Zen Ramblings, Just Listening: Week 17 in the Zen Center

Zen ramblings this week. Not feeling motivated to write too much, but I did want to mention a fun thing I did this past weekend in the city. It has nothing to do with Zen. Then, again, it has everything to do with Zen. Then again, I suppose, technically, just about everything I do has everything to do with Zen. Or nothing to do with Zen. Whatever. Zen Ramblings.

I've mentioned in previous posts, our artist in residence, G. She is, indeed, a breath of fresh air in this sometimes vacuous setting of Zen. Things do get a bit intense here at the Temple. Why shouldn't they? The Temple is filled with contemplatives like myself who insist on intense self-reflection. Then, there are also the outsiders; people coming in off of the streets, some curious, some at the lowest moment of their life. So, I am learning that it is important to lighten up, to make it a point to do something "fun", "nonzen" (did I just make up a new Zen word? nonzen, I like that).

For example, last week, I went to a baseball game with some of the guys from the Temple. In addition to the guys who live there, there were two other Zen Center members who live outside of the Temple, who met us at the game. We had bleacher seats. It was a RARE hot summer night here in San Francisco. And rarer, indeed, the Giants smoked out their opponents, the Reds. (Oh, man, I'm gonna hear it from my friend, R, for that comment. You remember R, the diehard Giants fan? The one to whom I flashed my Red Sox shirt after zazen early one morning? Hey, he turned 68 this weekend. Happy Birthday, R! I hope I have HALF your energy when I'm that age!). Anyhow, R was at the game, in full Giants regalia, and he couldn't have been any happier to see his team basically indulge in a glorified batting practice against the Reds, by beating the Reds 16-5. Seven homeruns in one game! We were in the bleachers; baseballs were flying into the bleachers like popcorn popping in a frying pan. It was great! And we made it on the big fan cam! My friend, Rob, had a bug fly down his shirt. He couldn't find it so he stood up and took off his shirt. Everyone in the bleachers started cheering him on, and next thing you know, he's on the large screen! It was great. Topped with a full moon in the beautiful AT&T Park, overlooking the harbor, and a couple of ballpark franks, it was a great night.

Of course, who do you think did NOT attend zazen the next morning? That would be my boys, C and M, the 20-somethings of the crowd; NOT R, Rob, and me, who combined, cover well over a century of time on this planet. Ah, youth... (Lazy bums!).

Then, over the weekend, our artist in residence, G, (yes, I'm back to this topic now. Zen Ramblings, remember?), did this really cool thing called a Listening Booth (http://listeningbooth.org/). She has done this before, but not in this particular setting. The premise is simple. You set up two chairs and a sign that says, "Listening Booth". People have the opportunity to talk for five minutes. They also get to choose how specifically they want their listener to listen to them. There are six options: silence, nonverbal reactions such as nodding, etc., asking questions for clarity, interaction, advice, or freestyle.

So she had her chairs set up in front of the Levi's Print Shop on Valencia and 16th. It's a busy street, and most people just walked right past us, disinterested. That, in itself - that is, the apathy of the people - is what seemed to strike a chord in G. Apparently, people have been more involved and participatory in the past, but we attributed the lack of interest to the fact that this time it was on a street (she has done it in the park in the past) and that people tend to repel from being solicited, even for something as simple as having the opportunity to talk for five minutes.

"No time." was a common response.

Interesting. How many of us complain that we never get the opportunity to be heard? Yet, here was the opportunity to be heard, yet many people declined. Those that did participate were great sports about it. And they definitely got a lot out of it. It was a fascinating and rewarding experience; one that I would love to do again sometime. I'm specifically not getting into any of the details of what was said, out of respect to the people involved. I will say that it was an honor and a privilege to be allowed into these strangers' lives for five minutes. A really, really cool thing. G rocks. This is just one of her many art projects. She's always doing something. (BTW - to measure how cool G is, I actually - at the last minute - invited her to the Giants game, though she was busy doing artsy stuff. My BFF, B, wimpled out on us, a ticket became available, and I invited her into the Secret Society of the Guys and Me. That's how cool G is).

There are a lot of cool people at the Zen Center. I'm feeling very grateful to be living there these days.

On Sunday, I drove to Half Moon Bay, which seems to be my new one-day getaway spot. Takes less than an hour to get there. Then, BAM - I'm alone on this awesome beach, overlooking the mighty Pacific. Not too shabby. A bummer part of this day though (besides my camera lens breaking after I tripped over a vine while hiking) was when I came across a dead sea lion that washed ashore. It was a beautiful, massive creature. I'm guessing she weighed around 300 pounds. She didn't have any marks on her, at least nothing outstanding, so I'm guessing she either died from disease or starvation. Apparently, El Nino has taken its toll on the California sea lion population this year. The water is warmer, which means that the anchovies and shrimp aren't producing or thriving, which means that the sea lions are starving. Mothers actually abandon their pups. Dozens of sea lions intermittently appear on the shores of Big Sur, dead or dying.

It's absolutely heartbreaking to see it. I just stood over this massive creature, watching the waves push her further onto the shore, pulling her back again, only to push her closer to me, and I was in awe. I felt a bit self-conscious after a few minutes because I found myself just staring at her, until I was actually weeping a little bit. All the while, people just walked by, families kept playing volleyball, and the pelicans soared overhead. I mean, this is life, right? Mother nature at her most painful? Weather patterns affect the animal kingdom. Life on life's terms. Nature serving as the supreme ruler.

When I looked at her, I thought of a Dogen essay, Ocean Seal Samadhi. Dogen was a 13th Century Zen Master. He was a genius. He brought Zen over from China to Japan. He wrote a LOT about Zen. In The Ocean Seal Samadhi, he talks about how the ocean does not collect dead bodies; rather, it returns dead humans to the shore. This is supposed to be a metaphor to the monastic life. When a monk has severely violated the precepts, he is banished from the monastery. So when I stood there, weeping over this gorgeous creature, I wondered why the ocean was giving her to us, when really, she belongs to the ocean. She didn't violate any precepts. She just lived. That's it. I wondered if there was anyone out in the sea who was mourning her. A mate missing her? Pups needing her milk?

But this is life, right? We're gonna laugh in the bleachers, we're gonna cry for the sea lion.

I refused to take a picture of her. Instead, I said a small blessing, and headed back to my car, passing kids with pails and shovels, building their castles of sand, the smell of barbeque wafting in the air.

A Gay New Yorker, a Butch Lesbian, and a Scorpion meet in a Yosemite Hotel Room...: Week 15 in the Zen Center

Okay, so I can be a complete wimp at times. I mean, a complete wimp. But this past week. I was a - COMPLETE - wimp. And my gay New Yorker friend, D, was a witness to it. Dude. I lost sooooooo many butch points with him.



D and I go way back. We've been friends for over 15 years. He is one of my dearest and FUNNEST friends. Guaranteed lots of laughs with D on board. He is out here in Cal for most of August, taking a well-deserved extensive vaca, taking a break from the sweltering heat and humidity that has been oppressing New York City for most of the summer. I was part of his "Yosemite leg" of his trip. He has heard me talk about Yosemite for years, so he finally made it a point to visit Yosemite. With me - yea!


Gosh, as I'm writing this, I'm realizing that I'm really not in the mood to write. But I do want to post a few words this week. So I guess I'll just keep writing. Hmmmm. It was that Coca-Cola. I had one about an hour ago. And now it's messing with my brain. A little electrical storm going on in there - neurotransmitters fencing, epees clashing against each other, brain cells screaming in every direction, tragic little dyslexic molecules trying to find their way home...


Okay, Yosemite. Much closer to me than my brain is at the moment. So, David and I went to Yosemite. Now, I'm hoping that by the end of reading this blog, you will have had two profound experiences, 1) you will have laughed at least once (laughing is profound, in case you didn't know that already), and, 2) you will make it a point to say to yourself (and perhaps a spouse, a child, a BFF, whatever), "I am going to visit Yosemite National Park in the very near future." I say "near future" because you never know what the "far" future holds. But the near future...now that's something that's so close by you can almost touch it. And almost touching something inspires us to make the effort to actually touch that "something".


D and I have taken some fun trips together. He used to be a freelance travel writer, so he scored some pretty fun trips in the past, in particular, trips to Vegas. I feel like a spoiled diva when we go on these trips. And when I visit him in New York City, he takes me to all of the Broadway shows. It rocks. D is definitely the Culture Queen among my many eclectic friends. When we were planning for this trip, I emailed him, asking him if he actually wanted to do the traditional backcountry hiking or if he wanted to take day hikes and stay in a hotel. Shocking to me, he wanted to stay in a hotel. Apparently, he gave up on camping after attending some sort of gay and lesbian sober group camping gig in New Mexico many years ago.


"One woman snored so loudly," D told me on our drive, "it took several of us to roll her over on the back of her truck. Even then, she didn't stop snoring all night."


Then, apparently, it started to rain.


Needless to say, we stayed in a hotel. And it was lovely. It turns out we were in European tourists central. Everywhere we turned, there were Europeans. I'm not accustomed to spending a lot of time in the touristy parts of the park. I generally put on my backpack and hike in a few miles, until the rest of civilization drifts away like the clouds that drifted over the mountains. So it was kind of fun being a tourist, taking pictures in front of the famous photographed sites such as Half Dome and El Capitan. And, I sill confess, it was a real treat to stay in a hotel. Until the last night.


We had to split where we were staying due to some schedule adjustments, so our last night was spent in a different hotel, The Yosemite View Lodge in El Portal, just outside the park. It is the sister hotel to the hotel we spent the previous two nights in, the Yosemite Cedar Lodge, just a few miles further up the road in El Portal. These hotels are charming in their own tacky way. Bear adornments galore, shellacked in 1970's wallpaper, and hideous dark carpets. But we're not the Honeymooners. We're just looking for a place to crash for the night, right? And we're tough. I, especially, am alleged "tough" by virtue of being a self-avowed butch lesbian. After all, when we had to walk back to our car a mile in the dark on the first night after a lovely dinner at the Awahnnee, I assured D that the bears are more afraid of us than we are of them. Then, a couple of days later, as D was slowly inching his way into Lake Tenaya, a glacier lake, I dove in head first, popped up with a big grin, only to see the look of shock on his face."


"Geez, Caren, you are so butch."


(We had a BLAST skinny dipping in this lake. Quick! Put this on your list of things to do).


So, when we checked into our hotel on the last night, D was not expecting the reaction from me when we walked into the room. I was a few feet behind him, still wearing my backpack and holding another bag, when D commented on how cute the kitchenette was. Then. He stopped.


"Oh my God." He said.


"What?" I asked, removing my backpack.


He sounded enthusiastic, like maybe someone had left a chocolate cake in the fridge or something. But then, he got really serious. He turned to me and said, "Call the front desk and tell them there's a scorpion in this room and they need to, one, get rid of it and two, get us a new room."


A scorpion. You know that reptilian creature that has managed to survive millions of years of evolution? That predatory arthropod that eject venom from its tail, instantly paralyzing its predator albeit a small predator. The truth is a scorpion can't kill a human being. But it is a predator. And it was in my hotel room. Bears? No problem. I have over a dozen bear stories, some funny, some scary. I've been inches, literally, from bears. One time, in Yosemite, I truly thought I was going to die when a bear approached my tent in the middle of the night and sniffed silently towards my head; inches away form me, nose to nose. Mountain lions? Haven't seen any, but I respect this gorgeous cat and her predatory nature. Hell, I've even thought how I would fight off a shark if I ever got attacked (why else do you think I devote a week of my life to Shark Week when Animal Planet hosts the annual special?). These mammals, the bear and the mountain lion, are big and beautiful. Scorpions, on the other hand, are small, and...freakish. Okay, I know the scorpion mating ritual is very romantic, where they grab each other's front claws and do this sort of weird sideways dance, and sometimes, they even kiss. Yes, they really kiss, but even then that's so the male scorpion can inject enough venom in the female so she can chill out just before he drops his sperm on the strategic location, from where the female hovers over it until she is impregnated. Then, as is the case, sadly with many heterosexual males, the male bolts, allegedly to avoid getting killed by the female. Never to return again, leaving the female to raising the little scorpions solo, a sad arachnid statistic in the domestic violent books.


Okay, so D says there's a scorpion in the room. I've never seen a scorpion. I'm not a big fan of spiders. I mean, I put up with them. I'm not phobic about spiders. And I'll be damned if I was going to be phobic of scorpions. So I responded to D's directive, walked over (very reluctantly) to the phone and called the front desk.


"Hi, I'm calling from room 1026, and we have a problem, there's a scorpion in the room. One, you need to come here right now and take care of it, and, two, you need to find us a new room."


The man who answered the phone hesitated.


"Okay..." The pause felt much longer than it really was, as D kept looking back at me while also making those weird body gestures when you see something like a scorpion in your hotel room. The hotel clerk continued. "I'm not sure about the room availability- "


"Well we'll deal with that later." My voice escalated. Quickly. "You just need to get over here right now and take care of this scorpion."


"Um... - "


"NOW!" Click.


I managed to walk over towards D, trying to maintain my composure. Then, I saw it from a distance. It was small.


"That's it?" I asked. "It's so small."


D laughed, "It is. I'm probably overreacting."


Then I got closer. And I saw its entire form, the eight legs, the tail, the yolk of its body. Then, it moved. And I jumped a mile out of my shoes, and screamed like a banshee. And D laughed his ass off. Cackled like a school girl.

I wanted it dead. I'm a Buddhist. The first precept that a Buddhist takes is to not kill any beings. This would include a scorpion. I have still not taken the precepts formally, so to my credit, I did have some wiggle room. But I wanted it dead. I wanted it gone. I wanted to feel comfortable again. As if it was reading my mind, the little reptile quickly ran under the coffee maker.


"It's gone!" I screamed, full-blown panic by now. "Okay, Caren, calm down." Self talk helps.


"Yea, Caren, calm down."


"Okay, I'm gonna calm down now."


We heard the footsteps of the hotel employee approach our room. Never taking our eyes off of the coffee maker, D and I directed him to the location. Ever so calmly, as I walked back further away from the scorpion and closer to the door, Jeremy (breaking my blog's first letter name rule due to the magnanimous respect I have for this man, and wanting to give him credit where credit is due), coolly pushed the scorpion with the lid top, into the plastic container. And that was it. Problem solved. My heart rate began to drop back down to normal. I even stepped a few feet closer to get a closer peek at the scorpion. I thought it would be healthy of me to do this, to overcome this fear-bordering-on-phobia of the creature. Hell, I even held the container.


"Take a picture of me with it, D, for my blog."


And he did. And all was peaceful in the world as I posed inches next to the reptile, nose to tail. My confidence increased. Until I realized that the container was not all the way on. Then. I jumped out of my shoes and screamed like a banshee.


"Oh my God, the lid's not all the way on!!!!!!!!" I said, in a ridiculously prototypically girly tone that we have heard in every bad horror movie.


I placed the container on the stove, and BOLTED away from it, flailing my arms wildly, wiping down my body as if the scorpion had suddenly grown and invaded my outer body, and then screamed uncontrollably, "PUT THE LID BACK ON, PUT THE LID BACK ON!!!!"


D, at this point, damn near peed his pants, he was laughing so hard. Even Jeremy had a tough time maintaining his professional poise as I flailed around the room, like a whirling dirvish.


We got another room. Jeremy escorted us to it. He walked a few feet in front of us, holding the container somewhat gingerly, more to humor me, I think. I kept a safe distance from him all the while, watching the scorpion. We inspected the room, then went out for pizza. Then, we returned to the room, and to ease my mind, I turned on the TV and watched MLB News. D humored me and watched along with me for a few minutes. I had a weird dream that night, but I think that's from the pepperoni I ate that was on the pizza.


Even the next day, in a fun family restaurant in Livermore, while we were having lunch with a friend of D's and her two kids, I got the jitters as we told the story of the scorpion. Again, I was trying to act calm, like everything is okay, but then, my cell phone in my pocket vibrated, and I jumped a mile out of my seat. D and company got a big kick out of that. Indeed, I lost many butch points in that hotel room that night. I fear that it's almost irredeemable, these points that I lost.


"In all of the years I've know you, Caren, I've never seen you react to anything like that."


All I can tell you is it's the reptile thing. Scorpions, like a few other creatures on this planet, have survived millions of years of evolution. And they have barely changed. I mean, if scorpions could talk...


Hell, if scorpions could laugh! That little guy would have a stomach ache from laughing at me that night. Everybody's gotta laugh, right?


Go to Yosemite. But don't stay in the hotels. The wildlife is too scary.

Grease and that Genius Text: Weeks 13 and 14 at the Zen Center

So, I played hooky from the blog last week. Felt good. And as it turns out, I was busy celebrating history here in San Francisco. Unless you've been living under a rock, I'm sure by now you've heard about California Federal Court Vaughn Walker's ruling on Proposition 8 (the anti-gay marriage bill that the majority of Californians voted on in 2008 - on that same day, by-the-way that they voted in Barak Obama as our president. Go figure).

I heard the news around 2pm, and by 5pm, I was down at the Castro, camera in-hand, both participating in and capturing history, as we marched down Market Street, landing finally at City Hall, an already-historical landmark for the LGBT community. The evening ended with me dancing (literally) in front of City Hall with a friend I bumped into at the march. The song was from Grease, "We'll Always Be Together". Totally gay, totally fun. It rocked.

So here's the deal. I personally, am opposed to marriage in general. Call it radical socialistic politics on my part, or simply the ramblings of a bitter butch divorcée, but I don't think the government has any right to garner authorship over a person's legal right to marry. With that being said, as long as we are living in a society that does require a piece of paper from the government in order to be married, than everyone should be offered that same equal right. And, um...gay and lesbian couples aren't offered that right in this country. Yet. Sure, there are smatterings of gay marriage laws that have been passed in a few states in this country, and that's awesome, but once those happily homo "married" couples cross over the state line, those marriage "rights" are stripped from them. And. That's not vey - equal.

Okay, a couple of things - personal and political.

Personally. I, ironically, received my final divorce papers last week. Two years after the break-up. My ex broke up with me on June 16, 2008. Why do I remember that date so vividly? Because that is the same day that gay marriage was legalized in California. My ex, to her credit, was not aware that the California Supreme Court had announced its ruling that day. This was before Facebook became our add-water-and-stir instant information booth; and she and I had gone to therapy right after work, so there was no time for her to read the news. I, on the other hand, have some friends who are heavily involved in activism, and received an email moments after the historic decision was announced. Then, an hour later, in therapy (the Switzerland of marital funk), my ex dumped me. It really is kind of funny, when you think about it. Pathetic, but funny. I am guessing that we weren't the only lesbian couple that broke up that day. I'm guessing that once the option of marriage became available to the gay community, a lot of people were packing their bags and moving into seedy little hotels til further notice. (I moved into a cute house in the mountains I maintained some of my dignity).

But what really gets me about my divorce, is that, because we were registered as Domestic Partners (it's not much different than registering your dog with the state, but with domestic partnership, you need to actually get it notarized), and because we co-owned shared property, we had to get a legal divorce here in California. Yes, a real - "legal" - divorce. The legal term is "dissolution of marriage". Same court proceedings (and fees!) that our heterosexual counterparts need to go through. If you're reading this and you're confused, you should be. Let me make this crystal clear. In California, it is not legal to get married if you are a gay or lesbian couple. BUT, in California, it is legally required that you get a divorce if you are a gay and lesbian couple (or straight) who is registered as domestic partners. So. You can't get married as a gay or lesbian couple here in the Great Blue State on the Left Coast, but you can get divorced. And who dare says California is the land of fruits and nuts? We're all playing with a full deck here. Sort of.

With all of that being said, I am very happy to be divorced and I am very happy that gay marriage reached a new victory this week. I still vow to never marry again, but I am not going to sic my bitterness onto those who still believe in the crazy institution of marriage.

Ok, political.

Judge Vaughn Walker. Who is this guy? I'll tell you who he is. He's a living, breathing paradox; a man who has made his mark in history, a man who will never be forgotten by the gay and lesbian community, nor by the "marriage protection" fanatics. He was nominated for his position in the Federal District Court by Ronald Reagan in 1987, but his nomination was stalled for two years because, who do you think protested him? You guessed it. The queers! And why? Something about him working for a private firm that defended the U.S. Olympic Committee who sued the Gay Olympics for using the Olympic logo. So the queers didn't like him. Made enough of a stink that it took two years for him to finally get nominated and sworn in by our other fave Republican prez, George Bush Sr. in 1989. Twenty-one years later, as fate has it, Walker was randomly selected to take this Prop 8 ruling. Oh, and, by the way, did I mention that he is gay? No joke. He's not public about it. Doesn't deny it, doesn't proclaim it. So we can only imagine how infuriated the "marriage protection" fanatics are about this one, eh?

But here's what I love. When you read his 136-page ruling (attached to this blog), you will see that he is all about the Constitution. We all remember that thing called the Constitution, right? Here's the final paragraph of his ruling:

Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite sex couples are superior to same-sex couples. Because California has no interest in discriminating against gay men and lesbians, and because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis, the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.

It's that simple. How much do we love the Constitution? I mean, how friggin' genius is that document? Personal and political issues are set aside. Our Constitution truly is genius. When I was marching down Market Street last week, I felt like I was at a Fourth of July parade. There were more American flags being waved than there were Rainbow flags. That's what we were celebrating last week - the U.S. Constitution. Two years ago, when Prop 8 passed here in California, it was a personal blow to the LGBT community. And I do mean it was personal. We were devastated. Our "peers" voted us off the island, so to speak. (By the way, the California State Assembly should be ashamed of itself for even allowing Prop 8 onto the ballot that year). Our civil rights were taken from us. That is deplorable. A majority cannot vote against a minority. (And by the way, contrary to popular belief, it was not the African American vote that tipped the scale for Prop 8's victory. It was the systematic campaigning of the Mormon Church that threw the first and last punch of that fight. I mean, come on, how many Black Mormons do you know?). But last week, the tables turned, and we have moved one step closer to victory. Sure, the opponents will appeal, and the case will eventually work it's way to the U.S Supreme Court, which will set the precedent for Gay Marriage as being something deserved and equal in this country. And it will take a couple to a few more years. But we're well on our way.

I'm a realist though. Homophobia will always exist. Unlike that jocular, frivolous song from Grease, we won't always be together, but at least we'll be documented as equal. And we'll be protected by that genius text that was written over two-hundred years ago.

That's a good start.