My First Dharma Talk

It was a stellar year, academically, creatively and spiritually. A highlight for me was giving my first Dharma Talks (Buddhist Homilies or sermons) for my Buddhist Homiletics Course. Here is my final project. I got an "A" in class.



UPDATE: My dharma talk was featured on the Buddhist Peace Fellowship Website here. 

World AIDS Day—a Meditation on Impermanence, Groundlessness and Reincarnation

INTRODUCTION

I want to acknowledge Sunday, December 1, as World AIDS Day, a time to remember those who passed from Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome or AIDS. I’d been involved in AIDS work for more than twenty years. World AIDS Day started in 1987. In the last 25 years, I’d been involved in some kind of World AIDS Day event for at least 15 of those years.

Even though it is designated for one day it is not uncommon to have events throughout the month of December. In the past, I’ve participated in World AIDS Day events by hosting shows, performing, handing out awards, or going on marches. This year, I’d like to honor the occasion with this presentation. I’d like to add this this talk World AIDS Day—a Mediation on Impermanence, Groundlessness and Reincarnation to World AIDS Day events happening all over the globe.

I was 12 years old when I first heard of the disease. A local reporter named Connie Chung said something was killing gay men. It was initially known as Gay Related Immune Deficiency Syndrome or GRID. It was also known as the “Gay Cancer.” When it was discovered that this new disease was in the blood, that anyone regardless of sexual orientation could get it, it was renamed: Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome or AIDS.

It was interesting growing up in the 1980’s with this in the periphery of my burgeoning gay life. I was coming out yet didn’t want to come out entirely because I feared somehow this AIDS thing would get me. I knew enough that AIDS could only be passed doing certain behavior—unprotected sex, using unclean needles—and if I stayed away from those behaviors I wouldn’t get it.

Still.

In my mind I couldn’t stop equating gay life with AIDS. Indeed, that was probably the stereotype for most people at the time. It was a message that had been perpetuated for years to come. I was dining with a friend of mine who went through reparative therapy in the 1990’s. Reparative therapy is a technique some believe can actually repair the internal defect of homosexuality. My friend told me that one of the ways they reinforced heterosexual behavior was by saying that gay people die of AIDS.

This is true. Gay people do die of AIDS. So do straight people. So do old people, and young people. Children. Parents. Whole families died of AIDS. I think about the karmic repercussions of this. When it was GRID, with only a few thousand gay men dead, the government, the world did not respond well. Theories were abound about how HIV was a government plot to rid the world of certain undesirable minorities—homosexuals, drug users. President Reagan finally asked his Surgeon General, C. Everette Coop, to write a report on AIDS in 1986—five years into the epidemic.

In other words, there was no compassion, and a world without compassion, leads to the death of gay, straight, men, women, old, young. I must say many faith institutions failed in this regard. Institutions who failed in meeting the needs of the sick, the infirmed, the hungry, the helpless.

There were beacons. Reverend Carl Bean, Mother Theresa, Bishop Desmond Tutu. They were people of faith who instilled faith. However, their voices seemed to be drowned out by religious or political leaders believing AIDS was God’s wrath on sinners.

IMPERMANENCE

"From the highest heavens to the very depths of hell, there is not a single being who can escape death," wrote Patrul Rinpoche in The Words of My Perfect Teacher.

There are 9.9 million people in Los Angeles County. Can you imagine everyone in Los Angeles dead? Then multiply that by three. That’s how many people have died of AIDS. Since the first recorded cases in 1981, over 30 million people have died. Then imagine two people affected by an AIDS Death—a mother and father or a brother and sister or a best friend and a spouse.

For every AIDS death, at least Sixty million people were affected by this. In some parts of Africa where whole families perished of HIV when babies got it from breast milk, another form of transmission. Millions experienced impermanence, the idea that life, things, places are fleeting.

Nothing is static. This is a brilliant idea.  No one talks about how tragic and hard and sad this can be.

I started doing volunteer work at the Chris Brownlee Hospice for People with AIDS in 1990. There was a mother sitting by her son’s bedside. I knew he didn’t have long. In a way, I hoped he’d die soon, because he seemed to be in so much pain. The day came when he passed, and I saw his mother fall apart. She cried and stomped her feet. She wailed and shook her head.

This was impermanence. This is the ugliness of change. Impermanence is not for the weak.

GROUNDLESSNESS

There was nothing more earth shattering than a death. Then to experience them again and again and again and again is not only earth shattering—the whole universe is obliterated. There is no ground. In 1993, I got a job at the Asian Pacific AIDS Intervention Team.

Groundlessness was part of the work. We prevented HIV by handing out Safer Sex Kits. They were small bags which contained condoms and lubricant. We gave away thousands of safer sex kits a year. My co-workers and I would sit there for hours sometimes making these kits. It came to the point that our boss suggested we get volunteers to make them because we should be doing other more important duties related to our jobs.

Unable to find volunteer, or perhaps unwilling to find volunteers, we returned to making the safer sex kits. Again, our boss suggested we find volunteers to take over. We experienced staff and clients dying of AIDS, but we continued to make safer sex kits. Open bag, fill them with condoms and lube, seal with a sticker. Open Bag, fill them with condoms and lube, seal with a sticker.

A grief counselor came in to help us with the high turnover of deaths. She explained that during these times, repetition was good for staff. It gave us something stable to do in an unstable world. We made the connection that making the safer sex kits was way of coping with grief. It was repetitious behavior that gave a sense of certainty. It gave us Ground. Our boss never bothered us again. I didn’t know it then, but I would come to experience Reincarnation.

REINCARNATION

Let me be clear, when I talk about reincarnation, I’m not talking about a physical death leading to another physical or celestial incarnation. I’m talking about finding a new life in this life. Like this blank piece of paper, which turned into a page for my dharma talk, then an airplane. In a matter of less than 12 hours, it had three lives already. I’m talking about finding new meaning in an old one.

In The Art of Living , His Holiness the Dalai Lama, said, “Personally, I have lost my country and, worse still, in my country there has been a lot of destruction, suffering and unhappiness. I have spent not only the majority of my life but also the best part of my life outside of Tibet. If you think of this from that angle alone, there is hardly anything that is positive. But from another angle, you can see that because of these unfortunate things I have had another type of freedom, such as the opportunity of meeting different people from different traditions, and also of meeting scientists from different fields. From those experiences my life has been enriched and I have learned many valuable things. So my tragic experiences have also had some valuable aspects.”

I wish AIDS never happened, but it did. For me, I don’t want the death of 30 million people to be in vain. I want it to have meaning. On a grander scale, we can see how these deaths came about due to ignorance and stigma. We learned: Knowledge is power, Silence equals death. Personally, I learned love is power, and that power can free someone else.

When I was doing AIDS work, my mother, a nurse was also doing AIDS work. She worked at an AIDS ward in a hospital. There came a point when I wanted to come out to her. I was in my mid-twenties and felt it was time. When I told her, she wasn’t surprised. As a matter of fact, she seemed pleased.

She told me about the gay men, the gay dying men, she met at her job. “They really stay with each other,” she said, referring to a man who kept vigil over his dying partner. “I don’t even see that with heterosexuals sometimes.”

For those gay men, they were doing something natural, something that was part of any loving relationship. For my mother, this affection humanized gay people, allowing a gay son to get closer to his mother.

*****  

Back then, the average age of a person who died of AIDS was 44. A gay man in his twenties was middle-aged. I was that gay man. Like a person going through a mid-life crisis I wondered if there was something else to what I was doing, experiencing, feeling. I learned other things, perhaps took chances I wouldn’t have normally taken. I risked being an artist, risked being a writer, risked falling in love.

Pema Chodron spoke of this in her essay When Things Fall Apart :

“I have a friend dying of AIDS. Before I was leaving for a trip, we were talking. He said, ‘I didn’t want this, and I hated this, and I was terrified of this. But it turns out that this illness has been my greatest gift.’ He said, ‘Now, every moment is so precious to me. All the people in my life are so precious to me. My whole life means so much to me’. Something had really changed, and he felt ready for his death. Something that was horrifying and scary had turned into a gift. “Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.”

*****

Last month, I remembered that time in the early 1990’s, a time when more people had died of AIDS than at any other time of this history of HIV. I went to two memorials and Typhoon Haiyan devastated The Philippines, the country where my family is from.

I was reminded of the helplessness and loss. I felt groundless again—things “fell apart.” I also knew that things would come together again.

In The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche, the story of Rick, a man with AIDS offered this: “The first thing I realized was that you must take personal responsibility for yourself. The reason I am dying is that I have AIDS. That is my responsibility; no one else is to blame. In fact there is no one to blame, not even myself. But I take responsibility for that.

“I made a vow to myself and to whatever gods there may be before I came into Buddhism, that I just wanted to be happy. When…I made that decision, I stuck to it. And this is very important in doing any kind of training of the mind. You must make the decision that you really want to change. If you don’t want to change, no one is going to do the work for you.”

Things have, indeed, changed from those deadly days. AIDS is no longer seen as a fatal disease. It’s considered manageable, at least for those in North America and parts of Europe.

For World AIDS Day we must not forget the rest of the world. Let’s remember: love is power, and that power can free someone else.

...

I've been trying to the write a blog piece, but all I can muster is...typhoon...The Philippines...devastated.

Revisiting My First Published Piece

Finding Touch was a personal essay that I wrote in the 1990's.  It was developed in Hope Edelman's writing class at UCLA Extension.  It was published in the anthology Tilting the Continent: Southeast Asian American Writing.  I still remember the joy in getting that acceptance letter, and finding out something I'd written would actually get published. 

Finding Touch sat quietly in Tilting the Continent.  However it's getting new life as a featured story in  Q&A Space>Coming Out Stories from Asian and Pacific Islanders.  The piece can be found here.

Words and Paint this Weekend!

Something tells me I'm going to have an amazing three days.  I hope to see some of you around!

On October 25, a new store in Atwater will be opening up.  It's called BOHO Upcycle, specializing in "Colorful. Chic. Vintage & All Things Furniture."  It's open from 11-6pm.  I'll be there around 4pm to enjoy the Atwater Halloween festivities. 

Krissy, the owner, was kind enough to offer wall space to local artists--like me!  I'll have the above painting--Still Life: Flowers in Vase--available for purchase. 

BOHO Upcycle really is a magnificent space, and worth checking out.     

On Saturday, October 26 at 2:30pm, I'll honor Filipino American Heritage Month in Echo Park.  I'll do it the best way I know how--sharing words!  I'll be keeping company with the fine Giovanni Ortega and Christopher Santiago. 

Finally, on Sunday, October 27 at 2pm, I'll remember Filipino American writer Carlos Bulosan.  Writers Barbara Jane Reyes and Rachelle Cruz will be mixing it up with old pals Giovanni and Chris.  We'll read work from Mr. Bulosan and something from our own repertoire.

Hope and Inpiration at Jury Duty

Last week, I had to be at the Van Nuys courthouse by 10am to report for jury duty (JD).  I've done JD many times.  I was usually assigned a courthouse in downtown Los Angeles.  The drive into the San Fernando Valley on a weekday morning was not something I looked forward to.  However, I wanted to do my civic duty.

I brought stuff to read.  I brought my laptop to the jury waiting room.  I'm doing rewrites on some creative projects.  The work never seems to be ready.   

I was prepared for a long and dreadful day.  Then I saw a stack of New Yorkers.  I used to be an avid reader (when my boyfriend subscribed to it).  I hadn't been with him in many years, but always enjoyed an issue when I saw one lying around, say in a doctor's office. 

On this day, there was a stack of them.  Thanks to the kind soul who left New Yorkers around for jurors to read--Good Housekeeping was not something I would have picked up for reading material.
 

I believe that things happen for a reason.  If sending me to Jury Duty was the only way the Universe would get me to read the April 29, 2013 issue of the New Yorker, I offer prostrations to all of the Gods in Heaven.  I stumbled across John McPhee's "Draft No. 4," which can be previewed here. 

The article basically talked about getting the first draft done of any writing and how the fourth draft usually looks like the most presentable.  It was this letter to his daughter, that inspired me.

Dear Jenny:  The way to do a piece of writing is three or four times over, never once.  For me, the hardest part comes first, getting something--anything--out in front of me.  Sometimes in a nervous frenzy I just fling words as if I were flinging mud at a wall.  Blurt out, heave out, babble out something--anything--as a first draft.  With that, you have achieved a sort of nucleus.  Then, as you work it over and alter it, you begin to shape sentences that score higher with the ear and eye.  Edit it again--top to bottom.  Chances are that about now you'll be seeing something that you are sort of eager for others to see.   And all that takes time.  What I have left out is the interstitial time.  You finish that first awful blurting and then you put the thing aside.  You get in your car and drive home.  On the way, your mind is still knitting at the words.  You think of a better way to say something, a good phrase to correct a certain problem.  Without the drafted version--if it did not exist--you obviously would not be thinking of things that would improve it.  In short, you may be actually writing only two or three hours a day, but your mind, in one way or another, is working on it twenty-four hours a day--yes, while you sleep--but only if some sort of draft or earlier version already exists.  Until it exists, writing has not really begun. 

Montgomery Clift's Newphew in my Apartment!!!

In researching my first novel Letters to Montgomery Clift, I read many articles and books about my favorite movie star.  I also watched documentaries.  Who knew I'd be in a new Montgomery Clift documentary, produced by Montgomery Clift's nephew, Robert Clift! Robert Clift is the son of Brooks Clift (Monty's brother) and  journalist (and The McLaughlin Group's) Eleanor Clift.

It was great having Robert Clift and his lovely wife Hillary Daemon Clift in my apartment.  They were both insanely sweet people.  Of course, I wouldn't expect anything less from the Clift family.

It was a dream come true to talk about Montgomery Clift for hours with someone who was related to him.  Hillary emailed me some months ago, and I couldn't believe that I was in contact with members of Montgomery Clift's family.

There hadn't been a new legitimate documentary on Montgomery Clift in some time.  When I mean "legitimate," I mean a well-researched, thoughtful film on the subject matter.  Those salacious bio episodes for cable entertainment don't count.

A new perspective on this important actor and his contributions, taken with a more contemporary outlook is needed. 

Good-Bye Vince Flynn

Back in 2007, when my second novel Talking to the Moon came out, I attended a literary event where Vince Flynn spoke.  It was a crime/mystery dinner.  I was invited because "Moon" dealt with a hate crime. 

Mr. Flynn was tall and confident.  He was introduced as a New York Times Bestselling author and with the success of his novels, he had easy access to the CIA.  Apparently, his novels about spies are a favorite among spies.

I remember marveling at his success.  He and I were about the same age, and I wondered what it meant to be that successful.  To have several books make it to the New York Times Best Sellers List, must make him a man of means. 

Now, I wondered, because he and I are about the same age, how he could have died.  I know it was prostate cancer, but that doesn't diminish the fact that he was still young.  He probably had many more books inside of him. 

This is also a reminder that no matter how successful you get, you can't take it with you.  I hope his family and friends find strength to endure this.

Another Draft Out

Last week, I sent another draft to my agent.  I took some vacation days from work to finish it.  So, the dance continues.  He'll look at it, then get it back to me, more revisions. 

There came a point where I wondered: this novel is a piece of crap.  It's come to the point where I've lost any kind sanity when it comes to this book.  All I could do is look at my agent's notes and try my best to follow through.

Many notes are easy to fix--grammar, word-choicing--things like that.  It's the more abstract notes that require the most brain power.  My agent wanted to hear more of my protagonist's internal monologue, his reactions to situations.  That's when it took a little more effort. 

I get to rest for now.   

Week to Write!

I only have five days to revise my novel before I send it off on Thursday.  I'm taking the week off work to do this.  I've made some significant changes to the beginning.  Wish me luck!

Still Dancing

My agent got back to me with notes on my novel this week.  I'm happy to get them and work on them.  I have till May 31 to do the rewrite.  Focus!

Going Schizo this Week

                                          (A random pic with CNN's Wolf Blizter.)

It's funny how it's quiet for a long time, then--boom!--tae happens all at once.  I'm going to be exhibiting ALL of my talents in one week.   

1.  April 4 at 7:30pm.  Skylight Showcase.  Skylight Books, 1818 N. Vermont in Los Feliz.  I'll be reading my short story Laconic Messages of Love, which was anthologized in Best Gay American Short Stories, 2012, at the Skylight Showcase.  The showcase will have a number of Skylight staffers showing off their skills in the fields  of literature, music, film, installations, paintings.  (I'll also have one of my paintings on view).

2.  April 4 - April 28, The Culture of Communication, Casa0101, 2102 E. 1st Street, Los Angeles.  I'll have some paintings in this group show, curated by the fine Margaret Garcia.  Other artists include Joy Alumit, Kikki Eder, Margaret Garcia, Sergio Hernandez, Bonnie Lambert, Barry Markowitz, Ester Petschar, Monica Ramirez, Michael Rascon, Suzanne Urquiza and Others.
The Culture of Communication will compliment a fascinating play called Tamales de Puerco, a family drama about a Latino family dealing with a deaf child.  It is a "trilingual play in English, Spanish and American Sign Language.

3.    Sunday, April 7 at 8pm, The W(hole) Story: Anal Gazing, Not Navel Gazing.  Akbar, 4356 W. Sunset (cross is Fountain in Silverlake).  Suggested donation: $5.  It's sorta like the gay version of the Vagina Monologues.  I'll be returning to my first love--performance.  There's been a new solo show percolating.  I'll be showing a bit of it.  It's curated by Steven Reigns and fellow artists include:  Daniel Foster, Gavy Kessler, Chris Lung, Ian MacKinnon, Martin Martinez.

Hope to see you at some point!

 

A Kind of Cry

I can hear my neighbor weeping
through our thin walls. 
It sounds like a heartbreak-cry.
It doesn't sound like a I-lost-my-job-cry
Or a I-can't-believe-my-best-friend-betrayed-me-cry.
It sounds like a someone-I-loved-doesn't-love-me-back cry--
simply a Heartbreak.

I know that cry.  I know it well.

Major Step

The dance continues.   A year ago, my agent read 100 pages, which he said needed some major work.  He asked for revisions and instructed me to finish the novel.  I did that recently.  The last five months have been pretty bare for me as I tried to finish this novel.  In other words, I stayed home most nights and weekends so I can have the time to write.  This is the writer's life.  Face to the computer. 

There is nothing romantic about it.  This is fucking work. 

Notes from a Panel

I curated a panel at Skylight Books to discuss the publishing industry.  The panelists were Writer and Teacher Dana Johnson, Editor Dan Smetanka, Agent B.J. Robbins and Critic David Ulin. It was a great opportunity to provide our neighborhood writers a chance to get advice from experts on how to get published.  Here are some worthy comments:

1.  Consider book contests in trying to get published.
2.  Make sure query letters to agents are professional.  (Please have someone read it before it goes out.  A letter that says I wrote a "fictional novel" will not be taken seriously.)
3.  Don't think about getting a book published, think about having a career.
4.  Don't take rejections personally.  If a book gets rejected, it doesn't mean a book is bad. It just means the book is not right for that particular editor/agent.
5.  Look at the Acknowledgment Page of a book similar to yours to find an editor and agent. 
6.  Find a literary community.  Through this community, one gets an idea of where the agents/editors are.  (Indeed, I won a literary contest with a nice cash sum because another writer in my community told me about it.)
7.  Be aware and alert of what's going on in publishing.  Gone are the days when writers just wrote books and others publish and market them.  Writers are EXPECTED to work hard to get their books out there.
8.  The rejection experience doesn't have to be negative.  Some agents give feedback on how to make the project better.
9.  Beware of the internet and technology: It can be a distraction--facebooking is not writing.
10.  Know your genre.  If you want to debut your first novel, please be prepared to answer this question: Who were the five First Novels you read last year? 
11.  Blogging is over.  (I understand the irony as I write this blog).

Memorials

It's hard going to a memorial. I went to three recently.  One was for activist Tak Yamamoto did a lot for the gay and Asian community.  Another was for Dramaturg Jim Boyle who did some good workin LA Theatre and worked as a screenwriting professor at USC for many years.  They led full and interesting lives.

The hardest memorial was Justin, a bookseller I worked with at Skylight.  He was 35.  He died of alcoholism. 

Memorials or funerals are more for the living.  It helps with the grieving process.  We gathered and remembered him.  I didn't want to be caught babbling, so I wrote a poem. 

Namaste.