Before My Last Breath

I’ve been following the news like everyone. The King of Pop is dead. The Dream Angel for boys my age is gone too. The moonwalk is gone. The one piece bathing suit fantasy too. What is it when icons die? How do we cope? Where do we file that info? When a god dies, the demi-gods are filled with angst and fear. The common folk weep when their idol perishes; when great lights are blown out. It doesn’t matter if those lights were freaky, we still are drawn to them, mere moths to their brilliant celebrity… So I’ve been watching Bodhi, my two year old. He is magnificently filled with so much life. He not only is growing fast, but absorbing everything and learning at an accelerated rate too. He is getting to be himself – a little bundle of personality. He is beginning to believe his dream. I love it. But sometimes I look at him and realize he came from nothing. A sperm on its own is unable to create. An egg by itself cannot produce Life. Each depends on the other to merge an...

Editors note: please re-read Part One again. M: But some people would say that that doesn’t sound like real life. J: Of course it doesn’t. What happens in real life? Someone gets cancer and dies. Someone rejects you because your thighs are too big, your nose is too short. It’s all these expectations and judgments. We’ve been conditioned to see that it’s the goal, it’s the end game. It’s what does it look like after the romance. How many people say, “Oh yeah, romance is great but now we are married? Oh, I am married with children. Driver carries no cash, his wife has it all.” You know there are all these little things that support the belief that the romance at some point ends. Everyone wants a fairy tale ending but doesn’t believe it. Or people say, “Oh, that’s just a Hollywood ending. That’s Hollywood. It’s make believe.” Well, guess what? Your whole life is make believe. Why wouldn’t you make believe it in that way? I am with my beloved. Each second that I am wit...

I have been in a bit of a funk recently. Blame the weather. Blame the dog, the toddler, the wife, the job, the economy. Whatever. I found this inspiration for my next blog in a folder on my computer desktop called Writings. Not remembering what it was I opened it. The following conversation was transcribed from a workshop Meg & I gave a few years ago and we were discussing what romance really meant. In reading it over the funk I’ve been in lifted like the fog on the harbor this morning – just burned off from the relentless shine of the sun. Sometimes I need to remind myself of what the hell I’m really doing here. I share part of this transcript with you now. Enjoy. J: Do you see how romance is everywhere in life? Unless you are just are a hardened person, or a criminal, or someone who has been so abused by the dream of the planet that they are cynical. We aren’t looking for cynics. Ok, so they’re cynics. Go enjoy it, have fun with it. I am looking for the romantics of th...

My oldest brother emailed me an article this morning about finding a spiritual teacher. The author of the article studied with Kalu Rimpoche a Tibetan Buddhist lama who passed away in 1989 at the age of 84. He was a very famous guru with many followers. Reading this article that was sent to me kindled memories of my own journey on the Tibetan Buddhist path. The title of this blog was actually said to me by my guru at the time, Sonam T. Kazi. Or “Mr. Kazi” as the majority of his students or Sangha called him. (Sangha: group of followers of a particular teacher and belief system). The exception was a handful of “senior” students who had been with him since his arrival in the United States in the late seventies. They called him Sonam. Anyhow, I had been studying with Mr. Kazi for quite some time. Being a good carpenter and a faithful student I would spend almost every weekend of the year working on his property in upstate New York. After one particularly extensive project was co...

"Because a man can see, he does not look." — Master Po. I’m sure most of you read about the passing of David Carradine recently. The details and speculation around his death were more and more revealing as the case went on, starting with suicide, and ending up as an auto erotic act gone awry. If you type his name on Google you will learn everything you never wanted to know about the man. For me I will always remember him as Kwai Chang Caine the humble yet capable Shaolin monk. He was a Buddhist monk who kills the emperor’s nephew (for killing his beloved master – I know that’s being a bad Buddhist) and flees to America and the wild, Wild West. For the three years that show aired (1972-75) I was glued to the TV. I was 14 years old and idolized this character. He was gentle and soft spoken, yet always sublimely aware of his surroundings. When pushed he could diffuse a situation with a minimum of violence, and typically with his bare hands. There was no gratuitous blood...

I heard this phrase while sitting at a table at an outdoor café in Portsmouth NH a couple of days ago. I was people watching and relaxing after a few hours on the Triumph, and not really focusing on what was being said around me. It was a warm sunny day and lots of people were gathered in the main square. Out of all the various garbled conversations that were going on I heard this phrase “unconditional love” loud and clear. I have no idea in what context it was being used but I heard it as if the person who said it was sitting at my table. And that’s all I heard. This actually happens a lot to me. I will hear a word in a conversation nearby or in a song while driving and listening to the radio. The way I see it the Universe, aka LIFE is dropping a hint, or maybe a simple reminder. So what do these two big words mean? For me they represent the gateway to Freedom. A door to Happiness. Not necessarily freedom without responsibility. Or not necessarily giddy happiness. But in e...