Travis Eneix

I got back a few days ago from a trip to New York, and Martha’s Vineyard. The trip was not the happy-go-lucky vacation my wife (Daisy), and I, had planned. Every year we go to New York city to visit with her parents. Her mother lives on the upper East side of Manhattan, and her father and his family live in balmy Brooklyn. We bought the tickets back in July. Normally that is when we go to the East Coast, but this year the events of life changed our plans, and in hind sight that was rightly so.

Normally we also go to Martha’s Vineyard during these trips to visit Daisy’s mother’s parents, Herman and Nina. Herman passed away in 2003, and Nina’s health had been declining over the last years. I have not been able to make the last two years visit with Nina, but Daisy has. I’ve been able to enjoy phone conversations with Nina, which are always challenging because of her speech being obstructed by a stroke she suffered some years ago, but also always rewarding because she was such an extraordinary woman.

A few months ago Nina was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She was not given long to live. Daisy visited Nina, life kept me at home. Daisy told me that Nina said that she was, “ready to go.” Nina had lived a long, and eventful life, and she knew it.

A week before our scheduled trip to NY, Nina had another stroke. She was non-responsive and had left orders not to be kept on life support. She was fading. We changed Daisy’s ticket and she left a week ahead of time. Nina passed peacefully on September the 8th.

Daisy met me in New York, and we went together back to Martha’s Vineyard to plan the memorial. Daisy was incredibly driven to do right by her grandmother, and that she did. Early on in the process, before I even flew out to meet her, she realized that Nina, and the service, were not exclusively hers or the families. She stayed up long ours making up to 60 phone calls a day (none of them simple or short) to all of Nina’s extended and extensive circle of friends. I mostly stayed present as a ready assistant, and leaped in where and when Daisy required. In five days Daisy got 70 people set to show up, cleaned the house, made five photo albums, collected a dozen of the books Nina has written or collaborated with Herman on, got bouquets made from Nina’s amazing and magical garden, arranged caterers and chair rentals (this was the area I helped out most), invited people to speak and put together an event Nina would have loved. While we worked inside the house, Zada Clarke (Nina’s gardener for the last 13 years) got the garden into true Nina style.

On the day of it all came together. People shared about there memories of these two amazing people, enjoyed fabulous Pomegranate Iced Tea and Canapes, and commiserated. I lost count of the number of people who told me what an amazing service it was. That was as it should have been. Nina & Herman deserved the best send off they could get, and their friends deserved the best closure possible.

Memorials are for the living. They allow us to find peace and reason for a painful loss, and to put that loss into a chapter of life rather than leaving a gaping hole. Both the living, and the dead, have the right to completion.

For my part I will most miss two people who had their own unique lusts for life. Herman showed me how unending and burning curiosity can keep your spirit young and your mind razor sharp even as your body fails. Nina taught me a true appreciation of the works of Shakespeare in specific, and the power and grace of literature in general. I will miss them both, but I will honor their gifts by continuing them.

Nina got an obituary in the New York Times yesterday, and you can read it here. Another, lovely obituary was posted in the Martha’s Vineyard Gazette which you can see here.

I know you’re out there…I can feel you now. I know that you’re afraid. You’re afraid of us, you’re afraid of change…I don’t know the future…I didn’t come here to tell you how this is going to end, I came here to tell you how this is going to begin. Now, I’m going to hang up this phone, and I’m going to show these people what you don’t want them to see. I’m going to show them a world without you…a world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries. A world…where anything is possible. - Neo from The Matrix

The problems of the world, all suffering, comes from misidentifying what we are, what the self is. The solution then is to know the truth. This point lies at the heart of very nearly all spiritual and religious paths.

We seek, and seek to find the self. And, of course the silly, apparent, paradox is that since we are the ones seeking, we are already what we are. We just look for it elsewhere.

We struggle with the right positioning of a demarcation. A border, a boundary.

We try to find what is self, and what is not-self, and get a firm grip on the difference. We look for the boundary. The funny thing is, in the actual world, there are no boundaries. Not in the way we use them. There are lines showing matched possibilities, but no boundaries. The line of the shore shows the pairing of sea & land. Without that line we would not be able to tell the differing qualities of either part of that matched pairing. Same with the twilight line between night & day. Up & down. Front & back. In the actual world these lines do appear to show the contrasting dance of matched pairs. But, they are not solid, they flux and flow.

These lines confirm the interdependence, and inter-existence of the matched pairs. No up without down. No in without out. No subject without object. In the actual world of lines, all is one, and could not be without a single half of any matched pair.

The human mind, in its struggle to make sense of the world and survive makes these lines into boundaries. We then internalize the idea of boundaries as real, and draw a demarcation between what is self & not-self. The first, most innocently natural boundary is the skin. What is in my skin is self, what is outside is not-self. This is terribly sensible, readily apparent and very useful. The problem is that boundaries are borders, and a border is where battles occur. They give rise to struggle. This starts the war of me versus my environment. Once I accept that boundary I an consigned to live in a world of not-self, of other, of danger, unknown and threat. I am now cut in half.

The problem grows though. Slowly the boundary comes within and, in the Western stream of thinking especially, we draw another boundary of the self. Body & Mind. I become just the mind, and my body is now other. It doesn’t do what I want it too all the time. It is not completely under my control so it must not be me. It stumbles, gets sick, grows old and feeble, it dies. The body, ultimately, kills me.

And still, the boundary shrinks. I get really, really pissed and do something horrible. I live with the guilt of doing so, and then deny that I could ever do such a thing again. And, when I am moved to act the same way again, I rebel and cast the impulse out. That’s not me. I would never do that. Now the boundary is between the characteristics of behavior I approve of, and those I don’t. They are not me. They are other, not-self. I push them out with the god-like power of denial and project them onto the available canvas, other people.

Now I am lost. I have split myself into smaller and smaller portions, and I no longer know what I am for the simple reason that I have drawn a hard boundary around what I think I am, what it is ok and comfortable to be. I have misidentified myself, and suffering abounds. I live in a world filled with an environment of danger, a body that betrays me, and people who harbor the evilest tendencies that I myself would never share.

But, I have done this. It is not my natural condition. It is not the actual world or state of affairs. It is not true.

When I let go of the habit of holding boundaries, and instead enjoy the beauty of lines, I am free. Once again the world is whole.

Last night I looked at my wife and I could find no boundary.

She still has kickin’ lines though!

For a long time now I have been on the path of self-inquiry. Trying to plumb the questions of “Who am I?” and “What am I?” In this looking I find myriad object: forms and thoughts. Whatever I can be aware of is not the subject. So, if I can see it, it is not me, not the ultimate subject that is aware, not the goal of the quest. But, there is no subject without an object. I have been looking to find a distinct thing to call self and putting all I find across the boundary into not-self. This is self imposed and not real. I am not Subject aware of Objects. I am Subject plus Object. There is no pulling apart the matched pairs. They are one. I am one.

Cheers!

Just finished the book Buddha, by Karen Armstrong. Wow! As someone who has been on the periphery of Buddhism, and who has very recently taken a deeper plunge in, I was very pleased with the depth of information and insight given. Karen is definitely biased in favor of the Buddhist ideal, and has a certain sense of mystery about the whole thing, but she manages to tackle a very tough subject very effectively.

A good deal of the book speaks about the phenomenon of the Axial Age, which is a fascinating subject that Karen makes very approachable. She also digs into the core beliefs, principles, and practices of Buddhism in a way that is totally accessible. I think this would be a grand read for either a beginning student of Buddhism, a seasoned practitioner, or just someone interested in comparative religion.