Letter to my students from Chislehurst, Kent, England

from Frank Bowling's painting "Remember Thine Eyes"

Letter to my students from Chislehurst, Kent, England                          June 10, 2019

Dear ones,

I am sitting in the kitchen at my elderly friends’ house, where my sometimes-called-Godmother June, her husband Bruce, and their daughter and her two adult boys live. It’s a rainy day - very rainy, sort of un-English actually, as the rain keeps coming and coming, rather than just sort of spitting and passing. But I am happy for them; the last summer this area of England - near London - had massive droughts, and a very dry winter this last winter meant they might be headed for the same. Climate chaos doesn’t hit England any harder than any other country, but when I have people I dearly love - family - in a place, I think more about how the climate affects the weather and the lives of the millions of strangers in the British Isles more than I would otherwise.

Ilana and I are now halfway, two weeks, through our trip. We’ve been in England this whole time, first in the northern part of the city, in Highgate, near the famous cemetery where Karl Marx, Douglas Adams, and George Eliot are all buried, amongst hundreds of others. We then went to Devon, which is in the southwest, and had the good fortune to stay with a friend who lives in a village inside Dartmoor National Park. Neither of us had been to Devon before; on a vast scale Devon reminds me of our Driftless Region in Wisconsin - ancient, green, and rural in a progressive way. 

We then came back to London area, and have been a week at June and Bruce’s in Chislehurst. Today we go to south London, Crystal Palace, to stay with another friend until Wednesday, when we head north to Edinburgh, followed by Holy Isle off the west coast of Scotland, where I will teach my first course. 

Returning in Stages

A couple of days after I got back from California, last week, someone asked me if I felt like I was back in Madison yet. I'd been in Europe, then Texas, then California, gone for over a month of the summer, which is not unusual for me.

Feeling a bit spaced out, not quite landed anywhere, I replied, quite spontaneously: "I am working on just arriving in my house. Can't arrive in Madison yet."

Fear of Dying

Bandaged heart graffiti by Beni, Paris 2015

Travel takes me close to death, but not in the way you would think.

When I board a plane to Europe, when I find my seat on the Eurostar, when I climb down the steps of the Metro to ride the No 1 line to La Defense, I am not thinking about death. Not even remotely. When the metro car stops mid-tunnel when it is supposed to be moving, when the train slows down for a moment and the lights go out, when the plane jostles through some rough clouds, maybe I think of death just a bit. Never conscious, always under the surface, some sense of knowing the truth peeks out and makes itself known.

But when I really really think about death is when I am with the people I love. When I look at the face of a friend across the dinner or breakfast table, when I take my wife's hand on the sofa and share a smile, when I tightly bind myself to a heart another in a deep hug, at these moments, often something fleets across my awareness: this may be the last time. We never know.

This is the thing: we never know. If having lost my parents when I was young taught me anything, it taught me this. It did not teach me what to say to others when they have dramatic loss. It did not teach me how to feel or what to do to assuage grief. But it did show me that we really never know.

This is an odd kind of knowledge. Unfortunately, unlike memorizing the conjugations of the verb "to be" in a foreign language, it's not the kind of knowledge that comes back easily. When it arises in my consciousness, as it did this morning in the bathroom, brushing my teeth, I want to bat it away. I want to know what happens next, even if I know that that knowing itself causes me more harm in the end. 

No Home Like Home

 

Watering Hole, Philadelphia, August 2014

In case you haven't noticed, I travel a lot.

The first weekend in August, I was in Philadelphia teaching Miksang. A few weeks before that, on a three week retreat in Colorado. My wife gets tired of me traveling (that's the polite way of putting it). I get tired of me traveling (that's the simplistic way of putting it). And my cats? I think they don't notice so much, but they sure are happy when I get home.

As am I. I wish I could bring the cats and my wife along with me. I get jealous of dog owners, that they can carry along their dogs. I see them in carriers (well, little ones) on planes, out running in dog parks in other cities, and I wish the cats could just curl up and come along. I wish each place I am for between 4-21 days could become home for just a little bit.

It does, sort of. I figure out where to get the food I need. I take good care of myself: I practice, sleep, bring my own pillow, make sure my meds are in order. I get better and better at this over time. And yet, ironically, I also get older. It takes longer for me to adjust to time changes, more sleep for me to feel recovered. I get sick less often because I am more in touch with what I need - and I need more than I did when I was younger.

Nothing beats arrival - especially arriving home. Piles of mail, of dirty laundry, of dirty dishes, even, can't deter me from snuggling my wife and cats. Home is my watering hole, where I come back to again and again.

In my first chapbook of poetry, At Home Here, I implied I can be at home anywhere. Yes, and also, there is actually no place like home. No home like home.

How Was Your Trip?

side of a truck that's been graffitied, paris, june 2013

It's the first question I get upon returning from Europe each summer.
Sometimes I get it when I take smaller teaching trips - Toronto, Chicago, even.
But there's nothing quite like being gone for five weeks to Europe.

It's a fair question to ask. A kind one. And one I often don't want to answer. Here's why.

Chez moi, ou non pas? (My home, or not?)

"Please don't park here - car exit" Paris, 2012

I remember when I was eleven or so, I went on a trip with my brothers to Ohio, for a family friend's wedding. Staying in her apartment, one of a large building that encircled an active courtyard, I recorded the sounds that were so unusual - normal to someone but not to me - and enjoyed listening to them again and again. I wasn't bothered by being "kept awake" - I was curious about this place where even the pace of speech differed.

I could hear people's conversations, something I didn't often overhear in my quiet, "a suburb not attached to a larger city" town of upbringing. I heard basketball and sirens, yelling and people running around. It was what made me most aware I was elsewhere.

So, when I woke from a nap this afternoon in the lovely, light and open fifth story bedroom of my host's place in Paris, I had a similar curiosity. For a moment, I thought I was at home:
I heard skateboards outside, cars shuffling around one another, a cat on my left, cuddled up close.
It could have been home: comfortable, clean, cozy.
Only, it's not.

Face to Face

Sign at Van Dusen Gardens, Vancouver, BC, Canada

My alarm pops off at 4:30am. I leap up out of bed, no sleeping in, no hitting it off on accident like yesterday, when I had to teach. I have to make a flight - and I've only missed one in my life because of sleeping in (the only other flight I've ever missed wasn't due to that).

I slide into my clothes, laid out the night before, brush the colic out of my hair, grab a banana to get me going and my host meets me at the door. We get downstairs before the cab arrives, and we explore the daily issue of Globe and Mail, looking at photo layout and discussing the difference between AP and staff-generated shots. The cab arrives, glowing in the fog, and puts my bags in while I get settled.

"To the airport?" he confirms.
"Yessir. Delta, to the States."
"Got it."
"Going home?"
"Sort of. I live in the States, but I am going to Portland for 24 hours, then back to Wisconsin, where I live."
"Ah."
A pause. He's chatty. Sometimes I like that. Sometimes I don't. I am neutral.
He probably doesn't know where Wisconsin is.
"Is that near Kansas?" a student asked me yesterday. I can't blame her - I am not 100% sure I know where Calgary is, and that is far larger than Madison.

"That's where the Sikh Temple shooting was, right?" Now it's my turn to pause. Crap. I caught the accent - Indian? In the dark fog it was hard to tell. I hazard a guess that *he* might be Sikh, though I don't say anything about my guess.

Reflective Rotterdam

Rotterdam, like Amsterdam, is easily half water.

When the weather is right - partly cloudy and later in the afternoon or earlier in the morning - you can easily capture pictures like this. They wait as if you are a fisherman and they are the fish.

I've been doing a lot of walking. The first few days, we walked everywhere to see everything. The next few days I walked everywhere simply to be walking. Though it is often overcast and partially rainy, it's almost never too severe to make for an unpleasant walk.

Because the young woman I brought with me, Stefanie, has been in the hospital with a complication from her Type 1 Diabetes, I've been afloat - pun intended and also double meaning intended fully - the last few days, since Sunday. Though we've extended our stay in Rotterdam (with our gracious hostesses), she'll be in the hospital until tomorrow afternoon, and we will leave for London on Friday morning. This means she's seen no more of the city than she did before falling ill on Sunday; I've seen a lot more, often, on my own, walking.

I like being a stranger somewhere. I like even more, honestly, not knowing a language and being a stranger somewhere. There's no pressure to understand. I have a sensation - again - of being afloat, as if I am neither home nor here. For the long term I would find this disturbing, but for now, it's a relief - spacious and open. As if I am in the Oude Haven - Old Harbor - back to the bottom, face to the feckless clouds.

When you look at me, sometimes you see right through me. When you look at me, sometimes you see yourself in me. When you look at me, sometimes all you see is me.

Fragments of Language

Rotterdam, August 2011

Aaron Siskind, Abstract Expressionist photographer extraordinaire, published a collection of his works called Fragmentation of Language in 1997. In it, he explores what it is to receive seeming messages from the visual world of cluttered ads and graffiti, sometimes even torn or ripped non-verbal messages, or rust in calligraphic form. It is one of my favorite collections, as I am drawn to photographing this stuff myself.

I am in Rotterdam right now. It's a city that lives under the shadow of Amsterdam, the far more famous coffee shop and canal-ridden other big Netherlands city. I've been to Amsterdam before - it's quaint and enjoyable. But we have friends in Rotterdam, and Dylan and I are both fascinated by modern architecture. Rotterdam got flattened by a fire stemmed from a 15 minute German bombing in WWII, so the whole center of town is new. Brand new. New like a lot of Eastern Berlin is. Cranes everywhere, still in progress. Old and new right next to one another, and the new here is very powerful to look at - cubed buildings, special skyscrapers with nicknames like "The Apple" and "The Pencil." Photos will follow on Flickr (herspiral) of course.

Writing On The Surface of a Lake

Never to be wrong
Never to make promises that break
It's like singing in the wind
Or writing on the surface of a lake
And I wriggle like a fish caught on dry land
And I struggle to avoid any help at hand
-Sting, "Still My Beating Heart"


We finalized our plans to go to Europe today. Four days with my godparents June and Bruce south of London, four days with friends in Rotterdam, four days teaching Miksang in London. A day each way of travel. That's a fortnight, as June says, and it "goes quickly." The disappointment in her voice, to only have us a third of the trip (and the evenings of teaching) was slight - she's British and pragmatic. I realize I have put off calling her because *I* am disappointed. I wish we could go longer, and yet, I don't want to be away from home longer. I consoled her (I told myself, but I was consoling myself) that this is only the beginning - I will be back to teach, this is just the start of programming for London and they will bring me back.


Only she and her husband, Bruce, are in their 80's.

Mysterious Productions

A couple of nights ago, I decided to drive by the house I grew up in. I was in the area, teaching the last of my Junior High creative writing program (through WCATY) and it was late - post-drink with a new friend, pre-hotel return. The times before back in the area are sometimes overloaded with emotion and I can't go anywhere near the north side of town. But this time, everything closed down but me, it was ok. I drifted along the streets, through blinking red lights, tracing the paths of 18 years of life, followed by a few mixed ones after - dating someone back in the home town, brother still living in parents' house after mom died - and it felt wonderfully stimulating (wish I could predict things like that! such good writing time) as opposed to traumatizing.

A block away I saw the for-sale sign on the house next door, then, as I got closer, yes, a for-sale at 1414, the house I grew up in. Without thinking, I took out my iPhone and entered the information for the realtor and sent it to myself, before I could judge anything. I knew I probably wouldn't call, that it, in fact, might be bad news to do so, but I did go back to see my grandmother's house years after she died, and it did resolve at least this feeling like her old place wasn't haunting me anymore.

When I am ready, it will be good to call on the new owners, whomever they are at that point, and walk through this house where I grew up. It had already changed around a lot before my brother sold it - totally re-done interior: wood floor where the green matted carpets used to be, exposed brick where plaster used to crack. Then, all of a sudden, it was sold.

Last night I had a dream along the lines of two kinds of dreams I've had about that house for many years. The first sort (not what I had last night) is more of a waking dream - lucid, lyrical - in which I think of "home" and what comes to mind is not the house I have owned for nearly 6 years, but *that* home, my childhood home. The two lay over each other in a strange, very dream-like way, sometimes as I sleep and often as I am awake. But what happened last night was the second sort - I dream of the house, of living in it, visiting it, and it is wholly different than could even physically happen. Once I dreamt a woman had turned it into a ballroom dancehall kind of place (the ceilings are stuck at a firm four-square frame house height of ten feet) and last night, that some incredibly hip and lovely loft-building couple had turned it into a place of total light and sparkly corners, completely altering it to its core. It was hard for me, in the dream, to be both happy for it and also sad to have lost the simple place I recall - often, now, in memory exercises where I make maps and lists of what was in every room. They told me they were trying to sell it for a million (Why would you fix it to your desires then sell it? I asked, and they had no reply) which wouldn't work for the location in my hometown the house is in.

But I loved it this way, too. I tried to take ideas and think of bringing them back here, to the home I actually own, the one I am in right now, writing. I couldn't shake this desire to buy that house - that new version of the old house - in toto. Maybe I wanted to freeze it from changing, or maybe I just loved that it was new and old, even as it was hard for me. I told them about my childhood neighbors and what I knew of the history of the neighborhood. They were delighted but also not committed to staying there.

Like me. You couldn't get me to move back there, not to that house, or that town. I don't hate it or find it a bad place - I think it's quite a good place, actually - but it's not my home. Madison is my home. Right?

I called Dylan and mentioned the For Sale sign, debated whether I would call the next day, whether I should tell the truth (I used to live here, saw it was for sale, and wanted to look but am not looking to buy it) or fake it. I don't think I could have faked it, and Dylan agreed, but also warned me that the truth might not get me in - it might with a current owner, but not with a realtor.

I didn't call. In the end, it was too messy emotionally and I was too tired. Instead, I went to Horicon Marsh on my way home, one of my favorite places on this whole earth. I found a new place to enter in and drove along a quiet road, listening to peepers and barking geese. Finding "home" out in the middle of the marsh, looking out over the flattened cattails and sharp blue waters really re-centered me in a way I am certain going to 1414 wouldn't have done. And by the time I did get *home* much later last night, I knew I was where I am supposed to be.

Waking this morning after the confusing dream, I fell into a fog for an hour or so. Where am I? What do I need? What is home? I opened up the images I took at Horicon - the place my subconscious directed me in the middle of my meanderings - and felt re-honed, re-centered, at home.

Wisconsin. Yes, both that home and this home - 1414 and Madison - are home. Horicon is also home. I am home all the time. I carry me with me all the time. The dream is the truth, and right now typing in bed is also truth - a much bigger truth than the stories of where, when - a truth that is also much simpler.

I am home for me, and all of my memories are fodder to keep the homefires burning, as are fantasies and now-moment realities. All my mysterious productions - plays on words, dramas of the mind - all of them point to the same thing, not contradicting things. I just had to back off enough to see what they were all pointing to in their chaos. Many thanks to Horicon for bringing that truth home to me.

14 Questions about Buddhism

Awhile back, a student at Edgewood College here in Madison asked me if she could interview me for a paper she's doing on Buddhism. Actually, the paper is on the role of silence in spiritual practice, I found out when she came to interview me. We talked about John Cage and chanting and all kinds of stuff. She took notes and recorded our interview, but it turned out the tape didn't come out right, so she asked me recently to "re-answer" some of the questions.

Here's those answers. Some fun stuff to consider. Also interesting to remember how I answered them then, off the cuff, not knowing what was next, versus now, the second time - partly because I have had more time to consider them, and also because I have changed, even in a few short weeks...

1. How did you initially become interested in Buddhism?
1. I read a lot about Buddhism in High School. A boy I had a crush on was really into it. But it was all intellectual discussion - no meditation and no real heart connection.

Later, in college, I got back into creative writing (I had gotten a scholarship to college for my writing in High School, but dropped it after my mom died) and after college, hooked up with a local community of writers. One of them brought me to a class with a woman who taught what I teach now - writing with a Buddhist bent. From there I joined the meditation center downstairs from her office and the rest is history.

2. How does it shape your life?
2. The other day I had a really gross interaction with a woman I am acquaintanted with who has a pretty cranky manner. During the interaction, I watched as my emotions went from offended to sad to angry, but I kept an even keel with her, though called her out on some of what she was saying. Once we were done, I realized that the way she was acting isn't "her" - it was just the way she was acting. I also realized I had a choice - I could continue to wreck "vengeance" by acting like a jerk to everyone all day, or I could accept what happened, and use it as a positive lesson - to think twice before snapping at someone and act with compassion.

It affects everything, but this is a particularly poignant example. Sitting allows me to actually see what is happening and act with wisdom and patience.

3. What is it like to live in Madison as a Buddhist?
3. There are a LOT of Buddhist groups here and all are pretty active. At a dinner party recently, I was "the only Buddhist" and so was a bit of a novelty, but everyone understood the basic tenets of Buddhism and respected them. So it's not Buddhist "paradise" but also a pretty privileged place.

4. What are the challenges, if any, to practicing Buddhism?
4. The challenges are all interior, really. This morning I want to practice Yoga, for instance, and I keep putting it off. Why? Yoga really connects me with my body and spirit, is an extension of my Buddhism, and yet, I put it off. I make excuses, choose to do other things. I "forget the instructions" - the most basic ones - to do it, just show up and do it. Once I show up it is far easier than the battle to show up.

5. Does it affect the friendships and relationships in your life? If so, how?
5. Well, see 2 and 3, but in addition to that, it is true that certain friendships have been strengthened because I have had the good luck to have, for instance, my two closest female friends, both friends "before Buddhism" also be Buddhists. And there have been folks who's behavior - drinking constantly, doing a lot of drugs, not being very mindful in their lives, etc, I let fall away because we could no longer relate. It's not that I am better than them by any means, but that we have different goals.

Also, because of my sangha (community), I interact with people I wouldn't normally interact with - different ages, interests, beliefs - and I think that is very healthy. It's good to not just hang out with people "like us" as much as possible.

6. Have you experienced or witnessed the practice of Buddhism in other parts of the world or United States? If so, is how you and others in Madison practice different from other places?
6. I am a part of Shambhala, which is a modern re-configuration of two ancient schools of Tibetan Buddhism - Kagyu and Nyigma. Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, the founder of Shambhala, was a Lama in both of these traditions. I haven't spent much time with other groups - when I got to this one, I knew I was "home" because there is so much emphasis on the arts and on everyday life here, something a lot of other groups don't focus on as much, from what I understand.

So I travel a lot to teach, actually, in Shambhala Centers across the USA and a bit in Europe, and the centers I visit are a lot alike - similar aesthetics, practices, etc. I haven't necessarily seen other communities on my travels.

7. Do you follow a specific school of Buddhism? If so, explain the difference between yours and others.
7. Besides what I said in 6, Shambhala has very similar basic core beliefs, like all of Buddhism, but the feeling of it, the aesthetics, the focuses, and the intentions are different. For instance, we share a shrine space with a Korean Zen group and they all wear black robes to sit, sit facing the wall, chant in Korean. We wear regular clothes, face out into the room with our eyes open, and chant in English.

8. What is your perspective of classifying Buddhism as a religion?
8. It's hard not to. "Back in the East" (I hate to say it that way, but it's pretty much true) Buddhism has been used, still is used, as a religion. But our main Western understanding of religion is that it is "theistic" (meaning: belief in a deity) and no Buddhism is that way to the same extent that the major Abrahamic religions are - like Islam, Christianity and Judaism. In this way it is more akin to other philosophies - Taoism, Confucianism.

I have read a great passage about how Buddhism fits the container, like water, it is put it. So some places that flask is a religious shape, some times more secular, like here in the US.

9. Being raised as an atheist, is it hard to classify yourself as a Buddhist, because it is portrayed as a religion in society and to outsiders?
9. At first I was really shy about it, but now I don't mind. We can't control what others think of us, and I'd rather be a "Buddhist" than any other label, regardless of any inaccurate associations. It was hard for me to have faith in anything, thinking that would be a weak thing to do, but Buddhism encourages healthy doubt, and eventually, I realized it's not as much faith as it is understanding from personal experience.

I do have to say that being Buddhist has given me a ton more respect for people's relationships with religion, and I like that. I used to be pretty intolerant.

10. I've been reading articles about the effects of meditation on psychological disorders such as anxiety, depression, OCD and addition. What do you think are the benefits of meditation? Do you agree with these findings?
10. Absolutely beneficial. I have a Buddhist friend who tells me that being a Buddhist is like "having a therapist who totally understands me in my head 24/7, free of charge." That having been said, that same friend has sometimes insisted when I am depressed or having a panic attack (I am prone to both) that if I "just sat" i'd feel better.

For me, though not true for everyone, I also rely on meds, therapy and exercise to keep me going. As a "team", meditation keeps this act all very strong. None of these "solutions" work on their own for me. I guess I believe it's really personal - has to do with trauma, chemistry, and a lot of things we don't understand. I am generally pretty wary of any "one solution" kind of answer - life is too complicated for that, though it may work for some folks, like my friend.

11. What do you think about programs in jails that teach meditation?
11. I think they are superb. They have wonderful results again and again. What a great way to use that time, away from society, as a retreat? I know it can be tortuous, and I think meditation seems to really help. I have had friends teach it in prison and it has really changed my friends, too. I think that gratitude and curiosity, two of the biggest things that you develop connects to in meditation, are big salves for a lot of the world's social ills.

12. Do you meditate in silence or using mantras or music?
12. Silence.

13. What do you feel is the importance of silence in meditation?
13. Spaciousness. We cram our lives full of sounds - radio, tv, conversations. Just like being in a quiet, calm place visually, it is good to reduce stimuli and allow us to have an experience of auditory space, too.

I have never really used mantras. Not in our tradition. But I have done long periods of chanting, and while it is not the same result as meditation, I think I understand the purpose - to alter the mind in another way, open up to a different kind of space. But me, personally? I am very partial to silence.

I actually listen to less music and talk radio than I used to. I can sit around for hours in silence, reading or writing or doing "nothing". It's calmed me down a lot.

14. Do you feel you have reached enlightenment? If not, why not? If so, how can you tell?
14. This is such a great question. I mean, all your questions are great, but this one is so "controversial" in the Buddhist world. Why? Who knows why. Enlightenment is supposed to take a lot of work, but in relative terms, the Buddha found it really quickly. Some teachers, like the rogue named Adyashanti, say you find it all the time and shouldn't deny it, that Buddhists are in this weird state of self-deprication/deprivation and are denying themselves the benefits of what they already have. I think there is some truth in what he says, and yet?

I experience flashes of major insight. It's not like a solution to a math problem - I don't suddenly know all the world's answers - but more like total clarity, awareness. From that space I can answer with complete compassion - my problems, someone else's. But they aren't that common. They were something I experienced before practicing but they were random - now they are pretty regular, but still more like on and off lights than a constant experience. My guess is that if I were "like that all the time" I would "be enlightened".

It's funny, too, because although we "talk about enlightenment" Buddhism is very anti-goal orientation. You can shoot yourself in the foot if you put the cart before the horse. The path is the way, you are already enlightened, is what the teachings say. That's what I wonder about with someone like Adya. But we all have our own paths to hoe.