D's Bones » health

Dokusan* (56)

David Stallings — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 20:44:56 +0000

Do one-breath zazen!
my Zen teacher would say
when I complained
I hadn’t time
to meditate regularly.
He would probably approve
my placement of his new book
on the back of my toilet.
Since my prostate enlarged,
I pee more than I used to, making
for frequent short visits with
my old teacher.

*Dokusan—personal interview with the roshi during formal Zen practice

(No. 56 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)

In my experience, Zen practice (and probably most such practices) eventually merges with everyday life. Just look around.

Many koans clarify this point. For example, Case 21 of the Mumonkan:

A monk asked Unmon, What is a Buddha?
Unmon said, Dried shitstick.

Answering a similar question, Joshu (Case 37, Mumonkan), replied, The oak tree in the garden.

(Numeric reference to Han-shan’s poem reflects the order of presentation in Burton Watson’s translation, presented as Cold Mountain, Columbia University Press, 1970.)

Posterior Vitreous Detachment (90)

David Stallings — Fri, 15 Oct 2004 19:43:24 +0000

The jelly-like goo
pulls away from my retina.
A light show
flashes and arcs across my left
eye, spilling torn tissue flotsam—
space debris strewn
about my visual universe.

Holy shit.

Score another point for
aging, further need for living
a fierce
grace.

(No. 90 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)

There I was at work one day when this event unfolded. Wow. I later learned that 3/4 of us will have experience this by our elder years.

“Fierce grace” is Ram Dass’s term. And the title of a wonderful film about his dealing with, as his guru put it, being “stroked.”

(Numeric reference to Han-shan’s poem reflects the order of presentation in Burton Watson’s translation, presented as Cold Mountain, Columbia University Press, 1970.)

Denial (70)

David Stallings — Thu, 30 Sep 2004 20:02:01 +0000

My morning exercise
includes repetitively curling a pair
of 20-pound dumbbells.
I stand in my Jockey “Slim Guy”
underwear envisioning myself a tall,
mesomorphic, light-skinned black man.
My muscles don’t bulge
but gracefully arrange themselves
in fluid proportions.
This helps.

Today I curl before the bathroom mirror,
to confirm my long-held image.
Bad move.

Faltering, I quickly step away,
to become the svelte,
cat-like jungle man
who I
am.

(No. 70 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)

I suppose we all do this in one way or another.

(Numeric reference to Han-shan’s poem reflects the order of presentation in Burton Watson’s translation, presented as Cold Mountain, Columbia University Press, 1970.)

Deepening (99)

David Stallings — Thu, 22 Apr 2004 19:21:03 +0000

for Andrea

Swimming laps,
I shared the university men’s pool
with a small child and his dad.
Near the end of the three-meter plank,
the boy confronted an abyss.
Somewhere below, his father treaded
encouragement.

I held to a gutter, resting,
watching.

The boy pulled
at his tiny butt cheeks,
feet churning on the rough surface.

Forty years later
I still feel that splash
as I seek the courage
to love you
more.

(No. 99 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)

The moment caught and amazed me, there in the University of Colorado men’s pool. I watched a little boy (maybe 3 years old?) take a step on the hero’s journey, confronting his fears, supported by his father. His total focus, nervousnous, and ultimately his leap have stayed with me for these 40 years or so.

As my partner Andrea and I face the strains, fears, and opportunities within our relationship, I confront long buried fears. And no less is required than that same courage I witnessed long ago. As do us all, I feel like a child within an adult sometimes, but with the strength of myself in the water, support at the ready.

Still, it looks like a long way down.

(Numeric reference to Han-shan’s poem reflects the order of presentation in Burton Watson’s translation, presented as Cold Mountain, Columbia University Press, 1970.)

Ceremony (68)

David Stallings — Thu, 15 Apr 2004 18:46:21 +0000

Caitlin, a down-winder,
lay dying in the hospital.
Who thought of it first?
Let’s do the wedding now!
Scott was there, license
in hand. Witnesses?
Here’s Jan, visiting from our office,
and Caitlin’s oncologist makes two.
I have my Universal Life minister
certificate. Afterward we cried,
but then Scott went out
for a six-pack and we toasted
the newlyweds. No beer for
Caitlin, but she beamed, raised
her hand, and pressed the button
of her morphine
drip.

(No. 68 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)

I worked with Caitlin for several years, and she became a dear friend. What a lady! She regularly took breaks from our busy government office to work as a cocktail waitress in Cannon Beach, Oregon. Caitlin had grown up in southeastern Washington, down wind from the toxic plume that (unknowingly, at the time) exposed many people to radiation poisoning. The source was the plutonium facility in the Tri-cities area of Washington, which supplied fissionable material for our nation’s first atomic bombs. The most common illness of the “down-winders”, as they have come to be known, is thyroid cancer. Caitlin’s thyroid cancer metastasized, and at 38, she was dead within 16 months of diagnosis.

I learned a great deal about dying from Caitlin. Including the sense, as Steven Levine put it, that there is ultimately no safer act we will ever confront.

(Numeric reference to Han-shan’s poem reflects the order of presentation in Burton Watson’s translation, presented as Cold Mountain, Columbia University Press, 1970.)

Metastasis (74)

David Stallings — Thu, 25 Mar 2004 19:34:01 +0000

From a tentative reference
in a tangential discussion
a confidence is taken,
a truth revealed.

A work mate has leukemia.

Churning, I must share
this news with a trusted
one. Hesitantly, I speak
in a darkened room.

Soon we will all
know.

(No. 74 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)

Tough news spreads fast. How can such news, stirred with compassion, assist in healing, if not curing the affected one? And with still more compassion, how do we live with the advice intoned at day’s end of many Zen sesshin:

I beg to urge you everyone,
life and death is a grave matter.
All things pass quickly away.
Each of you must be completely alert,
never neglectful, never indulgent…

(Numeric reference to Han-shan’s poem reflects the order of presentation in Burton Watson’s translation, presented as Cold Mountain, Columbia University Press, 1970.)

Lab Results

David Stallings — Fri, 12 Sep 2003 23:47:20 +0000

The tape on my right arm
protects the needle hole from invasion.
Still warm, my blood’s en-tubed within the clinic.
I sit across the street,
deliberating over coffee and scone.
Good thoughts, good friends, diet and exercise
can’t save me from
an errant thyroid,
a rebellious prostate gland,
and other debilitations.
Days will pass, this purgatory will end.
Results will wash up with other data.
I will pick through the flotsam
and try to decide
what must be
done.

My daughter (still young, I might note) tells me she is tiring of aging/mortality poems. And then out pops this one. Oh, well, it’s this stuff that makes the flower’s smell (and time with my daughter) so precious.

Old Goat Lake (55)

David Stallings — Sun, 27 Jul 2003 18:43:53 +0000

Hike the Upper Dungeness Trail,
then up a ridge west of Camp Handy.
Steep old fisherman’s track
under July afternoon sun.
Thirty steps, gasping stop, thirty more,
my old legs and asthmatic lungs struggling
to keep up.
Admire huge tree boles and lush delphinium
before starting again.
Then Goat Lake at last,
air brilliant and snowmelt bubbly.
Bugs not bad, good night’s sleep.
But say, just how much longer
will I be able to rise
after squatting to shit
in these lovely mountains?

(No. 55 in a series of responses to Han-Shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)

Goat Lake, one of those many places of infinite beauty in the Olympic Mountains. Arduous ascent and descent, but worth it to let the place have a look at you just for a while.

Han-shan’s poem (Burton Watson’s translation):

Cold cliffs, more beautiful the deeper you enter–
yet no one travels this road.
White clouds idle about the tall crags;
on the green peak a single monkey wails.
What other companions do I need?
I grow old doing as I please.
Though face and form alter with the years,
I hold fast to the pearl of the mind.

(Numeric reference to Han-shan’s poem reflects the order of presentation in Burton Watson’s translation, presented as Cold Mountain, Columbia University Press, 1970.)

Appointment With A Lark

David Stallings — Fri, 03 Jan 2003 06:41:10 +0000

Past Last Water Camp, my dog and I
wind up the north trail,
wade deep sprawls
of late snow.

Left behind is my city job,
the softness of a woman at dawn.
Worries swirl
as I ascend through mist.
I cough a blaze onto the snow–
a shock of redness.
My sarcoid lungs may be the end of me.

Route finding now, I enter a different land.
Unseen across the slopes
A golden burble beckons,
draws me upward.

On the bright summit
I stroke my dog’s ears,
gaze through tears
over endless lowland clouds.

Slave to the Needle

David Stallings — Mon, 30 Dec 2002 02:44:40 +0000

Dr. Huang is a cheery fellow,
and today we talk politics
as he zaps my meridians
with #.005 surgical steel.
“Politics is like a toilet,” he notes,
“smelly, but we need it.”
“Like making sausage,” I offer,
“you don’t want to see
what goes into it.”
Dr. Huang continues,
telling me how
blood sausage is made.
He swirls my energy a last time,
turns off the light, and
I slip into a needled reverie.

Who actually knows what evil
Lurks in the shadowy heart of Man?

I try to consult Dr. Huang
about this when he returns.
He chuckles, inscrutable.

Leaving Dr. Huang’s office,
I run to catch the Route 71.
Meridians ablaze, mind filling
with guilty pleasures,
I move to the rear of the bus.

Staring into the window,
I recall a woman,
into white witchcraft
and dark sexuality,
who believed we court the chthonic
each time we wipe our behinds.
Full of sensual knowing,
I slyly glance at the other passengers.

The bus worms through a dark tunnel
and discharges me
far below the city.
I rise to Pioneer Square,
returning to the light,
oddly refreshed.