Play Cafe: Living and Learning

I had quite a good time at Williamstown this past week. I was there for Play Cafe, a local TV show where they interview a playwright and actors perform a 10-15 min reading of their work. I would definitely recommend it for playwrights who want to not only read their work but also engage in a dialogue afterward with other artists.

The full show and interview is on Wllinet TV, the local TV station's website:
http://willinet.org/content/play-cafe-episode-6-aurin-squire

If interested in having your play at Play Cafe, contact producer Chris Newbound: cnah1602@gmail.com

Dreams of Dance

I finished "How Yoga Works" by Geshe Michael Roach last night. It was around 2 am of a long day of talking, meeting, and infusing the dharma in everything. I drifted off to sleep feeling light and serene.  The dreams began flowing to me in snippets. Now awake, I can't tell if it was one long dream or a series of vignettes.

I dreamed of animals being kept in the underground subway tunnels. In particular I had an image of deer living in the subway tunnels that would sprint away when oncoming trains would appear.

There was another vignette in which I was walking up these long stairs to different floors. I was seeing people. It was an office cubicle/living space and the walls were glass so you could see right through. I walked through the hallways and the rooms were packed with various people eating, watching TV, playing games.

But the most visceral dream vignette was about dancing. I was home in a luscious, wood-paneled apartment with high Gothic ceilings. It was dark and I lit a red candle on top of melted white wax in a glass container. Suddenly a guy enters with red hair. He's apparently my roommate. I have done something wrong because I apologize. Perhaps I shouldn't have lit the candle.  For some reason my roommate reveals to me that he knows voodoo. I say that I've been running into a lot of voodoo people recently.

I ask him to show me his magic skills. He sits down with the red candle and begins doing some chanting while I walk into the next room and prepare. I crouch with cross-legs (like a ballerina about to spring into a leap). All of sudden I'm dancing, spinning and moving. The dancing becomes more acrobatic. I find myself leaping off the bookshelves, dancing on the sides of the walls.

I am laying in bed having this dream and -at the same time- I can feel my heart beat racing in the bedroom while I sleep. Since I'm having such a good time, I consciously make a decision to go back into the dream and leave my sleeping body. Shrouding my body is an energy field. It's a green light and my body is coated in it with this strong auric field that is a bit heavier than air but much lighter than water. I know that it's a certain special power. I can feel it because I can't break out of it. When I dance this green coat of light moves me. And then it starts throwing me up in the air. I'm aware that -at this stage in the dance- this isn't my body. It's almost entirely the green field of energy moving and my body is being carried like a goldfish in a plastic bag.

I finish my dancing with a leaping flourish. My roommate doesn't look to pleased. I thank him and say that he must be 'truthful' in his magic claims. He frowns and says he could do better. I'm incredulous but anticipate what that 'better' may mean.

My dreams continued all night. I was walking to the subway along with several other people under highway tunnels. I was going up and down stairs. There was a feeling of journey and exploration.

When I awoke my mind was buzzing but my body felt rested. I laid on the side of the better and began doing breathing exercises and some basic yoga poses. A new day.

The Importance of Gifts

My roommate said she had a gift for me. I saw the text on my phone as I went into a meeting. I was intrigued. The guessing game began.

Cleaning products?


A new frying pan?

Over the last few years my expectations for gifts has been significantly lowered. As I've gotten older, cash has replaced any and every elaborate birthday surprise. It's kind of sad how utilitarian my gift buying has become. All my creative in gift buying has been focused on my Buddhist teachers and for classes. And while that is admirable, I also lament the beauty of a gift, the actual effort to purchase something.

When I got home at 11 pm, my roommate brought out this thick stack of parchment sandwiched between navy blue covers that had been aged significantly. It was a Japanese monk's prayer book from the 19th century. What an astonishing gift!

She said it came from a Japanese antique store in Vinegar Hill by DUMBO. Items worth thousands of dollars that have dharma sprinkled throughout as decoration and hidden in desk drawers. The dharma had been retrieved from one of those drawers and sold to her and gifted to me.

I immediately remembered Geshe Michael Roach's writing on Je Tsongkapa, and how great dharma was treated. Je Tsongkapa, the founder of the Gelupka lineage in Tibet, would great all arriving dharma with bails of incense, welcoming them into his life as if they were a guest. What if I were to try that for this 100 year old book of wisdom.

What would Je Tsongkapa do to welcome this mysterious ancient package? First, he would probably wash his hands from riding the subway all day. I washed my hands and then thought: what next?

He would probably clear a space for it to be viewed.

I cleaned up the living room table, wiped down the mats, dried them and placed the monk's prayer book  on the clean wood.

What other things would Je Tsongkapa do?

He would set out offerings. It feels silly, unusual, and awkward to set out offerings for a book, but that's probably because I treat books just as product. But what if books were the dharma incarnate: the thing that could drive me, the key to opening my heart. What if books were a parchment representation of a Lama or an Angel?

I brought out my incense holder, incense, a globe filled with liquid and pure gold from Arizona, plastic flower from my Lama, a sprig of fresh Baby's Breath from flowers I purchased yesterday for the house,  some chocolate-fudge macaroons I baked for a Buddhist feast, and a tiny sombrero. My roommate came out and inquire about the row of offerings. I explained that it was going to be like welcoming a guest into a temple.

The incense was pleasing scent, the pure gold was the high gift of royalty that I personally liked because it reminds me of the Latin origins of my name. The plastic flowers symbolized eternal blossoming and the fresh flowers as a new beginning. The fudge macaroons were something to eat and a fine delicacy of coconut and cocoa. The sombrero was a nice hat or parasol.

The dew of sweat began to appear on my forehead as I rushed around. I patted my head with a napkin. The final offering is of prayer and meditation. I said the prayer of Manjushri and asked for wisdom in this matter before sitting down before my guest.

After offering the macaroons to my roommate, I sat before the guest. I opened the pages carefully. The book was composed of several different types of parchment. Rice paper perhaps, some thin and while others hardened and other paper shiny.

The calligraphy of the Japanese characters was beautiful placed in inky sky scrappers up and down the pages, which folded together like an accordion. Interspersed throughout the mantras and prayers were drawings. I'm not an expert but the drawings looked like Ladies of Gifts from the mandala as well as Avalokiteshvara and Majushri. There were also several Buddha looking figures. Of course I'm calling them by their Sanskrit names and this is Japanese Buddhism but I don't know the synonyms.

There were two different books of prayers. I began thinking about the devotion of this monk and his life a hundred years ago. How many million mantras have been whispered into this parchment and intermingled with the black ink? The dedication of a life that has now traveled to the other side of the world and is sitting in my Brooklyn living room before a tiny Mexican sombrero (made in China) chocolate from South America, shredded sweetened coconut from the tropics,  gold flakes from Arizona mines, and Tibetan incense wafting from his holder. The journey of these gifts and my guest that was re-discovered in the drawer of an antique shop in Vinegar Hill.

This is practice for how all dharma could be treated in my life. The ultimate dharma are fellow guests who stop by to enlighten me. My friends and family. What if I treated each visitor as precious dharma that has taken a long journey of hundreds of years to arrive at my door? Could there be nothing sweeter than to sit and listen to this guest and their stories?

I now see this as what I could be doing more of with not only my other books but my friends. And that is probably what Je Tsongkapa was demonstrating all those year ago. Each guest is precious and has taken the journey. Give gifts of gratitude and they will speak the nectar of truth. That is why offerings are so important. They clean my mind and prepares me for seeing the dharma in everything. From the looks of things in my life, I need to give more gifts.

Keys to the Logic Machine

Master Dignaga (540 AD)

After having thoroughly digested Tao Open and secret sayings, returning to basic psychology, delving into quantum physics theories on images, and beginning studies on A Course in Miracles the past year, I'm revisiting one of my favorite studies: Buddhist logic. I'm re-listening to courses on the Asian Classics Institute (acidharma.org). I've gone through all the teachings, the homework, quizzes, and final exams for the first 15 courses. Yet, I've found myself returning again and again to ACI Course 13: The Art of Reasoning. 


The Art of Reasoning deals with The Commentary on Valid Perception by Master Dharmakirti (650 AD).  The big founder of Buddhist logic was Master Dignaga (480-540 AD). Master Dignaga laid out the rules for debate, logic, and how to get to the direct perception of emptiness. After his passing, people started questioning the purpose of logic and Master Dharmakirti came along and wrote the principle commentary. Valid perception is a code word for the ultimate aim of Master Dignaga.  

Master Dharmakirti (650 AD)

But even the commentary is so difficult to understand that then a Tibetan commentary was written about the commentary. Keys to the Logic Machine by Purbuchok Jampa Tsultrim Gyatso (1825- 1901)is one of the latest commentaries for students in 20th and 21st century. These teachings have been translated by Geshe Michael Roach, who teaches the subject like a true master.


Purbuchok Jampa was the teacher for the 13th Dalai Lama, the one who foretold of the collapse of Tibet decades before it happened when he was in his strongest position. 


Logic is very difficult. It requires a high degree of concentration and focus. Even over the course of studying ACI 13 the past few years, I have noticed how my understanding shifts, ascends, and deteriorates depending on my ethics and how well I'm keeping my vows. I have literally re-read passages of sections I believed I understood, and not even been able to understand what it was saying a week later. Then I have tightened my vows and watched my understanding return. At the very least, it made me aware of how fluid my mental capacities are, and how easily I can slip. It's a lot easier to slip in understanding than to climb back up the mountain.


Logic is also very difficult because they say it's the key to direct valid perception of truth. It's very easy for me to slip back into the world of judgment and duality. Over the last week I have been preparing myself. I shut down on my news watching, sports, ignorant reactions and actions. I've re-upped my daily meditations, trimmed my diet to only what's necessary as fuel, and I'm now working out at the gym so I have a stronger more flexible body and mind. With that in mind, I delve back into this very simple (but not easy) path. 


The most striking thing about Keys to the Logic Machine is that it has a few functions 1) see emptiness or direct valid perception 2) stop judging people 3)keep teachings of logic safe in world. All three are related to valid perception of reality. And in order to understand that object of indivisibility, I have to work with mental images. Mental images are the things I stick on top of stuff and mistake for the actual thing: i.e. every person and thing in my universe. 


Now returning to this subject with some understanding of quantum physics and wave functions, I'm beginning to look at the Buddhist analysis of images. 


In physics there are two basic mediums of energy: wave or particle. Essentially we're talking about the difference between a potential (wave) and a point (particle). My understanding is that a wave is non-local (or very close to it) while the particle is local. Waves operate in the zero-pt field of energy, where all energy plays and "appears" to move, start, and stop. They say consciousness collapses wave potential of a non-local energy into a particle or point. This happens at a subtle level but is applicable in all situations. 


For example, I am walking down the street yesterday and I see this object. It's not clear to me what this is. It's close to the ground. As I get closer I notice its furry. It is a wave potential of 'cat.' It's 'cat-ness.' As I get closer to my focus it shifts and clearly becomes 'a cat.' It shifts from wave awareness, to a particle. The mind takes it from 'cat' to 'a cat.' My view of 'a cat' is based on my previous views of cat. In fact, I'm never seeing the cat in front of me. I'm always seeing my mental image of 'a cat' from my mind. 


To scientists and visual artists, this seems obvious. But according to quantum physics, that is the universe. And in Buddhism, it is the study of how mental images work is the key to opening the mind (logic machine). Studying mental images isn't the end goal. But once I truly understand them, then I begin to understand dependent origination and work my way back to valid perception. 


In A Course in Miracles they state that all learning goes along this path. From duality to non-duality and finally pure non-duality. In pure non-duality there is no separation between Subject and Object. The verb is merely a loop feed action of the conscious mind. In poetic terms, every person and object in the dream is a reflection of the dreamer. There is no second dreamer influencing my dreams. The nightmares and monsters are a reflection of me. My consciousness is subject and object. Well in waking life there is a loop feed like in a dream. The subject (me) and the object (out there) are coming from same feed because the object is a mental image from me. That doesn't mean I let anything happen in my world because it's all from me. I try to challenge and shift the monsters in my dreams, but with the awareness that I am playing a role in its creation. There is no monster machine below ground that is making the painful things in my world or dreams. 


What's remarkable is that science and religion agree. From Jesus to Buddha to Einstein, they all agree there is a holographic universe. The universe is a holograph and holds the principles of a holograph. Holograph depend on a surface that shoots out images. Each part of a holograph is the same as all other parts, because they're not real. They are things projected on to a screen. The purpose of analyzing the holograph isn't to make better 'fake images.' But to see reality and wake up from the dream. The dream goes up and down, causes pain and happiness, but it follows the inconsistency of the holographic plate. There is nothing to this holographic 'dream' universe but to wake up from it. There is no other reason. 


The reason I'm here is to undo all of my guilt and mistakes according to A Course in Miracles. The best way to undo them is to practice this forgiveness with the understanding that I'm only forgiving another part of the dream that is coming from me. Ultimately I am forgiving myself and undoing all my guilt. I am forgiving the nightmare I created as a way to end the karma of guilt. But to do that effectively, I must know the aspects of my mental images and dreams. I have to truly understand the way things collapse from waves to particle, from non-local to local, and from a general type to a specific object. 


I'm hoping to get in deeper with this and blend it with quantum physics holographic studies. We will see how this goes.