Mentors, Family, and the Lessons at Home -

                                                         Bahari at Golden Gate Park.

 There are seasons in life when the lessons we need most arrive quietly, through daily rhythms rather than grand events. Mentors, children, neighbors, even a park down the street—they all teach in ways subtle and profound. Looking back now, I see how these ordinary days, woven with care, challenge, and laughter, shaped me more than any headline or milestone ever could. What follows is a reflection on those years—on mentorship, fatherhood, and the hidden wealth of a life lived in presence.

 – Mentors, Family, and the Lessons of a Home

              The Chief and his Grandaughter with Karim at the opening of my Art Exhibition

Tim Mosquida—better known as “the Chief” at H&H Ship Services in downtown San Francisco—was my mentor at work. He carried himself with quiet authority, respected by all, and even served on the Navajo Tribal Council in New Mexico and Arizona. His guidance helped me navigate the workplace, but the real lessons of responsibility were waiting for me at home.

At 72 or 73, the old man was hard of hearing and shouted when he spoke, as if I were deaf. He reminded me of my father, even in appearance. And yet, beneath his rough edges, he held wisdom I carried for years.

At the same time, my late wife, Nancy, was teaching at UC Berkeley’s downtown campus on Market Street, balancing her career with the demands of family life. Nazri, my eldest, had just returned from Berlin, where I had proudly watched him graduate from the Berlin American High School and hand over his ROTC Battalion Commander position to his successor. That moment reminded me how fast children grow—and how fatherhood is as much about letting go as holding on.

                                                  Babysitting at Golden Gate Park. My job.

Karim, still a chubby little boy then, was my pride and joy. He had raised me as much as I raised him, softening the edges of my anger and impatience, turning me into a father who tried, however imperfectly, to give love where it was most needed. I thank God for His mercy, for saving me through my son.

Then came Marissa Estelle. Born at St. Luke’s Hospital in the Mission District, she entered the world with spunk in her eyes. From day one, she was a fiery spirit, always up to something the moment our backs were turned. As the only girl, she claimed a special place in our hearts, adored by her brothers and showered with affection, though Karim often tried to boss her around.

We were not wealthy, but we were rich in ways that mattered. In the Richmond District, we found not only a home but a family beyond blood. The Roethes—Peter and Tomi, with Elli and Kai—were like kin, living just down the street. The Hallocks—Jack and Yuri, with Kristy and Jesse—were part of our circle, always ready to lend a hand. Together, these friends stitched a safety net around us, ensuring that no matter what challenges came, we were never truly alone.

                                                                   Nancy and the Kids.

Rossi Park, just a block away on Arguello and Balboa, became the center of our universe. We called it the “Rossi Park gang,” where parents clustered and children played, scraped their knees, and dreamed their dreams. Memo Folco and his wife, Therese, along with their children, were part of our daily ritual. Memo was originally from Argentina, and we became close friends. Some families came from Russia and neighboring countries, mostly Jewish immigrants transitioning to Israel. In this small corner of San Francisco, we learned from each other—about cultures, kindness, and life itself.

                                                     May she rest in Peace, InshaAllah.

Looking back, I see how those years wove together—mentorship at work, Nancy’s dedication to teaching, and the ordinary but sacred days of family life in the Richmond District. I succeeded at some things and failed at others, but I take pride in the four lives entrusted to me: Nazri, Timo, Karim, and Marissa.

A father always desires the best for his children. But the best is never truly known in advance. It unfolds in time, as the children grow—and as the fatherhood grows with them.

#FamilyLife #Fatherhood #Mentorship #SanFrancisco #Community #ParentingJourney #LifeLessons #DailyPractice #Presence #UnseenRealm

Fault Lines: Earthquakes, Compassion, and the Shape of Love - 1989

 

                                               My wife Nancy Buss Bahari with Karim.

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Fault Lines: Earthquakes, Compassion, and the Shape of Love

There are mornings when nothing feels particularly profound—no visions, no revelations, just the body moving through heat, fatigue, and habit. And yet, it is often in these quiet, unremarkable moments that the deepest lessons surface. This reflection arises not from certainty, but from drifting; not from answers, but from the simple act of staying present while the mind resists and the body carries on. What follows is less a teaching and more a reminder—first to myself, and perhaps to others walking similar inner terrain.

After many years, thanks to Facebook, I reconnected with an old friend—Elyze Stewart. That simple reconnection pulled me back to a place and a time that shaped the rest of my life.

Elyze once lived at 191 Haight Street, the old Georgian apartment building on the corner of Octavia and Haight. That was where I first met my late wife, Nancy. I had been introduced to the building by my Zen buddy David Carlson, who lived there as well.

My In-Laws from Illinois
 

At the time, I was staying on Army Street, near the junction of Mission and Army, in a room inside a converted Sears Roebuck building. Long abandoned, it had been taken over by artists and transformed into makeshift apartments and studios. I shared the space with another artist named Rory—his last name has faded from memory—and together we hosted a show during the San Francisco Open Studios Exhibition.

It was in that building that I experienced the Loma Prieta Earthquake of 1989.

The quake struck on October 17, the most powerful since 1906. Sixty-three people lost their lives. Thousands were injured. Billions of dollars in damage rippled across the Bay Area. The Cypress Street Viaduct collapsed. A section of the Bay Bridge fell away. Fires broke out in the Marina. Much of it unfolded live on television, captured by the Goodyear blimp that had been filming the World Series at Candlestick Park—forever marking it as the “Earthquake Series.”

I had just returned home from my job as a produce buyer for Del Tomasso. Exhausted, I lay down on my bed when the building began to shudder with a sound like gunfire. Pipes tore loose. Nail hooks sprang from the ceiling. Concrete cracked as debris fell. I reached the doorway just as the lights went out.

A woman clung to me in the darkness, trembling. Outside, the roar of the earth sounded like a freight train tearing through the city. Then—silence.

A child cried in the next room. A phone rang. When the lights flickered back on, the woman answered it. Her friend in Tokyo was already on the line, telling her that the Bay Bridge had collapsed and the Marina was on fire.

Instead of resting, I walked toward 191 Haight Street, passing through Mission Dolores to check on friends. Strangely, that neighborhood had been spared the worst.

                                              My Love and I - Living on 2nd Av, and Balboa.

David Carlson was especially close to me. I had visited him often, and the day before the quake had been his birthday. I brought him a lithograph of Yamantaka, the Tibetan Buddhist protector of the Dharma.

It was in his living room, during that visit, that I first saw Nancy.

She looked tired—worn, perhaps even defeated. Yet in that moment, I heard my mother’s voice rise clearly within me:

You’ve always chased beauty on the outside.
Try to see the beauty within this time.

It wasn’t love at first sight.
It was compassion at first intention.

I resolved quietly that I would help bring out the hidden radiance within her. In time, Nancy became an angel in my life—the mother of my children, my companion until illness claimed her far too soon.

Perhaps she, too, had mixed feelings when she first saw me. I will never know. But within a year, we were married at the Green Gulch Zen Temple. She was already carrying our son, whom she gave birth to just ten days later.

Above, Dr. Samuel Kawamoto and below David Carlson and Diane Rabinowitz

                                            It was a Garden Party at Green Gulch Farm.

As I’ve often said, the devil is in the details, so I won’t dwell on the inner mechanics of our marriage. I will simply say this: I loved her. And I believe I succeeded in drawing forth the inner beauty I saw in her that very first day.

Spiritual teachings remind us not to cling to the past. Yet returning to these memories brings me healing. They are a form of catharsis—a way of releasing and integrating. I was never perfect. I made mistakes. But I was present. I was committed. I was alive.

Now, in my later years, I live without regret. Everything—love and loss, joy and pain—belonged to the path that shaped me. Writing is how I gather these fragments of my soul, turning them into compost for new growth.

If anyone ever asks why I write so much about myself, the answer is simple:

This is how I honor the life I was given.

                                   It was't too bad, really! We did it Our Way.- Stinson Beach, CA.

Beginner’s Mind, the Yard, and the Broom A Retrospective from the Streets of San Francisco

The Dispatcher H&H Ship and Environmental Services.

Beginner’s Mind, the Yard, and the Broom

A Retrospective from the Streets of San Francisco - 1985- 1990?

After two years at a Zen monastery, I learned something I did not expect.

I learned that I could lose everything—my place in the Sangha, my roof, my safety net—and still carry something no one could take from me: a beginner’s mind.

When I left Green Gulch Zen Center, I was homeless. No money. No plan. What I did have was the kindness of friends and a willingness to start again from the bottom. I slept under a kitchen table in a converted garage on the corner of Haight and Ashbury, right at the edge of Golden Gate Park. From monastic silence, I stepped straight into the noise and grit of San Francisco.

An odd job cleaning a yard led me to work at H&H Ship Services and Environmental Services down at China Basin. I started as a sweeper. Within days, I learned that a man had died there just a week before I arrived—killed instantly when a fuel tank exploded during cutting. There had been no proper safety precautions. His body had been thrown through the air like debris.

That knowledge changed everything.

           I dare say the Yard was transformed after I was hired as the Yard Superintendent. 

What I saw in the yard was chaos, neglect, and fear disguised as toughness. Men worked in lethal conditions without training, protection, or dignity. The toilets were unfit for animals. The yard was littered with waste. It was not just dirty—it was dangerous.

Somewhere between cleaning parking lots and scrubbing latrines, my Zen practice followed me out of the monastery. Beginner’s mind met real life. And I realized something simple: if I could clean this place, I could help save lives.

When I was promoted—first unofficially, then formally—I became an outsider in charge. Asian. Non-union. New. I faced resentment, threats, and violence. I had a knife to my neck. Took a punch that nearly broke my jaw. Was threatened with a metal pipe in the middle of the yard. Rumors spread. Envy followed.

But I also found brotherhood.

                               The 3 Muckers - Arthue Watson, Carlos Molena and Mr. Herman Renaud

Men stood by me when things turned ugly. Elders, laborers, fire watchers—men whose lives depended on trust when cutting twelve-thousand-gallon fuel tanks. I learned to communicate across cultures without words: Cubans, Filipinos, Black elders, and Vietnamese youth. Many lacked formal education, but all understood dignity when it was given honestly.

I made safety training mandatory. Clean coveralls daily—for everyone, including truck drivers. I reminded them, again and again, of the man who died. Not to frighten them, but to anchor responsibility.

                                       
 What USTD was all about. With Brother Oddel Edwards.

Out of all this emerged what I later called The Broom Philosophy:

Keep the house clean—literally and spiritually.

Start with the toilet.
Then the yard.
Then the mind.
Then the soul.

Cleanliness is not cosmetic.
Discipline is not punishment.
They are forms of care.

Eventually, they called me The Yard Boss. Officially, I was the Yard Superintendent at 220 China Basin, beside the old Third Street drawbridge. Over six years, the workforce grew from fifteen men to more than forty. Alongside researchers from UC Berkeley, I helped draft safety protocols for underground storage tank disposal—procedures that later became national standards under new EPA regulations.

H&H became the only company on the West Coast licensed to do that work. The business flourished. But the real heroes were the yard boys—the men who crawled inside the dark bellies of fuel tanks, scraping toxic sludge by hand.

That yard is gone now. Buried beneath a baseball park. The company is gone too. But the lessons remain etched in me.

Leadership, I learned, is not about authority.
It is about service.
About protecting those who cannot afford mistakes.
About doing the work no one wants to do—first.

Beginner’s mind did not leave me when I left the monastery.

It followed me into the dirt, the danger, and the brotherhood of the yard.
And it has stayed with me ever since.

---

Kembara Angkasa/ Cosmic Voyage - Art Exhibition - MGTF -USM. - 20 -1- 2026

 

                                                                                                                                                                                

 My gift to the Mufti of Penang, who officiated at the event.

Explaining my work to the Mufti.

                                            VIP- Guests viewing my work - 'The Twin Planets.' This work is being donated to the Peang Astronomy Society via Dr. Chong, the Society's Chairman and my very good friend.

                     Guests from Indonesia are admiring my work,  'Space The Final Frontier.'

                                          Flanked by Ayoub from Iran and Peter from Hungary.

                           Hasnul (former Museum Director), Dr. Chong Asronomer, and the Artist.

                                                      With Ayub, Iranian Phd. Student.

When the Mind Will Not Rest

                                                                 What's my goal in life?

When the Mind Will Not Rest

A note on remembrance, the body, and laying down unseen burdens

“Verily, in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest.”
(Qur’an 13:28)

There are times when there is so much to share, yet nowhere to begin.

If there is a choice to be made, it is this: whether to follow the mind as it revisits the past in endless loops, or to step back and observe what is really happening. For me, this has felt like an onslaught of incessant thoughts—mostly memories—arriving uninvited, demanding attention, draining energy, and quietly sabotaging focus. At night,
especially, they have a way of keeping one awake.

Part of me dismisses these thoughts as insignificant or irrelevant. Another part recognises them as dis-ease—energy stuck, unresolved, feeding a low-grade sadness that can slide into depression if left unattended.

The question that arises again and again is a familiar one:

Is there a sure-fire way to stop the mind from thinking?

The honest answer, after many years walking the intersecting paths of Zen, Sufi practice, and Yoga, is no. The mind generates thoughts the way the heart pumps blood. Trying to silence it often creates more struggle than peace.

What is possible, however, is to stop being captured by thought.

Recently, during zikr, something simple yet profound happened. As remembrance deepened, my body began to respond on its own. My spine straightened. My head rotated slowly, gently, without conscious effort. After a few minutes, light physical stretching followed—again, not forced, not planned.

When it passed, my mind was quieter. Not empty—but less occupied. I felt lighter, as if a great deal of invisible baggage had been put down.

This was not new. And yet, it felt like a reminder rather than a technique.

Across traditions, such experiences are understood differently:

• In Sufism, as the body aligns with remembrance

• In Zen, as posture finds itself

• In Yoga, as energy (prana) moving where it had been held

Labels are not important. What matters is this:

The body often knows how to release what the mind keeps circling.

What I was reminded of—again—is that the practice is not about silencing thought, but about orientation. Not erasing memory, but returning the heart to its compass.

In Islam, we are not asked to empty the mind. We are asked to remember.

Dhikr is not mental control.
It is anchoring.

When remembrance is sincere, the nervous system softens. Old tensions release. Thoughts lose their grip—not because they are fought, but because they are no longer believed to be who we are.

Even after decades on a spiritual path, reminders are still needed. Perhaps especially then. Depth does not eliminate waves; it gives us a steadier keel.

If you find yourself awake at night, burdened by memories, looping thoughts, or a vague heaviness you cannot name, know this: you are not failing. You are not regressing. Something is asking to be met—not escaped.

Sometimes, all that is required is to allow the process to complete itself.

To trust it.

And to lay down what was never meant to be carried forever.

Wallahu a‘lam.

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Hashtags (horizontal, gentle reach):
#Remembrance #Zikr #SpiritualPractice #RestlessMind #InnerWork #SufiReflections #ZenAndIslam #EmbodiedAwareness #MentalFatigue #LettingGo #WalkingThePath

Holding the Hand That Isn’t There

                                                 My Brother, David Carlson, and his Partner, Daiane. 
 

Holding the Hand That Isn’t There

I woke this morning from one of the most vivid dreams I have had in a long while — or perhaps two dreams that were really one conversation, spoken in different languages.

In the first, I found myself among people who had worked underwater, laying cables or performing some unseen labour beneath the sea. Their bodies bore the cost of that work. Limbs had degenerated; fingers were missing, as though worn away by time, pressure, or something corrosive. The atmosphere was sad, heavy, and eerily calm.

One man stood out. I felt, without being told, that he was my late second-eldest brother. At the same time — impossibly, but unmistakably — he was also my closest friend, David Carlson, who now lives in a care home in Los Angeles. The two identities coexisted in the same fragile body, as though the dream had folded different chapters of my life into a single figure.

His condition frightened me. Not in the sense of disgust, but in the way loss frightens — the fear of touching what might already be slipping away. Someone said my name aloud. When they did, the sick man stirred, rose as if suddenly awakened, and shouted my name in return. We moved toward each other and embraced.

I took his hands in mine. Fingers were missing. The hands were damaged, incomplete — and yet I felt no hesitation. No revulsion. Only love. I held them firmly, as though to say, I am here. I am not afraid. I began shouting, “I love you,” again and again. When I woke, I was still crying — and still felt his hands clasped in mine.

I must have fallen asleep again, because a second dream followed.

This time I was in a small community. People were sleeping together in one room, and they welcomed me as though they had known me for a long time. There was no need to explain who I was or why I was there. I simply belonged. I asked why they weren’t using an adjacent room, and they told me something strange or unsettling was happening there. I didn’t feel compelled to investigate.

Soon after, I found myself in a large, empty shop lot. I had the sense that I was about to start a small art class there. Nothing had begun yet. No students had arrived. The space was simply waiting.

Then I woke.

At first, I couldn’t make sense of the connection between these dreams — if there was one at all. But one thing stayed with me: the feeling in my hands, and the certainty of love without conditions.

When I woke fully, I did something unusual for me. I immediately messaged David’s partner in Los Angeles to ask how he was. She replied that David now sleeps most of the time and responds mainly to the care given by professional caregivers. She added that she was grateful I had reached out — that it meant a great deal to her.

That response quietly completed the circle.

I don’t believe dreams are puzzles to be solved so much as experiences to be listened to. This one didn’t give me answers. It gave me direction. It reminded me that even as bodies weaken, identities blur, and people drift toward sleep, love still recognizes its own. Sometimes all it needs is to be spoken aloud.

And perhaps, after that love is acknowledged, life gently asks us to return to the work that remains: making space, teaching, creating, offering what we can — not in grand gestures, but in simple rooms that are ready to be used.

Some hands we hold only in dreams.
Some we reach for in waking life.
Either way, the holding is real.

---

A quiet note from the unseen

Some experiences do not come to instruct the mind, but to realign the heart.
This dream — and the action it awakened — reminds us that human development is not measured by progress, strength, or clarity alone, but by our capacity to remain tender in the presence of decline.

To love without recoil, to reach out without certainty, to respond before understanding — these are signs not of weakness, but of maturity. When we are able to hold what is broken, sleeping, or incomplete without turning away, something in us comes back into alignment.

Perhaps this is how the unseen speaks:
not in answers, but in gestures that restore connection —
not in visions of the future, but in reminders of what still matters now.

Wallahu a‘lam.

#Dreams #LoveWithoutConditions #HoldingOn #HumanFragility #UnseenConnections #GriefAndGrace #AgingWithHeart #SpiritualAlignment #DreamReflections #StillHoldingHands

I Struggle Through the Morning and Discovered the Quantum Ladder.

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Once You Climb the Quantum Ladder, You Finally Understand Why Most Never Even Try

I struggled through the morning.

I woke at six a.m. with my mind insisting I was too tired, nursing what felt like a migraine, and quietly negotiating excuses before my feet even touched the floor. Still, I cooked my daughter’s lunch bucket, fed the cats, showered, and drove both my children to work. According to my daughter, that simple routine saves her RM16 a day in parking fees. A small thing—yet a real one.

After that, I went for breakfast at my usual place: soft-boiled eggs and toast, a modest daily pleasure when it’s available. Then to the nearby market to buy fish for the cats, back home to clean and boil it for them. I watered the plants on the patio so they might survive another day of unforgiving heat. Hung the clothes from the washer. Fed the cats again.

At seventy-seven, I could have refused all of it. The body would have justified me. The mind certainly tried. But somehow, the day kept moving.

Later, I sat in front of the television scrolling through the news, more out of mental fatigue than interest. The familiar circus—Donald Trump, the American Congress, the DOJ—looped endlessly on YouTube, a drama designed to occupy consciousness when it is most vulnerable.

Then I stumbled upon a video:
“Once You Climb the Quantum Ladder, You Finally Understand Why Most Never Even Try.”
Quantum Reflex.

Something clicked. Not dramatically. Quietly. Like recognition rather than discovery.

What the “Quantum Ladder” really is

The Quantum Ladder is not a spiritual achievement, nor a badge of awakening. It isn’t climbed by intelligence, effort, or ambition. In fact, that may be why most people never even attempt it—the ladder offers nothing to the ego.

Each rung represents a subtle shift in how experience is met.

At the lower rungs, we live fused to our inner narration:
I am tired. I am in pain. I am this story.

But somewhere along the way—often through age, weariness, disappointment, or simply continuing despite resistance—a small gap appears:
I am aware of tiredness. I am aware of pain. I am aware of this story.

That gap changes everything.

Nothing outward disappears. The chores remain. The body aches. The mind complains. Cats still need feeding. Plants still need water. But something fundamental is no longer confused. Consciousness is no longer fully hijacked by the commentary.

This is why the climb feels lonely.

The ladder doesn’t pull you out of life—it keeps you right inside it, just no longer imprisoned by it. There is no drama, no revelation to announce, no audience to applaud. Only a growing clarity that what is aware has been quietly present all along, carrying the load without complaint.

The reflex, when it comes, isn’t excitement.
It’s recognition.

Watching that video, I realized my morning had already explained it better than words ever could. Despite fatigue, despite resistance, despite the mind’s insistence—I moved. Life moved. Awareness remained untouched.

And once you’ve tasted that even briefly, you understand why most never try to climb the ladder. Not because it is difficult—but because it gently dismantles the identity we’ve spent a lifetime defending.

Nothing mystical.
Nothing heroic.

Just this quiet knowing:

I am not what is struggling.
I am what is aware of the struggle.

And somehow, that is enough for another day.

#QuantumLadder #QuantumReflex #QuietAwakening #EverydayConsciousness #AgingWithAwareness #StillnessInMotion #NotTheMind #LivedSpirituality #OrdinaryMorning #WitnessingLife

Art Exhibition: The Cosmic Voyager at Museum Gallery Tuanku Fauziah - USM

 

Three of my artworks have been chosen for the upcoming event at the Museum Galleri Tuaku Fauziah - Universiti Sains Malaysia. I was invited to participate by Dr. Chong, who is the Chairman of the Penang Astronomy Society. The show will be launched on the 20th. of January, 2026.

This large piece, entitled - 'Alam Ghaib,' or the Unseen Realm, was donated to the University. It was done in mixed media of mainly Acrylic and pasted on burlap.

                        This piece of 3'x3' was done in acrylic on canvas. Titled: Space, The Final Frontier.

This piece was done in acrylic on canvas measuring 3'x4.' Titled: The Twin Planets.