update on Bleak House

Possible trial this morning

Click link below in a few days to see if i'm incarcerated, writing a great prison novel using ink from an artery written on toilet paper.

https://services.saccourt.com/indexsearchnew/CaseNumberList.aspx?SearchValues=ARMSTRONG,THOMAS,EDWARD,4160766

UPDATE 3pm: Jury selection happened today, and opening statements. The trial continues on Monday. Can't say more.

~C4Chaos's Kind of Kick-Ass Dharma Teacher

	~C4Chaos meditating in an exotic spot in Washington state.

I love ~C4Chaos because he jumps into life with extreme passion and extreme compassion. And since he is also extremely brilliant, extremely productive and extremely exuberant [as well as being a hyperWilberian], all the lights in the room I'm in double their brightness when his webpages glow on my monitor.

In his latest blogblast, "The Science of Enlightenment is Paving the Way for the Enlightenment of Science," C4 sings the praises of "The Science of Enlightenment" a 14-disc CD package written by Shinzen Young.

Shinzen Young is a Vipassana meditation teacher, but also a lot else, having emersed himself in Buddhism diciplines other than Theravada, including Shingon and Zen. We also learn from wikipedia, that he has extensively studied and practiced Lakota Sioux Shamanism. BUT THAT'S NOT ALL, FOLKS ... he also is a geeky science-interested fellow, "integrating meditation with scientific paradigms." It says that Shinzen "frequently uses concepts from mathematics as a metaphor to illustrate the abstract concepts of meditation." Hmmm. I'd surely be interested in THAT leap; math to meditation. The calculus of deep non-thought.

	Shinzen Young, as pictured at his webspace Meditation in Action.

Anyway, between C4's post and Shinzen Young's main webspace, Meditation in Action, there is lots to be found about the idea of the integration of science and meditation, of the synergy of the Post-modern Age and True Enlightenment. C4 and Shinzen believe, as I must, that only a major uptick in our leaders' thinking and actions [and, thus, necessarily, in the general population, as well] will we be able to thread our way through the dangers and challenges that the testy future holds for us all. And, thus, "tread our way to liberation" using an alloy of ancient and modern wisdom.

Writes C4 in his post,

Shinzen Young's is one the most-sane voices paving the way for the enlightenment of science. Since the publication of The Science of Enlightenment ten years ago [Yep, TSoE was originally issued as a bunch of cassettes 10+ years ago, but was reissued and modestly updated in CD format in 2005.] , there already are promising signs that the cross-fertilization of Western science and Eastern meditative technology have been gathering momentum. One of the leading voices in the field is B. Alan Wallace (a Buddhist practitioner and scientist). See Wallace’s talk at Google: “Towards the First Revolution in the Mind Sciences.” On the more mainstream end, Sam Harris (a neuroscience researcher) is making noises about such integration. See Harris’s essays on the Huffington Post: “A Contemplative Science” and Shambhala Sun: “Killing the Buddha.”

Let me end things by kiping a poem, written by Shinzen, that is currently on the homepage of Meditation in Action. I have to say that the poem is controversial, even to me. Can the Path be so all-encompassing? But, mustn't it be!?:

The Path

If anybody asks you what the Path is about,
It's about generosity.
It's about morality.
It's about concentration.
It's about gaining insight through focused self-observation.
It's about the cultivation of subjective states of compassion
   and love based on insight.
And it's about translating that compassion and love into
   actions in the real world.

UPDATE: In C4's prior post, he has a couple Shinzen viddies and a link to a three-part audio talk with Shinzen at Buddhist Geeks, and MORE.

My situation, as compared to the Wanderer's

After having put up the Tricycle piece today about a Chinese Zen man of high rank experiencing homelessness, with equanimity, Ed of the blog Bad Buddha asked how that man’s experience resonates with my own.

To my credit, I have to say that I am doing a great deal better in Homeless World Sacramento than I would ever have supposed. A large part of this is that “the guys” – that is, other homeless people, most of whom are men – are pretty terrific.

My experience differs from the author of the Trike piece in a lot of ways, some of which may be significant. I rarely have to sleep on the streets, and I’ve never had to dumpster dive for sustenance.

I’ve found shelter at the Union Gospel Mission and I’ve been mostly lucky at being able to renew my privilege of getting a seven-day “reservation” to use one of their bunk beds to sleep on. There is food available for me at the mission and at Loaves & Fishes that will guarantee that I will eat good food. Also, I’ve gotten small sums of money from my mother’s death benefit and from general assistance, and food stamps, to assure that there’s a little extra.

When I have had to “stay out” because I could not get a bed at the mission shelter, I usually have just stayed up all night. Sometimes, I’ve found a place to sleep where I haven’t been bothered.

Unlike New York, where the Wanderer was homeless, there aren’t many businesses in Sacramento that are open late hours. The train station is sometimes open as late as midnight; I have stayed there to stay warm. But, both the train station and the bus station sometimes are careful to check people in their lobby and toss out anyone who doesn’t have a ticket. I’ve been tossed out of both places.

There is a Denny’s near Old Sacramento that is open all night. If I have money when I’m out, I’ll go there for a little while.

Another option I have is to stay in the lobby of a hospital Emergency Room. I haven’t done this yet, but I’m told that the Davis Medical Center is a place a well-kempt homeless person can stay and sleep, pretending a friend or relative is being tended to by the hospital staff.

There are a lot of people who have treated me badly because they can tell I’m homeless. Sometimes, I feel bad about that and sort of hide away all day.

As I say, I have a lot of people out here whom I consider to be friends. Some of them have some overwhelming drinking or substance-abuse problems, though when I see them they’ve been sober and even keeled. In just the last week, two good friends, separately, got released from six-month and 30-day stays in jail for being drunk in violation of their parole. I don’t think that either guy has any intention to cease drinking.

Also, my friend Steve and his family have been a big help to me.

While pretty much everybody knows I am Buddhist, other guys I know are pretty intent on making a Christian out of me. Because I sing the hymns and have learned a lot about the Bible, many think I must be wavering in my dedication to Buddhism, but I am not, at all.

The author of the Tricycle piece writes a lot about equanimity. I cannot say that I am equanimitous. My mood varies, but, I think, I am pretty much universally thought to be a nice, smart, big-hearted guy who will do anything for anybody.

The exception to all this is that I’m not happy about a lot of ways that the mission and Loaves & Fishes are run. [See my piece Phobos and Thanatos.] There’s a fellow on-staff at the mission who seems to have no other job than dispense misery and threaten to take guys’ bunks away from them. I cannot understand why the fellow does that or why the mission does not rebuke him. Loaves & Fishes is a dirty and inefficient place, unworthy of the population that it serves. Still, both the mission and L&F attract many Christ-like or bodhisattva-like people who help run the two organizations.

I do try to be even-keeled, and some days I’m successful at that. Sometimes, though, I will have a difficult time in the middle of the night, worrying about how I might ever exit my homeless circumstance and the nine-months-running felony thing – my own personal Bleak House – that refuses to either wrap up or go away. Also, at times, my mind gets caught up thinking about what a supremely dastardly person my sister is. When that happens, I try to distract myself with other, happy thoughts.

As I say, I’m, mostly, not unhappy. Plus, if I ever get back to a life that is somewhat like normalcy, I know I will greatly appreciate a lot of things about it that I didn’t in the past when my life was normal. I will appreciate being more in control of the period when I sleep. I will appreciate being able to decide what it is I will eat. I will appreciate not having to worry about where a bathroom is that I can use, or that I might get sick and suffer mightily.

My experience of homelessness has also "awakened" me toward having an enormous amount of sympathy for poor and homeless people and their incredibly frustrating struggles and to the knowledge that "justice" in America is in terrible shape. Had I not been here in Homeless World Sacramento, I'd never have gained this awareness.

In support of Non-Theism

Both Barbara O'Brien, in her blog writing as about.com's guide to Buddhism in Barbara's Buddhism Blog, and Philip Ryan, the primary writer of tricycle editors' blog, have written in support of UK [Manchester] Guardian columnist Ed Halliwell's post in support of non-theism.

What is non-theism? It is the Buddha's position on the whole, messy GOD question. And Buddha's position is what exactly? Writes Halliwell, "[T]hat dwelling on such a question [as whether or not God exists] is not conducive to the elimination of suffering, which was the sole purpose of his teaching."

A non-theist is not the same as an atheist. An atheist is defined as someone who denies the existence of god.

Writes Barbara,

For the most part, the Buddhist position on the God question is neither yes [theism] nor no [atheism]. Although some Buddhists consider themselves to be atheists, and some (sorta kinda) conceptualize the buddhas and bodhisattvas as godlike beings, the Buddha taught that belief in God is irrelevant [to his teachings or the dharma]. Believing in God or not believing in God will not help you realize enlightenment.

Further -- and I think Barbara is likely to agree with this -- traditional belief in God (i.e., as a Christian or Jew or Muslim) is not necessarily at odds with being Buddhist, though fitting Buddhism with other religions is always likely to have uncomfortable elements.

A "liberal" reading of the Bible (that is, seeing much of it as metaphorical and perhaps interpreting the New Testament such that Jesus is not uniquely the son of God, but a child of God as we all are supposed to be) can allow room for Buddhist practice.

I think that there certainly are believers in God who have realized enlightenment, or cosmic consciousness. Jesus, himself, being the prime example. His enlightenment is, perhaps, 'colored' by his belief in God, which causes no diminishment in the experience/achievement. Those Buddhists who have no belief system impacting their awakening experience/achieve enlightenment that is transparent.

Barbara writes that belief in God can be a upaya, a skillful means or method, for reaching enlightenment. I tend to disagree since upaya evokes the idea of intention. Most who are devoted to God will be enlightened without that being what they're after. An example here of that would be St. John of the Cross whose devout belief while being tortured by actors in the Inquisition resulted in mystical knowledge which brought him powerful insight. John of the Cross's "dark night of the soul" was unwanted, but triggered his profound awakening.

I like what Halliwell has to say about agnosticism in comparison to non-theism:

Non-theism may sound somewhat like agnosticism, and indeed contemporary Buddhist teachers such as Stephen Batchelor have adopted the agnostic label as a way of distancing themselves from those metaphysical elements of Buddhist tradition, such as rebirth and karma, that are not empirically demonstrable. However, whereas agnosticism tends to emphasise not-knowing, which results from and remains confined by the limitations of intellectual and philosophical inquiry, a non-theistic approach implies letting go of all concepts in order to go deeper into experience, creating the possibility that this might produce a more profound kind of understanding.

But ... I don't know that "letting go" of conceptions of God necessarily will (or even "might") produce a more-profound understanding. Jesus and John of the Cross did very well -- thank you very much -- as a profoundly enlightened Jew and Christian, respectively.

It is just, that for many, including a large number of Buddhists, being non-theist is the most comfortable and appropriate tag. We neither believe nor don't believe nor is ours a fitful orientation of doubt. We merely, meekly abstain.

"Groundhog Day" named One of the Ten Best Movies EVER

There are two types of people in this world: those that love Groundhog Day, and those that can't appreciate it. Our job is to exterminate the latter group. -- Adum Miller, webmaster GHD Home Page

The Great Stanley Fish, a frequent contributor to the N. Y. Times, has named "Groundhog Day" as one of his ten favorite movies of all time in an article, "The 10 Best American Movies," published a couple days ago in the Times online. "Groundhog Day," released on the Groundhog holiday, 2/2/1993, is the most-recent of the ten films Fish named.

"Groundhog Day" is the favorite of a great many Buddhists because of the storyline of the movie where the protagonist overcomes his egomaniacal suffering as a result of assimilating to a 24-hour time loop he finds himself trapped in. Other religious faiths also claim the movie as sending a message of their creed about how a person can become better or more spiritual.

Bill Murray plays Phil Connors, the overbearing protagonist, a TV weatherman sent to cover festivities of February 2, in celebration of Groundhog Day, in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. Andie MacDowell plays Rita, his producer and romantic interest. And the great character actor Stephen Tobolowsky plays Ned Ryerson, an aggressive life-insurance salesman who once dated Phil's sister.

I fell in love with the movie the first time I saw it and subsequently wrote about it. First, in about 1995 for now-defunct edarma magazine, calling Groundhog Day the greatest Buddhist movie. Then I wrote something for now-sleeping Zen Unbound , "Groundhog Day and the Cosmic Sense," matching Phil's development to levels of cosmic-conscious achievement. Lastly, I wrote a piece called "The Ned Ryerson Conundrum" which was read by Richard Henzel, who voiced a radio DJ in the movie, at the Groundhog Day Breakfast in Woodstock, Il. -- where the movie was filmed -- in celebration of the fifth aniversary of the film's release [i.e., on 2/2/98]. [Is my pride showing?]

My writing has been "disappeared" by my very very very very evil sister who has stolen almost all my belongings, including two laptops and my inheritance of about $100,000, leaving me in abject poverty. Phil Connors isn't the only guy to have problems.

There are, however, two particularly splendid recent pieces about Groundhog Day written by premier buddhobloggers that I am honored to cite: "Groundhog Day, Samsara and Salt" written by the noble Kyle Lovett for Progressive Buddhism; and "Don't Drive Angry..." by the revered, revealing and revolutionary Rev. Danny Fisher for his eponymous blog.

Kyle writes that GD is "[o]ne of [his] favorite movies of all time," even before he was buddhafied. Dano tops that, writing that it's his "favorite 'Buddhist film.'" YOU GO, guys!

Here a snip from Kyle's bodacious and deep essay:

Today, some Buddhist's point to this movie as an example of Samsara, and some temples even have screenings every February 2nd. But what is Samsara and what does Groundhog Day have to do with it? Samsara has been translated into a few different types of meanings in the Buddhist tradition, depending greatly on who you hear it from. However, loosely speaking, Samsara is this wheel of life we are on, these ups and down and endless cycles and perhaps we can even say it stands in opposition of Nirvana.

And here some fine words from the remarkable remarking reverand's piece:

The Buddha once said, "I teach only suffering and its end." To my thinking, if ever there was a film that taught that same material exactly, it's Groundhog Day. Phil Connors, the sour protagonist portrayed by Bill Murray (in what Time Magazine's Richard Corliss very rightly calls one of the great screen performances of all time), slowly comes to grips with the reality of suffering and discovers a way to relate to it that leads to an unexpected peace.

Wow! Good stuff, eh? Who wouldn't want to spend eternity reading and rereading these guys' essays!?

But wait! What's this!? A blogpost by the revolting reverand revealing he reviles Groundhog Day!!! In his Sept 2008 post, "A list of films about Buddhism," Daniel LEAVES GROUNDHOG DAY OFF THE LIST OF 60 FILMS! And where is Ikiru? Man, Dano. Asleep at the wheel!?

Update #1 [1/9/09] I take back my pretend criticism of Danny Fisher's list of films about Buddhism. Indeed, only movies that are overtly about Buddhism should be on the list. The problem with Groundhog Day (and the Matrix) are that they try to be pluralistically religious. Both GHD & Matrix are "claimed" by Christians, as indeed the screenwriters intended. Both GHD & Matrix have symbolism that is meant to attract various religions. Nonetheless, GHD tracts mostly with mayajana Buddhist belief with its ego-diminishment message.

Update #2 [1/9/09] EeeHa. I found all of my old Groundhog Day writing on the Internet archives [i.e., the Wayback Machine] "The Greatest Buddhism Movie Ever Made!," found in the Zen Unbound [when it was on AOL] archives. The article first appeared in edharma. Then there is "On the Trail of the Groundhog," an early version of "Groundhog Day and the Cosmic Sense." And, finally, "The Ned Ryerson Conundrum." Now that Blogger allows for post-dated entries, I will very likely update all three articles and schedule them for a 2/2/09 publication in this blog.

The Buddhist at the Baptist Rescue Mission

	The Primordial Buddha statue on the grounds of the Sacramento Convention Center. That yellow thing in the background is a statue titled Walking the Dogs. Photo © Tom Armstrong

The person referenced in the title of this blogpost is me.

In Ryan Garou's book On Homelessness in America [for sale in softcover here; downloadable in doc format here], Ryan writes [Emphases mine] ...

In America, Christianity is the dominant belief system and therefore the one to expect when showing up at a mission's doors - there may be Buddhist, Muslim, etc. shelters but I've never personally heard of any. ... This should raise at least one obvious question - if a Jew, Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, etc., or even a Christian of a flavor at odds with that of the shelter provider is in need of shelter and has no other options, what happens? How is it handled? And what about the Satanists, Wiccans, agnostics and outright atheists? It entirely depends on the mission's policy. If they rigidly require an hour's devotion to Christianity, a homeless person of a different faith either has to grin and fake it or turn away.

Since I've been at the Union Gospel Mission in Sacramento over six months now, I figure it’s about time I address the elephant in the room: How do I handle being Buddhist in the midst of this Christian conclave?

As I wrote in my third post to this blog, when I returned to Sacramento late last April, I was desperate for a place to stay and ended up at the mission. While I have been out on the street many days, I’ve yet to try to stay at any other shelter, though the Salvation Army shelter, and, now, the Winter Shelter are likely to be a better fit for my requirements.

Why do I continue to stay at UGM? For starters, the Union Gospel Mission has a lot of appeal. Foremost are many of the guys who are so-called guests, like me [that is, the sheltered homeless], and other guys, most of whom were recently sheltered at the mission and who had substance-abuse problems, but are now part of The Program, and pretty much run the joint. Among the guests and in The Program are a lot of fully nice guys who are interesting, colorful and friendly. And a few of the guys in The Program are downright magnificent people who have adapted a Christ-like love of their brothers. Others of my homeless brethren have evident [and sometimes not so evident and sometimes downright mysterious] problems, but seem to do a rather splendid job managing their lives under the difficult, frustrating circumstance of being homeless.

Like what Ryan writes in his book, UGM does rigidly require its sheltered men to attend an hour-long gospel service every night. Generally, in the first half-hour there is singing, by the congregation using the chapel hymnals and/or by a choir or musicians from a church. Generally, during the second half hour a pastor will preach to us.

The music half-hour goes by pretty fast for me. Even though I have a terrible voice and a narrow range of notes I can hit, I usually sing along. While most of the hymnal songs are cornpone, written a century ago, with lyrics that talk about blood a lot or joyously dream of the Rapture, by UGM tradition, many of the hymns are augmented with interesting or strange or comical or wonderful little inserts into the lyrics. These inserts generally come from The Program guys, pretty much all of whom sing robustly. This fun sensibility keeps the hymns from growing stale.

The preachers, on the other hand, are mostly pretty awful – but there are some who are quite talented! Many of the awful ones come wholly unprepared and just ramble on, saying pretty much the same nonsense every month. From those preachers you will get one or some or all of the following messages, usually delivered rather simplistically:

• Repent or you will roast in hell [The fact that the Bible tells us doing good works is important (Book of James, chapter 2) and that love is superior to faith (1 Corinthians, chapter 13) is, always, overlooked – as is Jesus’ Sermon on the Mound which I have only heard mentioned in passing!]
• God/Jesus loves you [But never ever “Love thy neighbor,” with mention of the importance Jesus attributes to having us “love the least of mankind.”]
• End Times are near! [Any bad news, from fires in the state or the economic downturn, is hailed as evidence of the End, coming any day now.]
• Well-established science and reputable scientists are repudiated and mocked. [Evolution and earth science and The Big Bang get special condemnation, though one preacher is a notable exception in that he cites The Big Bang as evidence of the existence of God.]

About ten of the preachers each month are very talented and very passionate and come well prepared to convince congregants of the Good News of salvation. Jimmy Roughton and the mission's in-house pastor, Rev Tom Mooney, are two in this group.

Here is something I believe -- though my believing it or not doesn't make any difference. [Believing the True Thing about The Cosmos, God and Everything almost certainly doesn't affect my future ... I don't believe. Though finding the Source is the goal in cosmic hide-and-seek.] What I believe is that consciousness is all One Thing and that we are all in the Game of Life, "a grand game of cosmic checkers," together. Here, a snippet from a Ken Wilber interview known as "A Ticket to Athens" which explains things:

Spirit is not good versus evil, or pleasure versus pain, or light versus dark, or life versus death, or whole versus part, or holistic versus analytic. Spirit is the great Player that gives rise to all those opposites equally -- “I the Lord make the Light to fall on the good and the bad alike; I the Lord do all these things” -- and the mystics the world over agree. Spirit is not the good half of the opposites, but the ground of all the opposites, and our “salvation,” as it were, is not to find the good half of the dualism but to find the Source of both halves of the dualism, for that is what we are in truth. We are both sides in the great Game of Life, because we -- you and I, in the deepest recesses of our very Self -- have created both of these opposites in order to have a grand game of cosmic checkers.