The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood
Posted on June 19, 2010
Filed Under Fiction, Reading | 3 Comments
I finished reading Margaret Atwood’s The Year of the Flood last night. This novel is a sequel to Oryx & Crake, which came out in 2003. Oryx & Crake establishes and develops a near-future North American dystopia that is frighteningly plausible because it is so firmly rooted in the present. In a lecture at MIT shortly after the novel was published, Atwood describes the big scrapbooks of cuttings she compioled in order to ground the novel’s scientific and technological details in present knowledge and practice. She mostly concerns herself with genetics and economics in the first book, the technology of gene splicing and cloning leading to an economy based on the production of new organisms, which are given names like “rakunk,” a pet-like hybrid of raccoons and skunks, in Wikipedia’s phrase, and “pigoon,” a huge, balloon-like pig used to grow extra copies of human organs for transplantation. The names sound as if they come direct from the marketing departments of the industrial-scientific complex — cute and sinister simultaneously. Scientists and their families live in corporate “compounds,” gated and heavily guarded communities with their own stores, medical services, and social activities; the rest of humanity lives in the “pleeblands,” definitely ungated communities of varying degrees of squalor. Read more
There’s a Certain Kind of Buddhist . . .
Posted on June 6, 2010
Filed Under Buddhism | 3 Comments
. . . utterly bereft of a sense of humor. (See the comment thread to this entry about Sarah Palin at the Tricycle Editor’s Blog.) What a bunch of sanctimonious nitwits!
A Birthday Kiss
Posted on June 3, 2010
Filed Under Dogs, Personal | 2 Comments
Birthday Enso
Posted on May 31, 2010
Filed Under Personal | 1 Comment
Two Little Zen Books
Posted on May 27, 2010
Filed Under Buddhism, Reading | 1 Comment
So I’ve been studying Buddhism over the last year or so, after merely paying attention to it in my peripheral vision for the last decade. For me, that means books, of which I have accumulated a shelf full. I’ve discovered an entire universe of discourse & have only just begun to have a vague map & chronology of the intertwining traditions that make up “Buddhism,” which is not one thing, but many; a pluralist, I find this not only deeply satisfying, but consider that it underwrites the validity, even the truth claims, of Buddhism, since for a pluralist no single approach can be sufficient.
Of the various traditions, though, I have focused mostly on Zen. Of the various Buddhisms, Zen interests itself (more than the others) in literary & artistic matters. (In contrast, the early sutras of the Pali Canon have an outdoors, sunlit, brightly colored quality — a healthy-mindedness — that is also very attractive & that contrasts with Zen’s black & white brush strokes.)
Two main schools of Zen survive today from among the many that have flourished over the centuries since Bodhidharma traveled from the west bringing Buddhism to China in the 6th century. Both schools of Zen, the Soto & the Rinzai, make use of teaching stories called koans, but it is the dominant method in Rinzai, while it is treated more tangentially in the Soto school, which emphasizes “silent illumination.” (At least that is my understanding; experts should feel free to correct me.) In traditional Zen practice, koans are presented almost as law cases, with a brief statement, then the main narrative, then a commentary by one or more teachers, followed sometimes by a capping verse added by still another hand. Sometimes the cases are used by teachers to test students’ understanding; sometimes a student will use a particular case in meditation until it becomes clear — sometimes a matter of months or years! That’s the formal koan tradition & to be honest I don’t know all that much about it, but there is also what might be called an informal tradition of teaching stories that employs some of the same narratives and texts. Stories, I know something about.
That’s a long didactic run-up to mentioning two lovely little books from the Zen storytelling tradition, once ancient & one modern. The Sayings of Layman P’ang (translated by James Green) is a compilation of short conversations between the eponymous layman and various monks & masters. The Layman, who lived between 740 & 808 CE, gives new meaning to the word laconic:
At another time, the Layman asked Ma-tsu, “If you met someone who was a distinctly authentic person, how would you recognize him?” Ma-tsu directed his gaze downward. The Layman said, “Only you are able to play a tune on a stringless harp.” Ma-tsu looked up and the Layman bowed. Ma-tsu then returned to his room. The Layman followed him, saying, “Just now, I tried to trick you, but you made a fool out of me instead.”
The Buddhist tradition has other enlightened lay followers, most notably Vimalakirti, who loved during the Buddha’s time; the Vimalakirti Sutra is loquacious where P’ang’s sayings are hermetic. I prefer the Layman to the elaborations of Vimalakirti, but then I’ve always tended to respect silence — perhaps an odd trait for a poet & a fairly talkative one at that.
There is a blurb on the back of The Sayings of Layman P’ang from John Tarrant, an Australian Zen teacher & the author of Bring Me the Rhinoceros, a modern treatment of several traditional koans, along with some koan-like stories drawn from other traditions. Tarrant has a transparent and lucid prose style that does not get in the way of the stories he’s retelling and that serves the originals well without trying to displace or “improve” them. My favorite story in Tarrant’s book is based on a traditional koan, the title translated by Tarrant as “A Condolence Call,” is also known as “Daowu Won’t Say.” (Here is the formal version of the koan in John Daido Loori’s translation.) Tarrant takes this bare-bones bit of Zen scholasticism about Daowu & Jinyuan and turns it into a deeply human story about a student’s desire to understand & a teacher’s willingness to go to any length to help him. Tarrant adds some characterization & description in the manner of a modern storyteller and expands the narrative a bit; these modest changes, though, add up to something that does justice to the original story but is at the same time completely its own. Tarrant’s version is somehow more good-natured & humorous without in the least descending to parody. As both a teacher & a student, I find Tarrant’s version of this story deeply moving, profound without being freighted with “meaning.” That is, it is in the best Zen tradition, as I understand Zen.
[More koans.]
Loons!
Posted on May 22, 2010
Filed Under Birds, River Notes | 1 Comment
The last two mornings I heard a loon’s call just after dawn, then this morning walking the dogs along the river, Carole & I saw a pair of loons — a nesting pair we think — on the river right across from our house. When the male noticed us he took of toward the south, soon to be followed by the female; they made a broad turn over the highway bridge and headed back north toward the outflow pond from the dam, where they are probably nesting. I’d heard the call in previous years but never seen one here in South Colton, let alone a pair. Loons are an indicator species — they don’t do well in polluted water — so seeing them makes me happy for our local space. It means the world hasn’t ended yet.
Dream that the World Was Ending
Posted on May 19, 2010
Filed Under Dreams, Personal | 2 Comments
We knew a little in advance — a comet was going to slam into the earth, or come so close it would suck the atmosphere away. C. & I decided to spend our remaining time with a friend & begin walking to her house. During our walk — through a neighborhood that, in retrospect, reminds me of Seattle’s Capitol Hill, a freezing chemical rain began to fall, coating everything with rime. We kept walking but thought this might be the end of things, but the rain slows & then stops & we keep walking. I see a child, almost an infant, standing alone on a street corner. There was a moment of looking around and wondering what we should do, but then I went over and picked the baby up and began carrying him with us to our friend’s house. “At least he won’t die alone,” C. said. We shared (silently) a sense of doing the right thing even when it made no difference. When we arrived at our friend’s house she was pregnant and bleeding from the nose. Her abusive boyfriend had hit her in the face, but he was still outside. The chemical rain began to fall again & we discovered that the infant we had rescued was dead. We sat in our friend’s living room, on the floor, a candle in front of us, waiting.
Existence
Posted on May 18, 2010
Filed Under Philosophy, Science, Seeing | 1 Comment
I don’t know about you, but to me there is something deeply satisfying in the knowledge that the universe appears to be the result of an imbalance. Those old Navajo weavers were exactly right to put a flaw intentionally into their perfect rugs; the Japanese idea of wabi sabi captures this notion aesthetically, that a slight asymmetry makes for the greatest beauty.
Madness & the Ruling Class
Posted on May 16, 2010
Filed Under Madness | Comments Off
Another Dream About The Old House
Posted on May 14, 2010
Filed Under Dreams | 1 Comment
Just before waking this morning, I dreamed I had moved back into the old house and furnished my childhood room with the turret as a studio. My first creative writing teacher Tom Brush was there and suggested that I rent the place out when I wasn’t in residence — apparently I still had a teaching job and would only be in Santa Cruz part of the year. I was saying I’d want to be very exclusive and limit the rentals to people I knew and trusted. I could tell Tom was a little envious. This is another dream about repossessing my childhood, I think.
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