“This body is not me. I am not limited by this body. I am life without boundaries. I have never been born, and I have never died.” Thich Nhat Hahn
When I left the brewery a little later than usual, I was asked where I was going. I said I was going home to write about life and death. OK, I had two tequilas and soda, accentuated by a slow dance with MaryJane. It’s all part of today’s story, kids.
Before you think my judgment is seriously hampered by these outside forces, you’d be right, but distractions abound on a good day. Really, who gives a shit anyway? I am about to say something that’s gonna sound incredibly stupid, but it’s true, at least for me. My two most potent antidotes to any kind of distraction are Flaming Lips and stories to you.
I have never, ever been uncomfortable writing, because I love it so much. In a way, it’s always easy. I would never dream of torturing myself or you. Dishonesty and this thing I do are not compatible. I definitely don’t have the imagination for fiction and this life can keep you busy enough.
On a handful of occasions, Flaming Lips has been unable to return me to my grounding. I would become incredibly miserable, losing my center, with energy spasms stiffening me like a board. Dumb luck plays an important role in these situations. Being on a bike, you can sense danger, if you know anything. No, I am not Kurt Cobain. I am an old guy, who is so thrilled to be here that on very rare occasion, I fuck up. Sue me.
You know, I’d love to ask you what you think about? Are there favorite places your mind always goes to? I am goddamn sure that every one of your responses would be fascinating. They are an integral part of who you are, like rings on the tree of your life, often filling in the spaces to complete our circle of the moment.
The life long path I have trodden to disrepair and back again, took its first steps one night, when I was a nine year old boy. I was all alone, in the dark night of my half empty bedroom. My older brother, my roommate, was away with relatives. The phone rang and my mother screamed an awful scream. Her husband, my father, had died from a heart attack. Back in the day, which would be the mid-Fifties, a heart attack was a one way ticket to what’s on my mind all these years from that night.
I knew he had died. Right then, tucked deep into my bed, I was overcome with a feeling of floating in a pitch blackened space, flecked with the brightest stars you could imagine. I can never forget it. You need to know I am a person with the worst memory possible. It’s always sucked, which I figure gives me a pass on those old person, mind melting tragedies. “Well, he’s always been that way.” That night is indelibly tattooed into my memory.
I spent my young adult years living the life I was supposed to live. Like I said earlier, there were always those places I traveled to internally, like the midnight sky of a nine year old. Somewhere in there, I became intrigued by the Buddha. His was the voice I was unable to hear as a little boy. I kept my internal ear close to my heart all those years. Somewhere in my thirties, we became brothers of intention.
Something about dying never made sense to me. It has taken many years for me to be open to the possibility that there is more to the story. I was still too young in my initial exposure to a Zen practice, to even allow for the possibility that something unusual happens to some of us, when it’s time to move on.
I gotta talk a little about faith and I don’t mean the deitized version that is so convenient to teach, with all its fucken rules. To me, it is about deeply, deeply believing in things you don’t fully understand. It might actually be the ticket, because the forces at play, well beyond our capabilities, look for those shimmering stars in the pitch blackened space.
I don’t know if The Big Man was the first saint to come up with the idea that we live in this limitless bubble. Every single thing that has ever happened within it has been effected by its predecessor, instantly carrying forward into some kind of mind blowing connection to whatever will happen.
It is the next day of this story telling and I am fully capable of operating heavy machinery. I thought you should know that. I say that, because this idea of Pratitya Samutpada, interdependent arising, is probably not for everyone. My feet are on the ground right now. What can I say?
I think the idea is we are coming and going all the time, throughout our lives. Why not before and after? Imagine this endless 360 degree, panoramic view that never repeats itself, no matter how quickly you spin around. You know, I do this writing thing to share this part of my journey, my spinning around.
This morning, I thought about my breath, while sitting on the cushion. I had already written around half this story the night before. After decades of being parked, legs crossed, ass bound on the cushion, I thought about the rhythm of my breath for the millionth time. It’s nothing new, but this time my story kind of inserted itself.
I had an image in my mind that instantly married itself to that pause between inhalation and exhalation. The image is the one I chose for this tale of time. Thich Nhat Hahn spoke of the idea of the wave, kind of being hosted by the ocean. The wave is the moment, rolling forward out of the timeless bed of eternity, then, returning to it, waiting for our next breath.
The moment between breath directions is where we live. It is an imaginary line between yesterday and tomorrow. If we are lucky and I mean seriously, fucken lucky, we are gifted the privilege of moving forward into the continuum after our last breath. We enter the vast universe, where everything that ever was is making love to tomorrow’s infinity. We can live forever if we believe in forever.
Don’t look, just close your eyes, living in that pause between breaths, the ocean.