Mark, Hi again.

Couldn't really sleep so will just finish it now. --Ok. To continue. I also have some comments about Joe not being able to get past the animal-headed goddesses at the doorway of the mandalas about which you write. Apparently you think spirituality and sensuality should be combined as in the Tibetan tantric practices. that looks like your main theme in chapter 7. Well --sure. Fine, if people want to explore that, just like its fine if they want to jump out of airplanes on sk8boards being videoed. There is certainly lots to do in this most amazing and complex world.

But, Mark, in your analysis of me, you simply blunder once again.--From Ann Landers to .. we-bop? Of course I am not saying its impossible to combine spirituality and sensuality; and maybe for some people it is even their "ultimate satisfaction" (assuming arguendo they have such, though I doubt it). They are the ones making love in the center of the mandalas. But why are you preaching that they have to be combined?-- Don't forget that lots of mandalas have a single Buddha figure at the center!

You dismiss the role of renunciation so very smoothly:

At first it seems as if we must, like the Buddha, renounce everything in order to find ourselves. And this willingness to renounce the seeking after pleasure is indeed a fundamental aspect of Buddhism. But once we start to appreciate how it is the holding on to pleasure and the pushing away of pain that is the problem (not pleasure and pain themselves), we start to see how it is possible to practice in the midst of our daily lives. Renunciation is not so compelling once we appreciate how truly impossible it is to renounce any aspect of an interdependent world (140-141)

Mark, this is psychobabble! It probably is the worst paragraph about Joe, and on the most crucial issue. The spirit of it is completely false. -- There are a million things wrong with this one small paragraph. You are guilty of the "all or nothing" thinking that at times you have been so good at pointing out in me, for you buy into the idea that renunciation is some all-or-nothing thing. (e.g. foreswearing salted peanuts forever and ever. -- which incidentally I could do just to disprove you.)

The role of renunciation in practice is so much subtler than you present it as being: I think you basically buy a conception of renunciation as self-denial, which presupposes that the self is solid, substantial and removes it from the thing or activity (e.g. sex) being denied. Keep 'em separated! This is not at all the way renunciation figures in my practice. --Ok then, how does it figure?

Consider one who sits downs to experiment with a meditation technique and practices with some exercises to develop a more stable, concentrated mind -- e.g. directing or aiming the attention to the breath, sustaining the attention with the flow of sensations. To do this, temporarily one must renounce ordinary projects and pursuits and all those activities in which one is seeking the pleasures in life! During those moments, one is not then seeking or enjoying good music or good food, forget about the coffee! and even the ginger snaps!!, forget about the perfumes and massage oils, forget about the kinaesthetic pleasures of dancing, the exhilaration of sexual desire, the pursuit, flirting, playing, maybe connecting!! and then lying within the space of having touched!!! and now not touching quite, yet slightly, and within oneself the flow of fine sensations, the flood of having touched, loved; the subtle play --would you like some coffee? I have some ginger snaps too? --forget about the new movies, interesting stories, good jokes; succeeding, buying, skiing, mountain climbing, jumping out of airplanes on snowboards being videoed, the basketball, the Super Bowl, drugs --did you know, by the way, Advil Cold and Sinus tabs give a nice kick? An ER MD told me about ‘em-- ok. What I am saying is if one genuinely wants to experiment with meditation in a serious way then one has to be willing to experiment with renouncing all of this for that period of time.

Just to push the point, even when one is in love, fully, really in love -- one even then has to renounce both being in love as well as the lover for the period of time during which one is doing the experiment. Why? Think of the Willie Nelson (?)-- or was it Elvis? --song "You are always on my mind" -- it is a beautiful song, one of the best, and I certainly know what he means -- he means everything I do being animated by the energy of another person, so beautiful, so energetic, so amazing to feel this connection, this bond. Think Elvis:

You are always on my mind,

You are always on my mind.

And yet! As you certainly know, if one is going to explore meditation, one has to be willing to let that flood of desire and emotion and love and connectedness drop away, so that indeed one's lover is not dominating one's mind! One even has freedom from him! Rather one is (back to the basics) simply aiming the attention at a neutral object like the beginning of the inbreath, then sustaining the attention with the relatively boring (at first) flow of sensations associated with the inbreath; aiming again to catch the beginning of the outbreath, resting/impinging the flow of outbreath sensations.

Morever this fundamental activity -- aiming attention, sustaining it with an emotionally-neutral process like the flow of sensations in the breath -- naturally gives rise to a seclusion from ordinary pleasures. So first one cuts away from ordinary pursuits. This is renunciation, cold and hard (and incidentally, if one explores it seriously one might lose interest in that guy who days or hours or minutes before was always on my mind!-- and more often than not, good riddance!) -- and secondly the activity itself reinforces the seclusion. And then, thirdly, there naturally arises a type of pleasure or comfort, joy and interest, that is different from sensual pleasures-- I'm not saying it is nonphysical or anything like that (but it may be for all I know). All I am saying is it is rooted in conscious awareness itself rather than in any of the objects of consciousness such as good music, good coffee, good food, good sex, or being totally and fully in love with another human being. U Pandita, the Burmese monk, asks:

Does it seem strange that in relinquishing the comfort of the senses, one gains a very comfortable state of being liberated from the very senses we have relinquished? This is the true renunciation of sense pleasures.

Yes, Sayadaw!! IT DOES SEEM STRANGE! It IS so strange! And yet, Mark, we know it is real (or --I’ve always assumed you knew this, but if you don't happen to know it, you certainly have no business writing as if you know something about buddhism).

Mark, you speak as if renunciation is some all-or-nothing once-and-for-all sort of thing. No! No! No! It is something to experiment with, to play with. Here's an example. Couple of years ago I was at a rave, totally, completely caught up in, absorbed into, the energy and beauty of the music, the rhythm, lights, sweat, the flow and movement of my body, the feeling of others moving and sharing the rythm, movement, bumping, touching, changing repetitively, no moment the same (yet similar), the deep, profound peace amidst the structured chaos and a concentration and quiet within that develops there too. And suddenly it occurred to me simply to walk outside.-- Just to go. -- And I went. -- Just walked outside into the quiet summer night. And I felt the peace, the freedom of my action. Looking back, there was something in me wanting to experiment during those moments with simply not grasping a situation I was enmeshed in & enjoying. That is the essence of renunciation. That willingness is at the heart of any exploration of meditation. When you say it is possible "to practice in the midst of daily life" this is because it is possible to practice renunciation in small ways moment by moment. Without continual renunciation it is pretense.

So, as is obvious by now, I recoil so strongly against what you say about renunciation. --What you say reflects such a misunderstanding of me, of what my practice has meant. -- The sentence you write can be reversed completely. Instead of your claim

Renunciation is not so compelling once we appreciate how truly impossible it is to renounce any aspect of an interdependent world. (141)

One equally can say this:

Renunciation is not so daunting once we appreciate how truly impossible it is to hold on to any aspect of an interdependent world.

The theravadan tradition posits non-sensual pleasure, and I know why they talk about it: its real! its good!. Instead of "non-sensual" I think it is better to talk about pleasure deriving simply from the profoundly concentrated human mind, independent of the objects of consciousness. It is better to put it this way since concentration of mind also is at the heart of sensual pleasure (or at least it is in my opinion an important aspect of ordinary pleasures).

Renunciation is an unavoidable element of a retreat and of a serious meditation practice. -- which is hard. Just getting oneself away from one’s ordinary habits and patterns of living is pretty difficult -- it can be almost unthinkable. Yet there is so much for us to explore if we can do it. I'm no platonic purist in practice, but my guess is that Plato's Vision of the form of the Good is in the same ballpark. (And not merely the beauty of "thinking" the way his down-to-earth student Aristotle took it to be.) This is not fairytale stuff, Mark, as you know. The exciting thing is to make it vibrant and alive for our real lives, pulling it out of achaic medieval traditions so its not connected with weirdo mysticism or way too dry texts, and bring it into life. And generally I think you go precisely the wrong way by calling renunciation impossible.

Here is a mundane but good example: renunciation of an evening meal on traditional retreats. This is kind of a trivial example, but it makes the point. This can be difficult to do at first, given our habits; and yet it makes so much sense in the retreat situation. If one foregoes the evening meal, one gets food and waste both out of one's digestive system and off one's mind for long hours (from mid-afternoon until the next dawn). One can focus attention elsewhere. Most people don't really need the food, if they eat properly at breakfast and noon. The mundane aspect of this can be so simple as that one doesn't spend 20 minutes on the john at 9p which can be disruptive when it undercuts the continuity of mindfulness via intensive sitting and walking, whereas if one surrenders scrupulously to the uninterrupted flow of an austere schedule one finds energy emerging so magically. And then one can play with states of drowsiness and sluggishness--and conquer them. Not at their mercy in any way! This sort of experiment with food is just one of very many aspects of how intensive practice requires some form of renunciation. It is just one small example, renouncing ordinary habits re eating. It is of course similar to the discipline that athletes or musicians accept to develop their skills.

I am a not a nun for political and cultural reasons. Besides I like sex now and then. I certainly am not going to renounce sex in some general absolutistic all-or-nothing way. (But not getting married I also am not going to try to arrange for its predictable and safe reliability either! -- esp. not with my property!! :) -- I love music, love to dance. have totally been swept into the swing dance craze -- tried it yet, by the way?-- I guess its salsa now --So, anyway I am not a nun but I do absolutely understand why a monastic life can make sense-- why indeed one might renounce aspects of our interdependent world in order to experiment in a vast way, in a way that makes sense for oneself.

Your dismissal of the role of renunciation also undercuts what you say later about standing our ordinary "sexual conventions .. on their heads" (146) and engaging in sexual activity in ways that are more subtle and all-pervasive than is usual (147): the ability to find some freedom, here and now, relative to conditioned habits or instincts, is essential for this sort of sexual play. And finding that freedom = renunciation of those patterns!!! Look at the quote from Roland Barthes’ Lover’s Discourse you put at the beginning of chapter 7: to "designate desire and then leave it alone" (137): --Mark! that is a form of renunciation! This topic deserves a book by itself.

Mark, I think maybe we are back again to that issue we never really resolved when in your first book you portrayed me as the Catholic-Korean lesbian who, returning from a long meditation retreat, "insisted one too many times" she didn't need to have orgasms. -- As if you knew I really did need them! Perhaps had I been a client of yours we would have discussed it more. As it was, I just laughed, and we talked about something else. But the truth is that I don't need to have orgasms. (As I insist now 2 too many times!) Of course I enjoy them now and then, but I do not need them. And then, on retreats I feel few if any sexual impulses. The focus can be completely elsewhere and it can be so wonderful to abide in that space.

This is certainly not connected only with meditation. Dancing at raves provides a good example here too. Dancing from midnight until dawn can have a very sexy feel to it. The images of others, the movement with them, and one is spending the night with a whole bunch of sexy people! Yet it is safe, --no germs going to spread-- and my point here is that it is sexual but not orgasmic. Maybe if your life is too filled up so you can't afford to dance all night then you better just have an orgasm and get it over with. But if you can take the time to spread the energy, dance it, move, shove, elbow, laugh,--keep moving! Here too (like on retreats) exhaustion gets transformed into energy! It is a mandala palace of great bliss and intricacy to borrow your words! You focus on the entwined couple, but I am saying there are various degrees and forms of this same entwining: we need a mandala whose center is a video with 1000 kids dancing together to ambient trance music! And then when the sun comes up I am saying you don't really/ need the orgasm itself. You need some doughnuts! To me it is obvious you are wrong but I still have little impulse to argue with you about it. You are just naive somehow, or overdomesticated. --Still paying dues to Freud? I was wondering, have you ever actually been in Vienna? Could be instructive. Such an uptight stifling place! Think about it! Then compare to Varanasi or Detroit! But I digress.

My point is there are lots of ways into the centers of mandalas. By the way, where can one find those images of the half-woman half-animal figures blocking the doorways? Can't find them. Also no sign of Richard Kohn anywhere. (Did you make him up? I searched the internet, nothing except somebody at Berkeley South Indian Center, -- but some guy there emailed me back saying they'd never heard of him.) The mandalas aren't at any of the stores downtown. -- Hallucinating those images?

Mark, I beg you: PUT PICTURES IN YOUR NEXT BOOK!!!

I've carried on longer than I expected to. You just made a mistake here by mentioning marriage, sex. Or maybe you pushed just the right buttons. As you surely know, I'm willing to consider the possibility I'm rationalizing or missing something.

One other point, then I've got to get back. Even granting everything else, it wouldn't be anger blocking the doorways. My mother asked me--I read them the whole chapter in the RV when we went up to Lake Louise (where they got my middle name); they were amused by what you wrote --she asked me right off "is anger really such a big deal for you?"

Good question, Mom!! No, its not! What it is would be: mistrust, lack of confidence. As a child, not trusting strong religious experiences because the feelings would fade. They weren't going to be reliable: that became clear. Of course they weren't supposed to be: one had to have faith. And I certainly did for a long time; yet losing the religion, slowly, carefully. With heart. Or perhaps not losing it but losing the words and forms. For some time then not having a center, and so not being trustworthy myself. Blue seeing this and throwing me overboard. Ron getting hit from behind by it, by the fact that indeed I just wasn't tru/stworthy -- at least not when it came to what he wanted because I was in no way willing to be trapped that way esp. after having just got out of the religion.. and I don't trust myself now -- for indeed I do expect to see the seeds of discontent in any region marked "expectations for life"!

This is not the same as being unwilling to commit: as you know I'm good at that -- maybe too good. And I know you think that this is near the heart of the issue because I myself impose all the expections. You praise joyous intermingling, relating in ways dominated neither by thoughts, nor should's, nor expectations, nor guilt.. But I don't trust myself to be able to do that other than moment to moment. Steve and I certainly did it for awhile -- but we did it in the context of THIS IS DEFINITELY NOT long term... So its mistrust or fear, but not anger, that would be interfering with deep lasting intimate relationships.

And is this mistrust not perhaps grounded in an accurate perception of reality, and not only about me. Is it not so? Isn't this supposed to be the heart of the buddhist focus on "impermancence" and "suffering"? All experiences inevitably are unreliable. But yet --amazingly!-- since we can contact pure awareness, or the unconditioned, the Void, use the word `God' if you want to, or "the Form of the Good" .. then it will be only realistic to see "seeds of discontent" in ordinary types of sensual and social experiences.

-- oh no! I’ve said too much!! --

Haven't said enough!! --

I miss our walks and chats; coffee at LeRoy's. Gotta’ drive now.--Z