Robert Colpitts

It is not
What I sometimes do to others
That you should fear
But what I am
Willing to do to myself

This article originally appeared at www.theidproject.org.  Check out all my posts!

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Right now, reports of the many disastrous effects of the earthquake and subsequent tsunami that hit Japan and other locations less than 2 days ago are so prevalent that they take up the main headlines of the major news sources that I read.  The New York Times is now reporting an extremely high death toll as well as a nuclear disaster that is on the brink of occurring.  It is an emotional topic to be sure.

Yesterday, Lodro Rinzler wrote compassionately about how to help out those affected by the natural disaster as a Buddhist in a practical what-do-I-do-now kind of way.  If you would like to help in a direct way, please read his article.

In addition, Ethan Nichtern brought up the topic of groundlessness as part of his post about the Tsunami and Earthquake that hit Japan and continues to affect human lives near and far this morning; the questions that he asks are poignant questions and necessary to contemplate.  As a experienced teacher and philosopher, he is a good person to consult if you want to be guided by a sure and steady hand.

I am a less experienced, and a more likely to create thorns kind of person, so continue reading only if you are willing to negotiate my own difficulty with the second noble truth.

Recently, I have found that meditation and Buddhism don’t provide much support.  In fact, it does the opposite:  it causes me to feel unsupported.  For me, the general increase in odd unsupportedness is the experience of groundlessness.  The more I meditate, contemplate, and read, the less supported I feel.

Stop here.  Is what I am saying completely counter to your needs and your own understanding of Buddhism and mediation?  Perhaps Susan Pilver’s intelligent article about the benefits of meditation is something that you’d rather contemplate now.

If you are still with me, then I’ll be even more honest about my experience of meditation.  From my point of view, meditation and Buddhism not only reveal groundlessness in my life, but they are supposed to reveal it.

Let’s look at the second noble truth through the lens of the earthquake, and I’ll tell you why.  The first noble truth is that there is suffering.  We can all agree that many people are suffering right now.  The second noble truth is that there are causes to that suffering.  Andy Karr in his book Contemplating Reality describes the second noble truth in this way:  “the second truth is that the cause of this pervasive suffering is clinging to the illusions of “I” and “mine” as though they were real (p.4).”

That freaks me out.  Seeing as the current events of the day are so close to the hearts of people in this world, I have to ask myself the question before I continue:  am I ready for this?  The cause of suffering is not earthquakes, or tsunamis, or death counts, or disease, or nuclear meltdowns, but clinging to illusions?  Does that seem right?  Am I ready for that?

Nancy Thompson was ready to write her article about pain.  I believe that Nancy would agree with Andy Karr’s description of the second noble truth.

But am I ready to see things that way?  The next time I have surgery, am I ready to look at my pain directly?  Am I ready to see my suffering in the way that Andy Karr describes it?  Am I willing to look at someone who is screaming and to think that the cause of their suffering is their clinging to ego?  With all the news broadcasts out there about rising death counts, endless destruction, personal stories, and tender human suffering, do I dare say other than the cause of suffering is the earthquake?

This is why meditation and Buddhism causes groundlessness.  Even when you get to the second noble truth, things start to fall apart.  It feels very difficult to come to the conclusion that the second noble truth applies even now.  That makes today, and the earthquake, and life in general just a little more complicated.  A little more true, but a little more complicated.  What do you think?

It is, as it were, the time to rev’it’up engine vroom vroom
Yeah, here it is, get the heck up
Slowerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Worrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrk
Day on
Vroom Baby Vroom

Delusions
Taste
Better
With
Butter

But they
Are
Still
Delusions

And
He’s
Got
A
Loving
Baker

Free
Food
Yum

OMG.  Freaking DJ Baghead wanted to do another freaking video!  Two in a day.  I hate him.  Dork.

Yes.  DJ Baghead returns.  I really didn’t like him very much after he made this one, and I was reluctant to post it, but he made me.  I mean, look at him.  What an amateur!  But, I guess I have to admit he’s got style.  He’s just gotta do something about his outfit. 

Easier to
Die
Than to
Love
A
Woman
Who
Makes you
Want to
Live
Forever

What a lesson
Love is
To living

I cannot
Speak
The word

Love

If I say it
I will die
Singing

It is not
As I thought
Black at all
But a river
That colors
My experience

I am not tossed
By the gentle worries
Of now and then
And day to day

(Most of the time)

I am torn asunder
When the energy
Of my spine
And the reverberations
Thereupon
Turn and twist
Sicken and spit

It is partly
My task
To wrestle with
That

The most
Rooted of human
Forces

The spine

It worms its way
Through my soul
And turns and twists
And sickens and spits
It leaves
Something
Deadly there

I just have to
Meditate
Or do
Yoga

And it stops

Why is that
So hard?

The story Héloïse is standing in an empty room, wondering nothing, because I have not given her any thoughts yet.  The real Héloïse said something yesterday that gave me permission to write about her, and to have you, yes, you, read all about it.  How odd for you, though, if you are the real Héloïse, as no doubt seeing your name has made you curious, to read about the real you and the not real you.  Seeing as I write of the real Héloïse at a different time from the one in which you are reading, there are now three Héloïseses if you are Héloïse, and two if you are not Héloïse, though now that you imagine me talking to the real-real Héloïse, you probably have 3 Héloïseses, and the reading Héloïse now has 4, as she sees you seeing her, and that one is different from the now Héloïse that is reading this. 

All of these Héloïseses have a name that is difficult to type with accuracy, so I press Ctrl-V every time that I want to write Héloïse or Héloïseses.  The real Héloïse, when she is using this computer, might have a similar problem when she is attempting to respond to email on my computer.  Yes, I let the real Héloïse use my computer when she asks; though I am fiercely protective of it, she opens up something within me that dares me to be the kick-ass person I want to be, and that person is not a person who cares if a responsible person uses my computer to check her email.

Story Héloïse is not doing anything.  She stands in a space that Faith usually occupies, but Faith is happy that I’m dating her, so Faith does not care.  Faith, if she were to do anything, would push me in the direction of Héloïse, and since I do whatever Faith wants me to do, she does not need to show up and push at all. 

Seeing Héloïse stand there in an empty space, I am embarrassed, as it seems I am responsible for shaping her story-self, and the real Héloïse’s reputation is on the line if I do that.  If I give her a clown nose and have her doing jumping jacks, people might think her odd; if I have her stand in a subway station playing a harmonica, people might think I know too much.

By now, the reading Héloïse is thinking about liking this post on Facebook, though she is going to have to go back to the tab on her web browser because she is reading this on my blog.  You are too, and though you are not thinking about liking this on Facebook yet, when I softly encourage you to do so, you will feel so happy to help me become the most popular writer in the world that you copy her actions, and therefore, for a moment, become Héloïse.

I gag.  I only want Héloïse to be Héloïse, and I hope by now you have abdicated that moniker.  Not that I dislike you or anything, but it would be very confusing if everyone was Héloïse.  This, by the way, is why I’m not doing anything with the story Héloïse:  it seems so awful to create a Héloïse that is different from the now Héloïse and the reading Héloïse.

However, since I am a sometimes contrarian, let’s imagine Héloïse marching across Asia with a backpack.

I hope she writes me, because I don’t think they have Facebook there. 

How much money would I need to join her?  I don’t know anyone who has gone hiking around the world.

She walks pretty fast, I have to say.  She she starts flying around like an eagle. 

She holds my hand as we walk through the park on a sunny day in New York.  She speaks softly and quietly and hands me “Get better soon,” cards at random intervals, which I collect in my pants pockets, now bulging with excess.  Her speech reminds me of summers past, when life was dreamy and romantic, and I had more success, and less fear.

I wonder at her kindness as the sun and the shadows alternate their effects on my skin–happy to be warm, happy to be cold, over and over and over.  Normally her brash demeanor and cutting remarks embarrass and condemn me to a day as a sniveling amoeba, but now I find myself in the company of a confidante and equal.  What has happened to me?

Something feels odd.  I wait.  At this moment Faith usually, like an apocryphal clairvoyant, dutifully responds to my inner queries, but instead she continues speaking about the weather.  How is it I can end a paragraph with a question and not have her immediately answer it?

Am I permitted my own authority to make do, think free, breathe nice, shake hands, kiss soft, make love, or, by those amends, do as I will, with writing or otherwise?  I feel already freer in my explanation than she would usually allow, and somehow feel compelled to let her walk on into the park alone never to see me again.

I should let her go.

There is a problem though…she is being nice.

Careful, moral, considerate, nice.

How long can that last?  Really?  Pretense is soothing, but at her core, she’s a bitch.

I wait.

Nothing.

Damnit, she still cannot read my mind.  I take back what I said. 

She’s all that I ever loved and will ever love in a thousand lifetimes, and she walks with me now.  I will listen to her.

I am so inconstant in my love.  Maybe that’s why she won’t love me now.

Maybe that’s why nothing is going well.

Maybe that’s why I am a horrible human being.

I turn to her to confess my errors, but I realize that she is gone.  I walked too far.

Yep.  So goes eternity. 

Did I tell you the other day that I don’t fear not having enough money, because if it ever really sucks I can just kill myself?

I’m glad she isn’t around for that.  She’d never love me if she knew I thought that.

Love’s a shame, isn’t it?