Category Archives: Quantum musings

What’s a five-letter word for Precognition?

Here’s a stumper for you. What do you do with the rest of your life after you watch some guy dissolve into a rainbow? I haven’t figured that one out yet but it hasn’t been the rest of my life yet, either. There are bits and pieces that seem to point to something, a metaphorical trail of breadcrumbs so to say. I get hung up on those and maybe my interpretations are off track for a while, and then a while later it turns out that yeah it really does mean that one thing but it also means something else. Whoa, then a year later it also means this third thing! The hits keep coming. You gotta run your own data sets to find out for yourself. I decided to start running more experiments. Here’s one that uses Wordle. I’ve been having a blast with it and it’s been less than a week.

In reading Eric Wargo (Time Loops, Precognitive Dreamwork and the Long Self) I became familiar with the experiments of Daryl Bem, social psychologist and somewhat controversial figure. Bem ran a series of experiments that appeared to contradict the nature of time. In one experiment, subjects were given a word-recall test. Subjects who were then given the list of words and allowed to memorize them after the test it turns out did better at recalling the words before they were given the list, versus the control group who did not memorize the words after the test. There’s a lot of hoopla around the internet around whether any of this is bunk. You be the judge. I thought about my obsession with Wordle lately, and wondered if I could use this as an opportunity for exploration.

Here is the gist of the “experiment” I’ve been running. When I sit down to do the Wordle I contemplate that in just a short while I am going to know the answer, and I visualize myself reflecting upon that word periodically throughout the rest of my day. In a few days I have had mixed results but they’ve been interesting. This morning I solved the puzzle at my first guess. Yesterday I didn’t solve the puzzle at all. That experience shaped my attitude to this morning’s puzzle.

I tried yesterday’s puzzle on my morning break at work. Sitting on my tool box with my thermos of black tea and my phone in hand, I looked at the blank Wordle screen and contemplated that in a short amount of time I would have solved the puzzle and know the answer. I pictured myself at the end of the work day, sitting in my work van, still in the drive way of the job site, contemplating this morning’s Wordle and “sending” the answer back to myself. It’s important to make these visualizations as concrete and detailed as possible, to make them VIVID as it were, which it turns out was the answer to yesterday’s puzzle. I couldn’t solve the puzzle in six tries, and as I sat on my tool box trying to imagine my future self knowing the answer, I came up blank. I also did not sit in my van in the driveway at the end of my workday and contemplate the day’s answer for even a moment. Hmm.

Somewhere between that moment and this morning I supposed that my failure to follow through with my visualization in effect “broke the circuit” and prevented me from getting the answer. I don’t wanna get hung up on causality here because that really isn’t the point of any of this. I do wanna relate that, as I sat down with my phone this morning, the sun barely coming in through drawn blinds, I was deliberate in my visualization and determination. I imagined myself walking around the block with mug of tea in hand just after sunrise, as I often do, and pictured that at that time I would know the answer to the puzzle. I was also firm in my determination that this would be my course of action. I would do the puzzle, make my tea, and walk around the block, quickly, in order that I could get out the door shortly after sunrise.

I pulled up the Wordle on my phone and without even thinking the first word that came to mind was SPILL. I typed it in and lo! There was the answer, Wordle in one! As soon as I solved the puzzle my phone also did a weird glitchy thing that would be an entirely other blog post. Suffice it to say this stuff goes layers deep, and I’ve noticed certain patterns playing out for a while. That moment noted, I put the kettle on boil and got about the rest of my plan. Despite February temperatures in Milwaukee I hit the sidewalk in my slippers and hoodie, no winter coat, making sure that I could get around the block while the sun was still early in the sky, just as I had visualized, mug in hand. Around halfway around the block I recalled that I was supposed to be contemplating the word SPILL. I read stop signs and street signs instead saying the word SPILL out loud. I noted a frozen puddle of ice on the sidewalk and said SPILL. I got to the sidewalk across the street from Meg and Adam’s house and saw that Adam was waving to me from inside his living room window. I raised my mug in return, at the same time trying not to slip on a patch of ice, and spilled my tea on the sidewalk in doing so. Satisfied that I’d now accomplished at least one impossible thing before breakfast, I finished my walk.

The previous Wordles of this week also led to many interesting associations. I won’t go into them here because, like my dreams, the associations don’t really mean anything to anyone else and they would take up too much time to explain. The point of all of this isn’t so much to “prove” anything as much as it is to observe and notice all of the little correlations and discrepancies that make life interesting. Our lives are meaningful because we assign them meaning. In a sense, that is what all this precognitive work reveals. It isn’t random or hocus-pocus and it also isn’t likely to help you figure out tomorrow’s lottery numbers, but if you wanna give that a shot knock yourself out. Maybe if I can solve six Wordles in a row I’ll set my sights higher.

it’s been a minute

Oh boy. Almost two years since I’ve posted to this blog. Plenty has happened since then, most of it still too difficult to get my head around. I’ve had some ideas for things to write about, but it’s been too intimidating to hash them out after not posting in so long. A funny thing happened this evening, though, and I thought I’d use it as the momentum to get something started again.

I’ve gotten a little into crystals lately. I’ve gotten a little into a lot of things over the last little while. Yoga teacher training, for one thing. Precognitive dreaming. Chakras. Here’s a funny little anecdote where a few of those come together.

A few weeks ago I visited Angelic Roots in Oak Creek for their customer appreciation weekend sale and bought myself some fancy rocks. Some of them called out to me and others I selected for specific purposes. I’ve been playing around with them, feeling them out, trying to discover what they have to tell me, which ones I should hold onto, which ones I don’t feel any connection to. Sometimes I put a crystal at the top of my yoga mat when I begin my practice. Sometimes I take them in the bath with me. It’s been an interesting exploration and this evening it got a little more interesting.

On my way out the door to yoga class I remembered to pick out some crystals before I left. I stood by my nightstand where I keep them and did a whole chakra thing that I might explain some other time. With my eyes closed, I shuffled my crystals, spread them out, and then felt which one was calling to me at that moment. I chose one and opened my eyes. I had selected amazonite, which I bought specifically to protect me from EMFs and the like. It has other purposes but I haven’t learned them yet. I thought to myself, well I won’t be needing anything like that at a yoga studio, or basically “that’s not the answer I want!” and shuffled the stones again. I ended up selecting a combination of different stones and bringing them with me to the yoga studio.

When I got to the studio, my gut sank immediately. I’m hugely sensitive to LED lighting and the studio had installed new overhead lights. They were offensively bright. The lights weren’t turned on in the yoga studio itself but the window into the studio from the lobby let in enough light that I had to set my mat up in the farthest available corner. I did the yoga practice with my eyes half closed and it was okay, although I wasn’t really able to relax into it. I did have a nice time with the stones I had brought with me and I got to know them a little better.

After the class had ended I spent a couple extra minutes in shavasana, waiting until the studio had emptied to roll up my mat. As I gathered my belongings, it suddenly hit me. That amazonite was calling out to me in order to protect me from the LED lights to which I’m so overly sensitive. I haven’t been drawn to that stone since I purchased it, but tonight, the first night I visited this studio since they changed their lighting, that stone is the one that wanted to join me.

I’ve been working for a while now on developing my intuition. I’ve started to accept that among other things, I’m a little bit of an empath, a little bit of a precog. Part of what I’m trying to suss out is when to listen to that intuition, and when to listen to my reason, or whatever the other thing is. One lesson that seems to keep coming up is learning to know what it feels like to reject an answer because it isn’t the one I want, versus rejecting it because it doesn’t feel right. This is exciting stuff to dive into and I’m happy that my little rocks gave me something to work with tonight. Thanks, rocks! You kind of rock.

Meeting the Guru face to face

Once again I don’t know where to begin. A few weekends ago I traveled to upstate New York to attend the cremation puja for Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche. This event will be one of those before and after points in my life, defining everything that surrounds it, but I can barely express why it was significant. Have you ever watched reality unravel before your eyes, turning every frame of reference inside out? Not so much? How about trying to describe what salt tastes like? It’s that sort of conundrum. Words are inadequate. It’s just something you experience, without interruption. The danger is that the more I try and recall that experience, the further away from it I get. My memory gets in the way and tries to solidify and reify the whole thing, when the experience is of reality itself as something less than solid, something a little more relative. Trying to convey or capture it with words or concepts defies the experience itself, but the real lesson learned is that spaciousness is always available to drop into. The nature of mind is the same in Delhi, New York as it is in Chicago, Illinois. It’s no different in Lhasa or Berlin. It’s there for any of us to realize, but it takes consistent practice to see clearly. Our concept addicted minds are usually too busy throwing barriers in our way, all in an attempt to make sense of that which ultimately can’t be pinned down.

Khyabje Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche was born in East Tibet in 1924. He is one of a very few who received their monastic training in traditional Tibet prior to the communist invasion of the late 1950s, and managed to flee to the West. At the bequest of the Sixteenth Karmapa, Rinpoche came to the United States in the 1970s to establish a monastery and three year retreat center, which eventually blossomed into a network of dharma centers, continuing the 900 year old tradition of the Karma Kagyu on a new continent. Rinpoche was a living treasury of knowledge, widely respected across Buddhist traditions, known for his boundless compassion and also tough as nails.

I had not originally planned to attend the funeral ceremonies for Rinpoche, once they were announced. I was already scheduled to attend a group retreat in Wisconsin that weekend, and besides, upstate New York is quite a drive from Chicago, much farther than Wisconsin. I was content that I would at least be on retreat that weekend, and that I would try to honor him in that way. But then Lama Sean let it be known that another member of our sangha was making the drive, and looking for a co-pilot to share the wheel. With two drivers, the roughly twelve hour drive could reasonably accomplished in one day, and I could attend the ceremonies without missing any more work than I’d already blocked out for my retreat. I had only met Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche once, on the occasion of His Holiness the Seventeenth Karmapa’s visit to Chicago KTC, and I had on a few occasions attended teachings he gave via webcast. I was saddened that I would never again have the opportunity to study with this great master, but here was perhaps one final chance to strengthen that connection. I decided to make the trip.

Impermanence is one of the underlying tenets of Buddhism. This life is seen as transitory, and death is merely another stage on that journey, a seamless transition from birth to rebirth. More so than perhaps any of the Buddhist traditions, Tibetans have developed a number of practices to prepare for the moment of death, with the aim of maintaining awareness throughout the dying process. When a great master, or even an accomplished practitioner dies, many signs are demonstrated which fly in the face of Western medical reasoning. His Holiness the Sixteenth Karmapa achieved parinirvana in November, 1981 at a cancer treatment center in Zion, IL, and there are tales scattered across the internet of the many signs he demonstrated, seemingly returning even after clinical death, in the presence of hospital staff. On October 5, Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche had suffered a stroke, and after it was determined that there was nothing that doctors could do for him, he was brought back to his room at Karme Ling monastery, where he passed away the next morning. His body was left undisturbed and he remained in samadhi, a state of meditative repose. After three days, the area around his heart is said to have remained warm, and he was again left to continue his meditation.

One of the most astonishing features of Tibetan Buddhism is the demonstration of the rainbow body. After seven days in samadhi, Rinpoche’s body is reported to have begun shrinking in size. At the same time, multiple rainbows were observed around the grounds at Karme Ling. Were he not to have been cremated, it’s possible that eventually there would have been nothing left but hair and nails, as this material is already dead to begin with. Rinpoche’s kudung, or body relic, was wrapped in ceremonial brocade and displayed in the shrine room for several days at Karme Ling prior to the cremation. I was able to make it into the shrine room briefly, before the pujas began, and witness this relic for myself.

Karme Ling is a closed retreat center, where retreatants participate in the traditional Tibetan three year retreat. There is no time off, and there are no visitors. It’s a spacious enough center for the few dozen lamas who are attending or administering the retreat, beautifully nestled in the Catskills, but on this weekend it was a bustling hubbub of activity, crowded with hundreds of visitors from around the world coming to pay their respects. Our party of three was gathered near the columbarium where the puja was to occur when we heard that we were allowed to visit the shrine room. We made our way to the Lama’s House, ridiculously crowded, and as we entered one of the lamas told us to proceed upstairs, even as visitors were streaming down the stairs. I fought my way upstream, losing track of my companions, past some tables where breakfast had been set out, and into the small shrine room where Khenpo Karthar had been seated upon a throne, shrouded in brocade. Lama Karma was already requesting that everyone leave the shrine room, so that the lamas could prepare Khenpo’s body relic for the procession, but I made my way as close as I could to the throne, offering prostrations along the way. I hoped that I might be able to offer a khata, a ceremonial silk scarf, but as I got nearer another lama swooped in and gathered all the khatas. I simply stood there for a moment, trying to take in the entire scene.

Here I feel compelled to pause, and explain a bit about what I do for a living. I’ve been a carpenter for probably more than twenty years now. I got involved with television in 2013, building the sets that allow the actors to inhabit their world of make believe, and allow you to believe it. I’ve been involved with theater even longer than that. I understand stagecraft. I know how the magician makes it appear that the lady gets cut in half. (Spoiler alert: It’s just cabinetry) Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche was a tough guy, a muscular dude even at 96 years old. He was not tiny, but if somebody had asked me to build a palanquin with a false bottom so they could wrap his body in silk and brocade and make it appear as though he were the size of a child, I could figure out how to make that happen. None of that is at all relevant.

As I stood in the shrine room, staring directly at Khenpo’s body relic, I couldn’t at all get my mind around what was directly in front of me. There was no clear boundary between where his body ended and the room began. It was if the space surrounding us had itself cracked open, and I felt as if my own being were dissolving into that space. My shoulders fell backwards, distinctions between big and small became meaningless, my head exploded and nothing at all happened, all the in the same instant. The room was emptying quickly, still a scene of commotion, and I didn’t want to linger where I wasn’t wanted. I gathered my khata and turned around, completely bewildered by what I had experienced, but also feeling grounded in that moment of groundlessness, a sense of connection at last.

It’s pointless to try and summarize what went on that day. It’s the winner take all in the category of “you had to be there”. I can sit here in my apartment in Chicago, a cold morning in early November, typing out words on a laptop, deleting, revising, coming up with better words, but the words are all going to fall short. The truth is they’re only getting in my own way. In some ways that experience is gone, never to be repeated, but the ability to tap in is ever present. I’ve had smaller experiences since that day, whispers of an understanding that is bigger than my day to day reality. They’re fleeting and elusive, and when they occur my instinct is to grab on to them, to try and hold on and define them, and that’s when they vanish, only to be replaced with the block of concrete that passes for my comprehension. It’s a very subtle practice, but I have faith that it can be developed, bit by bit. Small moments, repeated. To do anything else at this point seems futile.

Some notes from the abyss..

I have this weird job where it’s technically part-time but it could easily run 100 hours a week. The most I’ve ever logged is maybe 96. I’m not really sure but I try not to let it exceed sixty. Forget all the reasons why I’ve decided to put up with this compromise and for now let’s just focus on the middle of the shit storm that I’m enduring currently. Smashed through the point of absolute fatigue some while ago and since then it’s been mostly a black out state. Kind of weird to live through but such is life.

I did have this incredible experience where I got to see Mingyur Rinpoche speak in Evanston, IL  a few weeks ago now. Funny enough I was barely into this current jag but already well exhausted, and I had a difficult time staying awake through his teaching. Quite fortunate then that he gave a guided instruction on sleeping meditation. I’m not together enough to detail the full instruction here, but with his guidance I was able to remain in awareness and observe my mind during the transition from sleepiness through that in-between liminal state and then full on into sleep. Almost as soon as I became fully asleep I jolted myself back awake, but it was a valuable experience. I have had similar experiences before while on the acupuncture table or elsewhere, but they have been infrequent, and I credit the instruction (and his presence) with getting me to that state.

Since that lesson I have been trying to use fatigue as the object of my meditation. There’s no point in attempting anything else, really. I’m physically in too much pain to even attempt the ngöndro, and any attempts at visualization practices would be foolish as I can’t keep my mind focused on anything for more than a moment. Incidentally this is the working state in which most of my Union operates all of the time, and probably has at least something to do with the rate at which Death Notifications pop up in my inbox. I don’t judge my coworkers for their coping mechanisms, but I know that cocaine and norcos are ultimately not going to do anything for me, so I’ll just rely on the guru’s blessing and hope for the best.

It’s been an interesting few weeks. For a while I stopped dreaming entirely, then I had to take a few Wednesdays off just to catch up on sleep. Finally at the point where I am beginning to have scattered dreams again, none of them lucid but with hints embedded that could get me there, if I were able to pay enough attention within the dream. Physically it’s been quite a mess. I’ve already endured in just the last year something like six months out of work due to a work/comp injury, and have gotten very sophisticated at detailing my pain journal and so forth. Combined with my somatic and meditative training, I suppose my awareness is somewhat keen, but lately it’s like soup. Constellations of a dull sort of aching and shapeless pain that explodes in random locations and then fades back away, but not much of it rising above the horizon of awareness, more just sort of dimly there like it could be happening to someone else. Which may be a useful analogy. I have pondered where the ego resides in this fog and haven’t found anything there. All of my irritation, my pet peeves, the sliced fingers and band aids, everything bothersome about going on four hours of sleep each night for weeks on end, even that seems fleeting and ephemeral. I imagine the bardo state to be something terrifying and jolting, but what if it’s a narcotic sort of sleepiness that you can’t get your senses around, but too unsettling to actually rest in. All mind states are workable, and for the time being at least, and probably the next several weeks, this is what I have to work with. I guess it’s as good a practice as anything.

Grant your blessings so that my mind may be one with the dharma

Grant your blessings so that dharma may progress along the path

Grant your blessings so that the path may clarify confusion

Grant your blessings so that confusion may dawn as wisdom

The Four Dharmas of Gampopa

 

Free as a bird..

There’s nothing here that’s not been said before

But I put it down now to solidify my own views

And I’ll be glad if it helps anyone else out too.

Adam Yauch

The thing about advice is sometimes you just need to hear it, in order to recognize what you already know. Good advice makes sense because the truth in it is so obvious, and you know bad advice the same way you know bad tofu — every part of your being is shouting “that’s wrong!” Sometimes the truth hurts because it’s too close to the bone, and sometimes you get the same pat and hollow answers no matter the question posed. It’s up to each of us to apply our human intelligence to our lived experience and hash out our own truths. Getting advice is part of the smell test.

I’ve been handed plenty of good and bad advice over the years, but one thing I’ve had to figure out is that a poor teacher doesn’t invalidate the teachings. If the advice is too far off the mark I might be left to figure out my own answers, but really that’s what I was going to do anyway so why not get down to it? This month marks the Lunar New Year and I’ve been dropping in on a number of Buddhist communities lately, in part to join in the celebration, and partly because I like to know what other people do all day. I had a brief conversation with an interesting fellow who told me he was once a monk. Now he lives nearby. I asked him curiously “So where do you practice?” and his reply was the best advice I’ve received all year. “I just practice.”

So that happened. .

“Although I wallow in the slime and muck of the dark age,

Still I aspire to see his face.

Although I stumble in the thick black fog of materialism,

Still I aspire to see his face.”

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, The Sadhana of Mahamudra

How can I even begin?

In the past week, His Holiness the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, visited Karma Thegsum Choling in Cicero, IL. For the unfamiliar, that’s an awful lot of consonants jumbled up against one another. I will do my best to explain.

The Karmapa is the spiritual head of the Karma Kagyu lineage in Tibet. The Kagyu lineage dates back 900 years and is one of the four major lineages in Tibet. As best I can gather,  it’s also the lineage that I was sworn into, although my vows were administered in Tibetan, and, well, frankly it gets a little complicated. For the past decade and a half I’ve been doing my best to make sense of things, hashing out my own liturgy as best I can, based on hearsay and observation. I have met some truly wonderful and inspiring individuals along the way, and I have also met with my share of deceit and betrayal. It’s been a bumpy ride, but the best intel I’ve been able to gather suggests that the Karmapa is the real deal, and for some time now I have hoped I might be able to make my own assessment of that situation. On Monday, I was granted that opportunity.

Given the extraordinary nature of international politics, the Karmapa is rarely free to leave his monastery in Dharamsala, India. For most of his two-month tour here in the United States, His Holiness has been visiting universities, packing auditoriums to capacity. Tickets vanished within minutes whenever they were made available. Karma Thegsum Choling is a modest Buddhist center, hardly an auditorium.  As a carpenter, I even had to make some modifications to the building exits just so we’d safely be able to meet our expected capacity (of less than 100). The event was deliberately not publicized, and tickets were given out by invite only, just to ensure that things remained manageable. In short, it’s incredibly fortunate for those involved that His Holiness decided to visit us at all.

And it almost didn’t happen. The day before he was due to arrive, the Karmapa apparently became ill. His visit was quickly rescheduled for the following week. Not long after that announcement went out via email, an earthquake struck Nepal, on the very same date that His Holiness was originally due to visit Cicero. Certainly no one would have been offended if the Karmapa deemed it necessary to cancel his remaining itinerary and head back home. Several of us expected that he would do so. And yet he stuck with the revised schedule, despite the inconvenience it certainly posed.

The actual ceremony, the pomp and circumstance, the incredible tension and release, that I cannot attempt to explain. The majesty and grace that His Holiness presented will sound like horse hockey if I try and describe it here, but I had the experience of being near some sort of quantum distortion field, as if his presence were larger than anything else in the room, or in the entire universe. All of that was undercut by his incredible humility. Browse through the webcasts posted on kagyuoffice.org  or on the Karmapa’s YouTube channel and you can get a sense of this quality. In person, it was overwhelming.

At the request of Lama Sean, center director at KTC, His Holiness offered some instruction for us that day on the practice of Chenrezik, or visualization of the bodhisattva of compassion. This is one of the main practices, or sadhanas, undertaken at Karma Thegsum Choling. While commenting on the 1,000 armed form of Avoliketeshvara, His Holiness related that he could personally empathize with the desire to manifest 1,000 arms, as he would need that many arms to fulfill all of the requests for help he receives each day from countless beings. Was there a hint of sadness in his voice as he said this? Was it resignation? Was he simply still feeling ill?

“His Holiness wants to see you. .”

After the ceremony had concluded, I waited to see if there was anything else I might help with. The room was filled with electricity. Some folks had already headed downstairs, but many were hanging around the main shrine room, chatting excitedly. As I stood there not knowing my place, a head poked out of the crowd. “Rob! His Holiness wants to see you.”

I was not expecting that the moment would become any more surreal. I suddenly felt like I had swallowed a ball of molten iron. I wasn’t sure what to do next, but I made my way through the crowd as quickly as I could and headed downstairs to the apartment where His Holiness was waiting. What was this feeling I was experiencing? Panic? Bliss? Terror?

I entered the room and bowed, completely unsure of what to do next. Should I approach him? Keep a respectful distance? Time was an abstract. Seconds were frozen, and at the same time they raced by. It was as if the room were on fire. Here I stood face to face with the Karmapa, and still I could not gauge his presence. Was he seven feet tall? One hundred? Up close, it was apparent that whatever illness had plagued His Holiness was lingering with him. He appeared a bit fatigued, a little sweaty, and yet he stood larger than life. I’ve met Presidents who didn’t have as commanding a presence. The Karmapa extended his hand and I approached. We shook hands. “Thank you,” he said. Apparently Lama Sean had related that I was essential in preparing the center for the Karmapa’s vist . “Thank you!” I gushed in return. I did not know what else to say. “Rob is a carpenter,” Lama Sean repeated for His Holiness. “Let’s build a stupa!” I exclaimed, stupidly. A stupa is a traditional buddhist monument of sorts, and plans had been announced earlier that day for a stupa in Zion, IL, the site of the 16th Karmapa’s passing. His Holiness had explained that this was, in fact, the main reason for his visit to the region, that he might recall his previous experience here. Suddenly I was embarrassed. I had spoken half a dozen words and I felt I had overstayed my welcome. “Yes, stupa,” the Karmapa repeated in his halting English. The next visitor was already on his way in, carrying a small child.

I left hurriedly, unsure whether or not I was going to pass out, fall over, or wake up. In the days that have passed since, I have tried to make sense of all that happened, and I am at a loss. At first it was as if I was in some sort of post-karmic depression. Not so much a feeling of sadness, but a sense of the weight of the world, of everything that the Karmapa must bear on a daily basis. Despite his limitless burdens and obligations, he not only went out of his way to visit our little dharma center in Cicero, IL, but he took the time to thank me personally for installing some door hardware and laying some carpet. Who knows how many thousands are praying for him this very moment to relieve their very real suffering, and I installed some carpet. The dude rolls with Secret Service escort, and he took the time to thank me. I have worked harder for guys who drive cargo vans, and they have not so much as said “nice job!”

As I reflect upon it, I realize that even my exclamation about the stupa was in a sense, selfish. Certainly I would like to see a stupa in Zion, and certainly it would bring joy to many others, but currently, I am without a full-time job, and if there were some work to do to prepare the stupa, I might have something to do for a little while, and then I could feel useful. It isn’t for the sake of all beings that I want to see a stupa. It’s just so that I might gain some personal satisfaction, or perhaps deepen my own spiritual practice and connection in some way. After the Karmapa left, Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche answered some questions from those who had stayed behind, and he spoke about the benefits that a stupa could bestow. Many who visit a stupa wish that they might gain material satisfaction, win the lottery, or some such thing, and that is the wrong approach. If one instead visits a stupa and makes a sincere aspiration to be of benefit to others, the stupa will speedily grant that wish.

If there is an overriding theme to the Karmapa’s many public comments and teachings on this tour, it is the importance of developing compassion. When he spoke to the crowd at KTC on the practice of Chenrezik, he told us that if we want to know if our practice is truly deepening, we need simply look at our own compassion, and see how it is developing. The proof is in the pudding, as they say. As I think back on the few seconds I had to share with His Holiness, I regret that I didn’t simply ask him, “how are you?” or wish him a speedy recovery from his illness. I am sure that he took no offense, and admittedly I was overwhelmed and more than a little off guard, but it remains a valuable lesson nonetheless. How many times have I walked into a room and been too distracted or hung-up on my own agenda to acknowledge that anyone else was present? This being human business takes constant practice, but it is an opportunity worth perfecting. Some years from now I may be able to judge what effect meeting the Karmapa had upon me. In the meantime, I will be paying more attention to how I pay attention to others. That may be the greatest teaching he could grant me. For now, it is what I will be working on. It’s a start, anyway.

Some edits for clarity and factual correctness. 

UPDATE: Karmapa’s visit to Chicago KTC can now be seen here:

Everything is everything..

All the karmic thought, speech, and action ever committed by me since time immemorial, and in the present and future..

Arising from beginingless ignorance, arising from craven greed, arising from misguided anger, arising from endless delusion..

Born of this impermanent body, born of this impetuous mouth, born of this clinging mind..

I now openly acknowledge, I now confess with humility, I now repent wholeheartedly and accept all consequence with equanimity..

I have been wondering what to do now that I have a blog. I’ve pondered my “brand” and “message” and doodled upon scratch pads trying to come up with a “mission statement”. I’ve also woken up every morning for how long I cannot recall and recited the above lines, and repeated them again most evenings. It seems to me my mission couldn’t be any clearer — deal with each day as it arises, without prejudice or preconception, relying upon my own experience and my best judgment to guide me forward. Surely there will be mistakes, and there will just as likely be situations which I cannot anticipate, or which are beyond my control. There will also be many things which I cannot change. When I encounter these setbacks or obstacles I have to include these in my experience, again without judgment or prejudice, but with the confidence that I will have learned something from the experience, and that in the future I will be that much wiser.

That may not have much to do with blogging — or maybe it does. It feels worth while to set it all down, to set a tone of honest inquiry and accountability for this blog. Karma isn’t as straightforward as a math equation. It’s more like David Tennant’s ball of timey-wimey stuff. The circumstances that I have to deal with every day are largely of my own creation, but countless other sentient beings played their part. Entire galaxies had to form and collide before I could sit down and write this very paragraph. Where does that leave me? Right here, with this laptop, trying to sort it all out with the best understanding that my human intelligence can apply to the situation. Occasionally I’m going to get my facts wrong, or misremember how that episode of Heroes played out. It’s likely that my favorite barbeque recipe will change over time, or that I may even start spelling it “barbecue”. It’s still up to me to put in the due diligence, to report both the truth and my own experience as clearly and accurately as I am able, and to correct my fuck-ups as they arise. Let this be my blogger’s creed.

Originally published the first time I tried to launch this blog, which was not that long ago.