Lately, I have been getting cranky; and especially so when I am interrupted at  journalling..  This was called to my attention Friday when I snapped at Dianne when she called for my help.   She reminded me of the story of how Cat Stevens, on his road to being Yusef Islam, became harder and harder to live with as his spiritual search intensified and suggested that there is something basically wrong with the way one is searching if that is happening.  She noted that I have been getting increasingly irritable over the past week, and I had to agree.

I remembered an old Robert Service rhyme from my childhood about a mother reading her Bible for guidance in raising her child.  When the child sought her attention, the mother snapped at her, explaining: I'm trying to learn how to be a loving mum.  Indeed, there is something wrong if the spiritual search makes one less compassionate, companionable, and caring about creation.

My posts will probably become rarer and more spontaneous, less intellectual, less argumentative, more humble.

I do want to  continue my comments on the Chuang-tzu on taoism , (at least through the first seven chapters), but these will come slower.and more irregularly.

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Chapter four of the Chuang-tzu is called "The Human World."    It might have been called "About political advising, two trees, a hunchback. and a madman."  Cautions about political advice take up about two-thirds of the chapter.  When it comes to offering political advice to powerful rulers, the prime directive seems to be: don't.  Don't give advice unless you are asked, ordered to give it.  And don't go off half cocked.   Full awareness and adherence to the Tao is essential; and even then you may suffer the consequences of unwelcome advice or bad advice.

Here Confucius seems to be cast in the role of a Taoist sage; frequently put down and sometimes slandered in the Chuang-tzu, here he seems to be giving wise instruction to those who would instruct others on policy matters and to possess a good grasp of the psychology of power.  You don;t want to cross powerful people.  If you have less than the full power of the Tao in you, you will fail and you may die.

     "The Way does not like adulteration;  if there is adulteration, there is complication;  and if there is complication there is unease;
     If there is unease there is worry, worry that cannot help."

Unspoken, but implied, is the idea that corrupt power (and all political and economic  power is corrupt) will not tolerate unease and worry and will strike out at the imagined source of that unease and worry.

However, if you are asked to serve, it is your duty to serve (now, this sounds like Confucius being Confucius).  You must get along with the powerful people and the possibility of being corrupted by them is great.  You must engage in mental fasting.

     " you unify your will.  Hear with the mind instead of the ears; hear with the energy instead of the mind.  Hearing stops at the ears; the mind stops at contact; but energy is that which is empty and responsive to others.  The Way gathers in emptiness, emtiness is mental fasting.

While these stories deal with the futility of trying to be useful; the final stories speak of the utility of trying to be useless..  Ugliness and apparent disability and dis-utility leave people freer to follow the Way rather than the lesser paths offered by societies and cultures.  At the same time, unexpected utilities may emerge out of  apparent uselessness.  The tree that the woodsmen and carpenters reject, grows to enormous size and provides shelter for numerous people and animals in need of shade and rest from hot, dusty travel.  The hunchback provides well for his family because he is free from the threat of conscript labor.

Thomas Cleary quotes contemporary Taoist sage Fu-kuei-tzu:  "The whole book of Chuang-tzu is centered on transcending the world, but people who have transcended the world since ancient times have seen (to?) the affairs of the world first,  for only then could they cut through to rise above the world.  Therefore this chapter goes back to use the task of involvement with the world as a vehicle for teachings on transcending the world."

When General Colin Powell accepted the job of Secretary of State in the Cabinet of George W. Bush, he was a man of integrity, but not a man of Tao,  When he made his UN  speech on WMDs in Iraq, he disgraced himself and his country and his words led to the loss of thousands of American and Iraqi lives,  General Powell had a duty to serve as Secretary of State when asked to do so by the President; but he also had a duty to understand the psychology of power and to become aware how easy it is for persons of great integrity and great intelligence and great accomplishment to become snared by the trappings of Presidential power.  Chuang Chou might have been able to teach him.

Chaoter 3 of the Chuang-tzu is called (by Thomas Cleary) "Mastery of Nurturing Life.".  A little like Robert Fulghum's "Everything I Ever Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten,"  It is a very brief and simple (well, mostly simple) guide to a well lived life--a life lived so well that one's friends will go to the funeral, howl three times, and get on with their own well lived lives.  My thoughts about these guides are as follows.

1) a.) Know that we are mortal; b.) Know that we can't know much; c.) Know that we shouldn't know too much: and d.) be content with that knowledge.  We can't return to Eden, but we can live more simply.

2) Sorry, Mr. Gump, life is like butchering meat.  (Well, it's probably also like a box of chocolates.)  Live life with grace (in all its meanings); and with rhythm, focus, gentleness, persistence, and skill .  Live it naturally and carefully.  (And clean up after yourself and take satisfaction in what you have done and not done.)  Above all, approach life spiritually; see the essence and, if necessary, ignore appearance.

3) I have no idea what these paragraphs mean except maybe that we tend to pay too much attention to appearances?

4) Liberty should be a part of every life and comfort can be a cage.

5)  Funeral rituals cannot do justice to a well lived life   We live when its time for us to come and die when its time for us to die.  A well lived life is its own reward.  Be grateful you knew this person and don't regret what you didn't get from her or him.

6) "When the fingers (nature?) have no more kindling (material?) to put in, the fire (spirit?, soul?) goes on burning. unaware that its gone."

When I read chapter 3 of the Chuang Tzu I think of Fillipe.  This is because chapter three is about applying Taoist principles to everyday life, and its core story is about a royal chef who uses the Tao to carve up an ox.

087 Butcher an Ox

I do not know whether Fillipe was a Taoist, probably not.  He was Pilipino and wore a crucifix.  In the early summer of my sixteenth year I had never heard of the Tao.  I was still a child, in fact, this would be the best and last summer of my childhood.  I had been hired at the local lumber mill as a planer chain laborer.  The work was almost easy and almost fun.  Six or seven men and boys pulled finished lumber off a conveyor chain after a planing machine had smoothed and cut it into precise widths, depths and lengths.  Mostly it was two by fours (actually one and fifteen sixteenths by three and seven-eighths)  or shiplap.  We put the lumber in stacks, according to grade and length, that could be carried off by fork lifts eventually to become houses for families.

A few weeks into the job I was asked if I wanted to work on the green chain.  I was making $2.50 an hour (a princely sum for a lad in post WWII Alaska) but the greenchain paid $3,59.  Also the wood was much bigger, rougher, more varied, much heavier and more dangerous to work around.  The work would be very hard, real man's work.  And the other men in the crew fit my definition of "real" men, big, strong Swedes, Mexicans, Indians and Pilipinos--all except  Fillipe; he was a short man, shorter than I (who had net yet reached my full adult height of 5' 6"), weighed about 90 pounds; and though he could have been anywhere between 40 and 70 years old, he looked at least 80 to my juvenile eyes.  I always thought of him as an old man--even after I saw him work.

Fillipe seemed to exert less effort and get more done than anyone else in the crew.  I, on the other hand, exerted more effort and got less done than anyone else.  Fillipe told me he used "Jui Jitsu", allowing the timbers to do most of the work of getting themselves off the chain and on to the proper piles.  He showed me some simple ways of moving and lifting that made the work much easier, and I was soon contributing as much or more than the average person in the crew.  But the real secret, he said was attitude.  Nothing is heavy or light except in relationship to something else., so timber can be perceived as light as easily as it can be perceived as heavy..Fillipe always stayed a few minutes after quitting time to clean up a little to make things easier for the whole crew when they started the next day,

I always think of Fillipe when I read the concluding line of Butcher an Ox.  "The King said: " Excellent! Having heard the words of a butcher, I have found the way to nurture life."

Dianne is home eight days, and it seems we have been unable to settle in to any remote approximation of normalcy (which would not be bad if it were chosen change rather than given, or may I say, inflicted).  Pneumonia, non-breathing, and inactivity take a lot out of  a person and Dianne has lost a lot, including perspective and a sense of humor.  (The first will eventually come back, I can only hope for the latter)  So much needs to be done to bring her to greater strength, health and mobiliity;  The trouble is that the providers of each of these services is convinced of the primacy of his or her own contribution, (ophthalmology, pulmonology, cardiology,  diet,. physical therapy, rheumatology, general medicine, etc.) that her time and energy (mine too) are being sapped.  On top of this, conflicting appointments were made for her, and Nurse Practitioners  or Medical Assistants show up at the appointments instead of Doctors she knows and trusts.  Add my autism on top of that and you have a formula for a very bad sitcom (or maybe a crime drama--with the victim a home health nurse who arrived two hours late for an appointment with the main suspect being either a woman confined to a wheelchair or her elderly, strange husband.

But, she is home!!!!

When you cling to a hairsbreadth of distinction,
heaven and earth are set apart. 
      Seng Ts'an, "The mind of absolute trust"

Between a man and a butterfly there is necessarily a distinction.
     Chuang Tsu (Lin Yutang translation)

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* This is the second in a series of personal commentaries on the Chuang-tzu.  The first which I called "Freedom" was posted on December 16, 2009.  These are in no sense scholarly works and reflect my private understandings which are part of an effort to become a spiritual person.

Like nearly everything else in the Sermon on the Mount, the admonition: "Do not judge," is "simple but not easy."

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Dianne is home from the hospital today.  Still very weak, and very tired.  Hospitals, I think, overrate the value of tests and they undervalue rest.   Jill Bolte Taylor's first advise to caregivers was: let the patient sleep.  Hopefully, by getting her first uninterrupted night's  sleep in a month, Dianne will feel stronger and happier in the morning.  Thank you for all your prayers, good thoughts, and good wishes as she went through this process of healing.

I just finished watching a repeat of Charlie Rose's 11/26/2009 Interview with Tim Burton.  Some things come to mind about autism, stimming, creativity, and spirituality and I need to get some quick notes down before they leave my mind.( These probably make no sense.... )

Dianne's discharge date from the hospital has been set for one week away.  We both think that is an excellent decision.  She feels she needs a little more time to build her strength and mobility.  She is short of breath today although doctor and nurses can see nothing wrong.  (Well, her left lung is still a little too quiet)..  She will be able to continue to use the hospital's physical rehab program as an outpatient.  This is also a very welcome opportunity.  She is still scared, still talking about "how much trouble she is going to be;" but I am very encouraged and optimistic.  I think this episode witll turn out to have been a blessing in disguise, another chance for us to get it right.  Believe me, I will be far more alert and conscientious this time around.

It is now a lunar month since Dianne went into the hospital with her breath nearly gone.  She will be home in....a couple of days.... a week...ten days?  Surely she is at least half homeward bound.  The bottom lobe of her left lung still sounds too quiet, the pneumonia must be hanging in their inspite of being "bathed" in antibiotics.  Her rehab is going well, but she gets terribly tired.

I have treated the time like a month's vacation--this in spite of the fact that I have no idea how to vacation and vacations have always turned out to be depressing.  The slight progress I have made spiritually has helped a lot; but it has also made me realize how much of an autist's time is wasted in perseveration activities.  (I will have to do an entry devoted entirely to :"stimming" (the persistent repitition of activities that seem ridiculous or obsessive to most people)).

I spent some time watching movies that Dianne probably would not enjoy.  I like most of the movies she likes; but she likes very few of the ones I like (including some of my favorites, like "Chinatown").  I watched "Babel" (big disappointment),  "Rashomon" (great, but for reasons I did non suspect.  I loved the ending, sloppy sentimentality or not) and "Big Fish" (fun to watch, good time waster also a sloppily sentimental but enjoyable ending).  Next on my list is "Mongol"

I visit Dianne each afternoon and evening; but last night she called to tell me not to come. she was too tired and would probably go to sleep early.  I intended to do some spiritual reading and meditation, but ended up stimming instead.  Much of my stimming consists of rereading my live journal posts and playing solitaire or minesweeper on the computer.  Absolutely no discipline!  I have a half dozen lovely books half read  (one of my problems, possibly a symptom, is that I think I can end a book better than the author did.)

I even bore Niki.  But I do walk her every day,

Love, peace and joy, to all.

On a formless path to an endless end.
I saw a traveler on another wend.
"Sister," I cried, "the path is here."
"Thanks," she said, and continued there.

We met again, of course, at last.
"Shall we try each other's paths," she asked.
"But how?" I wondered, tempted but afraid.
"All the real paths are one," she said.

...Yanus says one last thing
about the power of words:
Only the word "I"
divides me from God.

Yanus Emre (1208-1320) (Sufi)
From: "A single word can brighten the face."

Let no sadness come through this gate.
Let no trouble come to these walls.
Let no hatred be in this place.
Let this home be filled with the blessing of joy and peace.
                  --Hausa prayer

And let your home's also be so filled.
Happy New Year.