Finger Rock, Arizona

I was one troubled teenager for a time. I’d go off to the mountains for some peace and solitude. I wasn’t all that concerned with my safety either, life didn’t seem to offer much advantage over death. For instance, one year I climbed Finger Rock (photo right) without ropes. Going up was easy; going down was terrifying. Yikes! Was this a latent suicidal death wish? I guess not, primarily because I am not all that emotional by nature. Although, neither am I drawn to rock climbing or thrill seeking in general, so who knows. As a kid I heard stories about a guy falling off Finger Rock and breaking so many bones that his body turned to the consistency of Jello. Recalling that probably got me to turn around before reaching the top (and so saved my life, no doubt).

Singing Wayfaring Stranger the other night reminded me of those difficult teenage years and of Finger Rock(1). As with many Christian Gospel songs, Wayfaring Stranger promises a Heavenly after life, e.g., “I’ll soon be free from every trial…” and “I’m going there to meet my mother, she said she’d meet me when I come…”. This promise of a Heavenly afterlife is one of the sharpest difference between Judeo-Christian-Islamic religions and Easter ones. Sure, the Easter ones promise something as well. However, with Karma you are merely promised an ‘upgrade’ (or downgrade), and while Nirvana sounds more Heavenly, the path to it can be a winding road of countless lifetimes.

The Eastern paradigm agrees more with the phenomenon of non-locality (a form of entanglement observed in quantum physics); although granted, you really need to read between the lines at times. The evidence of entanglement suggests that at the most subtle and fundamental level, everything (and nothing) are inextricably connected. Oneness is real despite what our biological senses tend to tell us. This suggest that the biologically induced sense of a separate self (ego in humans) underlies the illusion of life and death.

Considering all this, I can’t see how suicide or a promised Heavenly afterlife accomplishes its goal. There is no escape; destiny is eternity. Of course, you can’t tell emotion that. Those needs and fears drive us to do what we do regardless of non-local reality (i.e., emotions determines our ‘local’ reality).

I sometimes feel down and out to this day. Nothing specific, just a general weariness with life. I am now certain that ‘pure’ consciousness(2) is continuous, perhaps which accounts for some of my weary feelings (I sometimes feel like I have been / will be alive forever). Knowing that consciousness is eternal also makes any hope of ending that weariness through suicide futile. This also makes any hope of gaining or losing the advantage, what ever it might be, futile.

So, what to do, what to do? The idea to ‘be as careful at the end as at the beginning, and there will be no ruined enterprises‘ is pretty good place to begin dealing with the ‘enterprise’ of living. I’ve found the joy in living lies in giving my utmost care to the enterprise of living. Giving, however, is not as easy as it sounds(3). The survival instinct drives us to take as much as we can get (gain – win – succeed). We fear loss. Indeed, our fear of death is really about the fear of losing the pleasures to which we cling. We are locked in a life and death tug-of-war: our need to let go and give in order to enjoy life verses our fear of losing what we cherish, or not getting what we desire. No wonder the sage desires not to desire and does not value goods which are hard to come by…

(1) An old friend from my teenage years read this post and remembers more which I’ll now add below. I don’t think back on my past very often so I’ve forgotten much of it. (Although I don’t really know; I can’t recall how much I forgot.)

I just read some of your Tao blog, I was with you when you climbed finger rock, I waited at the bottom of the rock, you did not pressure me to follow, thanks for that. I did not see you as a troubled teen at all, you were very happy and excited about life and had many interests. You were a risk taker but were confident in your actions, like walking on your hands at the edge of a cliff in Sabino Canyon near the top of Thimble Rock.

I think you were so good at walking on your hands plus had no fear, (like a French tight rope walker) fear kills. Our many trips in caves I had no fear also because I couldn’t see how far I would fall, your lack of fear made me think everything we did was reasonably safe.

I know you were cautious when you needed to be, I remember many cases of testing before acting.

(2) ‘Pure’ consciousness is the foundation upon which living things ‘see’ a personal identity and ego. The foundation continues; the illusions of personal identity and ego cease when biological function ceases.

(3) Giving is not as simple as it sounds either. For example, chapter 81 says, ‘The sage does not hoard. Having bestowed all he has on others, he has yet more; having given all he has to others, he is richer still.‘ It is important to note that the ‘bestowed all he has’ and ‘given all he has’ is not literally giving things to others. Such overt gross giving is out of sync with the natural balance of give and take, and thus unintended consequences inevitably follow. As they say, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”. The giving referred to here is a state of mind and emotion, an approach to living and not the handing out of $100 bills.

Background
Memories become dimmer as the years fly by. Many are even too misty to write down without filling in the voids with poetic license (fiction). Still, I’ve set out to fetch what memories remain before they fade any further. See: The Further One Goes for background on this ‘Times of Yore’ series.

Wheel tracks on Mars

In discussing human affairs, an old friend said, “We as a species are so very complex and vulnerable to be lead by whoever we listen to”. I countered with, “We are a profoundly social species which accounts for how easily we can be lead. Human behavior reflects instinctive emotion… blah, blah, blah”. He countered that with, “I have seen many comparisons of primates to us. But, we, as modern man have put two little machines that send us pictures from Mars. That is a pretty big gap from primates”.

I have heard about this “pretty big gap” between our species and others animals all my life. It is an ancient story. Note, however, that the species judging that “gap” is hardly an impartial judge. If gorillas could cogitate like us, I’ve no doubt they would talk about the “pretty big gap” between them and us too, and judge themselves as superior. This goes to show the innate specie-centric view with which each specie evolves, and how each would naturally choose the criteria upon which to base their judgment. As we evolved as a very ‘hand and mind’ species, that is the criteria we naturally choose to base our comparisons upon. It isn’t surprising that the comparisons we make are unconsciously (instinctively) narrow and biased in our favor. The only true “gap” I see is that we can canonize the judgments we make.

Perhaps Jesus was alluding to this issue when he said “Judge not, that ye be not judged“. I reckon that is only possible when one can say “yes” to the following question… When your discernment penetrates the four quarters are you capable of not knowing anything? How does one know one’s discernment has penetrated the four quarters? Maybe when, in looking around, all you see is mysterious sameness.

Towards narrowing the gap

Homo erectus, 500,000 B.C.

How does the “pretty big gap” and the accomplishments of “modern man” appear when we step back and view our species over the last 200,000 years? But, why stop there? After all, several hundred thousand years earlier, our ancestral relative Homo erectus figured out how to harness fire.

The discovery of harnessing fire revolutionized the way an animal (Homo erectus and later us) lived. The next half million years saw incremental progress made by the Homo species (H. erectus, H. neanderthal, and H. sapiens). Finally, a mere 10,000 years ago the agricultural revolution occurred which built upon the foundation laid by that early discovery of fire use.

The agricultural revolution set the stage for mega population / organization (civilization) of what in the wild were always scattered hunger gatherer groups. Civilization accelerated the rate of change (‘progress’) until the stage was set for next monumental discovery: harnessing electricity!

Harnessing electricity, a fire in its own right, was as significant a change to the way an animal (us now) lives, as was the discovery of fire half a million years earlier. Without the harnessing of electricity, there would be no cars (ignition system), airplanes, T.V., radio, computers, refrigeration, or scientific breakthroughs in medicine, space, physic, chemistry, ecology, etc. (i.e no electron microscopes, Hubble telescopes, and all the measurement technologies in between that make all things modern possible).

My word, as I write this I feel like I’m widening the gap, not narrowing it. However, stepping back again, I see all that has happened hinged on a few pivotal changes. This is not unlike the process occurring throughout nature, as Darwin observed. The key pivotal changes in our case have been the harnessing of fire and electricity. Everything else is just an unintended consequence of those events.

Yet, even those pivotal events are only the consequence of having evolved as a very ‘hand and mind’ species. As I said above, the only true “gap” I see is that we can canonize the judgments we make. In the end, this ‘canonization’ is what enables our discoveries to be accretive. It enables ‘progress’ in our control of nature and ‘regress’ in our balance with nature.

Although, I suppose in the largest view, natural balance remains, with our ‘progress’ counterbalanced by our ‘regress’. Civilization’s accelerated rate of change progress-wise is counterbalanced by civilization’s accelerated rate of change regress-wise. One step forward, one step back, and so natural balance is maintained. Alas, heaven and earth are ruthless, aren’t they?

What is more, no attempt to reason calmly and clearly ever counteracts such emotion blindness.
Emotional fervor, like a wildfire, just has to burn itself out. Now this can be very discouraging to anyone who harbors expectations of humanity acting differently (i.e., better than other animals). Trying to shoehorn the real world into ones’ idealized world (how it ‘should be’ ) is not only futile, it add fuel to the fire.

Harboring expectations in itself is an emotion driven bias. So surely, true impartiality is a super-human impossibility. In fact, I suppose not even God (in the Christian sense anyway) is capable of impartiality. ‘He’ is on the side of the Good, right? It is a no win situation; it is no wonder that Mother Theresa had such a hard time. On the bright side, I have found that looking for mysterious sameness is the next best thing, and it is doable. All you need to do is see yourself as no different that any other animal on the planet. Ah, but that can be such a blow to the ego! I suppose that is why we often prefer the path of self righteousness. It feels easier, but just as eating lots of cake feels easier, the long-run consequences are otherwise.

Prehistoric people made musical instruments out of bone and ivory soon after reaching Europe

A Science News article, Stone Age flutes found in Germany, reports that people living in Europe more than 35,000 years ago made this flute (shown from three different angles) out of a vulture bone. The magnified portion of the flute at the right provides a closer look at two of the flute’s finger holes.

As far as I can make out, it appears to be a simple end blown flute like the shakuhachi. The blowing technique is similar to blowing across the top of a bottle to produce a pleasant resonant tone. By placing holes in it, you can play a melody (or something melody-like in the case of Buddhist Hon Kyoku).

It feels intriguing being connected to a musical tradition (the end blow flute) that predates civilization as we know it by tens of thousands of years. Keeping that image in mind, while I play it, helps me put ‘tao’ into the blowing Zen. I mean, talk about the thread running through the way!

Where is the jungle?

Where’s the jungle?” I thought. Malaya’s beautiful paved roads weren’t what I had expected at all. Still, I had just left Singapore.

While working in Australia in the early 60′s I met folks who intrigued me with their stories of traveling over land through India and Southeast Asia. Instead of returning to US as planned, I decided to set out overland to Europe through Asia. Hitchhiking was a must, in view of my budget, though it felt weird considering I’d never hitchhiked before.

As a ‘be prepared’ type of person, I read a book on tropical diseases. Though gruesome, it didn’t deter me. Instead, I packed a few boxes full of meds for every emergency I’d read about. After all, I was headed for the jungles of Southeast Asia, full of snakes, tigers, bugs and bacteria of every sort.

I sold my motorcycle and bought a ticket on a ship to Singapore. Friends from Perth drove me down to the port at Fremantle and gave me a mighty fine drunken send-off. They boarded the ship with me, and together we celebrated ‘bon voyage’ until the ‘all visitors get off the ship‘ whistle blew. Among those seeing me off was my girlfriend, Costello. Now what are the odds of an Abbott (me) meeting a girl named Costello? I don’t suppose our relationship hinged on much else for I can’t even recall her first name. Sorry, Ms. Costello.

Bye bye Australia, hello Asia

Reaching Singapore was a heavenly relief. I was bored out of my youthful impatient mind even though it was a typical pleasure cruise ship. Why? Perhaps ensuring the greatest pleasure for most folks means reducing the chances of true adventure for the few.

Arriving in Singapore, I got a room at a cheap hotel and went out that night to see the town with folks I’d met on the ship. It was great… until I wanted to sleep. I had no idea where the hotel was, and I don’t recall how I found it, but eventually I did. I decided then that this was to be the last time I’d be so lax about knowing where I was. I soon found out that a lot of folks don’t know exactly where they are. So, whenever I needed directions, I’d always ask enough people to land on a majority opinion, which I’d then follow.

At one point, hitchhiking my way up the western coast of Malaya, a Chinese man in a big Mercedes stopped. He told me how Chinese folks often ‘follow’ multiple religions: Buddhism, Confucius, Taoism, Christianity, etc. He said he was a Buddhist, Christian, and I forget what else. I believe he said it was just a good ‘business’ strategy. I thought how different his way was from the ‘norm’ in the West; I liked it.

Sikh temple kitchen - all the dal you can eat!

Oh, and those boxes of tropical disease meds? I threw them out in Bangkok along with 90% of the stuff I was lugging around (see photo). I also cut off my Levis, the pant style I’d worn all my life, to shorts. Levis are lousy in humid tropical weather.

I cut the legs off while staying at a Sikh temple in Kota Bharu on the east coast of Malaya. One of the tenets of Sikhism is ‘share what you have’. This meant that a traveler would be welcome to stay at any Sikh temple and receive as many bowls of dal with chapati as their stomach could hold. (Alas, ‘greedy’ Western travelers, taking advantage of Sikh generosity and generally acting boorish, ruined it for everyone.) My frayed Levis distressed the headman of the temple to no end. He offered to hem these for me, being the gentle generous soul that he was. As I recall, he even sort of pleaded with me to let him. Of course, I tend to be one of those people when being ‘nagged’ resist all the more, so I doubt I agreed. Besides, I kind of liked the frayed look I think.

Finally a Jungle

Oh, and that jungle I was expecting to find? I found it while taking the train back from Kota Bharu. To be sure, a train ride through the tropical jungle is the perfect way to have one’s cake and eat it too. You can get really up close to the jungle, but you can remain safe and comfortable in your window side seat.

I remember looking down at a river flowing through that jungle scene and thinking what fun it would be float down in a rubber raft. Now all I needed to do was find another soul with a similar idea of fun. That was not to be. But later on, up in the jungles of Laos… ah, but that’s a tale I’ll tell another day.

Background
Memories become dimmer as the years fly by. Many are even too misty to write down without filling in the voids with poetic license (fiction). Still, I’ve set out to fetch what memories remaining before they fade any further. See: The Further One Goes for background on this ‘Times of Yore’ series.

Earlier, I had shared a house in Saigon with some journalists. They told me that, if I got a ‘press pass’ from the USIA (United States Information Agency), I could hop on any in-country flights. Mind you, I didn’t have to be a journalist, all I had to do was say I was a journalist. I thought to myself, “Now that’s the way to hitchhike!”

On the other hand, hitchhiking (on the ground) is by far the best way to experience travel – with as much hiking as possible. So, as I recall, I hitchhiked up to the northern border of Vietnam and then flew back via various military transport planes operating in the country. (Or maybe I did a mix of both, up and back. Memory fades.)

At that time, the Viet Cong would put up surprise roadblocks for a few hours here and there and check IDs and such, just to assert their authority. As a precaution, before leaving Saigon, I wrote an “I am a student of the world”-type letter and had it translated into Vietnamese. The idea was that, in the likely event that I got captured by the Viet Cong, they would see I was no threat. There were a few close calls, but fortunately, my rides never encountered a roadblock. Although, one afternoon found me walking down the road with sounds of gunfire nearby. That should have worried me, but heck, a young man in his early 20′s is invincible… right?

About halfway up country a typhoon hit, making for one long ‘dark and stormy night’. My most vivid memory is of the devastation I saw the next morning. Although, being out in the countryside, the damage was limited mostly to vegetation.

Normally, when hitchhiking, I would walk for a few hours before attempting to catch a ride. It’s a good way to get to know mother earth wherever your feet happen to be. The day after the typhoon hit, however, a jeep pulled up soon after I started walking, and some U.S. ‘advisors’ (there were a few thousand of them in Vietnam before Tonkin) “requested” that I accompany them. They took me back to the base and grilled me for half a day. What was I doing there? Why was I walking down the road? What did I really want? Was I a communist? They had a hell of a time believing my “student of the world” story. It just didn’t mesh with their ‘paradigm’. I suppose if they had water-boarded me I would have told them a story they could believe in.

Anyway, they finally released me, and off I went down the road. As nothing enticed me to stay longer in Vietnam, I soon returned to Thailand to settle down and get a job to rest awhile (i.e., work is a vacation from extended hitchhiking type of travel). Little did I know that I’d be back in Vietnam a few years later, working as a surveyor, getting shot at, and translating Vietnamese for the ‘boss man’ (RMK-BRJ) contracted to build infrastructure in Vietnam.

Background

Memories become dimmer as the years fly by. Many are even too misty to write down without filling in the voids with poetic license (fiction). Still, I’ve set out to fetch what memories remain before they fade any further. See: The Further One Goes for background on this ‘Times of Yore’ series.

Treading Water

On the surface, people tend to think the benefit of yoga is increased flexibility and balance. As I see it, this is just icing on the cake. Yoga more that anything else I do helps me get to know myself. This, in turn, helps me ‘to my own self be true’ (“To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man” – William Shakespeare).

Although, it is not actually the doing of yoga that helps me know myself. I only find this when I seek this (“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you” – Jesus). In other words, action is action and nothing more. The value we find lies in how we approach action – any action.

An enduring by-path for me is having action stand in for approach. Such action for action’s sake is just treading water… “at least I’m doing something”. Nope! It is best to cease treading water and just sink. Nothing beats knowing when to stop! Although, to be fair and balanced, if you would stop a thing, you must first start it (to paraphrase chapter 36). Treading down a by-path is a prerequisite for finding your way. Often, ceasing to tread water and just letting yourself sink marks the transition from one to the other.

Which moment?

There is really no ‘moment’ per se. I create a sense of moment by trying to get or achieve something; my desires creates the illusion of moment. When I’m able to switch from ‘getting’ and ‘trying’ to ‘giving’ and ‘surrender’, the moment fades and merges with a continuum, space-time-like. The past, the present, the future all begin to blend into one another. Mysterious sameness is a nice way to describe it. I reckon this is what death ‘feels’ like, and so when the time comes, how sweet that will be. Naturally though, ‘I’ won’t be here to experience it, and yet…

So far so good. Now, consider the filtering effects of language on perception. Words and names allow our brain to filter out extraneous sensory data to a fault! These preconceptions (along with emotion) ensue vast pre clear-cut landscapes of consciousness. Oh my, too much of a good thing, eh?

On the up side, we get something in return – treasures and places to put them in! Treasures? Sure,…music, tables, poetry, vehicles, stories, clothes, plays, jewelry, music, beer,… the list is endless. Of course, we need this ‘furniture’ to fill our mind’s clear-cut barren landscape. But, that’s okay. We can’t miss what we don’t know… almost. And even when we begin to feel we are missing out, it can be difficult letting awareness turn back until discernment penetrates the four quarters. Words and names comforts us with a promise of sensory security, which explains why we cling to them so. Alas, everything has a cost. No free rides in Nature.

Human onlookers get irritated by baby human tantrums, though rarely react so overtly. But, I expect many feel they would like to. Generally, irritated humans just groan and complain, at least to themselves. Don’t you just love how science is slowly and inextricably chipping away at the pedestal our species has for so long proudly stood (e.g., ‘we are made in God’s image’ and the like).

It is striking how faithfully we believe the reality of the words we use to think our beliefs. We trust word meaning ‘religiously’, unquestioningly, blindly. Words and names are like pillars of preconception from which we build and maintain the temples of our beliefs. (Even writing these observations now requires an underlying belief in the meanings of the words I’m using to express these observations. I must at least temporarily believe in word meaning in order to think about thinking.)

Debating the merits or qualities of a particular belief is like debating the merits or qualities of any product. Unless you test the merits and qualities of the materials used to build the product, you can never really resolve things. Take, for example, bridges and the concrete used to make them. You must inspect the integrity of concrete itself to truly know the integrity of the bridge. Otherwise it remains simply an aesthetic issue: What about the bridge feels ‘good’? Do you ‘like’ the bridge? Is the bridge ‘beautiful’? Do you ‘believe’ in the bridge? Like concrete for bridges, words are the material we use to build the beliefs we think, so let’s poke around there and see what turns up.

Origins of word meaning

Word meaning is the foundation upon which we learn, preserve, and pass on our culture’s world view (religious or otherwise), yet we seldom inspect the integrity of this foundation. Why do we so readily accept word meaning on faith? Perhaps because we’ve been ‘learning’ (conditioned) from birth. We never get another way[1] to experience awareness. Word meaning becomes a self reinforcing ‘virtual reality’. Believing in the words with which we think leads to believing what we think, and visa verse.

It is fairly clear that emotion plays a huge role in word meaning. A baby, before it learns the ‘correct word’ to express emotion, expresses emotion in babbling and crying. As a baby learns word meaning, it uses words to begin expressing its feelings. As we mature into adults word meaning becomes second nature; it is a closed loop where feelings lead to words which re-enforce feelings. The blind faith we have in word meaning lies in its connection to our primal sensory and emotional experience – feeling.

Consider the basic emotions common to all animals, especially those with more developed nervous systems. Word meaning emerges from such primary emotion. The illustration below depicts this.

At the core, the thread that ties all living things together is the sense of attraction and repulsion. The push pull dynamics of this play out at all scales, from amoeba to the people. Both non-thinking animals and humans are generally drawn to what gives pleasure, and repelled by what is painful. Need for something pulls us toward; fear of something pushes us away. That is the mechanism that makes survival possible for all living things; in nature, feeling need and pleasure indicate a survival advantage; feeling fear and pain indicate danger.

Speaking of feeling

Many animals express attraction and repulsion with vocalizations. Humans are the only animals we know (so far) that have honed such vocalizations into extensive cognitive vocabularies (names and words). For example, if something stimulates a sense of pleasure, I’ll be attracted to it. Up to this point, the duck and I are no different. When I think or say, “I love that, it is good, it’s beautiful, it’s right, I want more of that,…”, etc., I’ve converted the raw sensations of attraction into words symbolic of that experience. The same applies to repulsion; feelings of repulsion and fear become linked to words: “I hate that, it’s bad, it’s ugly, it’s wrong, I want to avoid that…” etc.

Naturally, life seldom feels like a simple choice between what we are attracted towards and repelled by. Often we are torn between the two, or different parts of the two. For example, “I love the sun, I hate to get sunburned; I love meat, I hate the way they treat animals; I love cake, I hate being overweight;…” etc. And so we spend most of our waking moments in a kind of tug-or-war between varying degrees of cognitive stress. Imagination pulls and pushes us. We long for a future; regret a past; long for a past; fear a future; want to have our cake and eat it too. The power of thought comes with unintended consequences. As it has been said, ” To know yet to think that one does not know is best; Not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty.” ‘Thinking that one knows’ leads to the difficulty caused by inferring too much reality in what are merely figments of our imagination. Stress then ensues around imagined needs and fears.

Well, I’ve beaten around this bush-of-words long enough. So far, I’ve found correlations the only way to actually get to the bottom of word meaning, otherwise it is just going around beating the bush in circles. Not that this is a bad thing, mind you. It just helps knowing that’s the way it is.

[1] LSD and similar chemicals can shake the foundation of word meaning slightly, but this always comes with more adverse and unintended consequences than it’s worth.

This experience opened my eyes to the relative nature of pleasure. What initially was a truly pleasurable treat revolved into a take-it-for-granted routine. Not surprisingly, this drove me to seek out ‘a real’ treat. Basically, I had destroyed the initially divine luxury of peaches.

Lesson learned: There is such a fine balance between always allowing yourself to have desires and always ridding yourself of desires. The better I maintain that balance, the more pleasurable life actually turns out to be. In this case, sticking to one can of peaches a week would have been more satisfying overall. On the other hand, I would have missed out learning this important lesson. This corresponds to, what is for me, a beautiful and essential fact of nature: If you would have a thing laid aside, you must first set it up.

How can we tell when we are going overboard? It is easy to tell when we lose balance in ‘allowing ourselves to have desire’: gluttony, obesity, addiction, gambling, meddling, lust in general (sex, drugs and rock and roll). Recognizing impending or current imbalance in ‘ridding yourself of desire’ can be more subtle. Strong emotion serves as my warning bell. Feeling compelled to abstain from allowing desire is a sure sign the pendulum has swung too far the other way. Tick tock, tick tock, back and forth, up and down: We are clearly not biologically set up to stay in the middle.