In the Zone and other Mediations (06/24/2024)

The fence is in; while I have no illusion that it will keep the deer out of our yard, it should keep the dogs in. Now, a few days later I already notice that we spend more time outside than before. Part of the reason is that the dogs can finally spend more time with us in the yard. Before fence we felt guilty being out there without them, the dogs were either whining at the door wanting to join us, or we had them out with us on the long leash and then they would wrap themselves around out seats, our legs or a plant, prompting us to get up and save them. Now they can just roam and play. They play like crazy and pass out in the evenings.

My time outside is divided between working on my bonsai (looking, watering, and shaping), weeding, odds and ends, and just sitting. First, I needed to reorganize my bonsai area or what we call our Bonsai Zone, a term that I stole from Nigel, who has a YouTube channel called the Bonsai Zone. It appeared that part of my “Zone” was actually going to be located outside the fence. I had temporarily moved my tables and now it was time for the final layout trying to maximize sun exposure on my benches.

It was never productive to put plants in our yard. Deer would go for them as soon as they were planted. We finally felt adventurous enough to do some landscaping now we have a fence. I have already shared some of the work we have done in a previous post. We have been trying to add native plants to our landscape, plant that usually get hit hard by deer. The fence may hopefully discourage them from entering and be somewhat protective. However, because of the past, non-maintenance, the garden is overrun with invasive plants. It is now my daily chore to pull out Japanese stilt grass, and ground ivy.

My favorite activity is just sitting somewhere in the yard and observing. As I mentioned earlier, the fence made it much easier since the dogs have free reign now. I already just sat on my behind with friends, with my wife and just alone. We have a screened-in gazebo, and even sitting in it has been great especially in the evenings when the mosquitoes are out. It is better now because the dogs can just roam.

But I enjoy just being on my own, observing and listening to the world around me. I look at the birds, skinks, and just the landscape around me. It seems that every time I sit out and just meditate, I discover something new or different. We just heard the call of the yellow-billed cuckoo. Going back in time we determined that we have at least seen or heard 53 different bird species in or near our yard. Our property is slightly less than half an acre (2000 square meter), and the back yard is half of that. But we try to leave it natural and do not use chemicals there. The rich birdlife is our reward. We want to keep it chemically free as much as possible.

All things considered, we are very happy with the fence and so are our dogs Japer and Radar. It is wrestling mania at least three times a day. They greatly enjoy being out, and so do we. Temperatures are going to approach 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37 Celsius for the rest of the world) this weekend and we’ll haven’t see how it goes. The yard is shady; maybe it will be bearable, but only time will tell; I hope I can still sit out there, meditate and enjoy our garden.

One of the two Buddha statues we have in our yard

Sassafras in the sun

"Zeeee" said the woman (9/24/2018)

“Zeeee, zeeee, zeeee” spoke the woman in a low, somewhat low husky but hushed voice to me. The owner of the restaurant asked me: “Can I buy it from you?” What the heck was going on? Well, let’s start at the beginning.

I was in Blacksburg this week; home of Virginia Tech. I was teaching two different inspector classes and as usual consulted Yelp for a place to go out for dinner. I have found Yelp to be a fairly reliable travel companion when it comes to finding good to sometimes even funky places to eat. Well, when Yelp told me there was a Tibetan restaurant nearby called Himalayan Curry Café that has four and a half stars, this former dweller of the Himalayan Mountains had to go and try it out.

As my regular readers know, my wife and I lived in Nepal for about a year and a half. My job took me up on the Tibetan Plateau of the Mustang district at regular intervals. I have written about my wonderful encounter with a Tibetan scholar/Lama and about my experience getting dehydrated in a snowstorm at 12,000 feet elevation. There are many more stories I can tell from being up there. I sometimes feel that his blog is turning out to become somewhat of my personal memoire, combined with observations of current events and some of the more natural things around us.

Getting back to the story. When I got to the restaurant, it was obvious a place for a university crowd. A cut above one of those take-out Chinese restaurants that your see in every strip mall, but less than a regular Indian restaurant. You either get takeout, or they end up serving your food on styrofoam plates and you eat it with plastic utensils. To me, the menu looked very Indian; however, in fine-print on the side were some Tibetan dishes which immediately caught my attention. I ordered momos, a dish of Tibetan steamed dumplings; lentil soup; and a samosa (yes that was Indian). While paying, I asked the proprietor if he was from Nepal. “No” he answered, “we are from Tibet.” We made a little additional small talk and that was it. 

With the lentil soup finished it was time to attack the momos.  The black sauce is a hot chili sauce which is very good.

All dishes were out-of-this-world delish (later, I rated the restaurant a five star on Yelp). The momos were filled with beef, in Mustang mine were filled with Yak meat or mutton, but boy did I recognize the taste. Tibetans are Buddhist and they will eat beef (or cows) unlike the Hindus, for whom the cows are considered holy. I remember so well being with the Buddhist population and Tibetan ethnic groups in Nepal; they are so very different than the Hindu population of the lowlands. One of the more interesting memories is that of sleeping with an entire family unit in their home during a very cold evening. I was taking a visiting scientist around the districts I was working in. Everyone on mats on the floor, of course, with their head towards a central fire. In the beginning I was somewhat distrustful, but that was completely baseless. When we woke up in the morning, the first thing that happened was the passing around of a cup of warmed up peach brandy. This brandy was distilled at an agricultural experiment station nearby. After that the lady house started making the famous butter tea, made from tea leaves, yak butter, boiling water and salt (an acquired taste for sure). Memories of a night and early morning I will always carry with me. 

The one time we visited the area we landed smack in the middle of a Buddhist ceremony.  Here monks are tooting their long horns in a procession.

Another picture of the ceremony male and female monks in the ceremony while the villagers are looking on.

But I digress again. After finishing my dinner, it was time to leave and I walked over to the trash bins to deposit my dirty plates and dinnerware. In the meantime, a Tibetan couple had come in and sat down in the far corner and the owner of the restaurant had joined them and they were talking. I waved at them and the owner asked me if I enjoyed my food. I told him I did and decided to walk over and show them the ring I bought from a Tibetan gentleman when I was in Nepal some 35 years ago and that I wear on my right hand. The instance the lady of the couple saw my ring she hissed those words to me: “Zeeee, zeeee, zeeee.” We knew the stone in the ring was a Z-stone, but her reaction was amazing, and it was the first time I had an independent confirmation. 

Here it is, the ring I wear every day with the Z-stone.

The lady continued: “That is a precious stone.” This was where the restaurant owner asked me if he could buy the ring from me. The lady’s husband chimed in telling me that a Z-stone gives the wearer power and the bigger the stone the more power it has. According to the owner, the power flows from the shoulder to the hand and goes “pow.” It seemed none of them had a Z-stone and it is very desirable in their culture, because it gives you power and fends off evil. We talked a bit more about things. It seems that I met all the Tibetans in Blacksburg that evening; a fun, interesting and delicious evening indeed. A wonderful throw back to a time 35 years ago, but still fresh in my memory.

Some of the things you can only remember when you travel.  To quote Mohammed: "Don't tell me how educated you are, tell me how much you traveled."

Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet (3/7/2017)

The Buddhist philosopher/scholar/Zen-master Thich Nhat Hanh wrote in his book “Peace is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life”: 

“Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.”   

That is what I try to do when I walk in the woods behind our house.  I just love to linger, look around and be mindful.  At times I enjoy the blue sky, look at the clouds, or how the sunlight plays with the bark on the trees.  Other days it may drizzle or it may be misty.  You often hear birds, sometimes there are swans in the ponds, sometimes you hear them flying over, and often you see deer darting off the path especially early in the morning or around dusk; no day is the same.  When I can, I will do it: I let my feet, eyes and senses kiss the earth.

I took this picture during our most recent walk in the woods behind our home.  I ventured of the regular path to  look at this pond and liked how the trees lined up.  When I arrived home, Google had somehow enhanced the photograph into what you see here, and actually I liked it and want to share it with you all.

Thich Nhat Hanh is also reported to have said: 

“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child -- our own two eyes. All is a miracle.”

Recognizing that miracle, savoring it, and protecting it is so important for us and that curious child and all future children.  I would like to add that we need to live as if we are kissing the Earth with our souls.  

Naturally there are days that I or we cannot linger and enjoy our walk as we should.  We are on a mission, we have to walk the dogs and then go to work, go to church, run errands, or go do something.  Let’s walk to the pond, the green woods, the "cookie tree" (that is the tree where the dogs always get a treat in the hope that when they get lost in the woods that they will return to), or the road we tell each other.  We may even put the dogs on a leash so they don’t doddle.

Sometimes those days can be frustrating, the dogs did not cooperate.  They ran through the mud or went swimming; they were sniffing too long and we were in a hurry, you name it.  Other times, even though we were in a hurry, you come back recharged; you saw something in the woods, you experienced something, or there was something intangible that flipped that switch that made you feel good (anyway).

But the other thing can sometimes happen also: a well-intended walk gone bad!  We had a few.  Recently one of our dogs disappeared.  We split up and spend a frantic hour looking for him, to be called by someone that they had found him and were at our home to drop him off.  This weekend we came upon a place where someone had been illegally cutting firewood in the woods behind our homes.  Instead of ignoring it and continuing our walk, the firewood hoarders we are, we stole two good looking pieces of wood that had been split and carried them home.  All the sudden our mindful walk in the woods became work and heavy lifting in the woods and much less enjoyable.  Gone was the meditation.  On top of that our deaf beagle all the sudden seemed to lose sight of us and did not know where we were and my wife had to chase her down.  There went our nice enjoyable meditative walk kissing the earth with our senses, out of the window.

In his book “Being Peace” Thich Nhat Hanh writes:  

“An oak tree is an oak tree. That is all it has to do. If an oak tree is less than an oak tree, then we are all in trouble.”

Those two pieces of wood were oak and we are happy that they are.  They are heavy and will heat our home for an hour, even though it interrupted our more mindful walk.

This is what I have been thinking and writing about lately: "Forest Bathing" and "Nature Deficit Disorder".  It is so important to spend time in and with nature; whether it is walking in the woods, working in your garden, attending your potted plants (or bonsais in my case), or just standing there, staring at a tree.  It heals, lowers the blood pressure and is good for you.  Go outside, enjoy nature and fight to preserve it for you and future generations!

My past travels in Nepal, weather extremes past and present (I) (1/12/2017)

It has been a crazy weather week (again) this first full week of the New Year.  For us in Yorktown it was somewhere around 11 inches (28 cm), with even snow in Alabama and floods in drought stricken California.  The year has barely started and the weather extremes are raising their ugly heads already, a sign that the climate is changing.

This is what the ponds behind our home looked like during the middle of the storm that dropped 11 inches of snow in our area.  It was actually great to go out for a hike

I saw an article that a climate change skeptic posted on LinkedIn (this is my LinkedIn profile) the other day where a researcher claimed that the temperature had actually gone down 0.3 degrees in the past 1000 years.  It is like anyone can measure that with any tools or any precision, or that we had a tool 1000 years ago to measure the temperature.  However, the skeptics are using it as proof; they don’t want to see what has happened in the last 100 years.  But let’s make sure that we confirm a climate change denier (or skeptic) to head the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for the next four years and let the environment go to hell.  Oh well, I better get of my soap box.

In their 2017 report, the World Economic Forum reports that one of the most likely risks with the most severest impacts on society will be extreme weather events (top right corner).
We know that climate change is the cause of those extreme events.
Interestingly enough those extreme events can be linked to many of the other threats on this graph.

The weather brought me thoughts back to our time in Nepal (I have written at least two more posts where I mention Nepal).  I worked there from late 1981 to late spring on 1983.  I worked in natural resources management in three districts (provinces) that ranged from the lowlands (in Myagdi) to the highlands behind the main mountain range on the Tibetan plateau (in Mustang).  The other district I worked in was Gorkha, the district that was the epicenter of the recent earthquake and the home area of the famous Gurkha soldiers.  This week’s weather brought back all the weather extremes we encountered while living there.

I was working with some yack and sheep herders in the highlands above Muktinath in the Mustang district.  Muktinath is a sacred place and an important pilgrimage site for Hindus and Buddhist alike.  The elevation of Muktinath is 12,170 feet (3710 meters), and I had been working in the pastures around 14,000 to 16,000 feet (4,200 to 4,800 meters), which was challenging in itself.  Getting back to the hotel (a hut with a common sleeping area) where I was staying that evening, I had one of the most mystical times of my life.  Three Buddhist monks were holding a meditation/prayer ceremony in the main room that I was able to watch.  They were chanting … Ohm … reciting sacred scripts in Sanskrit, spinning the praying wheels ringing bells, burning butter, it was amazing.  I was just sitting there sipping Tibetan tea and taking it all in.  It touched me deep inside.

I took a photo of this guy (obviously Tibetan stock) during one of my hikes to Muktinath.  He was sitting on the side of the trail, selling trinkets to tourists who were hiking up to the temples.  I had a wonderful talk with him.  That was the advantage of living and working there, I spoke the language and could communicate with the people in their language.

The next morning though we woke up to an unexpected snow storm.  There was at least 4 inches (10 cm) on the ground already and it was a complete whiteout.  My guide recommended that we get off the mountain and back to Jomsom (at approximately 9000 feet elevation or 2700 meters) as quickly as possible before everything became unpassable and we would be stuck up there for who knew how long.  In those days there was no vehicular travel in these areas and everything was done by foot, so here we set off in a snow storm on a 4 to 5 hour hike down the mountain in heavy snow.  I vividly remember the hike back; it was sometimes difficult to see the trail, but nothing really seriously happened during the trip, but if you have ever hiked in deep snow, into strong wind and heavy snow fall, you would know.  Once back in Jomsom; however, I was literally exhausted, I could hardly move, had a headache, and I could not understand why.  Finally, in the evening it dawned on me that I had never peed (urinated) that day; while hiking makes me thirsty, hiking in the snow storm didn’t, and I did not drink much or any water that day.  Together with hiking in heavy snow, the dehydration and elevation were playing tricks with me and I was in danger of dehydration, and that could set of altitude sickness, or maybe I already had a mild case of it.

That evening in the hotel I just swigged water like crazy and enjoyed the Bollywood movie they were showing in the hotel.  The movie was a rare treat, but me and a bunch of tourists were stuck, snowed in for a day or so until the weather lifted and I could fly out.

On an earlier trip I had met Tsampa Ngawang a Tibetan scholar sitting next to me.  Tsampa and a guy named Pasang Sherpa (who I met later) had joined the famous anthropologist/religious scholar David Snellgrove on his treks and studies through Nepal.  Tsampa and I often spoke about those trips and about Tsampa's interests.  This photo was taken when I took my wife (and dogs) to Mustang and we visited Tsampa and his wife at their home up in the highlands (a remote village in the back of the Annapurna at around 10 or 11,000 feet).  We still own prayer flags, the printing block that Tsampa carved to print them and a publication that he wrote.  Also shown in the picture is their young child and our "guard" (the project insisted we had a Gurkha guard) Bim Bahadhur.

This episode taught me a valuable lesson: you can even get dehydrated in a snow storm!  Next time I'll write about how we were impacted by the monsoon in Nepal, by flash floods and landslides.

Nothing is permanent (7/25/2016)

Buddhism teaches us that nothing in this world is permanent and I was so strongly reminded of that a week or so ago during our visit to Pittsburgh, PA that I have to dedicate this blog post to it.  It had been a while since I visited that city, I spent some time there in the mid and late 1990s for work, but this visit was to say hello to our daughter and to my wife's brother and family.  It was there during our visit that I was reminded of the impermanence of our existence on this planet.

Particularly on day two of our visit when we decided to stroll through the Allegheny Cemetery the final resting place of now more than 124,000 people, visited a few museums and ended it all with a visit to Randyland.

These lovely ladies were most likely models at some plush lady's fashion store; however, even their status was not permanent and they have "fallen from grace" and become a vignette at a roadside attraction called Randyland in Pittsburgh

Call us weird, but it is such a nice, quiet place to walk through a cemetery on a sunny Sunday morning.  Maybe a strange way of expressing my spirituality, but is gives you a nice combination of nature and culture.  But as I mentioned in the beginning of this post, if there is something that reminds you of your impermanence, it is a cemetery.  Naturally, death surrounds you, but even there, people erect all these monuments as "permanent (?)" memories to themselves or to their heirs and relatives.  However, even those monuments slowly erode away, and that was what struck me the most during our visit.  Those monuments were not as permanent a hoped or expected.

This must have been beautiful when first placed.
I assume this was a child's grave with a baby resting
on a pillow.

The writing on this monument is almost completely
eroded away

I wonder who was buried here

Things were often not as they seemed.  

This statue may look intact, but was in 

poor shape when examined from the front  

(below).  But she is from 1859 and had to  

withstand a lot of air pollution and inclement 

weather.

In other places nature was slowly taking over 

as we see below.

This is the front of the statue above

Subsequently, the museums we visited included the Center for PostNatural History; what could be more appropriate after looking at decaying monuments to the death.  PosNatutal History refers to the living, the Center deals with life we humans have created or at least altered using genetic engineering or selective breeding; the way "we have messed with nature." (Normal life is not permenent any longer we can mess with it).  You step into the Center and you are welcomed by a stuffed goat that was genetically engineered to produce protein that makes strands of (very strong) spider-like silk instead of milk from its utters (the Biosteel goat).  Ordinary goats are now no longer permanent, we humans will monkey around with them.

While expensive the "Mattress Factory " fits right in with the idea of impermanence.  It is an interesting place to visit, if you are ready for a different modern art experience.  I am sure that some people will call it a waste of their money, but I truly enjoyed it.  Being an old mattress factory there is an air of impermanence, but also an air of re-purposing and breathing new life into things, and the picture below says it all.  I took this in the museums restaurant.

Outside in a corner of the parking area is an area where it looks like a bunch of old stone statues have been dumped, discarded.  We just enjoyed sitting there and looking at them.  We had no idea if it was intended, but it did give me that feeling of impermanence again.

Back to Buddhism.  It appears that Buddhism recognizes five processes that we humans have no control over (although we desperately are trying to).  These are:

1. Growing old
2. Getting sick
3. Dying
4. The decay of things that are perishable, and
5. The passing away of things that are likely to pass

Don't you love number 5?  It is all encompassing isn't it?  (I borrowed them from this website).  Early Buddhist tell us that nothing in this world is fixed or permanent; "Decay is inherent to all component things" declared the Buddha.

I was so amazed when the Taliban in Afghanistan blew up the Buddhist statues at Bamiyan and how the true Buddhist reacted.  They were so matter of fact about it, like "nothing is permanent."  Nothing at all like my father who got angry when my wife accidentally broke his favorite glass just a few months into our relationship; something my wife still remembers.  Nothing is permanent, I still have to remind myself of that so now and then.

There were other signs or occurrences of (sometimes pending) impermanence on our trip, some of which had to do with human relations some of which were in art or science.  None should be mourned, all should be celebrated and revered.

Roots (2/8/2016)

When I took the photo below of the root my wife told me that it would make a great entry in my next nature blog/journal.  Her comment did not leave the back of my mind for a long time now; it has been more than a week since I took this picture.  It is like planting a seed in one’s mind and watching it germinate and take root (pardon the pun).

This picture was taken in Newport News Park showing an old road cut and how the tree is rooted into the soil (photo take 1/31/2016).

I was at a loss what to write about, except for showing this picture, but then while listening to a program on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD on Satellite Radio it all the sudden struck me: what we are now is all rooted on past experiences and we feed on it, whether we like it or not.  Buddha tells us:

“Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment,” 

but it is so damn hard to follow.  If you are like me, it is so difficult to live in the moment sometimes, my mind is all over the place.  (So sorry guys no nature blog while talking about roots)

Listening to that program on PTSD, reminds me of a dear friend who served in Iraq and suffers from PTSD.  I witnessed one of his flashbacks and it was terrible to see a strong grown man have these.  Another acquaintance of mine who served in Afghanistan told me he has them too.  Their current lives are rooted in those past experiences, it has changed them and it’s difficult to escape at times.  My father had them his entire life, after spending time in Hitler's camps.  Interestingly, the doctors were discussing that there are indications that they can now detect PTSD in the tone of voice of PTSD sufferers and maybe even in the content of their saliva. 

Listening to the program, I was immediately taken back to my first experiences in Uganda in 1978, and I was wondering if I am (or my wife and I are) psychologically shaped the way I am (we are) by the events I (we) went through back then, just like the doctors were discussing on the radio.  I know my wife and I had PTSD after we were liberated in May 1979; the strange sound of a toilet flushing sent my wife under the table the first time she heard it, thinking we were being bombed or being shot at.

But even now, just listening to the discussion on the radio gave me flashbacks to that time 37 and 38 years ago.  Suffice it to say, I should have been killed but I escaped getting killed probably four times.  I also still feel guilty for not preventing a young boy from getting killed by an angry mob two days after we arrived in the country.  It’s all too gruesome to describe, but if you like me to, let me know and I can blog about it, one day.

It all came rushing back to me, again.  I wonder if the tone of my voice and my saliva are different from what it would have been if I had not experienced it, or my elevated blood pressure is caused by it or my migraines are partially the result of it.  So yes, I am rooted in the past, and I know I should not dwell on it just as Buddha says, but concentrate on the present and maybe prepare for the future.

Downtown Richmond, the roots of this old tree have expanded so much that they are growing over the curb and the sidewalk.  It makes you wonder what they can find there.  I am always amazed by the tenacity of some of these trees.  Looks like someone is trying to feed the tree some Red Bull, I hate people who liter (photo taken 2/9/2016).