Naturally, I take note of the bottles of wine left unfinished at the end of the restaurant's night.   There's a glass or two left in some, maybe three, and depending, I will put some of them in the cooler to sleep in the cold darkness, the delicate reds, the Pinot Noir, the Brouilly, the Cotes du Ventoux.  Someone, table 50, a nice couple, has left a half a glass of 2009 Cahors for me to pour in a glass and finish, the first taste a getting used to, and then getting over its awkward roughness, its queer overripe fruit taste inherent in Malbec wines, to find the smoothness within, the blending in of Tannat and Merlot doing exactly the trick in this inky dark wine.  I taste two bottles of the same Lascaux from Pic St. Loup, one comment from the night being 'left open just slightly too long.'  (They taste the same.)  There's a Carignan from Chile, a Miguel Torres, imported by Elite Wines, and an odd but tasty on its own terms red from La Clape down below Perpignan.  There's always the Bordeaux, a 2009 Haut Medoc.  Three ladies have come and sat since the high busy of 7:45, along with a white Costieres de Nimes, two bottles plus of that, shots, not often done, not a typical feature of a night here, shots, of Martinique white rum as a kind of a petit punch, and at the last moments, before leaving, the tall Danish lady puts one of the opened Bordeaux off the bar and into her armpit, or some other place.  She is indignant when I mildly frisk her.  If she'd have asked, I'd have happily contributed in good faith;  why spoil the fun, her friends have tipped well, and we're not after making enemies.  But instead she won't admit her thievery.  Fine.  Come back next time sister and we'll just see how you get treated.  (a Gemini, she is, multiple personalities of an opposing nature.)

What makes some wines left behind, for me to care for, as I eat my grilled piece of salmon, ordered rare, so I can bring it back up to some warmth in the over up at the wine bar without killing it, in complete loneliness, everyone in the restaurant down to the dishwashers gone on a Saturday night.  What makes some forsaken lovers, unsure of what to do, what to say, where to fit in, there body of flesh and juice left for the lonely saint to finish as he sits and listens to David Brubeck, before doing the checkout math counting money and checking credit card tickets.  One says, 'delicious food as I remember, mediocre service,' and this is a guy who sat down, wanting a glass of water no ice, ordered veal cheeks without hardly looking the menu, proceeded to sit with headphones of his iPhone or blackberry on, conducting business, just as the bartender got frantically busy, very obviously busy, early in the evening.  What do you want, buddy?  He got his food on time.  Sat down just as a couple got up off the slate counter--did my best to ask the bus boy to clear the spot for him.  I am busy helping out the waiter in the dining area right there opening a bottle of wine.  Aamir, here's to you, buddy.  Sorry about your mediocre service, but you expressed absolutely no interest in anything but your water without ice, which was refilled when the barman had a chance, did not need to be prompted, your $4.50 tip on $31.85 so much appreciated, along with your silent comment written on a credit card dupe.

I put everything away, wipe down surfaces, do the checkout, sip from the wines leftover, here and there, and then I too will go out into the night, go home on a bicycle, have a sip of wine at home, cook some black beans with red pepper and onion, watch Kid Rock and then bluegrass on PBS and then call it a night, this night I was called in to work.

I've never had a harder job in my life, I've never had any other job in my life--I'm sure we all say that.  There are the imposed difficulties of feeling strange about it all, as if one had psychological issues such that one was compelled to sit in rooms with crazy people, uninhibited people, people in need of something even as they feel insistent on passing on, perhaps going over to Virginia, Arlington, with some other women who show up to meet the first group of two or three.

And talents that once were, opportunities to find a path toward being a congressman or a professor or some form of intellectual are wasted in the duties, another shift piled on to you via a phone call, and the kind of simple suffering that life is, calling one to need company, settles in.  It is a small happiness to find out that Cancellara overcame a rough week to win the great race over the cobblestones, Paris Roubaix, a sign that heroic types may hold on.

Oh, one of the three women was kind enough to bring back the bottle of Bordeaux, embarrassed, the server who worked brunch the next day told me.  Well, that was nice, I said to myself, and went about my business.

My Greatest Hit

The innate animal dignity of the creature leads us to fool people, particularly those who see themselves as clever and wise.  It runs deeper than the explicit intention to deceive, based on some motive and a greater scheme.  It's probably just something we do in the course of being human.

Lincoln is the classic example.  It was not his intention to come across as a bumpkin or a rube, but people, including political operators, saw him as such, as 'a baboon.'  He was who he was, in no need of change of manner.  Anyone exploring the matter would quickly see he was well-spoken and articulate, a writer of clarity and intellect.

And Hamlet, Shakespeare's great exploration of inner landscapes, too.   He cannot help himself from putting on the play and the antic disposition.  It's who he is, not so much the carefully considered choice it might be made out to be, as we interpret the play.  He has no choice.  It has to do with the fiber of his morality, of defining right from wrong.

Perhaps we're all too good at it sometimes.  And so too, we're too good at buying into face value, missing the subtlety, the wit and the humor and the deeper sensitivity that lets us appear flawed without being ashamed of it.

The ironies of life abound, you realize as you get older, at least when you fall into tedium.  The norm is more that the great resources of natural life largely go to waste.  Each rule, condition, each judgment imposed makes it harder for whatever good gift there is to shine through and develop into use.  That forests are cut down, that rivers are polluted, that species should go extinct should come as no surprise.  Even thoughts themselves are too ephemeral to last for long, the mind that holds them changing, moving on.  The innocent Garden of Eden, where everything is perfect, in its place, awaiting its proper use, and from this we are expelled...



So there's that young man and that young woman.  If fate gives them something like a sense of working together toward the same values, the same ends, a similar project, the two similar talents stand a chance of growing into something lasting.  A volunteer effort, just as most good things are achieved.  But otherwise, if not the errors of simple naive idiocy, the innocent optimism, the belief that 'things will work out,' if not the judgmental neighbors, the Kafkaesque, the Shakespearean will quickly take over authoritatively.  And eventually, as history chokes itself with its weeds, egotistical conflicts on all scales, with all the dictatorial ambitions and oligarchs and plutocracies aligning corporate interest with political clout, the trap of playing to perceived public opinion, no one will hear any longer the voice of the teacher or the philosopher, as what they might say, by some great rule of nature and the Universe, no one wants to hear, and if spoken would be irrelevant anyway but to some perfect world which exists only in the imagination.

The hero will only defeat himself, sooner or later, then to discover all the myriad of ironies, all the mythical things that could have helped him along his way, the inspiring soulmate, the mythical mentor, the helpful father in law, the workshop that could have been created, exposure to the world of culture, the patronage of the benevolent emperor.  And what difference would all that have made anyway?  One still has to live out his life as a mortal;  better just to be honest, modestly resigned to the imperfect world and humble tasks and obscurity.

It's not a book anyone would want to write, about the missing out on using all the opportunities given, the moments to be seized.  Even fewer would want to read it.  No one wants to write about the confusions of a foolish young person given to pessimism, with hindsight being so clear, almost devastatingly.  The world would rather read about succeeding, about proper order achieved through perseverance.

However, the fallen must go on living.  Humbled, you pick up the pieces, and do the best you can, even if it isn't adequate.  With fine knowledge and battles with low self-esteem, you go on, very humbly, not expecting to change the world much.

With such thoughts, the intellect is cluttered.  No wonder Buddhist thought is sought, along with meditations, to clear the mind of such things, to live, again, in the present.







Regulations are placed on public school teachers, for example, such as No Child Left Behind, with perfect administerial logic;  students are confined into learning less and less (being directed away from the content-area reading that might organically interest them and pique their curiosities);  teaching becomes imposed, less flexible, less capabler of responding to an individual need.  (Learning is a part of one's personal life, not unlike the affairs of the heart, as one remembers more things that have an emotional impact.)

From the New York Times, a review of "Neva," a new play in which Olga Knipper, actress and widow of Chekhov, is a character, reviewed by Charles Isherwood, March 12, 2013, Self-Absorbed, With Chekhov as a Background:

"During Chekhov’s lifetime many people died because of politics. Before he became a dramatist of renown, Chekhov made a long visit to the prison island Sakhalin, where inmates suffered terrible deprivation and even death. His bearing witness to the cruelty and abuse they endured did not stop him from believing instinctively in the necessity of art as a civilizing influence worthy of his devoted attention."



Not a bad line to reflect over.  Indeed, the events of our lives give us material to reflect, and some would say, as I believe, that the things that happen are just the vehicle to aid us to enlightenment, toward being better human beings.  Years are spent laboring under illusions, illusions of what you take to be real; slowly, gradually, you come to realize the emptiness, the void-backed quality of the things you held in your heart as real but are only lessons of the coming wisdom that will liberate you.  Paul is not the only one who refers to mirrors, darkened glass, being cleared.

Isherwood's unprompted mention of Chekhov's visit to Sakhalin (an incredibly long trip with its traveller already aware of his tuberculosis) is interesting as a necessary background for any understanding of his work in prose and in theater.  What were the previously-held or discovered illusions going to Sakhalin might have dispelled for Chekhov?  Might he have regarded certain criminal types as irredeemable, less worthy of being treated with basic decency?  Or, perhaps, in the sufferings of others, here dramatic in a penal colony, did he observe the human condition?  What is imprisonment?  It doesn't seem the author of the long short story "Penal Colony Number 7" would have been too far off from opened eyes.

Chekhov enjoyed in his travels relationships with people.  He drank vodka will local dignitaries, he rode in rickety coaches, voyaged on languorous ships, he visited geisha type houses for first-hand experience of other peoples.  He was a doctor, not shy of physical contact in certain situations.

And in a certain sense, without too much of a stretch, Chekhov is a doctor in the Christian sense, a physic amongst the ill and those in need of one.  It is as if he spent a professional life immersed in human suffering as a ballast for his observational material.

He gained from all his experiences, his great stories piercing the illusions of the momentary solutions people grab on to.

An experience of life:  something to study, by which to gain Buddha Enlightenment.

After waking from a night's sleep after Day One of the work week, I feel a bit of separation from the tenants of Buddha.  "What you actually do for a job is what counts in this world," the thought goes.  So how much purpose can I have when I'm up at 9, will be at work at 4:30, will be there for eight hours.

Well, look on the bright side.  At least you were too tired to even bother with a glass of wine when you got home after your shift last night.  That is good;  you didn't stay up late staring at the TV, and you slept solidly.  The sound of the upstairs neighbor going out the front door woke you, and you were brave enough to get up out of bed, retrieve the ceramic tea pot with yesterday's green tea out of the fridge.  Maybe there will be some yoga at some point, well after breakfast, maybe read some Iyengar, delve a little bit back into the Threefold Lotus Sutra, or read about the monk Nichiren.  How any of that will add up to anything to do with 'a career,' who knows, but you have to admit, it satisfies.  Nichiren put up with a lot, endured deprivation and exile to snowy isles, in the name of reforming societal view of Buddhism.  Maybe that is an avenue to pursue, lest the restaurant's duties take up more importance and energy than they deserve.

"Don't give up on yourself," the neighbor has said.  "Protect your talent."  An educator once.  "You can be a teacher without having to go in and stand in front of a classroom."  That is the rub, having come from educators, that strange world, as if it were aloof, separate from 'the real world,' the economy, the empire with its drone work feeding its own self-perpetuating unrealities.  And of course the emphasis is now on "Math and Science," stuff that will help create engineers and industry and economic value.  Who is left to protect the humanities, the arts, the things that give meaning to our lives, make them worth living, aid our moral compasses?  My father has passed away.

In the distance, the sound of fossil fuels being burned, the low grind of a truck engine, perhaps a dump truck, then a city bus, hums as if from leaf blowers, a general woosh or roar of airplanes lifting off reverberating off of low grey clouds, the city a reflection of such sounds, and I can even feel the rumble of heavy vehicles passing over the hollows beneath the roads.  I need a monastery, it seems, out in the country.  But what would I eat?

A few daily missions to attend to, to go out to the Rite Aid for some allergy pills, maybe do a 'hand wash,' clean the compressions socks and a pair of work slacks.  Walk to work for exercise?  Semi-begin to prepare for the coming road trip north to get away for a week and see my mom for her birthday.

Where, in it all, to find deeper direction?  Where to go about remembering the seeking of the That-Which-Is within, besides eating spinach and doing the dishes?  Well, I guess you read.  That's maybe all you can do.  And look on the bright side.  Were it not for having been written down, a lot of teachings would escape out into thin air.  It's not like we have the Buddha himself who lived so many years ago to come and instruct us, to conduct little seminars or give a TED talk.  We have to open up things like books and actually read, and then absorb.  Learning is not so complicated after all.

I made it out to Sunday brunch yesterday, I remember, was a part of the normal rhythms of life for a bit, before I had to go home and get ready for work.  I mentioned the Myoho Renge Kyo mantra as we passed by the SGI International building on Massachusetts Avenue across from the Russian Orthodox Church there to my lady friend, and she mentioned an interesting study.  Talk kindly to a plant and it thrives.  Even talk to kindly water, and its molecules respond in turn.  That must be an element, then, of That-Which-Is.  No wonder then, the pain of harsh words sticking with you.

No wonder then, that a lot of the world today isn't exactly thriving.

Somewhere pondering The Stone's NY Times blog piece explaining Wittgenstein, how the philosopher seems to be falling into general agreement with The Lankavatara Sutra (stating that ultimately there is no form, no thought classification all that deeply worth pursuing), somewhere between such thoughts and the Lotus Sutra, a writer finds that rather than telling stories, reporting on events and people, the stuff worth writing about is from within.  (Wittgenstein observes that philosophy pretends to be a science, but cannot be, due to innate subjectivity.  Even science reaches a point, a limit of that which is knowable.)  The stuff from within, as fleeting and as ever-changing as it is, particularly the stuff that pertains to enlightenment, that is what is worth writing about.  (And this is what the market exactly protests:  who gave you authority to go beyond the strict details?!  Who let's you be the authority about what constitutes 'salt of the earth' types?)

The problem is, of course, the duties of satisfying the fascination with the news, with all the stuff going on, leading us to complete distraction ever at our fingertips.  I should know.  I'm as fascinated with it all just as much as you are.  An addiction, to whatever the next little blip about information might be, TV, internet, news, an email, a check of the cell phone, 'hot chicks,' entertainment gossip, etc..  With some exceptions, as the Buddha's great piece of radical and compelling wisdom tells us, it's all, by measure, illusory, a distraction.  The basis of everything is non-form, formless, void.

One discovers things from within.  Understandings must come from within.  One discovers through living the nature of That Which Is.  Being a part of That, 'thou art that which is,' one learns, at least from time to time, about the deeper creature, even the ideal, the organic shrinking from some things and growing towards others, the deeper generosity, even the Buddha Nature within,  and even trying to fit that sort of stuff in with daily life in a particular society.

So I could never really write satisfying reportage about the things that happen, or are supposed to happen, in 'a bar room,' when they are just little events that don't have much to do with the deeper reality.  Because such things never really happen.  What comes through the vibrations, the waves, the details, the real stuff, the compassion, the placing the bar experience quite beyond what it seems in actuality to be, those are the things worth making note of.  Bar talk, as we know, can be about complete vanity, utter hollowness, and this is what makes it incredibly tedious.  Only a saint would bother to filter it all as if there were honey to be collected from within its dust.



Wine, to me, is a form of herbal tonic.  It seems to be good for the blood.  It quiets anxiety.  It might help in confessional opening up of one's mind.  It can, surely, quickly lead to complete sentimental crap, but, at the end of the day, I suppose it's not the worst thing one could be doing, even though it would be better to keep the mind spotlessly clean, so that one can keep on reading and diligently studying sutras and what-not.

I look upon all [living beings]
Everywhere [with] equal [eyes],
Without distinction of persons,
Or mind of love or hate.
I have no predilections
Nor limitations [or partiality];
Ever to all [beings]
I preach the Law equally;
As [I preach] to one person,
So [I preach] to all.

From the Parable of the Herbs
The Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Law
translated by Bunno Kato

This seems to make sense to me, and it boils down the depths and the limits of relationships and friendships.  Ultimately that final relationship between all of us, enlightened beings, potentially or actualized, has to do with passing on the knowledge of the fundamental nature of reality.  A father might love his son, but still must be impartial about exposing him to the truth in hopes that the son will pick up on it, as he would as a good student.  Of course, the Buddha being is greatly compassionate, even to this original prodigal son from sutra's parable.

And so, all works of literature must, if they tackle such core stuff, come upon one impartially.  Of course the Buddha is tactful in how he teaches, sensitive to the needs and capabilities of his audience to understand, but there are no favorites in his teaching methods.  The lesson to the beloved son is the same as it is to the stranger.


I wondered after years of working in restaurants if I had not made a great error.  My work it seemed emphasized a whole lot of escaping into pleasures of the senses.  Music, intoxication, sought out flavors...  It could have been worse, certainly, but as I came to get things more and more, I saw that the greatest matter was not that of all those customers having a happy time of it on a Saturday night (while, I to my credit, somewhat, was working away and in the meantime observing them.)  In a way, I've always felt alien, a stick in the mud, "in it, but not of it," when amongst people having a grand old time.  It was as if I liked a certain basic ability to enjoy such times, not that I wasn't perfectly incapable of it, just maybe that I always ended up seeing through it, sensing its fleeting nature, when deep down I would always be of the same mood anyway.  Burroughs writes somewhere, or maybe interviewed, that is was Kerouac's nature to always want to be sitting in the corner with a notebook, scribbling down notes and thoughts, even, as is perhaps implicated, when there was lots of stuff going on.

So, I would make a note of that basic unwillingness or inability to lift myself out of that distant mood, to join in with the joke.  I was always much better at being on the edges, like a servant observing while waiting for the next task to come, waiting, as they call it.  I've never minded waiting on people, not for a moment.  In fact, I find it liberating.  (I mean, you wouldn't want to work in some gross place, with drunken criminals betting over dog fights, or some exploitive place.  But, I must say, a lot of places offer loud music, thuggish culture, sex, aggression, drunkenness, hormones, a complete embrace of all the things that are false and fake and which lead to lust and crime and even murder, and I don't tend to willingly hang out in such places, even if only to observe.  Too sad, too unhealthy.)  Looking back on twenty years of it, I've worked in gentle places that fostered conversation and family, with Hank Williams in the background, give him credit for country philosophy and the portrayal of the human condition.

But, I wonder, sometimes, where do you draw the line from keeping the wine medicinal into seeking to obliterate suffering through more suffering (of sensual things.)  At one point does it facilitate the tempting devils of Mara, the Mara within you that is you?  On the other hand, there are occasions where a mellow conversation opened by a little wine makes perfect intuitive sense.

It serves me as a great lesson, the teaching of the Lankavatara Sutra that states that if you take all phenomena as being empty, based on no form and nothing, you're doing okay.  And, again, this is a good thing to have on a Saturday night when the world of the youthful city is involved in an exclusive mating ritual, blind to the souls left out of it.  To admit to myself that I wasn't a part of that, that I would be basically be happier home cooking a simple dinner, even if it was, perhaps painfully, by myself, was a good thing, a necessary thing.

As a recipient of knowledge, and hopeful of putting that knowledge into action, as art is action, I am happy to hear that Buddha dispenses his good stuff to all, and wouldn't say to me, 'forget you, you're a bum who's served too many margaritas and played too much loud music and done too many stupid things, I'm passing you over.'  He would include me too in his teaching.