Brad Gooch on Rumi

This Brad Gooch book (Rumi's Secret 2017) on Rumi is really good, I'm quite enjoying it. I suppose I've been reading it for quite a while. My reading style has become slow and soaking up every detail, looking things up, writing about the book. It feels like a wise book. I've noticed that Iranian commentators think only Iranians really get Iranian history or Rumi. I'm not so sure about that. The suggestion is that westerners take out the Islam from Rumi, but I get the opposite of that from Gooch, seems like he takes pains to show the Islam over and over. I've really enjoyed learning about Islam, geography, history, culture. I'm not sure if my project of injecting Rumi, Shams and whatnot into my friendship with Mehdi, who's nickname is Shams. He's recently disavowed the nickname, he says it's like calling him Buddha, but I like it. I have read a book prior about Rumi and it was about how important Shams was to him so the name already had the meaning it has of great friendship. I actually wonder if Rumi is going on a bit about his friendship, but so what, it's really a great theme. 

I have some resistance to turning down the volume on my body input. Not strictly what stage 4 is asking you, they want relaxed body, which is different. Relaxed body. Tranquillising. Can you do that with your mind?

Fading of lust, I think I want to change that to fading clinging.

I also thought of "putting aside greed & distress" from the Satipatthana sutta. "Putting aside longing and dejection" in the YouTube version linked prior. 

Winter

In the long winter, those with experience know that spring will come. Got colder today, it's windy. I went to go down to the lake, but the path is still locked. 

Anapanasati today has cessation of lust instead of disentanglement today. But my daughter is here, so I'm not as deep, it's not as quiet. I don't care, I love my daughter, I can meditate later without someone here. 

Shams is sending a bunch of instagram wisdoms and funnies. I had leftover pasta and a can of pineapple chunks for breakfast. I listened to the latest Billie Eilish album. I'm watching Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. I'm almost up to the musical episode. I love Star Trek, it's an ideal world without money, everyone is seeking personal fulfillment. 

Flow

 

I meditated for 26 minutes, then Shams and Amir came online, and we meditated for 40 minutes, at least I did. Amir's camera went off, and Shams laid down. You can lay down meditating, I do that when I'm really tired.

Today is lunar new year, not yesterday, 7:37 is the exact time of the new moon. It's the closest thing we have to a Buddhist Holiday in NYC, my daughter has the day off. She's all weepy this morning, and I'm struggling to see how this isn't her trying to get out of doing homework. I guess today is an emotional wash. Maybe not the whole day. She just needs to wake up and eat something. 

Shams said he watched a movie about Van Gogh called At Eternity's Gate (On Tubi in USA). Yesterday he got back to drawing, he says he'd been blocked for a year, so it felt really good to be back drawing. He likes the uncritical drawing. He says Van Gogh wasn't popular in his times because he just stayed in an ecstatic state painting, he didn't conform to the expectations. He's going to send me some drawings.

Thought about it in terms of writing. I love free writing, not planning or editing, just in a flow. But I think it's editing that makes the writing, so I've gotten a lot better at editing. People who collect spelling mistakes might disagree. 

Anyue grottoes photos on Reddit. Links (One, two, three, four)

We talked later about the last tetrad of anapanasati: Impermanence, disentangling, cessation, relinquishment. I was amazed to see disentangling translated as "fading of lust", and Shams said dispassionate. I love it that I see different words and what they mean in English has a different meaning to me. 

I realize I cling

Lunar New Year

Actually we have a new moon tomorrow, unrisen yet, behind the clouds, which means the opposite of full moon. I called it Chinese New Year, but it's celebrated outside of China too, so it's called lunar new year in English.

Equanimity is a hard meditation, the higher up ones are less grounded, but the culmination is important.

There's a giant fly in my room. This summer was a weird fly summer, it was like Amityville Horror. The flies in my mind are politics, and the horrible things Trump is doing. He's such an asshole. 

The other annoyance when I'm meditating is snot and boogers. I blow my nose before I start and sometimes again.

Equanimity for me is also an important precursor for powerful love, and not reactionary or clingy love, which is metta, karuna, mudita and a million others things including mindfulness, awareness. Love is attention, consideration, being prioritized.

There's also a layer of equanimity in stability and basic happiness, in ethics and devotion.

Equanimity helps in the calming of the body, skandhas and mind.

I can always find a layer of happiness, even if it's a thin layer amongst pain and chaos, and I can always find a layer of equanimity even amongst turmoil and reactivity. Even as someone's yelling at me, and I'm muttering, "I don't like being yelled at," there's a layer of equanimity.

The reaction to Mara is different than the Christian reaction to the devil. It's more of a smiling nice try, more just ignoring distractions and keeping focused and mindful.

Books I want to read and finish:

Vimuttimagga

Visuddhimagga

The Six Dharma Gates to the Sublime by Zhiyi

Right Concentration (currently reading)

Mūlamadhyamakakārikā by Nagarjuna

Tranquillity and Insight by Amadeo Sole-Leris

Quote

The last of the preliminary practices that occurs in the gradual training is being content with little. We unfortunately live in a culture that says that any less-than-perfect situation can be remedied by obtaining more of something—usually more of whatever the person doing the saying is selling. But the spiritual path is not about acquiring anything—it’s all about letting go. There’s nothing to get; there’s everything to let go of. In general, throughout the two and a half thousand years of Buddhism, the jhānas were not considered a topic to be taught to lay people simply because it was believed their lives were far too busy to be able to undertake the meditation training necessary in order to learn the jhānas. But we now live in a culture with a huge opportunity for leisure, at least for some people. But we also have an unprecedented opportunity to fill up that leisure time with toys, entertainment, and other things that distract us from practice. A lay person does need more than three robes and a begging bowl, but a lay person in this culture absolutely does not need everything the culture has to offer. Leading a simple life makes it far easier to dedicate time for the practice that is necessary to progress on the spiritual path. Leading a simple life makes it easier to lead a life free from intentional harming. Leading a simple life makes it easier to abandon the five hindrances that prevent you from entering the jhānas. Leading a simple life is living more in harmony with the limited resources available to all who live on our very crowded planet.

Right concentration by Leigh Brasington

 

I love Greta Thunberg, she's the Joan d'Arc of our times for climate change and climate understanding. 

Meditated at 4:45 AM this morning on sympathetic joy. Hard to see a lot of joy in the world, but still strive to connect. Many sinking and defeatist narratives. I know every time a lefty gets in office, the conservative people really suffer. Hasn't really happened in my lifetime, but I know people really hated FDR, even though he's a hero to me. Political reality colors things. Current far right wing is really causing mental suffering for the left, and immigrants, and all sorts of people. Things are going to be bad for a while. That statement doesn't have to be true, and you can still be open to action for the good and seek to find the light. 

5% moon didn't rise while I was meditating and can't really be see in the daytime sky, looking out for it, the sun is blinding. The new moon must be tomorrow when lunar new year is being celebrated.

Doing homework with my daughter, missed sitting with Shams. 

Right concentration

 

"When you are attempting to learn jhānas, this unrelenting mindfulness is the most useful of all the practices given in the Satipaṭṭhāna Suttas. This practice itself won’t generate

sufficient concentration to enter a jhāna—but it will make it much more likely that any method that you do undertake to generate such concentration is actually effective."

Right concentration by Leigh Brasington

The path

 

We've been talking at night, and I like to write in the morning. The path is difficult and unique. 

For me politics is about killing and harming the least amount of people. 

Some well meaning policies meant to prevent harm, like prohibition. Men were taking their paycheck to the bar, and spending it all and families were left with nothing. Women rose up and got this passed. But a unintended consequence was the rise of criminal element, violence. The same way legalizing marijuana would just cut into illegal sales, so to the lifting of prohibition was important to cut into crime. 

Nearly everything Trump is doing harms people. Putting incompetent people into his cabinet who's one trait is blind loyalty to him, harms people by lowering expectation and going against the norms of government. It's good to shake up government and change things, but not merely for grift, which is Trump's sole motive. It aligns with lowered federal expectations and the conservatives, so they joined in with him. It aligns with fundamentalists, which is more a conservative movement than a Christian movement. It aligns with confused people, who don't really read and like a strong man. People who come from countries where only strong men rule can vote for him, he seems familiar. He's honest in that he grifts out in the open. It aligns with the conservative agenda of driving down participation, but making people cynical about politics. 

People are noticing how Trump's playbook is following that of Hitler's. Deporting people, marginalizing people, othering people.

Buddhist can be conservative, prefer small government. I have a close friend (not Shams) who leans more towards libertarianism, but left libertarianism, and he can see how horrible Trump is. 

Buddhists might not want to join in politics. Meditating 2 hours a day I'm very sensitive, and I feel very deeply for those being rounded up by ICE. For trans and gay people who feel unsafe. For women and minorities who feel discriminated against. Leading a worldly life you have to harm people sometimes, and that just feels wrong to me. I think the deeper and deeper I go into Buddhism, the more I feel Theravada, even though I'm lay ecumenical, who reads everything, sees how everything fits in, wants to embrace everyone, from superficial or ethnic or secular Buddhists, to the monastic, devout and superstars. 

I believe in neither monastic nor lay, that lineage is an act of devotion, and I want to be a monk, to be monklike, follow the vinaya. I'm not a cool charismatic person who can grow the sangha. I support Shams in Iran, but he's got a fledgling once a week online sangha, behind enemy lines of a Muslim state, and can't practice out in the open.

Shams wanted me to change the name of the meditation group to his real name, which isn't light, which is what Shams means, but dark. He felt it was too presumptuous. He is not Rumi's great friend Shams, he's a modern Iranian who meditates, and doesn't like labels, wants freedom.

We talk like kalyana mitras, dear Dharma friends. Deeply personal and safe. 

It's overcast, and the moon probably has risen over the building in front of me, but I wouldn't see it anyway. It's only 11 percent, a sliver waning moon.

Two people showed up for the 2:30 PM meditation, and now I have met seven people in Iran online. They don't speak English very well. Shams speaks it the best. He translates, and leads the meetings in Farsi. Second woman, she forgot to turn off her mike, so we heard hear yawn, sneeze, a little sound for scratching her head and rubbing her eyes. 

Today I wondered at the price women have to pay in Iran for being so tough, in such an oppressive society. I imagine they are tired from it all. It's a drain on them. Iran has a brain drain, their chess champion switched teams and came to America. There were two: Atousa Pourkashiyan and Dorsa Derakhshani. Now Dorsa Derakhshani in medical school. She wrote about it in the New York Times, read her words in gift article, if you don't have a subscription, and honestly I almost quit my subscription.

Mahsa Amini was killed in 2022.

More recently Ahoo Daryaei in 2024.

Reading MN 70 today.

Even attention

Today I feel why an even attention, not pushing it, trying hard is necessary. I wake up and read, and then meditate, and I feel like there's a surge of energy in the morning, but I take a nap later, it's weird. I can take a short little nap at 10 or 11. I also can take naps around 3, there are lulls in energy. If I take a late nap, then I don't fall asleep early. If I don't take a nap I can go to bed as early as 6 PM and if I'm tired sleep till 4 AM, 10 hours sleep. Sometimes you catch up on sleep, you were more tired than you thought maybe. Eight hours a night is an average, and sometimes less, sometimes more. I suppose it's something to think about in your 5th decade, marshalling and regulating your energy flow to get through the day.

See my daughter every day but Saturday and sometimes I walk over and visit them. I was so neglected by a busy with the struggle mother, that I'm semi-neglectful, but I push against that urge, and regularly check in with her and make sure she's OK. I try to be warm and appreciative when she approaches me. And yet, somehow my conditioning as a child is to go about my business. Being present for my daughter is my mission, then the Buddhism projects. 

Have to stand up and cock my head to the right to see the 18% sliver moon over the top of the building across from my window. And then it rises some and I can see it sitting, I don't have to move to see it.

When I do metta, I do 3 stages now. One for myself. One for others. And one to radiate metta from my infinite mind to the infinite universe.

Self torments and other joys

 Michelangelo - The Torment of Saint Anthony (c. 1487-­1488)

Buddhists don't cultivate a sense of punishment other than themselves. These torments are my own distraction and ignorance. 

26% waning moon, lost 9% from yesterday, it's lower on the horizon. You look for where the moon was the day before and then look around, left and down. 

I did another loosey goosey mindfulness of breathing, with emphasis on skandhas and insight stage. My daughter sleeps over Thursday night and it's difficult and I love it. 

Shamsoddin of Golbahar

Shamsoddin of Golbahar, the sun of spirituality, I am the moon. When we are face to face in friendship and metta, we are brothers on the path. Rumi was the revered scholar and teacher, and he left the seats of honor to sit next to Shams.

As if Shams knew about my reading today he calls me ot meditate at 2:30 Iran time, 6 AM USA time. It's -10 here in NYC, and it's 5 degrees celsius in Mashhad.

I was talking to a woman about how Carter tried to get us to switch to metric, but it didn't hold, didn't take. Carter was a visionary, America wasn't worthy of him, we stupidly chose Reagan, and even more stupidly chose Trump. Trump's administration, because who's kidding ourselves that he's making all the decisions, has issued a proclamation that perhaps will ban Iranians from traveling to the USA. We'll have to wait over 4 years for Shams to come visit me.

Two friends separated by corrupt regimes.  

Had a rare 6 AM meditation with the new guy. 30 minutes even makes me feel rickety.

The 35% moon really accompanies us in our meditation. 

Last night when I was meditating with Shams

 

Last night when I was meditating with Shams I did the Shakyamuni mantra 108 times, and it took me 27 minutes. I don't rush it. 

Today I set the time for 2 hours, but got up after an hour. Focused on the skandhas. My body just doesn't feel good enough to meditate for more than an hour. Part of it is my mind, I'm sure, and setting my clock for 2 hours was trying to challenge that, but not today.

Often I look for the moon outside my windows. Today I was looking at the wind. My phone says the wind is southerly, but it's easterly according to the eye check. 

This afternoon, he watches the sun go down here, while we're meditating. Sometimes when I meditate with him in the morning, I see the sun go down there in Iran.

 

I'm not sure whether I'm grateful for emotional turmoil to give me something to do in my meditation or whether I'd rather have a calm and peaceful life that doesn't have much to meditate on.

Martin Luther King Day

 

Feel so at home when I get back to anapanasati in my rotation. Seeing the waning half moon out the window accompanying me. Snow outside. 

Seeing more clearly how just a little intimacy with Anandi, and I launch a lot of ships, build a lot of castles in the sky. Really need to let go, stop being so clingy. We had some unusual intimacy recently and my brain is going wild even though it was just temporary, a specific rare situation. 

Shams told Rumi not to read his father's journal or his favorite poets, he needs to sing and dance more.

Feel the intoxication of the weekend of soccer. My brain settles into big sky mind. I'm asking myself what is beyond the piti, beyond the big sky mind and I think it's steadiness, equanimity, and relinquishment. 

Going into controlling and mindfulness about my social media for the next 4 years, don't want to overwhelm myself, stoke up my anger. 

Five days in a row where I did only an hour, two hours today.

Shams

Reading about Shams, the friend of Rumi, he was Malamatiyya. He also encouraged him not to read his father and favorite poetry.

My Shams encourages me not to be so angry about politics. I was explaining to him the whole abortion debate in America and all the ins and outs of it. Today is the women's march in many cities of America, there will be one here in NYC. I need new friends, I couldn't get anyone to go with me today.

I only meditated twice for 30 minutes yesterday but I did a 4 mile walk, that I think is pretty meditative. I figured out what that song Karma Chameleon is about, 42 years later.

The movies and shows I watch come back to me. Thinking about A Real Pain (2024), To The Bone (2017) and the show Good Lord Bird (2020).

Anandi was right, that's why I'm so annoyed with her. 

Ajaan Jia Cundo's intense asceticism is someone I come to when I'm doing my mudita meditations these days.

I had a dream that I was traveling and I kept losing my baggage, and not finding the right bus to the train station. 

Number 6 meditator joined us today. I had a powerful meditation, crying. Shams reports he had 5 people show up for an earlier meditation group. He doesn't want to name the sangha yet, no names leap to mind yet. 

There's a women's protest Saturday in NYC.

In college I joined the protest to get divestiture in South Africa to end apartheid.

In NYC I protested against a group that came to NYC to protest abortions.  

Cranky

 

Waiting to get back to that playful attitude. Shams says I'm cranky. 

Fascinating discussion of the Tang versus Song dynasty in China on Reddit. I've been posting about Tang dynasty poets here. 

Feel guilty I didn't connect with Shams yesterday. Busy with my daughter and fell asleep. I think guilt is a positive emotion about friendship, but alas you can't change the past, and you can't steamroll yourself completely with friendship. It exists in the comfort paces, not in the struggle spaces, except when you're struggling in school, or sports. I guess meditation is a struggle space of sorts, although with a lot more relaxing and not trying. The urge to do more for your friend shows the connection. I'm trying to redirect him to writing in his journal, and doing the other coping skills to deal with insomnia. He has insomnia and basically didn't sleep last night. 

Today is the 46th anniversary of the 16th of January, 1979. This was the day Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi and the rest of the Imperial family boarded a plane at Mehrabad Airport and left Iran, with the Shah spending the rest of his days in exile.

 

The culmination of Brahma Viharas, just sitting, anapanasati, 6 element is a devotional practice of Buddhanasati. I chant the shakyamuni mantra, and visualize the Buddha, try to feel his presence, permission, encouragement, feel his influence across time. The historical Buddha is just as mythological at this point, and we have the support of the Pali Canon. After meditation, I will read the words. 

I chant the mantra silently in my head, but today I did it aloud. Trying new things, apply mindfulness to how it worked out. I like it being private, and I like it being aloud, I'm going to try it more often, and try to discern when which is appropriate. In the winter, with the dry air, the throat stress might not be as appropriate. As much as my exhibitionist narcissism draws me to blog, I like private hidden secret practice. The vibrations in my chest certainly is something, not nothing.

Ajaan Jai Cundo would just say "Buddho" in his mind over and over, with the breath. The Shakyamuni mantra is longer, has a different feel. 

We don't know what the Buddha looked like, so I have a generic image of a human, based on rupas and pictures around me. It's more about the feeling and the vibrations of the mantra.

Been thinking about how when I was in the Chicago Field Museum and I saw some statues of the Buddha, that I felt like prostrating to them. I feel that at the Met museum in NYC too. 

Shams suggested I practice self compassion. The disharmony I feel with my ex, I brush it off, but it really affects me, pulls me down. I can't let it. Brushing it off, I underestimate it's impact, talking to a friend I realize I'm letting the negativity impact me, and I need to counter it more. I love and respect my ex, but I must not take her utterances and use them for negativity. That is my job.

I took Shams on a video walk to pick up Ruby. He talked with my friend Fareed, who speaks Afghanistan Farsi, but there were technical difficulties so Fareed couldn't hear him. It didn't switch over off my headphones, and was on 1% battery. 

People in the city put shades over their windows, they've looked into others places, and don't want that happening. I've got nothing to hide, and I like looking over my shoulder, out the window, to the waning moon. 

The 6 element meditation is a dismantling meditation, not to be done lightly, you need to have mental stability and support. 

I just pooped, so earth flows into me, earth flows out of me, it's not me, it's not mine is easy. I take a sip of coffee, water flows into me, flows out of me, it's not me, it's no mine. Energy (fire) comes into me, comes out of me, it's not me, it's not mine. I get energy from the immortals when I do devotion, chant a mantra, chant a puja. Air flows into me, flows out of me, it's not me, it's not mine. I am a devout member of the cult of the breath, so this one triggers a lot. In this one I don't go off on flights of fancy, but see how air is not me and not mine even though it's essential to my existence. Cult isn't a bad word for me, it's not always drinking poisoned knock off kool aid or enabling a tin pot authoritarian felon. In service of mindfulness it is good. Space is more nefarious, but when I'm doing the brahma viharas I shoot metta out into infinite space, so it's a more rarefied concept. Consciousness is everything, memes and Buddha-nature. I'm not so great for understanding great lines of thought from the past. 

My ex is forcing a narrative onto me that is false, but there is a verisimilitude, at times. I'm no longer going to respond to accusations if she has no shame, to not apologize when it's wrong. 

Texting Shams about the fires in LA and what English words mean. He likes memes so I'm on the lookout for white hot memes. Here is one he sent me. 

Here is one he made, Shams is a memer, maybe even a memelord. The Farsi word is introvert:

The Dune movies are pretty good. The first movie is leaving Netflix in the USA at the end of the month. 

Social media is dubious a net gain, but I'm liking #thicktrunktuesday on Bluesky. 

Morning:

I look online for stimulation. I read a little Rumi biography by Gooch, and then meditate for 64 minutes. Today I skipped a just breath stage, and then in the end I focused on relinquishment. I've been thinking a lot about how I crave stimulation and would it be to my benefit to stimulate myself less?

I wake up in the dark and see a weird light casting through the window. It's the full moon. The full moon is behind me when I meditate, I turn to look a few times. 

Breakfast:

I cook the spinach leaves, they're supposed to be good cooked. The cook down to a small amount so I overwhelm the skillet. Then chopped up cabbage mix, then already cooked potatoes, then raisins, and a clove of garlic. Then jerk seasoning. Often I add curry and cayenne pepper, but today I just wanted pure jerk seasoning. Subtraction is a spice palate in my world. Not bad. 

Qiji

Qiji (863-937) wrote more than 852 poems, after Li Bai (701-762), Du Fu (712-770), Bai Juyi (772-846), Yuan Zhen (779-831), he ranks at the fifth position in terms of numbers of poems within the Tang poets.

Wikipedia: Qiji was born Hu Desheng in 863, in Zuta Village, Weishan Township, Ningxiang, Hunan, to a family of tenant farmers. At the age of 6, he learned writing while grazed cattle for the Tongdu Temple on the mountain. He took refuge in the Three Jewels (became a monk) under Yangshan Huiji (807-883). As Adult, he went out to study and travelled to Yueyang, Changan, Zhongnan Mountains, Mount Huashan, and Jiangxi. When he returned to Changsha, Xu Dongye, a poet in the office of Hunan military governor, said: "The poems we write are not good enough. We can't compare the poems you write." In 921, Qiji went to Sichuan via Jingzhou, Gao Jixing (858-929), formally Prince Wuxin of Chu, urged Qiji to stay at Longxing Temple and appointed him as abbot. He died at the age of 76 in Jiangling County, Jingzhou, Hubei.

Poems:

right and wrong gain and loss each hard to picture clearly

so I began to study wisdom of the ancents willy-nilly

but closed the books I'd double up with laughter

and have to get up pace the floor and rub my belly

Poems with discussion.

Poems with discussion.

Guanxiu

Guanxiu (832-912) Wikipedia: He is famous for depicting the 18 arhats. Here is one.

Poem fragment:

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven—

This morning is the first of this very month.

Last night, a great fire flowed back west,

An autumnal wind shook the earth, a whistling and wailing sound.

A whistling and wailing sound is the great beginning of total comprehension.

If we

        invite it to enter straightaway,

        will it be fully comprehensible?

“Memory is in every way a shackle of affliction;

No-mind is certainly a crystal palace.”

source

Jiaoran

Not Finding Lu Hongxian at Home by Jiaoran

To find you, moved beyond the city,

A wide path led me, by mulberry and hemp,

To a new-set hedge of chrysanthemums --

Not yet blooming although autumn had come.

...I knocked; no answer, not even a dog.

I waited to ask your western neighbour;

But he told me that daily you climb the mountain,

Never returning until sunset.

(Source)

This is Jiaoran's wikipedia bio: Jiaoran was born in 730 in Wuxing District of Huzhou city, Zhejiang province. During the An Lushan Rebellion (755–763), he dwelt in seclusion and studied Taoism. When he was about forty, the Yuan-Chao Rebellion broken broke out. He received ordination as a monk in Tianzhou Temple in Hangzhou, in 767, the second year of the Dali period (766–779) of the Tang dynasty (618–907). He studied Risshū school at first and then converted to Chan Buddhism. He was the abbot of Miaoxi Temple.

Absence is a presence if you feel it. I miss my grandparents and my uncle. Rumi might go on more about losing Shams than actually actual friendship.

The cult of the breath

If you're serious about the cult of the breath it can give you many things, it gladdens, steadies, relaxes, liberates. 

Sometimes meditation gives me goofy confidence, grandiosity, elevated feelings of well being.

Rules of friendship

I get intoxicated by watching soccer. A player I liked, when to a team that I like in Germany, and that gives me an excuse to abandon a team I was following, which is good because they took on a defense contractor as a sponsor. 

I feel life is intensely political and I'm pretty sure by not following a team as closely, won't harm it at all, but it will make me feel good. Shams doesn't like soccer or politics, so he wouldn't really care. No one ever matches up all your interests, personality, and the other million things that define you. He seems to want to meditate and be on the path, that's enough for me. 

When I go into my love of Buddhist mythology, metta dopey mode, I enjoy the moon getting full and things like that. When I'm more critical and and focused, I'm not really taking care of my positivity. There's a level of ascetic just acceptance of everything and no need to be entertained or pampered. Was watching a talk today where the guy just suggested sitting in a chair for 6 hours. I need entertainment too much. 

Guardian has 10 rules for friendships.

Peculiar People Day

 

Peculiar People Day

Shams asked to meditate, impromptu. I'm going to have to flow with it these days. 

I talked about my harsh speech, unharmonious speech with a security guard at my daughter's school. I'm not perfect. He suggested to look at it in meditation, but I mostly just sit for my second meditation. He wanted to go to bed, but cut the meditation short from 60 to 40. My daughter was stopping by so I cut it short because it was going to be interrupted anyway. 

Focusing my Rumi biography reading on the Rumi post in another blog post. I like the idea that in Damascus they read aloud in groups, never alone or silent. 

Borhan

 

Rumi's father Baha Valad died, and Borhan, one of his father's friend, stepped in to guide the madrasa, the school, his father set up in Konya. I don't know how a Sufi mystic is relevant to the Buddhist path I'm on, but I'm going with it. Shams went to Konya, his first trip out of Iran, to a retreat about Rumi, so I suppose studying him helps with the friendship, but again, I"m skeptical that study is the route to friendship, I think imagination and receptivity is the key to friendship. 

We had some strife yesterday when it seemed I was too judgemental about Joe Rogan, and I went online and found the support that perhaps Rogan was a slippery secret agent of destruction that made space for Trump. I've explored why 4 million democrats stayed home this election after supporting Biden, and there have been so many proposed explanations, which mean it's complex and multidetermined. I am quite horrified about the next 4 years, and it's going to take great discipline to both ignore and remain vigilant. Shams has experience of this in Iran where he is convinced the politicians are all about making lives miserable. Our two countries are opposed, but I see a human being and the vectors of the nations we live in mean nothing in a crucial way to human friendship. I am a proud American, but I can see the limits of American exceptionalism and grandiosity. I am a proud American in the sense that I have self pride even though I'm a mistake riddled contradiction of a human being. One of my points aobut Joe Rogan was that I want to see the full complex reality surrounding him and his influence. I didn't send Shams the article I saw that downplayed his influence, and for every thought, sometimes there's the antithesis on the internet, if it's a popular topic. 

Gooch p.88:  Borhan used many of the standard Sufi images for these experiences, such as discovering a pearl, reflecting light in a mirror, or burning like a moth in a flame. With students, perhaps even Rumi, taking notes, he explained, "You are your own pearl... If you don't know anything else, but know yourself, then you are a scholar and a mystic. If you don't know yourself, then all the science and knowledge that you possess is useless.'

Borhan provided another teacher for Rumi after the lead of his father. The more gurus you have the better, because we're all so incomplete alone. Everyone has the guru of the books, and that's pretty powerful, but living gurus are very important. 

For me, Gooch, Borhan are pointing to the ability to hold the contradictions in great ideals in the spiritual life. Seeing compassion and pity, dismissing the pity, keep going, see the horrified anxiety, keep going, to see how we all create our own suffering, the optional suffering and not the non-optional pains.

I'm meditating on upeksha this morning, the hardest brahma vihara. It's a culmination practice. I need to put everything I know into this readiness that is also disentangled, and ready to relinquish. 

The most clear written legacy of the Buddha are the brahma viharas and anapanasati, and to do the full complete versions of those meditation is, for me, essential to the path. Just sitting is a nice second meditation to assimilate and relax into it but just sitting is the neglected child of meditation, if you don't have all the other supports available. Don't get me wrong, just sitting is a good growing up space. Equanimity and readiness is beaming out into the world, I'm ready to be a teacher.

I like meditating for an hour because lots of my bs needs time to settle down. Two times an hour is a good foundation, and then add ons in the afternoon and evening are gravy for me. I'm trying to live up to 2 hours a day, and when I get there, I'll go for 3 hours a day. I've done 1:26 average over the past 6 months, 1:29 the last week. So I can fantasize about 3 hours all I want, not yet up to 2 on average. I got 2 hours today, but I want to average that, not fall short many days, go over that many days.

Wednesday

My alarm went off at 6AM. Usually I wake up before 6. I woke up in the night and was sleeping late. Shams didn't show up. I'm not sure how to broach that I feel kind of lost with our loosey goosey connecting. He did say he would meet me tomorrow morning. And he's had insomnia and slept 14 hours. And I'm happy for that! I go ahead and meditate when I want to and connect when I want to, but in my orderly mind, a fixed time would really be helpful. I'm going to have to let go of that. He does communicate, he said he can't make tonight, which is good, he's hoping to be asleep. 

Shams has been sending Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan clips. I've had to explain to him why I dislike the fellows. He seems to think not hating people is the spiritual goal, and it does have its place on some level, but I'm not going to close my eyes to what's going on in the world, and hating Iran for killing 900 or Trump for killing people because of his mismanagement of Covid comes naturally to me, I do also try to hold these trains of thought lightly. 

Reading a Rumi poem about growing up. 

fahrenheit to celsius

We ended up meeting late for Shams, technically the next day for him. Nice to connect with him. It's not a perfect time to meditate when Ruby is around, but it happened. I liked my morning his afternoon meditation, but Shams is busy. He's good at tell me he's busy, so I can not wait around and just get on with my practice. 

I still meditate at 6AM. My Indian friend never connected, but he did go on line once he said. I tried to get him to do Telegram, which is how I communicate with Shams, Amir and Sepehr. 

Today is karuna. Struggling with the BVs lately, that's interesting. Mostly because I'm so isolated, not a lot of people in my life I don't love wildly. I can see their suffering. 

I can imagine my daughter's suffering, but I asked her to describe. Fear of being hungry. Fear of being poor and sitting on the side of the road. Fear of losing all her friends. Fear of losing her parents. She lost her cat, and she cried a lot about that. She feels overwhelmed by messes. Sometimes her belly hurts, she gets headaches, and she gets growing pains in her leg. She falls sometimes and gets hurt playing. She doesn't like being cold, and dirty. 

I told her about how karuna is framed by metta and mudita, so it's not always full up on suffering. I asker her her joys. When she's around her friends and family. The last time she was really happy? She went to a friend's birthday party. She likes the absence of cold. It's been cold here, 23 is as low as it's been before school. It was 19 degrees fahrenheit. In Iran they use celsius, and  23 translates to -5. It's 4 in Mashhad, which is 40 fahrenheit. 

Feel like I'm always adding 8.5 hours to the clock and figuring out the conversion from fahrenheit to celsius. 

Kayqubad I was the patron to Rumi's father Baha Valad in Konya. I'm less and less interested in Rumi as a Muslim, but I am interested in Islam some. The journey from Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, through Iran to Bagdad, to Mecca, and then further and further into Turkey is interesting to me. Travel is something I love. I'm fascinated by how amazing this earth is. I'm going to try and dog out this book about Rumi, but other books are calling me louder now.

We met at 3:30, and I said, "the grass is always greener," and he said in Iran they say the neighbors chicken is a goose. Another phrase is, "they keep their face red (with slaps)," regarding everyone is suffering. 

Shrinking

Shams didn’t want to connect today. I was leaning on him the other day to improve his life, and I wonder if that contributes. He’s not as into the critical. 

He sent me a Jordan Peterson video, and I told him I didn’t like the far right wing quack. Peterson was saying Tehran is full of trannys. I worked with people with transexual experience and they go to Philippines and Ecuador too. So what. 

One of things I like about the TV show Shrinking is that people do admit they’re pushing other people to improve because of their own issues. Full catharsis.

Really struggling with metta today, lots of barriers I’m discovering. 

Glinda or Elphaba?

Not sure which one of us is Glinda or Elphaba, me and Shams. I see him struggling with his way of being in a difficult society, far away from where I am. I guess I'm Glinda presuming to teach Elphaba, who is actually the talented one. Shams could be my son, we're not the same age, so this comparison can only go so far. 

We’re more like this:

Speaking of movies, I watched Wolfwalkers (2020) on Apple and it's the 3rd in an Irish series of beautiful animation, that I really liked. You could watch it today, possibly, not globally, but in USA on Apple. 

Ajaan Jia has an interesting bio. I really likes these Thai Forest biographies. Ajaan Jia's first meditation was just saying Buddho over and over, and today I do a more elaborate Buddhanasati, where I chant the mantra: Om muni muni, mahamuni, sakyamuni, svaha. I visualize the Buddha and ask permission to begin the path, and he says yes, and gestures to a seat next to him. I imagine meditating next to the Buddha.

I never really thought the contemplation of the 32 parts would lead to lack of lust, but I need to try again. I dismiss things as not making sense--I say you can take it apart and make it gross, but you know it's pretty easy to put it back together and feel the lust. Reverence to the Buddha includes not dismissing suggestions so easily. By all means take up things when you're ready for them, but right attitude towards the teachings is quite important. You can take things the wrong way easily too, too zealous, you can make you feet bloody, it's all about tuning the lute. You apply the teachings with discernment. 

The Buddha taught brahma viharas and anapanasati, so doing those meditation is taking refuge in the Buddha and the Dharma.

With 21st century hindsight, we can look back and see that Rumi noticed Attar, and not Omar Khayyam, and his Rubaiyat. Which is an unread classic on my to read list. (I continue to read Brad Gooch's Rumi's Secret.)

The qibla is the spot marked in a room that points to Mecca. My Mecca is Bodhgaya, which is a tick blow east, which also happens to be where the sun comes up. 

Another poet Mansour al-Hallaj (858 – 922) may have influenced Rumi. He's in Baghdad now, Iraq, and then he headed to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Spaniard Ibn Jubayr made the journey 30 years before Rumi went with his family as a 10-11 year old. The father was on a hajj. You're supposed to walk 7 times around the Kaaba. And stone the devil, among other things.

Then they went to Malatya, which is Turkey. He may have met the Sufi mystic Ibn Arabi. Next it was on to Erzincan, The Mongol army made Iran unappealing to return to as they killed up to 90% of the population in cities, destroyed infrastructure. It is the time of Genghis Khan. His grandson would rule from Korea to Hungary. As the family pushed west, they stayed at times in Sufi Lodges. It was paradoxically a time of great spiritual and religious activity. Rumi lost a lot of family along the way. On to Larande, which Google redirects to Karaman, though the article doesn't say they're the same, but Gooch confirms was the modern name. It is 60 miles southeast of Konya, where they would eventually end up, and Rumi would spend the rest of his life. Rumi's father was in his 70's. His patron was the local governor. At 17 he marries Gowhar.  Gowhar was from Samarkand, and was part of the caravan traveling with his father. (Konya was Sham's destination for his retreat, and his first trip out of Iran.)

I'm quite happy to learn about other religions and practices. My study of Rumi isn't really relevant any more to my friendship with Shams, and I plug along even so. He said I probably know more about Iran than him at this point, but that's silly, he's lived there his whole life, and I've read a few poets and some history in English, so that can't be true. He's just being nice. Just because I looked at the Wikipedia page of the mountains between Mashhad and Nishapur, doesn't mean I've looked on them like him, beyond photos. 

Shams is busy today, we didn't connect. And then we did in the evening, 11 his time, 2:30 my time.

Vassa is July to October in India when it rains. I'd say it's more December-February in NYC.

Trapusa and Bahalika were the first two disciples of the Buddha.

Ajaan Jai Cundo

Asceticism is an adolescent mistake, another adventure, but adults find enough asceticism in accepting things as they are. Been listening to Gold Wrapped in Rags about Ajaan Jai Cundo. He didn't sleep hardly at all during the rains retreats, a bit leaning against something in the daytime, so he could stay up all night. Quite inspiring stories. 

I stayed up once to raise money for the Dalits of India, the ex-untouchable movement of Ambedkar. We would meditate 40 minutes, and walk for 20, then 30 minutes and have some tea for 30 minutes. I did fall asleep for a moment on one break. 

But for a few month of a rains retreat he didn't sleep laying down?! He wasn't really into Buddhism, he had fun doing the work for the family business, and protecting their interests, just ordained to please his parents, show them respect, but it held. 

The Dhutanga monks of the Thai Forest tradition countered the comfortable city monks who were only really trying to take the easy path, not the middle way. He would meditate for 3 hours in one sitting. For me a triple sit of 40 minute sits with breaks is quite a challenge. 

I was challenging to Shams today. I'm not most days, most days I focus on listening, trying say helpful things. Guess it's the mood I'm in. Also feel like he might have needed that. Hope he takes it well. 

Attar of Nishapur

 

Full name: Faridoldin Abu Hamed Mohammad Attar Neyshaburi (1145 – 1221). And his pen name was Faridoldin. Now he is known as Attar of Nishapur. 

Attar of Nishapur is one of the poets who influenced Rumi. I continue to read about Rumi, to learn more about Iran and culture of my friend who lives in Mashhad. 

He was influenced by Ferdowsi, Sanai, Khwaja Abdullah Ansari, Mansur Al-Hallaj, Abu-Sa'id Abul-Khayr, Bayazid Bastami.

He influenced: Rumi, Hazrat Ishaan, Sayyid Alauddin Atar, Hafez, Jami, Ali-Shir Nava'i and many other later Sufi Poets.

Attar practised the profession of pharmacist and personally attended to a very large number of customers. He is mentioned by only two of his contemporaries, Awfi and Tusi.

First poem I read of his:

Since there is no one to be our companion in Love

    the prayer-mat is for the pious; wine-dregs and vice for us. 

A place where people’s souls turn and twist like polo balls

    is not a place for rogues; so what’s that got to do with us? 

If the wine-bringers of the spirit sit with the devout

    their wine is for the ascetics; lees and hangovers for us.

Cure is for the purists, consternation for the broken,

    joyfulness for the do-gooders; while grief is our remembrance.

O pretender, you are not here to witness our wealth

    as the Beloved extorted all that we owned within us.

Words of experience came from the messenger of truth:

    O weary, as you make your way, shed your grief for us.

Attar was absorbed in sorrow along this Path.

    Because he’s absolutely finished, his solace is with us. 

Shams has told me to just meditate, don't worry about the 6 AM time. It's because he leads a fairly chaotic life where food from his mother arrives at 2:30, so he has to eat when we're meditating and then meditating after eating isn't exactly advised. I see our 2:30/6 time a solid, sacred, unmovable. Shams doesn't see it that way.

So I meditated at 5, even though if at 6 I might be meditating and my knees usually can't stand 2 hours straight sitting. In the end he came on at 6:30 and we talked before I had to get my daughter up at 6:45AM.

Shams says the Sufi poets are like one. They all sound the same. 

Shams slept over with Sepehr and his brother, and he had nightmares. He didn't sleep well. He's been struggling with keeping the position since he came back from Turkey. I had to get up to get my daughter breakfast, and turn off the camera so she could walk through, and to charge my laptop. He liked the side view, but I'm ashamed of my slouch. He didn't even notice my slouch. Likes to see different views of my room. 

Raw mindfulness can make you more unhappy. I'm annoyed by yet another minor change in the Insight Meditation Timer. I've lost my presets twice. I've sworn it off a few times, used other timers. I dislike the way it changes the centering every number that goes by now. Not a big thing, but it reminds me of how it's one of those popular apps that has to change things to justify premium subscriptions. It's part of the enshitification of life--greed.

I forgot to put raisins in my rice and beans, and I really miss them. I've come to really like raisins. I think when I was a kid peanut butter sandwiches and raisins were so omnipresent that it was until a few years ago that I began to like peanut butter again, and began adding raisins to things. I love raisins now in my rice and beans. 

I saw there was a new bio on the Thai Forest site. It's about Ajaan Jia Cundo (bio).

Thursday

 

Shams said he was lonely when I texted "sick" and didn't show up for our online meditation yesterday. 

I asked him if he'd been to Neyshabur, and he hasn't been but Sepehr had. Amir was also there, I had all 3 guy meditating. Amir left after 10 minutes, Shams laid down after 20 and disappeared at 35, and Sepehr stuck it out to the end. I asked him if he knew the name of the mountain ranges between Neyshabur and Mashhad. Mashhad seems close, but the mountains make it a longer journey, and while Rumi was in Neyshabur, I'm don't think he had to go through Mashhad to get there. (Rumi's Secret, by Brad Gooch 2017 is my source)

He didn't know, but google knows, they're the Binalud Mountains. 

Excerpts from Wikipedia:

Binalud mountain range that runs in a northwest-southeast direction between the Nishapur and Mashhad regions in Razavi Khorasan Province in northeastern Iran, to the southeast of the Caspian Sea. Although far from the Aladagh Mountains, which lie to the northwest in the Province of North Khorasan, the Binalud Mountains are located in such a way that both the Aladagh Mountains and the Binalud Range lie approximately in the same arc, curving from the northwest to the southeast.

Situated somewhat to the west of the Binalud Range proper, and with an elevation of 3,211 metres, Mount Binalud is the highest point both of the Binalud Mountains and of Razavi Khorasan Province as a whole.

The mountain range was formed mainly in the Miocene and the Pliocene during the Alpine orogeny and is made predominantly of Triassic and Jurassic rocks, with chiefly Jurassic rocks in the northwestern part and a smaller portion of Paleozoic rocks in the western section. On the southern margin of the range and along the same northwest-southeast direction, there is a strip of Eocene rocks. On the northwestern side of this strip, there is another section of Eocene rocks that are volcanic in origin.[2] The well-known Nishabur turquoise comes from the weathered and broken trachytes and andesites of the Eocene volcanic rocks of this part of the mountain range. The main turquoise mines are situated about 50 kilometres northwest of the city of Nishapur in the vicinity of a village called Madan.

The mountains form part of the faulting resulting from the collision of the Arabian Plate with the Eurasian Plate. The range takes up the motion of Central Iran on the Arabian plate at the rate of 4.0 ± 1.3 mm (0.157 ± 0.051 in) per year.

I've never heard the phrase "Iranian Nose". Guardian.