How to Achieve Enlightenment

I've always wanted be to be smart, wise and patient. I've always wanted to be like these older guys at work who always smiled, held high positions of esteem and were well liked and respected by their peers and everyone at work.


I've meet lots of these types of people. Many of them were the presidents of huge companies that dealt with hundreds, if not thousands, of employees. They handled hundreds of millions of dollars in their corporate daily affairs... 


And, almost every one of them, has been a very calm, patient, wise and polite gentleman. I've know and worked with some of them almost everyday for a few years and never seen them get bent out of shape or too worried about the little things that seem to drive most of us crazy.


I know one of them very well and he retired at 48-years-old, is a multi-millionaire, and he never gets upset about anything.


When I grow up, I want to be like him.


In my life, I've always wanted to become more patient and understanding of people. I always get so frustrated at myself when I get mad at people for silly things or when the brat child that lives inside of me comes out and lashes back at people who irritate me.


See? These people irritate me! Just the fact that someone can irritate me for anything shows just how very far from enlightenment and happiness I really am.


I've been studying Za-zen Buddhism and Transcendental Meditation on and off for at least 20 years. I am a bad student. 


In my search for enlightenment, I've met many priests and become friends, very good friends, with several. In fact, a few Buddhist priests and I have been drinking buddies. I've often asked these good gentlemen to help me in my search for enlightenment.


I know a world famous Za-zen priest named Hakuginryu. I don't know his real name. Everyone just calls him "Hakuginryu." When the Afghanistan war had just started, he and several of his priest friends walked across Afghanistan to bring world attention to the troubles of that country. They walked from the border on east Afghanistan, from Kandud to the western border town of Kamml Khan... That's a walk of about 1,400 kilometers (about 900 miles)... Barefoot!


No kidding. These priests all walked from east Afghanistan to west Afghanistan barefoot and without any military protection at all. Many people would think they were just plain nuts.


My mom would have agreed. When I was 16 or so, I told my mom that I wanted to go to Japan to learn how to be a Zen priest and my mom got very upset. She said, 


"You are not going to Japan to go live on some mountain like a hermit like those crazy priests!" I think that was the most adamant she ever was against something I told her that I was thinking about doing excepting joining the US marines or getting married to my first wife. 


But I digress...


I've asked Hakuginryu how it is that I can achieve enlightenment and he (and the others) have always told me the same thing: If you want to achieve enlightenment, stop reading books and pick up a broom.


There is an ancient Zen saying:


To achieve enlightenment; clean up your area.
After enlightenment; clean up your area.


Every time I take out the trash, I remember this saying. Every time I wash the dishes or sweep the floor or trim the hedges, or vacuum or clean in general, I remember this saying. Doing so, helps you to get closer to where you want to go. With every dish I wash and every speck of dust I collect, I pick up one speck of therapy for my soul.


Consider the future. When I turned 35...I told a friend, "15 years ago I was 20. 15 years from now, I will be 50."


Now, I think about my life. Someday, very soon, I will be 80. 


Everyday I think about my life... Everyday I think about achieving enlightenment and becoming happy.


Everyday I think about my children. Everyday I remember: "Great things and ideas are not borne from filth."


In 35 years I will be a very old man and probably very sick. I want my children to be happy. I want to be contented and happy.


I must achieve enlightenment... I must:


Take out the trash.....


Wash the dishes....


Make food....


Work at a job and earn money....


Be kind....


Everyday, I must clean.... And, after I finish cleaning, I must clean some more. 

   My daily activities are not unusual,   

I'm just naturally in harmony with them.   

Grasping nothing, discarding nothing...   

Supernatural power and marvelous activity -   

                             Drawing water and carrying firewood.                                                                      -    Layman Pang-yun (740-808)

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What is Your Purpose?

"What is the mission of this company?" That was the question that I was supposed to answer.


I was to give a short speech to some investors who were thinking about investing $1 million (USD) into my small start-up company. One million dollars is not a lot of money as far as investments into start ups goes, but in this economy, and especially for me and my partners, it was the difference between life and death for our fledgling company.

DOROTHY LOVE COATES - STANDING ON THE ROCK

One of my partners kept insisting that I say something like, "We intend to become to biggest, most profitable company in the niche within 3 years..." and padding that with a bunch of fancy words to make it sound better. Those words were "money," "gains," etc... He kept saying that these investors were not interested in philosophy. He said they were only interested in the bottom line.


I strongly disagreed. Basically what he wanted to say was, "We want to make money. Lots of it. Money. Money. Money. We own you!"

Sure, that might actually be what everyone is thinking, and it might actually be the real purpose, but it doesn't make a very good publicly stated mission. It doesn't look good on paper or on advertising. They might want to make lots of money but they definitely want to look good doing it and look like they are doing something for the betterment of society.


Here is the mission statement of a very famous oil company: "At the heart of the (company name) way is our Vision to be the global energy company most admired for its people, partnership and performance." Get that? "People, partnership, performance"! Compare that with my friend's idea that basically translates into, "We want your money!"


Not a good comparison.


A mission statement for a company or your personal goals is a very important thing and one needs to consider deeply what the stated mission is.


My oldest daughter is a jazz singer. She sings traditional jazz. Her company figures than since CD and record sales have dropped off the map, they can still sell albums if they take a young, pretty girl and have her sing standards. Stuff like "Take the 'A' Train" or "All that Jazz." She has been performing at dinner shows around Japan to audiences that comprise people old enough to be her parents or grandparents.


Why not? These are the only people who have any money these days and they are still the people who will buy CDs.


But, even with extensive touring and a successful track record at that, her CD debut has been delayed now for over a year. The delays had to do with her attitude.


She has had a serious problem with her motivations and her intentions. One day, the president of her company told her that he had met a girl who'd been singing at public parks. Though she wasn't nearly as talented, what she lacked in talent, she more than made up for in enthusiasm. He told my daughter,


"That girl said she didn't care about anything but music. She just wanted to sing. She'd sing anywhere just as long as people could hear her voice. You have to be like that!"


I asked my daughter what she said to him about that and she said that she didn't reply at all. I asked her why and she said,


"Because daddy, I don't want to sing at parks! I want to sing and make lots of money!"


"Foolish girl!" I cried. "Haven't I taught you anything? You shouldn't think that way. Ever! You should realize that you have a gift from god and that god didn't give you this gift so that you can merely fatten your bankbook!" 


I went on and explained to her why this kind of thinking is doomed to failure. It is exactly as my friend above thinks. These people who are supporting you with money may want to do so in order to make money, but they want a better, more magnanimous excuse for what they do.... Just doing what they (you) do for money? That's no good. You must state a higher purpose! You must do what you do for a higher love!


I told my daughter to think deeply about why she has a gift and what the purpose of music is. I told her to go back and tell her boss that her purpose of singing is something like this;


"Life is short and life is difficult. So may people have a hard life and so many people are unhappy. I want to sing so that if I can make them forget their problems and become happy, if only for even a few minutes, then that's what I want to do... God gave me this gift and I want to use it to make people lives better... If only for one minute or two...."


I told her to consider this deeply everyday and to change this into her own words and her mission in life. I told her to write it down everyday. I told her that if this wasn't to be her mission then she should stop singing right now and go get a regular job if all she wanted to do was make money.

L to R: Julie, Sheena, some dude

She realized where she'd been selfish and had been on the wrong path. I think, later, she began to cry. 


A few days passed and, after careful consideration, she told her boss what her mission was. He was quite happy, from what I understand, and has now decided to use his connections and resources release her debut album.


Will she succeed or fail? I don't know. But I can tell you that if her mission were, "I want to sell lots of records and make lots of money!" then that wouldn't capture the imagination of her backers nor would it have inspired them to finance this project. This project would have failed for certain.


Everyone, from the backers to the promoters to the people who stock the store shelves, they all must be motivated that this is an artist who is doing what she is doing for a higher purpose. That is a formula for success.


For my own experience with my financial backers, I ignored my partners advice of saying that "We want to dominate the world and make lots of money! and I said to them,


"The purpose of our company is to help people live better lives and to help them to better themselves and their personal businesses. This year has seen some difficult times for Japan. We want to help the people of this country to overcome, to be more prosperous and society as a whole to become more positive and forward looking. If we can help people to achieve their dreams and become what they really want to become and to have our company become synonymous with that, then we will be hugely successful. If we can help people to capture their dreams and be more prosperous and happy, then our profits will surely come. That is our mission."


The investors all looked at me and smiled. Five of the eight gentlemen, watching my short speech, lightly clapped for me when I was done....


Four weeks later, we had the money in our bank account and the company was on its way. I was fortunate that my short speech captured their imaginations.


Always remember that what you do is for a larger and bigger purpose. If you can make people happy and satisfied with what you do, then you will be successful. Always remember that.


Placing profits before people is a bad combination and an extremely bad public image. Don't do it.


You have a higher purpose in life.  


For Julie Rogers, Tosh and Alistair

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My Best Friend Died

This is a very difficult post to write.


My best friend's name was David. His picture was on the front page of the newspaper. The newspaper said, "David, Father Die in Boating Accident." 

"That's impossible!" I thought. I didn't want to believe it. I read and reread the newspaper article over and over in the hopes that I was misunderstanding what I was reading. I was hoping it meant that 'David's father died. But not David.' 


Forgive me for wishing such a morbid thing, but that's what I thought.


...But there was no misunderstanding. David was dead.


I cried and cried. How could that possibly have happened? I just saw him the day before and we talked and had fun. We always had fun. David was my very best friend.


I think David was everyone's best friend because he was such a nice guy. 


When I heard the news, and realized it wasn't a mistake, I cried all day. I desperately wanted to know how it happened and why it happened. I wanted to know the exact details. I called my friends and, a few days later, they had a school meeting for classmates and explained to us about the accident. 


But I still wasn't satisfied with the details. Besides how and what, I wanted to know "why"? Why did god allow this to happen to my best friend? Why did god allow this to happen to such a good person? 


After all the questions I asked and all the details I found, I found out that they were fishing in the Lake of the Woods. The boat was overloaded and slipped under water and that the dad had tried to save David but the water was too cold and they both drowned.


That's how it happened. That still didn't answer the question for me as to why it happened. 


I was upset. "Why did god allow this to happen?" "Why does god allow bad things to happen to good people?" 


David was 7-years-old and he was boating and fishing with his dad in a lake in Minnesota. The photo of him on the front page of the newspaper was the class photo they took of him from our second grade class. I recognized it immediately.


That was 47 years ago. In 1964.


What a waste. He was a handsome kid. I think I was jealous of him because I thought he was more handsome than me. I wonder what he would have become had he lived? 


I have thought about David off and on over these past decades. Yesterday, memories of David suddenly came back to me like a shot to the head.


My own seven-year-old son was off to a friend's house to play with some other of his friends. I was sleeping on the sofa in the living room when my wife returned from the friend's house and she was very flustered. She woke me up. Her face was all red and she seemed like she was about to cry.


I was still half asleep. She started rambling on about something and it was difficult to follow what she wanted to say. It was concerning one of the boys who was supposed to come and play with my son and the others but couldn't make it that day. When my son's friend's mom had called that boy's father to ask about his absence, the father had said something like "He can't come to play as he is, 'no more.'"


He is "no more?"


My son's friend's mom is not a native English speaker so when my son (and her son) heard this "no more" they were sure she merely misunderstood and laughed about it. Why not? They were just playing with him at school yesterday and kicking the soccer ball around together.


This boy was happy as can be and as fit as a fiddle and had the whole world and his entire life in front of him... He was one of the top students in class. He was one of my son's best friends; he was everyone's best friend. He couldn't be "no more." That couldn't happen.


My son goes to a school with a large international enrollment. There are children at that school who come from all over the world. Some of their parents do not speak English well so sometimes there are miscommunications. My wife told me about this conversation and asked me to confirm if, "...he is, 'no more'" means what we think it means.


I called the boy's house, there was no answer. Then, against my better judgement, and against common courtesy, I called a cell phone number that is listed on the class schedule given to parents to be used in cases of emergency. I talked to the father.


I knew immediately from the tone of his voice what the meaning of "No more" was. It was exactly what you or I would fear it meant.


The poor boy had died the night before. I said, "I'm sorry" and "God bless you all" and hung up the phone. 


I thought immediately of my friend David from so many years ago. Here he was visiting me again. 


I also immediately thought of what I was going to tell my son and his other seven year old friends. Like I said, they didn't believe it. Why should they? It is unbelievable.  


How did this wonderful little boy die? We don't know yet. We will know how someday soon, I reckon. But we will never know "why."


Maybe the "why" is for each of us to decide for ourselves. I'm not sure.


I went to my son's friend's house to report the news. When the mother saw my face, she knew the news. I asked that she sit down and the kids playing to sit down also. I didn't beat around the bush. I told them the truth. 


There was stone silence. 


I'm not a priest, minister or man of the cloth so I didn't know what to say, but everyone was looking at me expectantly so I knew I had to say something. I spoke,


"I'm sure you will find out at school next week what happened to your friend. Now, I don't know. But, even when we find out what happened, it will always be difficult to understand why it happened.... 


When I was a little boy, I had a similar experience; my best friend drowned in a lake. I was so sad. I found out later how he died, but I never found out why. That's been many years ago and I still don't know why....


...All you can do now is to pray that he is happy and in a safe, warm place. And you must thank god for giving you the time you had to spend with this wonderful friend. Of course, you are sad and will miss him, but always thank god for the time you had and shared with your wonderful friend.... he will always be with you in your hearts...


Also remember that life is very short and we have to be very careful everyday. Accidents happen and, even though I am happy and healthy today, I could be hit by a car and killed or put in the hospital tomorrow, so we must be very careful when crossing streets or when walking near cars. It's always the car you don't see that is the one that hits you....


Pray for your friend and his family and always appreciate your friends that you have now. Give them a hug; give your parents a hug and thank god that you have such good friends and a mother and father who loves you very much."


I stuttered and stopped... I looked at their faces and they seemed to be thinking, "What is he talking about?"


I wanted to say, and should have said, something profound but I couldn't. I wanted to say something that would have made it all alright and set things straight. But I couldn't. What I said was lame. It was the minimum that had to be said, I suppose. 


Still silent, the kids all stared at me, eyes wide open and expressionless. The silence filled the room.


I sighed, paused and awkwardly looked at the floor. I didn't know what to do or say. I lightly slapped both hands on my knees and stood up. I meekly told the mother that I'd be back in a few hours to pick up my son as the kids held hands.


The kids were sad but they weren't crying. I think they still found it unbelievable that their friend could actually be gone so it hasn't sunk in what exactly has happened.


It may not sink in for 40 or 50 years. It didn't for me. Even then, as with me, they might know how, but they will probably never know exactly, "why"? 


Come to think of it, is there really ever a reason "why"?


There are lessons, I suppose. The lesson for me is that bad things do happen to good people. That can't be stopped. The only thing we can do is to try to learn something from it that can help the survivors to lead happier lives and become better people.


Later on when my son comes home, I'm going to hug him and try to explain the saying my good friend Ken always lives by. Ken says,


"Dream as if you will live forever. Live as if you will die tomorrow."


I hope the lesson of David and my son's friend helps my own son and his friends. I also hope it helps others as it has helped me, to become, if even a little bit, a better person (I hope). It has taken me nearly 50 years to write down this tribute to my dear friend David. Now, his death taught me a lesson that I can teach my son.


Remember to hug your kids today and tell them that you love them and that they are beautiful. And, of course, teach them to dream and to live each day to the fullest and to appreciate all the wonderful things this earth and god has given us.


They say that tomorrow never comes, but tomorrow, I think, tomorrow often comes much too quickly.

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Recurring Dreams and Alternate Universes

I think most people have recurring dreams. If most people don't, then maybe I am just weird because I have had the same five recurring dreams over and over for these last 27 years. Do you have recurring dreams? 

Since moving to Japan, I have had basically five recurring dreams. But, now that I think about it, one of these dreams, the dreams of me flying like a bird or a jet plane, stopped a few years ago.


I wonder why my dreams of flight have disappeared? Maybe because I turned 50 and stopped dreaming like a 17-year-old? No, I don't think it is that because I still feel like a 17-year-old many times (just won't be doing the crazy things I used to do).


The first of the five recurring dreams I've had was flying in the skies. They started when I was a small boy. In my dreams could fly like Icarus. Can you fly in your dreams? Those are fun dreams... Sometimes, I guess when my condition wasn't so great, I'd have a hard time achieving lift-off in my dream. I'd have to run and flap my arms as hard as I could until I took off. Sometimes it was a great effort and I had to try over and over. Other times, I was just like a graceful bird; a tiny step and jump and I was off soaring like an eagle in the clouds.


Then, when I got to about 30 or so, I could fly like a jet plane. In fact, many times I knew I was dreaming and that I was flying. I figured it was some sort of alternate universe and so I rode it like a snow-boarder rides the snow or a surfer rides the waves. I knew I was dreaming but didn't care. When  could really fly and fly like a rocket, doing a thousand miles and hour, I would consider flying over the Pacific Ocean and going to the United States to fly over my parents house.


Weird thing is that I would fly out a few hundred miles from the coast of Japan, look over the water, and turn around because I'd start getting scared. Scared that I would wake up and be flying over the cold ocean, fall into it, and have to swim back. I used to be a good swimmer, but not that good. Being so high over such deep water freaked me out so I'd turn back. Even though I knew it was just a dream.


The other problem with flying to the USA like a 747 in my dreams was that, at such high speeds, I had a difficult time turning and would often continue on a straight line when I wanted to make a hard left turn.


Sounds ridiculous because it was all a dream and I knew it, but I also felt that, somewhere in my heart, dreams were and alternate universe and a reflection on reality. I guess I still do.


Another dream that often occurred was fishing. I love fishing. Before I moved to japan, I went fishing every week. Sometimes two or three times a week. Fishing is heaven. Fishing is spiritual and fishing is close to God.

There is a saying about fishing. It goes like this: "Do you know what the difference is between a religious man and a spiritual man? A religious man goes to church and thinks about fishing. A spiritual man goes fishing and thinks about god."


I am a spiritual man. I'd go fishing everyday of the week if I could.


I used to dream about fishing at least once a week when I first came to Japan. Sometimes I dreamt about it every night for days in a row. That's because it is difficult to go fishing in Japan and I had been an avid fisherman since I was a small boy living in Minnesota. Minnesota is known as the "Land of 10,000 Lakes" so fishing is a lifestyle there.


Fishing in Japan, Tokyo especially, though, is a chore. Japan is a crowded place and the good areas for fishing on the coastline are usually taken by the local fishing collective so they don't take too kindly to your fishing in their good spots... In fact, they might give you the boot up the ass if they catch you fishing in their prime areas. Going fishing in Japan is not like the USA where you can just grab a rod and reel and head off to the lake or shoreline. In Japan, fishing is an all-day expedition like 18 holes of golf: You need a plan and it costs lots of money.


My other two recurring dreams, or maybe I should say nightmares, are related to work. Whenever work is going poorly or I worry about bankruptcy or the economy going down the tubes (an understandable and common recent worry since 2008) I have bad dreams of returning to the USA and going back to my old jobs. 


The worse job is returning to Prudential to the same old office and working with those dishonest people that I wrote about yesterday in Working With Thieves, Liars and Crooks. The weird part of the dream is that I am always scheming about returning to Japan and, even after one year, haven't sold one single contract yet they do not fire me in my dream.


Talk about being able to live off one's laurels!


The other work-related dream is that I go back to working at a Sears, Roebuck and Company in Ventura, California (it was in Oxnard when I worked there, but has since moved causing the city of Oxnard to sue the city of Ventura, but that's another story about the insanity of the USA).


When I was 17 I started working at Sears in the catalogue ordering department and then transferred to commission sales in the Photo & Office Equipment department. As a commission salesman, I made a heck of a lot of money in the late 1970's.


In my dreams, for some bizarre reason, I go back there and have to work in the sewing machine and vacuum cleaner department selling poorly made and badly designed Sears equipment. The nightmarish part of the entire thing, besides selling this poorly designed and quite unstylish junk, the same management is there at the company running around doing their weird hijinks.


There is the store manager, whose name escapes me, but he was a very short, yet handsome man. He dumped his beautiful wife and four beautiful daughters (whom he often brought to the store) to marry another woman (who he soon also brought to the store). I always noticed the daughter because they were very beautiful girls. He got his lightening strike from god when, soon after the divorce and marriage, he was diagnosed with some sort of brain cancer. No kidding. I think he soon died after that. 


Then there was a guy named Walter who was a section chief who was married but he ran around unable to control his libido and was trying to take every woman working at the store to bed. I guess his wife got fed up with it one day and dumped him and got another boyfriend.


Walt, being like the immature little boy he was, then decided that he wanted his "toy" back (the wife he disrespected and treated like sh*t) and, from what I understand, went screaming drunk to the boyfriend's house while she was there and started banging on the door and breaking it down.


The boyfriend shot him and killed him.


Later, after the funeral that I didn't attend, many Sears employees were complaining that the wife was wearing black but didn't seem sad. I heard them complaining about that and said nothing. It did nothing for me but confuse me as to what was really important to these people and what they were thinking about. 


There were lots of really weird things going on at Sears at that time. I found the same types of problems when I got myself transferred to the Sears in San Fernando Valley and found that store, too, was full of some very twisted people whose priorities were not success of the business and success of their personnel and staff but protection of their position and attempting to continue their lives acting like high school students with their idiotic politics and clicks.


But, I digress....


These are the recurring dreams I often have. Even in the case of Sears or my old jobs, it is nice to be able to see my old friends and to remember them in their beautiful youth. Even when I have nightmares, I am able to realize that they are nightmares and am able to view them like a movie so they rarely scare me. 


I went to see my sick old dad a few weeks ago. He wasn't the same person that I will always remember. In my dreams, he is a young and handsome 30+ some year old Marine wrestling with us kids in the yard. For the sick, aged and ill, dreams are an escape. Back to better times and the treasures of youth. 


Surely, dreams are one of the best things about living that there could possibly be. I look forward to sleeping every night and I look forward to the dreams of my youth.

How about your dreams? I think if you wake up and think, "Today is going to be great" and you keep track and write down your goals, you can control your dreams and make sure they are positive. Try it. For more on that, read, One Easy Step to Becoming a Better Parent and More Successful at Life.

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Happy Easter 2011

Hello everyone! It's been quite long since I have posted here on my blog.  I have been very busy with my offline life.  I have been to a spiritual retreat for 4 days.  I savored  my Holy Week vacation spending time with my hubby and little girl.  I'd like to greet you friends, Happy Easter.  May God bless us all.

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