f ourte e n .

THE FIELD
THE SWORDMASTER RETURNS, WITH GIFTS
DARKNESS IS NAMED, REVEALED IN THE WINDING STREETS

THE GILL TRACT OF ALBANY

I strive to leave the communication unvarnished, wild

and unkempt, practically unedited — to give nature its
magic and resonance, not something manufactured to cleverly
promote my entity as something apart from it, nor to live in
this wild place. It appears here because of my intent to convey
the deep truth, one that will ultimately leave you disheveled,
alone, completely at the mercy of the elements — because
we have made walls and barriers, and cannot truly know our-
selves. As you will see, this is necessary, for now. One day we
will live without barriers, but this is not a world that can be de-
scribed or imagined. We have to work from the bare ground,
the everyday suffering and turmoil that describes us.
***
The whole thing began back in 2000 with a pile of note-
books from Korea and the desert that would become The Zen
Revolution. I bought an old laptop to begin editing the man-
uscript, and there encountered the beast that was Windows
95. I began reading manuals, learning programs, editing the
material almost as an afterthought. I had no luck with being
a writer: finding an agent, getting anyone to look at the manu-
script — I suppose no one does at first, but having no reaction
or feedback, and believing fully in the quality of my work, I
reached the only possible conclusion: people weren’t reading
anymore. The book went on a shelf, for years, and I built a
series of workstations, through all the major revisions of soft-
ware and hardware — to learn how to edit video. It’s really
come into its own. I’m excited for what the next generation
will bring with the tools we have available. What a world…
I’m sitting in an IMAX theater in Los Angeles a few min-
utes before Tron Legacy. The sound system is the best I’ve
heard: electronic music, the rise of humanity, the thing being
built, musically. Despite the mixed reviews, I lovd the film, but
no time to waste, the next moment a flight to Berkeley. So
many people traveling for the holidays, the corridors thrum-
ming with beautiful human noise: silly dramas, jumping chil-
dren, security checkpoints that change on impulse.
I can remember not too long ago when I was boiling in-
side with whatever pointless thing: frustration, dwelling on my
shortcomings, those of others. Knowing this state so well, I
easily recognize it, see it constantly, understand that most are
caught under their own spell, drugged by it — I can’t find fault
with them, not anymore. We aren’t ready to go beyond form,
to become liberated. If you are not ready, there’s no rush.
Stay in the dream a while longer. For those who are no longer
amused, not satisfied with the human situation… there’s no
escaping it, of course, but wanting to escape isn’t the way to
go. The grasping, rejecting, judging remain, no matter how
far. It’s truly an end of its own, this freedom, an orchestration.
You’ll only know how the notes are struck when the madness
recedes of its own and the drug loses its hold; the thousand
entanglements fall away, in their place the great peace.
You may ask, “Isn’t this an escape?” How to explain? The
first real breakthrough I had depended on holding no concerns
and being in harmony with all beings. This is the way of the
Mahayana, the great vehicle. The whole must be taken in at
once and thoroughly accepted, all facets of reality given prop-
er respect, for this is the field of mind.
***
I fly north to spend the holidays with Kye Soen and her
children. A man can’t always take the low road. Up in the afflu-
ent clouds the turbulence is fierce, the peanuts few. There was
a great and steady rain blowing through Los Angeles county,
something unusual for all the years I’ve spent there. The 737
slices through gusts of it like a cheese knife. Apparently there’s
a range of atmospheric conditions this beast can handle, but
it’s strange and certainly troubling to watch it unfold.
Back in North Berkeley, the first thing I notice is a large
fenced off field that fronts the housing unit. The Gill Tract, it’s
a ten–acre block once famous for Edward Gill’s roses, now run
by the Albany Unified School District and UC Berkeley as an
educational farm. The first time I saw the corn, I wanted inside
the fence — to record it. I never made it in. It’s surrounded
by a hurricane fence seven feet high, forested on one corner
with a small stream running through it. Signs everywhere
warn against trespassing. The treasures inside out of reach,
this modern world, how many boundaries, borders, fences,
walls? Do we respect them, stay within their confines? Yes. And
so our world is confined to the public spaces and easements
between them: thoroughfares, sidewalks, the open door of a
neighbor or friend. But I was not raised this way. I grew up in
an impenetrable wilderness. There were fences, barbed–wire,
easily crossed, and vast distances of unbroken forests and fields
left to go wild, and no one, not even a single friend, to hin-
der me. As a result, or consequence, I hardly tolerate the way
things are.
As I make my way around the fence, hounded by traffic
and glaring windows, searching for the smallest opening, I’m
left with no recourse other than to observe the trembling mud-
holes through the wire, look upon the pale yellow flowers as
they move gently in the breeze. The muddy furrows of the
cut–down field will not destroy my city shoes, the cold ground
will not find me embracing it — instead the sterile cage, and
me pacing, knowing what it’s like to have it firsthand. But
without the proper credentials…
Everything is parceled off, the satellite images of Google
Earth show it in fine detail. If you zoom in to any area, what
you see is not a free–flowing wilderness, but a patchwork, a
mosaic of fields. We’ve changed the terrain substantially from
what it was. There’s no way to pass freely through the fields,
to know them. Our understanding of the world, and by exten-
sion ourselves, is from outside the fence, the gate, the latch —
all of it cordoned off. In our inexorable move toward the cities,
the hive, we’ve all become prisoners. There is no freedom, the
restrictions we face cauterizing; there’s no point that we aren’t
confounded by them. We can only enjoy the amount of land
we can pay for, and whatever public space left to us. I’m not
saying we should do things differently, but that our world is
one of constraint, sacrifice — to learn discipline is to learn to
breathe. The dance, the drill… the child cries because it has
found one of these barriers, obstacles, limitations. How many
tears? This is how we live, from within the confines of our
property, never knowing an open expanse. Do you think this
is a metaphor?
If I should perish outside this chain–link fence, at least I
was prevented from stepping on this protected land that beck-
ons so sweetly. But our world has changed. Already it has gone
internal. Why venture out of our rooms? It reminds me of the
wikileaks controversy. Kye Soen asked, “Why was someone
able to access those files?”
“He was young, so knew everything about computers.
Probably the ones in charge were older, had no idea what the
flashing lights were about.
‘What’s that?’
‘Oh, I’m just defragging the page file — strictly mainte-
nance. Don’t you know how delicate these PATA’s are? Isn’t
anybody concerned about security around here?’”
The conversation over dinner turned to what must be, the
underpinnings, and how a writer has two souls, that the writ-
er’s voice is something separate from the known. She didn’t
believe me, had no way to grasp what I was driving at.
“It’s not me, it’s almost like automatic writing. The words
often appear that I’m to use and remain there like an imprint
until I record them. Sometimes I refuse because it seems point-
less or mundane, but the imprint does not relent until it is done.
It began… the first time I noticed it was after a 90–day Zen
retreat in the early 90’s. I suddenly realized that the thoughts
coursing through me, what I’d always thought personal, was
actually something I was picking up from my neighbor! His fir-
ing neurons were somehow registering as my own. We think
what appears in our minds is our own creation, but this is a
ridiculous notion — completely false. These days I’m in a se-
cure, safe place, so there’s no danger of interference. Even so,
I’m very careful about engaging with others, their propagan-
da. The stream that is my writing voice, I know it well — I’m
very friendly with it, but I don’t claim that it’s me anymore
than I would take credit for the wheel, or space travel.”
Across the bay in a busy subway, a different scene than LA
by leagues. Here society embraces the train, the only sensible
way to commute to the city. Everyone is dressed in rugged
clothes: goose down vests, slickers, windbreakers. The foreign-
ers mesh seamlessly, overlap in waves of complexity only pos-
sible in a city of such magnitude, importance. Walking among
the towering buildings is to enter the church of the Republic.
It must be true, for I’m not the only one with a sense of awe.
The train rises in a gentle grade above the city streets, the
light muted through heavy clouds. Past Macarthur a snarl of
freeway overpasses; the veins of the city more complex here
than any place I’ve seen — or maybe it’s that I’m new to this
network. Back underground, my face reflects back at me dis-
torted from the smudged glass, concerned, concentrating on
these details, and that it’s a long way to the Bay.
San Francisco was all rain and fog — who knew? I waited
under the street with some Chinese friends, who were very
patient, but eventually grew weary of watching the steady
downpour and made it down the passageway to an unknown
end. A man worked at the base of the escalator, planted to his
shoulders in the maw of the machinery. I wait until the rain
lets up, then emerge at Market Street into a dazzling cityscape.
No time to enjoy the soaring structures, I catch the 21 Hayes,
to meet an old friend, the swordmaster; a wonderful ally and
brother, one of the few I’ve met who knows the terrain, who’s
ahead of me. Of course no one understands him. He gives me
poetry and gifts, and talks to me until my limbs are shaking.
I stop listening and let him do his work. Many teachings are
transferred to me in the course of an hour. He’s very efficient.
Both of us are deeply involved in the propagation of dhar-
ma, we recognize it in each other. Seeing each other, we are
both negated and confirmed. It can’t be, yet there it is, again
— the God among men, the magic gate thrown, the wild un-
knowable thing encountered… both of us empty, we operate
in the world only through intent, for all beings, otherwise we
would vanish on the spot, like RDX. I would introduce you,
but things have to align for him, like a mandala, and it’s far too
hot for your bones I’m sure.
On my return the energy courses through me, churns my
entrails, my bowels, leaving me incapable of speech, move-
ment. He always does this to me. It’s like the writing process
magnified to such a degree that the self loses hold. I finally
move, with difficulty, sit in a dark subway tunnel waiting for
my train somehow pulsing, beating just like a human. The
train makes it through the tunnel in a rapid succession of
events, a blur of lights racing past. Whatever this is can’t be
called a place. We exist as a tribe launched through blackness,
a screaming tunnel, invisible, impossible to know. Beneath the
ocean, encased in a concrete shell, we burst into daylight, into
a network of shipping containers, intertwining streets, side-
walks, brick walls, clapboard. Our world expresses our inner
confinement, reflects in concrete and steel the story of our
race, how our consciousness flows, our anger and ambition,
our frivolous nature, and above all our fear. We know we are
weak, we know our hunger, so a latch on every door, steel bars,
reinforced glass, security cameras, razor wire, armed guards,
black and white ninjas, scarecrows, fighter jets, polished nails,
sunglasses, diamond studded wristbands, background music,
quarantine.
As I wait for Kye Soen to pick me up I watch a dozen peo-
ple before me shoveled into cars, warmth and light emanating
from inside. I imagine stepping into one of them at random,
of living a different life, leaving all of my things behind; how
an old man amuses himself under the sycamore trees, but what
would they do with me? Truly there is no place for me other
that what I’ve hewn from the landscape that I must ceaselessly
work, like a trail through the jungle. Having no place in the
world is a feat of engineering.
All of this is more complicated that I’m able to convey. This
is only poetry. If the bright emanation that appears through
limitless worlds could be adequately described, there would
be no more trouble in the world. If the trouble were removed
now, we would collapse into our own mire as if we’d lost our
bones. We will surmount it. People now, here, have accom-
plished it; maybe someone you know. But it is something rare,
only won through great endurance and sacrifice. Few are able
or willing to run the gauntlet, and so the miserable state of the
world today. Not to dwell on our shortcomings, but we must
accept them, our place. We’ve hardly risen from the mud, yet
we expect to live as Gods!
 Communism depends on the intrinsic goodness of hu-
manity, that it will prevail. The Republic realizes this is false,
that people are corrupt, so allows them the illusion of freedom
while monitoring them with careful scrutiny; life under a mi-
croscope, a hint now of what it will be. Why must we bear
this? Are we all criminals?