Outside on the deck of my earthbound ship as I stared up into a clear blue sky a beautiful puffy white cloud sailed overhead. It seemed to move as if on the surface of an invisible ocean, and for a moment I thought I saw a cabin near the center top with a captain aboard yelling silent commands or maybe he was just singing.
I don’t know, sometimes I feel so free out here in California that, yes, it’s possible that I might be going crazy. But what a way to go! I’ve always had a fascination with clouds—doesn’t everybody? For some reason I usually think of the seven months I spent at Ft. Jackson, South Carolina training for the infantry and, for awhile, being the base sign painter. There were afternoons between duty of time spent on a lawn on a small hillside reading books by Henry Miller and Lawrence Durrell and their friends—I can’t remember who. When a cloud came into view I’d space out, put down whatever the book I was reading and become entranced by a most perfect shape—better, I always thought, than anything a man or woman could make.
It’s as if God just tosses these most perfect objects off the end of his paintbrush just to remind us, or something, how cool He really is. Or maybe God doesn’t even think about it. Maybe clouds are just clouds—puffs of condensation that change color depending on the time of day.
Some other clouds that come to mind were these long, thin and very ominous black ones that used to form early in the morning in Vietnam—over the War in Vietnam, I should say. (Can’t get away from that place!) But those clouds did seem eerily ominous—like sharks on the horizon. I’d heard people say Vietnam has an inordinate amount of demons hanging out there. Maybe the clouds there reflect that.
As I’ve written this, the sky has turned cloudy. Filled with clouds. One big cloud. Now that this has happened, clouds no longer interest me. Go figure!
There are mountains on two sides—the east and west—of the valley where I live. This morning, the view to the mountains to the east was painted all in grays—the mountains layered, one behind the other, high up into the sky.
Wait a minute—they seem taller than usual today! What’s that all about?
I realized what I was seeing was an illusion created by the "The Great Painter" a perfect rendering of a mountain painted with a cloud. Interestingly, the painted mountain was positioned just behind and just above what the Buddhists call "Enlightenment Mountain" a striking peak with a rounded over summit which watches protectively over the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas.
When I looked again, the cloud had become more transparent—with the sun rising behind it from the east. An important reminder, this fleeting work of art, of the temporal nature of life on this planet. Here is The Great Painter showing me a wonderful picture—done in watercolor—as a subtle reminder of "time versus eternity".
One more thing I am reminded of: This wisdom comes from my first mentor—G. Scott Wright—a great man, ahead of his time, who was my art teacher in 8th grade. "It’s important to remember that the sun doesn’t rise or set," he told our wide-eyed class. "It’s the Earth turning."
I think of how The Great Painter creates this illusion every day, and every evening. Poems are written about it, songs are sung about it—sunrise, sunset.
War and peace is such a huge and tiring subject to deal with that it makes me want to retreat into myself—into the space I’ve discovered which lies between things. Maharishi has said that we can meet the infinite in that gap between waking and sleeping. That knowledge has helped me become aware of the space between things.
Reading Thich Nhat Hanh is wonderful because he helps me to know that this "space" exists in the world of things. I see that the infinite lies right here, right in front of me, between my desk and the mountains outside, between my hand and the keyboard—wherever.
The infinite is close. It is between in the inner and outer breath when we breathe. This is so cool to know this. Just knowing it brings me peace.
From Thich Nhat Hanh’s book, LIVING BUDDHA, LIVING CHRIST. "Professor Hans Kung has said, ‘Until there is peace between religions, there can be no peace in the world,’ People kill and are killed because they cling too tightly to their own beliefs and ideologies. When we believe that ours is the only faith that contains the truth violence and suffering will surely be the result."
I find this especially good. From something called "the Order of Interbeing", founded within the Zen Buddhist tradition during the war in Vietnam. "Do not think the knowledge you presently possess is changeless, absolute truth. Avoid being narrow-minded and bound to present views. Learn and practice nonattachment from views in order to be open to receive other’s viewpoints."
Thich Nhat Hanh says, "To me, this is the most essential practice of peace."
It is so good for me to hear someone speak about knowledge as if it is a living, breathing thing, not just a collection of dead words stuck inside the pages of a book.
Yesterday I listened to Mel Gibson in an interview, defending his film "The Passion of Christ." He scoffed (or laughed) properly, when told that many theologians had found errors in his telling of the death of Christ. Gibson made me realize that often theologians become paralyzed by a specific viewpoint. They are the opposite of what Christ spoke about, to live and breathe the knowledge found within.
Thich Nhat Hanh says dialogue is the key to peace. I am heartened that what we are doing right here is just that. Maybe we’ll get there! He says, "In a true dialogue, both sides are willing to change. We have to appreciate that truth can be received from outside of—not only within—our own group. If we do not believe that, entering into dialogue would be a waste of time. If we think we monopolize the truth and we still organize a dialogue, it is not authentic."
I, for one, always have more questions than answers so I doubt that I will monopolize this dialogue. I appreciate those who have joined in and I am willing and eager to listen. I am confident together we will move closer to the truth.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: I wrote this entry yesterday. In a way it is such a simple question and yet so powerful. As I wrote the words, below, they seemed childish. I thought how dumb I must be to be considering such a simple thing as this: Could personal anger be connected to the cause of war. Then something wonderful happened—I was given the answer.
Some years ago, when we were visiting Ukiah one summer, a fellow named Lonnie (who died of lung cancer) came across the street from his house to greet my wife and I at her parents. He held a red book in his hand, which he handed over to me. He’d heard I had an interest in Buddhism, and perhaps—I don’t remember—he’d also heard I was a Vietnam Vet. The book was "LIVING BUDDHA, LIVING CHRIST" by Thich Nhat Hanh, the Buddhist monk who has spent most of his life thinking and acting on the very questions which are renting space in my brain.
I am eager to share his thinking. Last night reading the first chapter, answered so much for me. It is wonderful how I thought to pick up the book yesterday—one I hadn’t read yet—but then things happen exactly when they are supposed to. All we need is to be awake. Now here is what I wrote before the answers were revealed. Anyway, the questions must come first!
You want to fight? You have a problem with me? You think you’re tough? You wanna step outside?
What is this anger we feel? The best way to define anger I’ve heard is that it’s the flip side of fear. Fear promotes anger. Fear comes first, then anger follows. This is one thing I’m an expert at. Many Vietnam vets—hell, many vets period—have fear of loud noises, of being surprised. It sets us of immediately, bypassing any rational thought process that might stop the anger from flaring. Essentially, the anger comes from being afraid of the surprise—for someone who’s been in a war, surprise is not a good thing. It usually means something bad. It often means the difference between life and death so one’s reaction is simply self-preservation. It’s the kind of fear, which may start a fight, an outburst of rage, but not the kind of thing, which will start a war. It is basic human nature. It may be wrong, but it is simple and easy to understand.
It seems to me that wars are fought over things—territory, power struggles. The ongoing fight between Israel and Palestine is a perfect example. It’s about land, which is also simple to understand.
More difficult for me to understand are wars fought over beliefs or ideologies like Osama Bin Laden and his followers who are so fanatical about their scriptures that they are willing to kill those who don’t share the same beliefs. Where does that come from? Are they afraid of non-believers? And, if not, then where does the hate come from? Think of it, Bin Laden and his followers have strong enough hate that they are willing to commit suicide in order to kill their perceived enemies! This, to me, seems like insanity.
How does one’s belief in God become so fanatical that one thinks of murdering someone who believes something different? I try to put myself in the position of someone who thinks that way and I simply cannot do it. I can’t get there. What I can do, is think of defending myself, my family—even my country—against one who would harm me, us. It is easy for me to think of killing someone in that instance. Through fear of being attacked or having a loved one attacked or my country attacked. In this scenario I am able to bypass my normal belief of not wanting to harm another living thing for the sake of protection, of self-preservation.
Still, I don’t have the answer for the other side; the answer to why someone would want to kill over a religious belief different than mine.
More and more, inner peace seems to be settling upon me. The more it does so, the greater the disparity between my inside and outside worlds.
All of us live on this unsettled planet where we hear about car bombings, suicide bombings, and just plainly insane acts of murder and violence. When each of us is able to achieve some amount of peace and tranquility in our own lives, immediately we feel the contrast with all the violence being acted out around us.
I don’t think, as I once did, that it is possible to hide in a cave and ignore the terrible state the world is in. Conscientious folks like my friend Randy Durband remind me that this horrible state of affairs is one, which cannot be ignored.
What I wrestle with is the way in which each of us must choose to deal with this issue—the one that is perhaps, after starvation, the most pressing issue of our time. Is it by political means that war can be avoided or is it by more personal means—by practicing non-violence—that each one of us can make a difference? Or by both? This is the question but I’m not certain of the answer.
For some reason I personally have been witness to war—first hand. I was, as a young man, caught up in the insanity of the war in Vietnam. Then, more recently I saw up, close and personal, the devastation caused by two airplanes which hit and destroyed the World Trade Center in New York City, the city where I was born. Even more recently, I was asked to document what had happened in Baghdad.
IN SADDAM'S WEEKEND PALACE WITH THE TROOPS
When I think of these opportunities I’ve had, immediately I contrast them with the other, more personal side of my life—the side which clamors for peace and contentment, the side which wants to find inner tranquility far away from any battlefield. As much as I may wish for this state of tranquility, it does not seem to be lasting or real just because of the state of the world all around me.
These words I write are truly, soul searching. "Searching" is the key. They are more questions than answers and are more for me than anyone else who might read them. But as I say them, as I put my thoughts into words, I believe that whatever answers I might find for me—for myself—will be true for anyone else as well. I found, when I wrote my first small book "Life is War But You Can Win" that what I was dealing with, although they were the most personal issues, were the same for others. I know because people told me it was so. People wrote me and said that my thoughts were the same as theirs. This in itself may sound like a small, obvious revelation, but it shows me that what I am thinking now, most likely, is the same for others.
I know that mostly, we as humans, are all the same. So if that is true, why is it that we humans hate each other—hate other humans? If we are all the same, is this something that we forget?
0N 9/11
A possible answer that I will pose as a question is this: Do we hate ourselves enough that we want to kill another person that is essentially the same? Do we not know that we are all essentially the same? Do we not know we hate ourselves? What is it that allows us to forget the fact that we all breathe the same air, drink the same water, eat the same food?
What, in our lives, can be so horrible that we would hate another human being? There always has been this simple aberration in us where we don’t like differences. A white man does not like a man of a different color. Deeper than that, we don’t like people who think differently. A Hindu dislikes a Moslem.
But I think "dislike" is not the right word. I think the right word is "fear". I think the white man fears the black man. The Hindu fears the Moslem. Isn’t that it? This is deeper than any political issue. We fear those who think differently… but why?
I don’t see that just because another person has a different set of beliefs or a different way of worshiping than I do, that it is something to fear. I don’t see at all what would make a fellow human being want to fly a plane into a building in order to kill the people who work there. I don’t see, at all, what would make a Christian hate a Jew, or the opposite.
IN A BAGHDAD HOSPITAL
Am I blind? What am I missing? What is it that I don’t know? What hides the answer from me? Can anyone tell me? If you can, please do.
Because what I desire is to enjoy my own peace and tranquility and to have you enjoy the same—so we both can inhabit a planet where peace reigns supreme.
When I look, it seems I always look at "things." I am discovering now to see the space between things.
I’ve become aware of the silence that exists between objects—between the tree and the fence. Between the branches on the tree. Noticing the space is noticing the silence that exists. What I find wonderful is that noticing "this emptiness between" brings bliss; blissfulness.
Why is this? I’m not quite sure. Perhaps it is because this is where bliss lives. It might be contained in this silent place we think of as nothingness.
One thing I do know is that by noticing the space between, I notice objects in a different way. Instead of just seeing a branch, I see the roundness of it—the length and the shape—all aspects of the branch become more important and my view of the branch is different. My awareness of the branch is heightened.
I’ve noticed in the past that whenever I’ve gotten back to my painting, and where it is really necessary to look at the subject at hand, my awareness has always been heightened. So it is perhaps because I’ve started to paint again that again I am beginning to see. This heightened awareness sometimes also happens by viewing artworks. I’ve noticed that museums are great places to exercise my consciousness.
Noticing the space between things connects me with everything—and I mean everything. Everything in the universe becomes suddenly and seamlessly connected because notice the space between things which is the thing that connects everything that is.
Noticing an object, I notice only that one thing. That’s what I see. That’s what I’m aware of. But when I see the space between things, suddenly I notice everything at once.
This is very cool! Try it.
I’m learning to take advantage of the quiet times between all the activity life gives us. Maybe it’s this place—California—or maybe it’s this time of life, but whatever it is, I’m finding ways to reach the silence in me.
Instead of running from one activity to the next, I’m finding the time to just Be. What is interesting is that the more I do this the more the silence seems to hang around. The silence just appears on its own, sending me a little hint, "hey, I’m here, Bozo!"
I don’t know if I’ve discovered some important secret to life or what. But it sure feels good to be connected to this other, deeper, far more rewarding part of me.
All of us need to be reminded, from time to time, that we are after all, truly Divine Beings created in God’s image. That’s what Buddha was telling us—and Krishna and Christ and Mohammed and all the ones who attained Buddhahood. "Even you and me," I need to be reminded—even me.
My days melt like a wonderful liquid, one into the next—a pure and smooth continuum of time with no punctuation, no stopping.
Yet there is a punctuation called rest; something which happens higher up, above all the real movement of days.
There is stillness quieter than I’ve ever seen. It must be me. I must have changed. I’m noticing these things that always were and always will be. In fact, that’s exactly what I’m seeing. Eternity. Flashes of enlightenment. "Men may come and men may go, but I go on and on."
Today I was painting in the back yard when I noticed the clothespins on a wire just behind the cherry tree I was sitting under. I noticed a glow around the clothespins. The clothespins were these cosmic objects right there, right in front of me. So simple yet so profound.
I fear those who read this will think me crazy. But I assure you, this is the opposite of a crazy experience. It is simply and purely wonderful. It is truly wonderful—clothespins that glow—and right in my own back yard!
Filling the space between me and the clothespins is this Eternal Silence. Stillness made up of the atoms of Eternity. Quietness that is quieter than quiet. Bliss that is more comfortable than I’d ever imagined.
And the clothespins—they mean so much more than I ever knew. They have become the portals, the entrance, into another world.
My life is filled with large spaces these days. Long, quiet trips in the truck to the lumberyard with stops for coffee. One night a week I take a class in Spanish at the community college. I go to my meetings two days a week at lunch.
Otherwise, I’m keeping busy with various projects outdoors. Not much writing. Instead, I’m enjoying these large chunks of empty, open space in my days. Chunks of time, that is. It seems that time and space have come together to mean the same thing. The land out here is filled with big, open empty space. Sort of a contradiction—"filled" with "empty space." But that’s exactly what it is.
And the same goes for time—filled with empty space. I love it. It resonates with me; me with it. California is good for me. It’s not only a place, it’s a state of being. I know, that sounds like a cheesy marketing tag line! Maybe it is or maybe it should be—I really don’t care. It’s just the simple, honest truth.
The sweet softness of the air
Brings fragrance
To all who live here,
Carrying happiness on its currents.
Watch the birds soaring—
The clouds drifting Eastward.
The mountains sleep,
The animals wander among the trees
Growing on the mountain’s strong backs.
Beneath a restful sky someone is singing,
"There is nothing to do,
No need to move"
To all who live here.
Watch the eagle soaring,
See the clouds drift Eastward.
The sweet softness of the air
Makes me believe
Everything begins here,
And like the birds,
Drifts Eastward—
Like my words.
This headline came to me during a sleepless spell last night.
I try to remain apolitical; to keep my mind on more spiritual issues. But politics sometimes comes creeping in. My lack of sleep might explain, partly, why at one o’clock in the morning I was thinking negative thoughts about George Bush. I was thinking about what an arrogant man our President is to manipulate the facts about the dangers posed by Iraq. Thoughts like these, I’m guessing, are probably fairly common amongst the citizens of our country.
But from this line of thinking, my mind sank a bit beneath the surface where I thought that the responsibility for the war in Iraq cannot be blamed solely on our President alone. It may seem that our President acted almost by himself in starting this war but because we, as citizens, are all connected as a country, it means that all of us must share in the responsibility for the war. Even though neither you nor I gave the order to fire the first shot, each of us being an American, is still culpable.
Moreover, the war in Iraq is part of our collective karma—our country’s karma.
I thought of all the people we—our country—have killed and wounded in Iraq in addition to those American and Coalition lives which were lost; the ones we see tallied up one or two or three at a time on television each morning. During a trip to Baghdad last year I witnessed the devastation from US air strikes and I can only imagine the destruction of human life—the screams, the loss of blood, the loss of lives and limbs that are also part of the war.
Who knows the real depth of pain and suffering we caused? I don’t. But I have learned that all the things that people do—both good and bad—are documented on a subtler, more cosmic level of existence called the Akash.
In the Akashic Records it will show, for all time and for all to see, that we started this war in the Middle East. The records may show that we thought we were doing the right thing—or perhaps it will show that we manipulated the facts for selfish gain. Only those who can read them will know.
What I do know it is that the records will show that I—a citizen of this country—didn’t do enough to try to stop the war—to try to keep the peace. So I, together with the President, must share in the responsibility for what has been done.
Perhaps even more important than that, is my duty as a citizen and as a human being to try to do the right thing from this day forward.
The clouds seem to pile up against the mountains on the East Side of our valley from the winds pushing the weather across the Pacific. Often the clouds form over the Ukiah valley where they seem to get stuck. Today, however, there are openings between the clouds in the sky above us where their color is the most perfect, non-threatening pastel powder blue.
The colors of the clouds range from dark steel gray to cotton white. The taller clouds are white, with yellow highlights, where the sun, shining above the Coastal Range, reflects the late afternoon sun off their billowing bodies.
I have named the blue sky after the painter Tiepolo because it brings back the memory of being in the Doge’s Palace museum in Venice where I first saw paintings by the Italian master. It is wonderful to think that the skies above Ukiah, California hold the same majesty of those painted by the great Italian.
There are many similarities between this part of the world and that. I am familiar with both places, having spent happy days hiking through the Italian hills in the Abruzzo where my sister runs an artist’s workshop each summer in a town of about a thousand people where the skies have many of the same characteristics as they do here.
And then there are my relatives on my father’s side—the Barberas—who emigrated to Northern California and brought their grape vines with them. Maybe it is this connection that ties me to both places at once—and offers me a reason for the connection I feel when I look up at the sky above this place.
I just like the sound of "Tiepolo Sky." As I said, it’s pastel powder blue and non-threatening—a color truly as soft and calm as can be.
…we get what we get.
I like the expression, "It is what it is." It’s very Zen. After all, the longer I live the more I find that there is only so much in life that I can control. As much as I try to get what I want, I need to accept life on life’s terms.
We all try to be good, do what we think is right and then we are asked to deal with what we are given which may or may not be what we want.
"You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometime, you just might get what you need." Wise old Lord Mick Jagger said that.
I am learning I have to give in to what life gives me.