In Kyoto I Long for Kyoto
I was walking home from dinner at Tres Cantaros last night when I noticed a penthouse I had never noticed before on top of a six-story apartment building. It looked like it would have great views of Lake Merritt, downtown Oakland, the hills–probably even San Francisco–plus it had decks all around. I found myself wishing I could live there until a question came to mind: “Whose dream is that?” And with that, I found myself no longer identifying that longing as mine.
It reminded me of an observation I made several years ago, riding through a residential neighborhood with Eve: Every time we saw a “For Sale” sign in front of a place, we would find ourselves wondering what it would be like to live there, even though we were perfectly happy where we were.
The same kind of thing happens when I see a flashy sports car drive by: I find myself wanting one, even though I got rid of the car I had almost a year ago because I hardly ever used it. In my neighborhood, I can walk to three grocery stores, 35 or 40 restaurants, a post office, bank, etc. Of course walking takes time, even though it’s good for you, and about three months ago I bought a Segway, which cuts my walking time in half, at least. It turns out that it’s also kick-ass fun, although I would never have bought it just for that. Which brings up the subjects of exercise, air pollution, etc. that I will have a whole web page on at some point…
Meanwhile, the subject is desire, and I found myself just this morning, thinking how great a second cup of coffee would be, even though I hadn’t finished the first. As Basho wrote, “Even in Kyoto… I long for Kyoto.”
There may be no stopping the brain from examining every situation to see if it might be prolonged, repeated, or improved. I think it may be built into the genome, and if not, certainly the supporting architecture is there.
Any innate tendencies toward desire we may have are catered to by the “salesman syndrome,” something we all have in greater or lesser degree. Even in less commerce-oriented cultures than ours, we have to sell ourselves as prospective mates, providers, companions, co-workers. We constantly promote ourselves to each other, and the better promoters get the better deals.
The more familiar we can become with the nature of the beast–ourselves–the better perspective we can get on the forces that propel us, whether from inside or outside. We can ask, “Whose dream is that?” and realize that we don’t have to identify with every fantasy that comes along, every fleeting desire.
After my penthouse fantasy last night, what struck me was that all my dreams, desires, preferences, etc., are products of my history. I am not the author of any of them–they are inherited, implanted. Once again, the profundity of that realization hit me: if none of these thoughts are of my own creation, what am I?
This puzzle is one that some of us human beings have been struggling with for millennia–those of us that are stuck with the “seeker syndrome.”
There is an answer, and it’s simply this: the question is based on a misconception. It’s the same misconception that underlies the question, “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” Although we can point to the chicken and the egg as objects that begin and end in time, the larger reality is that they are as much process as object. The process is the evolution of the universe: chickens and eggs are stages in the process of dinosaurs becoming something else, and dinosaurs were a stage in bacteria becoming chickens, and on and on.
Although we are identifiable as individual organisms, we are misled by that into overlooking our larger reality. I am a stage in Basho’s becoming you, and Basho was a stage in Buddha’s becoming me. Our existence as objects, as things, obscures our existence as process. I think thing-ness is much easier for our conceptual systems to grasp than process-ness, and leads us to those pesky questions like “What am I?” It is much easier to see a thing than to see a process.
As a process, what I am is a point of observation in a flow of thoughts and sensations. Like a leaf floating down a stream, my conscious experience is propelled this way and that by currents, eddies, and gusty breezes. I bounce off rocks, collect dust and raindrops from the air, am nibbled by fish and insects. Of course, I’m an actor in this process as well; displacing a few molecules here and there, providing food and habitat.
For the question, “What am I,” the answer appropriate to myself as object is to give my height and weight, name and address, phone number, etc. My thingness is described in terms of things. But as process, what I am is a vast and moving target, undefinable in its complexity.
As a thing, I am finite and mortal. As a process, I am infinite and eternal. I wish I could stay more in touch with the process, but things are brutal in their immediacy. Pay attention…
Dirt Becoming Palm Becoming Pixel Becoming Thought
