Copyright © the Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama

 

 

“Internal peace is an essential first step to achieving peace in the world. How do you cultivate it? It's very simple. In the first place by realizing clearly that all mankind is one, that human beings in every country are members of one and the same family.”

 

“My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.”

 

“It is ironic that the more serious problems emanate from the more industrially advanced societies. Science and technology have worked wonders in many fields, but the basic human problems remain. There is unprecedented literacy, yet this universal education does not seem to have fostered goodness, but only mental restlessness and discontent instead. There is no doubt about the increase in our material progress and technology, but somehow this is not sufficient as we have not yet succeeded in bringing about peace and happiness or in overcoming suffering.

 

We can only conclude that there must be something seriously wrong with our progress and development, and if we do not check it in time there could be disastrous consequences for the future of humanity. I am not at all against science and technology - they have contributed immensely to the overall experience of humankind; to our material comfort and well-being and to our greater understanding of the world we live in. But if we give too much emphasis to science and technology we are in danger of losing touch with those aspects of human knowledge and understanding that aspire towards honesty and altruism.”

 

“I believe that at every level of society - familial, tribal, national and international - the key to a happier and more successful world is the growth of compassion. We do not need to become religious, nor do we need to believe in an ideology. All that is necessary is for each of us to develop our good human qualities.

 

I try to treat whoever I meet as an old friend. This gives me a genuine feeling of happiness. It is the practice of compassion.”

 

 

 

 

-         Tenzin Gyatso, The Dalai Lama

 

Thomas Merton, Catholic monk and scholar

 

It may seem odd, downright abnormal in fact, to some that one of the greatest influences upon my Taoist thinking was a Catholic Monk of the Trappist Order. It may be inconceivable to some people that a Christian thinker could have ever helped to lead me down the path that I follow currently, and some might even consider my saying so as a form of blasphemy. I will not attempt to defend my admiration of the man and his writings, but I will attempt to explain what it is I admire so much about him.

 

Thomas Merton was, in my opinion, one of the most amazing spiritual, religious, and/ or philosophical thinkers I have ever had the great pleasure of reading. His words flowed from a place within the psyche that few of us ever even make contact with, his ideas crossed the boundaries of thought that he fought so diligently to tear down. His essays are astounding in their ability to recreate the processes of flowing thought, beginning with a primary observation and climaxing with often brilliant conclusions about human thought and society. He took unadulterated stands against all forms of violence and hatred, and worked steadfastly to bridge the gap between Eastern and Western religious thought.

 

Just as Merton always stated that he was by no means Buddhist or Taoist, I am by no means Christian. But, his work does bridge the gaping schism between the ideologies of these religions. His words stand as a battering ram against the walls of ignorance and intolerance constructed by these ideologies and the contrived and overly ceremonious rituals, exposing the bones of the spiritual and meditative lifestyles of both east and west. As the Tao Te Ching put it, Merton learned how to “focus on the fruit and not the flower.”  

 

I have only read a very few of Merton’s works, but his words always resonate with an echo of truth and reason that I have scarcely found in any other work of contemporary philosophy or religion. When reading Merton, one gets the sense that it is not a pre-requisite that you must believe in the same religion that Merton himself believed, but rather that you just leave your pre-conceived notions of what it means to be “spiritual” at the door upon entering. Merton did speak of Christianity often and at great length, but with an air of openness and sincerity that I have yet to find with many other Christian writers.

 

Merton was a Contemplative. He lived a number of years as a reclusive hermit on the grounds of the monastery that he resided in, away from the rest of the monks, and wrote journals detailing his contemplative and mystical experiences, which he would not allow to be released until twenty-five years after his death. He did write and publish a number of books while he was alive, including an autobiographical account of his life, some poetry, and histories of the Catholic Church. He also wrote a couple of books on the Eastern mystical philosophies, including a collection of personal interpretations of selected chapters from the Chuang Tzu book(which provided me with my introduction to both Chuang Tzu and Merton) entitled “The Way of Chuang Tzu”.

 

Merton was not an apologist. He was unashamedly Christian. But he realized the benefit of introducing Eastern Mystical practices with the Monastic Christian lifestyle, and in doing so, produced a template toward a greater and more tolerant understanding of both. I admire Merton, first and foremost, for the courage of his convictions, and secondly as a writer who was lucid and honest, and expressed so beautifully so many thoughts that I have found so difficult to express in my own words.

 

I do not agree with every word that Merton ever wrote. But, this is a division of dogma only, not of fundamental philosophies, in which I have yet to find any area that he and I differed at all.

 

Merton was, like any of us, a fallible human being. He understood this, however, and shunned any accolades, attempting always to lead a humble and solitary lifestyle. His ideas were not radical but showed a light upon the radical departure most people had taken from  real spiritual lifestyles. I do not esteem the man out of a sense of awe, or idolatry, but out of respect for the courage, sincerity, and simplicity with which he approached life. No matter what walk of life we choose, it is men like this who serve to be the highest exemplars of what it is we should actively attempt to become.

 

Quotes from Merton:

 

“The population of the affluent world is nourished on a steady diet of brutal mythology and hallucination, kept at a constant pitch of high tension by a life that is intrinsically violent in that it forces a large part of the population to submit to an existence that is humanly intolerable…. The problem of violence, then, is not the problem of a few rioters and rebels, but the problem of a whole structure which is outwardly ordered and respectable and inwardly ridden by psychopathic obsessions and delusions.”

 

“We make ourselves real by telling the truth.”

 

 

“Nonviolence is perhaps the most exacting of all forms of struggle, not only because it demands first of all that one be ready to suffer evil and even face the threat of death without violent retaliation, but because it excludes mere transient self-interest from its considerations. In a very real sense, he who practices nonviolent resistance must commit himself not to the defense of his own interests or even those of a particular group: he must commit himself to the defense of objective truth and right and above all of man. His aim then is not simply to “prevail” or to prove that he is right and the adversary wrong, or to make the adversary give in and yield what is demanded of him. Nor should the nonviolent resister be content to prove to himself that he is virtuous and right, and that his hands and heart are pure even though the adversary’s may be evil and defiled. Still less should he seek for himself the psychological gratification of upsetting the adversary’s conscience and perhaps driving him to an act of bad faith and refusal of the truth. We know that our unconscious motives may, at times, make our nonviolence a form of moral aggression and even a subtle provocation designed (without our awareness) to bring out the evil we hope to find in the adversary, and thus to justify ourselves in our own eyes and in the eyes of 'decent people'."

 

“A few years ago a man who was compiling a book entitled Success wrote and asked me to contribute a statement on how I got to be a success. I replied indignantly that I was not able to consider myself a success in any terms that had a meaning to me. I swore I had spent my life strenuously avoiding success. If it so happened that I had once written a bestseller, this was pure accident, due to inattention and naiveté, and I would take very good care not to do the same again. If I had a message to my contemporaries, I said, it was surely this: Be anything you like, be madmen, drunks, and bastards of every shape and form, but at all costs avoid one thing: success. I heard no more from him, and I am not aware that my reply was published with the other testimonials.”

 

 

peace, wayf

 

 

Cody, Steven, and Frank drug up their camp stools and formed a semi-circle around Aaron and me, and we played the songs we had written together for them. The surrounding forest was filled with the sound of Aaron’s melodious voice coupled with our guitars. What better place to debut our rustic and earth bound music than this pristine, sylvan environment. All five of us were enraptured by the magic of the music, caught in the dreamy, ethereal experience; a symbiotic relationship between performer, audience, and venue. It was the first time I had ever felt as if I had stepped outside of myself and was just listening to the music, not playing. The sound of cicadas and crickets chirping blended harmoniously with the songs, and I found myself wishing we had brought along a tape recorder.

When we finished, the three of them sat there in the growing darkness silent for what seemed like a small eternity. “Man!” said Frank, “You guys are getting better and better.” Steven and Cody nodded in silent affirmation. “Wish I’d kept playin’”, said Steven as he got up and walked over to the ice chest, “Beer anyone?” We all jumped up and grabbed a beer. Steven held up his bottle, “A toast to the magical, mystical Five! We star-struck heathen children of a degenerate society faced with the perplexing conundrum of reality! Now, on the brink of the brightest days of our lives yet heavy with the burden that will soon be laid upon our shoulders. They say we must grow up, but…”, he smiled slyly as he brought his bottle down to his lips, “we know better! To the Five!” “Hear! Hear!” we all shouted in unison, and drank deeply from the fine, mind numbing elixir as the forest around us fell off into darkness. “Light the lanterns!” yelled Cody, as he took up his Shelaylee and began his dance around the campfire with Steven joining in once again. Frank lit the lanterns, and Aaron and I provided the accompaniment for the Shelaylee Dance. Laughter and merriment resounded through the woods around us; I am sure if anyone was close around, they were quite annoyed, but we did not care. We were golden. Exuberant. We were alive!

Our mirth lasted long into the evening, interspersed with brief breaks for a circle of smoke from the peace pipe. One by one, Cody, Frank, and Aaron fell off to sleep. Steven and I shook them awake and sent them to their tents and took our stools down to the lake’s shore. The night was cloudless and the moon full, providing enough light that we could see the outlines of the cabins on the other side of the lake. “Man! What a night!” Steven said and took a sip from his beer. “Yeah! Man, I am glad we came out here today. I think we may not have too many more of these days, man. Life is going to change.” I said. “Oh! Nothin’s gonna change, Chad! We will always be the Five!” Steven smiled at me. “I would love to think that way, Steve,” I said, “but we’re out of school, now. Frank’s already been accepted by that trade school up in Oklahoma, and Aaron said he wants to marry Jen. You’ll be going full time down at the factory now, and Cody may go down to the Coast to live with his mom. I just see it all changin’.” A somber look came across Steven’s face, “Yeah. I been thinkin’ about it a lot. I knew you probably had been too. I guess sometimes things just happen like that, man. Let’s just enjoy the Five while it’s still here, eh? Hey, I talked to old Mr. Finch at the factory. You know? The guy I told you about? Well, anyway, he said if you come in and fill out an application, he’d hire you no questions asked.” I hesitated for a minute, because this was the moment I had not wanted to come. Steven had a deep affection for the Five, and we all knew it would tear him apart when he learned I was going to Austin. “What’s the matter, man?” Steven asked, looking sideways at me.

 “I got an apartment.” I said, looking across the lake. “Oh, man! That’s great! I’ll have to come check it out when we drop the other guys off on Friday.” “It’s in Austin, Steve. I just found out yesterday.” “So, you finally decided to go, huh? Well, it’s about time, mother fucker! I been wantin’ to tell you that you should go, but I didn’t want you to think I was tellin’ you what to do. You got too much talent to be wastin’ away down here workin’ in some factory. I’m happy for you. You’ll do fine.” Steven was looking straight ahead now, his eyes fixed on some imaginary point on the lake. “I’ll come back, Steve. We’ll all get together here for a reunion. Cody can bring the Shelaylee!” Steven laughed, and then turned to look at me. “’Craw-Daddy’, I think this is the last waltz for the Five, man. We’ve had a good run, but it’s time to grow up, ain’t it?” “I think so, Steve. Let’s make it a good one, huh?” He smiled at me and swigged his beer. “One more week, and then it’s all over. No more ‘star struck, heathen children’, just young men on their way to becoming tired old men, wastin’ away slowly but surely. Man, you got to do me one favor.” What’s that, Steve?” “Once you get to Austin, don’t fuckin’ look back, man. You’re the one who’s gonna keep the Five alive, you know? You’re the only one who ain’t scared to go for broke. Once you get there, you are going to be the last of the ‘heathen children’. Go down there and play your fuckin’ heart out, man!” “I will, Steve. I will” I said. We sat there for a long time just staring across the lake at the lights on the other side. I looked up at the stars hanging there like jewels in the velvet darkness.

“Yes to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free, silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands, with all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves, let me forget about today until tomorrow”, I said and looked over at Steven who was grinning widely. “You win again, motherfucker! To Dylan, and to the Five!” “To the Five!” I said, as Steven and I clinked our Corona bottles together in a toast to our alliance of friends who had held one another up throughout the trials of High School. We were different, we shared a common mind, the five of us, and we loved one another deeply. That last week we spent in the woods was special, and still brings a smile when I think of it today.

I can never shake the picture of the five of us with cool water flowing over our shoulders. Splendid in our innocence, poised on the precipice of uncertainty as we sat together in a final salute to our love of the mystery. We were golden then, but the shine wears off when you start using things. I think in the back of all of our minds we knew the gold would wear off of the union of Five. One thing about friendships like that, though, no matter how long it’s been or how far apart you go, you still know they’re friends. Those memories won’t leave, and they won’t ever be tarnished. Memories stay golden long after you yourself have become dull and stained by the world. I’ll always remember with a special fondness that one particular “Jingle Jangle Mornin’” as we Five danced beneath the diamond sky.

As I sit here in the Green Room of this old club, I anticipate the reunion of the Five. We came back together by chance, like so many of our ilk do, I suppose. Upon getting this booking in our home town, I looked up the rest of the Five. Aaron did marry Jen, Steven is now the foreman at the factory, and Cody is working for him. Frank finished school and moved back home to get an engineering job. It seems that I was the only one of the Five who left home, though they tell me they rarely see each other all at once anymore. I am anxious about our reunion, and looking forward to it. I think the first song I’ll play tonight will be “Mr. Tambourine Man.” Maybe after the show, we old men can go and find us a diamond sky to dance beneath. Who knows? All I know is that the Five will be together again tonight, and this could be the best night I have had since that day at Comanche Run under a waterfall sitting in silent friendship.

 

Time to go on. I sure hope Aaron brought his guitar…

 

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you

 

Though I know that evenin's empire has returned into sand,
Vanished from my hand,
Left me blindly here to stand but still not sleeping.
My weariness amazes me, I'm branded on my feet,
I have no one to meet
And the ancient empty street's too dead for dreaming.

(Chorus)

Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin' ship,
My senses have been stripped, my hands can't feel to grip,
My toes too numb to step, wait only for my boot heels
To be wanderin'.
I'm ready to go anywhere, I'm ready for to fade
Into my own parade, cast your dancing spell my way,
I promise to go under it.

(Chorus)

Though you might hear laughin', spinnin', swingin' madly across the sun,
It's not aimed at anyone, it's just escapin' on the run
And but for the sky there are no fences facin'.
And if you hear vague traces of skippin' reels of rhyme
To your tambourine in time, it's just a ragged clown behind,
I wouldn't pay it any mind, it's just a shadow you're
Seein' that he's chasing.

(Chorus)

Then take me disappearin' through the smoke rings of my mind,
Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves,
The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach,
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow.
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free,
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands,
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves,
Let me forget about today until tomorrow.

 

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

 

“Mr. Tambourine Man”- Words and Music by Bob Dylan

Copyright © 1964; renewed 1992 Special Rider Music

 

 

“Hey! I brought something special”, Aaron shouted, startling the hawk I had been watching and breaking up the preliminary “Shelaylee Dance”, as he dug into his duffle bag and brought out a pipe and a little baggie filled with “Mother Nature” in all of her emerald glory. Cody dropped the Shelaylee in an instant and galloped over to Aaron’s side, squatting down with a happy smile on his face. “Oh, man!” said Cody as he breathed deeply smelling the contents of the baggie, “That smells fantastic! Where’d you get it?”  “Some things will always remain secret from you, Cody!” Aaron smiled as he packed the bowl. We formed a circle there on top of the hill and enjoyed the day’s first round of smoke. And it was a fantastic smoke, indeed. Soon afterward, our surroundings became a pinpoint as we sat there listening to the water fall over the top of the dam. We were silent for a long time until Cody spoke, “Let’s go down to the water!” “Oh! The water! Oh! Oh! The water!” sung Frank (on such occasion as this, we let the unspoken “Dylan only” rule be broken, and allowed Frank to sing Van Morrison), as we all got up and headed down the side of the hill toward the back of the dam, where the water formed a shallow pool as it cascaded over the top of the spillway. By this time, it had really started getting hot, so the water was indeed a splendid idea.

And there we were; golden, idyllic, basking in the glories of the sun and water. Steven was the first to roll up his pants legs and go splashing into the pristinely clear pool of water, followed soon thereafter by the other four of us. Cody climbed the rocks where the water fell over and let the coolness of the falls drape over his shoulders, soaking his shirt and hair. “Hey, man!” he said, “You guys have got to check this out! It feels great.” So, we all found a perch on the rocks, letting the water cascade over us as we sat in silent awe of not only the fabulously cool water, but the view that this perspective provided as well. The little shallow pool formed its own little spillway of sorts and went galloping off into the forest in a little stream. Nothing lay in front of us save green trees, blue sky, and a silently bubbling creek meandering its way into the tree line. We sat so quietly I could hear Steven breathing next to me, the sounds of the forest were calming and we knew when to just be quiet and listen.

Hours passed; the five us were so enraptured by the beauty of the day we just sat there in the water fall. Frank broke the silence, “Anybody wearin’ a watch?” We all laughed at Frank. Steven, always ready to pounce on someone with his sardonic wit, asked “You punchin’ a clock, mother fucker?” “No, man! I just thought if we were goin’ to get a campsite, one of us might want to go down to the office.” That was Frank, always the practical one. We decided that Frank made sense, and it was getting late into the day, so we all hopped down from our perches, gazed one more time at the beautiful view Cody had exposed to us, and went back to the car.

We drove down to the office and sent Steven in to get the camping permit. “Man! It always ends up bein’ ‘my turn’.” Steven came out shortly with the permit, and we went to locate our campsite. It was perfect. A little trail cut through the trees, exposing the placid blue lake and the site had just enough room for five one man tents. We sat up camp and enjoyed another round of Aaron’s smoke. Aaron went to the car and got our guitars from the trunk. “Yes!” exclaimed Steven, who was unaware that we had brought them, “What would this trip have been without a bit of folkish tunes from our Aaron and “Craw-Daddy’?” Steven had dubbed me “Craw-Daddy” because of my appetite for the crustaceans, and my love of blues music; it was my “blues name”, he said. “We’ve been working on some new stuff, you wanna hear it?” I asked.

The Jingle-Jangle Mornin’

“Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,

I’m not sleepy and there is no place I’m going to

Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,

In the jingle-jangle mornin’ I’ll come following you…”

 

I remember the day plainly. We five had set out for Comanche Run Nature Preserve early that morning. Five young men, out of school and with no definite plans for the future; just enjoying the feeling of being alive and young in America.

We had grown up in the extravagance of the eighties, and were perched on a new world as the nineties came rolling in. We were different, us five, we had always gone against the grain, or so we thought. Looking back now, I realize we had been tightly woven into the grain for too long and our new found freedom set in motion things we were not fully prepared for. Ahh, but the days of youth seemed so golden then, and we were right in the thick of reveling in our abundant liberty and youth, never realizing that we were letting the moments we had to grab that autonomy slip right passed us. We were too busy being golden.

We hiked up to the spillway in the hot Texas sun carrying our duffle bags, singing Bob Dylan tunes as we went; (“Who killed Davy Moore? Why, and what’s the reason for?”) We tried to best one another with the most obscure lyrics (usually, I would come out victorious in this game, I think that’s why the other four played because I hardly won anything with them.) We would laugh at the words sometimes, sometimes we would stop and think about them, but all the time, we held Bob up as the symbol of our youth; an avatar who had celebrated the very things we now did so many years before us; we were Dylan’s wild haired benefactors marching single file up a steep embankment in a Texas forest singing at the tops of our lungs “To dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free.” It was indeed great to be alive, and even greater to be a part of the Five.

We reached the top of the spillway at eleven a.m. and dropped the duffle bags. “It’s goin’ to be a great day!” I said. “Auspicious!” replied Steven, “A feast of friends!”  “Yes”, Cody chimed in, “And tonight, we dance the dance of the Shelaylee!” as he waved his “Magic Shelaylee” (a long stick he had found on the way up the trail) and danced a happy jig that made us all laugh. It would be an auspicious day, indeed. The sun shone brightly against the deep green of the treetops, casting a beautiful and mystical light on our surroundings. I lay back against my duffle bag for a moment and watched hysterical as Steven and Cody danced the Shelaylee dance on top of the dam. I watched a Red Tailed Hawk in the top of a Cedar tree looking suspiciously on as these two wild, glorious apes danced their crazy dance in the sun. And there we were, the Five, on a hilltop surrounded on one side by a crystal blue lake and the other by a deep evergreen forest, laughing wildly at the exuberance of youth and embarking on our long journey to becoming men; it was the beginnings of one of the best days the five of us had ever spent together. It was a jingle-jangle morning, indeed.

 

(To be continued...)