On one of the discussion forums I frequent (freeratio.org), someone started an interesting topic on the meaning of evil and suffering based on a panel discussion and debate with Dr. William Lane Craig, Ravi Zacharias, Dr. Bernard Leikind and Dr. Jitendra Mohanty. I thought I’d share some of my thoughts about a couple of the more general issues raised in the debate from a Buddhist perspective — the majority of which has been taken from previous posts of mine — especially Dr. Mohanty’s rejection of karma/kamma on the basis that “no causal explanation in terms of a law-like statement can be a good explanation of it” because when confronted with suffering, the inevitable question arises: Why me?
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I recently picked up a copy of Plato’s Republic (OK, two actually), and at first glance, Plato’s just and unjust is not unlike the Buddha’s distinction between skillful and unskillful actions (kamma). Both seem like a middle way between, or possibly a synthesis of, Jeremy Bentham’s teleological utilitarianism and Immanuel Kant’s deontological categorical imperative.

That’s not to say that Bentham and Kant represent two ends of a single ethical spectrum, only that Plato and the Buddha take what Bentham and Kant stress and emphasis them together. With Plato and the Buddha, just/skillful actions aren’t simply judged to be just/skillful based upon their consequences, but also because there’s something inherently just/skillful about the actions themselves. In Buddhism, this would be due to the quality of the intentions behind the actions, and I think a similar principle applies in the Republic as well, although Plato would obviously say that it’s because they share in the form of Justice, or even of the Good.
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then:

• I would have stared at pictures of her all night
• I would have gotten lost in a sea of memories, reminiscence, and self-loathing
• I would have been mean to other people, snapped back, and been snarky
• I would have taken out my pain in a million subtle ways
• I would have ended the night in tears

now:

• I closed the website of the girl who reminded me of her
• I stopped listening to the song that reminded me of her
• I shut off my computer
• I got on my bike
• I pedaled hard and fast, taking my anger out on the bike and the road
• I came home and wrote this
• I ended the night drenched in sweat instead of tears

And I would do well to remember that.

When, at mile 2, you start burping and belching, you know something is wrong. We cheaped out tonight, got lazy, and got pizza for dinner. Now, I could make excuses about having company here, or having no food in the house due to lack of proper shopping, or what-have-you, but instead I’ll just own up to it and say: We got pizza tonight and it was not good workout food.

Yesterday, today, and for the next couple of weeks, I’ll be biking with my friend Greg. He’s in much better shape than I am, due to a less slovenly lifestyle and also being a mailman. My intense biking workout is, to him, a pleasant evening stroll. Still, he gamely coasts along behind me, even though I can feel him itching to plow ahead on the pedals and turn it into a real workout. It’s nice to have someone along, even though it reminds me how far I have to go. But that’s a good thing.

Tonight’s ride was definitely better than the last, pace-wise. My technique is not to set any speed records, but to make sure that I am pedaling and working for the entire ride; I’ve found a good gear setting which makes it relatively high resistance on flat ground but doesn’t completely exhaust me. I can maintain my pedaling at a fairly consistent rate (the goal, if you look at my BuddyRunner charts, it to maintain as flat a “pace” line as possible–that indicates consistency over the miles). The idea is that I will eliminate the bike as a variable by keeping it at the same gear whether it is optimal or not. Any increases in pace can therefore be seen as improvements to my own power and speed rather than optimization of the machine I’m using.

The way I see it, if I can pedal for basically the whole ride, I’m getting a good workout. My muscle fatigue and dripping sweat tell me that I am indeed working out.

And the sweat is starting to pour.

I knew these days would come; the days of enjoying the crisp cool nights, where even though I was vigorously working out I kept cool because of the weather were destined to end. I knew that the humid Michigan summer would kick my ass.

I was right; it’s starting to get hot, it’s starting to get humid, and it’s just going to get worse.

I did a lot of yardwork the last couple of days. Yesterday I mowed down a hill in my back yard with a roto-tiller. Doing this is like going to the gym and having a major upper body workout. You are constantly fighting the heavy machine as it tears its way through roots, hard soil, and rocks. Your job is to keep it level and keep it moving. This involves a lot of pulling, pushing, grunting, and in my case, sweating.

Today I finished my final phase of transporting and deploying 31 bags of lava rocks for the tree box in front of my house. I have planted Lantana, a couple of petunias, some sage bushes, and a basil plant. I repotted a Ficus that inherited from my grandmother years ago. Things are starting to shape up.

I didn’t bike the last couple of days. Tonight I got back to it, and I knew it would be rough from my weekend with lots of alcohol and my breaking of routine these last couple of days. I did make sure to stay hydrated throughout the day, and accordingly, I seriously picked up my water consumption. That, and the sweaty yardwork I did today were probably the only things that saved my ass from collapsing on my bike ride. My pace sucked, it was the worst ever, and each pedal was a struggle, especially for the last mile. I also really need to do some maintenance on my bike; it sounds like a damned jalopy. It squeaks and moans all over the place.

Bleh. Anyways, I got it done. 3 miles, dripping sweat, hot, miserable, and painful. Sounds familiar? It sounds like when I started my walking blogs, doesn’t it?

More yardwork, and another bike ride tomorrow. See you then.

It may be the incredibly mild and beautiful Michigan spring, it may be the fire in my belly from my LA trip, it may be a bunch of things, but the end result is that I have been working like a fiend lately. I’ve gotten so much work done for Icrontic (my day job) lately; the kind that makes you look at the clock and see that it’s 1am and you realize you’ve been essentially working for 12 hours straight without getting tired. I think they call this “in the zone”.

So yes, I’m in the zone. I didn’t have the same rah-rah go-getter attitude that I did last night when I got on the bike tonight, and I started off dragging ass for the first few minutes, but by mile 1 my pace was back on par with last night’s great ride.

If I could just channel this determination into my diet, things would be unstoppable. I could make excuses about lack of healthy food in the house, and the “bare essentials” grocery shopping that got done today, which was mostly bread, ramen, and boxed food, but that would just be … making excuses. I mean, it’s not like I’m completely off the wagon, but I could definitely do better. I am still eating way, way better than I did before but then my roommate goes and does shit like… make fresh chocolate chip cookies and buy delicious loaves of fresh baked sourdough bread. And I hate him. And I love him.

I still get that thing where I look in the mirror and don’t see any difference. It’s like I’m losing my weight in strange places in my body, like my arms and thighs. My belly, my neck, and other places where I’d really like to see a difference are still looking the same. It’s discouraging. Don’t get me wrong, 20 lbs (probably more by now) is still 20 lbs. I am still able to fit into pants that I haven’t been able to fit into for years. I am still down two pant sizes. It just doesn’t look like it. At least not to me.

When I get like this, I go back and read my first few days of blogs, and I remember just how fucked I truly was. I could not walk to the end of my block. It still boggles my mind just how out of shape I was.

A year from now, I’ll look back and think the same thing about this very moment.

Literally.

While I wouldn’t consider my last week spent in Los Angeles to be a “week off” exercise-wise, it certainly wasn’t a dedicated, focused effort either. I spent the week covering the E3 conference in LA and our hotel happened to be 1.25 miles away from the convention center; I’ll estimate that we walked at least five miles every day between hotel trips, meetings at other locations, and general floorwalking in the gigantic LA Convention Center.

At any rate, before the trip I got sick with a cold; I had it the entire trip, and I still have it. I was kind of out of sorts between the change of atmosphere and routine, the sickness, the timezone changes, and the crappy air in LA. I got back late Friday night and I’ve had trouble getting back to EST and reality.

I knew that my biking adventure would be an either/or proposition tonight; it was either going to be stellar, or it was going to be shit. I rolled the dice and left.

Luckily I had good music with me. It rained all evening here in Detroit, so the humidity was exceptionally high. I started sweating almost immediately in the thick and heavy air. Still, I am in awe of how fresh and clean everything smells here compared to Los Angeles. Michigan air has the warm and seductive scent of flowers, trees, and leaves. The rich scents of late spring are thick in the air.

I cranked my music and took off. Normally my biking goes like this: pedal pedal pedal driifffffftttt pedal pedal pedal drifffffttttt. Tonight it was constant pedaling with no drifting. I set a firm pace and stuck with it. I went 3.5 miles and kept up the pace. If you’ve been keeping up with me on BuddyRunner you’ll see what I mean–my pace this evening was the most even it’s ever been, and it was the best I’ve ever done.

When I got home, I was dripping, but extremely satisfied with how things went. I needed this to clear my head and get out of this funk.

It’s good to be home.

I just can’t think of anything to say tonight; I wasn’t feeling it. I walked almost 2 miles today with my kids and then took a 2.5 mile bike ride tonight. It wasn’t pretty, but the job got done. You can see results at Buddyrunner if you’re interested.

I’m starting to wonder what I’ll do for exercise when I’m in LA for the E3 convention next week; I mean, I’ll be walking a ton during the convention, so I’ll be exercising, but I’m not sure if I’m going to do anything beyond the 3-4 miles I’ll probably walk during the day while covering the show. Knowing how these things go, there will probably be afterparties and drinking involved every night. I don’t foresee a dedicated walk/jog at 3am in Los Angeles after a long crazy day. I’ll try my best. I doubt our 2 star hotel has a gym, either.

Meh. Not feeling it tonight, sorry folks.

I’m not sure how to describe this day without sounding too optimistic and giddy; it was a day filled with triumph for me. It started off with my parents visiting unexpectedly (which is usually stressful, by the way) and bringing me some food and also introducing me to their new dog. I goofed around with their new dog for a bit and my parents left without the usual hubbub of telling me everything that’s wrong with me. I got some good news on the work front, got some more sponsors lined up for our upcoming Expo, and found out that a few more friends bought tickets and will be attending. 

This is the third day of working on re-doing the pond in my backyard. The pond is a symbol of my life; when I moved in to this house with my wife and young kids back in 2004, the pond was beautiful, clean and healthy, filled with wonderful fish, amazing lotus blooms, toads, snails, and cattails. As my life and marriage declined, so did the pond. When I nearly gave up on living in 2005, I certainly gave up on taking care of the pond. 

Over the next three years, as I neglected my own well being and happiness, so too did I neglect the pond. It became infested with weeds, reeds, and muck. A rat took up residence under the bridge. Weeds grew all around it. All of the fish died. 

Lincoln bought all new fish for it, and they all died again after this winter. This isn’t supposed to happen because there are two deep spots that don’t freeze, where all the fish congregate in the winter. 

When the winter freeze finally let up (only a month ago!) there were little fish corpses all over the place. I imagine they made good dining for the rat. The pump broke and so water stopped flowing through the stream that is designed to filter and aerate the water. For the last month the water has been stagnant, slowly evaporating, and basically turning into a mosquito breeding ground and total mess. 

So three days ago my good friend Scott came over and we started dredging it and emptying it. It was absolutely wretched and disgusting work, and we began to realize what kind of project we had gotten ourselves into. The reeds had taken over and formed a complete network of thick root structures; so much so that they had basically filled up the two deep spots. No wonder the fish died! The water, at its deepest, was only about 12 inches deep instead of almost 40. The pond froze solid because there was so much muck and roots at the bottom.

Dredging it was incredible difficult work (and is not done yet), but Scott, Lincoln, and I have been making good solid progress these last three days. I got one half of the pond basically finished and we’re almost done with the second half. 

Imagine, then, my shock when I saw movement in the water. I had been standing in this cesspool for hours and suddenly I saw movement. 

I thought I saw a little mouth opening and closing. A fish! I couldn’t believe my eyes. Lincoln insisted that there was no way, it had to be a tadpole. We kept on dredging.

Minutes later, I saw him again. It was definitely a fish. We got a net and I caught him. He had been gasping for oxygen in the water and was probably very near death. I absolutely have no idea how this fish survived. The only thing I can think of is that he was very recently hatched from eggs laid before his mother died. 

I put him in a bowl. His name is Lazarus. He is a deep gold color, and he’s a fuckin’ survivor.

The rest of the day was equally successful. I finally signed up for a gym today. I went, and worked out with my friend James. It was painful, exhausting, difficult, and awesome. I felt like a million bucks (sore and soft, but a million bucks) when I left.

I got home and found out some more great news, that someone I’ve been excited to meet has confirmed travel plans and will be visiting me this summer. 

I was highly disciplined with my diet today  (you can view my Fitday if you’re interested. It’s boring), cooked a great meal, and then got ready for my walk.

I wanted to go to a 24 hour store that is 3 miles away from my house, because I needed a cable for my computer. I also really wanted to push myself and see what I could do, physically, in a day. After the hard labor of the pond work, the workout at the gym, did I still have it in me to take the longest walk I’ve ever taken? This was a six mile trek.

I did it. I walked the entire route without stopping (well, I stopped when I shopped and went to the bathroom) and never experienced any muscle pain. I am certainly tired; exhausted even, but not sore. A month ago—hell, two weeks ago, there is no way I would have been able to do this. I still can’t believe the change that has come over me, fitness wise. I am not this person; I do not do heavy yard work. I do not go to the gym. I do not walk SIX MILES. Not me. Someone else.

I look in a mirror and I still look fat. I don’t look any different, from my own eyes. It used to be discouraging, but one of the most important changes I’ve made recently is my attitude: I just don’t go down that road anymore. Down that road is failure. If I start to question myself or think about how far I have to go or how hard it’s going to be or how little I have changed even though I’ve been busting my ass, I will despair. I just don’t do it anymore. 

That may be the single biggest change I’ve made so far.

I guess this is what they mean by the present moment.