I Steal Fire (Sunday cont.)

I bowed later in the day yesterday (Wednesday) and into the night because I was out under the Full Moon almost all night Tuesday. I will keep this more nocturnal schedule today as well for various reasons, including minimizing my sunburn.

My attempt to penetrate the Secret Female Place was ultimately successful, but these things always come at a cost we don't anticipate in the heat of love. You probably don't want to hear about the costs, though. You want all the steamy details and you may get them, but all in good time, and I get ahead of myself. Back to Sunday, The Lord's Day.

Some may ask how I rent the veil of the Temple, but that comes later. First I had to steal Fire.

After a cycle of prostrations in the Plaza, I went to light candles for my St. Anthony's Dining Room donors at St. Boniface, an amazing old Franciscan church, and the quietest place in the Tenderloin. I used to go and meditate there when I was young and lived nearby. I have always been fond of a certain statue of La Virgen de Guadalupe. In fact, when I did take refuge with Lama Lodro and attended my first empowerment in Tara practice, I stopped by and paid my respects to her and more or less asked for her blessing. (I got it. She is not controlled by the official Church, as near as I can tell.)

La Virgen is poised at the opening of a secluded alcove which is usually empty and, if you can handle the cold hard floor, is perfect for a set of prostrations. A few prayerful devotees have come across me doing prostrations there. No one has ever batted an eye. I finished a set and went to study the candle situation.

Obviously economic hardship has hit the devotional life here. In the old days there would be a donation box and a bunch of candles to light on the honor system. Apparently that had put the church in the red. There were now just a few candles already lit. I would have gladly made a donation but I couldn't see any way to get more candles. There was a Mass in Tagolog going on in the Church, so I didn't want to go disturb anybody about it. I just knelt and practiced Mantra and then silence.

I always feel power at such places, not so much because of the official religion involved but because you can feel the depth of the people who have been there with their problems and joys in prayer. It seems to me that to some degree all official religion runs by harnessing the power in ordinary people in a manner similar to the way an energy company runs by harnessing the universal power of fire.

I knew what I had to do. Since I could not light a candle I would steal the Fire in the candles there and take it out into the Tenderloin. I took one of the bamboo sticks they use to light candles and dipped it in the wax. I lit it and walked out with my little blazing torch right past the Mass. No one noticed me.

I was amazed by how long my torch burned even out in the brisk breeze, but eventually the flame went out and I watched the smoke disappear into the Tenderloin sky. I buried my charred stick in a tiny plot of weeds. I felt refreshed and I knew it would be a good day.

I walked through the Oxycontin and Heroin dealers who always proffer their wares right on the corner by an HIV Clinic and Resource Center at Leavenworth and Golden Gate (A couple blocks away they call out "lightning" which is new to me but I think is probably speed in these parts now. It used to be "water.")

I turn down toward the Plaza. At the bottom of the hill at Leavenworth and McAllister a thin weak, but clean looking black woman in a wheel chair asked me for help getting her up to the top of the hill. She looked like she had seen better times and I could see her in church or at a club meeting with a hat and a dignified gaze. She said she had eaten at a free food place and was sick. (Not St. Anthony's. I asked.) When I said I would help her, she got teary, pulled me closer and kissed me very sweetly on the cheek. I pushed her to the top of the hill and gave her some money on the way up where no one could see us.

I asked her name. “Regina,” she said. “But you can call me 'Genie'. Don't you think 'Genie' s a nicer name?”

I told her, “I like Regina because it means 'Queen' but I like Genie because you are probably magic.” She laughed weakly but sincerely. When we got to the top of the hill she went on her own, but she asked, “How can I ever repay you?” I said, “My name is John. You can pray 'go John!' and pray for yourself too.” She said she would and that seemed to make her feel better.

Off she went into the hard Tenderloin, my act of kindness disappearing like the smoke from my stolen Fire.

I went back to UN Plaza and retrieved my cardboard. A security guard spotted me and approached menacingly. I walked up to him with my cardboard and explained the situation. My name is John and I do prostrations...

He became very serious and threatening. I was storing and retrieving my cardboard prostration mat on Federal Property. Here I confess I performed the only act of meanness on my whole retreat and I confess it to you, Dear Readers, as a sin most grievous: I laughed in his face. I really do feel bad about this and at that moment the Veil of the Temple was drawn—or rather slammed shut, more like steel than linen.

As it happens when I did alternative theater in San Francisco with my genius wife and Teacher at the time, I supported myself as a legal assistant and have prepared many cases for trial at the Federal Court nearby. The thought of entering that august chamber to talk about my cardboard seemed entirely entertaining at the moment, but I did harbor hostility to that guard and relished showing him how powerless he really was. In fact he looked very upset and hurt like he was going to cry. He was just doing his job, if perhaps with a bit less humor than necessary.

I went and did prostrations, upset that I had been so mean. John makes a pathetic stand for the people and his precious cardboard. What a joke.

It's a good thing that when you sing the Mani, it doesn't matter who or how mean you are. The Lord of Love doesn't make distinctions and doing prostrations while singing OM MANI PADME HUNG freeform using a beautiful tune that I heard sung by Lama Lodro (but have no doubt butchered since) is a lot easier than doing them synchronized to my refuge and bodhicitta prayer. I was having my ups and downs, but they were feeling pretty good.

It seemed that the guard and the heroin dealers and I—and even Genie—were all getting a fresh start. It's up to each of us whether we make use of it or not, and life always hurts and death is inevitable anyway, but that fresh start is always there.

I had stolen Fire and was more than living to tell about it. In spite of my having slammed the Veil shut by my meanness to the Guard (or was it because of it) I knew what I had to do to rend the Veil.

But first I had to summon the Protectors.

Love to All,

John O.

Sunday, The Lord's Day

I promised my friend Andrea that Sunday being “the Lord's day” I would ascend to a high place, rend in two the Veil of the Temple and penetrate a Secret Female Place.

 I did ascend to the high place, Grace Cathedral on Nob Hill, which is why I was unable to find net access and post on Sunday. Yesterday (Monday) it rained and I hung out in a dry spot across from the Mark Twain Hotel on Taylor and did prostrations and didn't get to typing then either.

As we shall see, I did also rend the Veil of the Temple. But that Secret Female is playing hard-to-get. I am told there needs to be more romance and foreplay first. (I try to act nonchalant, like this is not news to me.)

Tonight, Tuesday, is the Full Moon and I have high hopes. (I am slacking a bit today and writing more, because I plan to bow and bum my way through this Full Moon downtown tonight.)

But let's go back to Sunday, the Lord's Day.

My biggest concern as I packed yesterday was whether my cardboard prostration mat would be where I stashed it by the dumpster at UN Plaza. I thought about leaving my donations box unpacked, the one with the schizophrenic's candy offering in it, since I only got about thirty-five cents in donations at UN Plaza.. (“This will help,” the schizo said, and it did save me from the Rastafarian's temptation.)

I couldn't do it. In went the donation box and the precious candies. As you will read later, they saved me again.

I walked downtown from the outer Mission by way of Valencia Street. It was there at the corner of 15^th Street across from the Valencia Garden's projects that I met my Guru under unusual circumstances.

I was living near there in the eighties separated from my fiancee while we figured out if we really wanted to get married. After living together for years, we were experimenting with an “open relationship,” which in the way of things was going better for her than for me. She was seeing another fine man who was in love with her, while I was pursuing a young woman who wasn't with me. I was fragile and it hurt, so I did what I always did in those days when things got tough: I got in half lotus, faced a white wall and tried to “just be there” with all the complicated fireworks inside me for hours at a time.

I had just formally taken refuge at Kagyu Droden Kunchab after about ten years of sitting practice, including some fairly intense long retreats in solitude. I was more than intrigued by Lama Lodro's presence, but the formal tradition was confusing me and one of the things I was confused by was my relationship to the Christian tradition.

Like most modern Western dharma practitioners I had an aversion to much of the theology and the moral codes of Christianity, but as a poet I was steeped in Christian symbolism and was trying to work it all out. So I took out my Tarot cards and looked for guidance..

I won't go into the details, but the reading was powerful and I came away feeling like I had made a break-through in understanding. Buddhadharma would be the tradition I practiced in the outer “solar world,” but in the inner “lunar world,” I would study and write poetry as a heretical Christian, like my hero William Blake.

Excited, I left my room to walk and there one block away, on the corner of 15^th and Valencia, was Lama Lodro!

To really appreciate this you must know that at that time this was one of the biggest crack dealing corners in San Francisco, crawling with buyers, dealers and gang bangers; guns, drugs and money. (It has been rebuilt and cleaned up since.) To see this Lama, who had practiced in caves in Tibet, studied with the 16^th Karmapa personally , whose picture touching foreheads with Trungpa Rinpoche was prominently displayed at the center, to see him standing on this corner smiling at me was uncanny. I was speechless, but bowed and said, “Lama.” He clearly would have talked to me, but seeing that I was too shy, he nodded and we passed.

He married me and my fiancee, and I went on retreats with him and had personal interviews and conversations, but I was his worst student ever. I admired some of the people who studied Tibetan and “joined up” so to speak, but it was clear that for me this was not to be.

I never asked him what he was doing there on the crack corner. In the prosaic world of ordinary experience he was just this chubby guy who had a son out of wedlock and a string of girlfriends some of whom were probably ticked off at him and a marriage or two, but he conducted extraordinary meditation retreats and had a combination of fierce pride and disarming humility I had never seen before. His every move seemed to have meaning even when it seemed casual or even “wrong.” Tiny things he said and did have lived in my imagination and answered numerous questions of the mind and heart ever since.

In my world of poetry and magic, I knew why he was there and I have never forgotten. He gave me the Tara Mantra and the Mani and inspired me to practice mantra and prostration right here in this crazy crack head world. There was also something in his presence that had nothing to do with any practice or experience at all. He might not even remember me, and he certainly would not approve of many of the things I have done but he was extraordinarily unbearably and relentlessly kind to me and never judged me either. For me he is mysteriously inseparable from the rest of my life and our social relationship had little to do with it. Some may say that invoking him in devotion is purely a matter of my mind, and has nothing to do with him. Maybe this is so. Who cares?

I bowed at the corner of 15^th and Valencia and chanted the Vajra Guru mantra and recited my poem to him:

Let every thought of you be a million bows
and every bow be a million more
Kind Teacher think of me
These six senses I gather up for you
Please use them to make others happy
In every lifetime may I be your worst disciple
cut off and alone, lost and confused
taking suffering, spreading joy
calling only on the Love and Kindness in your Heart
let me sing your Mani among the forgotten people
till the War stops

This poem never fails to make me weep. I decide that today as I bow, instead of my refuge prayer, I will sing the Mani in a way I learned from Lama Lodro. On I went to the Tenderloin to bow.

Next, I will steal Fire and rend the Veil.


Love to All,

John O.

Display of Experience

Woke up stiff and sore and ate the breakfast burrito I bought on the way home yesterday. Packed another burrito into my backpack for dinner, showered, glanced at the aspirin and wondered, “would that be cheating?” Not if I confess it to you dear readers, so the truth is out: anti inflammatories are used on JO prostration retreats as of today.

Yesterday I took a rug and my ukulele downtown. The rug seemed like a good idea and the ukulele was in case I felt like busking in the subway. But the rug became a drag to carry around when I was evicted and repositioned by the authorities or had to go the bathroom, and I was too tired to get the proper busking mojo going, so today I decided just to pack a yoga mat and make it simpler. Also packed my Tarot box and thought I might offer some readings by donation. I decided to walk the 3.5 miles downtown doing Tara practice to loosen my joints.

I walked and chanted in the predawn cool air and everything, even the vomit on Mission Street seemed magical. (Counted three separate incidents—all looked just like those fake rubber vomit gags you buy in joke shops). Suddenly I realized I had forgot the yoga mat. Uh oh. Prostrating in wet grass or pigeon shit was not going to be pleasant, but I didn't want to walk back either. “Guess the Lord—or 'causes and conditions' or whatever the hell it is that provides—will have to provide,” I thought and kept chanting but started looking for cardboard. The same helps them that help themselves.

I was losing faith when I arrived at UN Plaza. Lo and behold there they were! A pile of Office Depot folding table boxes exactly the right size. I was worried that I would have to read “office depot” all day long as I went down into the horizontal position, but I folded them the other way and they were as empty of content as experience is empty of substance. Just restful brown cardboard. I felt happy and free. Little did I know I would spend the rest of the day worrying about losing this prized possession. Cardboard is worth money on the recycling market and there were far more scavengers interested in my cardboard than there were thieves interested in my old rug. “You sure you want that dude?” they would ask, looking at it like it was a dollar bill.

It's a good thing we are not looking for “progress” on retreats, because I am a lot slower and more distracted today; slowed by sore muscles and distracted by a quivery vulnerable feeling in my chest. When I pray “Please look upon me with eyes of compassion” while in the vertical position with my chest opened up and my attention on the in-breath, I feel near tears. I would like to say it is because I am surrounded and moved by suffering humanity and urban animal life. (Counted three men without any legs and two pigeons with just one within an hour or two, and that's not even getting into the countless eruptions of anger around me, some by people spiting angry gibberish to themselves, others by people throwing angry threats to one another.)

But actually I think it is because I am feeling ashamed of the whole thing. Who am I to do this?

“I” is in there somewhere anyway. The fact that there is soreness and less strength today is not that big a deal in itself, but I don't have the same steady rhythm of prostrations to distract me from myself. And self is a spinning wheel of pride and shame. Heaven and hell. Today it's shame. Hell.

Oh well. Keep on bowing, John. Open your chest and let the “awakened one” see the shame. Breathe it out and let it go into the brown cardboard. Get up slowly (fewer prostrations per hour today for sure!) and do it again. When the tears do come, notice that they actually feel pretty good. Or rather the welling feelings that radiate from the heart through the throat and eyes feel good. Admit it. And no one will notice here among the almost unnoticed.

Almost unnoticed.

Here are my two favorite encounters of the day:

I was in the vertical position with my palms together in the universal mudra of prayer, when a movie star-handsome though somewhat mask-like chiseled face leaned into me like we were buddies sharing beers at a bar. He was wearing a black leather jacket, clean and well dressed and pulling a stack of luggage on a handcart. He motioned with hs thumb to the next block of Market and with buddy-buddy intimacy smiled and said:

“You tellin me that's the only titty club left on Market? Back in the eighties there were like five of them.”

I smiled and said that now there were so many full service massage parlors, maybe no one felt the need for the clubs anymore. He replied, “But you could get it there in the eighties. I's in there with a buddy and he said, 'don't look behind you,' but I did of course, and she was fucking this dude right there!”

I shook my head and grimaced in the classic male, “is that so?” move, and he shook his head, gave me a thumbs up and moved on with a “later, man...”

I recalled knowing a dancer or two at those old clubs, through my beautiful and relentlessly friendly ex-wife no less, who knew and knows everybody in town it seems. I returned to my prostration. “Till all are free...” I noticed my buddy pulling his luggage up and down the same couple of blocks for the next hour or so, as if maybe the clubs would reappear if he just kept at it.

Lunch today was on Rhoda, a lovely sweet filipina who asked me, “Would you like a sandwich?” Sure. (I am no liar in such matters.) She gave me a McDonald's burger and a Dr. Pepper and asked me whether I knew God loved me. As a matter of fact I did. I was in no mood for theological disputes with anyone so kind, and, anyway, I was feeling loved somehow. I said, ”Yes that is what I am doing here, bowing and feeling loved.”

She let the lack of a deity in that sentence go right past her. She was obviously pleased that I did not want to argue. “God loves everybody and He is in control,” she said. Here I was more tempted by theological dispute. I wanted to ask her why, if God was already in control here, did Jesus pray that God's will be done “on Earth as it is in Heaven”? But I agreed, smiled back at her lovely eyes and drank my Dr. Pepper instead. They were divine and the sweetness of both revived me.

She told me not to despair, and as a matter of fact I was feeling better as she went off to give a sandwich to an angry looking tattooed dyke who looked like she might be coming off a bender. Rhoda seemed bewildered but intrigued when I started bowing again.

Gotta love the display of experience.

Love to all,

John O.

Keep on Bowing in the Free World

Found a cafe with wireless and decided to post before I go back for the remaining 5 hrs of today's prostration retreat.

I was up till 2am giving  friend a Tarot reading, which was not very smart and made my 5am start time slightly unrealistic, but I was on the corner of Powell and Market doing prostrations at 6 sharp.

If you are thinking of indulging any tendencies toward exhibitionism, I do not recommend prostrations on the streets of San Francisco. You have to be a lot weirder than me to get noticed here, and as most of you know, I am pretty weird. Most people looked at me with about the same level of interest as they might have in a dying pigeon.

Except for a phone call to wish Diotima well before her sesshin, I bowed for three hours straight and during that time I had one person give me a dollar. But a schizophrenic came by spouting gibberish and dumped a handful of hard candies in my donation box. His only recognizable words were "this will help!" I took that as a good omen, and it is my proudest accomplishment of the day.

A dear friend from out of town came by and took some pictures which I might share at some point. She said I needed a better sign than my little hand printed one.

My only other visitors were San Francisco's finest, who asked me "Who are you bowing to?" I said, "You," and they didn't get my subtle reference to their Buddha nature, but made me promise to leave that spot by 9 am. They were back promptly at 9 to see that I bowed somewhere else and recommended UN Plaza where the riffraff hang, which is where I belong, no doubt about it. "We will welcome you there," said the smiling cop. He was pretty nice about it, and I thanked him.

After breakfast and an interesting discussion with my friend, I went to UN Plaza and bowed on the grass there till the sun came from behind the buildings and threatened me with melanoma. I moved to a shady spot near a building and was moved by security to a spot where I had an opportunity to practice with the "one taste" of Mahamudra. Well, "one smell" anyway, since the distinct odor of urine wafted from somewhere nearby. Actually a boombox playing old Shuggie Otis tunes was harder to deal with. Just keep bowing, John.

Before she left, my friend sneaked a $20 bill into my box and I planned to donate it along with some sponsorships to St. Anthony's Dining Room. But then a desperate rastafarian came by and gave me a very sad family hard luck story and begged me to buy a cannabis bud for $5. I happen to be a recovering canabbis addict and  offered him the $20, saying, "Here, man, your lucky day."

He was confused; in fact looked at me very suspiciously, but took it, and then after hesitating, as if it might be bad luck to do otherwise, he dropped a very nice looking bud in my box and left.

Great. Here I am trying to impress you all with my dharmic dedication and suddenly I have to fight off the urge to go buy a pipe and get loaded!

No problem, while listening to a conversation between the angel on my right shoulder and the devil on my left, a down-and-out hustler came by and offered to sell me me some probably hot luggage. I declined. He spied the candy and said, "Hey, candy! Can I have some?" I said, "Sure."

After he left, I looked and of course he stole the bud. Problem solved. But for quite a while I couldn't decide whether I was pissed off or relieved. Actually, I still don't know.

Another noteworthy event was that while I was bowing, trying to raise money to feed the hungry a group of people came by and handing out free lunches and I took one. Peanut butter sandwich, an orange and a carrot. Delicious! I talked to him and he told me they are a group of 10 people with no name who just make about 200 lunches and give them away.

I took a break and went over to St. Anthony's Dining Room to donate the $100 I collected online from generous sponsors. They were glad to get it, and I got a receipt, but the system seemed a little loose, and I started worrying that maybe the staff kept it for themselves. Hmm. Ah well, they looked like they could use it too, I guess.

All this karmic accounting is confusing as hell. Better get back to the streets.

Keep on bowing in the free world.

Love to all,

John O.

Tenderloin Meltdown Bowdown

To the pregnant schizophrenic girl who had me touch her belly

and told me she would birth the Savior of the World.

Your face was yellow and the swelling of your skinny body felt like a tumor.

My Teacher's painful vision of my overweening pride,

I never saw you again.

I bow down to you.

To the Vet who wept and told me “I killed them for nothing.”

You took my five dollars for a sandwich and a beer,

said “thank you, brother” and hugged me when I said I too have killed.

My Teacher's painful vision of my paralyzing shame,

I hope you found a job.

I bow down to you.

To the broken and addicted,

squealers, dealers and afflicted

to greedy johns and needy whores

and their mamas doing chores

and the hustlers running scams

and the bustlers trying to scram

to the children off to school

ignoring all the butts and drool

to the rollers cruising through

saving many from a few

until they lose it will-nilly

and beat some poor lone bastard silly

to those who preach the Unknown God

transgendered with the unreal bod

and the ladies cutting hair

while the crazy spit and stare

to the howlers and the moaners

cheap liquor vendors and bar owners

I too will do what I must do

until we don't.

I bow down to you!

Love,

John O.

Flame of Love

Though he fall into the blossoming flame
and smell the burning flesh and feel desire,
in his howl of agony and shame
the wise will hear the voice of someone higher.
This world must burn, desire for beauty rage.
Love spares neither flawed nor perfect mind.
The fool, the rogue, the sot, the sage,
Love burns to leave one ash behind.
He will. He will breathe deeper than he can.
From far beneath him lift his eyes above.
Look: John is a fine wise man.
But burnt.
                 I AM alone the flame of love.

                              [adapted from the Mr Bones Doggone-Versations]

Love,

Burnt John

Love and Death Sonnet for Diotima

Some point out rightly all things joined are parted.

There’s no exception to this bitter rule.

So why pursue what leaves one broken hearted?

Why love, they ask, when Love's end is so cruel?

I’m tempted to reply, they've not loved You.

But I know well that answer won’t persuade.

Another fool, they’ll say, who fears what’s true,

Who lives oblivious to Death’s sure blade.

I am a fool. Let that be stipulated.

For only fools are granted to glimpse this:

In perfect Love, not even Death is hated.

His cruel cleaver also joins in bliss.

All things must pass. This truth brooks no exception.

But Life’s our wedding. Death is our reception.

Love and Death to All,

- John O.