The Squirrel War

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We have a bird feeder in the back yard so we can watch birds from our sun room.  When we started there was trouble.  Squirrels.  They are fun to watch in their own right, but they are voracious little creatures.  In addition, they seem to do fine without being fed.  On the other hand, we have noticed an increase in the bird population when we feed them in winter.

I should say we feed finches and sparrows.  At first we inadvertently fed pigeons, but many modifications to our feeder we got them to stay away.  I tried shooting the pigeons with a pellet gun, but it is illegal in Denver.  As a kid I shot lots of pigeons in Fruita, but Fruita was not a city.  It is now. After several years and many squirrel proofing modifications the feeder finally wore out.

The new feeder is not squirrel proof, even though it was billed as such.  The little vandals leapt from the tree.  We moved the feeder.  They now shinny up the pole and jump over to the feeder.  I think our resident female squirrel also leaps up from the ground, but we have yet to see her in the act.  I can raise the feeder if she is jumping up.

To stop the pole shinnying I put a slick pvc pipe over the one inch steel pole. It didn’t work, it makes shinnying easier.  The old feeder had a woven wire cage around it the birds could pass through but kept squirrels out.  This one has the perches in the open air.  I have thought about electrifying the pole, but it seems extreme.

I have also considered some kind of barrier between the pole and feeder, but it would be ugly.  I could also install a motion activated noise cannon.  No, the neighbors would disapprove.  How about some kind of moat?  No, it would freeze in winter.  A dog or cat?  Yes, they would do the job when outside, but not all the time.  They would also be hard on the garden.  The rabbits are enough critters in the yard.

Some kind of trip wire apparatus would work, but is too complex.  Besides, what would they fall into?  I think my next try is a ½ inch spaces woven wire disk on the pole, suggested by a guest at Thanksgiving.   They would try to climb around the ends but if the disk is secured so it will tilt with weight on it, it might throw the squirrel off.  if you have any ideas, let me know.  Just remember our adversaries are clever, athletic, and persistent.

Is resistance futile?

Posted in Bird Feeder, Current Activities, Gardening, My Story, Squirrel War, Stories

The News

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Our beloved President talks about “Fake News”.   The opposition talks about White House manipulation of the truth.  The polls are treated as if they any more have meaning.  What is going on?  All the attacks and counterattacks are part of the polarization in American politics.

I have another criticism of the news.  My idea of news is reporting in what has and is happening.  Opinion is what someone thinks about what is happening, not the events.  Analysis is just bullshit.

A huge amount of what we are fed as news is not news.  It is speculation about what is going to happen.  Problem is, we can’t predict the future with any degree of accuracy.  All the endless talk about what is going to happen is based on laziness.  Rather than do reporting on what is happening, just talk about what might happen.

Sometimes the rhetoric is called analysis, but an analysis is supposed to explain existing conditions.  There is reporting on what the President is saying and doing about people crossing Mexico to attempt to gain asylum in the United States.  Analysis would explain the underlying motives for the rhetoric and troop movements.  What we get is speculation about will happen when they get to the border and what Trump will do then.  Nobody knows, including Trump and the migrants.

Trump gets some justification for calling the speculation fake news, the media sells advertising, and the cloud of bullshit frustrates rational people trying to figure out what is going on.  The media seems to be convinced speculation is solid reporting, Trump callers it fake, and we get clouds of nothing obscuring what is really going on.

I don’t have any trouble with speculation if it is billed as such.  I object to including speculation in what are supposed to be news stories.  The problem is more acute with an election coming up.  Rather than reporting what candidates are saying and if it is true, the talk is about which liar is going to win.  It’s magnified by speculation about Ohio, Texas, Grand Junction, or a Waco.  Lots of ink and airtime, no real news.

I wanted to get active in some current campaigns here in Colorado, but I am too angry and frustrated to get out there.  I think I will read and pray instead.

Posted in Fake News, News, Speculation, Stories

Western Colorado Road Trip

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Recently I had a meeting in Gunnison, so I made a short trip of it.  From Denver I went up to Buena Vista and over Monarch Pass, but this time I went over the old Monarch Pass road, abandoned when the highway on upper reaches of the Pass was widened and straightened.  Modern mountain highways are expensive, moving mountainsides and filling low spots.  The older roads tended to follow the lay of the land more closely.  They were cheaper to build but slower and more dangerous.

I like the old roads, even more if they aren’t paved.  Old Monarch Pass follows the recipe.  It’s narrow, winds around and goes up and down.  It had about three inches of partially melted snow, making for some slick spots and lots of mud, but not the mud that likes to trap unsuspecting cars.  I was going slow, so I got to enjoy the scenery and a pretty day.  I rolled the windows down, opening up my steel cocoon a bit.  Good thing.

I stayed in Gunnison, and next morning I drove up to Crested Butte, one of my favorite ski towns, with some of the flavor of an old mining town remaining, in contrast to the modern European Chalet style of Vail.  No  McDonald’s, no chain restaurants, and lots of local businesses.  I had coffee in a place without WiFi.

Kebler Pass during the Aspen Color

Next was Kebler Pass, one of the best drives in the state.  It goes from Crested Butte to east of Paonia, and is mixed gravel and pavement.  If you want the best fall aspen viewing in Colorado, Kebler Pass is the place.  Huge stands of quakies with good mountain backdrops.  The leaves were gone on this trip, but the beauty remains.  To the south are the West Elk mountains and and a large, mostly untraveled wilderness area.  The Elk Mountains are North and east, some of the wildest peaks in the state.

I was in big, beautiful, rugged country mostly empty of human development.  Emptiness and solitude, part of why I love Western Colorado.  The road comes out outside of Somerset, a coal mining town between Paonia and McClure Pass above Carbondale.  Big coal mines there, mostly shut down.  That’s mining in Colorado.  Dig lots of stuff, then go broke and leave a big mess behind.

I like Paonia, fruit trees below mountains, no McDonalds, no Walmart, as it should be.  There is lots of pretty farm country from Paonia to the turnoff to Grand Mesa outside Delta.  The Grand Mesa road climbs to the top of the 10000 foot tall flat topped Mesa.  It’s wet country, catching the storms coming across the desert country to the west.  My main memories are going fishing there with my father.  Lots of lakes, mosquitoes, gnats, and

View From Lands End. Impossible to Photograph the Panorama

cold nights.  I did not become a fisherman.  The Land’s End road runs west from the highway to the rim of the Mesa.  The view is unsurpassed.  The San Juan’s to the south, the Uncompahgre Plateau across the Gunnison River valley to the west, and the Grand Valley of the Colorado under the Bookcliffs and the Roan Plateau.  You can see into Utah.  The road winds off the Mesa to Whitewater.  Steep and twisty gravel.  I’m saving that part for next time.

I went on over the mesa to Collbran, where I continued my search for the big landslide off the mesa that killed three men running a mile off the mountain.  I didn’t find it, but ran round some nice farm and ranch country while looking.  When I got home I printed out a map.  Duh.

Colorado River Below Kremmling

That night I stayed in Parachute off I-70 in oilfield country.  Enough about that.  Next day I followed the Colorado River from Dotsero to Highway 40 at Kremmling.   Again, I crossed a lot of wild country with a bit of development in spots.  The river runs in a succession of canyons and narrow valleys.  No spectacular mountains, just lots of good rugged country.

After Kremmling, Highway 40, Granby, Winter Park, and Berthoud Pass to eastern Colorado, and home.

Posted in Colorado River, Kebler Pass, Lands End, Old Monarch Pass, Road Trips, Stories, Western Colorado

Greed

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Gollum

Greed is the prime mover for most of the bad things happening on our world.  The bulk of criminal activity is motivated by greed-people taking what is not rightly theirs.  Wars are motivated by a quest for power.  Performers want recognition and fame.  Addictions arise from attempts to mask pain or discomfort.  They are a means to feel better, if only briefly.  The root cause of greed is an attempt to satisfy something missing in a person’s life. Their belief is acquiring something: wealth, adulation, power, health, or sexual gratification will fulfill their need.

The needs are based on believing acquisitions will lead to happiness and contentment.  This can be temporarily true, but discontent always lurks in the wings.  Our consumer culture is based on greed.  Buy the right car, drink the right beer, take the right medication and all will be well.  Not so, folks.

From birth, people strive to meet their basic needs.  Babies cry when they are hungry, cold, wet, Ill, or alone.  When they cry, needs are met.  When they smile and laugh, needs are met.  They learn strategies to meet their needs.  If discontent arises for some reason, they apply the strategies to assuage the discontent.

Problem is, fulfilling survival and acquisition needs does not satisfy all we humans need for a fulfilled life.  Love, friendship, helping others, creating, and learning are also needs all people share.  The difference is they are truly fulfilling because they are meaningful accomplishments, not mere acquisition.

We are animals with animal needs.  Twisting animal needs into greed is ultimately a dead end because the animal will inevitably die and all that stuff is meaningless.  As Americans, we are somewhat challenged.  Most have the basic needs met, but we are inundated with messages telling us how important it is to acquire to be happy.  Barring living in a cave or on the street, it is almost impossible to avoid the selling.

I am sitting here in the coffee shop with my high priced coffee and a pastry.  Coffee at home and my granola-muesli mix would be healthier and a lot less expensive.  I had a birthday yesterday and now I am wearing a cool wool vest I have desired for several years.  I think about cars, tools, fancy food, and gear.  Gear I will never use.  I buy books and keep them, some unread, when the library is just down the street.  I am always looking for the right hat to put on my bald head.

I drive to my spiritual group meetings.  I go on somewhat costly retreats when I can read and meditate at home.  My teacher says retreats are “upper middle” activities, but the messages imply they are important for reaching a spiritual goal.  What happened to meditating in a cave.  Well, drive to the cave and use a Jetboil stove from REI to cook rice and ramen.  Use a solar panel to recharge the smartphone.

Another word for greed is desire.  The fancy bicycle I don’t ride has a sticker saying “Trapped On the Wheel of Desire”.  Ice cream, chocolate, cheesecake, boots, the right blue jeans, wool socks, merino t-shirts, coffee, good movies, the right tires, Geology books, Dharma books, Harry Potter books and movies, my leather chair.  It seems I have a lot to let go of.

For me, an outgrowth of desire is obsession.  I don’t just want stuff, I obsess about it.  A large portion of my day goes to obsessing.  I guess I obsess to avoid feeling bad.  I don’t need to let go of obsessing, it’s feeling bad.  After all all the stuff I feel bad about is gone.  The only place it exists is in my mind.  I need a brain vacuum.

Greed and desire is not all of me.  I enjoy nature, I rejoice when the sun comes out after rainy days.  I love my life.  I have good friends and relatives, I like to learn, I like to write.  In fact, after 76 years, I think I am on the way.  It’s just a matter of more letting go. Breath in, breathe out.

 

Posted in Addiction, Craving, Depression, Greed, My Story, Obsession, Stories, Suffering

Stuck

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Stuck

Stuck is my current problem.  I have not been able to write a word for a couple of weeks.  That problem seems to be receding.  Writer’s block and my general lethargy stems from a deeper problem.

First, some of what I know of the Buddha’s thinking.  One of his core concepts is about what today we call the ego.  In our regular thinking we treat our egos as permanent things stemming from what we are as beings.  Not so, folks.  We have made it all up.  We draw from our genetic makeup and our interpretation of our experiences in living to form a sense of self.  This is necessary for our survival, both as individuals and a species.

In the tribe, boys learned how to hunt from the tribal hunters.  Girls learned how to have and raise children from other mothers.  Everyone’s experiences are somewhat unique, but have a lot of commonality with others around us.  If things go well, children grow up to be healthy, capable members of their group.

Often, however, things go wrong.  Trauma, disfigurement, disease, and deprivation can lead a person to develop a wounded ego.  This is true of all of us to some degree.  The wounded ego suffers.  Suffering prevents us from reaching our deepest innermost being, the condition often called emptiness.  It is pure being, free of suffering stemming from the decisions we have made about ourselves.  It is often called enlightenment.  A better word is peace.

Insight Meditation can lead to the state where we have let go of all the encumbrances of ego.  It doesn’t mean ceasing to act much like the suffering person we were once were.  It doesn’t eliminate the need to cope with the tasks of living in the world, (especially a world containing Republicans.)  it’s clarity, freedom free of suffering but not of pain, grief, infirmity, and death.

I have tried to reach this goal for a large part of my life.  I tried many paths, Christianity, Buddhism, raging atheism, and trying to ignore the whole mess.  An amalgam of the teachings and lives of Jesus and the Buddha is what I have settled on.  It works for me, and much of my suffering is gone, let go.

But not all.  As a young child I experienced some abuse that seems to have gone to the very core of my being.  I have had profound, life changing spiritual experiences.  I have had over thirty years of therapy, I take medication for depression and ADD/HD.  (not to mention prostate medication). My spiritual work has done the most good, but the other stuff is important.  I couldn’t meditate or write before I got effective ADD treatment at age 59.

Still, the deep reservoir of unease and discomfort remains.  Now, I am not the greatest practitioner of Insight Meditation or prayer, although I practice them every day, sometimes for much of the day.  I still go to therapy, go to meetings a couple of days every week, see my shrink, actively meditate and study the dharma.  They help tremendously.  Drugs, alcohol, and the motorcycle did not work.

That pool of existential isolation remains.  My teachers tell me to continue the process and I will, but I have times when I despair.  Is it karma, I am destined to suffer throughout this lifetime?  Or as my teachers say, I just need to persevere.  Well, I will persevere, continue the struggle.

I usually can chug along just fine, but a few weeks ago, one of my teachers said the continued practice of letting go will do it.  It hasn’t, not that deep pool of anguish.  His saying that just triggered more agony. This stuff sure is taking a long time, and I am not sure it will ever work.  Do you have any ideas?  Maybe I need to go to the mountains.

Posted in ADD/ADHD, Buddhism, Insight Meditation, Jesus, Meditation, Stories, Stuck, Suffering, Writing

Legs

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I am a limper.  I limp more than most people.  In my younger days I was always spraining an ankle.  High school football marked the start of my knee adventures when I partially tore my anterior cruciate ligament.  I was born with chondromalacia, meaning my kneecaps are somewhat askew, leading to arthritis at a relatively young age.  I had arthroscopic surgery on my right knee in my late 40s.    

In the meantime, I hiked, hunted, backpacked, played killer volleyball in the Army, and climbed over twenty fourteeners, mountains over 14,000 feet elevation.  I always experienced some pain during all that, but I just kept on truckin’.   

Sunshine and Redcloud Peaks

It all changed when I climbed Sunshine and Redcloud Peaks in the San Juan mountains.  It started as a fine day in country mostly new to me.  A great climb, with a lot of time sharing  the alpine tundra with the resident Pika.  It started clouding up as we dropped down from Sunshine on the way to Redcloud.  On the summit of Redcloud we were in a whiteout with horizontal snow.  We got scared when I took my hat off and my hair stood on end, what there was of it.

We headed down as fast as we could, having experienced lightning above timberline before.  People die that way.  We moved straight down, sort of loping down a scree field.  By the time we reached timberline I was hobbling, both knees screaming.  That was the end of my climbing and backpacking days.  I did climb Quandary Peak some years later, but I was climbing with people twenty years older than me and it is an easy climb for a fourteener.  

As a substitute I bought a motorcycle.  I had ridden in my younger years, but got away from motorcycles.  I have always sought out activities I have no business engaging in. I was repeating a risky activity beyond my ability.    

Posterior Cruciate Ligament

My first ride into the mountains was up Golden Gate Canyon, one of the many canyons carved down the face of the Colorado Front Range.  The canyons are all winding, scenic, and steep, making for great motorcycle rides.  There are hazards.  Wildlife, crazy drivers, bad weather, and debris on the road.  I went down sliding on some sand . My right knee hit the road, my tibia and fibula stopped, but my femur continued long enough to tear my posterior cruciate.  Ow, Ow, Ow.  After things healed a bit I kept riding and crashing without too much damage.  

One day at work I was walking along and SNAP, my ACL finally gave up.  The MCL was also gone so the only things holding my leg together was skin and muscle.  I now have a titanium knee. It works fine.  My left knee is not so good.  Most of the cartilage is gone and arthritis has set in.    

I get injections in my knee from time to time, and they help.  Some.  Mostly I live with some pain, cycling from mild to hobbling.  I will get another knee replacement some day.  I fall down.  I always have have to some degree, lacking much coordination.  Now it is worse as my balance is increasingly rocky.  I fall off ladders, down stairs, and even on level ground.    

On one of my trips down the stairs I bruised my left hip.  I figured it would heal, not being broken but no luck.  It’s sore, a lot, but aspirin and BenGay are helping.  The orthopedist I have gotten to know pretty well says there is arthritis and not much cartilage there.  She looked at me and suggested a hip and knee replacement.  Well, maybe someday.  

I look at these health issues as teachers.  Stuff doesn’t work well, it gets plugged up, it doesn’t want to flow, and it hurts. It is all likely to get worse.  My job is to adapt.  Life involves change.  It involves pain.  It is endlessly rewarding.  The pain may be limiting, but it does not necessarily lead to suffering.  After all, I can still look at car crashes in Russia on You Tube and make up lies for you to read.

Posted in Aging, Change, Current Activities, Falls, Health Issues, Knee and Hip Injuries, Motorcycle Crashes, My Story, Pain, Stories

Kilauea

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Kilauea

We are living in a momentous time.  The island of Hawai’i is growing.  The entire island is volcanic.  The northern portion of the island is dormant, the south is more active.  It is called the big island, appropriate as it is still growing.  The current eruption started sending lava into the ocean on May 22 and continues as of this writing, August 3.

It seems volcanos are popular places to settle.  Worldwide, people are killed or forced to leave as the earth starts emitting hot stuff near their homes.  Kilauea has forced more than 2000 evacuations.  When Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines erupted in 1991, more than 60,000 people had to leave.  Fortunately, they had some warning which saved many lives.

It is a mystery to me why development was allowed on Kilauea where lava covered the land as recently as 1960.  Yes, people have property rights, but government has the power to zone property.  It rains a lot in Hawaii, and volcanic soil is fertile, so evidence of lava flow is quickly obscured.

I enjoy looking at the daily USGS reports and maps.  The flows go where they will, without any discernible pattern.  For a week a boat ramp becomes more vulnerable to the encroaching lava, then more lava decides to enter the ocean nearby.  It also seems strange the lava travels so far from the rift before spreading.  The channel from the rift is well established and the levees on either side are growing. The channel is rising and I expect breakouts much closer to the rift, but nothing seems to happen.  I just looked at yesterday’s map.  Lava has broken out upstream from the ocean entry.  I feel vindicated.

Asks usual, government agencies insist on limiting access to the lava flows.  Yes, I understand many people will put themselves in harm’s way and need rescue, but here in Colorado people regularly kill themselves in the mountains and access is allowed.  I would love to put on my heavy boots and look down on a lava stream.   As it is, I read online accounts of people sneaking into closed areas to look at a volcano at work.


Caldera Eruption

The crater is another phenomenon worth seeing.  Before this eruption the lava lake in the crater fluctuated in elevation due to varying supply from the magma reservoir below.  Once the fissures opened some distance from the caldera the lava lake began dropping.  The amount of lava now flowing down the channel exceeds the supply that was in the crater.  Thus, magma is flowing up from the deep.  The Hawaiian Hotspot is alive and well and the archipelago continues to grow.  Pele is not at all concerned about people scurrying around on her rocks.

Posted in Eruption, Geology, Kilauea, Stories

Stuck

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Stuck

Stuck is my current problem.  I have not been able to write a word for a couple of weeks.  That problem seems to be receding.  Writer’s block and my general lethargy stems from a deeper problem.

First, some of what I know of the Buddha’s thinking.  One of his core concepts is about what today we call the ego.  In our regular thinking we treat our egos as permanent things stemming from what we are as beings.  Not so, folks.  We have made it all up.  We draw from our genetic makeup and our interpretation of our experiences in living to form a sense of self.  This is necessary for our survival, both as individuals and a species.

In the tribe, boys learned how to hunt from the tribal hunters.  Girls learned how to have and raise children from other mothers.  Everyone’s experiences are somewhat unique, but have a lot of commonality with others around us.  If things go well, children grow up to be healthy, capable members of their group.

Often, however, things go wrong.  Trauma, disfigurement, disease, and deprivation can lead a person to develop a wounded ego.  This is true of all of us to some degree.  The wounded ego suffers.  Suffering prevents us from reaching our deepest innermost being, the condition often called emptiness.  It is pure being, free of suffering stemming from the decisions we have made about ourselves.  It is often called enlightenment.  A better word is peace.

Insight Meditation can lead to the state where we have let go of all the encumbrances of ego.  It doesn’t mean ceasing to act much like the suffering person we were once were.  It doesn’t eliminate the need to cope with the tasks of living in the world, (especially a world containing Republicans.)  it’s clarity, freedom free of suffering but not of pain, grief, infirmity, and death.

Letting Go

I have tried to reach this goal for a large part of my life.  I tried many paths, Christianity, Buddhism, raging atheism, and trying to ignore the whole mess.  An amalgam of the teachings and lives of Jesus and the Buddha is what I have settled on.  It works for me, and much of my suffering is gone, let go.

But not all.  As a young child I experienced some abuse that seems to have gone to the very core of my being.  I have had profound, life changing spiritual experiences.  I have had over thirty years of therapy, I take medication for depression and ADD/HD.  ( not to mention prostate medication). My spiritual work has done the most good, but the other stuff is important.  I couldn’t meditate or write before I got effective ADD treatment at age 59.

Still, the deep reservoir of unease and discomfort remains.  Now, I am not the greatest practitioner of Insight Meditation or prayer, although I practice them every day, sometimes for much of the day.  I still go to therapy, go to meetings a couple of days every week, see my shrink, actively meditate and study the dharma.  They help tremendously.  Drugs, alcohol, and the motorcycle did not work.

That pool of existential isolation remains.  My teachers tell me to continue the process and I will, but I have times when I despair.  Is it karma, I am destined to suffer throughout this lifetime?  Or as my teachers say, I just need to persevere.  Well, I will persevere, continue the struggle.

I usually can chug along just fine, but a few weeks ago, one of my teachers said the continued practice of letting go will do it.  It hasn’t, not that deep pool of anguish.  His saying that just triggered more agony. This stuff sure is taking a long time, and I am not sure it will ever work.  Do you have any ideas?  Maybe I need to go to the mountains.

Posted in Addiction, Depression, Family History, Insight Meditation, Letting Go, Stories

The Sell By Date

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Lately I have been exploring a new question.  Do we come with a sell by date?  We all have a date coming up and usually have no idea when.  Teenagers say “Never!”, and we old people are looking ahead with some anxiety.  Is our sell by date preordained or is it random, like much of life.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dukkha

As I age, am I living past that date?  Am I like that jug of milk past it’s date but not quite going off?  Well, a little off.  I slipped on the stairs yesterday and bounced down a few steps.  Earlier, I tripped on some sod I dug up and whacked my elbow.  Are these portents or am I already sour?  Some would say I have been sour for some time.

The death date looms for us all.  Most of the time we ignore the end, but events come up to remind us of the inevitability of death.  Often it is the death of a loved one.  So many go before us.  The earth is a graveyard.  All things emerge, exist, and go away.  Look supernovas up.  Our planet will participate in one some day.  We Americans are lucky, we probably won’t drown in the Mediterranean trying to escape being killed in our own country.  No chlorine gas attacks in Denver.  Bad things do happen, but most of us will live to, or maybe even past, that sell by date.  But, the end is coming for everyone.

Well, so what?  It happens, so why not have as much fun as possible until then?  I just wrote a couple of pieces on life.  Meaningless or purposeful?  For me, the purpose is the end of suffering, or dukka in the ancient language.  If suffering is the only end, why not go before that sell by date?  So, end suffering.  If I am going to get anywhere with ending suffering for all living beings I have to start with myself.

Suffering

I have a sore elbow and hip from my falls yesterday.  I feel pain.  From the pain, I have a choice.  I can just feel the pain, be in touch with it, and get on with things or dwell on the pain, lament having pain, regret the falls, blame the world for my suffering, and be miserable.  An alternative to the suffering is to sit in the coffee shop and try to communicate about how I often avoid suffering even when living with pain.

Here I am in this body with a big brain and limbs that mostly work pretty well.  The body is fragile, and all kinds of hurts happen, including our mental processes.  Pain is inevitable, followed by dying.  Suffering is a decision.  My skin and bones are a little damaged, but life goes on.  If I can avoid suffering because stuff hurts, maybe I can help others do the same thing.  Less suffering, a better world.

I remember a couple running a shop. They often refused to talk to customers or each other or replied with anger and sarcasm.  Their voices were always hostile with one another and the attitude spilled over to the customers.  The atmosphere in the place was toxic.  Not surprisingly, the shop is long gone, despite occupying an important niche. The other side is happiness.  The person I was working with yesterday always seems to be upbeat and happy.  She even laughs at my jokes, which seem to make others suffer.  She makes the world a better place.

There it is: the goal is to make it better.  End suffering, practice loving kindness, work on equanimity.  Find the good.  Life is too short and precious to spend it wrapped in discontent and negativity.  find love and peace, not hate and discord.

The sell by date is coming.  We may go a bit past the date, but then we die.

Posted in Buddha, Stories, Suffering

Ego

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Seeker

As I have mentioned before, I am a seeker.  I have always wondered about the hard stuff.  Is there really a god?  Does that teacher really know what he is talking about?  How many subatomic particles are there?  Why is the human brain so complex?  Why is the universe expanding in defiance of gravity?  Why do Republicans exist?  What is the difference between eukaryotic and prokaryotes and how can prokaryotes have flagella?

Vegetarian animals have their eyes more to the side of their heads in order to see predators, who have their eyes in front to see prey.  Therefore, should humans always be carnivorous?  What about biblical prophesy?  Are these the last days?  Is existential despair the true human condition?  Is there enough time left to reverse global warming?

Do you see what I mean?  I have lots of questions and not many answers.  In my college days an art major and I were scrubbing wax off the baseboards in the student center during semester break.  I asked him about the meaning of life as artists always have a different vision about the nature of things.  His reply?  “ Everything is what it is.”  We’ll, yes, but not very satisfying.   Artists look and render what they see.  I look and wonder why?

The Meaning of Life

This defect of my character has led me to seek out those people and traditions who purport to know the answers.  I was raised a nominal Methodist.  I found only felt figures on a felt board.  I did like the doxology, but hated the jello salads in the basement.

I had a profound period of existential despair after my mother’s death my junior year of high school.  Camus, the Blues, and Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony.   Being afraid of girls was no help at all.

The winter of my senior year I was the wrestling team manager.  I wasn’t much of an athlete (another reason for existential despair) so the wrestling team was great fun.  I was able to help and even make a difference.  The scourge of wrestlers is boils.  Sliding on those mats means abrasion, and bacteria find their way into the skin.  Evil, those boils.  As  team manager,  I insured there were no  boils because I kept the mats disinfected.  No pus and blood on my watch.

There it is, the answer to despair.  Stay engaged.  I prevented boils, Camus enjoyed success with the ladies.  There is almost always a way.  Still, I sought.  On a wrestling trip to Salt Lake I bumped up against the Mormons.  I read, studied, listened, even dated a Mormon girl.  One night during an attack of angst I realized I didn’t believe in that stuff.

I then embarked on a career as an agnostic, annoying all the believers I knew by challenging their beliefs.  I continued my search with little success for quite a few years.  I think I substituted addictions for having any meaning.  If you are getting off, the need to keep it up takes over, even while knowing addiction is fruitless.  I had read Kerouac.

Saved

Then, during a dark night of the soul after a divorce, I was living in a basement apartment in Lasalle Colorado with my black dog.  I was working in the Greeley sewage disposal plant and the Maintenance Foreman was a deacon in an Assemblies Of God Church.  I went to his bible study, prayed, and got saved.  I asked Jesus in and felt this overwhelming feeling of being wrapped in love.  I got involved, had many experiences of the Holy Spirit, the addictions went away for a year, and I thought I had found the Meaning.

But, life interfered, as well as knowing all that Fundamentalist stuff made no sense.  I couldn’t stay with the holy rollers and ended up an Episcopalian.  For me, my higher power manifests as Jesus.  I couldn’t, however stay with the organized church.  Churches are instruments of power and control, contrary to what Jesus taught.  I did learn how to pray, and prayer is what grounds me.  No answers to the Big Question, however.

In fact, I think I have given up on finding the Meaning.  It’s a mystery.  These days I practice Insight Meditation with all its Buddhist trappings.  The good thing about Buddhism is that it does not purport to answer those questions.  I fact, the Buddha mostly ignored all that stuff, saying the sole goal is to end suffering.  With our big brains, we look for reasons.  We think up explanations or buy into someone else’s explanation and create a world.  Almost always the core of that world is desire.  We want stuff, pleasure, a sense of belonging.

No way, dude.  It is all illusion.  Let it go and find emptiness.  That emptiness harbors the true meaning, a sense of being one with the Universe.  Well, I think so, anyway.  I haven’t even come close.  Maybe I need a Bodhi tree to meditate under.

My meditating has borne fruit.  I am finding equanimity.  I am less frustrated.  I am less angry.  I don’t feel as much despair.  I have periods of true happiness.  My addictions are losing their grip, especially if I do my part in my daily practice.  Can’t tell you about the meaning of the cosmos, but my cosmos is more peaceful.

 

 

 

Posted in Buddhism, Existential Despair, Insight Meditation, Jesus, Meaning, Meditation, My Story, Stories
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