Bitten by Sadness

 27.

Bitten by Sadness

By Mike Garofalo

My great nephew,
Joshua Loya his name,
a troubled, sick, tired man;
We tried to help him and failed.
A soul free of conventionality.

He was a homeboy styler
a skinny fellow
dressed in baggy pants.
Hanging out with cholos
for a fine machismo time.

His mom died when he was 10
he never recovered!
From auto accidents and hepatitis
and fun drug usage most days;
he slowly slipped from us away.

He lived with us for a year
a lazy fellow
straight F's in high school,
some thieves and stoners for friends.
Still, we wished him well to the end.

My son and we tried to help
Joshua when down
and others did contribute,
to bring him better around
but his failures ground him down.

He phoned every so often
babbling and rude
wandering in a broken brain;
His long letters, indecipherable,
but with artistic displays.

He lived in County jails
for petty crimes
and old half-way houses
time after time after time.
In garages of friends sometimes.

He called Aunt Blanchee.
He was homeless again
hoping for help from friends.
Sadly, he was sick again.
He wished her well at the end.

    Today,
    the police said,
Josh was shot dead!

    They found his slumped body
    on bloody asphalt
    in a City of Industry
    vacant parking lot.
Bullets through his broken heart!

Tanka Poems by Mike Garofalo

25 Steps and Beyond: Collected Works

Bandon, Oregon

Bandon, Oregon

Bullard's Beach State Park

Bridges in the Coastal Northwest USA

 

Pacific Beach State Park, Washington, Yurt Camping Trip

Pacific Beach State Park, Washington, Yurt Camping Trip

Yurt Camping, March 10, 11, 12, 13 in 2025

Yurt Camping in the Pacific Northwest
Tips, Information, Locations, Experiences
Oregon and Washington
Off Season Camping
By Michael P. Garofalo

Drive from Vancouver to Longview, Centralia,
Olympia, Aberdeen, Pacific Beach.

Explore Taholah, Pacific Beach, Seabrook,
Moclips, Quinault River, Lake Quinault,
Kalaloch Beach, Ruby Beach

Internet Photographs:

Student Athlete Mental Health Resources

 Hi Michael,

I found your Tai Chi Chuan resource page and it's truly informative, especially the bibliography and links section. Great work!

Unfortunately, one of the links on your page is no longer working. It is linking here https://aymta.org/index.htm

If you are still accepting content for this page, I’d love it if you’d consider adding our resource as well. I think it would make a nice addition.

Student Athlete Mental Health Resources
https://www.sportspsychology.org/articles/student-athlete-mental-health-resources/

Whatever you decide, let me know – I’d love to hear back from you.

Emma Young
Community Outreach

333 W San Carlos St
San Jose, CA 95110

What is the Practice?

What is the Practice?  That is, what is correct Zen Buddhist practice?

"We are confused about the basic core of practice, and we get sidetracked with all sorts of incorrect notions about it. Practice can be stated very simply. It is moving from a life of hurting myself and others to a life of not hurting myself and others."
- Charlotte Joko Beck, Everyday Zen, p. 131

"So the crux of zazen is this: all we must do is constantly to create a little shift from the spinning world we've got in our heads to right-here-now. That's our practice. The intensity and ability to be right-here-now is what we have to develop."
- Charlotte Joko Beck, Everyday Zen, p. 11

Practice has many dimensions for Ms. Beck: zazen - just sitting, behaviors in our daily lives, interactions with others, dealing with feelings and reactions, vows, respect for students and teachers, daily life, calm and quiet nature, simple lifestyle, friendships, determination-grit-endurance-steadfastness-discipline, etc.

"What Practice is Not:
Practice is not about producing psychological change.
Practice is not about intellectually knowing the physical nature of reality, what the universe consists of, or how it works.
Practice is not about achieving some blissful state.
Practice is not about having or cultivating special powers.
Practice is not about personal power or Joriki, the strength that is developed in years of sitting.
Practice is not about having nice feelings, happy feelings.
Practice is not about some bodily state in which we are never ill, never hurt, one in which we have no bothersome ailments.
Practice is not about achieving an omniscient state in which a person knows about everything, a state in which a person is an authority on any and all worldly problems.
Practice is not about being spiritual.
Practice is not about highlighting all sorts of "good" qualities and getting rid of the so-called "bad" ones."
- Charlotte Joko Beck, Everyday Zen, p. 23

"Practice is essentially simplified space." p. 25

"On no account make a distinction between the Absolute and the sentient world.
- Huang Po

"Practice has to proceed in an orderly fashion, in a relentless dissolution of self."
p. 43

"Practice is for a lifetime. There is no end to it." p. 175

"The process of practice is to see through, not to eliminate, anything to which we are attached." p. 188

"It's important that we continually examine ourselves and see where it is that we are looking and what it is that we are looking for." p. 134

Everyday Zen. By Charlotte Joko Beck (1917-2011). Edited by Steve Smith. Harper One, 2007, 230 pages. VSCL.

All of the following websites were created by Michael P. Garofalo

Zen Poetry

Buddhism

Taoism

Zen Buddhism Koans

Virtue Ethics

Musicality

I enjoy playing harmonicas as a minor hobby. One book that I recently read was of great benefit to me: Musicality: How You Too Can Learn Music Like a Gifted Prodigy, Unlock Your Musical Instinct, and Unleash Your Inner Natural. By Christopher Sutton. 864 pages, Musical U, 2024. A wide range of good ideas, principles, and tips for a enthusiastic musician. The unlocking and unleashing aspects were excellent, and "gifted prodigy" means a very hard working, confident, informed, and dedicated musician.

My Harmonica playing Notes:

https://www.egreenway.com/Harmonica/HarmonicaStudies2.htm

Dried Garlic Flowers

 

A Gift of Dried Garlic Flowers

We dug up and turned over the soil.
We added cow manure and mixed well.
We flatten the ground and raked it up.
We sat down: rested, reflected, enough.

We opened packets of garden seeds.
Seeds for herbs and heirloom chives.
Bags of onion sets and garlic cloves.
These starters met all our needs.

For the many Springs of Future Years,
when the Allium stalks stand high
and bloom; we will remember (Yea!)
our First Garden in Red Bluff CA!
We achieved that today.

Later—
on the table, a gift for hours,
dried white garlic flowers.

 

mpgEoW2 295, October 1998

Table of Contents
Highway 99 and Interstate 5

Table of Contents, Volume 2, Alphabetical
Highway 99 and Interstate 5, West Coast USA

Index, Subjects, Themes, Ideas, Volume 2

At the Edges of the West, Volume 1
Highway 101 and Hwy 1, West Coast USA

25 Steps and Beyond: Collected Works
By Mike Garofalo

Dao De Jing, Chapter 19

Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu

Chapter 19

"Abandon holiness,
discard your plans,
and the people will improve.
Let go of duty,
and the people will find devotion.
Renounce learning and ceremony,
and the people will find peace.
Ditch your clever schemes and thirst for profit,
and thieves will disappear.
Better yet,
just return to the purity and simplicity,
of raw silk or unworked wood.
Lose your self-consciousness
and ease yourself away from desire."
-  Translated by Crispin Starwell, Chapter 19 

"Get rid of "holiness" and abandon "wisdom" and the people will benefit a hundredfold.
Get rid of "altruism" and abandon "Justice" and the people will return to filial piety and compassion.
Get rid of cleverness and abandon profit, and thieves and gangsters will not exist.
Since the above three are merely words, they are not sufficient.
Therefore there must be something to include them all.
See the origin and keep the non-differentiated state.
Lessen selfishness and decrease desire."
-  Translated by Charles Muller, 1891, Chapter 19  

"Stop being learned and your troubles will end.
Give up wisdom, discard cleverness, and the people will benefit a hundredfold.
Give up benevolence, discard moral judgments, and the people will rediscover natural compassion.
Give up shrewdness, discard gain, and thieves and robbers will disappear.
These three false adornments are not enough to live by.
They must give way to something more solid.
Look for what is simple and hold onto the Uncarved Block.
Diminish thoughts of self and restrain desires."
-  Translated by Tolbert McCarroll, 1982, Chapter 19 

"It is better merely to live one's life,
realizing one's potential,
rather than wishing 
for sanctification.

He who lives in filial piety and love 
has no need of ethical teaching. 

When cunning and profit are renounced, 
stealing and fraud will disappear. 
But ethics and kindness, and even wisdom, 
are insufficient in themselves. 

Better by far to see the simplicity
of raw silk's beauty
and the uncarved block;
to be one with oneself, 
and with one's brother.
It is better by far 
to be one with the Tao,
developing selflessness,
tempering desire,
removing the wish,
but being compassionate."
-  Translated by Stan Rosenthal, 1984, Chapter 19 

絕聖棄智, 民利百倍.
絕仁棄義, 民復孝慈.
絕巧棄利, 民有無賊.
絕巧棄利, 盜無 ?者
此三者以為文不足, 故令有所屬.
見素抱樸.
少私寡欲.  -  Chinese characters, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 19


chüeh shêng ch'i chih, min li pai pei.
chüeh jên ch'i yi, min fu hsiao tz'u.
chüeh hsüeh ch'i li, min yu wu yu.
chüeh ch'iao ch'i li, tao tsê wu yu.
tz'u san chê yi wei wên pu tsu, ku ling yu so shu.
chien su pao p'u.
shao ssu kua yü.
-  Wade-Giles Romanization, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 19  



"If the people renounce self-control and reject wisdom,
Let them gain simplicity and purity
If the people renounce duty to man and reject right conduct,
Let them return to filial piety deep, deep in the heart.
If they renounce skill and leave off search for profit,
Let them rob and by violence take possession of spiritual life.
These three things do not help our progress.
Therefore now let us seek
To perceive simplicity,
To conserve beauty in the heart,
To curb selfishness and to have few desires."
-  Translated by Isabella Mears, 1916, Chapter 19 


"Prescribe la sabiduría, descarta la santidad,
y el pueblo se beneficiará cien veces.
Prescribe la bondad humana, descarta la moralidad,
Y el pueblo será abnegado y compasivo.
Prescribe la habilidad, descarta el provecho,
y así bandidos y ladrones desaparecerán.
Pero estas tres normas no bastan.
Por esto, atiende a lo sencillo y genuino,
reduce tu egoísmo, y restringe los deseos."
-  Translation from Wikisource, 2013, Tao Te Ching, Capítulo 19   

"If men would lay aside their holiness

And wisdom, they would gain a hundred-fold,

And, if benevolence and righteousness,

Parental care and filial love would hold;

If they would drop their cleverness and gain,

Robbers would cease to trouble, as of old.   

Here are three things where decorating fails,

Let them again embrace reality,

Let them restore the purity of old,

Let them return to their simplicity,

Curb selfishness, diminish their desires,

And in the genuine find felicity."
-  Translated by Isaac Winter Heysinger, 1903, Chapter 19 

"Terminate 'sageliness', junk 'wisdom'
the people will benefit a hundred-fold.
Terminate 'humanity', junk 'morality'
the people will respond with 'filiality' and 'affection.'
Terminate 'artistry', junk 'benefit'
thieves and robbers will lack 'existence'.
These three
taken as slogans are insufficient.
Hence, leads us to postulate that to which they belong.
Visualize simplicity and embrace uncarved wood.
Downgrade 'selfishness' and diminish 'desire.'
Terminate learning and you will lack irritation."
-  Translated by Chad Hansen, Chapter 19 

"For thirty years of His life on earth,
The Word was silent before the people.
For fifty centuries the world had waited for the word that its
   Maker could speak.
And finally, with the people before Him
On a sloping meadow overlooking a lake,
The Word spoke His word.
The Way revealed His way.
And He Who had taken the lowest place
Spoke to His creatures of lowliness, saying:
"Blessed are the meek,
The poor in spirit,
Blessed are you who weep now."
He Who had come not seeking praise, said:
"Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you."
These were the first words that the Word spoke to mankind,
Being meek, being Himself reviled,
And weeping with those who weep."
-  Interpolated by Hieromonk Damascene, 1999, Chapter 19
   An Eastern Orthodox interpretation of the Dao and Christ



"Abandon holiness
Discard cleverness and the people will benefit a hundredfold
Abandon the rules of "kindness"
Discard "righteous" actions
and the people will return
to their own natural affections
Abandon book learning
Discard the rules of behavior
and the people will have no worries
Abandon plots and schemes
Discard profit-seeking
and the people will not become thieves

These lessons are mere elaborations
The essence of my teachings is this:
See with original purity
Embrace with original simplicity
Reduce what you have
Decrease what you want."
-  Translated by Johathan Star, 2001, Chapter 19




"Trying Too Hard: Ease up and don’t worry

Give up wisdom. Discard knowledge.
Then people will benefit a hundred fold.
Give up benevolence. Discard justice.
Then people will return to brotherly love and kindness.
Give up scheming. Discard profit.
Then there will be no bandits and thieves.

These three sayings, as principles, are not enough.
Therefore we must add the following:
Be natural and embrace simplicity.
Reduce selfishness and have few desires.
Give up learning and don’t worry."
-  Translated by Amy and Roderic Sorell, 2003, Chapter 19



A typical webpage created by Mike Garofalo for each one of the 81 Chapters (Verses, Sections) of the Tao Te Ching (Daodejing) by Lao Tzu (Laozi) includes over 25 different English language translations or interpolations for that Chapter, 5 Spanish language translations for that Chapter, the Chinese characters for that Chapter, the Wade-Giles and Hanyu Pinyin transliterations (Romanization) of the Mandarin Chinese words for that Chapter, and 2 German and 1 French translation of that Chapter.  Each webpage for each one of the 81 Chapters of the Tao Te Ching includes extensive indexing by key words, phrases, and terms for that Chapter in English, Spanish, and the Wade-Giles Romanization.  Each webpage on a Chapter of the Daodejing includes recommended reading in books and websites, a detailed bibliography, some commentary, research leads, translation sources, and other resources for that Chapter.  Each webpage includes a Google Translate drop down menu at the top that enables you to read the webpage in over 100 languages.

Chapter 19, Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu

Chapter Indexing for the Tao Te Ching

English Language Daodejing Translators' Source Index

Spanish Language Daodejing Translators' Source Index

Ripening Peaches: Taoist Studies and Practices

Taoism: A Selected Reading List

Concordance to the Tao Te Ching (2018 Project)   

One Old Daoist Druid's Final Journey  

Sunset Bay State Park Yurt Camping Trip Day 3

Sunset Bay State Park Yurt Camping Trip Day 3

Again, a bitter cold night at Sunset Bay. The temperature dropped from a 36F high to a 21F low. Burr!

The vinyl covering on the sofa and bed were cold. The yurt walls of vinyl and canvas were cold. I used 3 sleeping bags, and 2 large blankets, and was always fully dressed inside the yurt. The space heater in the yurt was no match for 21F weather. Luckily, the wind never blew on this visit.

I found it uncomfortable to go walking for more than 30 minutes when the weather hovers between 25F-35F.  

Weather reports from Karen and from local fishermen at the Arrago Cafe in Charleston OR, told me snow was expected Thursday morning. Since I needed to drive 75 miles from the coast to Interstate 5 in Roseburg via the Coquille River valley, through many coastal mountains, with the road shaded on both sides by forests; thus, snow and ice would be a serious driving hazard. Therefore, I packed up this morning and drove back to my home in Vancouver. 

Weather reports predict snow and ice in Vancouver on Thursday; and an atmospheric river is hitting California this month.

Lately, I have been working on reading and writing sonnets and longer poems:

    A Gift of Dried Garlic Flowers

    25 Steps and Beyond: Collected Works

Photos from the Internet:

Sunset Bay State Park Yurt Camping Trip Day 2

Sunset Bay State Park Yurt Camping Trip Day 2

Today was a bitter cold day in Sunset Bay. The temperature went from a 24F low up to a 38F high.  Burr!

Last night in the yurt was an unpleasant experience. I have never yurt camped in the late autumn or winter on the Pacific Coast when the temperature dropped below 40F.  The yurt heater was inadequate, the walls cold, and the vinyl couch and bed need my covers. 

30F is too cold for comfortable walking for an oldster like me.

Explore Sunset Bay, Charleston, Coos Bay, Cape Arrago State Park (1932 donated by two women: Simpsons. Shore Acres, Lighthouse

Excellent fish and chips at the Arrago Cafe in 'downtown' Charleston. 

Lately, I have been working on reading and writing sonnets and longer poems:

    A Gift of Dried Garlic Flowers

    25 Steps and Beyond: Collected Works

Photos from the Internet:

Sunset Bay State Park Yurt Camping Trip Day 1

Sunset Bay State Park, Coastal Oregon, Near Charleston and Coos Bay
Yurt Camping Trip Day 1

Drive from Vancouver south on Interstate 5 through Portland, Salem, and into Eugene. It was foggy this morning in the Valley.

Then, east from Eugene to Florence on the coast, then Reedsport, Sand Dunes, Big Bridge, North Bend, Coos Bay, Charleston, and finally arriving at Sunset Bay State Park. Check in time at the yurt is 4 pm. 

Quite cold here at Sunset Bay. Burr!  Much colder than my other trips to the beach for yurt camping. Difficult to enjoy sitting outside.

By 5 pm, I was quite tired from the long drive and after setting up my yurt. And, 
the cold was not encouraging for me.

So I stayed inside the yurt, bundled up to keep warm, read, wrote, napped, smoked half a MaryJ, sipped chocolate, enjoyed a grapefruit, ate nuts. No 
cell phone service here.

Enjoyed Bastendorff Beach County Park just southwest of Charleston. They
offer yurt cabins, RV access, tent camping. The Beach was spectacular, just south of the north jetty entrance to Coos Bay and Charleston. 

Near Bastendorff is Sun Outdoors Commercial Park had nice cabins and looked interesting.

Drove around Coos Bay city area and North Bend.

Lately, I have been working on reading and writing sonnets and longer poems:

    A Gift of Dried Garlic Flowers

    25 Steps and Beyond: Collected Works

Cape Disappointment Yurt
January 2025

Photos from the Internet:

We Are Better Satisfied in Particulars

"Science and psychoanalysis apart, the most profound development in thought since Nietzsche, as far as we are concerned, is the phenomenological approach to the world.  Mallarmé sought "words without wrinkles," Baudelaire cherished his minutes heureuses and Valéry his "small worlds of order," as we have seen: Checkhov concentrated on the "concrete individual" and preferred "small scale and practical answers," Gide though the "systematizing is denaturing, distorting and impoverishing."  For Oliver Wendell Holmes, "all the pleasure of life is in general ideas, but all the use of life is in specific solutions."  Wallace Stevens considered that we are "better satisfied in particulars."  Thomas Nagel put it in this way: "Particulars things can have a noncompetitive completeness which is transparent to all aspects of the self.  This also helps to explain what the experience of great beauty tends to unify the self: the object engages us immediately and totally in a way that makes distinctions among points of view irrelevant."  Or, as Robert Nozick, who counseled us to make ourselves "vehicles" for beauty, said: "this is what poets and artists bring us―the immense and unsuspected reality of a small thing.  Everything has its own patient entityhood."  George Levine call for "a profound attention to the details of this world."
-  Peter Watson, "The Age of Atheists: How We Have Sought to Live Since the Death of God," p.536

"The idea of one overbearing truth is exhausted."
- Thomas Mann, translated by James Wood  

"My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind."
-  Albert Einstein

"To study the self is to forget the self.  To forget the self is to be enlightened by the ten thousand things."
-  Zen Master Dogen

"The more we understand individual things, the more we understand God."
-  Benedict De Spinoza

"God is in the details."
-  Mies Van Der Rohe

"After appreciating and understanding thousands of the details, a common variety God is really superfluous."
-  Mike Garofalo

"Caress the detail, the divine detail."
-  Vladimir Nabokov

"Details are all there are."
-  Maezumi Roshi

"We think in generalities, but we live in details."
-  W.H. Auden

Gardening and Spirituality

Gardening and Religion

The Five Senses: Experience, Observation, Feelings

Green Way Research General Index

Dao De Jing, Chapter 18

Dao De Jing by Laozi, Chapter 18

"When humankind strayed from the natural way of life,
Relative social disciplines began to appear. 
When intelligence and cleverness of mind are admired,
Great hypocrisy is born. 
When disharmony manifested in family relations,
Children who respected their parents
And parents who respected their children
Became rare examples. 
When chaos prevailed in the county,
Only a few loyal ministers were recognized. 
Let all people return to their true nature. 
Love, kindness, wisdom, family harmony, and loyalty
Should not be taught one by one,
Separately from an honest life. 
Then, once again,
People will regain the natural virtue of wholeness. 
The world will be naturally ordered.  
There will be no one who singly and cunningly
Works for personal interest alone."
-   Translated by Hua-Ching Ni, 1979, Chapter 18  

"When the great Reason is obliterated, we have benevolence and justice.
Prudence and circumspection appear, and we have much hypocrisy.
When family relations no longer harmonize, we have filial piety and paternal devotion.  When the country and the clans decay through disorder, we have loyalty and allegiance."
-   Translated by D. T. Suzuki and Paul Carus, 1913, Chapter 18    

"Therefore;
when the Heavenly Way was forgotten,
there arose 'humaneness' and 'righteousness;'
when cunning and Wit arose,
there came great falsity;
when the loving relations between people, as if all of one family,
was lost, there arose Religions in the world.
Once the state and royal house were in disarray,
there arose 'upright ministers!'"
-   Translated by Jerry C. Welch, 1998, Chapter 18   
 

"When the Way of the Great Dao ceased to be observed, benevolence and righteousness came into vogue.
Then appeared wisdom and shrewdness, and there ensued great hypocrisy. 
When harmony no longer prevailed throughout the six kinships, filial sons found their manifestation. 
When the states and clans fell into disorder, loyal ministers appeared."   
-   Translated by James Legge, 1891, Chapter 18   

"When the Great Way is abandoned,
we get benevolence and righteousness.

When wisdom and knowledge appear,
we get great deception.

When there is no harmony in the family,
we get family values and kindness.

When the homeland is in chaos and confusion,
we get loyal bureaucrats."
-   Translated by Roderic and Amy Sorrell, 2003, Chapter 18   

"Wherever the cosmic order is neglected,
Goodness and morality are born.

When the heart’s awareness is repressed,
The intellect is led into hypocrisy.

When the family loses its natural harmony,
The rules of duty and honor are enforced.

When the natural society is disrupted,
The dragon of state arises,
And powerful leaders take over."
-   Translated by Brian Donohue, 2005, Chapter 18   

"When Tao is abandoned,
Benevolence and morality arise.
When wisdom and knowledge arise,
Hypocrisy flourishes.

When there is discord in the family,¹
Filial piety and parental affection arise.
When the country is in darkness and turmoil,
Loyal ministers appear."
-   Translated by Keith H. Seddon, Chapter 18   

A typical webpage created by Mike Garofalo for each one of the 81 Chapters (Verses, Sections) of the Tao Te Ching (Daodejing) by Lao Tzu (Laozi) includes over 25 different English language translations or interpolations for that Chapter, 5 Spanish language translations for that Chapter, the Chinese characters for that Chapter, the Wade-Giles and Hanyu Pinyin transliterations (Romanization) of the Mandarin Chinese words for that Chapter, and 2 German and 1 French translation of that Chapter.  Each webpage for each one of the 81 Chapters of the Tao Te Ching includes extensive indexing by key words, phrases, and terms for that Chapter in English, Spanish, and the Wade-Giles Romanization.  Each webpage on a Chapter of the Daodejing includes recommended reading in books and websites, a detailed bibliography, some commentary, research leads, translation sources, and other resources for that Chapter.  Each webpage includes a Google Translate drop down menu at the top that enables you to read the webpage in over 100 languages.

Chapter 18, Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu

Chapter Indexing for the Tao Te Ching

English Language Daodejing Translators' Source Index

Spanish Language Daodejing Translators' Source Index

Ripening Peaches: Taoist Studies and Practices

Taoism: A Selected Reading List

Concordance to the Tao Te Ching (2018 Project)

One Old Daoist Druid's Final Journey  

How to Live a Good Life: Advice from Wise Persons