Controlled chaos. Sweet musical anarchy. Setting Sun (1997) by The Chemical Brothers:
You’re the devil in me I brought in from the cold You said your body was young but your mind was very old You’re coming on strong and I like the way The visions we had have faded away You’re part of a life I’ve never had I’ll tell you that it’s just too bad
Inspired by the Beatles’ Tomorrow Never Knows—“Turn off your mind/relax and float downstream”—thirty years downstream was not necessarily relaxing but was exciting and expanding. Twenty-five years since and we can be/should be/are finding things in the lost and found sound. Even ourselves. Soundtrack for a revolution?
Listen below. The video is an appropriate bonus. “This is not dying.”
The above is my favorite illustration about meditation ever. Drawn by Zen master Kōshō Uchiyama, it is included in his book Opening the Hand of Thought. If you practice any type of meditation, not just Zen, or if you are interested in meditation but don’t know much about it, this illustration tells you so much.
About Kōshō Uchiyama:
Kōshō Uchiyama was born in Tokyo in 1912. He received a master’s degree in Western philosophy at Waseda University in 1937 and became a Zen priest three years later under Kōdō Sawaki Roshi. Upon Sawaki’s death in 1965, he became abbot of Antaiji, a temple and monastery then located on the outskirts of Kyoto. Uchiyama Roshi developed the practice at Antaiji and traveled extensively throughout Japan, lecturing and leading sesshins. He retired from Antaiji in 1975 and lived with his wife at Noke-in, a small temple outside Kyoto, where he continued to write, publish, and meet with the many people who found their way to his door, until his death in 1999. He wrote over twenty books on Zen, including translations of Dōgen Zenji in modern Japanese with commentaries, a few of which are available in English, as are various shorter essays. He was an origami master as well as a Zen master and published several books on origami.
The text accompanying the illustration:
Actually, zazen is not just being somehow glued to line ZZ’. Doing zazen is a continuation of this kind of returning up from sleepiness and down from chasing after thoughts. That is, the posture of waking up and returning to ZZ’ at any time is itself zazen. This is one of the most vital points regarding zazen. When we are doing zazen line ZZ‘, or just doing zazen, represents our reality, so it is essential to maintain that line. Actually, ZZ’ represents the reality of the posture of zazen, but the reality of our life is not just ZZ’. If it were only ZZ’, we would be as unchanging and lifeless as a rock! Although we aim at the line ZZ’, we can never actually adhere to it, because it (ZZ’) does not exist by itself. Nevertheless, we keep aiming at ZZ‘, because it is through clinging to thoughts that we keep veering away from it. The very power to wake up to ZZ’ and return to it is the reality of the life of zazen.
Mindfulness is a popular practice of spiritual and psychological progress. That is a good thing. Transformation and evolution are more needed and valuable than ever.
Being aware of mind is a step towards full presence. As is no mind:
140 Dayi’s “No Mind”
MAIN CASE
Dayi Daoxin asked his teacher Jianzhi Sengcan, the Third Ancestor, “What is the mind of the ancient buddhas?”
Sengcan said, “What kind of mind do you have now?”
Dayi said, “I have no mind.”
Sengcan said, “Since you have no mind, why would you think buddhas have mind?”
Dayi immediately ceased to have doubt.
COMMENTARY
It is clear that Dayi is an adept and has investigated the Way. He has to a certain degree eliminated conceptual thought and intellectual defilement. But still, there is this “What is the mind of the ancient buddha?” Indeed, what is the mind—any mind, your mind? How big is it? Where does it reside? Does it really exist or not? The answers to these questions require that each one of us plummet the depths of our own mind.
When pressed by his teacher, Dayi, like his dharma grandfather Huike before him, has to admit that mind is ultimately ungraspable. Do you understand? Because the mind has no form, it pervades the whole universe, existing right here now. This truth comes from the direct experience of plunging into another dimension of consciousness. It is not a matter of understanding or knowing.
Sengcan presses again, saying, “Since you have no mind, why would you think buddhas have mind?” The ice begins to melt, the waters begin to flow, and no further communication is possible.
But say, since Dayi has no mind, where was he holding the doubt that he ceased to have?
CAPPING VERSE
When thoughts disappear, the thinker disappears, and all things manifest as they are. In this reality, all intentional efforts vanish. In this world of suchness, nothing is excluded.
The True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dōgen’s Three Hundred Kōans With Commentary and Verse by John Daido Loori Translated by Kazuaki Tanahashi And John Daido Loori
No mind, not just full mind. There is not a popular term no-mindedness. Maybe there should be.
It is Day 6 of Passover. The holiday is seven days long in Israel and Reform communities, mostly eight days in Orthodox and Conservative communities. The extra day for this and some other holidays is traditionally based on the reach from Israel to diaspora communities. So Passover may be over tomorrow, maybe the next day. We can, should and will debate it.
By Day 6 we appreciate that we can soon make a sandwich or put a hot dog in a bun. Not that it isn’t fun to devise workarounds: this morning’s breakfast was whole wheat matzo topped with cream cheese and lox. Back to bagels will be fun, but creative cooking is fun too.
Speaking of matzo, one challenge before Passover is to estimate how much matzo you will actually use. You don’t want to run out, especially if you don’t have easy access to it. This year, as most years, there is going to be leftover matzo, maybe a box or more. The good news, I just learned, is that properly stored, matzo will last 24 months or more. It’s not going to dry out or get moldy, is it?
For those with biblical interests, portions of the Torah are designated to be read during the days of Passover. Day 7 includes possibly the most famous and dramatic scene in the Exodus story:
And the LORD said to Moses, “Why do you cry out to me? Speak to the Israelites, that they journey onward. As for you, raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea and split it apart, that the Israelites may come into the midst of the sea on dry land. As for me, look, I am about to toughen the heart of the Egyptians, that they come after them, and I shall gain glory through Pharaoh and through all his force, through his chariots and through his riders. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD when I gain glory through Pharaoh, through his chariots and through his riders. And the messenger of God that was going before the camp of Israel moved and went behind them, and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them. And it came between the camp of Egypt and the camp of Israel, and there was the cloud and the dark, and it lit up the night, and they did not draw near each other all night. And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the LORD led the sea with a mighty east wind all night, and He made the sea dry ground, and the waters were split apart. And the Israelites came into the sea on dry land, the waters a wall to them on their right and on their left. And the Egyptians pursued and came after them, all Pharaoh’s horses, his chariots, and his riders, into the sea.
We begin with the physics concept of superposition, which is the ability of a quantum system to be in multiple states at the same time until it is measured.
In 1935 Nobel Prize physicist Erwin Schrödinger devised a thought experiment to illustrate what he believed was a flaw in one interpretation of this concept. Schrödinger’s cat, also known as Schrödinger’s cat paradox, is one of the most referenced, debated and misunderstood thought experiments in modern science.
In simple form:
A cat, a bit of radioactive material, a Geiger counter, a hammer, and a glass flask of poison are in a sealed box. During the next hour, there is an equal chance that the radioactive substance might emit a particle and an equal chance it might not. If it is emitted, the Geiger counter will measure it, cause the connected hammer to shatter the flask, releasing the gas and killing the cat. During that hour, there is equal probability of the cat being alive or dead. Only when an observer opens the box is the cat alive or dead. Until then the cat is simultaneously alive and dead, according to quantum superposition. Schrödinger devised this “ridiculous case” to demonstrate its absurdity.
Easter is a powerful example of an alive or dead paradox, and not the only one in the Bible. Elijah, we are told, did not die, but was taken alive to heaven in a fiery chariot.
Billions of people live in a state of faith. Billions more (I hope) in a state of reason. It is an appropriate time to ask whether we can live in a simultaneous state of reason and a state of faith, or if we must choose between the two.
On Easter some ask whether and how it is possible that there is life after death. On Passover some ask whether the story of an impossible journey actually took place. I am one of those questioners.
Reason is powerful and has its limits. Faith is powerful and has its limits. Schrödinger was, from a certain perspective, wrong in thinking that his cat could not be both dead and alive, that it was a ridiculous absurdity.
“There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” (Hamlet). Don’t you think?
As memorable and long (3 hours and 40 minutes) as The Ten Commandments movie is, you don’t want to be dealing with Charlton Heston first thing the morning after seder. Instead, listen to the exceptional musical score by legendary film composer Elmer Bernstein.
Once you get past the obvious connection between the Exodus and freedom, there’s no real reason to listen to this for Passover, except it is a great pop track and one of the best videos of the Golden Age of music videos. Also, the album is called Faith, so there’s that.
Then Moses went up to Mount Nebo and God showed him the whole land. God said to him, “This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your descendants’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not cross over there.”* Moses cried with a loud voice, “אֵלִי, אֵלִי, לָמָה עֲזַבְתָּנִי?” (“Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?”), that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”**
Passover is mostly about Moses. Easter is all about Jesus.
Passover is about the life of Moses. Easter is about the death of Jesus.
Yet with all the drama of the Exodus story, the moment of greatest pathos in the life of Moses—maybe in the Torah—is his death. All that trouble (the Yiddish word is tzuris), and God denies him entry to the promised land.
Moses had complained to God before, as do others in the Tanakh, but at that moment not a word from him. Jesus had an equally understandable reason to talk back, hanging on the cross. He does, with a question that has sounded down the millennia: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
The denial of Moses on Mount Nebo is heartbreaking. We are not told whether Moses himself was heartbroken, angry or bitter. Or maybe accepting and understanding. He stays silent. The next thing we are told is that Moses is dead and honored.
Which doesn’t stop us from imagining. In my imagining, the last words Moses speaks are the last words Jesus speaks.
In baseball the object is to go home! George Carlin
Football is now more popular than baseball in America.
It wasn’t always that way. For perspective, in professional baseball the National League was founded in 1876. The National Football League didn’t begin until 1920. For decades, in terms of interest, commerce and culture, this was a baseball nation. It was America’s game.
George Carlin famously summarized the many differences (see below for the full bit):
Baseball is different from any other sport, very different. For instance, in most sports you score points or goals; in baseball you score runs. In most sports the ball, or object, is put in play by the offensive team; in baseball the defensive team puts the ball in play, and only the defense is allowed to touch the ball….
And finally, the objectives of the two games are completely different:
In football the object is for the quarterback, also known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy’s defensive line.
In baseball the object is to go home!
It is not the relative rise of football that somehow changed America. These sports are mirrors. Reflectors. Effects not causes.
This season, Major League Baseball introduced rules to help speed up games. The last years have seen games growing longer, up to a 3-hour average, which tried the patience of some old and new fans. But even with reducing the average game by almost a half-four, baseball still has a lot of standing around and waiting. There is also no time limit on the whole game: maybe it’s a quick nine innings, maybe a tie stretches it to 11, 12, 13 innings or more. You never know.
American life and culture is filled with action, action, action, more than ever. We mostly can’t and won’t retreat to the woods like Thoreau or to a mountain hermitage like some masters and monks. There is though the idea of wu wei—the Taoist principle of non-action—that could benefit us. In baseball there is a good measure of wu wei. We could use it.
Baseball is different from any other sport, very different. For instance, in most sports you score points or goals; in baseball you score runs. In most sports the ball, or object, is put in play by the offensive team; in baseball the defensive team puts the ball in play, and only the defense is allowed to touch the ball. In fact, in baseball if an offensive player touches the ball intentionally, he’s out; sometimes unintentionally, he’s out.
Also: in football, basketball, soccer, volleyball, and all sports played with a ball, you score with the ball and in baseball the ball prevents you from scoring.
In most sports the team is run by a coach; in baseball the team is run by a manager. And only in baseball does the manager or coach wear the same clothing the players do. If you’d ever seen John Madden in his Oakland Raiders uniform, you’d know the reason for this custom.
Now, I’ve mentioned football. Baseball & football are the two most popular spectator sports in this country. And as such, it seems they ought to be able to tell us something about ourselves and our values.
I enjoy comparing baseball and football:
Baseball is a nineteenth-century pastoral game. Football is a twentieth-century technological struggle.
Baseball is played on a diamond, in a park.The baseball park! Football is played on a gridiron, in a stadium, sometimes called Soldier Field or War Memorial Stadium.
Baseball begins in the spring, the season of new life. Football begins in the fall, when everything’s dying.
In football you wear a helmet. In baseball you wear a cap.
Football is concerned with downs – what down is it? Baseball is concerned with ups – who’s up?
In football you receive a penalty. In baseball you make an error.
In football the specialist comes in to kick. In baseball the specialist comes in to relieve somebody.
Football has hitting, clipping, spearing, piling on, personal fouls, late hitting and unnecessary roughness. Baseball has the sacrifice.
Football is played in any kind of weather: rain, snow, sleet, hail, fog… In baseball, if it rains, we don’t go out to play.
Baseball has the seventh inning stretch. Football has the two minute warning.
Baseball has no time limit: we don’t know when it’s gonna end – might have extra innings. Football is rigidly timed, and it will end even if we’ve got to go to sudden death.
In baseball, during the game, in the stands, there’s kind of a picnic feeling; emotions may run high or low, but there’s not too much unpleasantness. In football, during the game in the stands, you can be sure that at least twenty-seven times you’re capable of taking the life of a fellow human being.
And finally, the objectives of the two games are completely different:
In football the object is for the quarterback, also known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy’s defensive line.
In baseball the object is to go home! And to be safe! – I hope I’ll be safe at home!
Bob Schwartz 