Notes From A Burning House

Stepping outside the Elephant Asylum Theatre in Hollywood, at half-hour before my show, eyes and throat sting from the smell of smoke, rolling into the Los Angeles basin from the 20,000-acre wildfire near the San Fernando Valley.  We have an eerie sunset Thursday night: grey and fiery red, like a sunset eclipsed by a stone castle.   

The last time I smelled smoke like this was during the simultaneous wildfires in Simi Valley and San Bernardino in 2003.  I remember the morning I woke up in Orange County to a snowfall of white ash.  As I brushed it off my car’s windshield I thought, “This is Rancho Cucamonga.” 

*     *     *     *

            The I-15 penetrates heavy fog (especially through the Cajon Pass) into the mojave. 

The desert actually features many characteristics I would look for in a pastor.  It maintains a powerful silence and receives everyone and everything without judgment.  We explode atom bombs there, and it is not moved.  It is a haven for all kinds of misfits and rebels, but all is forgiven there in the rawness with which life and death are transacted there – by humans, by kangaroo rats and sidewinders and mice, by the creosote bush and desert grasses and Joshua trees.   In the Mojave, beauty and indifference intermingle; it seems to have personality or wisdom or something, perhaps existing only in my imagination.  At any rate, there is no nonsense.  The desert has been around for a while, accommodating everything with an unimpressed silence.   

At the lonely desert town of Baker I turn onto Kelbaker Road - a long, paved road that runs right through the middle of the Mojave National Preserve.  After 43 miles, there is a turn onto a dirt road that takes me to the foot of the Kelso Dunes. 

The Kelso Dunes are California’s highest sand dunes: they reach 600 feet over the desert floor, flanked by the Providence and Granite Mountains, and looking over an ancient sand field known as the Devil’s Playground.  It is a strenuous climb.  The fringe-toed lizards that scramble around the dunes are equipped with their own natural snow-shoes, but for humans the ground is tough – especially for the highest tenth of the dunes, which are nearly vertical.  At that height, one begins to feel the odd, corkscrew winds that blow across the desert, picking up sand, and carrying it into the air.  When the wind hits the Granite mountains, it goes straight up, dropping sand back on top of the dunes. 

The top comes to a point, and there is a sheer drop to the desert floor below.  It is like reaching the edge of a world.  The wind tries to take my beloved suede cap, my glasses, and even me.  Sand blows from more than one direction into my clothes, my bag, my eyes and ears.  The wind sings through the Granite Mountains, almost like human voices.  I straddle the entire desert on top of this dune, yet I feel fragile.    The sky over a desert is open and one feels completely unprotected.  My existence is a privilege that is not guaranteed for one moment.  On the way back down, I fall and roll as if the desert were playing with me.  I howl back at the mountains and am heard without ceremony. 

Much later, at the base of the dunes near my car, I empty two cups of sand out of each of my boots.

*     *     *     *

            In smoky Hollywood, I have come straight from work and am still wearing a bow tie.  Shannon, who works at the theatre, sees me and greets me by saying, “Ah, you look sexy!”              

“Why, thank you for saying so,” I say with a bow.

“No problem,” she says and then puts the knife in:   “I love geeks!” 

*     *     *     *

            Waking up in a sweat – it is hot this morning.  Can the Santa Ana winds, the warm fall winds that waft in from the desert and stoke the wildfires, be breathing on us so early of a morning?  Before I consent to get up and ring the bell, rousting the other Zen Center residents from their sleep, I nestle among the hot blankets and reminisce for a moment about somebody’s sleepy voice.

pass into another.  One hundred and eight bows and a lusty sea chanty before swabbing the deck and facing another day on the torrid seas. 

Something I have yet to understand is when men say things like, “I’m gonna kick your butt.”  This expression makes no sense to me.  Even in the days when I got into an occasional scuffle myself, I never vowed to boot anyone in the pooper.  What’s the butt got to do with anything?  If someone is brandishing a fist or a gun, the butt is hardly the most important target.  Warriors don’t say silly things like that. 

*     *     *     *

Under the jolly roger, they might kick a malmsey butt if it’s dry, but only to help make way for a new one.  We might even throw the spent cask overboard, then roll in the new one while singing our drunken revels.

Ah, me bonnie lass

Takes sassafras

She eats the berry and leaf

In a quesadilla

With sarsaparilla

Because I loved her too much,

OH!! 

Because I loved her too much!

So went the song of the self-promoted Admiral Jacobin de Cuervos Ayala Gonzalez Barandiaran Castaneda Carlos Simona Lupe San Remos Torreles Miguel Jose Maiz Gomez Jesus Rosendo Cordoba Francisco de Silva Torreado Fernandez Apellaniz Gravina Sahagun Busardo Pajarero Guantanamera Para Bailar La Bamba Hare Rama Hare Hare Rama Dalai Lama Cruzaba Baba Alla Mama Pizzara Abejundio Vaya Con Dios Esteban.

But everyone knew him as Nancy.

Nancy was in fact the most feared, the most talked-about, the most dreaded (indeed, his dreadlocks dangled almost to his shoulders), the most evil-smelling, violent, pestulent, crabbed (for which he scratched himself continually), scarred, combative, profane, altogether mad, thoroughly repulsive pirate known in all of Europe. He was surly with the lunatic fringe on top.  He had been known to rip planks off the deck of ships he sailed on, just to sniff the mildew and hallucinate; then he would draw his rusty cutlass and joust with unseen sentries or husbands, thrusting and slashing indiscriminately.  He was a mishap walking on two legs (one of them wooden).  Stories about him were told to frighten children into good behavior; other stories about him flushed the cheeks of chambermaids from Spain to Provence to London and up to Oslo; to the Skagerrak Strait and even the Black Sea. 

A prevailing rumor had it that Catherine de Medici did not die of natural causes at all, but was kidnapped in 1589 and that Nancy the Pirate fed him to the Reverend William Lee, the very year Lee invented the first knitting machine, and who used her bones as knitting needles.

That was Nancy the Pirate.  A raving malevolent drunkard with insects living in every part of his body that had hair, a lumbering, stalking, syphilitic, stinking tornado disguised as something that used to be a man. 

And as the crew sang with their mugs in the air, sloshing grog over their shirts and onto the deck, Nancy was wholly in his element – which was chaos. 

*     *     *     *

After the chanting, the sitting time.  Breathe deep, taste the salt water.  Breathe out, send it all into the vanishing point where ocean and sky are one.  You think something is being tossed this way or that, but the sea, she is always in balance.  Beautiful, the sky when it smolders like the end of a incense stick before the dark embrace of night.

They are long days lately, and there is no sign of land.  Feeling lost in the heartbeat of the turning world?  Stay just a little bit hungry and a little bit tired.  When you are tired, so is your obstacle.  When you only sleep four to five hours at a time, one day really does

The groom deserved to be called by his Nigerian name at the wedding, I insisted on that with a promise that I would practice saying it. 

First they taught me how to spell it: Iheanyichukwu.  What had I gotten myself into?  Yet the phonetics were less intimidating than the name written.  Ee-han-yee-CHOO-koo.  Practiced it over and over.    Ee-han-yee-CHOO-koo.  Ee-han-yee-CHOO-koo.

Suddenly I noticed how blunt and utilitarian are most of the names I hear.  Joe.  Sue.  Tracy.  William.  Nothing like the sheer linguile joy of uttering a name like ee-han-yee-CHOO-koo.  Wheeee!  A name you can climb on, like a beautiful old tree, stand up in the branches and bellow with joy.  “Ee-han-yee-CHOO-koo!!”   

A name with a satisfying flavor, like herbed coffee. 

Once I started practicing, I couldn’t stop.  It didn’t quite become a mantram, but it began to creep in as an expression at different moments.  A shout of glee, an expression of wonderment, a universal benediction.  “Ee-han-yee-CHOO-koo, my good man.”  “And also with you.”

An eon ago, when I was an undergraduate at Eugene Lang College in New York City, I used to eat my meals at New YorkUniversity’s dining hall.  (Flashback: it was Clinton’s first term as President, David Dinkins was the Mayor of New York, and Twin Peaks was on the air.)  There, I met a woman with a deliriously beautiful name that was invented outright by her parents: Avendwee.  Pronounced AH-ven-dwee.  Like a melody on a Balinese flute.  I wrote a short epic poem, most of it in nonsense language and heavily influenced by cheap wine, and mercifully lost to us; I remember only that it took place “in the seat of the valley of Bonnegin Mitz / The sunny, green valley where Avendwee sits.”  It involved nations that fought their wars with tiny, tiny armies so as to minimize the damage.  (They could have just played chess or compared yams, I suppose; but these are sober reflections.) 

The flesh and blood Avendwee declined my offer for dinner and a moonlight walk.  At least the poem made her laugh – a sweet triumph in itself.   

As I remember it, Bonnegin Mitz was a lovely, green place; Ike and Amy may even have chosen to get married there, if they had seen it.  Who knows?  The day may come that they walk there, perhaps with their children (who all, I hope, have equally fun names).  As it is, they got married on the beach in Malibu, with the Pacific Ocean as their chapel.  When the ceremony was concluded, I wanted to raise a triumphant shout – and of course by now you know that shout would have been, “ee-han-yee-CHOO-koo!!”  But that would have looked strange.

*     *     *     *

The following appeared in Parabola Magazine in the Spring 2004 issue.  The theme of that issue was “Marriage.”

As a Dharma Teacher in a Korean-American Zen Buddhist sangha, it has been my privilege to perform several wedding ceremonies. It is emerging as one of my favorite activities, even though my married friends poke me and say, "Always the minister, never the groom."

The notion of a Buddhist wedding can be elusive. The original Buddhist movement emphasized the spiritual attainments of a celibate and homeless clergy. Marriage was viewed by the elite as a fetter tying one to the attachments and worries of family life. Of course, Buddhists have been getting married all this time; yet, when Westerners inquire about a "Buddhist wedding," it is hard to point to any one ritual. Buddhist weddings draw on cultural traditions in countries with deep Buddhist roots. In North America, those roots are still finding soil. Moreover, no one I have married so far has even identified themselves as Buddhist; they simply felt, for their own reasons, that a Buddhist officiant would be appropriate.

Without a mature American Buddhist tradition to draw from, the ceremonies have all been essentially interfaith events, incorporating familiar images and wedding rituals yet crackling with creative energy. The point is not to be unique, but to underscore clearly the transformation that is being witnessed–and allow the invisible to manifest as something visible. We treat the marriage not simply as a legal arrangement but as a vocation. The couple are ordaining as married people. It is a vocation that involves family and friends in an intimate way. Having their community witness that compact is highly significant in itself, and thus the ceremony must use terms that make sense to everyone present. At ceremonies where I have presided, we have used unity candles or incense or both; we’ve had grooms from Jewish families stomp on glass; we’ve incorporated chanting to Kwan Seum Bosal, the Bodhisattva who embodies compassion.

Sometimes couples employ their creativity in order to "simplify" their wedding vows, and here the officiant has to be on guard. There are ten vows that I present to them, and we discuss them at length in the context of their relationship. Some couples want to bargain with the vows, which is something most of us are doing all the time with our lives. They think the vows are too hard, and they don’t want to set themselves up for a fall. "I can’t vow ‘not to give way to anger,’" they say, "because I know I will do that someday."

"You better believe it," says the officiant, "And because you made this promise, it is on you to work with your anger and come back home to your vow." From the perspective of Zen practice, vows do not describe an ideal world to which we then compare ourselves. Vows are a powerful declaration of one’s direction in a world that shifts, jerks, and frequently knocks us over. Since we know we are going to stumble, we can relinquish our need to be right and embark on the journey with a non-knowing mind.

*     *     *     *

Not that I know anything about the subject first-hand.  Never even been engaged.  (Almost, once.)  How do people do it?  How do you stay in a healthy and fulfilling orbit with another body through the years?  I admire and appreciate married people, just as much as I admire the Sunims (Buddhist monks).  My parents are still married after 37 years.  I’ve asked them how they do it, but they have no explanation to give me.  It is a miracle, a mystery.  Ee-han-yee-CHOO-koo, my friend.  Only say, “Thank you.” 

*     *     *     *

Bertha tells me about a wedding she went to, the same day that I stood in front of the ocean with Ike and Amy.  The groom, she recalled, surprised his bride by singing her favorite song for her, “Somewhere Over The Rainbow.”  It was evident to anyone with a sense of hearing that the gentleman had no sense of pitch whatsoever.  At all.  Couldn’t carry a note in a bucket, he knew it, and that wasn’t what mattered.  Bertha reported there was not a dry female eye in the assembly; I would add, boys sometimes cry at that stuff, too.  (They are likely to hide it, however.) 

When Lee and Rodney got married, he surprised her by producing a saxophone he hadn’t played publically or privately in years.  He had secretly practiced for months leading up to the wedding so he could play her a song at their reception. 

Ron and Deirdre were married in front of a very large canvas they had painted together. 

Mauro and Rachael rallied a village’s worth of friends and family to camp out for one week and build, by hand, the scenery and the props for their wedding.  For a week, people slept outside, got sunburnt, hit their thumbs with hammers and got sweaty, while babies cried and pets ran around.  Their wedding did not stop at affirming community; it was community.  They built a nuptial tent and fountains and table settings forged from tree stumps and gigantic mobiles that amazed the children and an outdoor movie screen, and an outdoor shower of deadwood and brush, with a brazier to heat water for hot showers in the woods.  When I woke at dawn to do my usual morning practice on a nearby hillside, with families snoozing in their tents, the entire event felt like a tremendous gift. 

What could I say?  I didn’t have the word yet.  Now I do.  You know it, don’t you?

Ee-han-yee-CHOO-koo!  And the same for all of you.

…………………………………………….

[These images were provided generously by Lori Holmes, Rudy King, and Amy Lewis.  You can enlarge them by clicking on them.]

Rainy days are a rare treat, and this morning I woke up to the sound of rain and thunder.  Kwan Jin Sunim opened the window for our morning prostrations, and the wet morning blew into the dharma room.   

Small puddles in the parking lot of the yeshiva next door to the Zen Center sparkled in the sun, like coins.  I thought of the man I saw the other day on Olympic Boulevard, in the middle of traffic, picking up all the change he had collected from where it had spilled.  The cars just zipping past him, as he bent and picked it all up.

Shining, glittering coins.  The kind we risk our lives for even when we know they make us no richer.  I collect those, too.  Yes I do. 

Justice, justice shall you pursue so that you will live, and inherit the land which the Lord your God is giving you.                           -Deuteronomy 16:20

The mind that keeps a question is of a profoundly different disposition than the mind that rests on an answer or its own certainty.  In the Zen tradition, it is felt that the mind that questions is the true nature of our mind, and that we are in delusion as soon as we let the mind rest on anything.  Truth is being revealed all the time, and the closed mind is less receptive to that experience, preferring instead the world of its own ‘knowledge.’ 

In that tradition, the key practice has to do with keeping the mind open to the revelation of each and every moment – literally.  The mind that keeps a questioning attitude, the mind with its eyes wide open and not “already knowing,” is described in traditions like Zen as our original home: our first inheritance.  Maturity expresses itself in a person’s capacity to keep a not-knowing attitude yet still walking a clear path, responding appropriately to situations.  How is that possible?

Does not justice have to do with perception, with how we see?  How are we measuring situations?  How do we perceive what our God is giving us?  In Zen, it is said that if we do not open our mind’s eye, if we do not perceive openly with all of our senses, one cannot digest a single drop of water.  How, then, do we receive our inheritance from our Lord? 

That scope of this inheritance cannot be contained by our letters, ideas, and opinions.  It cannot be contained within human understanding.  Yet humankind tends to follow its opinions and ideas, instead of regarding these things as tools with appropriate uses. 

What else can we stand on?  What is true discipline, or true justice? 

*     *     *     *

Taking this perception into the world of name and form, we do our best with myriad ethical quandaries that present themselves to us.  My participation, for instance, in the wasteful economy of disposable coffee has been a puzzler.

Coffee needs milk, if you’re me.  Extra milk.

When I can’t get to Stir Crazy on Melrose or Bourgeois Pig in Hollywood, or the wonderful Un-Urban Cafe in Santa Monica, I often end up in one of the super-java chain stores like Starbucks or Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf.   

At Coffee Bean, a 16-ounce cup of coffee is called a ‘regular’ size, but at Starbucks this is considered a ‘grande.’  The baristas always pour the coffee right up to the top of the cup, and what many patrons do is spill some of the coffee into the garbage to make room for sugar, milk, cinnamon, or whatever adulterant they prefer.  Pouring coffee into the garbage always seemed disorderly to me, so I would ask them to leave me room – extra room, lots of it.  The baristas smile sweetly – and hand me a cup filled all the way up, heedless of my requests. 

A little while ago, the baristas started offering me advice.  If I wanted the extra room, I should order a “tall” coffee (that’s what a “small” size is called at Starbucks) in a grande cup.  This would allow room for milk and save me money to boot.

Sounds sensible.  So now I order my coffee that way.  “May I please have a tall coffee in a grande cup?”  The baristas smile knowingly, and hand me a grande cup – filled to the rim.  Now I am a thief, getting discounted coffee under false pretenses; and I still have to pour out some of the coffee. 

*     *     *     *

When my shuffleboard partner, the evil Rabbi Borak, was in rabbinical school, he found himself in a discussion of justice as measured in Talmud law.  At issue was the payment of damages for inflicting a wound (mum, in Hebrew).  If it is a wound that heals and disappears, that is one thing, but the penalty is steeper if the wound gets infected and turns colors.

Borak raised his hand and said, “Let me get this straight.  You’re telling me we have to pay more for a mum with a hue?” 

“I have to kill you,” said his instructor.  Unfortunately, he did not follow through on that vow, and Borak now works his evil in several languages.

Last night, we ran through the three episodes that comprise Almost: 3 Tales of Partially-Requited Love, written and directed by Chuck Rose.  The work is coming along well, despite a scattered process that has seen us rehearsing the plays in living rooms from Hollywood to Burbank to Sherman Oaks.

Please come see it, if you’re in the area.  I can wholeheartedly endorse this as an enjoyable evening of home-grown theatre.  The scripts are lean and witty, and bear witness to certain mysteries about adult relationships most of us wonder about at one time or another. 

Chapter one, The Letter, introduces us to a corporate CEO who is stricken with an enormous crush on a young subordinate.  The feeling is reciprocated, but their communications are a bit – confused.  Chapter two, Restoration, reunites a couple who parted a long time ago, in a Boston townhouse that is about to be torn down.  In Chapter three, Relay, one friend tries to talk another one off of a ledge without noticing he is also on it; on the precipice, they admit their feelings for one another.  (These best friends are played by Amanda Tepe and your humble blogospondent…)

Ticket prices are nice and low ($12), and you’re getting quality for the dollar.  The Elephant Asylum is an 80-seat theatre in Hollywood, on Santa Monica between Cahuenga and Vine, with plenty of parking around the facility.  The tickets may go fast, so I would recommend ordering online. By phone, the number to call is (866) 811-4111.

(You can click on the postcard image above for an enlarged view.)

We are giving four performances, Thursday nights only, from September 15 to October 6^th. 

Friends, I would love to see you there.  Like Chuck’s postcard says, “See it with that special someone you’re not sure likes you.” 

The President of the United States has declared September 16 a day of prayer and remembrance for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.  It almost sounds like a sick joke (even by my own dark palette) in consideration of the government’s inability to manage a national disaster of this magnitude.  They might as well pray.  So might the rest of us.  It will work at least as well as calling the government.  It works at least as well as voting.