The Mad Albino, 47th Day of Hagwinter, 525 M.E. (Deneb): The psychiatrist Oliver Sachs once wrote about a man who had lost the ability to form new memories, like the protagonist of the movie, Memento. However, his patient had been a concert pianist before his affliction, and could still play long classical sonatas on the piano solely from his earlier memory. 

When not playing, he was constantly afflicted with a disorienting sensation like just awakening from a deep, deep sleep ("Where am I? Why am I here? What am I doing?"), but when playing the piano, he could always tell exactly where in the composition he was - say, an early, mid-, or late passage - and he found that sense of place comforting, even if he couldn't remember sitting down to start the piece to begin with. The length of the composition was longer than his memory, so playing music served as a sort of prosthesis to compensate for what his memory lacked. He couldn't remember playing the intro sequence, but he knew that he'd been at that piano playing Bach for at least a half hour, based on his knowledge of the piece, and he knew he'd be there for another 10 minutes until the end.

But that's not what I want to talk about. Imagine yourself a sailor on board one of the ships in Columbus' first fleet. You're heading for a distant shore that you think exists but you're not completely sure (some on board say it's not real), and no one has any idea how far away it is.

You stand on the deck and for all 360° around you, you can see the sky meeting the ocean on the horizon. Not a speck of land anywhere to be seen, and you don't know if it's going to be another two days, two weeks, two months, or ever, that land appears to the west. On the other hand, as soon as the next wave crests, land might appear on the horizon. You have no idea. All you can do is watch and wait.

Sitting for long periods of meditation over many intervals sometimes feels like that. The umpteenth sitting period is in progress, and although there were regular kinhin intervals between the periods, all that sitting starts to bleed together. Soon after the echo of the starting bell fades away, you can't tell if you've been sitting there for 5 minutes or 25 minutes. Or maybe longer. You're lost in time just like that sailor lost in the endless sea. The ending bell might not ring for another twenty minutes, or it might ring . . . right . . . now. All you can do is sit and wait. 

When you're lost in time in that quiet space, any external distraction is like a marker. Somebody coughs, a noisy car passes by on the street, or a dog barks, and for at least a short while you know it's been one minute, then two, then more since that little distraction. You may not know where between the start and finish bell you are, but you're pretty certain it's been about five minutes since you heard that door slam.

The trouble with music during zazen, even the most droning, ambient music, is that there are constant little markers keeping one aware of the passage of time. Even in the most structureless of ambient compositions, where there's no compositional clues as to how far along in the piece you are, you're still aware of the passing of time. There are no clues as to whether you're near the end or not, but you know it's been 10 seconds since that last little "tink" of a bell, or that rumble of bass.

Today, the fifth day of the Rohatsu practice period, I used several of Brain Eno's ambient "installation" tracks as timers for my meditation (four hours!). It was lovely, quiet, meditative music, but it nonetheless still got in the way of my sense of time dropping away. With all the constant repetition, layering, and cycling, there's no sense of progress to the music itself, but it's still right there, giving the mind something to focus on and keeping you fixed in time.

Still, while it certainly wasn't shikantaza (just sitting), it was nonetheless four hours of meditation. A day well spent. And since today is Deneb, a walking day, after I finished my sitting I went out and got in a 4.3-mile Madison, returning home just as the sun set. 

Three more days of Rohastsu practice to go, although I won't be using ambient music tracks as my timers anymore.

 

The Hundred Lights, 46th Day of Hagwinter, 525 M.E. (Castor): Ausar Temple is a track by the musician Angel Deradoorian (Deradoorian, Dirty Projectors, Slasher Flicks) from her highly recommended 2017 album Eternal Recurrence. The track consist of 2½ minutes of more-or-less random gongs, symbols, and drums. Ausar, also known as Osiris, was a member of the ancient Egyptian gods and the offspring of Seb and Nut. He held a close relationship with Isis, who was both his sister and his wife (eww). The track sounds a lot like the gongs in a Zen temple.and since August 2024, I have been using it as a timer for my kinhin (walking meditation) between my period of zazen (sitting meditation).

Without any fixed rhythm and although still ambient in general tone, I nonetheless found all the clanging and crashing in the track a little too disruptive even for my walking mediation  That's not a knock against the piece itself - I easily tolerated it for over a year, and even came to enjoy the chaos - it's just an observation of its utility for something for which the composer had no intention.  But I still wanted to use the opening, Zen-like gongs as timers for my home meditation practice so last October I fired up that music-file editing software mentioned in previous posts and spliced two minutes of Annea Lockwood's sound collage World Rhythms to the opening of Ausar Temple and, voila, created the perfect (for me) timer for kinhin between the audio timers I use for zazen.

Today, the fourth day of the Rohatsu practice period, I sat for three and a half hours. The timers were very nearly the same as yesterday, although for the additional 30 minutes, I slipped in the whisper-quiet electronic track i come out of your sleep by the artist Ruth Anderson after the three Caves. The track appears on the same LP, Sinopah, as Annea Lockwood's World Rhythms. 

Also, instead of Eno's 60-minute Reflections, I substituted all four 15-minute tracks from his Sisters album. The tracks are generative music similar to Reflections and very similar to one another (hence the title, Sisters). The silence between tracks is shorter and less pronounced than some of the silences or near-silences within the tracks themselves, so it didn't feel like sitting (literally) through four different compositions. And the great part is, one can easily delete one or two of the tracks to create 30- or 45-minute timers as desired.

Here then, is the playlist of timers for today's sitting:

Laraaji - Twenty Five-Minute Cave, zazen, zafu (0:25)

Deradorian/Annea Lockwood - Ausar Temple/World Rhythm (edit), kinhin (0:30)

Ana Quiroga - Ten-Minute Cave (edited to 25 minutes), zazen, zafu (0:55)

Deradorian/Annea Lockwood - Ausar Temple/World Rhythm (edit), kinhin (1:00)

Will Epstein - Fifteen-Minute Cave (edited to 25 minutes), zazen, zafu (1:25)

Deradorian/Annea Lockwood - Ausar Temple/World Rhythm (edit), kinhin (1:30)

Ruth Anderson - i come out of your sleep, zazen, zafu (1:55)

Deradorian/Annea Lockwood - Ausar Temple/World Rhythm (edit), kinhin (2:00)

Brian Eno - Sisters, zazen, seiza bench (3:00)

Deradorian/Annea Lockwood - Ausar Temple/World Rhythm (edit), kinhin (3:05)

Annea Lockwood - World Rhythm (60-minute edit), zazen, zafu (3:35)

All times above are approximate; the entire playlist of timers was actually 3 hours and 32 minutes.         

 

High Paralysis, 45th Day of Hagwinter, 525 M.E. (Betelgeuse): Then, on the third day of the Rohatsu practice period, he sat for three hours. 

Today, I sat for three, 30-minute periods using a zafu (round meditation cushion), then one 60-minute period using a seiza (kneeling) bench, and then another, final, 30-minute period using the zafu again. My timers were three Caves stretched out to 25-minutes each (with five minutes of intro/outro ambient music), an hour-long Brian Eno ambient composition (Reflections), and then a 30-minute edit of Annea Lockwood's World Rhythms. Even though it was aggressively ambient, the Eno piece called too much attention to itself - or to be more precise, my mind was able to focus on it too easily - and I probably won't be using that one again.

Since it's Betelgeuse, a walking day, I got my steps in today too, another Madisonian 4.1 miles.

The Stable Genius probably did something stupid today, I'm sure of it, but I was too busy with my sitting and my walking to notice. In other words, it was a good day.   

 

Day of the Waste Arena, 44th of Hagwinter, 525 M.E. (Aldebaran): The Stable Genius warned today that any country he believes is illegally manufacturing drugs destined for the US is vulnerable to military attack. Great. Because the War of Drugs worked so successfully here (sarcasm) that it's time to take it global.

It's the second day of the Rohatsu practice period and I added a half hour to my now daily (for this period) sitting. Two and a half hours, consisting of two 30-minute sits and two 45-minute sits. 

I use timers for my meditation rather than stare at a clock. I used to use the timer app on my iPhone for a timer, but no matter how gentle the alarm I selected, I still found it jolting when it went off, and then I had to scramble and fumble around with my phone to turn it off. That made for a rude ending to a graceful sitting period.

A few years ago, I came across a compilation album by the label Other People titled Caves, a "compendium of timers for every-day use." Each track starts with some gentle, wordless, new-age/ambient music for a minute or so, and then fades to silence for five, ten, or more minutes. At the end of the silence, the music gently returns for another minute or so. The "caves" are the silences between the sounds. One track by the ambient musician Laraaji is a 25-minute cave, and with the intro and outro, the whole track is 30 minutes in length, perfect for a half hour of zazen and kinhin (walking meditation). The other tracks are all of shorter length, but I used some music-editing software to expand the silences of those other tracks to 25 minutes and for a year now have used three of them as timers for my 90-minute meditation periods.

Meditating while listening to music isn't Zen meditation, or shikantaza ("just sitting") as the Japanese call it. Just sitting is exactly what the words describe - nothing other than simply sitting still, and anything added to it - sitting and chanting, or sitting and practicing mindful breathing, or sitting and thinking about a koan - is not "just sitting." Just sitting, with no "and." So sitting and listening to music is not shikantaza, but with the Caves tracks, the music quickly falls away just as I'm settling in, and the "and" disappears. 

But sometimes, especially during this Rohatsu practice period, I also use some extended-length recorded tracks as my timers. It's not shikantaza, but in my experience it can still be a form of meditation. It won't work if I'm listening to anything with words or singing, or instrumental melodies, or even a fixed rhythm. But there's some drone music that consists of little more than a single tone sustained for extended lengths and there's some ambient music that's so ephemeral and nebulous that there are no hooks or anything else for the mind to latch onto, and those tracks can make good timers. The sound simply disappears into the background, not unlike the other ambient sounds of the house on an afternoon - the fan from the HVAC, the birds outside, the occasional passing car, sometimes (and annoyingly) some landscapers working their gas-powered leaf blowers somewhere in the neighborhood. 

Today, I used three of those 25-minute Caves and two 45-minute ambient tracks for my sitting. The first ambient track was Elaine Radigue's Occam XXV performed by the organist Frederic Blondy. The entire 45 minutes is one long sustained note played on organ that slowly, imperceptibly, rises up out of silence and then fades back again by the end - now that I think about it, the exact opposite strategy as the Caves. It's the aural equivalent of watching paint dry, perfect for meditation (Radigue, it should be noted, is a practicing Tibetan Buddhist). 

The other 45-minute track was Annea Lockwood's sound collage World Rhythm, consisting of field recording of various nature sounds - a babbling brook, lapping waves, bird songs, honking geese, occasional rumbles of thunder, with moments of silence or near-silence. To some people, it might not even qualify a "music," although the counter argument is that sounds arranged from field recordings of nature is no less arbitrary than sound arranged from plucked strings, drum beats, and vibrating columns of air.

FYI, I'm off Spotify now, and all my timers today were ethically purchased off of Bandcamp, including the Caves, Occam XXV, and World Rhythm.      

 

 

The Living Help, 43rd Day of Hagwinter, 525 M.E. (Helios): Forty-third day of Hagwinter, first day of Rohatsu practice period. Even though I sat yesterday (90 minutes), I sat again today for 120 minutes - four sitting periods (zazen) of 25 minutes each, with five minutes of walking meditation (kinhin) in between. 

Also, since Helios is officially a walking day for me, I went out and walked a Madisonian 4.4 miles, the shorter distance necessitated by the extra time needed for all that sitting.

tl/dr: another day in paradise

  

 

Winter Drum, 42nd Day of Hagwinter, 525 M.E. (Electra): Secrets of the Essence Chamber, the 50th day of Hagwinter, is Rohatsu, the date of the Buddha's awakening. The next eight days leading up to the holiday comprise the Rohatsu practice period, a stretch of intensive meditation practice.

Monks around the world shudder in anticipation of Rohatsu. I'm not formally a monk, although I do fancy myself as an "urban monk." For many years early in my practice, I thought that when I finally retired from the workspace, I would join a Zen monastery somewhere, maybe Zen Mountain Monastery in Mount Tremper, New York, or Upaya Zen Center in New Mexico. Maybe even go to Japan. But as retirement approached, I lost my enthusiasm and started to consider myself less and less of a Zen Buddhist in the traditional sense of someone participating in, as Dogen put it, the unmistakable tradition handed down from teacher-to-student since the time of the Buddha. 

Also, joining some new community didn't sit well with this introvert. However, as I studied the koans and lives of the ancient Zen masters, I read about forest monks and mountain monks who left the monasteries to practice on their own in seclusion. Those cartoons and comics that you see about the wise old man sitting on the mountaintop is based on the concept of the mountain monk. A forest monk is basically the same thing, but deep in the woods rather than on top of a mountain.

But as I thought about it, one can be just as isolated and alone in the city as on top of Old Smoky or deep in the forests of Fangorn. Urban loneliness and alienation are well-documented modern-day problems, the dark side of the anonymity and seclusion that cities can offer. To be alone in the midst of a bustling crowd seemed like as Zen a concept as any (the distractions are all in your mind, anyway), and after I finally did retire I went about fashioning a life of urban monasticism.

The covids were my first teacher. The pandemic broke out within a year of my retirement, and along with the rest of society, I wrestled with the new practices of social distancing and staying home alone. But even as the restrictions were lifted and life slowly returned to the new normal, I continued to hone a practice of urban monasticism. With each passing month and each passing year, I adjusted myself a little more, leaning into those activities that seem to belong on this path and dropping those activities that don't. 

I'm sociable enough to my neighbors - I say "hello" and exchange pleasantries over the backyard fence when we bump into each other - but I don't seek them out, don't invite them over, and didn't accept invitations until they eventually stopped coming. Just as a monastic occasionally has to go to the market for the sake of the monastery, I go food shopping at the supermarket when I need to, although I don't go out "shopping" as a social activity. I chant the Heart Sutra at least once a day - generally, whenever I think about it. I sleep when I'm tired, and get up when I awaken. After I finish a meal, I wash my bowls and even disconnected my dishwasher to encourage mindfully fulfilling that chore.  

My meditation practice, as I've noted here before, is currently 90 minutes every other day. With the approach of Rohatsu, it's time to step that up. My goal for the next eight days is to sit daily, instead of every other day, and to increase my time by at least 30 minutes each day. By the end of the practice period, I should be sitting for 5½ hours a day. I'll still try and maintain my alternating day walks, although with shorter daylight hours each day and more time spent sitting, I may have to cut down my nine-mile Harrisons to five-mile Monroes, or less.

For the sake of all sentient beings, now my watch begins.    

 

Day of the Still Boulder, 41st of Hagwinter, 525 M.E. (Deneb): The kid sister finally came home from the hospital today after completing her cancer surgery and recovery. She's still in pretty rough shape - a feeding tube to her stomach, a tracheostomy tube still in her throat, her jaw still wired shut, and will need care and assistance by her husband for some period of time. But the good news is that the cancer was successfully removed.

In the stark light of the reality of her life-and-death experience, other events seem sore of irrelevant. 

The Overday, 40th of Hagwinter, 525 M.E. (Castor): Never before has an American president demanded absolute loyalty in the way the Stable Genius does, not only by attempting to destroy any Republican who opposes him but by demanding regular public displays of sycophancy, such as the North Korean-style cabinet meetings in which everyone competes to see who can offer the most effusive praise of the president’s magnificence. 

For the most part, it has worked: The atmosphere of fear surrounding the Stable Genius’ cult of personality has kept Republicans from criticizing him even when they think he’s wrong. However, writing in Public Notice, Paul Waldman notes that many Republican politicians and influencers are now breaking with him, or at the very least fighting amongst themselves in ways that weaken his movement. Most of the following comes directly from his article.

After months of resisting the release of the Epstein files, the Stable Genius faced a revolt from his own party in Congress, where both houses voted nearly unanimously for a bill to force a release, which he then signed.

Ideas he has floated recently, including 50-year mortgages and $2,000 checks given to Americans supposedly from tariff revenue, have not resounded in Congress, and few members come out to back them. His demand to eliminate the filibuster has received little support from Republicans in the Senate.

His apparent interest in invading Venezuela has caused a negative reaction from supporters who believed him when he said he wanted to break with our history of foreign adventurism. Republican officeholders have begun raising questions about the Pentagon murdering alleged drug smugglers by the dozens without providing any evidence of who they were or what legal authority the administration is operating under. Sen. Rand Paul, for one, said, “I think you’ll see a splintering and a fracturing of the movement that has supported the president” if he invades Venezuela.

While Republican legislators in Texas saluted and followed his order to redraw their congressional maps, Republicans in Indiana said "no" despite intense pressure from the White House. While it received less coverage, Republicans in Nebraska and Kansas also declined to redraw their maps to eliminate Democratic seats.

The Stable Genius has championed the unfettered development of artificial intelligence, but many on the right are wary of the technology and the tech companies creating it. When news broke that he wants to prevent the states from adopting AI regulations, state-level Republicans pushed back.

The right is currently being torn apart over the question of how friendly it should be to Nazis. While the Stable Genius’ own position on the question is a bit muddled, his administration is teeming with white nationalists.

Some Republicans are even worried about backlash from the administration’s nationwide campaign of masked thuggery. In response to the recent invasion of North Carolina, former Gov. Pat McCrory told Politico, “From a PR and political standpoint, for the first time, immigration is maybe having a negative impact on my party.”

The Stable Genius had an Oval Office meeting with New York mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist. Rather than calling the Mamdani a vile communist to his face like he did in multiple tweets, the president couldn’t have been friendlier.  “I think you’re going to have hopefully a really great mayor,” he said. “The better he does, the happier I am, I will say.” 

That meeting and the Stable Genius' embrace of the mayor-elect had supporters reeling. Steve Bannon shared a long lament about how “heartbroken” the base was, and a Fox Business analyst posted, “I really think the wheels are coming off" the Stable Genius' presidency.

Punchbowl News reports that MTG’s displeasure is just the tip of the iceberg in the Republican caucus in the House. The White House, one anonymous GOP member told them, “has treated ALL members like garbage … More explosive early resignations are coming. It’s a tinder box. Morale has never been lower.”

The most immediate explanation for why all this dissension and displeasure is roiling to the surface is that the Stable Genius is extremely unpopular right now — especially on the economy, the issue every elected official rightly fears.

The cracks are starting to show in the Stable Genius' facade and, just like Jericho, the walls will soon come tumbling down.

 

Tempest Birth, 39th Day of Hagwinter, 525 M.E. (Betelgeuse): Now, probably more so than ever, the words of  William S. Burroughs seem appropriate:

(For John Dillinger and hope he is still alive)
Thanksgiving Day, November Twenty-eighth, 1986: 
Thanks for the wild turkey and the passenger pigeons destined to be shit out through wholesome American guts.
Thanks for a continent to despoil and poison.
Thanks for Indians to provide a modicum of challenge and danger.
Thanks for vast herds of bison to kill and skin, leaving the carcasses to rot.
Thanks for bounties on wolves and coyotes.
Thanks for the American dream to vulgarize and to falsify until the bare lies shine through.
Thanks for the KKK, for n----r-killing lawmen feeling their notches, for decent church-going women with their mean, pinched, bitter, evil faces.
Thanks for Kill a Queer for Christ stickers.
Thanks for laboratory AIDS.
Thanks for Prohibition and the war against drugs.
Thanks for a country where nobody's allowed to mind their own business.
Thanks for a nation of finks.
Yes, thanks for all the memories: All right let's see your arms! You always were a headache and you always were a bore.
Thanks for the last and greatest betrayal of the last and greatest of human dreams.
    © Songs Of Virtual, Wixen Music Publishing

 

Approaches, 38th Day of Hagwinter, 525 M.E. (Aldebaran): Every morning, I wake up and open the news on my phone, looking for that death notice. Not just any obituary that might appear buried way down deep and low on the site. I'm looking for that front-page, giant-font notice that tells me the long nightmare is finally over.

Meanwhile, I have to console myself by watching the Stable Genius' agenda fall apart. Old, demented, and senile, he can barely string together a coherent sentence. I'm watching him call for capital punishment of a member of the Senate,  a highly decorated military veteran and literally an astronaut. I'm watching him tell a reporter that he plans on meeting with former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro "in the very near future" a day after Bolsonaro was incarcerated for tampering with his ankle bracelet while waiting to start his 38-year jail sentence. 

I'm watching his attempted prosecution of two political rivals laughed out of court for incompetence. I'm watching him, after weeks of strenuous resistance, submit to the inevitability of the release of the Epstein files, although I still don't believe that anything meaningful will ever be released, certainly nothing detrimental to the Stable Genius.

I'm watching him fall asleep in front of the camera during press conferences. I'm watching him slur his words like an alcoholic on a ten-day bender. I'm watching him string out sentences in long, rambling tangents, many of which revert back to his grievance of two, five, or more years ago and totally unrelated to the topic he was addressing.   

What am I not watching? I'm not watching the announcement that his DOGE project has been formally disbanded, because there was no press conference on that one and they're trying to keep it quiet and on the down-low. I'm not watching his big health-care announcement scheduled for last Monday with Dr. Oz because the announcement  was quietly cancelled without explanation (hint: they don't have a plan for health care).

Every morning starts with the disappointment that the announcement's not there. But there's always tomorrow.

 

Black Clotted Corridor, 37th Day of Hagwinter, 525 M.E. (Helios): The kid sister is still in the hospital - eight days now and counting - recovering from her cancer surgery. The doctors expect that she'll be discharged on Thursday, Thanksgiving Day.

She's still got a long road ahead. The tumor was in her jaw and her mouth still isn't fully functional. For at least some period of time, her husband will have to feed her and give her medicines via a feeding tube. Tomorrow, she'll endure yet another procedure to have the tube moved from her nose directly to her stomach. If that's successful, then she'll be ready for discharge on Thursday.

I can't imagine the psychological strain this is putting on her. Pain, the institutional indifference of the hospital, day after day of being face-to-face with your own mortality. The mid staggers thinking of what she's going through. 

It's been a rough couple years for the little nuclear family in which I was raised. My father passed in 2006, and my mother just left us last January. My kid brother died a yar ago September, and my cat, Izzy, the December before that. Impermanence is swift. 

The doctors say the surgery was successful and they were able to remove all the malignant tissue from her jaw, but on top of everything else it's a heavy, heavy burden, especially as the ordeal drags on day after day.

         

 

Wild Sun, 36th Day of Hagwinter, 525 M.E. (Electra): Before starting your Thanksgiving feast this week, you should consider the innumerable efforts that brought you your food. 

The first and most obvious is the hours of shopping, baking, mixing, and cooking by the hosts. Don't forget to acknowledge their efforts, help with the dishes, and if appropriate, tip your server.  Awareness of those immediate efforts, though, can then expand to the grocers, and then to the farmers, and then to the truckers who hauled the food farm to market.

But look even deeper. Someone had to build that supermarket, someone had to build the farmer's tractor, someone fueled the truck. Someone else milled the steel used to build the girders, the engines, and the truck body, and yet others mined the iron used to mill the steel and pumped the oil that fueled the entire enterprise. Someone felled the trees to pulp the paper in which to wrap the food. 

If we look deep enough and with enough imagination, almost every effort in the world has directly or indirectly led to the food appearing on the table. The city paved the road from farm to market, some venture capitalist provided the funds to start the iron mine, a vast industry was established to obtain and distribute the fuel for the tractors and trucks, and armies and policemen provided stability and safety for all of these activities to proceed - sometimes to protect against other armies and police who were trying to disrupt the activities.

There exists an enormous, universal web of interdependence that ties all the world's activities together, and while it all wasn't done for the express purpose of putting that cranberry sauce of your table, that cranberry sauce on your table is an inseparable part of the web. Everything is everything, and your Thanksgiving feast is a result of pyramids built, oceans crossed, wars waged, and continents tamed.

May I suggest that instead of some trite and probably untrue fable about the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag, or some prayer to a deity who probably doesn't even exist in the first place, try reciting to yourself or among yourselves the following verse:

Innumerable efforts have bought us this meal.
We should consider how it came to us, 
and whether our virtue and practice are worthy of this offering.
We regard greed as poison of the mind.
We regard this meal as medicine to sustain our life.
May all be equally nourished.

The first portion is to end all evil.
The second is to cultivate every good.
The third is to free all beings.
For the sake of awakening, we now receive this food.