Caveat: The best day

This is another poem by Ko Un, from his collection English translations entitled What? translated by Young-moo Kim and Anthony of Taizé. I was unable to find the original Korean of the poem in an online search.

Today

Ha ha! Today's the best day. The best
for some guy to kick the bucket
and for some other guy to get born,
for life-starting cries, for tavern songs.

    The sky's clouded over.

– Ko Un

[daily log: walking, 5.5 km]

Caveat: 선방

Somewhat to my own surprise, I actually finished a book last night. I always have so many books in progress, but I've become so bad at finishing them, so when I do finish one, I feel surprised.

DiaryThe book I finished is called Diary of a Korean Zen Monk, by an author named simply Jiheo, and translated by Jong Kweon Yi and Frank Tedesco.

It's a very understated little volume, written in the 70's by a monk during a winter meditation retreat (which he calls by the idiomatic term 선방 [seon-bang], which literally means "meditation room" or "zen room").

He's quite well-educated, and it shows through his reflections – he mentions not just a great deal of deep knowledge of Korean Buddhism (and hence Chinese Buddhism, particularly the Zen (called Chan [Chinese name] or Seon [Korean name]) current within the Mahayana tradition) but also western theology. He quotes Sartre and Nietzsche in his conversations with other monks.

Here's a quote I liked where he is obliquely referencing the "middle way" – that is, avoiding the temptations of extreme asceticism. He's talking to another monk who seems overly obsessed with denial of the body.

There's an old saying "nothing is more important than your body, live first and then you can do everything." This may sound very materialistic and egoistic. If you look into it very carefully, though, you'll see that it expresses the universal truth of all beings very well. "I" can be found when I realize that I'm merely one of the countless beings appearing and disappearing through the endless functioning of infinite space, eternal time and inexhaustible energy. While searching for "I," I have to take good care of myself, and to do this, I'll have to practice. When I finally find myself on the path, there is no "I" but nirvana. This being so, do you really have to make a fasting retreat in your poor health? – p. 128

I connected with this particular conversation because of my own current preoccupation with my health and my uncooperative body, and my ascetic temptations (or tendencies).

I liked the book. It was well written and well translated.

[daily log (11 pm): walking, 5.5 km]

Caveat: invaluable treasure

Studying texts and stiff meditation can make you lose your Original Mind.
A solitary tune by a fisherman, though, can be an invaluable treasure.
Dusk rain on the river, the moon peeking in and out of the clouds;
Elegant beyond words, he chants his songs night after night.
– Ikkyu (Japanese Buddhist monk and poet, 1394-1481)

[daily log: walking, 4.5 km]

Caveat: Dragging More People Up a Mountain to a Temple

I dragged Ann and Jacob up Gobong mountain to 영천사 [yeongcheon temple]. I felt guilty about it afterward because I always like tromping along the trails more than most people I know and care about, but my mother felt it was a positive experience and Jacob said it was interesting too. I was glad she could see the little temple there – I find it very peaceful there.

Ann and Jacob are watching a cute chipmunk that was leaping around the kimchi pots on the hillside.

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Later, I went to work but I didn't have to teach any classes. I had a few pleasant conversations with coworkers and talked for far too many hours with Ann this evening. I really enjoy the conversations I can have with my mother more than most any other conversations I have – she and I, for obvious reasons, have a lot of common interests talk about and similar ways of talking about things even if we don't always agree. But… well, the only but is that my mouth isn't in the right condition for so much talking. So the end result of so much talking was that I felt like I should have shut up hours ago – it aggravates the post-radiation sores in my mouth to flap my tongue so much.

Harrumph. And so I whine at the internet and call it a night.

[daily log: walking, 7 km]

Caveat: Anapana

Anapana is meditation with a focus simply on the movements of air that are a part of respiration. It’s a (the) starting point for meditation. I’ve been making on-and-off efforts at meditation for years now, but this video I ran across (posted by my aunt Janet in facebookland, in fact) is as good an introduction to it as any.

It’s so easy to “forget” to do this. But then it’s not hard to “remember” to do it, again, either – I needed the reminder, I guess. But I’m still not really very good at it – especially lately.

Caveat: 흥국사

I’m really not up to day-long trips, right now. My energy-level is limited. However, it’s still important to get out of the house and I want to show at least some things to Wendy, too.

So I’ve been thinking of shorter half-day or several-hours-long trips we could do. I’ve long thought I should make more of an effort to visit things that are close by – landmarks, temples, parks, etc., that are right here in Goyang City. So many things are nearby that I never visit because it’s always that phenomenon of “I’ll be able to visit that any time I want” which boils down to never visiting it.

With that in mind, today we went to a temple called 흥국사 [heung guk sa] which is on the eastern edge of Goyang, up against where the city touches Seoul at the western end of Bukhansan National Park.

It turned out to be a rather rustic temple – not polished for the tourists, at all, just a working temple, a bit run down in areas. I actually like seeing places like this.

It took about an hour to get there: subway to Gupabal Station, then bus number 704 up the road that parallels the city limit between Seoul and Goyang for about 20 minutes to a rather rural-looking spot. Then walking up a one-lane road, up a narrow valley between two arms of a small mountain, to the temple.

Here are some pictures.

At the top of the road, here is the temple parking area.

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A tourist map of Goyang on an announcement board.

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The gathering area in front of the complex of buildings.

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Looking up toward some of the buildings.

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Bukhansan in the distance.

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Eaves of two buildings, a hanging bell, and the peaks of Bukhansan in the distance.

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A guy flying along.

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A seashore scene.

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A really nice painting up above the level where most of the panel paintings are, up under the eaves.

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A dragon.

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Some guys talking in what looks like a blue fog.

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A guy riding a tiger.

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Another nice panel painting.

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Wendy is resting on some quarried stone for building curbs or steps. There was some construction going on at parts of the temple site.

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Jared and the dragon.

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Another view showing how unpopulated it was, there, and the western side of Bukhansan in the background.

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Looking up at several buildings – Wendy is standing on the balcony on the building to the right.

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Looking at the temple from the large gathering area in front of it.

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A bored looking dog near the temple.

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A hint of fall colors in the parking area.

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Crossing a small stream on the small road near the main road (I think this stream is the city limit between Seoul and Goyang, but I’m not positive).

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The sign for the temple at the main road where the bus stop is.

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Then we got back on the bus and went back to the subway and I came home.

[daily log: walking, 3 km]

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Caveat: the flowers are blooming on the old dead tree

I found this in my Practical Dictionary of Korean-English Buddhist Terms.

온갖 사람들과 만나 무애자재 (無礙自在)하려고 하는 것이 변수행 (徧修行)이다. 철조망을 쳐놓고 수행하는 것만이 수승한 수행은 아닐 것이다. 몽매한 중생 제도를 위해 원효대사는 허리에 바가지를 차고 광대 흉내까지 내셨다.

성인 (聖人)들의 길을 버린 다음 표주박을 허리춤에 차고
저자거리에 나가 술꾼 아니면 푸줏간 주인과 잘도 어울리네.
신선 (神仙)들의 신통력 필요 없으니
오호라! 그가 손을 대자 늙은 고목 (枯木)에서 꽃이 피네.

–십우도 (十牛圖), 入廛垂手–

Marketplace practice: The true practice must be among the common people in their daily lives not in isolation in the deep mountains.

A man abandons the ways of saints and enters the crowded marketplace
With a begging bowl by his side to join the bunch of drunkards and butchers.
Who said that only saints could perform miracles?
A man touches the old dead tree, and Lo! the flowers are blooming on the old dead tree.

–The last scene of the Ten Ox-herding Pictures–

It seems like half-poetry, half commentary.
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I’m tired. I need to nap.

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Caveat: Andrew Was Right

I was complaining about my hypochondria with respect to my radiation treatments to my brother, earlier this week (or maybe it was at the end of last week?). Something Andrew said struck me as the right perspective. I don’t remember his exact phrasing, but he said, basically, that I need to remember not to make the radiation therapy the center of my life, and have other things going on, and it will be better that way.

And so… that’s what I’ve been doing. After the late dinner last night, I really worked a very full day, today. I corrected essays and proctored a 3 hour exam with lots of annoying technical issues, and felt like a generally productive member of society. And before that, I’d spent over an hour scrubbing various as-yet-unscrubbed surfaces in my new apartment. Not to mention the 2 hour nap before that, and some blogreading, and, well, before that, there was that pesky radiation treatment. In the broader picture, it ends up being just a sort of chore I have to do each weekday morning, nothing more.

I feel very tired, but I feel pretty good. There’s a throbbing pain in my mouth and my neck burns and I had nausea earlier but I don’t care. I’m hungry and then I’m going to bed. I’ll work tomorrow.

Caveat: 108 On Cloth

When I was at 보문사 [bomun temple] on Sunday, in the shop beside the temple I found something I had always wondered if existed but had never actually seen before: an “on cloth” rendering of the 108 Buddhist affirmations that I translated (attempted to translate) in 2010~11.

So I bought one – I seem to have developed a habit of collecting these cheap little cloth renderings of aphorisms and phrases and excerpts of sacred writings.

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I haven’t analyzed it too closely, but I think they’re exactly the same list. I still have no idea if these affirmations are uniquely Korean in origin or if they are translations of some older Chinese or Gandharan or Pali tradition.


After yesterday morning’s session at the hospital, I felt really tired. I napped for a short time, then met my friend Mr Kwon for lunch while Andrew and Hollye did their own touristic trip into Seoul. After lunch I went to work but there wasn’t much for me to do there. Given I wasn’t feeling very good, that was a good thing, so by about 6 pm I had come home. Andrew and Hollye came over and we watched a movie and I went to sleep.
It felt like a useless day. I felt tired and achey and grumpy all day. I struggle with all these worries about the radiation: is that twinge of toothache a symptom? is that pain in my neck a symptom? how about the headache? Some no doubt are, others are just hypochondria.

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Caveat: 보문사

Yesterday Andrew, Hollye and I went to 보문사 [Bomun temple], which is on Seongmo Island which is off the coast of the larger Ganghwa Island which is basically straight west of Seoul at the mouth of Han River. We took a long, slow, local bus from Ilsan to Ganghwa County Seat, thence on a different bus (after some confusion as to where to catch it) to Oepo-ri on Ganghwa’s west side, then a short ferry ride across the channel to Seongmo, and finally, after lunch of clam noodle soup and spicy herring salad, a last bus around Seongmo Island to the location of the temple.

Here are some pictures from this trip.

Waiting to board the ferry at Oepo-ri.

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Looking back at Oepo-ri from aboard the ferry.

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Many hungry seagulls freeloading off the “do not feed the birds”-disregarding Koreans.

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Looking back while walking up the steep driveway to the temple.

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The temple gate.

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Looking up at the temple area.

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Andrew and Hollye walking behind me.

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A large collection of statues regarding a stupa. I’m not really sure what this represents.

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Looking up the mountain at our ultimate destination.

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Looking down a big old tree.

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The entrance to the grotto temple.

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Temple details.

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Small figurines hanging out on some mossy rocks.

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Going farther up the mountainside, there was a cast bronze statue of a many-headed, many-tailed dragon.

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Looking back down the mountainside.

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At the top of the many, many stairs we found the famous buddha relief carved in the cliff-side looking out to sea.

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Then we found a back-trail back down the mountainside. This sign says “danger.”

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Looking out while waiting for the return ferry.

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Another ferry parking beside ours.

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Some views of boats upon our return to Oepo-ri.

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Here is a collection of temple-wall paintings thrown in here at the end of this here blogpost.

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Caveat: Return to Suwon

I spent several months in Suwon in 2010, so it’s one of my Korean “homes” – I know the city pretty well and I like it a lot.

Today, I dragged Andrew and Hollye down to Suwon on the 2 hour subway trek, and met my friend Nate. We had lunch, walked around a lot, visited some temples and hiked to the top of Paldalsan, and hung out in an air conditioned cafe for a long time, too.

I’m pretty tired now, so I won’t write a lot. But here are a bunch of pictures.

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Nate took the above photo and posted it on facebook. What he wrote under it was very complementary:

Six weeks ago, Jared had surgery for cancer. Yesterday, he started radiation treatment. Today, he hiked up a mountain on the hottest day in Korean history and made me look like a baby. This is the toughest dude on earth.

I think Nate is tougher than me. But I very much appreciate the complement.

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Caveat: Dichotomia; i.e. 이분법(二分法)에 대한 경계(警戒)

I don’t know why I feel the urge to try to understand such difficult things in Korean when I can still barely communicate my needs in a restaurant. I guess it’s just more interesting to me.

I was somewhat randomly poking around in my Korean-English Dictionary of Buddhist Terms and ran across this phrase:

이분법(二分法)에 대한 경계(警戒)
dichotomy-LOC face-PASTPART caution
I would translate this, roughly, as:

Beware of Dichotomies

Which is awesome, as it could be caveat dichotomia in Latin.

The context was an entry on 시비구불선 (是非俱不禪) on p. 645 of my dictionary – the mistake of meditating on right and wrong, more or less.

Here’s what the rest of the Korean says:
시비는 참선과 거리가 멀며,
right/wrong-TOPIC meditation-WITH distance be-far-WHILE
시비가 있는 곳엔
right/wrong-SUBJ have-PRESPART place-AT-TOPIC

진리가 있을 수 없다.
truth-SUBJ have-POSSIBLE-NOT
The English on the same entry isn’t really a translation – it’s its own thing:

Meditation has nothing to do with arguments: Where there is an argument about right or wrong, this and that, there is no wisdom or truth.

The gist is the same, but the detailed meaning seems widely variant.


Here is a random picture: the luminous November sky in Hongnong, 2010.

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Caveat: 고봉산 영천사

Today, Andrew and I set out for a temple I visited a long time ago. I believe it is the “working mountain temple” closest to my home. It’s on the side of a mountain called Gobong-san (고봉산), which is north of the railroad tracks in the part of Ilsan I think of as “old Ilsan”. It is my opinion that this is the “one mountain,” of the various mountains around, that is the best candidate for the origin of the name of the city of Ilsan, which means “one mountain.”
We visited the temple on this mountain called 영천사 [yeong-cheon-sa]. It’s a small, unpretentious working temple. I met a monk there and had an actual conversation with him – I lived in Ilsan, I had been in the cancer center, my brother was visiting. He wished me good health. Then he ran down and told one of the men hanging out near a storage shed, “OMG there’s a foreigner speaking Korean up there!” I didn’t catch the exact words in Korean, but that was the drift of it.

I felt flattered.

I bowed.

Here are some pictures.

Andrew on the trail up the mountain.

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The temple garden.

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Behind the temple outbuilding (monks’ quarters).

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Standing on the stoop of the temple looking toward Tanhyeon towers.

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The main temple building and administrative building to the right.

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A smaller shrine behind the main temple. These are always my favorite places to go to do sitting or prostrations, rather than the main temples. They are dedicated to various saints (bodhisattvas) and I have no idea which one this one was dedicated to – I don’t really see that it matters.

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The interior of that small shrine.

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Andrew took a picture of me doing a few prostrations there.

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I took a picture of Andrew sitting quietly there.

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Looking down on the larger temple from the stoop at the shrine.

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A trail leading up into the forest behind the shrine.

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A buddha in a stone niche near the shrine.

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A very large number of kimchi pots behind the administration building.

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A closed door detail on the shrine.

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I like how in random spots you can find little figurines enacting scenes.

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Some other figurines.

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Here is a picture of a woman getting a drink of water at the public fountain (every temple has one) and a laughing buddha. Slightly out of focus…

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Here is another smaller temple we passed while walking down the mountain.

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A jang-seung [장승 = traditional shamanistic totem] I saw amid some flowers on the main road at the base of the mountain at the end of the trip.

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Here are a ton of “temple-panel paintings” that I snapped. I love these things and am trying to build up a collection of images of them.

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Caveat: how to know when your nap is finished

Being convalescent from such major surgery, I find myself (re-)discovering and mulling over very simple truths and ideas.

For example:

Q: How can you know when your nap is finished?

A: You wake up.



pictureI have been reading a book by the Vietnamese monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching. It’s not as “mainstream” nor as syncretistic as many of his books – it’s a genuine introduction to Buddhist practice and goes into some detail on the doctrines and dogmas that embellish the history of the tradition.

He’s doing a very good job of addressing one of my primary complaints (or frustrations) with how Buddhist practice is often presented, which is that it seems “obsessed” with suffering, and my feeling that all that dwelling on suffering can’t be good. It was one of the things I least liked about my 10 days as a Buddhist practitioner at the Vipassana retreat in Northern Illinois in December of 2009.

The monk writes, “Our suffering is holy if we embrace it and look deeply into it. If we don’t, it isn’t holy at all. We just drown in the ocean of our suffering.” (p. 9). Later he elaborates: “It is true that the Buddha taught the truth of suffering, but he also taught the truth of ‘dwelling happily in things as they are’ (drishta dharma sukha viharin). To succeed in the practice, we must stop trying to prove that everything is suffering.” (p. 23).

Nhat Hanh goes on to use the metaphor of a mother with a crying baby. What does a good mother do with a crying baby? She holds and soothes and comforts it, while carefully analyzing and solving the possible causes of the crying: hunger, discomfort, frustration, insomnia, disease, etc. Likewise, our suffering is to be recognized and then held and soothed but also analyzed, like a mother with her crying baby.

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Caveat: Azadas son la hora y el momento

Retrato_de_Francisco_de_QuevedoFUE SUEÑO AYER, MAÑANA SERÁ TIERRA…

Fue sueño ayer, mañana será tierra.
¡Poco antes nada, y poco después humo!
¡Y destino ambiciones, y presumo
apenas punto al cerco que me cierra!

Breve combate de importuna guerra,
en mi defensa, soy peligro sumo,
y mientras con mis armas me consumo,
menos me hospeda el cuerpo que me entierra.

Ya no es ayer, mañana no ha llegado;
hoy pasa y es y fue, con movimiento
que a la muerte me lleva despeñado.

Azadas son la hora y el momento
que a jornal de mi pena y mi cuidado
cavan en mi vivir mi monumento.

– Francisco de Quevedo (1580~1645)

El mensaje tiene un sabor fuertemente budista, a pesar de ser de un católico español del siglo de oro. ¿Debo confesar que he estado meditando sobre la muerte? Pero … de hecho, sí, por lo menos un poco – y, ¿cómo que no?

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Caveat: And Then I Was Home

pictureBeing “home” means so many things. But one thing that it means is that I can sit down and with a few clicks at my desktop computer, I can begin to type effortlessly and painlessly in way that has been denied me by the circumstances of my recent captivity at the cancer hospital. Yet immediately, facing the square white box on my blog host’s website, the question formost in my mind is simply, “now that it’s easy, what should I say?”

Nothing comes to mind. I’m pleased to be home. After having a lunch of somewhat-craved 콩국수 (kongguksu = cold noodle soup in soy-milk-broth) with my coworkers, Andrew was alarmed to find me in a mood to clean and shop and rearrange furniture as soon as we got home. My nesting instinct kicked into overdrive, as I was wanting to reestablish my presence in my own small space affirmatively and unambiguously. So I did.

And then, exhausted, I went to sleep. In my bed. Which is nothing more than a thin blanket with a sheet over it, on the floor: I sleep Korean-old-person style, and have done so for years. It was, I swear, the most amazing, most comfortable, most at-ease sleep I have ever had. The nap lasted a bit over an hour, and now, here I sit, facing my blog and my world with undoubtedly altered eyes, an altered worldview.

pictureBut I’m not so changed as all that. My coworkers said I had become “extroverted.” I could see how they could perceive that: in my moment of triumphal discharge from the hospital, I was elated, effusive, energetic, and stunningly positive – not traits they necessarily associate with me. In fact though, what they were seeing is something I have had and been all along – what they were seeing was my “classroom personality,” which I have deployed judiciously with my students for years. But ever since going into the hospital, because of the “always on” social nature of being in that communal space, I had turned on that “classroom personality” full-time. Always on. It was possible partly because I could take quick naps between interactions.

Curt said I need to spread my happiness out – “don’t use it all up now. You need it for the long run,” he suggested. He’s right. But he’s wrong in that I already had it – I was just being parsimmonious with it, before, and tended not to use it much outside the classroom. That, I suspect, will change – or at the least, I want it to. I think I can.

I’m not sure I’m making a lot of sense. For now, I’m happy to be home, I’m resting, I’m nesting, I’m enjoying having the freedom to get up and make a cup of tea for myself in my own diminutive kitchen.

I’ll share more later. Only a few hours ago, Andrew snapped this candid picture of me being injected with positron-emiting chemicals in preparation for a PET scan.

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caveat: 會者定離. 去者必反.

My roommate and now close friend Mr Cho taught me the following Buddhist proverb, today – despite himself being a catholic deacon or something like that. Thats the sort of openmindedness that warms my heart.
會者定離.                     去者必反.
회자정리.                     거자필반.
hoe·ja·jeong·ri.            geo·ja·pil·ban.
meet-people-intention-part. go-people-again-come.
This pair of sinisms refer to the great wheel: we all are cycling through the rebirths and deaths. “We meet and then we part again. People go and people come again.”
Incidentally, the vow of silence has been relaxed somewhat, with doctors’ permission. 

caveat: luke 6:41~42

my cousin sylvia, a christian, wrote the following in reply to an earlier post of mine. since im up at 5 am anyway due to some unexpected disgusting discharge from my neck wound, i found myself taking the time to think about what she said. she wrote. . .

> I have to challenge you on this one. Calling these people evil or even calling their evangelistic efforts evil is rather "over the top." Think about what they believe (since I'm guessing it has similarities to my own beliefs). They care a lot about you in order to brave the cultural and language barriers to even talk to you. They are much more concerned about you than they are about gaining a possible proselyte. This is hardly 'solipsistic' and neither it is selfish. If this world is not all there is, they are not even 'devoid of human empathy.' Rather they are obeying the command +to 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' And how can you be sure they are wrong in what they believe?

i am unconvinced.

if it increases my discomfort and unease, if it causes those around me to flinch, then it it is devoid of empathy. you could argue that they believe that what they are doing is true and that therefore the imposition of discomfort is necessary (like a surgeons knife creating necessary discomfort in order to heal). but that opens the door to the practitioners of all religions having a right to impose their spiritual concerns. voodooists could run in and sacrfice chickens, witch doctors may wish to dance or sing. do these wellwishers of my spiritual health have a right to enter my personal space on my behalf?

no spiritual practice on my behalf has the same right of imposition as the surgeons knife for a very simple reason: i invited the knife. if i were one of those religions where my belief prohibited me from modern treatment, and i refused the knife, would you respect my wishes? likewise, can you respect my wish not to be histrionically prayed for in public, in my personal space? if you cannot, you are placing something in your worldview in a position of moral primacy over mine – invading my moral sphere with yours because you have a strong confidence that you are right and i am wrong. that is not only solipsism, but is unkindness – you give expression only to your intention, your heart, your action, and you deny me mine. allow me my autonomy and follow instead the precepcts of kindness and "do unto others."

imagine you are sick with cancer in a hospital. i care about you and im deeply concerned about not just your health but the wrongness of your beliefs. so i decide to loudly explain to you that a belief in god is wrong and you need to see the truth that there is no god so that you can have the same solace from that that i feel. would you not ask, "really? here? now? are there not more appropriate times for this conversation?"

luke 6:41~42.

caveat: gratefuller and gratefuller

ive said it before but need to repeat: i am so profoundly grateful to all my friends who have taken the time to support me with anything from posts in facebookland to visits to my room. two unexpected visitors came by today – helen, who is the karma subdirector, and kelly, a former karma teacher and on and off korean tutor for me.

they gossipped about work things while i ate my lunch very slowly and enjoyed hearing the familiar patter of work-related korean, which naturally is the topic where i have the highest level of comprehension.

earlier, id talked for a few minutes with bestfriend bob in wisconsin, too. im feeling very loved, and so for that, my gratefulness expands without bound.

caveat: stone leaf leaf stone?

there are days like today when i feel a little stalled. small improvements, but also small degredations. i had the staples removed from my neck, so im a mite less frankensteiny now. but i struggled to eat my meals . . . each swallowed bite is a three or four minute victory. there is a sense of elation at the conclusion of a meal, only to see that ive eaten twenty percent of the food on the tray during more than an hours hard work.

i lie thinking about an interesting metaphor. there are zen-like proverbs which assert either:

1) be like a leaf in a stream.

2) be like a stone in a stream.

each of these, alone, merely affirms our need to be at peace in the stream of the world. but they arent identical. . . a leaf is tossed on the surface, always going somewhere but little control of where; a stone sinks to the bottom and holds its own against the current, but gives up any mobility.

i thought, maybe in one moment, i can be a leaf, and in another, a stone? like a sort of submarine hybridized with a hang glider, the stoneleaf could rise and float the calm, easy or predictable spots, and in rough water plunge to the bottom like a stone. within a single axis of control, a skilled leafstone could go anywhere it wished.

its not total control . . far from it. its just a single dimension. . an attitude "switch" that allows for goal-centered activity within the broader boundaries of lifes stream.

i lie here tossed by lifes stream, but i have a goal: to continue living. so in this moment, does being a stone or being a leaf better suit my goal?

caveat: positive thoughts have been emitted

ive had an on and off habit of practicing various sorts of affirmations for some years. sometimes the habit wanes. then some life event compels me to try again. like now.

right now im writing in my paper journal three types of affirmation. heres my list from this morning.

1. gratitude ( past ). i am thankful for all done by my friends, by family, and by strangers. im thankful for the worlds beauty that ive seen. im thankful to be in korea. im thankful for my students smiles and for my own mind.
2. the now ( present ). i am learning korean. i am a successful teacher. i am in the process of getting healthier. i am strong and courageous. pain is nothing.
3. intention ( future ). i will keep learning korean. i will earn the love and respect of my students and teachers. i will help people. i will thank and compliment my friends and family.

Caveat: Still Leaping, Hoping for More Net

Leap, and the net will appear.
I wrote about this little allegedly zen aphorism before. I remember now that it was, indeed, given to me by my father. I bought a card with this saying on it one time I was in the US, and it’s been attached to my refrigerator again since I moved back to Ilsan in 2011.
I think I need the peace of mind offered by a sincere contemplation of this maxim at this point in time. I need more net. I feel frightened.
Here is a picture of the card with the saying, accompanied by my leaping minneapolitan rainbow monkey, attached to my refrigerator.
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Nearby on my refrigerator are also found these words: “They say we can feel real joy when a large toad is the goal.”
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It was really the only vaguely coherent compound sentence I could come up with using my refrigerator poetry kit. I’ll have to see if that works out.
I wrote part of this yesterday but decided go ahead and post it now. I am unable to control the date this post appears on my smartphone. Actual publish date is 2013-07-03 12:30 pm kst

Caveat: Life is nothing and that is sublime

One unexpected but happy outcome of my recent announcement on this blog (and hence in facebookland, too) that I have been diagnosed with cancer, is the outpouring messages and notes from distant friends, relatives, and acquaintances. I'm utterly grateful for all of that.

It really makes a difference in my ability to keep a positive outlook on this experience – please don't stop no matter what! Thank you – I love you all so much.

Among these messages, however, there have been some examples of what I can only term "religious outreach and sharing." I don't mean people who are saying they are praying for me – this is nigh universal, and completely unproblematic from my perspective. I mean people who take the opportunity to share something of their beliefs, or experiences with Jesus, etc., and who inquire as to my own religious standing.

Viewed charitably, people are offering me solace with displays of where, in their own lives, they have found their own meaning and solace. Taking a less charitable view, they're seeking to exploit me in a moment of weakness and hoping to gain a "deathbed" convert.

For the record, my faith is quite strong.

I realize these solicitations are meant in all kindness, but I don't take them as kindness. Efforts to convert me – even in the best of times – will, if anything, turn me against the belief system being advocated.

Perhaps it is the case that aggressive evangelism is in some ways admirable. Certainly it is worth noting the level of commitment and strength of faith that it requires, and the depth of human character that it draws upon. I deeply respect if not downright envy people of strong faith of all kinds. Nevertheless, that kind of "vested outreach" ("caring, but with a dogmatic agenda") strikes me as disrespectful to the intellectual autonomy of others.

Try to consider it from my point of view: "So sorry to hear your news about your being sick, but, by the way, what you believe is completely wrong. I sure hope that you can fix up your deficient belief system in the time remaining to you on this Earth, or… you-know-what!"

Ah. Thank you so much for making me feel better.

I am an atheist. If that changes, over time, then so be it, but in this moment, my faith is unshaken, firm and unwavering.


"All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit." – Thomas Paine

Paine was called a "a demihuman archbeast" in an American newspaper contemporary to him. That being the case, how can we say that the voices in the current media are so alarming?

To digress further, briefly, for no reason, in a different vein: I once owned a horse that I named "Thomas Paine." I thought it a fitting name, as the horse seemed strongly anti-authoritarian and freethinking in character. I probably thought of the name because I was carrying around a slim copy of Paine's Age of Unreason at the time, which was the period of my disillusion with my previous "Quaker" identity. Thomas Paine was the only horse I ever owned. I didn't own him for long. When my several-months-long horseback oddessy in the mountains of Michoacan ended unpleasantly in the Spring of 1987, I gifted Thomas Paine to my friend Jon, who sold the horse later.

Thus when I think of Thomas Paine, and so too of religion and anti-religion and freethought, those meditations enchain to visceral memories of sitting atop a spirited horse in the pine forests of the high country of southwestern Mexico, or of eating carnitas and fresh tortillas and inhaling wood-smoke and shaking scorpions out of my shoes in the early morning.

For me there is a literal, viscerally-felt smell to be evoked for that sense of freedom from the anxieties of dogmas.


I should return to the question at hand: some of my friends' and acquaintances' sudden evangelical zealousness.

I assert that I am a "faith-based" atheist.

Some people might protest that I have repeatedly represented myself as Buddhist in this blog, and… isn't that a religion too?

Well yes… but no. Buddhism is indeed a religon, for many.

For me, though, Buddhism is only a practice, nothing more. It requires me to believe absolutely nothing. When my Buddhist friends talk to me of karma, I choose to interpret it metaphorically, and when they speak of reincarnation I nod politely and try to smile. Most pointedly, though, no one has ever suggested to me that it is a requirement that I believe such nonsense. So I very much appreciate that there exists a group of people that for the most part not only steadfastly refuses to dogmatize their beliefs but is even willing to affirm that I can be "one of them" without having to make any changes or adjustments of any kind to my own beliefs.

I suppose that when I was an active Quaker, 25 years ago, it was similar. Christianity, though, has an undeniable and unavoidable dogmatic burden: it requires of each believer the unambivalent affirmation of God's personal and accessible existence to each of us. No church, therefore – not even the Quakers or the Unitarians – are really able to dispense with all the metaphysical hocus pocus. If you're going to hold the Bible to some standard of eternal truth or even the broadest symbolic sacredness, you're joined at the hip to an irrational worldview. I could never feel comfortable pretending about that. I disliked my own imagined hypocrisy too intensely when I was an openly atheist "Quaker," and I felt unwelcome among Unitarians, too, for the exact same reason. They welcome all views, but, caveat: "hey, don't you think you're being a little close-minded, being an atheist?"

My "faith-based atheism" is strange to many people. Probably, it is even utterly unfathomable. People may ask, "How is it possible to have such a strong belief in, um… nothing?" As if atheism was an affirmational belief in "nothing." It's not nihilism. From my perspective, God is only one thing. So… Everything, minus one thing, is still almost everything. And that's what I believe in: I believe in everything that is in the world, everything that I can hear and feel and touch and see and taste and know and learn and achieve through my own rational mind.

In a way, I even derive some significant comfort from my atheism, in this difficult moment in my life. Where others, who have strong belief systems in benevolent or purposeful deities, would find their faith challenged or shaken by a revelation of their own possible imminent mortality, I am merely affirmed.

Of course life has no purpose, I can affirm in this moment, with a broad smile. And yet… what beauty there is in the world! What kindness other people can show! And how remarkable, then, that this happens for no reason whatsoever.

A miracle – utterly sublime.

Caveat: 피할수 없는 고통이라면 차라리 즐겨라

Curt taught me this aphorism while we were in the waiting room the other day. It may be something associated or of frequent occurance in the military – which is essentially a universal experience for Korean males. The way Curt explained it, however, he implied it was Buddhist. It makes equal sense in both contexts.

피할           수   없는               고통이라면   차라리  즐겨라

pi.hal su.eops.neun go.tong.i.ra.myeon cha.ra.ri jeul.gyeo.ra

avoid-FUTPART able not-have-PRESPART pain-be-IF rather enjoy-IMPER

If pain is unavoidable just enjoy [life].

Of course. To the best of my ability.

I said it to the doctor as we were concluding our interview. He said something to the effect of, “I never met a foreigner like you before.” I guess I was pleased by that, in a strange way.

Unrelatedly (or is it?)… from 9gag.
Screaming_robot

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Caveat: Tea Poem On Cloth

As I mentioned, I went shopping last Sunday, where we stopped at the Buddhist bookshop next to the Jogye temple near Insadong. I mentioned that I had bought a Korean-English dictionary of Buddhist terms. Another thing I bought were some of what might termed “aphorisms-painted-on-cloth” – I guess I like these though I’m not sure what I do with them. I’ve gifted them to friends sometimes.

But first, I study them – I try to find out what they’re about. Here is one of them.

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Here is a trascription. I could not find this poem or prayer (not sure which to call it) online with English translation, so the translation is entirely mine – please forgive defects (I welcome feedback to improve the translation)

차향기
Tea fragrance

차(茶)향기는
가까이 할수록 좋고,
The closer you are to the scent of tea, the better,

인간(人間)의 향기는
느낄수록 좋고,
The more you experience the scent of humanity, the better,

도(道)의 향기는
깨달을수록 좋은데,
The more you attain the scent of the right path, the better, too

여기에
당신의 향기를
그리워하는 이들을 위하여
Here, caring for those yearning for your scent

작은 흔적을 기록하여
남기고 저 합니다
Recording small traces, prepare to leave [it] behind.

부디
모두가
깨우치게 하소서.
Please let everyone find enlightenment.

I was so stumped by the second line of the penultimate stanza that for a time I had utterly given up. Googletranslate says “To leave me” which is just dictionary madness – look up some syllables and assign meaning then chain them together. But “저” as “me” is never a suffix. Googletranslate is useless.

Then I decided to break down and use the frustrating but exhaustive Samuel E. Martin book. I suspected -고저 is some kind of archaic verbal ending because then 남기 can be the stem of the verb 남기다 “to leave behind.” Sure enough, there it was: -koce “be willing to, intend to, get ready to, prepare to” with obvious examples using 하다 as the main auxiliary.

The very last verb+ending, 하소서, really stumped me too. It took a lot of dinking around the internet before I realized I could see if Martin had it, too – and it was there, alphabetized (in his crazy way) under the romanization -usose. Sure, that’s obvious. It’s a kind of super-high deferential imperative (“Let… “), common in e.g. Bible translations. And in Buddhist tea-prayers, too, I guess.

My lesson for the day: don’t avoid Martin just because his romanization is tedious and difficult.

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Caveat: A Consolidated List of 108 Affirmations

Quite some time back, I translated (or, rather, attempted to translate) a list of 108 Korean Buddhist affirmations, which I had initially encountered on a Buddhist
television channel in early 2010, but then subsequently
researched and found online.

After having finished that little translation project more than a year and a half ago, I have finally decided to put the complete list in a single place (instead of being scattered through 108 blog entries, using the “create page” functionality of my blog host (a “page” is different from a “post” in that it isn’t a dated entry but a sort of stand-alone entry).

Here is my newly-created page of the 108 affirmations with translations.


One thing I have wondered about is if these affirmations were natively Korean, or if they derived from some older tradition. There is definitely a tradition in the wider Buddhist sphere of creating lists of 108 affirmations, prayers, or other types of things, but I haven’t run across this particular list of affirmations (I mean in terms of the content of their meanings). I don’t have the linguistic ability to research very thoroughly or effectively, though. If the Korean 108 affirmations came from somewhere, they were likely mediated through classical Chinese, about which I know nil. I’m a little better with Pali (the Prakrit language of the core Buddhist scriptures – only in that I can muddle through the abjad and/or find romanized versions that are vaguely decipherable or provided with translations), but I haven’t seen anything like this list in Pali.

I recently learned that China acquired Buddhism from the Gandharan civilization – which was the Indo-Hellenic civilization in the upper Indus valley and the Kush (i.e. modern Northwest Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan). This is interesting to think about, as it leads to scholarly speculation as to the level of influence between classical Greek thought (I’m thinking here of the same currents of Platonist and neo-Platonist thought that so strongly influenced the New Testament) and the evolution of Mahayana Buddhism (i.e. as practiced in the “North”: China, Korea, Japan, etc.) as distinct from Theraveda Buddhism (i.e. as practiced in the “South”: Sri Lanka, Burma, India, Thailand, etc.). The so-called “Esoteric” Buddhism of Tibet and Bhutan is a third strain that has its own history.


I took the picture below in June, 2010, visiting 원효사 (Wonhyo Temple) near Gwangju.

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Caveat: 석가에게 설법하기

석가에게    설법하기

Buddha-TO preach-GER

Preaching to Buddha.

English equivalents might be “Preaching to the choir” or “Teaching your grandmother to suck eggs.” I hate the latter proverb – it’s both incomprehensible to modern speakers and kind of gross to think about. But I guess there was a time when people’s grandmothers were expert egg-suckers, and so teaching your grandmother to suck eggs was an unnecessary effort.

I had a very long day, although I only had three classes. There’s a lot of tension in the office and staffroom lately. I’m feeling a lot of uncertainty and big changes brewing.

Here is a picture from the temple wall at 미타사 from last weekend.

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Caveat: 19.74 km

I used Google maps to diagram my long walk on Friday, which I did with my once-upon-a-time fellow Arcata High School student, Mary, who was visiting Seoul for the first time – because both of us like to walk.

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How weird is it, by the way, that there are two AHS class of 1983 people living in South Korea at the same time, exactly 30 years after our graduation? That’s weird.

But anyway, such as it is, we took a long walk.

I  took the subway (line 3) into Gangnam and met her there. Then we went to my favorite Kyobo Mungo (giant bookstore thingy). Then we walked back north to the river and across the river on the old Dongho bridge (동호대교 [dongho-daegyo]). There our luck got interesting. Nestled at the base of where the subway crosses the bridge and then tunnels into the mountain to become subway again, near Oksu station, there is a Buddhist temple called 미타사 [mita-sa]. Because it was Buddha’s birthday, the  temple was very busy – imagine a Buddhist version of a church Christmas street fair and festivities. Children were darting about, and old women were ushering and monks were clacking  their monk clackers. An old woman showed us a lantern and subsequently invited us in. Now in all my six years in Korea I’ve only been invited in once before to an on-going Buddhist service, and certainly not into something so festive and interesting. Mary took a lot of pictures while I tried to speak along with the chants (=prayers, with the words projected onto a big screen). It was interesting an entertaining. A talented woman sang pop songs and Buddhist “pop” music – sort of a parallel to Christian pop music that goes on in worship services, I suspect.

Here, I found another rendition of one of the songs we heard. (What I’m listening to right now).

“빙빙빙” [bing-bing-bing].

Imagine exactly what you see in the video, above, but with a giant gold Buddha as a backdrop. Here’s a picture I took right after that song ended and the singer was departing the stage. The projector screen still says the song’s title.

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It was a lot of fun to be inside the temple. They wanted us to stay and eat but we pleaded busyness and so they dispensed some rice-cake sweets to us and sent us on our way.

Then we walked to Itaewon.

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We had lunch at a Spanish restaurant called “Spain Club.” It was pretty good – we had some  tapas.

Itaewon is, among many other things, Seoul’s (and Korea’s) only predominantly Muslim neighborhood – and it being Friday (Muslim sabbath) combined with it being a holiday (Buddha’s Birthday) meant that everyone was out in force. The mosque was packed with prayer-goers at a giant outdoor picnic. Here’s a picture of the entrance and the inside of the courtyard area.

picture

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From Itaewon, we walked along the east side of the Yongsan U.S. Army base and on up the south side of 남산 [nam-san], where the iconic Seoul Tower is located. I’ve taken many pictures at Namsan before so I didn’t take any this time.

At the top of Namsan we looked in various different directions and then we went down the north side of the mountain into downtown. We walked through Myeongdong. It was so crowded that it was like being at a rock concert but instead of music it was Chinese and Japanese tourists absorbed in a consumerist frenzy (Myeongdong is a popular fashion shopping area). Finally we made it to Cheonggyecheon, the restored stream that flows eastward through downtown Seoul.

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Then we walked to 인사동 [insa-dong] where I bought some 보이차 [bo-i-cha = puer tea] I had been wanting – I have it in tea bags but I wanted the kind that I could make in a pot. Then we went over to the 조계사 [jogye-sa] temple which, despite its understatedness, I consider to be the St Peter’s Basilica of Korean Buddhism – it’s the administrative heart of the Jogye Order which is the predominant zen (chan / mahayana) style branch of Korean Buddhism.

Then we went to find my favorite vegetarian restaurant and on a wrong turning we met some cats on a rooftop. They watched us.

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Finally we ate dinner at the restaurant. I had sesame noodle soup.

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It was a pretty good Buddha’s Birthday hike. Now my feet are tired.

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Caveat: Seven Sins


pictureWhen I was younger I thought very highly of Gandhi. He was a kind of hero of mine. In recent years (meaning the last several decades), I’ve moved away from that feeling of admiration. He has come to be an ambivalent figure for me, at best. I became somewhat disillusioned with my evolving understanding of the extent to which, despite his moral upstandingness (in most respects) and his valiant pacifism and brilliant political strategizing, nevertheless he also seems to have been one of the leaders who implanted the seeds of what became, on the one hand, Hindu Nationalism (e.g. BJP), and on the other hand, led to the Partition (between India and Pakistan).

In other words, though he himself was a pacifist, Gandhi participated in the genesis of a sort of ideological movement that has subsequently resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands (if not millions), and that has resulted in the current armed standoff of two nuclear-armed states (India and Pakistan) – which can’t be good for the general state of peace in the world. His pacifism was so focused on the goal of Indian independence that it failed to take into account the way that Indian independence, when achieved under Hindu-nationalist colors, might not be a good thing for peace in the longest run. People say, what would have been the alternative? I’m not sure – I like to imagine a much more secular modern India, which would include the Muslim-majority parts (Bangladesh and Pakistan) and even the Buddhist-majority parts (Myanmar or Sri Lanka) of the historic India. There is an alternative view that Nehru and Jinnah were mostly responsible for the cementing of Hindu nationalism and/or Muslim nationalism as core aspects of Indian and Pakistani identity, and that Gandhi lost control of events, but given Gandhi’s own intense religiosity, especially later in life, on balance I feel forced to reject that view.

I would trace some of my dissatisfaction with Gandhi, in his role of religious philosopher, as I am wont, to the pernicious “purity narratives” as I call them (I’ve written about this stuff before). While on the one hand he attempted to break down the sorts of “purity narratives” that had led, over millenia, to the oppression of Dalits within the Hindu culture, on the other hand he merely substituted other Vedantic-based obsessions instead (such as obsessions with diet or sexual repression or even his adamant nonviolence).

By “purity narratives,” I mean the framing of moral thought in negatives instead of positives, an obsession with “cleanliness” in the realm of thought or behavior, and a focus on the elimination of “sin,” etc. I see these same pernicious “purity narratives” destroying the fundamental humane goodness in so many Christian movements, too. Further, neither the Buddhists nor the Atheists are immune (look at recent Buddhist violence in Sri Lanka or Myanmar, or look at the almost cruel, judgmental negativity embedded in the discourses of “New Atheists” such as Hitchens or Dawkins).

This is all a digression and a rant, however, meant to introduce something that is part of Gandhi’s “purity narrative” that I found myself meditating on the other day. I guess I offer the above by way of apology for the evident hypocrisy in thinking this “list” by Gandhi worth contemplating, despite its clear encapsulation of the ideologies of negative morality.

So those caveats aside (were they caveats?), here following is Gandhi’s list (which I found on an interesting website called lists of note)

Seven Social Sins

Wealth without work.
Pleasure without conscience.
Knowledge without character.
Commerce without morality.
Science without humanity.
Worship without sacrifice.
Politics without principles.

– Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi 1925

Perhaps, as far as lists of negatives, this might be a pretty good list to feel positive about. I’d like to imagine, however, re-crafting this list into something more affirmational. Is that possible?

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Caveat: far within some maze of habit


Way 003
Way 005Below
is a longer poem than I generally put in my blog. But it's in a
slightly different category, too. I was unable to find this poem online.
I can't even find the author online. But I met the actual author, David
Brennan, in Boston in the Summer of 1982. I have a signed copy of this
poem, published by Illeagle Press of Cambridge in 1981 as tiny 14 page
pamphlet with staple binding but high quality paper. Above is an image
of the cover, and at right are images of his autograph on the title page
and the edition page with facing first page.

I
have a vague recollection of spending an evening talking and carousing
with this author, whom I met through a close friend of mine from that
epoch, Quinn-of-Redbank (Stephen from New Jersey) who later disappeared
off the face of the earth after having lived furiously for some period
of time. Stephen was a companion of mine in my creative writing class at
the Harvard Summer School I attended that year.
<digression>Incidentally, for the curious, my conclusion was:
Harvard was fun but way overrated, academically. Note that although
accepted, I did not attend Harvard. My Korean acquaintances find this
fact to be the absolutely most scandalous thing in my entire life
history. This is why my Korean friends don't understand
me.</digression>


Way 007It
was at about the same time that I first read this poem, between my
junior and senior years in high school, that I decided I was a poet.
Erhm… "Poet."

Thirty
years later, I still believe that I'm a poet, although I've downgraded
my quality-of-poet substantially. I do what I do. I am what I am. I
write poetry. Sometimes. Occasionally. How about once-a-month?

On the edition page of this booklet is provided a translation of the cover:

Seals:

W A Y

Like leisurely clouds
and wild cranes
my home can be anywhere
in the universe

Calligraphy by Bob Kopacz.

Typesetting by Rick Schwartz.

The
cover is supposedly the Chinese character "dao" (道, which in Korean is
read 도 [do]) but if that is so, I have some scepticism as to the reading
(from my current cultural perspective), as the calligraphy distorts the
logograph to unrecognizability – not that that's an impossibility, as
different calligraphic styles tend to do weird things. I will continue
to believe that the main glyph on the cover means "dao" (Way) unless I
can find evidence to the contrary. The reason is that it is my name. I mean, at that time, I read it as such. My family name is, after all, Way. The booklet seemed to be addressed to me. Perhaps this had more to do with cannabis than semantics? It was a strange summer.

Since
I was unable to find this poem online, and since it meant so much to me
at one point in my life, I have decided that I will transcribe it here.
I hope that if the author (or his inheritor) runs across it, he will
allow me this luxury to reproduce the poem. As stated in other places, I
will always respect a take-down notice in This Here Blog Thingy™ –
although to date, I have never received one.

Here is David Brennan's poem.

Translations of the Fall

being an experiment in translation across the centuries

and sensibilities (or, a severe mauling, if you prefer)

based on a poem cycle by the Chinese poet Han Yu.

1.

Out this window the iron balcony

holds plants dying in greyed wooden boxes

Clotheslines dance, gulls gyre

Night soundless on the old bricks

The lamp lights my tangled bed

where rhymes of sleep lap my ear

a lake of undone poems shored

by breaths of sex and childhood

I struggle up

in the dawn's oily light

and look at my face

(different each time)

The day begins, ticks on like a clock

I sit at my table – my kingdom, my ocean

with a pen

            daylight roaring over me

2.

Dew on the geometry of rooftops

Sea-clouds tasting high glass buildings

The maples burst, leaves blood lanes

hedges become skeletons, a fly narcotized

by the cold drums the drunken window

I am watching from my rooftop

The world, unstopping, turns

Each of us, unique in kind

plows some round, bears some music

3.

Men's designs move in jerky flights

My interests turn to other times

Unhappy vets talk of lost wars in lost nights

but I've even given up wine

I go about, with my laziness and freedom

walking roads nobody wants

The lanes that leave my gate

bare star-trails seen by few

Home again I swim the texts

words oceanlike and limitless

Who rows these ancient waters but me

Dark ships, drowned suns, the recurrent mysteries

4.

Now the adrenalin fall moves me

What excitement in this blood melancholy

Still I'm vainly unprepared

no scarf and only one glove

Here the flaring of the season's bones

burns the marrow of August

At dawn I close my books and walk

streets between glass and brick

down to the harbor after a night's rain

Grey battleships on a grey harbor

Dragons soaked in grey sleep

5.

In the insect world November's a scourge

For us it invigorates

Yet insect guilt does not die, things

undone and the old sorrows stay

common and pointed as pines

Keep to the kitchen, dream by the hearth

drawn inward by the fire

What happened to the tranquil path?

My fevered connection

to ancients, friends, and poets still at work

has to suit me. I'm working

within a new silence, it is my

                                 hidden retreat

6.

Difficult to get out of bed

Worries bite like fleas, hidden and bloodfed

Noon turns to afternoon

My heart is lost in some other age

or far within some maze of habit

Past loves jab like pricks, a thousand

ideas dagger round me like smashed glass

Fruitless these spinning words

Senseless turnings, impossible rounds

7.

The talons of November

claw through my coat, cold

through to the innards, new season's bloodprints

Damned early falcon of winter

I can barely keep up with my life

drowning in wreckage, wrecked and drowning

Take the flute, finger the keys

play the mood that strikes, strike

the mood as you play, bring some lyric

to this mess, draw the June voice

out of the locked frost

8.

In a battered book of photographs

I discovered a shot of Thelonius Monk

hat on, head back, puffing a halo of smoke

Eyes shut in an ecstasy serene

that magician of notes lights

the film with a shamanic sheen

a brilliance, a stillpoint, the

bloom of the being authentic

And there it all was: brought me

to tears in the dull basement

of that bookstore, illumination

from the cellar of living

And there it all was: life's

passion for life leaping mind to mind

9.

Words, pizza, cigarettes shared

The common din is a tonic

Ideas crackle electric, star-edged

Then guests go and night

wraps me in fulness and loss

The cold sculpts mee

Far within a cave in secret chambers

bison dance on the deep rock

while initiates carry song and flame

Ten thousand years swallowed in a ceremony

Ceremonies of self:

the birth

and the burial

and the birth again

10.

The white rose after

the first frost. A beauty so late, yet stern

with browning petals: a shock

a lament, a triumphing sign

One glyph of whiteness

dies, another comes

Snow and the western wind

offer their extinctions, their beginnings

Caveat: The God-Shaped Hole / Azathoth and Buddha

There's a blogger over at the Website Whose Name I Don't Like, who writes by the name of Jason Kuznicki. I'm never sure on that site who's going by pseudonyms and and who's "real." But regardless, I agree with so much of what he writes. I may have just run across a post he made last year that dovetails nicely with some of my own feelings about the nature of the universe, of god, and the "purpose of life."

I'm not really interested in trying to summarize his ideas, as he makes his point very well, himself, talking as he does about evolution and Azathoth and God-shaped holes (which is a concept originally due to St Augustine, if I recall correctly), so I suggest you go read that post of his and then come back and read the rest of my thinking here, if you're really interested in watching me think about my faith.

Jason seems to be a variety of transhumanist. I think I am  too, though perhaps not so optimistic as he is, but still more optimistic than many bitter atheists of my sort. It's interesting that he brings Azathoth into it – I perhaps had Azathothian tendencies long before I "became" atheist. I see my own atheism as a defense against that sort thinking. I think Azathoth makes a good symbol (OK! like most Lovecraft, a great symbol), but nothing more than that.

You might have noticed I have described myself as an atheist, and yet I used the words "my faith," above, too. I don't see any contradiction in that. It may sound like a joke, but I genuinely consider myself to be a "faith-based atheist." That's because while I am atheist at core, I arrived at my atheism through irrational experience: it came to me as part of a near-death experience and was as bright and clear as the many Saul-to-Paul-like conversions associated with other religious traditions. Furthermore, I am utterly uninterested in challenging or arguing religion with other people – I feel no need, a la Dawkins or Dennett or Hitchens, to change other people's minds. I accept that my atheism is my belief, and other people have other beliefs. When people try to convert me, I get deeply annoyed, and I assume they would feel the same way if I tried to do the same to them. Let's all treat others the way they would like to be treated.

Some of my Christian friends are, of course, deeply puzzled by the fact that I am adamantly atheist and yet also have become increasingly comfortable calling myself a Buddhist. This is like a sort of double-blasphemy vis-a-vis Christianity, and the most hardcore among such friends seem to feel almost affronted, wondering if I'm somehow deliberately doubling down on my heresies.

There are two key reasons for my embrace of Buddhism. First, unlike with many other religious traditions, there is no requirement, in the Buddhist framework, that we believe anything in particular, or anything at all. There are Buddhist dogmas, but there are very few Buddhist dogmatists. I'm speaking of my own experience of course – and that's not to say that I haven't run across a few dogmatic Buddhists in my time. Ultimately, though, Buddhism seems to be not so much a dogma or a religion (although it can be be that, for those who want it or need it or grew up in such traditions) as it is a practice. As such, it's open to anyone who sees benefit it its practices. The second reason I'm comfortable calling myself a Buddhist is even simpler: it's because the Buddhists don't seem to mind having an atheist among them, whereas I've never met a Christian, however kind-hearted and tolerant he or she may be, who didn't carry in his or her heart at least some germ of discomfort with my assertion to my peculiar brand of born-again atheism. For the Christian (or any Christian, anyway, who buys into the key Christian messages of salvation and forgiveness and grace), there will always be an underlying hope or desire or expectation that I will somehow see the light. Unfortunately, I already did see the light – and it made me who I am. No group of Christians, no matter how liberal and tolerant and touchy-feely they may have been (I'm pointing at UUs and Quakers here, among others), has ever succeeded in making me feel welcome as I am, without offering up some subtext of, "gee, we hope you can see what we see, someday." What they see is God, of course.

Jason writes, in his transhumanist vein: "Either we are the immortals, or we are their progenitors. We should live accordingly." This is something that dovetails nicely with Buddhist practice, as I, at least, conceptualize it.

Here are some pictures from my walk home earlier today – Spring treeblossoms on a drizzly April day in Ilsan: Azathoth doing some ineluctable thing.

The back side of Munhwa Elementary.

Drizzle 003

A pedestrian area nearby.

Drizzle 005

The intersection at Gangseonno and Daesanno, halfway between work and home.

Drizzle 008

Caveat: like willow catkins in the wind


41grjFhgcOLI have a book that I read from sometimes, entitled Oral Literature of Korea, compiled by Seo Daeseok and edited by Peter H. Lee. In a section called Classical Archival Records (i.e. I'm assuming they're things written down from the Joseon dynasty period from 1400's to 1800's), there's a story called "Chosin's Dream" [pp. 215-17]. The compiler says it's from a document called Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms, which would make the story much older than Joseon, since the Three Kingdoms were pre-668 AD. The story's first sentence mentions Silla period, however, which would put the story between 668 and 900's.

Chosin's Dream

During the Silla period, there was a manor of Segyu Monastery in Nari county, Myeongju, and the monastery sent the monk Chosin to be its caretaker. Upon arrival, Chosin fell in love with the daughter of the magistrate, Lord Kim Heun. Infatuated, he often went to mount Nak and prayed before the image of the Bodhisattva Who Observes the Sounds of the World to grant him his wishes. In a few year she married another man. Again Chosin went to the bodhisattva, complaining to her for not answering his prayer, and cried till sunset. Worn out with longing, he fell asleep.

In a dream Lady Kim suddenly entered the room, smiling, and said, "I have long known you and loved you. I could not forget you even for a moment. I married another man because I could not go against my parents' wishes. Now I have come to be your wife."

Overjoyed, Chosin took her to his village, and they lived there for forty years with five children born to them. Their house had only four walls, and they could not provide even coarse bread for their children. They wandered about in search of food. They went on like this for ten years, roaming the hills and fields in rags. Their oldest child, aged fifteen, died of hunger on Haehyeon Ridge in Myeongju. Chosin wailed and buried him on the roadside and moved on with the remaining four to Ugok district, where they built a thatched cottage. The couple, old and starved, could not even get up, so the ten-year-old girl begged for food. She was bitten by a stray dog, however, and collapsed in pain on her return. The parents sighed and wept.

Wiping away her tears, the wife suddenly spoke. "When I married you, I was young and beautiful, had many clothes, and was clean. We have shared every bit of food and clothing these fifty years, and thought that our deep love must have been ordained. Now we are weak and sick, our sickness gets worse, hunger and cold get worse, and no one in the world wants to give us shelter or even a bottle of soy sauce. The shame of going out begging weighs down heavier than a mountain. We cannot feed and clothe our children, so how can we enjoy married life? Red cheeks and artful smiles are nothing but dewdrops on the grass, and the fragrant pledges of love are like willow catkins in the wind. I am a burden to you, and I worry because of you. Our former joys must have been the beginning of our grief. How did we come to this pass? I would be better to be a lone phoenix (luan) calling its mate in the mirror than like many birds dying together in hunger. It is intolerable that lovers should meet in prosperity and part in adversity, but it is all beyond our wish. Meeting and parting are ordained, so let us part." Chosin was relieved. And when they about to leave, each taking two children, the wife spoke again: "I am going to my old home. You go south." At this parting, Chosin awoke.

The candle was sputtering, and night was about to end. When the morning came, his hair and bear had turned all white. He had no more thought for the world. Though tired of the hard life – the hardships of so many years – he felt the greed in his heart melt away like ice. Ashamed to face the holy image of the Sound Observer, he could not suppress his remorse. When he returned to Haehyeon Ridge and dug up the grave where he had buried his child in his dream, he found a stone image of Maitreya [Maitreya is the returned Buddha – a sort of Buddhist second coming]. He cleansed it in water and enshrined it in a nearby monastery, went to the capital, and resigned his position. With private funds he build Pure Land Monastery and performed good deeds. We do not know how he died.

I remark as a comment: after reading the story and closing the book and recalling the past, I wonder, how could Chosin's dream alone be like this? Human beings know the joy of mundane life; sometimes they rejoice, sometimes they toil, but they are not yet awakened. I write this poem as a warning:

With a moment's accord, one's mind is at ease.
Unaware, sorrow made a youthful face old.
One should not await the cooking of the millet,
Now I know – a life of toil is a dream.
Cleansing the mind depends on a sincere wish,
A bachelor desires beauty, thieves treasures.
How could you only dream on an autumn night
And attain the clear and cool with eyes closed on and off?

I have a book that I read from
sometimes, entitled Oral Literature of Korea, compiled by Seo Daeseok
and edited by Peter H. Lee. In a section called Classical Archival
Records (i.e. I'm assuming they're things written down from the
Joseon dynasty period from 1400's to 1800's), there's a story called
"Chosin's Dream." The compiler says it's from a document
called Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms, which would make the story
much older than Joseon, since the Three Kingdoms were pre-668 AD. The
story's first sentence mentions Silla period, however, which would
put the story between 668 and 900's.

 

Chosin's Dream

 

During the Silla period, there was a
manor of Segyu Monastery in Nari county, Myeongju, and the monastery
sent the monk Chosin to be its caretaker. Upon arrival, Chosin fell
in love with the daughter of the magistrate, Lord Kim Heun.
Infatuated, he often went to mount Nak and prayed before the image of
the Bodhisattva Who Observes the Sounds of the World to grant him his
wishes. In a few year she married another man. Again Chosin went to
the bodhisattva, complaining to her for not answering his prayer, and
cried till sunset. Worn out with longing, he fell asleep.

 

In a dream Lady Kim suddenly entered
the room, smiling, and said, "I have long known you and loved
you. I could not forget you even for a moment. I married another man
because I could not go against my parents' wishes. Now I have come to
be your wife."

 

Overjoyed, Chosin took her to his
village, and they lived there for forty years with five children born
to them. Their house had only four walls, and they could not provide
even coarse bread for their children. They wandered about in search
of food. They went on like this for ten years, roaming the hills and
fields in rags. Their oldest child, aged fifteen, died of hunger on
Haehyeon Ridge in Myeongju. Chosin wailed and buried him on the
roadside and moved on with the remaining four to Ugok district, where
they built a thatched cottage. The couple, old and starved, could not
even get up, so the ten-year-old girl begged for food. She was bitten
by a stray dog, however, and collapsed in pain on her return. The
parents sighed and wept.

 

Wiping away her tears, the wife
suddenly spoke. "When I married you, I was young and beautiful,
had many clothes, and was clean. We have shared every bit of food and
clothing these fifty years, and thought that our deep love must have
been ordained. Now we are weak and sick, our sickness gets worse,
hunger and cold get worse, and no one in the world wants to give us
shelter or even a bottle of soy sauce. The shame of going out begging
weighs down heavier than a mountain. We cannot feed and clothe our
children, so how can we enjoy married life? Red cheeks and artful
smiles are nothing but dewdrops on the grass, and the fragrant
pledges of love are like willow catkins in the wind. I am a burden to
you, and I worry because of you. Our former joys must have been the
beginning of our grief. How did we come to this pass? I would be
better to be a lone phoenix (luan) calling its mate in the mirror
than like many birds dying together in hunger. It is intolerable that
lovers should meet in prosperity and part in adversity, but it is all
beyond our wish. Meeting and parting are ordained, so let us part."
Chosin was relieved. And when they about to leave, each taking two
children, the wife spoke again: "I am going to my old home. You
go south." At this parting, Chosin awoke.

 

The candle was sputtering, and night
was about to end. When the morning came, his hair and bear had turned
all white. He had no more thought for the world. Though tired of the
hard life – the hardships of so many years – he felt the greed in his
heart melt away like ice. Ashamed to face the holy image of the Sound
Observer, he could not suppress his remorse. When he returned to
Haehyeon Ridge and dug up the grave where he had buried his child in
his dream, he found a stone image of Maitreya [Maitreya is the
returned Buddha – a sort of Buddhist second coming]. He cleansed it
in water and enshrined it in a nearby monastery, went to the capital,
and resigned his position. With private funds he build Pure Land
Monastery and performed good deeds. We do not know how he died.

 

I remark as a comment: after reading
the story and closing the book and recalling the past, I wonder, how
could Chosin's dream alone be like this? Human beings know the joy of
mundane life; sometimes they rejoice, sometimes they toil, but they
are not yet awakened. I write this poem as a warning:

 

With a moment's accord, one's mind is
at ease.

Unaware, sorrow made a youthful face
old.

One should not await the cooking of the
millet,

Now I know – a life of toil is a dream.

Cleansing the mind depends on a sincere
wish,

A bachelor desires beauty, thieves
treasures.

How could you only dream on an autumn
night

And attain the clear and cool with eyes
closed on and off?

Caveat: By Karma

"The foolish are trapped by karma, while the wise are liberated through karma." – I don't know who said this. I found the quote attributed to someone (or something) called stonepeace, but I don't know what stonepeace is.

Regardless, it's a quote worth contemplating. I'm playing with words and meanings, of course: the irony (or deliberate predicament) that results from the fact that my place of employment is called "Karma."

Am I foolish, that I feel trapped by my work (by Karma) right now? Have I become foolish, in that a year ago I felt less trapped and more liberated in my work? What's changed?

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