Tru Dat, Mr. Walrus

There are many things in the teachings of Buddhism, that I find difficult to grasp. Now that I think of it, that is kind of the point. Grasping and holding things is one cause of the suffering that was so important to Buddha's dharma (teaching.) So maybe it's a good thing that every time I try to grab hold of an idea like reincarnation, I find it slipping through my mind's fingers. It is just so alien to the way that I grew up. 

Another thing that puzzles me is anatta; it means "no-self" and it tears away something that has been part of most western religions. As I understand it, no-self means that there is no "me" in this life or in the next. The idea of a soul where my consciousness lives, a personality that travels to another plane after death is absent in Buddha's teaching. 

I don't get it. I mean, OK. So there is no life after death except in the sense that our chemical parts disintegrate and are reassembled to become soil, or corn plants, or a platypus, or the cornerstone of a cathedral, or something. But that's only a shadow of the two-fold truth that the Dharma is scratching at.

I recently read an explanation from my old go-to, Thich Nhat Hanh. In The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching, he comes at it it this way. There are two levels of truth. Relative Truth sees things as the world sees them. Of course I have a self. I am me. You are you. We are all together, Goo-Goo Ga J'oob. Or words to that effect. From a close-up view, we see a part of the truth, but only in relation to other parts of the world. I am not you, or the gravel on the road, or the air in the room, or the cheese on the moon. But there is another level of truth, a level you have to stand back a little to see. You have to change your perspective to a place where you see Absolute Truth. Out here, truth doesn't need context. It stands alone. Out here, we are not just related to one another: we truly are one another. I am not just made of the same stuff as my desktop. We are one thing. 

See why I say my mind has a hard time wrapping its fingers around the idea? It makes no sense and perfect sense at the same time. The truth is both/and. I am an individual, unique in all of creation. I am also creation itself, just as a wave is absolutely one of a kind and separate from the ocean, while at the same time it is the ocean. 

I know, weird, right?

So why does this strange idea strike me as so important? I think it challenges the way I think about other people and about (to use a suddenly controversial word) myself. The truth as I see it, is true, yes. But it is only true from my perspective. It is not only arrogant to believe I can know the absolute truth, it is also an inevitable source of suffering for me and for the people around me. I can't know that what you see is wrong, because I can't know what you see. I have to treat the truth with respect and humility.

Does that mean I can't know things? Well, yes and no. I can know that failing to put gas in my car will lead to a stalled engine. I can know that releasing a kettlebell over my foot will result in a lot of pain and a reasonable amount of foul language. I can know that using my debit card will decrease the amount of money available to me from my bank account. But can I know if it is a wicked thing to rely on fossil fuel to get to the gym or if no good will come of a broken foot or what exactly this "money" thing is in my account? Those are things I cannot know without absolute certainty.

I know this isn't particularly profound or revolutionary. But it is liberating, in a way. I can carry the things I see today, without the obligation to hold on to them if I see them differently tomorrow. I can look back on the things I thought were true when I was young without judgment or blame because they were just as true to me then as my new perspective is to me today. And I don't need to attack the things that you see, because I can't know if you are looking at the same truth as I am, just with a different lens or camera angle. 

So what does all this have to do with no-self? I guess it means that the truth - the absolute truth - is the thing that connects us. We might think it is atoms and elements, or the image of God, or the air we breathe, but ultimately, the thing that connects us is that we are connected. 

Just typing that, it feels like gibberish to me. It also makes perfect sense. I am the wave. I am also the water. Not because we are made of the same stuff, but because we are the same. We are one thing.

This is the sort of idea that occurs to you when you sit breathing for an hour with a cat in your lap at 5:00 AM every day. I'm not sure if I'm doing meditation right, but it certainly feels like light is shining in some new corners. And it's a relief not to feel pressure to be the smartest guy in the room all the time. But that is a topic for another day.

Goo-goo ga j'oob, y'all.

Pennsy

Meditations on Prayer Beads, Onions, and Valentines in a Bottle

Resting in the arms of love

I am so grateful.

During my morning's meditation, I was overwhelmed by the intensity of the emotion. This sometimes happens during the quiet time I spend with Sophie and God. It can be frightening, like the morning I imagined i could feel the world suffering. That was so intense and intimate an experience that, with your permission, I'll put off talking about it for a while longer. But this morning's emotion was different and needs sharing, I think. 

Gratitude.

As I breathed quietly, in and out, my prayer beads rolling gently through my fingers, I felt the warm embrace of a gratitude so palpable that the texture of it comforted me like the stroke of my mother's tender palm on my face. I am so grateful, I could weep. 

I'm thankful to so many people that it makes me feel a little self conscious. There is something almost immodest about bragging about all the people who love me and how blessed I am and yadda-yadda-yadda. And I won't lie: when people who only know you because of the work you do or the effect you've had on their lives step up and offer generosity and compassion to you when you need it most - yeah, that kind of makes you feel like you're doing something right.

The winter before he died - he was recovering from a heart attack - my dad told me that the new neighbor had started shoveling the walk and steps in front of our house. "I've been shoveling snow for sick old people for so many years, I guess it's ok to let somebody help me for a change." He wouldn't have used the word karma, but I will. At the end of his life, my father got to taste some of the harvest from the seeds of service he had sown. 

I'll never be the man my father was, but I've done my best to imitate him. And I have to say, the loving-kindness that has flowed back to me lately has tasted very sweet.

The friend who flopped me into the back seat of her new car and drove me to the ER the morning I fainted into Sophie's breakfast bowl. The neighbor who scrubbed my kitchen and bathroom while I was in the hospital. The anonymous stranger who left a staggeringly generous gift on my desk to help pay for "Bob's Cataract Fund." The loving philanthropy of an admired colleague from show-business days who made sure I had access to DoorDash when I couldn't get out to buy my own food.  The lady from my water-fitness class who told me about a friend selling a car at a ludicrously low price after my own jalopy was totaled by a hit-and-run driver. The generous hands of a tenant who said, "Don't worry, Mr. Bob, I'll keep the grounds picked-up for you until you're strong enough to come back to work." The Y member who showed up at my front door in a shirt and tie, with a box of groceries in his arms. Get well cards from exercise classes filled with silly pictures loving messages, drops of sweat, and the faint smell of chlorine. Grandma-grade homemade soup in recycled take out containers. And of course, the people I meet everywhere I go, from the intensive care unit to the hardware store who stop and say, "Hey, I know you. You're Mr. Bob from the Y!"

This morning, I felt as if they were all wrapping their arms around me at once and lifting me up out of my chair. They are lending me the strength I need until I can find my own again.

Just as I have tried to do, when I'm living my best life.

And I am so grateful.

In particular, I'm grateful that I didn't have to wait until the last year of my life to experience this. My father got to taste the harvest he had planted, and that was a beautiful thing to see. But I have a different opportunity: I have tried to sow love through service, just as he did - but sometime soon, I will be able to plant a new crop using seeds from the fruit that all these loving people have brought back to me. 

What I'm trying to say is this: it's all going to be worth it. All the times you give without seeming to get anything back; all the times you go out of your way to help and are met with a snatch of the hand and an turn of the heel; all  the good intentions that make you feel like you should have a mile of pavement named after you on the road to Hell; they are all going to be worth the trouble. Love, compassion, kindness: these things don't just disappear out into the emptiness. They hide under the surface. They sprout. They reach toward life and become roots and stalks and trunks and branches. They bear fruit that anyone who needs to can take and taste and enjoy. That isn't just some bromide to make your soul's sour belly feel less bitter. It is a bedrock-stone-cold-truth. Love never dies.

And if you are very, very lucky, once in a while someone will come along with a poke of zucchini or a peck of onions and say, "Here. You're having a rough time. I brought you these." You will slice into one and the tears will start and you will know that you are eating an onion that you planted. One you forgot about. One you gave away just because it felt like the right thing to do. And now it's here in your hand, just when you need it the most.

And you are so grateful.

Look, it doesn't always work that way. Sometimes you send your love-message-in-a-bottle out onto the water and you never see it again. Maybe it won't mean anything to the beach-comber who finds it. Maybe they will sneer or make fun of such a stupid gesture. Or maybe someone will unroll your little Valentine to the universe just when they need it most. Maybe the words, "I love you. You're worth my time," will save their life.

You can never know. 

But once in a while... once in a while you will hear an echo on the breeze and recognize your own love song.

And when that happens.

You will be so grateful.

As am I.

Thank you, my beloved.

 Pennsy

Managing my drug habit, and other summer adventures

 

Well, this should be interesting. I have asked for Siri’s help in writing this post. Any weirdness that ensues should be blamed on her, since my Neuro chemistry seems to be pretty much back to normal.

First of all, it has been a long long time since I tried to write anything. I’m not sure why, maybe I just didn’t have much to say. but the boredom of recuperation from surgery has led me to a state of desperation, I suppose I just want a way to organize what’s on my mind.

Our story so far: 2025 has been a heck of a year, not just for our country, which appears to be held, bent on self-destruction, but also for me personally. This is the year I turned 65, and my body’s sense of humor has been on full display. I had another little episode of a fib at the beginning of the year, met a new cardiologist, and had the old ticker shocked back into rhythm. It sort of reminds me of my old radio that would tune in if you just slapped it on the side hard enough. In Midsomer, I had a string of fainting spells that culminated in a trip to the emergency room, where the doctor admitted me for a couple of days while I was bled and tested, and a radiated to no avail. They found a neurologist who specializes in my particular condition, And I was able to get an appointment for March 17, 2026. I’ll update you…

Then, a couple of weeks ago, at least I think it was a couple of weeks, I was out for a late night run when I felt a twinge in my left Achilles heel. I decided not to be stupid and stopped running. As I walked home, I felt what I thought was the concrete breaking under my foot. But with my next step, a searing pain shot through my leg, and I realized that what I had felt was that famous tendon popping. I was about a half mile from home, so I limped to the house, wrapped up in ice, and sat quietly debating whether or not I should go to the emergency room. That question was settled when I tried to stand back up out of my chair. Based on the shrieking, the neighbors must have thought that someone was torturing a puppy in my house. I managed to limp to my rental car (oh, did I mention that my own car had been totaled a few days earlier by a hit and run lunatic?) And drove myself to the ER. There I was once again bled and tested and a radiated  The handsome young doctor looked at my foot, and in his best clinical bedside manner, whispered the words “uh-oh.” The only question that remains was whether or not the Achilles tendon was just torn or completely ruptured. Subsequent MRI and orthopedic surgeon consultation led to the conclusion that the tendon was not only completely ruptured, but broken in a really unusual way. Ordinarily, the tendon snaps somewhere in the middle, and the surgeon can sew the ends back together. In my case, the tendon had snapped off at the Heel bone. The second surgeon, I talked to, one who specializes in such things, described the process, as installing some kind of hardware that would be screwed into my heel, giving him something to sew the frayed end of my tendon down, connecting my foot to the rest of my leg once again. It is a fascinating and slightly miraculous procedure, and one for which I am grateful.

The surgery was last Tuesday, (I’m writing this on Saturday afternoon), and my instructions are to spend the next two weeks “sitting in a chair like a slug.“ Other than occasional trips to the bathroom and the microwave, I have done my best to obey those instructions. Which leads me to the aforementioned  drug habit. 

The doctors sent me home with a potent anti-nausea drug to offset the effects of the notorious opioid they prescribed for my pain. Considering the damage it has done to my home state, I was a little surprised that you could still get OxyContin in Kentucky, but there it was: a little white pill that had brought about so much damage, not just in the Commonwealth but all over the country. I was suspicious, but advice from my friends and the throbbing in my foot led me to cautiously begin using the medication. To be honest, I’m not sure yet did much to reduce my pain– but it definitely made me care much less about how much my foot hurt.

I took the pills every four hours, as prescribed, for the first two days, then backed off to one in the morning, and one before bed. Today I have not had one at all, and while I am certainly aware of unpleasant sensations under the bandages, I would not describe what I’m feeling as severe enough to require medical intervention. So it seems I have escaped Leif as a geriatric junkie. At least for the time being. 

So, how does one spend one’s time under the kind of restrictions I have? I have been sleeping a lot. I have been reminding myself to eat, because I know how important that is to healing and… You know… Staying alive and every day. I have been Meditating. Practicing mindfulness and quiet contemplation. I have a short stack of books. I’m reading, one on the teachings of the Buddha guy techno Han. OK, Siri. That’s not funny. That should be Thich Nhat Hanh. Siri’s Vietnamese is sorely lacking.

 I am also skimming around in the manual for my new car, a 15 year old Honda that I hope to be able to drive sometime in October. As I said… it has been a heck of a year.

I did not intend for this post to be a novella, so I think I’ll wrap up for the time being. If nothing else, it will help loved ones to catch up and help me to . Keep my memories organized. I hope you are well, dear reader. We’ll catch up again soon.

Meditations on Desire, Ice Cream, and Freedom

Buddhist teaching asserts that desire is the cause of all suffering. This principle is so fundamental that Siddhartha Gautama made it part of the very first sermon he preached after his long vigil under the Bodhi tree where he is said to have attained enlightenment. He made it one of the Four Noble Truths that describe reality. The more time I spend with this idea, the truer it becomes to me.

What does it mean to desire? To me, it means to want what you haven't got. Food, drink, sex, excitement, power, wealth: sure, but those are the easy ones. We can be just as consumed by our desire for health, a happy family, long lives for loved ones, peace. Desire is natural and can be motivating. We may desire success in business or athletics. Maybe we want to write that novel or make that pilgrimage or lead a revolution. The question is, once the book has been published, the marathon run, or the government transformed, are we any better off? We may be smarter, richer, more confident, more respected, and those are all good things. But will accomplishing our goals make us more free? Or will we weep with frustration like Alexander the Great when he realized, "There are no worlds left to conquer?"

So what's the solution? Can we be free from suffering? Maybe, but there is a trap waiting. Our thirst for freedom from desire, is itself a kind desire. Far from freeing ourselves from slavery, we have simply found another master. Wanting to let go just isn't enough, because that very wanting causes us to suffer disappointment when we fail. I am reminded of Paul's brilliand ad maddening letter to the Church in Rome. 

Paul's dilemma was a brutal one: 

For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. (Rom 7:14,15)

The problem tortured him;  

Wretched person that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? (Romans 7:24 NRSV)

Paul's answer was to exhort us to find salvation in the Spirit, turning our backs on the things of the flesh. I am new to all this Eastern stuff, and won't presume to say how the Buddha might have responded to the old preacher's cry for help, but Paul and I are old friends, and I can imagine mustering the nerve to follow the Apostle's answer with a question of my own. "Dear Paul, having loosed the bondage of fleshly desires, how will you free yourself from slavery to spiritual ones" Won't they bring you as much  frustration as you suffer now, my poor, wretched brother?"

My impression is that Paul did not suffer fools gladly, and might have been a little put out by a heretical time-traveler interrupting his train of thought in such a familiar manner, just as he was revving up to that grand climax at the end of Chapter 8. I'll have to be satisfied without his answer, but I can reflect a little on my own.

A dilemma is often a choice between two difficult things: a lesser of two evils kind of thing. It is  a charging bull whose horns offer no really satisfying solution. It seems to me that a toreador's best choice when faced with a charging bull is to elude the horns entirely. What if a pilgrim chose not to a) do battle with fleshly desire, or to b) surrender to some other, more spiritual one, but rather chose c): to accept desire as part of the ever flowing, ever changing stream of things as they are? Rather than trying to defeat the bull by letting it gore me with either horn, what if I stand aside and watch it run past?

Sooner or later, the damned thing is bound to get tired, or at least bored.

My question - and lord knows I've taken long enough to get around to it - is this: what if suffering doesn't come from my desire, but from the things I do to try to satisfy it? Am I fat because I want ice cream, or because I eat ice cream? The simple and obvious answer is that my actions lead to my suffering. It's the beautifully Newtonian principle of karma - cause leads to equal and opposite effect. I know that my uncomfortable craving will pass in time. I can sit with that temporary discomfort while it lasts, or I can ignore the laws of thermodynamics and karma and bury my craving under a few scoops full of mint chocolate chip. And tomorrow, I will be a little bit fatter and hungry again. 

Look, I'm fully aware that there is nothing profound here. I'm not trying to be profound. Frankly, I'm feeling old and tired and haven't the energy to be deep. But I am contemplating a kernel of truth I find simple and beautiful. I have is a fascinated curiosity about life as it is. It pleases me to be alive, and to draw the world in like breath. And I wonder at all the things I can do with that breath as I hold it and return it to the universe. 

Maybe that's all any of us can really do. Breathe in life, and breathe out... What?... Kindness?... Cruelty?... Mercy?... Vengeance?...Fear?... Love? Or, maybe just Compassion. Maybe just a breath that says, "I see you. I accept you. I think you are valuable and beautiful and am sorry when things go hard for you and I am so very happy when they are light and easy." Maybe that's the key that unlocks the chains of desire: to see, accept, and love the deeply flawed, perfect creature who shares our breath for a time.

I see you. I love you. I am grateful for you. And we are free.

And if once in a while we share a whiff of mint chocolate chip - I don't see much harm in that, either.

Father and Son

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky.
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a  man;
So be it when I grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

William Wordsworth, "My Heart Leaps Up," 1802.

I don't expect to hear from you this Father's Day. That's not your fault. Old men can travel through time as easily as boys ride their bikes to the swimming pool. You haven't learned that magic yet. (But you will!)

Besides, you never really got to know me, even though I know and love you with all my heart. As I grow old, I am coming to love you more each day. This morning, as I meditated with Sophie, (whom you would have adored,) we thought of you and so many of the things you lived through. 

I wish I could have been there when you were small and so alone. I would have held you in my arms and told you, "It's OK. It's OK to be different and it's OK to want to find your own way. But it's OK to ask for help, too. You don't have to be the hero in every story." It took me a long time to learn that lesson. I wonder if hearing it from me would have made it easier for you.

I would have walked with you on the brick streets where we both grew up, and listened to your dreams and told you some of mine. I would have tried to explain how sadness, your kind of sadness, was a treasure. It made things hard for you, but it gave you a heart that could feel things that some other people missed. Your sadness, which felt like the end of the world sometimes, would always come and go, like waves on the beach, but it would teach you to care about people in a way that would make you very special, if you let it.

I could have told you that I understood what it was like to feel ashamed sometimes. To have secrets that you hope nobody will ever learn. I would have tried to show you that you were not alone, not even in your guilty darkness, and I would have told you how very proud I am of the way you always kept getting back up, even when life seemed determined to keep you down.

We would have talked about girls. I remember your first kiss and how amazed and confused you were under that streetlight in the snow. The softness of her mouth and the sparkle of snowflakes on her eyelashes. I wonder if I would start to get misty as you told me about all the thoughts and feelings you had on the long walk home that December night. Would you have laughed when I told you that almost 50 years later, girls are still as amazing and confusing to me as they were to you?

I have learned so much about so many things. Could I have helped you to be less afraid of life? To be more curious? To find your confidence and courage a little bit sooner? I don't know. I wish I could have tried. 

A strange thought just came to me. Could I have been a better father to you than our Dad was? It feels like I'm betraying him, even to ask. Dad loved you, and I believe he would love us both, if he were still alive. But Dad had his own life, his own father. He prepared me the best way he knew how. When he died, he left us to take care of each other. Maybe that's what being a Father really means. Preparing your children to become the best parents they can be. 

He was my teacher, my first, best teacher. I will always love him, but never be him. I will love you in my own way, but my love is built on the love he gave me. I'm glad I've lived long enough to realize what a rare gift that is. 

When I look at your picture, I don't really see myself. I see "Bobby." There aren't many people left who call me that these days. Strangers call me "Robert." Friends call me "Bob." A handful, random ones who love me dearly call me "Bobbo." I have no idea where that comes from, but it always tickles me. Believe it or not, there are people calling me "Mr. Bob" now. You can't imagine how much I love that. Or maybe of all the people in the world, you understand.

Mr. Wordsworth says that you are my father. And so you are. In many ways, I am what you made me. But I am your dad, too. Even if you can't know me, I am here to know you. To understand you. To accept and forgive and remember. I am here to love you. And I always will. Just as our Dad always loved us. Always. We are "bound each to each" in ways no one can see and nothing can undo. I hope that makes you feel a little less alone. Because I am grateful for you and so very proud of you.

I have an advantage that you don't, you see. I know your future. I know that you are going to do some horrible things, worse than you can imagine. You're going to hurt and fail people in ways that will make you wish you had never been born. You will be sicker and sadder and sorrier than anybody has a right to live through. But you will live. And in living, you will bring light and love and hope to lonely places and comfort to badly broken hearts. You won't be a star, but you be a helper. And on the days when despair seems like the only rational path, I hope that helps you, my beloved child.

Happy Father's Day, Bobby. I'm glad you found the strength to stick it out. We have so many adventures ahead of us. 

You done good, Kiddo.

#609: Bon appétit

Sitting quietly, my morning ritual. Moving gently on the glider rocker that Mom would have loved. Plate on my lap

And on that plate

Is the world.

The little circle of flaky bread claims to be a croissant, though I doubt any patissier would honor it with the name. Still, it is my breakfast, and deserves attention.

It connects me to eternity.

As I eat, my mind turns to the young cashier in the grocery store who sold it to me,

and the woman with the rack of frozen food who stocked them in the freezer where I found them. 

Someone loaded them off of a truck that another drove from a warehouse to the store. 

Creative people designed a box, developed graphics, invented machines to pack and preserve this little sandwich.

Engineers and chemists turned to forests and laboratories to create the ink the printer used to decorate the package. 

Somewhere, eggs and flour and salt and sugar were assembled in a recipe devised by artists whose medium is the food we eat. 

The flour was milled from wheat harvested by giant machines driven by people whose paths are guided by ancient skills, and by technologies that did not exist 5 years ago. 

The roots of that wheat stretch like loving arms into the soil to drink of her water and feast on her minerals. 

Matter that was created before Earth was formed lies just beneath her surface, ready to play its ever-changing role in the ever-changing universe.

Today, I will eat this little piece of eternity, and it will help me to live and move and be in the world. 

Some of it, I will use. Some, I will store. Tomorrow, I will return some of it to the earth where it will become a new part of creation. 

One day, I will do the same. My muscles and organs and breath and bones will return to the earth and sky and sea. Maybe I will help to feed a small part of a field of wheat. 

And in that shaft of grass or squirt of ink or drop of machine oil or somewhere else I cannot imagine, I will be born again.

Bon appétit.

#608: our last breath

dying beloved

wordless beauty

exhausted and numb

breast rattle and chuff

 

so much 

time

lost

imagine her squeezing my fingers

murmur useless prayers into

deaf ears

but you

my old friend

you found her parched lips and she gasped you in

like one drowning 

from too much 

life

if i could

i would have exchanged my breath

for hers

but, no

you stayed with me and she left us alone

together