Draw card.  Check it.  No help here.

Ones I can use; not queens.

Possible new runs?  Nada.

“OK,” I say.  “Any ones?”   

When I was a kid, even an adolescent, I really believed it when the minister said he talked with God every day.  I knew I didn’t hear any words when I talked to It, but ministers were somehow specially spiritual beings in my book of knowledge.  So if the minister said he talked to God, I figured he wouldn’t lie to the whole congregation, surely not on Sunday. 

As a young adult I had decided that two-way conversations with God were something that one could pull off if one became a truly seasoned mystic.  So often when I went into my darkened bedroom to meditate, I was actually putting out a question to God.  Then following the dictum, “Be Still, and know that I am God”, I would listen patiently for It’s voice.   Nothing.  Silence.  Oh, occasionally some half formed thought would float up into my conscious mind.  But, on close examination those thoughts seemed very familiar – mostly variations of values I wanted to believe were true.  So they sounded reassuringly good when they floated up from the vast unknown.  But they also sounded a lot like something I would tell myself anyway.

I was pretty excited when I ran across Neale Donald Walsh’s Conversations with God.  I was envious as well.  God was having Walsh write down really great stuff.  And God dictated a lot of stuff to Walsh.  Enough for three books of the dialogs, one especially for teens – an idea my minister could have profited from – and a few dialog guidebooks.  So it must be true that God helps those who help themselves.  For what it is worth, I really liked Walsh’s God a lot.  I thought He was a pretty reasonable old guy.  He came across to me as someone who had been around a long time, seen just about ever human trick there was to see, and had successfully managed not to become jaded nor cynical about human life.  I think you can see his portrait on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.  Walsh was a lucky guy.

Not so me.  Over the years I have discovered God does not whisper in my ear.  It will sometimes provide an interesting passage when I randomly open a book with a dilemma in mind.  Of course, finding the connection between the interesting passage and some path forward through my dilemma is pretty much my responsibility.  But I am genuinely grateful when It does enliven and enrich the opportunities presented within my dilemma.

Sometimes I imagine that God and I are playing a two-handed game of high card draw.  It’s an interesting deck of cards – events in synchronous relationship to each other.  What?!!  Well, it’s not the regular deck of cards with an ace of hearts.  This is more like a deck of holographic events.  You look at a card from one angle and you see the event.  You look at it from a different angle and you can feel the emotions, the subconscious values and attitudes.  For example, you take the car into the shop and worry about some rattling noise and how much that is going to cost.  But when you go back to get the car, it was just a loose bolt, easily tightened, and the bill is just for the oil change.

OK, here’s my most recent example.  In January I discovered that almost by chance I had become “mostly retired”.  Now the card that I drew and showed to God was my desire to stay active in life, to make some continuing contribution.  Viewed from one angle it looked kind of noble.  “Share whatever skills and experience I have gained to make a contribution to the community in some capacity.”  Viewed from a different angle the card showed a bit of anxiety and confusion.  “Don’t stay home and become a vegetable.” 

Now, I have been flashing that card in front of God’s eyes for a few months.  Finally God got around to drawing It’s card and showing it to me.  “Go back to China and teach for a semester.”  So I would have to say that God won that round.

Maybe the next time I win the game, I’ll suggest we play Hearts instead.

She selects the puce sheet; writes --

“He didn’t see me.  So close

talking into Tallie’s ear.” --

lights the page.  Smoke curls away.

I often wonder why I write blog entries.  True writing them is interesting to me.  But I am not a writer by profession.  So why a blog?  Not because I haven’t written a blog before.  Not because I haven’t written for a small meditation newsletter.  But I knew the audience in both cases.

In a way it is like journaling.  But why post the entries on a blog?  Who is the audience?

Some years ago I edited a monthly newsletter for the American Meditation Society.  That was a bit like journaling.  Some experience in my life would raise a question, and I found that I learned a lot by exploring the society’s files of lectures by Gururaj Ananda Yogi.  They always yielded a worthwhile insight into the event, the question.  Building a newsletter issue around such a question and insight was helpful to me in learning and understanding my own life experiences. 

And of course, I knew most of the recipients of the newsletter personally.  I knew the audience and could trust that the question of the month would speak to some other of my friends as well as myself.

I still use that technique in writing this blog.  An event in my life leading to a question leading to some research and an insight into some dimensions of the event.  Words to capture the ephemeral ideas and concepts and force it all into a coherent exposition.

Two years ago when Babs and I knew for certain that we would be traveling to China to teach for a year, a lot of my friends and colleagues were interested in following the adventure.  The solution was to set up a blog.  Those truly interested could read it at their pleasure.  It was great fun.  Different from writing and editing a meditation society newsletter.  The China blog was still a form of journaling.  Find an interesting experience, attempt to describe Chinese culture from an American perspective, and post it.  I was fairly certain I knew the readership -- mostly friends and former work colleagues.  However, when I found a trackback to a hair salon in Singapore attached to one blog entry, I realized the blog entries were going out to an audience well beyond the expected audience.  How interesting and fun!

Writing for that blog added another aspect.  I started those entries with a four line, Chinese style poem.  The form is called Jue Ju.  Four lines of five or seven syllables; that is, the poem is either twenty syllables or twenty-eight syllables in length.

“…another important emphasis in Chinese poetic art which may be said to be just the antithesis of word painting. That is the technique of suggesting a mood with delicate touches.  It is to create a mood, not to tell a story. The jue ju or curtailed verse is the most adequate means to that end.”  “According to Chinese standards a jue ju has to carry the mood with grace, not by storm and stress. It sweeps on in a gentle curve that envelops the reader with joy or sorrow. It may come to a sudden stop, there being only so many syllables, but one must then be left with the feeling of something beyond. One is not just overcome with a gust of emotion.” Example: “The monks from the mountain temple sit playing go. // On the board the bamboo shadows stand in bold relief, // While the reflecting leaves prevent others from seeing. // Occasionally is heard the sound of a stone being played.”

This was the first Jue Ju poem from the first China blog entry, one about the trip to Chongqing.  “Unpack yet another pound. // Check windows; click all locks closed. // Fly ahead to tomorrow. // Mantra chants in my stomach.”  Here is the last China poem: “Finger opens my email -- // empty today too of you // save your smile in memory -- // and hovers above delete.” 

Still this begs the question.  Why would you be interested in the structure of jue-ju poems?  Why would you find it interesting to start these blog entries with a poem?  Why would you bother to read the rest of my meditation?  Who are you?

How interesting and fun.

OK.  Time to put a cork on this one and toss it into the cyberocean.

Pen to ink.  Strokes to paper.

Conditions to incantations.

Ritual to canon law.

Flower to seed to flower.

Carl, the Chan Buddhist monk showing us the temple in Chicago’s China Town, asks our tour group, “Are you familiar with Buddhism?  What do you know about it?”  One woman raises her hand and answers, “It’s about when you cut down a tree in the forest, then you pray for the spirit of the tree.  Something like that.”

“Or not.”  Says Carl.

On a related mind trip, I watched the movie Eregon yesterday.  It was somehow refreshing to know in advance what the plot would be.  I hadn’t seen it before, but Joseph Campbell had laid out the plot years ago in his series of lectures and books about mythic heroes.   George Lukas and Peter Jackson have done great jobs converting “hero’s journey” theory to visual imagery.

So here’s the recipe.  You take one naïve boy or girl with unsuspected mental and physical powers.  Add a magic object.  Mix in an overabundance of evil, especially in the form of an all-powerful, beastly creature which could at one time have been human.   Heat the mixture into a threatening situation.  Add in an old wise man/woman – preferably with skills both in swordsmanship and sorcery.   (The wise guy is critical as he/she crystallizes the hero’s or heroine’s powers and adds zest and depth to the recipe!)  Bring to a rolling boil.  Continue boiling until boy or girl congeals into a powerful, accomplished, and shiny hero or heroine.  Pour the mixture through a sieve of climactic struggle – preferably with lots and lots of flying objects and bright colored explosions.  Serving tip: New heroes or heroines look best when served with a mixture of pride and appropriate humility in a loud and triumphal soundtrack.  The evil concoction can be returned to the stewpot, simmered until reduced in toxicity, and served as a zesty sauce during the finale and film credits.  Alternatively, pour the leftover evil concoction into a container and freeze full strength for future sequels.

I know the lady who answered Carl’s question about the nature of Buddhism.  She used to come to my monthly meditation evenings.  Most of the people who came to those evenings had no experience with meditation and consequently had lots of how-to questions.  The lady was always glad to give her expertise.  Meditation gave you powers to direct your mind to its higher level.  Meditation gave you powers to make other people happy and healthy.  Then she would give us all a those-in-the-know,-know-this smile and ask, “Isn’t that so?”

I was never as good at responding to her as Carl was.

Many of the people in our tour group to China Town are devout Christians who know of Buddhism but who know very little about it.  And they asked Carl a lot of really good questions and sometimes tried to put him on the spot with hypothetical questions.  “Can a religion without a god have ethics?”  “If there is no god, why do you have all these statues and flowers and offerings in the temple?”  “You don’t have heaven or hell, so what about reincarnation?”  “What would you say to a sixteen year old girl who was starting to have sex with boys?”

Carl did an incredible job of making simple, direct answers.  No long winded essays like some meditation blog writers I know.  He explained the Chan Buddhist basics: living in this moment, making choices not based on an external authority (God), interacting with others with compassion and selflessness.  The simplicity of mindfulness meditation.

So yesterday as I was watching Eregon and thinking about my neighbor lady who is convinced of spiritual knowledge, I saw a lot of similarity.  And I saw a lot of myself in there as well.  It is seductively soothing to believe that there are spiritual powers that can make us safe or that can at least give us a magic weapon in the day to day battle of life.

Now one of the things I found most convincing about my own guru, Gururaj Ananda Yogi, was that he downplayed things like “spiritual” or psychic powers.  This is what he said during a radio interview.  ANNE KEEFE:  “When you get, Gururaj, beyond the subconscious‑‑the conscious and the subconscious‑‑are there psychic possibilities in that realm?”  GURURAJ:  “There are psychic possibilities, but I discourage them. Any true master -- any true, spiritual master -- would discourage the development of psychic abilities because they inevitably prove to be a block within...to the path to Divinity.  Because you would get so wrapped up.  For example, if you leave your home, your front door to go to the gate in the front to get into your car and you have a lovely garden with flowers and rockeries and lawns. Now, you're not going to get stuck at the flowers and the rockeries and the lawns.  You admire them, but you pass by.  Your goal is to reach the gate.  So, I do not encourage the development of psychic powers.  But what I do encourage very much is how to find yourself.  People make it so difficult for themselves.  And yet there is such a simple formula.  It is so simple to be happy, but so difficult to be simple.” (KMOX/CBS Radio Interview.  "At Your Service with Anne Keefe”. July 13, 1982.)

Carl and Gururaj would differ over the concept of Divinity.  But, I think, they did agree that looking for magic weapons was a waste of time and a fool’s quest.

White knight astride white charger,

Bush saves Iraq from itself.

Gently thumbs knead out my knots.

Shoulders soften. Eyes close. Smile.

Here’s a true story of idiot compassion. 

Several years ago I was a high school counselor.  My school district had a new superintendent.  He was hired to “raise student expectations”.  Raising expectations was hot education jargon in those years; sounded worthwhile and noble; had no clear definition to judge achievement.  In short, the perfect, political slogan.  A year later my building had a new principal.  The following year, the guidance department had a new assistant principal, my boss.  It turned out that raising student expectation meant that virtually all our students should be in the college preparatory track of courses.

I had a senior student that year whose stated post-high school goal was attending college.  He was also in a career program in which he left school early each day to work in a job related to his career interests.  My new boss called me into her office and told me that no college-bound senior should be wasting valuable school time going to work.  I was to call the boy in and have him change his schedule.  I disagreed with her, having had other students in past years who had pursued the same program and who had gone on to college successfully.  My boss informed me that I should never have allowed the student the choice in the first place.  She sent for the student herself and attempted to talk him into a different set of courses.  He refused.  She called his mother and convinced the mother to override her son’s preferred set of courses.  The boy got a new set of courses.  Two months later, the boy’s mother called my boss again and demanded that the boy go back to his original set of courses, including the job program.  I was assigned to contact teachers and re-write his class schedule.  The boy went back to his original schedule.  He applied for college, was accepted, and after graduation went on to college.

I remember that incident because my new boss had a social worker degree.  Yet far from working with empathy and compassion with the student, my boss approached the student with idiot compassion.  That is, her philosophy of working with students was “Here, I’ll fix your life for you.”

I first read the term “idiot compassion” in a book by Chogyam Trungpa.  Here’s his description: “Without intelligence and skillfulness, compassion can degenerate into a bungling sort of charity.  For instance, if we give food to someone who is extremely hungry, he will temporarily recover from his hunger.  But he gets hungry every day.  And if we keep giving food to that person, eventually he will learn that whenever he is hungry he can get food from us.  … Such an approach is, in fact, uncompassionate compassion, or compassion without skillful means.  It is known as idiot compassion.”  Trungpa, Chogyam.  The Heart of the Buddha.  Shambhala Press.  1991.  Page 17.

Here is what Trungpa says about real compassion: “Unlike idiot compassion, real compassion is not based on a simple-minded avoidance of pain.  Real compassion is uncompromising in its allegiance to basic sanity.” (Page 126)  “The state of being awake has two main qualities: the first … is softness, gentleness, which we call ‘compassion’; the other … is called ‘skillful means’.  The compassion aspect is connected with oneself, and the skillful means aspect is connected with how to deal with others.  Compassion and skillful means put together is what is known as egolessness.” (Page 211)

A really good friend told me of an experience she had had.  She was at a conference and had gone to the washroom.  She heard the washroom door open, someone come in, and then the sound of soft crying.  My friend came out of her stall.  With no particular thought in mind, she simply opened her arms and gave the young woman a hug.  My friend told me she just knew it was what she could do.  Words wouldn’t have helped.   There was a sense of being the right person at the right place at the right time. 

I have always treasured that story as a wonderful example of real compassion.

OK.  At this point I have to confess that I have added a new twist to the definition of idiot compassion.  Below you will see a photo of our granddaughter, whom I refer to as the Princess of Mellow Drama.  I am a passionate fool for that girl.

Who wouldn’t be?