I have read what I have written lately, both in this format and more traditional fare. It all seems so dark. I wonder if my natural inclination is fire and brimstone. When I read this there was in internal cringe because I imagined those that read what I have wrote may either disregard because they don’t want to hear about difficulties, troubles, etc, or, possibly they would find that the truth, if any, was that life was one unbearable suffering. Now, one might be expecting a but here, and a softening of the approach, and to some degree this is true. However, what I believe to be true and have found to be true is that this life is one unbearable suffering. But, this suffering is in perspective and not inherently.

 

This leads us to, sometimes, and in my experience as being Tibetan and a practicing Buddhist to come in contact with those that think that ‘perspective’ is something much more easily forgone than it is. Perspective, in the context of what I am meaning it, is not some cheery, sunny, disposition. That is not to say that this is bad, but it is not the answer that I was, and am, trying to attain. This sunny disposition is, often, strange to say, a form of nihilism.

 

What?

 

Yes, the hippy (of whom I have a great fondness for), not the driven hippy, but the sort of stereotypical one is a nihilist. Also, the modern form of them is as well-the new ager that falls into this same category by not having a logical, reasonable, or even any form of methodology of verifying their statements. Oh, some do, picking a word here and there from the orient and trying to posit it as a method, it works for some, but these are, unfortunately the vanguard of an alternative way of thought in our country. I think they are doing a terrible job, to be frank. They are nihilsts.

 

How?

 

A sunny disposition, by itself, as a goal of some form of method that doesn’t take into account rooting out the deep and abiding, fundamental, I would say, ignorance is conscious ignorance. The thought, argument, I have for anyone with such a disposition is this, “how can we smile when there are children burning, there are mothers butchered, there are whole cities being razed for no other reason than an imagined line in the ground. What of the animals on this earth? Not just those that get the press like the poor cows being slaughtered day and night, but even the ‘natural’ world.

 

The other day, in the eave of our porch, I watched as a spider, a brown spider, wait for a gnat. Unexpectedly one flew into its web while I was watching. I watched as it raced across the web in an excitement that I could only label as glee. I watched as the gnat twisted and turned in what I only could say was terror. Then it was bit, it was wrapped in silk, and I know from my biology class that the gnat will now lay in paralysis until the spider injects its stomach fluid into the body of the gnat, then, after it has digested in its own body, the fluid will then be sucked out by the spider.

 

I remember watching, in awe, an animal documentary that showed a cheetah chasing a small gazelle through the serengeti. Then the close up to the gazelle’s face after the cheetah clamps down on its neck. The narrator tells me that the cheetahs bite is not strong enough to sever the spinal cord from the skull and the gazelle is suffocated to death rather than quickly killed.

 

its ‘natural’....

 

so is rape, gang rape, infanticide, some would argue with strong evidence that racism, elitism, male dominance amongst mammals-is natural.

 

natural is not synonymous with Right.

 

There is a reason why, in times of yore, that beastial was a terrible epithet. It has, in more modern times, become less of an insult, just as long as you use, ‘natural’.

 

Thus, in this light, the sunny disposition is an imposed position. It draws a boundary between what they will consider and what they will not consider. It then says, “I will care about what is within this boundary,” and what is beyond this boundary, what is left unsaid, is that it is too overwhelming. What is implied is that the truth of the monumental tide of suffering and woe is the Truth and that the only way that a truth of joy and happiness can arise in the shrunken, arbitrary, bounded manner. This is the grinning fool.

 

I will have none of that sort of deluded joy. I will have only the oblivion or the Truth that lights the unbounded bliss. If it leads me to the belief that it, bliss, cannot be posited and that the suffering is indeed inherent then give me the void. Life is not to be bounded. It is too precious.

 

If you have read anything else that I have written you will know that through my own reasoning and logical step by step process I do believe that Bliss is our true nature. That Omniscience is our ultimate state. But to get to this space one has to be willing to accept the challenge of the Truth. The cost for this confrontation is the chance that you are answered in the negative in your quest for meaning. You have to risk that you are not anything, that your suffering and that of beast and human are all one sick fucking joke.

 

The sunny disposition is not risking it. In fact, it has made a choice. This disposition is the choice that there is, indeed, no meaning. It is the aborted attempt at the pinnacle where Truth is relinquished. Whether the mental capacity was too small in this lifetime or the will was weak, they fell by the wayside and accepted a flaccid, silly, sort of existence.

 

In the light of the Truth one can rejoice in the obstacles one is engendered with. They are not obstacles then. When one is thwarted in the worst way, when violence is done upon them, when they are at the best they do not need to make excuses for the perpetrator; they are able to accept the action and bless the perpetrator. For, when can one practice the immaculate practice of patience, love, forgiveness except for in the face of violence? In fact, to the best practitioner, one rejoices at their existence, blesses their feet, because of this truth then Bliss is attained by these practices, the perpetrator becomes our most cherished friend. To steal from me is a blessing to me, to rend my flesh from my body is a blessing to me. For who else will allow me to practice such arts but my own enemy?

 

Do not turn the cheek

Give the Other Cheek.

 

The freedom of the saints is all there is. Now. In this life. We have killed the God of the Nomads and Villagers. The God that allowed us to work and pray in a manner in which our simple hearts would be assuaged. Instead with our inquiry we have demanded the Truth of the Saints despite most of us being not of such noble stock. Most of us, myself included, are villagers, nomads, peasants at heart and yet we have demanded the Truth that takes the efforts of the Highest to milk.

 

That such roads are too difficult for most is obvious but with the atrocity of our crime against God, Meaning, etc. we cannot ever go back to such simplicity again. We try to dull ourselves with our Lethe of drugs, entertainment, of self-help and art, and yet it all falls so flat, eventually. We turn to the simple again, to eat, to shit, to fuck, to sleep, to revel-but even this is contrived. An illusion once revealed never again retains its luster. It is like these children’s parties I go to for my children, in ten years from now, the same party will be, to them, a dull and uninteresting practice.

 

And that is where we are, with all the sound and fury, despite this, the flash and bang, we are monumentally bored, frightened, painfully suffering, stuck in a purgatory (hell?) with no transcendent sustenance. And what should life be but to transcend?

 

I wish you well, that you may rejoice in this life, that I think you will not, that I will not, that almost everyone will not-is not pessimism but a reality of the equation we set for ourselves. To Kill God comes with consequences and we are not able to answer the demand that such an act requires thus we must be sunny, pleased, rubbing crystals on our armpits and pretending we don’t smell the malodorous wafts.

 

Be well

G

There is tragedy in this life. It is tragic, most often. We are confronted with the reality of the suffering of cyclic existence. This does not mean the tenet of some eastern philosophy of reincarnation. We can, if needed, apply it to the single life of a being. All that it does, will do, will come to an end. All the great and powerful aspects of their doing will fall apart. The Truth of composite things are that they fall apart. Anything that is put together, be it your child or your work, will fall apart. This is an aspect of suffering, the suffering of change-also, in this life, there will be evident suffering, that which hurts and is easily identified-the death of a loved one, the brick on your toe, etc. The question, we all know, is not if this will happen but when. The end of our life is already written, perhaps not the how (even though we know pretty well via stats how it will go) but that it will end is inescapable. That we will, probably, be sick for a stretch, possibly a long stretch, I have read recently with the extension of our lifespan we are seeing the extension of illness. Despite this, and I know what is expected in this moment is a but this is...beautiful

(I remember a moment in India-where I did chora around a holy site, and on one side of the pathway was a cliff. The cliff fell off, at a gradual rate for a cliff, down to a river. Alpine pines marched down, a smattering of tall rhododendrons, some unnamed bushes, all hidden in shadows as I walked. The shadows were long though, for a night, and it was because the moon was full. It glimmered a diamond blue as I walked. I swore I would remember that moment. I had forgotten it till just a moment ago.)

But I will not. The trite of the beautiful is the external vision, the visage, which is arbitrarily beautiful. The desert sun rising is, to me, beautiful but to the dessicated man in the sand it is the beginning of torture, the watery expanse that I meditate in front of is calm and a place of focus for my safe body but to a victim of a sinking boat it is terrifying. I do not want this. 

What goes for the inner beauty-their service, their 'love', their 'kindness' is often flawed. It is biased. It is focused on a child, a spouse, a parent. This is capitalism-a tit for tat-and that we don't practice this often is a testament to our rude existence rather than to our transcendent natures. That it is seen as such is because of even this low rarity of service. But let us not be swayed by this. This is not the beauty of love, the Christ on the cross is a beauty of service that was a model for Human behavior not a testament to the divine's ability. 

Life is tragic and in this tragedy there must be found meaning. What goes for meaning, often, now, in this mass neurosis is of nihilism. We shrink ourselves into little boxes to make dependent meaning in relation to those arbitrary boundaries. This is not meaning. This is not beautiful. It is weak and shrunken, it is flaccid and impotent, it is despicable-that it is better than what goes for a norm has no words to describe it. Meaning demands universal, unbounded meaning that are translatable to functional, daily, practical acts. In the face of unmeaning we must, bravely, call out meaning-not some airy, weak argued position, but a strong, sound, powerful call that will lead us in this world of woe. 

That life, human life included, has a dignity to it that even the bearer of it cannot take from it. A universal dignity that cannot be marred by anything or anyone. The understanding to do so is a reflection of the one bearing the weapon to do so. That this dignity is upheld by reason, logic, is a sad testament to the faithlessness of those who are told this. What this looks like in action toward this life is in the bearing of ignorance of the bearer, that, at its roots, every being can attain the highest and we cannot fathom which will do so. We are not allowed to bind this. This does not mean that all behavior is accepted, and that one must state this is a testament to how far we have come. But the reasonable access to this understanding should always be there. 

Conceptual imputations, of even this cup here, must be done with humility. That understanding that we are removed from the truth as we impute. That is why it should be done at need, when necessary, not on a whim for it is dangerous. Why is it dangerous to say this is a cup? In this world of strife we impute not only a cup but emotions and feelings about the cup when another person has opposed views, strife begins. We fight over a definition that is false on both accounts and is only true in the functional sort of way. How dare we apply this definition, conception, upon a being? How much more dangerous to do so?

Let us be strong, let us serve, let us see our worst enemy as our greatest teacher, but even barring that Truth, lets us even serve those that have served us; our parents, our children, for, frankly, we have not even been able to do this low service. 

 

Be well

G

The years have gotten so fast.

 

They fall by the wayside. They become litter. No different, in most regards, than the soiled Payday wrapper caught in the storm drain grate. The brown on the wrapper, I hope, is old chocolate but am pretty sure isn’t.

Those years.

 

My wife, and my children, I met them so few years ago-I am sure-but then I look and count up the hash marks on my cell. It has been half a decade for my children and over that for my wife. Decades. Merging into centuries?

How much time is there between two seconds? How many fractions between two points? An infinity. How can time move? How can objects move. Finite objects cannot travel and infinite amount of space.

 

I get a touch of this with my family. It is eternal time.

 

But then it is not. Well past my mid life. I sit here. Looking out the window at a tree that could be a holy one in the Game of Thrones. White as bone, the first buds erupting from the twig branches.

 

It is all so dissatisfying.

I am not great enough to SEE it. I am not. I can understand that the IT is there, through reason, logic, prayer, meditation, I can glimpse the residue of its passing. I imagine it like a rainbow miasma on the surface of water from the gas that has condensed from the perpetual smog above our city.

 

But this Truth only brings me so much solace. I know it to be true from an ultimate unstained view but I am so steeped in my ignorance that it is almost as if it were not so.

 

The years have brought me this understanding. The silliness of my thoughts of mundane permanence. The best, in the mundane manner, I can hope for is a catastrophic stroke to end my days.

The filling up of so much shopping, eating, drinking, defecating, urinating, sex, entertainment-it has become bland for me. Like chewing on sand that a beach fire had once been on. I can taste the embers between the granules.

 

Even art, reading, inquiry, insight, have lost some luster. I still do these because they drive me to better places and I know, through my Mind, that it is the best. That it is accurate. But it still does not ‘feel’ better.

And what am I but some exposed nerve to this world? I am so caught up in the “I” and am trying not to be but am still. This “I” of selfhood, that they say is the root of my woe, is so damned strong. I want to feel.

The feeling I get is not one that I would bestow on anyone. Not myself either, but there it is.

 

My daughter, my Son

What is the best that I could do for you in the travesty of a world. I have made sure, to the best of my ability, that you will be able to conventionally take care of yourself. Eat, etc. And yet, such a pathway leads one to the inevitable end where a catastrophic stroke is the best to be hoped for. It always ends, like my father, on the floor of a bathroom, unable to get up, confused, embarrassed, pants down to your ankles, with your loved one, the one you protected, helping you up. Helping you up and trying to not show his disgust and irritation. Your low progeny.

This is all that I can give you. Now.

I sit in my cell, crossed legged, thumbs touching, hands overlapping. I am trying. I would give you more. I would give you meaning, depth....I would give you freedom.

 

If I knew that death was the end, I would end it. I know, though, its opposite. I know it as I know any scientific proof that I have studied. Be it nuclear fission, cell division, or even the construction of a water molecule. Through experimentation, logic, math, etc. I have been convinced of their processes. That is how I know this is not the end. But unlike most westerners who think that any continuance of consciousness in a semi-fortunate state-I do not think it is good.

Art is not enough.

Mundane love is not enough.
eating, fucking, shitting, and watching others

Do some derivative of this
is not enough.

 

I see now, easily, why the Buddha ran from his family to the forest. He loved them. I can understand this. If I really loved my family, and had shown an ample amount of ability, it makes sense to run from those you love. To find a way. There has to be a way out. The Buddha’s say there are. My betters say there is. I hope so.

For this merry go round of fuck’ness has gotten painfully stale. The things that used to bring me some sort of merriment are gone. The childishness in me, the naive boy, is dead. I watch him float off into the ocean upon the current that passes by me. His head bobbing above his body, his black hair plastered against his paled face. The face of Death. That is what this world has for us-death. And then you get to do it again.

I watch the sunset and I am shorebound. The beauty of that sunset is not easing to my mind, it is almost a sneer and a mocking of me, this ignorant castaway who only has the wrecks of ships to keep him company and their flotsam to feed his body.

 

Be well

G

I write this, now, before the scab of rationalization lumps over my true sight. Lets call this sight from the middle of my forehead, the third eye, where Truth arises and the untruth falls away.

 

I am a terrible man. My father, who is ill, disabled, has nowhere to go. I moved from my home, I had to foreclose on my condo because it was over 100k underwater and it was not big enough to accommodate my family and my father-his wheelchair etc.

 

I am a terrible man because, after this first night, my thought struggle toward the alternatives. Adult family home, assisted living. We cannot afford it. He cannot afford it. Medicaid? I have seen these places. My mind races to rationalize it. To justify it. I won’t let it, or try not to let it overcome what I know to be true (perhaps my only saving grace). I went and saw him twice, thrice a week, at most, when he lived with his friend’s gardener-essentially homeless.

 

I saw him everyday when he was sick, in the hospital, for almost two years, I tell myself.

MYSELF shakes His head at such talk.

 

YOU, in your mind when truth lay, begrudged it many times, did not extend your time, dropped in and got frustrated when he refused to do his physical therapy because it was ‘too much of a hassle’. You rolled your eyes, internally if not literally, when he said that he had ‘changed’ and that his mind was at rest. You, internally if not literally, frowned at the hypocrisy when he had not changed. Still, an overly proud, secretive, and often manipulative man-my father-who also was kind and generous to so many-which is so much more than I can say for myself.

 

He falls at 5 AM and quietly calls out to me. He has been sitting on the floor for an hour because he didn’t want to bother me earlier. I come down, make sure my wife and kids are still asleep-haul him to his feet, tuck him in, make sure he is comfortable. My mind is irritated. I scold him, softly, that he has to be more careful for when I am at work my wife will not be able to pick him up.

 

I am terrible, horrific man.

I call myself Buddhist-but in such talk I am deluding myself-in such a pathway one must give of their very flesh, cherish any harm, exultant in chance to practice, at the lowest, generosity and patience (two of the 6 perfections). I cannot even, in honesty, give of myself in good cheer to a man that made sure I had enough to eat when I was a child, cleaned me, carried me, housed me, made sure I had access to medical care.

 

I begrudge him in his infirmity. I hate this of myself.

 

I remember when we first came to America, when we lived on an 8 by 8 houseboat with no water, where my mother used to carry in a huge copper bowl of water each day. My father wobbling home from work, his hands bleeding, and my mother soaking them in the water. The blood swirling in the water like red mist in a gentle wind.

 

My friends tell me that it is ‘normal’ to feel such a way. They say, “you are a good person” with a slight twist-I can tell they don’t think it is a good idea. What of my wife? Yes, what of my wife. I don’t know.

Her friends tell her, “you are such a good person’ and because she is better than I, more understanding, they will continue, “maybe he should be in a home?”

 

Who would go see him then? My family has, for the most part, abandoned him and left only weak ol’ me. I have taken over every aspect of his life. His daughter does not come regularly. She has a new child. His friends stopped coming because he has been ill for over 2 years. They lasted six months, or so. He would be housed, shelved, left to rot until he died of some illness but mostly from a broken, lonely heart.

“They say its Normal”

I say, “who I would follow, who I would aspire to be, have never, ever, in any avatar spoken that the ‘norm’ of a time is what we should aspire to. In fact, usually, they are tortured and killed because they say exactly the opposite of that. I liken it to my schooling,” I say, “my mundane schooling. Where I grew up in America was poverty stricken, filled with drugs and alcohol, stupidity in some of its grossest forms run rampant. I eventually made my through college. Only through horrific effort, 100+ hours a week for 5 years (work and school-had to help mom keep her house), did I make it. Some of my old friends ask me, ‘how?’ and I pretend jokingly say, ‘I did the opposite of everything I wanted to do’. There is truth in this.

 

What is normal?

I know a woman who had an aged dog, maybe a hundred pounds, it got to a point where she had to carry him down stairs, up into her car, had to feed him with her hands, had to clean his excrement off of the floors, his urine off of the carpets, and she did it lovingly.

I cleaned up after my cat, its litter box, its urine in the carpet, I fed it, I stayed home because I didn’t want to go on long vacations. I paid for her medication, doctor visits, out of my savings.

 

And there, my Father, I see, and this world would say it is normal to pass him along and yet, for a dog, for a cat, we would do this? Not that the dog and cat do not deserve it. I know of a Monk that switched his clothing with that with a lice infested beggars rags. He did it because the beggar’s clothes were too threadbare to withstand the cold. His friends, co-monks, pushed him to get rid of the lice-he refused. Throughout time, he said, these lice were my precious mother’s and father’s and gave up their very bodies for me to live. What then is a bit of itching? This body is good only inasmuch as we use it, how would we use it? A poor verse comes to mind,

The flesh, the body, only so much wood
In this life, this whole life, so grindingly cold
The mind the spark
    Love the inward breath
         Compassion the outward breath

              to serve: the act of correct motion

 

In a desperate Winter
with such tools at hand

It is not even wisdom yet
to build a fire-but preservation

Who then can say its opposite?
Who has examined this life?
that is so ephemeral
That even that which we cherish-our body-
shall be the source of such woe

And thus, those of us with time left yet
what shall be our course of action?
Shall we burn our wood for that which is worthy?
Worthy of such an opportunity?

For the ineluctable sands fall
and The Lord of Death awaits behind each grain
with this adamantine truth of impermanence

    Let us Remember,
What is the compassionate Demand of our betters?

    let us forget
the wayward teachings of that which is beneath

 

I hope I can live up to what I claim to study. I say I am a terrible man not out of exaggeration or my want for the external demand that I am not. I do it to be honest. The man I want to be is not this man. He is a poor beggar, a greedy beggar, at the doorstep of the divine. I knock, I ring the doorbell, and they say, “it is open” they often throw the doors wide, “come in” and yet, and yet, I beg and beg, at the door. I cry and weep, at the door. But I have yet to walk in.

 

I treat my father poorly. In some lights, not even as good as I treated my cat. Much less than I have seen people treat their dogs. For goodness sake, they regularly pick up their feces in bags and I am mad that I had to wake up a few minutes early to pick him up off the floor.

 

My blessed Father. You are teaching me. Teaching me how far I have to go. Giving me the blessed opportunity to practice patience. Giving. And from this I will be a better man. even being a Man for the first time.

Each moment of patience is practice for the models I would be.

I love you.

And perhaps I am not worthy to say that, but I feel it, and despite all this selfishness and sick self centered behavior-I will try, with the little I have, to be better and serve you.

 

I love you

G

In this year, 2140 by the Tibetan count, the year of the Water Snake-I thought that I would write a brief imagining I have had of what it would look like a years after Tibet became free. I dabble, with full knowledge of its folly, in hope.

*
Humming. Humming. It sounded to me like the harmonized Omming of monks in the monasteries that had sprouted so quickly upon the hills and cliff faces. The charred rocks and foundations could now be explained off as years of soot from fires and not the conflagration of a mistaken ideology. It is much better as soot from pragmatic, benign fires.

Pilgrimages still went on, they never really stopped, pilgrims making their way to Kailash, pilgrimage to Lhasa, pilgrims to various religious centers. Standing, prostrating, then standing again, thousands and thousands of times, for miles, and miles, past the snowy peaks, the raging free rivers. This practice done for a millennia, maybe longer, practiced by those that looked ancient, their toil wearing hard on their pious faces; cracked, worn, wrinkled. Despite this wear the faces of a devout happiness. How cany anyone be so happy who has prostrated day in and day out through this environment for so long?

Though, now, there are places where there is a deep humming coming from the ground. Underneath, I know, it is my job to know, is the buried lines, the buried tubes, coiled like some huge umbilical cord. Perhaps they can be seen as umbilical cords, they are of a type, stretching from wind farms, solar plants; ones that operate directly from the the sun, and others that use the heat to melt salt that interacts with water to produce steam to turn a turbine. Most of the electricity flows downward to feed Asia much as the waters of the Himalaya feed the Indus, Ganges, the Brahmaputra, the Yellow, the Mekong rivers. The engine of India and China-the largest economies and fastest growing economies in the world, the support for Nepal, Afghanistan, Pakistan to develop their economies, and the basis for the Tibetan drive to be supported.

The Green experiment has found its zenith here in Tibet. The sparsely populated huge swaths of land have made it ideal for such experiments in design and scale. The implementation has taken into account the migration pattern of beast; the geese, the antelope, the yak, and even with these strict guidelines there is still enormous swaths of land to implement these strategies. With a value driven model based upon the teachings of the Buddha as the root, the construction of alternative energy sites as well as developing colleges dedicated to this, as well as funds to develop and support it through energy fees charged to economies able to bear its burden (developing nations have a sliding scale cost based upon their overall economic viability as well as their implementation of energy needs e.g. nations that spend more than a set % on defense spending are not viable partners with the Tibetan Energy Initiative [TEI]. However, nations that increase their implementation of energy to areas of focus of the TEI e.g. technological advances to be applied to universal health care, housing, food development, artistic endeavors, economic assistance to those below the median per capita household income, and for programs with demonstrated focus on world and local peace initiatives etc.).
I like to see, also, how the Tibetan Peace and Science Initiative (TPSI) has assisted in the arising of the optical telescopes and radio telescopes that are hard to pick out. They have incorporated either into the natural surrounding per the agreements to their construction or reflect the monastic aesthetic. The darkness and almost no light pollution has caused a great celebration amongst astronomists-as well as the blessings of the Dalai Lama for them to receive a portion of all energy fees in perpetuity, as long as they meet the requirements, for their housing, boarding, and research.

The Dalai Lama, when announcing this and being asked a question as to why scientists, of all backgrounds and disciplines were afforded this answered,

“let us remember that we were very selective in who we invited. They had to demonstrate that their research was beneficial to Mankind through the Lord Buddha’s lens. For example, the emphasis in the alleviation of suffering is primary in adherence to this invitation, the scholastic drive is also supported as has been evident throughout the lineages of the Buddha. All who can demonstrate this, can vow that their work’s intention will never be used to implement harm on another being, have and have an understanding that they are a part of the solution or part of the problem, are welcome here. They can partake of the benefits of such a high drive and we, the Tibetans, believe this drive should be supported in mundane and ultimate means, or, in a more understandable language, to be supported through financial means and supported through prayer and other religious means. This does not mean that the participants have to believe or be a part of the Buddhist practice, they do not have to be of any religious creed, but they do have to be part of the belief in the alleviation of suffering.

To be honest, the program is largely based off of a monk’s life and, I think, a good scientist lives very closely to these types of lives. They have a dedicated direction-truth, they have a methodology to achieve it-the scientific method, they also, or at least the best of them, adhere to an ethical code of conduct. These are the scientists we want. These are the scientist we will support to the capacity that we can. As our capacity increases we will also increase our outreach. We want Tibet to be a zone of Peace and Learning that the entire world can count on and participate in, if they wish to participate in those activities.

Therefore, besides the outlined requirements, we support and encourage all peoples of all backgrounds, of all religions, of no religions, to come to Tibet, to practice Science, to dedicate this effort for the benefit of all beings. Emaho”

The first to come were the green engineers and scientists, there are large towers of bubbling algae by  Namtso, the Sky Lake, where factories are trying to figure out how to derive biofuel from algae, it has tapped into the thermal energies there and the abundant solar energy to run the entire plant. It has also incorporated into the background so that it looks as if the towers are bright green trees; form and function. The circumambulating pilgrims have started to place prayer flags and blessing scarves upon the archways that enter into the open complex which, they architect melded the styles of the Greek White Churches, but where the dome is blue in Greek the domes of the towers of algae were Tibetan burgundy. The rest of the campus is a blinding, clean, white, with arches and domes throughout. In the most recent discussion with the Kashag, Mr Dirac who is overseeing the campus on biofuel research whose main aim is to reduce the carbon footprint of oil extraction. This is done, he explained, both by using a material that burns cleaner but also by using the base material, the algae, for numerous purposes such as cattle feed, for example. They have been using a fraction of the sewage waters of the local towns as their base sources of water so that they can, also, double up the usage of this waste water. As their campus expands, and there is a very large area to be able to expand that is not in environmentally sensitive areas, in fact, is on a dried salt plain, they will increase their ability to use more, if not all, the waste water and produce fuel with it.

In regards to a question as how he has felt after the first seven years of research after the facilities were built he explained,

“Have you ever seen happy scientists? I don’t mean periodically please scientist, the scientist that is leaping for joy in a NASA command center because a particular rover has successfully landed. I mean a truly happy scientist, or, maybe I could even put person here. Yes, I think that would be better, a truly happy person who, in this case, happens to be a scientist. Have you?

I can’t say that I had before this project. I had seen a number of pleased people but never a happy one. In our current situation, with a specific, honorable, framework that the TPSI outlines as easing suffering, striving for peace, environmental stewardship, etc. and then a targetable goal within our own trajectory being that of biofuels, coupled with our mundane aspects of life being able to be attained, I have seen happy people. Happy families. I have seen starkly different people, of different faiths and no faiths, of different scientific viewpoints, be able to find happiness within this context. His Holiness has told me, on a visit, that this is the point of our endeavors, to increase this happiness, to expand it, and that, in some lights, our actual work is ancillary to this and is the means in which we attain this happiness.

My family is fed and housed, educated and safe, they have ample means to discover, learn, to practice an honorable, moral, and noble practice, whatever it may be, and in this I have the ability to help the world. How can I not be happy. How can our staff not be happy? How can our families not be happy?

Our work is producing results, we have produced our first 1000 barrels of fuel, we have produced feed for the local sheep and yaks that is both nourishing and biodegradable. We have used reclaimed water and through this have not just been neutral in our environmental footprint but have increased the health of our environment. We are now looking into ramping up our production of fuel to see where the limitations of our production are and, if it is, as we believe dependent on our structure, which really is more of experimental facility where we will make the prototype of a facility to mass produce the product, we will be able to export this plan. The cost of production has decreased to a point on par with current fuels and is dropping, we see this to continue to drop in large part due to scale. What I’d like to point out too is that the exporting of this This is our near term goal. I think it is possible, and is within reach. When we are finished we are going to use our current team to identify different avenues of pushing our framework through tangible goals.

*
The Wind Farms are almost indistinguishable from the land, now. Before they were large sprouting, spinning, sunflowers. Now, they are hills with wide caves. There are breaks so that birds are not caught, the placement was purposely to be out of the native migration of birds. The hills are covered, much like the other hills, by sparse grass and vegetation and rocks. They bloom in the brief spring/summer and are carpeted in native flowers/grasses.

They are called The Howling Hills because of the sound of the wind being drawn into the maw of the caverns.
*
The Diamond Solar plants, at the center of Salt Plains where lakes have dried, no living thing exists outside of the bacteria that are not bothered by the plants. They point either to a tower of salt to be melted and then used as a source to make steam and turn turbines or as swaths of photovoltaic panels.

The panels are large and have become the covering to some meditators. They house themselves beneath them and continue with their retreat.

*
Nomads have made solar plants part of their annual nomadic stops. It is usually in the harshest parts of the winter.  The plants have encouraged this by incorporating housing for the nomads and fodder for their animals. The solar energy produced is used to power a local greenhouse to produce fodder and greens. The local nomadic Lamas also make sure they stop in these areas during the winter and begin their teachings that coincide with the long and brutal winters. They are ideal for concentration on Dharma and building literacy amongst the Drokpa (Tibetan Nomads). Some Han Chinese peasants are also coming for the teachings during this time.

The Solar power plants are developing more grounds to both build more housing and opportunities for the Drokpa and Chinese counterparts and also are developing Bio-Digesters to produce Bio-Gas from the increasing herds that are coming.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama has worked hard to encourage not losing the Drokpa lifestyle by assistance with Health Care, Education, and Deep Winter. This has been encouraged by this hybrid where Drokpa children are being educated in both their Dharma Practice and in practical health and engineering principles. These children, when adept, will compromise the Drokpa Nomadic Hospitals and Engineering groups focused in assisting with the continuation of the Drokpa culture by increasing health and vitality to a larger portion of the people. Keeping their Nomadic culture is of primary importance. Because of the Drokpa ability to survive at such altitudes they have become seasonal workers at the plants assisting, to their skill level, in the operation of the plants. They are going to school to be able to access the more technical jobs. However, many only want seasons jobs as they want to practice their lifestyle the rest of the year. They use the monies earned to buy necessities or near necessities like cell phones on the high plateau. 

The Solar Stop off has been one aspect of supporting a modern Drokpa initiative. 

*
In the Tibetan Peaceful Open Door Policy (TPODP) all refugees and displaced peoples are welcomed. All of them will be given space and support to practice their native religions and beliefs with full support of the Tibetan Democratic Government (TDG). This includes grants in building homes, education facilities (if needed), places of worship, and other cultural relevant necessities. All refugees and their children are welcomed to share their expertise. This will be part of the introduction process. Expertise in critical areas of need e.g. health, engineering, law, etc (she Green Book for in-total critical areas) and education will fast track individuals to Tibetan Certification which is a set of criteria to prove expertise. Where native expertise does not match certification all educational endeavors to acquire said expertise will be paid for by the TDG.

The critical area for acceptance to the TDG under the TPODP is the willingness to live in and promote peace not only within the boundaries of the TDG or one’s cultural enclave but worldwide. Peace, as defined here, is not only the absence of war but the catalysts to war (hate, xenophobia, etc).  Thus peaceful co-existence with, possibly, previously hostile groups is a must and cross cultural exchange and understanding is a requirement.

*
And they came, the displaced, in numbers that was not expected. They came. To the Land of Snows. They came with hope that there could be some place for them. We saw those from around the world, indigenous tribes, persecuted religious groups, those suffering gender oppression, racial oppression. They came. And they gave so much. They had so much to offer. They came and believed that there was a place for them.

Not too many, many were put off by the heights and the weather. But enough, more than expected-they came.

And the minarets rose up amongst the spires of Churches, robed Tibetan monks in burgundy walked the streets, and Sadhus gripping tridents wandered.

I saw a table that would have been the beginning of a joke, not long ago.

A Priest, a Rabbi, an Imam, and a Lama all sat a a table.....

It wasn’t a joke. Though they laughed.

They practiced wherever they were. I saw a Buddhist Nun help make bricks for the Cathedral that was going up-I saw a group of Islamic men and women clearing a field for a group of Jewish new arrivals that needed space to live.

I saw people who needed the grants to get started, who now were self-sufficient, I saw as they collected from their people and started their own new-arrival grants that did not distinguish between precious human life. It went to need.

I saw a Muslim woman with a headscarf teaching Tibetan to a group of children of different backgrounds; Tibetan, Chinese, Burmese, Iraqi, Persian etc. This was started to make the transition easier.....and, it was said, by the new arrivals, as a sign of respect. They would know and learn the language of culture of the land that would offer this. The place that emphasized that they keep their own cultures and languages and gave a space for it to be so. They were supported and therefore they would support.

Beautiful.

Be well

G

I have an admission to make-I am a murderer. I haven’t gone on some rampage shooting random people but, if we are to look at intention, then I am a murderer. It is an odd arising in me. I am, for the most part, pacifistic. I mean this not just in materialized practice (I don’t cause any wars) but also in my intellectual belief (that it is the only conclusion that I can come to as a policy once I apply reason). And yet, despite this, against both of these aspects of my cultivated self there arises in me, at times, a strange plotting that confuses me and, possibly, shows signs of a preceding (previous life even) predilections.

When I was in India I went to teaching on Buddhist thought. For two weeks the Dalai Lama taught on the roots of Compassion and Wisdom (Bodhichitta for those who know what that means). It was in the Himalayan foot hills amidst the alpine pines where the former British elite used to garrison soldiers and take their leisure.

The hill (mountain in America) that Mcleod Ganj is located is, from a distance knife like at the top and then tapers only to the front. Both sides of this town are steep nearly cliffsides that fall off into river valleys that resemble depressions caused by a giant axe stroke.

When I walked from the bottom of Mcleod Ganj in a town called Dharamsala and climbed up the tapered front to Mcleod Ganj my mind immediately went to ‘defense’. I could see it. Two view points on the opposite sides of the valley from Mcleod Ganj to view those sides for intrepid invasion also a third set of eyes if we include the front of Mcleod Ganj, to view the valley as it comes to the hills.

If attacked in a normal way have hidden forces both to the right and left, small forces, probably horsed if we are talking pre-gunpowder (my mind does dual calculations for both eras). If frontal attack, as would be the norm, the other ways around are the Himalayas and impassable cliff faces. Allow them to, if they are in force, to come up the mountain with enough resistance to give the impression that they are making progress on their own. Once they reach the kill zone (space that has been cleared of trees from the walls usually to the extent of bow shot or rifle shot) release cavalry from one hidden side hill to flank the attackers. Hold the other in reserve for surprises like them reserving a group to flank the flanking cavalry.

Abnormal way-to use the extremely steep sides of the opposite valley walls. Send out sortie to engage any who get past the watchtower, slowly fall back to walls. Watchtower to flank as they pass, or, if they are engaged, send large sortie group to flank from front of Walls with remaining forces to hold walls.

Repeat on the other side.

I could see why the British chose this place as a hill garrison and a place to feast their elite. The defense is easy. Water from the Himalayas that is safe from tampering, storage for food stuff, also, even the tops of this hill are arable thus can hold out almost indefinitely.

How to attack? Small force around watchtowers up the Himalayas, flank the town. No walls in this direction. Use their walls as against them as it hems them in. Start a fire to blaze down the back of their town, then push against the front with infantry. Soldiers will have to deal with chaos, firefighting, and fighting. Hold reserve groups to hold off flanking of infantry, wait until fire does its damage, continue with a holding position. Use the strengths of the fort to its disadvantage. Will not be able to wait out the invasion.

Defense?

Cut back forest on the back side, make a moat that can be doubled as a fire break and identify a fire brigade that is civilian based so soldiers can focus on war.

…....

I read about the Iraq war and eventually stopped. I didn’t like what my mind was doing.

Fallujah

In defense earthen ‘speed’ bumps made of dirt and rubble. Expose vulnerable underside of armor to RPG attack. Dig holes in thoroughfares and fill with oil, cover with flammable rubble. As armor falls into pits, or gets paused by the, set fire-metal is highly conductive to heat. Normal small arms fire for when soldiers appear. If they bring in heavy armor (large Abraham tanks) and oil is scarce, randomly make oil pits, to increase fear, tunnel our beyond the perimeter as much as possible. It allows for soldiers to walk over but any heavier weight will make tunnel collapse. Reduce advantage of armor. Why are the tunnels used for slowing armor and not soldiers? Humans can get out of hole better than a vehicle. Also, we have to think about escape. Need escape routes in the dark that are easier for soldiers to get out. If interspersed with holes caused by collapsing tunnels then the break up is good for stealth. If too much then it can be used against soldiers as a place to defend.

Against shells? Dig, dig, dig. Use WW1 trench techniques.

Offense?

While attacking with so much armor advantage. Use bulldozers or their equivalent to raise defensible bulkheads. Go at small intervals with interspersed bulldozers (if it proves that there are collapsable tunnels) to limit armors loss. Shell consistently at closer and closer range as moving bulkheads closer and closer. Make them larger as getting closer to buildings. Once town is ringed start destroying buildings with armor, shells, fire. Move inward. If pits of oil occur-the fill from the inward moving rubble should fill enough for armor to go over. Should be over quickly with little loss of offensive life.

Defense?
Some tunnels that can withstand armor. This would be with soldiers with heaviest artillery (RPG). Passing armor will be identified. This will be coupled with a intensive sortie againts oncoming armor/soldiers. Then falling back. Perhaps the bait will be taken and they go more heedlessly into buildings. Flank with troops. Keep doing this until group is strongly within the perimeter. Half of buried offensive arises at night and flanks them from the perimeter of their bulkheads.  Pounds them with artillery and hoping that there are enough in the city to counter attack.

The half still in the tunnels are waiting for the inevitable reserves to come in to hit their backside. They will be to hold off this group of flank them.

Really in this situation you are drawing out the eventual loss. Too much disparity in weapons/power.

Keep escape routes open as long as possible. Then up to command to decide whether it is ‘till the last man’ or they can escape.

Why?

My mind does this at regular intervals-at parks, camping, hikes, trekking. Not all the time. Thank goodness. But I find it disconcerting. I hate war. I am a child of war. My parents suffered through it. I a refugee because of it.

I don’t know, really, why. It is there. I wish it wasn’t. No matter the creative aspects of war it is futile in its efforts at anything but creating more war.

Why does my mind do this?

I wish it did not.

I have been wondering at my elevated levels of irritation lately. I am, often, a pretty even keeled fellow, even called lethargic at times. I don’t know if you can call me stoic because, really, I have a television in my house, but in regards to intense displays of emotion I am more to that side of things. I have spouts of irritation though, when I was young these flamed me to outright outrage and usually a stretch of black depression. Those days have been tempered, however, and I am not so sensitive. Thus it seems odd that my levels of irritation have lasted for this time. It is only of late that I recognize where it comes from; it comes from a familiar foe but one that I thought I had bested years ago-hope.

Hope, in our modern age, has arisen to something of a star status. It is at the forefront of what we deem as a proper stance toward the world-hopeful. But, if we look historically it was not always that case, and, if anything, I am throwback in so many ways. When thinking of hope, I like to think about how our western predecessors to this strange experiment we have tried here-the Hellenistic hoards most specifically the Athenians. When they came to do what they do-war and pillage-and call it an honorable vocation, they would often give the defending people an opportunity to give up. To make terms. Usually something along the line of a percentage of their people given up as slaves, women as bed slaves, gold, tribute for a certain amount of time. In exchange the Athenians would not take more in pillage and would wouldn’t kill a large portion of them.

This offer was given to an island city state. They refused. They replied that despite the overwhelming might of the Athenians they were going to hope for the Lacedonians to send aid. At this meeting, the Athenians replied, “They are not coming and they have not given you any indication that they will come. You are left only with hope. Hope is a pale and weak thing and only arises when one has lost the ability to change their own fate. Hope not. Use your better judgement and don’t send your soldiers to certain death and your city to flames.”

I have allowed hope to fester in my bones. The hopes for a kinder world, for systems to produce to their stated values, for individuals to understand their power and place in this scope of suffering and its end. There is more but it hurts to gag it up any more. I am filled with such folly, such silliness, filled with such hope. Hope, can only bring about the rending of one’s flesh whether literal in the sense of the foes of the Athenians or symbolically. For, I ask you, what person with an inkling of intelligence has ever received their hopes? Oh, the mundane aspects of meat or mead have been accomplished but those are not really hopes, are they? Hopes are that which has an aspect of impossibility to them and are usually the haunts of creative men and women.

If I ponder this idea of Hope and where it should be placed within my life, for, try as I might, it will not leave me. It haunts my being like some childhood memory that I wish to forget. I think it is a part of me much like my brain stem or some such. It cannot be removed from my being and thus must be lived with. Where is it that I can place this troublesome, innate aspect of my being, is a thought I am having now.

Hope, I guess, would have to be placed in the external, a placement put upon that which I have only the ability to name. The indefatigable Other. However, this is not the same joyful placement that many would applaud. I strip this Hope of any expectations, I place this hope in its proper place where it can do little harm, a place where my fantasies of greatness and riding dragons reside. I place it here because of its weakness but I also place it here because of its ubiquity-it never has to leave. One could be hanging from the edge of a cliff by a tuft of grass and hope could arise that a giant eagle would swoop them up. But here, in this closet of desires, it can do little harm and keep me from being overwhelmed with unfulfilled hopes-and from the arrows of Athenians.

What is left then without hope? One could ask this as a wondering as to how one would motivate themselves into action. Is it not the perfect ideas, or the more perfect ideas, that motivate the inert moment into action? In regards to hope, it can. But if we are to measure one’s happiness as a goal if we use hope as the brass ring to action it will fail miserably. There is something of the flavor of hope that can be used, though. It is expectation. Expectation can be used as both a means of whittling away the fantasies and as a goad to move us beyond inertia.

An expectation of the self is the internal measure, as hope is the external. Expectation, in its better form, is coupled with honesty to be able to glare into the looking glass and understand what tools one has to work with. An honest assessment of one’s abilities, at a current state, as one can always gain more tools (although there are some innate one’s that are also there as well). In the light of these tools one can have expectations for oneself. Expectations on how to behave in situations that, perhaps, have not occured yet-bravery is often practiced in the heart’s of men and women before they are measured in reality. This measure is, when coupled with honesty, a preparation for the rigors of life.

I have expectations of myself in this life. To be driven toward my understanding of the good and to stand up for it in the ways that my means allow. The reality that unfolds, in many ways, is not of my doing, its causes were long before I even existed. I have an internal free will to engage an external world.

Expectations for myself, hope for the world, and in this I can shed my vanity, gain a happiness, glory in what I can do.

Be well
G

Three beers. That's all it takes now. I hadn't drank in 7 years because, well, frankly, I didn't feel like it. When I tell people that they think that I was a raging alcoholic and I have fallen off of the wagon but that wasn't and isn't the case. I remember when I quit, sitting at a very poor sushi restaurant in Kauai (sad how bad the seafood is in Hawaii-almost criminal) and I was drinking a small bit of sake, about the amount in a regular soy sauce bottle that haunts the tables of most Chinese food places. I took a sip. Then one more. And said, "I'm not going to drink anymore". At the time I was drinking, maybe, two glasses of wine, at most, a month. Now, seven years later, I have drank three beers and I know, at least for a time, I will not be done drinking. Three beers and I can feel the edges of my site become fuzzy and the back of my throat a touch numb. Funny, in my younger years I could drink scotch and be clever until the dusk turned to dawn. It usually took a winsome woman to draw out such fortitude but it was not unusual. Now it is three beers with my children asleep, my wife asleep, and I can't sleep like so many other nights. How many night have I not been able to sleep? College was years of unrest, I spent all my time working, then school, then study for school, full time at both-and now it seems like a dream and so far away. How could I have had such energy? I memorized the Krebs cycle and the 58 item menu at the Vietnamese restaurant I worked at. I studied like a wraith, full of fury and intent, I worked hatefully but diligently. What was it for?

Oh, let me be so trite and silly. My artistic side wants to lament the effort because it left me in a place where I could lament the effort. In the tri-fold definition of a human life: body, mind, spirit-I was able to, because of school, serve my body. I can work. I can work at a level in which I am rewarded with an exchange that I can feed my family and I. I was exposed to a few great writers, some science, and bathtubs of booze (I didn't partake of it all, just my fair share) and pretty women. How trite is that? My wife says it isn't trite. She says that I am one of the only men that she has met that truly, really, likes women. That it isn't caught up in a tangle of neurosis. She told me, a few years ago, that I liked pussy and was so comfortable with it that it was strange. So comfortable with it that, when I was younger, I was mistaken for being gay. That's funny but true. Being comfortable, in that sense, I guess, makes one open-again, my wife, has said she has never met another person who has made so many connection with disparate people. I asked what the hell she was talking about and she said, "You have a radical, Christian fundamentalist friend that tells you to your face you are going to hell, who tries to convert you, and you still are friends with her. You also have a F to M friend that identifies as a heterosexual male even when he was a She and had huge tits. He also is a radical Atheist and Marxist to boot. This is not to point out in too much detail that your best man was a hunter, weed advocate, who regularly tries to get you to go bow hunting with him, the friend you most recently lent money to is a militant bicyclist, vegan, hipster." I told her it just happened. I liked them, like them. Not for anything in particular, really, I like them for them. I like discussing Christ in a literal sense with someone, I like bashing the Literal interpretation of Christ with someone, I like seeing love in all the forms that it comes (and I like shapely tits..they weren't huge either, just nice and shapely, I also like asymmetrical breasts too), and I have a tough time saying no to people I think really need money.

This all comes out after three beers. I am a lonely drunk right now. Sitting her, with the light, the awful light-why can't we make better lighting that spews from the screens of computers?-and I can't help but think about how dissatisfying this all can be. We are here for such a few blinks of an eye. We don't even get a chance to know each other. Not that it really can happen on a mundane level. We are all in the third person because we have given up our ability to not be. We think, think in concepts, words, etc. These are all bounded things that are inherently flawed. A concept cannot be True because there is nothing that is actually bounded. Even if we look at it from the mundane point of view of cause an effect, the actual boundary of a set point in time is imposed and not actual. Thus our very means of communicating to ourselves and others is flawed, separate from the Truth. I want to be closer than that. I want not to be even close. I want to merge and feel that unimaginable sinking into the Great. I think that is why I like pussy so much, for me, the flawed concept it is the closest I will ever come to that merging. 

I wonder what would happen if I drank one more beer? I won't, I am too tired, but it would be interesting. I can follow this train of thought now, I wonder if I could later? After? 

This life is nothing but a tally card of all things lost until it is all lost. Our lives, or most of our lives, is filled with the interminable action of trying to keep that which is already lost. It cannot be kept. That sorrow that arises in this inevitability is pissing in the wind, to put it crassly. Why is it we cry over it despite our intellectual understanding that it is impossible to keep? Is that foolish or is it romantic? Perhaps it is only the fool that is the romantic? I am such a fool. There are things I would keep. Oh, really, much I would be okay with falling by the wayside. My life, my body, wealth, those I cling to but not with any real vehemence. I only cling to them for their practical purposes and not some transcendental hope. I know they are inert and flaccid in that arena. I would wish, though, that smile would last....

 

We made love and she cried out. Her body flexed around me and I could see her muscles tense and spasm. Then she turned her head and looked at me. Black hair, black, the color of the space between the stars, and she smiled a smile of the secret of all women. The sun, just fresh and coming over the lips of dunes to splash into our cabin, and lit her face up. The mother of my children, my wife, perhaps from all                    time. I wish I could take that with me. But even that must go. 

All of it goes, all, down, down, swirling like the last swig of a beer. Down some unknowable hole, maw, to somewhere or nowhere. 

If it is nowhere I will mostly rejoice, but damn, I'll miss that smile. 

 

Be well

G

Film is one of my favorite forms of art. Reading (trying to write) and Film are neck and neck for the best way that I can understand and project thoughts and beliefs. This being said, I fall into the trap, often, of viewing in a form in which I am somewhat familiar and have an emotional attachment to. A common mistake that I make is digging when I no longer have to dig or to desire the obscure and difficult for the sake of them being that way. It is these two obstacles that I had to get over when I viewed this film, The Grey by Joe Carnahan. Once I did get over them I was able to enjoy and thought the film was well done.

In brief it is a survival story about an ostracized man, ostracized by himself, it seems to allude to, and also because of the powerful moments of this life. His wife is dead, and it seems to indicate that she died of an illness. He has no children, works out into the deeps of Alaska on the pipelines protecting the workers from the roving bands of wild Wolf. Just before going back to civilization he has a moment of clarity and wishes to die. This moment, passes, and the wish, although strong, could not overcome his biological wish to survive. An accident ensues and leaves him and six other men alive in a winter storm. They are at the border between the tundra and the treeline. The entire rest of the movie is, on the surface, about their march toward civilization again.

The barrier most specifically that I had to overcome while watching this film was to over-symbolize everything-each branch was a phallus, each growl representing a vesper.  This was not this type of film. Despite my predisposition to do this I do not like watching films that are only driven by their symbolism and don’t pay much, if any, attention to the conceptual story line. This movie had symbolism in it but it also was a story about a desperate and sad man. This sad man being stalked by pissed off and aggressive wolves. This sad man was ‘just’ a sad man struggling with the deeper issues of life that are almost universal to all men-or will be at one time or other. This I can attest too.  As I turned off this aspect of my mind I was able to engage this movie on an emotional level-the sorrow, the witness to brutality, the fear of death.

What is it that keeps us going? For most, I believe, it is the biological drive couched in a human argument. We are often called the rational animal but I like to describe us, if I can use US to mean the vast majority, as the rationalizing animal. This beast finds reasoning for its animal instinct. In this movie the human tragic sorrow at losing what we desperately love, the love that only a human can feel, is trumped by the biological drive to survive. In the cold and winter it is blood, fire, and something to measure ourselves against that burns this man to life. He was not able to get over this desire even in the darkest of moments, even with a barrel of a gun in his mouth, he could not transcend his animal instinct.

Reading this over it seems that I am giving the “humane” argument to the side that would kill itself. And, perhaps shockingly, I am saying this. The Humane, in this definition, is only to mean that unique ability of the human to transcend its biological drive. The Human is forever outside of nature despite coming from nature, despite having the drives of nature, the drives, in themselves, are always unsatisfactory because of our Humane nature of understanding our seperateness-our consciousness or Self-Consciousness. This Self-Consciousness often, most often, becomes an irritation are perpetual dissatisfaction with our unique, subjective, experience. It cannot be shared, the life of the Wolf is, despite the similarities on an animal level, natural level, is not ours. We can never be the Wolf, we must seek our emergence into a Unity through transcendence, through a Self-Conscious journey to this where the Self is transcended. We see this illustrated in the Mythology/Symbology of the Buddha reaching Para-nirvana or the ascension of The Christ on the Mount of Olives. The Self has been fulfilled.

What The Grey shows is this oscillation between the drive for and the submersion into the natural, the descention of Man, and the Ascention of Man, to an aware engagement and fulfillment of the Self. We see the descention in the animal confrontation with the wolves-the fight, so to say, the hacking off of a wolf head and tossing it as a challenge. We see the ascention, which typically in my mythologies for the masculine is represented by the merging with the feminine, the imagined daughter playing her hair across her father’s face, the imagined wife who has been deceased for some time, whispering, “don’t be afraid”. These moments, in the movie, are coupled with intense moments of great fear, specifically transition from life to death.

This tension is shown also in the emergence of the quest for the characters to find a god in which they do and do not believe in. The life of the modern man is alluded to in the scene where a character tries to enact a ceremony of mourning for the dead. He says, “I don’t know what to say, what to say in this situation” and is left with a concise and literal, “please help us, help these dead, thank you for helping us survive to this moment, and please help us in the future”. They symbolic gestures, the ceremonies of their culture have been forgotten. In their modern mundane drive (in this case oil pipeline workers) they have, perhaps because of necessity, destroyed their incantations to the divine. They seem sorrowful and pitiful in this world that has scraped them clean of the protection, no, not protection in actuality, but the veneer of protection that modernity gives us. The planes aluminum walls, the safety of the gun, etc. The wolves are ever there, the immense force of nature always there, perhaps subdued at the lower ranges of effect, but always there, and, finally, always the victor as death wins.

In this inevitability there is the confrontation with God and god. The upper case being the God that must be served, the God that requires nothing and therefore is distant but superior. The confrontation with the god that can be appeased, the one that our material, modern hearts desire, is illuminated here in numerous instances. The discussion with the characters that don’t believe in a god because of the suffering of their lives-this god has not lived up to his end of the bargain and therefore they refuse him their faith. The main character, Ottway, is untrue in his disbelief. He could not be honest in his belief in a God, but tried to dismiss his belief by refuting god. He points to suffering, points to his breath, his heartbeat, the biological animal drive and says, “this is all there is” in an argument to descention-but it is tragic because Man cannot ever be fully natural. Not anymore. We have come from this but we cannot ever return, as the Myth of Adam and Eve brilliantly illustrates. Toward the ending of the movie we are able to witness that there is faith in Ottway, that his belief is in the God, one that brooks no deals, that offers no solace, that just ‘IS’. As he lay on the frozen bank extoling God to be god in helping him, bargaining with him and offering his faith as a coin, but the cold forest, the bone white sun hidden behind the outlying storm clouds. God is silent as he must be. Ottway then says, “forget it. I’ll do it myself,” in his recognition that God cannot be bought not that he doesn’t exist.

Where I understand this belief is in how Ottway is never fully honest. His wife is a mystery, in moments, tender moments in the brutal land, where the other characters bare their inner most, he is dishonest in his quiet, in his less than ultimate answers. One character talks about the love of his life, his daughter, and her hair, and Ottway talks about his Dad, “an Irish cliche” which is a hurt but one that is much less than his suicidal hurt. By holding back he is being untrue to the moment. He is holding back is reason, his understanding of God, the taker of things, a God that is much more like Khali in the Hindu tradition who is depicted as eating her children. She is time. That which creates and destroys.

The Grey was a good movie, a movie, like many good movies though, that must be watched when one is in the mood. In the mood to be confronted and to confront. I was in this sort of mood as I continued to struggle with my ongoing battle in this life. This battle for meaning, for honoring the meaning in which I know, and to struggle with the questions of this life-in the face of death, of the death the surrounds, both in my own march toward this end and that which I believe I can see in the society in which I live. I struggle to make this inevitability tragic and not nihilistic. I struggle to not de-evolve into the “wolfman” despite being bit. I struggle but I can hear it call me like a siren. To fight this call, to drive my being toward that which does not call at such an octave, which calls me only when I am the most careful and brave, is very difficult but I must try. One foot at a time. To go into this fray, my last one (I hope). It was a good mood to watch The Grey.

Be well

G

 

It is late and I don't know why I am writing this except that it seems important, somehow, someway. To me, at the least. I was barely awake and a television documentary on a dead elephant was on. It showed one of the most horrific things, I think, that one could see. I think it became horrific only in contemplation because the antiseptic scientist who seek to make everything removed from the experience. There was a gored elephant with flies covering it. There were men in lab coats, an ecstatic Entymologist  who was narrating, "there is all kind of fly activity-they are feeding on the juice that the hyenas are causing to exude from the carcass, mating near the holes and on the skin, they are dying, breeding, all on this elephant. It is just marvelous". The hyenas, all in front of robotic cameras, tore into the softening flesh, softening because the bacteria was racing the maggots to to the flesh-and the bacteria tenderized the meat. The hyenas tore off the lips, the elephants mouth widened, and its shockingly white teeth almost immediately turned black from the flies crawling over it. The elephants muscles were completely loosened and relaxed. A particular hyena kept ramming his head into the anus of the elephant and coming out with black bits of intestine, it thrust its body so savagely into the elephant that it was three quarters of the way into the body until it popped wholly in. It ate its way out of a hole in the elephants stomach.

 

This is a symbol of life, in some way, in some way that I cannot connect fully. But it is. It sends shivers down my back. The night vision green glow killing any life in the animals eyes. The glee in the scientists drone as they cheer the rendering of the elephant into the muscle of living beings and to a wet spot on the dry earth. 

 

Tell me it is natural, I know, but this is no comfort to me. 

Lest we forget, too often, this is our lot at this level and all else, at least in this early morning reverie, are efforts at trying to forget it. 

 

Be well
G