It's the headline news! Money! Stock markets tumble throughout the world! The Dow Jones Industrial Average loses more than 500 points in the course of the afternoon, then recovers enough to register no more than a 400-point loss by the end of the day. What does all this portend? The experts are trotted out. Conclusions are drawn. Predictions are made. The nation extends its wrist to allow its financial pulse to be taken. Are we healthy or sickening? Are we headed for the toilet? Will we all survive? The panic mounts...
It seems to me that the markets and their mavens would do well to take a lesson from simple Buddhist wisdom: sit back, take a breath... take another... Bring the attention to the breath and, of course, keep bringing it back each time that the mind is tempted to lose itself once more in idle speculation. That way, panic is avoided, the situation calms, and equanimity is restored.
How we love the drama, though! How we love to tease ourselves with the direst of all possible outcomes! How we yearn for those very things that are denied us by the nature of reality: for certainty, for reassurance, and knowledge of the future! The financial markets are no less subject to change than everything else in this world, but the human mind is always reluctant to grasp that simple reality. We want the markets to keep going up, to satisfy our desperate need for security.
The media, of course, who report on these events, are savvy to what it is that appeals to our less noble qualities, and play to the lowest of them all: our greed and fear. Will I lose what's mine? Is this the beginning of the end? Will the capitalist system fall apart? Is this the demise of civilization as we know it? The first sign that Armageddon is upon us? Will the terrorists win?
Stay tuned.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Politics, Diplomacy
My thanks to all who took the time and trouble to respond to yesterday's entry about the Oscars! It's great to have the sense that this is more than a monologue! An aside to my Taoist friend: I'm happy to have to keep going back to the definitions and the texts. Perhaps it's the aging brain cells, but my memory blurs things very easily, and it's at once humbling and refreshing to be the constant student. And that, as I understand it, is in good part what the practice is all about: learning, testing, unlearning, relearning--until some small part of it sinks in. Samsara does seem to necessitate a belief in rebirth; but until I reach that point, I still find the concept useful and compelling, since it describes so well that cycle through the sometimes painful paths of life that we all know so well. The treadmill, if you will.
But, forgive me, I was going to get back on my political hobby-horse today. The Middle East mess. Talk about unskillful! The high-handed, ham-fisted administration we have misguidedly placed in office in Washington, DC, could hardly handle its diplomatic efforts in the world with less subtlety and imagination, or with less sensitivity to its allies--or indeed its enemies--in the world out there. To send Dick Cheney, of all people, to deliver a public rebuke to Pakistan's President Musharraf about his failure to control the Taliban seems to me the height of blinkered arrogance. After its own failure to take care of the Taliban and the Al Qaeda cadre it protected in Afghanistan, at a time when that was possible, the Bush administration has the gall to humiliate Musharraf for the same failure.
Okay, I understand that Musharraf has made his own blunders--most notably in that agreement with the tribal leaders last fall to give them free rein in their territories--and has allowed himself to be blown around by the winds of powerful extremist religious forces in his own country. But we might say that Bush has done the same. And given that political reality with which Musharraf has to deal in predomnantly Muslim Pakistan, this kind of heavyweight public scolding only serves to shame him in front of his own people and stiffen the resolve of the extremists. we're asking him to fight To send for this task the Bully-in-Chief behind the pulpit, Dick Cheney, whose devotion to American hegemony in the world--by military force if necessary--is well known, is to pile on the insult. Is it any wonder that this "surprise visit" yielded nothing but protests that "we have done all we can", and further animosityin the Muslim world?
It's hard to know what to do with this nagging conviction that things are going badly wrong with the human species and the world that we inhabit--and that we Americans, in the name of freedom and democracy--are doing more than our fair share to make them worse. To wash one's hands of the whole mess, park one's rear end on the cushion and practice one's Buddhist equanimity seems almost irresponsible in the face of the enormity of the consequences of inaction. At the same time, I have to recognize the limits to what I can do. Chalk it up to samsara, I guess, and send out metta to those in the world whose actions are the cause of these disastrous consequences. Which may be good for the heart, but I have to say that the brain remains dissatisfied.
But, forgive me, I was going to get back on my political hobby-horse today. The Middle East mess. Talk about unskillful! The high-handed, ham-fisted administration we have misguidedly placed in office in Washington, DC, could hardly handle its diplomatic efforts in the world with less subtlety and imagination, or with less sensitivity to its allies--or indeed its enemies--in the world out there. To send Dick Cheney, of all people, to deliver a public rebuke to Pakistan's President Musharraf about his failure to control the Taliban seems to me the height of blinkered arrogance. After its own failure to take care of the Taliban and the Al Qaeda cadre it protected in Afghanistan, at a time when that was possible, the Bush administration has the gall to humiliate Musharraf for the same failure.
Okay, I understand that Musharraf has made his own blunders--most notably in that agreement with the tribal leaders last fall to give them free rein in their territories--and has allowed himself to be blown around by the winds of powerful extremist religious forces in his own country. But we might say that Bush has done the same. And given that political reality with which Musharraf has to deal in predomnantly Muslim Pakistan, this kind of heavyweight public scolding only serves to shame him in front of his own people and stiffen the resolve of the extremists. we're asking him to fight To send for this task the Bully-in-Chief behind the pulpit, Dick Cheney, whose devotion to American hegemony in the world--by military force if necessary--is well known, is to pile on the insult. Is it any wonder that this "surprise visit" yielded nothing but protests that "we have done all we can", and further animosityin the Muslim world?
It's hard to know what to do with this nagging conviction that things are going badly wrong with the human species and the world that we inhabit--and that we Americans, in the name of freedom and democracy--are doing more than our fair share to make them worse. To wash one's hands of the whole mess, park one's rear end on the cushion and practice one's Buddhist equanimity seems almost irresponsible in the face of the enormity of the consequences of inaction. At the same time, I have to recognize the limits to what I can do. Chalk it up to samsara, I guess, and send out metta to those in the world whose actions are the cause of these disastrous consequences. Which may be good for the heart, but I have to say that the brain remains dissatisfied.
Monday, February 26, 2007
Accidental Dharma
I'm trying to remember the exact phrase from yesterday's sangha, our Sunday sitting group. Than Geoff, our teacher, has this idea for an article, or possibly a book, about "accidental dharma"--the kind of dharma that occurs to all of us, if we're awake to it, at the most unlikely moments in our lives. I'm not sure that I have the right word--my short-term memory is unreliable these days--but, to use an art term, I understand it to be a kind of "found" dharma, even perhaps, more often than we would like, an "unwanted" dharma--the kind the jumps up and hits us in the face when we'd much rather have gone on with our otherwise comfortable lives. Anyway, we heard that Than Geoff is thinking of a collection of examples, and were encourged to help him out with our own experiences.
In my experience, when I think about it, it's all dharma. Take for example that moment a breakfast, a couple of days ago, at one of our local sidewalk cafes. I was sitting there with George while Ellie was inside putting in our order when I caught a glimpse of this sweet young couple... Later, at home, I wrote down this brief account. It's called, "So Young."
So Young
So I see this
sweet young pair
maybe twenty at
most, so reed
slim, so young, so
in love, they can
barely keep hands
from each other;
I watch them
quietly from where
I sit with my double
latte thinking there
was a once day
when some grey-
bearded seventy
something sat in
my place, with his
coffee, gazing
at me and my then
beloved thinking,
here is this sweet
young pair, maybe
twenty at most, so
reed slim, so very
young, so in love
they can barely
keep hands from
each other. And
thinking that man
who sat there at
that very moment,
watching, can now
no longer be with
us, at least not
in the form in
he then existed.
So what's a budding Buddhist to say about the Oscars? All that glitz and glamor? All that extravagance? All that wealth... those million-dollar, diamond-encrusted shoes? And all that flesh? I watched it. Did you? Betcha did.
First thought: it's easy to condemn such displays of material excess and self-congratulation, especially in the light of a world full of hunger, and violence, and abject poverty; and a world, of course, that we are in the process of destroying to support our common, exploitative greed. The Oscars represent conspicuous consumption at its worst. It's as easy to condemn, then, as the pomp and extravagance of the Catholic Church, say, in the Vatican--or indeed of those gold-encrusted Buddhist shrines. It does seem like a blatant contradiction, to be indulging in this kind of ostentation at the upper echelons, while at the same time extolling the virtues of simplicity and self-denial to the flock.
And yet... I watched. As did a billion other human beings, spellbound by the spectacle of celebrities celebrating each other's celebrity. So then it comes down to accidental dharma. What's the teaching? That it's all karma? That some of us are granted apparent privilege in life, for reasons we can never know, whilst others grovel? That we aspire to the privilege that we imagine others to enjoy? That behind the facade of glamor, likely, hides as much suffering as the rest of us experience in our lives? That everything, including privilege, is ephemeral? That privilege brings with it both responsibilities and dangers, if we are to believe that our actions bring inevitable consequences? Certainly, if we do subscribe to this belief, we must take special care that our actions carry the full weight of intention, that we act in consciousness of consequences...
Okay, I'll confess that I'm a bit bewildered by all this, my thoughts a bit scattered, as was my morning meditation. Perhaps there's just too much stuff here, too much mud in the water to find the clarity. Did you watch the Oscars? I'd love to hear what other thought the teaching was... if any.
In my experience, when I think about it, it's all dharma. Take for example that moment a breakfast, a couple of days ago, at one of our local sidewalk cafes. I was sitting there with George while Ellie was inside putting in our order when I caught a glimpse of this sweet young couple... Later, at home, I wrote down this brief account. It's called, "So Young."
So Young
So I see this
sweet young pair
maybe twenty at
most, so reed
slim, so young, so
in love, they can
barely keep hands
from each other;
I watch them
quietly from where
I sit with my double
latte thinking there
was a once day
when some grey-
bearded seventy
something sat in
my place, with his
coffee, gazing
at me and my then
beloved thinking,
here is this sweet
young pair, maybe
twenty at most, so
reed slim, so very
young, so in love
they can barely
keep hands from
each other. And
thinking that man
who sat there at
that very moment,
watching, can now
no longer be with
us, at least not
in the form in
he then existed.
So what's a budding Buddhist to say about the Oscars? All that glitz and glamor? All that extravagance? All that wealth... those million-dollar, diamond-encrusted shoes? And all that flesh? I watched it. Did you? Betcha did.
First thought: it's easy to condemn such displays of material excess and self-congratulation, especially in the light of a world full of hunger, and violence, and abject poverty; and a world, of course, that we are in the process of destroying to support our common, exploitative greed. The Oscars represent conspicuous consumption at its worst. It's as easy to condemn, then, as the pomp and extravagance of the Catholic Church, say, in the Vatican--or indeed of those gold-encrusted Buddhist shrines. It does seem like a blatant contradiction, to be indulging in this kind of ostentation at the upper echelons, while at the same time extolling the virtues of simplicity and self-denial to the flock.
And yet... I watched. As did a billion other human beings, spellbound by the spectacle of celebrities celebrating each other's celebrity. So then it comes down to accidental dharma. What's the teaching? That it's all karma? That some of us are granted apparent privilege in life, for reasons we can never know, whilst others grovel? That we aspire to the privilege that we imagine others to enjoy? That behind the facade of glamor, likely, hides as much suffering as the rest of us experience in our lives? That everything, including privilege, is ephemeral? That privilege brings with it both responsibilities and dangers, if we are to believe that our actions bring inevitable consequences? Certainly, if we do subscribe to this belief, we must take special care that our actions carry the full weight of intention, that we act in consciousness of consequences...
Okay, I'll confess that I'm a bit bewildered by all this, my thoughts a bit scattered, as was my morning meditation. Perhaps there's just too much stuff here, too much mud in the water to find the clarity. Did you watch the Oscars? I'd love to hear what other thought the teaching was... if any.
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Today, Saturday....
...something completely different, as they used to say on Monty Python. Well, not really so different. It's all the mind's work, no? Even the funny stuff... This one is called "Little Pricks." With apologies to anyone who might be offended.
Little Pricks
Remember that
little prick in
the bathtub, all those
years ago? Your
cousin's? Donald's? It
was all wet and
shiny, and he
popped it up, out
of the soapy water, like
it was a lighthouse
and he rammed
his bath boat into
the rocks, sinking it. He
was not ashamed
of his, as you were
of yours, it was
just fun for him. You
were amazed and a bit,
yes, shocked, and you hid
yours under the suds,
shyly, despite his
invitation to join in
the fun. So how come
my mind recalls
this with such intense
clarity from no more
than six years old, today
as I wake, the big
fan motionless above
my head, against
the white boards of
the bedroom ceiling?
little prick in
the bathtub, all those
years ago? Your
cousin's? Donald's? It
was all wet and
shiny, and he
popped it up, out
of the soapy water, like
it was a lighthouse
and he rammed
his bath boat into
the rocks, sinking it. He
was not ashamed
of his, as you were
of yours, it was
just fun for him. You
were amazed and a bit,
yes, shocked, and you hid
yours under the suds,
shyly, despite his
invitation to join in
the fun. So how come
my mind recalls
this with such intense
clarity from no more
than six years old, today
as I wake, the big
fan motionless above
my head, against
the white boards of
the bedroom ceiling?
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Creation... and The End of the World
I did a little research on the question raised yesterday in a comment by Mark, a student at Drury University in Springfield, Missouri, where I curated an exhibition and lectured last fall. His question (read it in full in yesterday's "Comments" section) was about the creation. If there were no deity to perform the act, he asked, how was it done--and why?
I was interested in Mark's question because, in fact, I had given little thought to the matter and was ill-informed about Buddhist thinking about the origins of the universe. As it turned out, this was no great surprise, since the Buddha clearly discouraged speculation on the subject, as he appears to have done most frequently with the great unknowables. One answer I came up, however, was in an essay by one A.L. DeSilva in an essay on the website, Buddhism Today:
"Buddhism says little on this subject," writes DeSilva, "and for a very good reason. The aim of Buddhism is to develop wisdom and compassion and thereby attain Nirvana. Knowing how the universe began can contribute nothing to this task." DeSilva continues with this story from the Buddhist texts:
A good story. One of the appealing things about the Buddha is that he told a good story--at least to judge from the reports of those who carried them in memory and those who eventually wrote them down. It bothers me that Evangelicals spend so much time and effort agonizing over the beginning and the end of the world. I suppose it's because their concern is with what they believe to be the eternal soul, and what will happen to it after death. In this light, the Buddhist concept of rebirth seems infinitely more expansive and humane. Do-overs, to me, are definitely preferable to eternal damnation--a fate which Evangelicals tell me I must expect if I'm not "reborn in Christ."
In any event, to believe in the literal word of the Bible on the subject of creation despite centuries of empirical scientific evidence seems to me willfully obtuse. The Buddha would surely shrug off that kind of ignorance. As for the end of the world, the Armageddon that Evangelical Christians like to wave like a warning cudgel--and which they appear to embrace in the belief that they alone will be spared... well, I like the incisive, playful irony of Robert Frost:
Wise words written in 1920. And of course, there's always the anticlimax T.S.Eliot offers in The Hollow Men:
(My thanks to Michael Davis at Michael's Scribblings for reminding me of these two visions!)
So what would the Buddha say? I think he'd say simply, don't bother your head about the things you can never know. Take heed of the present moment, and put your efforts into developing that wisdom and compassion. As for the origin of the world, as DeSilva nicely puts it at the end of his short essay: "Buddhism concentrates on helping us solve the practical problems of living - it does not encourage useless speculation. And if a Buddhist did wish to know how and when the universe began he would ask a scientist."
I was interested in Mark's question because, in fact, I had given little thought to the matter and was ill-informed about Buddhist thinking about the origins of the universe. As it turned out, this was no great surprise, since the Buddha clearly discouraged speculation on the subject, as he appears to have done most frequently with the great unknowables. One answer I came up, however, was in an essay by one A.L. DeSilva in an essay on the website, Buddhism Today:
"Buddhism says little on this subject," writes DeSilva, "and for a very good reason. The aim of Buddhism is to develop wisdom and compassion and thereby attain Nirvana. Knowing how the universe began can contribute nothing to this task." DeSilva continues with this story from the Buddhist texts:
Once a man demanded that the Buddha tell him how the universe began. The Buddha said to him "You are like a man who has been shot with a poison arrow and who, when the doctor comes to remove it, says 'Wait! Before the arrow is removed I want to know the name of the man who shot it, what clan he comes from, which village he was born in. I want to know what type of wood his bow is made from, what feathers are on the end of the arrow, how long the arrows are, etc etc etc.' That man would die before all these questions could be answered. My job is to help you to remove the arrow of suffering from yourself." (Majjhima Nikaya Sutta No. 63)
A good story. One of the appealing things about the Buddha is that he told a good story--at least to judge from the reports of those who carried them in memory and those who eventually wrote them down. It bothers me that Evangelicals spend so much time and effort agonizing over the beginning and the end of the world. I suppose it's because their concern is with what they believe to be the eternal soul, and what will happen to it after death. In this light, the Buddhist concept of rebirth seems infinitely more expansive and humane. Do-overs, to me, are definitely preferable to eternal damnation--a fate which Evangelicals tell me I must expect if I'm not "reborn in Christ."
In any event, to believe in the literal word of the Bible on the subject of creation despite centuries of empirical scientific evidence seems to me willfully obtuse. The Buddha would surely shrug off that kind of ignorance. As for the end of the world, the Armageddon that Evangelical Christians like to wave like a warning cudgel--and which they appear to embrace in the belief that they alone will be spared... well, I like the incisive, playful irony of Robert Frost:
SOME say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Wise words written in 1920. And of course, there's always the anticlimax T.S.Eliot offers in The Hollow Men:
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
(My thanks to Michael Davis at Michael's Scribblings for reminding me of these two visions!)
So what would the Buddha say? I think he'd say simply, don't bother your head about the things you can never know. Take heed of the present moment, and put your efforts into developing that wisdom and compassion. As for the origin of the world, as DeSilva nicely puts it at the end of his short essay: "Buddhism concentrates on helping us solve the practical problems of living - it does not encourage useless speculation. And if a Buddhist did wish to know how and when the universe began he would ask a scientist."
Rebirth: A Letter
Today, with his permission, a letter from a friend on the subject of rebirth, and the belief in rebirth. He says it all much more completely than my brief resume last Monday.
Hi Peter,
It was good to meet you on Sunday. I enjoyed the blog; thanks for the kind words.
It's a pity that we didn't have more time to discuss your question but the talk seemed to wander off in another direction - "The Secret" etc. Rebirth is a difficult one and I struggled with it for a long time. I started out with complete disbelief, considering it to be wishful thinking at best and completely at odds with scientific "facts", but the more I thought about and researched it, the more I realized that my belief that rebirth doesn't exist was just as much a dogmatic philosophical position as the belief that it does. I can't say that I know that rebirth is impossible and scientists haven't proved that it is impossible. This is particularly so with the Buddhist concept of rebirth because the Buddha said that there is not a "thing" that moves from life to life, just a process.
The idea of rebirth without any "thing" being reborn seems, at first sight to be nonsense but, if you think of your present life span, it seems more plausible. You say in your profile that you are 70; well, if you think of yourself now compared to when you were 7, what is left of the 7 year old Peter? Science tells us that we are mainly composed of water and that has changed since you were 7. All the gases in your body have changed. All the cells in your body have changed. Our minds change even more rapidly than the body - as we find out as soon as we try to do breath meditation! So the seven year old Peter has completely disappeared but we don't say that Peter doesn't exist. In fact, if the seven year old Peter hadn't existed, the seventy year old Peter could not now exist.
So why couldn't this process continue after the death of your present body? We know that the body isn't reborn because, if we are so inclined, we can watch a dead body rot. The only thing that could move on to another life is the mental continuum. For this to be the case, the mind would have to be a separate thing than the body and not dependent on the body for its existence. The Buddhist position is that the mental continuum started in the distant past and will continue into the future, only coming to an end when it stops grasping after further existence. In some ways, you could see it as similar to radio waves. These are in the air all the time but we are not aware of their existence; we can't experience them until we have a radio receiver.
In the scientific community there is disagreement as to whether consciousness can exist apart from the body or whether it is just an epiphenomenon of the brain. At the moment, the latter view seems to be dominant but the important thing is that neither side of the argument seems to be able to produce conclusive proof.
My position at the moment is that I don't know if rebirth exists but I lean towards accepting it because the Buddha said that it does and, every other time that I've put the Dhamma to the test I've found the Buddha to be correct.
In one way the question of rebirth can be put aside as long as you accept the theory of kamma. If you believe that all your actions have effects which depend upon the intention behind the act, then you will do all that you can to make sure that your actions aren't the cause of suffering for yourself or others. When you really investigate suffering and have real insights into it and its causes, you'll end up enlightened and will have put an end to rebirth.
Anyway, I'll stop my rambling now. I hope that this has helped you, if not, just hit the delete button and consign me to the great recycling bin in hyperspace!
I hope that I can speak to you again in person before I leave for home. If not and you want to keep up a dhamma discussion by e-mail I would be happy to do that.
Take care. Say hi to Ellie.
Best wishes, Nigel
I wrote back: Thanks, Nigel. Very good to hear from you. Your first paragraph sounds a bit like Pascal's famous bet about the existence of God. What you say makes good sense to me, but there is still a leap to make that I'm not quite ready for on this issue. Clearly, to make the point you make about believing what the Buddha said, you have far greater experience in testing out the Dhamma than I, and I respect that experience. I know that I have a lot of work to do! Would you mind if I used your letter in The Buddha Diaires? Please let me know. And do let's stay in touch. All being well, I'll see you this coming Sunday. Best of everything, Peter
And heard again from him: Hi Peter, Please feel free to use the letter, it might start a discussion. As for Pascal's wager, the problem is that he seems to think that it is an argument for believing only in the existence of the Christian God, whereas, if you follow the logic, you'd also have to believe in every other god or goddess that people have believed in since the beginning of time - and perhaps fairies at the bottom of the garden partying with leprechauns too! Regarding the fact that you are not ready to make the leap to believe in rebirth, the Buddha said somewhere, I think in one of the suttas in the Majjhima Nikaya, that you don't have to believe in rebirth but, if you don't, it means that you should go all out for enlightenment in this life. See you on Sunday. Take care, Nigel
And I, to him, briefly: Thanks, Nigel. I'll plan to share your letter in the next couple of days. And yes, the further discussion would be welcome. Fairies and leprechauns, eh? Sounds like fun. As for going all out for enlightenment, aren't we supposed to do that anyway? Or does belief in rebirth come with some kind of dispensation? Cheers, Peter
As Nigel suggests, wouldn't this be good, if this exchange started a discussion?
Hi Peter,
It was good to meet you on Sunday. I enjoyed the blog; thanks for the kind words.
It's a pity that we didn't have more time to discuss your question but the talk seemed to wander off in another direction - "The Secret" etc. Rebirth is a difficult one and I struggled with it for a long time. I started out with complete disbelief, considering it to be wishful thinking at best and completely at odds with scientific "facts", but the more I thought about and researched it, the more I realized that my belief that rebirth doesn't exist was just as much a dogmatic philosophical position as the belief that it does. I can't say that I know that rebirth is impossible and scientists haven't proved that it is impossible. This is particularly so with the Buddhist concept of rebirth because the Buddha said that there is not a "thing" that moves from life to life, just a process.
The idea of rebirth without any "thing" being reborn seems, at first sight to be nonsense but, if you think of your present life span, it seems more plausible. You say in your profile that you are 70; well, if you think of yourself now compared to when you were 7, what is left of the 7 year old Peter? Science tells us that we are mainly composed of water and that has changed since you were 7. All the gases in your body have changed. All the cells in your body have changed. Our minds change even more rapidly than the body - as we find out as soon as we try to do breath meditation! So the seven year old Peter has completely disappeared but we don't say that Peter doesn't exist. In fact, if the seven year old Peter hadn't existed, the seventy year old Peter could not now exist.
So why couldn't this process continue after the death of your present body? We know that the body isn't reborn because, if we are so inclined, we can watch a dead body rot. The only thing that could move on to another life is the mental continuum. For this to be the case, the mind would have to be a separate thing than the body and not dependent on the body for its existence. The Buddhist position is that the mental continuum started in the distant past and will continue into the future, only coming to an end when it stops grasping after further existence. In some ways, you could see it as similar to radio waves. These are in the air all the time but we are not aware of their existence; we can't experience them until we have a radio receiver.
In the scientific community there is disagreement as to whether consciousness can exist apart from the body or whether it is just an epiphenomenon of the brain. At the moment, the latter view seems to be dominant but the important thing is that neither side of the argument seems to be able to produce conclusive proof.
My position at the moment is that I don't know if rebirth exists but I lean towards accepting it because the Buddha said that it does and, every other time that I've put the Dhamma to the test I've found the Buddha to be correct.
In one way the question of rebirth can be put aside as long as you accept the theory of kamma. If you believe that all your actions have effects which depend upon the intention behind the act, then you will do all that you can to make sure that your actions aren't the cause of suffering for yourself or others. When you really investigate suffering and have real insights into it and its causes, you'll end up enlightened and will have put an end to rebirth.
Anyway, I'll stop my rambling now. I hope that this has helped you, if not, just hit the delete button and consign me to the great recycling bin in hyperspace!
I hope that I can speak to you again in person before I leave for home. If not and you want to keep up a dhamma discussion by e-mail I would be happy to do that.
Take care. Say hi to Ellie.
Best wishes, Nigel
I wrote back: Thanks, Nigel. Very good to hear from you. Your first paragraph sounds a bit like Pascal's famous bet about the existence of God. What you say makes good sense to me, but there is still a leap to make that I'm not quite ready for on this issue. Clearly, to make the point you make about believing what the Buddha said, you have far greater experience in testing out the Dhamma than I, and I respect that experience. I know that I have a lot of work to do! Would you mind if I used your letter in The Buddha Diaires? Please let me know. And do let's stay in touch. All being well, I'll see you this coming Sunday. Best of everything, Peter
And heard again from him: Hi Peter, Please feel free to use the letter, it might start a discussion. As for Pascal's wager, the problem is that he seems to think that it is an argument for believing only in the existence of the Christian God, whereas, if you follow the logic, you'd also have to believe in every other god or goddess that people have believed in since the beginning of time - and perhaps fairies at the bottom of the garden partying with leprechauns too! Regarding the fact that you are not ready to make the leap to believe in rebirth, the Buddha said somewhere, I think in one of the suttas in the Majjhima Nikaya, that you don't have to believe in rebirth but, if you don't, it means that you should go all out for enlightenment in this life. See you on Sunday. Take care, Nigel
And I, to him, briefly: Thanks, Nigel. I'll plan to share your letter in the next couple of days. And yes, the further discussion would be welcome. Fairies and leprechauns, eh? Sounds like fun. As for going all out for enlightenment, aren't we supposed to do that anyway? Or does belief in rebirth come with some kind of dispensation? Cheers, Peter
As Nigel suggests, wouldn't this be good, if this exchange started a discussion?
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
PLEASE NOTE...
... if you're reading these pages and feel moved to respond, I warmly welcome any and all comments. I value what you have to say. Be aware, however, that if you choose the "anonymous" path in the comment box, the Blogger system leaves me unable to know who you are or get back to you--especially if your name is a relatively common one, like Peter!--unless you also choose to identify yourself, or let me have your email address separately at PeterAtLarge@mac.com.
Forgiveness
I woke up puzzling over Lord Longford--or at least Lord Longford as he was presented in the BBC television drama "Longford," which we had previously recorded and got around to watching last night. Frank Pakenham, the 7th Earl of Longford, who died in 2001, had clearly been a figure of considerable respect, as well as widespread contempt and ridicule during his life. He was a crusader, a modern-day Quixote. Mocked in Britain as "Lord Porn" for his anti-pornography activism, he also incurred the wrath of the British public for his three-decade long attempt to help the despised "Moors Murder" villainess Myra Hindley in her battle for parole. 
Wild-haired, gawky, and with a perpetually bewildered gaze, he managed to look the goofy character his detractors so easily maligned.
On the one hand, it's tempting to see the good earl in the venerable, if slightly wacky tradition of upper class British eccentrics, who are rewarded with nothing but mockery and condescension from the ordinary folk for their untiring efforts to compensate for inherited privilege with their pure thoughts, words and deeds. Count Prince Charles as prominent amongst them, for his undeservedly unkind image as a daft tree-hugger and generally nutty greenman. It's as though these superannuated aristocrats are trying to shake off centuries of guilt with single-minded dedication to redemption. They cling obstinately to a sense of duty for which others only censure them, and shoulder more than their fair share of suffering.
On the other hand, the good they try to do is undoubtedly good. To historian observers in the future, I have no doubt that Prince Charles will look like a truly enlightened pioneer in his personal obsession with organic gardening and agriculture. More power to him. As for Longford, his devotion to the unpopular cause of visiting even the worst of incarcerated criminals and his belief in the possibility of their rehabilitation are surely as noble as his family titles. Still, at least in this televised dramatisation of his life, he also comes across as naive and a shade overly pious in his determination to forgive.
It may be that Longford's obsession with forgiveness was rooted in his own need to be forgiven, as I have suggested. It was certainly deeply rooted in his embrace of Roman Catholicism, to which he converted as a younger man--though this might well be a chicken and egg effect. Which comes first, the man's obsessive need to be forgiven or the church's dark appeal in its own obsession with sin, guilt, confession, and redemption? The model of Christ as the forgiver-in-chief (apologies to my former nemesis, Bush!) seems to be what drives this character and his actions beyond the pale of reason and into a place where he is easily betrayed and made to look like a patsy and a fool. (Among the best scenes are those where Longford encounters the satanic Ian Brady, Hindley's partner in the child sex-and-murder crimes, who acts as the Devil's foil to the self-doubting saint in Longford. The whole thing, be it added, is superbly acted.)
All of which had me mulling the differences between Christian and Buddhist attitudes toward forgiveness. I remembered that Than Geoff had spoken on the subject but had forgotten exactly what he had to say, so I checked on the Access to Insight website to remind myself. Amongst other things, he wrote that "the Pali word for forgiveness-khama-also means 'the earth.' A mind like the earth is non-reactive and unperturbed. When you forgive me for harming you, you decide not to retaliate, to seek no revenge. You don't have to like me. You simply unburden yourself of the weight of resentment and cut the cycle of retribution that would otherwise keep us ensnarled in an ugly samsaric wrestling match. This is a gift you can give us both, totally on your own, without my having to know or understand what you've done." This squares, I think, with Longford's generous ability to eschew vengeful thoughts or intentions, to his own benefit as well as to that of the one at the receiving end of his forgiveness: it's the basic Buddhist principle, to avoid harm to both oneself and others.
What has me wondering is whether Longford's (guilt-ridden?) forgiveness is not too readily given, and does not too easily pass over responsibility for actions that were criminally brutal. Than Geoff makes a clear distinction between forgiveness--a simple, one-sided, and compassionate act; and reconciliation, which must be earned by the re-establishment of trust, beginning with the transgressor's recognition and acknowledgment of the transgression. As this drama shows it, Longford's trust is given too easily: he fails to recognize the falsity of Hindley's "confession," and in this way becomes a partner in her deception. As Than Geoff has memorably noted, "Buddhism does not require you to be a doormat"--a word which rather aptly describes the way in which Longford, in his eagerness to forgive, allows himself to be treated by Hindley, at great cost to his personal reputation. One can exercise forgiving compassion without being duped.
Food for thought: as an epigraph to his essay on forgiveness, Than Geoff invokes the wisdom of the Buddha.
"These two are fools. Which two? The one who doesn't see his/her transgression as a transgression, and the one who doesn't rightfully pardon another who has confessed his/her transgression. These two are fools.
"These two are wise. Which two? The one who sees his/her transgression as a transgression, and the one who rightfully pardons another who has confessed his/her transgression. These two are wise."
Wild-haired, gawky, and with a perpetually bewildered gaze, he managed to look the goofy character his detractors so easily maligned.
On the one hand, it's tempting to see the good earl in the venerable, if slightly wacky tradition of upper class British eccentrics, who are rewarded with nothing but mockery and condescension from the ordinary folk for their untiring efforts to compensate for inherited privilege with their pure thoughts, words and deeds. Count Prince Charles as prominent amongst them, for his undeservedly unkind image as a daft tree-hugger and generally nutty greenman. It's as though these superannuated aristocrats are trying to shake off centuries of guilt with single-minded dedication to redemption. They cling obstinately to a sense of duty for which others only censure them, and shoulder more than their fair share of suffering.
On the other hand, the good they try to do is undoubtedly good. To historian observers in the future, I have no doubt that Prince Charles will look like a truly enlightened pioneer in his personal obsession with organic gardening and agriculture. More power to him. As for Longford, his devotion to the unpopular cause of visiting even the worst of incarcerated criminals and his belief in the possibility of their rehabilitation are surely as noble as his family titles. Still, at least in this televised dramatisation of his life, he also comes across as naive and a shade overly pious in his determination to forgive.
It may be that Longford's obsession with forgiveness was rooted in his own need to be forgiven, as I have suggested. It was certainly deeply rooted in his embrace of Roman Catholicism, to which he converted as a younger man--though this might well be a chicken and egg effect. Which comes first, the man's obsessive need to be forgiven or the church's dark appeal in its own obsession with sin, guilt, confession, and redemption? The model of Christ as the forgiver-in-chief (apologies to my former nemesis, Bush!) seems to be what drives this character and his actions beyond the pale of reason and into a place where he is easily betrayed and made to look like a patsy and a fool. (Among the best scenes are those where Longford encounters the satanic Ian Brady, Hindley's partner in the child sex-and-murder crimes, who acts as the Devil's foil to the self-doubting saint in Longford. The whole thing, be it added, is superbly acted.)
All of which had me mulling the differences between Christian and Buddhist attitudes toward forgiveness. I remembered that Than Geoff had spoken on the subject but had forgotten exactly what he had to say, so I checked on the Access to Insight website to remind myself. Amongst other things, he wrote that "the Pali word for forgiveness-khama-also means 'the earth.' A mind like the earth is non-reactive and unperturbed. When you forgive me for harming you, you decide not to retaliate, to seek no revenge. You don't have to like me. You simply unburden yourself of the weight of resentment and cut the cycle of retribution that would otherwise keep us ensnarled in an ugly samsaric wrestling match. This is a gift you can give us both, totally on your own, without my having to know or understand what you've done." This squares, I think, with Longford's generous ability to eschew vengeful thoughts or intentions, to his own benefit as well as to that of the one at the receiving end of his forgiveness: it's the basic Buddhist principle, to avoid harm to both oneself and others.
What has me wondering is whether Longford's (guilt-ridden?) forgiveness is not too readily given, and does not too easily pass over responsibility for actions that were criminally brutal. Than Geoff makes a clear distinction between forgiveness--a simple, one-sided, and compassionate act; and reconciliation, which must be earned by the re-establishment of trust, beginning with the transgressor's recognition and acknowledgment of the transgression. As this drama shows it, Longford's trust is given too easily: he fails to recognize the falsity of Hindley's "confession," and in this way becomes a partner in her deception. As Than Geoff has memorably noted, "Buddhism does not require you to be a doormat"--a word which rather aptly describes the way in which Longford, in his eagerness to forgive, allows himself to be treated by Hindley, at great cost to his personal reputation. One can exercise forgiving compassion without being duped.
Food for thought: as an epigraph to his essay on forgiveness, Than Geoff invokes the wisdom of the Buddha.
"These two are fools. Which two? The one who doesn't see his/her transgression as a transgression, and the one who doesn't rightfully pardon another who has confessed his/her transgression. These two are fools.
"These two are wise. Which two? The one who sees his/her transgression as a transgression, and the one who rightfully pardons another who has confessed his/her transgression. These two are wise."
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
A Treasure
I broke a treasure this morning. My daily routine is to come upstairs after my morning meditation (our bedroom, in this house, is on the lower level) and make a pot of tea to bring down for us both to enjoy in bed as we watch the morning news. This morning, in the process of assembling things on the tray, I reached for the sweetener and knocked its container off the shelf to the floor. The container in question was the smallest in a set of three ceramic "Made in Japan" cannisters--a gift, Ellie reminded me later--from a friend who had been a house guest in our home at a difficult moment in her life. We have a whole collection of these things, accumulated during our swap-meet days, but this one was of a particularly attractive, post-deco design and had been much used and loved.
I was feeling a bit sad and guilty, then, when I broke the news to Ellie. I could take the event, I suppose, as an object-lesson in non-attachment: no matter how much we treasure them, things come and go in our lives and it's best not to attach too much significance to their arrival--or their loss. This was a small thing, indeed. There are much bigger, much more important things we are called upon to relinquish--up to and including the very bodies in which we spend our lives!--so I can't feel too sorry for myself over the loss of what is clearly no more than a trinket, no matter how beautiful we thought it. It's important, though, to take note of that twinge of sadness and regret over something so small, and realize how easily we do become attached.
My choice, though, is to look at it also from another point of view. What caused the loss was a moment of inattention on my part--a lapse that only became significant when its result became apparent. There's something bigger at stake here. In the course of my morning sit, I had become more than usually aware of extra weight I carry around with me with a discomfort that I am normally able to ignore. I know that this, too, is just another result of inattention, the mindless consumption of unneeded food and drink for no better reason than emotional consolation. Since I have been thinking a good deal about karma these past few days, in both conscious and, I'm sure, unconscious ways, I began to see plausible connections between past actions and my present predicament.
The uncomfortable truth is that I do not need to explore my past lives--if such there were--to find examples of the kind of unskillful, harm-producing actions that could result in my need for emotional comfort today. No need, here, for personal confessions. The nature of those past actions matters less than the realization that they could have resulted in those things about myself that I find less than appealing today and would like to change. To wit, for one, that extra weight I carry around with me to my discomfort and to the detriment of my health.
The realization, of course, is a good deal easier than the choice to become more mindful, more attentive to what I put into my body. Wisdom is cheap. Those things I love, to which I have become attached--my extra glass of wine, my pre-dinner snacks, my post-dinner desserts--seem to mean more to me than health and balance in my life. The good news is that this ius not one of those things that can't be changed, that can be addressed only with equanimity. But I guess that's the bad news, too, because it makes it my responsibility to change. It's not that I don't know what's good for me. No. It's that I persist in making choices for the bad. As countless others have discovered before me, there is no diet in the world that can adequately solve this dilemma for me. There are only quick, all-too-ephemeral fixes that create the illusion of a solution. It's the inner work that needs to be done, and that's the hard part.
I was feeling a bit sad and guilty, then, when I broke the news to Ellie. I could take the event, I suppose, as an object-lesson in non-attachment: no matter how much we treasure them, things come and go in our lives and it's best not to attach too much significance to their arrival--or their loss. This was a small thing, indeed. There are much bigger, much more important things we are called upon to relinquish--up to and including the very bodies in which we spend our lives!--so I can't feel too sorry for myself over the loss of what is clearly no more than a trinket, no matter how beautiful we thought it. It's important, though, to take note of that twinge of sadness and regret over something so small, and realize how easily we do become attached.
My choice, though, is to look at it also from another point of view. What caused the loss was a moment of inattention on my part--a lapse that only became significant when its result became apparent. There's something bigger at stake here. In the course of my morning sit, I had become more than usually aware of extra weight I carry around with me with a discomfort that I am normally able to ignore. I know that this, too, is just another result of inattention, the mindless consumption of unneeded food and drink for no better reason than emotional consolation. Since I have been thinking a good deal about karma these past few days, in both conscious and, I'm sure, unconscious ways, I began to see plausible connections between past actions and my present predicament.
The uncomfortable truth is that I do not need to explore my past lives--if such there were--to find examples of the kind of unskillful, harm-producing actions that could result in my need for emotional comfort today. No need, here, for personal confessions. The nature of those past actions matters less than the realization that they could have resulted in those things about myself that I find less than appealing today and would like to change. To wit, for one, that extra weight I carry around with me to my discomfort and to the detriment of my health.
The realization, of course, is a good deal easier than the choice to become more mindful, more attentive to what I put into my body. Wisdom is cheap. Those things I love, to which I have become attached--my extra glass of wine, my pre-dinner snacks, my post-dinner desserts--seem to mean more to me than health and balance in my life. The good news is that this ius not one of those things that can't be changed, that can be addressed only with equanimity. But I guess that's the bad news, too, because it makes it my responsibility to change. It's not that I don't know what's good for me. No. It's that I persist in making choices for the bad. As countless others have discovered before me, there is no diet in the world that can adequately solve this dilemma for me. There are only quick, all-too-ephemeral fixes that create the illusion of a solution. It's the inner work that needs to be done, and that's the hard part.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Rain... and Rebirth
Rain. It started last night, first a drizzle, then a good, heavy shower that lasted unfortunately only a few minutes. I heard it on and off during the night, but nothing really heavy, and this morning I note that the area under the pepper tree in our back patio is not even wet. It can't have rained much--not nearly as much as we need. In this morning's paper, I note that we're barely one fifth of our season normal to date--a fact that bodes a summer of serious drought and a dangerous fire season later in the year.
A wonderful gathering of our sangha yesterday. As I think I have mentioned before, we meet every Sunday morning for an hour's silent sit and an hour of discussion. I got the ball rolling with the question I found myself asking after one of my daily sits just the other day: if we believe in rebirth as one of the basic Buddhist tenets--and I'm sure that I mentioned my own problems with this belief--who gets to decide in what form we return? As a rat? A bat? A monk? An arhat? Who gets to weigh up the merits and demerits we have accumulated during this lifetime as regular human beings, and make that fatal judgment call?
Well, my neighbor at the sit, a fellow Brit who is only briefly here on his annual vacation visit to his brother, responded with an admirably concise and lucid explanation that each one of us makes that decision for him- or herself; that we keep making that decision in our actions throughout our lives, since our actions reflect our intentions. This, after all, is what karma is all about. It is not, as is often too glibly assumed, just another word for fate. It's a belief that our actions have consequences, and that the good ones bring about good results, while the bad ones bring harm to ourselves or to others. By the time we reach the moment of our death we have, through the sum of those actions and the trope of our lives, already decided the nature of our rebirth. And even at the moment of death, as Than Geoff teaches, we may still have decisions to make, should we by that time have developed the mindfulness and the clarity of intention to be able to make them.
Another of our members, a regular, followed up on our guest with an explanation in which contemporary scientific knowledge in effect confirms much of what Buddhism teaches on this subject: that what we think of as the self is no more than an illusion we create for ourselves, and that the only reality in the universe is energy and its constant process of change. The "selves" to which we attach such importance in our lives are as much engaged in this process as anything else, and the moment of death is no different from what has been happening to us from the moment of our birth. "Rebirth," then, is no more than an account of the principle of the universe...
... which led us to "The Secret", about which I knew nothing until I read Maureen Dowd's playfully mocking column in last Saturday's New York Times, spoofing Oprah Winfrey's recent whole-hearted embrace of "The Secret" on her show with the suggestion (Dowd's) that all we need to do to change the disastrous current course of this country is to send out good vibrations to Dick Cheney. I must confess I have difficulty with anything that advertises itself as "the Secret to everything - the secret to unlimited joy, health, money, relationships, love, youth: everything you have ever wanted." It sounds as easy to take as a diet pill and is probably, in my jaundiced judgment, as effective. Still, others in our group were more knowledgeable than I, had seen the movie which is causing such a stir, and described it as a non-intellectual's version of "What the Bleep Do We Know."
Well, okay. Ellie is determined that I should keep an open mind, but my skepticism is rampant... My British neighbor and I were agreeing, after the discussion concluded, that such enlightenment as we can achieve in our lifetime is more likely to result from the daily application of hard work than from any magical formula. Maybe it's in those pragmatic British genes...
A wonderful gathering of our sangha yesterday. As I think I have mentioned before, we meet every Sunday morning for an hour's silent sit and an hour of discussion. I got the ball rolling with the question I found myself asking after one of my daily sits just the other day: if we believe in rebirth as one of the basic Buddhist tenets--and I'm sure that I mentioned my own problems with this belief--who gets to decide in what form we return? As a rat? A bat? A monk? An arhat? Who gets to weigh up the merits and demerits we have accumulated during this lifetime as regular human beings, and make that fatal judgment call?
Well, my neighbor at the sit, a fellow Brit who is only briefly here on his annual vacation visit to his brother, responded with an admirably concise and lucid explanation that each one of us makes that decision for him- or herself; that we keep making that decision in our actions throughout our lives, since our actions reflect our intentions. This, after all, is what karma is all about. It is not, as is often too glibly assumed, just another word for fate. It's a belief that our actions have consequences, and that the good ones bring about good results, while the bad ones bring harm to ourselves or to others. By the time we reach the moment of our death we have, through the sum of those actions and the trope of our lives, already decided the nature of our rebirth. And even at the moment of death, as Than Geoff teaches, we may still have decisions to make, should we by that time have developed the mindfulness and the clarity of intention to be able to make them.
Another of our members, a regular, followed up on our guest with an explanation in which contemporary scientific knowledge in effect confirms much of what Buddhism teaches on this subject: that what we think of as the self is no more than an illusion we create for ourselves, and that the only reality in the universe is energy and its constant process of change. The "selves" to which we attach such importance in our lives are as much engaged in this process as anything else, and the moment of death is no different from what has been happening to us from the moment of our birth. "Rebirth," then, is no more than an account of the principle of the universe...
... which led us to "The Secret", about which I knew nothing until I read Maureen Dowd's playfully mocking column in last Saturday's New York Times, spoofing Oprah Winfrey's recent whole-hearted embrace of "The Secret" on her show with the suggestion (Dowd's) that all we need to do to change the disastrous current course of this country is to send out good vibrations to Dick Cheney. I must confess I have difficulty with anything that advertises itself as "the Secret to everything - the secret to unlimited joy, health, money, relationships, love, youth: everything you have ever wanted." It sounds as easy to take as a diet pill and is probably, in my jaundiced judgment, as effective. Still, others in our group were more knowledgeable than I, had seen the movie which is causing such a stir, and described it as a non-intellectual's version of "What the Bleep Do We Know."
Well, okay. Ellie is determined that I should keep an open mind, but my skepticism is rampant... My British neighbor and I were agreeing, after the discussion concluded, that such enlightenment as we can achieve in our lifetime is more likely to result from the daily application of hard work than from any magical formula. Maybe it's in those pragmatic British genes...
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Traffic
We left the Bergamot Station art gallery complex a little before 4:30 after our art walk Thursday. Bergamot Station is between Olympic and the 10 Freeway at 26th Street in Santa Monica, so there was good reason to believe that we were leaving plenty of time to make it to midtown, Melrose and Highland, in good time to make our 5PM dinner reservation. (We had made it so early because this restaurant has become so hugely popular that, with a good week's notice, we had been unable to get a table after 5PM!) As it turned out, we arrived at the restaurant forty-five minutes late for our appointment--and the table, of course, was gone.
Okay, it's getting to be a bore to complain about it, but it seems that the traffic in Los Angeles is getting worse by the day. After leaving Bergamot, we ran into nearly stationary lines of it on Olympic more than ten blocks before the 405 Freeway. After twenty minutes or so, thinking that it must be some dreadful accident that was holding us up, we cut north to Santa Monica Boulevard, and then east toward the freeway underpass and on through Beverly Hills. Same problem. The traffic was blocked solid, inching forward at the change of every light. Three, four, five light changes before we actually managed to cross an intersection. Same thing through Beverly Hills.
It's in situations like this, I confess, that I find it hardest to put those wonderful Buddhist principles into practice. Equanimity at zero miles per hour, sitting amongst the fumes of a hundred vehicles hemming you in--to me, this is a near-impossibility. I tell myself to breathe, but the anger and frustration continue to sizzle--and occasionally explode when my lane seems to be the only one that's stalled. Until, of course, I sneak into the next, which seems to be making at least minimal progress, and that one stalls instead, while the one I've left starts up with a burst of unpredictable speed. Or when one of those rude drivers zooms ahead and cuts in front of me from another lane--no matter that I've just done the same myself. Ah, yes, goodwill. Compassion... Equanimity, hell!
Well, cell phones have their uses, and Ellie was able to call ahead to let the restaurant know we would be late and ask them to hold the table for as long as possible. At five o'clock, they offered, tentatively, another twenty minutes. At that time, we even thought we might be able to make it. Vain hope! We did stop by the restaurant at 5:45, but by then it was already far too late. We drove on to a restaurant closer to home and drowned our sorrows in a nice bottle of coastal pinot noir.
Arriving in Laguna yesterday mid-afternoon, we were appalled to find gridlock here in the village too. We tolerate the summer crowds, and do most of our travel here on foot. But we usually expect to be spared, off-season. Is there nowhere to escape this curse of contemporary civilization?
Okay, it's getting to be a bore to complain about it, but it seems that the traffic in Los Angeles is getting worse by the day. After leaving Bergamot, we ran into nearly stationary lines of it on Olympic more than ten blocks before the 405 Freeway. After twenty minutes or so, thinking that it must be some dreadful accident that was holding us up, we cut north to Santa Monica Boulevard, and then east toward the freeway underpass and on through Beverly Hills. Same problem. The traffic was blocked solid, inching forward at the change of every light. Three, four, five light changes before we actually managed to cross an intersection. Same thing through Beverly Hills.
It's in situations like this, I confess, that I find it hardest to put those wonderful Buddhist principles into practice. Equanimity at zero miles per hour, sitting amongst the fumes of a hundred vehicles hemming you in--to me, this is a near-impossibility. I tell myself to breathe, but the anger and frustration continue to sizzle--and occasionally explode when my lane seems to be the only one that's stalled. Until, of course, I sneak into the next, which seems to be making at least minimal progress, and that one stalls instead, while the one I've left starts up with a burst of unpredictable speed. Or when one of those rude drivers zooms ahead and cuts in front of me from another lane--no matter that I've just done the same myself. Ah, yes, goodwill. Compassion... Equanimity, hell!
Well, cell phones have their uses, and Ellie was able to call ahead to let the restaurant know we would be late and ask them to hold the table for as long as possible. At five o'clock, they offered, tentatively, another twenty minutes. At that time, we even thought we might be able to make it. Vain hope! We did stop by the restaurant at 5:45, but by then it was already far too late. We drove on to a restaurant closer to home and drowned our sorrows in a nice bottle of coastal pinot noir.
Arriving in Laguna yesterday mid-afternoon, we were appalled to find gridlock here in the village too. We tolerate the summer crowds, and do most of our travel here on foot. But we usually expect to be spared, off-season. Is there nowhere to escape this curse of contemporary civilization?
Friday, February 16, 2007
Art Gallery Rounds
Well, I kept my pledge. I wrote to both my senators and my congresswoman about that UNICEF report on the well-being of our children here in America, and I found what I think is a good organization to which to send some money. It's the Children's Defense Fund. Under the leadership of founder and president Marian Wright Edelman, this organization seems to be doing the kind of work I'd want to support, and I trust that readers of these pages might want to add a few dollars to the pot. It's easy, painless even. Just click on the link above, hit "donate," and Bob's your uncle, as we used to say,
So let's talk about art. Ellie and I made the rounds of some of the galleries yesterday, and found more than our usual share of interesting work. For locals, a stop at the Jancar Gallery on Wilshire Boulevard (for details, check out the handy Artscene gallery guide) rewards with a show of unabashedly political paintings and drawings by Kim Hubbard. No holds barred. This is an artist previously known for abstract paintings. Perhaps, not unlike myself, she was called to respond with unambiguous anger to what's happening in the world--and particularly in American politics these days. I say, bravo!
Another women artist caught my attention further along the route. In a capacious old hangar at the Santa Monica Airport, the Sherry Frumkin Gallery shows Corey Stein, whose relief paintings--she uses paper cut-outs to create the relief--are at once hilarious, witty, provocative and poignant. She titles the show "Gallery Guyde"--pun obviously intended, since the series of works riffs on the experience of a Miss LonelyHearts in the yearning search for a beau. Stein, who has suffered from epilepsy all her life and underwent brain surgery to correct the affliction, looks out at the world from an almost painfully personal point of view. The wry, sardonic, occasionally biting humor does not quite manage to disguise the vulnerability in these works. Anyone with an ounce of human senstivity will resonate with the aching dread of isolation and with the simultaneous paradoxical anxieties about contact and closeness with other human beings. To paraphrase that old Beatles song, we all need someone to love--and someone to love us.
On to Bergamot Station in Santa Monica, where there was also plenty to see--and plenty to admire. For myself, of special interest was the Jan Bas Ader installation at Patrick Painter Gallery--a reminder of the special influence of this pioneering Dutch artist on future generations. The deadpan irony of his camera work and situations elicits sometimes uncomfortable smiles. His disappearance at sea in 1976 as he was attempting a trans-Atlantic crossing in a small boat as a part of an art experiment deprived the art world of an original practitioner. Also, the work of Amy Bennett at Richard Heller Gallery. Her spookily bland suburban scenes with their odd surprises (a tiny naked figure, for example, in a window, or a couple caught in flagrante delicto in some unexpected corner) have something of the familiar frisson of "Desperate Housewives." The dark side of the comfortable American way of life.
I fell in love with Kathleen Henderson's show of oil stick drawings and small, three-dimensional pieces (you could hardly call them "sculptures")--the word suggests more formality than these unsettling works possess at Rosamund Felsen Gallery. Part mythical, part satrical, her figures are most frequently humans masked as animals--the rabbit is clearly her favorite, to judge by his ubiquitous appearances--and they're caught in situations that mime the extremes of human foibles, most frequently malevolent, and often military, personal or sexual aggression.
The rabbit, of course, has contradictory dual associations, as both the irresistibly cuddly, furry little thing that children love and the promiscous, tireless--and prolific--sexual aggressor. Henderson's Rabbit has both qualities, in spades. At first sight, the work might seem merely whimsical. It shares some of the humorous qualities of James Thurber, both in theme and execution. Examine these drawings and sculptures more closely, though, and we're drawn back into some pretty serious and damning reflections on human nature and the society in which we live.
Aside from the compelling quality of the content, though, I was attracted by Henderson's modesty and economy of means. She manages to say a lot with little, and in very small scale. To get a better sense of the work, click on the "current exhibition" at Rosamund Felsen Gallery and you'll find a nice selection of the work. Better yet, of course, stop by the gallery one day soon.
If I were writing for a magazine, as I used to do, I would have to add a "full disclosure" here. Ellie and I were so engaged with Kathleen Henderson's work that we splurged and bought one of her "sculptures"! But this isn't a magazine, and I don't have to tell you. So forget I mentioned it.
So let's talk about art. Ellie and I made the rounds of some of the galleries yesterday, and found more than our usual share of interesting work. For locals, a stop at the Jancar Gallery on Wilshire Boulevard (for details, check out the handy Artscene gallery guide) rewards with a show of unabashedly political paintings and drawings by Kim Hubbard. No holds barred. This is an artist previously known for abstract paintings. Perhaps, not unlike myself, she was called to respond with unambiguous anger to what's happening in the world--and particularly in American politics these days. I say, bravo!
Another women artist caught my attention further along the route. In a capacious old hangar at the Santa Monica Airport, the Sherry Frumkin Gallery shows Corey Stein, whose relief paintings--she uses paper cut-outs to create the relief--are at once hilarious, witty, provocative and poignant. She titles the show "Gallery Guyde"--pun obviously intended, since the series of works riffs on the experience of a Miss LonelyHearts in the yearning search for a beau. Stein, who has suffered from epilepsy all her life and underwent brain surgery to correct the affliction, looks out at the world from an almost painfully personal point of view. The wry, sardonic, occasionally biting humor does not quite manage to disguise the vulnerability in these works. Anyone with an ounce of human senstivity will resonate with the aching dread of isolation and with the simultaneous paradoxical anxieties about contact and closeness with other human beings. To paraphrase that old Beatles song, we all need someone to love--and someone to love us.
On to Bergamot Station in Santa Monica, where there was also plenty to see--and plenty to admire. For myself, of special interest was the Jan Bas Ader installation at Patrick Painter Gallery--a reminder of the special influence of this pioneering Dutch artist on future generations. The deadpan irony of his camera work and situations elicits sometimes uncomfortable smiles. His disappearance at sea in 1976 as he was attempting a trans-Atlantic crossing in a small boat as a part of an art experiment deprived the art world of an original practitioner. Also, the work of Amy Bennett at Richard Heller Gallery. Her spookily bland suburban scenes with their odd surprises (a tiny naked figure, for example, in a window, or a couple caught in flagrante delicto in some unexpected corner) have something of the familiar frisson of "Desperate Housewives." The dark side of the comfortable American way of life.
I fell in love with Kathleen Henderson's show of oil stick drawings and small, three-dimensional pieces (you could hardly call them "sculptures")--the word suggests more formality than these unsettling works possess at Rosamund Felsen Gallery. Part mythical, part satrical, her figures are most frequently humans masked as animals--the rabbit is clearly her favorite, to judge by his ubiquitous appearances--and they're caught in situations that mime the extremes of human foibles, most frequently malevolent, and often military, personal or sexual aggression.
The rabbit, of course, has contradictory dual associations, as both the irresistibly cuddly, furry little thing that children love and the promiscous, tireless--and prolific--sexual aggressor. Henderson's Rabbit has both qualities, in spades. At first sight, the work might seem merely whimsical. It shares some of the humorous qualities of James Thurber, both in theme and execution. Examine these drawings and sculptures more closely, though, and we're drawn back into some pretty serious and damning reflections on human nature and the society in which we live.
Aside from the compelling quality of the content, though, I was attracted by Henderson's modesty and economy of means. She manages to say a lot with little, and in very small scale. To get a better sense of the work, click on the "current exhibition" at Rosamund Felsen Gallery and you'll find a nice selection of the work. Better yet, of course, stop by the gallery one day soon.If I were writing for a magazine, as I used to do, I would have to add a "full disclosure" here. Ellie and I were so engaged with Kathleen Henderson's work that we splurged and bought one of her "sculptures"! But this isn't a magazine, and I don't have to tell you. So forget I mentioned it.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Our Children
Shame on us, America, for showing up next-to-last--just before (once Great) Britain!--in the UNICEF report on children's well-being in developed countries. Twenty-one countries! And we show up #20. Almost as shameful is the paucity of media attention to the report, which was released yesterday. Here we compare unfavorably also to the UK: the BBC World News had the good grace to feature the shameful news near the top of its newcast. I saw not a mention on the network news that I watched, and I'm not sure, either, about Public Television, which I was watching only out of the corner of an eye whilst Ellie and I were preparing our Valentine's Day dinner (steak, baked potato, brussels sprouts and a nice bottle of California coastal Syrah: even this seems a bit obscene to me--to confess to sumptuous dining while children starve.)
Yes, starve. Here in the richest country in the history of the world. Well, perhaps they don't die of malnutrition in the tens of thousands, as they do in less fortunate countries, but thousands go to bed hungry. UNICEF's cateogries, according to this morning's Los Angeles Times (where was the report in the New York Times? I couldn't find it!) included "material well-being, health, education, relationships, behaviors and risks, and young people's own sense of happiness." The highest ranking for the United States was 12th, in the education category. 12th! So much for No Child Left Behind. The vast majority of our children, it would seem, are being left behind when compared to their peers in other developed countries.
So much for the best. The US was bottom of the list for health and safety, "mostly," the LA Times reports, "because of high rates of child mortality and accidental deaths." We ranked next-to-last in "family and peer relationships and risk-taking behavior", and 17th in the percentage of children who live in relative poverty. Our low standings, it seems, result from "less spending on social programs and 'dog-eat-dog' competition in jobs that [lead] to adults spending less time with their children and heightened alienation among peers."
So what, I wonder, is the response of the American people to such a disastrous report card? Do we know about it? Likely not, given the slim media coverage. Do we care? Are we sufficiently outraged to go running to our representatives in government to demand that they address these issues without delay? I fear not. I fear that our greed and narcissism is so deeply engrained at this point that we will simply throw up our hands and deny any personal responsibility.
Here's for me, though: I pledge to write, today, to both my senators and my congressman to bring my own sense of outrage to their attention; and to find some charitable organization concerned with food for children and make a donation proportionate to the cost of that Valentine's Day dinner for two.
*******
On another front, a thought, this morning, after meditation, regarding that troublesome question of reincarnation: if we are reborn into another, different life form after our death to this human existence, who gets to decide what form that will be? Does the belief not imply the existence of a source of judgment? A god? In my next life, am I to be a rat, an elephant, a hyena--or a boddhisatva? Who makes that decision--if it's not left up to me?
Yes, starve. Here in the richest country in the history of the world. Well, perhaps they don't die of malnutrition in the tens of thousands, as they do in less fortunate countries, but thousands go to bed hungry. UNICEF's cateogries, according to this morning's Los Angeles Times (where was the report in the New York Times? I couldn't find it!) included "material well-being, health, education, relationships, behaviors and risks, and young people's own sense of happiness." The highest ranking for the United States was 12th, in the education category. 12th! So much for No Child Left Behind. The vast majority of our children, it would seem, are being left behind when compared to their peers in other developed countries.
So much for the best. The US was bottom of the list for health and safety, "mostly," the LA Times reports, "because of high rates of child mortality and accidental deaths." We ranked next-to-last in "family and peer relationships and risk-taking behavior", and 17th in the percentage of children who live in relative poverty. Our low standings, it seems, result from "less spending on social programs and 'dog-eat-dog' competition in jobs that [lead] to adults spending less time with their children and heightened alienation among peers."
So what, I wonder, is the response of the American people to such a disastrous report card? Do we know about it? Likely not, given the slim media coverage. Do we care? Are we sufficiently outraged to go running to our representatives in government to demand that they address these issues without delay? I fear not. I fear that our greed and narcissism is so deeply engrained at this point that we will simply throw up our hands and deny any personal responsibility.
Here's for me, though: I pledge to write, today, to both my senators and my congressman to bring my own sense of outrage to their attention; and to find some charitable organization concerned with food for children and make a donation proportionate to the cost of that Valentine's Day dinner for two.
*******
On another front, a thought, this morning, after meditation, regarding that troublesome question of reincarnation: if we are reborn into another, different life form after our death to this human existence, who gets to decide what form that will be? Does the belief not imply the existence of a source of judgment? A god? In my next life, am I to be a rat, an elephant, a hyena--or a boddhisatva? Who makes that decision--if it's not left up to me?
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
About That Press Conference...
... this morning. I tried, I really did. I tried listening to my late father's familiar injunction: Be charitable. That would be the Christian voice. I listened to Than Geoff's recommendation of goodwill, compassion or, failing that, at least equanimity. The Buddhist approach.
But the Bush voice--that indignant whine of one who believes that his questioner is incapable of understanding the full depth of his wisdom--and the Bush assumption of unassailable rectitude in all matters, great and small, and the Bush humor, with its waggish condescension, well... they all drive me to distraction. I watched this man this morning as he evaded and purposefully distorted questions, ducked responsibility and cheerfully laid blame on others, rambled on unintelligibly and smirked that aggravating smirk, and I frankly found it hard to wish him well. If I wished him true happiness and he found it, I suppose the world would be a better place, as Than Geoff suggests. In the meantime, though, I find it scarcely possible to forgive him for the harm he has done to this world, and continues to do, with apparent impunity. I guess I'm just not Buddhist enough yet. Maybe karma will catch up with him in a later life--or later in this one. But let's not hope for anything so dreadful... Let's stick to the wish for true happiness. Much nicer.
Last night, though, we did have a good session with one of our artists' groups. The most interesting part, for me, was to hear how each of us, in our various ways, delights in that sense of being in the flow. It's not something you can work to get, really: it's something that happens when you work. Ellie had brought in a wonderful quotation from an article on the video artist Bill Viola, in which he was quoted as recalling a thought from a 14th century Japanese treatise on acting:the artist's consciousness is a seagull and the outer chaos is the wind, and the right alignment of the two results in effortless flight. A much more profitable topic for reflection than all of Bush's tripe.
But the Bush voice--that indignant whine of one who believes that his questioner is incapable of understanding the full depth of his wisdom--and the Bush assumption of unassailable rectitude in all matters, great and small, and the Bush humor, with its waggish condescension, well... they all drive me to distraction. I watched this man this morning as he evaded and purposefully distorted questions, ducked responsibility and cheerfully laid blame on others, rambled on unintelligibly and smirked that aggravating smirk, and I frankly found it hard to wish him well. If I wished him true happiness and he found it, I suppose the world would be a better place, as Than Geoff suggests. In the meantime, though, I find it scarcely possible to forgive him for the harm he has done to this world, and continues to do, with apparent impunity. I guess I'm just not Buddhist enough yet. Maybe karma will catch up with him in a later life--or later in this one. But let's not hope for anything so dreadful... Let's stick to the wish for true happiness. Much nicer.
Last night, though, we did have a good session with one of our artists' groups. The most interesting part, for me, was to hear how each of us, in our various ways, delights in that sense of being in the flow. It's not something you can work to get, really: it's something that happens when you work. Ellie had brought in a wonderful quotation from an article on the video artist Bill Viola, in which he was quoted as recalling a thought from a 14th century Japanese treatise on acting:the artist's consciousness is a seagull and the outer chaos is the wind, and the right alignment of the two results in effortless flight. A much more profitable topic for reflection than all of Bush's tripe.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
George Gets Skunked...
... That's the morning headline. I did the usual thing. If it's still dark when I first get up, I take him out on a leash for his morning pee. When it's already light, I open the back door for him and he runs down into the garden by himself. This morning, it was kind of half and half. I judged that the morning twilight was light enough.
Big mistake. I was just about to settle down for my morning sit when he charged back in and the reek of skunk was everywhere. George's first instinct was to try to rub the stink off onto the carpet. Not a great idea. The carpet is only a year or so old, and Ellie has been been protecting it carefully. I picked him up and woke Ellie. The remedy might be a tomato juice bath--but did we have the wherewithal? It seemed not. Ellie recalled that feminine douche might also do the trick, but we didn't have that, either. A trip to the market, then. George was shut out on the balcony to await his reward for bad behavior, and I fired up the Prius...
I made it to the local market twenty minutes before opening time. Called Ellie on the trusty cell phone. She thought the other, slightly more distant market might be open. I drove further, but that one, too, was closed. Drove back to our local market, which by this time was open, and chatted with the girls at the checkout counter about feminine douche. They giggled. Armed with my purchases--four cans of Campell's tomato juice and a pack of extra strength water and vinegar feminine douche--I took the back route home to avoid the high school traffic.
George had his bath. He got a good rub with feminine douche first, and tomato juice next, followed by dog shampoo. He emerged looking bedraggled and justly pained by the experience.
There must be a teaching in all this. One thing, for sure, is never to mistake morning twilight for the light of day: George gets the leash if there's even a hint of darkness in the air. Otherwise: don't ever take your sitting time for granted. Life's contingencies might get in the way.
Big mistake. I was just about to settle down for my morning sit when he charged back in and the reek of skunk was everywhere. George's first instinct was to try to rub the stink off onto the carpet. Not a great idea. The carpet is only a year or so old, and Ellie has been been protecting it carefully. I picked him up and woke Ellie. The remedy might be a tomato juice bath--but did we have the wherewithal? It seemed not. Ellie recalled that feminine douche might also do the trick, but we didn't have that, either. A trip to the market, then. George was shut out on the balcony to await his reward for bad behavior, and I fired up the Prius...
I made it to the local market twenty minutes before opening time. Called Ellie on the trusty cell phone. She thought the other, slightly more distant market might be open. I drove further, but that one, too, was closed. Drove back to our local market, which by this time was open, and chatted with the girls at the checkout counter about feminine douche. They giggled. Armed with my purchases--four cans of Campell's tomato juice and a pack of extra strength water and vinegar feminine douche--I took the back route home to avoid the high school traffic.
George had his bath. He got a good rub with feminine douche first, and tomato juice next, followed by dog shampoo. He emerged looking bedraggled and justly pained by the experience.
There must be a teaching in all this. One thing, for sure, is never to mistake morning twilight for the light of day: George gets the leash if there's even a hint of darkness in the air. Otherwise: don't ever take your sitting time for granted. Life's contingencies might get in the way.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Racism: Mine
A naughty, stubbornly inattentive puppy-mind in meditation this morning. How strange it is, after a good session yesterday evening at our sangha with Than Geoff, to find my mind so... well, mindless, this morning. It was almost that it had decided, independently, that it had worked hard enough yesterday and needed a good rest this morning. Ah, well..
At sangha, after our hour's sit under the guidance of Than Geoff, the topic for discussion turned to racism. One of our group had received an email from a man he had thought to be a friend and was stunned to find it filled with hate-filled rhetoric--so stunned that he could think of nothing to do except to write back and say he could no longer pursue a friendship that had apparently lasted for years. Than Geoff's response was typically wise: he would have written back to say he was truly taken aback by this outburst and to ask simply where it could have come from? Non-judgmental honesty, followed by a question that would open up a field for investigation, rather than judgment and closure.
For myself, I would have wanted to explore my own response--my indignation, anger, and judgment. My practice, when I have a strong emotional response, is to see what, if anything, it has to say about myself. In this case, I would have wanted to explore that secret, unacknowledged part of me that harbors racist thoughts and racist habits. I may not like it, but I know it's there--even if only in the tendency to stereotype and categorize, in a mindless, automatically responsive way. I know that I share that kind of easy, "liberal" self-congratulation that says: Racist, who, me?--a way of absolving myself of responsibility for thoughts of which I would otherwise be ashamed. But the truth is that they're there, buried deep, perhaps, out of sight except when sought out and examined.
The other topic for the evening is related, surely: equanimity. This is not, in Than Geoff's teaching, a mere rejection of responsibility, and not mere, passive acceptance. Equanimity, for him, needs to be worked for. It's earned by some serious examination of the options: is there anything I can do to change this situation? If there is, I should work to make the change. It's only when I conclude that this is something I'm powerless to change that equanimity kicks in. As for racism, I can work to make changes in my own attitudes if I take the time to observe them honestly and examine them with thoughtful self-criticism. I may also, with care and compassion, have the power to bring others to an understanding of the harm that results from racism--harm to oneself as well as to others. If not, not. At which point, assuming that I am blessed with so much wisdom, I practice equanimity.
A confession: I read back through these words with a familiar fear of seeming pious or self-righteous--qualities about which I find it very hard to remain equanimous when I suspect them in others! But I don't see any of this as particularly holy. I just see it as a practical way to live in harmony with myself and others.
At sangha, after our hour's sit under the guidance of Than Geoff, the topic for discussion turned to racism. One of our group had received an email from a man he had thought to be a friend and was stunned to find it filled with hate-filled rhetoric--so stunned that he could think of nothing to do except to write back and say he could no longer pursue a friendship that had apparently lasted for years. Than Geoff's response was typically wise: he would have written back to say he was truly taken aback by this outburst and to ask simply where it could have come from? Non-judgmental honesty, followed by a question that would open up a field for investigation, rather than judgment and closure.
For myself, I would have wanted to explore my own response--my indignation, anger, and judgment. My practice, when I have a strong emotional response, is to see what, if anything, it has to say about myself. In this case, I would have wanted to explore that secret, unacknowledged part of me that harbors racist thoughts and racist habits. I may not like it, but I know it's there--even if only in the tendency to stereotype and categorize, in a mindless, automatically responsive way. I know that I share that kind of easy, "liberal" self-congratulation that says: Racist, who, me?--a way of absolving myself of responsibility for thoughts of which I would otherwise be ashamed. But the truth is that they're there, buried deep, perhaps, out of sight except when sought out and examined.
The other topic for the evening is related, surely: equanimity. This is not, in Than Geoff's teaching, a mere rejection of responsibility, and not mere, passive acceptance. Equanimity, for him, needs to be worked for. It's earned by some serious examination of the options: is there anything I can do to change this situation? If there is, I should work to make the change. It's only when I conclude that this is something I'm powerless to change that equanimity kicks in. As for racism, I can work to make changes in my own attitudes if I take the time to observe them honestly and examine them with thoughtful self-criticism. I may also, with care and compassion, have the power to bring others to an understanding of the harm that results from racism--harm to oneself as well as to others. If not, not. At which point, assuming that I am blessed with so much wisdom, I practice equanimity.
A confession: I read back through these words with a familiar fear of seeming pious or self-righteous--qualities about which I find it very hard to remain equanimous when I suspect them in others! But I don't see any of this as particularly holy. I just see it as a practical way to live in harmony with myself and others.
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Karma
What kind of karma, I wonder, was the unfortunate Anna Nicole Smith working out in her short life? Talk about hungry ghosts! She was, it seemed--I know her only through media accounts, and therefore not at all--a glutton for attention, ready to use anything, not least her body, to attract it. Viewed from the outside, through the filter of rumor, gossip and media distortions, her life seemed to be an unmitigated disaster, a skein of scandals, lawsuits, personal entanglements and tragedies that plagued her every footstep. Could it be that this woman was required to use the life she only recently lost to atone for some awful karma acquired in a previous one? Can she hope for a better one to come?
This is one aspect of Buddhism that frankly leaves me skeptical and puzzled. There's a kind of logic to it, certainly--that we're doomed to keep coming back until we get it right. That our actions have consequences seems like no more than common sense: I have not the slightest difficulty in believing that harmful and unskillful acts bring undesirable results, and that mindful, decent behavior brings rewards. It's the transmigration part that bothers me. But then, since prior lives and subsequent lives are unknowable, at least to one still as distant as myself from enlightenment, perhaps it's simply unnecessary to concern myself with them. This present life is enough, and certainly as much as I can cope with.
As for poor Anna Nicole, well, the best I can do is send her loving-kindness in whatever state she may currently exist, and hope that she'll have earned the chance, through her suffering, to have a better shot at happiness next time around.
This is one aspect of Buddhism that frankly leaves me skeptical and puzzled. There's a kind of logic to it, certainly--that we're doomed to keep coming back until we get it right. That our actions have consequences seems like no more than common sense: I have not the slightest difficulty in believing that harmful and unskillful acts bring undesirable results, and that mindful, decent behavior brings rewards. It's the transmigration part that bothers me. But then, since prior lives and subsequent lives are unknowable, at least to one still as distant as myself from enlightenment, perhaps it's simply unnecessary to concern myself with them. This present life is enough, and certainly as much as I can cope with.
As for poor Anna Nicole, well, the best I can do is send her loving-kindness in whatever state she may currently exist, and hope that she'll have earned the chance, through her suffering, to have a better shot at happiness next time around.
Friday, February 9, 2007
Home Again, Naturally
It was the wall color that did it. As soon as I walked into the gallery yesterday to see the new David Hockney paintings at LA Louver Gallery, I made the connection. How could I miss it? Eating Room Red. Where had I seen that color before? Of course! The day before, at the Huntington Library, for the Constable show. There, in the words of the Huntington's press release, "the wall paint... was made possible through a gift by Farrow & Ball from their collection of colors, which is based on historic English interiors. The colors were selected to bring to mind the backgrounds Constable painted the wall of his lodgings in 1813 for displaying his paintings. The gallery walls are painted Eating Room Red, based on an 1818 color evoking the strong, intense shades favored during the early nineteenth century..." Of course, then! Big landscape paintings, plein air... two British artists, two centuries apart, the English countryside...
And I discovered from Hockney himself that the coincidence was in fact no coincidence. The idea of showing his big new landscape paintings of East Yorkshire concurrently with the Constable show originated with Stephanie Barron, the chief curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, who suggested it to Hockney.
It was a wonderful moment of synchronicity for me, however--compounded by the fact that I had been on the telephone that same morning, yesterday, February 8, talking to my sister in the Cotswolds, to send her birthday wishes. Hardly surprising, then, that my meditation this morning was flooded with memories of England and images of the English countryside I knew so well as a child: the bluebell woods at the bottom of the hill near our village of Aspley Guise in Bedfordshire, and the other, sandy woods toward Woburn Sands, across from my grandmother's house, where we went to gather chestnuts on cloudy autumn days; I can still recall the particular smell of ferns, damp moss, the bark of trees... Or the Sussex Downs-the setting for my school years--white with chalk beneath the grass, where my cross-country team would train with five mile outings over hill and dale and, the last half-mile, though thirteen dikes where we would have to break the ice in winter to splash through the muddy water...
Powerful memories, irresistible once triggered, as they were by the Constable and the Hockey shows. No matter how much I tried, in meditation, to being my attention back to the breath, they reasserted themselves with insistent stubbornness. I gave up, finally, and just allowed my mind to wander through those landscapes and recall the depth of feeling with which they are still associated. Mostly, for me, this was the sense of isolation, at once passionately sought after, as a refuge and--in the form of intense loneliness--feared.
What I got from Hockney's landscapes was predominantly joy, the sheer exuberance of return to a setting so intimately familiar that you know you're home. That this is where the heart belongs, has always belonged, since your earliest days. That kind of joy, that sense of "fitting" in one's true place in the universe. These are huge paintings, considerably larger than Constable's. Those in LA Louver's main gallery are rectangular assemblages of numerous separate canvases, each separately framed but all hung together to form a single picture--a device that reminds us forcefully that we are looking at art; and indeed that we are looking at painting, not the photography to which our eye has become attuned in its expectations. We are not allowed to see these gloriously colored images as "picturesque." We are required to experience the landscape through the medium of paint and through the artist's feeling-eye.
Having myself written a full-length monograph on David Hockney, I know about his decades-long fascination with photography and its influence on painters and the way we see. He was talking, last night, about Constable--and the fact that Constable must surely have known about camera obscura and the potential for "photographic" reproduction of reality. But as Hockney notes in a quotation cited in his exhibition's press release, "The camera sees geometrically--we must see psychologically." His critique of the photograph is that it flattens out both perspective and color, and tends to close the viewer out rather than welcome us in, as does a painting.
Clearly, then--and unlike so many artists working today--Hockney rejects the use of the photograph even as an aide-memoire. Even for these huge works, he packs a bunch of canvases in the trunk and sets them up on huge easels (for an image scroll down through this link) to work en plein air, as did Constable--though the latter lacked convenient transportation, of course, and brought his sketches back to the studio where he worked. That's why these Hockney paintings are so incredibly, almost shockingly lively. It's not only their scale, it's their immediacy we respond to--the direct connection we intuit between the landscape out there and the artist's eye-heart-hand. As Constable said (I think I have the quotation right: it's printed on one of those Eating Room Red walls) "Painting is another word for feeling."
Impossible, anyway, not to be swept up by the power of those big paintings, even in the crowded space of a big--in this case, a very big--gallery opening. Even with all the conversation, even with the attention diverted by the exchange of politenesses and catch-up--Hockney's paintings refused to be ignored. There they were, evidence of the simply masterful authority of a man who has spent his life examining the information his eye receives and the responses in his heart with critical curiosity, and who has acquired an ease of line and a sometimes outrageous passion for color that few can equal. I used the word "luminous" yesterday in talking about Constable, where it glows amongst the shadows and through the foliage. These paintings of Hockney's are all luminosity. Even those that are more subdued in tonality--and there are a few--seem to glow.
I did mention, earlier, my own ambivalent relationship with isolation. Beyond the exuberance. I sense that ambivalence in Hockney, too. His people and his panoramas have been largely separate. There are portraits, there are landscapes, there are interiors. They rarely meet, especially in the recent work with which I am familiar, in the same picture. There's an interesting push-pull between the often wild, irrepressible surfaces and the quiet within. Eventually, for me, it's the quiet that wins out. Take a breath... Another... Silence, that's the ticket.
And I discovered from Hockney himself that the coincidence was in fact no coincidence. The idea of showing his big new landscape paintings of East Yorkshire concurrently with the Constable show originated with Stephanie Barron, the chief curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, who suggested it to Hockney.
It was a wonderful moment of synchronicity for me, however--compounded by the fact that I had been on the telephone that same morning, yesterday, February 8, talking to my sister in the Cotswolds, to send her birthday wishes. Hardly surprising, then, that my meditation this morning was flooded with memories of England and images of the English countryside I knew so well as a child: the bluebell woods at the bottom of the hill near our village of Aspley Guise in Bedfordshire, and the other, sandy woods toward Woburn Sands, across from my grandmother's house, where we went to gather chestnuts on cloudy autumn days; I can still recall the particular smell of ferns, damp moss, the bark of trees... Or the Sussex Downs-the setting for my school years--white with chalk beneath the grass, where my cross-country team would train with five mile outings over hill and dale and, the last half-mile, though thirteen dikes where we would have to break the ice in winter to splash through the muddy water...
Powerful memories, irresistible once triggered, as they were by the Constable and the Hockey shows. No matter how much I tried, in meditation, to being my attention back to the breath, they reasserted themselves with insistent stubbornness. I gave up, finally, and just allowed my mind to wander through those landscapes and recall the depth of feeling with which they are still associated. Mostly, for me, this was the sense of isolation, at once passionately sought after, as a refuge and--in the form of intense loneliness--feared.
What I got from Hockney's landscapes was predominantly joy, the sheer exuberance of return to a setting so intimately familiar that you know you're home. That this is where the heart belongs, has always belonged, since your earliest days. That kind of joy, that sense of "fitting" in one's true place in the universe. These are huge paintings, considerably larger than Constable's. Those in LA Louver's main gallery are rectangular assemblages of numerous separate canvases, each separately framed but all hung together to form a single picture--a device that reminds us forcefully that we are looking at art; and indeed that we are looking at painting, not the photography to which our eye has become attuned in its expectations. We are not allowed to see these gloriously colored images as "picturesque." We are required to experience the landscape through the medium of paint and through the artist's feeling-eye.
Having myself written a full-length monograph on David Hockney, I know about his decades-long fascination with photography and its influence on painters and the way we see. He was talking, last night, about Constable--and the fact that Constable must surely have known about camera obscura and the potential for "photographic" reproduction of reality. But as Hockney notes in a quotation cited in his exhibition's press release, "The camera sees geometrically--we must see psychologically." His critique of the photograph is that it flattens out both perspective and color, and tends to close the viewer out rather than welcome us in, as does a painting.
Clearly, then--and unlike so many artists working today--Hockney rejects the use of the photograph even as an aide-memoire. Even for these huge works, he packs a bunch of canvases in the trunk and sets them up on huge easels (for an image scroll down through this link) to work en plein air, as did Constable--though the latter lacked convenient transportation, of course, and brought his sketches back to the studio where he worked. That's why these Hockney paintings are so incredibly, almost shockingly lively. It's not only their scale, it's their immediacy we respond to--the direct connection we intuit between the landscape out there and the artist's eye-heart-hand. As Constable said (I think I have the quotation right: it's printed on one of those Eating Room Red walls) "Painting is another word for feeling."
Impossible, anyway, not to be swept up by the power of those big paintings, even in the crowded space of a big--in this case, a very big--gallery opening. Even with all the conversation, even with the attention diverted by the exchange of politenesses and catch-up--Hockney's paintings refused to be ignored. There they were, evidence of the simply masterful authority of a man who has spent his life examining the information his eye receives and the responses in his heart with critical curiosity, and who has acquired an ease of line and a sometimes outrageous passion for color that few can equal. I used the word "luminous" yesterday in talking about Constable, where it glows amongst the shadows and through the foliage. These paintings of Hockney's are all luminosity. Even those that are more subdued in tonality--and there are a few--seem to glow.
I did mention, earlier, my own ambivalent relationship with isolation. Beyond the exuberance. I sense that ambivalence in Hockney, too. His people and his panoramas have been largely separate. There are portraits, there are landscapes, there are interiors. They rarely meet, especially in the recent work with which I am familiar, in the same picture. There's an interesting push-pull between the often wild, irrepressible surfaces and the quiet within. Eventually, for me, it's the quiet that wins out. Take a breath... Another... Silence, that's the ticket.
Thursday, February 8, 2007
A Nostalgic Journey...
... back into the English countryside yesterday, with a visit to the current exhibition of John Constable's "six-footers" at the Huntington Library in Pasadena. An amazing assemblage of Constable's greatest landscapes, set side by side with a selection of the drawings, the small painted sketches and the full-sized sketches that the artist made in preparation for the final works--the fruit of his ambitious labors to be admitted to the Royal Academy. My companion for the afternoon, an artist, was most taken with the sketches, attracted by the "loose" quality that freed them from the social contingency of providing a naturalistic interpretation of the world--a function which has since been taken over by the camera. He himself--if I understand him right--is looking to escape the influence of the photograph in his work, and to capture, rather than the superficial versimilitude, the spiritual quality inherent in what it is he paints.
I have likely oversimplified my friend's intentions here, but I do believe that is also what Constable was about--and that he surely considered the sketches no more than a stop along the path. With the benefit of hindsight--and a lot of subsequent art history--we see their "looseness" as a precursor of the impressionist aesthetic. On reflection, I myself would tend to see that quality more in the work of Turner than in Constable. Or even, say, William Blake, whose pursuit of the spiritual was more turbulent, more visionary, less attached to the illusionary appearances of mundane reality. With Constable, I tend to trust the artist: for sure, his intentions were guided somewhat by what he saw to be the demands of his particular audience, but those big, finished paintings were, to my mind, the goalposts he was aiming for from the first preliminary sketches.
The "spirit", as I see it, in Constable's work, is the spirit of place--to use the Latin term, the genius loci. That fits in with the whole trope of the Romantic moment. Wordsworth and Coleridge, when they first started out with their joint effort, the "Lyrical Ballads," were much influenced by the Greek Anthology, which they saw to be the wellspring of all lyrical poetry. These were inscription poems--a more lovely version of "Kilroy was here", that age-old impulse to leave a mark of one's ephemeral passage through a particular point in space and time--poems that celebrated, in effect, the "spirit of the place," the genius loci.
For Constable, the "place" was very largely the vicinity of a small bend in the Stour River in the county of Suffolk, England. He brought the incredible concentration of an eye that missed nothing in the landscape, and the dedication of a heart that deeply loved this native corner of the world. His tireless, inexhaustible visual search for its peculiar truth, what we might call the "spirit of the place", resulted in the major components of this exhibition. Everything from the quick ink sketches to the extraordinary canvases, whose shades and brilliant luminosities evoke that particular something timeless and ethereal beyond themselves, a something that literally dwarfs the human and the animal figures that inhabit the represented scene.
OK, it is a Romantic notion--and these are Romantic paintings. It's hard for me, in all honesty, to find my way past the jigsaw puzzle picturesqueness of it all. Constable's idealization butts up against my pragmatic and reductive inclinations. Despite the shared geographical roots--this is the countryside in which I myself grew up, or close to it--I find myself admiring the paintings more than I can feel with them and resorting, like my friend, to the detail of paint and brushwork to maintain my interest. I want things to be more real.
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
The Itches
George has the itches. I mean, seriously. He's been at it night and day, scratching incessantly, for about four days now. At first we attributed it to one of his allergies--he seems to have a number of them, poor dog. But last night Ellie found a couple of fleas in his coat, so they are likely the culprit. Where there's one, she says, there must be thousands. He's been kept up with his Advantage, of course, but perhaps this particular breed of flea has found a way to survive that treatment.
Anyway, it's so bad now that he has been keeping us awake. Pampered creature that he is, he sleeps on our bed, and his presence there assures a constant minor earthquake through the night--with aftershocks. And during the day, I imagine, he is breeding colonies of these unwanted guests in the carpets.
Ah, well. All this makes me think of the early days of my meditation practice, when one of my teachers insisted on total motionlessness while sitting. An itch, he explained, if scratched, would certainly return--if not in exactly the same place, then certainly in another. The same with all those little aches and pains that strike the sitter in virtually every part of the anatomy. Useless, this teacher said, to shift the body in the attempt to ease the pain: like everything else in life, it comes and goes. If not quite an illusion, then at least it's transitory. Like all those pesky passing thoughts and feelings that arise in the mind when you're sitting there, trying to keep the concentration keen, they will surely disappear--and leave room for others to arrive and drift away in turn.
There were two tricks I learned to deal with these ephemeral distractions--whether itch or pain (or, of course, other bodily sensations, thoughts, or feelings): you could either give the mind the task of watching them intently until they simply dissipate, or you could take the mind to some other, more congenial part of the anatomy and rest it there in concentration while the affected area naturally calms without the attention it was getting previously.
I'm not sure how to convey these rather successful techniques to George, whose understanding of my language is limited to simple commands like "Sit!" "Hurry-up!" means it's time to pee--an art he has mastered with some efficiency. But "Stop scratching!" appears to be beyond his comprehension, so I'm sure the more complex "Bring your attention to some other part of your body" would not register in his brain.
I'm wondering, too, what this says about the natural impulse to scratch and itch. I guess we humans are blessed with a wisdom--or at least the ability to acquire it--superior to the animal world. If only we could use it. I often think we have a great to learn from dogs and cats--and other living beings--about such things as being in the present.
I do understand, I think, the value of motionlessness when sitting. Even the slightest physical movement distracts the mind from its concentration and interferes with the relaxation of the body, requiring muscular action and reaction. So I try to sit still. There are moments, though, I will admit, when the urge is so powerful that it becomes irresistible and I find myself succumbing to it. Like that young man in the limerick who hailed from Natchez, I confess that, sometimes, at least, "When I itches, I scratches."
Anyway, it's so bad now that he has been keeping us awake. Pampered creature that he is, he sleeps on our bed, and his presence there assures a constant minor earthquake through the night--with aftershocks. And during the day, I imagine, he is breeding colonies of these unwanted guests in the carpets.
Ah, well. All this makes me think of the early days of my meditation practice, when one of my teachers insisted on total motionlessness while sitting. An itch, he explained, if scratched, would certainly return--if not in exactly the same place, then certainly in another. The same with all those little aches and pains that strike the sitter in virtually every part of the anatomy. Useless, this teacher said, to shift the body in the attempt to ease the pain: like everything else in life, it comes and goes. If not quite an illusion, then at least it's transitory. Like all those pesky passing thoughts and feelings that arise in the mind when you're sitting there, trying to keep the concentration keen, they will surely disappear--and leave room for others to arrive and drift away in turn.
There were two tricks I learned to deal with these ephemeral distractions--whether itch or pain (or, of course, other bodily sensations, thoughts, or feelings): you could either give the mind the task of watching them intently until they simply dissipate, or you could take the mind to some other, more congenial part of the anatomy and rest it there in concentration while the affected area naturally calms without the attention it was getting previously.
I'm not sure how to convey these rather successful techniques to George, whose understanding of my language is limited to simple commands like "Sit!" "Hurry-up!" means it's time to pee--an art he has mastered with some efficiency. But "Stop scratching!" appears to be beyond his comprehension, so I'm sure the more complex "Bring your attention to some other part of your body" would not register in his brain.
I'm wondering, too, what this says about the natural impulse to scratch and itch. I guess we humans are blessed with a wisdom--or at least the ability to acquire it--superior to the animal world. If only we could use it. I often think we have a great to learn from dogs and cats--and other living beings--about such things as being in the present.
I do understand, I think, the value of motionlessness when sitting. Even the slightest physical movement distracts the mind from its concentration and interferes with the relaxation of the body, requiring muscular action and reaction. So I try to sit still. There are moments, though, I will admit, when the urge is so powerful that it becomes irresistible and I find myself succumbing to it. Like that young man in the limerick who hailed from Natchez, I confess that, sometimes, at least, "When I itches, I scratches."
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
4:53 AM
4:53 AM. Above
the ceaseless night
hum of the city,
a siren's shrill,
distant; then
another, closer.
I lie here
thinking: some
person's disaster,
some person's
agony, some
person's death,
perhaps. Send
metta: may
this person be
spared the pain
and suffering.
May this person
not be deprived
of the good fortune
he has attained.
the ceaseless night
hum of the city,
a siren's shrill,
distant; then
another, closer.
I lie here
thinking: some
person's disaster,
some person's
agony, some
person's death,
perhaps. Send
metta: may
this person be
spared the pain
and suffering.
May this person
not be deprived
of the good fortune
he has attained.
The Budget Proposal
Trading "The Bush Diaires" for "The Buddha Diaires" did not mean, of course, eschewing all expression of political opinion. I just don't plan to spend so much time in that arena.
Yesterday's release of the Bush budget proposal needs some response in these pages in view of its distinctly un-Buddhist approach to national and international priorities. It seems clear at this point in time that the military-industrial complex about which Eisenhower warned us all those years ago has triumphed, and that the reverse Robin Hood budgetary philosophy of the Bush administration is to be aggressively pursued in flagrant denial of the wishes of the American electorate when they returned a Democratic majority to both houses of Congress. The profligate generosity extended to the military, in the form of budget increases, and to the very wealthy in the form of tax benefit extensions is matched only by the mean-spirited parsimony when it comes to the poor and the oppressed. On the global front, the dismissively short shrift it gives to the most urgent problem facing our planet--the stabilization of our environment--is mind-boggling.
So where is the compassion? Where is the mindfulness of well-established realities? Where is the recognition of urgent problems needing resolution? I am left with the bleak hope that the power to which this sadly ovine country has entrusted a president apparently bereft of a human heart and the requisite listening skills to govern is not, now, such that even the Congress of the United States in unable to thwart it. The Bush budget proposal is an arrogant kiss-off to every basic humanitarian value, and a shameful statement about our country to the world. Its unambiguous message is that we care more for the acquisition of needless weaponry and excessive wealth than we do for the well-being of our own people and the survival of our species. It is, in a word, disgraceful.
Yesterday's release of the Bush budget proposal needs some response in these pages in view of its distinctly un-Buddhist approach to national and international priorities. It seems clear at this point in time that the military-industrial complex about which Eisenhower warned us all those years ago has triumphed, and that the reverse Robin Hood budgetary philosophy of the Bush administration is to be aggressively pursued in flagrant denial of the wishes of the American electorate when they returned a Democratic majority to both houses of Congress. The profligate generosity extended to the military, in the form of budget increases, and to the very wealthy in the form of tax benefit extensions is matched only by the mean-spirited parsimony when it comes to the poor and the oppressed. On the global front, the dismissively short shrift it gives to the most urgent problem facing our planet--the stabilization of our environment--is mind-boggling.
So where is the compassion? Where is the mindfulness of well-established realities? Where is the recognition of urgent problems needing resolution? I am left with the bleak hope that the power to which this sadly ovine country has entrusted a president apparently bereft of a human heart and the requisite listening skills to govern is not, now, such that even the Congress of the United States in unable to thwart it. The Bush budget proposal is an arrogant kiss-off to every basic humanitarian value, and a shameful statement about our country to the world. Its unambiguous message is that we care more for the acquisition of needless weaponry and excessive wealth than we do for the well-being of our own people and the survival of our species. It is, in a word, disgraceful.
Monday, February 5, 2007
A Movie... and a Hike
About halfway through "BABEL" I wondered what I was doing there. By the time the film ended, I understood why I had stayed. It's a wrenching movie, with violence at its core. Knowing little about it before seeing it, I was ready for some harmless escapist fare.
What I got was something far more difficult. It's about human beings caught in the act of being human--in the most dire of all imaginable circumstances.
It's about bad things happening to good people, and about bad people's cold indifference to them. It's about the consequences of mindless action, about random acts of violence and calculated cruelty. It's about love and hatred, the results of fear and anger and mistrust, about guilt and innocence, official heartlessness and individual compassion.
It's about the agony of loss and grief, and the mad, occasional ecstasy of letting go all inhibitions. It's about the joys and fears around human sexuality, about defensiveness and vulnerability. It's about the difference between races, cultures, and religions--and about their interdependence. It's about the shared identity of the human species.
It's about being out on the edge and the fear of falling off it, about the brutal imminence and randomness of death in the midst of life. It's a film brimming with the everyday tragedy and folly of human existence--what Balzac called the "Comedie Humanine." It's about the way we butt up against each other in the strangest and most difficult of ways, how we stroke each other--and rub each other the wrong way.
It's also about language (the "babble" of human voices) and the ways in which we communicate with each other, about the limitations and the failures of communication that produce sometimes dreadful results.
"Babel"'s director, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarrita, has done a powerful job in confronting us with the complexity, the contradictions, and the suffering of ordinary people in the world. He also celebrates the nobility and selflessness of which we are capable at times of stress. An outstanding movie.
*
After watching "Babel" on Saturday night, a completely different experience on Sunday morning: our sangha took that silent meditation hike I mentioned earlier. We gathered first at Eva's home, where we meet for our usual Sunday morning sit, and carpooled inland some forty minutes through the endless suburban developments of Orange County, finding ourselves finally beyond it all in the wilderness area of the old Irvine Ranch now protected by the Nature Conservancy. After a few words of introduction to the flora and fauna of this natural environment, we double-filed on our four-mile, silent expedition into the back country, ending our trek--a small group at a time--at the dark, lovely grotto that is aptly named Dripping Springs. Here, water sifts over decades through the rock before reaching the mossy surface of the grotto, where it makes myriad small, intricate paths down between leafy ferns and the exposed roots of trees to drip, finally, in a musical pattern of gentle sound, into a clear pool tinged with an otherworldly violet hue. I thought of a Chinese landscape painting reinvented in glistening resin by the artist Jacci ten Hartog and then reclaimed by nature as her own...
A couple of poems. The first is "High."
HIGH...
(With thanks to Jerry and Eva and our other guides for all the joy you brought us...)
... on the limestone
canyon wall, a pair
of turkey vultures roosts
on the dead branch
of a tree that clings,
forlorn, to the rock
face. One languid flap,
two, and the first
is airbourne, drifting
out over the canyon.
The second follows,
circling in behind, Soon,
above, new arrivals:
two red-tailed hawks,
soaring, undercarriage
catching the light against
an azure sky, speculating
the territory. Then,
out of the leafy, dark
undergrowth below,
a shower of golden
sycamore leaves, caught
by a sudden gust, flung
out into the light. They,
too, catch the updraft,
like the birds, spiraling
as they rise easily
a hundred feet, more,
flashing, high. All
nature seems heaven-
bound this morning:
we humans only stand,
rooted, and gaze in awe.
The second, shorter:
Thanks, motorcyclists,
for teaching me, from far,
what silence is about.
What I got was something far more difficult. It's about human beings caught in the act of being human--in the most dire of all imaginable circumstances.
It's about bad things happening to good people, and about bad people's cold indifference to them. It's about the consequences of mindless action, about random acts of violence and calculated cruelty. It's about love and hatred, the results of fear and anger and mistrust, about guilt and innocence, official heartlessness and individual compassion.
It's about the agony of loss and grief, and the mad, occasional ecstasy of letting go all inhibitions. It's about the joys and fears around human sexuality, about defensiveness and vulnerability. It's about the difference between races, cultures, and religions--and about their interdependence. It's about the shared identity of the human species.
It's about being out on the edge and the fear of falling off it, about the brutal imminence and randomness of death in the midst of life. It's a film brimming with the everyday tragedy and folly of human existence--what Balzac called the "Comedie Humanine." It's about the way we butt up against each other in the strangest and most difficult of ways, how we stroke each other--and rub each other the wrong way.
It's also about language (the "babble" of human voices) and the ways in which we communicate with each other, about the limitations and the failures of communication that produce sometimes dreadful results.
"Babel"'s director, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarrita, has done a powerful job in confronting us with the complexity, the contradictions, and the suffering of ordinary people in the world. He also celebrates the nobility and selflessness of which we are capable at times of stress. An outstanding movie.
*
After watching "Babel" on Saturday night, a completely different experience on Sunday morning: our sangha took that silent meditation hike I mentioned earlier. We gathered first at Eva's home, where we meet for our usual Sunday morning sit, and carpooled inland some forty minutes through the endless suburban developments of Orange County, finding ourselves finally beyond it all in the wilderness area of the old Irvine Ranch now protected by the Nature Conservancy. After a few words of introduction to the flora and fauna of this natural environment, we double-filed on our four-mile, silent expedition into the back country, ending our trek--a small group at a time--at the dark, lovely grotto that is aptly named Dripping Springs. Here, water sifts over decades through the rock before reaching the mossy surface of the grotto, where it makes myriad small, intricate paths down between leafy ferns and the exposed roots of trees to drip, finally, in a musical pattern of gentle sound, into a clear pool tinged with an otherworldly violet hue. I thought of a Chinese landscape painting reinvented in glistening resin by the artist Jacci ten Hartog and then reclaimed by nature as her own...
A couple of poems. The first is "High."
HIGH...
(With thanks to Jerry and Eva and our other guides for all the joy you brought us...)
... on the limestone
canyon wall, a pair
of turkey vultures roosts
on the dead branch
of a tree that clings,
forlorn, to the rock
face. One languid flap,
two, and the first
is airbourne, drifting
out over the canyon.
The second follows,
circling in behind, Soon,
above, new arrivals:
two red-tailed hawks,
soaring, undercarriage
catching the light against
an azure sky, speculating
the territory. Then,
out of the leafy, dark
undergrowth below,
a shower of golden
sycamore leaves, caught
by a sudden gust, flung
out into the light. They,
too, catch the updraft,
like the birds, spiraling
as they rise easily
a hundred feet, more,
flashing, high. All
nature seems heaven-
bound this morning:
we humans only stand,
rooted, and gaze in awe.
The second, shorter:
Thanks, motorcyclists,
for teaching me, from far,
what silence is about.
Saturday, February 3, 2007
A Social Evening
What a wonderful evening, yesterday! Ellie and I hosted a pot-luck reunion of those of our sangha who attended Than Geoff's meditation retreat in Santa Fe. The idea was to share the changes and perceptions that we came away with, and for the first hour or so we did just that, gathered around a cheerful fire in the living room of our little Laguna Beach cottage. Amazing, both the differences and the samenesses in our experiences, great evidence of the richness of Than Geoff's teaching, and of the commitment that each one of us brought to furthering our practice.
Readers of these pages will already know of the radical changes I have made in my own life as a result of that weekend. The curious thing is that I was truly not aware, in any analytical, intellectual way, that they were happening. I simply awoke on Monday morning with the decision made and plans laid ready for its implementation. No agonizing. No doubts, no self-questioning. I just got ahead and did what needed to be done. One surprise: I had presumptuously assumed that my young friend and associate, who had begun to post on The Bush Diaires under the screen name Cardozo, would jump at the opportunity to take it over. But even when he declined, I had no hesitation whatsoever, no second thoughts. Unless you count the subconscious ones: in one of those no-accident accidents, I first posted yesterday's entry, "The Weather", on The Bush Diaries. The fact that it seemed to fit equally well on both sites suggests that there is a continuity between the two--a thought that I find peculiarly satisfying.
Back to last evening: it was a heart-warming experience, after sitting and talking for a good long while, to move to the dining room and "break bread" together. Ellie and I rejoice in our good fortune to have found community in this sangha. Since we spend the better part of our time as a sitting group in silence, or in discussing the meaning of the dharma in our lives, it was a treat to have the opportunity of a social situation to get to know each other in a different way. We are all of such different ages, from such different origins, and engaged in such different walks of life; the fact that we have all found the same path in the life of the spirit seems like a special and quite delightful miracle.
Tomorrow morning, a number of us meet for a long, silent walking meditation in the wilderness. The adventure continues!
Readers of these pages will already know of the radical changes I have made in my own life as a result of that weekend. The curious thing is that I was truly not aware, in any analytical, intellectual way, that they were happening. I simply awoke on Monday morning with the decision made and plans laid ready for its implementation. No agonizing. No doubts, no self-questioning. I just got ahead and did what needed to be done. One surprise: I had presumptuously assumed that my young friend and associate, who had begun to post on The Bush Diaires under the screen name Cardozo, would jump at the opportunity to take it over. But even when he declined, I had no hesitation whatsoever, no second thoughts. Unless you count the subconscious ones: in one of those no-accident accidents, I first posted yesterday's entry, "The Weather", on The Bush Diaries. The fact that it seemed to fit equally well on both sites suggests that there is a continuity between the two--a thought that I find peculiarly satisfying.
Back to last evening: it was a heart-warming experience, after sitting and talking for a good long while, to move to the dining room and "break bread" together. Ellie and I rejoice in our good fortune to have found community in this sangha. Since we spend the better part of our time as a sitting group in silence, or in discussing the meaning of the dharma in our lives, it was a treat to have the opportunity of a social situation to get to know each other in a different way. We are all of such different ages, from such different origins, and engaged in such different walks of life; the fact that we have all found the same path in the life of the spirit seems like a special and quite delightful miracle.
Tomorrow morning, a number of us meet for a long, silent walking meditation in the wilderness. The adventure continues!
Friday, February 2, 2007
Weather
This morning's news of death and disaster in Central Florida due to tornado activity coincides with the larger news that accompanies the concurrent release of the United Nations report on climate change. We have too long chosen to remain deaf to the signals from our planet with the result that the damage caused by our negligence is now, according to the scientists who contributed to this study, basically irreversible. The harm we have inflicted on our little corner of the universe is surely no more than an infinitesimal blip on the cosmic radar screen; but to us, the human species--well, Florida is likely to prove but a minor foretaste. Even Katrina, with all her deadly force, may look like a tempest in a teapot when compared with what the Earth has in store for us, her unruliest inhabitants.
The UN report makes clear that the effects of our industrial and post-industrial consumption and our burning of the fossil fuel resources that enabled it may last for centuries to come. Whether the human species will survive its own mindless improvidence and greed remains an open question. We pride ourselves on the knowledge we have gained about the planet we are given to inhabit, but surely our ignorance is far greater. In the grand scheme of things, I suppose, it matters little to the universe--perhaps even to the planet itself--whether this one troublesome species survives. We have contributed already to the extinction of so many others, and the world keeps turning inexorably, shrugging off the loss and adapting to the change in ways of which we humans seem incapable. Our minds are prisoners of old ways of thinking, old conceptions of what it is we need--and what we need is always more than what we have. We seem fated to strive for the "growth" and "progress" that will assure our downfall.
Until we learn that there must be some limit to our grasping, until we learn tolerance and patience for the needs of other humans and of other species, we will continue down this path toward eventual destruction. We need to be more mindful that it is our actions that contribute to the creation of the world we live in; and our actions, should we all finally agree to make it so, that can begin to reverse the disastrous path that we have chosen.
The UN report makes clear that the effects of our industrial and post-industrial consumption and our burning of the fossil fuel resources that enabled it may last for centuries to come. Whether the human species will survive its own mindless improvidence and greed remains an open question. We pride ourselves on the knowledge we have gained about the planet we are given to inhabit, but surely our ignorance is far greater. In the grand scheme of things, I suppose, it matters little to the universe--perhaps even to the planet itself--whether this one troublesome species survives. We have contributed already to the extinction of so many others, and the world keeps turning inexorably, shrugging off the loss and adapting to the change in ways of which we humans seem incapable. Our minds are prisoners of old ways of thinking, old conceptions of what it is we need--and what we need is always more than what we have. We seem fated to strive for the "growth" and "progress" that will assure our downfall.
Until we learn that there must be some limit to our grasping, until we learn tolerance and patience for the needs of other humans and of other species, we will continue down this path toward eventual destruction. We need to be more mindful that it is our actions that contribute to the creation of the world we live in; and our actions, should we all finally agree to make it so, that can begin to reverse the disastrous path that we have chosen.
Thursday, February 1, 2007
A Tough Night
I was suddenly wide awake at twelve thirty-five a.m. by the red glow of the digital alarm clock. The ceiling lights in the bedroom, which I know had been turned off when I went to sleep at eleven o'clock, were all brightly lit. Perhaps, I thought, Ellie had been unable to sleep and had switched them on for some reason. Unlikely. It was barely an hour since we had gone to sleep, and she still seemed to be sleeping soundly by my side.
A mystery, then. Perhaps some impish spirit on the loose. Or this: I was annoyed yesterday to receive a giant bill from our handyman for work with the lighting system inside the house, and outside, in the garden. The goal had been to make them easily operable by remote, and to run on automatic timers at the weekend, when we are usually out of town; but we have had innumerable problems with the system, with lights going on when they were not supposed to, and refusing to work at other times when the switches told them to. As a consequence, we've had countless visits from our handyman's employees (this is not your usual solitary handyman who does the jobs himself!) and I was not enchanted to find us charged for all those hours put in to correct work that was not done right in the first place. Perhaps, I thought, the phenomenon of the bedroom lights was some weird manifestation in the physical world of my internal anger and my habitual worry about money...
I switched the lights off and tried to settle down to sleep. Tall order. Our daughter, Sarah, had been over for dinner with her friend, Ed. I had eaten perhaps less mindfully than I might have done, thanks to the emotional energy involved in having people over: we had been in intense conversation about jobs and, er, money, and along the way I had imbibed a couple of glasses too many of sauvignon blanc. I lay there suffering from acute indigestion. I had gone to bed too full, too late, too tired, with too much adrenaline still running and too many thoughts still racing through the brain. George, the dog, was not helping, with some kind of allergic itch that apparently required constant scratching.
In spite of it all, I must have finally dropped off. As is my custom, I woke a couple of times during the night, and again at five thirty-five. Time to meditate, despite the short night's sleep. Before this past weekend's retreat, I will confess that I had acquired this habit of meditating in bed. I have the excuses: it has been cold. I did not want to disturb George from his sleep, and consequently Ellie. I had not yet found the "right place" in the new home into which we moved not too terribly long ago (but long enough, admit it, to have resolved this issue!) A bad habit, really. It catered nicely to my natural propensity toward laziness. And, as I have already mentioned, my practice has been pretty much on the rocks. So I came back determined to break the habit and find a place to sit.
I have not yet found it. I do not sit cross-legged on the floor. At my age, I tell myself (another excuse, perhaps!) my hips and knees simply do not bend far enough in the right directions to enable me to sit that way. For the past two days I have experimented with an heirloom from Ellie's mother house--an attractive, straight-backed antique chair, whose disadvantage, I have discovered, is that the arms are so positioned as to cut into the elbows where they fall, preventing relaxation of the (human) arms.
This issue still needs to be resolved. No matter. I did manage a good, mostly concentrated sit from five-forty until six-thirty, focusing on the breath and watching out for stress and tension as I worked slowly through the body. And I ended up, as always, glad that I had made the effort. Here's an intention: since there is a nice corner in our bedroom where Ellie has set up a small shrine, I'll plan to make a renewed attempt, with an afternoon or early evening sit, to find a tolerable position on the floor. We'll see. A report on this in a later entry.
A mystery, then. Perhaps some impish spirit on the loose. Or this: I was annoyed yesterday to receive a giant bill from our handyman for work with the lighting system inside the house, and outside, in the garden. The goal had been to make them easily operable by remote, and to run on automatic timers at the weekend, when we are usually out of town; but we have had innumerable problems with the system, with lights going on when they were not supposed to, and refusing to work at other times when the switches told them to. As a consequence, we've had countless visits from our handyman's employees (this is not your usual solitary handyman who does the jobs himself!) and I was not enchanted to find us charged for all those hours put in to correct work that was not done right in the first place. Perhaps, I thought, the phenomenon of the bedroom lights was some weird manifestation in the physical world of my internal anger and my habitual worry about money...
I switched the lights off and tried to settle down to sleep. Tall order. Our daughter, Sarah, had been over for dinner with her friend, Ed. I had eaten perhaps less mindfully than I might have done, thanks to the emotional energy involved in having people over: we had been in intense conversation about jobs and, er, money, and along the way I had imbibed a couple of glasses too many of sauvignon blanc. I lay there suffering from acute indigestion. I had gone to bed too full, too late, too tired, with too much adrenaline still running and too many thoughts still racing through the brain. George, the dog, was not helping, with some kind of allergic itch that apparently required constant scratching.
In spite of it all, I must have finally dropped off. As is my custom, I woke a couple of times during the night, and again at five thirty-five. Time to meditate, despite the short night's sleep. Before this past weekend's retreat, I will confess that I had acquired this habit of meditating in bed. I have the excuses: it has been cold. I did not want to disturb George from his sleep, and consequently Ellie. I had not yet found the "right place" in the new home into which we moved not too terribly long ago (but long enough, admit it, to have resolved this issue!) A bad habit, really. It catered nicely to my natural propensity toward laziness. And, as I have already mentioned, my practice has been pretty much on the rocks. So I came back determined to break the habit and find a place to sit.
I have not yet found it. I do not sit cross-legged on the floor. At my age, I tell myself (another excuse, perhaps!) my hips and knees simply do not bend far enough in the right directions to enable me to sit that way. For the past two days I have experimented with an heirloom from Ellie's mother house--an attractive, straight-backed antique chair, whose disadvantage, I have discovered, is that the arms are so positioned as to cut into the elbows where they fall, preventing relaxation of the (human) arms.
This issue still needs to be resolved. No matter. I did manage a good, mostly concentrated sit from five-forty until six-thirty, focusing on the breath and watching out for stress and tension as I worked slowly through the body. And I ended up, as always, glad that I had made the effort. Here's an intention: since there is a nice corner in our bedroom where Ellie has set up a small shrine, I'll plan to make a renewed attempt, with an afternoon or early evening sit, to find a tolerable position on the floor. We'll see. A report on this in a later entry.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
