And Become Smiles and Tears

And Become Smiles and Tears



They reach effortlessly into hearts and minds,

And then, these words, those songs of meaning

Dwell therein, waiting upon feeling’s response.



And, if spoken in truth, they’ll be borne aloft on

Feeling’s softly pealing wisps of beauty that will

Echo far abroad, heard by all seekers of meaning.



Then, as though forged from pure stuff of dreams

In sleep’s hushed foundries, there, to be known as

True love’s meaning, and become smiles and tears.

September 1, 1939, by W. H. Auden - 1907-1973

September 1, 1939

by W. H. Auden - 1907-1973


I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.


Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.


Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.


Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism's face
And the international wrong.


Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.


The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.


From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
"I will be true to the wife,
I'll concentrate more on my work,"
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the deaf,
Who can speak for the dumb?


All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.


Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.


The poet, W.H. Auden, an avowed pacifist,
here wrote in "September 1, 1939," of the
advent of world war that was soon to engulf
the world, from the highest redoubts of imperialism
to the lowest levels of 'common man's' daily
watering holes.

In the rising tides of nativism, and the love of cruel
autocracy's depredations upon the innocent
refugees who flee away from fear toward hope,
we too can sense an ever faster, downward spiral
to dense, dark times ahead.

Perhaps his words are more true now than even
then, in those darkest of days before the storms of
death that gripped the world in their awful embrace:

We must love one another or die.

Tao

The Dharma of Our Hearts

The Dharma of Our Hearts


There’s a level where this dharma is just human dharma—it doesn’t

have any special language. It’s just about our hearts—whether they’re

suffering or not, and how they can bind or how they can open.


—Interview with Ayya Tathaaloka and Thubten Chodron, “The Whole

of the Spiritual Life”

To Climb the Hidden Peaks

To Climb the Hidden Peaks



Beyond the mind’s undetected ramparts lie hidden pinnacles.

There, for those questing thinkers whose journeys take them

Inward, are places where diligent seeker’s inmost reflections

And meditations will find metaphorical projections that map,

Deep, but within reach of the questor’s mind, ancient secrets

That will, upon contemplation, reveal richly-drawn pathways

That lead, ever inward, to imperceivable places of cool clarity.



If the expedition be undertaken to benefit all sentient beings

Who suffer, the unwearyingly light tread will be joyful, and

Bodhicitta will arise spontaneously in the true seeker’s heart.

And compassion’s pure flames will effortlessly banish every

Confounding shadow from the path, and lead ever onward

To the pure grace of forgiveness and love, as the illusion of

A self falls away, never to be wantonly craved thereafter.



But if the journey has any other intention, seekers will

Be met with the awful attachments of troubled minds.

And cunning, slippery obstructions will lie in wait, and

The dangers created by grasping at sharp cravings will

Appear as coarse dualities in the lost wayfarer’s mind.

I Miss My Friend

I Miss My Friend



I have a good friend, a much older man, a retired Australian

Professor of economics and public policy. He’s going through

A rough patch now but his family and I are hopeful that he’ll

Start to feel better soon. Luncheon dates just aren’t the same

Without discussing his compassion for the oppressed peoples

Of the Middle-East, or his witticisms and razor-sharp memory.



He’s having difficulty walking, which is a form of punishment

For someone who, until recently, used to be known for riding

His old bicycle on some of Bangkok’s busiest roads, seemingly

Unfazed by the dangers as he navigated from home to whichever

Restaurant was his choice of venue for that day’s lunch date with

Me, or his wife and daughter, or another of the many friends he’d

Made in a lifetime of living here in Bangkok, Thailand.



Even though I passed by his house yesterday afternoon for coffee

And his wife’s delicious banana-cake. I want these thoughts to go

Out to him subliminally. He’d be embarrassed if I said them to his

Face, and they might also make him feel bad about losing mobility,

And the inevitabilities of ageing and passing. I miss my friend.



I wrote those words last year, just a few months before my friend,

Professor Ray, passed away on the 15th of September, 2018. His

Family and I are still close. I visited his wife last week for more

Of her delicious banana cake and a cool drink while she spoke of

Her new life in France, and I looked at pictures of their daughter’s

Wedding ceremony in July. I miss my friend, now, even more.

Discovering Truth

Discovering Truth


Grief can lead us to a profound understanding that reaches beyond our

individual loss. It opens us to the most essential truth of our lives: the

truth of impermanence, the causes of suffering, and the illusion of

separateness.


—Mark Matousek, “A Splinter of Love”

Hey Mr. Tambourine Man

Hey Mr. Tambourine Man




Play some of that fake news for me but don’t, just yet, rudely
Jingle jangle me awake from my nethermost, clueless slumbers.



Here I lie at rest beneath the deepest waves of my complacency.
Dear sweet apathy, she’s my bff mate, and having a fine old time.



She says she fixed it up as shelter from climate-change’s storms.
She’s never lied before. I’ll just wait and see what eddies form.



A fat trump barracuda tweets by, speckled with vain, orange gills.
Sucking the dollar spots off dummy fish, if that isn’t quite a sight.



And there’s a clever warren stingray. Her deadly barbs are no joke.
She’s always been on the lookout for dull, stupid prey. Holy smoke!



Now I see a great-white, old biden shark. Its beady eyes hooded.
Its many sharp teeth ripping slow prey to feed the corporate maw.



Oh! And there’s a lithe, old sanders grouper, leading a school fed
Tiny scraps of socialism’s Medicare for All. It won’t be enough.



And yonder, wonder of wonders, a young ocasio-cortez octopus.
She’s in roiled, overheated GOP waters. But she’s making waves.



If we’re all in these waters together, why can’t we yet hear the
Sonic notes of freedom’s jingle jangle beneath the blue waves?



Why aren’t we smart enough to see that our elections aren’t fair?
For unity’s sake, why aren’t the tambourine man’s fins wet yet?

What Questions about the Self Really Matter?

What Questions about the Self Really Matter?


Puzzling over the metaphysics of the self, the Buddha said, pulls us

away from what really matters, and from posing the question about

ourselves that really matters: what can I do, right now, that will lead to

lasting well-being and happiness?


—Mary Talbot, “Saving Vacchagotta”

What Matters Most

What Matters Most



Our immediate circumstances matter most to each of us.

We may fool ourselves into thinking we are in control,

But that is one of the most impossible delusions of all.



Situations change, with or without our tacit permission.

But, a fatalistic attitude should not then be adopted for

Living life, or for acceptance of the common ideas that

Influence thoughts, words and actions, for good or ill.



I’d like to offer alternatives to fatalism and attitudes of

Surrender to the events that influence us as we wait

Upon natural old age, sickness and death to claim us.



To enhance the quality of our lives and introduce logic into

The mix of reactions we act-out as our situations change, I

Recommend that we focus part of our time and energy each

Day, on the development of a more, ‘in the moment,’ mental

Awareness of our initial reactions to events, and after those

Initial reactions have passed, a further, ‘in the moment,’ alert

Awareness of how we reacted to what was just experienced.



With time and effort, as our awareness continues to become

More alert and logic-based, we’ll soon start to realize that

Positive responses will have become easier for us to use as

The means to cope with sudden, unwelcome, or unforeseen

Events, instead of the habitual responses of worry and fear.



And as an added benefit, we will begin to notice that

We are becoming less impatient and angry when people

Or situations test our newfound resolve to think, speak,

And re-act to those tests with clear, positive intentions.



The development of awareness is not a one-size-fits-all

Panacea for all of life’s sudden, unwelcome challenges,

But I can offer you some examples that illustrate ways

To help you create successful, coping mechanisms:



1) try to put yourself in the other person’s life-situation

when they do or say something that irritates or angers

you. Often, upon reflection, we will realize the degree

of suffering and hopelessness that person is enduring,

if we stop and think about them, instead of focusing

on ourselves and our anger, bruised ego and pride.



2) take a deep breath, try to clear your mind and seek

clarity, so that you can respond to sudden events with

thoughts, words or deeds, based upon decisions you

have taken the time to consider, instead of mindlessly

re-acting to stimuli like Pavlov’s poor, tortured dogs’

uncontrollable fear, rage, and utter hopelessness.



3) try to bear in mind that each of us is operating with

differing degrees and amounts of information, and

that none of us has had the exact, same, early lives,

when many of our attitudes and biases were formed.



4) begin to incorporate kindness to oneself as a part

of each day’s life experience. It’s remarkable how

the act of self-forgiveness for our own admitted

failures will change our attitudes toward others.



5) realize and accept that you must personally bear

full responsibility for your own wellbeing and

happiness each time you think, speak and act,

and accept the consequences of unawareness.



I wish us all kind thoughts, words and deeds.