Starwood XXXIII: "Don't follow me, I'm lost too"

I spent last week at the Starwood Festival, out at the Wisteria Campground in southeast Ohio. This was, if I've counted on my fingers right, my fourteenth Starwood, and the eleventh year that I've presented talks or workshops there. So I guess I'm a regular.

I also managed to catch the last day of X-Day, the event preceding Starwood, where we paid-up members of the Church of the SubGenius prepare for the arrival of the flying saucers from Planet X full of sex goddesses and gods who will rapture us off this rock in 1998. (The fact that is is now 2013 and this has not yet happened is no obstacle for the true believer; we know that the Conspiracy has modified the calendar in an attempt to discredit the Church.) Once again, the X-ists failed to show, but I did get to hear some good music Saturday night.

An interesting year. Some firsts for me: the first deployment of my new photovoltaic setup (a smaller prototype went with me to FSG, but this 17 watt system is new), the first time I ever rode a bike in a kilt (I brought a small folding bike, my new toy, which was both amazingly useful and delightfully goofy looking), the first time I spun LED staff (took a bo staff and bungee-corded lights to the ends -- much fun). I taught three workshops, all of which seemed to go over well. I had some great conversations with both experienced Starwood attendees and fresh-faced young novices.

I even picked up a new nickname, when I told a lovely young lady how my friends had assigned me the "playa name" Zen Buffalo. (And no, I don't know why, it was a decision arrived at while I was away from our camp at Playa Del Fuego). She combined that with my given name and started calling me "Tom Buffalo". I like that -- it has a resonance with Tom Bombadil, the mysterious and powerful nature spirit in Tolkien's The Hobbit, and I've also come to like how "to buffalo" can mean "to bluff or bluster", which seems appropriate as I consider this persona I'm building for festivals. (But then, lovely ladies can call me anything they want, so long as they call me.)

Starwood "officially" ends with a closing ceremony Sunday afternoon, but many people stay over Sunday night (recovering from staying up all night for the Saturday night bonfile), and so there's now a Sunday evening tradition of a pot luck -- the "do-over" -- at the "Space Rangers" camp. (Their camp is known as the "G Spot" because we are not too proud to make juvenile jokes about which letter a space is marked with on the map). It's a great way to unwind -- and to empty your cooler of any leftovers before the ride home.

I was sitting (on my cooler, other seats being taken) at this "do-over" when one of my camping neighbors approached me. We'd talked a few times over the course of the festival, I'd even given her a cheap spare tarp to help her restructure her camp after a heavy rain. But now she had a Big Question: she wanted to know how long I'd practiced Buddhism.

Well, the proper answer to that depends on how you define "Buddhism". I've never taken refuge or formally joined any Buddhist group, so in a sense the proper answer is "no time at all". But I became interested in Zen and learned basic mediation through my martial arts training, and have been trying to study and put into practice the basics of the Buddha's teachings since I was in high school. I even wrote a book where I discuss some historical and philosophical links between Buddhism and Paganism, and in so doing try to explain the basics of what the Buddha taught so far as I can figure them out. So I explained this to my interlocutor.

She said that she had had a little bit of exposure to Buddhism, and was asking because she felt a little envious of the tranquilly she saw in me when I was sitting in front of my tent meditating -- which only shows what a lie meditation can be! For inter-personal reasons which I won't go into here, "tranquil" is way down on the list of adjectives to describe my mind at Starwood this year. But that inner turmoil isn't evident when one sits. So long as one has the competence to sit still for ten or twenty or forty minutes -- which does take some time to cultivate, I'll admit, but is not in any way a sign that one has achieved enlightenment or inner peace or any other such bullshit -- from the outside one can look like a hell of a Buddha, regardless of what's going on inside.

So I launched into a long explanation of Buddhism-as-I-understand-it (shameless plug: see my forthcoming book, Why Buddha Touched the Earth, for more information about that). As I was talking she sat down -- on the ground as there were not chairs around.

And at one point I flashed on the body language involved here, a student of sorts seated at my feet as I gave a discourse on the dharma.

OMG NO!

Please do not feed the ego.

I don't think she was really taking it that way, but I want to make sure I get this in writing in a public statement. I'm happy to pass on the bits of wisdom I've come across that have helped me be less of a suffering bastard as I go through this life, and I like to think that I might have a bit of skill in phrasing these ideas in a way that helps people understand them. But folks, please, if you should ever have any impulse to do so, under no circumstances regard me as a guru or similar BS. As the old bumper sticker says, don't follow me, I'm lost too. You (yes, you) are equally a coming Buddha, a genuine and authorized Pope, a child of God(dess), a vortex of starstuff, and I'm here to learn from you.

Just want to get that out there in case it's not clear.