So I’ve moved into a new place, and I’ve been trying to get some kind of internet connection happening but apart from a dowsing rod made from CAT 5 cable and some twigs or a sizable bribe I’m no closer to that goal. This is why you haven’t been seeing any updates. That and well, other things, but primarily it’s because I have no reliable and convenient port into this great network of tubes. Needless to say, I’m still doing the project, Buddhism was a success, Paganism not so much, and I’m really looking forward to Jainism in July. Something about asceticism is really appealing to me which is why I think Buddhism went down so well.

I’m sitting in a coffee shop near my new place right now, trying to download some TV shows, and catching up on all those pieces of internet that are not easily accessible via my iPhone. Across from me two gentlemen are sitting at a table and going through what look like reiki movements. Waving and shaping the air, one of them folding, molding and gently passing something to the other, who receives it in kind and breathes it in. It’s called energy healing, touching without touching, convincing the mind and the body to to settle, concentrate, think about light, think about compassion, and breathe. It wouldn’t matter if there were something passing between them, the physical and mental components of the act would be enough to have some effect. The is something the Buddha understood, you give the mind half a chance and it will unjumble itself, defrag, untangle, relax. No one’s going to get tense if you give them your undivided attention and engage in an act of kindness. Well, mostly no one.

His friend has left now, and he is giving a demo to the man sitting next to me. He does this all the time, an otherwise unremarkable looking young Caucasian man, carrying on the technique of his teacher. Once that guy has left he moves on to me, and trying to be an ambassador to this strange unknown country, of course I say yes. He waves his hands, and I keep one eye open to watch the movements and try to correlate that with what I feel in my cupped palms.

While this is happening I am reminded of a girl in my high school biology class. She had sensitive hands. She could detect the residual heat of objects with her fingertips- pens, loose change, things like that. When my teacher heard about this he wanted to see her in action, so we set up a line of quarters, and while her back was turned one of us would touch a coin, and she would touch each in turn and point out the correct coin every time. She could even do it when her fingers were floating above the coins, and even when we didn’t quite touch them ourselves. And when, at the teacher’s insistance, we didn’t touch any of them, hoping perhaps to catch her bluff, she would pass her fingers over the coins and then look at us in consternation, catching us instead.

His name is Davin, and as he asks me to imagine golden light collecting in my hands as he finishes waving into them, I wonder if something like that is happening now. Is some ancient, prehistoric part of my brain waking up, like a rickety old trap in a temple full of relics, activated by a presure plate of mystery and myth, forcing me to become receptive? I ask the question beause I don’t believe that anything out of the ordinary is happening in these exercises. I have come to understand that no matter how much I immerse myself in this, no matter how much I give in to all of this, I will only ever see a man waving his hands at me.

But despite that, my hands get warm and begin to tingle, and I imagine a golden light, pouring from me and into every other living thing.

I can’t help it.  That last post made me think of this.  One of my favourite scenes from one of my favourite television series.

Today is Draw Muhammad Day.

I wasn’t really aware of it until this afternoon.  I had heard a little bit here and there but I didn’t know it was here until, well, the day of.  Like I said, I’ve been busy, so let’s all get up to speed.

Back in April, a couple of episodes of South Park were going to be aired on Comedy Central depicting the prophet Muhammad in a  bear suit.  Now, images of the Muhammad, or indeed any person or animal in Islam is generally forbidden, as outlined not in the Qur’an but in various Hadiths (sayings and tales from Muhammad recorded by his followers, and generally not thought to be the word of God).  In Islam Muhammad is the perfect Muslim, an exemplar to every follower, and so to even depict him is considered offensive, an affront, a way to belittle something that needs to be taken seriously and respected within the Islamic community.  Depicting Muhammad is already offensive, mocking him doubly so.

Some of the hadiths in question, from Religion Facts:

“Ibn ‘Umar reported Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) having said: Those who paint pictures would be punished on the Day of Resurrection and it would be said to them: Breathe soul into what you have created.” (Sahih Muslim vol.3, no.5268)

“This hadith has been reported on the authority of Abu Mu’awiya though another chain of transmitters (and the words are): Verily the most grievously tormented people amongst the denizens [inhabitants] of Hell on the Day of Resurrection would be the painters of pictures….” (Sahih Muslim vol.3, no.5271)

“Narrated [Muhammad's wife] ‘Aisha: Allah’s Apostle said, ‘The painter of these pictures will be punished on the Day of Resurrection, and it will be said to them, Make alive what you have created.’” (Bukhari vol.9, book 93 no.646)

“Narrated ‘Aisha: The Prophet entered upon me while there was a curtain having pictures (of animals) in the house. His face got red with anger, and then he got hold of the curtain and tore it into pieces. The Prophet said, ‘Such people as paint these pictures will receive the severest punishment on the Day of Resurrection.’” (Bukhari vol.8, book 73, no.130)

“Umar said, ‘We do not enter your churches because of the statues and pictures.’ Ibn ‘Abbas used to pray in the church provided there were no statues in it.” (Bukhari vol.1, chapter 54)

“Muhammad went to Fatimah’s house, but turned back when he saw a figured curtain.” (Sunan Abu Dawud vol.3, book 21, no.3746)

The producers/creators of South Park, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, soon found themselves the subject of death threats from the New York Islamic group Revoluton Muslim, featuring a graphic picture of the corpse of Theo van Gogh, who was murdered in 2004 by a Muslim because of his involvement in a film criticizing the treatment of women in Islamic societies.  Comedy Central pulled the offending section.

In response to this decision by Comedy Central and the death threats against Stone and Parker, cartoonist Molly Norris drew up this poster as a joke satirizing the situation:

The poster found wide circulation across numerous blogs and news sources, and the idea of a Draw Muhammad Day was quickly championed on Facebook.  Norris tried to take back the poster, requesting that it be taken down and insisting that it was nothing more than a joke, and that an actual event like this would be truly offensive.  It was too late, the idea had gone viral, and so here we are.

This day is being championed, by and large, by proponents of free speech and the argument that it was wrong of Comedy Central to back down and give in to the lobby of Islamic backlash.  The day is a protest against those who would seek to limit freedom of speech through violence and coercion.

I’ve been going over this in my head for most of the day.  It didn’t sit well with me, and it has taken me a long time to figure out why.

This isn’t a joke about the beliefs of a bunch of bronze-agers, this isn’t poking fun at backwards beliefs.  You may see it that way, but there is a reason why Muslims can get so very, very angry and uncomfortable when this happens, and assuming that it’s because they’re backwards is the cowards way of dealing with this issue.  It ignores the obvious comparisons, the offensive things that people ought to be considering when they make these drawings.  This isn’t comparable to an edible chocolate Jesus statue, or Buddy Christ.  This is blackface, this is depicting child porn, this is snuff films.  Imagine how you would react to these things, that is what depictions of Muhammad are to Muslims.  It is hitting them in their hearts, in their souls.

When I was learning about political philosophy I was rather taken by the problem of toleration of intolerant groups.  Sooner or later a free and tolerant society will have to deal with intolerant groups, and there comes a questions- do you deny these groups their freedom of speech, and thus show your commitment to toleration?  Or do you instead let them have their say, allow intolerance, risk hypocrisy?  I never figured out where I stood on that.

But this get’s us to why I don’t like the idea of Everyone Draw Muhammad Day.  It is intolerance met with more intolerance.  You’re defending your freedom of speech, and refusing to bow to violence, which is vital and admirable, but you do so at a cost.  You end up offending all kinds of Muslims, not just the ones who send death threats, and some who take this very, very seriously.

So should we have the right to depict images of the prophet Muhammad?  Absolutely.  We need to be able to tell his story, and in a variety of mediums so that it can have the most impact, the most beauty, the most value.  I think that’s something that will happen gradually, perhaps over a very long period of time as Islam grows and changes.  And I think forcing it like this is hurtful and perhaps even shameful.  But I’d be hard pressed to say that it was wrong.

I feel like I’m juggling a lot of things right now- trying to be a Buddhist, moving, trying to find a place to move to, work, some kind of social life.  Standard gambit, I suppose.  I don’t have a whole lot of time these days, I fight for what I can when I think I need it and booking events on top of others because I have a bad memory.

Neglecting this space always hurts a little bit though, so here I am, at it again.

Buddhism has always resonated with me in a way that I can’t quite put my finger on.  Perhaps I’m prone to romanticizing ascetics, holy men in robes who give it all up in order to find real contentment.  It’s a hard deal to make, especially when I now know that I really, really enjoy the little pleasures of this world.

Let’s start at food.  The Buddha tells us that real pleasure does not come from contingent things, from physical things, that one can train ones mind to find happiness in the moment, in any moment, without the need for extrinsic input.

All I have to do is think of sushi to want to ditch the whole thing.  Seriously, it would be great to be all content and in step with the world, but there are tomes and tomes of knowledge on how to prepare food, whole life times are spent in that pursuit, the fruits of which can be incredible.  In the face of this it is hard to take the proposition that this is not happiness very seriously.  More so with a mouth full of lightly seared tuna with a nice cream sauce.

This goes for anything else you will find in life- movies, art, writing, video games, wine, houses, clothing, anything that you can interact with.  We have spent an awful lot of time investigating these things, making them attractive and smart and fun.  It can be said that the enjoyment they bring doesn’t last, and I think that’s fair, but trying to see the wisdom in turning away from it all is difficult.

Quite difficult.

Could you imagine being someone on the other side of the palace walls, watching as Siddhartha climbed over with his friend, Channa, in nothing but a beggar’s robe, stealing into the night?  What would an ordinary man think, walking in the night, trying to figure out how to procure a fraction of the wealth the prince had in order to provide for himself and his family, seeing Siddhartha throw it all away?

I think that I  would be frustrated, probably a little angry too.  I spend more and more time these days counting coins, keeping track of my spending, mitigating debt, questioning purchases- all to afford a rather basic life, as Western first-worlds go.  So to see a man with everything just up and walk away, if I was older, had kids, had a wife, a house?  Damn right I’d be annoyed.

But that only lasts until you consider what he went out to do, and what he went through. His studies and investigations led him to do one of the most difficult things that any one person may attempt.

He sat.

This is meditation’s first requisite, and it’s most basic form.  Just sitting, that is what it is, and that is what Siddhartha Gautama, who would one day become the Buddha, set out to do.  Now to be fair, there is significantly more to what he did than this.  He went through all of the major schools of Hindu thought at the time- spoke with many gurus and sages and anyone who thought they may have a cure for… well, life.  Eventually he left all of these intellectuals behind, with their yogic practices, and hung out with some hardcore ascetics for a while- guys who would eat only a few grains of rice a week, and would stay standing for days without sleep, all in an attempt to break their minds from the here and now.

But in the end what Siddhartha did was sit under a tree.  Sat, thought, and breathed.

A typical introduction to meditation goes something like this- sit comfortably, back straight, eyes either closed or half-closed, hands folded in your lap with thumbs together, focus on your breathing.  Counting breaths helps, or focusing on a point just in front of your nose, or in the center of your chest.  Basically you want to try to focus on that and nothing else.

No, don’t think about meditating, or about that annoying guy at work, or about what you had for dinner, or that movie you just saw, or about how you’re not focusing.  Eventually you will forget about your breathing, your mind will default to what it normally does in this situation. When it is left idle it will wander- it will ruminate, reminisce, wonder.  And then you will remember what it was you were trying to do, and come back to your breathing.  No, not that song you have stuck in your head, not about your plans tonight, not about how terrible you are at this.

Not that.

Not that.

And not that.

Don’t worry, it’s impossible.  No one gets it right the first time, our heads aren’t built this way, were aren’t trained to be this way, they really, really really don’t want to be left with nothing to do.  Yet this is the kind of thing that Buddha did, for days.

And it isn’t like it remains impossible.  Yesterday I had my first meditation session, at a local Buddhist centre.  Not my first one ever, but my first in a while.  We meditated for about 20 minutes, had a half-hour talk, and then another 20 minutes of meditation.  It was guided meditation, so the monk leading us would drop little reminders to relax and let go of our thoughts, or to think about the topic at hand, but the overall goal was the same- to clear and focus the mind.

All it took was those brief sessions to remember why I like meditation.  It makes me feel good.  I rode a steady wave of contentment and clear-headedness for at least an hour after that.  I was zen as a mother fucker.  And all it took was sitting and meditating poorly for less than an hour.  At one point I’m pretty sure I dozed off.

That is one side of the spectrum of meditation, one side of a tradition and practice that existed before the Buddha, and continues on, enriched thanks to his teaching and the experience of all the Buddhist monks, nuns and laypeople that came after him.  On the other side of this spectrum, we have Thic Quang Duc.  He was a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, who died on June the 11th 1963 while protesting the persecution of Buddhist monks in Vietnam under the Ngo Dinh Diem government.  You will probably know him better as “the burning monk.”

This is one of my favourite images, because it demonstrates, totally, and without question, the results of the Buddha’s mission.  This monk burned himself to death, and during the process, which lasted about 10 minutes, he did not move and he did not cry out.  Thic Quang Duc made no sign that he was in any pain whatsoever.  He was able to completely bypass how any normal person would react to such a situation, close his mind from his body, control exactly how he would react.

These are the fruits of meditation.  From the briefest of encounters, you can leave feel elated and contented, and if you give your life to it, then you can burn to death and be fine.

All from just sitting.

Just because I’m not writing here doesn’t mean I’m not writing.

History is a tricky business, religious history doubly so.  There are always the questions of who did what and when, and nothing gets any easier when you start to throw miracles and folks with wings into the mix.  Things are foggy enough already.

A friend of mine asked me what the historical standpoint is on Noah’s ark.  This was after I told her about the most recent claim to have uncovered its resting place. I wasn’t sure what to say.  It only exists historically in a religious- and a very literalistic kind of religious- historical perspective.  The existence of the boat, the need for it, only exists as hope.  It is faith for those who need it to be so.  There is no evidence for it outside of religion.  The past is already murky, these kinds of things don’t help for folks trying to get a grip of things, and for those trying to start a new month and a new religion.

But whatever the case may be, that some blokes with wings were hanging out atop Jesus’ tomb on the third night, that Lao Tzu was born with a gray beard, or that the Buddha was born out of his mother’s side, I think that we can be sure of one thing.  About 2,600 years ago, a man was happy.  He was not glad because of his wealth, or the prosperity of his kingdom, for he ruled a large and fertile valley at the foot of the Himalayan mountains.  No, he celebrated for the same reason I think many men will find jubilation.  This man, Suddhodana, had a son.  He finally had a prince, an heir, a bright and beautiful baby boy.  So many years ago now, this man was happy, of this much I think we can be certain.

He quickly set about making the necessary arrangements- the celebrations, the festivals, everything.  The king had a son, this was not a time to be humble or meek, the king had a son!  A son whom he could instruct and raise to take his place as ruler of the Shakya people.  With this end in mind Suddhodana names his son Siddhartha, “he who achieves his aim.”  He then gathered together eight Brahman priests to forecast the boy’s future.

Now, no one in their right mind would ahave dared to tell the king what he didn’t want to hear.  No one at this point would have denied him the satisfaction of knowing that his son would indeed become a great leader for his people.  These were Brahman after all, the highest of class of Hindus, the ones most well-learned in their religious tradition.  They knew a thing or two.  None of them were about to make a proclamation that would have them transferred permanently to the Himalayas to help the proto-mathematicians measure the highest mountain.  So it would come as no surprise, and thus would hardly be believable, if at this part of the story the new father would have heard exactly what he wanted.

Perhaps this is why we are thrown for a bit of a loop.  Because you see it is during this important ceremony, when portents are examined to determine the boy’s fate, that a hermit ascetic calling himself Asita barges in, performs some strange ritual involving the infant’s feet on his head, and beats the Brahmans to the punch.  Asita announces that the boy would become a great King, more powerful than any who had come before, but only if the young prince saw no suffering, was witness to no illness or pain of any kind.  If he were to witness these things, then he would instead become a a great spiritual leader, a holy man.  Safe in the knowledge that their recommendation was bolstered by the prediction of a respected though somewhat beguiling ascetic, and confident that later tellers of this tale would let them off the narrative hook for the inclusion of this unbiased perspective, the Brahmans confirmed this path for the prince.  The fortune did nothing to dampen the king’s mood, and he immediately set about redesigning his palace- erecting walls around the grounds and making different buildings to that his family could move around and give the illusion of  a change of space during the different seasons.    He would not want his son to become restless and grow curious about the outside world.

Suddhodana was not about to let his son waste his life like one of the traveling mendicants he had seen around his kingdom.  They were called samanas, wondering ascetic monks who searched for enlightenment in the popular religions of the day- Hinduism, Jainism, and the Ajivikas.  They would depend on the compassion of others for food and shelter and spend their time meditating and living off as little as possible.  The king wasn’t about to let his son become a hippie.

And so the young prince Siddhartha finished his spiritual SATs.  His destiny fixed, his path made firm for him before he even took his first steps.

As the story goes, Siddhartha’s mother died soon after his birth, and so his rearing would have been handled chiefly by his father, allowing him full control over which end of that prophecy his son would see.  Sure enough, he turned the palace ground into a lush garden of earthly delights and surrounded Siddhartha with only young and healthy people.

Imagine what it would be like to work in such a place.  One moment you are teaching the king’s son how to spell, things are looking good, the pay is great, your’e thinking of maybe moving into a bigger house, maybe getting a few more acres or a few more yaks.  But then one morning you come into the palace with a sniffle and faster than a fruit fly’s next reincarnation you’re on your ass on the other side of that wall.  It reminds me of God kicking humans out of the Garden of Eden, except the only thing that is forbidden is to be old or unhealthy.

Siddhartha Gautama proved to be an exceptional student, which by the way is pretty typical for these stories.  Sometimes they’re naturals, like Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism.  They take to learning like a tidal wave, enveloping everything in moments what would take normal people years to build.  In other cases these figures cheat and do it the easy way.  I don’t know what the Devil’s premium for knowledge is these days, but you just promise at conception to spread the word of God and the Lord will bless you with unending knowledge without the need for typical frivolities like tutors and being a human.  Figures like Baha’u'llah fall into this camp.  In any case, you work for God, you get taken care of.  Well, at least in the wits department.

Siddhartha belonged to the former camp. He did his studies and his teachers didn’t need to fake their pleasure or praise for the sake of the king.  This was a gifted child, and like any gifted child he started to ask questions.

He would wonder what went on beyond the walls of the palace, what else existed besides the pleasantries afforded by wealth and status.  Perhaps his father and his teachers tried to hide him from the truth, refusing to explain why they were keeping him imprisoned.  Perhaps not.  Regardless, he grew curiouser and curiouser, and on some level was convinced that there was more to life then what had been presented to him.

At nineteen he was married to a princess.  Her name was Yasodhara and she was his cousin (oh hush, you know how it was).  This had the advantage of strengthening the Gautama royal family and giving the prince something to keep him busy.

But as it happens in these stories the inevitable occurs.  Foreshadowing wins out, the drama plays on, and our prince makes his way into the outside world.  I’ve heard many different versions of this particular part of the story.  The most charitable say that Suddhodana eventually relented, unable to withstand the prolonged one-man inquisition mounted by his son on why he couldn’t leave, the king permitted him four trips to the outside world, entrusting the prince’s charioteer and friend Channa to keep them innocent and brief.  Other versions give the impression that Siddhartha escaped, and with the aid of his friend and charioteer Channa, was able to manage four excursions past the wall.

So be it youthful rebelliousness and curiosity, be it a tired and overwhelmed king, or that cold and truly random ice bitch, Fate (who knows just how to ruin the beginning of a perfectly good dynasty) Siddhartha Gautama journeyed into the world with his friend Channa.

There are a couple of different ways that I could imagine the princes’ compatriot.  One is that he is the youthful friend, the same age as Siddhartha, but more likable because of his familiarity with the world, a foil to Siddhartha’s inbred aloofness and introspection.  Someone who would have conspired to see the prince freed, to get out into the world, to loosen up.

Two is that he is the older, more experienced man who enjoys life in the palace because he knows what the real world can be like.  An elderly sidekick who provides worldly advice, who becomes a kind of father figure to the prince because the king wanted a son and an heir but not in that order.  This Channa would be someone who knows the handiwork of that cruel goddess Fate, and knows better than to alter that course when the young are involved.  But I digress yet again, Siddhartha has an accomplice, and suddenly we, dear readers, can all be teachers with Channa, as we introduce the prince to the world for the first time.

Things probably didn’t go so well that first outing.  Siddhartha would be asking too many questions, constantly bothering Channa for answers as the charioteer did his best to avoid the Nepalesian red light district.  And in the midst of all that chaos they pass a sick man walking on the road.  Now it could be that, owing to the prince’s lack of experence in this area, he would offer up some terrible social faux pas and begin demanding to know what was wrong with this poor man.  Why were they so weak, why did they look so sullen, so tired and so… leaky.  Maybe that happened, but from what I’ve heard, at the very least the following exchange took place.

“Who is this pale and shuffling man?  See how he coughs and wheezes Channa, like an old bellows.  Look, he is barely able to stand, he can’t hold himself up.  Channa?  What is wrong with him?”

“My Lord, he is sick,” Channa replied dutifully.

Obviously Siddhartha would have trouble understanding this concept, that one can be host to contagion, that our bodies can become cancerous to ourselves.  That we will suffer cold, flus,  food poisonings and some diseases worse than these- cancers, viruses, bacterias, seizures, strokes, and all manner of things that can some for any of us, no matter how well our lives are progressing.  That we will never escape the frailties of our own flesh, of the makeup of our own bodies- this is what confronted Siddhartha on his first forray into the world.

His second journey went much the same way, with one notable exception.  This time on the road they passed an elderly man, hair all thinning and gray.  Channa probably knew the question was coming by this point.

“And what is this now?  Channa?  Is he sick?  Look how he slouches, how his head has fallen below his shoulders and his skin hangs off of him like a silken robe.  He moves about so slowly and speaks to dully.  What manner of person is this, Channa?”

“That is an old man, my prince,” Chana replied, and then added, perhaps in a moment of weakness, a retaliation of brutal honesty for Siddhartha’s incessant questions and unbearbale naivete, “that is the fate of all of us.”

Channa was sure to move the conversation on quickly after that and perhaps cut the trip short.  There was only one way for that question to go, only one thing anyone would want to know once they found out that their life and vitality were not everlasting, that they would age with the best of them.

They would want to know, “What happens next?”

There would be time enough to consider that question on their third journey.  I imagine that there would be a fair amount of tension, of build up leading to this point.  Everyone would be wondering what the prince might see next, about what will become of him, and of the king, and of the kingdom.  Channa would be worried about his standing with the king and the condition of his friend.  The king would worry that he was about to lose his only heir, that his son was on his way to replacing the silver spoon in his mouth with something made of hemp.  Quite a lot was riding on these trips and their outcome.  But Siddhartha’s curiosity had yet to be sated.  He needed to know.

It wouldn’t matter what they saw on that third trip, it wouldn’t matter where they went, if they passed through towns or farms or over bridges.  All that mattered was the body they saw laying on the side of the road.  I don’t think there would be much of a question at this point.  The prince was smart, he probably could piece it together himself.

He would simply ask, as he stood over the body, keeping careful watch, as if hoping it was some ruse put on by the charioteer, “Channa?”  Worldessly his friend took him back to the chariot and headed back to the palace.  It was the final blow.  On top of all this, on top of sickness and age, he had now witnessed death.  Not only do we suffer, not only do we grow old, but we die.

There wouldn’t be much reason to leave the palace again.  No matter what pleasures and experiences the outside world had, the palace grounds could provide better, at least for virtue of the fact that there would be no elderly, no one would be suffering from sickness and there certainly would be no dead people, no bodies laying around reminding him of his own mortality.  But then again he wouldn’t need anything to remind him of that, I’m sure it was all he could think about.  A smart man like Siddhartha, presented with an unsolvable problem- how do you beat death, age, or sickness, and what other problems could there be in the world in the presence of such suffering? What else could matter?

It was this drive that probably forced him back out into the world for his last journey.  He needed to find some way out of this, it was an unacceptable state of affairs, and being cooped up behind the palace walls for his whole life gave him this unique perspective that perhaps our basic state of affairs could be overturned.  That we could live without suffering, without illness or unhappiness and even without death.

It is on this fourth journey that Siddhartha came across a samanas, a travelling monk with nothing but his robes and a bowl used for collecting alms.  Despite having no wealth and no livelihood other than spiritual study, this mendicant was happy, he was content.  He was exactly what Siddhartha wanted to be, to be in the midst of suffering, of the world, but still be able to shine.

It took him a while to act, but I think from the moment Siddhartha saw that monk he knew what he was going to do.  There was a period of doubt, of uncertainty, but in the end he had no choice.  He could not go back to the way he was before, living in the lap of luxury, not when he had seen how impermanent it was, how none of it mattered in the face of sickness or death.  He left the palace for good on the eve of the birth of his son, leaving with nothing but a robe and a bowl.  Siddhartha’s son presented another tie to his old life, and to the endless suffering it represented.  His son’s name was Rahula, so called after the snake that in Hindu mythology passes in front of the sun and moon to cause eclipses.  It has another meaning though-

Chain.

***

These past few days I’ve been taking a break from the project.  Break’s over.

I’ve been doing the Year of Faith for four months now, and there is an obvious pattern emerging.  Month one was good.  Satanism wasn’t perfect, but it felt good, it felt like I was making head way and I was pretty happy with it.  Taoism in February was brutal.  Everything felt like it was dragging, writing was forced, my interest waxed and waned.  Then everything turned around in March. Baha’i was great, it was easily my most productive and insightful month of the year.

I’m on month four now.  Bet you can’t guess how I’m doing.  Bet you can’t figure out that I feel burnt out, that I can’t focus, that I every time I try to bring something to the blog or realign myself with this new religion that things  are just frickin’ dandy…

I’m choking on Sikhism.  It isn’t anything about the religion.  It has a rich and interesting history and philosophy.  There are plenty of helpful people and many gurdwaras and communities to visit, but I’ve dropped the ball.  I’m twenty days into the month and I’m nowhere.  In light of this pattern I may have to reevaluate my schedule, or try to make more of an effort to plan ahead.  Having a more fixed schedule helps, so maybe I should be looking further into the future before the month is up.

I’ve decided to stop my month of Sikhism. I’m going to take some time to work on other things, and set up the schedule for May.

People always say that in order to succeed you need to get used to failure.  I have always assumed that this meant external obstacles- things that I have no control over.  What it really means, for me, is to get used to falling short of my own expectations.

It’s okay.

My name is Michael and I am a terrible Sikh.

I still have the beard going, which I’m noticing more and more (and no, I don’t like it yet), but a good beard does not a Sikh make.  I’m quite uncomfortable with Sikhism and I really don’t know why.  I’m not as interested in it as I have been in other religions I have done, and there is a large social hurdle I have to cross, namely making contact with Sikhs.  This brings to light one of my flaws, namely I’m terrified of strangers and meeting new people, and thus would much prefer to just email these temples I’ve found around town rather than call them and talk to a complete unknown.  I know it doesn’t make any sense, but it’s me.  The only reason I cleared this last month was because the Baha’is took it upon themselves to spread word and they all got into contact with me over email, which is less terrifying.

I’m going to get over it, I have to get over it, or else there won’t be much to report this month.  Working full time really isn’t’ helping my situation, but again this is something that I can’t really fix right now.  I have no alternative means of income that wouldn’t similarly sap my time, and the job I do have often affords me enough free time that I can read and write during the day.  The fantasy is to be able to do this full time, and the compromise will probably be that I’ll be sticking it out and saving up my nickles and dimes so that come the end of the year I’ll have enough to take a month or two off to focus on pulling The Book together.  I might have to live off of ramen for a while but I would really, really like to do this all day, every day.

I also need to move come June, so that doesn’t really help either.

For those of you who weren’t following Kotaku’s run of articles on religion in video games, check ‘em all out here.  All in all it was okay, nothing really stellar, and they didn’t go as deep as I would have liked into the meat of the issue.  But since I feel kind of passionate about the subject matter I assume that was inevitable.  Still, zombies and Ouija boards?  Really?  Really?

Anyway, I’m working on something that will communicate my feelings on the matter, which you probably won’t see up here for a while since I really want to nail it.  We’ll see what comes of that, in fact I think I’ll work on it once I sign off here.

Which will be right about now.

Sat Sri Akal.

Waheguru.

A few inspired quotes, courtesy of The Sikhs- Their Religious Beliefs and Practices by W. Owen Cole and Piara Singh Sambhi.

Burn worldy love

Grinding  it into ahses to make ink.

Let your intellect be the fine paper

On which you should write

With the pen of divine love,

As dictated by the Guru.

Write the praises of his Name

Write that He is limitless and great.

Oh teacher, if you were to learn writing this

The truth of it will stand by you

Wherever you are called upon to render account.

-Guru Nanak

Let him bear the name of Shiva or Kesava [Vishnu],

or of the Jina [Mahavira], or of the lotus-born Lord,

whatever name he bears

May he take from me, sick woman that I am, the disease of the world,

Whether he be he, or he, or he.

-Lalla, a fourteenth century Kashmiri Shaivite

The grandeur of the Sat Guru is infinite, infinite in his bounty,

He opened my eyes to the Infinite and showed me Infinity.

I was just tagging along in the wake of the world and the Veda,

Then the Sat Guru met me on the path and he put a lamp in my hand.

A lamp full of oil he gave me whose wock will never run dry;

All bartering is over,

I will go to the market no more.

- Kabir

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