed and discoloured by time and wear; but even thus it was sufficiently gorgeous to deserve housing on the threshold of a royal zenana. I found no fault with it, except that it was in my stable. Then, trying to lift it by the silver-shod shoulder-pole, I laughed. The road from Dearsley’s pay-shed to the cantonment was a narrow and uneven one, and, traversed by three very inexperienced palanquin-bearers, one of whom was sorely battered about the head, must have been a path of torment. Still I did not quite recognise the right of the three musketeers to turn me into a ‘fence’ for stolen property.</p><p> ‘I’m askin’ you to warehouse ut,’ said Mulvaney, when he was brought to consider the question. ‘There’s no steal in ut. Dearsley tould us we cud have ut if we fought. Jock fought—an’, oh, sorr, when the throuble was at uts finest an’ Jock was bleedin’ like a stuck pig, an’ little Orth’ris was shquealin’ on one leg chewin’ big bites out av Dearsley’s watch, I wud ha’ given my place at the fight to have had you see wan round. He tuk Jock, as I suspicioned he would, an’ Jock was deceptive. Nine roun’s they were even matched, an’ at the tenth—About that palanquin now. There’s not the least throuble in the world, or we wud not ha’ brought ut here. You will ondherstand that the Queen—God bless her!—does not reckon for a privit soldier to kape elephints an’ palanquins an’ sich in barricks. Afther we had dhragged ut down from Dearsley’s through that cruel scrub that near broke Orth’ris’s heart, we set ut in the ravine for a night; an’ a thief av a porcupine an’ a civet-cat av a jackal roosted in ut, as well we knew in the mornin’. I put ut to you, sorr, is an elegint palanquin, fit for the princess, the natural abidin’ place av all the vermin in cantonmints? We brought ut to you, afther dhark, and put ut in your shtable. Do not let your conscience prick. Think av the rejoicin’ men in the pay-shed yonder—lookin’ at Dearsley wid his head tied up in a towel—an’ well knowin’ that they can dhraw their pay ivry month widout stoppages for riffles. Indirectly, sorr, you have rescued from an on-principled son av a night-hawk the peasanthry av a numerous village. An’ besides, will I let that sedan-chair rot on our hands? Not I. ’Tis not every day a piece av pure joolry comes into the market. There’s not a king widin these forty miles’—he waved his hand round the dusty horizon—‘not a king wud not be glad to buy ut. Some day meself, whin I have leisure, I’ll take ut up along the road an’ dishpose av ut.’</p><p> ‘How?’ said I, for I knew the man was capable of anything.</p><p> ‘Get into ut, av coorse, and keep wan eye open through the curtains. Whin I see a likely man av the native persuasion, I will descind blushin’ from my canopy and say, “Buy a palanquin, ye black scutt?” I will have to hire four men to carry me first, though; and that’s impossible till next pay-day.’</p><p> Curiously enough, Learoyd, who had fought for the prize, and in the winning secured the highest pleasure life had to offer him, was altogether disposed to undervalue it, while Ortheris openly said it would be better to break the thing up. Dearsley, he argued, might be a many-sided man, capable, despite his magnificent fighting qualities, of setting in motion the machinery of the civil law—a thing much abhorred by the soldier. Under any circumstances their fun had come and passed; the next pay-day was close at hand, when there would be beer for all. Wherefore longer conserve the painted palanquin?</p><p> ‘A first-class rifle-shot an’ a good little man av your inches you are,’ said Mulvaney. ‘But you niver had a head worth a soft-boiled egg. ’Tis me has to lie awake av nights schamin’ an’ plottin’ for the three av us. Orth’ris, me son, ’tis no matther av a few gallons av beer—no, nor twenty gallons—but tubs an’ vats an’ firkins in that sedan-chair. Who ut was, an’ what ut was, an’ how ut got there, we do not know; but I know in my bones that you an’ me an’ Jock wid his sprained thumb will get a fortune thereby. Lave me alone, an’ let me think.’</p><p> Meantime the palanquin stayed in my stall, the key of which was in Mulvaney’s hands.</p><p> Pay-day came, and with it beer. It was not in experience to hope that Mulvaney, dried by four weeks’ drought, would avoid excess. Next morning he and the palanquin had disappeared. He had taken the precaution of getting three days’ leave ‘to see a friend on the railway,’ and the colonel, well knowing that the seasonal outburst was near, and hoping it would spend its force beyond the limits of his jurisdiction, cheerfully gave him all he demanded. At this point Mulvaney’s history, as recorded in the mess-room, stopped.</p><p> Ortheris carried it not much further. ‘No, ’e wasn’t drunk,’ said the little man loyally, ‘the liquor was no more than feelin’ its way round inside of ’im; but ’e went an’ filled that ’ole bloomin’ palanquin with bottles ’fore ’e went off. E’s gone an’ ’ired six men to carry ’im, an’ I ’ad to ’elp ’im into ’is nupshal couch, ’cause ’e wouldn’t ’ear reason. ’E’s gone off in ’is shirt an’ trousies, swearin’ tremenjus—gone down the road in the palanquin, wavin’ ’is legs out o’ windy.’</p><p> ‘Yes,’ said I, ‘but where?’</p><p> ‘Now you arx me a question. ’E said ’e was goin’ to sell that palanquin, but from observations what happened when I was stuffin’ ’im through the door, I fancy ’e’s gone to the new embankment to mock at Dearsley. ’Soon as Jock’s off duty I’m goin’ there to see if ’e’s safe—not Mulvaney, but t’other man. My saints, but I pity ’im as ’elps Terence out o’ the palanquin when ’e’s once fair drunk!’</p><p> ‘He’ll come back without harm,’ I said.</p><p> ‘’Corse ’e will. On’y question is, what’ll ’e be doin’ on the road? Killing Dearsley, like as not. ’E shouldn’t ’a gone without Jock or me.’</p><p> Reinforced by Learoyd, Ortheris sought the foreman of the coolie-gang. Dearsley’s head was still embellished with towels. Mulvaney, drunk or sober, would have struck no man in that condition, and Dearsley indignantly denied that he would have taken advantage of the intoxicated brave.</p><p> ‘I had my pick o’ you two,’ he explained to Learoyd, ‘and you got my palanquin—not before I’d made my profit on it. Why’d I do harm when everything’s settled? Your man <i>did</i> come here—drunk as Davy’s sow on a frosty night—came a-purpose to mock me—stuck his head out of the door an’ called me a crucified hodman. I made him drunker, an’ sent him along. But I never touched him.’</p><p> To these things Learoyd, slow to perceive the evidences of sincerity, answered only, ‘If owt comes to Mulvaaney ’long o’ you, I’ll gripple you, clouts or no clouts on your ugly head, an’ I’ll draw t’ throat twistyways, man. See there now.’</p><p> The embassy removed itself, and Dearsley, the battered, laughed alone over his supper that evening.</p><p> Three days passed—a fourth and a fifth. The week drew to a close and Mulvaney did not return. He, his royal palanquin, and his six attendants, had vanished into air. A very large and very tipsy soldier, his feet sticking out of the litter of a reigning princess, is not a thing to travel along the ways without comment. Yet no man of all the country round had seen any such wonder. He was, and he was not; and Learoyd suggested the immediate smashment of Dearsley as a sacrifice to his ghost. Ortheris insisted that all was well, and in the light of past experience his hopes seemed reasonable.</p><p> ‘When Mulvaney goes up the road,’ said he, ‘’e’s like to go a very long ways up, specially when ’e’s so blue drunk as ’e is now. But what gits me is ’is not bein’ ’eard of pullin’ wool off the niggers somewheres about. That don’t look good. The drink must ha’ died out in ’im by this, unless ’e’s broke a bank, an’ then—Why don’t ’e come back? ’E didn’t ought to ha’ gone off without us.’</p><p> Even Ortheris’s heart sank at the end of the seventh day, for half the regiment were out scouring the countryside, and Learoyd had been forced to fight two men who hinted openly that Mulvaney had deserted. To do him justice, the colonel laughed at the notion, even when it was put forward by his much-trusted adjutant.</p><p> ‘Mulvaney would as soon think of deserting as you would,’ said he. ‘No; he’s either fallen into a mischief among the villagers—and yet that isn’t likely, for he’d blarney himself out of the Pit; or else he is engaged on urgent private affairs—some stupendous devilment that we shall hear of at mess after it has been the round of the barrack-rooms. The worst of it is that I shall have to give him twenty-eight days’ confinement at least for being absent without leave, just when I most want him to lick the new batch of recruits into shape. I never knew a man who could put a polish on young soldiers as quickly as Mulvaney can. How does he do it?’</p><p> ‘With blarney and the buckle-end of a belt, sir,’ said the adjutant. ‘He is worth a couple of non-commissioned officers when we are dealing with an Irish draft, and the London lads seem to adore him. The worst of it is that if he goes to the cells the other two are neither to hold nor to bind till he comes out again. I believe Ortheris preaches mutiny on those occasions, and I know that the mere presence of Learoyd mourning for Mulvaney kills all the cheerfulness of his room. The sergeants tell me that he allows no man to laugh when he feels unhappy. They are a queer gang.’</p><p> ‘For all that, I wish we had a few more of them. I like a well-conducted regiment, but these pasty-faced, shifty-eyed, mealy-mouthed young slouchers from the depot worry me sometimes with their offensive virtue. They don’t seem to have backbone enough to do anything but play cards and prowl round the married quarters. I believe I’d forgive that old villain on the spot if he turned up with any sort of explanation that I could in decency accept.’</p><p> ‘Not likely to be much difficulty about that, sir,’ said the adjutant. ‘Mulvaney’s explanations are only one degree less wonderful than his performances. They say that when he was in the Black Tyrone, before he came to us, he was discovered on the banks of the Liffey trying to sell his colonel’s charger to a Donegal dealer as a perfect lady’s hack. Shackbolt commanded the Tyrone then.’</p><p> ‘Shackbolt must have had apoplexy at the thought of his ramping war-horses answering to that description. He used to buy unbacked devils, and tame them on some pet theory of starvation. What did Mulvaney say?’</p><p> ‘That he was a member of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, anxious to “sell the poor baste where he would get something to fill out his dimples.” Shackbolt laughed, but I fancy that was why Mulvaney exchanged to ours.’</p><p> ‘I wish he were back,’ said the colonel; ‘for I like him and believe he likes me.’</p><p> That evening, to cheer our souls, Learoyd, Ortheris, and I went into the waste to smoke out a porcupine. All the dogs attended, but even their clamour—and they began to discuss the shortcomings of porcupines before they left cantonments—could not take us out of ourselves. A large, low moon turned the tops of the plume-grass to silver, and the stunted camelthorn bushes and sour tamarisks into the likenesses of trooping devils. The smell of the sun had not left the earth, and little aimless winds blowing across the rose-gardens to the southward brought the scent of dried roses and water. Our fire once started, and the dogs craftily disposed to wait the dash of the porcupine, we climbed to the top of a rain-scarred hillock of earth, and looked across the scrub seamed with cattle paths, white with the long grass, and dotted with spots of level pond-bottom, where the snipe would gather in winter.</p><p> ‘This,’ said Ortheris, with a sigh, as he took in the unkempt desolation of it all, ‘this is sanguinary. This is unusually sanguinary. Sort o’ mad country. Like a grate when the fire’s put out by the sun.’ He shaded his eyes against the moonlight. ‘An there’s a loony dancin’ in the middle of it all. Quite right. I’d dance too if I wasn’t so downheart.’</p><p> There pranced a Portent in the face of the moon—a huge and ragged spirit of the waste, that flapped its wings from afar. It had risen out of the earth; it was coming towards us, and its outline was never twice the same. The toga, table-cloth, or dressing-gown, whatever the creature wore, took a hundred shapes. Once it stopped on a neighbouring mound and flung all its legs and arms to the winds.</p><p> ‘My, but that scarecrow ’as got ’em bad!’ said Ortheris. ‘Seems like if ’e comes any furder we’ll ’ave to argify with ’im.’</p><p> Learoyd raised himself from the dirt as a bull clears his flanks of the wallow. And as a bull bellows, so he, after a short minute at gaze, gave tongue to the stars.</p><p> ‘MULVAANEY! MULVAANEY! A-hoo!’</p><p> Oh then it was that we yelled, and the figure dipped into the hollow, till, with a crash of rending grass, the lost one strode up to the light of the fire, and disappeared to the waist in a wave of joyous dogs! Then Learoyd and Ortheris gave greeting, bass and falsetto together, both swallowing a lump in the throat.</p><p> ‘You damned fool!’ said they, and severally pounded him with their fists.</p><p> ‘Go easy!’ he answered; wrapping a huge arm round each. ‘I would have you to know that I am a god, to be treated as such—tho’, by my faith, I fancy I’ve got to go to the guard-room just like a privit soldier.’</p><p> The latter part of the sentence destroyed the suspicions raised by the former. Any one would have been justified in regarding Mulvaney as mad. He was hatless and shoeless, and his shirt and trousers were dropping off him. But he wore one wondrous garment—a gigantic cloak that fell from collar-bone to heel—of pale pink silk, wrought all over in cunningest needlework of hands long since dead, with the loves of the Hindu gods. The monstrous figures leaped in and out of the light of the fire as he settled the folds round him.</p><p> Ortheris handled the stuff respectfully for a moment while I was trying to remember where I had seen it before. Then he screamed, ‘What <i>’ave</i> you done with the palanquin? You’re wearin’ the linin’.’</p><p> ‘I am,’ said the Irishman, ‘an’ by the same token the ’broidery is scrapin’ my hide off. I’ve lived in this sumpshus counterpane for four days. Me son, I begin to ondherstand why the naygur is no use. Widout me boots, an’ me trousies like an openwork stocking on a gyurl’s leg at a dance, I begin to feel like a naygur-man—all fearful an’ timoreous. Give me a pipe an’ I’ll tell on.’</p><p> He lit a pipe, resumed his grip of his two friends, and rocked to and fro in a gale of laughter.</p><p> ‘Mulvaney,’ said Ortheris sternly, ‘’taint no time for laughin’. You’ve given Jock an’ me more trouble than you’re worth. You ’ave been absent without leave an’ you’ll go into cells for that; an’ you ’ave come back disgustin’ly dressed an’ most improper in the linin’ o’ that bloomin’ palanquin. Instid of which you laugh. An’ we thought you was dead all the time.’</p><p> ‘Bhoys,’ said the culprit, still shaking gently, ‘whin I’ve done my tale you may cry if you like, an’ little Orth’ris here can thrample my inside out. Ha’ done an’ listen. My performinces have been stupenjus: my luck has been the blessed luck av the British Army—an’ there’s no betther than that. I went out dhrunk an’ dhrinkin’ in the palanquin, and I have come back a pink god. Did any of you go to Dearsley afther my time was up? He was at the bottom of ut all.’</p><p> ‘Ah said so,’ murmured Learoyd. ‘To-morrow ah’ll smash t’ face in upon his heead.’</p><p> ‘Ye will not. Dearsley’s a jool av a man. Afther Ortheris had put me into the palanquin an’ the six bearer-men were gruntin’ down the road, I tuk thought to mock Dearsley for that fight. So I tould thim, “Go to the embankmint,” and there, bein’ most amazin’ full, I shtuck my head out av the concern an’ passed compliments wid Dearsley. I must ha’ miscalled him outrageous, for whin I am that way the power av the tongue comes on me. I can bare remimber tellin’ him that his mouth opened endways like the mouth av a skate, which was thrue afther Learoyd had handled ut; an’ I clear remimber his takin’ no manner nor matter av offence, but givin’ me a big dhrink of beer. ’Twas the beer did the thrick, for I crawled back into the palanquin, steppin’ on me right ear wid me left foot, an’ thin I slept like the dead. Wanst I half-roused, an’ begad the noise in my head was tremenjus—roarin’ an’ rattlin’ an’ poundin’, such as was quite new to me. “Mother av Mercy,” thinks I, “phwat a concertina I will have on my shoulders whin I wake!” An’ wid that I curls mysilf up to sleep before ut should get hould on me. Bhoys, that noise was not dhrink, ’twas the rattle av a thrain!’</p><p> There followed an impressive pause.</p><p> ‘Yes, he had put me on a thrain—put me, palanquin an’ all, an’ six black assassins av his own coolies that was in his nefarious confidence, on the flat av a ballast-thruck, and we were rowlin’ an’ bowlin’ along to Benares. Glory be that I did not wake up thin an’ introjuce mysilf to the coolies. As I was sayin’, I slept for the betther part av a day an’ a night. But remimber you, that that man Dearsley had packed me off on wan av his material-thrains to Benares, all for to make me overstay my leave an’ get me into the cells.’</p><p> The explanation was an eminently rational one. Benares lay at least ten hours by rail from the cantonments, and nothing in the world could have saved Mulvaney from arrest as a deserter had he appeared there in the apparel of his orgies. Dearsley had not forgotten to take revenge. Learoyd, drawing back a little, began to place soft blows over selected portions of Mulvaney’s body. His thoughts were away on the embankment, and they meditated evil for Dearsley. Mulvaney continued—</p><p> ‘Whin I was full awake the palanquin was set down in a street, I suspicioned, for I cud hear people passin’ an’ talkin’. But I knew well I was far from home. There is a queer smell upon our cantonments—a smell av dried earth and brick-kilns wid whiffs av cavalry stable-litter. This place smelt marigold flowers an’ bad water, an’ wanst somethin’ alive came an’ blew heavy with his muzzle at the chink av the shutter. “It’s in a village I am,” thinks I to mysilf, “an’ the parochial buffalo is investigatin’ the palanquin.” But anyways I had no desire to move. Only lie still whin you’re in foreign parts an’ the standin’ luck av the British Army will carry ye through. That is an epigram. I made ut.</p><p> ‘Thin a lot av whishperin’ divils surrounded the palanquin. “Take ut up,” sez wan man. “But who’ll pay us?” sez another. “The Maharanee’s minister, av coorse,” sez the man. “Oho!” sez I to mysilf, “I’m a quane in me own right, wid a minister to pay me expenses. I’ll be an emperor if I lie still long enough; but this is no village I’ve found.” I lay quiet, but I gummed me right eye to a crack av the shutters, an I saw that the whole street was crammed wid palanquins an’ horses, an’ a sprinklin’ av naked priests all yellow powder an’ tigers’ tails. But I may tell you, Orth’ris, an’ you, Learoyd, that av all the palanquins ours was the most imperial an’ magnificent. Now a palanquin means a native lady all the world over, except whin a soldier av the Quane happens to be takin’ a ride. “Women an’ priests!” sez I. “Your father’s son is in the right pew this time, Terence. There will be proceedin’s.” Six black divils in pink muslin tuk up the palanquin, an’ oh! but the rowlin’ an’ the rockin’ made me sick. Thin we got fair jammed among the palanquins—not more than fifty av them—an’ we grated an’ bumped like Queenstown potato-smacks in a runnin’ tide. I cud hear the women gigglin’ and squirkin’ in their palanquins, but mine was the royal equipage. They made way for ut, an’, begad, the pink muslin men o’ mine were howlin’, “Room for the Maharanee av Gokral-Seetarun.” Do you know aught av the lady, sorr?’</p><p> ‘Yes,’ said I. ‘She is a very estimable old queen of the Central Indian States, and they say she is fat. How on earth could she go to Benares without all the city knowing her palanquin?’</p><p> ‘’Twas the eternal foolishness av the naygur-man. They saw the palanquin lying loneful an’ forlornsome, an’ the beauty av ut, after Dearsley’s men had dhropped ut and gone away, an’ they gave ut the best name that occurred to thim. Quite right too. For aught we know the ould lady was thravellin’ <i>incog</i>—like me. I’m glad to hear she’s fat. I was no light weight mysilf, an’ my men were mortial anxious to dhrop me under a great big archway promiscuously ornamented wid the most improper carvin’s an’ cuttin’s I iver saw. Begad! they made me blush—like a—like a Maharanee.’</p><p> ‘The temple of Prithi-Devi,’ I murmured, remembering the monstrous horrors of that sculptured archway at Benares.</p><p> ‘Pretty Devilskins, savin’ your presence, sorr! There was nothin’ pretty about ut, except me. ’Twas all half dhark, an’ whin the coolies left they shut a big black gate behind av us, an’ half a company av fat yellow priests began pully-haulin’ the palanquins into a dharker place yet—a big stone hall full av pillars, an’ gods, an’ incense, an’ all manner av similar thruck. The gate disconcerted me, for I perceived I wud have to go forward to get out, my retreat bein’ cut off. By the same token a good priest makes a bad palanquin-coolie. Begad! they nearly turned me inside out draggin’ the palanquin to the temple. Now the disposishin av the forces inside was this way. The Maharanee av Gokral-Seetarun—that was me—lay by the favour av Providence on the far left flank behind the dhark av a pillar carved with elephints’ heads. The remainder av the palanquins was in a big half circle facing in to the biggest, fattest, an’ most amazin’ she-god that iver I dreamed av. Her head ran up into the black above us, an’ her feet stuck out in the light av a little fire av melted butter that a priest was feedin’ out av a butter-dish. Thin a man began to sing an’ play on somethin’ back in the dhark, an’ ’twas a queer song. Ut made my hair lift on the back av my neck. Thin the doors av all the palanquins slid back, an’ the women bundled out. I saw what I’ll niver see again. ’Twas more glorious than thransformations at a pantomime, for they was in pink an’ blue an’ silver an’ red an’ grass green, wid dimonds an’ imralds an’ great red rubies all over thim. But that was the least part av the glory. O bhoys, they were more lovely than the like av any loveliness in hiven; ay, their little bare feet were better than the white hands av a lord’s lady, an’ their mouths were like puckered roses, an’ their eyes were bigger an’ dharker than the eyes av any livin’ women I’ve seen. Ye may laugh, but I’m speakin’ truth. I niver saw the like, an’ niver I will again.’</p><p> ‘Seeing that in all probability you were watching the wives and daughters of most of the kings of India, the chances are that you won’t,’ I said, for it was dawning on me that Mulvaney had stumbled upon a big Queens’ Praying at Benares.</p><p> ‘I niver will,’ he said mournfully. ‘That sight doesn’t come twist to any man. It made me ashamed to watch. A fat priest knocked at my door. I didn’t think he’d have the insolince to disturb the Maharanee av Gokral-Seetarun, so I lay still. “The old cow’s asleep,” sez he to another. “Let her be,” sez that. “’Twill be long before she has a calf!” I might ha’ known before he spoke that all a woman prays for in Injia—an’ for matter o’ that in England to—is childher. That made me more sorry I’d come, me bein’, as you well know, a childless man.’</p><p> He was silent for a moment, thinking of his little son, dead many years ago.</p><p> ‘They prayed, an’ the butter-fires blazed up, an’ the incense turned everything blue, an’ between that an’ the fires the women looked as tho’ they were all ablaze an’ twinklin’. They took hold av the she- god’s knees, they cried out an’ they threw themselves about, an’ that world-without-end-amen music was dhrivin’ thim mad. Mother av Hiven! how they cried, an’ the ould she-god grinni’ above thim all so scornful! The dhrink was dyin’ out in me fast, an’ I was thinkin’ harder than the thoughts wud go through my head—thinkin’ how to get out, an’ all manner of nonsense as well. The women were rockin’ in rows, their di’mond belts clickin’, an’ the tears runnin’ out betune their hands, an’ the lights were goin’ lower an’ dharker. Thin there was a blaze like lightnin’ from the roof, an’ that showed me the inside av the palanquin, an’ at the end where my foot was, stood the livin’ spit an’ image o’ mysilf worked on the linin’. This man here, ut was.’</p><p> He hunted in the folds of his pink cloak, ran a hand under one, and thrust into the firelight a foot-long embroidered presentment of the great god Krishna, playing on a flute. The heavy jowl, the staring eye, and the blue-black moustache of the god made up a far-off resemblance to Mulvaney.</p><p> ‘The blaze was gone in a wink, but the whole schame came to me thin. I believe I was mad too. I slid the off-shutter open an’ rowled out into the dhark behind the elephint-head pillar, tucked up my trousies to my knees, slipped off my boots an’ tuk a general hould av all the pink linin’ av the palanquin. Glory be, ut ripped out like a woman’s dhriss when you tread on ut at a sergeants’ ball, an’ a bottle came with ut. I tuk the bottle an’ the next minut I was out av the dhark av the pillar, the pink linin’ wrapped round me most graceful, the music thunderin’ like kettledrums, an’ a could draft blowin’ round my bare legs. By this hand that did ut, I was Krishna tootlin’ on the flute—the god that the rig’mental chaplain talks about. A sweet sight I must ha’ looked. I knew my eyes were big, and my face was wax-white, an’ at the worst I must ha’ looked like a ghost. But they took me for the livin’ god. The music stopped, and the women were dead dumb, an’ I crooked my legs like a shepherd on a china basin, an’ I did the ghost-waggle with my feet as I had done ut at the rig’ mental theatre many times, an’ I slid acrost the width av that temple in front av the she-god tootlin’ on the beer bottle.’</p><p> ‘Wot did you toot?’ demanded Ortheris the practical.</p><p> ‘Me? Oh!’ Mulvaney sprang up, suiting the action to the word, and sliding gravely in front of us, a dilapidated but imposing deity in the half light. ‘I sang—</p><p><br /></p><p>‘Only say</p><p>You’ll be Mrs. Brallaghan.</p><p>Don’t say nay,</p><p>Charmin Judy Callaghan.</p><p><br /></p><p>I didn’t know me own voice when I sang. An’ oh! ’twas pitiful to see the women. The darlin’s were down on their faces. Whin I passed the last wan I cud see her poor little fingers workin’ one in another as if she wanted to touch my feet. So I dhrew the tail av this pink overcoat over her head for the greater honour, an’ I slid into the dhark on the other side av the temple, and fetched up in the arms av a big fat priest. All I wanted was to get away clear. So I tuk him by his greasy throat an’ shut the speech out av him. “Out!” sez I. “Which way, ye fat heathen?”—“Oh!” sez he. “Man,” sez I. “White man, soldier man, common soldier man. Where in the name av confusion is the back door?” The women in the temple were still on their faces, an’ a young priest was holdin’ out his arms above their heads.</p><p> ‘“This way,” sez my fat friend, duckin’ behind a big bull-god an’ divin’ into a passage. Thin I remimbered that I must ha’ made the miraculous reputation av that temple for the next fifty years. “Not so fast,” I sez, an’ I held out both my hands wid a wink. That ould thief smiled like a father. I tuk him by the back av the neck in case he should be wishful to put a knife into me unbeknowst, an’ I ran him up an’ down the passage twice to collect his sensibilities! “Be quiet,” sez he, in English. “Now you talk sense,” I sez. “Fwhat’ll you give me for the use av that most iligant palanquin I have no time to take away?”—“Don’t tell,” sez he. “Is ut like?” sez I. “But ye might give me my railway fare. I’m far from my home an’ I’ve done you a service.” Bhoys, ’tis a good thing to be a priest. The ould man niver throubled himself to dhraw from a bank. As I will prove to you subsequint, he philandered all round the slack av his clothes an’ began dribblin’ ten-rupee notes, old gold mohurs, and rupees into my hand till I could hould no more.’</p><p> ‘You lie!’ said Ortheris. ‘You’re mad or sunstrook. A native don’t give coin unless you cut it out o’ ’im. ’Tain’t nature.’</p><p> ‘Then my lie an’ my sunstroke is concealed under that lump av sod yonder,’ retorted Mulvaney unruffled, nodding across the scrub. ‘An’ there’s a dale more in nature than your squidgy little legs have iver taken you to, Orth’ris, me son. Four hundred an’ thirty-four rupees by my reckonin’, <i>an’</i> a big fat gold necklace that I took from him as a remimbrancer, was our share in that business.’</p><p> ‘An’ ’e give it you for love?’ said Ortheris.</p><p> ‘We were alone in that passage. Maybe I was a trifle too pressin’, but considher fwhat I had done for the good av the temple and the iverlastin’ joy av those women. ’Twas cheap at the price. I wud ha’ taken more if I cud ha’ found ut. I turned the ould man upside down at the last, but he was milked dhry. Thin he opened a door in another passage an’ I found mysilf up to my knees in Benares river-water, an’ bad smellin’ ut is. More by token I had come out on the river-line close to the burnin’ ghat and contagious to a cracklin’ corpse. This was in the heart av the night, for I had been four hours in the temple. There was a crowd av boats tied up, so I tuk wan an’ wint across the river. Thin I came home acrost country, lyin’ up by day.’</p><p> ‘How on earth did you manage?’ I said.</p><p> ‘How did Sir Frederick Roberts get from Cabul to Candahar? He marched an’ he niver tould how near he was to breakin’ down. That’s why he is fwhat he is. An’ now—’ Mulvaney yawned portentously. ‘Now I will go an’ give myself up for absince widout leave. It’s eight an’ twenty days an’ the rough end of the colonel’s tongue in orderly room, any way you look at ut. But ’tis cheap at the price.’</p><p> ‘Mulvaney,’ said I softly. ‘If there happens to be any sort of excuse that the colonel can in any way accept, I have a notion that you’ll get nothing more than the dressing-down. The new recruits are in, and—’</p><p> ‘Not a word more, sorr. Is ut excuses the old man wants? ’Tis not my way, but he shall have thim. I’ll tell him I was engaged in financial operations connected wid a church,’ and he flapped his way to cantonments and the cells, singing lustily—</p><p><br /></p><p>’So they sent a corp’ril’s file,</p><p>And they put me in the gyard-room</p><p>For conduck unbecomin’ of a soldier.’</p><p><br /></p><p> And when he was lost in the mist of the moonlight we could hear the refrain—</p><p><br /></p><p>‘Bang upon the big drum, bash upon the cymbals,</p><p>As we go marchin’ along, boys, oh!</p><p>For although in this campaign</p><p>There’s no whisky or champaign,</p><p>We’ll keep our spirits goin’ with a song, boys!’</p><p><br /></p><p> Therewith he surrendered himself to the joyful and almost weeping guard, and was made much of by his fellows. But to the colonel he said that he had been smitten with sunstroke and had lain insensible on a villager’s cot for untold hours; and between laughter and goodwill the affair was smoothed over, so that he could, next day, teach the new recruits how to ‘Fear God, Honour the Queen, Shoot Straight, and Keep Clean.’</p><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">THE END</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu3cwpIhLnpCiEy-CJux1p3NWcVHr2CyZOaq0SYk502PCNq5jBkyIhWgU1DNM1V6dmDE-Cn_ueMxsW4MSY8ADpxKEKD5cixKLiRaTdnut5FJIHLUT1_YweI4Gg5bAntLAUa6IHcoI2xzuQiKabgdYZS_b8CBxmm3hIcys3PB36RC2iZeGU6jPg212c/s1412/Krishna%20Mulvaney.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1124" data-original-width="1412" height="510" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu3cwpIhLnpCiEy-CJux1p3NWcVHr2CyZOaq0SYk502PCNq5jBkyIhWgU1DNM1V6dmDE-Cn_ueMxsW4MSY8ADpxKEKD5cixKLiRaTdnut5FJIHLUT1_YweI4Gg5bAntLAUa6IHcoI2xzuQiKabgdYZS_b8CBxmm3hIcys3PB36RC2iZeGU6jPg212c/w640-h510/Krishna%20Mulvaney.png" width="640" /></a></div>Paññobhāsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14148206217028034038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8485583244199236996.post-50315176554496951322023-04-16T17:26:00.005-07:002023-04-22T17:02:31.995-07:00On Pedophiles, Sexual Predators, and the Dalai Lama<p><br /></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><p><i> We’d be sitting outside and Maharajji would pull my hands under the blanket and make me massage his legs, almost pulling me under the blanket. I loved touching him, but I was not sure how far you can go in touching Maharajji. I’d be working on his feet and calves, and he’d grab my arm and pull my hand up to his thigh. So I’d do his thighs for a little bit and then my hands would start wandering down to his calves again, because all of a sudden I’d look around and see all these people staring at me. An Indian woman would be gasping, and I’d get real embarrassed, so I’d start working on his feet again. Then his hand would come sliding down and grab mine and pull it up again.</i></p><p><i> He would often perform this puzzling ritual with me. And if I tried to explain it to myself, no sooner would I have the thought than he’d turn to me and yell “Nahin!” </i>[No!]<i> and then go on with his conversation.</i></p><p><i> —</i>testimony of a western hippie chick disciple of Neem Karoli Baba, from<i> Miracle of Love: Stories about Neem Karoli Baba</i>, compiled by Ram Dass</p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p> I assume most of you have heard of the Dalai Lama’s recent “Biden moment,” even if you haven’t seen the strange video. I wasn’t planning on writing about this incident, but lately I have been exposed to various comments on it which are of greater anthropological interest to me than an old Tibetan lama inviting a small child to suck his tongue. Many of the comments are to the effect that the Dalai Lama has finally outed himself as a sexual predator and pervert, that he is not spiritual or knowledgeable regarding Buddhism because he is little more than a politician and tool of the globalist establishment, and so on. Most if not all of the comments like this are from people who never liked the Dalai Lama, or the Gelugpa sect of Tibetan Buddhism, much anyway. The strange invitation to tongue-sucking simply confirmed what they suspected all along.</p><p> My response to such reactions, if I give one, tend to be along the lines of this: It is best to give people the benefit of the doubt, and especially saints, sages, and people with a reputation for being such. Anyone familiar with Pali suttas may know that bashing a genuine saint is the road to hell; and it is often difficult to tell whether a person is a genuine saint or not. Not all saints appear to have perfect virtue.</p><p> It is something to consider, I think, that there has not been a wave of #metoo types coming forward with similar tales of the Dalai Lama kissing them inappropriately or making strange invitations (in public or in private) to suck his tongue. As far as I know this is pretty much of a one-off, and, as I say giving the benefit of the doubt, I might hypothesize that the Dalai Lama likes kids, he kissed the boy innocently, he then stuck out his tongue at the boy (which I understand it some kind of Tibetan traditional thing), and then, possibly because he’s in his late eighties, he had a weird idea of making a childish joke to the child, which of course bombed outrageously. Even if I’m wrong, without further evidence that he’s a sexual predator on children or anyone else, I think it is a more prudent hypothesis than reviling the man as some sort of immoral or amoral scum. It is, after all, spiritually dangerous to revile a holy man.</p><p> And some holy men, or sages, or realized beings, are alleged even by their own followers of having committed unsaintly behavior of a sexual nature. Even setting aside the escapades of people like Jiddu Krishnamurti and “Osho” Rajneesh, consider the behavior of Lord Krishna, revered by tens or hundreds of millions of Vaishnavite Hindus as a manifestation of Vishnu, their supreme God. Not only did he have an illicit affair with the fair Radha, but there was also the incident with the five hundred cowherd girls, no doubt many of whom were teenagers (considering that cowherd girls do indeed tend to be young unmarried women or girls)—Lord Krishna, a manifestation of God mind you, multiplied his body into five hundred bodies and fornicated with all five hundred girls simultaneously. Nowadays in the west this would be considered an act of sexual predation, and Krishna would be “outed” as a kind of rapist. And we may as well not even bring up the case of Muhammad.</p><p> The thing is, other cultures than ours have different standards with regard to what is appropriate. Raping female prisoners of war was a common occurrence in premodern times, and was considered to be one of the plain facts about warfare…and I think I may have accidentally brought up Muhammad on that one, as well as the Old Testament Israelites. This, however, does not make it right, and I’m certainly not endorsing rape, or even warfare.</p><p> But just consider one of the main taboos of postmodern America: pedophilia. Mere accusations of pedophilia are enough to ruin a man’s career and reputation. But the fact is that for most of our existence as a species, a human female was considered sexually mature after puberty, as is the case with all other species of animal on this planet. That’s what puberty is: the transition from relatively asexual child to sexual adult—at least in the realm of Biology. One may argue that humans rely heavily on culture, less so on instinct, and so human females, though biologically adults are still psychologically children until they are eighteen or so. That is a fair argument, and one that for all I know is perfectly valid.</p><p> The fact remains, though, that throughout the world, including in the west not very long ago, it was common, maybe even accepted as “right,” that an older man already set up in life would seek out a teenage girl for the purpose of marriage. I have been told that in the deep south during the nineteenth century the “correct” age for a man was twice the age of his bride <i>plus seven years</i>; so the “correct” age for a sixteen-year-old girl’s husband would be 39. Nowadays this also would be called pedophilia, though at the time it was considered quite normal and no outrage at all. Hell, my own grandfather, an ordained Baptist minister and by all accounts a sensitive, intelligent, and good man, was twenty years older than my grandmother, and married her when she was fresh out of high school. That would make him a pedophile by today’s somewhat hysterical standards…though, as I say, back then it was fine.</p><p> Ancient India was no different, including ancient India in the Buddha’s time. In the suttas when a woman is described as at the peak of attractiveness she is about fifteen years old. It has been the tradition in India since ancient times for older men to marry much younger women.</p><p> An illustrative example is the Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana, probably best known for its descriptions of various sex positions and practices. Probably the most useful part of the book for modern western men is the chapter on seducing the wives of other men—not because it explains how to seduce married women, but because it explains how to woo <i>an adult woman</i>. The sections on how to court a prospective bride describe methods of ingratiating oneself with, and gaining the trust of, a twelve-year-old pubescent and “nubile” girl. But of course the purpose was to marry the girl, not simply to seduce and dump her. THAT was considered immoral even in ancient India.</p><p> My own view, which is strongly influenced by Biology and a knowledge of history and foreign cultures, is that a human female becomes a sexually mature woman, physically at least, at puberty or a little after, and a man with honorable intentions (i.e. marriage) is not necessarily a pedophile if he courts a teenage girl. Raping or seducing and then dumping ANYONE is immoral, which should be fairly obvious. So it seems to me that actual pedophilia would technically involve sexual attraction and desire for prepubescent children. It is best, though, in most cases I think, to conform to the sexual mores of one’s culture. But I will not apply today’s (somewhat hysterical) standards to ancient times, or to a hundred years ago, or to cultures that are innocent of “progressive” feminism and cancel culture. The appropriate minimum age for a human female to engage in sexual relations, or to marry, is predominantly a cultural construct—though biologically having sex with a girl who has not made the transition through puberty would be unnatural as well as immoral.</p><p> With regard to people who may read this and instantly accuse yours truly of defending pedophilia and thereby being a pedophile, pervert, and sexual predator myself, I would just observe that the only time I ever had sexual relations with a teenage girl was when I was a teenager myself, and I have never been tempted to “make moves” on a teenage girl since then. I can acknowledge that a teenage girl is very pretty, and I can even acknowledge that a female toddler or infant is beautiful; but acknowledging a person’s beauty is not the same as wanting to have sex with that person. Personally, I would not be opposed to capital punishment for someone who has sex with a prepubescent child, and I am willing to allow each society to decide what age AFTER puberty is an appropriate age for a girl to marry. And I certainly am NOT inclined to condemn my own grandfather, as well as someone like Neem Karoli Baba or even J. Krishnamurti, to hell just because they acted in a very human manner. Also I am not inclined to condemn the Dalai Lama for kissing a small boy, sticking his tongue out at him, and strangely asking him if he wanted to suck it. After all we are all human, and who the hell knows what is appropriate in Tibet.</p><p> </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQsX0buA_bjxTFeDdsXHyzd4GQ0JzPOuSixzh9VhCdvwg-5cSwcxn4P1k2JuSs7PxhHTgZuUavWJ2DBtkgZs7k2IUlRj5Pxmhs9TL9PDX0If8GzMNKViPC8uKITlmhyu85SqI5EjIw8Lvv5OxzqbCpSCsd35amx3pkyaOOJsB2S-Qk-FXo6RTqFMlM/s596/dalai%20lama%20and%20Biden.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="392" data-original-width="596" height="420" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQsX0buA_bjxTFeDdsXHyzd4GQ0JzPOuSixzh9VhCdvwg-5cSwcxn4P1k2JuSs7PxhHTgZuUavWJ2DBtkgZs7k2IUlRj5Pxmhs9TL9PDX0If8GzMNKViPC8uKITlmhyu85SqI5EjIw8Lvv5OxzqbCpSCsd35amx3pkyaOOJsB2S-Qk-FXo6RTqFMlM/w640-h420/dalai%20lama%20and%20Biden.png" width="640" /></a></div>Paññobhāsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14148206217028034038noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8485583244199236996.post-37767561812561293382023-04-09T15:49:00.000-07:002023-04-09T15:49:09.110-07:00The Limitations of an Analogy: Late Republic or Late Empire?<p><br /></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>Tiberius’ re-election bid “presented the Scipionic group with an issue to use against their political enemies”; at the electoral <u>comitia</u> counting the votes for the tribunes for 132 BC, Tiberius and his entourage were attacked by a mob led by his first cousin Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica, the pontifex maximus. Scipio Nasica first attempted to get consul Publius Mucius Scaevola to kill Gracchus during a senate meeting on Gracchus’ imminent re-election; when the consul refused, saying he would not use force or kill a citizen without trial, Scipio Nasica shouted a formula for levying soldiers in an emergency—“anyone who wants the community secure, follow me”—and led a mob to the comitia with his toga drawn over his head. In doing so, he attempted to enact an “ancient religious ritual killing (<u>consecratio</u>) … presumably on the grounds that [Gracchus] was trying to seize power and overthrow the existing republic.” Tiberius and his supporters fell without resistance; slain by stones and other blunt weapons, their bodies were thrown into the Tiber. This opposition was political: Gracchus’ land reforms “may have been acceptable,” but not when combined with his seeming threats “to make the urban populace and the small peasants his personal <u>clientelae</u>.”</i> —from the Wikipedia article on Tiberius Gracchus</blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><p> More than once in this blog I have compared the USA to ancient Rome—to both the Republic and the later Empire. I would guess that, assuming rebirth to be a fact, a great many Americans had previous existences as inhabitants of the Roman state. (Edgar Cayce also declared that many Americans were Roman in at least one previous life, though I suppose that's hardly conclusive evidence.) There are many resemblances between ancient Rome and modern America, including the Decline and Fall aspects which are becoming more obvious by the year; and so I would venture to say that American society is a kind of reincarnation of Roman society.</p><p> Some scholars, like Sir John Glubb in his famous essay “The Fate of Empires,” have divided the history of ancient Rome into two separate “empires,” the Republic and the Empire proper, and some use this to help account for the fact that Rome’s greatness lasted about twice as long as most famous great powers such as Persia, the Arabian Empire, colonialist Spain, and the Ottoman Empire. This might help to compare America with Rome, as there are two Romes which overlap to some degree, and America, going with the analogy, could represent a condensed modern version of both simultaneously. But still it is hard to say at this point which Rome present-day America more closely resembles. The only thing that is clear is that America today resembles both versions of Rome when they were near collapse, or at least in the Decline stage.</p><p> Lately, with the continued relentless persecution of Donald Trump, obviously motivated by nothing but cutthroat politics, we appear to be in the early stages of the civil war phase of the late American Republic. This period began for Rome very shortly after the end of the Punic Wars, a war for survival and dominance between Rome and Carthage. Our semi-equivalent to this began shortly after the Cold War, our struggle for survival and dominance with Soviet Russia. Apparently struggles for survival against an obvious foreign enemy tends to unify a nation, and when that struggle ceases the forces of chaos and decay can be unleashed with a vengeance. The Punic Wars ended in 146 BC.</p><p> A notable early event in this period for Rome was the rise and assassination of the Gracchi brothers Tiberius and Gaius, who died in 133 BCE and 121 BCE respectively. They were populist reformers who were seen as a threat to the senatorial class, and the elder was murdered in the street, as described in the opening quote to this essay. Gaius, who attempted to further his elder brother’s work as Tribune (official defender of the rights of the lower classes), had martial law declared against him, and he died under siege in a temple of Diana, with the city militia and some Cretan mercenaries offered the weight of his head in gold.</p><p> Possibly the next famous stage in the collapse of the Roman Republic was the rise of Gaius Marius, uncle of Julius Caesar. He also was a populist reformer who fell afoul of the senatorial ruling class, although he himself was a member of it. Although immensely popular with the masses he was opposed by many Patricians, and political misfortunes, including a revolt of several Italian states in the early 90s BCE, caused him to become vulnerable politically. Eventually a more “conservative” Patrician general, Sulla, essentially invaded Italy with his legions, drove Marius into exile, purged/killed most of his closest relatives and supporters (with a young Julius Caesar surviving only because he was a child at the time), and eventually culminating in a reverse, with Marius coming out of exile with his own army and purging in return the supporters of Sulla. Rome was in severe distress during these times, partly because so many of the rulers of both factions had been murdered by their opponents. All this set the stage for the first Triumvirate and the “permanent” dictatorship of Julius Caesar, and after the civil war following his assassination, the end of the Republic and the first Emperor, Caesar’s nephew and adopted son Octavianus, better known as Augustus Caesar.</p><p> So the increasingly brazen and shameless persecutions of Republicans by the increasingly reckless and Marxist Democrats, especially with regard to Donald Trump, a former President and the current Republican frontrunner for the Presidency, certainly does remind one of the increasingly brazen and violent assassinations and purges of the late Roman Republic. But we are living in less brutal times, and the persecutors are rather decadent and effeminate, and so we may never reach the level of bloodshed the Romans endured. Now the purges are conducted through economic punishments and politicized show trials.</p><p> Also, despite the mass die-off of politicians in those ancient days, Rome was still in a state of vigorous expansion and elemental vitality. It was during these same decades that Rome grew from mainly an Italian nation to an empire comprising most of western and southern Europe, western Asia, and most of northern Africa. America clearly does NOT resemble Rome in this respect, as we are clearly in severe decline militarily, depending not on mercenaries like the late Empire did, but on soft, “woke” indoctrinated zoomers using advanced technology. The disastrous fiasco of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, with the Biden administration lying their arses off and calling it a “brilliant success,” is indicative of our current state of military power. Let alone the fact that our Commander in Chief is a feeble, senile old man who fondles children, doesn’t even know what state he’s in half the time, and is a laughingstock to our enemies.</p><p> So with respect to our decline in vitality and strength, not just the blatantly increasing political corruption and internal strife, we appear already to be in some rough equivalent to the late Empire, say, the latter half of the fourth century, if not later. This was a time of decline mainly in the sense of economic hardship and demoralization of the people, in addition to the occasional civil war or barbarian invasion. Instead of fanatical Christians hating on their own country and traditions and cheering on the fall, now we have fanatical neo-Marxists doing the same, except without a realistic semblance of an actual moral high ground. Our new progressive movement considers certain types of moral degeneracy to be a positive virtue. And I can’t resist repeating Gibbon’s observation, what was apparently common knowledge among historians in his day, that the rise of eunuchs into social prominence is a sure-fire indication of a civilization in severe decline—except now, of course, we call the eunuchs something else, like “non-binary” or “trans.”</p><p> Add to this the severe devaluation of the currency and a number of feeble and/or incompetent Emperors (someone like Honorius possibly being a rough equivalent to our Mr. Biden), and a massive influx of foreign “barbarians,” many of whom were granted permission by a thoroughly mediocre Emperor (in this case Valens) to settle “peacefully” on Roman territory, and a growing menace sweeping westwards from the general area of China (the Roman version being called Huns), and it may be that the USA has pretty much skipped over the intermediate stages and gone from healthy Republic to Decline and Fall of the Empire. There was a Pax Americana I suppose, named after the Pax Romanum of the time of the competent and conscientious emperors from Nerva to Marcus Aurelius, and America didn’t have to wait for military dictatorship to become a huge empire and the most powerful nation on earth, but still, it appears we’re not going to last nearly as long as Rome did as a world power. We may still have our Byzantine stage, however, of neo-Marxist (not Christian) dictators ruling a herd of demoralized sheep for a further thousand years, but I’m not looking forward to it.</p><p> So with regard to the question of where we are compared to where Rome was, I still have to say that we are superimposed over each of the two phases of our ancient predecessor: we’re entering the political and civil strife of the later Republic, with presumably some moral degeneracy resulting from the fabulous wealth it accrued by conquering enemies like Carthage, but also with the economic decline, demoralization, and feebleness of government and military that caused the eventual collapse of the Latin half of the Empire. It all just goes to show that analogies have their limitations, and that history may not repeat itself, but nevertheless, history is the product of human nature, human nature (denied by the left lately) remains essentially the same, and thus the same themes play themselves out again and again, over the centuries and millennia.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH02U_gksHQ2Csl_tRQOzDU38kWzMF6RGj4k_2AeV1kJoUVjq-ZQb1Dc6lm1AweGpbu6b9BZ8iu0BreUdWe-FfV1RwKFKCSHdDC1DMLITMZk8WP5GXgbx8f3Qkc4nFrtT7lZw6w361ZWiaRoZ2ODzggtnMvoHiDhFVphAd9yfagnZVGSu3153x-8MY/s1285/julian%20quote%20meme.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="1285" height="348" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH02U_gksHQ2Csl_tRQOzDU38kWzMF6RGj4k_2AeV1kJoUVjq-ZQb1Dc6lm1AweGpbu6b9BZ8iu0BreUdWe-FfV1RwKFKCSHdDC1DMLITMZk8WP5GXgbx8f3Qkc4nFrtT7lZw6w361ZWiaRoZ2ODzggtnMvoHiDhFVphAd9yfagnZVGSu3153x-8MY/w640-h348/julian%20quote%20meme.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>Paññobhāsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14148206217028034038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8485583244199236996.post-41037352318069633782023-03-26T17:39:00.001-07:002023-03-27T05:25:54.496-07:00So What about Archaic Buddhism<p><br /></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>assaddho akataññū ca / sandhicchedo ca yo naro // hatāvakāso vantāso / sa ve uttamaporiso //</i></blockquote><p></p><p></p><blockquote>The man who is faithless, ungrateful, a burglar, who destroys opportunities and eats vomit—he, truly, is the highest of men. (the “dark side” or alternate interpretation of Dhammapada verse 97, which consists of a series of rascally plays on words)</blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p> Some of you may have noticed that I uploaded <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlQvnxQeU64" target="_blank">a video</a> recently on the Viyuha Suttas of the Sutta Nipata, with some commentary on the suttas and on the Atthakavagga in general. Some of you may also have noticed that below it in the comments a viewer left the following comment: </p><p><br /></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>Don't you think we have to start with the beginning not the end. The end is freedom from suffering. The verses you quote describe the mind of someone having reached the goal. Yet a beginner has a deluded mind. He is not able to understand the true meaning behind the words. The Suttas provide a clear "system" to achieve the goal. To start with "nothing is real" and trying to get there by reading a waterproof copy of your translation on a mountain top - I don't think such approach will work. I hope you do not advocate it. There is only one truth, of course, but the approach to realise it maybe can be manyfold. Why not follow the Buddha's teaching as transmitted in the Suttas? It's a simple teaching of do and don't. Plus perseverance, patience and trust. And NO distraction with building, teaching, studying, lecturing etc.</i></blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><p>In response to this I left the following comment:</p><p><br /></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>The Atthakavagga was not intended for beginners. The early Sangha consisted mostly of veterans to the Holy Life. Also, it would be pointless to give instruction in suttas to people who are already enlightened. You can find fault with the method of the Atthakavagga, but the point remains that it is very likely a better representation of what early Buddhism taught than the established system of Theravada.</i></blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><p>Since then I’ve been thinking of this shortish interchange (though the commenter left a response to my response which will be quoted a little later on), and it seems to bring up two issues: first, why teach archaic Buddhism or even try to find out what archaic Buddhism was like; and second, why did early Buddhists move away from teachings like those in the Atthakavagga? These two issues can be combined into a larger issue, or rather naturally overlap into one, namely: why would a corrupt or watered down tradition be preferable to the original teachings of an enlightened teacher? I will wrangle with these issues separately, more or less.</p><p> First, why shouldn’t we just do as the commenter suggested and stay with the established and orthodox system of Theravada Buddhism, even though there is considerable evidence that it does not reliably represent what the historical Gotama Buddha actually taught?</p><p> In the Buddha’s time, according to the ancient tradition, many of the Buddha’s hearers were “ripe” for enlightenment. One theory for this is that true Dhamma had just very recently been rediscovered, so many beings had made it as far as possible without Dhamma established in the world, and so all they needed was an enlightened teacher to give the final nudge to send them over the edge of Samsara, so to speak. Also, the Buddha’s time in northern India was apparently a time of great spiritual ferment and fervor, with heroic and/or desperate men trying as hard as they possibly could to attain the Ultimate.</p><p> But now of course most Buddhists would qualify as beginners, even some who have been believing practitioners for decades—hell, even a great many renowned teachers are essentially beginners in Dhamma. Thus teaching very advanced Dhamma designed to help advanced practitioners release themselves from Samsara would, as our commenter suggested, be almost useless for the average Buddhist of today. Even most monks are not the homeless wandering ascetics portrayed in texts like the Atthakavagga.</p><p> (Many Mahayanists like the Pure Land types, let alone some orthodox Theravadins, don’t even care if their tradition was really taught by the historical Buddha. They take it as a matter of faith or else, if they are more educated perhaps, they just don’t care all that much and follow the system anyway, using arguments like, “Well, the historical Buddha didn’t teach it but it’s true anyway and that makes it a teaching of Buddha regardless.”)</p><p> It makes a great deal of sense to have a two-tiered system, with advanced practitioners practicing full-time for the attainment of the Ultimate, and the majority supporting their efforts and making more modest efforts just to attain a better, more comfortable position in Samsara. This was how Buddhism was set up fairly early on in its history. But, as I have noted, even many monastics nowadays are beginners or even worse, not intent upon enlightenment but just filling a social niche in a Buddhist culture. Also, this two-tiered approach is anathema to possibly the majority of western Buddhists, some of whom are downright offended by the very existence of strenuously practicing monastics because it causes their own lukewarmness and mediocrity to seem not good enough somehow. Americans want equality (not to mention the new lefties who insist on equality of outcome), and advanced full-time practitioners receiving homage and support from lay Buddhists are too far beyond the masses for Buddhist masses of America especially to feel very comfortable with that.</p><p> Most Buddhists evidently prefer something easier to grasp and to follow than teachings so high that they cause disorientation—and disorientation can be <i>scary</i>. People want something that they can grasp, even though, as the Atthakavagga clearly teaches, what can be grasped is not the Goal, or anything resembling the Goal…which more or less leads us to the second issue stated above.</p><p> I observed years ago in one of my best-received essays (now I don’t even remember which one), the Buddha led his followers to the edge of a cliff, and shortly after he disappeared off that edge less wise Buddhists began backpeddling and justifying the keeping of a safe distance from the edge of the world. They did this largely through philosophizing about the nature of the world, and of the edge of it. Finally this became too obvious, and philosophers like Nagarjuna led Buddhists back to the edge again…only for Nagarjuna’s own successors to begin justifying backing away from the Abyss and contenting themselves with intellectual philosophy and the writing of elegant poetry. This is the history of Buddhism in general: it reaches full flower at the very edge of Samsara, and then rather quickly degenerates into teaching about the nature of the edge from a safe distance…not even to mention what is happening in the west, where the edge is forgotten or dismissed in favor of such samsaric and irrelevant issues as queerness and white privilege.</p><p> The Atthakavagga could be, as some scholars suggest, an early set of teachings from a time when, yes indeed, most of the Buddha’s disciples were veterans to the asceticism of the ancient Indian Holy Life; yet when the Buddha’s teachings became more well known and popular he was required to teach, in his own lifetime, more elementary Dhamma to monks who were newly leaving the home life and also to lay supporters who had never left it. There may be some truth to this, which would do much to remove the notion of corruption in the later orthodox tradition, considering how far that tradition deviates from the radical teachings of “believe nothing, cling to nothing” found in the oldest strata of the Pali texts.</p><p> But even setting that possibility aside, an important point that I made in the video is that, without structure, without a coherent set of doctrines and lists of do’s and don’t’s, any spiritual system will go into rapid decline after the death of its inspired and charismatic founder. Some systems may be fortunate enough that there is a sequence of wise and charismatic leaders for a time, but it really cannot last for very long without deliberate structure to stabilize it.</p><p> So in order for Buddhism or any other system to survive for more than a few decades, it must be ordered and regimented and unified into a more or less coherent and elegant whole…even though the Atthakavagga teaches that such order, especially if taken seriously, is a hindrance to enlightenment. But as I say, most Buddhists aren’t striving whole-heartedly for enlightenment anyhow, and would probably run from it if it was offered to them on a platter. Enlightenment is a kind of death within the context of Samsara and delusion, and it is SCARY even to many who are ostensibly striving for it. The Atthakavagga can be a little scary too.</p><p> So, we necessarily wind up with a system that can persist in Samsara, and which appeals to samsaric minds. Those who are intent upon enlightenment, really intent and resolved upon it, may have some of the established system serving as obstacles, and they may make progress partly because of and partly in spite of the orthodox system; but some, I trust, make it to the Goal anyway. It is a sobering thought that all we have to do is look at the success rate of Theravada Buddhism, or any other school of Buddhism, or any other school of spirituality, and we find that a tiny fraction of 1% really succeed, assuming that any do, at getting enlightened. That does not indicate the true spirit of what the Buddha taught, but rather something inferior to that which nevertheless can survive in Samsara for more than 2000 years.</p><p> There is much wisdom in Buddhism even today, and I really do not want bash the Dhamma and Vinaya as found in the Pali Canon—I owe a great deal to it—but the fact remains that it is no longer <i>reliably</i> what the Buddha really taught. My guess is that teachings in the established, orthodox tradition that accurately represent what Gotama Buddha taught his followers in the Ganges Valley would amount to well under half of the content of the Tipitaka, possibly less than 20%. But if you are wise, and ripe, you can find what you need there.</p><p> Anyway, as promised, here is the commenter’s reply to my reply:</p><p><br /></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>Thank you. I absolutely agree with you that what you tried to point at represents the “true” spirit of the teaching. I am just worried that those who watch the video might think it’s enough to just establish such a mind and that’s it. First it’s very difficult and second if one “succeeds” it’s done in the wrong way as it can be seen in people who give a sh.. about anything. Maybe you should have talked a bit more about the context those wise words should be taken up. Not many people tried as hard as you. Although you have not found what you hoped to find at least you have acquired the necessary knowledge in theory and practice without which no success at all will come. The path is blood sweat and tears and we don’t know when the end of the tunnel will be reached. So please forgive my comment but a teaching like that to an unprepared heart destroys more than it helps if not presented in a context of the practice which is based upon rules in order to help to tame the unruly mind. Being the times as they are sentences like you quoted can be like water on the mills of a generation without values or guidelines how to live a wholesome life. To criticise the Sangha, although Burmese, in such strong words might backfire. Look what happened to the Catholic Church …</i></blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc8bsbeF2lUBOhCrQJLSUbc_pmq_PEJTR_GgInGbBsUhskemxCeHSQ3_2ugZcaWiJ7u-0mCuXi7e2tCbjOF6jVuGXC_vd99Vqbz8y_EiuIfgJgdPrO7rS5GTghgjyicpK8W27pSIhpZ2D0aB-86PQ4S_ok89RLYfkmXyjcZ_UNiz5j6mNPVyfd5Dqs/s2731/first%20sermon.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1788" data-original-width="2731" height="420" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc8bsbeF2lUBOhCrQJLSUbc_pmq_PEJTR_GgInGbBsUhskemxCeHSQ3_2ugZcaWiJ7u-0mCuXi7e2tCbjOF6jVuGXC_vd99Vqbz8y_EiuIfgJgdPrO7rS5GTghgjyicpK8W27pSIhpZ2D0aB-86PQ4S_ok89RLYfkmXyjcZ_UNiz5j6mNPVyfd5Dqs/w640-h420/first%20sermon.png" width="640" /></a></div>Paññobhāsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14148206217028034038noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8485583244199236996.post-82473949776362359142023-03-19T19:28:00.000-07:002023-03-19T19:28:44.477-07:00The Purge (or: Why I Puked Last Night)<p><br /></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>I have had to experience so much stupidity, so many vices, so much error, so much nausea, disillusionment and sorrow, just in order to become a child again and begin anew. I had to experience despair, I had to sink to the greatest mental depths, to thoughts of suicide, in order to experience grace. </i> —Hermann Hesse</blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>He who drinketh and laugheth till midnight, and puketh and groaneth till daylight, getteth damn little sleep that night.</i> —Confucius?</blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p> Last night I puked my guts out. That is to say, I threw up; I barfed; I hurled; I ralphed; I blew grits; I bowed before the porcelain god; I drove the <i>Buick</i> with the big white steering wheel; I gave forth the technicolor yawn. It struck me as a very strange situation at the time, and so I have decided to share it with you, good reader. I was as sick as the proverbial dog; and even today I feel a little hung over from it.</p><p> So mainly what happened was my sweetheart was drinking a beer (something she doesn’t do very often), and so I decided to join her by having a drink myself. Over the course of the evening I drank maybe two or two and a half ounces of 100 proof Jack Daniels bourbon, and took four small hits of (legally obtained, I hasten to add) weed. Some time after this, about midway through a second small glass of whiskey, the room started spinning and I felt nauseous. This surprised me since, though I am not a heavy drinker I am not a total lightweight, and getting sick in the middle of only my <i>second drink</i> was strange. Also I am not a heavy smoker, and although four hits of not the finest bud is more than usual for me, it is nothing extraordinary. I politely excused myself from the living room where my sweetheart was watching some gawd-awful show with Gordon Ramsay in it, and went to lie down on my bed.</p><p> Lying in bed I began a long and futile attempt not to get sick. Often I would be lying there AUMing for dear life: a dominant theme for the rest of the evening. Finally I gave up and lurched towards the toilet, where I remained for literally hours.</p><p> My stomach was almost empty, containing nothing but one and a half drinks and some dark chocolate, but my body and mind were under sufficient stress that I was obliged to surrender what few stomach contents I possessed; and then for good measure I stood in the bathroom leaning against the sink, AUMing for dear life, emitting reflexive prayers and groans, and occasionally dry heaving.</p><p> It was while I was in this state, leaning on the sink, panting, moaning, AUMing, and occasionally retching, that I began philosophizing about my present predicament. I could not believe that a mere two shots or so of whiskey and four little bong hits were sufficient to having me puking my guts out and remaining within a foot of the toilet for hours. What follows are the results of my nauseous introspection.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>One and a Half Drinks and Four Small Hits of (Legally Obtained, Mind You) Weed.</b> My sweetheart, bless her heart, considered my barf-fest to be simply the result of the relatively few intoxicants that I had ingested, and I have to admit that this was a factor. But I don’t think it’s just masculine pride at not being an utter lightweight that causes me to believe that there were a number of factors at play.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Indulging on an Empty Stomach.</b> Again, this was no doubt an aggravating circumstance, but it is hard for me to believe that I would puke this easily from such small amounts.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Purging Negativity from an Unpleasant Altercation with My Sweetheart.</b> I really believe that this was a major factor. It turns out that she was angry with me the evening before because I had tried, ineptly, to conceal something from her. I learned my lesson in that regard and have decided to be more open with her, even when I’m doing something that I know she doesn’t like. It’s better to aggravate her openly than to take the chance of aggravating her worse by trying to do it when she isn’t looking. Anyway, I slept on the couch the night before last; and it usually takes me about two days to recover from unpleasant scenes with her, because we love each other dearly and the separation caused by the anger of one or both of us is painful, it bruises my heart. I was still in recovery mode last night, and had much darkness (plus a bad night’s sleep) still lingering in the system.</p><p> </p><p><b>Gordon Ramsay.</b> This may seem absurd, but I really don’t like Gordon Ramsay. He seems like an utter prick, an arrogant ass who feels entitled to cuss people out to their face and treat them like crap. Just last night he made a black woman cry and an old chef faint from the stress of facing him. My sweetheart likes him though, and out of love for her I sat through probably two hours of the guy. Watching Gordon Ramsay was a minor aggravating factor, and I can’t honestly say that he made me want to throw up. But he was definitely in the mix, and may have caused at least one extra dry heave.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Energetic Vampires.</b> There is a person I know via the Internet who introduced me to the idea of energetic vampires, or beings who drain the vitality from another. He was referring to humans and “paranormal” entities, but it reminded me of cats and dogs. I am of the opinion that house pets especially get high or uplifted from being in the presence of the higher consciousness of humans, much as ordinary humans can get high or be spiritually uplifted by the mere company of a realized sage. Anyway, last night while watching Mr. Ramsay chew out hotel staff I was still feeling pretty good, and our two dogs were fawning on me big time, trying to get into my lap, licking me, and just generally pressing up against me. Right about the time that the room started to spin a little, I felt that these two dogs were subtly draining life force from me that I needed in my somewhat stressed and vulnerable state. Again, two loving dogs didn’t make me puke any more than did Gordon Ramsay, but still they were somehow in the subtle mix of factors that eventually sent me to the toilet to make forceful offerings to the porcelain god.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>A Stupid Puzzle Game I’d Been Playing on the Internet.</b> This is another minor factor that contributed to my nauseous misery last night. I’d been playing some game with virtual wood blocks, somewhat like a cross between Tetris and Sudoku. It is not an inspiring game and not a very good one, and I felt like I was wasting my time with it. Anyway, while groaning with nausea in the bathroom I was having images of the game in my mind which were stupid and unpleasant, and definitely contributed to the sort of negative mood that had me dry heaving for over an hour and eventually had me passing out on the bathroom floor.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>The Liminal Effects of a Video I Recorded Earlier That Night.</b> This is a strange one, but I think a significant one. Earlier yesterday afternoon I recorded a video entitled “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlQvnxQeU64" target="_blank">Studies in Archaic Buddhism: the Viyuha Suttas</a>,” which was to some degree a crystallization of many years of deep study of Pali texts, and which also was a radical deviation from orthodox Buddhist philosophy—so radical in fact that I felt like I had violated some taboo or opened some kind of Pandora’s box. As I was leaning against the sink trying not to heave again (and intermittently AUMing for dear life), it struck me that I may have caused some sort of liminal disturbance in my mind, my karma, or my environment which allowed a freak bout of nausea to have me totally incapacitated.</p><p><br /></p><p> In addition to the above factors I also had little glimmerings in my nausea that I had simply been too happy lately, that I had been experiencing more pleasantness than otherwise, and that not only the unpleasantness with my sweetheart the night before but the unseasonable sickness of that night were somehow necessary correctives, the cosmic balance maintaining itself naturally.</p><p> What I went through last night was not so much like mere drunken pukery as it was like the ayahuasca ceremonies I have participated in. My mind was still fairly clear (I really was hardly drunk at all), but, as with ayahuasca, there was a prolonged period in which it felt like the misery of the world was gushing through my body. I leaned against the sink panting and thinking that many beings in this universe suffer like this, or worse, regularly, that death throes are going on everywhere non-stop, and that many beings are simply trapped and wallowing in it. I was seeing the dark side of existence pretty well last night, as I could definitely relate to the First Noble Truth that all conditioned things are <i>dukkha</i>, conducive to unease. Plus of course in most ayahuasca ceremonies I have participated in, I puked my guts out.</p><p> In conclusion, I make the perhaps silly observation that, if one has committed oneself to a life of spirit, then even a bout of puking after indulging in intoxicants can be a source of insight into the human condition, if not into the nature of Ultimate Reality. There is not a single cause for anything, but rather a network of causes, some of the exceedingly subtle.</p><p> Despite the First Noble Truth, Be Happy.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVfH4PtN3RTjeHrXr5dTqfeENEb0b12aaffEIYlSbbpJvCrTNuc9SHAwFftX53KX7eiB9wzzF-VYKnVG8vHt5TdVGJpJZ6CsJGYTtuSCFlKuJnrDJr-p6Wb1NKzqwOdpSMFagNd38sciD02X8C_0RiPSlRisvjN7lpSAQQnQx8LTNy-k1Tq43rH0cp/s720/gnome%20barf%20copy.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="720" height="356" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVfH4PtN3RTjeHrXr5dTqfeENEb0b12aaffEIYlSbbpJvCrTNuc9SHAwFftX53KX7eiB9wzzF-VYKnVG8vHt5TdVGJpJZ6CsJGYTtuSCFlKuJnrDJr-p6Wb1NKzqwOdpSMFagNd38sciD02X8C_0RiPSlRisvjN7lpSAQQnQx8LTNy-k1Tq43rH0cp/w640-h356/gnome%20barf%20copy.gif" width="640" /></a></div>Paññobhāsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14148206217028034038noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8485583244199236996.post-51559101787439901242023-03-12T17:13:00.000-07:002023-03-12T17:13:18.273-07:00The Group Mind<p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>History tells us, that from the moment when the moral forces on which a civilization rested have lost their strength, its final dissolution is brought about by those unconscious and brutal crowds known, justifiably enough, as barbarians. Civilizations as yet have only been created and directed by a small intellectual aristocracy, never by crowds.</i> —Gustave Le Bon, in <i>The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind</i></blockquote><i></i><p></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>This very fact that crowds possess in common ordinary qualities explains why they can never accomplish acts demanding a high degree of intelligence. The decisions affecting matters of general interest come to by an assembly of men of distinction, but specialists in different walks of life, are not sensibly superior to the decisions that would be adopted by a gathering of imbeciles. The truth is, they can only bring to bear in common on the work in hand those mediocre qualities which are the birthright of every average individual. In crowds it is stupidity and not mother-wit that is accumulated.</i> —the same guy</blockquote><p></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>All great historical facts, the rise of Buddhism, of Christianity, of Islamism, the Reformation, the French Revolution, and, in our own time, the threatening invasion of Socialism are the direct or indirect consequences of strong impressions produced on the imagination of the crowd.</i> —the same guy again</blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><p> One issue that comes up in Q&A videos (and we’re up to 43 of them thus far) is the issue of group karma. According to orthodox Theravada Buddhism there is no such thing as group karma; there is only individual karma. It’s sort of like a debate that has gone on in evolutionary biology about whether groups or populations can evolve through natural selection, or if natural selection acts only on individual organisms—and I’m pretty sure the orthodox doctrine, or at least the majority opinion among evolutionary biologists, has been that there is no group selection. Even so, there are many biologists who feel or opine that natural selection can act upon a whole group or population, and there are also many Buddhists who feel or opine that entire groups or populations can have a kind of mass, group karma.</p><p> One interesting ramification of the notion of group karma is that it would appear to necessitate a group mind for an entire population. Karma or <i>kamma</i>, after all, is essentially <i>cetanā</i>, or will, a mental state. So if karma is a mental state, and groups of people can have group karma, then groups of people are generating a group mental state, which, it would seem to me, would necessitate some kind of group mind. But I’m pretty sure that orthodox Theravada Buddhism rejects the idea of a group mind—hell, it almost rejects an individual one, since Buddhist philosophy ultimately has no use for an <i>individual</i>, there being no self and all that. Other spiritual teachers and spiritual systems also have little or nothing to say about the possibility of more than one person participating in a kind of “us being” or a pool of conscious mentality. One of my favorite recent teachers, Paul Lowe, used to talk about how each of us is completely alone in our experiences.</p><p> But even though a group mind is unorthodox, possibly even HERESY (also known in Buddhism as “pernicious wrong view”), there is much to say for the idea…and the idea of a group mind is more interesting to me than the more limited idea of group karma. And there is some evidence, at least, in support of the notion.</p><p> For example, even an individual human is a kind of colonial organism, made up of a huge number of specialized protozoans called <i>cells</i>. The idea that each of our body’s cells are conscious, and that the mind of a human is nothing more than a group mind of conscious cells, is not exactly scientific; though if we restrict a single human’s group mind to the consciousness of his individual nerve cells or brain cells, then we are getting more into something empirical and scientific. What is a human mind if not the group mind of all our functioning brain cells pooling their tiny individual consciousnesses?</p><p> Also, my own experiences in life seem to include my participation, at least occasionally, in a group mind, and thus lend support to the possibility of a group mind in general. In an intimate love relationship, for example, there is often a kind of shared mentality, for example during acts of physical intimacy. At some point I stop acting of my own volition and begin functioning spontaneously as part of a shared whole, just going with the flow of the “us” mentality. I do think that genuine love (not just animal mating instincts in the human animal) is a function of the individual ego, or Pink Floyd’s wall, opening up to another, breaking down the boundaries of the alienated individual, and thus two people sharing the same sense of “I.” It creates a third conscious entity in addition to the lover and the beloved: there is a third being, the “us,” the combined group being.</p><p> A somewhat similar phenomenon would occasionally occur back when I was a monk giving Dhamma talks to groups of western Buddhists in America. Sometimes if I was teaching Dhamma in a more or less meditative state, and if the audience was receptive to what I was saying, it would form a kind of circuit or, well, a group mind, in which the words would flow seemingly effortlessly from my mouth, with me being as surprised by what I would say as anyone else in the room. It was as though the karma of the individuals in the group, or collective karma of the group, was eliciting the words—and in such cases the talks turned out better than usual. Ram Dass used to say that people would often come up to him after one of his talks and thank him, and he would feel as though a person were walking up to a musician and thanking his violin for playing such beautiful music. He was just the instrument for what people needed to hear to be heard.</p><p> It has also occurred to me, while pondering the unorthodox theory of group minds, that a raging mob may also be a rather negative manifestation of a group mind. In this case the entire group may be more stupid than the average individual participating in it; though there may be synergistic effects, much as there are synergistic effects in the combined function of trillions of living neurons in a person’s brain.</p><p> Sometimes I have considered the possibility that a society or a civilization possesses a kind of higher consciousness unimaginable to the individual citizen, much as the entire personality of a man or woman could never be known by an individual neuron in that person’s brain. That one is somewhat of a mind-blower, and although <i>ex hypothesi</i> I fail to see how modern American society could be a massive being far more conscious than I am, considering all the rampant pettiness, stupidity, and selfishness, I really can’t rule out the possibility. Maybe there is a group consciousness working at a much higher level that is simply invisible to us individual social neurons.</p><p> But the possibility, even the inevitability, of group consciousness is clearly implied in my own favorite theory of everything, the Simile of the Block of Marble. I accept as a rather elegant working hypothesis (if I do say so myself) that Ultimate Reality is infinite and formless, and that it contains all possibilities within it, much as a block of marble contains within it, in virtual or potential form, every possible statue, each superimposed upon all the rest. So not only would the nameless uncarved block (as it is called in the Tao Te Ching) contain every possible <i>individual</i> statue, it would include every possible group statue too, each with its own form of consciousness. So my sweetheart sitting in the chair is one potential statue, me sitting on the couch nearby is another, and the group of us together (with or without the dog) is yet another—all equally real or valid, though still conditional and “empty” within the context of that particular version of samsara.</p><p> So anyway, if a group mind is possible or even certain, then group karma becomes more possible, since, as I said before, karma is a mental state, it is essentially Will, and if the group mind has a group will, for example as a unified society or a howling mob seem to do, then there would be group karma…though this would be in addition to the karma of the individual, and presumably working on another level.</p><p> Bearing all this in mind, though, and considering the No Self doctrine of Buddhism practically doing away the reality of an individual mind, I am not surprised that Theravada has no use for group karma, and as far as I know is silent on the very possibility of shared consciousness—except, as I say, the ability of an adept to know the mind of another. And the mechanism of that, the way it works, is never fully explained. The texts just say it happens and leave it at that (if I remember correctly). And even if group consciousness does exist, it is not the level at which one works out one’s own salvation. It’s at a level that a mere individual can’t grasp anyway.</p><p> </p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8naohMpiYZwx6dGFWbJoQAlyC0p73mg6R69_obdh2i_MQ8A0YggJ90s2Z6LkFFuRat9k0n145bml1r0vvqEd8-e-jBSKgHWTJ7cKHdAJZiPyQ2X48BNokCu7w-oo6mqeaJjBBWcQZmTJAy_xAcF00jLFrwBOZKmyjBaG2kaPe9Y7hqQ1FJJz_xQQG/s575/world%20war%20z.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="235" data-original-width="575" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8naohMpiYZwx6dGFWbJoQAlyC0p73mg6R69_obdh2i_MQ8A0YggJ90s2Z6LkFFuRat9k0n145bml1r0vvqEd8-e-jBSKgHWTJ7cKHdAJZiPyQ2X48BNokCu7w-oo6mqeaJjBBWcQZmTJAy_xAcF00jLFrwBOZKmyjBaG2kaPe9Y7hqQ1FJJz_xQQG/w640-h262/world%20war%20z.gif" width="640" /></a></div>Paññobhāsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14148206217028034038noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8485583244199236996.post-14549695342993768102023-02-26T18:07:00.001-08:002023-02-26T18:07:37.452-08:00Why Most Bhikkhus are So BORING<p><br /></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life — think of it, dream of it, live on that idea...This is the way to success.</i> —Swami Vivekananda</blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><p> In my Question and Answer videos I am occasionally asked my opinion of some Theravada Buddhist monk who gives talks on YouTube, and I tend to answer that I only very rarely watch monks on YouTube for the simple reason that I find them boring. Also I can say that almost the only times that I was positively bored as a monk was when I was required to sit through a Dhamma talk given by some other monk. Many others have remarked on this phenomenon, namely that monks tend to be boring human beings. (Even monks in World of Warcraft are notorious for being boring, as I learned from doing a search on boring monks in general, though that is a different matter.) Why is this? Why should dedicated spiritual warriors, most of them, be so damned boring? As I see it, there are two main reasons.</p><p> First of all, Theravada Buddhism is itself kind of boring. I freely admit this. Those of you who have read the Pali texts have probably noticed that the texts themselves are composed in a very dry, repetitive style; and Theravada has been, throughout history, a very conservative system that strongly discourages independent thought. Because of its conservatism—and it really is commendable that Theravada Buddhists try very hard to stick to what the historical Buddha originally taught—Theravada has become largely dogmatic, with monks simply repeating the same doctrines, in pretty much the same way, as others. Burmese laypeople will look askance at a monk, especially if he is a foreigner, if he describes Dhamma in ways that they have not heard twenty times before. If you describe some aspect of Buddhist philosophy in a way that differs significantly from the words in the Pali texts, even if you are describing it correctly, just in different words, many dogmatic Buddhists will consider you to be a heretic, an ignoramus, or a fool. I remember a Burmese layman criticizing one of my favorite Burmese sayadaws, venerable MahaMyaing Sayadaw U Jotika, because he sometimes explains Dhamma in terms of western psychology. I pointed out that many people with western educations and cultural conditioning can understand things better if an idea is couched in terms of a paradigm with which they are familiar…but that apparently wasn’t good enough.</p><p> I remember when I occasionally stayed at a Burmese monastery in California a Sinhalese monk from a Sinhalese monastery used to come for visits. He was less dogmatic than the exemplary type of Burmese monk, and he would sometimes come to discuss Dhamma with me because my understanding was not so dogmatic—at least I was capable of framing old ideas in newer words. He would sometimes good-naturedly complain that the abbot of the place was no fun to talk to about Buddhist philosophy because he was absolutely addicted to Abhidhamma: every explanation he gave had to be couched in terms of orthodox Abhidhamma philosophy.</p><p> So venerable bhikkhus will give Dhamma talks about the same subjects in pretty much the same words, usually with a more or less deadpan tone, though even a jovial one can be just as boring. The more devout and well-read monks tend to adhere to dogmas that eventually get stale after one hears essentially the same thing twenty times. And the less intelligent ones who don’t know the texts very well may simply sit in front of a group of meditators and ramble in a way that is hard to follow. (I’ve sat through a few of these, mainly in the west where scholastic standards for monks are not very high, and it can be painful if not actually boring.) But a dry set of scriptures and a dogmatic atmosphere are not the only reason why most bhikkhus are boring.</p><p> (Before getting any farther with this I will point out that I’m referring mainly to the speaking and teaching style of most bhikkhus. Many of them have led interesting lives, and have interesting ideas, especially the western ones who walked on the fringe of society even before they became bhikkhus. Monks from traditional Buddhist cultures, though, tend not to be very imaginative—in fact, as I’ve already mentioned, unbridled imagination is discouraged in Theravada Buddhism. But even some of them may have wild stories of being bitten by giant centipedes or dealing with strange shamans or sorcerers.)</p><p> Now consider this: What sort of person is likely to spend his life in seclusion and spend hours every day watching his breath go in and out of his nostrils? The probable answer: A BORING person. A monk is supposed to avoid stimulation, including the company of rascals. He is supposed to avoid worldly thoughts and also sensual ones. He restrains his senses, lives in silence and seclusion (though he may go to the Dhamma Hall every morning and evening to meditate, chant, and/or hear a boring sermon), and tries to avoid making any more new karma than is necessary…and all of this is not particularly exciting. I remember reading a book, long ago, called <i>What the Buddha Never Taught</i>, about a fellow who lived for a time at Wat Pah Nanachat in Thailand, and at one point he remarked that the monks there appeared to be trying to bore themselves out of existence.</p><p> This is not extremely far from the truth. In a karmic sense a monk is trying to <i>fade out</i>, to stop making waves sufficiently that he can cease to exist as a human or any other kind of samsaric being. And it is primarily men with weak drives and not a whole lot of vitality who prosper in the monastic life: a man of strong passions and an open mind may find himself climbing the walls of his cave or cell if he tries to stifle those passions or exercise that open mind. So we wind up with extremely mild-mannered, bland men who are striving to become even <i>more</i> extremely mild-mannered and bland, and are striving eventually to stop engaging in volitional acts altogether.</p><p> I have to admit, the ancient Indian idea of fading out of worldly existence through radical renunciation, seclusion, and self-restraint does make sense, and I strove along those lines for many years. The subtlety and clarity of the mental states attainable through intensive meditation may be very exhilarating and even life-changing; but those are inward and personal, and may be untellable to others. One who has attained such states may still be boring, though with serenity and clarity in his eyes. He may not be boring internally, but externally he may be just another dogmatic avoider of karma with clear eyes looking downwards.</p><p> So I consider it somewhat unfortunate that Theravada, and the professional followers of Theravada, can be so dry. The spiritual philosophy itself is invaluable, so it is unfortunate for us modern (or postmodern) westerners that the philosophy has as a vehicle a compositional style that is dry as dust throughout much of it, and that it results in followers who prefer dogmatism to genuine inspiration.</p><p> My advice to people interested in Theravada Buddhist Dhamma is that they soldier through the boring parts of the Suttas as a kind of exercise in self-discipline, and not stray into the trap of western leftist and anti-traditionalist revisionism, which is too likely to filter out genuine Dhamma in order to replace it with leftist political talking points. (The queering of Buddhism anyone? Or how about mindfulness of white privilege practice?) Also I would recommend seeking out the relatively few monks who are learned and strict practitioners yet who retain a spark or two of originality and inspiration. The problem, though: Too much originality leads to HERESY, or simply to ideas that are irrelevant to the Goal of disappearing from this world.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsBhVVJEmXWZ2RgOprwlYJGNeOQn_Ocxl0gpfuGiNTXvdrUe_Kdjqah2sRuahcy5vGvv3xSNaglY2iLbgYHVHRolu5KAsOmfrSK8pFCS-8yDc_ihlNtvJCJQ-5j7JMPd5TzXaX5FC1Q1wxuaAdXYpY87ryopzD2E7StsQlpYGqm25mWCpqjEHXZzig/s500/bodhidharma%20zen.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="298" data-original-width="500" height="382" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsBhVVJEmXWZ2RgOprwlYJGNeOQn_Ocxl0gpfuGiNTXvdrUe_Kdjqah2sRuahcy5vGvv3xSNaglY2iLbgYHVHRolu5KAsOmfrSK8pFCS-8yDc_ihlNtvJCJQ-5j7JMPd5TzXaX5FC1Q1wxuaAdXYpY87ryopzD2E7StsQlpYGqm25mWCpqjEHXZzig/w640-h382/bodhidharma%20zen.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div>Paññobhāsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14148206217028034038noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8485583244199236996.post-67151609649995268352023-02-19T18:17:00.000-08:002023-02-19T18:17:11.741-08:00Compassion Means "Suffering With"<p><i></i></p><p> </p><blockquote><i>Grief can be the garden of compassion. If you keep your heart open through everything, your pain can become your greatest ally in your life's search for love and wisdom.</i> <span style="font-size: 18px; text-indent: -35.9px;">—Rumi</span></blockquote><span style="font-size: 18px; text-indent: -35.9px;"></span><p></p><p><br /></p><p> When we feel compassion for another person, we feel what the other person is feeling. We don't simply intellectualize with thoughts like, "Oh, this person is unhappy. I should be more patient and considerate." We really feel what they are feeling, at least to some extent. A barrier has evaporated between us, and instead of "That person is experiencing unhappiness," it's more a matter of <i>We</i> are experiencing unhappiness. It is an experience of <i>us</i>-ness, in this case with another person who is suffering. This is not a particularly controversial idea.</p><p> In Buddhism, one of the most common definitions of enlightenment is <i>the cessation of suffering</i>. An arahant may feel physical pain, but he or she no longer has craving, and since craving is the cause of all suffering (in accordance with the Second Noble Truth), an arahant no longer experiences suffering. This also is not a particularly controversial idea, at least in Buddhism.</p><p> The controversial idea may rear its knuckled head, however, when these two uncontroversial ones are joined together: An arahant feels compassion—and therefore an arahant experiences suffering. But arahants aren't supposed to experience suffering.</p><p> It may even be hypothesized that a hypothetical fully enlightened being feels <i>universal</i> compassion; all (ultimately illusory) barriers whatsoever have evaporated, and the arahant experiences the suffering of the entire world, and of all worlds. If this is true, then, ironically, an enlightened being would feel much, much more suffering than, say, a teenage girl who was molested by her father, ran away, became a prostitute, is addicted to heroin, is regularly beaten by the men who use her, and furthermore has killed her own newborn baby. The hypothetical enlightened being would experience <i>infinitely</i> more suffering than her. With universal compassion, it would seem that a fully enlightened being, like the Buddha for example, would experience <i>infinite suffering</i>. What is wrong with this picture?</p><p> A possible solution to this apparent problem may be found in a book that I read long ago in a cave in Burma. It was given to me by a friend, and was one of those things that happened right when it needed to happen, to help me see what I needed to see at the time. The book is <i>In Each Moment</i> by Paul Lowe; and if I were required to make a guess and name an enlightened being alive in this world today, I might guess him. Anyway, whether he is enlightened or not, at one point in the book he is discussing "the system" of body, emotions, and thinking mind:</p><p> </p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>"If the system wants to cry—let it cry. There is no need to get involved. That is not you. If it wants to laugh, let it laugh. That is not you."</i></blockquote> <p></p><p> In other words, the system of body, feelings, and thinking mind is irrelevant to Enlightenment.</p><p> There have been times in my life when I have had a rush of heightened awareness, in which I saw the world very clearly, yet from a point of view that was somehow more real than what I was seeing. These experiences have occurred in unpredictable flashes—as a layperson they tended to occur when I was in a near-death situation, like when the car I was driving was sliding out of control (and as a young man I often drove like a maniac, so it happened more than once), or else when I was under the influence of certain "consciousness expanding" drugs, and later, after being a meditating monk for several years, as a result of formal contemplation. These experiences could be called mystical; and as William James points out in his classic book <i>The Varieties of Religious Experience</i>, one very common feature of mystical experiences is that those who have them are quite sure that they are at least as real and valid as ordinary waking consciousness. I would guess that a highly spiritually advanced being, like an arahant for example, would be in such a state pretty much all the time. Such a being would see the world from a vantage point of higher reality, in which what most of us consider real is a kind of mirage, dream, or miracle play.</p><p> Consider a masterpiece of dramatic tragedy—my favorite example is <i>King Lear</i>. Here we have a story in which three-fourths of the main characters die gruesome deaths, including Cordelia, an innocent young woman who has done nothing to deserve such a fate. One character gets his eyes gouged out ("Out, vile jelly! Where is thy lustre now?"), and King Lear himself is driven raving mad with grief and outraged indignation, accompanied by a severely depressed court jester and a homeless man who seems to be even more insane than the king and claims to live on a diet which includes rats, tadpoles, newts, and pond scum. Yet despite all this bleakness, darkness, and misery, it is considered to be one of the greatest masterpieces of dramatic art, considered by many to be "too immense" to be effectively played upon a stage. It is a horrible tragedy, and a beautiful masterpiece. It is the tale of a betrayed King and the deaths of his friends and his betrayers, and it is actors strutting around on a stage speaking in bombastic poetry. What it is depends on how you look at it.</p><p> So the hypothetical enlightened being experiences the suffering of others very clearly, not even attributing it to an "other," since interpersonal distinctions and distances have been outgrown—yet also experiences it from a higher perspective, a higher reality, in which the tragedy may even be viewed as a divine masterpiece, or perhaps just as ultimately perfect Emptiness. Presumably an arahant would operate on both these levels simultaneously. Compassion may be appropriate for the character getting his eyes gouged out, but not for the actor playing the role, much less for the underlying Emptiness.</p><p> One reason why American Buddhists rarely make very deep progress in Dhamma is that, due to their scientific, materialistic Western conditioning, they consider Samsara to be reality. They are convinced of it. Thus they essentially try to straighten out their lives within the context of an illusion. In other words, they try to wake up within the context of the dream they are dreaming, the tragic or comic play in which they are players. To see through the illusion, the <i>make believe</i>, to transcend it and experience a deeper reality, is called <i>insight</i>.</p><p> I will conclude this week's installment of words with one more quote from In Each Moment:</p><p><br /></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>You do not need to identify with your emotions and behaviour. You may say, "I am depressed," yet, you are not depressed. You cannot be depressed. What you are saying is that there is an imbalance in your mind that affects your body and emotions. But that is not you. </i></blockquote><p><i> </i></p> <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuuMhyLa23CLtvIYSnJf6I5CtIux2AKRNeW_6mJNSo-X8l4OkOnRBTmwfHZ0Yf5O6r0RxVk-H4rRHsdi8inhW1oT8iGI0EnpW6E-3P61ZZ3UjJPHPB2tD2TteeMmw6I6tHh_2bQUQS_suO7wwXcVoyb7DQ5v7q05HxG37zRKYg3ua5ZhapXr_98mVS/s450/Lear%20and%20Fool%20in%20the%20Storm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="270" data-original-width="450" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuuMhyLa23CLtvIYSnJf6I5CtIux2AKRNeW_6mJNSo-X8l4OkOnRBTmwfHZ0Yf5O6r0RxVk-H4rRHsdi8inhW1oT8iGI0EnpW6E-3P61ZZ3UjJPHPB2tD2TteeMmw6I6tHh_2bQUQS_suO7wwXcVoyb7DQ5v7q05HxG37zRKYg3ua5ZhapXr_98mVS/w640-h384/Lear%20and%20Fool%20in%20the%20Storm.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>Paññobhāsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14148206217028034038noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8485583244199236996.post-10535514598820293332023-02-14T08:54:00.002-08:002023-02-18T23:40:02.921-08:00I’m a Fool, by Sherwood Anderson<p><br /></p><p><b>Classics of Political Incorrectness Dept. (20)</b></p><p><br /></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><p><i> Well, by golly, some of you may remember that I used to have a little series on this blog called “Classics of Political Incorrectness.” Even if you don’t remember, I did. In fact the original plan was to have about half of all posts of this sort: not entirely written by me but displaying blatant political incorrectness in more or less classic English (and American) literature. It turns out that I haven’t read enough to come up with something like that on a weekly (or even monthly) basis for a number of years, and so eventually my output of such classics kind of petered out, almost two years ago.</i></p><p><i> But today is Valentine’s Day, originally the feast day of Saint Valentine, a third-century Christian clergyman and martyr who lived and died in the general vicinity of the eternal city of Rome. Not only is he the patron saint of sweethearts, but he also is the patron saint of epileptics and beekeepers… but I digress. And the following story, in addition to being blatantly politically incorrect, is also a love story.</i></p><p><i> Like a few other stories submitted in this Classics of Political Incorrectness series, including <a href="https://politicallyincorrectdharma.blogspot.com/2017/08/i-want-to-know-why-by-sherwood-anderson.html" target="_blank">another story</a> by the same American author, Sherwood Anderson, this one is politically incorrect primarily because it includes the word “nigger” several times. Of course nowadays just about </i>anything<i> can be declared bad and wrong, like the portrayal of women as they actually were in the early twentieth century. But this one is here because of the N word…and in the copy of it that I transcribed here, the N word was “correctly” spelled n−−−−−.</i></p><p><i> I’ve written before about the taboo and hysteria of using the word “nigger,” especially if used by non-blacks, and with a hard R. Up until fairly recently it was not considered to be particularly objectionable, unless perhaps when applied by British colonists towards the indigenous people (including the Burmese) who were subjects of the Raj. The word is derived, ultimately, from the Spanish word for “black,” which of course is considered not particularly objectionable by all but the most chronic malcontents on the social left.</i></p><p><i> I’ve also written before that there could easily be (but won’t be anytime soon) a compilation of English-language literature called </i>A Golden Treasury of Classic Nigger Stories<i>. Some of the biggest names in English (and American) literature have used the word, including Hemingway, Joseph Conrad (who wrote an entire novel entitled </i>The Nigger of the Narcissus<i>, Flannery O’Connor, Mark Twain of course (and one of the greatest novels in American literature is </i>Huckleberry Finn<i>, which features, realistically and sympathetically, a character called Nigger Jim), Bret Harte, Stephen Crane, and on and on. None of these authors used the term in a derogatory manner, unless they were simply portraying common attitudes of earlier times…but today the taboo and hysteria are such that classic English literature is being bowdlerized, censored.</i></p><p><i> It is clear that the term “nigger” is not used as a pejorative in the following story. The protagonist/narrator is actually bragging about the fine nigger he had for a best friend. But you can see that for yourself if you read what follows. And happy Valentine’s Day to you and your sweetheart.</i></p></blockquote><p><i></i></p><p><br /></p><p><b>I’m a Fool, by Sherwood Anderson</b></p><p> It was a hard jolt for me, one of the most bitterest I ever had to face. And it all came about through my own foolishness too. Even yet sometimes, when I think of it, I want to cry or swear or kick myself. Perhaps, even now, after all this time, there will be a kind of satisfaction in making myself look cheap by telling of it.</p><p> It began at three o’clock one October afternoon as I sat in the grandstand at the fall trotting and pacing meet at Sandusky, Ohio.</p><p> To tell the truth, I felt a little foolish that I should be sitting in the grandstand at all. During the summer before I had left my home town with Harry Whitehead and, with a nigger named Burt, had taken a job as swipe with one of the two horses Harry was campaigning through the fall race meets that year. Mother cried and my sister Mildred, who wanted to get a job as a school teacher in our town that fall, stormed and scolded about the house all during the week before I left. They both thought it something disgraceful that one of our family should take a place as a swipe with race horses. I’ve an idea Mildred thought my taking the place would stand in the way of her getting the job she’d been working so long for.</p><p> But after all I had to work, and there was no other work to be got. A big lumbering fellow of nineteen couldn’t just hang around the house and I had got too big to mow people’s lawns and sell newspapers. Little chaps who could get next to people’s sympathies by their sizes were always getting jobs away from me. There was one fellow who kept saying to everyone who wanted a lawn mowed or a cistern cleaned, that he was saving money to work his way through college, and I used to lay awake nights thinking up ways to injure him without being found out. I kept thinking of wagons running over him and bricks falling on his head as he walked along the street. But never mind him.</p><p> I got the place with Harry and I liked Burt fine. We got along splendid together. He was a big nigger with a lazy sprawling body and soft, kind eyes, and when it came to a fight he could hit like Jack Johnson. He had Bucephalus, a big black pacing stallion that could do 2. 09 or 2. 10, if he had to, and I had a little gelding named Doctor Fritz that never lost a race all fall when Harry wanted him to win.</p><p> We set out from home late in July in a box car with the two horses and after that, until late November, we kept moving along to the race meets and the fairs. It was a peachy time for me, I’ll say that. Sometimes now I think that boys who are raised regular in houses, and never have a fine nigger like Burt for best friend, and go to high schools and college, and never steal anything, or get drunk a little, or learn to swear from fellows who know how, or come walking up in front of a grandstand in their shirt sleeves and with dirty horsey pants on when the races are going on and the grandstand is full of people all dressed up—what’s the use of talking about it? Such fellows don’t know nothing at all. They’ve never had no opportunity.</p><p> But I did. Burt taught me how to rub down a horse and put the bandages on after a race and steam a horse out and a lot of valuable things for any man to know. He could wrap a bandage on a horse’s leg so smooth that if it had been the same color you would think it was his skin, and I guess he’d have been a big driver, too, and got to the top like Murphy and Walter Cox and the others if he hadn’t been black.</p><p> Gee whizz, it was fun. You got to a county seat town, maybe say on a Saturday or Sunday, and the fair began the next Tuesday and lasted until Friday afternoon. Doctor Fritz would be, say, in the 2. 25 trot on Tuesday afternoon and on Thursday afternoon Bucephalus would knock ‘em cold in the “free-for-all” pace. It left you a lot of time to hang around and listen to horse talk, and see Burt knock some yap cold that got too gay, and you’d find out about horses and men and pick up a lot of stuff you could use all the rest of your life, if you had some sense and salted down what you heard and felt and saw.</p><p> And then at the end of the week when the race meet was over, and Harry had run home to tend up to his livery-stable business, you and Burt hitched the two horses to carts and drove slow and steady across country to the place for the next meeting, so as to not overheat the horses, etc. , etc. , you know.</p><p> Gee whizz, gosh amighty, the nice hickorynut and beechnut and oaks and other kinds of trees along the roads, all brown and red, and the good smells, and Burt singing a song that was called “Deep River,” and the country girls at the windows of houses and everything. You can stick your colleges up your nose for all me. I guess I know where I got my education.</p><p> Why, one of those little burgs of towns you come to on the way, say now on a Saturday afternoon, and Burt says, “Let’s lay up here.” And you did.</p><p> And you took the horses to a livery stable and fed them, and you got your good clothes out of a box and put them on.</p><p> And the town was full of farmers gaping, because they could see you were racehorse people, and the kids maybe never see a nigger before and was afraid and run away when the two of us walked down their main street.</p><p> And that was before prohibition and all that foolishness, and so you went into a saloon, the two of you, and all the yaps come and stood around, and there was always someone pretended he was horsey and knew things and spoke up and began asking questions, and all you did was to lie and lie all you could about what horses you had, and I said I owned them, and then some fellow said “Will you have a drink of whiskey” and Burt knocked his eye out the way he could say, offhand like, “Oh well, all right, I’m agreeable to a little nip. I’ll split a quart with you.” Gee whizz.</p><p> But that isn’t what I want to tell my story about. We got home late in November and I promised mother I’d quit the race horses for good. There’s a lot of things you’ve got to promise a mother because she don’t know any better.</p><p> And so, there not being any work in our town any more than when I left there to go to the races, I went off to Sandusky and got a pretty good place taking care of horses for a man who owned a teaming and delivery and storage and coal and real-estate business there. It was a pretty good place with good eats, and a day off each week, and sleeping on a cot in a big barn, and mostly just shovelling in hay and oats to a lot of big good-enough skates of horses, that couldn’t have trotted a race with a toad. I wasn’t dissatisfied and I could send money home.</p><p> And then, as I started to tell you, the fall races come to Sandusky and I got the day off and I went. I left the job at noon and had on my good clothes and my new brown derby hat, I’d just bought the Saturday before, and a stand-up collar.</p><p> First of all I went downtown and walked about with the dudes. I’ve always thought to myself, “Put up a good front” and so I did it. I had forty dollars in my pocket and so I went into the West House, a big hotel, and walked up to the cigar stand.”Give me three twenty-five cent cigars,” I said. There was a lot of horsemen and strangers and dressed-up people from other towns standing around in the lobby and in the bar, and I mingled amongst them. In the bar there was a fellow with a cane and a Windsor tie on, that it made me sick to look at him. I like a man to be a man and dressed up, but not to go put on that kind of airs. So I pushed him aside, kind of rough, and had me a drink of whiskey. And then he looked at me, as though he thought maybe he’d get gay, but he changed his mind and didn’t say anything. And then I had another whiskey, just to show him something, and went out and had a hack out to the races, all to myself, and when I got there I bought myself the best seat I could get up in the grand stand, but didn’t go in for any of these boxes. That’s putting on too many airs.</p><p> And so there I was, sitting up in the grand stand as gay as you please and looking down on the swipes coming out with their horses, and with their dirty horsy pants on and the horse blankets swung over their shoulders, same as I had been doing all the year before. I liked one thing about the same as the other, sitting up there and feeling grand and being down there and looking up at the yaps and feeling grander and more important too.</p><p> One thing’s about as good as another, if you take it just right. I’ve often said that.</p><p> Well, right in front of me, in the grandstand that day, there was a fellow with a couple of girls and they was about my age. The young fellow was a nice guy, all right. He was the kind maybe that goes to college and then comes to be a lawyer or maybe a newspaper editor or something like that, but he wasn’t stuck on himself. There are some of that kind are all right and he was one of the ones.</p><p> He had his sister with him and another girl and the sister looked around over his shoulder, accidental at first, not intending to start anything—she wasn’t that kind—and her eyes and mine happened to meet.</p><p> You know how it is. Gee, she was a peach! She had on a soft dress, kind of a blue stuff and it looked carelessly made, but was well sewed and made and everything. I knew that much. I blushed when she looked right at me and so did she. She was the nicest girl I’ve ever seen in my life. She wasn’t stuck on herself and she could talk proper grammar without being like a school teacher or something like that. What I mean is, she was O. K. I think maybe her father was well-to-do, but not rich to make her chesty because she was his daughter, as some are. Maybe he owned a drug store or a drygoods store in their home town, or something like that. She never told me and I never asked.</p><p> My own people are all O. K. too, when you come to that. My grandfather was Welsh and over in the old country, in Wales he was—but never mind that.</p><p> The first heat of the first race come off and the young fellow setting there with the two girls left them and went down to make a bet. I knew what he was up to, but he didn’t talk big and noisy and let everyone around know he was a sport as some do. He wasn’t that kind. Well, he come back and I heard him tell the two girls what horse he’d bet on, and when the heat was trotted they all half got to their feet and acted in the excited, sweaty way people do when they’ve got money down on a race, and the horse they bet on is up there pretty close at the end, and they think maybe he’ll come on with a rush, but he never does because he hasn’t got the old juice in him, come right down to it.</p><p> And then, pretty soon, the horses came out for the 2. 18 pace and there was a horse in it I knew. He was a horse Bob French had in his string but Bob didn’t own him. He was a horse owned by a Mr. Mathers down at Marietta, Ohio.</p><p> This Mr. Mathers had a lot of money and owned some coal mines or something and he had a swell place out in the country, and he was stuck on race horses, but was a Presbyterian or something, and I think more than likely his wife was one too, maybe a stiffer one than himself. So he never raced his horses hisself, and the story round the Ohio race tracks was that when one of his horses got ready to go to the races he turned him over to Bob French and pretended to his wife he was sold.</p><p> So Bob had the horses and he did pretty much as he pleased and you can’t blame Bob, at least, I never did. Sometimes he was out to win and sometimes he wasn’t. I never cared much about that when I was swiping a horse. What I did want to know was that my horse had the speed and could go out in front if you wanted him to.</p><p> And, as I’m telling you, there was Bob in this race with one of Mr. Mathers’ horses, was named About Ben Ahem or something like that, and was fast as a streak. He was a gelding and had a mark of 2. 21, but could step in . 08 or . 09.</p><p> Because when Burt and I were out, as I’ve told you, the year before, there was a nigger Burt knew, worked for Mr. Mathers, and we went out there one day when we didn’t have no race on at the Marietta Fair and our boss Harry was gone home.</p><p> And so everyone was gone to the fair but just this one nigger and he took us all through Mr. Mathers’ swell house and he and Burt tapped a bottle of wine Mr. Mathers had hid in his bedroom, back in a closet, without his wife knowing, and he showed us this Ahem horse. Burt was always stuck on being a driver but didn’t have much chance to get to the top, being a nigger, and he and the other nigger gulped that whole bottle of wine and Burt got a little lit up.</p><p> So the nigger let Burt take this About Ben Ahem and step him a mile in a track Mr. Mathers had all to himself, right there on the farm. And Mr. Mathers had one child, a daughter, kinda sick and not very good looking, and she came home and we had to hustle and get About Ben Ahem stuck back in the barn.</p><p> I’m only telling you to get everything straight. At Sandusky, that afternoon I was at the fair, this young fellow with the two girls was fussed, being with the girls and losing his bet. You know how a fellow is that way. One of them was his girl and the other his sister. I had figured that out.</p><p> “Gee whizz,” I says to myself, “I’m going to give him the dope.”</p><p> He was mighty nice when I touched him on the shoulder. He and the girls were nice to me right from the start and clear to the end. I’m not blaming them.</p><p> And so he leaned back and I give him the dope on About Ben Ahem.”Don’t bet a cent on this first heat because he’ll go like an oxen hitched to a plow, but when the first heat is over go right down and lay on your pile.” That’s what I told him.</p><p> Well, I never saw a fellow treat any one sweller. There was a fat man sitting beside the little girl, that had looked at me twice by this time, and I at her, and both blushing, and what did he do but have the nerve to turn and ask the fat man to get up and change places with me so I could set with his crowd.</p><p> Gee whizz, craps amighty. There I was. What a chump I was to go and get gay up there in the West House bar, and just because that dude was standing there with a cane and that kind of a necktie on, to go and get all balled up and drink that whiskey, just to show off.</p><p> Of course she would know, me setting right beside her and letting her smell of my breath. I could have kicked myself right down out of that grand stand and all around that race track and made a faster record than most of the skates of horses they had there that year.</p><p> Because that girl wasn’t any mutt of a girl. What wouldn’t I have give right then for a stick of chewing gum to chew, or a lozenger, or some liquorice, or most anything. I was glad I had those twenty-five cent cigars in my pocket and right away I give that fellow one and lit one myself. Then that fat man got up and we changed places and there I was, plunked right down beside her.</p><p> They introduced themselves and the fellow’s best girl he had with him was named Miss Elinor Woodbury, and her father was a manufacturer of barrels from a place called Tiffin, Ohio. And the fellow himself was named Wilbur Wessen and his sister was Miss Lucy Wessen.</p><p> I suppose it was their having such swell names that got me off my trolley. A fellow, just because he has been a swipe with a race horse and works taking care of horses for a man in the teaming, delivery, and storage business, isn’t any better or worse than anyone else. I’ve often thought that, and said it too.</p><p> But you know how a fellow is. There’s something in that kind of nice clothes, and the kind of nice eyes she had, and the way she had looked at me, awhile before, over her brother’s shoulder, and me looking back at her, and both of us blushing.</p><p> I couldn’t show her up for a boob, could I?</p><p> I made a fool of myself, that’s what I did. I said my name was Walter Mathers from Marietta, Ohio, and then I told all three of them the smashingest lie you ever heard. What I said was that my father owned the horse About Ben Ahem and that he had let him out to this Bob French for racing purposes, because our family was proud and had never gone into racing that way, in our own name, I mean, and Miss Lucy Wessen’s eyes were shining, and I went the whole hog.</p><p> I told about our place down at Marietta, and about the big stables and the grand brick house we had on a hill, up above the Ohio River, but I knew enough not to do it in no bragging way. What I did was to start things and then let them drag the rest out of me. I acted just as reluctant to tell as I could. Our family hasn’t got any barrel factory, and since I’ve known us, we’ve always been pretty poor, but not asking anything of anyone at that, and my grandfather, over in Wales—but never mind that.</p><p> We sat there talking like we had known each other for years and years, and I went and told them that my father had been expecting maybe this Bob French wasn’t on the square, and had sent me up to Sandusky on the sly to find out what I could.</p><p> And I bluffed it through I had found out all about the 2. 18 pace, in which About Ben Ahem was to start.</p><p> I said he would lose the first heat by pacing like a lame cow and then he would come back and skin ‘em alive after that. And to back up what I said I took thirty dollars out of my pocket and handed it to Mr. Wilbur Wessen and asked him, would he mind, after the first heat, to go down and place it on About Ben Ahem for whatever odds he could get. What I said was that I didn’t want Bob French to see me and none of the swipes.</p><p> Sure enough the first heat come off and About Ben Ahem went off his stride up the back stretch and looked like a wooden horse or a sick one and come in to be last. Then this Wilbur Wessen went down to the betting place under the grand stand and there I was with the two girls, and when that Miss Woodbury was looking the other way once, Lucy Wessen kinda, with her shoulder you know, kinda touched me. Not just tucking down, I don’t mean. You know how a woman can do. They get close, but not getting gay either. You know what they do. Gee whizz.</p><p> And then they give me a jolt. What they had done, when I didn’t know, was to get together, and they had decided Wilbur Wessen would bet fifty dollars, and the two girls had gone and put in ten dollars each, of their own money, too. I was sick then, but I was sicker later.</p><p> About the gelding, About Ben Ahem, and their winning their money, I wasn’t worried a lot about that. It came out O. K. Ahem stepped the next three heats like a bushel of spoiled eggs going to market before they could be found out, and Wilbur Wessen had got nine to two for the money. There was something else eating at me.</p><p> Because Wilbur come back after he had bet the money, and after that he spent most of his time talking to that Miss Woodbury, and Lucy Wessen and I was left alone together like on a desert island. Gee, if I’d only been on the square or if there had been any way of getting myself on the square. There ain’t any Walter Mathers, like I said to her and them, and there hasn’t ever been one, but if there was, I bet I’d go to Marietta, Ohio, and shoot him tomorrow.</p><p> There I was, big boob that I am. Pretty soon the race was over, and Wilbur had gone down and collected our money, and we had a hack downtown, and he stood us a swell supper at the West House, and a bottle of champagne beside.</p><p> And I was with that girl and she wasn’t saying much, and I wasn’t saying much either. One thing I know. She wasn’t stuck on me because of the lie about my father being rich and all that. There’s a way you know … Craps amighty. There’s a kind of girl you see just once in your life, and if you don’t get busy and make hay, then you’re gone for good and all, and might as well go jump off a bridge. They give you a look from inside of them somewhere, and it ain’t no vamping, and what it means is—you want that girl to be your wife, and you want nice things around her like flowers and swell clothes, and you want her to have the kids you’re going to have, and you want good music played and no ragtime. Gee whizz.</p><p> There’s a place over near Sandusky, across a kind of bay, and it’s called Cedar Point. And after we had supper we went over to it in a launch, all by ourselves. Wilbur and Miss Lucy and that Miss Woodbury had to catch a ten o’clock train back to Tiffin, Ohio, because, when you’re out with girls like that, you can’t get careless and miss any trains and stay out all night, like you can with some kinds of Janes.</p><p> And Wilbur blowed himself to the launch and it cost him fifteen cold plunks, but I wouldn’t never have knew if I hadn’t listened. He wasn’t no tin horn kind of a sport.</p><p> Over at the Cedar Point place, we didn’t stay around where there was a gang of common kind of cattle at all.</p><p> There was big dance halls and dining places for yaps, and there was a beach you could walk along and get where it was dark, and we went there.</p><p> She didn’t talk hardly at all and neither did I, and I was thinking how glad I was my mother was all right, and always made us kids learn to eat with a fork at the table, and not swill soup, and not be noisy and rough like a gang you see around a race track that way.</p><p> Then Wilbur and his girl went away up the beach and Lucy and I sat down in a dark place, where there was some roots of old trees the water had washed up, and after that the time, till we had to go back in the launch and they had to catch their trains, wasn’t nothing at all. It went like winking your eye.</p><p> Here’s how it was. The place we were setting in was dark, like I said, and there was the roots from that old stump sticking up like arms, and there was a watery smell, and the night was like—as if you could put your hand out and feel it—so warm and soft and dark and sweet like an orange.</p><p> I most cried and I most swore and I most jumped up and danced, I was so mad and happy and sad.</p><p> When Wilbur come back from being alone with his girl, and she saw him coming, Lucy she says, “We got to go to the train now,” and she was most crying too, but she never knew nothing I knew, and she couldn’t be so all busted up. And then, before Wilbur and Miss Woodbury got up to where we was, she put her face up and kissed me quick and put her head up against me and she was all quivering and—gee whizz.</p><p> Sometimes I hope I have cancer and die. I guess you know what I mean. We went in the launch across the bay to the train like that, and it was dark, too. She whispered and said it was like she and I could get out of the boat and walk on the water, and it sounded foolish, but I knew what she meant.</p><p> And then quick we were right at the depot, and there was a big gang of yaps, the kind that goes to the fairs, and crowded and milling around like cattle, and how could I tell her? “It won’t be long because you’ll write and I’ll write to you.” That’s all she said.</p><p> I got a chance like a hay barn afire. A swell chance I got.</p><p> And maybe she would write me, down at Marietta that way, and the letter would come back, and stamped on the front of it by the U. S. A. “there ain’t any such guy,” or something like that, whatever they stamp on a letter that way.</p><p> And me trying to pass myself off for a big-bug and a swell—to her, as decent a little body as God ever made. Craps amighty—a swell chance I got!</p><p> And then the train come in, and she got on it, and Wilbur Wessen, he come and shook hands with me, and that Miss Woodbury was nice too and bowed to me, and I at her, and the train went and I busted out and cried like a kid.</p><p> Gee, I could have run after that train and made Dan Patch look like a freight train after a wreck but, socks amighty, what was the use? Did you ever see such a fool?</p><p> I’ll bet you what—if I had an arm broke right now or a train had run over my foot—I wouldn’t go to no doctor at all. I’d go set down and let her hurt and hurt—that’s what I’d do.</p><p> I’ll bet you what—if I hadn’t a drunk that booze I’d a never been such a boob as to go tell such a lie—that couldn’t never be made straight to a lady like her.</p><p> I wish I had that fellow right here that had on a Windsor tie and carried a cane. I’d smash him for fair. Gosh darn his eyes. He’s a big fool—that’s what he is.</p><p> And if I’m not another you just go find me one and I’ll quit working and be a bum and give him my job. I don’t care nothing for working, and earning money, and saving it for no such boob as myself.</p><p><br /></p><p><i>—published in a magazine called </i>The Dial<i> in 1922</i></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRuuv01TpmjZJx6x9bcmEF70iDBmchq-xrbX7501RHUbJZK0qstRuaM140rNSkxkSxXgGU39tBIigARDrIuofsye69zSiWUHJZfQvglU2rt0Fl1st7eYnF_qznLuvxD24TUI2BS_TJqdObqUXpRfRe446SH9-wMCb3n6yOrVFF4jfXPWsOYqd4t1by/s977/trotters.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="547" data-original-width="977" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRuuv01TpmjZJx6x9bcmEF70iDBmchq-xrbX7501RHUbJZK0qstRuaM140rNSkxkSxXgGU39tBIigARDrIuofsye69zSiWUHJZfQvglU2rt0Fl1st7eYnF_qznLuvxD24TUI2BS_TJqdObqUXpRfRe446SH9-wMCb3n6yOrVFF4jfXPWsOYqd4t1by/w640-h358/trotters.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><p></p>Paññobhāsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14148206217028034038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8485583244199236996.post-17616099542379371532023-02-05T17:00:00.002-08:002023-02-05T17:07:37.218-08:00Hiking Alaung Daw Kathapa<p><br /></p><p></p><blockquote><p><i>Hit the trail at 07:00, and everything started out very nicely. Mostly smooth, mostly non-steep trail, brown monkeys in the trees, and the (auspicious) FIRST SNAKE OF THE YEAR—about 1½ feet long, all emerald green except for a reddish tail-tip, & w/ a head shaped like that of a viper. Whether it was a baby viper or not I don't know. Basking on a flat rock. But,</i></p><p><br /></p><p> He, with the defective belief in lucky signs completely abandoned,</p><p> Rightly he would wander in the world. <i>(Sammāparibbājanīya Sutta)</i></p><p><br /></p><p><i>—from one of my journals</i></p></blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p> Several years ago I wrote an essay called “Finding Alaung Daw Kathapa,” which I published on my now defunct Nippapanca Blog. This essay recounted my momentous first year finding, and living in, a huge cave on the northern edge of Alaung Daw Kathapa National Park, in Sagaing Division of northwestern Burma/Myanmar. I suppose someday, when I have the time to edit another book, I’ll publish a volume of essays describing my personal experiences as a monk, especially when I was living in Burma. For now I will attempt to describe my <i>second</i> trip to the same huge cave, back around 1998. For five years straight, from 1997 to 2001, I would hike to that cave, or overhanging rock ledge, to escape from the blazing heat of the hot season in central Burma, and to meditate.</p><p> As I recounted in the aforementioned article, which, as I say, may be published in a book someday, the first year a small party of Burmese monks and I took a sampan to a village or small town called Kheh Daung, and then hiked over a ridge of hills to the Patolone Creek valley, and then hiked another ten miles or so through land farmed by hillbillies to find the cave. The second year I decided to go to the center of Alaung Daw Kathapa National Park and hike north through the forest to the same place.</p><p> I had a connection, the brother of a monk I knew, who worked at the headquarters of the park in a town called Yin Ma Bin. I was taken to the headquarters where I was allowed to ride on the back of an antique forest service truck to the center of the park, along with some supplies and some village people who ran stalls and shops there.</p><p> I should mention that Alaung Daw Kathapa literally translates into English as “Noble Corpse of Kassapa,” and the story is that venerable Mahā Kassapa, the Buddha’s senior disciple at the time of the Buddha’s death, for reasons of his own, walked all the way to this forest area to die. At the center of the park is a shrine dedicated to the great disciple, and also a kind of magic cave, where his corpse and also a vast treasure are supposed to be hidden. A doctor explained to me once that the magic part of the cave, which appears as a roughly circular impression on the main cave wall, contains the noble corpse and the treasure, and that the depression sometimes opens up spontaneously, revealing the treasure cave within. Even if it opens, though, nothing but insanity and disaster are to be expected of anyone who dares to enter, and so the cave remains a magical mystery of the Burmese people. Later I heard another story, namely that there was a kind of sorcerer/alchemist monk named Kassapa who lived in that area a few hundred years ago, and that, due to the sameness of name, his approximate resting place was attributed to that of the Buddha’s disciple. It seems a more likely story, considering that Mahā Kassapa of the Ganges Valley could have had no compelling reason to walk hundreds of miles into an utter wilderness outside of India to die.</p><p> The doctor who told me the first story, the more miraculous one, which incidentally he believed without any doubt whatsoever—I say this same doctor accompanied me on my first trip to the center of the park. My first night there I slept in a kind of rest shelter or <i>zayat</i> with the good doctor; but the next day I searched around for someplace more suitable for a forest ascetic. Eventually I found a little campsite by a creek, just a ten minute walk to the stalls and shops selling food to tourists. In the morning I would walk to the shops and do my monk alms round thing, then return to the camp and eat.</p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-xuN49DVl6UX4XY3zmLFg1oZwjkV7m-Cij-Et5_PT8S0j_50AHUX1iaK_-lvlsKLTFEtjnFsfX931TFZ_pZDZiUfBlN4HA2-NerCCaLpgMJaGLvmmFh2llJ39Nev0bp6yI8xQCiI2HVaE8Guoied7Vtv8VbmbBkniKcDQqm6tVJnUQ2x0OepI4tPO/s960/Alaung%20Daw%20Kathapa.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="960" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-xuN49DVl6UX4XY3zmLFg1oZwjkV7m-Cij-Et5_PT8S0j_50AHUX1iaK_-lvlsKLTFEtjnFsfX931TFZ_pZDZiUfBlN4HA2-NerCCaLpgMJaGLvmmFh2llJ39Nev0bp6yI8xQCiI2HVaE8Guoied7Vtv8VbmbBkniKcDQqm6tVJnUQ2x0OepI4tPO/w640-h360/Alaung%20Daw%20Kathapa.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>me eating lunch at my campsite by the creek, in the center of<br />Alaung Daw Kathapa National Park (taken by the doctor)</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /></p><p> One strange memory I have of that trip to the center of the park was a broken promise that I made to the doctor, a breach of sila for which I made subsequent confession. (Breaking a promise is considered to be a minor form of lying for a monk, and a <i>dukkata</i> offense, less serious than the offense for telling a deliberate, conscious lie.) Ordinarily there is a trail from the center of the park to Kuzeit village, near where my cave was situated; but during the cold season the trail is generally still badly damaged in places by the monsoon floods and are not repaired till a later time than my visit. I was unsure of trying to follow a sometimes invisible trail through a tiger- and leopard-infested forest, as I might get lost, and possibly even dead, so I opted for following Patolone Creek, which passes through the center of the park and flows northwards, right to my cave. So I was at the creek checking out the feasibility of this with the doctor, and told him to go ahead back to his rest shelter as I was going to take a bath there, in the creek. But after he left, I noticed that the water was very cold; and I had also heard about large fish in this creek; and so I chickened out because of a dislike for frigidly cold baths and also fish that might bite off one of my favorite organs.</p><p> After two or three nights at the central, shrine area of the park, I set off alone down Patolone Creek on my way back to my place at Wun Cha Oatmin, or Belly Fall Cave. This was the sort of thing that I never would have done as a backpacker in America in my young adulthood, when I backpacked quite a lot: walking alone, barefoot, with no food other than a few cans of Red Bull, through a tropical forest known to be home to tigers, leopards, occasional wild elephants, wild buffalos, wild boars, bears, and so on. Even in a national park in America, with no really dangerous animals, I was hesitant to leave a trail alone, for fear of breaking my ankle or something out there, and here I was willing to hike around twenty miles barefoot through some of the wildest forest I’ve ever seen in Asia. I’m not sure why I was more fearless at this time, but I suppose the self-image or ego thing of being an ascetic forest monk had something to do with it.</p><p> I wound up spending two nights in the forest along the way. Both times I was very concerned about sleeping on the ground with large tropical wild animals prowling around. I was more concerned about wild boars and bears than I was about tigers, since there are lots more boars and bears than tigers, and thus one is more likely to encounter them, and the few remaining tigers are probably more afraid of humans than I was of them, considering that they are on the brink of extinction in Asia. One night I slept under an easily climbable tree, and on the other I slept on top of a large flat boulder that required some climbing; wild boars, at least, would probably not be able to get me there. I remember I took a human skull in my shoulder bag on that trip, and I set it up face outwards near the most accessible side of the boulder I was on, as a kind of guardian. Even the main security of the average forest camper, the campfire, was not much of an option for me, as building a fire to warm oneself is against the rules of monastic discipline. I suppose I could have fudged by declaring to myself that a fire would be to repel predators more than to keep me warm, but disciplinary scruples had me sitting and meditating in the dark, until it was time to lie down in the dark. Although I subsequently saw some big cat tracks in that park (about the size of the palm of my hand, and I’ve got big hands), I encountered no wild animals on that particular trip larger than barking deer (about the size of a German shepherd dog) and some monkeys.</p><p> I was still very wary though, as you might imagine. In places I’d be wading through tall grass with very limited visibility, during which times I’d consider myself a sitting duck for any nasty large animal. And in a few places I was really concerned for my life, as I was required to walk barefoot over slimy green algae on rock sloping towards a drop-off down to the creek. I would be inching forwards with my heart in my throat as I moved over the slime, trying not to imagine what it would be like to slip off the rock ledge onto rocks at least twelve feet below. But, as you may have guessed, I survived this.</p><p> A few times I was required to cross the creek, as the way would be vertical cliff on the side I was on but walkable on the other side. Usually the creek was wadable, but in one place I had to swim. I didn’t have much gear with me, just my alms bowl and a shoulder bag or two, but trying to carry all this while swimming did not seem optimal. Also I didn’t want all three of my robes to get soaking wet. So I managed to find a clump of bamboo with some dead poles in it, to break off some of the dead poles, and to lash them together with some line, including my belt, to make a kind of raft or float that I could put my stuff on and tow across as I swam. I was still wary of the large biting fish though, and protected my crotch area as best I could while swimming. (There is also a rule of monastic discipline forbidding a monk from swimming for fun, but this was simply to get to the other side of a creek when the side I was on was impassable, and so I swam for the first time in years that trip.)</p><p> Eventually, on the morning of the third day, I think, after fasting the whole day before, I began passing cleared areas along the creek where villagers would plant crops like peanuts—it turns out that peanuts grow really well in the sand of creek banks—and so I knew I was getting close to the villages on the northern border of the park, and also close to my cave. Finally I saw a small group of village men in front of me, apparently on a trip into the national park to chop trees or poach animals, and one of them had been a supporter the previous year. The fellow was overjoyed and left his group to help me back towards the village and my place, carrying some of my stuff. He kept exclaiming, and early on burst out with “You’re the arahant that stayed in the cave last year!” I replied that, well, I stayed in the cave, yes. (There is a very big rule against claiming to be an arahant, or a meditator who has attained psychic powers, when one knows this not to have been the case. But there is an exception when simple hearted people, out of immense respect, say things like “may the arahant come this way please”: the monk can go that way, but of course he cannot say that yes, he is indeed an arahant, because that would entail instantaneous excommunication from the Bhikkhu Sangha for life. Assuming of course that he isn’t really an arahant and he knows that. But even if he IS an arahant or has really attained psychic powers he is not supposed to tell laypeople about it. It’s a lesser offense but still forbidden.)</p><p> I spent the remainder of the cold season in the cave that year, and, as became tradition, I left shortly after the first monsoon rains began to fall. I came back three more times after that, and had several adventures…and the following year I began following the sometimes almost invisible trail instead of following the creek. But I guess that is a topic for another time.</p><p> </p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYO9Kt9gy5ywGGo0ONJNTVzbnG6kGBc4-FvUBIlCbPGyIIWb_zqwmLwc-c6wupZJnDesasbUwXHIuIr_hGer7tYyJDlosiqDgU_Dx-2DigNzuBYUnnL3iy_5mD6Uovm0a9LQQ5SomZDb7YY8g4gX6ERwmp_9tBuafMkjblBMkTgjWIJsKRDonZkv4G/s1689/alaung%20daw%20kathapa,%20from%20google%20earth.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="994" data-original-width="1689" height="376" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYO9Kt9gy5ywGGo0ONJNTVzbnG6kGBc4-FvUBIlCbPGyIIWb_zqwmLwc-c6wupZJnDesasbUwXHIuIr_hGer7tYyJDlosiqDgU_Dx-2DigNzuBYUnnL3iy_5mD6Uovm0a9LQQ5SomZDb7YY8g4gX6ERwmp_9tBuafMkjblBMkTgjWIJsKRDonZkv4G/w640-h376/alaung%20daw%20kathapa,%20from%20google%20earth.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>the general area of Alaung Daw Kathapa National Park, with the photo's<br />width covering about 120 miles or so (the push pin on the far right represents<br />a cave I lived at in later years</i></td></tr></tbody></table>Paññobhāsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14148206217028034038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8485583244199236996.post-90434387739745998332023-01-29T18:22:00.000-08:002023-01-29T18:22:13.598-08:00Two Issues for Western Buddhists<p><br /></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>Long is the night for the sleepless. Long is the road for the weary. Long is samsara for the foolish, who have not recognized the true teaching.</i> —Dhammapada v.60</blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><p> I’ve been doing Question and Answer videos for a few years now, the first ones back when I was a monk living at a Burmese temple in California. I recently uploaded #40; and at an average of, say, thirty questions per Q&A video that adds up to something like six gorillion questions I have attempted to answer. And it turns out that some questions are asked by various people pretty frequently, presumably because the truth of the matter is counterintuitive, or just hard to wrap one’s head around. Also there are certain misconceptions that come up regularly. Consequently I have decided to discuss in this post two of the main causes of confusion or misconception among western Buddhists who ask questions for the Q&A videos, and also who contact me otherwise to hash out issues. The first of these regards the nature of kamma or karma, and the other is the momentous issue of reifying the Absolute. First, karma.</p><p><br /></p><p> People are continually asking questions along the lines of, “Is it against Buddhist ethics to do such-and-such an act?” or “Is it bad karma to do such-and-such deed?” On the last Q&A it took the form of someone attempting to demonstrate that using money is unethical and a hindrance to spiritual liberation. </p><p> Now it is true that certain physical actions are denounced in the ancient Pali texts, especially for monastics. Monks are forbidden to perform all sorts of physical actions, including talking with one’s mouth full, eating from a bowl made from a human skull, having sex, using a sitting cloth without a border properly sewn onto it, grunting while taking a dump, building a hut without the Sangha first approving of the building site, opening a door with one’s bowl in hand, wearing pointy-toed shoes, using an ointment-smearing stick made of precious metals, hiding another monk’s bowl, spitting or peeing onto green plants, and on and on. But this sort of thing is simply a matter of formal rules, and is not necessarily a matter of basic ethics or of good or bad karma. There is nothing inherently immoral, for instance, in wearing pointy-toed shoes. Rules of discipline for monks, and precepts for laypeople, are largely superficial, as a way of decreasing the likelihood of bad karma, and also simply of good manners and not giving Buddhists a bad name in society. Actual Buddhist ethics run much deeper than this, and are far more subtle.</p><p> I’ve stated several times on my videos that two people can perform the very same act, and one will be getting bad karma for it, or more bad than good, and the other will be doing more good than bad. For example, let’s say a person is walking through the forest and hears a frog squealing. He looks and finds that a snake is in the process of trying to swallow this frog. The frog is inflated, to make it too big to swallow, and also squealing in desperation—because maybe, just maybe, a bigger predator than the snake will hear the noise and decide to eat the snake, thereby giving the frog a chance to escape. Anyway, the person coming upon this seen picks up a stick, pokes the snake with it and chases it away, and thereby saves the frog, who has been let go by the fleeing snake. Did the person do a good deed or a bad one by saving the frog?</p><p> Well, it depends on the person’s motivations. If he chased the snake away out of compassion for the frog, then he did good. If he chased it away out of aversion for the snake, then he did bad. Even though the physical act may have been outwardly exactly the same.</p><p> Karma, according to Buddhism, is essentially <i>cetanā</i> or will. The mental state itself is making the karma, and outward physical acts merely amplify and exacerbate the mental state. So to ask Is action X good or bad? is indicative of insufficient understanding of Buddhist ethics and the nature of karma.</p><p> It is true that certain outward actions practically of necessity entail very unwholesome volitions. Bludgeoning someone to death, for example, could hardly be done with entirely wholesome motives. Even killing someone threatening to kill thousands (let’s say by detonating a bomb or some such) would entail a fair amount of bad karma because the mental states involved in killing someone are pretty much always going to have some unwholesomeness involved. Hell, even putting salt and pepper one one’s food or listening to music are considered to involve, <i>usually</i>, for most people, unwholesome or unskillful mental states.</p><p> So, in general, one can say that something like handling money is in itself ethically neutral; though it serves as a spiritual obstacle for enough people that it was made verboten for ordained monastics. Remember: outward actions are not karma; will or volition is karma; and it is possible for two different people to perform the same action and make very different karma from each other by doing it.</p><p><br /></p><p> The next issue is a sticky one that can have people behaving in hostile and occasionally hysterical ways; and that is Buddhism’s tendency NOT to reify the Absolute, or Ultimate Reality. We can set aside the Abhidhamma philosophy here, which does reify Ultimate Reality, sometimes in some fairly silly ways, as Abhidhamma is the product of a scholastic movement in Buddhism that reached its full flower more than a century after the Buddha disappeared from this world.</p><p> Some people, including Abhidhamma scholars, reify Nibbana/Nirvana, for example. They think that it exists in pretty much the same way that anything else exists, as some kind of discrete entity or state. But it doesn’t, because it is completely off the samsaric scale. Going with classical Buddhist logic, to say Nirvana exists is invalid; to say that it <i>doesn’t</i> exist is invalid; to say that it does <i>and</i> doesn’t exist is invalid; and to say that it <i>neither</i> does nor <i>does not</i> exist is invalid. Any assertion made of it is necessarily invalid because assertions are necessarily samsaric, and Nirvana is not samsaric.</p><p> Most religions and spiritual systems reify the Absolute as though they were existent in a samsaric universe in pretty much the same way as anything else. Most systems refer to this Absolute as God, though it goes by other names, like Brahman or Dao. This is partly due to the limitations of human thought, as some people just cannot understand anything transcending the phenomenal universe. For some who are more advanced it is simply a way of speaking, as remaining totally silent on God or the Absolute can be mistaken for gross atheism. But speaking of the Absolute as something identifiable sows the seeds of people considering it to be something identifiable, and that is delusion.</p><p> Among Buddhists identifying the Absolute as God tends not to be a problem. The problem comes from a similar situation though: identifying the Absolute as Self. It is strange that belief in self and belief in God are almost the same in some ways, but so it is. Consider the Upanishads which assert again and again <i>tat twam asi</i>, Thou Art That—namely, the self and Brahman, the soul and God, are <i>the same</i>.</p><p> So there are numbers of western Buddhists, and self-styled authorities on Buddhism, who vehemently insist that there is a self and that the ancient Buddhist conception of <i>anatta</i> or No Self is false, or else grossly misunderstood—because, according to them, there IS a self. We can set aside the more misguided fellows of this club who insist that we each have an ultimately real soul along Christian lines, that is, we each have our own separate self. There is not a shred of evidence in the oldest Buddhist texts which supports this idea. But there are others who insist, like Vedantists also may insist, that our true self partakes of the Absolute, that we all have a soul but that there is just one universal Soul that is shared by all beings. Our self is the underlying Ultimate Reality which pervades the universe.</p><p> This may be a convenient manner of speaking; but early Buddhism, pre-Abhidhammic Buddhism, simply refuses to reify the Absolute. The Absolute, the highest principle, the Ultimate Reality underlying the entire universe and everything in it, “God,” is simply Off The Scale…and for those who identify our true Self with it, that also is simply Off The Scale.</p><p> It’s not utter nihilism, as people who just can’t comprehend not including the Absolute in a samsaric context tend to imagine of the “nihilistic” concept of <i>anatta</i>. Such people miss the point. The Buddha tended to avoid reifying Ultimate Reality because it just cannot be expressed in words. He was not a nihilist or a skeptic when he would not make assertions about the highest truth; rather he was a mystic, and extremely advanced one, who could very much appreciate the notion that the highest truth cannot be put into words, and any attempt to do so will end in failure at best. To take such attempts as literal truth is even worse, and amounts to delusion. Sometimes hysterical delusion in which true Dhamma is reviled, and followers of it condemned to hell. And all because of an intellectual addiction to understanding things in an intellectual and thereby samsaric context.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu31oOH5QIm-_33-X_s1iPw4vpSOefAwRNMAOcRuAL8LtD_q2NHvn9IjZzZ2lAFPdoftdEzrnc4oocJQRUMIdHauA2hNky-bsW0DYolssjzDi0Ha6wMaYk7D0OWcnXwyTFvoo8wCuH6F_foO6JzuDDTd0AhKcZJP62fwETjPzWa91J0rLngx5mqf7O/s3060/samsara%204.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3060" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu31oOH5QIm-_33-X_s1iPw4vpSOefAwRNMAOcRuAL8LtD_q2NHvn9IjZzZ2lAFPdoftdEzrnc4oocJQRUMIdHauA2hNky-bsW0DYolssjzDi0Ha6wMaYk7D0OWcnXwyTFvoo8wCuH6F_foO6JzuDDTd0AhKcZJP62fwETjPzWa91J0rLngx5mqf7O/w640-h512/samsara%204.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div>Paññobhāsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14148206217028034038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8485583244199236996.post-13780365603106297582023-01-22T16:39:00.000-08:002023-01-22T16:39:15.955-08:00On Desiring Non-Desire<p><br /></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.</i> —C. S. Lewis</blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><p><i> In my most recent Q&A video (Question and Answer #39, which is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLIZJpytc7Q&t=915s" target="_blank">here</a>), a person mysteriously named Pseudonym asked the following question:</i></p><p><br /></p><p></p><blockquote>One very simplistic critique of Buddhism is noting the contradiction that “you desire to not desire”. Similarly, practicing Buddhism to reduce stress, be happier, or even to seek enlightenment as an achievement to tackle are misguided. Yet, enlightenment remains as the target (or perhaps the object of desire) of Buddhist practice. Is this a real contradiction, or in what ways is this critique missing the mark? Can you help untangle this knot?</blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><p><i> I did my best to answer the question, which starts at the timestamp of around 15:05, along with many others, and subsequently a viewer of the video expressed some appreciation for that answer in particular and wished he had a transcript of it to study it; and so I have taken the trouble to transcribe the answer in question. What follows is that transcript, which I hope will be of some value to some of you good folks.</i></p><p><i> I am always humbled, maybe even very mildly appalled, when I transcribe something I said in a video, because of all the illiterate (or unliterary) ums, and you knows, and kind ofs, and so on. I’ve edited out some of the more egregious stammering but have left in enough to make it plain that this is a transcription of a spontaneous, off the cuff answer. I hope you don’t mind.</i></p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">*****</p><p><br /></p><p> Well, not all monks, even—I mean let’s just set aside the drones and the clowns and the crooks and, you know, just the lazy people that, you know, they’re not really even trying. Just set those aside. They do exist in the Sangha; we’ll just ignore those. But even the seriously practicing monks, not <i>all</i> of them, are like, striving for this goal of Nibbana. Because some of them, it’s just they feel like it’s a duty to practice. You know, it’s their sacred duty to practice Dhamma as well as they can, so that is, you know, that’s like their goal is just practice as well as they can. Some people, they just like to meditate, they like to live a simple, austere life—that was pretty much my situation. And so they just practice because of that. </p><p> I have warned for many years, I mean, beware of goal-oriented Dharma. You know, if you’re not in the present moment but you’re like, aiming at something in the distant future, or maybe even the near future, so long as you’re not here in the present moment then you’re not practicing correctly. I mean if you’re doing this in order to get something later…then, yeah, I mean you’re already misguided to some degree.</p><p> Which reminds me of, I think it’s one of the last, um, I can’t remember what they’re—in Spinoza’s Ethics, you know, he’s got it set up like Euclid; so it’s one of the last theorems or whatever it is that you prove in geometry, that um, virtue is its own reward. You’re not being virtuous in order to get into heaven or whatever, it’s just virtue is its own reward. And Dhamma practice really is its own reward. </p><p> And so long as you retain that kind of attitude, your Dhamma practice will be more fruitful, I think. Not that you should be doing it in order for the Dhamma practice to be more fruitful. </p><p> But still, there are a lot of monks who are striving ardently, earnestly for Nibbana or Nirvana or Enlightenment. And the thing is, the more you progress—and we’ll get to this later on, there’s another question if I remember correctly, that kind of, uh, applies to this—where if, let’s say, you’re striving for Enlightenment, just single-mindedly, you know, and so all your other cravings kind of go away, or, you know, or, they’re sublimated or they’re just, you know, rejected, or whatever, and you’ve got this one craving left. You don’t crave girls anymore, you don’t crave rock ’n’ roll and ice cream and partying with your old friends, you’re not craving a book collection [pointing back at my book collection]…um, you know, all you want is Enlightenment. </p><p> And so you’ve reduced the number of your attachments and desires down to this one big one, and then you try and you try and you try, but because you still have this clinging, you can’t become enlightened. Because that’s like your last obstacle. So eventually you get to this point—it could be like, uh, an insight moment where you just realize, you just let everything go; or it could just be like absolute despair. You know: “I just can’t do this anymore.” You just kind of cast it away, and that’s it, I mean you’ve thrown away the last attachment. So Enlightenment can happen that way. </p><p> So, on the one hand you’re better off not setting up a goal as a purpose for practicing. It works for some people I suppose, if we go to the second route that I’ve just explained, where it’s this thing, this last attachment, you know, you sublimate all of your other attachments for this one holy, sacred ideal, and then of course because you have the attachment you can’t get there; you can’t attain it. And then finally for whatever reason, positive or negative, you cast that aside too and…click. So that can work too. </p><p> But um, yeah, desiring not to desire—I mean, it can kind of work, it can move you in that direction, but of course, obviously, if you’re desiring not to desire you’re never going to reach non-desire, until you eventually cast aside the desire not to desire; and that may be at a relatively advanced level. So that can happen too.</p><p> So I’ll just move on to the next question….</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQOM-1em6OdI5ssTWbxChn4fsQd9jqdkZeyzNYu-SKqwQr2Wpp5pvSmMEL-CJ_-XFJH8hRkmlvHTbHkvHD8kYKlUteWwcFuYS7O5V_UddQ6yISx5KmrewcbW51e8-5hnzYShFEqaPNCdGVh1TX_7HxLZh8NckwfUzxxkc3GVxDAbSjXvLgWYueLW62/s2537/desiring%20non%20desire%20screenshot.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1427" data-original-width="2537" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQOM-1em6OdI5ssTWbxChn4fsQd9jqdkZeyzNYu-SKqwQr2Wpp5pvSmMEL-CJ_-XFJH8hRkmlvHTbHkvHD8kYKlUteWwcFuYS7O5V_UddQ6yISx5KmrewcbW51e8-5hnzYShFEqaPNCdGVh1TX_7HxLZh8NckwfUzxxkc3GVxDAbSjXvLgWYueLW62/w640-h360/desiring%20non%20desire%20screenshot.png" width="640" /></a></div>Paññobhāsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14148206217028034038noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8485583244199236996.post-39514623491970144092023-01-15T16:50:00.000-08:002023-01-15T16:50:53.972-08:00A Followup on My Problematic Promotion<p><br /></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><p><i>Money has never made man happy, nor will it, there is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more of it one has the more one wants.</i> —Benjamin Franklin</p><p></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>If women didn't exist, all the money in the world would have no meaning.</i> —Aristotle Onassis</blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p> Some of you may remember that, back in July, I wrote a blog post wherein I mentioned receiving an offer to work as a sales rep up front at the sheet metal shop where I work. The pay was reportedly higher, especially if I turned out to be a competent sales rep, and I’d get to sit on my behind in the air-conditioned and comfortable sales area instead of in the hot in the summer, cold in the winter production area. I was very ambivalent about this offered promotion for various reasons, all of which I explained in the <a href="https://politicallyincorrectdharma.blogspot.com/2022/07/my-problematic-promotion.html" target="_blank">earlier post</a>.</p><p> In South Carolina things can run very slowly. People are less hurried and more laid back than in other parts of the country. Consequently, the offered sales rep job remained in the air for months. Sometimes I would ask the boss if he had changed his mind, and he would say no, he hadn’t changed his mind; but that’s about as far as it went from July through November.</p><p> There were reasons for the slow pace of my offered promotion besides the relaxed pace of South Carolina. I found out that the main guys running the machines in back, the closest we’ve got to warehouse managers, didn’t want to part with me, as I am considered to be one of the most “flexible” and easily trained people back there. I was told that these fellows were complaining about me moving up front because they had big plans for me, or some such.</p><p> But eventually the boss took a significant step towards my job sitting at a computer terminal: he gave me a kind of psychological evaluation. The way it’s supposed to work is that very successful salespeople were evaluated with such a psychological test, and their scores under various categories were designated as optimum. Anyone applying for a sales job would take the test and the results compared with the scores of the heavy hitter sales jocks. One has to agree or disagree, on a spectrum, with a multitude of statements such as, “I am a very competitive person,” “I am motivated to make as much money as possible,” and “I have many interests.” I probably aced the first part regarding mastery of the English language, but under some of the categories from the evaluation I did not do very well. For example, under the heading of likely closing of sales I got a score of 6—not 6 out of 10, but 6 out of <i>100</i>. The test results indicated that I would be very conscientious, for example, but that I was definitely not likely to be an aggressive salesman. This was no surprise to me, as I really do not have the temperament of a salesman. (I am reminded of the play <i>Death of a Salesman</i>, in which the guy, in order to live a happy and fulfilling life, should have been a carpenter instead of an unsuccessful salesman.)</p><p> The boss likes me though, and was willing to go ahead with the sales rep job for me, despite the 6, saying that I could take the evaluation again with some coaching…but that never happened. Instead he had me undergo some basic training with regard to the new job, which lasted a few hours per week for two weeks. After I finished learning what the job would entail, I was given the choice of moving up front or staying in back.</p><p> I learned a lot of interesting and potentially useful things about the applications of metal roofing and siding, like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuOfM5-XnwQ" target="_blank">how to install trim on standing seam roofs</a>, and I learned what some of the stuff I’d been making is for, but one unpleasant thing I learned about the offered job is that it involves cold calling potential customers. I considered that to be the worst duty of the job. Calling people I don’t know and trying to sell them stuff just rubs me the wrong way. (I remember long ago, before I was a monk, preparing for a long backpacking trip. Just one or two days before the planned trip I was taking a shower, and the phone rang. I jumped out of the shower, slipped on the wet floor, and banged the side of my bare foot against the corner of a cabinet, injuring it; and the caller was some damned telemarketer wanting to sell me a rug shampoo or some such. I did the trip with an injured foot and grumbled about people calling me to sell me stuff. It just doesn’t seem right to sell stuff over the phone.)</p><p> Around the time that I was doing the little training course, the manager and my instructor backpedaled to some degree about how much of a promotion the sales rep job would be. For example, sales reps earn a relatively low basic hourly wage with their income increased by sales commissions; and now I was told that I could eventually make a comparable wage running machines in the back, especially considering that I learn how to run machines fairly quickly and am a valued worker.</p><p> So, to make a long story medium length, I finally decided to turn down the job and stay in back and learn how to run more machines. This was mainly for two reasons. First, as I just mentioned, I don’t like the idea of cold calling potential customers. If I were simply attending to people who walk into the store, plus I suppose following up estimates over the phone with people I’d already dealt with, then that would be one thing. I’m just not a money-oriented and aggressive salesman, not even with my own books, videos, etc. And second, the practically endless female chatter up front (currently two males and four females) is just too much. (My sweetheart’s mama is visiting us while I write this, and, bless the hearts of those two fine females, my sweetheart and her mama, about an hour of nonstop chatter between them is about as much as I can take before I excuse myself and hide. And if I took the job, even though it had the potential for higher pay, I’d be listening to that sort of thing <i>every day</i>, all day.</p><p> Guys can talk a lot too; don’t get me wrong. But in the back it’s more likely practical information about work peppered with raunchy jokes and so forth. Up front I’d be sitting through long conversations about what kind of breakfast cereal small children like, the comparative merits of various brands of yogurt, and retail prices of garments. I’d rather listen to some guy in back explaining how his boot was ripped to shreds.</p><p> There was a further consideration of exercise, which went both ways. On the one hand, working in back is good exercise and keeps me in a modicum of good physical shape. On the other hand I’m not getting any younger, and I don’t know how much longer I’ll be up for unloading rolls of insulation from large trucks, etc. Also I come home from work tired most of the time, and a desk job, or rather counter job, would allow me to come home with more energy, maybe.</p><p> Anyway, the boss was completely fine with me staying in back, and at this point I would guess that he likes this way better anyway, especially after that score of 6 on my evaluation. The guys in back appear to be content with it also; and now I am being trained to operate the largest machine in the shop, the roll former.</p><p> This whole situation has been a difficult one for me to decide upon, a real dilemma, and I wasn’t sure what I would decide up until a few hours before I told the boss at the end of December. The trouble comes from, on the one hand, the fact that money is necessary out here in the “real world.” I have a woman and a home and various domestic responsibilities, including the responsibility to support my family as well as I can. On the other hand, I’ve never had much regard for money, not since I was a teenager anyhow. Long ago an ex-girlfriend payed me a kind of backhanded compliment by telling my mother, “He doesn’t like money!” It’s not that I <i>hate</i> money, but rather I see the making of it as a kind of troublesome necessity, like brushing one’s teeth. And I've never needed very much of it.</p><p> I lived for literally thirty years without accepting or handling money, and I was completely fine with that. The rule against handling money is one that most monks break, but I followed it even when difficult or even scary (try traveling alone on international flights with zero money, for example). Sometimes as a monk I would even hope that someone would offer me money just so I could refuse it. I’ve been in some strange situations in which Buddhist people in Burma would be essentially pleading with me to take their money. (I remember one time I was walking down the street in Rangoon when a white car pulled over and a young Burmese lady jumped out. She tried to offer me money, but I persistently refused. Then, suddenly, she began speaking perfect English and said, “Yes, yes, I know, monks aren’t allowed to accept money. My father also is a monk. But THIS is for you to buy cigarettes and betel! I still refused, politely of course, whereupon in desperation she looked around and saw two guys lounging on the sidewalk nearby. While she was pleading with them to be my attendants and carry the money back to my monastery, I quietly got the hell out of there.) But now money is necessary for existence.</p><p> Thus far I have been successful at paying the bills, buying groceries, acquiring necessary clothing, and such; but we had a Spartan Christmas this year, and all it would take is for the roof to start leaking, for example, or some major medical expense to arise, and I’d be essentially wiped out. Sales of my books have increased very slightly lately, and a few more supporters have subbed to my SubscribeStar page (though all of the biggest donors bailed shortly after I stopped being a monk), so there is that, plus the vaguely promised raises in my probable future. And so at present I remain by day a modest machine operator and forklift driver, though I do have the duty to keep my eyes open for anything better that comes along, if not for me then for my woman, not to mention our dogs.</p><p> And naturally, I do my best to maintain a calm and equanimous attitude, with gratitude, because worrying about things helps to make them happen. Karma is real. So far, life is good, considering the first Noble Truth of course.</p><p> </p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMj7cq78gbsGj_DRJw0HZarmYnUtwjGro9POezRLrpLx0rciL432s9QrEWCvMrj3A3ThrSvUIwoDsp9AmD08uJySXinHNTgHA8ruvvtd-pjsOoyxXiDI7FsUyDA0TR2-VTU-vCMot8xTkl8IhC_4B6zyoq6vA9RUTV80l3FunL1YhFigjs4lxIV0vD/s3060/new%20machine.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2467" data-original-width="3060" height="516" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMj7cq78gbsGj_DRJw0HZarmYnUtwjGro9POezRLrpLx0rciL432s9QrEWCvMrj3A3ThrSvUIwoDsp9AmD08uJySXinHNTgHA8ruvvtd-pjsOoyxXiDI7FsUyDA0TR2-VTU-vCMot8xTkl8IhC_4B6zyoq6vA9RUTV80l3FunL1YhFigjs4lxIV0vD/w640-h516/new%20machine.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><i>my new machine (including the blue and yellow part, the decoiler, way down at the end)</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table>Paññobhāsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14148206217028034038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8485583244199236996.post-88912766010756602212023-01-08T16:16:00.000-08:002023-01-08T16:16:57.063-08:00The Stalker as Holy Fool: Analysis of a Soviet Russian Spiritual Parable<p><br /></p><p><i> NOTE: I wrote this essay quite a few years ago when I was a monk living on the floor of a tiny massage studio in Bellingham, Washington. Though I wrote it long ago I post it here because: 1) it has been unavailable for some time, as far as I know, anywhere on the Internet, and 2) I consider it to be one of the best things I’ve ever written—not necessarily because of the subject matter, but because of the style. Some of the links in the original essay may be dead at this point in time, but I have tried to update them and have found, at least, a free video of this (excellent, truly excellent) movie on YouTube.</i></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p></p><blockquote> <i>"The artist seeks to destroy the stability by which society lives, for the sake of drawing closer to the ideal. Society seeks stability, the artist, infinity."</i>—Andrei Tarkovsky</blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><p> I love symbolism in art, and working out its meaning. Which is ironic, since I consider Samsara to consist of symbols: Symbolism is Samsara, in a manner of speaking. So loving symbolism is practically like loving Samsara, which of course is not so good for a good Buddhist, or even for a mediocre one.</p><p> But still I love interpreting symbols. I feel satisfaction in understanding why Dostoyevsky's <i>The Idiot</i> starts in November, and why important events therein often occur at around eleven o'clock; that K.'s crime in Kafka's <i>The Trial</i> is essentially questioning the legitimacy of existence, and especially of modern Western "civilized" existence; and that <i>Apocalypse Now</i> represents a journey into the darkness of the human heart, with Do Lung bridge, which is destroyed every night and rebuilt every morning, representing the boundary between the conscious and subconscious minds. And if a story is a profound and fascinating one as well as being symbolic, then so much the better, naturally.</p><p> Anyway, I recently watched Andrei Tarkovsky's great work <i>Stalker</i> (which may be watched for free on YouTube, at least until it becomes otherwise), which is one of the profoundest, most thought-provoking motion pictures I've ever seen. And since it is a very spiritual and philosophical movie, with the director claiming that its main theme evokes the Far East, I consider it fair game for a post on this blog.</p><p> It resembles <i>Apocalypse Now</i> in a number of ways, most importantly in symbolizing a journey into the depths of the human heart. Also, it was released in the same year, 1979. Also, during the production of both movies one of the main participants suffered a heart attack—in fact the filming of both movies was plagued by difficulties, not the least of which for Tarkovsky was that almost a year of filming was practically nullified when the film was botched by the developers. Although the Soviet authorities gave permission to make the movie, it turned out so spiritually oriented and such a profound condemnation of materialism, both Eastern and Western, that it was suppressed in the USSR.</p><p> One way in which it emphatically does <i>not</i> resemble <i>Apocalypse Now</i> is that this is not an action movie. In fact, not much actually <i>happens</i> at the physical level. Profound changes occur within, which is not always obvious. One young critic on the website Rotten Tomatoes said that watching the movie is like watching a boring person watching a PBS documentary about how slugs fall asleep in the winter. Then again, he was probably jaded on Hollywood blockbusters with plenty of explosions and multimillion-dollar special effects. Most critics love it; in fact it is considered by many to be one of the greatest motion pictures ever made.</p><p> Entire books have been written on this one movie, a recent one being <i>Zona: A Book about a Film about a Journey to a Room</i> by Geoff Dyer (Canongate: Edinburgh and London, 2012). I haven't read any of them, but I have looked at some of the many articles on the Internet.</p><p> If you haven't seen this classic, perhaps you might prefer to watch it before reading this, as I'll describe how it ends, thus ruining the surprise. On the other hand, if you've already seen it I hope that this attempted analysis will inspire you to see it again. Those Buddhists who are put off by words like "soul," "God," and "desire" would do well to lay aside some rigidity for awhile, or else spend the evening with a copy of the Dhammapada. </p><p> <i>Stalker</i> is loosely based on a science fiction story, "Roadside Picnic" by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky; but the movie has been transmuted into a spiritual parable transcending genres. Nobody in the movie, with the possible exception of a silent bartender called Luger (or Lüker—Looker?), has a real name, for example—which is par for the course with parables. The original science fiction story is about people infiltrating an area strangely affected by an alien visitation, but the movie was adapted to be more mysterious. All we know here is that <i>something</i> dropped from the sky and caused something mysterious and inexplicable, which the worldly establishment is either ignorant of, or fears. At the beginning these words appear on the screen, by way of introduction:</p><p><br /></p><p></p><blockquote><p> ...What was it? Did a meteor fall?</p><p> Was it a visit by citizens of the vast space?</p><p> So or otherwise, in our little country appeared</p><p> the greatest miracle of miracles—the ZONE.</p><p> We sent troops there immediately.</p><p> They did not come back.</p><p> Then we surrounded the ZONE with police cordons...</p><p> And, I suppose, that was the right thing to do...</p><p> Actually, I don’t know, I don’t know...</p><p></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p> The tale of the movie is centered on the Stalker, whose profession, or calling, is illegally leading clients into the forbidden and dangerous Zone, where the impersonal laws of physics are frequently broken, and are more personal. In this Zone, it is said, there is a room where one's most cherished dream, one's heart's desire, is realized. This is why people want to go there. Stalker apparently has recently been released from a term in prison for following his vocation, and is still suffering from some kind of abuse he received. His wife desperately wants him to find a normal job. His daughter is a kind of mutant, who cannot walk and, in the movie at least, never speaks aloud. He and his wife and daughter live in a shack by some railroad tracks, not far from a huge power plant. </p><p> The Stalker is awakened one morning by a passing train which shakes the entire house, causing a glass on a tray to rattle and move about. (Also on the tray are medical supplies, apparently because the Stalker is unwell.) He gets up quietly, thoughtfully trying not to wake his wife and daughter, and prepares to meet his new clients. His wife wakes up too though, and after a bitter, futile attempt to talk him out of leaving on his next journey, she falls to the floor and writhes in hysterical anguish as another passing train starts everything rattling again. I suspect that the shaking of the house (their world) as a result of the trains (the onward rush of mechanical civilization) is symbolic.</p><p> So, I suppose, is the fog that swirls all around. It suggests an intellectual, cultural fog, resulting from the mistakes people have made in the past. A barely noticeable drizzle falls on an industrial, unnatural landscape.</p><p> The Stalker's two clients are a physicist, simply called Professor (or Scientist, depending on the translation from Russian), and a successful popular writer, equally simply called Writer. The Stalker doesn't want to know their legal names. These men represent the two strongest forms of spiritual death in the modern world: The Professor is an emotionally undeveloped, perhaps slightly neurotic intellectual with firm faith in scientific method; and the Writer is a cynical, self-indulgent, refined and jaded hedonist. He shows up for the journey half drunk, accompanied by a young, stylish woman whose name he doesn't know. (Stalker quietly tells her to go away, and after cursing his rudeness she drives away with Writer's hat on top of the car. I don't quite understand the part with the hat.) Writer's first words in the film, directed to the young woman before she goes away, are:</p><p> </p><p></p><blockquote>"My dear! The world is absolutely dull, and that is why there’s neither telepathy, nor ghosts, nor flying saucers...and there cannot be anything of the kind. Iron laws control the world, and it’s intolerably boring. And these laws, alas, cannot be violated. They don't know how to be violated." (Then, a little further on:) "However, in the Middle Ages it was interesting. Every home had its house-spirit, and every church had its God...People were young! Now every fourth person is old. Boring, my angel, oh how boring." </blockquote><p></p><p> </p><p>He says he's entering the Zone because his inspiration has dried up. A little later he admits that he doesn't know what he wants. Professor has a secret reason, secret partly even from himself. The three men are rather like the Brothers Karamazov going on a quest: The stern yet meek, spiritual Stalker, the detached, dissociated, intellectual Professor, and the emotional, sensual Writer—except in this case, unlike the Karamazovs, the emotional sensualist is the cynical one.</p><p> The three tensely run the barbed wire gates of the Zone and the police open fire with automatic weapons. They slip in behind a train loaded with huge electrical insulators, and some of this insulation is (symbolically?) destroyed in the efforts of the police to stop the three men. Before they reach the affected area the whole world is shown in sepia monochrome: not quite in in black and white, but not quite in color either; but upon their attaining the depths of the Zone all appears in bright colors, especially green, indicating that the Zone is somehow more intensely <i>real</i> and <i>alive</i> than the "outside world." The world turns to color when they are near some old electrical poles shaped like crosses, but leaning and dilapidated, as though the primary way in which this greater reality is manifested in the world is no longer with these symbolic shapes. A crossbar on one breaks off as Stalker brushes past it. When they arrive in the Zone Stalker joyfully exclaims, "Home at last!"</p><p> Water is the universal symbol for Spirit, and seems so in the movie; and although it is all around even outside the Zone (for example the Stalker cleanses himself with water before leaving the house), by the time the men reach their destination they're fairly sodden with it. It is mostly stagnant and polluted. When it falls from the sky it's presumably pure, but as soon as it hits this earth of ours it becomes contaminated. It's still real water though, naturally.</p><p> Upon arrival in the Zone, Stalker excuses himself for a little while and goes off alone to look at the building which contains the mysterious Room. He gazes upon it in the distance and falls to his knees, then lies down in the weeds, feeling who knows what, while a small insect crawls on his hand. While he's gone the Professor explains some things about the Zone to the Writer, and mentions that the government has closed off the area, the Room, to guard against people having dangerous wishes come true. This kind of scenario might be more poignantly understandable to Soviet Russians, but it is still applicable there and here.</p><p> After Stalker returns, they pass by wrecked military vehicles from the doomed and futile army expedition, and what appears to be human remains. Writer is nervous and worried, although Professor remains detached. Stalker directs them to within plain sight of the building, telling them that the Room is just inside and to the left, but that direct routes are practically forbidden in the Zone—"the longer the route, the safer"—and that they'll have to go around by another way. Besides, it simply doesn't do to arrive at a Holy of Holies by turning <i>left</i>. Writer, stressed and irrational, finds this ridiculous and marches straight for the entrance. As he approaches the open doorway the wind picks up, there is a sound like a flock of birds taking flight, a mysterious voice calls out "Stop! Don't move!", and a wad of cobwebs, like a veil, falls across the entrance. Writer loses his nerve and returns to the others, more willing to follow Stalker. Or rather, more willing to go ahead of Stalker, as the guide usually goes behind, merely directing the way.</p><p> Stalker warns them about the strange rules of the Zone. He says, </p><p><br /></p><p></p><blockquote>"The Zone—it’s...a very complicated system...of traps, let’s call it, and all of them are deadly. I do not know what happens here when humans are away, but if people appear here, everything starts moving. Previous traps disappear, new ones emerge. The safe places become impassable, and the way one moment is simple and easy, the next—it turns insuperably complicated. This is the Zone. It may even seem that it is capricious, but in every moment it is such as we made it ourselves...with our inner state. I will not hide, it has happened that people were forced to return empty-handed from halfway. There were also such who...perished on the very threshold of the Room. Nevertheless, everything that happens here, depends not on the Zone, but on us!" </blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><p>Fog obscures the building now, and a cuckoo calls in the distance. </p><p> The next scene begins with water splashing in a deep well, and Stalker praying within himself:</p><p> </p><p></p><blockquote>"Let it come true what has been planned. Let them believe. And let them have a laugh at their passions; for what they call passion is not some emotional energy, but just the friction between their soul and the outside world. And above all, let them believe in themselves, let them become helpless like children, because weakness is great and strength is worthless...When a man is born, he is weak and supple; when he dies, he is stiff and insensitive. When a tree grows, it is tender and pliant, and when it is dry and hard, it dies. Hardness and strength are companions of death; suppleness and weakness express the freshness of living. That is why what has hardened will never win."</blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><p> The Professor shows much attachment to a knapsack he has with him, more than once refusing to part with it. When the three move on, the Professor announces that he has left his knapsack and must go back to retrieve it. But retracing one's steps on this journey is forbidden—one must continue moving forwards (this has been the case even since before entering the Zone). The Professor goes back anyway, and the other two leave him behind and enter a dark tunnel.</p><p> When they come out the other end of it though, there is the Professor calmly drinking coffee from his thermos. Stalker asks him how he overtook them, and Professor replies, "What do you mean? I came back here to fetch my knapsack." Stalker looks around and sees that they've ended up where they were before, and that furthermore they exited a tunnel marked as a trap by Stalker's teacher, a previous stalker called Porcupine who attained his heart's desire in the Room and shortly thereafter committed suicide. Stalker is shaken and frightened by these strange occurrences (Professor breaking the rules and remaining unharmed, the other two unknowingly coming around in a circle, and exiting through a trap), and insists that they rest before continuing on. Fog and polluted, foaming water are all around them.</p><p> At this point in the movie, symbols runs rampant. As Writer and Professor bicker, the camera looks into the water for the first of several times. Under the water in these scenes we see assortments of ordinary human objects: hypodermic syringes, metal containers, guns, coins, bits of printed paper, electrical wire, a piece of a broken mirror, machine parts, white tile, a Christian icon, and much else besides, including some live and apparently trapped aquarium fish. These are all part of the three men's world—money and print for the successful Writer, for example—common objects from the outside world. But here, saturated in the water of spirit, they lose their validity and value, and become worthless debris. In one of these shots the last object to be seen is Stalker's hand in the water, shown in monochrome.</p><p> There are a number of times in the Zone when the film returns to sepia-tinted monochrome, three of them during this dreamy (un)rest by the water. Each time the only human shown in the shot is Stalker, apparently when his faith begins to falter. In the first he's lying face down, yet when Writer calls to him he's suddenly face up, and in color again. In the next, a few minutes later, he's lying on his side on a tiny island surrounded by water and stagnant muck, when a black dog, a perhaps unclean denizen of the Zone, approaches and lies down next to him. In the third he's still lying down, but viewed from an angle that makes him appear upright, with a dreamlike recitation going on, seemingly by his wife, of part of the Book of Revelation describing the end of the world.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCeYW3PRkkEFhnaT56EPc6SRs71yU9lQEIbkQUOviEkkGwA5BoAbQ7dSmW7dispIk7NsKDiw4ULVyME-s-WSq1TBv5BHpTjoOu_nxXeS9gYkc5gGCI4LF1srhVqCl3AL_x2pWi1fGzuceRrcUHHj_QcSYuYj0yhZ7s55HfsNj6kj3uOu9lpavHRGV-/s800/stalker%20with%20black%20dog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="605" data-original-width="800" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCeYW3PRkkEFhnaT56EPc6SRs71yU9lQEIbkQUOviEkkGwA5BoAbQ7dSmW7dispIk7NsKDiw4ULVyME-s-WSq1TBv5BHpTjoOu_nxXeS9gYkc5gGCI4LF1srhVqCl3AL_x2pWi1fGzuceRrcUHHj_QcSYuYj0yhZ7s55HfsNj6kj3uOu9lpavHRGV-/w400-h303/stalker%20with%20black%20dog.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p><br /></p><p> During their restless rest there is a scene showing a rippling field of dirty foam which looks like rippling ground, with dust swirling over it in the air, the foaming river behind, and something that looks like snow falling. (This snow was not real snow, nor was it a created special effect; it was in fact some kind of chemical waste blown from a factory near the place in Estonia where the filming took place. Most of the crew experienced health problems, and at least three of them, including the director himself, died of a kind of pulmonary cancer years afterward.)</p><p> After the recitation from the Apocalypse, Stalker gets up, in color again, and recites the scene from the Gospel of Luke describing the two men walking to Emmaus and being joined on their way by the resurrected Christ, yet somehow not recognizing him. When he finishes, Writer and Professor are wide awake, scrutinizing him, and he says to them, "Are you awake?" At least they <i>look</i> awake. Stalker, like all Holy Fools perhaps, definitely has some Christlike qualities.</p><p> Shortly after this they arrive at a place called "the meat grinder," the most dangerous place in the Zone. Stalker is unabashedly afraid; Writer is scared and angry because he's been chosen to go first; yet Professor, as usual, remains impassive. Writer begins his long, solitary walk through a long, echoing tunnel littered with ice and wet, broken glass, walking deeper and deeper into the unknown depths. In a moment of panic he draws a pistol, which Stalker in the distance franticly begs him to throw away, as the Zone will certainly not permit it. Who would he shoot at anyway? Writer drops it, reaches the end of the tunnel, wades through shoulder-deep stagnant water, as though going through some kind of baptism, comes out the other end, and wanders to a deep well (the same one that begins Part Two, seen when Stalker begins his prayer? Who knows.). He drops a rock into it, and more than fifteen seconds elapse before a splash is heard; he sits briefly on the edge of this profound abyss. Here things are unpredictable: Stalker, not far away, tosses a machinist's nut with a streamer tied to it, and it bounces strangely. A bird flies over the sand, suddenly disappears, and then flies over again. When the other two catch up, they find Writer lying in a puddle near the practically bottomless well, wallowing not only in the puddle, but also in a profound existential crisis. Writer lies there in tortured despair, questioning his own value as a successful writer, and as a human being.</p><p><br /></p><p></p><blockquote>"…Who is going to get pangs of conscience? Me? I do not have a conscience. I have only nerves. Some scoundrel scolds me—a wound. Another scoundrel praises me—another wound. You put your soul in it, you put your heart in it—they will devour both the soul and the heart. You extract the baseness out of the soul—they devour the baseness….And I did think earlier that somebody must become better because of my books. But nobody needs me! I will die, and in two days they will forget me and begin devouring somebody else. For I wanted to remake them, but I myself was remade! In their own image….They do not want to know anything! All they know is how to devour!" </blockquote><p></p><p> </p><p>But he survives this inward meat grinder. Stalker is hugely relieved, praising him, saying many do not survive. But Writer is angry and resentful because he's the one who had to go first into it, and maybe also because the other two were present when he was baring his hateful, tormented heart.</p><p> At the far end of the meat grinder they enter a strange little room with an ordinary-looking house window, a floor of planking much like the floor in Stalker's house (yet with water visible beneath the planks), a bare lightbulb that flares up and goes out, also like one in Stalker's house, and a bottle of sleeping pills—also like in Stalker's house. Writer, incensed, is complaining, accusing, and sneering. But then, oddly, a telephone starts ringing. Writer finally answers it, and it is a wrong number: He says, "Yes? No, this is not a clinic!" and hangs up. Odd, but they are creating the rules of their reality here, and they needed an interruption from the tense unpleasantness. </p><p> The Professor then impulsively picks up the phone and calls his laboratory. He tells a colleague there that he has found what was hidden, and that he intends to use it. The colleague accuses him of wanting to do this "vileness" out of spite at him, simply because he slept with the Professor's wife twenty years previously. Professor hangs up on him, and then in an unusually emotional, agitated state begins rationalizing why the Zone must be destroyed. Scum yearning for world conquest, or for who knows what monstrosities, will come to the Room to have their dreams come true…Strange crimes and super-diseases are already occurring, no doubt because of that Room….</p><p> Writer, in cynical typicality, retorts that nobody has such universal love or hate, that all people want is sex and more money, plus maybe some petty revenge, like the death of their boss—and then Stalker, who's been mostly quiet, observes, "<i>There cannot be happiness at someone else's expense.</i>" This one sentence in the movie has stayed with me more than any other. It is profoundly true. Or so it seems to me. But Stalker tends to be dismissed as a naïve ignoramus by the other two.</p><p> Writer sarcastically makes a crown of thorns and puts it on. Why? Merely to show that wearing a crown of thorns doesn't necessarily mean anything? I don't know.</p><p> At last they find themselves at the threshold of the Room. Near the doorway are two skeletons, one male, one female, locked in a lovers' embrace. They obviously didn't quite make it. Perhaps their attachment for each other, apparent even after death, somehow hindered their access to the Holy of Holies. The black dog is still with them, and whimpers. It lies near the skeletons, as though it's on their side; perhaps this dark spirit fears the Room, or the idea of the men entering it.</p><p> Here Stalker delivers a little speech:</p><p><br /></p><p></p><blockquote>"I know you will be angry…but anyway, I must say to you...Here we are, standing at the threshold. This is the most important moment of your lives; you must know, that here your most cherished wish will come true. The most sincere one! The one born of greatest suffering! You do not have to say anything. You have only to concentrate and try to remember the whole of your life. When people reflect upon the past, they become better. And, above all, the most important is...to believe! OK, and now you can go."</blockquote><p></p><p>But nobody is eager to go in.</p><p> By this time Writer has perceived that one's inmost wish may not be one's <i>conscious</i> wish; that an ugly heart is bound to have an ugly heart's desire. He declines.</p><p> Finally, Professor agrees to enter. But first he pulls an apparatus out of his cherished knapsack (the knapsack the Zone allowed him to break the rules by retrieving), and begins fiddling with it, explaining that it's a twenty-kiloton nuclear bomb. "This Room will never bring happiness to anybody," he says. The Room must be destroyed, for the good of society.</p><p> Scientific materialism tries to eradicate Mystery. The "Enlightenment" movement of a few hundred years ago combating "superstition." Marxist governments banning "the opiate of the masses."</p><p> And he decides to annihilate the Zone with a nuclear bomb largely because somebody slept with his wife twenty years ago. See the danger of emotionally undeveloped intellect. </p><p> Stalker leaps at him, trying to tear the bomb out of his hands, but, surprisingly, it is Writer who fights him off again and again, eventually bloodying Stalker's face in the process. This surprises even the Professor. Finally, Stalker sits on the wet, debris-strewn floor, sobbing, his heart broken.</p><p> Through his tears he says, "There’s nothing else left for the people in the world, is there! It’s the only...only place where one can come when there’s no hope left. You came here, didn’t you! Why are you destroying the faith?!" He wants to throw himself upon Professor again, but Writer flings him away.</p><p> The Writer exclaims, "Shut up, you! I can see right through you! You don’t give a damn…" etc., etc.</p><p> Then Stalker gives one of the most moving monologues in the story.</p><p><br /></p><p></p><blockquote>"It’s not true! Not true! You...You are wrong!" (He kneels in the stagnant water, washes tears and blood from his face, crying.) "A stalker must not enter the Room! A Stalker...must not enter the Zone for any ulterior motive! He must not; remember Porcupine! Yes, you’re right, I’m a louse, I haven’t done anything in this world and I cannot do anything. And neither could I give anything to my wife! And I do not have any friends and I cannot have any, but you cannot take what’s mine from me! Everything is already taken from me, there, on the other side of the barbed wire. All I have is here. Can you understand! Here! In the Zone! My happiness, my freedom, my dignity—everything’s here! For I lead the same as me here, unhappy ones, suffering. They...They have no other hope left! And I—I am able to! Can you understand? I am able to help them! Nobody else can help them, but I, the louse, I, <i>louse</i>, am able to! I am ready to shed tears of happiness that I am able to help them. That’s all! And I want nothing else."</blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><p>Then, sitting there on the wet, filthy floor, he lowers his face to his knees.</p><p> Such a heartfelt speech cannot but move the other two. The Professor changes his mind about using the bomb. But still neither wants to enter. The intellectual Professor may be, deep down, simply afraid of what he can't understand intellectually. On the other hand, Writer says,</p><p><br /></p><p></p><blockquote>"What is in accordance with your nature, your essence, is what comes true here. That essence that you have no idea about, but it sits in you and rules you all your life! You understood nothing….Porcupine was not overcome by his greed. He crawled on his knees in this very puddle begging for his brother [who died in the meat grinder]. And he got a lot of money, and couldn’t get anything else. Because a Porcupine gets everything that’s porcupine-like! Render unto Porcupine what belongs to Porcupine! And conscience, throes of the soul—it is invented, it‘s brain work. He understood that and hanged himself. I will not go into your Room! I do not want to spill all the trash that has accumulated inside me on anybody’s head, not even on yours, and afterwards run my head into the noose like Porcupine did. I’d rather drink myself to death in my mansion, in peace and quiet." </blockquote><p></p><p> </p><p>There is truth in this. Most people simply are not ready for such a gift. They lack sufficient purity of heart to wish for or realize what is best, or even very good.</p><p> The three men sit there together, at the threshold of the Room. Stalker is still quietly sobbing. The phone rings again, offering some distraction, but they ignore it this time. The Professor slowly disassembles the bomb and throws the pieces into the moving, stagnant water. The Zone can be neglected, and polluted by the rubbish of mankind, but never destroyed. Everything fades toward monochrome again. There is brief yet heavy rain, spirit falling from heaven through a hole in the roof. Really, it was not a meteor or an alien spaceship which caused the Zone to be, but Spirit which rains upon the earth every day, and flows through it. </p><p> There is one last view into the water: A large fish inspects a piece of the bomb above the ubiquitous white tile, and then something dark and reddish—apparently either oily sludge or Christ-like blood—covers the water and obscures the view, to the sound of another train. All becomes darkness.</p><p> The journey through the Zone goes from outdoors to indoors, outward to inward. We never actually see the Room, the Holy of Holies, the Inner Sanctum which grants our heart's desire. Of course not! How can we see Nirvana, or God, or any absolute <i>summum bonum</i>? It's too inward to see. </p><p> Despite this climax, the movie isn't finished. By the time the train has stopped making its noise the scene is back in the barroom, with the men in the same positions they were in before they left (suggestive of the nonphysical nature of their journey), except now they're exhausted and covered with muck, and the Professor has also finally managed to lose his hat. The goblinesque black dog has followed them, and Stalker feeds it. Stalker's wife comes with Monkey, the silent, crippled daughter, and cheerfully greets them, asking if anyone wants to take the dog. Writer says he already has five (dogs or dark spirits: take your pick). Stalker leaves with his family. Professor seems simply exhausted and blank, but Writer, although tired, appears satisfied and thoughtful. He seems to smile while watching Stalker walk away with his family, his crippled daughter riding on his shoulders. </p><p> The movie's director has written: </p><p><br /></p><p></p><blockquote>"The arrival of Stalker’s wife in the café where they are resting confronts the Writer and the Scientist with a puzzling, to them incomprehensible, phenomenon. There before them is a woman who has been through untold miseries because of her husband, and has had a sick child by him; but she continues to love him with the same selfless, unthinking devotion as in her youth. Her love and her devotion are the final miracle which can be set against the unbelief, cynicism, [and] moral vacuum poisoning the modern world, of which both the Writer and Scientist are victims." </blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><p>Maybe she is the reason why Writer smiles at the end as he watches them walk away? There may be some hope for him; his journey into the Zone seems not to have been totally in vain. He is less cynical now, and more humble. He has begun looking in a new direction.</p><p> Suddenly, the world is in color again: It is a closeup of the girl Monkey as she rides solemnly on her father's shoulders. Nobody else is shown in color outside the Zone.</p><p> They go home, trudging past a cooling pond near the power plant, and lots of mud. The wife gives milk to the dog (spilling some), and Stalker lies down next to it on the floor, in agonizing despair. His wife gently comforts him, and helps him to bed. Ironically, when the wife coaxes Stalker to bed, she tells him he shouldn't lie on the floor because it's too damp—after he's been wallowing in a swamp all day long. A cuckoo clock in the house makes its cheap, artificial little call, a shabby imitation of the cuckoo calling in the forest of the Zone. Wisps of something like cottonwood fluff float around inside the house, reminiscent of the snowy fallout in the Zone. The clear suggestion (as with the room near the Room with the house window, the plank flooring, the flaring light, and the pills, as well as with all the common objects lying underwater) is that the Zone is actually just a more real version of the everyday world—which, however, we fail to experience fully through cynicism, materialism, and spiritual bankruptcy, among other things. </p><p> Also ironically, one finally sees that in Stalker's bedroom is a wall covered from floor to ceiling with bookshelves, and well-used books. This implies that in addition to being a simple-hearted Holy Fool he is actually more intelligent, more cultured, and more civilized than the two leaders of society who had considered him such an ignorant wretch.</p><p> Stalker's wife continues to comfort him, very different than before he left in the morning.</p><p> He: "My God, what kind of people they are…"</p><p> She: "Calm down...Calm down...It’s not their fault...One should pity them, and you’re getting angry."</p><p> He: "Haven’t you seen them? Their eyes are empty!"</p><p> His wife gives him a pill, then, holding his head, makes him drink some water from a glass. Then she strokes him and wipes his face. He is crying, and closes his eyes.</p><p> He: "And they're thinking every minute how not to be sold too cheap, how to sell themselves for a higher price! So that everybody pays for every movement of their soul! They know that they are "born for a purpose"! That they are "called upon"! After all, they “only live once"! How can ones like this believe in anything?"</p><p> She: "Calm down, stop...Try to fall asleep, ah?…Sleep…"</p><p> He: "And nobody believes. Not only those two. Nobody! Whom should I lead in there? Oh, God... And the most terrifying thing is that nobody needs it anymore. Nobody needs that Room. And all my efforts are worthless!"</p><p> She: "Why are you saying this. Don’t."</p><p> He: "I will not lead anybody in there anymore." </p><p> She (with compassion): "Well...If you’d like, I will go with you. There. Do you want that?"</p><p> He (opens his eyes, looks at her): "Where?"</p><p> She: "Do you think I have nothing to wish for?"</p><p> He: "No...You mustn’t…"</p><p> She: "Why?"</p><p> He: "No-no...And what if suddenly you will not...succeed either."</p><p> Stalker closes his eyes again and turns his face away, a track of tears now visible across his dirty cheek and neck, and clearly showing the (roughly heart-shaped?) patch of white hair above his left ear. His faith is so shaken that he fears even his wife would fail. Perhaps if his faith were completely sound, that black dog wouldn't have followed him home. Stalker is no Buddha or Christ; he has his own struggles to deal with. And of course, outside the Zone he's always monochrome.</p><p> His wife sits down on a stool and lights a cigarette, plenty of white tile behind her, and for the first time someone talks directly into the camera, looking the viewer in the eye, further incorporating him/her into the alternative reality of the movie, which is the reality we are creating.</p><p><br /></p><p></p><blockquote>"You know, my mom was very much against it. You must have, I suppose, realized he is blessed—'God’s fool.' The entire district laughed at him. And he was a blunderer, such a pathetic fellow… And my mom said, 'Isn’t he a stalker, isn’t he a condemned man, isn’t he a perpetual jailbird! And children. Remember what children stalkers get.' And I...I even...I didn’t even argue...I knew all this myself: both that he is a condemned man, and that he is a perpetual jailbird, and about the children too…And what could I have done? I was sure that I'd be happy with him. I knew also that there would be a lot of grief, but sorrowful happiness is better than...a grey and dull life." (She sobs, then smiles.) "Or perhaps I thought all that up afterwards." (She stands up, then moves to the window…) "And then he simply came up to me and said: 'Come with me,' and I went. And I never ever regretted after that. Never. And there has been a lot of grief, and it was frightening, and it was shameful. But I have never regretted and I have never envied anybody. It's just our fate, our life. Such are we. And if we hadn't had our misfortunes, it would not be better; it would be worse. Because then there would be...neither happiness, nor hope. That’s it."</blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><p>He called her like Christ calling an apostle, and she had to follow, with love being her primary motive in life. Hence the miracle at the bar.</p><p> Meanwhile, the little girl, Monkey, is in the kitchen, shown in full color, wearing her golden scarf. She sits at the table and reads a book, then putting it down, without moving her lips, recites a love poem by F. I. Tyutchev:</p><p><br /></p><p></p><blockquote><p> "Your eyes I love, my darling friend,</p><p> Their play, so passionate and brightening,</p><p> When a sudden glance upward you send,</p><p> And like a heavenly lightning</p><p> Take all in from end to end...</p><p> But there is a stronger spell I admire:</p><p> Your eyes when they're downcast</p><p> In bursts of love-inspired fire,</p><p> When there through the lowered eyelashes</p><p> Burns a somber, dim flame of desire."</p></blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><p>The heart's desire. Her recitation of it may also signify her precocious (spiritual) maturity.</p><p> Then, as the dog whimpers somewhere out of sight, she moves three glass vessels on the table with her mind, under the power of her gaze, so to speak. A hard-headed devotee of Scientific Materialism might insist that it was caused by the vibrations of yet another passing train. </p><p> She is crippled and dysfunctional in a worldly sense; but being the child of a dedicated stalker has its advantages too. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzM3aL6J90wVYHfiRVdz32mM-5131zGrsDoDhyFa1aDKpPP_16YcdH7PJ3XgVpQZCbtKrFjeCaOx-As-nsiqz79BJG7W4lC5nITxxD6zYr5EdrlduDYc4ecMSG2E0tAdrys-Nj-YgaKzm2Qq2LXWFXq-qC4Rvpy99vnFGrLd0wIJNOOoIKUw1Riz0w/s400/Monkey%20(Tarkovsky's%20Stalker).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="284" data-original-width="400" height="284" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzM3aL6J90wVYHfiRVdz32mM-5131zGrsDoDhyFa1aDKpPP_16YcdH7PJ3XgVpQZCbtKrFjeCaOx-As-nsiqz79BJG7W4lC5nITxxD6zYr5EdrlduDYc4ecMSG2E0tAdrys-Nj-YgaKzm2Qq2LXWFXq-qC4Rvpy99vnFGrLd0wIJNOOoIKUw1Riz0w/w400-h284/Monkey%20(Tarkovsky's%20Stalker).jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Select Webliography</p><p><br /></p><p>YouTube, The Movie Stalker with English subtitles</p><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3hBLv-HLEc">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3hBLv-HLEc</a></p><p>(You may have to turn on the English captions.)</p><p><br /></p><p>Transcript of the Movie Stalker, by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, and Andrei Tarkovsky, translated into English by Kirill Zimin</p><p><a href="http://tarkovskyzone.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=porcupine&action=display&thread=87">http://tarkovskyzone.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=porcupine&action=display&thread=87</a></p><p><br /></p><p>The Guardian, "Danger! High-radiation arthouse!" by Geoff Dyer</p><p><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/feb/06/andrei-tarkovsky-stalker-russia-gulags-chernobyl">http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/feb/06/andrei-tarkovsky-stalker-russia-gulags-chernobyl</a></p><p><br /></p><p>"Andrei Tarkovsky's Nostalghia for the Light" by ???</p><p><a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/153469699/Tarkovsky-and-Light#">https://www.scribd.com/document/153469699/Tarkovsky-and-Light#</a></p><p><br /></p><p>East-West Church Ministry Report, "Tarkovsky's The Stalker: A Christian Allegory Set in the 'Evil Empire'" by Gregory Halvorsen Schreck</p><p><a href="http://www.eastwestreport.org/articles/ew09310.htm">http://www.eastwestreport.org/articles/ew09310.htm</a></p><p><br /></p><p>nostalghia.com, "Stalker's meaning in terms of temporality and spatial relations" by Greg Polin</p><p><a href="http://www.nostalghia.com/TheTopics/Stalker_GP.html">http://www.nostalghia.com/TheTopics/Stalker_GP.html</a></p><p><br /></p><p>nostalghia.com, "I'm interested in the problem of inner freedom…" by Andrei Tarkovsky, Jerzy Illg, and Leonard Neuger</p><p><a href="http://nostalghia.com/TheTopics/interview.html">http://nostalghia.com/TheTopics/interview.html</a></p><p><br /></p><p>nostalghia.com, "Tarkovsky at the Mirror" by Andrei Tarkovsky and Tonino Guerra</p><p><a href="http://nostalghia.com/TheTopics/Tarkovsky_Guerra-1979.html">http://nostalghia.com/TheTopics/Tarkovsky_Guerra-1979.html</a></p><div><br /></div>Paññobhāsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14148206217028034038noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8485583244199236996.post-70713738904497323622023-01-01T17:51:00.000-08:002023-01-01T17:51:28.638-08:00One More Tale of the God Emperor<p><br /></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>Most men go through life unchallenged, except at the final moment.</i> —Frank Herbert, from <i>God Emperor of Dune</i></blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>Caution is the path to mediocrity. Gliding, passionless mediocrity is all that most people think they can achieve.</i> —Herbert again, in the same book</blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>In all of my universe I have seen no law of nature, unchanging and inexorable. This universe presents only changing relationships which are sometimes seen as laws by short-lived awareness. These fleshy sensoria which we call self are ephemera withering in the blaze of infinity, fleetingly aware of temporary conditions which confine our activities and change as our activities change. If you must label the absolute, use its proper name: Temporary.</i> —the same</blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>Dear me, I believe I am becoming a god. An Emperor ought at least to die on his feet.</i> —attributed to the Roman Emperor Vespasian, on his deathbed</blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><i> It used to be, when I was living at a Burmese temple in California, not long before I relinquished the robes and moved here to South Carolina, that I would do walking meditation outside under a large pavilion at night. Sometimes strange artistic inspirations would arise as I walked back and forth in the dark, and a few of those artistic inspirations were based on a mythical God Emperor. (This was partly due to reading Evola’s ideas on such a superman, and also partly due to reading about an actual God Emperor in </i>The Book of the New Sun<i>, by Gene Wolfe.) I’ve already written and posted <a href="https://politicallyincorrectdharma.blogspot.com/2020/11/two-tales-of-god-emperor.html" target="_blank">two such stories</a>, but had a third one also which I’ve occasionally been intending to post here; and here it is, finally. As with the others, it would probably be better told as a poem, but I am not good at poetry. I may not be good with fiction either, but oh well.</i></p><p> </p><p> Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was a God Emperor who ruled a great empire. The God Emperor, unlike many lesser kings, had the humility to deny that he was really a god; rather, he admitted to being a man much like any other man, but for reasons of their own some of the gods had granted him certain powers, one of them being the power of healing. Any illness or injury could be healed instantaneously by the God Emperor’s touch and a brief blessing, mouthed or at least thought by him. The only healing he could not or would not do was to replace missing parts: a missing hand or tooth could not be restored unless at least part of the tooth, and at least part of all of the bones of the hand, were still intact. He could even restore a hand cut off on the battlefield—even a head if the spirit had not yet fled and the body grown cold. But if the spirit had fled and the body grown cold, the God Emperor refused to restore the body to life. He said the god of the underworld would greatly resent being robbed of spirits already consecrated to him, and so they should not be called back; but there were other reasons, as the following case will testify. </p><p> On one occasion a slain soldier lay among the wounded. He had died of his wounds while waiting for the God Emperor to have time during the battle to heal wounded soldiers. This was not noticed by the attendants: the body was bereft of an animating spirit, it had already moved on to the next world. So the God Emperor, hurriedly pacing down the line of wounded men, blessing and healing one after the other, lay his hand on the dead man’s head and blessed it…and a moment later the healed soldier leaped to his feet, roaring and raving in an unknown tongue, flinging his arms about and gnashing his teeth with wild, alien eyes. The God Emperor immediately ordered the revived soldier to be killed; later he explained that malevolent spirits lurk in this world, searching for some doorway to entering this realm in a physical body, and that more than the usual number of these follow armies and haunt battlefields. The dead soldier’s body, returned to life and health but without an inhabiting spirit, was immediately occupied by one of these spirits. The God Emperor sternly warned the army doctors never to let such an event happen again, saying that if a much more powerful spirit than the recent culprit were to enter a revived dead man real havoc could arise. The men of the army who stood by were, every one of them, white-faced and wide-eyed after seeing the raving corpse, and seeing that the God Emperor himself was visibly shaken.</p><p> During times of war the God Emperor would lead his armies and heal the wounded soldiers, and sometimes unfortunate civilian casualties, but during times of peace (and only the most brutal barbarians were foolish enough to wage war against the God Emperor’s armies) he healed at least seven hundred citizens every morning. Most of these were lame, blind, deaf, or suffering from some other congenital disease or chronic illness. If there were few with serious illnesses or deformities he would bless the health of children and babies. The attendant doctors who would screen and select the morning’s seven hundred were instructed that if there were any very unusual cases, they should be shown to the God Emperor privately.</p><p> One day, after years of healing the sick and wounded and blessing the health of his people, the doctors informed the God Emperor that there was a very unusual case that he should see; and after healing the rest of the seven hundred he was led into an examination room. There he found two teenage girls joined at the waist: from the waist up there were two pale, unfortunate, beautiful girls, but they shared the same pelvis and legs, and probably some internal organs besides. The girls’ mother was also sitting with them in a much greater state of agitation than the two unfortunate twins. She was so agitated because her heart was filled with a combination of hope and fear—hope that her girls would soon be well and happy like other girls, and fear that the God Emperor would not be able, or willing, to try such an extreme case. Besides, for a common, humble, and very unfortunate woman to be in the presence of such an Emperor was awe-inspiring to the point of borderline terror.</p><p> The God Emperor had separated conjoined twins before, but never a case like this. He did not know what would happen, as he could not create lost parts, and these two girls were one from the waist down. He gravely suspected that one of the girls would have to die so that the other could become normal and whole.</p><p> So he told the girls and their mother about his concerns, saying he had never healed such a case, and saying that he was concerned that one of the girls could die. He could see that they had suffered much, and that they were made thoroughly humble and very sweet, even saintly, by enduring their great troubles. The mother stated through her tears that the father had left them upon seeing them at birth (the birth of which almost killed the mother), and that nobody would befriend them, considering them to be monstrosities cursed by the gods. They lived as outcastes in a small hut granted them by a few compassionate townspeople, including the local priest, who also gave them food and second-hand clothes—yet even the compassionate, generous ones were afraid to come near the girls or look directly at them, let alone touch them.</p><p> The God Emperor, not wanting to kill either of these meek, submissive, very unfortunate girls, offered as a substitute for the unknown effects of the blessing a very nice house in the country, with a generous allowance so they could live their lives in peace and plenty. But the girls, silent until this point, began begging the God Emperor to heal them, because each was willing to die so that her dear sister could live like a normal and happy person, to know the love of a husband and a child, to have friends, and to walk down a city street without eliciting reactions of fear and loathing. The mother remained silent, not wanting to sentence one of her girls to death, yet clearly wanting their plight to be better than the state of a two-headed monstrosity.</p><p> With the normally quiet and extremely humble girls passionately entreating him to bless them no matter the consequences to one of them, the God Emperor saw the reason of their entreaties. Surely two young women who had spent every moment of their life together, and who shared the same misery and misfortune, knew too well that death for one and normality for the other would be infinitely preferable to a life of comfort and solitude with a body so deformed that no one could love them other than their mother and each other. Also, the girls were so similar, almost identical, that for one of them to die was not so frightening, as their sister was practically the same as them, and so they would continue to live, in a sense. Each was more afraid of her sister’s death than her own.</p><p> So after explaining the risk again to them, and asking them to think carefully about their answer, he asked them, “Are you sure you wish me to do this?” All three, the twins and the mother, said “Yes,” though with fearful, trembling, barely audible voices. Then the God Emperor laid his hand upon them and blessed them: “May you be well.”</p><p> The result was more amazing to the God Emperor than to anyone else. The two girls, silent and afraid, merged together before his eyes! The single remaining girl stared at him with wide, bright eyes, then down at herself, then at her astonished, weeping mother, and then back at the God Emperor again. The Emperor could see that her spirit was much brighter now than before: twice as bright in fact. One had not died, they simply merged into one. The remaining girl, the combination of the two sisters, sat quietly, with mouth and eyes wide, looking down at herself more and more, and slowly, timidly reaching down with her two perfectly formed hands and lightly running them over the perfect, healthy symmetry of her single form. All the years of suffering and humiliation had almost totally evaporated, giving way to wonder, open-hearted joy, and gratitude. She soon fell at the God Emperor’s feet weeping and stammering out her thanks and blessings to him, and her mother quickly joined her, weeping tears of joy and awe.</p><p> The God Emperor was so relieved and happy with the successful blessing that he granted the bright-spirited girl and her mother a very comfortable house in the countryside and a very generous allowance so they could live in ease and happiness. He occasionally visited them too, and invited them to the Imperial residence often. Both twins had had lovely faces, though marked with years of suffering, but now the beauty of the twin-spirited girl shown like the sun, with the intensity of the combined spirit and the near-saintliness developed through steadfast endurance of terrible misfortunes. The Emperor gradually fell in love with the young woman, who went by a combination of her two former names; and in two years he married her. And they lived happily ever after—though that of course involves a fair amount of trouble and sorrow, but trouble and sorrow that are clearly worth it all. The End. </p><p><br /></p><p><i> It would be nice if there were magical and benevolent God Emperors in this world, at least one, but I suppose such a phenomenon would be so liminal that it would throw the stability of this world into a fair amount of chaos, allowing wrathful spirits, malevolent sorcerers, and so on to live here too, and negate most or all of the blessings bestowed by such a man chosen by the gods. It all has to balance out in the long run.</i></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdgnh7PPSf9uwZI7YrtcTm3-fOB_fiEsOXDmPm35Uj59aFsfd64MMr4gCc25o89tzYpf3Ncexln1oWjvHWXDQZJLellh2-40lBa-6jmdlA-jQsdu-eWa8_MqaXGeQcGHJTewwY8qChQZ4zFNul-KVDboyk4pmtoIAQQz6D7ChWHDn8PJGJpzWhGKcW/s1281/god%20emperor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="867" data-original-width="1281" height="434" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdgnh7PPSf9uwZI7YrtcTm3-fOB_fiEsOXDmPm35Uj59aFsfd64MMr4gCc25o89tzYpf3Ncexln1oWjvHWXDQZJLellh2-40lBa-6jmdlA-jQsdu-eWa8_MqaXGeQcGHJTewwY8qChQZ4zFNul-KVDboyk4pmtoIAQQz6D7ChWHDn8PJGJpzWhGKcW/w640-h434/god%20emperor.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>Paññobhāsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14148206217028034038noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8485583244199236996.post-18440541455553799812022-12-25T21:09:00.005-08:002022-12-27T20:22:35.696-08:00The Impermanence Pagoda<p><br /></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><p><i>sabbe saṅkhārā aniccā </i></p><p>(all formations are impermanent)</p><p></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p> I am writing this on Christmas evening, and so I feel like writing something approximately religious. But of course Christmas isn’t a Buddhist holiday<span style="font-size: 18px;">—</span>when I was in Burma there were times when I would be looking at the calendar trying to figure out the date and I’d realize, “Hey, yesterday was Christmas!” There was one Christmas I spent in Rangoon in which the most memorable event was getting a badass jam and cheese sandwich in my alms bowl. So I won’t write about Christmas. I’ll write about a winter festival I tried to establish in a village of northwestern Burma/Myanmar, more than ten years ago by now.</p><p> I lived at Wun Bo Wildlife Refuge Monastery at the time, and was senior monk there. The place was situated in the middle of about 400 acres (around 160 hectares) of more or less virgin forest, though the forest was pretty scrubby as the area was semidesert. The most common trees there don’t even have English names as far as I know; the main species was called <i>dahat</i> in Burmese, which in Latin is <i>Tectona hamiltoniana</i>—a tree in the same genus as teak. The wood made excellent firewood but was pretty much useless for anything else, as it was crooked and twisty and not very thick.</p><p> Though the area was fairly arid, the monastery itself was on the east bank of the Chindwin River, and at the time most visitors from town came by boat. Traveling by boat was by far my favorite means of transportation in Burma, though now the sampans are going obsolete, as jitneys get better gas mileage, and roads are gradually being improved.</p><p> The thing about the Chindwin River, and Burmese rivers in general, is that it floods during the monsoon or rainy season, but is much reduced during the seven months of the dry season. Consequently there are great sand bars and beaches on the river when the water is low, and then it’s all covered in deep water when the rains start again. This gave me an idea for a meaningful pagoda festival in a land of not particularly meaningful ones.</p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidyfMkQHySP8r1dIRU1dCQyprd3JtP1W1VXgAib51dezMp2ay_s1393rHxyQ-e92UxfC-0JqZueSmvXY47lqlcibQE4wkmLE5Ikk4hBGPgC6TWVDf1K6iDs6op5EorEY9crvT0XC_Au82H4kVXh1DaPwpty7wr3Vokfu07g19dUYE64p_Q_uAVlBnW/s4000/DSCN1453.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidyfMkQHySP8r1dIRU1dCQyprd3JtP1W1VXgAib51dezMp2ay_s1393rHxyQ-e92UxfC-0JqZueSmvXY47lqlcibQE4wkmLE5Ikk4hBGPgC6TWVDf1K6iDs6op5EorEY9crvT0XC_Au82H4kVXh1DaPwpty7wr3Vokfu07g19dUYE64p_Q_uAVlBnW/w640-h480/DSCN1453.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>the Impermanence Pagoda was built on the sandy beach to the left,<br />near Laymyay Village on the Chindwin River</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /></p><p> The Burmese love pagodas. There are tens of thousands of them in Myanmar. Pretty much every hill has a pagoda on top of it, and every pagoda, except for the smallest and most remote and obscure, has a day of the year set aside for a festival. The word usually used for “pagoda,” a bell-shaped pile of bricks, is <i>phaya</i>, which generally means “lord.” The same things that happen at other festivals generally happen at pagoda festivals: people eat, drink tea, talk, offer food to monks, listen to a sermon on Dhamma, and then share the merit with all beings. I’m not sure why the Burmese love and revere pagodas so much, but they do.</p><p> So anyway, the idea I had: I have seen pagodas made of sand. The way to make one of these is first to make large rings of bamboo matting about one and a half feet wide, and of variable lengths. These rings of bamboo matting are then formed into circles of different sizes. The largest ring is set down on the place where the pagoda is to be constructed, and it is filled with sand, earth, or gravel. Then the second-largest ring is centered on top of the first one, and it too is filled to the top and leveled. This process is continued until a large conical step pagoda is built. Then a <i>hti</i> or “umbrella” made of bamboo or cheap metal is placed on top of the pagoda like a crown. It’s a fairly easy way to build a Buddhist pagoda.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnKg3iU4Ix94UXHkCzv9WUJjLR-nnhHuVtOhg-raj6TPhA8nWlw8H8bVwm-vJd_YMDsq6gWf9G2hqeeomh89d9rjDvc4yNh0MmFctNRS5wICZVrqiLWqiD38XnXw4-Je_78-32KBklG8e2X103YUzqCZp-OzKFcMIDGwu2ZBaOOl3ODkBFsnRNwTwN/s1134/sand%20pagoda.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="809" data-original-width="1134" height="456" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnKg3iU4Ix94UXHkCzv9WUJjLR-nnhHuVtOhg-raj6TPhA8nWlw8H8bVwm-vJd_YMDsq6gWf9G2hqeeomh89d9rjDvc4yNh0MmFctNRS5wICZVrqiLWqiD38XnXw4-Je_78-32KBklG8e2X103YUzqCZp-OzKFcMIDGwu2ZBaOOl3ODkBFsnRNwTwN/w640-h456/sand%20pagoda.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p> I somehow got the idea that it would be nice to build one of these sand pagodas on the beach near Lay Myay village during the cold season, the first half of the dry season. People could write down anything they acknowledged, or even wanted to be impermanent, like a lost loved one or a bad habit, and place it at the bottom of the pagoda before the first ring was filled with sand. They could have the usual food and tea drinking and talk, and a monk could give a sermon specifically about impermanence, <i>anicca</i>. Then, when the rain started in May or June the river would swell and the whole pagoda would be washed away, to be rebuilt at the next festival. It seemed like something meaningful and very much in accordance with Dhamma: all formations, all conditioned things, are impermanent.</p><p> So I ran my idea past some supporters in Lay Myay village; and they seemed a bit surprised and confused by such a strange notion, but then again, I was the rare and exotic American monk, and I performed such rare austerities as meditating alone in a cave and not handling money, and so they agreed to try the Impermanence Pagoda idea. </p><p> They really outdid themselves too: not only did they make a pagoda about 15 feet high, but one person built a bamboo <i>hti</i> for it, and somebody even made some bamboo guardian lions to flank the main path in front of the pagoda, covered with painted paper and gold tinsel. The idea of writing the names of impermanent things on slips of paper to be entombed at the bottom of the thing was just too unusual for very conservative Burmese Buddhist villagers, though, and so that part of the idea never struck traction.</p><p> Unfortunately, the river flooded at night the first year of the Impermanence Pagoda, so we couldn’t watch it die. The same thing happened on the second year. But the main problem was the relative permanence, or at least the relative stubbornness or hard-headedness, of Burmese village tradition. It just isn’t traditional to build a pagoda just to have it be washed away six months later. In fact something isn’t traditional, and is thus very confusing and suspicious, if it is acknowledged at all, if it has not been encountered many times by a Burmese village person. The villagers humored me and built the thing out of respect or consideration for me and my strange foreign ideas, but they never made it their own, and as soon as I stopped campaigning for it the Impermanence Pagoda went the way of the stegosaurus. They continued, however, to venerate pagodas made of brick situated on hills. </p><p> To this day I still think it is a good idea, though. Maybe a group of western Buddhists could take up the baton and build such a pagoda once a year. The thing is, though, that most western rivers don’t rise and fall to the extent of rivers in arid regions of Southeast Asia. Building a sand pagoda on a beach might work, but that would be a very impermanent pagoda, as it would be washed away when the tide came in, in a few hours. Maybe a pagoda could be made of snow during winter, and then it might last for weeks, depending on how cold the area is. Anyway, if there is a place that is regularly flooded, like on an annual basis, and there is plentiful sand there, and there are Buddhists willing to have their own pagoda festival in remembrance of <i>anicca</i>, then the idea might still catch traction and become a tradition someday. But even traditions are impermanent.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVrvcdItCiG1aLAOTsD-_B6S8IMlqnEcQv46U6WW7R093tQeomGqpb4mdIUIsyW9DDq4XaZna44OHuj5PH9R73FK7yLjWhw27viDDiYfqHcchJULyFccc-x3z8v2vDLCEj6mrWOZJ1JbYMywQMzcvIgTM-23lAO3pH51cRT7YSRM4gJ6r-y-mTisy7/s3424/DSCN1590.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2568" data-original-width="3424" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVrvcdItCiG1aLAOTsD-_B6S8IMlqnEcQv46U6WW7R093tQeomGqpb4mdIUIsyW9DDq4XaZna44OHuj5PH9R73FK7yLjWhw27viDDiYfqHcchJULyFccc-x3z8v2vDLCEj6mrWOZJ1JbYMywQMzcvIgTM-23lAO3pH51cRT7YSRM4gJ6r-y-mTisy7/w640-h480/DSCN1590.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>another view of the beach near Laymyay Village, where the sampans land,<br />with a village monastery pagoda showing in the left background</i></td></tr></tbody></table>Paññobhāsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14148206217028034038noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8485583244199236996.post-37509644718460078262022-12-11T17:24:00.000-08:002022-12-11T17:24:47.640-08:00A Sample of Modern Burmese Buddhist Poetry<div><br /></div><div><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><blockquote><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> Many years ago in Rangoon I came across a little yellow booklet which poetically describes a Burmese man's experiences as a newly ordained monk (probably a temporary one) at a monastery/meditation center in Burma, alias Myanmar. The booklet appeared to be privately printed and published, and had no copyright information that I can remember. What it contained moved and inspired me, because it conveys the <i>feel</i> of being a newly ordained monk—the idealism, the gratitude, the reverence for the profundity of Dhamma—better than anything else I have ever read. Even the nervousness of the postulant waiting outside the congregation hall before his ordination ceremony is suggested by the verse beginning "jasmine and gardenia drench the walk," and the very next verse contains a poetic rendering of part of the <i>upasampadā kammavācā</i>, the formal act of ordination, chanted in Pali at the creation of every bhikkhu since ancient times. (There is also some Buddhist symbolism in that jasmine verse, with the 31 steps this way and the 31 steps the other way, representing, I suspect, the transmigration, life after life, eon after eon, through the 31 planes of existence.)</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I'm not nearly so starry-eyed as I was at my ordination, although I feel that I am wiser and more content as a result of having lived a monk’s life. Still, I liked the little booklet and transcribed its contents into a notebook, and I think it's good enough to share with you who are reading this.</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> I don't know who U Win Pe is, although, like very many Burmese laypeople, he obviously knows his Buddhism: the following lines are embellished with plenty of philosophical allusions and symbols that a beginner in Dhamma may not notice. I don't know who he is, but I am grateful to him. Here is what he wrote:</p></blockquote><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>The Yellow Robe: A Travel Diary</b></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">by U Win Pe</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> Self did not make me, nor self nor any other. Yet the notion of Self or self or some other made me. And with a body and mind caused this body and mind which will cause another body and mind so long as there remains the notion.</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> from the ambulatory I can see</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> beyond the tops of mango</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> doorian and mangosteen</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> the shoulder of a hill</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> in the morning it is dim with ground mist</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> in the afternoon it is blurred with haze</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> walking beside the jasmine bush</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> the mynahs do not heed me</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> they cluck and whistle and flutter and hop</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> and one flying in low from somewhere</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> alights with a whirr of wings</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> tea-dust swirl in the cup</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> dark brown specks in amber liquid</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> slowly drop to the bottom</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> there they stay</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> Travelling the round of births of Samsara. Treading the Eightfold Path. Winning the Stream. Metaphors of Wayfaring. Incessant movement, there is no standing still. For one is not doing nothing at any time, one is always doing. And to do is to impel. So one goes -- going on or getting out.</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> jasmine and gardenia drench the walk</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> with their delicate flavours</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> I take 31 steps up this way</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> and 31 steps down that way</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> and 31 steps this way again</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> let the assembly, revered brothers, hear me</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> to whatever venerable it seems good</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> let him remain silent</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> to whomsoever it does not seem good</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> let him speak</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> to the assembly it seems good</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> silent it remains</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> take it so</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> head shaven</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> carrying only the eight requisites</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> the heavy robe somehow seems light</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> as I take the first steps slowly</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> from the Ordination Hall</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> onto the path</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> salted boiled peas and plain hot tea</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> to help this body get out of</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> the low round table seating five</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> body, sensation, and so on</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> a small cloud passes quickly across</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> the sky in the refectory window</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> a round face in an aged head</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> a low voice beneath soft words</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> standing beside the coconut palm</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> talking of pain and the end of pain</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> wayfaring</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> The life lived without awareness is the tainted life: tainted with wanting, tainted with not wanting, tainted with not knowing about the notion of Self and self. Awareness should be of each doing every moment. Mindfulness is the watching and warding of awareness.</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> 4a.m. the stream of breath</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> 216 cycles per minute</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> in-breathing, out-breathing, in-breathing</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> watching the touch</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> aware of sensation as it is</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> airflow at the nostril tip</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> the morning is noisy with birdtalk</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> koels, jays, mynahs, sparrows, bulbuls</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> I follow each song and twitter</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> not koel shout, jay song, sparrow twitter</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> but each note as it falls upon my ear</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> the wind rises in the afternoon</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> it ruffles the topmost branches of</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> the doorian</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> then it shakes it thoroughly</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> raises a flurry in the almond tree</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> flutters the window curtain</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> and comes to me</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> 9p.m. mindful of sensation</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> when sensation is full with mind</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> and mind is full with sensation</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> the bright green world beneath the waves</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> at Set-se beach</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> the sea is permeated with one taste</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> Colours seen with the eyes closed are brighter than colours seen with open eyes. Brighter than these are the colours seen when the mind is brought to a point. But colours, lights, and images are distractions.</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> mango tree, sky, monastery wall</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> sun brings out the green</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> the blue, the white</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> and sunlight all bright yellow</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> on monk's robe hanging out to dry</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> lights are a curtain hiding Light</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> lights are a turn-off to delight</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> lights are bright colours</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> not hot but cool</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> lights are a pleasant quiet pool</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> lights do not light the way to ardour</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> lights are a curtain hiding Light</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> The end of the world is not reached by travelling. Within this fathom-length body with its sense-impressions, thoughts and pains, is the world, the making of the world, the ceasing and the way to the ceasing.</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> inside this cell</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> sleeping, sitting, walking</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> reading, thinking, praying</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> meditating</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> better to look</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> inside this body</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> several fields west of the monastery wall</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> one under paddy, one under melon</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> one under peas</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> a speckled bull grazes there during the day</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> this body my grazing-ground</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> it goes from field to field</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> feeding indiscriminately</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> on straw, duckwort, poisonweed</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> browsing here or lying there</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> chased by men with sticks in the field beside the road</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> pelted by boys with stones in the water-meadow</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> rope it with in- and out-breathing</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> tie it to the hitch-post pain</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> No pain, no gain. This banal expression describes what is so but we would take it metaphorically. There is no path that has no pain. Pain is the stumbling-block or the stepping-stone.</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> the aching inner muscle of the thigh is pain</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> the thin thread of sharpness along the bone is pain</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> the burning hands is pain</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> pain is the general tone of discomfort</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> only pain is</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> or that which we have named pain</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> it is not the hardness of the floor plank</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> which hurts</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> it is the softness of my foot</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> pain is not in the wind</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> it is in the bones the bands</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> pain is in the mind</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> discomfort from sitting too long on the floor</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> the bother of setting out in the sun</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> to retrieve the robe</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> vexation from holding the book too long</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> displeasure from thinking about the task to be done</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> pain from the meditation exercise</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> unease is the common element</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> We err by naming that which is itself. We err by clothing the world in concepts. Knowing happens in time present and not by reaching before and after. Knowing happens in its own way.</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> I say this robe this mat this razor</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> this alms bowl</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> this water-strainer this needle and thread</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> this over-robe</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> but pain is</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> a jay sits daily on the almond tree</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> it whistles several phrases</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> whom is it telling all that to</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> how to watch the pain in my ankle</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> as it is without saying</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> in present pain is birdsong and jasmine</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> in present pain is the cup of hot tea</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> in present pain is the wind in the afternoon</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> in present pain is the shoulder of the hill</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> in present pain is the path through the orchard</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> in present pain the cup of tea is smashed</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> drawing water</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> the well is wide and shallow</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> I draw a bucketful and put it in the tub</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> another bucketful and put it in the tub</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> 14 buckets and the tub is filled</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> getting to know is not filling a tub</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> Joy does not come through pleasure, joy comes through pain. Agitation accompanies pleasure. The way to stillness accompanies pain. The end of pleasure is dissatisfaction. The end of pain is joy. Then comes whatever has to come in its own way.</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> a set of sharp knives</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> turning and turning in the ball</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> of my ankle five days now</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> suddenly</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> it went away this morning</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> joy</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> this flesh hung on these bones</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> and knit with nerves</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> I have seen shredded</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> and dropping</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> like great cliffs falling</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> flesh is not solid</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> sunbursts burn at every pore</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> no arms no thighs no legs</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> only the play of electricity</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> vanishing in small flashes</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> the monk on my left</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> the coming does not make him glad</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> is the monk on my right</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> the going does not make him sad</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> gruel is food, boiled peas is food</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> hot tea is food</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> pain comes and goes, joy comes and goes</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> sun in the morning, stars and moon at night</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> unattached</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> novices planting a jackfruit tree</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> 9 years before the first fruit</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> they laugh and quarrel and banter</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> to them the world is trees and food and walking</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> the world is trees and food and walking</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> One sets out to arrive. One fares as one should. Arrival is in accordance with its own nature and in its own way. One sets out and goes on faring.</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> not a garden of roses and junipers</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> nor a valley of lilies</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> not a palace with cool drinks in the windows</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> nor a moon and a finger pointing</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> not the path through an orchard</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> to the shoulder of a hill</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> but a journey across hot sands</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> to a river</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> a small cloud moves in the southern sky</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> the morning breeze carries a wetness of river water</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> namo Buddhassa</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> </p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifl8NxZ14QIvj_pCyT-yWhJI1-0XoQNXEANWiDhiLzNd6xnwBNHC42FrfuDl9YDq9Ivx0DpeXjx15gBsJNWKvjUL02avzsNmjqIsrisOvNpkUFpfXLvxhaipjoC67aWmRL-2vknCxlAZYmF5Wwpd5H6_JCeqTqePedhF36lIbC7POZA3RmF7Znjc34/s3000/Washing%20the%20Bowl%20copy.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2150" data-original-width="3000" height="458" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifl8NxZ14QIvj_pCyT-yWhJI1-0XoQNXEANWiDhiLzNd6xnwBNHC42FrfuDl9YDq9Ivx0DpeXjx15gBsJNWKvjUL02avzsNmjqIsrisOvNpkUFpfXLvxhaipjoC67aWmRL-2vknCxlAZYmF5Wwpd5H6_JCeqTqePedhF36lIbC7POZA3RmF7Znjc34/w640-h458/Washing%20the%20Bowl%20copy.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>"Washing the Bowl"</i></td></tr></tbody></table></div>Paññobhāsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14148206217028034038noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8485583244199236996.post-46385993064234771312022-12-04T17:38:00.004-08:002022-12-10T20:37:54.073-08:00On Buddhist Cancel Culture<p><br /></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>“Disagreement is necessary in deliberations among mortals. As the saying goes, the more we disagree, the more chance there is that at least one of us is right.”</i> —Steven Pinker</blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p> <i>NOTICE AND DISCLAIMER: I am not a Nazi. I am not a fascist either…unless the beliefs of the American founding fathers (minus slavery and universal Christianity) constitute fascism. However, I am not a cultural Marxist, and so regardless of all else, to cultural Marxists, I am <u>practically</u> a Nazi anyhow.<br /> I should also add that I showed this post to my friend Brian, also known affectionately as "BDawg," and he has corrected a few statements that I made below. For starters, certain Jewish people, according to him, are not collaborating with space aliens to control the human race; rather, they are collaborating with "repterrains," a kind of more or less alien reptilian that lives here on earth. Also he says he no longer denies the Holocaust or endorses Adolf Hitler, though I suspect this may be mainly because such language when publicized is a magnet for trouble.<br /> Also, I am not implying in what follows that the followers of venerable Ajahn Punnadhammo are Marxists. Probably very few of them, if any, are Marxists. But the point remains that considering fascism, but NOT communism or Marxism, evil and genocidal is totally mainstream to the point of appearing plainly factual, when really this is the result of propaganda and subtle mass indoctrination. And I mean no disrespect whatsoever to the Ajahn.</i></p><p><br /></p><p> This post is a reflection on two little events in my life that occurred just a few days ago. One little event involved my friend Brian Ruhe calling me at work. He informed me that venerable Ajahn Punnadhammo had just contacted him regarding the videos he had been making with us. It turned out that he had agreed to being a guest of honor and question-answerer on one of Brian’s UFO meetup groups; and as a consequence of that he had received a wave of negative feedback from his supporters because of his willingness to communicate with a known Nazi. As a response to this he told Brian that he reluctantly would refrain from appearing on videos with him in future, at least for awhile, until the little storm of protest had subsided, or some such. The Ajahn was apologetic, and was withdrawing from our occasional videos mainly because a monk, especially one living in a western, non-Buddhist country, has to keep his lay supporters in good humor. So Brian was rather sad about this happening, naturally, as all three of us enjoyed making the videos, and Brian much appreciates conversing with serious Buddhists, especially monks. But he is a Nazi, and an antisemitic Holocaust denier, and so a great many western Buddhists believe he should be shunned, banned, and silenced, in Buddhist circles anyhow.</p><p> I have received complaints about being in videos with Brian myself. Just recently at least two people left comments to the effect that I shouldn’t have anything to do with him, and one suggested that Brian should be excommunicated from all Buddhist groups—because of course he’s a NAZI. But I have never really cared all that much about public opinion, and I know that Brian, bless his heart, is a sincere and knowledgeable Buddhist who does not condone hatred or violence. I suggested to the commentator wishing for Brian’s excommunication that if Nazis are excommunicated, then perhaps so should Marxists and radical leftists in general, since history has shown that Marxism and its ilk are worse than all the various kinds of fascism combined, simply going with the amount of corpses generated by each system. In response to this the commentator wished me well and now knows to avoid my videos, evidently because I’m a Nazi also.</p><p> Anyway, the second little event that inspired this post involved another friend of mine, who also was an American monk in Asia but who is now a layman in the USA. He texted me asking if I knew about Ajahn Sujato. I said I’d heard of him but didn’t really know who he is. My friend then replied that he is rather an opinionated blowhard who endorses Black Lives Matter, and who deletes any mention of my Atthakavagga translation, and possibly of me also, from Sutta Central, a website/forum that he manages—because, of course, I am well known to be a Nazi too. I’d heard of Sutta Central, and have even looked at it a few times. My friend urged me to challenge him to a debate, expressing the sincere wish that I would totally “pwn” that venerable one. This friend and also Brian have allowed that Ajahn Sujato, despite his leftist indoctrination, has written some really informative stuff about early Buddhism; on the other hand, Brian pointed out to me that ven. Sujato is the “right hand man” of Ajahn Brahm in Australia, the monk who was banished from his own Ajahn Chah tradition for taking upon himself the authority of Gotama Buddha to ordain Theravada Buddhist nuns, or bhikkhunis, in a politically correct manner.</p><p> So in the matter of 48 hours I have been informed that both Brian and I are essentially banned from western Buddhism in various ways—Brian from appearing in public with one of the few monks willing to appear with him in public, and I from being referenced on Sutta Central…because we are “Nazis.”</p><p> With all due respect to Brian, I suppose he really is a Nazi. He is an admirer of Adolf Hitler, and denies the historical account of the Holocaust. He also considers Jews to be instrumental in the recent and current attempts to establish a “woke” Brave New World Order. For that matter he believes some Jews to be conspiring with certain space aliens to control the human race. But despite his strange beliefs, many of which I find rather hard to swallow, he is, as I say, a conscientious Buddhist who does not endorse hatred or violence. But “hate speech” obviously does not necessarily involve any hatred on the part of the person who speaks it: “hate speech” is any speech that leftists and/or globalists hate.</p><p> All this has got me thinking about so-called Cancel Culture and censorship, and its relation to Buddhism. Clearly, Buddhism has always supported some element of shunning heretics and bad monks. I even agree that people who disapprove of a monk’s behavior or views have every right to stop supporting him. Also, there is a formal act of suspension from the Sangha, which is never exercised in the modern world that I know of, which deprives a monk of his good status and right to associate with other monks, though even the Sangha does not have the right to excommunicate and defrock him outright; and a monk may be suspended in this way if he 1) has pernicious wrong views, 2) refuses to acknowledge and rectify his violations of the monastic rules of discipline, and if I remember correctly, 3) if he is corrupting families by being overfamiliar with them, especially with the female members of that family. But would this sort of thing apply to a Buddhist who thinks that Hitler did nothing wrong because he disbelieves the official narrative about him? Or would it apply to a Buddhist who opposes cultural Marxism?</p><p> Not supporting, or not listening to a Buddhist whose ideas or actions one does not like is one thing; trying to have him banned and silenced is something else, especially if, aside from some unpalatable views on other matters, he is a good Buddhist. This is especially true in the modern west, which arrived at its current state of world domination (militarily, politically, culturally, economically, etc.) through, in part, relative freedom of thought and expression. Even ancient India in the Buddha’s time, ruled as it was by autocratic and sometimes sociopathic kings, allowed some very wild and anti-Dharmic beliefs to be expressed in public.</p><p> Christian culture has always been rather intolerant of unorthodox views, and human cultures in general tend to have some degree of this trait, though lately the desire to ban and silence cultural dissenters appears to be coming from globalist “progressivism.” In order for the Brave New World Order to be implemented, a deluded worldview must appear so common-sense that nobody appears to disagree with it, rather like Chinese or North Korean communism, or 16th-century Spanish Catholicism. Anyone who suggests that the Emperor wears no clothes is a danger, or rather anyone who says that he’s not wearing what the courtiers claim he’s wearing.</p><p> Ironically, what it boils down to is that some western Buddhists would like people like Brian and me to be silenced NOT because of our views regarding Buddhism, which are probably more knowledgeable and orthodox than those of most people who would like us to be silenced. Someone like Brian especially is persecuted, by Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike, because of his views on politics—even though, as I say, his politics (let alone his Buddhism) are in some ways more dharmic than those of, say, radical leftists.</p><p> I’ve already written elsewhere, more than once, about how leftist politics are essentially unrefined feminine sentiment that, if kept at a personal and local level, are beneficial; but if expanded out to a national or even global level, are self-destructive. Compassion is fine, but supporting the sick and dysfunctional on a massive scale to the point that they are parenting sick and dysfunctional children leads to a sick and dysfunctional society. Moral degeneracy also should not necessarily be punished unless it is clearly harming others, yet it should not be supported and endorsed by governments and multinational corporations like Apple, Google, or Disney. The very idea of decadence is now very out of fashion because, of course, we are smack in the middle of it. Our civilization is in decline. And people who speak out against it, regardless of how calm and objective they may be, are declared to be haters, and thus are hated by supposed non-haters.</p><p> The whole attitude towards "Nazis" and "fascists" is a strange one in the west, and clearly a case of culture-wide propaganda and thought control. Clearly, Marxism has caused much more suffering than Nazism, or of all kinds of fascism combined; Stalin killed more people than Hitler did, and Mao killed more than Stalin and Hitler put together; yet wearing a hammer and sickle or an image of Mao on one's shirt is no problem, while wearing a swastika is anathema, maybe even worse than anathema. One can openly declare oneself to be a Marxist, and fear no consequences. Why is this? It's because the Marxists won. They are at the verge of winning on a global scale too, mainly by replacing the capitalist bourgeoisie with patriarchal, colonialist Evil Whitey and concealing their true agenda. It's spoon-fed to the young at this point, and most people are too ignorant and sheeplike to resist.</p><p> With regard to Brian, I can’t rule out the possibility that he has been cursed by some adept rabbi. It appears that he is hated and persecuted at almost every turn, despite the fact that he is a harmless, nonviolent person and a sincere practicing Buddhist—and I repeat, he is undoubtedly a better Buddhist than pretty much all the ones despising him and wanting him thrown out of western Buddhism altogether. He has lost his teaching job, been thrown out of his home, been thrown out of a Tibetan Buddhist group, and has been kicked off of most social media platforms, let alone being spat on, screamed at, and assaulted on the street. It’s really a shame, though ideological intolerance appears to be bred into the human animal. Brian does have some weird ideas, though no weirder than those expressed publicly and in the middle of the cultural mainstream by indoctrinated leftists, who believe objective truth to be a myth, and thus whatever they are told to feel by their peers, and by the globalist media, is true for everybody. Strange is this. Even so, be happy.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-wWuVo2Np4lAlIU08OgwC5n0jV8yvU7kzuxYUUaBI9QOecR1xfnMVyDFSSPu0hy6Z3Srb-aQvXE3whlQ16lG8U2_OwE5Tr4SgHvoXoXst9pVnU3fzqqxp7OiDxVkbPq2bBNBeWsqqXpvisb_xC344vrJ8xVsua8mKr3mzH6idWY_4_L7nDkhQW8fZ/s1536/Brian%20BDawg.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1046" data-original-width="1536" height="436" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-wWuVo2Np4lAlIU08OgwC5n0jV8yvU7kzuxYUUaBI9QOecR1xfnMVyDFSSPu0hy6Z3Srb-aQvXE3whlQ16lG8U2_OwE5Tr4SgHvoXoXst9pVnU3fzqqxp7OiDxVkbPq2bBNBeWsqqXpvisb_xC344vrJ8xVsua8mKr3mzH6idWY_4_L7nDkhQW8fZ/w640-h436/Brian%20BDawg.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>Paññobhāsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14148206217028034038noreply@blogger.com5