Be Where You Are, Philly Edition

 

As you walk and eat and travel, be where you are. Otherwise you will miss most of your life.

Fake Buddha

(actually from Jack Kornfield, Buddha’s Little Instruction Book)

The past keeps knock knock knockin’ on my door

And I don’t want to hear it any more...

Lou Reed

The  greatest events—are not our noisiest, but our stillest hours.

Nietszsche

...been feelin’ discontented with the city again....even this morning and afternoon, sittin’ reading a really interesting book I just got yesterday by Karl Ove Knausgaard with coffee and a smoothie...happy, for the most part, with that...but wishing I could be doing it in a little shack with big windows on an autumnal ridge, or by the ocean...any ocean....got to one place, then, where the author talks about art, specifically Rembrandt, his brushstrokes and themes....with no pictures in the book, really wanted to look at a Rembrandt, myself, try to see what he was describing....not even thinking about Googling for some pixelated reproduction of a photograph of a painting, decided to get on my bike and ride over to the Philadelphia Museum of Art to see a real one....and, on the way there, thought: yeah, there really are some cool things about living in the big city...

 

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*top image: Head of Christ, Rembrandt van Rijn, Philadelphia Museum of Art*

With Blasphemy So Heartfelt

Sexy Sadie, what have you done?
You made a fool of everyone
You made a fool of everyone
John Lennon

...so...now that the yoga cynic is a totally professional officially responsible certifiably spiritual liability-insured kinda yoga teacher with an actual weekly Yin class...Sunday nights, 7:00-8:15, mere blocks from Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, just across the river from the grave of America's preeminent yogi who probably didn't know he was one, Walt Whitman...that even, purportedly, involves getting paid...hopefully enough to cover said insurance...I might have to start talkin' like one....no more o' that snarky irreverence...in the words of the Buddha...if I remember what was quoted on Facebook correctly...say nothing that wouldn't look nice superimposed on a pleasant photo of the sun setting over a tropical beach on a motivational poster...

Everybody's just a little bit homosexual,

 whether they like it or not.

Allen Ginsberg

...on the other hand, just went to see this singer named Jessica Lea Mayfield...whose songs are kinda like country music that's really noisy and dirty and bad for you....she has an album called With Blasphemy So Heartfelt...and it occurred to me that, while I respect that some of my views are offensive to many people's deeply held beliefs, and, therefore, generally (though, admittedly, not always) try not to shove said views in said people's faces, I think it's not said enough that the offended might consider respecting that those views they consider so blasphemous may be every bit as deeply held by me....that the pious have no monopoly on depth of feeling...

Everyone is in favor of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people’s idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone else says anything back, that is an outrage.
Winston Churchill

...most liberal-minded spiritual types, including most western yogis I know, tend toward some form of universalism...seeking to embrace all beliefs with the notion that, ultimately, all boil down to the same thing...having something vaguely to do with love, oneness, and/or mystery...and, don't get me wrong, I find that a very lovely, compassionate, genuinely peace-seeking way of looking at things...even if, logically, it's kinda seems to me like looking at a God Hates Fags sign and saying well, if you just ignore the "hates fags" part....

By not holding to fixed views,
The pure-hearted one, having clarity of vision,
Being freed from all sense desires,
Is not born again into this world.
Shakyamuni, the (mythic/historical, as opposed to Facebook) Buddha

...the question, it seems to me, is whether it's possible to see difference and neither recoil from it nor try to reason it away....what if they really don't think and feel deep in their hearts the way we do?...does deep difference necessarily imply hierarchies of superior and inferior, require walls to be built, judgments made,  rocks to be thrown, offense to be taken?...could it be that these vast gaps in understanding are signs of an uncertainty deeper than anything we might think we know, believe or hold sacred?...couldn't we, in the immortal words of the Au Pairs, truly be equal but different?...

Not in any danger of realizing full enlightenment any time soon...

...such a drag to want something sometimes, one thing leads to another I know, sang Chrissie Hynde...distilling the first two noble truths of the Buddha, along with the law of causation, into one bouncy rock n' roll nugget....suffering caused by self-centered desire spiraling into only more desire and, hence, more suffering....I know all this shit, really...even if it doesn't seem to be doing me much good, at the moment...

...I'm as much a chemical hybrid as any GMO...hate to see my weight on the doctor's scale, and wouldn't want it anywhere near scales of justice...any tribe I'd be a member of is quite certainly lost, and yet my neuroses have their own zip codes and Wikipedia entries...so much water, but no place to piss...

...had a dream I was back in high school, and also back to teaching college...but refusing to leave the breakfast table, seeing no point in trying to learn or teach anything....even more miserable upon actually waking....by early afternoon decided to blow off both yoga class and the meditation sangha, do anything that absolutely had to be done, then get in the car, drive across the Walt Whitman Bridge...Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms, Strong and content I travel the open road...to the Jersey side, not stopping 'til the ocean...Surf City...[cue Beach Boys, Springsteen, Miley Cyrus, whatever the hell you like...]...just to get some sand between the toes...

...there's a lot to be said for some sand between the toes...

More Than Two Months Since The Last Yoga For Cynics Post

...more than two months since the last Yoga for Cynics post...can there be any more dire evidence of the decline and fall of blogging?...maybe...more likely, it’s just a reflection of my mental state...and what is a blog, at its best, but a mirror?...

...a brief listing of blog posts you may have missed since they never got written would have to include: I’m Miserable, Still Miserable, Totally Miserable, Oh God Am I Miserable, and I’m Gonna Try to Get All Sophisticated and Spiritual and Discuss My Misery in Terms of Samsara and the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths....in other words, ya haven’t missed much...(though there have been a few really, really insightful, interesting, and amusing Elephant Journal articles...with complete sentences, and everything)...

...things are improving, now, as the feverish ozone of the hottest summer ever gives way to the light chilly breezes of fall, and I’m packing boxes, getting ready to move the cynically yogic base of operations from the somewhat isolated sylvan hills of Mt. Airy, State of Perpetual Mellowness, U.S.A. to the more urban and connected, yet still somewhat sylvan, streets of West Philly, State of Semi-Intellectual, Semi-Grungy Samadhi, U.S.A....packing a few boxes but, mostly, throwing stuff out...

...if there’s one lesson I’ve learned lately, it’s that there’s an awful lot that needs to be thrown out...and I’m working on it...

The Interweb Quote of the Year!!!

One thing this blog’s kinda been known for is the quotations peppered through its posts...often making its original writing pale in comparison, but, then, so it goes...(Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five). Of course, in this, it's taking part in that greatest of postmodern practices, which has flowered so fully on the interwebs: using other people's stuff for lack of anything original to express. So, in honor of all that, the staff here would like to share the first (and probably last) annual Yoga for Cynics Interweb Quotation of the Year!

Certainly, in the year 2011, nothing else came close to the profundity, timeliness, or sheer ubiquity of:

Something I never actually said.
The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr.

Thank you, thank you.

Runners Up include:

The timeless:

Something kinda new-agey I certainly didn’t say, and that probably wouldn’t really fit with my philosophy or beliefs, either...
Rumi, the Buddha, and/or Albert Einstein

And more topical:

Something I did say, but taken so far out of context that it seems to mean the complete opposite of what it meant in-context.
Barack Obama

And, finally, who could forget:

Of course we’re going to riot....What do they expect when they tell us at 10 o’clock that they fired our football coach?
Student, Penn State, November 9, 2011

Happy new year, folks...

The Limits of Good Behavior

...recently banned myself, for the second time, from one of those social networking sites...also known as virtual communities...frequented by bloggers...renowned for controversy, arguments, ad hominem attacks, general rudeness, underhandedness, melodramatic exits, passive aggression, not-so-passive aggression, not-at-all-passive aggression, cyber-bullying, trolling, political, religious, and ironic extremism, behavior that could be seen as indicative of anti-social disorders, ordinary madness, extraordinary madness, Tourette’s syndrome, and/or extreme boredom...and for people getting banned by the management...tending, ironically enough, to cause only more of the above...

...banning myself, however, causes none of that...which is the point...

...generally speaking I’m with Rodney King...and the Buddha...and Karen Carpenter...and others whose names I can’t think of at the moment...though I'm almost positive they exist...in thinking it’s a good idea to try and get along with people...practice loving kindness...radiate compassion for all beings...namaste, and all that warm huggy shit....trouble is, I’m not always particularly good at it...particularly when people piss me off...by, for instance, writing self-righteous crap that’s so stupid and offensive that their despicable lack of loving kindness and compassion and open accepting yogic attitude makes me wanna smack ‘em upside the...you get the idea...

...thus, while transcending bad behavior to be a Floating Glowing Being of Pure Love remains the long-term goal, it occurs to me that, sometimes, acknowledging limitations and removing myself from the situation might be a more prudent course...particularly when it comes the impulse, in certain circumstances, when sorely provoked...usually...to act like a dick...

...which, to further complicate things, I tend to be good at...as becomes clear when, giving heartfelt, highly penitent confessions to close friends about shameful incidents from the past in which I playfully messed with people’s heads in horrible, sadistic ways, I’m rewarded with uproarious laughter and compliments on my clever, sharp-as-the-head-of-a-pin-no-self-respecting-angel-would-be-caught-dead-dancing-on wit...

...then, on the other hand...last week, I was dogsitting...enthusiastic greetings, happy walks, warm companionship...it’s all good...except, one day, my doggie friend had some...ahem...gastro-intestinal problems...and, to make matters worse, I slept in...finally wandering out to see her not, as per usual, enthusiastically stretching for her morning walk in a truly authentic downward facing dog pose, but lying on her doggie cushion with a very sheepish doggie look on her face....see, the thing about this particular doggie friend is that she behaves notoriously well...where the typical domestic canine will whine loudly, bark even more loudly, scratch at the bedroom door, and whine and bark and scratch some more until the resident human, unable to remain sleeping or anything else, gets up to let her out, this fully realized Adorable Furry Being of Pure Sweetness is so well behaved that she suffers in silence ’til she can take no more and quietly tromps down the stairs to crap on the basement carpet...demonstrating, I think, that even good behavior has its limits...

The Only Kind of Spirituality I Have Any Interest In...

...so...as has been reflected here...I’ve been doing a lot of yoga...and a lot of meditation...and reading a lot about mindfulness...and have been writing about it...which might, in the eyes of some, make me a really spiritual dude...

...anyway, tonight, I went out and got really, really trashed...obnoxiously so, in fact...which, to some, might seem a bit of a contradiction...in fact, I’ve been known to see things that way, myself...walk the walk if you’re gonna talk the talk, as they say...

...truth be told, though, I really never meant to indicate that I’m into into any of this yoga or meditation or mindfulness shit because I’m any more spiritual or peaceful than anyone else....to the contrary it’s because I’m just as...if not more...fucked up as you are...

...and ultimately, this is the only kind of spirituality I have any interest in...the kind that says we’re all struggling...you, me, and the Dalai Lama...and we’re all trying, and we’re all worthy of compassion even as we fuck up...and no matter how many times we fuck up...and that, ultimately, that’s what that namaste thing people say at the end of yoga classes means...in addition to indicating that you can roll up your mat and go home...that we’re all worthy...that anybody’s as holy or sacred as anybody else...no matter what...no exceptions...whatever we believe in...or don’t...and however we might behave at any given time...

...and, with that, namaste to all...

*thanks to my blogger artist friend Ed T. gave me permission to use that Buddha image up there a long time ago*

25 Ways of Looking at Facebook

1. I got tagged on Facebook for one of these 25 things about me things.
2. I’ve decided to kill two birds with one stone by making it a blog post.
3. I don’t actually approve of the expression “kill two birds with one stone.”
4. I consider throwing rocks at birds to be cruel.
5. Nonetheless, I suspect it must take impressive skill and perseverance to kill two with one.
6. I once read a quote: “one does not talk to the skilled hunter of that which is forbidden by the Buddha.”
7. I don’t really know what that means, and am probably misquoting it, anyway.
8. “Kill two birds with one stone” is not the only common expression I have problems with.
9. Recently, someone gave me something and then took it back, and I told her I’d call her a non-racist equivalent of “Indian giver” as soon as I could think of one.
10. I haven’t come up with a good one and, anyway, the moment has passed, so I’m not trying very hard.
11. People I never expected to hear from again keep contacting me through the Facebook thing.

12. That's cool.
13. For the most part, though, we only seem to be reconnecting through comments like “I liked that Narnia thing much better before I understood the symbolism,” or “Battlestar Galactica’s cool, but I’m paranoid enough as it is.”
14. One exception would be my friend Joyce, who I worked with at Greenpeace a long time ago, and recently met for Mexican food—which was nice, but we haven’t talked since.
15. I was the worst canvasser ever.
16. I also keep getting friend requests from people I used to know but didn’t particularly like.
17. I'm positive they didn’t like me, either.
18. I’m wondering how long it’s gonna be before I get a friend request from somebody who beat me up in seventh grade.
19. I’ve run out of things to say about Facebook.
20. When I was a kid, we had these gerbils named Ralph and Rachel that lived in one of those plastic gerbil contraptions.
21. When they were in heat...or one of them was in heat...we had shocking displays of sexual violence in our kitchen at all hours.
22. When they had babies, we took them to the pet store, thinking other little kids would get to take them home as pets.
23. The pet store employees were happy to take them off our hands.
24. They fed them to snakes.
25. But that’s still better than throwing rocks at birds.

Angst! What Is It Good For?!

As the Buddha said, “All human beings are quite deluded.” The line between the staff and patients is sometimes frighteningly thin....It’s only a matter of degree.
Stephen Cope

Should I pursue a path so twisted?
Patti Smith

I’ve gone through a lot of these incredibly emotionally volatile periods (don’t worry—I’m not going through one right now)–generally when I’ve been getting really deeply into yoga, or therapy, or otherwise simply digging into those messy places inside my head on my own–which at times have led to strained relations, generally erratic behavior, and remarkably poor performance at anything practical I was trying to do at the time. So, for the most part, it’s not very pleasant, and I want it to end as soon as possible, but, at the same time, realize that, if I can navigate my way through the chaos I’ve unleashed and follow it to its source, there are amazing opportunities for change and growth…..

...from a depressed point of view, any situation and any life will look like crap. Not that I’m gonna throw any positive affirmations at you–if there’s one kinda situation that makes me depressed it’s when desperate positivity freaks start throwing positive affirmations at me....probably the most vile book ever written is the 120 Days of Sodom by the Marquis De Sade...it’s about these four libertines who...you really don’t wanna know...but it’s an important book, I think...even though I couldn’t get through more than a hundred pages...and even that was enough to seriously screw with me....I was walking down the sidewalk in Rochester NY and had these unspeakable images stuck in my head...believe me, you don’t wanna know....there was a movie based on it called Salo, directed by Pasolini, best known for a movie about Jesus...which has been called unwatchable...though a guy I knew in grad. school loved it...along with a lot of other things...but it’s seriously tame compared to the book...which maps out those dark places Conrad hinted at like nothing before or since...

he feels that moving into the areas of society that he had rejected is the same as working with the parts of himself that he had rejected.
Pema Chodron (describing a Zen teacher named Bernard Glassman who works with the homeless)

So... what’s all this angst and mental distress good for? I have this extremely part time gig tutoring recovering addicts in reading, most of them from the kinds of backgrounds the nasty old Marquis would’ve taken way too much pleasure in writing about...and, a couple years ago, was a volunteer teaching college writing in a maximum security prison and publishing a now-defunct web-based magazine written and edited by those prisoners....I was there through the auspices of Cornell University, where I taught freshman writing for a year—for a while, I was teaching Ivy League kids in the afternoon, and men doing hard time for violent felonies in the evening...and man, did I prefer that second group....so, having done a lot of self-evaluation in the past year and a half or so, I’ve decided to expand my work with these populations, in terms of both quantity and depth, and am looking into getting the training and credentials necessary to use writing as therapy with them....I’m told that my interest in addicts, prisoners, and the dispossessed in general will be an advantage, in pragmatic terms, since they’re precisely the people most counselors and social workers try to get away from as soon as possible, preferring to work with middle class neurotics from the suburbs...not that I have anything against middle class neurotics from the suburbs...I mean I am one...and I have a lot of experience in the field of psychotherapy...even if it’s all been on the other side of the desk....

...and it's taught me that there are basically two kinds of therapists: (1) those who see themselves as residing on a lofty plateau of pristine normalcy and mental health, and are prepared to help their clients to be just like them, and (2) those who aren’t complete assholes....

Same Crap, Way Better Package

so...ummm...welcome to the ****NEW & IMPROVED**** Yoga for Cynics....as you can see, it has a cool, attractive new header and footer with Sanskritish letters & everything...and no longer looks exactly like a whole bunch of other blogs with the same standard template...and that’s not even mentioning the ****NEW & IMPROVED CONTENT****, including: navel gazing, self-indulgent rambling, pretentious literary references, general incoherence, Lou Reed quotes with no apparent connection to anything...

aw just like Sister Ray said....
Lou Reed

...okay, so it’s the same crap as before...nonetheless, for huge improvements...no thanks to me...in presentation, I wanna offer a million thanks to my most excellent blogger friend Svasti...to whom I’ve promised a percentage of the profits from this site for her inspired work....in other words, she was kind and generous enough to do it for free...so you should go visit her blog...seriously...I’ll wait

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You back? I also wanna thank another cool blogger, Ed T., for the trippy Buddha above (which he calls a derivative work, which sounds like an insult, but apparently isn’t), which didn't make it into the header, but I like it a lot, anyway, and appreciate his letting me using it. Oh, and also thanks to Kim, who gave me a blog award a while ago which I was enough of an ingrate to forget about...and, while I’m at it, I really should thank all you people who read this blog...which is approaching its half-year anniversary (as it started just before the summer solstice, and we’re almost to the winter solstice, so ain't I in tune with...something)...so, thanks, y’all....gratitude, people, that’s what this post is about...not, as might appear, pure self-indulgence...yes, an honest to goodness positive yogic value on display right here...namasfuckingte 'til next time, folks....

Something the Buddha Never Said....

Suffering exists...particularly when you've biked 175 miles over the weekend....