It is time for lessons to be learned and the few basic principles of life to be awakened to, there's always blessings to be grateful for and remembering this is the most fundamental of all principles; just being thankful to be alive and well is a good place to start. Then there is the sense of compassion, empathy or even just simple caring towards all sentient beings on the face of this planet no matter what size shape or color, to share Loving Kindness as our primary approach to every being; this simply means, there is no hatred. Having a charitable heart is paramount to each and everyone of us if we are to consider ourselves as human beings created in the image of The Maker. A charitable heart would mean that there is no coveting, no hoarding, no possessing of what is not rightfully ours, in short, no greed. The Pandemic has afford most of us to reflect, to rehash, reevaluate, and reconcile in some cases with who we take ourselves to be. Having lived life for the past seventy odd years staying well within the comfort zone and in keeping with the herd mentality, thinking within the confines of what is considered to be rational to the norm, having to abide by the pandemic guidelines such as lock downs and social distancing, has brought to surface some new perspectives as to what I am all about, and what humans are capable of.
Our so called normal habits is now being turned topsy turvy, our sleeping hours has been rearranged, we even eat at different times and home cooked food is becoming a rarity cause there is a delivery service for just anything you want under the sun. Life as we know it will never be the same anymore for most of us and this is what the COVID19 pandemic has wrought upon humanity going on two years now. Our personal relationships has been put on hold as we are forced to observe social distancing and our joy of travelling and exploring is curtailed due to no border crossings and so what are we to do? I have chosen to continue on doing what I have been dong and that is looking less and less out there and going deeper into myself, it seems like the best opportunity has been presented for those who are on the journey of self discovery. I do my house chores as best i can and with better aptitude and much more awareness, even singing while doing the dishes instead of swearing at my kids for not cleaning up after themselves like I use to. Do the laundry and so on without any negative thoughts or complaints, work on an acrylic painting off and on, keep writing this Blog no matter if it is read by anyone or not; the point is to keep on doing for no apparent reason or excuse and most importantly to do it whole heartedly.
This is one form of practice in the effort to bring the mind to a more focused and less scattered state. The monkey mind as it is called is never tired of imposing itself upon you with stories of the past, present and future so much so that you find no room for you to think of what you need to think of. Like if you are an artist you will not find any inspiration to create anything that is original, coming out of your inner nature. It becomes a struggle to create anything out of the ordinary as the moment you hold the brush thoughts will flood your consciousness from out of nowhere and harass you from being spontaneous or fluid in your expression, This is where one puts practice into motion by reverting back to the saying stop!, if one remembers, or chant a verse or two besieging the power that be to intervene. Yes, there are times when the monkey mind has so much hold on you that you may need to call on your Maker to help you out and do it you have to. Personally I find that I keep forgetting how useless I am when my mind gets the better of me with thoughts and memories and especially thoughts of self aggrandizement and narc ism, when I do something a little out of the ordinary and the ego inflates. I would drift off from my immediate attention to what I am doing and loose the sense of freedom and fluidity that I had found. Under normal circumstances I would naturally lose my composure or even get annoyed or angry and give in to even being destructive than creative. When this happens I can see how my works would take a dive for the worse, like my painting would become dark and chaotic, or meaningless; dead.
Sometime in the late eighties while living in San Francisco I was working at a facility where Underground Fuel Tanks were brought in from all over the Western seaboard of the United States to be disposed off when their warranty expired. These tanks that were at one time used for the storage of all kinds of fuel, from petroleum products to farm products and various other chemicals varied in sizes. They were as large as 38 thousand gallons fuel tanks to a one hundred gallon steel drums. The whole purpose of the operation was to cut them open and clean the insides of sludge and rust before disposing them off to a recycling facility. I was in charge of the whole operation, I was the 'Yard Boss' as they called me and my job was to make sure that no one gets killed while cutting up a 12 thousand or 20 thousand gallon fuel tank that used to contain unleaded fuel that was dug out of a gas station somewhere in town. These steel tanks would have about a quarter of an inch thick plates on average depending on the sizes of the tanks and in order to clean up the insides they will have to be cut open using an acetylene torch. For safety's purposes the tanks were steamed to purge the insides of any residue of fuel or gasses and this would take an average of two to three house of running super hot steam through the tanks until no flammable fuel residue was detected. This would be finally confirm by a 'flame test' whereby the flame from the cutting torch is introduced to the steam exiting from the tank. If the tank is free of any flammable gas there would be no flame exiting from the tank hole where the steam was emitted and if there be flame shooting out with the steam, the tank was still 'hot', not ready to be cut, more steaming time was needed. Needles to say, Underground Tank cutting and disposal is a very dangerous job and demands strict attention to safety regulations.
Now the reason I am telling this episode in my life is because I enjoyed cutting the tanks even though it was my job to do so and we had a tank cutter whose job it was simply to do this. However I was very intrigued by the process whereby an acetylene torch with a handle three feet in length was used to cut a three quarter inch steel plate posted too much of a challenge for me not to take it on myself. The first instant the flame from the torch penetrates the steel plate which is about three feet from you is the most crucial as it could mean life and death; the flame could ignite any remaining residue of fuel or gas trapped inside the tank and the tank could blow up. It is like lighting a fuse to a dynamite only there is no fuse in this case. This danger was not what attracted me as crazy as I was I was not suicidal and I do take calculated risks of and when I felt there was no danger that threatened my life. What fascinated me about the tank cutting was the process itself. I had never handled an acetylene torch before I took on the job, however after learning the basics of it, I was hooked to watching the flame cut through the steel plate through my goggles. It was like watching a molten lava flow as the tip of the flame seared through the quarter inch steel plate like a hot knife through a piece of butter. The trick was to hold your concentration focused at the very point where the flame met the steel. That was the essence of meditation in action.
For almost six years of working at H&H Ship and Environmental Services on the water front of downtown San Francisco I must have cut a few thousand steel tanks of various sizes. Although I had a few close calls I was never seriously hurt and I felt myself alive and in control of what I was doing. On an average I would spend three hours or so non stop cutting up tanks for disposal. I was at the peak of my capability in carrying out my duties as a 'Yard Superintendent', my job title, I was in charge and I felt in charge. While running the yard operations for the number of years the company never had a fatal accident of any kind. One week to the day I was hired as a sweeper to the company a man had died a gruesome death when a six thousand gallon underground fuel tank he was cutting had exploded and sent his body into the air landing 75 yards from where he was standing; I took on his job. I had just been asked to leave the Zen Buddhist monastery at Green Gulch Farm in Marin County, California and the Zen Mind Beginner's Mind of Shunryu Suzuki was still very much a part of me after two years of serious practice ad soul searching. I had been able to put the Zen practice into practical manifestation taking on what was one of the most hazardous if not deadly dangerous job and turned into a profitable business for my employers.
#undergroundfueltanks #h&hshipservices #Zenmindbeginnersmind #shuryusuzukiroshi #greengulchfarm #zencenter
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