wow, the West coast smoke is here now

According the the US Fire and Smoke Map, the smoke from the West coast fires has traveled all the way across the country to suburban Maryland, and the line between the smoky air and normal air is just 5 miles away from our house, at the Home Depot where Georgia and Connecticut Avenues meet.  If the smoke line were to remain stationary, I would drive into it on my way to the dermatologist in the morning.

The local air quality monitors remain green, but smoke is one of the irritants that can set off my asthma.  You've got to drive to Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, or St. Louis to reach enough of the smoke for the air quality monitors to turn yellow.

I'll find out soon whether my asthma can detect the smoke.  But it is raining here and will continue raining through much of tomorrow (we have another flash flood watch, I might be bailing water again), so maybe that will clear the smoke from the air?

16 minutes

Had to wait to meditate until after I returned from the dermatologist, because I slept later than usual and had to get my ass moving for the 8am appointment.

I like my new dermatologist!  She said my new spot is benign.  She offered to freeze it off, but I declined.  She found no other spots of concern.  So, yay!  No skin cancer yet as I'm about to turn 53.

I'd imagined she would be a he -- so I'm still exhibiting unconscious gender bias, assuming that my new dermatologist would be a man because my previous dermatologists were all men, and because I presume the default gender for a dermatologist is male.  It's a constant struggle to counter this kind of unconscious bias.  It's why I always tell people: we're all sexist, we're all racist.  We cannot eliminate sexism or racism until we eliminate gender and race as categories, because so long as these categories exist, we will create stereotypes for them.  That's what human cognition does.  I should not have assumed anything about how my dermatologist would look, her gender, her race, etc.  But I did.

I didn't notice any asthma issues while driving into the West Coast smoke, but it is raining.

I'm downloading Chapter 3 of Tell Me Why.

I'm starting work an hour late today, so I'd have buffer time between the appointment and working.  I received no acknowledgement from my superiors regarding the task I accomplished for them yesterday.

At 1pm I'll do a dance/abs workout in the basement.  If it isn't raining in the morning, I'll run 4 miles, and then do my weightlifting workout.  Haven't made plans for the weekend yet.  Maybe some condo time, maybe not, we'll see.

another flash flood warning here

I was stuck on work calls, so this time T did the bailing of water to avoid a basement flood.  Lots of rain!  A few miles from here they were doing water rescues (along Sligo Creek, where I used to run before Quarantine).  It's been so humid, even this late in Summer, that when it rains it rains a helluva lot here.  While the West Coast is burning, we're repeatedly flooding.

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The annual review call went fine.

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T is taking tomorrow afternoon off and going to a museum downtown.  So I'll have a bit of time to self at the house.  I think I have too much work right now to take tomorrow afternoon off, so if I'm going to the condo it will be for Saturday night.

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One aspect of Global Warming is that we have extreme weather events more often.  But environmental scientists and activists warn against thinking what's happening right now is the New Normal.  Because it's going to continue getting worse.  The extreme weather events of today will be exceeded by even more extreme weather events later this decade, and then even more extreme next decade, until we stop pumping so much CO2 and Methane into the air.  It's just gonna keep getting worse.

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After years of cooking dinners with the aid of Blue Apron, we quit this week.  The meals are still great, I still enjoy making them, but their quality control sucks now.  Almost every week we get at least one meal that is missing at least one ingredient.  It happened last week, it happened again this week, it happened a few weeks ago -- every time we're missing an ingredient T complains, but now we're done.  I shouldn't have to go to the grocery store every week to purchase a missing ingredient for a service that is supposed to be making things easier.

We're going to try some trial deals with some other meal kit companies.  Really my only complaint about Blue Apron is that whoever is packing the boxes isn't double checking to make sure everything is there.  Almost every week.

wisdom:sword::compassion:eyes

This morning as I drove to the dermatologist I listened to a Soto Zen podcast, a couple of a particular center's dharma talks.  The instructor was discussing whether Zen is a religion, what's the point of Zen, and later referenced a couple of the Buddhist deities and how they interact with our "Buddha nature" (whatever that is).

I wasn't taking notes, so I might have found the wrong deities when I got home and was looking on the Internet for them, but this probably doesn't matter, as each school of Buddhism in each country seems to have its own versions of these deities.  Reminds me a bit of the Catholic Saints, of which there are more than 10,000 (there's probably a patron Saint for everything).

But the instructor was referencing both a Deity of Wisdom, and a Deity of Compassion -- it doesn't matter which particular versions of these -- and how practicing Zen has the effect of inviting both Wisdom and Compassion into your life.

Yet, hold on a minute, because these commonplace English words, "wisdom" and "compassion" don't mean what we think they mean in the context of Buddhist traditions.  There's definitely some translation problems in bringing the centuries-old Buddhist traditions to 21st Century US English.  This adds to some of the mystique of Zen koans & poetry, but also confuses people.  I think it creates this image of Zen as opaque and paradoxical, when it's not.

Like the koan about one hand clapping.  In the US, people cite this koan when they want to refer to a mystery that cannot be solved.  But what it's really about is --> when your two hands come together in a clap, they effectively become one hand.  I think Zen koans aren't as confusing in the context of their original languages and cultures, several centuries ago on the other side of the planet.

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In Buddhist English, wisdom is represented by a Deity who wields a sword and uses this sword to cut through our illusions.  Wisdom spends all his time calling out your bullshit.  Heh, reminds me of how I keep calling stuff bullshit in my journal.

In Buddhist English, compassion is represented by a Deity who has 1000 eyes.  She uses these eyes to see things as they truly are.  Compassion spends all her time telling you what is real.

So wisdom is about calling out your bullshit, and compassion is about telling you what's real.  These Deities of Wisdom and Compassion work together to relieve your suffering by tearing down your illusions and helping you to see reality.

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I note that wisdom as used here is not the giving of sage advice, and compassion as used here is not giving you a hug and a warm cookie.  These Deities aren't Mom and Pop, they aren't a loving God.  They're tough.

At one point the instructor talked about how the Deity of Wisdom can cause a spiritual crisis -- aha, I know what a spiritual crisis is -- by leaving you bereft of your comforting illusions.  But then the Deity of Compassion immediately swoops in and shows you reality, helping you to replace your broken illusions with something real.

In Zen, reality is its own reward.  No sage advice, no hugs or cookies.  Just reality.  The reality that was there all along.  You already had it.  You just couldn't see it.

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At one point, the instructor pretended to complain about how there are way more cars in the parking lots of the local Christian, Jewish, and Muslim centers than at the Zen center.

She said this is because Zen followers generally are not trying to convert people, and also because Zen can be a tough road.  Giving up your illusions?  The other kinds of religions are quite happy to provide you with comforting illusions.  But not Zen.  First Zen strips you of all your sources of comfort, then it replaces them with new ways of seeing the world.  The assumption is that these complementary Deities will relieve your suffering, because most of your suffering comes from your delusions.

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So when a Zen teacher calls out your bullshit, she's actually trying to relieve your suffering, because she sees how much of your suffering comes from clinging to your bullshit.  But in Western culture people tend to react angrily and defensively if you call out their bullshit.  We are taught to respect each other's beliefs.  This instructor said that Zen teachers can seem abusive and inexplicable to people from other spiritual traditions, because they show their respect for us in unusual ways.

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I've long said that I don't respect people's beliefs, instead I respect people.  I think in the US we get this backward, we respect beliefs but not people.  We have a First Amendment that guarantees freedom of religion, but there is no Constitutional provision guaranteeing you a place to sleep, a meal to eat, or clothing to wear.  No Constitutional guaranty of education, health care, or employment.  We'll respect your beliefs while you starve, freeze, or die from lack of medicine.

I don't respect people's beliefs, but I do respect people's needs -- if you focus on reality, you see 8 billion people and their needs.  Look beyond the people, you see 20 quintillion animals and their needs.  Look beyond the animal kingdom, over 10% of the surface of our planet is covered by plants and their needs.

A massive, practically uncountable number of living beings and their needs.

Wisdom cuts away our illusions, compassion shows us a practically uncountable number of living beings and their needs.  What does a person do next after pursuing Wisdom and Compassion?  Zen would argue that the only realistic plan of action is to do whatever you can to help as many living beings as possible to meet their needs.

Beliefs are bullshit.  Get to work.