Finding Love at the Cat House

Lillian Schumacher was, shall we say, on the far side of middle-aged. She had been widowed for the past eight years and was feeling persistently lonely. She hadn’t had any success at all in filling the sometimes desperate, aching, isolated, emptiness that plagued her soul. Her cats were a comfort, but they didn’t take the place of the companionship she had enjoyed with her husband before he passed.

Lillian had certainly done her due diligence. She had volunteered at the local hospital, participated in food drives and bake sales, joined church-sponsored groups of mixed singles, and even subscribed to the big-city newspaper so that she could scan obituaries for recent widowers. Being a woman of reasonably good character and self-esteem, she gave that up about as quickly as her brief inspection of the talent at the local bars.

To put it bluntly, Lillian had finally decided that she wanted a man and she wanted one soon. Fortunately, Lillian was still smart enough, worldly enough and self-possessed enough to tolerate some deferred gratification. “Damn,” she thought, “If eight years isn’t sufficient deferred gratification, I don’t know what is.” Still, Lillian wanted a particular kind of man and she was determined to be as patient and persistent as necessary. But, she had several problems to deal with first.

Essay: Eastern influences on contemporary Western culture and spirituality

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Eastern influences on contemporary Western culture and spirituality

From the book: Chum for Thought: Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters by David Satterlee

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Chum For Thought:
Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters

Eastern influences on contemporary Western culture and spirituality

Many people in Western cultures have become aware of, and adopted elements of, traditional Eastern religions to a variety of degrees. Although usually ignorant of, or rejecting the full scope of the associated original foundational historical practice and philosophy, they are creating a new flavor of Western spirituality and a related social consciousness.

Both Eastern practitioners and Western philosophers have helped raise our general consciousness of Eastern spiritual traditions over the last century. Some of the more prominent are briefly described in the following:

William James, a leading psychologist and philosopher published The Varieties of Religious Experience in 1902. This helped introduce Eastern religious thought to the West.

 Aldous Huxley’s 1945 The Perennial Philosophy identifies a recurring insight of divine reality that is common to most primitive peoples and all

Essay: Japan, America, and sacred nationalism

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Japan, America, and sacred nationalism

From the book: Chum for Thought: Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters by David Satterlee

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Chum For Thought:
Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters

Japan, America, and sacred nationalism

The Japanese islands have remained relatively isolated throughout their history. This has allowed for the development and concentration of distinctive religious and cultural characteristics. Although Japan has experienced Eastern influences (mostly Chinese and Buddhism), and Western influences (especially Anglo/American and Christian), these have seemed to only flavor, not disrupt, the Nipponese sense of identity. This bears a strong resemblance to contemporary American right-wing conservatism.

From the most ancient times, Japan, and its Shinto practices have been organized around community-clans and their respective clan gods. Even when communities gradually expanded, community worship continued to revolve around local guardian gods and the ancestors of extended families. Broader political power was rooted in the relationships of confederations of clans. This religio-cultural structure made it unlikely that religions of foreign origin could have much impact and still remain intact. This system retained a stable core of abiding traditions, supplemented by a somewhat more adaptive layer of minor local traditions.

As an example, Buddhism, when promoted by certain nobles, was assimilated in Japan by

Essay: Implications of the Buddhist “no-self” concept

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Implications of the Buddhist “no-self” concept

From the book: Chum for Thought: Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters by David Satterlee

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Hindu #Buddhist #Saints

Chum For Thought:
Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters

Implications of the Buddhist “no-self” concept

The Hindu concept of atman is the indestructible essential self, which is reincarnated in a series of corporeal physical existences.

The Buddhist concept of “an-atman” (or no-atman) refutes the idea of an irreducible unitary essence that sustains an existence. An-atman presumes total dissipation at death and rebirth as a new constitution from previous cause.

The implication of an-atman is that no thing or person is special. Wealth accumulated for the sole benefit of self or favored others is meaningless because we are not only related to all else, but are nothing but “all else.”

With the distinction of all things and selves being illusion, there is no need to cling or grasp for anything desired but perceived to be unobtained. In fact, the desire for things-not-had defines the dukkha (“suffering”) of the human condition.

Since the accumulation of ever-increasing possessions and the

Essay: Buddhist “Right Speech” as a practical virtue

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Buddhist “Right Speech” as a practical virtue

From the book: Chum for Thought: Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters by David Satterlee

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Chum For Thought:
Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters

Buddhist “Right Speech” as a practical virtue

You may know that I am writing a book about virtues. I added the Buddhist “Noble Eightfold Path” to my listing of virtues after an unproductive search for a virtue that fully embodied “delicacy of speech.” That is, the deliberate choice of words that carefully avoids damaging the fragile stem of newly-sprouted expression in others. It was gentler than tact. It was more specific than thoughtfulness. It was more loving than kindness or even loving-kindness. It was a gentler movement of a whispered expression than love. I could think of nothing more apt then the first Eightfold path virtue of “Right Speech.”

The Buddhist concept of Right Speech, of course, covers the courser commissions of lying, malicious slander, harsh anger, and idle gossip. However, to me, in this moment, it also needed to go past “do no harm,” and past pure and absolute gentleness–all the way to nurturing delicacy without hint of harm; speech that was fully, aptly, right.

I have been in the writing practice of completing a fully-formed suite of ideas, usually about a single-spaced page, and taking it downstairs to read aloud to my wife. She is usually quite tolerant and will pause in whatever she is doing to receive it. She rarely responds with anything but mild acceptance or a simple, thoughtful word of approval. Sometimes she notices one of my characteristic shifts in verb tense or a typo and I am grateful to her for noticing that.

Last night, she called up the stairs to say that I she had sent me an e-mail and asked if I had read it. No, I wasn’t aware of it yet, but I would check it out. I discovered that she had written the first chapter of a children’s book, based on her childhood experiences. At the end, she had written,