This Week in Spirituality

I keep reading over and over The Dhammapada. It is a collection of sayings from the Buddha recorded by his disciples during or shortly after his death, and is much more extensive, but akin to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in the effect that if all other teachings from these two men were lost we would still be able to follow their ways.
There is a great 100 page or so introduction by Eknath Easwaran that goes into the life of the Buddha and some basics of Buddhism. It gives powerful parallels to other Religions and Physics and other sciences. Einstein is quoted a lot.
And the sutras themselves follow in fifteen or so chapters with lines at the same time practical and provoking of the spirit-mind. I don’t believe I will ever attain Nirvana, or dissolve completely my earthly passions or selfish desires, but the words make sense to me, and of any established Way of Life (I hesitate to say religion) seem the best suited to me for this world; mainly because they are of this world: about life, change, and renewal.
The teachings of the Buddha do not separate man and gods and animals and plants and rocks and oceans but teach that all is one, connected by the endless cause and effect of life, every ripple of a thought or action in an sea acting upon the other billions of ripples, and I like that. There are no arbitrary rules or rituals to follow, only to live a balanced life seeking to train the mind and live in accordance with all Life. Our world is determined by us, by how our own minds perceive are surroundings.
Observations and universal laws of life and the natural world, not Gods who bring horrible plagues upon Egypt, are the guides. And that works for me.

On Bears, Chimps, and Haircuts

I just got a haircut. I felt like a girlfriend before she goes to one of those all Vietnamese nail salons in California; a language barrier as impenetrable as the Berlin Wall in the mid 70s awaited.
Before I went I contemplated going down to ask one of the front desk personnel if they could write in German on a paper for me: “it’s been a little over two months since my last haircut; cut the top to about three inches and then lightly fade down to the ears. Rounded in back. Don’t mess with the sideburns.”
But they seemed busy so I thought to look for a picture of a man’s haircut like they used to have in Supercuts when I was a kid.
I only had one magazine in my possession: a Men’s Journal I bought in SFO on the journey over here. The material was none to useful: an article on wispy blond-haired Greg Norman (who was in his usual brimmed hat in all but one photo; an article about some skiers traversing the Sawtooths all in beanies or helmets; photos about the Tijuana drug wars did not prove helpful, so I was stuck between some Polo Ralph Lauren ads and the cover of outdoor survival guide and all around awesome dude, Bear Grylls.
I kinda liked the flippy bed head of the underwear model, and Bear’s du was a little shorter than I was used to. But I made a man’s decision and tore off the cover of Bear looking like the ex-British special forces bad ass that he is and set out to ‘besser’ my looks.
I arrived in time for my 18:30 appointment. (I had walked in the salon on my way home from a beer run to the mall earlier and just finding a time to return in the busy salon was a chore in itself.) The cute, young-twenties stylist remembered me, took my jacket, and ushered me to the seat.
I took out the picture of Bear and made a gesture that I wanted my hair to look like his. She understood and put the pic on the dash between the mirror and myself.
The haircut was nothing less than everything.
I rarely get haircuts, and even cut my own hair for the better portion of high school and college, but every time I have someone else groom me I take on the persona of one of my primate cousins getting his pelt cleansed of ticks and dirt by one his kin. I become chimp, or at least Ace Ventura in the scene in the second one where he camouflages himself from the bad guys by partaking in the group chimpanzee grooming session, (right before the rhino scene I think.)
And I’m always sad when the grooming ends. For a good few minutes after the haircut, I retain a sort of euphoria in the bottom part of my head and neck; a relaxed, the-world-is-good feeling spreads over me. I really cannot explain it, but every time I get a haircut I am astonished at how good it makes me feel.
So, thanks to all the Bears and Chimps that got me here. Now I gotta go shave.

The Harz

So I went to the Harz Mountains in central Germany last weekend with great friend and travel partner, Kendra. Witches and gnomes were once rumored to inhabit the region and a lot of the classic German fairy tales have their origin in the mysterious Harz.
We stayed at a sweet hostel in Wernigerode. The innkeepers were Alex and six week-old Lishka, a rambunctious energy ball with those puppy eyes that just make every urine stain or bite on the leg harmless, excusable, and even appropriate and laughable. Let's just say she was cute.
I was the first person from California ever to stay at the hostel and proudly put my thumbtac on the southernmost tip of Monterey Bay. (I love being able to pinpoint precisely where I live on a map in two seconds.)
We summitted Mount Brochen on a nice four hour hike. We ate sandwhiches on the top and on the way down stopped near a stream in a little green canyon for a bier break. I love Berlin, but it cannot offer the untouched and unspoiled that I have grown up so close with on the Pacific, the Sierra Nevada, the lakes of New Hampshire, and in the rugged mountains of Idaho.
Thank you to the Harz for a great weekend of cobblestone streets, old-Europe architecture and restaurants, great bier, happy Germans, and most of all for allowing me to reconnect with the natural: interesting how I can feel home sitting by a mountain stream in Germany.

McEarth

I went to the gym today. It is a nice place: large, clean, smells like rubber. It is called McFit, and they are all over Berlin.
There is also a popular stationary store chain called McPaper.
I like the fact that I can get a hamburger and French fries around here, but do we really need to incorporate the ‘golden arches’ into society any more than necessary? Whatever happened to creativity and uniqueness? Indeed, it is a fast food, stamped, catalogued, and spit-out world.
But I do like The Dave Matthew’s Band, so maybe I am just hypocritical when it comes to cookie-cutter names.
Gotta go; I could use a little early-evening pep so I think I’ll head over to McKaffee.

Big Time?

Yesterday I felt a bit like Joe Montana. Ok, a tiny tiny bit.
I got to the practice facility and our offensive coordinator, Coach Lee Rowland from London, produced the latest issue of the weekly German American Football Magazine. On this week’s cover of Huddle, was yours truly dropping back to pass.
The publication is not Sports Illustrated. It is printed in black and white on coarse paper, but nonetheless I did feel honored if not slightly embarrassed, to grace its cover.
About twenty minutes later as I was watching film of this week’s opponent, Munich, our head coach presented me with a piece of mail. It was addressed in German, An Hemn (attention?) Jonathan Grant C/O AFC Berlin Adler. I was puzzled but curious.
I opened the envelope to discover a treasure. Inside was written a letter in elementary-English- as-a-second-language syntax asking if I would please sign an enclosed picture and return it to the address below. Furthermore, the young football fan welcomed me to Berlin, wished me luck, and thanked me for my time. A stamp was enclosed.
Wow, I remember writing to my favorite baseball and football players back in the day in exactly the same manner, and now a German Junga thought me worthy of this effort. I smiled, tried to gain some perspective, and for a few minutes did not think about Munich’s 3-4 blitzing scheme.

Initiation

After a slimmed down training camp, albeit still seven practices in four days, rookie initiation took center stage in a post WWII French Army base in West Berlin, now training complex for fifteen years to the Berlin Adler American Football Club of the German Football League.
The festivities consisted of nine completely naked football players ranging in size from a couple smallish defensive backs and a kicker to our coveted new 6’7” Czech right tackle; a beer drinking audience of team members, a few dozen male and female family and friends, and the occasional bike rider or jogger passing by on the nearby recreational trail.
As anticipation grew, Patrick, our linebacker from Georgia, and myself became quite wary of the situation and together stood an anxious watch for stealthy Germans looking for a Yankee catch; alas, for one reason or another we were off the menu and were enabled along with our American ex-NFL running back Tony, to happily watched the debauchery ensue.
Much to the surprise and delight of all in attendance, the nine victims ran out of our locker room in complete and utter nudity.
They had been instructed to do so of course by Eric, our veteran center and leader of this long awaited event.
He then led them to a table that held an array of plastic cups filled with different concoctions of the likes that hideous medieval witch from “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves” would be proud.
Prior to their entrance, my curiosity got the best of me and I smelled three of the cups: fish heads, iodine, and vomit I would say, and the vapors were enough to nearly summon my gag reflex. Completely non-alcoholic I was told, just flat out inhumane.
The ‘nude men walking’ nervously but proudly strolled to the table, some with a palm over private parts, others not so ashamed, and lined up for execution.
After the ‘vic’ successfully drank the pernicious potable of their choice they were to complete a pre-determined obstacle course in the grass behind the home end-zone.
Much as a team completing a stout regular season record in order to secure home field advantage for the playoffs, those who completed this course with the fastest times would have an easier go of it in later weekly events throughout the season.
And those with slow times were sent hoping for short bus rides home from away games.
So like the glorious competitors of an ancient Greek Olympiad, the athletes downed the greenish-brown libations and ran nude in 40 degree (Fahrenheit) evening air to a garbage can filled with even colder water in which they submerged their heads.
This step was performed to enable the ensuing flower projected at them to stick.
In white face they spun around the top end of a back hoe ten times and swiftly stumbled to a tarp covered in soapy water. There they proceeded to dive or slide across the make shift slip-and-slide, butt cracks and ball sacks a view.
After this act of absurdity they high-kneed through a rope ladder, only to roll a ‘World’s Strongest Man’ type three-foot diameter medicine ball thirty meters to the northeast pylon of the end zone. There they ditched the ball and galloped to the near goalpost where our herculean blocking sled wait.
Sans spikes, only the linemen-types could move it on their own. Most needed help from camera phone-toting teammates nearby.
And all bared their backsides to the hysteria-filled crowd sitting thirty meters behind the spectacle.
I myself have not possessed such a sustained, ab-working laugh in a very long, long time.
Once they pushed the sled past the twenty yard line, Eric stopped the clock and noted the times. Every single player performed their duties in good nature without a hint of protest. The teammates and audience laughed their back sides off and, even those who happened upon the irregular scene did so with modest alarm.
And honestly, this wonderful and positive event, filled with nudity and coercion, plainly could not have happened in our ‘Land of the Free.’
I told a teammate after the festivities that such a scene would just not fly in ‘The States.’ He looked at me inquisitively, thought for a second, and then not spitefully but proudly stated,
“Well then Jon, I’m glad I live in Germany!”
And I’m glad, if only for a while, that I get to experience this place they call Deutschland.