One HAND

August 30, 2012

One HAND

At the neighborhood coffee house, W. and I were chatting over our cups of coffee.  About Eckhart Tolle, about seeing without thinking, about being a dot of paint that somehow managed to escape the canvas that all the other dots of paint take to be the whole world.

He looked at me quizzically.  "Have you ever heard the Zen koan, 'What is the sound of one hand clapping?'"

"What?"

"Do you know what a koan is?" he asked.  I shook my head, No.  "Koans are these riddles that they use in Zen Buddhism to challenge students.  They usually sound like nonsense.  But the nonsense somehow leads the student to a state of enlightenment.  Then, suddenly, the student understands the riddle."

"OK," I answered.  "So you have one that you're going to tell me?"

"Yeah.  It goes like this: 'What is the sound of one hand clapping?'"

"I give up.  What IS the sound of one hand clapping?" I said, waving my hand through the air.

"That's not bad," said W.  "It looks like you are clapping to an imaginary hand.  Not bad at all."  After a pause, in which he reflected on what he THOUGHT I was doing, he said, "OK. Here is how I think of it."

He reached out with his left hand and grabbed my right wrist.  "Can I borrow this?"

I allowed him to lift up my hand by the wrist.  He held it about twelve inches above the table.

"THIS is the sound of one hand clapping!"  With that, he slapped his right palm against my right palm.  It made a strong conventional clapping sound.

Next, he leaned toward me and caught my gaze in his.  He held the stare.  Lowering his voice he said, conspiratorially, "And you know what?"  I waited.  Softly, he said, "It's the SAME hand!"

He let go of my hand.  It remained in the same place above the table where he placed it for the clap.  He put his hand near mine and slowly looked back and forth from one to the other.

I was momentarily stunned.  Did I clap my hand against his?  Or did HE clap my hand against his.  For an instant, I couldn't be sure whether that hand--under his control--was his hand or my hand.  I, too, looked from one hand to the other, and nodded.  At a certain level of understanding, these were not two hands.  They were both manifestations of a single HAND.

I reached over with my left hand and grabbed his right wrist as he had done with mine.  Then I slapped my right palm against his right palm, making the clapping noise.

"That is the sound of one hand clapping," I agreed.  "It's the 'God-HAND' reaching out into two separate manifestations and clapping itself."

In a moment of contentment, W. laughed softly.  I laughed softly, too.  W. and I laughed softly.  We laughed softly.  I and we laughed softly.  I/we laughed softly.

Finally, one of us--and it doesn't really matter who that was--said:

"Every single one of us is a God-HAND clapping other God-HANDS."

Happy Birthday Independence Day

July 4, 2012, Bob Fiske

Happy Birthday Independence Day

Happy Birthday AEAD.

It is July Fourth.

Your combined ages is 167 years.

I hope you are well.

I hope your spirit is lifted.

I hope your spirit knows it’s lifted.

I hope you know how to lift your spirit.

I hope your path is the journey of a lifted spirit lifting spirits.

May you also experience peace and compassion.

May you and all living beings find connectedness and compassion in the path ahead.

As I seem to see what lies on the path ahead I know that calmness could be our greatest virtue.

As we awaken to what we have created, with a calm spirit we could fully open our eyes and our minds.

From clear, calm seeing we could begin to accept the truth of what we have done and grasp it without blame or remorse.

As friends we could begin to fully accept the state of the world and the state of ourselves.

With a calm regard we could begin to accept the pain of knowing and, from that, the peaceful release of responsibility.

As companions on our one ship earth we could know each other warmly.

We could reside quietly as though in the restful time of the setting sun.

We could be ourselves newly and be aware that, in the new dawning, petty disputes and trivial concerns could be put aside.

We could accept the role of doing the greater work of serving the harmonious welfare of all that is impermanent.

We could understand that we are imperfect knowers of Good and embrace our limitations even while we strive to reflect It into the world.

We could identify our inner selves, experiencing that this is who we were all along.

We could realize that the struggle to be our authentic selves was bound to lead us to this place.

And this place could allow us to live as ourselves, in the deepest sense possible.

Tobaccompassion

Perhaps, through knowing Grace, Prudence has changed.  Perhaps she is able to be compassionate towards tobacco smokers.  Even if it might be their fault that they took up the smoking habit, she reasons, can one hold them responsible for not quitting?  Prudence decides the answer is, “No”.

In the form of cigarettes, nicotine and other constituents are an addictive complex the likes of which were never seen.  Firstly, there is the permanence of the addiction: once an addict, always an addict.  Many tobacco users can expect to never be free of the cravings.

Second, there is the biological and chemical engineering of the base product, tobacco.  Today’s tobacco probably bears little resemblance to the product sold fifty years ago.  Through plant hybridization, along with the use of chemical additives, the contemporary tobacco’s addictive potential far outranks that of its predecessors.

Finally, there is the sales and marketing system whose single function is to maintain a chain of production, sales and consumption of tobacco (and related nicotine-delivery products such as gum and patches).  That chain is, in fact, a chain of enslavement.  Human beings are the means of producing wealth by funneling a drug—nicotine—into their bodies.

Once that faucet is opened, it can never be closed.  The wealth-gatherers are as addicted to their chain of income as the smokers are to their tobacco.

Maybe it makes no difference what Prudence thinks, whether she is compassionate or not.  A non-smoker cannot understand the smoker’s experience.  Perhaps the only true compassion can flow from one smoker to another.