True Man of No Titles

It was the enigmatic Zen Master Rinzai who coined the term the “True Man of No Titles” in a lecture he gave in the 9^th century. I believe he meant it to signify the Buddha Nature, the True Nature, a person free of a fixed self and conditioned phenomena.

But though I came across this in my Zen studies, I’m thinking about a little bit differently today. I am a man with few titles and that gives me the freedom to be wholly myself, not obligated to fulfill the roles of assigned rank and responsibility. But with that freedom come a certain lack of power to formally affect the world and the lack of money for the work I do anyway when no one asks me to. Sometimes that’s tiresome.

I was the President of the Spanish Club in High School, a club with some five members. I was the President for two years of NCAOSA, the local Orff Chapter in the Bay Area, a job mostly no one really wants to do. I inherited the job of directing the two-week summer Orff Levels training in 1998, now the San Francisco International Orff Course. I am the self-appointed CEO of Pentatonic Press and the leader of the Pentatonics Jazz Band. I am a music teacher, but never the Head of the SF School Music Department. And that’s the end of my official titles.

This theme came to mind because for many years, I ‘ve asked for an official title for the work I’ve done voluntarily on my own to help create, sustain, oversee and direct the elaborate school ceremonies at my school. Minister of Culture? Keeper of Tradition? Celebrations Coordinator? Something to officially recognize my role at my school these past 42 years, give it a title and hey, why not?, throw a little extra money my way for all the work it entails and the contribution it makes to the school community. Never happened and doesn’t look like it ever will. Maybe an inscription on a gold watch when I retire. Ha ha!

I’m not really bitter about this, but I occasionally think that it would be nice as a way to officially acknowledge my role. My power lies in what I can unleash in a group of people joining hands in a circle, any age, any place, any time. As long as I get the opportunity to do that—and I have gotten and still get plenty—I am happy. But still, the world works with ranks and titles and privileges accorded those who have them and at 65 years old, it’s sometimes wearisome to not have my titles match my work. In my mind, I’ve done as much and much more to merit at PhD without jumping through those hoops and always had a fantasy of an Honorary Doctorate. Ain’t happened, never will. Meanwhile, so-called Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos was awarded one the other day from Bethune-Cookman University, a place where she was (rightfully) booed during her Commencement Address. That’s the way the world works also.

So I guess I’ll finish this life’s journey as a True Man of No Titles. Rinzai would be proud.

Screensaver

I’ve had my laptop for some 10 years or so and only yesterday got this thought:

“Hmm. Maybe I should use one of my photos instead of the generic screensaver.”

And so I did, as follows:

This a photo from the island of Lipari off of Sicily. I don’t know why it makes me so happy, but it does. First off, water is always soothing to the soul. Then there’s the boats going out or coming in, affirming the sense of journey that always excites our wandering spirits. The red tiled house to the right a nice blend of the human world with the natural one, the buildings in the distance a little urban energy, the circular frames of the rock, the feeling of summer in the air (I was there in July), the blooming plant in the stone-wall outcropping—it all combines to lift me up and make me smile every time I open my computer.

Of course, this could be dangerous, making me yet more interested in opening my computer instead of taking a walk in places like these! But hopefully I’ll remember what’s missing here—smells, fresh air, bird songs, me walking and moving my muscles, people passing on the path. You know, the real deal.

But meanwhile, since I live the contemporary life of gathering various threads of my life on a single desktop, might as well use a photo that makes me happy. Also kind of cool to place the various folders in different places instead of just hovering abstractly in the old blue background. Now I can put files on top of the stone wall or on the house's rooftop or out there in the middle of the water. Fun!

And so this little ode to the small pleasures of our electronically mediated lives.

Pink Kittens in Congress

Just went to a dance recital featuring some of the SF School students and saw works ranging from the 3-years olds—alias “Pink Kittens—to high school students. Naturally the Pink Kittens in their pink tutus both so expressive and so bewildered up on the big stage stole the show. Cuteness outdid art and dang, they were pretty cute!

While watching them, I had a vision of each session in Congress beginning with all the Congress-people dressed in pink tutus dancing around a bit and then keeping their tutus on as they sat down to seriously consider the laws and policies affecting our nation. Stay with me here! Picture the change in tone when someone stands up to rant and rave dressed in their pink tutu. Can’t you just see the others trying to listen seriously and then just crack up and then all of them realizing that “ Hey, we’re just fallible human beings here trying to make the world work so people can be happier. Come on, let’s take another look at this topic and have a civil conversation. And then get up and dance a bit more at the end.”

I am dead serious here. We need something wildly different and drastic to change the whole tone of our national discourse and I think mandating Congress to hold sessions while dressed in pink tutus could do the trick. Anyone want to campaign with me on this?

Meanwhile, Plan B. Bring these 3-year old Pink Kittens into Congress before an important bill is about to be voted on. Say, the Affordable Care Act. Introduce them as follows:

“Ladies and gentlemen, here is the future of our nation. They are going to do a little dance for you and if it doesn’t melt your heart, then check-in immediately to the nearest hospital to get it checked out. You may have a serious pre-existing condition that prevents your heart from experiencing the most basic forms of human emotion.

And speaking of that, imagine that each of these little kids also have pre-existing conditions that your bill will not cover. These innocent young kids who have done nothing wrong will struggle mightily because you want to make insurance companies richer instead of helping them out. Some of them will die because of what you’re about to decide and you will think you can sleep peacefully at night because your side “won.” But now that you’ve met them, maybe their beautiful smiling faces will keep appearing in your dreams and haunt you and remind you that your selfish hard-hearted policy has hurt them or deprived them of their life. Please keep this in mind before you vote.

Enjoy the show!”

The Reach Beyond the Grasp

“Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?” —Robert Browning

“Where does the temple begin and where does it end?

There are things you can’t reach

But you can reach out to them and all day long…

And it can keep you as busy as anything else

And happier…”          -Mary Oliver 

It has been an intensive four days of concerts. Jazz pianist Gerald Clayton, the SF Jazz High School All-Stars, Mary Stallings with Cyrus Chestnut and Warren Wolf and my own solo piano house concert.

When I go to a concert—or to a lecture, poetry reading, play, etc.—I hope for two things:

1)    That some part of my own thinking and struggle for coherent self-expression is affirmed. Some boost of confidence that “I can do that.”

2)    That the above is challenged and I leave feeling I just got my butt kicked. Some stern reminder, “I need to get back to work.”

Those two were amply fulfilled. The High School All-Stars were especially sobering, hearing these kids half-a-century younger than me both compose and flawlessly perform work of such complexity with such precision at such high-octane tempos. Yikes! But then some small consolation as the Mary Stallings concert reminded me that art is not just virtuosic pyrotechnics, but intimate, relaxed, soulful. Of course, she and her cohorts were also virtuosic in technique, but always in service of soul.

My own concert had a few satisfying moments— a re-working of Cole Porter’s Get Out of Town with our President in mind allowed me to express anguish and power in the bottom half of the keyboard. And my own-re-conceived version of Old Man River that allowed grief to be redeemed in the beauty of thoughtful harmonies.

But always the question, “Why am I doing this?” I’ve maintained a faithfully erratic practice of trying to absorb the language of jazz to express things both personal and collective in our swamp-bogged-lotused-beauty American culture, putting in some 45 years of woodshedding in my living room. But why? I’m not going to join the ranks of performing jazz musicians—not enough hours put in, not enough talent, not enough musical neural pathways carved out in my childhood and even if the above were fulfilled, not likely the opportunity to be the Grandma Moses of jazz and burst upon the scene at 65 years old. (Except for the Family Jazz scene! Still knocking at that door and it’s opening a crack.)

But connecting this inner work with the affirmation of outer work —ie, jobs, gigs, recognition, etc.—is missing the mark. The glory is the constant reaching for something beyond what I can grasp. And thank you Mary Oliver for the distinction between reaching and reaching out and the reminder that beyond any outer standard of success or failure, it can keep me as busy as anything else—it has!— and happier. Yes, indeed.

Back to work.

Become a Sea

“One must become a sea to receive a polluted river without becoming unclean.” –Nietzsche

I have had a number of disappointments in the last few days. Friends who have let me down, an organization I belong to treating me shabbily and then there’s always the evil in Washington, not only making policies that will make innocent people suffer and even die, but the extra layer of those smirk smiles of Trump and Ryan when legislation is passed by their morally bankrupt criminal partners disguised as public servants. How to cope?

Nietzsche got it right. The only thing that ever has helped me is to grow larger than my small identity so that the barbs and arrows and slings of outrageous fortune don’t sting as much. The toxins in the polluted river are still there, but the larger sea has some capacity to absorb them. While still writing letters to Congress to stop dumping in the rivers. I never want to dismiss that side of things, but also know that hoping for change on the political level will not solve the larger issues of betrayal and hurt and being shattered by one’s own disappointments. The work has to happen on multiple levels and the one most in our control and ultimately most effective is to decline getting too involved in the small battles and choose the hardest struggle of fighting with one’s own demons and conversing with one’s own gods.

One of my favorite poems by Rilke (The Man Watching) says it clearly:

What we choose to fight is so tiny!

What fights with us is so great…

When we win it’s with small things

And the triumph itself makes us small…

This is how (we) grow: by being defeated, decisively,

By constantly greater beings.

And Nietzsche again:

There is more valor when one refrains and passes by, in order to save oneself for the worthier enemy.

So instead of fretting with my small disappointments, I turn to do battle with that worthiest of enemies, jazz piano. Tonight I will perform and share my decisive defeat (but glorious!) with a room of 15 people in a House Concert. If all goes well, we all will become large enough for an hour or so to bear up under the constant assault of this thing called living and float in the larger sea of our hope and beauty.