Losing at the game of Go

If you want a good investment tip, you should buy into whoever makes the plastic zippy ties. I seem to be favoring them as the perfect solution for every modification problem on the eZip and am about to singlehandedly support an entire factory the way I am going. I fixed the problem with the stability of the foot pegs by zippy tying two butter knives (that were zippy tied together) to the underneath and the frame. I fixed the battery attachment issue by zippy tying the whole darn thing together and I would have zippy tied the whole new electrical harness modification except all the splices had to be soldered.

You see, I do have restraint.

Or, I should say, I have developed restraint. Except I am not sure if that is the right term for what has been happening. Yes, I have learned the value of reading manuals before I try to put something together. Yes, I have learned that waiting before jumping on the latest idea tends to weed out the flash in the pan distractions better. And, yes, I have learned the value of the 5 year plan but I am not sure if that is restraint and discipline so much as it is that I have finally discovered what curiosity is.

I had always thought that curiosity was something that came naturally to children and then was one of those things that you struggle to regain in your adult life. Now, I am beginning to understand that what children have is definitely curiosity with a small ‘c.’ There is some thing else more complex which can best be described as curiosity with a capital “C.”

The difference boils down to how the question is phrased, or more than one gains another question. The original question of curiosity is “What does this do? What is this?” transforms into “What does this do and if certain things change, does it do the same and how then does the world react to it?” It is a matter of accountability, of recognition that cause and effect is not limited to our sphere of influence and acknowledgement but can be far broader reaching. That is something that a child does not have, a contextual grasp that they are not the center of the universe.

I think a part of the reason I have begun to develop this has been by growing involvement with the game GO (iGO, Wei Qi, Baduk). It started out innocently enough. My parents gave us a game when I was about 6. More accurately, they gave my eldest brother the game and none of us could figure it out. It was the Milton Bradley classic games version with the unbelievably obtuse directions. We never played it. I think I remember my brother playing it once and then never saw it again.

The game has followed me through my life, popping up in odd places. I missed an opportunity to connect to it when I lived in Korea, but there were plenty of reasons for that.

Then, later in life, it landed square in my lap. Very deliberately. I walked in a Korean market, saw a set and it bit me like a bug. Since then I have been learning and playing and teaching the game to anyone who pauses. I use it in the Responsive Wellness Program at MHCA/OASIS and have written about the clinical studies of its effectiveness in stopping, reversingand preventing dementia as well as combating depression, anxiety and a host of cognitive disorders.

Underneath all of that, is the peculiar hold the game can take on you. People who I teach (and sometimes force to play the game as part of their classes) hate it, then after not playing it for a while, when they see someone playing – they realize they miss it. It provides a strange level or wordless communication between you and another, and between you and your soul.

Game play truly does reveal the nature of your soul and as the Buddhist’s say, it is the only chance you have to pierce the veils of ignorance.

I love those sayings about the game, but it is only recently that I have begun to understand and experience what they mean.

In taking an intensive workshop with Guo Juan through her InternetGO School, I am experiencing the phenomenon of losing constantly, badly, disastrously and embarrassingly while simultaneously am congratulated by the highly skilled and professional players I know at this breakthrough. You see, in GO, a good beginner plays to lose because you cannot fool yourself into thinking you are skilled enough to win. If you do, and you lose, you will build resentment and reject the game. If you know that chances of you winning that game against a highly skilled player are slim, you are free to be present and learn from the game.

They say when you are learning the most you win the least because you begin to recognize the hidden patterns of weakness and self defeat that color your play. That is the stage I am in and it has its equivalent metaphor in life as well. I am frustrated at times by what I see happening on the board and recognizing its connections to patterns in the rest of my life, but through board play, I am beginning to untangle the wrong views that lead to disaster in both.

I have begun to study the art of curiosity in earnest. One of the things I have begun to get curious about is my own internal reactions and my external role in the world. The difference is, I do not immediately run from those questions into answers (that you know aren’t right) to evade the pain and suffering of not knowing. One of the people who sees me for sutra study brought up a recent bout of insomnia. For once, they decided rather than try to fix it, they would be curious about why – at the age of 78, they would suddenly have days of sleeplessness, and they realized it was because of anxiety and fear of death. Not of death, but of the thought of their death.

So they sat with it. Contemplated it. Brought it to me and we played a game in which one side was death and the other life in highly personal terms. Through that play they discovered it wasn’t their death that they feared, but the initial thought. When they got past that first rejected thought, something amazing happened. Suddenly, they felt renewed joy and a drive to be creative in life as it was left to them. Not to create something to outlast them, but from a sheer sense of curiosity about all the things in the world they didn’t know and somehow, forgot to be interest in as an adult.

As they put it,

“I saw an ad that featured a 20 something year old with dangling earrings, streaks of color in her hair and jewels glued to her cheek. I but out the picture, framed it and carefully pasted my face over hers. I would wear jewels on my skin now again, because I know there are endless possibilities in life, even though mine will be short lived and are limited.”

The Buddha said it is only through mindfulness of the body that we shall discover what it means to love.

To play GO with the rules of life, one will always both lose and win in the end. This is why it can be so addictive for so many. It provides a sense of reality in a life that has become defined by anything but the real.

If you ever want to play, find me on Nova, DragonGO, KGS or IGS as some variation of ctribe.

 I would love to lose to you J

Alas! Poor Alphonse, I knew him well

Ahhhhhh...the morning bought a very quiet, dead and floating Alphonse who then received a slightly improper burial in the Ocean T'let. Marie was bereft for about 5 minutes, or until I fed her and she is bouncing around doing her thing. I will stop and get her a new friend today, mostly out of guilt. You see, I am directly responsible for Alphonses's demise.

In my rush last night to get things put together for a class, I just couldn't stand how massively stinky the tank was and did a speed full change. I did not wait for the water in the backup tank to warm to room temperature. As soon as Alphonse hit the backup tank, he went into shock. Struggled valiantly, and then became constipated and started floating upside down. My poor, previously chipper and stinky pooptastic fish died constipated and in a state of shock. All because I was rushing.

So Marie gets a new friend that she may or may not want.

Outside, Milarepa (aka Ralph, the white dove), showed up last night filthy and with a bloody head. I was all concerned about him until this beautiful, svelte and pristine female white dove landed near him. I highly suspect he returned to his former home and broke her out.

It is amazing what we will do when we are rushing to avoid things, or to avoid feeling things. I have been struck lately about how it is consider "ill" to have any kind of distress tolerance level - in other words, to retian the capacity to sit within distress. There is an immeditae rush to medicate and eradicate. It is interesting to me that the people who come to learn the techniques of sitting in distress, have an underlying expectation that it will get rid of it in the end. But that is not how life works.

Distress is, and it remains. Until we are sufficiently distracted by something else. The Brave New World drive to remove all ill feelings and suffering through medication or the adoption of fantastical beliefs is saddening. It is saddening, but it also asks the question of what is the purpose of distress?

which is better, to live a lie that at least makes you feel better on the surface?
or to live a truth that may make every moment unbearable?

is there a middle ground?

Very much so. It lies in an area called awareness that is a skill that has to be very carefully cultivated to make it something you can retain. Awareness is what allows us to not buy into illusion and fantasy, and yet not succumb to suffering. It is what denies hope and acknowledges purpose. It accepts the existence of the fact that there is no meaning to life, and the meaning that life has. It is the essence of balance.

Balance means one is always in motion, falling, spinning, almost righting oneself before the motion begins again. There is nothing still about being in balance. Nothing quiet. Nothing still.

Today, I will research the fish before I pick it out and try to at least get Marie a guilt gift that doesn't come with bowel issues.

The Electric Metaphor

This summer I got hit by a car. It was a hit and run while I was on my bicycle. One of the things that was a bit unusual about it is unlike the majority of accidents involving cars and people on bicycles - the car did not strike the bicycle, it hit me full force on the hip. The rest of the damage to my right side came when I crashed down off the hood to the pavement; that took out my right shoulder, elbow, wrist, and knee; hip (again), ankle and I bounced my head three times so hard it punched a hole in the shell of the helmet. Oh yes, that is when the bike got damaged too.

To say it was a life changing event is a bit of a mild understatement. As the months go by, things heal and things reveal themselves to be damaged beyond repair. I can no longer bike, run or swim. I also cannot walk further than a ¼ mile. To go further, I need a cane, a lot of distance from people as I slowly dissolve into a cloud of pain and exhaustion and about three days to recover. I also cannot jump and kick in the myriad of ways I was in Kung Fu. Oddly enough, it is the Kung Fu that has saved the majority of my mobility.

I have developed a rare type of bursitis in all the joints on the right side of my body that is most associated with NFL players suffering repeated high impact injuries over their careers. It also makes sleeping, sitting and standing a painful affair. The constant level of pain is daunting, but it can reach heights that take my breath away. I am most fortunate I am so trained in meditation and breathing techniques because it allows me to manage the pain. The side effects of the anti-inflammatory and pain relieving drugs are so devastating I do not use them. Plus, I have found they don’t work. They just make me not care my body is on fire.

It turns out that it is pressure and repetitive impact movements that cause the most pain – i.e. walking, running, sleeping etc. Kung Fu, with its constant motion means that my body is always shifting and changing. I can work a full range of motion for two hours with less pain than walking up to the corner store in five minutes. I have taken to certain forms in Kung Fu and the jian shu that let me best compensate with muscle development to take pressure off my hip. It also preserves a flexibility and range of motion that is preventing a further loss of mobility. After the accident, my right leg was three quarters of an inch shorter than the left because of the muscles, tendons and ligaments tightening – now they are back to normal because of the Kung Fu and Qi Gong.

Since, if you know me from the love and words blog (and I will open that site again shortly) I gave up my car years ago and switched to commuting on a bicycle, I suddenly am physically incapable of that or walking (my beloved long walks that gave me poetry and music); I was left with the bus to get around. The world got much smaller. Not to mention the bus requires a lot of walking from the stops to where you are going so it was not working out well for me.

The solution – I bought an electric scooter. No, not a mobility scooter, but it obviously came from the same species. This is an eZip 750 watt alternative vehicle. It is changing my life again. It has relieved a lot of daily excess pain and given me back independence, it has made it OK for me to use the cane when I have to and it is also proving to be one of the most powerful metaphors for healing and awareness I have ever encountered.

You see, the eZip 750 is a full alternative vehicle that is road legal and protected by the Federal government from state regulation. It also has the torque of a Dixie cup rolling up hill in a wind and can drop from its masterful 15mph to 3 on a hill. It comes with a stated range of 12 miles on one charge, which in Providence means a hill and a turn and you are pushing it.

So how do you modify it to make it viable as an alternative vehicle in this city? Everyone jumped to suggesting I get the eZip 1000. That’s a 1000watt engine. It’s can go faster, but not further. It has more torque but the torque on a hill drains the engine just as quickly as the little 750.

The problem wasn’t speed. The problem couldn’t be solved by buying something that went faster on the flats so you wouldn’t (hopefully) notice that the hills were just as hard. The problem boiled down to neither scooter can maintain speed and range. Without range, I can’t do what I used to do and go where I need to be. Without maintaining speed, I am at risk in traffic not because I can’t keep up, but because people will lose patience with me and become reactive.

The solution was to not to go for a larger watt engine, but to make a small change to the controller board to reduce the resistance. More torque. Add two batteries, more range.

The next problem was the seat. It was hideously uncomfortable after ten minutes. Again, everyone began suggesting huge comfort seats, but those comfort seats are very uncomfortable after a while because they don’t allow your body to naturally support itself. The problem turned out not to be the seat, but where I put my feet on the scooter. I welded on two foot pegs to change their location and suddenly, my back and hip are fine on long drives and the seat is no longer an issue.

We have a tendency to look only at the symptoms and try to get relief from the symptom and not what it would take to address the whole problem. Like with my own healing from the accident, I find myself having to explain to people that even with a hip replacement, I won’t go back to having the same body I had seconds before I got hit. That is gone. This is now. The goal is not to get rid of the pain, but to change the life so that any pain doesn’t interfere. A hip replacement would take care of the hip problem, but introduce a new one and do nothing about the rest of the issues.

When you try to erase what happened, to turn back time to where it was before, you will always lose more than you will gain. Life is about change and inevitably moves forward. When you cling to what has been, there is only sadness and anger. Who wants to live like that?

One of the problems that I have seen so clearly with the modifications I have had to make on the scooter is somehow we have lost our recognition that all change takes patience and time. We are trained to think that one pill, one engine, one purchase, one moment will transform our lives when even in the case of the one moment of getting hit by a car – the accident impact is still going on in my life. To think that it all happened in a few seconds and was over is to fail to see the reality of such an event. The same is true about changing a life; we expect sudden miracles and what we actually get are seeds.

Seeds to be planted that may or may not take. If we are smart, and have never planted that kind of seed before, we hold some back to see if what we think will work will come to fruition. If it doesn’t, try something else. But slow steps, sure steps, steady steps – steps you learn from.

There is nothing that can ever stay the same. In that, lies the secret of life. If we hold ourselves to the past, then we cannot remember who we are in the same way that we can never really remember how things were. Our memories our very subjective things, we fill in gaps and rewrite history to reward or punish us as fits with the current stories we have decided to live.

And that is the other key to change. We are all living stories that are not real. All it takes to change the story you are living, is to decide to live another one. It is not an overnight transformation, but slowly and surely the new story will grow. It is like the people who ask me how fast the scooter can go, and then dismiss it as an option for them because it is not fast enough. The truth is that in a city, with all its stop lights, I get to the same places within 5 minutes of someone in the car – how does this happen? While they can get up to 35 or 40, they then have to stop and wait at a light. With my consistent, slower speed I almost always hit green lights and never come to a rest. It is not how fast you go, but the steadiness of your journey that gets you there. But we think speed equals efficiency.

No story is real, but no life can be without a story for what life really is would be our undoing. We must always have our buffer, our context, our magic and hope to place what happens to us within a survivable framework. It is in choosing the buffer that allows for growth and change that we become healthy.

I don’t have a name for the scooter yet. But I do have grand plans for it. I forgot how much I enjoy having a tinker toy around. I try not to look at the bike in the corner; it is not the right selling season to be able to get rid of it. I have a cane that I have learned to use in the Bodhidarma Cane Kung Fu form and I see it as a tool now, not an object of weight and can use it during the day without anger and resentment.

But most of all, I have a sense that with patience, newness appears. It doesn’t matter if it lasts or does not last, that is unimportant. I have come to value economy and efficiency, doing what is needed in the moment.

All that really matters is doing what is needed in the moment. 

Be guided by your story, but don’t cling to it. It isn’t real anyway and should be the one thing you can let go of without undue pain in order to be present for the next one to grow. Just one thing to remember, you are the only one who can pick the story you live, you can take one that’s offered, but it’s still your choice. Choose wisely, and if it doesn’t bloom, plant the seeds again. 

The Pigeon Wars

I was standing outside with one of my students, just before the start of a class. It was beautiful and warm, so we decided to stay outside to do our thing. We were talking and watching the pigeons line up and drop down like little parachuters to eat the rice I put out for them. Malarepa (aka Ralph, the white pigeon) fascinates everyone. There is something very unique about him. Partially it is his pure coloring, a part of it is his size and the presence of the orange bands on his legs (he fled his former occupation as a wedding celebrant to come live in the mills) and a part of it is it is so very obvious that he was raised by humans in the way he interacts with whoever is there.

I know I shouldn’t, but I play favorites. He knows this and makes a production out of walking right up to me, knowing I will flick a little rice down on the side for him and him alone. Ralph had a little issue when he moved in that the other pigeons didn’t quite know what to think of him, and he didn’t know quite what to think of himself. It was mating season and although he is a pigeon, he is a very different type of pigeon. I watched him awkwardly try the male mating behavior of the other rock pigeons, then switch for a week to the female behavior. While he didn’t succeed with mating this year, he has found companionship with a young female late in the season. It is sweet to watch.

My student and I were just talking about things that made had no sense or order other than watching the pigeons line up and watch us someone brought them up. A man came driving down the street in a rough looking white minivan and paused at the turn.

“I can get you a BB gun!” He points at the 60 or so pigeons lined up evenly on the roof.

“That’s OK, I feed them!”

“Goddamnit. You’re why there is pigeon shit everywhere!”

“No, there is pigeon shit everywhere because you have pigeons.”

He roars off, mouth set, snow-white Abraham Lincoln beard thrust out over his chest. I have not made a friend.

There is a saying that if you feed a bird, you go to heaven. That is a part of the reason I feed the birds. I also feed them because it is simple. I feed the pigeons rice; they play in the air in front of me. It is a fair trade. I have learned a lot about birds since I started all this. Many of the members are scientists and birders and they have shared what they know about their behavior and communities. Birds are amazing communal creatures who value individual life.

I once saw a group of turtle doves surround one of their own, who had been badly injured in a fight with a Cooper’s hawk, and walk the dove to the center of the food I had set out so it could eat while they guarded it. When the hawk returned, they all fought him. Two doves died, but not the injured one.

In the Dunnell location, we have a hawk too. It is a red tailed hawk, a much more benign predator than the Cooper’s hawk. That once used to swoop at me as I went up and down the street and landed so close once, I could see his pupils. The Dunnell hawk has no chance with these birds. There is a lone crow that acts as an early warning system, but otherwise never interacts with the birds. The crow has never even eaten anything that I put out. Although it has come over to eye me and learn my face.

Someone recently asked me how many pets I have and I said, “A cat, two fish, and a small flock of a hundred and fifty or so birds.” I had fretted at Main Street about the move, wondering who would feed the birds when I was gone. I had a strong flock there too that would show up at their set times, just like this flock, and want their food. The Main Street flock was even picky.

What I learned is that I don’t have a flock. They have me. When I am not there to feed them, they go elsewhere. It is a happy incidence when I come out and feed them regularly, but they do not depend on it. I, on the other hand, and quite dependent on them (and Ralph) to lift my day.

There is another reason I feed the birds. I am wondering if I should tell it to that man, or let him discover it himself. Feeding the birds is good business sense.

Many of our classes are outdoors. Right out front of Dunnell. Many of the people who come here drive nice cars.

There isn’t any pigeon poop anywhere to be seen and no one has ever had any on their cars.

Why?

J

Alphonse & Marie: A Meditation on Confirmation

The Mad Kitten has company, Alphonse and Marie. It started with Alphonse.

This is Alphonse.

He was a solution to a Feng Shui problem in which I needed a little water and a little life in the main room. There he is. He has issues. No one told me that gold fish can have such issues. One morning, while meditating, we thought he was dying because he was floating at the top of the tank. I almost flushed him, but decided to Google him instead. Turns out, fancy goldfish such as these are mightily prone to constipation. It interferes with their swim bladders and they will either get stuck at the top or stuck at the bottom of the tank if I don’t mind how much I feed them and they don’t get enough fiber. I cooked sweet peas and mashed them up and fed them to him for weeks until I found the little shrimp treats and this goldfish food that sinks like little pebbles to solve the problem.

Alphonse was an only fish. Everything I read told me that goldfish are natural loners (although they can school) because nature takes care of their own. Goldfish are so nasty, stinky, poop producing machines that if they were prone to wanting friends, the species wouldn’t survive because they would be easy to find from the nastiness. Good for me. Not so good for bored Alphonse.

I contemplated teaching him how to play soccer (r2fishschool, I am not kidding). But someone pointed out that if I taught him how to play soccer and he liked it, what would happen if I got too busy to play with him? Now, I would have a fish that knew he was bored.

Enter Marie.

This is Marie.

Marie is another type of fancy goldfish, a black moor. I did not intend to buy Marie but while in the pet store picking up a vacuum cleaner for Alphonse (no, he doesn’t use it); there was Marie, by herself, on sale and looking like the poster child for hyperactivity. I saw morose Alphonse floating in his corner in my mind’s eye and took Marie home.

My neighbor was a bit concerned when he saw me get off my bicycle and take the fish out of my bag.

“Why did you take your fish for a bike ride?”

“I didn’t take the fish for a ride, I was bringing her home. “ 

I almost added ‘from a sleepover at a friend’s house,' but decided not to mess with his sense of reality.

Marie loves Alphonse. She is too small for the tank and gets blown around by the current of the filter and discovered that if she tucks herself into the Alphonse’s fantail, she can swim with ease. She annoys the bejesus out of him. Wherever Alphonse is, Marie is under or over him. If he tries to pull his corner morosity, she circles his head until he snaps and chases her around.

It was Marie, when the two of them manage to cloud the tank so much you couldn’t see them, who stayed right by Alphonse as he was slowly being poisoned by their mutual ammonia. I tried everything and then did what made sense (and you are not supposed to do) and yanked both of them out of the tank and cleaned out the whole thing. 100% water change. It’s supposed to be too stressful for fish. But my fish are tough. They ride bicycles in rain storms.

The Mad Kitten couldn’t give two shakes about the fish. The only time she expressed any connection to the tank was when I first got Marie and was so taken with the antics of both of them together when they got treats that I made the mistake of not worshipping Mad Kitten first when I came in. The look of horror on her face. She finally went up and looked into the tank. Still no interests on her part, but both Alphonse and Marie definitely have an instinctual fear of cats.

There is a peculiar sense of connection/disconnection when one lives with animals of any type. It is a hard thing not to project our feelings and interpretations onto their actions, but once you have lived with one long enough – you can definitely recognize where we share the same reactions and actions. It’s like being around babies, we make them into who we are and then wonder why we grow up to be adults who feel like we don’t know who we are or are place in the world. Our general unwillingness to not be in control or the decision makes, the be all and end all of the definition of meaning and purpose in life – means we anthropomorphize everything else for our convenience. It serves as a form of confirmation bias and has shaped everything from our faith to science to relationships.

I remember the crushing moment when I discovered that it wasn’t that I somehow influenced the mad kitten to express her pacifist tendencies, but her nature that was causing her to get so bent out of shape about killing things. She made a habit, when we lived in the cave and she could go outside, of catching things without harming them and bringing them into the house to me. I thought it was to play, for company maybe. In reality, in her understanding of the world, I am not the be all and end all provider and safety point – I am a moron who does not know how to hunt and feed myself. So she, in cat style, was doing what you do to teach kittens how to live.

The funny thing is that we think animals are so easy to understand and people are hard. Think about that. If people are of our same species and have much the same basic issues of general life, and if you add in that we share a base type of language structure and mind – who should be harder for us to understand?

Perhaps it is more a case of being unwilling to recognize and understand how we are similar and what we share with others as it would reveal what our true natures are. Much better to fill in the blank using an animal who neither shares our bodily systems or means of survival, much less native language to provide self confirmation of the type of person we are or are not.

Part of living, of coming alive, of leaving suffering behind is to learn to stop trying to prove that you are what you want to be, and to begin to live within reality. Reality starts with species and extends outward. If you would like proof of that, look to the nest, womb, egg – this is always where life begins, within the hyper reality of the limitations and needs of the species. From this beginning, one can begin to discover what it means to fulfill a role in existence that is necessary, while the individual is not. It can be freeing, if you dare to give up a few fantasies. But it can also provide an extremely unique form of suffering as well.

The fish are calling for treats, it is that time.

The mad kitten has suddenly appeared to drape herself over my arms and purr madly away (while watching the fish).

What is each aware of?

No Left. No Right.

In many of the meditative moving arts, one of the hardest things to teach a Westerner is to give up their idea of “left and right.” We love “left and right.” It puts our world in order. We have even assigned whole moral judgments of good and bad to the leftness and rightness of things. When you begin to work the concepts of balance and harmony, you can’t hold on to this kind of separation.

What is one side becomes the other as the flow balance and intent shifts. If one side is firm, the other is soft. If what is hard is above, then what is yielding is below. If the green of the dragon’s back is seen, the white belly of the tiger is exposed too. The idea of balance only being possible if the separate states are both always in harmonious contrast and in constant movement. If I am sitting in absolute silence and stillness to meditate with all of my being calmed, it is the universe that becomes the balance and I am in harmony. It is a metaphor that every movement practice teaches.

Oddly enough, the thing that enabled me to go beyond the mere theory of all this and into being able to move with this balancing flow had nothing to do with a movement practice, it had to do with the cat. The mad kitten who roams the halls, Buddha belly swinging side to side, a portable altar in and of herself that people shower with offerings. She is…well compensated for her presence on Earth. I have understood through her company why it is said they are the only venerated animal for they are the last incarnation of a soul before it departs for the pure land. They have got it right and they are here enjoying life unless suffering is inflicted upon them.

I have had her as my constant companion for years. I am always looking for new ways of understanding her. It is one thing to live in happy habit with someone, it is another to live in habit with a creature that is so very different from you and doesn’t share a language. It is almost like we have an easy truce, she puts up with me for appropriate gift amounts and in return, I am allowed to project on her all my various interpretations of the leftness and rightness of her being.

It was my dog who taught me the value of animal behavioral research. I am still not sure why, but I had picked up a book on dog psychology by a researcher and learned a few things about how to relate to him. It changed our relationship quite a bit. He relaxed and became less my projected companion then a dog. I can’t judge if he was happy or not, but I can judge that he began to show more playful behavior and less behavior of fear (which we often interpret as affectionate behavior from a dog).

I tend to get up early in the morning, like very early – around 2am or so, to start my day. I also have a tendency to let myself follow trains of inquiry until about 4am when I have to pull my act together and get a little more productive. One of the trains I have been on is about cat behavior. In particular, following several articles about ways we interact with cats that well and truly either make them fearful or keep them on a defensive edge.

I was a little surprised to find out some things about eye contact and marking behavior. Some I knew, but I had assigned them different types of meaning. There were two that really struck me and I have been working on changing my behavior towards the mad kitten and the results have been…illuminating.

The two behaviors are:

1. Eye contact is aggressive, if you make eye contact with a cat you have to break it up by doing an exaggerated blink periodically to communicate that you are not behaving in an aggressive way toward them.
2. When a cat rolls over and exposes their belly, it is a form of expressed vulnerability that is not about submission, but is a desire for affirmation of connectednedness and bonding. When a cat exposes their belly, they don’t want it rubbed. They want the back of their head rubbed. It communicates that you are bypassing their vulnerable parts and stroking their head and sides of their face to mark them as being a part of your group. It is a very reassuring and confirming act.

So for about eight weeks, I have been careful to blink my eyes in this ridiculous and exaggerated manner when playing with the mad kitten and to rub her head whenever she throws herself down and exposes her belly.

This week…she suddenly blinked back at me. It was shockingly noticeable. It occurred on the same day she suddenly decided she neither had to hide from nor greet guests, but could stay asleep if she wanted. She also has become radically more playful and willing to play by herself when I am around. It is this subtle shift in our relationship together where it feels less like we have this close, emotional bond (my projection) and more like we are beginning to live in harmony as two very separate but dependent beings.

It lacks the…self-satisfactory feeling of believing the cat is hanging on my every mood and loving me unconditionally. It gives me pause to realize how I had been inadvertently behaving in a hostile way towards her, but it has revealed another depth to the concept of balance. If what is hard is presented, respond to what is yielding. If what is soft is given, support what is firm. In this way we create a space for all of the being to exist without a preferential state that demands they remain out of balance. When you give up your projections and desires for how you wish the world to be, you free yourself and everything else to breathe.

Green Dragon, White Tiger. When I teach people Chen Tai Chi, those directions make sense to them rather than “stepping to the left, or move your right arm” because everything is circular, everything flows and nothing ever remains the same.

But oh yes,

There is a constant in the middle,

But that is a door to an entirely separate (but harmonious) part of the universe itself.

Slightly smarter than a dog

There is a hexagram in the iChing, #51 - The Arousing (Shock), which is proving to be one of the best teachers for me. It comes around when you are going to be faced with a situation or event that comes (no surprise) as a shock. The shock could be a challenge to what you believe or expect from something or someone - or, at least in my case, the shock often comes from a surprise revelation about yourself and typically not the kind you jump up and down for joy and throw a party about.

Too often we are lulled into believing that self- revelation comes only in quiet rooms on comfortable cushions. Most often it comes under the glare of fluorescent lights while we are out around others. The "shock" aspect is what prevents us from being able to escape behind apology.   It is that shock...that immediate sense of tightness in the stomach that becomes recognized as shame and guilt later that hexagram #51 addresses. It is what you do with shame and guilt that lends an apology its healing power.

Hexagram #51 emphasizes that within this shock of guilt, shame or disaster lies an opportunity to learn and grow. That what is important is this "arousing" to move yourself out of a complacent behavior and into an active, positive practice that will prevent such things from happening again. In other words, the silver lining of guilt and shame is that it shows us where we can improve ourselves.

In my case, I was out doing some errands on a day when I was seriously compromised by exhaustion, hormones and the typical rising and falling amounts of financial stress. My errands revolved around trying to resolve an issue concerning an item I had bought (very needed and practical but for me a very expensive investment), that now needed some additional (and necessary) accessories. More expense. And I had to go to a store that was a little bit notorious for being pushy towards the expensive rather than responsive to a customer on a budget. To top it off, as I came in and outlined the problem, I told the fellow that I had had a similar problem a year ago and purchased - what to me - was an expensive accessory that proved to be a lemon....and then he immediately recommended the very same accessory as the solution to the problem I was currently having.

I promptly switched into full toddler tantrum. Not only did I snap at him and rave about how miserable and awful it was but when the friend who had so kindly driven me to the store came up to say they would wait outside...I graciously snapped "what?!" at them as they tried to get my attention. Now freed of all self-restraint, I paid for my items and off the friend and I went to lunch - where I promptly bitched in front of the waiter that the bubble tea I ordered was not made the way I was used to it being made and how I didn't like it tantrum tantrum tantrum. 

In short...I behaved badly, or as another friend put it, dropped the Zen ball.

Now...in the midst of all my tantruming...I was not unaware of my loss of control and it made me very uncomfortable but I seemed unable to stop it. By the time I got home and calmed down, I felt a deep sense of shame over my behavior.

Someone said, "Well, you're human, it's to be expected."

But behaving in that manner, that type of loss of self-control where suddenly your emotions and your immediate gratification and your comfort and satisfaction is the most important thing and you get to say and do whatever you want because you are (pick one) tired, stressed, hormonal, sick, overwhelmed and so one without regard for how you affect the people around you....that is not being human...that is a very animalistic response. 

Being human means you act with consideration to how you contribute to the cause and effect of your life and the environment around you which affects others. It is about learning that you are never the center of the universe or the most important person in the room. That at no given time is anyone more important than anyone else so all should be taken into consideration when acting in a way that impacts others.

Dogs are very smart and adaptable. Studies have proven that they can learn over 2,000 words of English and change their behavior according to how they perceive an environment - but only to a degree. A dog trained not to take food off the table will often do so if no one is in the room or, the light in the room is turned off. 

Part of the Karmic beliefs of Buddhism is that those paying particularly bad Karma come back as animals because they have no means of changing themselves; they are at the mercy of their environment and the predators around them. They cannot evolve their karma through action and merit. Evolving Karma through action and merit is the province and challenge of a human being only.

When I was in the military and when I was in the field as a rod buster, you could never have a day that you wrote off bad self-control to being physically compromised or mentally distracted - you would have lost everyone's respect and trust. I have the evidence in my life that yes, I can so too control my behavior no matter what my physical, emotional, spiritual or mental state so I do not cause disharmony or disruption to others. Somehow, since leaving those fields, it became OK for me not to exert self-control at times.

This week, it became not OK again. So how do you regain and sustain control when compromised? Say the Amitabha Buddha's name before you speak or act in public, before you react to what someone says and do this when you are not compromised so that when you are - you are already in practice.

That positive practice reminds you of the role self-control plays in compassion and maintaining an attitude of no-self that promotes the six harmonies.

That positive practice is what will give the verbal apology its healing weight. It does little good to just mentally decide how you will handle a similar situation in the future (even with a little role playing). The "shock' should cause you to look at how a positive practice can elevate your living on every level so that when that situation arises - you are different in it. A dog can never be anything but a dog no matter how well trained or how much a dog learns about living around a human - the dog will always be at the mercy of their circumstance and the only choice they have is sacrifice. A human always has the additional choice of activating change within themselves that can transform their circumstances, even if they cannot change them.

No matter where you are in life or in practice, there will always be areas revealed where one needs work. 99% of the time you may be compassionate and in control, but it is that 1% that needs active contemplation and diligent work to correct. Correct that 1% and you will reveal another level of living in your life that you can begin working towards the perfection of diligence in.

Amituofo,

c