A Gift from the Earth (Revisited)

Scott Bradley
Original post date: June 2, 2011

We finished digging out the garden's second 45' raised bed yesterday, but not before we turned up yet another treasure. It is a shallow bowl of soapstone just big enough to fit comfortably in the palm. It is perhaps the most beautiful man-made object I have ever held. Beautiful, because somehow it moves the heart to joy and tears. It is a gift from a people long disappeared, yet still present in and to us all. It is a gift from the earth because it has come from the earth, looks like a stone, is a stone.

It is the size and shape of a small abalone shell. Its inner part is completely striated by scratches, as if made by a knife. Was this how it was made? Or was it a kind of cutting board, held in the palm, to cut leather thongs?

Its lip and exterior are rough a pitted, almost as nature made it, yet nonetheless shaped. Its feel is smooth and almost soapy, so that the hand naturally seeks out its texture, is pleasured in the feeling.

It imbues the heart with a deep sense of continuity and connectivity, to humanity, rock, earth and time. It is a true treasure.

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

Willy the Worm (Revisited)

Scott Bradley
Original post date: June 1, 2011

Digging in the garden as much as I am (making raised beds) I come across many a worm. Most are wrestled down and placed in a nearby raised bed where I promise them a worm paradise. Some of these, however, are already now two, having been sliced in half by the shovel. I'm told they manage to live on as two distinct worms. I hope so. And I hope getting cut in half doesn't hurt too much.

As I watch these poor critters I wonder which one is the worm called Willy and which one needs a new name. Would the real Willy please crawl left?

This thing called 'identity' can become very confusing. As humans, we have a strong sense of personal identity, yet it certainly is an apparently, exceedingly momentary thing — so transitory, in fact, that one might think it worth giving it up right now and getting it over with. It does, after all, cause a lot of grief.

This may sound like an invitation to suicide, and in a way it is. There seems to me to be a definite parallel between death and enlightenment — indeed, the enlightened are a kind of walking dead. If you lose your self while alive, isn't this to experience what you fear most in death? Enlightenment would then be a co-option of death. So, we could say like Paul, "Death, where is your sting?"

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

BeMuddled (Revisited)

Scott Bradley
Original post date: May 31, 2011

When I shared with a friend that post in which I said Pray For Plague he replied that he really liked it verbally, but wasn't it a bit negative and didn't it contradict my philosophy in general? It is negative, I guess, and it does in some ways contradict my philosophy, but it made its way to your computer screen because it expresses how I feel. I figured a bit of honesty is worth letting my contradictions and 'issues' air out in public.

The truth is, I am a bit bemuddled on the whole issue of environmentalism. How can I reconcile my deep love of nature and fear for its destruction with the way of flow and acceptance and laisez faire? How can I say All Is Well when all is not well with our fragile planet?

Ultimately, All Is Well, of course. It will all come out in the wash. In the infinity of space and time (and the exfinitity of no space and no time) and the Unknown Source of it all, how could anything be 'lost'? But there is also this present and real-enough human experience, and it has its requirements and its qualitative values.

Earth is good for humanity, and thus, from the human perspective, worth preserving. And Earth is also good in and of itself. When my heart fills with thankfulness and joy in just sitting among the poppies, do I need to question and justify this experience? I think not, therefore I am — more fully.

None of this gives me hope in the ability of humanity to stop, however. An estimated 160 species of living beings become extinct everyday. "Sustainable development" is not only an oxymoron, it is a pernicious lie. Recycling your plastic water bottles is not going to save the planet. Most all this "eco-friendly" greenism is a fraud intended to make you feel better about buying more, using more, disposing of more. We've got to keep consuming if there is to be growth and growth is the end all and be all of human industry and civilization.

I can thus be joyful in nature and attempt to share that joy with others, but I cannot yet see my way through to an activism imbued with hope. Perhaps this is a moral shortcoming and I should, like Confucius, strive for the implementation of the Good whether there is hope for success or not. But that saves nothing either.

Nature itself will, of course, solve this 'problem' in the end. Whether by preemptive plague (for which prayers are only a sentiment) or yet another aeon of reconstruction (for Earth has suffered massive ecological destruction in the past), it will all come out in the wash. And really, when I think about it, remove whiny 'me' from the equation and All Is Well once again in any case.

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

Gone (Revisited)

Scott Bradley
Original post date: May 30, 2011

Yesterday, while digging in the garden, I turned up an arrowhead. If you have ever found such a thing, you know that it is a very special experience. To hold in your hand something fashioned by another hand hundreds of years ago...by a hand of a people now extinct...well, there is wonder and connectedness and sorrow.

I definitely have a nostalgic inclination. When as a kid I would hike into the hills overlooking a bit of the San Francisco Bay delta I would always try and imagine it three hundred years ago. Ducks and geese filled the sky. Salmon teemed in the rivers and creeks. Golden grizzly bears lorded across the hills. Tule elk skirted the marshes. And here and there smoke rose from a tiny native american camp. Gone. All gone.

Three hundred years ago there was no San Francisco, no Los Angeles, no Chicago, no Saint Louis, no Kansas City, no Dallas. The speed of the European invasion and conquest of this American Continent never ceases to amaze me. But it is only symbolic of the human epidemic sweeping the earth. Growth! Housing starts are rising again! The economic indicators seem to promise 5% growth world-wide for the coming year! Like that blue-green mold that covers and destroys the orange, humanity cannot stop.

Had I any confidence in the ability of humanity to truly stop and care, I would not say this, but I have none: Pray For Plague.

Forgive me. I love Earth more than humanity. [If this upsets you, consider it one of the satanic verses, or simply that I have issues. That I add this should demonstrate, I think, that I, too, have my doubts about this attitude. I may follow it up with a re-think.]

But not to worry! If humanity destroys every other living thing on earth...when the sun dies or supernovas and this solar system is no more...all will still be well.

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

Honesty (Revisited)

Scott Bradley
Original post date: May 27, 2011

There is no Truth

In honesty.

There is no belief

In trust.

We speak of 'the honest truth' and there is such a thing, no doubt, but this 'saying' speaks of another kind of honesty and another kind of truth. This is the truth to which we might assign a capital 'T', Truth about things we cannot possibly know. In other words, this is about triumph over self-deception.

The honesty, therefore, to which this refers is the willingness to face the stark unknowns and unknowables of our apparent existence. Beginning here, I have called my philosophy of life a 'bare-bones' philosophy. It is an attempt at honesty. It is not easy to be honest; nor, indeed, could I ever claim to entirely be so.

As usual, all this is about me and my own particular pilgrimage -- it is where I find myself. It is not Truth. It may not be true for you. The reason I so enjoy Zhuangzi is that he seems to have had a similar point of departure, and he would be the first to tell you to just follow what works for you.

Without Truth, there is nothing to believe. Belief, for me, implies Truth. It requires an object; we have to believe in 'something'.

There is an alternative, however, and this is trust. Trust is the simple surrender of the heart to things as they are, whatever they are. One entrusts oneself to Mystery. One 'hides the world within the world', surrenders one's otherness, so that there is no longer anything that can be lost. Isn't this true peace and the absence of all fear?

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

Purpose (Revisited)

Scott Bradley
Original post date: May 26, 2011

If you have been reading these posts somewhat regularly, you know that I have a 'thing' about purpose. I don't believe in it. And I shy away from any mention of it in 'spiritual' writing.

Why is this so? I have an answer to this question but rather than answer it, I'd first like to think about it some more. I'd like to know what motivates me here.

When I say I don't believe in purpose -- or anything else -- this does not mean I disbelieve in it. I am not saying there is no purpose for my apparent existence, but simply that I know of none and see no way of ever knowing of one.

Could I mystically perceive a purpose? I suppose. But the very 'way' by which I approach the mystical is through apparent purposelessness. It is through the lack, as acceptance, not as seeking, that I approach the mystical. Have I said this clearly? I do not seek to fill my lack of purpose through the mystical, but seek the mystical through the lack of purpose.

This is parallel to the use of not-knowing to 'know' what one cannot know. But when one 'knows' what one cannot know, one still does not know it in the sense that one could say anything about it. It remains unknown. And so it is with purpose. One does not realize purpose by passing through the gate of purposelessness.

Can one find 'purpose' in the use of purposelessness? Of course. This hungry self is a sneaky little bugger, no doubt about it.

This I know!

I find 'purpose', no doubt, in writing this post. I put 'purpose' in inverted-commas because I have found it out -- I know that it is a false purpose. How so? It is false for the simple fact that it hasn't a leg to stand on; it is peculiarly unfixed, as Zhuangzi would say. It is superficial in the sense that it really gives no true purpose to my life. It only massages my sense of self, which likewise has no legs to stand on.

Our lives are filled with these many 'purposes' and they are probably a necessary part of living in this world, just as 'knowing' that one exists is necessary. This is not a problem, whether we are happy enough just being so, or seek some form of transcendence. In the case of the latter, seeing these 'purposes' is to discover signposts along the way: Behind this empty 'purpose' will be found a gate.

Have I answered my question as to why I have a thing about purpose? I'm not sure. Somehow, I don't think so.

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

True Believers (Revisited)

Scott Bradley
Original post date: May 25, 2011

I have met a lot of true believers in my day, and they were not, as you might have already anticipated, Christians. There are Christian true believers of a sort, of course, but I'm talking about true, true believers. These are people who have no doubts — have never doubted — could never doubt. I am thinking, for the most part, about Muslims.

I used to teach English as a second language, and worked a year in Morocco and more than six in Saudi Arabia. I have thus had a lot of exposure to Islam.

Most of my Muslim friends have been Pakistanis — some of the nicest guys you could meet. This is because I have traveled in Pakistan and spent a considerable amount of time in India, where I picked up a lot of Hindustani, a mix of Hindi and Urdu, the predominant language of Pakistan. These Pakistani friends were not in Pakistan, however, but in Saudi, expatriate workers like myself. Speak a bit of peoples' mother tongue, and they naturally warm to you.

Long ago something happened in the West that we call the Enlightenment. This was manifest in many ways, but what interests me here is that we began to doubt. We have never been the same since.

The Cartesian Method, as inaugurated by Descartes, begins with doubt — assuming that I do not know it, how can I prove that God exists? Step one was to prove that he himself existed: I think, therefore I am. [Itself a total logical fallacy.] Admittedly, he knew were he was going — the world would all settle back to normalcy — but still the gap was there.

Most Muslims have not experienced this gap. The existence of God is an absolute given, and except for purely apologetic purposes, they would see no need to prove it. Indeed, to even ask if would be a heretical act. (For the record, there are also many Muslims who have experienced a different reality.)

The Islamic Hegira calendar is somewhere near 1500, and from a Western philosophical perspective, this seems about right. I do not say this disparagingly, but factually. Indeed, there is a certain almost enviable simplicity in this kind of certainty. I have more than once looked out at the simple Indian farmer, a Hindu, plowing his field with buffalo or camel, and thought, He is probably a lot happier than I. And if happiness is a worthy value, then I cannot fault his naiveté. True, he's missing out on all that wonderful existential despair and angst, but everything has its price.

To my thinking, that farmer is best left to plow his row. And I, well I must muddle my way through my 'modernity' in search of the peace he has yet to lose.

The truth is, of course, that I wouldn’t trade my existential despair for anything, save transcendence.

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

Irony (Revisited)

Scott Bradley
Original post date: May 19, 2011

I hope you have realized by now that I use a great deal of irony in my writing. If not, you will have often misunderstood me and must think me very negative and sarcastic. In fact, I just looked irony up in Webster’s (pocket-size, and apparently for toddlers) and that's just the word they use to define it, 'sarcastic'. Is one permitted to disagree?

Irony, in its simplest verbal form, is the statement of the contrary in order to bring attention to and affirm its opposite. "Lovely weather!" is an acknowledgement of and reinforcement of the fact that it's "stinking awful weather." But not only does it, in my opinion, bring a bit of humor to a situation where cold rain is making its way down your neck, and put things in a rosier way, but it also requires the listener to think — to get involved in the process, to really consider the nature of the weather. "What is the Buddha?" "Three pounds of flax."

A classic example of irony is when a Greek general went to the Delphic Oracle on the potential eve of battle and asked what would be the outcome. "There will be a great victory," answered the Oracle. The general thus confidently joined battle and lost horribly; the “great victory” was his opponent's.

And then, of course, there is Socrates. The Oracle declared he, who knew nothing, was the wisest man on earth. According to Kierkegaard, who wrote his master's thesis on the subject (The Concept of Irony), this so effected Socrates that his whole life's mission became ironic. He began a quest to find someone who actually knew what he was talking about, or rather, knew what it was that was the foundation for his actions.

Meeting a young man on the way to bring a charge of murder against his father for killing his slave, Socrates exclaimed that surely then he must be able to tell him what Justice is! But, of course, he could not; nor did Socrates ever believe that he could. He was using irony to teach.

This is the Socratic Method, the maieutic method. It is a method of spiritual midwifery. Understanding cannot be given to another; it must be brought forth from the other, through painful labor. At best, the teacher is a guide and coach.

When he stood convicted of 'corrupting the youth', and was required to suggest an appropriate penalty, it was expected that he would ask for and be granted exile. Instead, he suggested life-time membership and full board in the gymnasium — after all, he had served his city well.

This ironic attitude brought him the penalty of death. But even then it was expected that his friends, as was common, would spirit him away to safety. He refused to leave, however, and drank the hemlock in obedience to injustice — a final act of irony.

None of this is to imply that I am a teacher or Socrates; it's just the quirky way I deal with life.

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

Rubbed the Wrong Way (Revisited)

Scott Bradley
Original post date: May 12, 2011

As every cat lover knows, they prefer to be petted with the fur, not against it. Rub them the wrong way, and they won't hang around. We are like cats.

Yet I'm beginning to appreciate more and more those ideas which rub me the wrong way. Those ideas that go against my ingrained habits of thought. The idea that there is no Truth for me to know. The idea that nothing is better than anything else, that my preferences separate me from the world. The idea that ultimately there is no right and wrong. The idea that the Universe is utterly indifferent to my precious me. The idea that I needn't obey the rules of grammar, though I will get green-lined by Microsoft Word.

I have yet to say here what I wish to say. Maybe because I have just awoken in the middle of the night and can't quite feel what it is I mean to say. For I am speaking of a feeling, a feeling of being pushed and challenged toward a radically different way of experiencing life. It's a feeling of having to give up something I love very much: me. Or, at least, a certain way of being me.

I have spoken of ideas, but these ideas are about something other than ideas. They describe the way we think, not what we think. I find myself among a group of strangers. I care what they think of me. I form judgments about them. I feel their otherness. My selfness. My heart does not unite with them. I have erected a wall between us. All these experiences are natural to me. Yet upon reflection, I think of a different way of being among these people, a way that rubs me the wrong way, yet somehow feels good.

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

Insouciance (Revisited)

Scott Bradley
Original post date: May 10, 2011

There. I’ve been wanting to use that word, and now I have. I only wish I could speak it, as well. With a French accent. It’s just not the same without it.

In any case, I must now build a few paragraphs around it. But that shouldn’t be too difficult. I think of it when I say ‘indifference’. Somehow to say that one must approach the world with a certain indifference sounds too harsh — too indifferent.

Worse still, to say that one should not care, as in the ‘saying’, “Can you forget the world; can you cease to care at all?”, sounds just plain evil. Yet this is basically what insouciance means (I think), though it sounds so much nicer. It means to be carefree. I thought of it when I wrote about feng lui, that certain je ne sais pas qua (since we’re speaking French — though I might have misspelled qua) which describes the way of life of certain Neo-Taoists.

Tao does not care. It is the Source of all that is. It has provided you with the life you live and all it takes to sustain it. It nurtures you. But it does not care about you. It is not emotionally involved in your issues. It takes no interest in you. It does not answer your prayers.

“Tao is inhumane. The sage is inhumane.” “Tao treats people like straw-dogs. The sage treats people like straw-dogs.” The sage is Tao-like. And this is true in both the nurturing and the insouciance. Somehow these are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, somehow the indifference makes the nurturing possible. Because she is carefree, she is free to care without caring, to love without possessing.

I love the end of Camus’ L’Etranger (more French!). The protagonist sits in his prison cell awaiting the dawn and the guillotine. He has committed murder, but faces the ultimate penalty because he has shown indifference to the world. (He smoked at his mother’s wake!) Looking out through the tiny window at the fading stars of dawn he suddenly realizes “the benign indifference of the Universe and there finds a brother.” He has no regrets — he has lived his life honestly. All that remains is to pass through the jeering crowds and lose his head at peace.

Forgive me, this has been a bit of a self-indulgent ramble — I’ll try to do better in future.

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

Inclusion (Revisited)

Scott Bradley
Original post date: May 9, 2011

Yesterday I attended what was called an Earth Liturgy. It was a gathering in which we were led to affirm the world and each other. During a 'meditative' time we were invited to send affirming and thankful thoughts to someone...who has loved and nourished us. But my thoughts had already turned to someone who had hurt me deeply. And I found myself not only genuinely able to send those affirming and thankful thoughts to that person, but greatly enriched in doing so. And this was just one more thing to be thankful for.

Hurt and pain can be gifts in themselves, for they can teach us the art of inclusion as perhaps no other experience can.

The more we include in our thankfulness and affirmation, the richer we are.

Maybe I should write for Hallmark. Please excuse me while I express my sailorhood: %*@!#$! Ah, that feels better.

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

Finding the Bedrock (Revisited)

Scott Bradley
Original post date: May 8, 2011

As I have previously mentioned, I am presently staying on a ranch in the Sierra foothills of California -- Gold Country! I work a lot with a guy, Mike, who was passing through the area many years ago when his motorcycle broke-down. So he decided to stay...and began panning for gold. Now, he'll be the first to tell you that he could have made more money picking up aluminum cans beside the road, but yesterday when he told me about seeing that beautiful pocket of gold with that one big '46 penny-weight' nugget in it, well, it's not about the money.

He was 'sniping' at the time. What's sniping, Mike? Working in the river with a wetsuit on. I was working through the ‘over-burden’, the sand.... That's where the gold is, right!? Well, there's some in there, but most of it's made its way down to the bedrock....

Okay, the fun part's over; now for the analogy. When Socrates said, Know thyself, he was basically telling us to find our own bedrock; that's where the real nuggets are. What are the presuppositions that motivate my thoughts and actions? Why do I behave as I do? As long as we find reasons, justifications, for our behavior and prejudices outside ourselves we are still working the sand, the ‘over-burden’. The bedrock is always and only about 'me'.

Some might justifiably ask, Why bother? To this I reply that there is no need to bother, unless you have chosen to engage in some 'spiritual work' to grow a happier way of life. Finding what motivates us, working on the psychological side of our experience, is by no means the only way to 'work', but it can be a fruitful part of the work, nonetheless.

As we discover what motivates us, we begin to understand the subtle (and not-so-subtle) workings of our ego. This is not so that we can drive a stake of holly through its dark heart, for this would just be the same ego finding new expression. (And it's not a devil, in any case.) Rather, in knowing ourselves, in exposing ourselves, we begin to see other potential ways of being, happier ways of being. And that's where other aspects of the 'work' come in.

Now for some more fun. There is actually an old gold mine here on the ranch. You better believe we'll be 'noodling' that! There's also an old stamp mill (crush the ore, get the gold) from which we will be salvaging hundred year old lumber. I'll be looking in the cracks! And then there's just plain diggin '— In the garden, diverting a seep -- you never know.... Maybe I can get those commentaries translated without winning the lottery (if I get a 'cut' — the nugget wouldn't be mine).

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

Dear Diary (Revisited)

Scott Bradley
Original post date: April 18, 2011

Sometimes I feel like I should begin each post with, Dear Diary. In a previous post I said, "This is about me. I have nothing else to offer. All my 'truths' are subjective." It is not without some sense of ambivalence that I inflict my personal musings upon you. Do you really care to hear this personal stuff? Would I want to hear it if I were you? I am not sure that I would; I am not really that indulgent of the 'how I feel today' kind of blabber.

Then there's the 'unspiritual' and 'non-sageous' side of it. Somehow "this is about me" doesn't square with my pre-conceived ideas of what is sageous. Aren't I supposed to be beyond 'me'? Oops, I have exposed myself here...so I might as well admit it: I want to be a sage when I grow up. But of course, wanting to be a sage is the antithesis of being one. But I diverge...

The real point of this post is to draw attention, once again, to the biographical nature of the philosophical Taoist's philosophizing. This is the point I tried to make in the piece entitled Kierkegaard. We don't subscribe to a belief in Truths and creeds which exist outside of our inner experience.

If I were a sage, I would not be teaching you factual truths to apply to your life; I would be assisting you, like a midwife, to birth your own way. Of course, that's what I think I am doing now, though I am not a sage, but I know that you have the good sense to keep that in mind.

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

Thankfulness Arises (Revisited)

Scott Bradley
Original post date: April 16, 2011

Thankfulness arises
From an empty heart.

"Thankfulness arises" is a phrase that comes to my mind daily -- not because I think it, but because I experience it. Suddenly there is thankfulness. Thankfulness for what? For everything and nothing in particular. It has no object or reason because it simply is. It is an expression of life.

It "arises" because it is what the life experience in me does. I cannot think it into existence. I cannot will it into existence. I can only feel it and, on reflection, be thankful for thankfulness. This is, I think, the essence of spontaneity; it is that experience that wells up within us as a natural function of life without our conscious or willful activity. And this is not only true of thankfulness, but of all those experiences for which we hunger -- harmony, affirmation, unity.... These things are not accomplished, they are experienced as what is already true for us.

The 'saying' says "empty," not as in void or nothingness, but as in openness. We might say that the bed of the river is empty, though the river fills it; because the bed is empty, the river flows. An empty heart is one that allows life to flow through it. One thing that obstructs this flow is the egoic-self.

When I want things to be the way I want them to be, whining, not thankfulness, arises, and not from the heart, but from this me-self. So, as I go about my daily chores and I step in the mud, logs fall on my toe and blackberries scratch my legs, I whine -- and then I (sometimes) laugh and open my heart to thankfulness.

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

A Piece of Shit (Revisited)

Scott Bradley
Original post date: April 12, 2011

When a monk asked Yun-men (862-949) "What is the Buddha?" he replied, "A dried piece of shit."

Why 'dried'? What kind of shit? Are all things then the Buddha? Inquiring minds want to know. But the point, of course, is that the inquiring mind is the problem; the statement was meant, by way of shock, to direct the monk away from his obvious bondage to the 'understanding mind'. Only an intuitive knowing can experience things spiritual. And, according to both the Daoist and Zen traditions, this kind of knowing is possible only after the rational mind is silenced.

In Zen practice this is accomplished through meditation and the contemplation of koans (of which this is an example). The methods of the philosophical Daoists, however, remain a mystery (at least to me). This appeals to me because it allows me to find my own way or to pursue no way at all. Somewhere in the Zhuangzi it says, "The sage has no use for methods", and I understand this to mean that the way that she follows is the way that happens for her.

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

Just Now (Revisited)

Scott Bradley
Original post date: April 1, 2011

Why do we all seem to think that Reality is something other than the reality we are? Why do we believe that reality is not Reality?

Why do we believe we must become different than we are? Achieve something. Transform. Be saved.

Why do we forever divide the world?

I would suggest that it is intrinsic to our self-consciousness — to see ourselves we must in some way be other than ourselves. Self-awareness is, I believe, the mother of duality. That's our reality, the way we have evolved.

This self-awareness is a wonderful experience, but it does necessitate quite a bit of hunger and suffering, much as the size of the human head causes much pain for a woman in childbirth. We need not make value judgments about the way things are — they simply are.

Perhaps we have the potential to transcend duality and realize peace in Oneness. But are we ever really anything but this Oneness? Is a rock not a rock because it does not know it's a rock? Is there no One Reality because some realities do not realize that they are also Reality?

We are never other than what we seek — not just a potentiality, but in actuality. Nothing deviates from Reality, because nothing is not that Reality. It is always just now, just as we are.

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

Beware the Smile of Eli (Revisited)

Scott Bradley
Original post date: February 28, 2011

Beware the Smile of Eli!

It lurks everywhere,

But mostly within,

Where it vies for our lips,

Upon the world to beam

And warm us within.

Beware the Smile of Eli!

We know it without;

It makes our hearts cringe!

Yet dwelling within it fills us with pride,

How vast is our wisdom,

Our insights so deep!

A sage among sages,

One of the wise.

Do they not praise us,

Bid us enter their fold?

What is this smile so foul yet so fair?

Why spirituality itself,

Did you not know?

Wisdom and insight,

Care and concern,

All in the grasp of a heart self-involved.

Spirituality itself,

Our most holy grail!

How it betrays us,

Or it we betray.

How can we know it

This smile so false?

That we know at all is answer enough.

It is spirituality self-aware,

Wisdom wise to itself,

Care convinced of its care.

Hard-won insight brims;

We have so much to share!

How great is our nurturing,

Our intentions so pure,

To be a sage of true standing,

A sage among sages,

Known to ourselves

And others as well.

Beware the Smile of Eli!

It lurks everywhere.

But mostly within.

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

Mr. Ray IV (Revisited)

Scott Bradley
Original post date: December 5, 2010

My faith had long been at risk and it was not my time at the House of the Dying Destitute that led to its demise. But it was the final pull of the trigger that put an end to that particular misery. My day of liberation from the bonds of at least one belief was nigh at hand. The long journey through the dark tunnel of disbelief toward primal trust and thankfulness was about to begin. I began to reel. I staggered in a wilderness of doubt and despair. My commitment had been total. My fall complete.

Mother Theresa. A saint. God’s best effort. A scour woman mopping up the foul leavings of the devil’s revelries. No. Theism no longer bore the ring of truth or the consent of conscience. Nietzsche opined that every great religion outgrows itself. And though there are none that have not, their bonds endure.

The Temple of Kali lay close at hand and I joined the pilgrims passing by her ghastly image. There was no face to be seen, but three huge eyes and a long, lolling tongue of gold. Yes, and a golden ring where might have been a nose. Four arms she had. In one hand was a sword and in another a severed head. This is the Sword of Divine Knowledge, scholars tell us, and the head the human ego which must be slain before moksha, liberation, can be had. I know not. I know nothing. Only I was struck by the symmetry between these two temples dedicated to Mothers proclaiming the divine, one bringing compassion and the other a sword. Yet the suffering went on indifferent to both.

It has been said that there is a divine light that sometimes shines in Nirmal Hriday. And indeed, I have seen such a light. But there are well placed skylights high above which shed a peculiar ephemeral light that ever seeks unsuccessfully to penetrate the brooding gloom.

Long have I pondered Camus’ Stranger, awaiting the dawn and the sure guillotine. He peers through the bars at the fast fading stars and for the very first time bares his heart to the ‘benign indifference of the universe’ and finds there a brother. Empty of purpose. Empty of meaning. Empty of caring. Empty of virtue. Empty of belief. Empty of self. Zen masters tell us it is ever right before us, Reality. And so it is — if only we have eyes to see. If there is liberation from our universal bondage, it comes not through the pursuit of purpose or meaning, the attainment of saintliness, or the exercise of virtue , but through the realization of the hollowness of all things and every human endeavor.

Thankfulness arises, from an empty heart.

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

Mr. Ray III (Revisited)

Scott Bradley
Original post date: December 4, 2010

Is compassion nothing more than the cultivation of virtue at the expense of another? Does the saint use the suffering poor as monks might imprison thousands of chickens to fund their spiritual quest, or another raise cattle for the flesh on their bones?

He had one last thing to tell me as his mind steadily dimmed throughout the day, but I did not hear him clearly and fear that I did. “I raped my sister,” I thought I heard.

It was Durga Puja, ten days in which straw effigies of the mother goddess of Calcutta are carried and worshiped in long processions throughout the city. I jumped a trolley and slowly swayed back to the Brothers’ House through crowds of pilgrims coming to pay homage to Kali, goddess of time and change, and alter-aspect of the selfsame Durga, the Divine Mother as Warrior. Yes, there were other Mothers in Kalighat.

The next day was Saturday and I went on an errand to the old factory. Sunday was mass for the Brothers and a day off for me. Thus it was on Monday that my eyes immediately fell on the empty pallet. He was gone and I hadn’t said good-bye. I would find him behind the cistern. This was an experience I could have done without. Many things in Calcutta came to a halt during Durga Puja and the collecting of the dead was one of them. I did not expect to find a full house. Nor one so befouled by the stench of rotting human flesh. But I entered just the same.

I remember saying good-bye and sorry to Mr. Ray, but in honesty I don’t remember his face. It is the image of twin stillborns that fills that place. One hopes they were stillborn. In any case they, like many before them, were left on the doorstep of Nirmal Hriday, “Pure Heart”, because the mother could not afford the wood to cremate them.

“Well, he got his wish — he left,” said Sister Luke when she saw me leave the morgue.

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

Mr. Ray II (Revisited)

Scott Bradley
Original post date: December 3, 2010

There was a boy still in his teens terribly afflicted by cerebral palsy who was doing well. He had been here several times before — a recidivism ordained by the gods. He graduated to the old factory where the recovering were received. But he was soon back and after great suffering his body went behind the cistern.

There was a man seemingly strong save for the grey-green puddle of gangrene that was his thigh. The French doctor, a volunteer with Medicins sans Frontiers, said he could still be saved and so we took him to the College Hospital in hopes of a speedy amputation. He died of dehydration a few days later, forgotten and without water in some corner of the ward. I remembered how thirsty he always was.

And then there was Mr. Ray. I felt that I got to know Mr. Ray. The Fasting Buddha was a dilettante compared to his fleshless body. He could not eat. He would not eat. “Please, let me starve,” he would plead when threatened with an IV. Yes, he spoke in perfect English; how I don’t know. And he was well read. How so? I asked. “I got old books from the paper collectors,” he told me. And his occupation? He rolled bidis. Now a bidi is a uniquely Indian cigarette. It is a tiny bit of tobacco hand-rolled in a tendu leaf, is in the shape of an elongated cone, and costs about one tenth of a cent. There are more lowly occupations, but they were done by the untouchable and unnoticed.

Mr. Ray made a point of telling me that he was soon to die. And he was. You saw it in his eyes, a distinct, but distant glow, like a light disappearing into the night on a mission I could not know. And as we talked he began to confide in me, his last witness. “Do not tell the Sisters,” he told me, “but I am a Christian and gave them the name Ray so they would leave me alone.” Now “Ray” is a venerable Hindu name in the State of West Bengal. “I don’t want their meddling and I don’t want a Christian burial.”

“Please, I need one favor, please,” said Mr. Ray on his last day save one. “Please take me back to the street where they found me. I did not ask to come here. Here, they rob me of my dignity. They profit from my suffering. It is what makes them holy. They are using me. Why should I not die as I have lived? I just want to die like a dog, as they found me.”

Was it cowardice or wise discretion? I don’t know, but I failed him. I did go to Sister Luke, the indomitable boss, and related his request without the commentary. I knew it would do him no good.

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.