Ornoth

Patriots’ Day is a state holiday, which my employer honored until this year, having been purchased by a company in Las Vegas that doesn’t think particularly much of Massachusetts’ Revolutionary War history.

The Boston Marathon, which takes place on that day, finishes a block—150 yards—from my condo. Between setup, tear-down, and cleanup, it royally screws up transportation for most of a week. Street closures bring most of the neighborhood to a standstill. They close my MBTA station (Copley) and you physically cannot cross Boylston Street without going a mile out of your way.

Since I would be unable to get to work (or back), I chose to work from home on this year’s Patriots’ Day. In the evening, I also had an appointment to pick up my new bike and do a full fitting, although I didn’t know whether I’d be able to get through the crowds to get to the bike shop!

For most of the day, I ignored the race. Public events are common where I live, whether it’s the Walk for Hunger or a pride parade or a Critical Mass ride or a sports team celebrating a championship or a free concert or a political rally or the Santa Speedo Run or whatever. I mostly tuned out the race’s PA announcer, the shouting vendors, and the partying revelers. Once or twice I looked out my window to see the crowds of exhausted runners walking down Boylston Street, having just crossed the finish line.

Just before 3pm I heard a loud boom. Yes, it might have sounded like a canon, but the first thing I thought of was that someone had taken a huge dump truck and dropped it from 20 feet up. It was an echoing heavy metal sound, like a big truck carrying steel I-beams hitting a wall. Except the concussion was a lot stronger than that. My building was rocked, and a dozen building and car alarms were going off.

Twelve seconds later, as I wondered what was up, I heard the second blast. It was further away from me, but still didn’t sound normal. I got up and went to the window and saw hundreds of panicked runners, spectators, and volunteers streaming out of Copley Square, running down Dartmouth Street toward me. (That’s my condo in the news photo at right.)

Something very bad had obviously happened in the square. I looked for the smoke that would be the tell-tale sign of an explosion, but there was none that I could see above the single row of five-story brownstones between me and the finish line.

My first instinct was to share the news. I went to Facebook and entered what I knew:

Something bad at the marathon… People running all over. Two huge booms, whole building shook, emergency vehicles all over the place.

My next instinct was that this was going to be national news, and I should reach out to friends and family who might wonder if I was injured, so that was my next task.

After that, there was just a whole lot of news watching, and checking out my window as runners, volunteers, and spectators fled the area, rescue vehicles swarmed in to assist the injured, and law enforcement units sealed off the neighborhood.

As it turned out, the first bomb blast was a block from me (see the map), right near my bank and across the street from the Boston Public Library. The second was a block further up, across from Lord & Taylor and my walking route to my neighborhood grocery store.

Although cell service was initially flooded—and despite persistent reports that the police had intentionally terminated cell phone service city-wide—service freed up as people gradually left the neighborhood. I spent the next couple hours fielding inquiries from friends via cell phone, Facebook, instant messaging, and text messages.

Despite all the chaos, I still thought that I could make my bike fitting appointment across town, and brought my old bike down to the lobby. On the way out the door I heard another muffled boom which apparently was a controlled detonation of an abandoned bag that wound up being completely innocuous.

On the street, thousands of people were milling around aimlessly, and the cops had cordoned Dartmouth street off at Commonwealth Avenue. What that meant is that my building was squarely on the edge of the lockdown zone; We could go in and out the main (north) entry, but the side (east) and rear (south) doors were off limits.

I biked off through streets that were largely empty of cars, but with a large number of pedestrians walking around obliviously. Once I got to the bike shop, I saw the “closed early” sign and turned around and made my way home. Knowing Comm Ave would be a mess due to the marathon, I took my only other alternative: the Charles River bike path.

While crossing the Dartmouth Street footbridge over Storrow Drive, one matronly lady headed in the other direction yelled at me, “Don’t go there! The police are there!” to which I, of course, responded, “I live there.”

A few minutes after I got settled back into my apartment, our fire alarm started going off. I assumed the cops had decided to evacuate us, but I checked the hallway and actually smelled smoke. So I started going through the handy list of evacuation tasks I keep by the door. Grady the cat, who up until now had shown absolutely no evidence of concern, was (justifiably) spooked by the blaring fire alarm and it took me a while to corner him and get him into his carrier.

As it turned out, one of the residents had burned dinner. What an irresponsible thing to do, given all the other stuff going on in the neighborhood that needed the fire department’s attention! After a bit of fresh air, the residents were let back inside to soothe our now doubly-jangled nerves.

As night fell, outside my window Newbury Street—which was within the lockdown zone—was absolutely deserted except for cops and military personnel. Absolutely no one was allowed into or out of most of the Back Bay. Huge situation response trucks took up station as the police began to comb through what they termed a “crime scene” that was several square miles in area.

I had planned to take the next day (Tuesday) off to ride my new bike. Despite not having the bike, with the entire neighborhood sealed off there was very little point in trying to get to work, so I took it as a vacation day. And if I could get out and pick up the bike, then I’d take it for a bit of a shakedown cruise.

That morning, one positive development was that the cops opened up Newbury Street to traffic, reducing the lockdown zone a bit and ensuring that my building, at least, would be accessible.

I wasn’t home for much of the day, tho. It was an amazingly stressful and hectic day, made worse by the continuing closure of the Copley MBTA station. At a high level, it went like this…

Walk half a mile to Hynes station. Get past National Guard troops. Take the trolley to the bike shop in Brighton. Take the new bike for a 16-mile test ride outside of the city. Take the trolley back to Boston. Walk half a mile home from Arlington station. Have a Pop-Tart and a glass of juice. Ride the old bike two miles back out to the bike shop. Have an abbreviated fitting done. Ride the old bike two miles back home. Walk half a mile to Arlington station. Take the trolley back out to the bike shop (don’t forget all the National Guard watching this). Ride the new bike two miles home. Turn around and walk half a mile back to Hynes. Hop an MBTA bus to Central Square in Cambridge. Inhale a burrito. Walk to my meditation center for my Tuesday night practice group. Meditate for an hour, then socialize a bit. Walk back to Central and hop the MBTA bus back to Hynes. Walk down to the Fenway Whole Foods, since the two grocery stores that are nearer to me are in the lockdown zone. Too late; they’re closed, so buy milk and OJ at a nearby CVS. Shlep those another mile back home. Collapse.

After just five hours’ sleep, Wednesday I went back to work. The lockdown zone shrank a bit more—down from 17 blocks to 12—freeing up Hereford, Berkeley, and Clarendon. Investigators concluded that the bombs had been constructed of pressure cookers, nails, and metal pellets, and announced that they had obtained surveillance video evidence showing a suspect.

Thursday President Obama (and many others) came to town for an inter-faith ceremony. That night the FBI released photographs of the two suspects.

Friday I was going to bike to work, because it was going to be the warmest day in more than six months, but that plan came to a crashing halt when I learned that shortly after the photos had been released, the bombers had engaged the police in firefights in Cambridge and Watertown, and one of them had been killed. The police had most of eastern Massachusetts completely locked down: no Amtrak, no MBTA, no commuter rail, no cabs, all businesses closed, and residents were told to stay indoors all day.

Despite live news broadcasts all day long, literally nothing happened in the 18 hours after the firefight. After a fruitless search of the neighborhood in Watertown where the surviving suspect was last seen, the police gave a press conference wherein they lifted the stay-put order. On the good side, that meant that the Amtrak would be running Saturday morning, when I had plans to travel to Maine.

But going outside sounded like the height of folly to me, because the second suspect was still armed and on the run. I guess the cops were probably hoping that he’d just turn up somewhere.

Which, as it turns out, was exactly what happened. A man just outside the cordoned-off part of Watertown found the remaining fugitive injured and semi-conscious, hidden in a shrink-wrapped yacht in his backyard, and the police came and took him into custody.

With the second suspect on the way to the hospital, the whole area burst out in celebrations. Of course, even despite the all-clear and the police high-fiving one another and the T being opened, Copley Square MBTA station remained closed, and the entire 12-block area around my apartment was still off-limits to the public.

That pretty much killed the day Friday.

On Saturday I did manage to get out of town on the Downeaster, and returned again on Sunday night. Copley and my neighborhood still off limits.

Monday. Still off limits. On the way home from work, I stopped at the grocery store, then lugged my provisions a mile and a half home. But the FBI turned the site back over to the city of Boston.

Tuesday. Still off limits. CIMC had a special evening gathering, led by the three guiding teachers.

Finally, on Wednesday morning they opened things up. After nine days of being unable to use my MBTA station or cross my neighborhood, the marathon (in both senses of that word) was finally over!

So that’s what happened. Now for a few thoughts…

One oddity is that I remember having the thought—sometime in the week leading up to the marathon—that we hadn’t had any major national emergencies in a long time, and that we were probably due. I don’t recall what prompted that thought, but I am certain it happened.

Although thinking back on it, Back Bay has been through a lot lately. We just got through a region-wide road closure due to a massive blizzard, but before that we spent 48 hours without power after a substation failure, and a week without drinking water when a 10-foot water main broke out in Weston. And then there were hurricanes Sandy and Irene.

I’m disappointed that I didn’t do more to help other people over the past week, to put my compassion practice into action. While I was probably right in telling myself that I wasn’t needed at the bomb scene, I probably could have helped stranded runners or traumatized spectators. But I guess there’s something to learn from my inaction, and hopefully I’ll do a better job next time.

On the other hand, one close friend said it was unexpectedly thoughtful of me to let people know that I was okay. And another friend used the word “compassion” as one of the three things that she thought I epitomized. So that was mildly reassuring.

Speaking of compassion and first responders, I saw an interesting reaction to the bombing that spoke eloquently to me about how men’s manifestations of love and compassion go unseen and unacknowledged. Here:

I had an amazing insight about men. This one insight seems life-changing to me: “Acts of heroism are acts of love.”
 
Why is this life changing? Because I don’t think the narrative out there right now is that men are constantly involved in deep, fundamentally good, acts of love. All the time. Men are not talked about, as a group, as being demonstrative of their love. Of being ongoing catalysts for acts of goodness. And yet they do that all the time. I think the narrative is that men take heroic actions because they are told it’s a role they must play, because men are “supposed” to be strong, supposed to be brave. Because they are “manning up” the way they were taught to. If love is talked about with men, it is in the context of sexuality. When men are called “lovers”, it is often code for “womanizers”. But men act in love, and show that love, all the time. For some unfathomable reason, we call it something else.
 
I don’t think men get enough credit for love.

I think my meditation practice really helped me deal with a situation that would otherwise produce a lot of anxiety and emotional discomfort. While I saw and acknowledged my own emotions, I was much more intrigued by the reactions of the people around me.

For several days, the main question on people’s minds was the search for “who”: who did it?

Lots of people either undertook their own search for the culprit based on photographs that had been posted or formulated their own opinions based on little to no data. But realistically, no private citizen was going to identify the bomber; that’s what we pay our law enforcement agencies for. Get out of the way and let them do their job!

As my teacher pointed out, this compulsion comes entirely from mental discomfort, because the identity of the bomber has absolutely no relevance for most of us. In fact, if the bomber had never been found, it would have made absolutely no material difference in most people’s lives. So why did they spend so much mental energy and anguish trying to answer this question? That kind of desperate, undisciplined thought is the symptom of someone with an undeveloped sense of self-awareness.

Then, after it was learned that the suspects were pretty average Cambridge kids, the next question everyone was asking was “why”: why would someone do such a thing? This was prevalent both in my family as well as from other practitioners at CIMC, and it really surprised me.

I think the very question is indicative of cultural bias. While many of us say that we respect and value other cultures—especially in a highly educated, multi-cultural town like Cambridge—very few of us understand what that means in practice. It’s frustrating that I have to spell it out, but people from other cultures will have different values! They won’t be the same as ours.

While a Buddhist might value non-harming above all other things, and your average American Christian might value order and stability, someone from a foreign culture might consider those less important than individual freedom or cultural preservation or economic fairness. Why would someone bomb innocent civilians? Because it’s important to them within the framework of their values.

I don’t understand what is so mysterious about the fact that other people might have different values than yourself. Why is that so incomprehensible? But people really seem to operate on this unspoken assumption that everyone shares their values. That’s not true even within a family, never mind across vast ethnic, religious, geographic, and political divisions!

I heard the phrase “I don’t understand” so many times that I wanted to grab people and shake them. Of course you don’t understand! You’re not *trying* to understand. A criminal’s actions only make sense when viewed through *their* value system; of course it doesn’t make sense if you insist on viewing it through your very different values. That’s like wondering why birds don’t save their energy and just drive south like the rest of us, rather than fly. Of course it doesn’t make sense if you insist on interpreting bird behavior using human norms and values!

But this question of “why” is even broader than that. Sure, any seemingly “inexplicable” act (criminal or otherwise) can be partially explained by understanding the values espoused by the protagonist. But what about acts of nature or acts of “god”? Aren’t people are just as prone to ask “why” in response to a tsunami or a wildfire or a landslide or a cancer diagnosis?

I find this baffling, because change is inevitable and life is very fragile. These aren’t just platitudes to make you feel better (in fact, they should make you feel quite insecure). But more importantly, these are the incontrovertible base assumptions and conditions that we live under! There doesn’t need to be a *reason* for something bad to happen, because bad things are a part of life, an indisputable fact. All this breast-beating and asking why they happen is like asking why nitrogen happens or bemoaning the law of gravity. If you are asking why it happened, you really need to reexamine the mistaken assumptions you live by.

In contrast, I suppose I should point out something uplifting, too. With so much focus on the bombers and their actions, consider the correspondingly much greater number of people and acts of kindness and compassion that took place over the past week. We should all be heartened by the vastly larger outpouring of support for those affected.

I want to particularly highlight two tweets that crossed my feed shortly after the bombing. In the midst of the chaos and terror, many people thought of giving blood to help the injured. But still, I was amazed by this:

Red Cross reporting sufficient blood in banks at this time. Some marathoners ran directly to MGH to donate after blasts.

I can’t imagine finishing a marathon, running an extra mile, and then having blood drawn. Simply amazing! Not especially smart, but amazing.

But I really felt a deep pride in my city when I read the next tweet. How does Boston respond to a terrorist attack? Like this:

I have no idea how we are supposed to react to something like this, other than love each other more.

I’ve always loved this city. It’s a wonderful mix of ambition and compassion, competitiveness and brotherhood, pride of place and openness, history and innovation, intelligence and grit, vibrant city culture and outdoor activities for the athletically inclined. Boston isn’t perfect, but it strives mightily to be the best. And contrary to the intentions of these terrorist wannabes, the marathon bombing they undertook did something very special: it provided us with a rare opportunity to demonstrate love for our city and our fellow Bostonians, and it bound this great community together more tightly than ever before.

I love that dirty water. Aw, Boston you’re my home.

Heck, I’m so moved I might even include Cambridge…

For some reason, the MBTA is the best place in the world for me to practice Buddhism.

First, it’s where I listen to most of my dharma talks. Sure, there’s talks every Wednesday at CIMC, but I listen to more of them on my iPod, from a number of really great teachers. I listen to talks on grocery runs too, but the MBTA is the place where I digest the majority.

Second, it’s where I run into the most people, and the most diversity. The brevity of subway interactions makes it the perfect place to try out changes in one’s mindset and the behaviors those mindsets produce. Buddhism isn’t very useful unless it’s practiced in engagement with the real world, and the T is about as real as Boston gets!

Finally, I really don’t meditate that often on the cushion, nor get very much out of it. But for me, subway rides seem to evoke a certain philosophical state of mind that lends itself to the kinds of spontaneous insights people crow about having on the cushion.

Ironically, last Wednesday I had a pretty major insight on the subway, on the way home from the dentist, where I’d had an old filling replaced. It worked out great, because two hours later I was on the cushion for the regular weekly sitting at CIMC, which provided me with the opportunity to explore the insights I’d gained.

This posting is my attempt to record and describe those insights. It’s written more for me than for anyone else, so if you read it, bear in mind that these aren’t fully formed and polished for public consumption.

In fact, the ideas here will probably not jibe with your own. There are elements that will run strongly counter to the beliefs of my more “intuitive” type friends, and there’s a couple points that will equally annoy the logicians. In either case, I’m posting this more to explore and organize my own thoughts than seeking feedback.

Please understand that I’m not saying any of this is “truth”, even for myself. And I’m not looking for debate or argument about what the “truth” is. This is just my attempt to record a series of ideas that I think might aid my understanding of some key Buddhist concepts.

I cited a very pertinent truth in my review of Siddhartha: “Wisdom cannot be communicated. Wisdom that a wise man tries to communicate always sounds foolish.” So bear that in mind, too. What might be insight for me might sound patently obvious to you, or even utterly wrong. Oh well. Arguing about it won’t change anything.

So with all those disclaimers, here’s the stuff.

There are these three concepts in Buddhism, all of which haven’t made much sense to me yet. They’re called dependent origination, no self, and karma.

Dependent origination has always been explained to me thus: nothing that exists or happens occurs independent of some preceding condition. Everything that exists is predicated upon a set of preceding conditions. That is, nothing happens or exists all by itself, without cause.

Okay, that’s nice. Big whoop. In a word, DILLIGAF? What possible philosophical value does something so inane have? I mean, this is one of the most core tenets of Buddhism that gets mentioned repeatedly. I’m pretty sure Buddha himself is quoted as saying that if you know the Four Noble Truths and Dependent Origination, you’ve got everything you need. What’s the big deal?

Well, extend the metaphor to thought. Forget the idea that we control what we think; any fifteen minute meditation session will readily dispel that idea. That’s practically the first thing you learn when you sit. No, most of our thoughts arise in patterns that are in direct response to certain conditions.

What are those conditions? For the most part, they’re sensory input. If I see a particular thing, I’m likely to think certain associated things in response. If I feel a certain tickling, I’ll think there’s a mosquito on my arm. If I hear someone say something, I’ll respond in a way that’s pretty predictable for anyone who knows me.

While you might be able to exert a small degree of control, and there might be a modicum of randomness going on, the overwhelming majority of our thought is comprised of ingrained habitual responses to the sensory input we receive. And, of course, our thoughts are the conditions which drive our actions. We are essentially nothing but reaction machines, bumping into the world and reacting mindlessly to it in an immensely expanded version of Brownian motion.

That’s what I think dependent origination is trying to point at: that our thoughts, like everything else, are just autonomic reactions to the conditions around us. We think we’re the author of our own thoughts, and we’re fascinated by our selves, but if you really look at your own thoughts, you’ll find your mind is full of well-worn ruts that we traverse over and over again. We re-run the same thoughts—and let’s be honest, they’re really not very deep or complex at all—and it’s as difficult for us to veer out of those habitual patterns as it is for a hamster to change the direction of his Habitrail.

That’s also where I think “no self” comes in. If the world—including us, our thoughts, and our actions—is merely one immense chain “reaction”, and we’re all operating on autopilot, then is there really such a thing as a “self”? What am I, if I am just a collection of semi-autonomic learned reactions to external stimuli? We think of our “self” as something definitional, something essential, and something we control, but can we even say that it exists, when even our thoughts—the very things we use to define “me”—are wholly predetermined by our habits and predispositions?

To illustrate: at this point, the ideas I’ve described are sensory input that has been fed to your thinking process. And most people who read this will now be having thoughts that are their habitual—usually negative—reaction to the idea of determinism. So are you not even now playing out some of your tired old habits of mind?

This seems to me to also drive the definition of karma. Contrary to the simplistic interpretation, karma isn’t about being rewarded or punished in a future life for your behavior in this life. Nor is it some puerile idea of cosmic fairness, where we later will reap the results of meritorious or unwise actions.

Karma is exactly this: your habitual reactions and patterns of thought predispose you to certain kinds of experiences, interactions, and outcomes. If you always view the view from a victim’s point of view, you will only see the ways in which you are victimized, and you will continue to be a victim. If your thoughts and habits are those of an unhappy person, you are very likely to continue to be an unhappy person. The way you think, which is largely formed in childhood and became well ingrained in adolescence, makes you what you are. This is karma.

However, Buddhism does include something of an escape pod from complete determinism. We know that we cannot control our reactionary thoughts and habits, but as I asserted earlier, most of those habits have been learned. In theory, it should be possible to indirectly influence our thinking, to un-learn our old habits and train ourselves to react to the world with new patterns which aren’t as inflexible, adolescent, and self-destructive.

If you can, through practice, create ever the slightest space between perception/stimulus and reaction/response, you have a chance to get inside this reaction engine and maybe change your response.

Humans are singularly blessed. We are the only species on this planet with the ability to see our own mental and emotional programming. And it is this facility which allows us to—hopefully—influence that programming by examining our knee-jerk reactions and replacing them with more mature, compassionate actions. It’s neither a short nor an easy path, and replacing our mindless habits is very arduous and frustrating work.

And the most frustrating part is this: how many people actually do it? How many of us examine our programming, our mindless patterns of behavior, and then pursue the arduous task of changing? How many are even aware of their programming? Sadly, it’s a bogglingly tiny minority.

But this, I think, is exactly what Buddhism is pointing at when it talks about “the unconditioned”: the ability to bring a freshness of mind to each new situation, in a way that is well-considered and compassionate, rather than based in mindless reactions, adolescent insecurities, and the confusion that comes with acting out of the ego. And the unconditioned is just a synonym for nibbana.

So these are the thoughts that have been circling around my head this week. And yes, these thoughts also are as dependent upon conditions as any others. I’m just fortunate that my life conditions brought me to Buddhism, that I happened to be listening to a somewhat pertinent dharma talk, and that I was in a fertile practice space like an MBTA train, so that these thoughts could occur.

I hope these ideas represent progress in understanding concepts like dependent origination, no self, karma, and the unconditioned. And if they have any value for you, I freely share them. As with everything in Buddhism, realizing something is the first step toward freedom, but it’s also the easiest; putting one’s realizations into practice, especially in daily life, is the real, ongoing challenge.

Some urban guerilla Buddhist got all skitchy with this poster, which I photographed on an MBTA train at North Station. I’d say it must have been someone from the People’s Republik of Cambridge, but the Green Line doesn’t go that way…

In case you can’t make it out, it used to say “Want the good life? Make it happen”, and has been adulterated to the following Existential message: “the life? it’s happening”. Bon mots, bien sûr.