The work of happiness

I thought of happiness how it is woven

Out of the silence in the empty house each day,

And how it is not sudden and it is not given

But is creation itself like the growth of a tree.

No one has seen it happen, but inside the bark

Another circle is growing in the expanding ring.

No one has heard the root go deeper in the dark,

But the tree is lifted by this inward work,

And its plumes shine, and its leaves are glittering.

So happiness is woven out of the peace of hours,

And strikes its roots deep in the house alone.

The old chest in the corner, cool waxed floors,

White curtains softly and continually blown

As the free air moves quietly about the room,

A shelf of books, a table, and the whitewashed wall -

These are the dear familiar gods of home,

And here the work of faith can best be done.

The growing tree is green and musical


For what is happiness but growth in peace,

The timeless sense of time when furniture

Has stood a life's span in a single place;

And as the air moves, so the old dreams stir

The shining leaves of present happiness.

No one has heard thought or listened to a mind,

But where people have lived in inwardness

The air is charged with blessing and does bless;

Windows look out on mountains and the walls are kind.


May Sarton (1912-1995)

from As Does New Hampshire, 1967

It's not my fault, I'm happy by Passion Pit

Sorry I couldn't be there, I was tied to a rocking chair
I was beat down to a pulp rocking back and forth somewhere
If you knew, if you saw, you'd have said it was the final straw
That my life was bound and tethered on a porch by the shore

But there is no no no no
easy way to tell them so, the things you know
And run run run run
Run they say, they think they know exactly so

It's not right, it's not right
How am I the only one who sees us fight?
What are we? Who are they?
Who says those bastards don't deserve to pay?
Well it's enough, it's just enough 'cause we don't stand a chance
So long you stay around, you're just another song and dance
It's not fair, it's not fair, it's not fair, it's not fair
Still I'm the only one who seems to care

It's funny that being funny makes you feel like up and running
When your past lingers like rain clouds, casting shadows below
I could live with so many burns, I take all your hope and yearning
But there's no one I want to take me for that petty little rose

I used to glow glow glow glow
Once I had a love to show, a love they know
They're slow slow slow slow
So slow that they never know where I go

It's not right, it's not right
How am I the only one who sees us fight?
What are we? Who are they?
Who says those bastards don't deserve to pay?
Well it's enough, it's just enough 'cause we don't stand a chance
So long you stay around, you're just another song and dance
It's not fair, it's not fair, it's not fair, it's not fair
Still I'm the only one who seems to care

I know that it's only something
I'm just working with what I've been given
It's not my fault, I'm happy
Don't call me crazy, I'm happy

It's not right, it's not right
How am I the only one who sees us fight?
What are we? Who are they?
Who says those bastards don't deserve to pay?
Well it's enough, it's just enough 'cause we don't stand a chance
So long you stay around, you're just another song and dance
It's not fair, it's not fair, it's not fair, it's not fair
Still I'm the only one who seems to care

Exit past to the present

I saw an old radio today, the kind that spanned the entire length of a room, with three foot high speakers, and a cabinet full of old fashioned valves and cores. The kind that made the warm sound of the pasts so rich and alive with history and adventure. Radios that once were the centre of family get togethers as we gathered around to listen to Binaca Geetmals, and serialized stories ... with the hiss and cackle and static of frequencies that came winging from places that seemed wondrously distant those days of ambassador cars, and smokestack trains ... and it reminded me of the radio my granddad had, which was always immaculately shined and maintained ... a radio I have no idea where it disappeared to, after my grandmom died ... a radio that could have been the centerpiece of our house today if we still had it, a radio that could have galvanized into memory a past that can no longer even be held in imagination easily, a past that seems almost like a fairytale world, when we think about the adventures they had then, just living their day to day lives ...

When i visit my dad, which is usually once every year or the other, he always has some stories to share, some from the present ... and invariably he also ends up going back in time to his life in Malaysia, to the days when he'd drive 300 kilometers through dark roads to get to work, managing a few hundred chinese laborers during the height of the civil war between the chinese and the malays in the 70s ... and my mother used to be the same, always ready with a short story or a long one about how they met, how they fell in love, how they moved to Butterworth, about us, how I lost my two front teeth when I  fell from a showcase bringing it down on top of me, and how I once walked out from school, missed the bus, got lost and how some kind stranger managed to help me find my way back home again and dropped me off on the motorbike ...

But unlike our stories which they capture in albums, and which they relate back to us as we grow up, we don't have any thing similar to capture their lives. When they are gone, we don't have videotapes of them growing up, of an edited version of their life stories ...

So my plan this time when I visit with dad is to try and get all that down, write it up, see if I can put together a collage of the photographs that survived to punctuate and accent these stories ... because for sure our lives haven't been half as interesting as theirs ... and also because I feel that we also need to know who their fathers and mothers were, who their grandparents were ... and by understanding their history begin to see how much change they've seen ...

We've seen a lot of changes too, and one day our stories might inform our children as well. Show them how much further they have become because of how much we've all had to leave behind ... these stories somehow become more precious when you realize how much sadness there is when you lose someone for good without ever having fully understood them or their lives ... 

Becoming *real*

... In "The Velveteen Rabbit" Margery Williams talks about a little boy and his toys that become *real* ... but really the lesson is about how people become *real* to us, and how once they are real, we easily see beyond appearances ... Anyways on with the story 

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

Saviour saviour where art thou?

“I laugh when I hear that the fish in the water is thirsty.

You don't grasp the fact that what is most alive of all is inside your own house;
and you walk from one holy city to the next with a confused look!

Kabir will tell you the truth: go wherever you like, to Calcutta or Tibet;
if you can't find where your soul is hidden,
for you the world will never be real!”

- Kabir

"But you don't understand ... I want to save him" went a conversation I had with a friend this morning between coffee and kahlua bars. And like all conversations that raise more questions than it answers, i was left wondering what happened with Jesus then. If he indeed was trying to save us all, why did he end up being crucified for his troubles?

You cannot save anybody or help them fix their problems. You can only love them. When you love them unconditionally you're giving them the space they need to find themselves, feel affirmed as a valued person, you're giving them a reason to reach inside themselves to their deepest longings and you're giving them a lifeline to find their way back to the life they're created with their past decisions. You're giving them a reason to understand why they were hurting, and what they were doing to deal with their pain, and what they need to do to stop hurting ...

But how does one love somebody? Can one be deeply aware of somebody else if one is not in touch with their own nature or their motivations? Can we make the difficult decisions moment to moment that make life easier and easier if one has not learned to value one's own self enough to enforce the discipline required to stay true to the difficult path of sticking with a difficult decision? If one is not centered, if I don't  know my own feelings, my beliefs, then can I even begin to value what you value?

Wouldn't one of us then be in danger of being submerged by the other person's feelings, their needs, their ability to orchestrate one's emotions to meet their own ends? How can one love another when you have to stop being authentic and learn to guard what you're feeling or thinking because of what they are trying to do with us?

So to come back full circle, how can you save that person from their own manipulations? How can you help them fix their problems?

You can't. But you can begin by understanding what they mean to you. Why you are in a relationship with them in the first place. And what your priorities are in regard to this relationship. And how you feel about what they've done to you in the past. And what you want from the future from them. And if you find that your motives are clean, if you find that your needs are healthy, if you find that the way you feel about them is very healing to your past hurts or your future fears, then you are ready for love. Until then, you need to stay focused on what's going on within you, what you think about yourself, how you react and personalize what others say or do ...

The politics of relationships always begins and ends with understanding that the problems always begins ... and ends within us. When we seek to look outside or make somebody else the focus of our efforts, all we're doing is finding a way to run away from the mess inside ...

When you look in the mirror do you like what you see? When the mirror looks at you what does it see? Who's judging whom? And who is lying? When you stop seeing the surface of these truths, do you become aware of what's shaping the realities that binds you from finding love? Again I would like to quote Kabir to end this journal entry

“The guest is inside you, and also inside me;
you know the sprout is hidden inside the seed.
We are all struggling; none of us has gone far.
Let your arrogance go, and look around inside.

The blue sky opens out farther and farther,
the daily sense of failure goes away,
the damage I have done to myself fades,
a million suns come forward with light,
when I sit firmly in that world.

I hear bells ringing that no one has shaken,
inside "love" there is more joy than we know of,
rain pours down, although the sky is clear of clouds,
there are whole rivers of light.
The universe is shot through in all parts by a single sort of love.
How hard it is to feel that joy in all our four bodies!

Those who hope to be reasonable about it fail.
The arrogance of reason has separated us from that love.
With the word "reason" you already feel miles away.”

It is time to put up a love-swing!
Tie the body and then tie the mind so that they
swing between the arms of the Secret One you love,
Bring the water that falls from the clouds to your eyes,
and cover yourself inside entirely with the shadow of night.
Bring your face up close to his ear,
and then talk only about what you want deeply to happen.”

Way to go ...

Do you own a car? Can I ask you why?

I ditched mine last year. Gave up on paying coupla hundred bucks a month on insurance, anywhere from three hundred to five hundred a month on gas, and between hundred to two hundred dollars in parking charges, and say around a hundred bucks a month either budgeting or paying for maintenance, oil changes, brake liner replacements etc ... and if you really want to do the math, depreciating about six hundred bucks a month, every month over five years on the lease/purchase price ...

So whichever way you add it up ... you'd end up with a minimum bill of at least a thousand bucks every month if you own a car right?

Contrast that with what I pay every month ... okay last month I spend all of 150$. That's with driving to work a few times a week, shopping for groceries at least once a week, visiting with friends, going out for dinner, taking in a show, going for French classes twice a week et al ...

And that's without any of the hassles normally associated with driving. Parking? No problem. Guaranteed parking spots in the best parking lots anywhere around Toronto. Insurance zip zilch. Gas likewise nada or if you prefer hearing this in French rien.


But after paying all this money, you go for a weekend to Montreal. Or for a week in Berlin. Do you think you'd be able to use your car on these trips?

Right!!!

Whereas imagine owning a car in most every city. That's after paying zero dinero in membership fees. And either .38 cents a minute or 15$ an hour. or 70$ for the day. Everything included. yes I do mean everything. Gas, insurance, headache free driving. No matter where you are. And no worrying about returning cars where you picked them up from. You could pick it up in North York ... and drop it off in China Town. Or Vice Versa. And never have to pay a penny in parking if you'd want. And no worrying about mileage. Unlimited miles ...

You pay .38 cents a min or 15 bucks an hour. You can pick up the car where you like. And drop it off wherever you like. They have parking lots on most every street and they're pretty much de rigeur in those Green P parking lots you find all over the place. So finding a car or a place to park them is suddenly not a problem any more. They are ubiquitous. And the cars are small enough that you can compete with scooters for parking. And it comes with a built in GPS, cards for parking garages, and fuel cards for fuel, and it's using smartcars which are both environmentally friendly and fairly cool as well ...

Check out this company. It's called Car2Go and I've long since stopped using cabs to get from point A to B (this works pretty much all over downtown as well as a bit outside Toronto as well), stopped using Transit for short trips (this works out cheaper than the 3$ you'd pay a trip), and it's great for getting home

Yeah before you ask, I'm still a member of Zipcar, and also have Autoshare. And I still rent from my friend Ali at U-Rentals who gives me cars for 9 bucks a day plus taxes et all which adds up to 15$. So yeah I've done my fair share of checking out car share options. And I vote Car2Go as the way to er go :) Unless of course you want to showcase your bling in an Audi. Or a BMW. For 10$ an hour. Yeah then ZipCar looks like a sexy option. Or you need a moving van by the hour. Then AutoShare. They each have their tradeoffs and good points. But over all for me at least Car2Go wins

The reason I'm writing all this? I came out of my class tonight. Expected it to be the same pleasant evening that made me walk the half hour to class. But this is Toronto, and so in a couple of hours the sultry evening had turned into a blustery, shiver me timbers kind of night. Normally this would call for a cab. Or a train ride down to Christie pits and then a ten minute walk back to home. Or a couple of transfers via streetcars to get to my house.

Instead I walked two seconds to the parking garage next to Alliance Francaise. And then I got into a car there, and five mins later was outside the Green P half a block to the east of my house. Doorstep to doorstep in eight mins flat. For a total of 3$ and change ...

Yeah, this is how I roll these days. Time y'all started tripping this way or what?

Being at peace is a state of mind and body

Some notes from a recent expedition to the inner worlds of consciousness, where feelings are born and thoughts weave the tangled web of our perceptions. Yes folks I went to learn how to meditate at a center here in Ontario as I've been doing every few years in an attempt to learn how to purify my mind ... why? 

When the mind becomes quiet, the soul can express itself directly by filling your life with grace and clarity of purpose. Until then it lies chained in the depths of your consciousness, drowning in the sensory overload of your thoughts and feelings and cannot even begin to surface from this deluge to set you free ...

How does the mind become quiet? Well that's the purpose of meditation. You learn to witness your thoughts, your feelings without getting caught up in trying to control your experience. 

Sounds a bit difficult doesn't it. It is indeed very difficult but if you are seriously interested in discovering how to gain insight or as Buddha said "to awaken" you have to learn how to meditate. And this can only be learned by doing. Not by thinking about it, not by discussing it, not by imagining it but actually by doing it. What do we have to do you might ask ... well you have to learn to sit quietly, for ten days not talk to anybody else, and watch your thoughts wander as you try to focus in first on your breathing, and then later on the various sensations your body is experiencing second to second, moment to moment from the top of your head to the tips of your toes, slowly, carefully and attentively. This workshop gives you solid, detailed instructions as you go from session to session from Day 1 to Day 10 and it's a surprisingly liberating journey for those who take it seriously and follow the instructions diligently. But what's astonishing is that even for those who are not scrupulous in their observance of this act of witnessing their mind at work interpreting the various sensory inputs, it is still able to help them cleanse themselves of various psychosomatic issues such as migraines as has been reported by participants. But need I say that the motivation for learning meditation should not be constricted by narrow goals or we will end up remaining trapped in the realm of our shallower desires forgetting that our soul has deeper longings than wishing for an end to aches and pains, and it's these rooted values that form the core of our existence and it's this we need to get in touch with if we are to be liberated from our day to day confusion about what we really want or what we are really about ... well anyways felt that it would be the right thing to do to share what I managed to understand about this process of meditation and I have no hesitation in recommending this because the organization behind this is not a religious order, nor do they have any pecuniary considerations at all whatsoever. It's offered free to those who are interested and all they ask is that you work with them for the ten days you are there, sitting quietly and focusing on your breathing and your sensations, and in the evenings understand how this process begins to work to help you discover and release your automatic responses to things you crave or detest which form the basis of our negativized attitudes towards circumstances in general and situations in particular.

Because when you learn to be free of negativities you can then truly learn how to kindle love in your heart. Because when you plant these seeds of love, it is not just you who blossoms but everyone that's interacting with you. The whole world is lit up when even one of us become fully awakened, fully enlightened. Because as you practice meditation you will also discover that deep down all of us share the same consciousness. We are in the process of becoming who we are as individuals, inevitably fragmented into so many different aspects of this consciousness we lose sight of our deepest desire .. to come back together as one again, enlightened, grown through our challenges to a state of higher being. We don´t know who we really are, or what aspects of ourselves we should identify with or believe in as we learn to deal with the world in gross terms, such as careers, material milestones that can serve to help us measure us against everybody else etc. So many contradictory voices, dictates, and feelings fight for control over our inner lives that we find ourselves scattered everywhere, in all directions, leaving nobody at home.

Meditation, then, is bringing the mind home. 

As T.S. Elliot once said "We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."

If you're interested in learning meditation you can go to the following website to inform yourself and/or to register for a ten day course.

http://www.dhamma.org