Zen and the Art of Landscape

I find this picture to be particularly beautiful and restful. It was done by Herb Arnold for the Zen Center of San Francisco. Enjoy!

Bluebird by Charles Bukowski

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.


there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?

Editor notes:

This was published in Bukowski's book "The Last Night of the Earth Poems" circa 1992

Stephen Hawking on God and the Universe

Heaven and Meaning

Paula Kirby at the Washington Post has an interesting article examining how atheists find meaning in a godless universe. She maintains that we don't need an invisible babysitter in the sky to hold our hands and give us direction and meaning, that we can find these meanings out for ourselves and, in effect, give them greater importance without being directed from above. But it's her point about the Christian heaven which I find interesting:


Life cannot be meaningless so long as we have the capacity to affect the well-being of ourselves and others. For true meaninglessness, we would need heaven.
In the state of permanent, perfect bliss that is the very definition of heaven, ‘making a difference’ is ruled out. If the difference made an improvement, the previous state could not have been perfect. If it made things worse, the result would not be perfect. In heaven, neither is possible. Even being reunited with loved ones could not add one jot to their bliss or yours, for heaven would be, by definition, a state that could not be improved on.
Just consider for a moment the hellish pointlessness of heaven. At least in our real existence our actions have an effect, for better or worse, and it is therefore worth trying to get them right. In an eternal life where we can have no effect whatsoever, we might as well be dead.
we can have no effect whatsoever, we might as well be dead.

I've often thought that heaven, as described by the Christians, would be horrible: an eternity frozen in myself with absolutely nothing to do or be or look forward to because everything is perfect just as it is - boring, pointless. Hellish, in fact. What is it about life that Christians hate so much? Despising this existence in favor of some theoretical afterlife is an evasion. What we have is the Now. 

A Day in the Life of a Zen Monk

Zen Mind

Getting Beyond the Matrix

John Stanley writes an interesting, brief article where he describes the "believing brain" and the nature of psychopathology. Our brains construct their worlds based on beliefs inculcated in us by society, family, school, church, etc., thus enabling us to exist and move about in our worlds. However, when we are confronted with a reality or new set of facts which challenge this ingrained view, how do we respond? With empathy and the ability to change, or with lack of empathy and rejection of those facts (and, often, people)?

Research by Simon Baron-Cohen and colleagues has more recently identified the circuit in our brain that generates spontaneous empathy for others' feelings. Unsurprisingly, it is underactive in individuals who commit acts of cruelty. Unfeeling cruelty toward others has traditionally been called "evil." Now we have a precise neurogenetic definition: "zero-empathy" is the root of all evil.


He likens this conflict with the choice Neo had in "The Matrix": remain in the Matrix or take the "red pill" and leave the Matrix to join the greater reality. He uses the current conflict surrounding global warming as an example: corporations place profit above empathy for future generations, thus condemning them to catastrophic environmental collapse in the pursuit of short-term gain. This is, literally, psychopathic - or, evil. The Matrix here is the denial of the greater reality of which we are a part, the denial of interrelatedness, and he calls for choosing the red pill.

It's time to break out of our unsustainable zero-empathy matrix. To be or not to be is now the pressing spiritual question before us -- as individuals, as citizens, as a civilization and as a species.