Two photos from a recent hike

These are from my hike this past Tuesday. I figured since I'd seen a rat snake and then a rattlesnake on two successive hikes, that bringing a camera might be a good idea. I didn't see any snakes, but I did run across this red-spotted newt, which, according to wikipedia, is one of the most common salamander species in North America.

Karma etc.

The following is a quote from Red Tara Commentary: Instructions for the Concise Practice Known as Red Tara: An Open Door to Ultimate Awareness by Chagdud Khadro (Jane Tromge)


Next, these dualistic tendencies bring about fictitious formations, both elemental and mental, of self and grosser projections of other. As the whole mind-body makeup becomes increasingly dense, beings take rebirth after rebirth in bodies that correspond to the tendencies that develop in their mindstreams. They are subject to the karmic outcomes created by these tendencies, but, lost in the patterns of dualistic confusion, they are unable to trace karmic events back to their source in the mind. In their ignorance, they attribute tragedies to blows of fate, unexpected triumphs to luck. They do not see that all aspects of their situation, including the bodies they inhabit, have been self-created over countless lifetimes.

The dualistic mind, the mind that grasps at self and gives self-interest priority over the interests of others, arises as the five poisons, which in turn leas to six types of rebirth: ignorance leading to rebirth as an animal, greed to rebirth as a hungry spirit, anger to rebirth as a hell being, jealousy combined with some virtue to rebirth as a jealous god (also known as a demigod), pride combined with virtue to rebirth as a long-lived god (deva) and great virtue combined with a mixture of all five poisons to rebirth as a human.


Well, first of all, smile! You've been born as a human. That means you have accumulated great virtue in past lives. I love the way Chagdud Khadro says that humans have accumulated "great virtue," whereas devas have accumulated only virtue, and demigods have only "some virtue." Already, as humans, our oppurtunities abound.

This passage is difficult for me, because I am not predisposed to accept reincarnation as literally true, nor am I predisposed to accept the existence of devas and hungry ghosts and the other classes of sentient being as literally true. (Excepting animals and humans, I suppose.) And, according to Buddhist thinking, I shouldn't accept them until I come to believe them for solid reasons. I know when Thich Nhat Hanh speaks of reincarnation, he speaks of it much more in the way we live on after we die. How our elements are recycled, and how our behavior has ramifications. In an event, it would be helpful to me to try to interpret these paragraphs more metaphorically.

The following sentence may provide some clues:

...[L]ost in the patterns of dualistic confusion, they are unable to trace karmic events back to their source in the mind. In their ignorance, they attribute tragedies to blows of fate, unexpected triumphs to luck.

Perhaps one way to think of this is that a tragedy is a tragedy only if we perceive it as a tragedy, and an unexpected triumph is only so if we perceive it to be so. If we create the impression that tragedies and unwelcome events are, in fact, cruel blows of fate, we create suffering for ourselves. On the other hand, it is possible for such events to be regarded as teachers. When something that seems bad happens, one can ask oneself, "What can I learn from this?" Similarly, with the wisdom to see through tragedies, one also sees through triumphs. For me, I tend to get to connected to the triumphs, some might even say addicted to the triumphs. Only they are triumphs as conceived by me in my ignorance. If only things were this way, I will be happy. If only I achieve this goal, life will be good. When these "triumphs" fail to come to pass, I can get bitter and resentful, all because I ignorantly invested so much of myself in an illusion. I think it's good to let life flow, not being too attached to outcomes.

Here's a fascinating sentence:

They do not see that all aspects of their situation, including the bodies they inhabit, have been self-created over countless lifetimes.

In the Buddhist philosophy of emptiness, one realizes that nothing real is self-created. There is no separately existing "me" which exists entirely of my own creation. "I" am interconnected with the entire universe, in many complicated ways. So I guess what this implies is that tragedy and triumph are not truly real. This makes sense since these really are subjective concepts. And what of the fact that our bodies are self-created? I wonder what she means here. Certainly our perception of our bodies is not completely accurate, so that the mental construct we identify with our bodies is not real. I have a feeling there's something deeper that I'm missing. In the next paragraph, she describes how various mental poisons actually give rise to rebirth in various types of bodies, so that our mental activity now affects the body we live in the future. Wow! That makes quite a bit of sense! Actually our behavior now really does affect our future body, in all manner of ways. For example, being very bitter all the time can indeed have a deleterious effect on one's health. I do know that my feeling of well-being is closely tied to my mental state.

I'll bet there's a lot more to be dug up here. Comments welcome!

Vacuous deer tick update

So I went into the doctor this past Tuesday, because I spotted a small bullseye rash at one of the tick bites. As this is characteristic of Lyme disease, I rushed to get it checked out. The place was extremely busy, and so I had to wait a while. When I showed the P.A. the rash, he said "You don't mean this little thing here?" Apparently, although it was a bullseye, and he couldn't say for sure that it wasn't Lyme disease, he was pretty sure that it wasn't. Since I had been bitten so many times, he put me on the antibiotic doxycycline and had blood drawn for tests of several tick-borne diseases. Wednesday morning I woke up with an itchy rash. At first I though this was the tick bites getting inflamed, but after getting the rash on parts of my body that had never been bitten, I figured it was an allergic reaction to the antibiotic. So I called the doctor and they had me get my butt in there. The PA wasn't a hundred percent sure whether the rash was a tick reaction or a reaction to the medicine. He ordered a fast blood test to see what my white cells were doing. My blood test came back fairly normal, and it seemed unlikely that I had a bacterial infection. We still have to wait for the blood tests that were ordered Monday to come back. So they shot me up with a dose of the antiflammatory decadron to counteract allergic shock, and gave me a few alavert samples. He's having me wait until the blood tests arrive to see whether I need to take some other antibiotic.

Killing?

In the last post someone asked about killing animals, such as the deer tick, and what types of life are considered sacred to Buddhists. This is a deep and rich topic.

Plant life is not considered bad to kill because it is not sentient. Anything with volition is sacred. This includes deer ticks, ants, mosquitos, and the like. It is impossible for us not to kill, just by our very existence. But that doesn't mean we can't try to do as little as possible. His Holiness the Dalai Lama is not a vegetarian because he gets jaundice unless he eats meat. His take is that, even if you cannot be a vegetarian, you can at least be joyful that there are those of us who can. I felt remorse at taking the lives of the deer ticks. The truth is that I didn't know what else to do, and I was so overcome with the desire to get rid of them, that the idea of somehow letting them live never took hold. This is a signal to me that I am not as advanced as I'd like to be. I did not maintain my detachment. Here's another example. A couple of weeks ago I went for a hike up in the mountains. (This is when I saw the rat snake.) I meditated in a little side valley off of the main trail. Right in the middle of my meditation, a mosquito landed on my hand. I watched as it inserted its needle-nose into my skin. I let it, figuring it was best not to kill. Unfortunately, the longer is stayed, sucking my blood, the more agitated I got. I finally brought it up to my face to look closely, and its abdomen had turned ruby red. I experienced an extreme revulsion, but I had the compassion to blow on it to signal it to fly away. So it did, but it continued to buzz around, and finally it landed on my shirt. Having lost all patience, I killed it. I really regret it now. Perhaps I can do better in the future.

We humans are lucky because we have the choice not to kill. Many animals, especially predators, are not so lucky. It is their nature to kill, and in so doing, they create negative karma, just like the negative karma created by my vengeful mosquito murder. In Buddhist mythology, there are 6 realms of samsara: the realm of humans, the realm of animals, the realm of hungry ghosts, the hell realms, the realm of jealous Gods (demigods), and the realm of Gods. Buddhas have completely transcended all of these realms. Depending on the karma you create in this and past lives, you are reborn in a different realm. The human realm is an auspicious realm because we have the capability of transforming negative karma through our spiritual practice. In other words, we can turn suffering into progress. We can use obstacles as teachers. If your karma is too negative, you are reborn as an animal, and it can take you eons to escape, because you keep creating more negative karma. Hungry ghosts and the hell realms are even more negative. The jealous Gods and Gods are more positive, but their egos get bloated, and they can't see beyond their ignorance. It is said that a God lives in extreme luxury. All his or her wants are fulfilled, and they live in extreme happiness and contentment. This is because of great virtue in previous lives. Unfortunately, they are wasting this positive karma, completely burning it off for self-centered debauchery, if you will. I think that 7 days before a God dies, they realize they are going to die, and they experience intense suffering in those last days. Having burned off their positive karma, they are reborn in a lower realm. Humans have the power to transcend the cycle of samsaric suffering by following the bodhisattva path, which means: 1)Having genuine compassion for all sentient beings, like people, including those we usually ignore or dislike, like mosquitoes, like deer ticks. 2)Having true perception of the nature of reality, that nothing exists independently from other things and from our conceptualization.

I would like to mention something Alexander Berzin, H.H. the Dalai Lama's translator has pointed out. Namely, in being kind to insects, we shouldn't neglect other human beings. It would be outrageous indeed to go to elaborate lengths to rescue an ant from drowning, but then to turn away someone at your door asking for help.

Hitchhikers

As I was meditating last night and this morning, I kept feeling itches on my legs and hips. I thought they might be some kind of bug, like fleas. However, when I looked closely, I didn't see anything. Just a few minutes ago, I happened to look down and see a very tiny critter crawling along the surface of my leg. It looked like some kind of mite. That's strange, I thought. What on earth is it? As I stared at it, eventually recognition dawned. It's a tick! A deer tick, famous for being about the size of a period at the end of a sentence. I immediately investigated the site of a particularly intense itch that I had momentarily experienced earlier. What do you know? There were about 15 of the little guys all attached, kind of like particles of pepper. I pulled as many as I could find off using tweezers. Without hyperbole I can say there were around 50 total attached mostly to my legs. (Some made there way to my torso and arms.) What an interesting price to pay for visiting such a remote trail yesterday! Seeing these little guys, I realized I could easily have been bitten countless times in the past and never noticed. Apparently most people who've been bitten by a deer tick never realize it. Unfortunately, deer ticks are the lyme disease bearers, so I'm going to go see a doctor tomorrow, in case they want to dose me up with antibiotics. I live in a low risk area, but I was bitten 50 times. Gadzooks!

Nice Hike

I went for a nice hike today. The weather was beautiful, and I got to see some grand scenery. As I was walking back to my car along a dirt road I came upon a juvenile timber rattlesnake. It didn't have any rattles yet, but its head was definitely a rattlesnake's head, and its markings were rattlesnake markings. As I got close, it puffed out the part of its body behind its head. It was small, and its body tapered pretty quickly from the width of its head to its tale, giving it the appearance of a long triangle. To tell the truth, it was pretty strange looking.

Last week I went for a hike and saw a 4-foot rat snake. I thought it wasn't aware of me, but when I did some research afterward, I realized that its body was kinked, a classic stress response in these snakes. They often do this when they see people, apparently. (Thanks to wikipedia!)

Incorrect Thinking

That person over there
Is not like me.
She doesn't understand
an extremenly subtle point.
She doesn't have
The same understanding that I have.
I could explain this point
But you wouldn't understand either.

That person over there
is not like me.
His motivation is impure.
Look how he struts about,
looking for worldy approval.
He is beneath my contempt.
I hope he gets run over.

Those people over there
are not like me.
Look how they cluster together.
They all dress alike.
They are not interested
in the world outside their sphere.
They are so shallow
and vapid.

That person over there is just like me.
Someone should put him out of his misery.

Off topic? Probably.

I just sent the movie, Primer back to Netflix, after watching it three times, and reading a Wikipedia article on it. It is a great, artful, time travel movie. However, the plot was very hard to follow the first time through, and by the second time more details fell into place. I really needed to read the Wikipedia explanation of the plot before it all came together for me. One of my favorite parts of the movie involves the two main characters Abe and Aaron traveling backward in time in two boxes they have constructed. The box allows you to ride in it backward until you get to the time when the box was originally turned on. You see Abe stumble out of his Box, and then after a few seconds Aaron stumbles out of his. Abe says to Aaron that he got out of the box too soon! Hee hee. This is the sort of detail that is missed by most time travel movies I have seen, and these things tend to get muddled in books as well.

There are two basic approaches to Time Travel, which I will whimsically refer to as the "Back to the Future" approach, and the
"Twelve Monkeys" approach. In the former, it is possible to go back and change the past. You will not read about yourself in a history book before leaving on your journey. Time travel makes changes to the time line possible. This is probably the most confusing type of time travel, and is exactly the sort of thing that happens in Primer. The "Twelve Monkeys" approach holds that you cannot change the past because it's already happened. Thus you could read about yourself appearing in a time machine in a newspaper from 5 years ago before you actually do it. There is a wonderful short story, "By His Bootstraps," by Robert Heinlein that explores this theme.

Red Tara Practice

The picture above depicts a statue of Red Tara, which I recently purchased for my shrine. I chose her because, one the one hand, I felt like some gender balance was needed, on the other hand the Khenpos suggested Tara as a good statue for our new shrines, and on the gripping hand, we perform a Red Tara sadhana at our center twice a month. Okay, I better explain what's going on in that last sentence. There's at least two science fiction novels by Larry Niven and Jerry(?) Pournelle in which an alien race with three hands exists. They have a modified phrase for "On the other hand," since they have two other hands, which allows them to make three points. For some reason, the third hand is called the "gripping hand." Hee hee. Some forms of Avalokiteshvara (Chenrezi) have one thousand hands, which could be extremely convenient for setting forth multiple contingencies.

Red Tara practice is, to my mind, somewhat complicated. I haven't received transmission of the teaching, so perhaps that's why. If the chance ever comes, I will definitely take it. In any event, I've been listening to a CD, which helps. Red Tara is said to be the embodiment of pure awareness. So praying to Tara, and performing a Red Tara sadhana, are ways to awaken our own perception of pure phenomena, of reality in its actuality. To see that nothing exists independently.

There are two beautiful mantras that are chanted in the sadhana. I wish that I could convey their tune, but I'll have to content myself to simply reproducing the english transliteration of the syllables.

Mantra 1: JE TZUN P'HAG MA DROL MA KHYED KHYEN NO GAL KYEN KUN SEL SAM DON NYUR DRUB DZOD

Mantra 2: OM TARE TAM SOHA

When chanting mantras I try to think of myself as a vibrating bell, releasing energy as I vocalize the syllables. It is especially potent when done with others.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird (Wallace Stevens)

I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.

II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.

V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.

VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?

VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.

IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.

XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.

XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.

Mindfulness Training

I went to a secular meditation class last night, although a couple other members of my sangha also came. It was a very different experience from the meditation I'm used to. It was much more relaxed, and there was no big commitment to help all other sentient beings at the outset, although as we closed, we expanded our desire for happiness and other good things to the other members in the group. A small start, but essential.

The teacher gave basic instructions: concentrate on your breath, and whenever you notice that your attention has wandered gently bring it back to your breath. I've heard this before, and I think I unconsciously felt that at some point, when I got really good at meditation, my mind would never wander. Pema Chodron has said that your mind wanders less when you have practiced awhile. The teacher last night put a different spin on it. Namely, the more you practice returning your attention to the present moment, the better you will be at this throughout the day. If you are good at catching yourself wander while seated on the cushion, you will also improve at catching yourself in day-to-day life. This way, being truly present, you can escape from your usual habit patterns that cause so much suffering. Thus, the mind wandering is an essential part of meditation, because it needs to wander so that you can notice it wandering.

Anyway, I thought that was a fantastic way of looking at things. Most of the explanation above is my own extrapolation, by the way.

Hugging Meditation

We heard a teaching by Thich Nhat Hanh at our center today, and he described three practical meditations: telephone meditation, driving meditation, and hugging meditation. I'd like to concentrate on the third one, which I'd never heard of before.
The idea is, before hugging a loved one, to breathe in and out deeply three times. This puts you in the present moment and prepares you to experience the hug deeply. While hugging your loved one, breathe in and out three times. Breathe in: my loved one is alive in my arms. Breathe out: I am so happy. Do this three times. He said that there's no need to pat the other person when doing this, that this can be a sign of not being truly present. If you appreciate the other person's presence, she will feel it.
If you wish for a hug, breathe in and out three times, and go to your partner and bow.

There is a second, more difficult, level of practice. Instead of breathing in and out three times, you breathe in and out four times in the middle of the hug. On the first pair, you breathe in and out that you and your loved one are both alive. On the second pair, you breathe in and out that your loved one has died and that you are still alive. On the third one, you breathe in and out that your loved one is still alive and you have died. On the fourth one, you again berathe that you are both alive. By the time you reach the fourth pair of breaths, you have become more grateful and happy at the other person's presence.

Haiku concerning a ramification of drinking

The cool bathroom tile
Pressed against the side of my face
Is an oasis

Nifty Dhammapada Quote

Like the Himalayas
Good [people] shine from afar.
But bad [people] move unseen
Like arrows in the night.

Emptiness as an antidote to fear

At our Buddhist center today we heard another teaching by Thich Nhat Hanh, whom I really enjoy as a teacher. Both he and the Dalai Lama write very inspiring books. The topic today was emptiness, which is a term that can be easily misinterpreted. To say something is empty is not to say that it doesn't exist, or that it is worthless, but that it has no self-nature, no independent existence. For example, a sheet of paper does not exist by itself, but depends on many conditions and causes. The example Thich Nhat Hanh gave is that you can see a cloud in the piece of paper. Why? Because the cloud transforms to rain, which then waters trees, which are then cut down and processed into paper. The paper did not arise from nothing. Similarly, I, as a human, did not spring forth from nothingness. I carry with me the genes of my ancestors, as well as personality traits which have been passed down from generation to generation. I carry with me the effects of family tragedies going generations back. I also depend for my existence on many factors beyond my control, such as the existence of other people who built my house, who existed in the past and helped evolve language for me to write with, etc, etc. Another way to put it, he said, is that being empty of self-nature means that you are full of everything else in the universe. Now, just as I did not arise from nothing, I will not turn into nothing when I die. Just as I carry within me the past, so I will contribute to the future. That's why it's so important, as La Misma said, to be nice. The actions we perform now will have wide effects and propagate far into the future. If we pay attention to the present moment, and act positively, we can have a palpably positive effect on the future. If we act negatively, remaining imprisoned in our own habits and obscurations, we will affect the future negatively. It is so tempting to be inattentive and ignore those around you, taking them for granted. What Thich Nhat Hanh said, though, is that once we realize that ultimate interdependent nature of reality, we will want to cherish our friends and loved ones. I guess this is for a couple of reasons. On the one hand, once you realize how much you interdepend (is this a word?) on others, you will love them really as part of yourself. On the other hand, realizing that the way we live after death is through the actions we have performed while alive, we will see how important it is to help and love others.

By the way, the picture at the head of the post is a tiling of the plane by equilateral pentagons. I spent many hours today fiddling around with various pentagonal tilings. They're pretty fascinating.