Mumonkan, Koan 28: Ryutan Blows Out the Candle

Tokusan asked Ryutan about Zen far into the night. At last Ryutan said, "The night is late. Why don't you retire?" Tokusan made his bows and lifted the blinds to withdraw, but he was met by darkness. Turning back to Ryutan, he said, "It is dark outside." Ryutan lit a paper candle and handed it to him. Tokusan was about to take it when Ryutan blew it out. At this, all of a sudden, Tokusan went through a deep experience and made bows.

Ryutan said, "What sort of realization do you have?" "From now on," said Tokusan, "I will not doubt the words of an old osho who is renowned everywhere under the sun."

The next day Ryutan ascended the rostrum and said, "I see a fellow among you. His fangs are like the sword tree. His mouth is like a blood bowl. Strike him with a stick, and he won't turn his head to look at you. Someday or other, he will climb the highest of the peaks and establish our Way there."

Tokusan brought his notes on the Diamond Sutra to the front of the hall, pointed to them with a torch, and said, "Even though you have exhausted the abstruse doctrines, it is like placing a hair in a vast space. Even though you have learned all the secrets of the world, it is like a drop of water dripped on the great ocean." And he burned all his notes. Then, making bows, he took his leave of this teacher.

This koan is full of metaphor. Inside the room with Ryutan, there are answers and light. As Tokusan leaves, he finds total darkness. There is no value in light and answers which desert a person the moment they leave the side of a teacher. What we do not know in and within ourselves, what we cannot carry with us into the world is not knowledge. Further, light or answers that are given like the candle Ryutan gives to Tokusan can be taken away. That is not possible with true knowledge or insight.

While I do not understand the reference to the "words of an old osho", the meaning of Tokusan burning all his notes is clear. The notes are like the lighted room and are not needed. Everything in the notes Tokusan has either absorbed or not absorbed. The former will not be lost by burning the notes; the latter was never his to lose.

Extending this further, perhaps he also realized his teacher should not be needed either. Either he was enlightened (or perhaps he needed solitude for a while before returning). In a way, entering the darkness or leaving his teacher is a way to avoid staying in the lit room with given answers. It's a way to confront what he does not know rather than stagnate with the security of what he is told. Of course, the other side of this is that we should never view a teacher as exerting such control. We should be able to enter the darkness even while letting the light of a teacher point the way.

Perhaps that is the real meaning of the candle being blown out: "Despite whatever teaching I give you; you must ultimately find your own way."

Stevie Nicks - Crystal Visions (2007)

Stevie Nicks kicked off the new millennium with a unexpectedly resounding bang. Her solo album Trouble in Shangri-La shot to #5 on the charts and went gold within a month, then two years later she and Fleetwood Mac (sans Christine McVie) had their own triumphant return to the charts with Say You Will. After that, Nicks was largely busy with Fleetwood Mac's tour, which I saw during their stop in Chicago. It had been a long time since I'd seen Stevie Nicks perform (I saw her during the tours for Rock a Little and The Other Side of the Mirror), and she was in fine form and voice. I'm now looking forward to seeing the fully reunited Rumours-era line-up perform in Chicago this October.

In 2007, a few years after all this chart action, Nicks released Crystal Visions. Despite being a rabid fan, I resisted buying this release because I felt three compilations from Nicks in sixteen years was a bit much. What was the point? Timespace remains Nicks complete greatest solo hits collection since she had not charted any further singles. Meanwhile, Enchanted is her retrospective box set, and one career retrospective is about all most artists need or deserve. What could Crystal Visions possibly bring to table?

For a casual listener Crystal Visions is totally unnecessary, and does not supplant Timespace as the best compilation of Nicks' solo hits. For a fan, though, Crystal Visions is worth buying because it is an interesting take on combining her absolutely biggest solo hits with her most famous songs from Fleetwood Mac. This makes Crystal Visions the closest thing to a total career compilation that may ever be available for Nicks. It might even work better than an actual compilation of studio recordings since I'm not sure it makes much sense from a listening standpoint to set her Fleetwood Mac songs and solo work side by side. The sound of the material - and her sound - is really quite different. Crystal Visions solves the problem by creatively representing her Fleetwood Mac songs in a way that updates them and creates a more cohesive sounding album.

Admittedly, the approach works better for some songs than others. "Dreams" is represented by the appealing Deep Dish dance hit for which Nicks recorded a new vocal, "Rhiannon" comes to us as a rocking live performance. Ironically, the one song that appears in something like a vintage version is "Silver Springs" which was cut from Rumours. That said, Stevie's vocal coda on this take of the song has a tougher edge to it than the official version released on the b-side to "Go Your Own Way" in 1977. Considering the only other way to get an original version of "Silver Springs" is to buy Fleetwood Mac's patchy box set (The Chain), many may prefer to make the acquisition through Crystal Visions. In addition to the pluses, Nicks includes a wicked live performance of Led Zeppelin's "Rock and Roll". On the other hand, "Landslide" is recorded live with an orchestra behind Nicks and comes off a bit overdone. I'm also not sure anyone is a big enough fan to jump for joy over having yet another live version of "Edge of Seventeen" enter their music collection.

Crystal Visions is more than just a set of tracks, however. It also includes a DVD of all Nicks' music videos, complete with audio commentary from Nicks. The commentary reveals a thread of dry humor that is rather endearing when you think about how she's relating stories around the recording and marketing of some of her biggest hits. A special treat on this DVD is the original big production video for "Stand Back", which Nicks famously - and expensively - rejected for a reshoot. The reshoot became the official video everyone has seen. In my opinion, while the original video isn't bad (for the 80's), Nicks was right to pass. The video she ended up for "Stand Back" has a lot more energy and visual appeal. Finally, the DVD also contains footage from the Bella Donna sessions which is interesting to watch.

So, while Crystal Visions is - as ever - a fantastic collection of songs with some great new-ish material on hand, it's really for a die-hard fan who doesn't mind dropping the bucks on an indulgence. One can't fault Nicks too much, though. She's worked very hard over the course of her storied career and accomplished a hell of a lot. If she wants to rest on her laurels a bit, she's certainly earned it.

Stevie Nicks - Trouble In Shangri-La (2001)

Stevie Nicks released Trouble in Shangri-La in 2001, twenty years after her debut solo album Bella Donna. A great deal had happened in music - and to Nicks – during those two decades. That Nicks’ first album of original material in seven years (and her first of new millennium) could attract interest from an A-list of young performers is an accomplishment all by itself. And, while Nicks never took her hat out of the ring in terms of recording and touring, Trouble in Shangri-La generates an aura of triumphant comeback. Nicks had survived the rock and roll gristmill and emerged on the other side as an institution, readily acknowledged as a pioneer paving the way for many rock musicians, especially women. 

Of course, Nicks is no longer the "hot new thing" so to expect another Bella Donna or The Wild Heart from her is unfair and, if someone isn't a fan by now, there's not much that's going to remedy the situation. What makes Trouble in Shangri-La work is how comfortably it updates Nicks’ mystical take on rock into the current musical landscape. The album doesn’t sound like something by an old fogey, but it also doesn’t pander to trends either. Most impressive is that, while Nicks records some characteristic tunes from her backlog (“Sorcerer” and “Candlebright” are from the early seventies), the strongest songs turn out to be the ones she has written most recently. The title track is dramatic musing on the pitfalls of fame and/or love, "Love Changes" surges with hard-won hope, "Fall From Grace" is balls to wall rock that Nicks hasn't recorded since Rock a Little, and the lush ballad "Love Is" grows more emotive with every listen.

In every way, Nicks is in far better form here than she was on 1994's forgettable Street Angel. That said, she still hasn’t conquered some of her troublesome tendencies. Twangy "Too Far From Texas" is out of place amid the rest of the tracks. "That Made Me Stronger" is built around overwrought lyrics and comes off clunkity as a result. And, again, big production short-circuits the energy of otherwise solid songs (“Planets of the Universe”, “Bombay Sapphires”). As ever, Nicks shines brightest in simple surroundings (or at least surroundings that sound simple).

But this is beside the point. Nicks doesn’t have anything to prove anymore. Trouble in Shangri-La and the 2003 Fleetwood Mac studio album Say You Will both hit the top five, proving Nicks is still relevant. It’s especially notable that her songwriting on Say You Will (e.g., “Thrown Down”, “Silver Girl”, “Destiny Rules”) was one of the strongest reasons to buy the album. Where Nicks will go from here is anyone's guess. Personally, I'd love to see her go back-to-basics and cut an album of rough gems like the demos she released on Enchanted or at least stick to the low maintenance sonic surroundings Lindsey Buckingham created for her on Say You Will. Whatever she does, though, Nicks' place in the rock pantheon is guaranteed both as a member of Fleetwood Mac and as a solo artist in her own right.

Stevie Nicks - Enchanted (1998)

With the seventies line-up of Fleetwood Mac reunited and on top of the charts again with their smash live album The Dance, Stevie Nicks was back in business after a decade of lean years in the studio. That made a new Nicks’ solo compilation a smart marketing move. The snag was, given Nicks lack of top 40 hits since “Rooms on Fire”, her 1991 greatest hits album (Timespace) needed no updating. And, to this day, it still doesn’t.

This must be part of why the powers that be at her label, Modern Records, went with a boxed set. That said, the allure of boxed sets is somewhat mystifying. Fans already have all the music except for the one or two new songs included (which usually aren't anything special). Meanwhile, the casual listener must view a boxed set as expensive overkill. As such, even a life-long fan of Stevie Nicks (like myself), must approach the purchase of Nicks’ three-disc boxed set Enchanted with skepticism. Fortunately, this release is lovingly designed to appeal to Nicks’ fan base. It truly justifies the purchase, while also presenting the best of Nicks’ solo material to draw the less rabid but interested listener. Enchanted did very well upon release, suggesting people were ready for a tribute to Nicks who was – at this stage of her career – assuming her rightful place as a rock legend.

The first two discs of Enchanted focus on her previously released solo material. While the songs are not presented in chronological order, Disc One does draw heavily from her first two albums - Bella Donna and The Wild Heart - while Disc Two leans towards Rock a Little and the work that came after. The casual listener will get almost all of Bella Donna and six tracks off The Wild Heart. Four or five tracks are taken from her other albums but, since these efforts were not as consistent, that’s about right. In short, someone could purchase Enchanted in lieu of Nicks’ solo albums and miss out on very little (see next paragraph for some notable exceptions).

What will appeal to fans about the first two discs is that many of the tracks are alternate takes to the versions on the albums. Given Nicks’ appealing habit of rejiggering how she sings her songs over time, this variation is very welcome to a fan. Nothing strange has been done to the songs. They still have the same sound as the originals, but they have slight, yet notable, nuance. For example, “Leather and Lace” adds a few extra lines to a verse (it might be the single version). Three songs taken from Street Angel – as well as “Rooms on Fire” – are alternate versions. “Whole Lotta Trouble” is the single mix. Further, “Edge of Seventeen” is a live performance from Nicks’ long-lost 1981 White Wing Dove HBO special (it was also the b-side to the single), and “I Can’t Wait” appears in an extended mix lifted from the excellent 1986 maxi-single. There are also a couple b-sides (google the term if you’re a Millennial): “Garbo” was a lovely acoustic ballad on the flipside of “Stand Back” and “One More Big Time Rock and Roll Star” was the b-side of “Talk to Me”. All this makes the first two discs a lot more interesting to a Nicks fan than they would be otherwise.

Even so, what makes Enchanted worth the price of admission to a fan is the collection of unreleased and non-album tracks on Disc Three. Given that much of Nicks’ solo material was released prior to the advent of compact discs and Enchanted was released prior to the digital music era, Disc Three was a way for fans to reclaim all that lost vinyl material without spending piles of money on cheesy movie soundtrack CDs. And there is a lot of great Nicks material in the soundtrack category. Songs like "Blue Lamp", "Battle of the Dragon", "Violet and Blue", and "Sleeping Angel" are just as enthralling as her very best solo work. Even in retrospect, it’s impossible to fathom why “Sleeping Angel” wasn’t saved for The Wild Heart.

In addition to the soundtrack songs, Disc Three includes several demos. These stripped down performances offer a peek into Nicks’ creative process but are also complete enough to be enjoyable listens. It’s not hard to imagine Nicks including these demos to thumb her nose at rock critics who adore painting her as dependent on others (i.e., guys) to turn her musical daydreams into concrete songs. If so, she makes her point. The demos of “Sweet Girl” and “Twisted” are better than the recorded versions released after Lindsey Buckingham got a hold of them. Of course Buckingham contributed to Nicks’ work with Fleetwood Mac, as Nicks readily admits. However, Nicks also states that she is sometimes mis-produced (I’d add over-produced), so the simplicity and intimate energy of these demos is eye-opening.

Disc Three is rounded out with several other goodies. Her energetic performance of "Gold and Braid" from White Wing Dove is included; this is a song she never recorded in the studio. We also get both of her late seventies’ duets outside Fleetwood Mac ("Gold" and “Whenever I Call You Friend”), a Buckingham Nicks track, and her spin on Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin’”. The Disc ends with her re-recording the demo version of “Rhiannon” on piano. All said, Disc Three is a powerful inducement to buy Enchanted even if you have all of Nicks’ solo work.

Stepping back, can one quibble with the selection of tracks on Enchanted? It’s a career retrospective so, of course, the answer is ‘yes’. So here I go… Her remix of “The Nightmare” or the b-side “Inspiration” would have been preferable to weak material like “Thousand Days” and “Reconsider Me”. I would have excluded “The Highwayman” in favor of The Wild Heart’s “Nothing Ever Changes”. Song selection from Rock a Little emphasizes material Nicks wrote alone – which makes sense given this is her boxed set – but “I Sing For the Things” and the convoluted “Rock a Little” were just nowhere near as well-written or performed as “Sister Honey” and “If I Were You”. Similarly, the inclusion of “Desert Angel” from Timespace makes sense from a Stevie-as-songwriter perspective, but it’s a weak track compared to something like “Ghosts” from about the same period. On a less subjective note, selecting “Rose Garden” over just about any other track from Street Angel is plain lunacy. “Love is Like a River” or “Listen to the Rain” would have been a much better representations of Nicks’ songwriting chops for a fan or a casual listener.

Quibbling aside, this boxed set was designed to be a fantastic value for the fan in the context of 1998’s music distribution/technology. The dozens of photos and complete lyrics compiled in a storybook format adds a visual and tactile appeal sadly extinct in the iTunes era. In Enchanted, Nicks has created a love letter to her fans as well as a testament to her solo career up to this point.

Stevie Nicks - Street Angel (1994)

The 90's were not kind to Stevie Nicks. First, Fleetwood Mac fell apart. Their 1990 album Behind the Mask was kicked-off with a successful Christine McVie single, but Nicks' work was still uneven and the album sank without a ripple. Although many critics attributed the band's fall to Lindsey Buckingham's departure, it should be kept in mind that his solo album of the same period (Out of the Cradle) fared far worse than Behind the Mask. The poor performance of both albums was due to the radically changing musical landscape of the time.

Given that context, it's not really clear why Nicks released Street Angel. Her career needed an authoritative work to reassert her relevance, and Street Angel is a mediocre album that could only appeal to her base. On the plus side, the production (by Thom Panunzio and Nicks) is clean and sassy, moving Nicks away from the overproduction of her previous two studio albums. Also, some of her lyrics are written with a clarity not seen since Bella Donna. Despite these positive changes, there's no getting around the fact that the album sounds dated and stale. Embracing the hip-hop or grunge trends of the time would not have suited Nicks at all, but resting on her laurels was not a much better alternative.

Ultimately, Street Angel stumbles due to a combination of poor songwriting (a shocking charge to level against a Nicks’ solo album) and a lack of new ideas. For example, "Blue Denim" would have been a great song in 1984 but in 1994 it just comes off as tired. "Destiny" actually recycles lyrics from "Enchanted," a song off The Wild Heart. Elsewhere "Greta", "Docklands", and "Jane" are Nicks at her most self-indulgent, and her dreadful cover of "Just Like a Woman" is painful to listen to. There are just enough solid songs to make the album passable, but many of the best ones come from outside writers. 

This brings us to another failing of Street Angel: the absence of Stevie Nicks. She sings authoritatively but few of the songs resonate with her witchy take on rock, likely because her role in the writing is relatively small compared to all of her other solo albums. This is odd given her track record as a songwriter but, when you also consider that two of the best songs on the album (the title track and "Love is Like a River") were penned solely by Nicks, her reluctance to include her own material becomes positively mysterious. No matter how strong the other material is - "Unconditional Love" and "Maybe Love Will Change Your Mind" are wonderful pop songs - there's just not enough Stevie to satisfy fans. As a result, Street Angel is easily Nicks' worst solo album.

Street Angel came and went with little notice, and is only to be purchased by Nicks' completists. Nicks rode out the rest of the decade with a hugely successful Fleetwood Mac reunion (The Dance) and a lovingly created solo boxed-set (Enchanted). These efforts cemented her status as an elder rock icon. 

Depending on how much you like Street Angel, it was either the final stop in Nicks' drawn out fall from grace or the first faltering step of her return to prominence. Whatever the case, the new millennium would find her assuming the mantle of a rock legend while at the same time producing much better work to a far more receptive public.

Stevie Nicks - Timespace (1991)

Most artists from rock bands that attempt solo careers don't end up charting enough singles to create a legitimate greatest hits package, but Stevie Nicks is one of the few who can. In fact, Timespace eschews some of her top 40 hits ("After the Glitter Fades" and "Nightbird" are missing) to include some of her best album tracks ("Beauty and the Beast" and "Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For You", the latter was a low charting single in 1986).

The truly striking thing about Timespace is not that Nicks has the hits to justify such a package but the strength of the collection. Timespace documents how Nicks truly grew through the 80s, lifting off from the ashes of the seventies rock sound that Fleetwood Mac helped define and ultimately rising to create her solo niche based on the new electronic sounds of the 1980s. And she did so largely without compromising her musical style or artistic vision.

Most greatest hits albums include a few new tracks, and Timespace has three. While they are mostly solid work, they are not required listening. It's always wonderful to hear Nicks tackle songs by other artists, but the hair-metal of Jon Bon Jovi ("Sometimes It's a Bitch") and Bret Michaels ("Love's a Hard Game to Play") is really more suited to Cher or Heart than an artist as unique as Stevie Nicks. The aforementioned songs are great listens, and "Sometimes It's a Bitch" was a moderately successful single for Nicks to kick off the 90s. On the other hand while I enjoyed the third new track, "Desert Angel", it's an example of the self-indulgent lyrics and overblown production that had begun to undermine the emotional immediacy and energy of her work.

In any case, Timespace is an excellent album for the casual listener who wants to own the best of Stevie Nicks’ solo work, which is well deserving of such a collection.

Stevie Nicks - The Other Side of the Mirror (1989)

In the first half of the 1980's Stevie Nicks established herself as a rock and roll double threat. A powerful contributor to Fleetwood Mac's monstrous success, she also built an equally credible solo career on her own. However, after her third solo album (Rock a Little), she seemed to be in some kind of free fall due to drama in Fleetwood Mac and her own widely publicized drug problems. Whatever the issue, her output slowed and the quality of what was produced dropped radically. Her songwriting contributions to Fleetwood Mac's sleek 1987 album Tango in the Night, for example, were flat out embarrassments to both herself and her band mates.

On The Other Side of the Mirror it feels as if Nicks is struggling to regain her footing, and it may be that Rupert Hines was not the best producer for her to work with at such a time. I say this despite the fact that it could have been a magical collaboration at another time, as there are definite strengths on Mirror. Most of Stevie's songs are well-written, she produced an enthralling hit in "Rooms on Fire", and the overall sound of the album steps back from the synth-heaviness of Rock a Little. Vocally, Nicks sounds fresher and in better shape (perhaps a benefit of having kicked cocaine). 

However, there are also several recurring weaknesses that undercut the album: many of the tracks are self-indulgent and lyrically off the deep end. A generally over-produced feel ultimately creates a listless sound, which blunts Nicks' usual strengths as a writer and performer. Examples are plentiful.

"Two Kinds of Love" is a great duet with Bruce Hornsby, but it lacks a direct emotional connection that she usually delivers on such songs (e.g., "Leather and Lace"). "Whole Lotta Trouble" is a horn-blazing rocker that never manages to evoke high drama (a la "Edge of Seventeen"). "Juliet" rocks and

"Alice" menaces, but both are ultimately too unfocused to hold together for anyone other than a die-hard Stevie Nicks fan. Her lyrics on "Long Way to Go" - an otherwise propulsive track with fierce vocal commitment - are so oddly phrased that she sounds like she's imitating Jedi Master Yoda. The nadir is "Fire Burning," a mess of a song that takes three minutes to go nowhere.

Leading up to this release, Nicks may have been spending more energy exorcising her demons than writing songs. From that standpoint, Mirror would be a remarkably solid album. A certified fan will no doubt enjoy it (as I did), but it’s hard to imagine anyone not noticing there’s just less electricity in the wiring this time out. Her next release, the aptly titled Timespace, would be a "best of" effort. Its release may have been a stopgap as Nicks tried to regain career momentum.

Stevie Nicks - Rock a Little (1985)

With Fleetwood Mac's future in question, Stevie Nicks forged on with her solo career. She was clearly the most successful Mac solo artist. For example, either of her first two efforts (Bella Donna or The Wild Heart) matched the combined sales of all five other Mac solo albums released by this time (two surprisingly strong projects from Mick Fleetwood, two grating efforts from critic's darling Lindsey Buckingham, and a solid offering from songbird Christine McVie).

Nicks' success was partly due to the fact that she made her band mates look like they were standing still. While Buckingham recycled his Tusk eccentricities and McVie continued making pure pop magic, Rock a Little found Nicks experimenting with new sounds. Notably, she completely embraced the synth-pop style of the mid 80s, as well as welcomed new producers and musicians. Although the changes suit her style very well, there's definitely a more trendy sound to Rock a Little. As a result, it hasn't aged as well as her first two albums.

Keeping that in mind, Rock a Little is an outstanding effort to blend Nicks' poetic drama with the synthesizer age. "Talk to Me" and "I Can't Wait" were big hits, although Nicks was not the primary writer on either track. In fact she only wrote three songs by herself, a major change from The Wild Heart and Bella Donna, where she wrote virtually the entire album. The smaller role for her songwriting immediately makes Rock a Little less compelling. Vocally, however, she's as impressive as ever if a bit frayed around the edges.

Beyond the hits, "Sister Honey" and "If I Were You" show Nicks bending her new soundscape to fit her needs. On the other hand, she's swallowed up in the over-production of "The Nightmare." Further, the record is hurt by some lyrics that are oblique even for Stevie Nicks, and there's a general lack of musical focus ("Imperial Hotel" seems to have wandered in from some Tom Petty album). Despite the cracks showing in Nicks’ skyrocketing solo machine, she closes the album on a powerful note. "Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For You" is one of her most beautiful ballads.

Unlike her previous albums, Rock a Little is not a classic. It's too steeped in 80s production values to endure in that way. Taken for what it is it's a great album, although the pace of her dual career was clearly starting to take a toll.

[An interesting side note: The remix of "The Nightmare" on the "I Can't Wait" maxi-single - for which Nicks is credited with additional production and remixing - is much better than the album version.]

Stevie Nicks - The Wild Heart (1983)

Coming off the massive success of Bella Donna, which easily overshadowed Mirage, Fleetwood Mac's well-crafted but tepid 1982 release, Stevie Nicks side-stepped the sophomore slump by topping herself with The Wild Heart. Although "Stand Back" was a smash that has become her most popular song, The Wild Heart is not as obviously commercial as Bella Donna. The Wild Heart is more of an artist's album, and Nicks' spreads her wings to command and fill the entire effort with admirable authority.

For a Nicks' fan, The Wild Heart is nirvana: longer songs with more passionate, imagistic lyrics than ever. The title track and the album closer are epics - each over six minutes long - that work the opposite ends of Nicks' spectrum. "Wild Heart" is a thunderous, passionate anthem with her most thrilling vocal work ever, and "Beauty and the Beast" is symphonic gothica for which the term ‘ballad’ is just inadequate. In between, Nicks indulges her mixture of rock and fairydust with alluring results. "Enchanted" and "Nightbird" are pure Nicks and would never have seen the light of day in the more structured programme of Fleetwood Mac.

The Wild Heart also finds Nicks updating her sound into the 80s with striking ease, especially when you consider how most 70s acts that tried to do this either completely sold out or made fools of themselves. She stretches herself well beyond the Fleetwood Mac sound (the torrid "Nothing Ever Changes") and even kicks out a trendy hit (the synth-pop confection "If Anyone Falls"). Tellingly, the one weak spot is the somewhat out of place Tom Petty duet ("I Will Run to You"). It's not a bad song but another Nicks-penned cut such as "Sleeping Angel" or "Blue Lamp", both of which ended up buried on soundtrack albums, would have worked much better.

If you are a hard core Stevie Nicks fan, The Wild Heart is superior to Bella Donna. For the casual listener, it would be a toss up between two classic albums. However, Nicks' vocal performances, expansive writing, and the way she sells these songs makes The Wild Heart the more personal, adventurous, and therefore better effort. Maintaining careers in Fleetwood Mac and on her own, however, was bound to keep her from burning white hot for long. Her next solo album, Rock a Little, would show the strain.

Stevie Nicks - Bella Donna (1981)

Stevie Nicks is releasing her new solo album 24 Karat Gold in October. She has been my absolute favorite performer, singer, and songwriter ever since I was ten years old and bought Rumours. The new album, as well as having started to learn her song "Landslide" on guitar, made me think to post reviews of her solo albums here on Zen Throw Down. So, for a little while, this blog will be transformed into a Stevie shrine! Let's start with her solo debut, Bella Donna.

Stevie Nicks' solo career was off to a strong start before the 1981 release of her first solo album Bella Donna. Nicks had major hits via a duet with Kenny Loggins in 1978 ("Whenever I Call You Friend") and John Stewart in 1979 ("Gold"). In addition, half of the hits from Fleetwood Mac's 1979 Tusk album were penned by Nicks ("Sara" and "Sisters of the Moon"). The songs on Bella Donna take these successes as their starting point and fill the rest of the album with Nicks' more typically output.

The result was a shrewdly crafted classic rock album that appealed strongly to both her existing fan base and the general listener. Top 10 duets such as "Stop Dragging My Heart Around" and "Leather and Lace" catapulted the album to the #1 spot, making Nicks the first (and ultimately the only) member of Fleetwood Mac to earn solid commercial success outside the group. So much for the question of whether she's a viable solo act.

However, Bella Donna was much more than a calculated star vehicle. "Edge of Seventeen" is Stevie in all her mystical glory and has become a rock standard outlasting the more standard fare such as "Stop Dragging My Heart Around." Other Nicks' songs, notably "Kind of Woman" and "After the Glitter Fades," are songwriting jewels proving she has the goods regardless of whom she partners with. "Outside the Rain" is a great track if you're a Nicks fan, but then a solo album for a star like Stevie Nicks should cater to her fans a bit.

Bella Donna was the perfect album to get Nicks established as a solo artist, and it does so without compromising her image or style. That Nicks could pull this off in the all-boys'-club of late seventies rock was no mean feat. As great as Bella Donna is, however, Nicks' next album, The Wild Heart, would be even better.

"Player Dog Rest in Peace" & The Power of the Arts

cover of "Player Dog Rest in Peace"

A friend of mine posted on Facebook that, as she was going through old folders, she found a copy of the poetry chapbook I published back in 1996, titled "Player Dog Rest in Peace". I shared the cover on Facebook and several friends remember and/or still have a copy of it!

Seeing the post from someone else reminded me how happy I am that I put out the effort to publish this. I didn't make much money (I covered the printing costs and had enough extra to buy a nice dinner during a night out with friends). And it didn't "lead anywhere" (i.e., I'm not a famous poet). However I've long since learned that, if we only do things that make money or lead somewhere, that we're missing some of life's most enriching opportunities and experiences. I learned a lot from creating and publishing "Player Dog Rest in Peace".

The power of this chapbook is what it conjures up in me. I smiled the instant I saw the picture posted by my friend, because a flood of memories associated with it and the poetry it contains - which was all written during my first few years living in Chicago - came to mind:

• Reading "Intro to Urban" at the Green Mill with a jazz trio playing "Cantaloupe Island" behind me
• Afternoons and evenings hanging out at La Piazza coffeehouse on Broadway
• Being a featured poet in the Poets Alive! series at Cafe Voltaire
• My experience of love at first sight, which ended very sadly within days and led me to write "Dominoes", a poem published by four publications within a few months
• Having over a dozen poems published in various small press zines
• Performing my gay rap song "Icebreaker" at Pong Jam (again with a band behind me)
• Lifting interesting phrases from opaque personals in The Reader (the title for the poem "Apocalypse Surfer" being one) 
• Seeing rapper Guru perform live with jazz legend Donald Byrd (and Vanessa Daou opening)
• All the crazy little theatre venues: Annoyance Theatre, Torso Theatre, and the Neofuturarium
• Discovering Sartre and Nikki Giovanni and loads of other writers while riding the el to wherever I might have been going at any particular time
• Seeing a tour bus go by and then realizing in shock that someone was taking a picture of me(?)
• All the fun I had drawing the cover, designing the book, and playing with fonts
• Sitting in the window of my third floor walk-up, with my feet dangling into space and writing as the sun set, while listening to the latest acid jazz CD I'd picked up at Evil Clown Records 
• Going out for Ethiopian food with friends and finding a man there playing a giant kora harp
• The joy of completing large poems like "The City is Made of Music" and "I am Pete; I Be Writing"

This period of my life seemed to be one moment like this after another, and it lasted something like three years. It was one of the best times of my life, partly because I was writing, publishing, and performing so much but also because what I was writing was such a perfect prism of my experiences in the city as well as all the things going on in my life. I was writing very personal poetry and creating a kind of private language, yet it was all very accessible work that captured a place and time in words. At the tail end of it, I met Jim and - before I knew it - one chapter of life came to an end and another began.

As for the title of the chapbook? When I was a little kid and we drove into the city, I always remember seeing this overpass where someone had spray painted the phrase "player dog rest in peace". For me, this was the gateway to Chicago. While I always wondered who wrote the graffiti and why, I'm glad I never found out and it remains a question mark. Anyway, after I moved into the city (as I'd wanted to do for most of my life), that overpass graffiti immediately suggested itself as the ideal title for this chapbook I was making to compile all the poetry that encapsulated my experiences in Chicago.

Almost two decades have gone by. The overpass graffiti has been erased, La Piazza is closed, Evil Clown and Cafe Voltaire are both gone, and the neighborhood I lived in is a lot more like Lincoln Park than the diverse, quirky, rough around the edges community I remember. And I'm different too. I'm definitely not that brassy little gamin with the oversized clothes and backwards baseball cap (think The Little Rascals with a grunge/hip-hop make-over) who moved to the city to - as I wrote in the poem "Intro to Urban" - "walk rainbow streets/and take a hit on the blunt of life".

I'm writing about this, because it's an example of one of the most powerful things about art - our own or anyone else's. Art encodes itself into our lives and captures parts of our lives like gas giant planets with a hundred tiny moons in orbit. When we experience that painting or song or poem again, we get to go back and relive those memories and feelings again.

Mumonkan, Koan 2: Hyakujo's Fox

image: The Gateless Gate blog

I had forgotten to post this koan! Maybe I didn't because, back over four years ago when I first integrated the Mumonkan into my Zen practice, I wasn't sure if I was going to stick with it. Or it perhaps it's because I didn't think I had solved it. (Or maybe I just dreaded typing it!). Whatever. I went back into my journal so the Mumonkan thread would be complete.

When Hyakujo Osho delivered a certain series of sermons, an old man always followed the monks to the main hall and listened to him. When the monks left the hall, the old man would also leave. One day, however, he remained behind, and Hyakujo asked him, "Who are you, standing here before me?" The old man replied, "I am not a human being. In the old days of Kashyapa Buddha, I was a head monk, living here on this mountain. One day a student asked me, "Does a man of enlightenment fall under the yoke of causation of not?" I answered, "No, he does not." Since then I have been doomed to undergo five hundred rebirths as a fox. I beg you now to give the turning word to release me from my life as a fox. Tell me, does a man of enlightenment fall under the yoke of causation or not?" Hyakujo answered, "He does not ignore causation." No sooner had the old man heard these words than he was enlightened. Making his bows, he said, "I am emancipated from my life as a fox. I shall remain on this mountain. I have a favor to ask of you: would you please bury my body as that of a dead monk."

Hyakujo had the director of the monks strike with the gavel and inform everyone that after the midday meal there would be a funeral service for a dead monk. The monks wondered at this, saying, "Everyone is in good health; nobody is in the sick ward. What does this mean?" After the meal Hyakujo led the monks to the foot of a rock on the far side of the mountain and with his staff poked out the dead body of a fox and performed the ceremony of cremation. That evening he ascended the rostrum and told the monks the whole story. Obaku thereupon asked him, "The old man gave the wrong answer and was doomed to be a fox for five hundred rebirths, Now, suppose he had given the right answer, what would have happened then?" Hyakujo said, "You come here to me, and I will tell you." Obaku went up to Hyakujo and boxed his ears. Hyakujo clapped his hands with a laugh and exclaimed, "I was thinking that the barbarian had a red beard, but now I see before me the red-bearded barbarian himself."

Yeah, it's a long koan and it's rather unique because of its length. It's also unique because it contains this fantastical, supernatural story involving a form of 'divine punishment', which I find distasteful. After reading my notes about it in my journal, I think it's pretty clear I didn't really 'solve' it.  Maybe the length threw me?

My initial reaction had been to ignore the wacky story and focus on the interaction with Obaku. However, as I think about it now, that was probably a mistake (more on that in a bit). What I initially got out of this koan is how dangerous it is to give answers (this is why Obaku boxed Hyakujo's ears and why Hyakujo was so pleased that he did so). It's really suggesting that the old man's offense was not giving the wrong answer but because he gave an answer at all. To extend this, perhaps we are all foxes when we try to tell people 'answers' or hand them 'truths'.

Image: Marvin Schulz

This lesson also touches on perception through it's 'Russian doll' structure. The koan's structure is a story within a story within a story. The writer of the koan is telling us about Hyakujo, who has apparently related to him this story about an old man he met, and the old man is telling Hyakujo a yarn about being made a fox. So we are, at minimum, third or fourth hand from reality. This is another possible reason for Obaku to box Hyakujo's ears, for they were discussing interpretations of recollections of experiences, rather than dealing in direct perceptions.

Now, back to my mistake in dismissing the wacky story. In the story, Hyakujo's answer about whether an enlightened man is subject to causation is: "He does not ignore causation." This made me think of, how when I sit in zazen, thoughts always come to me as I clear my mind. What I've learned is that if I try to ignore those thoughts or silence them, they persist. It's better to acknowledge them, even as I do not pursue them. I imagine them as small helium balloon drifting towards me. I acknowledge each one and think "later" to send it away. Doing this make it much easier to clear my mind. This might be similar to what Hyakujo meant in his answer. Whether we are able to keep something from impacting us or not isn't the point; we cannot ignore it if we want to stay in the right mind state. Ignoring or suppressing something is an activity. An alert mind can be clear, but and active one? Probably not so much.

These are all nice take aways, but I'm still not sure I've exhausted this koan. Perhaps that was the reason I didn't post it way back when I worked with it, and it wasn't until much later (Koan 12) that I really grasped that koan study cannot be viewed as a relay race. Not getting a particular koan isn't a bad thing, and it's not something to be stymied by.

The Power of Everyday Zen

Jenny Trout:
"I Wore a Bikini and Nothing Happened"

Everyday Zen is a term I use (and, I think, coined) to refer to the practice of bringing the mind state reached during zazen into everyday life. The idea is that, once discipline of the mind is learned through zazen, that it can be applied at any time...or even all the time. [Here are other posts about Everyday Zen on Zen Throw Down: Ordinary Mind is the Way & Everyday Zen and then later More on Everyday Zen.]

I thought of the power of Everyday Zen when a friend sent me a recent article by Jenny Trout called "I Wore a Bikini and Nothing Happened". It's a short, humorous piece about a serious issue: body image. In the article, the author (pictured) describes how she refused to allow others to dictate whether she should wear a bikini, how she should feel about wearing a bikini, and - most importantly - how she should feel about herself.

Trout never references Zen Buddhism or Everyday Zen in her piece, not even indirectly. However, I found the spirit of her thinking to be very much like the disciplined mindset of Zen Buddhism or Everyday Zen. In particular, the way she filtered out and refused to be influenced by the negativity of those around her. This attitude or mind state is in direct contrast with what we refer to in Zen Buddhism as a deluded mind state. A deluded mind state can be many (many, many, many) things, but it sometimes entails creating our own suffering through second guessing ourselves, creating self-doubt, or dwelling on negative thoughts.

Zazen, by disciplining the mind, teaches us how to recognize when we are engaged in the right mind state. For me, I've learned what the right mind state feels like. That way, through Everyday Zen, I can be like an adult providing a gentle course correction to a child who's learning to ride a bike. More precisely, I become both the child learning to ride and the adult making the correction. When I recognize I'm slipping from the right mind state, I can subtly correct myself. Instead of suffering the pain of a fall, I facilitate riding (even if I'm riding a bit ineptly).

I had a situation like this (and like Trout's) occur to me recently. A little while ago, I posted how I'd started taking guitar lessons. While I was considering whether or not to do it, I got discouraged when it occurred to me that most people start learning a musical instrument when they are a child. And then I thought that it might seem strange to people to see an adult doing this. What I was doing was inventing a worry or problem in my head that may or may not really exist and then allowing it to influence me as if it were real.

This is one of the many poisons of a deluded mindset: we convince ourselves everyone is focused on us to a degree that is simply unrealistic. We over think the situation and, in doing so, place ourselves on a rack of self-consciousness and self-doubt that makes us miserable. And/or we allow the thoughts and judgments of others - real of imagined - to direct our behavior. Delusion - simply put - is a torture chamber we create in our minds where we are both the victim and the sadist.

Luckily, I recognized that this was not right-minded. When that happened, I dismissed all those thought and concerns. As it turns out, I have not received any strange reactions from anyone. Of course, I'm not sure what other people think about me taking lessons but, importantly, I am not spending any time pondering it or trying to figure it out. It's ultimately not important and, truthfully, it's most probable that no one is giving me and my guitar lessons any thought at all. If I'd turned away from taking them, I would have deprived myself of a new experience for no reason.

Avoid the maze of delusion (although, in Zen philosophy,
'contentment' might work better here than 'happiness')

The way I caught myself, and the way Trout pushed back on other people's judgement of her wearing a bikini are small examples of the power of Everyday Zen. The important thing to realize is that, by disciplining the mind, we gain power over life. Happiness is much easier to achieve when we're not our own worst enemy.

This discipline also thrusts ownership for one's own life back on oneself (where it belongs). Ultimately, we can't blame our own insecurities on other people when we're the ones with the power to decide whether they or their opinions affect us. Everyone faces self-doubt or harsh judgement in their lives; how we deal with it is what determines whether we will be at peace or not. We can either let self-doubt and outside forces rule us or we can be free of them. If we allow it to rule us, we cannot forget that we are the ones who put the chains on and wear them.

This is not to say that Everyday Zen solves all problems or guarantees life will be blissful and easy. Suffering is a part of life, and I have found there are always people who want to control me and who will punish me or try to hurt me if I do not let them. However, from experience, I have also learned that no matter how unhappy or painful their actions are in the short term, by maintaining the right mind state I will be content in the long run.

A saying by an ancient Zen Master named Dazhu sums it up best: "You are luckily alright by yourself, yet you struggle artificially. Why do you want to put on fetters and go to prison?...When will you ever stop?" (trans. Thomas Cleary).

Ordinary mind is the Way!