Detachment

Today, I had an epiphany of sorts. A few posts back, I mentioned Uma Thurman’s dad, Robert Thurman. Well, if you didn’t catch it, no matter. He was the first American (and, I believe, the first Westerner) to become an ordained – if that’s the correct term – Buddhist monk. He gave up his studies and came back to the U.S., where he believed he could do more good, and now he is a theology professor in California. So I bought his book, Inner Revolution, and I’ve been reading it on the subway.

I’m getting a lot out of the book, but one thing in particular caught my attention today. Thurman was mentioning a set of rules that he compared to the Ten Commandments. They’re like Buddhist rules to live by, and I don’t have them memorized, but they really made a lot of sense to me. A few of them: tell the truth, love unconditionally, and remain detached. Now, I have to admit that the third one made me do something like a double take. I really had to think about how remaining detached could allow a person to love unconditionally. I think I understand now.

There are a few people in my life who I know I love unconditionally. My parents, my siblings, my son and wife (even though are marriage has ended) are a few examples. And by unconditional love, I mean that there is nothing these people can do that will cause me to stop loving them. And it’s not just immediate family: I have a very dear friend in San Antonio, Texas, who I love unconditionally. I love her so much that I would gladly surrender my life to save hers. But that’s actually quite easy. I would, in fact, even give my life to save that of her husband because I know what he means to her. Which raises another point: I’m not sure I love her husband unconditionally, because I think if he ever tried to harm her (not that I think he would – I’m only speaking hypothetically),I would no longer be so willing to sacrifice on his behalf and might even make his life a nightmare if his act was sufficiently egregious.

I’ve digressed a bit, but there is a point that I’m trying to get at. So I haven’t mastered unconditional love, because in reality I should feel unconditional love for all beings.

Now there’s another side of this. I have a history with all people I feel unconditional love for. What I mean is that I’ve shared some very close and personal experiences with these people, and I grew to love them to a degree that I’m willing to sacrifice for them without hesitation or expectation. But there’s a problem with this type of close association, and my wife is a good example of this: When you have a close, personal love relationship with another person, you get emotionally involved in such a way that you become hypersensitive to them. In other words, small things can become big. I might tell my wife, for instance (again, hypothetical only), that she is looking particularly attractive today. Despite my good intention and honest candor, she might be having a rough day and think that I’m trying to be sarcastic. Her response might be something like, “What do you mean, I’m attractive today? You’re saying I’m NOT attractive on other days?”

This is perhaps not the best example, but it’s one that comes readily to mind. Honestly, there were many times when I would try to compliment my wife or even try to cheer her up with a little good-natured teasing, but I cut way back on the compliments and totally gave up on the teasing, because she often misinterpreted what I was saying and became angry. But had I been, say, just a coworker, she would have either accepted the compliment, snickered at the teasing, or just shrugged the comment off if she didn’t understand it. The negative reaction only came when I was the one addressing her, and I truly believe that it was because I was too close; too emotionally tied to her. Because our relationship was so close and personal, she felt comfortable lashing out at me because I was the man strong enough to marry her.

So now I have to try to appreciate a sense of unconditional love for all creatures, many of whom bear malicious intent for me. If I allow myself to get caught up in petty feelings like my own selfishness, I will never be able to do it. In order to have the same kind of selfless love for others that Jesus had, I would have to give up, or remain detached, from my own personal failings and feelings. Likewise, I would have to be able to detach those with malice for me from their actions/intent. I can only do this if I see beyond the flesh and blood we all inhabit now.

It’s a start. I know I’m not there yet. I have long been a fighter. Not a day goes by when I’m not sizing people up, calculating what I would need to do if this guy wants to fight me or that guy has a bomb. And I’m not likely to turn that off anytime soon because it’s in my character, training and upbringing. But at least I have a better understanding, and it is already paying dividends in small ways.

Here’s one exercise I do: I try to imagine people I encounter throughout the day, and I picture myself giving them a hug. Then I imagine what I would be willing to give up for this person. If I can do this, I can push the envelope and I realize that I might be able to help people I’ve never been willing to open myself up to. It changes my attitude and I’m usually in a better mood. Sometimes, I think my coworkers might suspect I’m on drugs because I’m so friendly to them. Not that I wasn’t before, but I’m less likely to let little things get to me.

Now I’ve taken an important first step, but this isn’t just a marathon, it’s an infinite journey with an infinite number of steps. I pray that I can keep the pace and avoid stumbling too often.

Suicide is Painless?

I was going to write this yesterday. In fact, each day, lately, I've had a plan but haven't followed through. Some weeks are more interesting than others.

A few years ago, my brother committed suicide. I knew he was having marital problems, but obviously his problems ran much deeper than I or anyone else in the family realized. No note that I'm aware of; he just told a friend that he was going to blow his own head off, and then he did. The last time I saw him was a few months before that. He had gained a lot of weight and was drinking a lot. He seemed very anxious, constantly checking his cell phone and laptop. He told me that he had been working as a network administrator for Cisco, travelling from state to state, and that he had to keep a tab on things. He even bragged about the network of computers he had installed in his apartment, and how he was going to make so much money providing network service. As always in the past, he claimed so many things, but all I could really be sure of was that he was troubled.

But this was nothing unusual for my brother. He was a troubled youth, a troubled teen, and, after he joined the Navy, a troubled sailor. When he retired from the Navy, I thought he was doing so well. He seemed to always have a good job and a good income. I remember once, when I was living in San Antonio (Texas), he told me that he couldn't imagine living on my paltry income. And my income always lagged behind his. Yet, by the time he ended his short life, my income was still much less but I had saved while he had squandered his.

He left behind an estranged wife, a girlfriend I never met, and two beautiful boys with great potential. I loved my brother, but I can't help but think what he had done was the height of his selfishness. He had so much going for him, or at least as far as I knew, and his family relied on him, but he left them and he left the rest of the world. My dad explained that, by the time my brother got to the state of mind he was in, it wasn't about selfishness anymore: he just wanted to end his life. My dad understood this because he's been suffering for years from a near-fatal sequence of events that started with steroid injections for pneumonia. Each year, my dad can absorb a little less oxygen, and his other disabilities confine him to a wheelchair most of the time. I think he is ready for the end; even fantasizes about it, but I'll write more on that later.

Yesterday, more people in Baghdad were killed by a pair of suicide bombers who took not only their own lives, but the lives of a score of innocent people, as well. While I can appreciate some of the motivations for these acts of suicide (their families are often compensated and they are considered by their peers, and sometimes their families, to be martyrs), I still cannot help but think that their selfishness goes beyond that of my brother. Whatever personal goal they had in mind, they took the lives of so many people who now have left their families and loved ones... I can't even begin to calculate how many lives were effected from these two acts. Unlike my brother, as far as I can tell, these men, these suicide bombers, were fully cognizant of their actions and did not suffer the same debilitating sense of futility that led my brother to do what he did. Maybe they suffered from a sense of futility about their social plight (living in an impoverished society; opressed by others), but I think their victims were in much the same straits when their lives were cut short. I cannot help but think that their selfishness and the pain they inflicted was 20-fold what my brother's was. Then I think about how bad it still hurts that my brother killed himself, and the depth of pain caused by the two bombers takes on devastating proportions.

And these bombings occur just about every day, somewhere in the world. They've been going on for a while. I know the kind of pain they're inflicting does not stop or start with the suicide bombers. Governments cause and support pain -- I think all governments do. And to what end? They're competing with each other for a scrap of land, a pot of oil — things that wouldn't be so important if the people of the world could just cooperate and work together to figure out more efficient ways to share the world's resources. The amount of suffering caused by the "pragmatic" doctrines of these governments and organizations only fuels the engines that crank out the hopelessly misguided bombers.

I know, this is nothing new. Everything I'm saying: old news.

So I guess suffering is a given and nothing can be done to stop it. At least not in this material existence. So I'm looking for something deeper, perhaps for religion, perhaps just for a life beyond the flesh and bones of my own body. But I cannot and will not accept a belief that is exclusive of others to the point that I could justify taking my own life to make them suffer.

Get over yourself

I have a confession to make. I’m a very selfish person. It really struck me when I was a young teenager. My dad had asked me to help him with a job. I grew bored quickly and made it clear to him that I would rather be doing something else. He became frustrated with me and told me to go away. I told my mother what had happened, and my mother, who is always so quick to praise me and tell me how proud she is of me, told me something I wasn’t prepared for. She said, “You know, you really are selfish.”

I was stunned. I had to think about what had just happened. I thought I had it sort of figured out, but it really wasn’t until many years later that I truly understood. I had to raise a son of my own to truly understand that my dad had really only asked me to help him because he wanted my company as a son and he wanted me to understand that not everything is excitement and adventure. We were doing a chore that might not have been critical but was important. My dad just wanted some dad/son time with me and I was only thinking about what I wanted.

Even though I learned an important lesson from that event, I’m still a selfish person. I have to work at caring about other people. I do love them, and that comes easily, but to express my love and do things for them that a selfless person should do, I have to work at it because so often I’m thinking about myself – my pains, my work, the things that I want out of life, etc. I’ve found, though, that the richness in my life comes when I put these things aside. My son is the easiest example of this. I don’t have to work too hard to see that his needs are met and that I don’t judge his actions. I make sure he knows I’m ready if he ever needs me, and he’s taken me up on that understanding.

It’s not so easy to let go of my selfishness for other people who aren’t as close to me. My coworkers are a good example of this type of person. I know I can show that I care in subtle ways, by filling in for them when they need time off, no questions asked, by buying them lunch once in a while without expectation of a returned favor, by talking to them about personal issues and sharing some of my experiences. I let my coworkers know that I am glad to be working with them and that they are important to me.

I have the hardest time acting selflessly around strangers. I fear that the homeless man with his hand extended will only buy more alcohol if I give him money (and I’m probably right, at least part of the time). But I do seek opportunities to help, by donating my extras (I gave a car and a fair amount of cash to charity last year), by looking a homeless person in the eye and treating her/him like a person (and occasionally offering suggestions like where to go to get food and shelter). A couple of days ago, I bought a coworker lunch, but the restaurant gave us too much food, so we were carrying it back to work. A man asked if I had any food to spare, and I handed him the bag. What’s he going to do with it besides eat it, anyway?

I realize I have a long way to go on this. It’s an issue I will have to work on for the rest of my life. It’s an issue that I hope to work on after my death (I’m an organ donor). But if I didn’t work on it, try to be more caring and altruistic, I would spend all my time thinking about how unfair life is and wondering why I don’t have a better job and better pay, and why my neighbor is driving a nicer car than I do because, damn it, I work hard too.

Prayer

Okay, I’ll admit that even when I thought I was a Christian, I wasn’t a very good one. I didn’t like to go to church because too many bad things had happened there. I saw too much hypocrisy in church. And later, when my son went to church, his Sunday school teacher was arrested for having sexual relations with one of the students, a 14-year-old girl. Just another reason to stay away.

Still, I believe strongly in God, and I don’t need a church to pray. I don’t typically say prayers in the supplicant fashion. Whether I’m standing, kneeling, or in a huge building, God knows I couldn’t even begin to reach His level, and he knows that I know it. So I will say prayers when it occurs to me: Oops, forgot to pray for my son today (God, please take care of him and show him the path to enlightenment); thought about my dad (God, please help him see his way to you, and if it’s his time to go, please let him pass easily); and so on. I know that God can hear my prayers, however silent and quick they are.

While I was in Iraq, we were attacked a lot. During the time I was there, many people told me they prayed for me. They prayed alone, and they prayed in church. Rockets and mortars and bombs killed people all around me. I was never scratched. After a while, I began to understand that, if God was ready for me, he would take me, so I stopped worrying about the attacks.

I often wonder how God takes all the prayers from both sides and does the right thing in spite of us. I don’t want to kill anyone, but I don’t want my brothers to be killed. And in God’s eyes, even those “bad guys outside the wire” are our brothers. It can get confusing. So I stopped praying for God to make my aim true. I stopped praying for God to help them see the error in their way. I started praying for God to use me to do the right thing, which He knows far better than I ever will.

Profound

I would love to write something meaningful every day, but today I’m struggling a bit to put the jumbled pieces into some sort of order.

Today was an absolutely beautiful day. It was sunny and warm. People at work were friendly, and I was in a terrific mood.

My wife (who I “left” in February) called and invited me over to eat some authentic Chinese food. Have I mentioned that I still love my wife? Have I said that love isn’t always enough to keep a relationship together? I was married for 16+ years to this woman, but more than half of that was spent trying to understand why she behaved as if I was a detestable, worthless husband. She wouldn’t even speak to me for years at a time. I haven’t made love to her (or any woman) for a decade now *edit: gee, looking back at this post a few minutes later, I realize how pathetically redundant I've become — I know, enough about the no-sex thing*. And now, after I leave her, she starts acting like this wonderful woman I married.

But I’ve been down this road before. I almost left her when my son was 16 because she was treating both of us the same way. Nothing to say to us unless she was angry. But I stayed because she promised to change and she agreed to counseling and she started taking Paxil. That lasted about a year. And then the silence seeped in again. I was sent to Iraq (I did not volunteer; Uncle Sam sent me) and when I came back, the silence resumed. I decided, after hundreds of rockets and mortars, that life is too short to live with the silent treatment. After I got back, I tried and tried to get her to speak with me, but she wouldn’t. So I left.

Now she’s this wonderful person again, and I’m glad. I like to be with her. I like to be able to see my dogs, who are like children to me. But I feel like she’s trying to win me over again. I love her, and I know that love is forever – but marriage isn’t. I feel strongly that if I was to give her yet another chance that things would end up the same again, and I’ve given her everything. Literally. I gave her all of our savings and the house (worth almost half a million) in exchange for a clean break. And now she wants me back? I love her and I hope she will always see me as a great friend, but I cannot see myself staying married to her. I left in February and I agreed to a year of separation. As far as I can tell, I will be a single man come next February.

So I got back in my van after visiting her, cranked up the stereo and went back to the apartment where I’m living for this year (I’ll buy again next year, after I’ve had time to save some money and collect myself). I got home, and two wasps were flying around in the living room. There must be nest in the vent somewhere, because I’ve killed half a dozen of these damned things now, and I know they’re not flying in through the door.

I killed them, and then I mixed a vodka with mango/orange juice. I hate having to kill anything, and to kill two creatures and then waste their bodies like this…. Now I’ve consumed the alcohol, and definitely feeling it.

I have received some good music over the last couple of days, though. Another Portishead CD, the sound track for Dracula 2000 (movie was kinda lame, but the music was decent), a CD by Jocelyn Pook (if you’re not familiar with her but have seen Tom Cruise in Eyes Wide Shut, her music was played at the costume ball), and a CD by Switchblade Symphony (Goth like a razor blade, and I love it).

So here I sit, a bit intoxicated and happy to have the music. But I know I will be single, and it eats me up that my wife doesn’t seem to understand that fact. Nothing profound about it: I just don’t want to hurt her.

Suffering and reincarnation

Why do we suffer? I know this topic has been covered again and again, especially in church. Do we suffer so that we may become more Christ-like? Do we suffer so that we might become stronger? Perhaps. My theory is, and it really isn’t a lot different, that we suffer so that we might recognize pleasure and joy when we encounter them. You might ask why it would matter. Are pleasure and joy not selfish experiences?

This should be an easy one for the Christians out there, as one way to get others to see the Christ in us is to be a light for others. Imagine how people react when you are miserable and it shows: they tend to shy away, because, after all, who wants to be brought down by someone else’s misery? But if you can share the joy of God, then even the skeptics will wonder why you’re smiling all the time. A person who experiences pleasure and joy can share them.

A person who suffers but is still capable of experiencing pleasure and joy is far more sensitive to the good things in life, I believe. It doesn’t really matter whether you were born into wealth or were born poor because these sensations (joy and suffering) are internal and relative to the person experiencing them. So a pauper living in Bombay has just as much of a chance to be a light as, say, Paris Hilton. If you ever wondered why Jesus wasn’t born in the age of mass media, then perhaps you can see my point when you understand that Jesus gets pretty good exposure these days.

And that brings up another point. Did Jesus have a mere 30-some years to make an impact? Do we have no more than the span of our lives? Not everyone has the characteristics necessary to be as brilliant a light as Jesus was. I believe there is a possibility that we are each given an opportunity to experience the heights of joy and pleasure and the depths of suffering, and if we don’t experience the full gamut of these experiences in one lifetime, then we might have another lifetime to experience them. If you can believe that Jesus was risen from the dead, then why can’t the same thing happen to us?

Have you ever heard someone say she/he was born in the wrong age? I have known people who felt they belonged in medieval times or in the 1950s. I read about a young woman who went to England “for the first time,” but suddenly felt at home when she arrived there, as if she had been there all her life – but during the times that Charles Dickens wrote about. In fact, I’ve read a lot about reincarnation and people who have memories from a past lives. It makes sense to me that the most enlightened people, the wisest of the wise, are those who have had lifetimes to develop their experiences and understanding of human suffering and joy.

I believe that there is a reason for a baby to be born with a deformity that causes her/his death just months after entering this world. I believe there is a reason a young woman gets brutally raped and murdered in Florida. I believe there is a reason some people seem to be able to get away with murder. I believe there is a reason a person can live to be more than 100 years old. I know there is a reason for us to celebrate the good things in life, and there is a reason for us to be with other people and share the good things in life. Imagine a baby who lives just two months before dying, then coming back as a person who lives to be 90+ years old. That person will most likely know a thing or two about suffering and joy. Perhaps it’s just wishful thinking on my part, but I hope that we all have the opportunity to live our worldly lives to the fullest before (and sometimes at the same time that) we join God in His realm.

What would you like to be?

When you die, I mean. Okay, I’ve been reading this book by Mary Roach called, Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, and it’s written in a casual style with a morbidly wry sense of humor. I’ve enjoyed most of the book, and it’s given me some food for thought. While I was in Iraq, I had some time to consider, and come to terms with, my own mortality. I’ve always imagined that I should have something useful done with my body after my soul has moved on, but I expected the end result would be that my remains would be cremated. In her book, Ms. Roach introduces a new method for disposal of the deceased, and now I know what I would like done with my body after the doctors and scientists have had their way with it: I would like my remains to be composted and fed to a plant. Not just any plant, but a tree. Doesn’t really matter what kind, but preferably one with some longevity as trees go. Specifically, I would like the tree to be planted in soil nurtured by my composted remains, and it would be really cool if, after the tree has grown for a while, a small plaque bearing my name could be added to the tree. I can’t think of a more useful and memorable way for the remains to be handled.

Fear, Love and Religion

Tonight I did something that I wouldn't normally do, but it says a lot about my frame of mind lately. I was walking from the train to a nearby shopping mall in the rain. It was late, about 2100, and it was dark. I was waiting to cross a street at the crosswalk. I waited for the pedestrian crossing light to change as I typically do, even when others ignore the safety signal and cross anyway. As the signal changed, a small truck came to a halt just past the white line, and I began to cross legally. Suddenly, the truck lurched forward, and my instant reaction was to try to stop it by slapping it with my umbrella. The truck shuddered quickly to a halt, and I was seeing red. I shouted at the driver, “The F*CK is wrong with you?!” If you know me, you know this kind of question is unusual. As I continued walking, I noticed the driver was on a cell phone and had probably been distracted. He said, somewhat sheepishly, “I didn't see you, man.” My umbrella had been inverted so that the “bowl” it forms was open to the sky and one of the tines was bent awkwardly.

There are two basic sides to me, the side that loves and the side that fears. The side that fears is the warrior. I can choose to fight or flee. The side that loves is drawn to others. Tonight it was definitely my fearful side that had control. Too many times this side has gotten the better of me. Fortunately, it has also saved my life on several occasions, but I would like to have better control over this part of myself.

Part of my effort to accomplish this goal is the fitness regimen. Another part of my “fitness” plan has been my spiritual quest. I have read the Old and most of the New Testament. My parents are Christian, and most of what I have been exposed to has been Christianity. But somehow the sermons and the churches never quite satisfied me. My greatest fear has never been fully assuaged by Christians close to me: What about all the non-Christians? What about the Muslims and the Hindus and the Buddhists? What about the pygmies in the rainforests and the natives living in the dark recesses of Africa? The answer I’ve been given has always been that God reaches all of us.

And I believe it. But I don’t believe that God finds each of us and tells us, “You can only be saved through Christ.” Also, I believe that God is all around us, and that God does exist in animals, too. If you’ve ever owned a pet that was very dear to you, the best example I can draw upon being my dogs, then you know the unconditional love you share with a pet is God-like. And it goes both ways, so what does that say about the pet? That it is soulless?

So I’ve been trying to make sense of my beliefs. Perhaps no one on this Earth feels the same way that I do. Then tonight, a friend of mine, who often sends me curious articles about the discovery of a new planet or an unusual fish, sent an article to me that I think is starting to set the pieces in place for my belief system.

It was an article about Buddhism, and it included quotes from the father of famed actress Uma Thurman. His name is Robert Thurman, and he was once a Tibetan monk. Yes, I was surprised to discover this, but what was even more surprising is his fundamental belief that we must soften our rigid identities – race, religion, national origin – because these identities are what cause conflict. I have long believed this. Christians have waged war in the name of God; Muslims wage war in the name of God, members of the Aryan Nation hate blacks and Black Panthers hate whites. And I see that all of this hatred is born of fear and not resolved by religious conviction.

We have to start loving each other. This might sound strange from someone who has spent so many years as a warrior, but my years in the “trenches” have taught me a thing or two about hate, and had I to do it over again, I might declare conscientious objector status. But it doesn’t matter who you are or what your profession, love makes no demands of us other than that we share it.

Am I Buddhist? I took a religion test at Tickle.com. I thought I leaned toward Christianity because it is the religion I know most about, but the test results indicate that the religion I have most in common with is Buddhism. I was surprised, but now I’m going to dig a little deeper. I don’t know if I am Buddhist, but I am open to the possibility. It doesn’t really matter, though. What matters most is that we stop hating because of our fears. It isn’t easy to love someone when you think he’s about to run over you with a truck, but if I had the opportunity to take the man’s hand now and apologize to him for shouting, I would.

Combat ready

I recently joined a gym. Gold’s gym, specifically. Since my return from Iraq late last year, I really haven’t done much to keep myself fit. I rode my bicycle a few times, but then winter really set in and I’ve never been much good in the cold. So I joined a gym.

I’ve been working out there for a couple of weeks now. Today’s workout was pretty good. I’m trying to get myself back to a combat-ready condition, even though I have no idea whether I’ll be called upon to return to Iraq or some other combat zone. Since I got back to Metropolis, I’ve had a heightened sense of danger, and I’ve always been a pretty careful person. I live in an area where the threat of terrorism is high, but it isn’t really terrorists I watch out for — at least not the foreign variety. There are plenty of thugs here to make life more challenging.

So I have a heavy bag, work it a bit. I have Matt Furey’s Combat Conditioning book, I have my bicycle and running shoes, and I have the gym. I’m starting to feel life return to my body. I suppose I would like to have a long life and do all the things I’ve wanted to do, but for now I’m trying to up my chances of seeing tomorrow, and for that I believe I have to prepare.