STURGEON MOON

"Sturgeon Moon," Speedball block printing ink, art marker, and found paper on cardboard box panel.

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Today, I observed the full moon by sitting this morning with my lineage temple for a fusatsu ceremony—a time of atonement, repentance, and renewing the bodhisattva precepts/vows I'll take in less than a year.

This evening, I sat with my home temple of South Sound Zen, for one of my "better" sits, which countered last week's body shenanigans.

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Moon's voice is the bell 

calling me to the cushion— 

a body of tides

FOCUS

Tonight was the most brutal sit I've ever experienced. Instead of a cushion, I sat in a chair, otherwise it would have been an order of magnitude worse. I didn't have to confront my thoughts or my mind, but rather my body as it slowly "unravelled" into nervous system chaos. My body walked me through internal shocks, muscles tightening and locking up, and the exquisite caresses of The Visitors (who haven't shown up recently) during a grand performance.

So my glasses on the table in front of me became a point of return when stuff got too crazy. I thought of them as me watching me. It was a technique to reset and refocus, in order that I didn't bother anyone else in the room.

I did it! I survived an hour of sitting (two 30 minute sessions) and 10 minutes of walking meditation.

GLOSS

I am studying the sixteen bodhisattva precepts.

In the program in which I'm enrolled, we have to write glosses on each of the precepts. "[P]ut your reflections into a gloss, usually a paragraph on each precept, though it can become a creative project, as well." So I created "dharma gates" to represent each of the precepts. 

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The Three Treasures are in blue. The Three Tenets (Pure Precepts) are in red. The Ten Mindfulness Practices are in yellow.

Marks-A-Lot permanent marker on Montana Black spray paint on cardboard. Japanese kanji on labels.

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Dharma gates are boundless; I vow to master them.

Dharmas are boundless; I vow to comprehend them.

Reality is boundless; I vow to perceive it.

 
The third of the four Bodhisattva/All-Embracing Vows, in three translations/expressions: (1) Sonoma Mountain Zen Center; (2) Kazuaki Tanahashi; (3) Upaya Zen Center.

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I don't regard my life
as insufficient.
Inside the brushwood gate
there is a moon;
there are flowers.
 
—the poet Ryōkan, translated by Kazuaki Tanahashi

BEEF

Beef season two (2026) created by Lee Sung Jin. This season is less crazy than I remember season one being, but it definitely holds its own. The cynical world of this season revolves around those who work at a posh country club. Are these people really any better than those elite rich they serve each day? No. Performances are strong, especially those of the four principals, but I'm not sure any of these characters are likable. Relatable? Perhaps. It depends on how much you embrace your own sinfulness. This is a set of tales of loneliness, betrayal, corruption, incompetence, feigned love, and faux friendship. Capitalism is held up as the natural next step in evolution, a true social Darwinism. I actually liked it, although I'm not sure I recommend it.

Streamed on Netflix.

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Ants crawl across the scenes, here and there, as though freed from the fine art title cards—reminders of our mundane and mortal lives. Buzz buzz.

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Remember the notion of always keeping custody of your drinks? Bring on the paranoia after multiple breaches of social norms regarding beverages. 

NO SELF, NO PROBLEM

"Perhaps the reason Buddhism and other spiritual traditions use metaphors so frequently is because they sidestep the gatekeeping functions of the interpretive mind."

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No Self, No Problem: How Neurobiology Is Catching Up to Buddhism (2019) by Chris Niebauer. Peek behind the Matrix of your own mind by reading this book. The short take: your left brain "interpreter" is lying to you about almost everything, as it spins story after story and keeps your non-verbal right brain enslaved. Each chapter ends with a way or two to explore and/or experience the concepts it presents. This was a fascinating and brisk read. I highly recommend it.

Checked out from the Puyallup Public Library.

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"Compassion is all about the big picture, at which the right brain excels. I would add that true compassion only occurs when we can imagine ourselves in the position of another."

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"Maybe you meditate, practice mindfulness, and feel very spiritually grounded when you do, and later the ego comes back online and is frustrated to find out that you've run out of coffee."

DANCING with UNCERTAINTY

"Dancing with Uncertainty: Buddhist Pathways to Climate Resilience" with Dr. Stephanie Kaza was an excellent presentation, hosted by Pacific Lutheran University's Religion and Environmental Studies departments for Earth Day.

It was a "slow presentation," in the spirit of the "slow food" movement—something to be savored in the company of the like-minded. Contemplative slides allowed the audience (and presenter) moments to pause between sets of ideas and concepts. And The Child pointed out that none of the images of nature were "alarmist"—no photos of strip mines or clear cuts—but rather celebratory in some sense. Perhaps images of nature on its own terms, which I found intriguing and hopeful.

This is going to stick with me for some time.

THERE IS BEAUTY

There is beauty in this moment. 

There is beauty in this morning. 

There is beauty in the sitting. 

There is beauty in the silence. 

There is beauty in the stillness. 

There is beauty in this small dog sitting in my lap, meditating alongside me. 

There is beauty in the chanting. 

There is beauty in the flame. 

There is beauty in the incense.

TINNITUS

Over the past couple of years, I've noticed it is difficult for me to distinguish individual sources of sound in a crowded and/or noisy environment. I'm not going to hear most of what you say to me in a bar or at a party, unless you are standing close to me and speaking above normal. Recently, I've also noticed that my brain is trying to "fix" what I'm not hearing in quieter situations. 

For example, The Wife and I were watching the evening news and they kept showing pictures of snow in the Rocky Mountains. I asked why they kept mentioning "Miami." The Wife told me they were talking about "Wyoming." (Say them aloud to yourself.)

So it was off for a hearing test. I was told that my hearing was "normal, but that doesn't mean perfect." It also made me aware that I have likely been experiencing tinnitus for some time, at least at a low level. The problem is that testing made me hyperaware of the tinnitus, which brought it to the forefront of my attention and therefore made it problematic.

Currently, I am using three different tools to counter and/or lessen the effect of the tinnitus.

[1] I tried out Loop Quiet 2 earplugs. Online results of earplugs were mixed in alleviating tinnitus, but I found that they did help me. I wore them during most of a worship service, which diminished the higher pitches, which were giving the tinnitus strength. I also wore them when I slept and most of the ambient noises of the room disappeared, allowing me a better night of sleep. 



[2] I have a pair of air conduction "open ear" headphones, so I paired them with a "tinnitus relief" app on my smartphone. Playing with various types of sounds, I discovered that "brown noise" does counter my tinnitus. So I have the app act as a brown noise generator at low volume and can still hear the soundtrack of the real world.

[3] I found a good Buddhist response to tinnitus online, which I've been trying to enact. Accept it for what it is, but don't allow it any power. Don't try to focus on it. Don't try to not focus on it. Just let it be. This is easier said than done, but I think its the same way that cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) works on tinnitus and I potentially saved myself a bunch of energy, time, and money.

We'll see how it goes!

STORM of FORMS

Tonight's sit was a storm of forms arising from emptiness. (Except emptiness is form, and form is emptiness.)

The ticking of the clock on the wall. 

The scent of someone's sweat. 

Sirens of emergency vehicles, near and far. 

Sighs and soft exhalations. 

The chatter of my own mind. 

The humming of the heater when it was on. 

The fluctuating temperature of the room. 

The aroma of Eiheiji incense. 

The pins-and-needles burning of numb legs. 

The dripping of the leaky pipe supplying the water fountain. 

The flicker of the candle on the altar. 

The slight smell of urine on a nearby cushion or the floor. 

People talking loudly in the alley behind the building. 

The shifting of someone in a chair.

And yet: simply showing up for the present moment.

NOVEMBER

"Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball."
—from "Loomings" (chapter I) of Moby-Dick by Herman Melville.

“November always seemed to me the Norway of the year”
—Emily Dickinson.

WEIGHING EMPTINESS

"The situation of being left high up in midair is indeed terrifying and maddening existentially, for knowing that things, ideas, and values have no self-nature and that there is nothing whatsoever to cling to is an unbearable threat to our whole way of life. It deconstructs our conventional worldviews so relentlessly that nothing is left to rely on and feel certain of. And yet, this is precisely what practitioners must grapple with—a complete collapse of the reificational way of thinking and its implications. Only then can they realize a truly liberating, responsible religiosity."

—page 44, "Weighing Emptiness," Dōgen on Meditation and Thinking: A Reflection on His View of Zen by Hee-Jin Kim

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For the past year or so, the Zen notion of "emptiness" keeps bubbling up in my thoughts. 空 / kū can mean sky or emptiness or the air or space. So this notion of suspended in kū is terrifying. The related concept of 無 / mu which can mean nothingness or to be non-existent or void is likewise terrifying in its own right. So when I encountered the essay "Weighing Emptiness" by Hee-Jin Kim on a research visit to Pacific Lutheran University's Mortvedt Library, I knew I needed to spend some time with the book in which it is found and all six essays. (I've made it through the first three.)

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Hee-Jin Kim is as erudite and dense and chewy and mind-blowing and compelling as I find Dōgen to be. Kim's commentary is an order of magnitude more accessible, however, which is helpful.

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In the quote above, I'm reminded of Christ's kenosis, his self-emptying referred to in Philippians 2:7. "[Christ] made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness." I'm also reminded of Pip floating in the vast expanse of the sea in "The Castaway," chapter 93, of Moby-Dick by Herman Melville. "The sea had jeeringly kept [Pip's] finite body up, but drowned the infinite of his soul...and therefore his shipmates called him mad...So man's insanity is heaven's sense..." To be stretched out between the mortal realm and the heavens, as Christ on the cross or Pip in the indifferent void of unbound ocean, as though hanging over the abyss (as one actually is) and to be aware of such, is likely to unhinge one's mind from the mundane, the ordinary, the everyday. Encountering emptiness, and the very ground of being, as one who is part of that emptiness yet differentiated (or so it would seem) from it, would appear to open up a "wound" in one's being. A separation. A gulf.

Then it gets more personal. (Or less personal, perhaps.)

When I broke my arm, the existential crisis it presented left me two responses. As my arm hung in space, swinging like a pendulum that I could not control, I knew I needed to get to the ground so that I didn't pass out. (While my arm may have been suspended in space, apparently the rest of my body was not.) That was the first response. The second response was to scream—because of the pain, because of the rupture from what I expected versus what was happening, from the break that occurred that was more than just physical damage. I continued to scream and scream and scream. I did so until the EMTs that arrived gave me ketamine to quiet me. That was after the morphine.

Either the combination of morphine and ketamine or, more likely, an accidental overdose of ketamine, provided further rupture. "Troy" continued to do things in "my" absence. I learned of interactions and conversations between medical personnel and "myself" that I do not remember. Some of it is on video or I wouldn't believe it. So who is it that had those conversations? Were they patterned responses? Did "I" reside elsewhere while my physical appearance acted on "my" behalf? Did "I" return to the "Ground of Being," "emptiness," "God" for a few moments before "I" differentiated once again? Were there two representations of "Troy" due to the break; was I fractured as an echo of the structural "collapse" of part of my body?

Since the break, I have relived it every night in my dreams. I break my arm every night. Every damn night. And it is "real." Is it as real as the first time? Maybe. I don't really know. But it is traumatic each time, and I wish it would cease. Yet it continues. Each night, I experience "the situation of being left high up in midair" and it is terrifying. While the physical scars slowly recede, partly due to the invasive (yet elected) insertion of a titanium nail into the center of my arm and healing and rehabilitative exercises and time, I'm not certain that the psychic scars decrease. I continue to hang.

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I continue to read and reflect. As I absorb the words of Kim and Dōgen, I embody them and manifest them. I stitch them into my very being. May I soon know the meaning of "emptiness." I think I'm getting there, but I still have some distance to travel.

ESCAPE ROOM

We almost made it out of an escape room in time. (The photograph is of the lobby, not of the nautical-themed escape room.)

We had an hour to get out, but we probably needed another ten minutes to escape on our own. There were five of us. We were allowed three clues and we used them all at the end. Two were minor things we were overlooking, but would have likely figured out. One was a major miscalculation, but I likewise think we would have got it with extra time.

Ultimately, we did get to open the vault and make it to the treasure. However, we should have instead been forced to walk the plank. All in all, it was fun. (Other than the clock on the wall in constant countdown mode reminding us of our impending doom and failure!)

THE MATTER of LONELINESS

I attended a two-day symposium, hosted by the Wang Center for Global and Community Engaged Education at Pacific Lutheran University. I was present at every presentation and workshop offered during "The Matter of Loneliness: Building Connections for Collective Well-Being." I'm glad I did because I learned a lot and ended exhausted, but with a full head and full heart.

The first day was focused on theory and the second day was focused on implementation. (Or "inside" and "outside" as PLU thought of the days.)




I left with a bunch of "takeaways" for my workplace and will be reaching out to various people and organizations to put learning into practice.

There were two fascinating workshops I experienced. The first was a Purpose Planning Workshop led by a facilitator from the Blue Zones Project. My top "gift," discovered during a "calling card" exercise was "Exploring the Way." I take it to be a lifelong search for meaning, tied to spiritual and religious practices, and bolstered by my gifts of creating art, writing, and organizing. The second was being present during a Braver Angels community debate between college students that explored whether or not everyone is entitled to a universal basic income. The structure of the debate allowed for constructive conversation without division. It turns out that most people gathered are in favor of some kind of universal basic income, whether on the right or the left, conservative or liberal; the difference comes in the details, such as who would fund such a program.




Both days had a great selection of speakers and thinkers. My favorites were:

• Julia Watts Belser, Professor of Jewish Studies and Disability Studies Core Faculty, Georgetown University, with "Wild Kinship: Disability Wisdom, Interdependence, and the Elemental World."
• Jenny Odell, writer and artist, with "How to Do Nothing."
• Carolyn Finney, storyteller and cultural geographer, with "Our Story: Blackness, Belonging & Dreaming the Family Tree."
• Mike Weiking, founder and CEO, The Happiness Project in Copenhagen, with "The Science of Happiness."

ZERO at the BONE

That moment when you encounter a kindred soul.

In my recent faith explorations, I have discovered many overlapping books, articles, and authors. Books on Buddhism have pointed me to journals on Christianity. One of those is Comment magazine. A review on the Comment website of Christian Wiman's book Zero at the Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair found me immediately driving to a nearby bookstore to pick up a copy for my upcoming "bachelor weekend."

I'm finding this mix of poems, quoted passages, short essays, meditations on life and death, and observations on God and faith speaks to my soul. This is the book that I needed for the here and the now. Amen!

BREATHING UNDER WATER

For the past few years, I have felt myself to be in spiritual exile (which is a bit ironic since I work for a church), so I finally decided to do something about it. I have enrolled in a 15-week online course: Breathing Under Water through the Center for Action and Contemplation, based upon the work of Father Richard Rohr.

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In addition to course work, videos, discussion forums, and the like that open each week, the core texts I am reading: 

1. Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps.
2. Breathing Under Water Companion Journal, which is really a study guide with additional explorations and questions.
3. New Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton.

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What is fascinating to me, is the overlap of mystical Christianity, Zen Buddhism, and the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm intrigued by the places where they find common ground, where they differ, and where they move forward into a better, beautiful world, lifting up others around them and into fellowship with the Divine (God).

SAGEO

Sageo is the (umbilical) cord that connects one to sheath and sword. Binds one to the Void. Tethers the world of the temporal to the timeless, the world of order to the primordial chaos, allowing the creative act to be birthed into being.

CALM / MOVEMENT

This morning, I practiced qigong and iaido in the backyard dojo, enjoying some winter sunshine (pictured above).

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I’m not one to typically participate in New Year resolutions or goals, but this year I did both. I had been thinking about a word that would potentially define my next year, when one of my coworkers led an exercise at our weekly staff meeting to do just that. The two words that emerged, both as individual concepts, but also as a phrase when combined, were calm and movement.

For me, I had the martial arts of qigong and iaido in mind with these words, but I think they also apply to other areas of my life.

Calm is about control during chaos. Quiet. A relaxed state of readiness. I will find this word, this concept, to be a challenge, especially since I can often be quick to anger. I accept that I need to be a better listener, less reactive, and slower to strike out (unless the moment calls for such).

Movement is once again about control. I was thinking that although movement if often forward, it doesn’t always have to be. Backward movement, retreat, shuffling to the side, yielding, and avoiding potential harm are all helpful movements that are not necessarily about progress, but are about preservation.

Calm movement is about awareness and economy. I had the Japanese concept of sen in mind. Initiative, but always knowing when to move and when to react because one is in a state of relaxed readiness.

To achieve these words/concepts as goals, I’ve been following two teachers/sensei online. The first is Shi Heng Yi, the current headmaster of Shaolin Temple Europe, for Yi Jin Jing qigong. The second is Kaz Kobayashi, of Samurai Kaz Arts, for iaido. What I appreciate about both sensei is that each embodies calm movement for me. And each has taken what I am attempting to learn and broken it down into intuitive and intriguing “chunks” that make training enjoyable and something I look forward to each day.

So here’s to a year of calm, movement, and calm movement in the backyard dojo and in the wider world.

BODY and SOUL

Zheng He Gong Fu black tea and Biscuits and Gravy at Alma Cafe this morning. But the best part of breakfast was the conversation with my friend David—about life and literature, art and auteurs, religion, muses, writing, and so much more. Nourishment for body and soul!

THE VOID

It's cold and damp and dark in the backyard dojo. My sprained finger hurts. My thighs ache from warmup exercises at yesterday's karate class. I'm tired. They are all excuses. Self-imposed limitations.

And 舌 beckons. So I set up the mat. We work together. Train. Turn off all of the things that oppose us and strike out at the void.

GREEN BELT

I tested for my green belt and passed.

 
Relief. Comfort. Calm. After a stressful two weeks of constant practice, trying to get my kata stripe, I did get it, which made it possible for me to test for the belt.

 

But, strangely, I felt as though I didn't deserve the stripe. I felt like an impostor, a fraud.

 

Why could I not trust that my instructors were right in giving me that kata stripe? Why could I not believe that I had worked hard and finally earned it? Trust? Faith? In karate?

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I helped out with the belt tests for the kids of our dojo. I had the opportunity to help kids in the Early, Basic, Core, and Extreme SKILLZ classes test for their next belts. I found that many of the kids were struggling with the same doubts, yet I knew that they were ready. They had earned their eight stripes in various abilities and skills for their belt levels to test for the next one. I believed in them when they doubted themselves. (There was a lesson to be learned!) Just as my instructors believe in me when I doubted myself.

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Helping out with all of the tests for the kid classes, prior to my own, relieved my own anxiety and nervousness. And, once I had my first mistake "under my belt" during my own test, I relaxed into the process and just did what I've been training to do.

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My tester was generous. He also provided great feedback and criticism. Did he rate me too high? I would tell you yes, but then the comments he included with the scores were on target. They were all things I've heard from other instructors, including our Shihan. So I'm leaning into it. Letting it be what it is. Enjoying the (brief) respite that will follow before it all begins anew and I begin the pursuit of my blue belt.