A Tale for the Time Being, by Ruth Ozeki

Just before Christmas, I finished A Tale for the Time Being, by Ruth Ozeki (a Zen Buddhist priest, writer and filmmaker). The POV characters in the novel are Ruth (is the novel semi-autobiographical?) — a Japanese-American author who lives with her husband in retirement on a remote island off the coast of British Columbia — and Nao Yasutani, a sixteen year old girl who spent her young formative years in California; but, for economic reasons, her family moved back to Japan.

Ruth finds a waterproofed package on a beach, and the package contains Nao’s diary and other artifacts that pertain to Nao’s tale. The novel unfolds with alternate sections; Ruth’s portions are presented in a third-person narrative, while Nao’s sections are her journal as translated by Ruth, presented in a first-person narrative. Nao’s name is pronounced Now, and time is a crucial theme (Proust’s In Search of Lost Time is mentioned several times).

Death is a significant theme, as is suicide, war, bullying (in all its forms: intimidation, harassment, oppression, torment, ganging-up, etcetera), diversity, Alzheimer’s, anthropology, philosophy, origami, Buddhism, the relationship between author and reader, and several others…

The time being (from the Japanese, uji, translated from The Time-Being, by Eihei Dogen) refers to an eternally present moment, and also indicates a being that lives within time; hence, the time being must someday perish. I don’t want to say anything more about the book, but it was a wonderful voyage.

I was trapped, as a time being, for several weeks between its pages. But that was in the past…

“The past is weird. I mean, does it really exist? It feels like it exists, but where is it? And if it did exist but doesn’t now, then where did it go?” [A Tale for the Time Being, p. 95]

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Love Is All Around

Perhaps it was because this is the first day of a long weekend (Canadian Thanksgiving), perhaps it was due to the lovely autumn day with multi-coloured plumage bathing in luminous sunlight, or perhaps it was  Cannonball Adderley’s Autumn Leaves (Miles’ solo, just under a minute in, is when the magic begins). Whatever the preamblulatory reasons were, when  the quote below popped into my email (courtesy of Tricycle Daily Dharma), and I read it, I was inspired to adopt a wondrous mood.

“As adults, we need to become newly aware of the love that has infused our lives all along, to turn our attention to it afresh with the eyes of a child. To do so is to become conscious of the tremendous capacity for love that even now permeates our being — to open to it, to be healed by its life-giving energy, and to participate in its power to renew our world. We can awaken to the deepest goodness in ourselves and others. We can learn to recognize and commune with the blessings that have always been pouring forth.”

from  John Makransky’s article, Love Is All Around

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Of Syria, the Dali Lama, a dream, and Justifiable Anger

I often wonder why humanity has a propensity for steering sociopaths into positions of power.

I had a dream the other night; most of the specifics have faded into obscurity, but I think it was about a theoretically harmonic society. My one clear recollection was that only good people, who didn’t want to lead, were put in charge. It would be a great stress to these people, so their term would be short. Each past leader would serve as the next leader’s adviser, ensuring a smooth transition and experience at the helm. But it was just a dream, and the rest of my delusion-inspired, conceptualized society has been lost, swallowed by the cosmic ether. I think the Syria situation, and the international drama that swirls about it, was the germ of my dream.

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The Syria situation is frightening, and I think humanity, as a global society, must develop new solutions to deal with problems. The knee-jerk, violent reaction is an age-old trap; anger is natural, but violence begets more violence, ad nauseam…

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“Anger that is motivated by compassion or a desire to correct social injustice, and does not seek to harm the other person, is a good anger that is worth having.”
The Dalai Lama, from The (Justifiably) Angry Marxist

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Beyond the self

“Buddhism asks us to go beyond the self, not to perfect the self.”

Dharmavidya David Brazier, from Living Buddhism

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Buddhism and the individual

This morning a colleague stated that Buddhism is a negative religion because the Buddha did not accept, or believe in, the individual.

I’ve learned about Buddhism in a haphazard way, and am probably certainly not an expert; nonetheless, that never stops me from pretending I am…

My lay-person’s answer to my colleague was that the Buddha was familiar with the concept of the individual, but he determined that the individual is not an invariable, immortal presence: each of us is an ever-changing process that interacts with an impermanent universe. Every moment brings change; we grow, we adapt; we are fluid beings, not static entities. This is an important aspect of the First Noble Truth: we suffer because we grasp onto a moment, but there is no going back: we should enjoy each new, precious moment as it manifests, alters us, and evaporates into the past.

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Another New Year

For me, the Christmas and New Year season always brings waves of reflective nostalgia and renewed faith in the future; unfortunately, there is a period, just after the New Year, that brings me feelings of emptiness: I seem to have missed something intangible.

When I was younger, I suffered the January and February blahs, but now I realize that these feelings are nothing but grasping; an attempt to embrace something that was never there. Life is constantly transforming, and I only need to open to the way things really are. If I miss something, it is because I wasn’t living in the moment.

The New Year still brings the same sensations to me, but now it is a positive reminder, not a curse.

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Enlightened Society

Photo of Ani Pema Chödrön by Robin Holland

“Enlightened Society is not an idealized environment.

“It is an environment that actually accepts the imperfections of humanity and encourages you to open your heart and mind and work with other people and situations as they are.

Enlightened society is one in which, as you make friends with yourself, your communication with other people gets clearer, more direct, more honest.”

Pema Chödrön, No Place to Hide

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a challenging week

Wallowing in neutral, spiraling downward…

My work-week has been filled with bizarre electronic problems that — according to every Technical Support person available — are impossible (unfortunately, they are possible, they occurred, they are making it impossible for the Company to manufacture its widgets, and it’s my responsibility to make things work: I can’t really complain; I accepted the job, and knew there would be times like this, but sometimes the waves sneak over the bow and smack me in the face). The school year started this week and traffic is harrowing and frustrating (and I’m in the middle of an experimental novel that has infected my consciousness and something within my mind tells me that my work-week and the novel are connected; but, surely, that is paranoia).

It’s useless to become negative and irritable, yet I still make the attempt…

I searched for positive inspiration and found just what I need, Tricycle Daily Dharma:

Remember ‘Divide and Conquer’ — if you can divide a negative reaction into its parts (mental image, mental talk, and emotional body sensation), you can conquer the sense of being overwhelmed. In other words, eliminate the negative parts by loving them to death.

Shinzen Young, from The Power of  Gone

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Slowly, surely, the week morphed into a manageable string of events, and the weekend is stretching its welcoming arms toward me…

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Ryokan

Zen Master Taigu Ryokan (1751 – 1831) was known for his equanimity and compassion, his aura, and for his smile. Ryokan was — and still is — a literary treasure, but he refused to publish his works while he lived.

He was a Zazen practitioner, loved to walk in the forest, and supported himself as a mendicant.

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He penned his famous Haiku in response to the theft of his meager possessions:

The thief left it behind:

the moon

at my window

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The Eightfold Path: Right Concentration

The Noble Eightfold Path, Part Eight (an introduction, as I understand it…)

Wisdom

1. Right View

2. Right Intention

Ethical Conduct

3. Right Speech

4. Right Action

5. Right Livelihood

Mental Development

6. Right Effort

7. Right Mindfulness

8. Right Concentration

The final principle on the  eightfold path, right concentration, is concerned with developing a focused state of mind. Concentration is developed through meditation; and, through practice, this concentration can be maintained in everyday life.  The intent of right concentration is to focus on wholesome thoughts and actions; to intensify concentration in a willful effort to raise the mind to a higher and more purified state of awareness (an assassin’s focus on a victim can be the epitome of human concentration, but is not the intent of right concentration).

The Buddha likened the untrained mind to a fish flopping on dry land; the mind tends to be distracted, straying from thought to thought, prone to distractions, perceiving a distorted, fragmented reality. In contrast, the mind trained in meditative concentration engenders a peaceful, serene mind that is able to observe an unfiltered reality.

Concentration is attained in stages, but begins with focus — meditation —  on an object; if (when) the mind strays, the meditator notices, and gently, calmly, brings attention back to the object (the breath as it passes the inside edges of the nostrils is one common ‘object’ for meditation).

Meditation is essential, and it is useful even if Buddhism doesn’t interest you (meditation is certainly not a unique, Buddhist invention).

It is best to begin on the right path: if you plan on embarking on a meditation practice, I recommend seeking an instructor; however, there are innumerable books on the subject; and, if  you search carefully and selectively, there are good resources on the web (I would suggest you also search for abdominal breathing techniques, or diaphragmatic breathing techniques).

I wish you success on your journey.

May you be filled with loving kindness

May you be well

May you be peaceful and at ease

May you be happy