The best sauce...

Some old dry cheese, a small tart apple, a handful of peanuts in their shells, and some stale crackers - these comprised the 'lunch' I brought with me to a non-residential (one could say 'out-patient') weekend meditation retreat at a yoga center in northern Virginia several years ago.

I had already been to two five-day retreats at the bucolic Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Marin County, California.  Nestled among copses of lush green live oak - the surrounding hills golden with ripe wild oats and other prairie grasses - the meditation hall, dormitories, and other buildings are a sight for weary pilgrim eyes.  A large Buddha statue sits near a small stream trickling past, two black lizards play chase around his belly.  A rusted bell stands on the slope near the meditation hall.  It is first sounded at 5:30 a.m.  Then again at noon, signaling lunch time.

The retreat participants and I file silently down the hill to the dining hall, where we are greeted by resplendent vegetarian fare (which may seem an oxymoron to some, but to a vegetarian of several decades, it was truly sumptuous).

The bulk of the retreat is spent in motion, it's not all silent sitting: 'walking meditation,' 'mindful eating,' and 'chore meditation' (whether helping with dishes, sous chefing, cleaning the bathrooms, etc.).  All in silence, except for the occasional murmured interrogative or whispered salutation to a retreat 'friend.'  Both of which are discouraged; the invitation is rather to come fully into the boundless present as it arises each moment, free of interpersonal distraction.  When the retreat is over, the idea is to bring this sense of wonder into our lives in the world, to our families, our places of work, our friendships - and even, perhaps especially, to our difficult relationships.  But until the silent retreat is over, this 'talking meditation' is to be avoided.

Okay, I see I'm drifting a bit from the topic, but bear with me.

At meals, one is invited to focus one's attention on the food, the sensations of chewing, swallowing, etc.  While sitting in the meditation hall, the yogi is instructed to 'follow the breath' or some other 'anchor' to help focus the mind.  At the dining table, by contrast, surrounded by the sound of sliding chairs, clinking utensils, and glasses being set down, the invitation is to open fully to these sense objects, and in particular to those which are front and center:  that is, your plate, the food upon it, the heft of your fork, the cool glass of water in your hand - how it is brought to your lips, and the passage of water into your mouth and down your throat.

This may all sound like pointless navel gazing, and of course it can remain simply that.  (I'm not referring of course to the navel oranges - a particularly sensual experience to peel, to smell the cascading, spritzing, spray and aromas as they emerge while you remove the skin.)  In fact, it was while doing just that - peeling an orange - when I first felt the moment sort of meld with the universe.  Which may sound a bit grandiose, so let me put it in more pedestrian terms:  formerly, peeling an orange had usually felt like a task to get through as quickly as possible before enjoying the fruit inside.  (Which, often as not, would be quickly dispatched while pressing ahead to the pie or cup of tea; or perhaps the next to-do list item.)  But it suddenly felt that the act of peeling was every bit being 'there' already.  However, such moments of insight are rare, and as soon as they go from the immediate sense of feeling - the aah-haa experience - to a cognitive awareness, or analysis - the 'okay, x happened, therefore y followed' - the moment is gone like a passing weather system.  Which is not to say it is lost, and that the goal of full enlightenment is once again put off for some distant future.  Nay, even just this passing taste of nirvana (a state beyond clinging and aversion) - is it.  As is the clinging that may follow, if we can bring the same non-judgmental awareness to it.  It just might not feel as special.  The impermanence of all things is an insight to be discovered each moment anew.

By and large, however, the delicious food at Spirit Rock I generally experienced with the usual distractions - worries about my health, and that of my wife's, and all manner of mind states.  But there were also some other distractions, unique to the rarified retreat atmosphere.  To wit:  falling 'in love' with another retreatant, daydreaming of our new and beautiful lives together, etc., based solely upon occasional glimpses of the apparent love object.  Did she sit across from me on purpose?  It's all very Jane Austen.  There is even a term for this, 'vipassana romance.'  (Vipassana means 'insight' in the ancient Pali language spoken in the time of the Buddha, and is the term used to describe retreats such as this.  Pali is similar to Nepali, both languages based on Sanskrit.)  'Vipassana vendettas' on the other hand, or strong aversions one can develop toward another retreatant, are also not uncommon on retreats.

In spite of having been to such retreats, with the resplendent meals eaten there, it wasn't until I sat down on the floor to eat the hastily assembled snack 'lunch' described at the beginning of this post, that my sensations became flooded with here and now presence.  And who'd a' thunk?  Northern Virginia?  Stale crackers?  Come on, really....  Of course the moments of clarity - or 'beginner's mind' - passed after some minutes.  But with the nirvana-busting cogitation and analysis also came an appreciation that any moment, no matter how mundane, is but one small step away from the brilliant miracle of what we normally take for granted.  Can we let go of the millions of other breaths we have already breathed, and be with just this one?  Or this peanut, its shell crumbling in my hand, scattering specks of dust in my lap?  Or this person - this son, wife, boss, friend, difficult person - the one who appears here and now like so many times before, but never, oh never just as in this impossibly unique and fleeting snowflake moment?

Which leads me at last to posit that which inspired me to sit and ex-blogulate in the first place.  My niece writes a daily food blog - supertastes.com - with recipes and epicurean tales.  Very nice, sweet, and all to the good, I encourage you to check it out.  However the slow-food, fast-food, gourmet food, modern food (see the recent New Yorker article about the intersection of food and science for a 'taste' of what can be done with liquid nitrogen, or slow cooking vacuum-packed meals at low temperature), while all mildly interesting, I feel kind of miss the point on an existential level.  It's like searching madly about for the next excellent culinary experience - or an ancient one that has recently been brought to light - that will outdo the last.  With obesity at epidemic levels in this country, I'm not sure this is what the 'world needs now.'  (You don't have to tell me that the obesity epidemic has much more to do with high-fructose corn syrup and Doritos than it does with gourmet food.  I know, but I don't think the food crazed mentality - gourmet or otherwise - can be a significant part of a healthy food renaissance.  Then again, perhaps it can, or even must, but that is a matter for another blogpost.)  What I believe the 'world needs now' has everything to do with now, with present moment awareness.

Whether you dumpster dive for dinner (like eating from a rusty metal tray at the Chateau d'If), dine at the Pierre Gagnaire restaurant in France, or like most of us, something in between, there is one thing that will always help:  don't sit down to eat until you are good and hungry, then stop eating when you are full.  Feel the seat beneath you, the air on your cheeks, the love (or other emotions) emanating from those around you.  Open to the miracle that put you here in front of a bounty wrought by a vast network of human hands, including your own.  To paraphrase Ram Dass:  eat here now.

It's no wonder the French bless their meals with a simple wish:  bon appétit!

Idyll

(I started this post before Christmas break, and now that it is warming up, I'll send it out - my fingers thawed out and all...)

Baby it's cold outside! Even in our dry and wind-shielded parking garage it's pretty chilly in the morning. Cold enough that after turning on the engine, and shifting into reverse, and taking my foot off of the brake, the car does not move. Even as the engine races. But slowly the wheels begin to turn, and the car backs as I turn out of our space. Then into drive I shift, and the car rolls slowly forward. At this point, it takes some pressure on the gas pedal to drive up the two stories to the exit.

Why, you may wonder, such a laborious description of starting the morning 'commute' (taking Miller to school)? Why indeed. I think I am learning to put this practice of the slow start into my daily life - sometimes anyway.

Sitting here at my desk - just back from taking Miller to the orthopedist for a wrestling related knee injury - I'm sealing envelopes for a (very) few holiday cards, working on a short story, checking email and facebook, scheduling an MRI, and doctor visit, paying bills. You know, just the stuff people do. And earlier I had been to the gym: feel relatively strong today, my 'numbers' will be good, though bedtime is a way's off. The snow is falling outside, 25 degrees. Spencer just called from New York, he'd caught an earlier bus, should arrive by eight tonight. Every so often I'll take a deep breath, and relax into the idle. Open the eyes, remember the next todo item, then press on the gas.

Finding the idle speed: it isn't always so easy. It's not a matter of just doing nothing, chilling, vegging. There is some energy to it, and some days it just doesn't seem to be as available. Or I forget to check into it. Just now, tensing up a slight bit, getting lost in these words. These words that seem to bubble up from some forgotten place. They can remind me to slow down, feel the breath, the idle, then go forward.

It's helpful in the gym too. After pulling ten minutes of rows on the erg machine, it helps if I remember to notice my breath - maybe three of them - unstrap my feet, feel the idle, and slowly stand up and move to a weight machine. I usually take the walker to the gym, as the exercise (idle or no) pretty much knocks me out: I ride down in the elevator, seated in it. But by the afternoon or evening, I can feel the benefits.

Feeling that idle speed - some energy, but also some calm - that is the stuff of yoga, meditation, tai chi, and other practices.

Can they lead to the homonymic title of this post?

P.S. Sometimes. While walking to a meditation group near Dupont circle this morning, it occurred to me that a wheel chair might be kind of nice. Which is a far different feeling than the technology has inspired in me in the past.

A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I've got a gal, in Kalamazoo!

My sister and niece work at The American Prospect, a progressive news magazine published here in D.C.  The articles and analyses are quite good.  Usually too good.  You see, I can get very depressed reading even just one or two articles.  (Unlike the New Yorker, which has cartoons, 'shouts and murmurs,' 'talk of the town,' a fiction piece, etc.  Which kind of paces me as I read through the sometimes rather long and hard-hitting investigative journalistic pieces.)

Anyway, the last issue had a very insightful piece on how is it that with near double digit unemployment figures, the fat cats in the boardroom and on Wall Street are back on their feet, dancing the Charleston?  We're in the money....  While the article put a much finer point on the multiple factors behind this apparent heist of the millennium, by far the biggest one had to do with a phenomenon we are all familiar with:  outsourcing.  But not only jobs are being shipped overseas, more and more of the products made by these workers are being purchased there, or in some other country.  Take Apple, for instance, and China.  The ratio of Chinese employees to American workers is a full ten to one.  At Apple.  Similar for dozens, even hundreds of other so-called American companies.  The gist that I recall from the article was, for so many un- or under employed Americans, the situation they face is not a 'structural' change in the economy - that is, one in which with retraining or going back to school for a different degree a worker can find a new job - but one where the manufacturing base has just up and gone.  This is my limited memory of a limited understanding having read the article many weeks ago, and please, if the Managing Editor or Art Director is reading these words, feel free to set me straight.

What we can all agree on, I think, is that the economy is still barely on life-support.  The liberals among you (90% or more?) will agree that the government still needs to play a big role if any long term recovery will ever happen.  I would suggest something rather simple: how about a humongous tax on any profits earned by a company from employees overseas?  (Do I hear 150%, 125, 150, 125%, yes, 150, from the man sporting the fez.  Do I hear 175%?  175, 150, 175%.....sold, at 300% to the woman with the ruby slippers chanting there's no place like home....)

Things seem dire, and with the tea baggers clogging up congress, only direr.  However, very few have called our protracted economic collapse a depression.  But I call it G.D.II, that is, the Second Great Depression.  I remember my late grandfather, a wise, moderately wealthy, and a tad curmudgeonly man, would often scoff at the term 'recession.'  "Bah," he might say, "there is no such thing as a recession.  These are just minor depressions."

Though some economic indicators are either not as bad as they were in G.D.I or, like the Dow, almost fully recovered.  I nevertheless believe we find ourselves in a Second Great Depression because in addition to the tenacious unemployment situation, we have such an enormous debt, mostly to China.  This was not the case in the thirties and forties.  After being handed a budget surplus by his predecessor, the size of the national debt grew at a phenomenal pace under Bush the Lessor's two terms in office, what with the tax windfalls for the wealthy, and two unfunded wars.  Not to mention the financial crash that came after decades of the industry's deregulation.  (Mostly Repugnant party genesis, it's true; however the Dems weren't exactly innocent.)

I started this post with little intention to share the liberal screed above.  Mainly, I wanted to offer some practical tips on how to cope with less, as we attempt feebly to shop our way back to recovery.  (This is kind of hard, when most of what we buy is made overseas, either by foreign or our own companies.  If it isn't absolutely necessary, and it's made overseas, skip it - that's my plan.  Or, shop at a thrift store.)

Step one, go to a used CD shop, and buy some music from the depression era.  I enjoy the Glenn Miller Orchestra, and other big band music.  But that's just me (by way of my dear old pop, who played the clarinet in a big band way back when).  Louis Armstrong, Fred Astaire, Ethel Waters, Bing Crosby, Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Lena Horne, Judy Garland - the list has no end.

With this music playing on your ancient stereo - the one that still has cassette slots - take those slippers out of the waste basket!  True, your toes have worn through the ends, but see those socks over there?  The ones with heel-holes?  You guessed it, socks first, then slippers, and dance the night away, heat turned low:  you are keeping warm, G.D.II style.  And hey, done with your dinner?  After you scrape the leftovers into an old yogurt or sour cream container, lick the plate clean before you put it in the dishwasher (or wash it by hand - though if you have the dishwasher, it will be cheaper to run a full load than to hand wash.)  Another way to keep warm in the winter:  start your day with a bracing cold shower!  Trust me, it works.  Just like the surfeit of depression era musicians and singers, there is no end to the cost saving ideas you will come up with once you put your mind to it.

(And to all those who know me well, or even not so well, of course I have been living a depression era lifestyle for many decades.  Because the environmental depression has only been getting deeper every day....)

wait until you see her, you'll agree, she's my hometown gal, the only one for meee!

An intercontinental prayer.

If you see where this post is leading at any time - like now for example - feel free to turn away. It's not fun stuff, and I can make no guarantees that any kind of redemption or epiphany will ever materialize. If you do find it there, such states of understanding, compassion, freedom, or whatever, will be, as always, entirely up to you. You, my precious reader.

I stopped by the Giant grocery store recently. The name of this food conglomerate used to rub me the wrong way (still does a bit, but I'm older and wiser now, right?). And while I sometimes will shop at the Bethesda Food Coop, or Whole Foods, the bulk of my grocery dollar goes to the big guy. It's close, it's cheaper, the produce selection is better than at Whole Foods, and they have a growing variety of organic choices. Okay, commercial over, where was I? Yes, I was at Giant and needed to use the men's room, so I pushed my shopping cart, walker style, in that direction. As I approached the elevator there were two employees in my way, with some sort of stocking cart. I stopped behind them.

Beyond them, a man emerged from the elevator, pushing a walker - the triangular sort, which rolls - in our direction. (You probably don't know what that means. By comparison, the walker I sometimes use is rectangular, and has a seat, with four wheels. The triangle has room for some cargo, but no seat, and just three wheels.) He had a blue down jacket on, kind of wavy dark gray hair, a beard, and - do my eyes deceive me - No pants? One of the employees exchanged some words with him out of my earshot. 'Looking for the hosiery aisle, sir?' Or maybe, 'some kinda cold front blowing through, eh?' (Indeed it was very cold outside.) I pushed my cart past, and turned around to confirm my first glimpse. Not just bare legs, there was a brown striation, a few inches wide, running down along the inside of his right leg. My vision wasn't all that clear at the distance of maybe ten paces - I'm rather nearsighted, but normally only wear glasses to drive - so I had no idea what the stain was. Maybe just a naturally occurring pigmentation? Smelling nothing untoward, I pressed the elevator button, and went down.

No off-odor that is, until I entered the bathroom. Let me pause this narrative a moment. How much can you take? If you were in the Peace Corps, you can probably take all I've got to say. In Nepal, the state of our respective gastrointestinal 'issues' (a term both figurative and literal) were topics du jour - what with worms, ghiardia, ameobic dysentary. These were just some of the endemic afflictions we had to face. However, that was 25 years ago. Maybe even the RPCV's among you now might prefer to take a break. If so, know that I managed to survive, and everybody is happy! But some of you intrepid souls might be willing to step further into the miasma with me, your noses pinched.

As my urge was secondary in nature (do the math), I glanced in the HC accessible stall: there the stench was stronger. Looked into the other stall, there was a spray bottle of some kind of cleaner next to the toilet. So, I decided maybe I can hold it after all. Secondary pressures tending to be less urgent than the primary kind. (Just in case anybody hasn't caught up with the math yet.) As I headed for the door, a couple of Giant employees entered, and told me that the smaller stall was clean, no worries.

Okay, time out, I have to end the story here. Of course there was more - including some graphic details I'm certain would compromise your delicate hygienic sensibilities and would leave too long a memory trail. And much heroic cleaning efforts by the employees while I sat in the neighboring stall. Listening to an occasional $#!* or, &@^^, what the #^!&?

But in the end, I was back upstairs shopping, hands thoroughly washed, and focussed once again on the front end of the GI tract. While checking out, my 'friend' Daya mentioned to the cashier something about the fellow with no pants. Daya is a Sinhalese man from Sri Lanka, with warm smiling eyes. We've exchanged pleasantries for many months. He sometimes boxes/bags, but mostly collects carts, and helps customers take their groceries to their cars. I think he practiced accounting or something back home. "Yes, cold weather for short shorts," I agreed.

I hope the man got home, showered and took a warm bubble bath. Picturing him, I felt the urge to help him off with his jacket, turn on the shower, and draw him a bath. Because here's the thing: there but for the grace of God go I. I've changed easily over 10,000 cloth diapers when my kids were babies, and many adult diapers and 'Depends' (a kind of pull-up) for my mother and spouse in their final months, days. And, in fact, incontinence is not an infrequent symptom of MS. Bladder urgency being the more common - and even I have dealt with that from time to time. Which is clearly TMI, so I'll say no more about that.

When I got home, the phone rang. I had left my wallet at the pharmacy counter. With some significant cash in it, as I had just been to the ATM. This sort of 'incontinence' - that is, forgetting and leaving something behind - may be more common, at least it is with me.

Each night, as part of my MS prayer, I repeat the words 'may loving-kindness prevail when the incontinental divide is bridged.' (In case you need it, let me 'draw you a diagram': I mean the divide, of course, between those able to always hold except when it is time to let go, and those who are not.)

Amen.

one-two-zero-two-zero-one-one

May your new year be rich and textured, with moments of peace and joy; and with the freedom to experience the sad or difficult times without undue aversion or suffering. That these instead can flow through you like ever changing weather patterns.

Resolution #1:

Learn 'Blackbird' – by the Beatles – on the guitar, to the point of fluency. And not just the chords. A guitar-playing Peace Corps friend showed me how to play from 'tabs.' These are a sort of musical notation for the guitar player, like me, who can’t really read music.

Resolution #2:

Learn Eva Cassidy's version of ‘Over the Rainbow' to the point that my fiancée's beautiful soprano will be accompanied, if not by an equally talented musician, at least by one who will not embarrass himself.

Resolution #3:

What the? Yes, you read that right, I am engaged to a lovely woman, Dwan Reece. And

we plan to have a tiny wedding service with just our teenaged children this summer. Her daughter Maya is 15. Exact date is as yet to be determined. Will let you know when it happens.

Some other news: Eli is a senior in high school. His grades haven't ever panned out, so he will be going to the nearby community college. Which may sound negative – but he is actually quite happy to be going to Montgomery College, and I'm sure that the school is a fine institution in its own right. He has yet to decide on a field of study. And if he does well for two years there, he will be eligible to transfer to the University of Maryland, or another state college. He plans to share an apartment near the campus with two friends also attending MC.

Spencer is a sophomore at the Canterbury School up in Connecticut. He continues to love dorm life, and sports, but is finding the academics more challenging this year. Send him your thoughts and prayers.

Miller is continuing to 'enjoy' Sidwell. The quotation marks indicate that every morning (almost) he tries to make a deal to get out of going to school – just this one day dad, please… But nearly every afternoon when I ask how his day was, he says 'good.' (Even today when he came home with a nearly broken toe from wrestling.) I think the point is, he's not a morning person. This year he has been to at least a half dozen Mitzvahs so far (either Bar or Bat), and looks quite handsome in a blazer, tie, slacks, and yarmulke.

Oh, and I've been thinking about going back to school - social work of some kind, or psychology. I am interested at this point in both clinical and research directions. Otherwise, I continue with my men’s group, meditation groups, and writers’ group, though the grief that my writing has focused on seems to be losing steam. Which is a good thing, the 'work' having been helpful.

The boys and I made it to Nepal this year, a pilgrimage long in coming. (If you are interested in more travelogue about this trip, you can read earlier posts in this blog, just scroll down to ‘The night bus from hell’ and read chronologically up. Trust me, the trip gets better…).

Peace and love, Peter and the boys

Now for some pictures:

Trip to Nepal

At my niece Emily’s wedding in July. (Note Miller’s studied ‘secret service’ look.)

Dwan and I at our engagement dinner.

Coda: It has been said that everlasting friends can go long periods of time without speaking and never question the friendship. These types of friends pick up like they just spoke yesterday, regardless of how long it has been or how far away they live, and they don't hold grudges. They understand that life is busy, but you will always love them.

Volunteer

I made it to the Wendt center a few weeks ago for a training on candlelight vigils, something the center will sponsor if requested. It was a very cold night, and it being rush hour, I took the metro. The center was supposed to be a half block from the Fort Totten metro stop in northeast, an area I'd never been to. I didn't know which way to turn, so I hailed a cab. The cab driver got lost looking for the place, and said that I didn't have to pay for the ride. We had to call, and get directions, and indeed, it actually turned out to be just a half block from the station. Riding shotgun was the cabbie's girlfriend. We had a nice conversation during the 10 minute trip. Turns out the cabbie was widowed 15 years before. Of course I paid for the ride. Take a breath, step into the cold.

One of the speakers, Kecia, a middle aged woman with straightened black hair, while handing out written instructions, noted that at least two volunteers would need to be present at a vigil, and that the police would need to be notified. She also handed out lists of precincts and their phone numbers. 'The crowds can number in the hundreds,' she tells us. Her plum red false fingernails extended a good inch past the end of her finger tips. Holding up a short white candle, maybe 1/2 inch diameter, she said, 'the center provides fifty candles, candle holders, and programs. You might want to call the family to suggest they bring more, if they expect a larger crowd.' She wore dozens of silver bangles on each arm, and dabbed with a tissue at the perspiration on her heavily made up face. She'd said in her introductory comments that public speaking makes her uncomfortable. Ten of us sat around three office style tables, set side by side in a square.

'Depending on who is being memorialized at the vigil - somebody involved with criminal activity perhaps, or a controversial politician - there may be trouble. Before getting started, be sure to introduce yourself to the police. If things should get tense, you may leave. Be sure that at least two volunteers remain. If you all decide to leave, be sure to tell the immediate family members, give them any remaining candles - and candle holders - [these are small round paper cutouts with perforated holes in the center] and tell the police.' She dabs at some more perspiration. 'In the eight years I have been with the Wendt center, only one vigil has gotten out of hand.'

I take off my jacket, sit back in my chair. I had no idea that vigils could turn ugly like this. But this is D.C. after all. We are told that the Center is asked to sponsor maybe a dozen vigils per year. I ask whether it would be okay to use my walker if I were to help at a vigil. I had a hard time imagining passing out candles, holders, programs, verbal condolences, etc. while walking with my cane. Oh, and the p.a. system consisted of a hand-held megaphone. Maybe three of me with canes could manage it. I am assured the walker would be fine. We are thanked, some leave while some others stand around afterwards chatting (or in my case waiting for the proffered ride back to the metro.) We step into the parking lot, and the bracing cold.

Pretty long wait for the next train. Fortunately I had worn our heaviest jacket. I say 'ours' as the boys and I trade off, Miller now rapidly approaching six feet tall. So I get on the train, and exit at Friendship Heights, our station, but come up the wrong exit, which lies a good half mile or more from home. It was a lovely walk, though quite cold. I traded off my bare hand using the cane with the pocketed one every fifty paces. I stopped by Chipotle to get a burrito and two quesadillas for the boys on the way.

I got an email a few days ago from Kecia asking for volunteers for a vigil downtown to be held tonight. The deceased was a homicide victim. I will go unless the predicted snowfall cancels the event.

p.s. i drove for over two hours in the snow and sleet, but never found the place. maybe time for a gps. or make sure to carpool next time.

Agnos/Atheos

Here's a story. A bedtime story, a fairy tale guaranteed to put both the listener and the teller to sleep in less than five minutes. I wish I could say I thought it up myself, but I can only claim copyright to this (über-pseudo-scientific and tedious) modernized account: (This is a version, to some extent by way of Alan Watts, of the ancient Hindu Upanishad cosmology, or sacred text on the origin of everything.)

Once upon a time, so the tale begins...

Picture the situation, the beginning of it all: no thing there, not even time and space. Got the picture? Well then, the picture you have is wrong, forget it: not even nothing existed - it can't be pictured, there was no canvas. Until there arose Brahman, who appeared and thought 'what the?'. Just try to suspend your disbelief for a moment. You can call it Brahman, or God, or, in the religion of science, a Singularity. (In the theory of the Big Bang, I understand, major leaps of faith surrounding the singularity - what it was, what preceded it, etc. - are necessary. In a fairy tale we need a proper name for such a thing...). And it was aware of absolutely nothing but awareness itself. And after some infinite spans of not-time elapsed, it became aware of boredom. That's right, this Brahman dude was bored, all alone with less than nothing to do.

So it turns into a thought - how, out of what, you might wonder? Out of no-nothingness, that's what (remember the disbelief suspension thing) - and the thought becomes time, and it becomes space. And this Brahman character is, like, woah dude, this is cool - time and space - he feels vast. After several more infinite eons pass, he gets bored again. Yes, time and space - we're talking infinite time and space no less (though these infinities kind of wrap in on themselves) - these are pretty cool to get lost in. I mean, heads to this very day can't quite wrap their minds around these - time and space - no matter how many hallucinogenic substances they ingest.

Eons pass again when bored Brahman suddenly has another incredible insight, and BAM, he turns into matter and energy. Within seconds he grows to galactic proportions, with infinite energy shooting around in all its spectra of radiation. Pushing pushing into the darkness it goes. In fact, creating the very concept of darkness as it expands. More eons pass, and Brahman has experienced about enough of being gamma rays, photons, x-rays, electrons, quarks, gluons, stars, comets, asteroids, galaxies, quasars, black holes, supernovas, etc. He starts to, like, fall asleep in the back of a physics lecture. (Perhaps you can relate to such a sleepy state of mind right now...)

Luckily, he has a really cool daydream: planets. He wakes up and finds himself becoming a vast array of the humongous spheres. These are really cool - they'd come spinning out of stars (another great idea), and collide with other cosmic flotsam. Occasionally they'd split apart, maybe merge back together. Brahman is having the time of his life, doing the mashed planet, it goes like this. But alas, after some billions of years, even this grows tedious.

So Brahman brings his attention to one of these planet spheres he is now comprised of. There are probably other special ones, but let's imagine he focuses on one in particular. Like if you have a pimple, you are 15, are going to the dance tonight, and all you can think about is how to make it go away. Or your favorite book you keep coming back to read, say, The Count of Monte Cristo. Sure, you know how it ends, but still, each time there is something new. (And why do the good guy and bad guy's names both begin with Dan? What's with Dan?)

Well, he doesn't know how this particular planet will turn out. He doesn't know about any of them. And imagine, being all these different planets and stuff is really hard to keep track of, he kind of zones out or drifts off from time to time, and almost forgets what is happening. Like maybe his 'planet x' (aka Alison - hey you in back there, wake up!), forgets that her biggest moon had just settled into orbit maybe a billion years earlier. And that it is actually composed of the same cosmic stardust; Brahman kind of forgets some of the details. In fact, the further he gets from his first big idea - remember the BAM - the less he can easily remember.

So he brings his concentration to one particular planet in a galaxy he notices one day. It's as if he's admiring himself in a mirror, kind of looking along the galaxy edge - like it was a big pizza crust - all the stars lining up like a dense white cloud. It made him think of something he hadn't ever seen - a premonition of sorts - it looked a little like milk. Way like milk. (Ba dump bump.) Some day he might become a she-goat, and feed some kids, and spill some milk. (But we are getting ahead of things here.)

He feels the draw of this particular planet in the milky galaxy, like I said, and brings his full attention to it. Was it something I ate? he might think. Or, what is that bump on my back, could you tell me what it is, hon', I can't quite see it in the mirror? Well, the more he probes and prods, the more fascinated he becomes, imagining all the things he could turn into on this planet. There are all kinds of different atoms and elements he'd managed to become and gather together in this one place. He discovers that if he turns into two little hydrogens they would want to stick to one big oxygen atom. And man, this is a blast - he does it a gazillion times, then a gazillion more. Sometimes this combo gets cold and hard, sometimes cold and soft and fluffy, and sometimes all hot and steamy; but when his temperature is just right - a very narrow band of temperatures would do this - he gets all swishy and flows all over his planet self. Way cool. He does that a bunch. Till he is blue in the face.

But of course it gets old. What next he asks? This is pretty excellent, but I'm getting kind of tired having to think up new stuff to do all the time. His next idea is a real breakthrough, a game changer: in fact, it actually is a game - hide and seek! He thinks, what would happen if I let go and pretend I'm not really all this one big pulsing mass of energy and matter? What if I just hide? And little by little he does just that. But deep deep down, if he ever really wants to, he can remember what he is: everywhere and everything.

And gradually, the nitrogen, carbon, phosphorous, and some other elements start to mix around - as if by themselves, as if they are independent of Brahman. An amino acid - guanine - says "look at me!" Cytosine and adenine lock arms and counter, "big deal, look at us!" (Just a reminder from Biology 101, these are the building blocks of DNA). Things are really cooking now, and it isn't long - maybe a billion years or so - before single celled organisms are swimming around, multiplying, and eating each other up. These are Brahman's primordial soup and salad days. Warm and cozy, plenty to eat. And man, the free love! (Oops, this is supposed to be g-rated). But also plenty to get eaten by. Getting lost ever deeper in the game of hide and seek. Now picture the first flora, and fauna; the first swimmer, and walker, etc.

***

Fast forward some billions of years, and you can see how far we have gotten into this game. Right now, for example, you are sitting and reading some words on this computer screen (having made it well past the average reader who probably gave up after three paragraphs...the blogosphere is so unedited, it's embarrassing!); your fingers seem to be your one point of contact via the mouse to these words. You kind of ignore the floor beneath supporting your chair, and the desk; or the air flowing in and out of your lungs, occasionally steaming up the screen - oops, fell asleep again!; or the power from the sun pulsing through you, beating your heart, and powering the computer. And these are just a few examples of macroscopic overlap. The warp and woof of microscopic and subatomic interconnections are utterly mind expanding. There truly is no empirical point, or line, of separation - anywhere. Everywhere you can think, there is connection. But we can pretend to sever these connections as we tinker, organize, manipulate, create, and destroy: in our frenetic game of hide and seek. But wait, you might say, look at all the cool stuff 'we' can make! What power, 'our' science! True, yes, some amazing fun and games.

But also look how far we've gotten lost: some of us even believe very fervently - zealously, fanatically even - that god is 'up there,' or 'out there,' or inside of 'us.' That is, some entity other than what we see/feel/taste/think/sing/digest/etc. And some few extremists are so deeply mired in this game of hide and seek, they are willing to kill and die in the name of these external gods, created in their own images! Oh what a fix we can get in, the further we get lost in this game. A game at times buoyant and effervescent, at others miasmic, poisonous.

As with all religious doctrines, one could get lost in this Hindu one - and many do - spinning all sorts of anthropomorphic tales. And even weave in some sort of morality, or karma: e.g., Brahman doesn't enjoy the act of killing life so much as creating it. But the game continues to play itself out regardless. And all of our self- and group-justifications for the 'good' and 'evil' roles we play are like so much papier-mâché. But onward we pursue these roles, and onward we must: it was coded into the fabric of our being from the moment we - that is, the universe, or Brahman, took its first breath.

But this 'impartial' observer (hah, as if! Brahman chortles...), sees a world in which war and strife find their fiercest advocates in faith traditions which divide the concept of god from the self. In other words, dualism: god above, flock below. Witness the crusades - Christian v. Muslim v. Jew - and their legacy which continues to this very day.

Another 'impartial' observer (hah! again, good one!), might see little difference between this concept of god - or Brahman, or the universe, or everything - that it's one unified pulsing mass of seemingly differentiated entities: that this concept of unity, or everything is God, is at the end of the day no different from atheism; that perhaps there is no god. All god, no god - what's the difference? On one level maybe precious little difference; but with an ounce of belief suspension, I think they are quite a bit different. When I'm asked if I believe in god, my answer (in question form): does a fish believe in water? I think to leave god entirely out of the equation, even more than just removing it from the self (as in dualism), kind of leaves the world a bit stark. I think it's fun to put god in completely, make it the very essence of everything. I-god, you-god, we all-god: for god's sake!

And in my humble opinion, looking up at the stars on a clear night, or at a particularly beautiful sunset, or a violent lightning storm, or any moment that feels very big: I have a choice, that is, we all do, we can feel very small compared to the vast and capricious universe, or we have the option to feel it is all us, right here and now and forever.

I can't know for sure, so I'll go with agnosticism for now. And meanwhile jump back in, keep playing the game - hoping my 'good' roles outnumber my 'evil' ones - till I hear the roar: alle alle oxen free! And hearing this, return to the source - the thing that has been seeking and finding and losing me again all these 49 years of homo sapienism - Brahman.

Aaaaaaaahmeeeeeen!