Heart Center

 I had the pleasure of doing a reading at Spoken Interludes. I read a new piece called Heart Center, touching on Buddhist topics like impermanence, the suffering of death, and Kuan Yin, goddess of compassion. 

Me Talking About Death as an Affirmation of LIfe

(The Catacombs in Paris)

 

I'm honored to have been the inaugural interview for the Death and Dhamma podcast. Take a listen. 

The End of a Novena

 

Tonight we had the last session of a Novena for an uncle who passed away (non-Covid).  I hadn't done a rosary in quite awhile. I used to do it when I was a practicing Catholic. It was like riding a bike meditating to the litany of prayers. I visualized lifting my uncle's soul to heaven.

In Buddhism, there is a tale of hungry ghosts who are liberated from their ghostly status, elevated to their next incarnation through prayer.

I used a rosary that I got when I visited the Vatican in 2019. I got them blessed at St. Peter's Basilica. I didn't think I'd ever use them. I remembered that the rosary was actually inspired by mala.

 At least that's what Elizabeth Gilbert wrote in her memoir Eat, Pray, Love. I was not surprised by this, the story of Crusaders venturing East then seeing Buddhists and Hindus using prayer beads, eventually bringing it back to Europe. I don't think the Catholics want to make this connection. They want to believe it was an original invention by St. Dominic.

Regardless, fingering beads in prayer just feels spiritual to me. And it can also help with a nervous habit. If it brings comfort, its fulfilled its purpose. 

My Second Mid-Life

 Over the holidays, some friends died. Not of Covid, cancer. They were around my age. As we older, the body becomes more frail, more diseased. This is a fact. Old age, sickness, and death are three of the "sufferings." Birth is the fourth.

When I was younger, and peers were dying of AIDS. I felt as I do now. I had a mid-life crisis. In my twenties. When so many were dying in their forties, 25 was mid-life.

In my fifties, I'm in my second mid-life. I'm trying not to have a crisis. I had one already. I'll aim to have a mid-life catharsis--let go, just let that sh*t go.

  

Thoughts on a Virus

Self-Portrait, Lotus Festival, 2017

The Coronavirus would be my second plague. My first was AIDS. Back then, I'd heard the average age of death for a gay man was 45. I felt middle-aged in my twenties. Middle-age can be startling--forcing me to ask serious questions of my life: Am I doing what I should be doing? What makes me happy?

Now, I am middle-aged again. Amidst Covid-19, I ask similar questions: Am I doing what I should be doing?  What makes me happy?

Today, I add these questions: Am I being helpful enough? Has my creativity helped anyone? Have I served?

I don't know the answers, but this new virus is making me think. The worst case scenario is two million Americans will die.    Will I be one of them? If so, would I be okay with that?

The short answer is: Yes, I would have to be.  I recognize that at 52, I surpassed the old estimate of dying at 45.  I published books, something that I didn't know was possible for me. I got an MDiv in Buddhist Chaplaincy--also another surprise in my life. So many surprises.

I wonder what surprises are left?  Maybe I die--surprise! Yet, there's a part of me that still might have a bit of survivor's guilt.  As a gay man, did I cheat death? Will Coronavirus even the score? I don't know.

I just know that I'd been gifted with 52 years on earth so far. Whether I get another year or decade or several decades, I can't say. I guess, for now, I get to see another spring. If I'm lucky, maybe summer. If I'm really lucky, another fall.

Meditating on Death in Paris

On a recent trip to Paris, I had the pleasure of visiting the Catacombs, where six millions Parisians are buried.

I thought it would be ghoulish, but it was rather reverential. The skeletons were placed there when the graveyards ran full. Priests blessed the bones and they were laid to rest. The bones were placed ever so delicately on top of each other, creating a restful pile.  

Walking through the catacombs felt like the Buddhist tradition of sitting in charnel houses. Aspiring monastics sat with dead bodies to meditate on impermanence. They watched bodies disintegrate as a spiritual practice.

The whole experience felt otherworldly. I couldn't help but wonder who they were and how they may feel about their bones.  Then again, would they even care?

I don't think meditating on death is maudlin.  On the contrary, it's life affirming.  We shouldn't be taking our lives for granted.  We're all moving to being a pile of bones. Before becoming lifeless skeletons, are we leading the best lives possible?

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.