Category Archives: Stories

My Meditation Practice

The Buddha

The Buddha

As I mentioned in the last post, for years I was unable to meditate.  I have Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and as soon as my eyes closed my brain would go into high gear.  The idea of meditation is to let those thoughts go so you can be aware in the moment.  For ADD’s, the moment is often chaos, with thoughts leaping from subject to another, or hyper focus, with the thoughts totally engaged on one topic or task. 

After a diagnosis and treatment, I can meditate.  Now meditation is not spending all one’s time in the moment.  At first and often those thoughts arise and with my addictions, they can be compelling.  So, sit, watch my breath, the thoughts arise, I let them go, and they arise again.  It can be excruciating, dealing with all that meaningless thought.  I find a prayer helps me instead of just focusing on the breath.   

Paradoxically, my prayer is Christian.  At its core, Buddhism is essentially atheistic and in my view a psychology, not a religion,  being 2500 years old from a culture soaked in religion, it adopted all the trappings.  I grew up nominally Christian and became a toung-talking holy roller Christian in my forties.  I don’t do that so much any more, but Jesus is in my life to stay. 

I use the Jesus Prayer, an ancient Eastern Orthodox prayer dating back to the desert fathers.  “Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”  The most famous book about the prayer, “The Way of a Pilgrim“, suggests starting with 3000 repetitions per day.  I recite the prayer a lot, but never 3000 times.  I sit, start praying, and time the words with my breath.   When those thoughts rise, as they always will, I return to the prayer.  Those times of being in the moment come, and I drop into watching my breath.  Thoughts arise and I gently return to the prayer. 

I find the moments of stillness are slowly growing.  I also find the poisonous thoughts are diminishing.  When poisonous thoughts about pretty girls arise, I pray for them.  “May she be happy, may she be free, may she be safe”.  Then back to the Jesus Prayer until more thoughts arise. 

The thoughts aren’t just about pretty girls, I find myself planning, plotting, reviewing past mistakes, feeling guilt or shame; being angry, sad, sick, hurting, happy, horny, old, tired, loving, lonely, excited, the entire range of feeling and thought.  All that stuff comes from my past or is about the future.  Thus, they are all meaningless.  The past is gone, and the future is unknown.   

All there really is is the moment.  My brain tends to disagree.  I experience all those thoughts and feelings as real because they are wired neural connections.  The task of meditation is to rewrite those connections so I can spend more time in the moment. 

Now, lots of those connections are important.  I need food, shelter, my long baths, some rags on my back, all the stuff of daily living.  I don’t need Donald Trump or the Kardashians.  I mention those because I was in the  doctor’s office yesterday reading those stupid magazines.  Why didn’t I have my book or just pray? 

I find myself wanting to meditate more.  The toxic thinking is diminishing, although lots of people continue to be prayed for.  I have purged the computers, my library, don’t watch the wrong television or movies, and am able to spend more time in the moment (still not much time, alas). 

Next is some retreats.  Retreats last from one day up.  I have done them in a Christian context and found them useful.  I am looking at attending a four day retreat in the mountains.  There are lots of retreats available, mostly led by Dharma teachers who are therapists or in other helping professions.  Retreats allow intensive meditation with little interruption from the outside world.  I need that.

 

Insight Meditation

Meditation

Meditation

I recently wrote about my struggle with addictions.  Yes, multiple addictions.  It is just now coming out that the root cause of addiction is abuse at some time in the addict’s life.  It is true for me.  I turned to addictive behavior to get a feel good in a life that incorporated pain or suffering stemming from the abuse.  

The mental pain or suffering arises, and I seek to eliminate or blunt the pain with the feel good.  It can be alcohol, food, exercise, sex, tobacco, work, drugs, shopping, gambling, music, or other obsessive behaviors.  I tried most of them, and they worked-briefly.  The pain returns.  Another round starts, but it takes a bit more to drive the pain away as the guilt and shame grow.  The wheel turns. 

The result? I have had a lifetime of suffering with futile attempts to escape.  The addictions have not been all-consuming.  I have a good marriage, a comfortable retirement, many interests to keep me occupied and engaged, and a family I am close with.  I have had years of therapy that helped in some areas, but the addictions remained.  The addictions have consumed a tremendous amount of time and energy.  All this stems from events in my childhood continuing to haunt me. 

Well, that was then, and it is now.  So, why addictive behavior when the abuse happened so long ago?  We store the feelings from abuse in our minds.  Those feelings and sensations stay with us and arise later as suffering.  They exist as neural connections in our brains.  Those connections and stored memories and feelings are not permanent or hard wired.  The brain is plastic and those old demons can be dealt with, the connections altered or eliminated.  

There are a number of techniques, including 12 step programs, cognitive therapy, psychoanalysis, immersion in a religious organization, and other therapies.  Some work, some don’t or are just mental band-aids.

Recent neuroscience research indicates that insight meditation is an effective means of altering or eliminating those old neural pathways.  In many cases, ten or fifteen minutes per day seem to be effective.  In deeply entrenched addictions, fifteen minutes is not enough.  I try to do a forty minute meditation along with the morning fifteen minute session every day.  I also attend two formal insight meditation meetings per week. 

Insight meditation is fairly simple.  Find a comfortable position where you are not likely to fall asleep.  Observe your breath.  It may be your nostrils or your abdomen or chest rising and falling. Just focus on the breath.  Thoughts will arise.  Just note and name them.  Hungry, hungry.  You will find the thought changes or fades, leaving you a moment without thoughts arising.  When they do, note them name them, and observe them changing.     

You will find yourself drifting away, planning, worrying, most anything.  When you notice this, gently return to the breath.  I find it useful to say a short prayer several times until I am able to return to the breath.  At times, it seems like all I am doing is praying, with no stillness.  Other times I can return to the breath right away. 

The process is frustrating at first, because it seems like there is almost no time just watching the breath.  No big. Deal, just keep it up.  You will find those thoughts arising with less frequency and intensity.  You are reprogramming your brain. 

Insight meditation is used in schools, some workplaces, in prisons, and in psychotherapy.  It sometime seems it is the next big thing.  Well, no.  It is a Buddhist practice in use for twenty five hundred years.  It is not really a religious practice.  It is a practice used to get rid of all the mental clutter so one can lead a life free of the suffering all that clutter causes. 

Next time I will illustrate the process with my own experience.  Stay tuned.

 

 

 

 

Guns

gunsI am from Western Colorado-outdoor sportsman central.  Hunting big game, small game, ducks and geese, most any things that moves was a way of life.  I grew up around guns as my father hunted and fished.  I hunted as well, but fishing never appealed to me-too boring. 

I was always fascinated by guns.  I liked the mechanical precision, the looks, the way they felt in my hands.  There was, of course, another set of reasons for my fascination.

Guns are for killing.  When hunting, I was repelled and attracted to the act of killing. I would walk along hunting rabbits thinking “Why am I here, I don’t like the killing?”.  As soon as a rabbit jumped, the gun came up and I was shooting.  More than once I have sold all my guns, swearing off them, only to find myself in a gun shop. 

In Army basic training I became welded to the famous old M1 Garand rifle.  I still like the damn things, although I haven’t bought one as a civilian.  In Germany I got an M14, much like the M1, but holding 20 rounds instead of eight.   

.50 Caliber Machine Gun

.50 Caliber Machine Gun

When I got promoted I was given the responsibility for a .50 caliber Browning machine gun.  Completely assembled it weighs about 120 pounds and fires a cartridge about six inches long, with a bullet half an inch in diameter.  We went to Wildflecken, Germany, the traditional invasion route for eastern invaders, to shoot the thing across a canyon.  It sure was fun.  It sure did give me a significant hearing loss. 

The real reason for my fascination with guns, however, is fear.  I have been afraid for my safety for as long as I can remember.  The cause?  Probably some abuse I experienced at a young age.  I remember making a tent out of a card table and blankets in the living room when I was home alone.  I would get under there with my .22 rifle and dream about driving the invaders away.     

The gun magazines used to be mostly about hunting arms, now they are filled with articles about protecting your home from hostile invaders.  That is right down my alley, even though I live in a safe neighborhood and have never experienced any need for protecting myself with a gun for 73 years.  This is a big cognitive disconnect in my life.  I think the strategy is to not read that stuff.

To deal with my fear I am now using a mindful meditation technique.  I meditate watching my breath.  When any fear-related thoughts arise, I notice them, name them “fear, fear”, and watch them fade.  I also have the fear thoughts arise at other times, as when driving.  I say a short prayer, sometimes several times, until the fear thought fades.  I do this many times during the day.  It works. The thoughts leave, and they are not recurring with the same frequency.  I feel better, and have more energy for useful things.  I am not doing this to seek enlightenment, I am doing it to rid myself of wasteful thinking so I can focus on the good.

Addiction

addictI have an addictive personality.  My first addiction was to chocolate.  In grade school, Teddy and I found a box of Hershey chocolate bars lying in the street.  Not realizing this was a true case of finders keepers, we hid in some bushes and ate the whole thing.  No, I didn’t get sick. 

I remember sitting in a twelve step meeting when one of the guys said he had to have his “feel good”.  He nailed it for me as well.  I am not sure I have more unrest and pain than others, but I have always sought the “feel good”.  

For the most part I can overcome the addictions.  I quit a three pack a day cigarette habit after five years.  I have quit drinking several times and started again, convincing myself I can control it.  Later I realize I have gradually ramped up into excessive drinking and quit.  I have probably done this seven or eight times, starting in high school.  This time I have been sober for a year.  I’m pretty sure I am done with booze forever.   

I have smoked a haystack of pot.  At one point In the late 1970’s I was buying a quarter pound at a time.  I would go to work, go out on my rounds and light up.  Parties were lots of booze and weed for a lot of years.  One day at work I realized I couldn’t remember things I had done the day before.  I have had about two tokes since.   

Food is another matter.  I am something of a binge eater.  My main weakness is ice cream, chocolate, of course.  My pattern is much the same as with alcohol.  I will eat too much, scare myself, lose some weight, than ramp up again.  I weigh about 215 pounds now.  At one point I was up to 260.  The problem is that I can’t give up eating altogether.  So, I struggle.  And then there is caffeine.  AA meetings always have coffee. 

I think you can see the pattern.  I probably won’t kill myself with my addictions, but they have consumed vast amounts of time and energy I could have used productively.  The addictions are accompanied by a lot of obsessing and compulsive behavior.  I have repetitive thoughts and rituals around the behaviors, from rolling the joint, lighting a cigarette at every change, such as standing up, or sneaking ice cream out of the downstairs freezer.   

I am currently engaged in the spiritual practice of letting go.  This means letting go of everything keeping me from staying in touch with my true self.  This is not an easy process, and I am sure I will be engaged in it for the rest of my life.  “Trapped on the wheel of desire.”  The problem with desire is that it cannot be satisfied.  The new BMW, the Bud Lite, the new clothing style, cool Adidas sneakers, whatever.  The proper number of bicycles to own?  N+1; N being the number of bicycles you currently have.  

Addictions are just the most pathological of this phenomenon.  Our consumer society is driven by desire.  Chasing money, chasing stuff, chasing the latest hit, it all pulls us away from our true selves.  I want to get in touch with my true self, which means letting go.

Caregiving the Hard Way

mental healthCarol and I attend a support group meeting for caregivers of mentally ill loved ones.  It meets at the Mental Health Center of Denver and is sponsored by the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI).Carol attends regularly, but I stopped for a while because the stories are just too heart rending.  One person has been a caregiver for various family members since she was seven.  She did take a break for a while, serving as an Army nurse in Vietnam.   

Many attendees have more than one family member they are caring for.  The hard part for them is there is probably no end.  Most mentally ill people stay that way.  There is no stability.  Sometimes the loved one is doing OK for a long time, working or going to school, and then, bang, a psychotic break and repeated hospitalizations.  There is often financial instability, the loved one experiencing extended periods of unemployment, and being repeatedly denied disability benefits. 

In addition, the mental health system is broken.  Years ago, if a person was severely mentally ill, there was an extensive mental hospital system.  No longer.  The development of psychiatric medications and attempts to treat the mentally ill in the community ended the hospital system.  Today there is a host of agencies, some nonprofit, some for profit, and some governmental.  At least veterans have the VA, which does a fairly good job despite the overload.  There is never enough money, and too many people in need. 

Here in Denver, there are the Mental Health Corporation of Denver, Denver Health, several private agencies, the police, Social Services, halfway houses, Vocational Rehabilitation, detox, and others.  Navigating the system is time consuming, frustrating, confusing, and often a failure.  People have spent many thousands of dollars at private mental health facilities with no discernible effect.  All it has done is get the person out of the house for a while. 

A big one is the uncertainty.  If the loved one is doing well, it’s waiting for the next episode.  The person may just disappear for a while, only making contact when at rock bottom.  Some caregivers are relieved when their person is incarcerated.  At least they are relatively safe.  Safety, how can one insure that with a suicidal person?  There is a crisis system, offering telephone support, referrals, and sending a trained person with the police to the loved one’s home.    Sometimes it works.

There are tragedies.  One person was the high school valedictorian, then Cum Laude in college, then experienced a schizophrenic breakdown, and is gone with a shotgun barrel in her mouth.  I haven’t even touched on the alcohol and drug abuse problems, which are also mental health issues. 

Why do the caregivers do it?  They sacrifice huge chunks of their own lives, living with anxiety and uncertainty, for no financial reward.  They are caregiving for a loved one.  Love carries them through almost unimaginable adversity, and most caregivers still display love not only for their loved one, but also maintain a positive outlook on life.  There are those caregivers who flee, just not able to meet the challenge of a seemingly unending task.   

It is said that love knows no bounds.  For the caregivers in the support group, that is true.  We don’t see those who just lack enough love to stay involved for so long.  There are lots of heroes out there, you just don’t see them, for they are too busy to be visible.  I am able to hang in there for the loved one, but I can’t attend the support group every time; I just can’t deal with all the pain.

 

 

It’s Spring!

Spring Renewal

Spring Renewal

Spring is a sometime thing here in Colorado.  We have years where it goes directly from winter to summer.  That is not the case this year.  Spring started showing up in February, and it seems to be stretching until late April at least.  It is mid-month, and a spring storm is on the way.  We are supposed to get lots of rain and snow in the next few days.  March and April are supposed to be our big moisture months.  It looks like this year will hold true.   

We have planted carrots, beets, tomatoes, chard, and shallots.  Then the moisture started.  Perfect.  Usually Carol starts lots of stuff indoors starting in January.  Due to a couple of surgeries that didn’t happen this year.  We will probably be buying more nursery starts than normal.   

I turned the sprinkler system on and watered, but I will drain the above ground copper and brass so it won’t freeze with a storm.  It won’t get cold enough to hurt the buried stuff.  It is always a bit of an adventure getting the sprinkling system going, fixing the winter damage.  It was easy this year, only three sprinkler heads needed work.  I got lucky, usually I have to splice the underground piping I chop through doing the spring digging. 

We have been steadily reducing the amount of lawn we have, replacing grass with patio space and Xeric planting.  The law is supposed to be fescue, but much of it is crabgrass.  I had the pre-emergent crabgrass killer, but as in every previous year, I didn’t get it down in time.  Oh well, at least it is green.  

It looks like at least one more snow shoveling session.  I have to be careful with the shoveling, my back doesn’t like much heavy work.  We don’t have a lot of walk, so the job is not too big.  There is one fun part, however.  We have solar panels on the garage roof that are over the walk to the alley.  The snow slides off the panels onto the walk as it warms up after a storm, leaving a good-sized windrow on the walk.  Last year I didn’t get it shoveled soon enough and I had an ice drift to chop out.  Now I get my lazy butt out there and move it out of the way effort it freezes to ice.  It is heavy, and there is a limited space to put it.  I haven’t had to move the snow with the wheelbarrow yet, but the time is coming, maybe this weekend.  

Some of my Facebook Friends are positively rapturous during this annual miracle of renewal.  I usually have a sarcastic remark to make about their posts, but in truth I an just as much a romantic as they are.  I first appreciated the miracle of spring when I was cooped up with the measles when I was in grade school.  When I was finally able to go out in the bright daylight, the trees had leafed out.  From bare limps to glorious green in the time I was confined to the house.  Now I always make a point of watching the changes, usually when I am sweeping up all the trash the maples drop.

rat in cage two bottles

The World Famous Green River Formation, for oil shale, not beauty

The World Famous Green River Formation, for oil shale, not beauty

About fifty million years ago the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River did not exist.  The area was surrounded by the Wind River Mountains, the Uintah Mountains, the San Juans, the Uncompahgre Plateau, and the newly formed Rocky Mountains.  This huge area had no outlet to the sea.  The climate was similar to our current Gulf Coast, warm and moist.  During the six million years we are exploring, things changed.  Lakes formed and receded, land rose and subsided, and through all this the surrounding highlands were sending their sediment into the lakes.   

The Green River Formation is the result of all the sedimentation.  It is up to ten kilometers in depth, thinner at the margins.  At first the lakes were fresh water, but later became saline, leaving large deposits of carbonate rocks.  The trona deposits at Green River, Wyoming are some of the richest in the world.  The margins are sandstone and conglomerate interlaced with the fine silt that filled most of the basin.  The formation is rich in the fossils of the abundant life in the lakes.  They are world famous for their variety and abundance.   

There was an anoxic layer at the bottom that preserved the organisms settling there.  The lakes were abundant in blue-green algae.  The remains of the algae are the source of the oil shale deposits the region is known for.  The oil shale is there in millions of barrels, but it is expensive to extract the petroleum from the rock.  It may never be commercially viable, but the formation has been extensively studied as a result.  

Green River Formation Map

Green River Formation Map

Standing in my home town of Fruita looking north, the white cliffs behind the Book Cliffs are the Green River Formation.  The Roan Plateau is huge, but does not attract visitors like the red rock country to the south.  A huge exposure is the highlands west of I-70 from Rifle to DeBeque Canyon. 

My interest is from visiting ranchers and hunting in the Douglas Pass area in my youth.  Most of our visits were to ranches in the Green River Formation.  The elevations varied greatly.  The ranches were along West Salt Creek, but there were back country roads that went from sagebrush desert to piñon-juniper to oak brush shaly hillsides with sandstone rims to high country timber with world class mud.  In fact, the mud is world class everywhere in the region. 

Back before four wheel drive became common, there was a pile of rocks at the bottom of every big hill.  Load them in the back of your pickup, go where you planned, and unload them on the way home.  There is a network of canyons with side canyons branching off.  All of it is fine deer habitat.  My favorite places were at the head of a canyon with the wind in my face and a view of the LaSal Mountains and the Uncompahgre Plateau in the distance.  Flat, wooded country gives me the creeps. 

Access to a lot of the country is difficult.  Most of the land is BLM land, but the early ranchers homesteaded the choice land that had water.  The private land meant locked gates.  We knew some of the ranchers, family friends.  Hunting season was a big deal.  There were maybe a dozen or more people, hunting during the day and drinking and playing poker at night.  The big ranch house had a big kitchen with a wood burning stove along with the stove in the big main room.  There was a light plant in the shed next to the house.  It looked like no generator you see these days.  There were also lots of Coleman lanterns when the light plant failed.  Good times and lots of venison.  The unheated bunkhouse was upstairs. 

Douglas pass was up the main road, gravel in those days.  It isn’t that high by Colorado standards, but made up for it with the switchbacks up the head of the canyon to the summit up through that shale.  When the shale is wet, it moves.  The road trapped the runoff, wetting the soft shale, and most every spring one or more places slid.  The mountainside now is braided with old road cuts.  It wasn’t much of a main road in the 1950’s, but now there is so much oil and gas development that the road is a paved state highway that the highway department spends money on. 

The road crosses the desert above the Highline irrigation canal before it goes into the canyon.  It is on the Mancos shale, responsible for all that flat desert in Colorado and Utah that turns to grease when it is wet.  There was one hill the road went over then descended into the wash on the north side.  That meant the road was on a north facing slope for a distance.  That hill was named Coyote, because it could bite and gnaw on you if it was wet.  A bit farther north was a ten or twelve foot high rock on the side of the road, all by itself.  

The county employee maintaining the road in those days had his grader blade scrape on that rock every time he bladed the road.  It would leave a bump, so he would have to drag dirt over to level things out.  One day he got fed up and dug that rock up and moved it off the road.  It was probably a two day project, but he never had to fight that damn rock again. 

After I could drive, I ran around that desert quite a bit.  I learned how to drive a two wheel drive pickup in that greasy stuff from my father.  He was the telephone man in Fruita, responsible for maintaining the toll line as far as Cisco, Utah.  That meant navigating two ruts through the cheat grass and sagebrush.  He could put a two wheel drive pickup into places that were a challenge for a Jeep.  Rocks in the back, chains if needed, put it in second gear and putt along.  He seldom used the granny gear or used the gas pedal.  Those old Chevy sixes would just lug their way along.   

I am as guilty as any back country explorer for spending most of my time in the Rocky Mountains or the Utah red rock country, but the Mancos Shale and the Green River formation are calling me.  I just need to see if my tire chains are in good shape.  I think I will go over Douglas Pass, loop around and look the Piceance Basin over. From Rifle I will go down to Plateau Creek (my father and grandfather said platoo crick) and up to Collbran to look at the big slide.

Meditation

Meditation

Meditation

Humans have been meditating ever since our brains got big.  There are seekers who look around the world for answers to what is essentially unknowable, but we still wonder.  There are always people who will tell you they have the answer, and most people are willing to accept what they say.  I am one of the exceptions.  I am one of the seekers, always have been.   

I looked for the answers with the organizations that say they know.  I was never quite satisfied.  I was raised a nominal Methodist, but it never resonated with me.  For many years I was a rabid agnostic, challenging every belief.  It worked, too, except with those persons grounded in their faith.  I looked into lots of beliefs.  I investigated various flavors of Christianity, existential philosophy (the ultimate refuge of the sceptic), the power ideologies, Zen, radical politics, straight humanism, and scientific atheism.  Nothing worked, and I plunged into some of them fairly deeply. 

I attended college during the turbulent late 1960’s.  Parallel with politics were the drugs. I smoked lots of dope, and it helped me to get more in touch with my feelings.  Paradoxically, marijuana is useful if you just want to numb out while feeling good.  I did that a lot.  Then there was LSD.  Lots of people used acid to have fun and maybe explore a changed way of perceiving reality.  Others, myself included, attempted to use acid in the Quest.   

My friends would take one hit of acid, I tended to take three.  By lying down at night and looking straight up I saw the matrix of universal existence, how the entire universe is interconnected.  The problem is that I always came down, and a lot of what I had seen retreated.  I finally gave acid  and pot up. 

I continued to seek, but I also despaired of finding any answers for the Question.  I did the regular stuff, got married, had a career, and engaged in lots of activities.  I explored the wilderness, bred and showed dogs, hunted, drank quite a bit, and had most of it fall apart. 

I was divorced, lonely, depressed, and starting a new career that was technical rather than person-oriented.  I was in the dark night of the soul.  I fell into Pentecostal Christianity, which puts a lot of emphasis on experiential activities.  In other words, I was a Tongue-Talking Holy Roller.  I experienced the divine.  I literally felt the love of Christ.  I plunged in all the way for a couple of years, but the fundamentalism and the underlying Calvinism did me in. 

I went from the Pentecostals to Charismatic Episcopalian churches.  The evangelicalism pushed me out again.  I ended up a mainstream Episcopalian.  I love the liturgy, the ceremony, the openness to religious exploration.  I had trouble with the Church.  The only time the Church contacted me directly  was to ask for money, and I had been steadily giving.  I had to write the Bishop to get accommodations to my shift worker schedule in order to take the course leading to confirmation. 

I left.  I still think of myself as an Episcopalian, but my churchgoing has lapsed.  During my time as an Episcopalian, I began doing Christian Contemplative prayer.  For most of my life, meditation was almost impossible because my ADD-addled brain would never quiet down. I was finally able to meditate.  

I stayed with the contemplatives for quite a while, going to a weekly group, going on retreat, and reading widely.  The Christian mystical tradition is as ancient as Christianity.  In the west, it survived mostly in a monastic setting.  The Carmelites, the Trappists, and a number of other orders have kept the tradition alive.  Today it is moving out of the cloister into the lay community.  It is still mostly Roman Catholic.  The Roman church has always tolerated the Mystics, as they are vital to the Christian tradition, but they have never very good at following all the rules.  That divine spark within all of us have grows in a mystic.  The presence of God within, and following His will is not always compatible with the Church’s teachings. 

My dissatisfaction with the institutional church eventually drove me away.  I am still a Christian, but not able to belong to anything but the Body of Christ.  I need a spiritual community, however, so I began a search into Buddhism.  Why Buddhism?  Buddhism is grounded in meditation and the search for enlightenment.  It is also essentially atheistic.  All those Buddha statues you see in Buddhist places of gathering and meditation are of a man, not some deity.  The Buddha was simply a man who entered into extensive study and meditation and began to teach.  His teachings were extensive and are expanded into a huge literature.   

The Buddha, one hand touching the earth - staying grounded

The Buddha, one hand touching the earth – staying grounded

There are many strains of Buddhism, not just Zen and Tibetan, although those are biggest here in the U.S.  They all share the same goal, which is identifying suffering and seeking the end of suffering.   There are many practices and beliefs, but they all share the goal of ending suffering. 

My first attempt to find a teacher and sangha was in Zen.  Must of what I had read was in that tradition so to The Denver Zen Temple I went.  There is a strong tradition in Zen to continue almost all the practices followed in Japan.  That means robes, chants, a hierarchy of spiritual attainment and ordination into the hierarchy.  There are also lots of rules, as Japan is also full of rules.  The place where people sit zazen (meditate) is called the zendo.  I could not walk into the zendo without getting into trouble.  I just could not remember all the things I was supposed to do.   

I loved sitting zazen.  It is an excellent form of meditation.  The literature here in the west skips over all the other stuff.  The practices are intended to instill discipline which is fine but they come directly from a monastic tradition where monks devote their lives to Zen.  In addition, the liturgy is in Japanese, Chinese, Sanskrit, Pali, and English.  It was all too much for me and I didn’t especially like the teacher. 

I find Tibetan Buddhism appealing, and the Dalai Lama is a world treasure.  I have trouble with Tibetan Buddhism’s involvement with the spirit world.  The spirit world is all around us, but my belief is that we’re in the physical world to accomplish tasks here, not with spirits.  I have seen the price paid by those who follow that path, whether with benign or malevolent spirits.  The spirits are just that, spirits, non-corporeal. In order to manifest they need energy from us, and losing that energy takes its toll, physically and often mentally.  

Now I belong to the Denver Insight Meditation community.  It is part of the Theravada Buddhist tradition, and is found in Sri Lanka, Thailand, and some other places in Asia.  Theravada is one of the two main traditions in Buddhism, Mahayana being the other. There are differences, the main one is that the Mahayana tradition uses Sanskrit, while Theravada uses Pali, a language contemporary with Sanskrit.   It has a large following here in the U.S. with a good and growing literature.   

The primary teacher in our sangha is Lloyd Burton, a wonderful teacher with a wide knowledge of Theravada Buddhism.  We meet weekly for two hours, spending forty minutes in meditation, a break, then a Dharma talk by Lloyd or another teacher.  The Dharma is the body of Buddhist teachings used as a guide to end suffering.   

Carol and I recently attended a small meditation group close to where we live.  It lasts one hour, thirty minutes of meditation and a thirty minute dharma talk every Monday evening. I think we will be regulars.  Every morning we do a ten minute brain brushing (quick meditation) with our tea.  It is also insight meditation and is a good way to start the day.   

I have found that the more meditating I do the more I want to do.  All the teachers say that a regular meditation practice is the key, just as in prayer.  I fact, my meditation is prayer.  Most of the Buddhist meditations are silent, with the focus on breath.  When other thoughts arise, as the will, one gently returns to focusing on the breath.  With my ADD, emptying my mind is mostly impossible.  I close my eyes and my mind goes into high gear.   

Eastern Orthodox Icon of Jesus

Eastern Orthodox Icon of Jesus

I use a mantra to repeat throughout my session.  This is another ancient practice.  I use the Jesus Prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner.”  This is an ancient Eastern Orthodox prayer, going back to the desert monks in the early days of Christianity.  I match the words to my breathing, and when I drift away, I gently return to the prayer. 

What? A Christian prayer in Buddhist meditation?  Well, yes.  Buddhism is essentially atheistic, and the whole karma/reincarnation thing I just view as a mystery.  Whatever works.  I recommend a strong spiritual practice.  I don’t think it is necessary to follow one specific path.  All the world faiths contain the same basic truths.  One should choose the path that feels right.   

Don’t follow any one person or group who say their path is the only way, give yourself to us.  Anyone who says that is a liar and a fraud, interested mostly in control.  I don’t care if it is one leader with just a few followers or a huge organization with millions of followers, if they say their way is the only way, they lie or are deluded.  The paradox is that many in those faiths do find the way.  It is their individual practice and relationship with the universe that matters, not the framework.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Weather

Climate Change

Climate Change

2013 Flood

There is currently a lot of controversy about climate change and whether humankind has a role in the warming trend.  While I think it is true that pouring huge amounts of sequestered carbon is the culprit, I don’t think it matters much for us here in Colorado and much of the west. 

We live in a land of extremes except for the rainy Pacific Northwest, but, they have their earthquakes and volcanos.  Here in Colorado, we dwell in a land of extremes.  The west is dry, it snows in the mountains, the Front Range is kind of a mix, and it is pretty dry in the east.  That varies from year to year.  It varies a lot.   

In the late nineteenth century it was a wet cycle in the eastern prairie, and the railroads made millions enticing settlers to buy their land and get rich farming.  The population in eastern Colorado peaked then and has been declining ever since.  The mountain ski areas have lots of snow some years and almost no snow other years.  The western desert country looks dry and desolate most of the time, but I have seen it bloom in a stunning variety of color.   

Then there are the floods, blizzards, and tornados, often followed by drought.  The one thing we can count on is change.  There are long term trends.  Most archeologists think one reason the ancestral Pueblo Indians left southwestern Colorado was a prolonged drought cycle.  Anyone who tries to raise dry land beans in that country can tell you not much has changed. 

2013 Flood

2013 Flood

Here along the base of the mountains we have the extremes as well. There was the drought of 2002, and the floods of 2013.  The mountains create an unusual weather pattern that stalls along the mountain front, bringing more moisture than the land can handle.  That is when lots of the mountains wash out into the flat country.  It has been going on for more than sixty million years.  The gravel in the Platte River in Nebraska is Rocky Mountain gravel.  Some of the Louisiana mud is Long’s peak mud.   

Some climate models say climate change is going to dry Colorado out, other models say it will be wetter.  My money is on more extreme weather.  Longer, more violent wet periods and long droughts.  Look for more frequent floods, not the thirty or forty year cycle we have had since the first European-American settlers and miners arrived.  Think about the tornados and hailstorms recently.   

I like the extremes.  We have our regular four seasons here but the winters are milder than in Iowa.  It can get hot but there are few days over one hundred degrees, but not like southeastern Utah.  I think that may change, hotter in the summer.  I don’t think the winters will be colder.  I can remember forty below in Boulder when I was flunking out of CU.  Twenty below seems to be more the cold winter norm now.  What I do not like is the hailstorms.  I don’t think the insurance companies like them much either.  Homeowners insurance costs keep rising.  That hail is hard on the garden as well. We had only one tomato plant survive last year. 

One of the big impacts of climate change will be on water supplies.  The amount of precipitation may not change, but if it is warmer, the snowpacks will not last as long in the spring.  That means more spring floods and a shorter runoff period, which will impact water storage.  That could be bad news for the populated Front Range.  People keep coming, but there will not be more water, and a lot of the big spring runoff will go out of the state.  That will be good for the Sandhill Cranes in Nebraska, but bad for Parker and Highlands ranch. 

I spent a long time in the water business, and it always disturbed me watching all that high quality drinking water being used to attempt to replicate Surrey or Connecticut foliage in the Great American Desert.   All that bluegrass will have to go. The urban forest will have more drought-hardy trees.  Denver Water’s customers have done a good job of conserving since the big drought of 2002, but the bluegrass model of landscaping continues.  In Denver, daily water consumption is about 110 million gallons per day in winter.  I the hot part of summer, it’s over 400 million gallons per day, most of it run out onto the ground. 

At our house, we have significantly reduced the size of our lawn, but we still have a lot of crabgrass.  It should be buffalo grass and blue grama, both native drought-resistant grasses.  They don’t stay green all summer, so we are stalling and paying the water bill.  Marijuana legalization is bringing lots of people to Colorado, and the economy is booming.  Those people use water, and lots of water is used growing the stuff.  One of the unintended consequences of legalizing pot is increased water consumption. 

Myself, I am not too concerned about climate change for myself.  After all I am 73 years old and don’t live on the coast.  Long term change is a reality, but as John Maynard Keynes said, “In the long range we are all dead”.

 

Time

Time

Time

Time is relative.  It is all a matter of perspective.  It is said that realized beings like Jesus or the Buddha lived entirely in the moment, which connects them with the timelessness of being.  For mortals such as I, it is sometimes difficult to have a perspective greater than the next few hours.  Carol and I do a weekly plan, setting our schedule for that span of time.  For people in the corporate world, time usually means the bottom line for the quarter.  Children see summer vacation as lasting a long time; for us old people, it’s over in a flash. 

I seem to have several time perspectives.  In my spiritual life, I attempt to be in the moment and in the eternal.  In meditation, however, I find myself planning the next day or reviewing childhood events, not in some exalted state.  My everyday life tends to be day by day, checking the weekly plan if I remember to.  Often I can’t remember which evening I am supposed to cook. 

I have developed something of a longer perspective on life as I age.  I am shocked to realize that a lot of people were born in this century, which for me is a relatively short time.  Y2K wasn’t that long ago. I can remember Senator Joe McCarthy and the Army-McCarthy hearings when the country was experiencing  a right wing resurgence a lot like now.  That time ended, as will this one, probably in November.  I was in the Army when Kennedy was shot.  Obama is in year eight of his presidency; we have watched his daughters grow up.  As teenagers, I wonder if they think their dad is hopelessly clueless, even if he is The Man. 

Newspaper Rock, Utah

Newspaper Rock, Utah

My history professors talked about developing a historical perspective, to take a long view about human events.  To some degree I succeeded.  I can connect the pagan deities of Mesopotamia with elements of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity.  Four thousand year old Greek myths influence our current thinking.  Because of the American Civil War, I dislike grits, sweet ice tea, deep fried fish,  y’all, and that strange flag.  Most southerners are wonderful people, but I am not one of them.  But, I feel a connection with the people who illustrated their world on the sandstone canyon walls of Western Colorado and Utah. Parents with children born in 2009

2009So, where are we?  From “Do I have to go to the bathroom?”, to what’s to cook tonight, to the doctor’s appointment Thursday.  From there, it’s my lifetime and all that has gone on, even to those kids born in 2009, when my pickup was built (with a faulty airbag).from there it is the span of human history as recorded by symbols such as writing, the digital cloud, or rock paintings.  Then I  go to archeology and the origins of humankind. 

Next is yours and my favorite subject, geology and the universe.  Time changes, from hours to days to weeks, years, lifetimes, and all of human history, all mere blinks in the span of geologic time.  Four billion years ago our planet was a ball of very hot rock.  2.7 billion years ago what is now Denver was part of an island arc similar to Indonesia headed for a collision with Wyoming.  Lots of things crash in Wyoming. 

65 million years ago this place was a sea bottom, with shale accumulating that runs from South Dakota to central Utah.  Denver has gone from a hunk of hot rock to an island, a sea floor, a place being buried in the stuff washing out of the Rockies as the glaciers melted, to a place with a lot of people and their accumulated toxic waste and a lot of used plastic.   

The planet and the universe will go on, with humankind gone, mostly as a result of their own folly.  What does it all mean?  Maybe what is important is the time I took this morning to watch a big hawk fly over the DU campus looking for a little critter to eat.

 

« Older Entries Recent Entries »