Ox Herding

Crazy

Every day, a minimum of once each day, Ollie pushes one of my many buttons. I get angry, yell, and stomp my feet. He gets puzzled, having no clue about this behavior.

I find it sobering to see what sits just below my placid exterior. At least, I hope it's placid. I try to self-regulate and present my "best" self to the world.

Unfortunately, that fiction (that I'm well-behaved) doesn't help anyone, least of all this dear puppy. After all these years of spiritual practice, I'm still pretty darned crazy. Most people will never see that, but Ollie experiences it every day. 

And, still, he licks my face every chance he gets. Puppy kisses.

Puppy Love

Today Ollie, the puppy, and I went into Tucson to run errands. In the afternoon, we had free time so we went for a long walk through a central neighborhood. Along the way, we encountered many people, from children to young professionals, and from fairly rough looking teenagers to folks who appeared homeless or addled, or both.

Nearly every person we met said something sweet about the pup. Many people reached down to pet him and get their hand licked.

Who doesn't love a puppy?

And I wondered why we don't offer similar kindness and affection to one another. Of course, puppies are cute and all of us respond to cute. Unfortunately, most of us, perhaps, aren't so cute. If I was ever cute, it was so long ago I can't remember. 

What became clear during the walk is that everyone has love inside them, ready for expression. I wonder why we so often contain this joy inside, never letting it out? The world's puppies need it, of course. But so do you and I.

Vast and Open

This week I've photographed the overhead sky every morning about 7:20 a.m., right after practice in Mule Pavilion. The sky in Arizona is blue . . . and yet, and yet.

The sky, in various guises, appears frequently in traditional Zen teaching. Namcheon, when he helped Joju attained the way, observed that the great way is vast and open. Just like the sky.

And Zen Master Seung Sahn often referred to the sky in his poetry. Here's one example:

1976

Buddha saw a star,
Attained enlightenment.

Seung Sahn saw the star,
Lost enlightenment.

The wind of KATZ
Blew away enlightenment and unenlightenment.

The Buddha is bright in the dharma room.
The star is clear in the sky.

The sky is always with us, offering itself freely, without condition or expectation. May it become clear for each of us!

Shrines

Yesterday, Ollie the Pup and I hiked to the top of a local mountain to visit the various shrines built by local people. At the very summit is an extensive shrine of crosses and Catholic imagery, spread across white-washed rocks. There are also at least two Buddhist shrines, one Hindu shrine, a dedication to Che Guevara, and one to Love. This post contains photos.

Each shrine was sincere and direct. The Catholic shrines were often dedicated to family members. One of the Buddhist shrines featured the Dalai Lama. Nothing was new-agey or hokey.

The area reminded me of shaman shrines found in the mountains of Korea, outdoor sites dedicated to local energies or spirits, as I understand it, and featuring candles and incense, food, and drink. 

Something in us responds to certain natural settings with the impulse to make offerings and dedications. In this way, we weave our human consciousness into the larger fabric of this universe.

Passing Weather

Yesterday morning I didn't feel well. At first I thought it was ordinary, normal grouchiness. Then, as the hours drifted by, I understood that this body was not well. So I went to bed.

Today the malaise, whatever it was, seems to have passed, as simply as clouds pass in the sky. I took this photograph yesterday morning as I was puzzling out my problem.

I love the passing weather. Here in Arizona the sky is often blue. But clouds sometimes appear and occasionally massive thunderstorms develop, especially in the summer.

Mind is like this. Sometimes clear, sometimes cloudy, sometimes stormy. Whatever, it passes. Can we love it?

 

What Is Your Question?

Things Unseen

Yesterday a friend took me into the Chiricahua Mountains of southeastern Arizona. The Chiricahuas run north-south, like most basin-and-range mountains of the West, and reach almost to 10,000 feet. In the middle of the range is a deeply valley known as Portal. It resembles a scaled-down Yosemite, with vertical cliffs rising thousands of feet above a beautiful valley.

What cannot be seen, when wandering the valley, is that these cliffs are actually the walls of an ancient caldera. 27 million years ago, the volcano - at that time, over 14,000 feet high - had a major eruption and completely collapsed, leaving only a long, steep canyon of Rhyolite cliffs. 

What also cannot be seen is that Apache tribes led by Geronimo and Cochise lived in this beautiful land. The American government, in one of its periodic genocidist impulses, killed as many Apache as possible and then moved the survivors north into territory that historically belonged to different peoples.

So much cannot be seen at first glance.

But when we do see clearly, when we see the culture's embedded racist and genocidal impulses emerge, we must respond. We must.

Mule Resting

All of us need a place to rest and restore. For many, it's the meditation hall at our local temple. For others, the place might be in a forest deep or along the ocean shore. For me, the place is in the mountains of the American west. Sometimes, if fortune shines on us, we can abide in this place of restoration.

My new Arizona home is located in the Mule Mountains. The property included a small out-building that had been used as an art studio. Now, repainted and cleaned, it serves as a personal meditation space: Resting Mule Pavilion.

The pavilion is simple and spare, containing a small altar, a calligraphy by Zen Master Seung Sahn, a gift from the dear sangha at Cambridge Zen Center, and a single mat. I practiced in the pavilion this morning and felt doubly blessed - first by the practice and second by having a home. May everyone find both.

Simplicity

Our minds seem to lean toward complexity. Simple just isn't enough. We've just got to add salt, saturate the color, and speak a few more words.

I do it and you probably do it, too.

When a friend sent me this video of Mary Oliver reading her famous poem, "Wild Geese," I was struck by the simplicity of her delivery. She simply read the poem. Her voice had none of that lilting, lyrical tone affected by some poets. The words stood by themselves without imposition of whatever idea she might have about their meaning. Not special.

Could we practice with this kind of simplicity? When walking, just walk. When sitting, just sit. Why make it special?

"Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver 

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

- From Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays

Phainopepla

Quite a few years ago, I went to a reading given by the poet, Gary Snyder. In his commentary, he discussed the importance of knowing the flora and fauna of a place. Without this knowledge, how could we ever develop a broad view of home?

Last week, the Dear Daughter and I visited Saguaro National Park outside Tucson. This land is held in trust, not only for Americans, but for all people, and for the plants and animals that depend upon it. Visitors from many countries were discovering the unusual habitat of saguaro and other cactus, along with seldom-seen wildlife. 

We spotted a Phainopepla sitting on a mesquite shrub, striking in its dark plumage and spiky crest. Truthfully, it's a common-enough bird in southern Arizona, but it was the first either of us had ever seen. Seeing it was like finding a long-hidden piece of a jigsaw puzzle - it helped complete the picture of this place called "home."

 Phainopepla means "shining robe" and the bird was indeed glistening in the winter sun. It's in the silky-flycatcher family and has an affinity for mistletoe, on which it feeds. Mistletoe is common in the Chihuahuan and Sonoran deserts around Bisbee, feeding on mesquite. Just like a jigsaw puzzle, everything has its place, everything fits together to make a whole.