by Mike Morris
My military career lasted exactly 13 months and 13 days. Then they asked me to leave. I was just one of those kinds of people who people liked to kick out of stuff. I didn’t mind, and I was never ever going to shave or cut my hair again. After my discharge physical, my buddy, Johnny Spring came to pick me up.
We had joined the Air Force as a team – after the draft numbers were released. I was safe, but Johnny’s number meant he would probably wind up in Vietnam. Johnny had an uncle in the Air Force who thought that life in the USAF was the best. He encouraged us to talk with a recruiter who told us a number of mostly wonderful things. None of them were true.
Johnny didn’t make it to 13 months. They thought he was crazier than me, and if they got rid of him, they figured I would behave. They miscalculated – typical military stuff. After Johnny picked me up, we traveled the country, worked in a carpet dye factory, and ended up back in school. Johnny became a meat inspector for the federal government and advised me to never eat hamburger. I haven’t completely taken that advice.
Looking out and away, I began an intense search for happiness, and this search only led further and further away from that desired destination. However, since I was searching, and getting unhappier at every turn, out of desperation I began to open my ears more seriously to other’s advice. Yakov Mordicai ben Gabriel, my friend from Hellincrest, who had become a Buddhist, stepped in and told me something. “Happiness only exists within.” Uh-huh ... I heard it. I didn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it. All I had ever heard was that the happy place – “Heaven” – a place up in the sky, as well as the unhappy place – “Hell” – a place way down in the ground, existed outside, and one day after I died, I would either go up to the happy place or down to the fiery pits.
58
Fiery Pits
I took a course in college once that clarified the leading cause of divorce in the United States was romantic love. Apparently getting married because of romantic love is a relatively new concept. People used to get married for more practical reasons – like a man needed a wife to help on the farm, and together they would have children who could work on the farm. Marriages were often arranged – in some places they still are. Romantic love had nothing to do with it. People went into the marriage knowing that if it was going to be tolerable, they needed to work at it. On the other hand, beginning a marriage based on romantic love is beginning a heavenly undertaking above the clouds – at the tippy-top – with no place to go but down. Despite all of that, to me romantic love and heaven were the same thing, and I was consumed with trying to land in heaven.
I was initially open to try a Buddhist chant because my life was in a “hellish” condition. I didn’t convert to Buddhism. I didn’t know anything about Buddhism. I was suffering so much though that I would have tried anything. Yakov told me about chanting when I was roaming around near the capital of the United States after getting kicked out of the Air Force. He took me to a Buddhist discussion meeting, and the meeting made an impression on me. The chanting sounded cool, and there were a lot of beautiful women there. I left town the next day. I didn’t have a radio in my car, so I chanted all the way to Alabama – about 13 hours.
The first thing for which I chanted Nam-myoho-renge-kyo was the “perfect girl.” And amazingly, I hooked up with the perfect girl! If I had a checklist, she would have met all the criteria. Although I really had no clue about what I was doing, the act of chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo had chased the hell out of my life, and heaven rolled up. And welcoming me in heaven appeared the perfect girl – an angel! She was actually from Maryland. I had known her from my days in Boulevard. Jana somehow found my Alabama address and was inspired to write me a letter. I was high on Nam-myoho-renge-kyo and convinced her to move to Alabama. She was so perfect I didn’t need anything else. I had landed safely in heaven, and I definitely didn’t need to mess around with any spiritual stuff like a Buddhist chant – especially in the Bible Belt.
I have mentioned a couple of times that nothing in life remains forever. Without my permission, my state of affairs changed swiftly. First, I slipped and slid back down toward hell, and while I was tumbling down, bouncing off an assortment of rusty, thorny edges, my angel was metamorphosing into a devil – the perfect devil! This perfect devil led me back up to Maryland, and we parted ways – the beautiful perfect she-devil dumped the forsaken, slimy slug.
I had been in the outhouse of hell before, but after my brief trip up into heaven, the outhouse stunk a lot worse now. I found myself somewhat homeless. I did have my car, but I had no gas and only 20 cents, and I had just been dumped by a grotesquely beautiful she-devil.
Phone calls were a dime back then, so I used half my money to call Yakov from a corner phone booth. I thought he must live close by. I figured I would tell him I really wanted to get into the Buddhism thing, and he would offer me a place to stay. When I reached him, I told him kind of what happened. I thought I explained my desperate situation pretty well. However, Yakov said, “Well you know how to chant, right?”
I think I said – or maybe questioned, “Yeah?”
Yakov somewhat brusquely directed me, “Well, start chanting and call me back in a few days.” Then he hung up!
That was half my money! That was half my fortune to get that advice! Chant and call me back in a few days! I started cussing. Cussing is not the same thing as chanting. In fact, chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo is calling your highest nature – your Buddha nature – whereas cussing is probably calling some lower nature like anger. However, I did start to insert parts of the chant amidst the profanity, and eventually the curse words stopped and I was chanting.
An idea kept surfacing at the top of my brain. “Call Jimmy Idian.” I was close to the old neighborhood in Hellincrest, but I knew Jimmy was in the Army and stationed in Germany. But, the more I chanted, the more forceful the idea thumped in my dome. Eventually, and out of desperation, I used my last dime to call his mother in hopes that maybe she could help me. When Mrs. Idian answered the phone, I spoke with a bit of bogus bravado, “Hi, Mrs. Idian. This in Mo Mickus.”
Mrs. Idian erupted, “Oh Mo! I can’t believe this! This is amazing! You won’t believe who has just walked through the door – Jimmy!”
It turned out that Jimmy had gotten an “Early Out “ of the army and had surprised his mother only moments before I had called. It also turned out that Jimmy was going to be staying in his older sister’s apartment while she was in Europe, and her apartment happened to be a couple of blocks from where I was – so I had enough gas to get there and meet Jimmy. The whole thing was pretty wondrous.
59
Baby Buddhist
Jimmy decided he was interested in Buddhism, so he began to practice. I began to practice as well, but not because I was interested. I was so angry at Yakov that I made a deal with him: I would practice Buddhism for 100 days. If at the end of that 100 days I determined Buddhism did not work, Yakov would stop practicing.
Maybe it was a trick, but near the end of my 100-day test, Yakov informed me that I could go to Japan with the Buddhist group. He said I could work with the young men’s drum and bugle corps and play on the baseball team. Playing baseball in Japan was way too cool to pass up. However, the trip cost money, and I had no money. After trying everything I could think of, I finally resorted to asking my father – the very last thing I wanted to do – if I could borrow the money from him. His bark was an emphatic, “No!”
Growing up to become a Buddhist was not something my parents ever consciously wanted for me. When I told my mother I had become a Buddhist, she looked at me exactly the same way she looked at me when I told her I had squashed the baby chick. When I asked my father for the loan to pay for a Buddhist trip to Japan, I might as well have been asking for money to throw into the ocean or fly to the moon. Some of my family were clearly influenced by the belief that if it was religion, and it wasn’t Christian, then it was evil. In addition, our own military intelligence reported that the Soka Gakkai – the Bu
ddhist organization with which I was now affiliated – was a radical and dangerous organization. Military intelligence based its information on opinions it had garnered from traditional Japanese society – the same society and culture that had encouraged Japan’s attack on us during World War II.
The truth is that the founder of the Soka Gakkai, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, and his closest comrade and supporter, Josei Toda, were imprisoned during the war as thought criminals for standing up against the government, religious, and military authority – authority that led Japan into war. Makiguchi died in prison. Released at the end of the war, Josei Toda began to rebuild the Soka Gakkai – an organization dedicated to peace and totally opposed to war and violence. His health severely damaged during his imprisonment, Toda died a little over a decade after his release. Daisaku Ikeda, a young man at the time, took over the task of building the Soka Gakkai into what is now a worldwide organization – with members practicing in 192 countries and territories.
My younger sister Melody, happened to be more like an older sister to me. She was intelligent and wise. It turned out that she happened to be visiting my father when I called and asked him for the loan. After my father hung up the phone, she questioned, “Who was that?”
“That was your brother Mo!”
“What did he want?”
“He wanted to borrow money!”
“For what?”
“To go on some kind of Buddhist trip to Japan!”
“And you said no! You loan him the money or I will!”
That was all it took. I appreciate Melody and my father for making it possible for me to make that trip. I actually paid my father back which I don’t think he believed I would do. Before I became a Buddhist, I probably would not have.
I travelled with the team as a second baseman. However, when we arrived in Japan our coach, Ted Osaki, clearly did not appreciate the chip I was still carrying on my shoulder. He refused to start me in the game against the Japanese team. This made me even more angry, so by game time I was seething. What infuriated me more was the over-the-top joy everyone else exuded. I was raging, and I hated everyone, and I hated their happy faces.
Well, I hated everyone but the second baseman on the Japanese team. Daisaku Ikeda, president of the Buddhist lay organization – the Soka Gakkai – was their second baseman and very friendly, and although he did not seem an exceptional player, he was totally into the game – chattering, rubbing dirt on his hands, knocking the dirt off his cleats, and totally focused at every moment. I liked that.
However, every time my coach looked back at me like he was considering putting me in the game, he gauged my anger, and put someone else in. I was the only player on our team who never got into the game. I had come all the way to Japan to play baseball, and I never got in the game!
We won 5 to 3, but Mr. Ikeda – who everyone seemed to like – suggested that since we were having so much fun, we should play two more innings. He said he was going to stop playing and start coaching. I was all for playing two more innings. Surely, I would get in the game now. Coach Osaki looked back at me, sort of shook his head, and I remained fuming on the bench.
Coach Ikeda gathered his team and gave them some kind of pep talk. It must have been good. Their first batter hit a home run. Their second batter hit a home run. Their third batter hit a home run. I thought, “What did he say to them? He must be a really good coach!”
Well, we lost the game. Everyone seemed to be somewhat euphoric, though – everyone but me. While they all bathed in some state of joy, I remained in hell and anger. While isolating myself in this state of suffering I became aware that Mr. Ikeda was speaking to me. An interpreter translated, “I just want to be your friend.”
I just stared at him.
He nodded to me, then moved on to speak with others. I was impressed by his sincerity. Some teammates asked me what he said, but I did not tell them.
I am not sure why, but all my anger dissipated and I started having fun. The next day Mr. Ikeda saw me drumming and acknowledged my playing and seemed to be happy that I was happy. My drumming karma had always been more positive than my sports karma, and after joining the Soka Gakkai that seemed to remain true. However, from that moment on I have had great fun playing sports.
When Yakov brought me into the drum and bugle corps to help prepare the drumline for the trip to Japan, I faced guys who had a strong Buddhist practice – most had been practicing for around two years, which seemed like a long time to me. However, on a scale from 1 to 10 in drumming, they ranged from a one to maybe a seven, and that was on the low end of one and the low end of seven. Since I had little experience in faith or in Buddhist practice, and they had little to no experience in drumline, conflict flourished and overflowed. I got angry and demanded, and they chanted and tried their best.
I attempted to create a tenor drum section similar to the Southerners. That was kind of like trying to bust a stone wall with a pillow. However, I learned more from the Buddhist drummers than they did from me. Kyle Upland was one of the tenor drummers. He was an ex-marine, and Kyle had neither experience nor talent in drumming. I think I had given up on Kyle and was trying to ignore the dreadful gob of gobbledygook that was coming from his direction. He approached me after a late night practice and asked me to show him a section in which he was having trouble.
First of all, I thought, “You are having trouble with all the sections! What difference is this one section going to make?” However, I took time to go over the part with him and deemed, “He will never play this in his life.”
Amazingly, the next night he could play it, and at the end of practice he asked me to help him with another section. Again I thought, “He will never play this!”
The following evening he could play it, and again he asked me to help him. At some point in this routine I started to ask myself, “How is this possible? We practice late into the night, every night. He works a job every day. Before he comes to practice he attends other Buddhist activities. When does he practice the hours it takes to master these parts that he has somehow mastered?” Then one night as I was watching him struggle with a part I had just helped him with, it hit me. He was chanting! This is how chanting works. Chanting was helping him master what I thought was impossible for him to ever do.
To support the tenor drum section, I decided to play tenor drum in Japan. I lined up next to Kyle. As we played, I realized Kyle was playing his tail off! He was putting his whole life into it. He was totally letting it rip! Instead of Kyle trying to play like me, I began trying to play like Kyle. I felt Kyle’s victory! I felt like I was drumming next to Art Blakey, the great jazz drummer. From that moment I determined to no longer drum with just my brain or my arms, but with my whole life like Kyle displayed in Japan. From Kyle, a Buddhist ex-marine, I learned the enlightened way to drum.
Forty-six years after my trip to Japan, Daisaku Ikeda is still leading the Buddhist peace movement, and I am still practicing Buddhism. I have learned so much from him in particular, and he has been a better friend than I could have ever imagined.
Exactly a year after I began my 100-day test, Moana Asaki and I went on our first date. As I was dropping her off, something mysterious and astonishing happened. Previous lifetimes of us together flashed before my eyes – somewhat like a slide show. As the individual lifespans appeared and disappeared, I determined that I must hold on to the memory of at least one of them. However, when the slideshow ended, I could not remember any. I just remembered that it had happened. The experience was so intense, I assumed that we had both experienced it. So, I asked Moana if she would marry me in seven years. I had heard seven was a mystic number, and I assumed “mystic” was good, so that is why I chose seven. Moana casually responded, “Okay.”
Contrary to my seven-year plan, at the suggestion of friends – in particular, Coach Osaki – we ended up getting married slightly less than a year after that first date. I shared the slideshow experience many times before I found out fairly recently that Moana di
dn’t experience it at all. Anyway, she was never confined by my limited understanding of perfect. Moana has always dwelled in a world well beyond that imperfect picture of perfect.
60
Uprising
Many of my students had an impression that only good kids grow up to be teachers and asked me how such a bad kid as Mo Mickus would be allowed to become a teacher. The truth is no one allowed me to become a teacher. Teaching is clearly not a reward. A mission it may be, but it is no part of praise. A calling that calls forth pain, teaching does not always elicit an amount of joy equal to the sacrifice and effort put forth. Yet, the impact of a teacher’s actions on the lives of students is hugely great.
By refusing to sign the petition that would remove me from all county schools, Mr. Meyers demonstrated a positive belief in me. The degree of influence his belief had in me extended and thrived, embracing an active shape because of another seed mysteriously planted in my life. Yakov planted that kernel. When he said that happiness exists within, he sowed a seed in the soil of a soul that stupidity’s actions had already tilled. Life itself had tended those grazing lands of trouble. Gradually, a transformation cropped up. A beautifully growing savannah where value could grow, and where the non-stop manure could become food for a thriving meadow of escalating value appeared. In plain talk, my life could become helpful – helpful to me as well as others. A condition of life hiding in a closet wanted out. Practicing Buddhism was an uprising – an inner insurrection – the best way to guide a prolific sprouting of value. It forced me to look at myself honestly and clearly ... painfully clearly.
On the surface it appeared to be me sitting around chanting. But, in reality it was me facing me. There was an army of demons, and there was an army of heroes, and I got to pick my team. I usually picked the heroes. Courage began to replace cowardice, and action to change my life of anti-value into one of creating value went with the territory – territory of living as a Buddhist. With an untarnished view, I could actually see the good that Mr. Meyers must have seen in me. And, if there was good in me, Mo Mickus, there must be good in everyone. Recognizing that most people don’t believe good exists in everyone, a sense of mission to place myself among those crazy adolescents who suffer so much and inflict so much suffering upon those who love them, awakened. If nothing else, at least someone in their world would be determined enough to comb through the muck of exploding hormones to unearth the treasures that lay hidden within their young lives ... the horror ... I mean the ideal!