Crises

The best way to avoid constant crises in life is to avoid constant crises in life. By increasing your awareness and general state of mindfulness, many of life's so-called crises can be avoided entirely by proper planning and responsible action.

Yes, shit happens. To a certain degree, accidents are unavoidable. However, many accidents are the results of lack of care and attention in potentially dangerous situations. Improper home or car maintenance are common precursors to accidents, for example. There is no need to invite shit to happen.

It is important to know yourself and to take full, proactive responsibility for yourself and your personal environment, which includes all spaces you occupy in life. Practice, as I use the word frequently in my writing, includes vigilant and persistent maintenance of body and environment. The practice of meditation assists the brain in taking a relaxed and clear view of your life and your environment. Exercise, proper nutrition and adequate sleep maintain the brain and body in a state of efficiency and adequacy to the task of averting or dealing with disaster.

Multiple personal crises are symptomatic of disease and/or personal dysfunction in your environment. Where there is constant and dedicated practice, crises are minimal, because practice places you in a functional and efficient state wherever you find yourself in life. Instead of being a barreling, reactive train, headed for a wreck, the person with a well established practice of health and mindfulness is like a gyroscope, always maintaining balance and simply bouncing away when it hits obstacles.

Cleanliness

The old Puritan ethic said, "Cleanliness is next to Godliness." This is one of the very rare instances where I agree with Puritanism. Cleanliness also lies at the core of Zen Buddhist practice, a traditional practice with which I more readily identify.

American culture has become slovenly. I feel it is an outward symptom of America's post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD), a result of the narcissistic injury of September 11th, 2001. Hair styles, clothing styles and public spaces all display a greasy sloppiness that is indicative of low self esteem, lack of civic pride and depression. The parallel obesity, alcoholism and drug dependency come as no surprise.

The routine of maintaining the body and one's environment is part of any serious practice of personal responsibility and development. Making this routine a source of meditation and joy is a goal for the experienced practitioner. The inherent benefits of developing this aspect of personal practice are wonderful: Increased health, regular exercise, a sense of accomplishment, attractive appearance and more efficient use of personal space.

I have developed daily and weekly routines of cleanliness in my practice. For example, I have reduced the objects in my environment to make it easier to keep surfaces free of accumulated dust. Each object in my home has its place. After I use an object, I return it to its place. This applies to books, flatware, dishes, clothing, etc.. This is a daily practice.

Once a week, I do an afternoon cleaning meditation. I live in a small apartment. I thoroughly dust and wipe down all the wood floors. I vacuum the carpets. I wash down and disinfect all the surfaces in my kitchen and bathroom. Since I have to conserve my energy, I do this in stages which may take more time than it would for someone with more vigor. But, the meditative aspect is my concentration on the objects I am cleaning. An appreciation of the texture of wood. The structure and shine of tile and porcelain. The awareness of my body as I make the cleaning motions.

The process of routinely maintaining an orderly and clean environment mirrors the maintenance of an orderly and uncluttered mind. Japanese Buddhists have a key saying, "Person environment one." In my experience, this holds basic truth.

Path

We are born as single, distinct individuals, despite any familial nurturing or support. All things pass away. With age, those of us who survive longest live the loneliest lives. This is nature. Eventually we die our separate deaths. Our bodies simply give out from one cause or another.

Our conscious lives are linear, despite any meditative or holistic practice we adopt along the way. This is an inevitable human condition. We can flee into denial, drug addiction or insanity in attempts to avoid it. But, the heart beats and the lungs bellow their inevitably finite number of mechanical times before they cease, like all engines in a material world.

Should we spend our time unnecessarily preoccupied with living longer and looking perpetually young? What is the use? How does that help the human condition or promote peace for all? When the door closes on each life, it closes as relentlessly as the door of a subway train. Death comes. There's no holding it back indefinitely.

So, given the limits of our human journey, what path should we follow? Should we wallow in hedonistic pleasure? Should we see life as an endless bag of potato chips to be devoured and craved indefinitely? Should we become self-centered and get everything we can for our own pleasure in the short time we have? She would focus on fleeting fame or popularity?

Perhaps we should shed every pleasure in favor of mind expansion and understanding of the human condition. The cloister, the cave, the mountaintop. Austerity in the name of inner peace and liberation.

I believe in the Middle Path. I live immersed in the world, yet not attached to it. I care for my body and mind, but I heed the needs of those around me and respond as best I can. I savor the basic pleasures of home, mobility and social intercourse, but I am prepared at any time to move from my place or my life in the inevitable loneliness of the human condition. I try to take what I need from life. I understand that wanting, when I am full, is a disease. I work to heal that disease in my own life. I try to help others to escape from needless wanting.

This Middle Path is often hard to see in the forest of modern urban life. Deep breathing and patience afford me the time to seek it when I am enveloped in the fog of my own anxiety or the demands of others. Time in meditation and times of being touched by love form the serene pool of happiness and reserve which sustains me when a crisis has passed. All falls into perspective. I know the journey ahead. It is uniquely mine, and I must travel it alone. This is what it is. I am at peace with it and with myself.

Inertia

The human brain has its own form of inertia. This inertia seems to increase with material comfort and affluence. It leads to conservatism in most who follow that path.

Hunger combats human inertia. The hunger for knowledge, the hunger for food, the hunger for human affection. These are motivators for human change, human progress. Intentional use of hunger is a powerful tool, used for centuries by those who have sought enlightenment and freedom from desire. Hermits isolated themselves from human companionship to produce a hunger for human interaction. The silence of cloisters produced a hunger for human speech and conversation. Yogis fast to liberate themselves from the distractions of metabolism.

How do you overcome your inertia? Do you even try? The seduction of routine consumption of food, alcohol, and entertainment is ever present in American life. Those who have grown rich by glutting America with consumables now try to steer its government to allow for even more exploitation of the consumers' addiction and greed. Cheaper fast food. More drugs. Less need for mobility. More bad television and distracting gadgets.

Overcoming mental and physical inertia is part of my personal practice. As I age, this requires more and more effort and mindfulness. A rigorous exercise regime is necessary. A strict adherence to a healthy diet is necessary. Daily morning commitment to make each day a day of progress, not stasis. Inertia is easy. Practicing the art of being the most growthful person I can be is difficult.

Attitude

Attitude, the outward demeanor with which we face the world, shapes our world. In Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism, a Medieval Japanese Buddhism based on the teachings of the Lotus Sutra, two precepts apply. First, the law of cause and effect. Second, man and his environment are one.

The way I approach the world is the cause. The effect is the result of that approach. In Biblical terms, I reap what I sow. My approach to the world creates a personal environment of peace, antipathy, harmony, etc.. Therefore, a person lives in an environment which he is part of and shapes with his attitude. Likewise, a person and his attitude are shaped by the environment which he creates. This is a basic concept of behavioral science.

In American gay culture, "attitude" is a commonly used word. It sometimes implies an edge, a defensiveness on the verge of reactive hostility. It can also describe the dignified pride of a gay person who has affirmed and accepted his sexuality without shame or diffidence. Different attitudes, different human experiences.

Practicing an awareness of human suffering and a commitment to alleviate human suffering when it is encountered in human interactions leads to an attitude adjustment. Acceptance of human commonality in suffering and death leads to an open attitude in social situations. Aggression gives way to humility. Selfishness gives way to generosity. Attitude reveals humanist mindfulness where it exists.

Elements

I sometimes like to look at my own life's development in terms of the elements. When I was growing in the womb, I was like the amniotic fluid in which I resided. I was unconscious, flexible, fluid, malleable. After being born, my body gradually hardened and stiffened. From rubbery newborn, I became a dynamic and aggressive toddler.

Growing from baby to child to adolescent is a hardening process, a process of individuation and forming of more rigid boundaries. More like stone plow than water, as a young adult, I learned to fend off rejections and other assaults on my self image. I plowed a path into a work life. I honed the blade of my plow against the rocks of prejudice, materialism, class and ignorance.

It was familiar and easy to continue to harden as I approached middle age. A certain amount of financial stability made me less dependent on social supports and networks. I had a fixed idea of where my life would go as a plow in the secure, walled field of my life.

The AIDS epidemic represented a boulder far stronger than my plow. It shattered that hardened me. The resulting congregate person, pieced together initially from the old hardened me, fumbled along for a short while. No straight furrows through the intense, changing morass of the epidemic could be plowed. So, I dissolved into it, became part of the soil of the epidemic itself.

By working within the devouring beast, which was decimating my community and my own life, I gradually learned that being more like water than stone worked better for me. Working my way back to the fluidity of my pre-conscious, amniotic self has been a form of liberation. Rebirthing, perhaps.

My practice is leading me gradually to that end point at which I will concretely become like water, like air...simply water vapor, dust and dissipated electromagnetic energy. I believe that approaching that end point, awake and alive, without struggling with the elemental realities of being is perhaps the height of what is means to be human. I also believe that any person who does this will inevitably become a mindful and compassionate creature.

Awakening

Awakening entails letting go of the mind's path to discover your own.

Onward

look up to the horizon's promise.
weighted dragging feet will follow.

heart will race and lungs expand.

shadowed mind will be lightened.

look up to the horizon's promise.

nagging history can be shaken off.

centered mind will be awakened.

now is the threshold to tomorrow.

Elitism

If we spend more time looking up to loftier goals and less time looking down in criticism of others, our species will be doing a much better job as citizens of the planet.

I observe an innate tendency in myself to classify. I know this has been explored by neuroscience and found to be a way of the brain helps me to survive. But, my better self is getting quite tired of struggling with it.

I have been criticized throughout my life for being "a loner", as opposed to "a joiner". It started most horribly when my height superseded normal limits for a prepubescent boy. I was immediately labeled as a "basketballer" by everyone, including my father, who had played minor-league professional basketball in the 1930s and 1940s.

I was useless with air-inflated spheres and mini-blimps of all kinds. Really useless and potentially dangerous. I seemed to unintentionally injure as many of my own teammates as members of the opposing team. While experiencing subjective panic, I exhibited the external behaviors of a rogue elephant on crack. Bodies littered the courts and fields upon which I played. I was usually left standing, unbruised, quizzically observing the damage, while a red-faced coach pulled madly at his hair and screamed invectives at me.

This led me to the personal discovery that earlier observations about me were quite right: Loner, not joiner. Perhaps this discovery, as I trudged grimly into adolescence, saved me psychologically, since I discovered rather quickly that I am homosexual. 'Ah,' I thought in a deep, inexplicable way, 'so this is what it's all about. I am different. And, I'm the kind of different they don't want around. Well, why bother to join anyway?'

Voila! A natural dissident and dissenter emerged from the hive of working-class America.

So, as a solo dancer, I have been able to observe, and often struggle with, the dynamics of group behavior personally and professionally for nearly five decades. It all boils down to some basics: There are leaders and followers; there are in-groupers and out-groupers; there are perpetrators and victims; there are better-thans and worse-thans; there are better-offs and worse-offs; there are smarter-thans and dumber-thans; there are parental favorites and black sheep...and so on.

As a nurse and a social activist, I have often had to insert myself between these various subgroups of humanity in various situations. I have chosen to protect the abused from the abusers. I have chosen to defend the effeminate from the tyranny of the butch. I have chosen to protect the dying from the callously living.

The propensity for people in groups to form in-groups is a cancer that defeats the ethical energy of many good causes. The urge for control and domination lives in every human being, I believe. It is animal, instinctual, a left-over from life in caves. The sad fact is that those with the strongest and least self-examined aggression in groups usually lead them. This propagates both the genetic and cultural transmission of aggressive behavior in groups. Unfortunately, the same genes which are probably linkable to aggression in groups are also apparently linked to appealing looks, the ability to hoard capital and reproductive potency.

I believe this is how elites are formed and become entrenched in social structures across the planet. Once established, it takes a French Revolution of effort and horrors to expunge them.

My choice has been to dance alone within groups. This is must be done gingerly. The seduction of elitism is very enticing indeed. Just look at the American celebrity obsession for evidence. American Idol...need I say more? Keeping one's own rhythm in the symphony of conformity to the us-them dichotomy, the core of elitism, is tricky business. It doesn't earn a person testimonials, awards or sinecures.

Ah, but it is so rewarding in itself! I have learned something by being a death-watcher. I have seen over a thousand individual deaths as a hospice nurse during an epidemic. I have seen the deaths of the elite. I have seen the deaths of the confused conformists. I have seen the deaths of the solo dancers, like myself. I will simply say that I feel the way a person dies of aging or prolonged illness can indicate the true core of how they have lived. Dying slowly is the greatest solo dance of them all. Those who have practiced the dance in life are the most adept at doing it with peace to its inevitable end.

Practice

"By nature, men are nearly alike; by practice, they get to be wide apart." ....Confucius.

Practice

I try every day to practice mindful, intentional, purposeful behaviors and thoughts, governed by an informed ethical standard. This is what I refer to as my humanist practice.

Lifestyle

The word "choice" has become imbued with connotations of individualism by its constant use in reference to reproductive rights of women. However, I see choice as the key element of humanist practice, or humanist lifestyle.

"Paper or plastic?" This question, slowly becoming obsolete with the advent of pay-per-bag policies in food stores, is a good example of choice in a materialistic, consumer-driven society. It is a trick question for the humanist, in my opinion. The mindful humanist answer would be "Neither, I have my canvas bag, thank you." This mindful, practical humanist would have made the choice to bring his reusable bag, in other words. And, if he forgets to make that choice, he could choose either option as long as he recycles whichever bag he chooses. In other words, all choices aren't necessarily polar, dichotomous or rigid.

These minor daily lifestyle choices comprise what I call my humanist practice. I have been inspired to make the connection between lifestyle and practice after being accused recently on several occasions of incorrectly using the term "humanist" in reference to these lifestyle choices. The accusers were quite obviously offended by my use of the word "practice". Inferences were made that I might well be a closeted Catholic or Buddhist. In other words, choosing an ethical lifestyle and associating it with my sense of humanism apparently offended them as self-identified Humanists, with the capital H.

Living in any closet or behind any banner is alien to me. At first, these challenges confused me. After all, I hadn't prescribed my particular humanist lifestyle for these Humanists. I did choose to tell them what my humanist lifestyle entails. I did sit and hoped to hear what their Humanist lifestyles entail. I am still listening, but, frankly, I haven't heard much from these particular Humanists about their Humanist choices in daily life.

So, I wonder, is the new Humanism just another coffee-social opportunity for those who wish to gingerly approach humanist action for the betterment of the species and the planet, as long as it is not inconvenient or costly? After all, that is also a choice of lifestyle. Any movement ultimately reflects those who shape it and maintain it. Humanism, as a growing social, ethical movement, will reflect the choices and lifestyles/practices of those who support it.

For my part, as someone who has consciously tried to live a personal humanism in work and relationships throughout my adult life, participation in the activities of the current Humanist movement is simply an extension of my humanist lifestyle. However, I am beginning to question whether many in the new Humanist movement are simply joining another club for networking or social gratification without making a personal, daily commitment to advocating for and working for the ideals of universal human rights, universal human education, universal human health care, universal human economic justice.

Yes, my ideals are lofty. If ideals aren't lofty, then what's the point of having them? I am an older man with a lot of mileage and wear. But, I cannot see the worth of any ethical movement in the current world we humans have made which does not actively address the growing problems and inequities which will develop with ecological deterioration and overpopulation, caused by the human species.

This activism begins with individual, moment-by-moment commitment to mindful, just and compassionate choice. I call this my humanist practice, or my humanist lifestyle, if you wish. What do you call the process of your daily choices?

Practice

I come back over and over again to thoughts of practice. Perhaps I am simply post-traumatic.

The earliest years of my education were spent among American Catholic clergy in the 1950's. Coming from a English-Russian-speaking home, since my grandmother who lived with us spoke Russian, I endured daily U.S. propaganda and Vatican propaganda about the evils of the Soviets, referred to as "the Russians". And, at home, I listened to stories about how my Russian-American uncle, an engineer, caused the family to be under constant Federal scrutiny because he worked for the Manhattan Project during WWII.

From my perspective, the U.S. bathes in its own hypocrisy culturally. I touts equality and is racist, sexist. It touts democracy and is a plutocracy. It touts morality and is hedonistic. It touts peace and is militaristic, belligerent, aggressive. It touts diversity and is exploitive of new immigrants. It touts mass prosperity and begrudges the people health care. It touts free markets and exploits nationalism.

So, how does this relate to humanist practice? Humanist practice, as I see it, is an antidote to hypocrisy. If I attempt daily to live with midfulness, honesty and compassion in all aspects of my life from moment to moment, I cannot be hypocritical in the moment. This is a key process to overcoming personal fear and insecurity. It is liberating. Liberation promotes internal peace. Human beings, freed of internal fear, are less likely to be materialistic, greedy, aggressive or defensive.

The first benefit of this practice is the practitioner's internal peace. As personal liberation takes hold, the humanist can be more open and understanding in each moment. Truly owning oneself in honesty and in peace leads to greater individual balance in the world. This is an ongoing and dynamic practice, requiring daily commitment and perserverance.

Arrogance

Whatever a fool learns,

It only makes him duller.

Knowledge cleaves his head.

For then he wants recognition,

A place before other people,

A place over other people.

"Let them know my work,

Let everyone look to me for direction."

Such are his desires,

Such is his swelling pride.

---Dhammapada

The challenge of secular humanist practice in the 21st century is the double edged sword of knowledge which comes with education. I believe it takes a considerable amount of formal or informal education to progress from ritualistic religion to humanism. Academia or School of Life, either or both bring the thinker, the awakened, to humanism in name and/or practice.

Class consciousness is corrosive to humanist practice. Education and its socioeconomic benefits can lead to an unconscious and poisonous elitism in the humanist, as it has in the religious for centuries. The intentional denial of classism in the U.S. presents a particularly difficult challenge to humanist awareness in practice. The veneer of political correctness and superficial diversity, based in race and ethnicity, covers an entrenched socioeconomic class system, which is becoming more and more destructive to the democratic ideals of the U.S..

Within humanist communities, often centered in cosmopolitan centers, which in themselves are becoming economically gated communities for the wealthy, the challenge of elitism can often be ignored and minimized. It may be fashionable in some circles to scoff at the concept that simplicity, modesty and even poverty can lead to greater mindfulness, liberation and compassion. The secular cult of materialism and greed may be seen as acceptable and even honorable among "Sunday humanists" as it has been for centuries among "Sunday Christians", for example.

Arrogance leads to prescriptive moralism. The elite bolster their own holiness, their own superiority, in endless, subtle ways. Before long, a jewel-encrusted Hierophant is dispensing indulgences within a gated, vaulted cathedral, while the great mass of humanity starves on its steps.

The solution is simple to see and difficult to master. This is the middle way. This is the true meaning of practice. Practice is lived on the ground with the people in every situation of every day. This is humanist practice, as I see it and attempt to live it.

Fear

How much of your life is governed by fear? Fear of animals? Fear of disease? Fear of pain? Fear of violence? Fear of theft? Fear of poverty? Fear of loneliness? Fear of loss? Fear of fire? Fear of commitment? Fear of abandonment? Fear of the unknown? Fear of social ostracism? Fear of forgetfulness? Fear of mockery? Fear of passion?

My experience with fear, which is extensive, has taught me that the first step of freeing myself from its effects is to acknowledge and clearly examine it, despite my anxiety in that process. "Face your fear." It's a common approach, and it works, with practice and conscious effort.

The most dangerous fear is the fear that goes unrecognized. It eats like invisible termites at the foundation of personal integrity. Eventually, integrity gives way to fear and collapses under strain. The erosion of the German popular psyche in the Nazi era is an all-too-grotesque example.

My humanist practice has developed in part as my success at confronting my own fears has grown. I see these growth processes as intertwined. This is no surprise to anyone who has studied psychology and cognitive neuroscience.

Fear triggers fight-or-flight mechanisms in the brain and body. It is difficult to be a nurse, when fear is constantly encouraging you to flee, I assure you. But, my battle with fear began earlier than that. It began with my fear of loss and abandonment as a child. As I struggled out of a pre-adolescent, suicidal depression, precipitated by the sudden deaths of seven key people in my life, I recognized that I had to force myself to see beyond my fear responses. It was very difficult, but I did it with the routine determination and perserverance of a gymnast. And, I still do.

In this age of PTSD awareness, more and more understanding of fear is uncovered by science. Fear is hard-wired. Living with fear and trauma-memory which re-triggers it, requires practice in order to be able to function as a caring and open person in the world. The individual must change to adapt to a slow-changing world of violence, insecurity, ignorance and poverty.

Breaking free of the crippling, inhibiting and/or diverting effects of fear through desensitization by experience is at the core of all forms of human liberation. Being truly, mindfully compassionate often requires acknowledging and calming one's own fear in the moment. Being balanced on the mindful path as a humanist is a constant quest to live in internal peace with all that is human within.

Rain

A pre-Spring rain storm has deluged my area this weekend. The power of wind and water is humbling.

When I encounter the unavoidable and uncontrollable effects of extreme weather, I try to use my powerlessness as a reminder of my true place on the planet and in The Universe. Rather than making it all about me, I try to understand that the "higher power" is simply the visible and invisible ecosystem within which I live, of which I am part. I am one relatively small creature in a massive ecosystem, relative to my size and individual, innate power.

Perhaps this is a key to why some members of the human species have taken a kick-the-dog attitude in their lives. Faced with their powerlessness in the face of their real place in Nature, they have retaliated against those elements in Nature which they can manipulate or destroy. They do this with a sense of impunity and entitlement, without regard to the ecological consequences for themselves, their fellow humans or the whole ecosystem itself.

This is not human ingenuity. This is a crime against humanity and our ecology.

The subtle and daily choices of the serious humanist in daily practice are sometimes exhausting. I often feel the temptation to say, "To hell with it!" And, sometimes I do simply go with the flow, when my energy runs out.

Each morning, however, brings an opportunity to start my practice anew, just as each moment is a decision, a cause, an effort. While water must seek its own level, we, as conscious beings, have the opportunity to actualize our own path, often against the gravity of human greed and indolence. It simply requires making that choice one moment at a time.

Awareness

Riding the subway yesterday afternoon, during the early rush hour, I was impressed with the lack of awareness of my fellow passengers. Small incidents with large implications for society, in my opinion. During my long ride, several people were forced to push past a fellow passenger when a polite "excuse me" was totally ignored. These same polite passengers were then given annoyed or glaring looks by the person who ignored them and was pushed.

Exhausted iron workers, many of whom live in my community, holding heavy lunch coolers or tool bags, stood half asleep in the aisle over oblivious teenagers, playing with their iPhones and taking up two seats with their schoolbags. An elderly man with a cane stood while a young woman sat with her seven-year-old child and stared up at him with indifference. A gaggle of day-schoolers, most likely commuting from a private school, occupied a section of the train and loudly shared comments about pornography sites they were viewing on their iPhones. None of the adults near them seemed to notice or care.

I laugh at the touted concept that it takes a village to raise a child. I am reminded of the cult film, The King of Hearts (1966), in which inmates from an asylum escape and take over a nearby village after it is abandoned during WWII.

The general isolation of individuals in society is evident everywhere. This alienation has a corrosive effect on a culture. Having lived in Manhattan in the late 1980s, before the current Renaissance began, I can attest to the eventual effects of this process. Those effects are not pleasant. I am quite sure that the pseudo-intimacy of virtual communities will not help, but will give people more incentive to retreat to their screens when the real world becomes more and more inhospitable.

Simple awareness could do so much to remedy this trend. The Boston of my younger years was a place where people interacted readily on sidewalks and subways. It was a place where passers-by offered to carry groceries for a struggling pedestrian or stopped, without being asked, to give directions to tourists who were showing signs of being lost. We were aware of our surroundings, our neighbors. This is not a fuzzy, warm memory, summoned by nostalgia. It was truly the way it was.

In my own life, I still persist in maintaining public awareness. My age and its impact on my energies has tempered my ability to intervene in some situations, but I practice general openness to people on the street or on the subway. I make eye contact. I often offer a smile. I find myself giving directions quite a bit as a result and occasionally helping someone with a bundle or some other minor need. It makes me feel like I still belong to this human society and that I am still a contributing member of it.

Practice

Some years ago, while I was adjusting to living and working in Manhattan, I was involved with a sect of Japanese Buddhism, whose mission was to bring its brand of world-peace-oriented practice to Western lives through direct person-to-person contact. During one of our meetings, I voiced my frustration with my own inability to perform my role in the group to my own perfectionist standards. The Japanese leader of the meeting smiled benignly as I ranted. When I stopped, he broke the ensuing silence by saying, "Relax, Paul. It's only practice."

I was stunned. Nothing about my experience with that Buddhist group seemed at all relaxing at the time. Each of us individually chanted sutra at home every morning before going to work and every evening. We attended group chanting twice a week. We spent weekend evenings on the streets of lower Manhattan talking with whomever would listen about Buddhism, happiness and world peace. We sometimes brought these people back to my apartment to chant and discuss Buddhism.

It has taken many years and a lot of hard-road mileage for me to catch up with my Japanese mentor. I smile now whenever I think of his kindness and my ignorance.

Now I see that practice is what I am doing right now. That's it. The quality of this practice, this moment, is dependent on how seriously I consciously fill each preceding and following moment with mindfulness, compassion and right action. My practice is the constant, unrelenting commitment to be fully at peace with all humanity, while acting in the world for justice and truth. My practice is practice, because it will never be perfect. It is the process of my life.

Definitions

By defining who or what we are,

we often prevent ourselves

from becoming who we wish to be.

Miracles

We are conditioned from infancy to beileve in the paranormal from Lazarus to the Tooth Fairy. This creates a self-feeding cycle of belief in the actual, demonstrable existence of the paranormal. Science has been unable to verify these belief systems with any hard data.

Religion, routed in ancient folk lore, promotes this belief in external, seemingly magical interventions in our lives by unexplainable forces. It's a great way to draw people in. It's a great way to intimidate people to stay. It's a great way to scare people into silence. It can also be highly profitable.

I have found that erasing the blackboards of religion and superstition in my mind has allowed me, through the study of science, to experience an awe in the face of existence which far surpasses the wonder I once experienced as an ignorant believer. The mere fact of human consciousness of the Universe and its workings is itself a truly staggering wonder, when I look at the history and science of it.

Yet, I know from my own personal experience that certain phenoma have not been adequately understood, investigated or explained by Science. Do I need to relegate these experiences to superstition or some psychological dysfunction? Or, can I simply accept that the basis of all good science is an initial admission of ignorance of the unexplored or the immessurable by current devises?

I am averse to the adoption of Science as a new religion. In the way I see humanism as a process, an individual practice and responsibility, I see learning, of which science is a part, as a personal practice and responsibility. What is Science today can be seen as benighted folly tomorrow. Yet, the scientific method, like humanist practice of mindfulness, compassion and meditation, is a vital and changing thing, a process. I believe in learning and the process of change, tested by experience and scientific method, as part of a humanist practice.

Being open to what life offers is an amazingly renewing and difficult part of my daily practice as I age. Accepting change means accepting aging and eventual death, the natural process of life. Yet, defending against change closes the shutters to the very breath of life and stifles the spirit. This is part of the middle path, as I tread it, while trying to maintain balance and livelihood.

My self-adopted challenge, while actively working within my own present consciousness with humanist mindfulness within human society, is also to be more like a drop of water which does not worry whether it is part of a puddle, a stream, a river or an ocean. It is all that water is in itself. Yet, it can effortlessly merge into the massive force water can be. To be able to live in the present with this consciousness does not require a miracle. It requires moment-by-moment hard work, which I call practice.