Month: January 2022

Gassho, Thich Nhat Hanh

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 19 Comments
Thich Nhat Hanh, via Upaya Zen Center.

The Vietnamese Buddhist monk and teacher Thich Nhat Hanh has gone. He was 95.

A champion of mindfulness, compassion, and peace, he departed from the Tu Hieu Temple in his homeland, where once — as an opponent of the Vietnam War — he was not welcome.

He returned twice to teach, publish, and lead retreats and ceremonies before finally going home for good in 2018, following a stroke four years earlier.

In his book “At Home in the World,” published in 2016, Nhat Hanh addressed his inevitable leaving. He wrote:

This body of mine will disintegrate, but my actions will continue me. If you think I am only this body, then you have not truly seen me. When you look at my friends, you see my continuation. When you see someone walking with mindfulness and compassion, you know he is my continuation. I don’t see why we have to say “I will die,” because I can already see myself in you, in other people, and in future generations.

Even when the cloud is not there, it continues as snow or rain. It is impossible for the cloud to die. It can become rain or ice, but it cannot become nothing. The cloud does not need to have a soul in order to continue. There’s no beginning and no end. I will never die. There will be a dissolution of this body, but that does not mean my death.

I will continue, always.

The Upaya Zen Center of Santa Fe will offer a memorial service via YouTube at 5:30 p.m. Mountain time today. The Zen center he co-founded, Plum Village, plans an extended remembrance beginning tomorrow. You can read more about Thich Nhat Hanh at Lion’s Roar.

Freezing Friday

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 7 Comments
Ice, ice, baby.

Went to the taxidermist this morning and they said they wouldn’t need to skin me this time.

“Nope, you look as well as can be expected for a wretched old bag of bone splinters and bad ideas,” the hide inspector said. “But since I don’t get to use the melon baller on you again I’m going to freeze this spot on top of your head because a little hit of schadenfreude relieves my weltzschmerz, if only for a moment. Also, you have health insurance.”

She also found the usual scattering of “wisdom spots,” but not inside my head, where I could really use them.

Take it to the bridge

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 5 Comments

Sonny Rollins doesn’t play anymore because he can’t.

But there was a time when he stepped out of the jazz spotlight voluntarily, because he felt he wasn’t living up to his own musical expectations.

Rollins spent the next two years playing to the sky from the Williamsburg Bridge, spanning the East River in New York City. And 60 years ago this month, he returned to the studio for a session that led to his comeback album, “The Bridge.”

“What made me withdraw and go to the bridge was how I felt about my own playing,” says Rollins, now 91. “I knew I was dissatisfied.”

John Fordham of The Guardian has the story here.

Trails, please, and hold the tears

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments
The Duck! City as seen from just above the Embudo dam.

I’ve been in something of a metaphorical rut lately, bikewise, so today I thought I’d get in an actual rut as a change of pace.

The Voodoo Nakisi and I took the foothills trails south to the Hilldale Loop and back, and real, physical ruts there were aplenty. I hadn’t been down that way since November 2021, and it seems weather and traffic have done some remodeling in my absence.

Is that gravel or dirt? The UCI Gravel Committee is never around
when you really need it.

The weather was brisk, and there weren’t a lot of people out and about, which was fine. The trails and I were getting reacquainted, and we’re both old enough to do without chaperones. Nobody needs to see me busting a move, especially if it ends with a busted bone.

My attention has been known to wander, and occasionally I find myself riding the trail in my mind, not the one under my wheels. This caused me to perform a trick dismount once in Bibleburg’s Palmer Park, when the mental and physical trails differed by a couple crucial meters after some unheralded renovations by the trail fairies. The bike went down, but I did not.

Today I kept the pace moderate and the autopilot off, and my miscues left neither paint nor DNA behind. I have an appointment with the dermatologist coming up and I don’t need any quips about leaving skin removal to the professionals.

Speaking of getting skinned, here’s hoping that the Jan. 6 committee gets to hang a big, greasy, orange hide on its wall now that the Supremes have declined to pull The Very Stable Genius’s fat out of the fire he started.

Ordinarily I don’t approve of trophy hunting, but some heads just beg to be mounted. The National Archives taxidermist better have all of his shots and a hazmat suit.