The first version of this piece was broadcast on KFOG-FM, Labor Day weekend, 1990. Labor Day weekend marks the last sigh of summer, signaling the start of the busy season. That means it is time to get hyperactive again, which has a lot to do with the autumn chill that causes our metabolism to speed up, so then we begin acting out the legacy of our Paleolithic ancestors who had to do major hunting and gathering in order to survive the winter. So right after …
Friends and fellow meditators, what happens when you bring mindful attention to your experience? Do you find just an impermanent and innately dissatisfied empty incarnation on its way from universal consciousness to universal consciousness? I don’t want to appear spiritually incorrect, and maybe I just don’t get it, but why would you want to see the glass as completely empty when you could see it as half full, at least? True, seeing the emptiness feels good in comparison to being deeply engaged in your suffering, but there is a different kind of enlightenment experience available to us.
Recently I heard someone on the radio explaining the new crime of identity theft, and I immediately thought, Yes! Rob me, please! Take my identity, and leave the cash!
I can regard my entire dharma path as a matter of shifting identities, and it all started with me trying to run away from myself—the sentimental, histrionic drama of me-ness. The Buddha says that the false conceit of “I” or “self” is the bane of our existence, and I was indeed relieved when I began to see through the various membranes of personal identity. But what really surprised and delighted me is what I saw on the other side. It turns out I am not who I thought I was—I’m much, much more than that.
Strange as it may seem, I like to think of myself as a fool. Whenever I remember my essential foolish nature I immediately relax, usually with a smile on my face. Knowing I’m a fool, I no longer have to live up to some image of an efficient, successful, mindful, wise, compassionate being. I can just be me, someone a little weak of will, just now caught up in the mundane dramas of my life and times; someone who often believes in the illusion of a self that, even if it were real, is certainly not ideal. Knowing I’m a fool, I can also take comfort in the observation of the Taoist rascal Chuang Tzu, who says, “Those who know they are fools are not the biggest fools.”
One reason I like Buddha’s teaching so much is that it doesn’t require me to believe in a personified god—an omniscient, all-powerful being who created everything. The Buddha tells us that we can never know the first cause and that it’s fruitless to try to trace our karma back to its origins. Furthermore, according to the Buddha’s teaching, our rewards and punishments come not from some deity who watches over us handing down judgments but from the laws of cause and effect. Everything that goes …
Father’s Day is here again and it may be no coincidence that every year it falls within a week or so of the Summer Solstice, a time when pagans like me celebrate the masculine energy of the sun, the s-u-n, our father who art in orbit, hallowed be thy light. On the solstice you can usually feel the penetrating rays of El Sol, as the Northern Hemisphere of the earth tilts toward the sun in a great bow of respect, calling on us to reflect …
Okay, everybody sing along to the tune of Happy Birthday: ♪ “Happy earthday to you! Happy earthday to you! Happy earth day every-body — (keep holding the note) — regardless of kingdom, phyla, class, order, family, genus or species; regardless of color of skin, fur, feathers, scales, leaves or bark — (Resume singing) — Happy earthday to you!” And this is Scoop here with the real nitty-gritty and the dirty low down. And yes, the earth gave birth to all of us: the microbes and …
“Oh wondrous creatures, by what strange miracle do you so often not smile.” Issa In the dark season, when the world weighs heavy on your shoulders and the facts of life are so bad you can feel them in your gut, I suggest that you practice the gratitude game. My daughter and I play it when one of us is feeling out of sorts. It consists in simply thinking of all the reasons you have to be grateful. You can make up your own list, …
Friends, it’s gratitude time in America — time to raise the praise, pass the platter, and remember that it is mostly gravy for you and me on this rocky little planet. And this is Scoop with my annual list of perceived blessings and very soon we will have holidays, First of all, looking back at history, I feel deep gratitude for living in this place at this time, on the fertile continent of Turtle Island. And just think, in only the past two hundred years …
John Lennon sang it out loud and clear back in 1968: “War is over.” He may have been a little ahead of history, but he was giving voice to a growing disgust with the warlike ways of our species. Other great singers of our time offer similar sentiments as they pose the perennial questions: When will they ever learn? How many times must the cannonballs fly? Where have all the young men gone? War — what is it good for? We should have declared that …