Saturday in the Park With George...

... and about two dozen other Cavalier King Charles Spaniels. Here they are. A handful of them, anyway.



We were just a bit worried about taking George to this meet-up, since he can be a bit alpha with other dogs. A Napoleon complex, perhaps. He's small enough to need to assert his authority. But as things turned out, he soon adjusted to the masses, and was chasing about with the rest of them like a pro.

We've had this breed for twenty years. In the early days, we could hardly make our way from one end of the boardwalk to the other, for people constantly stopping us to ask about the dogs. They sure are attention-getters. Cute. And smart, and loyal, and a whole lot of fun. Their owners--that's not quite right: "the people they own" might be more accurate. Or "their slaves"--are manic ("dogic") in their affection for the breed. Not me, of course... I am not blind to George's faults. He is intolerant, for example, of small children, and tends to leap up and grab at the loose ends of various forms of women's garb. Still...

We found our first Cavalier in the Bel Air mansion of a television mogul. Her full name was Margaret Rose of Bel Air, but we called her Mags, which suited her just as well. She was a gift to us from her owner, and brought us many years of delight. They do sound like a snobby lot, these Cavaliers, but at heart they're just like the rest of us, playful at times and sad at others, and almost always hungry. Anyway, our George (NOT Bush, may I remind you? HARRISON...) is at the center of this picture, running forward, having a great time...

A Visitor

He struts ahead
pompously, chest
thrust forward, head
nodding, nervous, eyes
alert for danger, past
our house. A touch
of self-importance there,
I judge. I have
a question for this
crow: why walk
when you can fly?

And...

Do you think that the US would have more leverage with nations like China, India and Russia on the Burma crisis, had we not blotted our international copybook so badly with Iraq--and with our generally arrogant, world-strutting attitude, these past few years? Just wondering... It's frustrating to see us so weak and ineffectual when monks and other citizens are being beaten and done to death by those intolerable generals and their military minions. Would we have been so completely powerless had we not squandered the goodwill extended to us at the time of the World Trade Center attacks?

The Great Republican Debate

I watched a few minutes of it last night, this great debate for Republican presidential candidates on public television, on matters of import to minority communities, moderated by Tavis Smiley. A few minutes was frankly as much as I could bear. All the "front runners" made their point by not deigning to show up at all--a big, transparent fuck-you, if ever I saw one. The rest, as I saw it, were a bunch of morons, to put it charitably. (Not exactly Right Speech, perhaps, in Buddhist terms, but accurate enough!) To resolve the health care crisis, for example, and the awful disparity in health care service available to rich and poor (read Black and Hispanic vs. white,) these notables suggested fixing the malpractice problem and teaching poor families the values of self-reliance and responsibility. Ah well. I only hope the absentees get their comeuppance at election time for having thumbed their noses at these huge blocs of voters (read "human beings.") Enough. Sufficient unto the day.... As the Bible says.

Acts of Courage: Burma and "The War"

Its still hurts. Old men, now eighty and more, still weep at the memory of buddies being blown to bits at their side. The Ken Burns documentary, "The War" is proving to be an indispensible reminder of those days, more than sixty years ago, when Americans and others performed acts of unbelievable courage, stepping out of landing craft in Europe and the Far East into hails of gunfire and exploding mortar and artillery shells; when men climbed into aircraft on bombing runs with the knowledge that their chances of returning safe were slim at best. Sitting comfortably in my living room, I find such acts to be of inconceivable bravery. I try to put myself in the place of these men and ask myself how it could have felt--and whether I would have had that courage in their situation.

In the light of which, I must say also that I’m in absolute awe of the courage of those Buddhist monks and nuns--and their supporters--who are out on the streets in Burma, protesting the repressive military regime in that isolated nation.



Who said religion and politics don’t mix? There’s a difference, as I see it, between the laudable separation of church and state when it comes to public policy, and the right—the duty, really—of men and women of conscience to make their opinion known, in extreme situations through public acts of protest or civil disobedience.

(A knotty question for myself: does the above include causes with which I personally disagree—demonstrations, for example, outside abortion clinics, where women are accosted and hassled to prevent their access to safe medical procedures? In that instance, of course, the action infringes on the freedom of another human being to follow the dictates of her own conscience, but is it made right by the sincere belief of the activists that their cause is right, their action undertaken for the salvation of their target’s soul? How about the interventions of the so-called “Minutemen” against those who seek to enter the country illegally? There’s a certain moral ambiguity here, which I’m not sure how to resolve. I guess I have to come back to that Buddhist standard that serves me well in most cases: does the action I propose cause harm to myself or others? If the choice is between action and inaction, which stands to cause the greater harm? Of all possible outcomes of my action, which has the greatest potential for harm, and which the least? These judgments are not necessarily subjective, but they may be…)

But this one's about courage. Unless I’m very much fooled by the media, these Buddhist monastics in Burma are women and men who are ready to put their lives on the line for the sake of the poor and the disenfranchised, and whose faith demands that they speak out in the face of injustice. I hear an escalation of warnings that the military brass are activating their forces to intimidate the protestors into submission, and that an unknown number of monks and others have already been killed. The fear, of course, is of a massive retaliation of the kind that killed two thousand people—or three, depending on who you listen to—just a few years ago. That the demonstrators persist despite this well-known history is further testimony to their spirit.

It's a testimony to the human spirit, indeed, that there are always those who have the capacity for this kind of courage. It's also a sad commentary on human nature that such acts of courage are needed.

The Buddha Diaries Recommends

What's happening in Africa?

The question is enough to make our heads spin. What other continent (indeed, what other word?) evokes such mental chaos? Poverty, Imperialism, slavery, ethnic strife, genocide, AIDS, famine, blood diamonds...no wonder we are wont to turn our attention elsewhere.

But is this any way to behave? Considering the tragedy and the promise of a continent currently experiencing the worst side-effects of our increasingly inter-connected world, aren't we obliged to pay more attention?

As is the case with every important issue, it is up to individual innovators and visionaries to make the subject digestible to those who are new to it. That is why we appreciate The Nata Village Blog.

The Nata Village blog may be one of the narrowest on the internet, in that it purports only to describe the struggle against HIV/AIDS in one tiny village in Botswana, in southern Africa. It by no means seeks to answer the question posed above ("What's happening in Africa?") but it offers us an important entry point into that discussion.

Updated frequently with plenty of photographs and personal anecdotes, the Nata Village Blog paints a vivid portrait of Nata. Through the posts, we learn about the villagers themselves as well as the people (African and otherwise) who have arrived at ground zero of the HIV/AIDS epidemic to offer their sweat and expertise.

The overall effect on the reader is to reduce the discomforting geopolitical trends concerning African development into a much more digestible equation: Caring outsiders + expertise + empowered locals + money raised through the internet = a better quality of life for impoverished, afflicted villagers.

While global institutions like the IMF and World Bank struggle to assist developing nations (while protecting the profit-motives of developed nations, of course), it is refreshing to be privy to a grassroots effort that, over time, has begun to make a real difference in the lives of these villagers. For those of us who feel the need to know "What's happening in Africa?" the Nata Village Blog reminds us that - in the absence of effective global leadership - we have to start somewhere.

Columbia University: A Needless Blunder

At first I found myself cheering Columbia University President Lee Bollinger's "introduction" to the infamous speech by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad yesterday. I have no great love for this nasty little man, and I think Bollinger had it right when he lectured the Iranian President for exhibiting"all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator,” and accused him, for good measure, of being "either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated."

Before Bollinger's introduction ended, though, I was already feeling uncomfortable. The one quality I respect--no, respect is not quite the word: "acknowledge" would be better--in Ahmadinejad would be his sharply cunning mind, and I began to suspect how Bollinger's remarks could easily be turned to his advantage; how the scold could be used to provoke Ahmadinejad's real audience--the Arab world--to further hostility and rage. It is, after all, widely known that hospitality is considered an essential courtesy in that world, and Bollinger's words were among the least hospitable I have ever heard. They were nothing less than a public dressing-down, a humiliation calculated to infuriate those in Ahmadinejad's world who already feel humiliated, and who resent what they see to be the bully tactics and the lecturing posture of America in the world.

Sure enough, the ever-cunning Ahmadinejad took pains to point out, astutely enough, that there was something of a contradiction inherent in preaching the ideals of liberty and freedom of speech while castigating another's before he has had the chance to utter a word. Had Bollinger restrained the impulse to use his introduction to somehow justify what was clearly a wildly controversial decision by his university by loading the dice in advance, Ahmadinejad would have done the hatchet job nicely on himself. The mendacity and absurdity of much of what he said was summed up in that wonderful moment when he claimed, with a smile of icy determination on his face, that there were "no homosexuals" in his country--a remark that got the derisive laugh it deserved and marked the Iranian President for the lying martinet that Bollinger had prematurely described.

People do tend to reveal themselves, even while they lie. It would have been wiser, in my view, to allow Ahmadinejad the privilege of condemning himself in his own words.

But, please... As a healthy antidote to all this nonsense, I came upon this wonderful post in Robin's Karma. Please check it out. For me, it is Buddhism in a nutshell. Thanks, Robin, for drawing my attention to this teaching.

UPDATE: Here's what an LGBT blog had to say about Ahmadinejad's remarks.

"The War": It's Personal

"The War" started last night--the new Ken Burns documentary about World War II. I had to watch. I have so much of my childhood vested in that time, it never fails to draw me in when there's some new angle of approach, some new insight offered into that cataclysm brought about by human lust for power and territory and countered by that other great human urge--for freedom from tyranny.

It's painful stuff--the more so for its tragic and indisputable inevitability--and a timely reminder that war sometimes seems to have a dreadful necessity in human history. It's debatable, at the very least, whether today's conflict in Iraq meets the necessity test, and the fact that the debate was never truly held is, in my view, shameful. So, too, is the fact that the burden of war is so unevenly distributed amongst Americans. What "The War" makes clear is that the grave costs of war were shared by everyone. In choosing to observe it through the perspective of four relatively small American cities, Burns makes it personal, and reminds us that no one's life remained untouched. Even if your son wasn't fighting in Southeast Asia, you were at least busy buying war bonds or lending your skills and labor to the war effort.

Impossible to watch the Pearl Harbor episode, of course, without recalling the attack on the World Trade Center. To my knowledge, they remain the only two attacks on American soil in modern history, and both of them found America unprepared, and left the country in horrified disbelief. Having spent my early years in Europe, in relative safety from the violence but within sight and sound of London during the Blitz, I inherit centuries' worth of world-weary European realism when it comes to human behavior, and wonder how much Americans really understand and value the protection afforded us by two vast oceans, one on either side, that made such attacks impossible until men learned to fly--and to create weapons that make a mockery of geographical distances. Even now, those oceans present formidable barriers to potential assailants.

Still, once engaged in World War II, it was America and Americans that stood between world domination by those fascist allies and the freedom that we continue to enjoy in many parts of the globe. The sacrifice was inestimable, and it was personal, and the world owes a debt of gratitude for the immensity of the American effort at that time. It's worth remembering how the country responded back then to a real threat to human civilization, in the context of a world that is much changed since the 1940s. I'll continue to watch "The War," because I too need to be reminded of those dreadful times, if only to keep me alert to the dangers of today.

Breaking the Fast

What a lovely evening! Ellie and I did, indeed, observe the Yom Kippur fast from (approximately!) sundown on Friday through sundown on Saturday, and spent the daylight hours quietly at home, giving thought to the past year and the direction of our lives. The fact that Debra and Richard, our good hosts, had done the same brought us together in a special way, and when we arrived at their home we spent the first hour listening to a recorded dharma talk on forgiveness--which opened up the space for us all to go into some intimate depth about our lives and families. It's rare, honestly, to be able to talk with such ease and comfort about things which can seem too personal, in normal social circumstances, to broach, and we enjoyed that opportinuty.

Breaking the fast, after that, was another delightful shared experience. After a day of abstinence, the taste buds seemed that much sharper than usual, and we feasted on a wonderful, fresh salad and a simple rice noodle dish with vegetables and a touch of turkey, followed by a fruit salad that Ellie had prepared and a dollop of Debra's Greek yogurt made rich and creamy by hours of straining through cheesecloth. Accompanied by generous mugs of ginger tea, the whole meal was a pleasure to the palate, and the conversation, having opened up so nicely before dinner, led us into all kinds of common interests and mutual experiences.

Coming from a Jewish background, like Ellie, our friends have begun to embrace the Buddhist teachings as we have done ourselves. One thing the two religions have in common is a healthy skepticism that encourages--no, really, requires--that we continually question the dogma. I wonder if this is why so many of the prominent Buddhist teachers--and so many of those, like ourselves, who have discovered in Buddhism a practice that responds so deeply to our needs--come to the religion from a grounding in Judaism. It may even be that many of those influential Britishers (I think of pioneers like Alan Watts) were attracted by the essential pragmatism of the Buddha's teachings--a pragmatism related, as I see it, to that same skepticism.

Perhaps I'm speaking here--I usually do!--out of my own prejudices and preconceptions. The (again, healthy, I believe) skepticism and pragmatism I inherit in my English genes, along with the dis-belief in God that I have come to in my life, are certainly important factors in my own embrace of the constant intellectual questioning and the growing personal freedom that Buddhism seems to ask of me.

Yom Kippur--and the Holocaust

I wonder how many readers caught the piece in Wednesday’s New York Times Arts section about the newly discovered cache of photographs from Auschwitz? No, not the familiar, all too sickening pictures of inmates, starved or starving, not the images of the ovens with their charred corpses. not the hideous stacks of skeletal human remains. These are pictures of those who staffed this nightmare operation, taking their leisure at off-duty moments, relaxing with obvious satisfaction with the quality of their lives.



Tomorrow is Yom Kippur, the Jewish "Day of Atonement," when Jews throughout the world are urged to reflect on their actions of the past year and make amends for those that may have caused hurt or harm. This fits in nicely with the Buddhist teaching that reminds us that every action has its consequence, and that we should be aware particularly of our own, and of the results they bring.

I am not a Jew, but my wife Ellie is, and we have always made a practice of observing Yom Kippur in some significant way. Tomorrow, therefore, I will not be making any entry in these pages. Instead, I will be fasting, as is the tradition, and reflecting, and joining friends, at the end of the day, to break the fast.

Added now to the solemnity of this day with its centuries-old traditions is the memory of the Holocaust. Yom Kippur, as I have come to understand it, is a day to remember those six million Jews who were slaughtered by the Nazis while--let's not forget--the world looked on. World War II was not about those particular victims, whose predicament was known by all who cared to look for years before the war, and whose pleas for help went scandalously ignored in all too many ways. And while the world pretended shock--indeed, was shocked--when the gates to those concentration camps were finally opened and their few remaining victims liberated, that shock seems disingenuous when we recall the open atrocities and attacks on German Jews in the years preceding the war.

I was born in 1936, too young to be complicit in the events of the time, but I still feel that complicity in my bones. Ken Burns, in an interview last night about his new series, "The War", said that the compulsion to make this documentary arose when he discovered that the preponderance of American high school seriors graduated with the belief that in World War II the Americans were fighting with Germany against the Soviet Union. All the more reason, then, to remember, and to do whatever is necessary to keep the memory alive.

About those newly-discovered pictures, though: again, you'll find them here. (You'll need to navigate your way past an American Express ad. Sorry!) I urge you to check out the audio-visual narration and to read the full length of the article, if only because it raises, at one point, the issue that Mark raised with me earlier this week. Responding to my outrage that a Christian minister at a penitentiary would act to put an end to a thriving meditation group for fear that he would lose his own (literally!) captive audience, Mark pointed out that the man's intentions were probably good: that he (the pastor) sincerely believed that these men could be saved by Christ alone.

The worthiest of intentions, however, cannot justify bad results. Regarding these photographs, Judith Cohen, a historian at the Holocaust museum in Washington suggested that "in their self-image, [these murderers] were good men, good comrades, even civilized." Here they after all, in these pictures, all good fellows, all good lasses, relaxing on their deck chairs, singing their songs, enjoying their bowls of berries and their stupid dog tricks, and they look so... normal. So much--apart from those all-too familiar uniforms--like us!

Well, no. If that's the case, I believe their self-image was seriously deluded, and the delusion abetted by their own lack of awareness.

So, I will be reflecting on this tragic irony tomorrow, and about the relation between actions and their outcomes, about the role of "good intentions," and the absolute necessity that I myself remember always to examine what I believe to be my own good intentions in the light of the results that flow from them. I hope that some of you may be joining me in this observance of Yom Kippur.

The Jena 6: Blame the Tree

The incident in Jena, Louisiana has already resulted in one terrible injustice: capital punishment for the only innocent party in the entire mess--the tree.



What a sad sight! This pathetic victim of the folly and vengefulness of the human species was certainly a good deal older and more venerable than any of those people involved--whether the white high school students who obscenely abused it by hanging the provocative nooses, the black students who responded to provocation with violence, or the shameful adults on both sides who have made a mockery of justice. To deny that racism is at the root of all this seems to me only to compound the tragic absurdity of it all.

So, friends, let's blame it on the tree. Brilliant! Still, I have to say that's it's heartening to see that people can actually be moved to vociferous protest. In the face of Bush endless administration outrages in recent years, the silence has been, as they say, deafening. Back to the barricades, I say!

Karma Revisited; and a Poem at Five-Thirty

Meditation done,
I sit here wondering
where today
will take me. Where
will it take you?

and...

O.J.'s Karma

So we're back there again. The "loathesome O.J." as Mureen Dowd calls him in her New York Times column today. Such a dreadful, story, filled with so many ironies and complexities. Did he do it? That old question. I wanted, at first, all those years ago, to believe he didn't. He was, after all, a remarkable athlete in his time. He seemed, from everything one saw and read about him, to be a young man of charm and intelligence. Besides, I was, all those years ago, a professor at USC and, by virtual necessity, a USC fan. There was also, I confess, a kind of reverse racist part of me that did not want to think ill of him for nothing better than reverse racist reasons. I think, in this, that I shared a lot in common with those vocal parts of the African American community that sided with him.

Despite all of which, the evidence seemed indisputable: he did it. And his subsequent life--at least so far as it has come to our collective attention through the media--has done nothing to ameliorate his image or soften the gut feeling of hs guilt. He has seemed, as Ellie mildly put it, like a "very troubled man."

And now this further melodrama to distract us all from the war in Iraq, the health care problems that this nation faces--no, refuses to face--the widespread social injustices made worse by the inequality of educational opportunity, an administration beleagured in consequence of its own incompetence, cronyism and corruption, an ignorance and/or apathy that undermines the voting process in what we are pleased to call our "democracy"... despite these and other problems, we have this new melodrama to distract us.

Amidst it all, the word "karma" pops up, on the lips of no less a dignitary than NBC's Matt Lauer, who asks Kim Goldman, Ron's sister, if this is O.J.'s karma, as some, it seems, are saying. She says she thinks it might be karma giving that old Goldman family nemesis "a tap on the shoulder." (I'm with Thailandgal, by the way, on the subject of the Goldmans' publishing of that book. See her 9/14 entry.)

Well, I had a bit of a shudder hearing a word that's important to me used in this particular context. On the other hand, what's so precious about a word? I abuse them all the time, and they generously stick with me anyway. And who knows, maybe this latest episode in O. J. Simpson's ill-starred life is indeed a way of past actions catching up with him. I can't claim access to the secret inner truths of any other person's life. It's hard enough to hold myself accountable for mine.

"Good Fences...

...make good neighbors," wrote Robert Frost, famously, in his poem, "Mending Wall." Or walls, or gates, or hedges. Frost actually attributed the words, in the last line of his poem, to a neighbor. His own opinion, I think, was expressed in that other line: "Something there is that doesn't love a wall,/That wants it down"--although that, too, he attributed to other forces, those, perhaps, of nature.

Anyway, Ellie and I have something of a disagreement. Not really a disagreement, because we both see the other's point of view. A couple of times a week, we walk our hill--the same hill where we have lived, in three different houses, for the past thirty-five years. We take George, the dog, and walk up around the streets, past our former abodes, for a little less than a half hour for the full circuit. It's actually how we found our first (owned) house--walking around the hill from our first (rented) one. George, of course, was not around at the time. In those days, we had a Simaese cat named Tuzigoot, after an ancient Indian ruin in Arizona.

Still, we have been walking this hill for thirty-five years, believe it or not, and we have watched the changes. There has been a good deal of remodeling going on of late--thanks, presumably, to the increase in property values and the favorable interest rates. What I've been noticing particularly in recent weeks is the proliferation of fences--and wall, and gates, and hedges. Take a look at them all, some newly completed, some under construction:
















These are just a few examples that I snapped this morning on our walk. There are more...

But here's our disagreement. Ellie's first take on this is primarily from an aesthetic point of view. She sees it as home improvement, a way of making otherwise dull house fronts more attractive. I have a darker view. I tend to see it as a relfection of the zeitgeist. I see it as being about security, privacy, secrecy, the fear of others and the need to protect oneself from them. I see it in the context of the misnamed Patriot Act, the obsessive secrecy of our current administration, a society petrified that others might spy on them and uncover their secrets.

What's good about this argument, of course, is that we're both right. And lest I begin to think myself too righteous, Ellie took pains to remind me that at our first (owned) house on the hill, I was all in favor of a locked gate at the bottom of the stairs that led up to the front door from the street. I didn't take a picture of that one. In fact, this morning we didn't even pass it. We took a different route.

Curb Your Enthusiasm

What a disappointment! After raving yesterday about the HBO show, "Tell Me You Love Me," we switched on to the second episode last night to find a different show altogether. What had seemed like a group of real human beings facing real issues in their life now seemed like a bunch of narcissitic whiners unable to see beyond the end of their noses. Where character needed to be deepened and explored, they skated across the same surfaces endlessly, feeling piteously sorry for themselves and blithely unconcerned with others, even--especially--those they purported to love. The sex, which again had seemed so real and integral to the story line, seemed now almost perfunctory--though with a couple of notable exceptions.

What happened? Did I miss all the psychobabble cliches the first time around. Was I watching what I wanted to watch, rather than what was there? Or was there truly a disastrous dip in quality between the first episode and the second? I have no answers to these questions. Do I plan to watch again, in the hope that the first impression--and the first episode--was to be trusted more than the second? I suppose so...

I did pause to think about that last question from yesterday's entry: what does all this have to do with the Buddha? For those who have not made the commitment to a monastic life, the injunction is clear: avoid all sexual that could be harmful to oneself or others. Given that basic rule, it then becomes a tricky matter of interpretation. What's harmful? The answer, of course, needs a great deal of unsparing introspection and honest evaluation of the consequences of one's actions.

I'll say one thing for the show. It ended on an interesting, difficult, and real note. On the insufficiently explicit but transparent invitation from her marriage counselor to rediscover her own sexuality independent of her husband (read here between the lines: masturbate,) the wife of the sexless couple ends up making a valiant struggle with the attempt to comply with the suggestion--and finding it impossible to do. There was a kind of agonized surrender there to despair and hopelessness that did ring true.

Opera: Grand and Soapy

Last night, Saturday, Ellie and I indulged in an evening of arias from grand opera at the Laguna Beach "Pageant of the Masters" outdoor amphitheater. The night before, Friday, we had watched the first episode of "Tell Me You Love Me," the new drama series on HBO television. Same theme: sex. Different eras, different media, different modes...

It was good to be out under the stars with friends and community. A good audience, a good crowd. It was good to feel cool, cold, even, as the evening lengthened, after the summer heat waves, which have seemed especially oppressive this year. It was good to be in the post-tourist season. And good to be regaled with the awesome reaches of the human voice, and share in the awesome range of human emotion. Passion is a rare quality in that it embraces the extremes of light and dark, the heights of ecstasy and the depths of grief. It's the human soul's most extravagant expression of the most basic of all drives (with the possible exception of material sustenance): human sexuality.

Because what else is this bloviating all about? Desire, possession, rejection, despair. Expressed in the close-to-heavenly sounds of operatic aria, it does--to use the word my friend used after the performance--"transport." It takes us to a place where feeling is untrammelled by the wonderfully absurd, inherent clumsiness of the mating of two human beings, or by the inadequacies of language. The soul soars in response to the voices, and in response to the ancient music of desire within ourselves. The aria gives us that "tune beyond us, yet ourselves" of which Wallace Stevens wrote in "The Man with the Blue Guitar."

Ah, yes. But I found myself missing some important part of the grandeur of grand opera, in an evening of arias strung together for no other purpose than the aesthetic one. I missed the grand scenes, the outrageous narrative, the over-the-top staging. I'm honestly no great opera buff, and my knowledge of opera music is limited at best. Those moments when I have most enjoyed it have been those when I am swept up in the story-line, "operatic" though it may be, and overwhelmed by the sheer theatricality of it all. The songs are, well, a part of it. The company, last night, did what they could to make up for this missing context with glorious costumes, lighting, rudimentary sets--but I confess I became just a wee bit bored. The songs were not enough, for me, in themselves, strung together like glittering beads on a necklace. And I noticed, not for the first time, about myself, that my sensibility responds more to words and narrative form than it does to music. Still, a truly lovely evening.

"Tell Me You Love Me," by contrast, was almost the dead opposite. Sex without the splendor, and without the arias. Sex, in a word, as most of us come to know it, the grubbier, more insecurity-fraught business of getting our needs met and trying at the same time to meet our partner's. That, and dodging the mines and booby traps of tolerable relationship. As such, this drama--well, this soap "opera"--comes as close as you can get to a reality show. For good reason, surely: the ratings. (My guess--confirmed by a quick Google on the side--is that the term "soap opera" derives from its need to literally sell soap.)

Of its genre, though, I'd have to say that the first episode of "Tell Me You Love Me" was very good. Very good indeed. The drama follows three couples at different stages of relationship: the young, the "passionate," the not-yet-married, simply ravenous for the immediate satisfaction of mutual physical invasion; the older, as yet childless couple struggling with infertility--hers? his?--and the transformation of sex into a different, more clinical-technological process, with potentially disastrous effects on the pleasures involved; and the third, more advanced, with young children whose presence makes such demands on the resources of time, affection, and sheer physical capacity that the sexual drive gets shoved aside or satisfied in moments of solitary, joyless desperation. (A masturbation scene, extraordinarily well done...)

The strong point here is that no one is to blame. No good guys, no bad guys. The couples clearly love each other. They just manage to mess things up, as the rest of us do, in the daily balancing act between love and its ultimate physical manifestation, sex. And the sex, like the love, is problematic--though the protagonists insist (don't we all?) that everything in the bedroom is just "fine." They are more apt to fake a sense of satisfaction than to admit to anything more damaging to the ever-vulnerable ego. The drama works well, too, in its frank depictions of sexual acts, which are real, explicit, not coy, a little clumsy (the word comes back: is this just me??!!) always caught somewhere between the sublime and the absurd and, as sex tends to be, sometimes blissful, erotic, sometimes simply mundane.

Well, you may have guessed that I enjoyed this show immensely. I intend to come back to it this very evening, for the next episode. You might say I'm hooked. Next I'll have to figure out what all this has to do with the Buddha.

Happy Sunday, everyone. What's left of it...

A Shameful Story

You might have guessed from the title, above, that I was going to talk about the Bush speech last night. But no, it's yet another shameful episode that says something about our sad recent history.

In case you missed it... here's the story in yesterday's New York Times "Arts" section that will raise any hackles you might have. A thriving vipassana meditation program for hardcore criminals at the Donaldson Correctional Facility near Birmingham, Alabama, was cancelled at the behest of the prison chaplain for fear that it might be taking a toll on his Christian congregation! So much for Christian charity. I can hardly begin to imagine what those inmates must have felt, to be deprived of what was possibly their one source of serenity in a lifetime of misery. Anyway, I can't wait to see the movie about the group, "The Dhamma Brothers," which is already winning awards on the circuit; and I look forward to the book, "Letters from the Dhamma Brothers"--a collection of letters from inmates written to the documentary maker, Jenny Phillips, and scheduled to be released early next year. (By the way, I was thankful to read that the program had in fact been reinistated--a couple of years later--due to a "change in administration." Perhaps the chaplain left. Or was fired...!)

Oh, and here's a link to what I think is a worthy petition, to end the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. The idea, as I understand it, is to capitalize on the common humanity of the people to subvert the ideological emnities. If you care to join me in signing it... every little bit helps.

Addictions

I was halfway kidding when I entered a comment on Thailandgal yesterday. Chani had mentioned (in her response to my own thoughts about Bush and his cavalier use of language) that she generally avoids involvement with American politics, and my comment included a reference to my "recovery from my earlier blog addiction: The Bush Diaries." As I told her, "I got tired of waking up with [Bush] in bed with me every morning. The Buddha is MUCH better company."

As usual, of course, the casual humor provoked a deeper truth with which I woke this morning: even a positive addiction can enslave us.

Let me explain. I have been noticing some inner turmoil recently that has caused a kind of chronic low-grade sense of dissatisfaction in my life--dare I say, to give it a Buddhist cast--"unhappiness"? You might have picked it up in a number of my entries. This morning I woke with the realization that I have formed a whole new cluster of habits that have started to create that sense of compulsion that is a kind of enslavement of the mind. I have even prided myself on them a bit, dignifying them with the name of "practice." They include the morning meditation, the blog entry, the time for exercise... and so on. All good things, you will agree. But my thought is that I have become attached to them in such a way that their benefits are in danger of congealing into just one more addiction--or should I say another network of addictions? To the extent that the breach of them induces an inner feeling of anxiety, dissatisfaction and--there we go--unhappiness.

Not that I want to lose the benefits of any of these good things. My meditation practice continues to bring me insights and some measure of serenity. Am I demonstrably the better for it? I don't know. I still get mad on the freeways, but I tend to mutter the imprecations rather than yell them out. I still get mad at Bush, and all the terrible things he's doing to our increasingly vulnerable world. I still get mad at other people, for their imagined offenses to my autonomy or dignity! But I am aware of a greater sense of peace pervasive in my life, a greater sense of acceptance... And I do love those moments when the meditation goes so well that I feel in harmony with the universe.

As for the blog, well, you have to know how much I love it. Aside from anything else, it has provided me with the forum for a more satisfying writing practice than I've ever known before. To have the challenge to write every day with the knowledge that what I write will be published, read, in some cases appreciated, and often responded to--this is a writer's dream come true.

And still, and still... there is that insight: even positive addictions such as these can enslave us, and I have--truth, now--been feeling that compulsion, that sense of obligation, that enslavement. And the whole point of Buddhist practice, as I see it, is to gradually free myself from those things that constrain me and control my life, to achieve, yes, happiness. This is the central teaching of the Dalai Lama; this is what he tries so hard to get across to stubborn, materialistic, competitive, goal-oriented Western minds.

So what to do with this realization? I guess, make changes. I plan to find other times to meditate, and other times to blog. I plan to feel less compelled to make that daily entry, to dis-organize my life a bit, and trust that a little bit of chaos, a little bit of not-knowing what's coming next will knock me out of orbit just enough to make the course correction that I need.

That said, well, I did my meditation this morning--but no so early. And (gasp!) in bed. And here I am, writing my entry in The Buddha Diaries. Am I beyond help?

Here's to greater wisdom and blessings in the world!

Kicking Ass

I realize I'm a bit slow in responding to this one, but frankly I was expecting everyone else to. Naive me, I thought there'd be some kind of an outcry when it was widely reported that the man who sits in our Oval Office boasted to the Prime Minister of Australia that the U.S. is "kicking ass" in Iraq.

Now I'm no prude when it comes to language, and "ass" seems to me a relatively inoffensive word anyway. But in this context, it's what it suggests about the attitude of the man who used it that bothers me. On the one hand, it suggests a kind of high school locker room mentality that unhappily no longer shocks with this particular individual. We've heard enough from him to know that his grasp of the subtleties of language is less than one might wish from "the leader of the free world." We've seen enough of his antics to understand that his sense of humor is, well, boyish at best. We have grown used to, if not weary of, his immaturity.

Worse still, though, is the delusional quality of his observation. "Kicking ass," in all its pathetic boastfulness and arrogance, suggests an ease of victory, an ability to impose one's will on others that simply appears absurd in the context of the war in Iraq, where progress--if indeed one concedes such a concept in the first place, has been slow and painful at best. It continues to be slow and painful. Whose ass exactly, I might wonder, are we kicking. The insurgents'? Al-Qaeda's? If so, they show a remarkable resilience to having their ass kicked, since they are still pretty much as virulent as ever. With American troops and Iraqi civilians being killed by the score each day, the concept of our having "kicked ass" in that environment seems wildly off base. Does this man really believe the words he lets so casually slip?

And worst of all, of course, is the fact that he's talking about human lives and limbs. In this context, the casual humor is--sorry, I'm not humorless, but really--inexcusable. What it has to say about the man is deeply troubling, even if it isn't news. The fact that it passes by with barely a ripple of critical response from press or public is a sad commentary on the state to which our society is reduced. (I have not checked the political wing of the Internet yet, but I'm sure that here I might find some of the outrage I'm looking for. Naive me, I just wish that the entire nation would rise up in anger.)

The Buddhist concept of "Right Speech" seems useful to me here. Would that the man who currently poses as our president might have learned a small piece of that wisdom.

A Trip North (September '07)

(A chronicle of our journey north to San Francisco, a day-long tour of the art scene there, and a further journey north to Napa, to the wedding of the daughter of some of our oldest friends)

Wednesday, September 5

We made an early start, around 7:30, to be sure that we'd reach Oakland in time for a studio appointment Ellie had made with one of the artists she works with, and made a quick stop at the market to buy a cup of coffee and a muffin to keep us going for the first leg of the 5 freeway. A thankfully uneventful drive, with a stop along the way at Anderson's Pea Soup for a less than inspiring salad at lunch time, and a long session with the Leonard Cohen songs from the movie, "I'm Your Man." And, on reaching Oakland, a good face-to-face session for Ellie with an artist with whom she had worked previously only on the telephone.

Crossing the Bay Bridge into San Francisco, we made the unfortunate mistake of merging two conflicting sets of driving instructions to the De Young Museum and ended up--for the first time, but not the last on this trip!--way off track in entirely the wrong park. The generally unflappable guide on our GPS navigation system got more and more confused as we blithely ignored her directions in the mistaken belief that we knew better than she did. A lesson for the future...! Do what you're told, when it comes to global navigation.

Wish we'd had more time at the magnificent new

De Young Museum, which we saw now for the first time--once we had eventually managed to locate it. Our erroneous route allowed us only an hour or so before closing time, but it proved enough to take a quick tour of a stunning exhibition of photographic work by Hiroshi Sugimoto

(this is from his outdoor movie screen series: the glow of the white screen results from the time exposure--the length of an entire film, ensuring that the screen would be entirely white.) Best known, perhaps, for the extraordinarily beautiful series of seascapes, each of which shows nothing but the surface of the sea, the horizon, and the sky, Sugimoto asks us to join him in playing with the ambiguities of perception in generally reductive or repetitive images--though I also loved the black and white pictures of figures from Mme Tussaud's waxworks, including the magnificently-scaled Henry VIII and his six wives.

We dashed far too hastily through the museum collection, but saw enough to want to make a return visit before too long. Notable was the Sachs collection of glass and ceramic work, and a fine selection of Bay Area painters and assemblage artists, including such notables as George Herms and Bruce Conner. Well worth the visit.

Trusting, this time, to our navigation guide, we found our hotel without further mishaps, and later made the long trek up over Nob Hill and down the other side to the Trattoria Contadina in North Beach. An excellent Italian meal. To judge by the signed pictures on the wall, it's a favorite of San Francisco notables, including numerous sports names from the 49ers and the Giants. We walked back the long way, to avoid the climb back up Nob Hill, passing through the ever-lively North Beach and the (by now nearly deserted) streets of Chinatown. A lovely evening in one of the world's great cities...

Thursday, September 6

... followed by a great day, Thursday, devoted mostly to contemporary art. We started out with a Starbucks breakfast, hand-carried to Union Square where the street artists were busy setting up their wares. At the SF Museum of Modern Art, we met up with Arminee Chahbazian, another of Ellie's artists, with whom we had planned to spend a gallery day, and gained press admission to the preview of the new Olafur Eliasson exhibition there. First stop, second floor, the site of Eliasson's frozen car--the body-less hulk of a BMW race car encased in an elaborate cave of ice, and a dramatic distillation of the role of our automobile culture in the planetary warming that now influences us all.

For my money, though, the better part of the Eliasson exhibition was on the fifth floor, where a number of installations allowed him to show the range of his work, principally with light and the effects of light on our perceptive faculties. A stained glass tunnel led into the show, a gleaming, multi-colored jewel of a space which, in reverse, neatly exchanged the bright approach for darkness on the return. An interactive installation allowed the viewer to step on creaky loose floorboards to send waves and ripples through a wall-sized image of otherwise tranquil water. Proceeding behind the wall, we find a pool of water that reveals how the installation works.

In another installation (above,) a near completely circular wall acts as the screen for the projection of a continuous spectrum of colored light, surrounding the viewer with a glorious, mind-bending glow. Another encloses us in a corridor of matte, dark stone, and another confronts us with a towering wall of delicately dried-out moss. In other works, Eliasson uses mirrors and glass to bedazzle us with views of ever-repeating images--often of ourselves--into infinity.

While Eliasson never preaches, he does succeed in confronting us very subtly with some of the major issues of our day, at the same time bringing us to recognize our personal role of responsibility. It's a stunningly ambitious exhibition, well worth the time of anyone living within reach of the Bay Area--and worth the trip north for those of us in Southern California.

We were generously treated for lunch at the SF MOMA cafeteria by our artist friend, and went on to find the Catharine Clark Gallery, where I was hoping to see some new works by Masami Teraoka (the artist for my next catalogue text) and have the chance to talk to Katy, who produced the very complete book on Teraoka's work, "Ascending Chaos." Delighted to discover that our friend from Los Angeles, Sandow Birk, was there, putting the finishing touches on the installation of "The Depravities of War,"

his powerful new series of huge woodcuts on the Iraq war. Katy, quite naturally, was busy with the installation and preparations for the opening, and she had only one new piece of Teraoka's--which she was nice enough to have an aide unpack from its crate, despite the crush of business to be attended to. Still, a useful stop.

The rest of the afternoon and early evening were devoted to the gallery tour. It happened to be opening day for the new season, and aside from the outlying galleries we visited in the afternoon, the galleries in the downtown area were crammed with visitors. Encouraging, really, to find such crowds seeming genuinely interested in finding out what artists are doing. I have to say, though, that the shows proved something of an anticlimax after the Eliasson extravaganza. And there were a lot of them--dozens of galleries, scores of artists. I reached a point where I simply could see nothing any more.

Leaving the galleries a bit before closing time, we said our fond goodbyes to Arminee and found our way back to the hotel. Not too ambitious for a long walk to dinner, we chose the Mexican restaurant adjacent to the hotel and enjoyed an excellent light dinner--accompanied by two equally excellent margaritas. And so to bed...

Friday, September 7

This morning we repeated our Starbucks breakfast trick--but this time in our hotel room--and packed for a reasonably early departure for Marin County, where Ellie had another studio appointment. Always a treat, to drive across the Golden Gate Bridge--though I can't cross a bridge in the Bay Area without thoroughly convincing myself that a major earthquake is about to strike. Still, we did make it all the way across without serious incident, and made our way north to San Anslemo and Ellie's artist, whose studio is a tiny shed in a lovely back yard filled with flowers and fruits and vegetables. I sat on a bench amongst them all whilst Ellie and her artist did their work, and engrossed myself in the previous day's New York Times crossword puzzle--my major addiction, and the way I invariably choose to pass the time when waiting, whether at the airport, in the doctor's office... or here, in this lovely garden, where I should be all rights have been meditating on the beauty of it all. Ah, well!

We got back on the freeway for what we had vainly hoped would be an easy trip to the art gallery at Sonoma State University, where Masami Teraoka has a current show and where much of his new work, I had discovered, was to be seen in prime circumstances--i.e., hung on a gallery wall with gallery lighting. Alas, the trip proved less simple than we had imagined. Again, we should have followed directions. Instead, I spotted a sign to Sonoma and left the 101 freeway--thinking, of course, that Sonoma State University would be in Sonoma. Far from it. Far, far from it, as we learned when we reached Sonoma and stopped by a friendly motorcycle cop to ask where the university might be. He looked at us with pity. "It's a long way," he said.

As indeed it proved to be. We backtracked for miles, missed another turn for a shortcut that the cop had recommended, and found ourselves back on the 101 north. Eventually we did find SSU, by which time I was hungry--and more than that, angry!!! We stopped for a brief, restorative Middle Eastern lunch at a nearby shopping mall, and ventured on to the campus to find the gallery. As it turned out, it was an important stop for me. There was a good deal of work I had seen only in book form before, and of course you have no idea of the scale of a painting, nor of the texture of its surface when you look at a reproduction in a book. In fact, you get little idea of anything. It's like reading a novel for its "content." So... good to see the work first-hand. Essential, really, if I'm to write about it with anything like authenticity. More of Masami later, though, as I get into the writing.

Miraculously, we managed to find Napa without further disorientation, and settled in to the Napa River Inn, where we had booked for two nights ready for the wedding. It was just a few blocks' walk from there to the restaurant where we had been invited to the pre-wedding dinner. We have known our friends, Morrie and Evy Warshawski, since the late 1960s, when Morrie was first an undergraduate then a graduate student of mine at the University of Southern California, in English and Comparative Literature. Later, both he and Evy worked with me on a multi-disciplinary program in the arts that I directed, and they have remained close friends ever since--even though we have not seen them as often as we would have liked. They moved on from Southern California to multiple stopovers throughout the country, pursuing their wonderful careers in the field of arts administration. We have known their two daughters since they were born, and it was their youngest, Maura, who was to be married the following day.

Greeting new arrivals at the door, Evy offered us a blank stare: Who are these people? (Did I say it had been years since we last saw her?) But once she figured it out, it was a joy to see the pleasure in her face as she welcomed us. Morrie, too, and the two girls when we met them. It was a truly wonderful reunion.

Dinner, then, with the families--the Warshawski family, extensive on both sides, and their soon-to-be-in-laws. It was a thoroughly convivial gathering, with good food, much Napa wine, and loud conversation. We were happy to walk through nearly silent streets on the way back to our hotel, and to get to bed in fairly decent time.

Saturday, September 8--the Wedding Day

We took advantage of breakfast served in our room, and lazed around for a good while before taking off for a day in Napa's wine country. The wedding was scheduled for late afternoon, so we had plenty of time for the drive up to Calistoga, where we wandered round the farmers' market--and Ellie found some craftsman jewelry to buy. Then a leisurely stroll up and down the main street of Calistoga, remembering the last time we had been here, many years before--and struggling to remember when that might have been. Was it before or after this or that? Our memories failed to agree on the details of time, but we did summon a clear memory of an excellent meal.

Too early, though, for lunch. We headed south again along the Silverado Trail not intending, at first, to do the winery visits. We changed our minds, though, when we passed the Rutherford Ranch vineyards,

and stopped by for a taste--which led, of course, to the purchase of a few bottles to bring home. Crossing over to St. Helena, we found ourselves passing Grgich Hills, one of my favorite Napa wineries, and couldn't resist that second stop--and those few more bottles.

We found a pleasant bakery in St. Helena for a lunch-time sandwich and were back in Napa in time for some down time and a shower before the wedding. Then off to the Opera House--where Evy directs the slate of programs for the city, and where the wedding was to be held.
The chupah--the awning under which the Jewish marriage traditionally takes place--was set up on the stage, and the principals processed from the rear down the central aisle and up the steps to where the officiant stood to greet them. A lovely, simple, non-religious service, in which the bride and groom exchanged a few private words before taking the vows, and the celebrant found a few apt words to create the social context for the personal event. At the end, after the exchange of vows, another Jewish tradition: the breaking of the glass under the new husband's foot as the sign of the end of the old life and the beginning of the new one.


After the ceremony, we partied. Again--who would have guessed it?--a generous flow of Napa wines, a sumptuous banquet prepared by a local restauranteur (or should I say --restauranteuse? A corn chowder--a favorite of the bride's--followed by filet mignon and not-overcooked young vegetables, both a considerable achievement for so large a gathering. The cake, prepared by another local food establishment, was also excellent--very light, encrusted with cream and pistachios. And of course champagne. And dancing... A great evening of community and celebration. Ellie and I came away much delighted with the whole event. And were further delighted...

Sunday, September 9...

to be able to spend some time with our old friends. We were up early-ish, ready for the long drive south, and off to Morrie & Evy's home just a few blocks distant, expecting to find a houseful of family and friends staying over. What a pleasure, then, to find the house quiet, the two of them alone over the breakfast table, with ample time to sit with them, enjoy the treat of lox and bagel and a cup of coffee, and talk over old times. A good catch-up, with mostly much merriment and good memories. After breakfast, Morrie showed me his upstairs office--a veritable cockpit from which he conducts his nationwide advisory services to arts programs--and we talked about writing, blogging, and the demands of work. He's missing his own creative writing, I think, and I encouraged him to think about a blog as a useful form of discipline. Who knows, he might even get one started? It's something that I'd love to read.

Fond farewells, then, and inevitably a few missed directions before we found ourselves on I-680, then 101 south, with only a quick lunch break (at "Scrambl-z"!) and a long haul down to Pismo Beach, where Ellie had wisely organized a stopover for the night, to make the journey more pleasant. Okay hotel. And a two-mile walk along the beach, so different from our own down in Laguna--a wide stretch of fine sand and a long, shallow reach out to the breakers. And birds. Gulls, of course, and pigeons, crowded together in big, feathered islands on the beach. And pelicans! I have never seen so many gathered in one place, never so many taking off in flights and wheeling out to sea in flocks to fish, or following the shoreline in long single file. Inspiring sight.

We enjoyed a last vacation dinner, and got back to the hotel in time to watch a few minutes of Bill Clinton with Larry King. Then, just getting off to sleep, the bloody spa immediately outside our room--we had enjoyed a soak a few hours earlier--refused to shut down and leave us in peace for the night. After two calls to the front desk in the attempt to quiet it down, I eventually jerked the plug on it and we both got to sleep.

On Monday, September 10...

... we took a quick walk out on the pier and found a Starbucks for a cup of coffee before hitting the road again and heading home.

A Bumper Sticker...

... spotted in Santa Barbara:

MY KARMA RAN OVER MY DOGMA

Well, I thought it was pretty funny. But why the laugh? I mean, we only laugh when it means something, right? For me personally, reflecting after the initial ha-ha, the sticker suggests that the course of my life eventually demonstrated convincingly that pre-conceived ideas--even, perhaps especially, religious ones--tend to get railroaded into oblivion by the weight of life's experience. Any thoughts?

Then there's this news, just in, brought to my attention by a friend. Tibetan monks, it seems, are now forbidden by their Chinese masters from reincarnating without government permission. Hmmm... Will we soon need FDA--or USDA!--approval to be born again?

Today I'll be putting together my log of our few days in Northern California, and all being well will hope to have it posted by the end of the day.

Well...

... Cardozo has been busy since I left! Imagine my surprise on checking in to The Buddha Diaires this morning and finding myself engrossed in... short and curlies! A hilarious post, and a good start to a Monday morning. But listen, I'm not yet back in town. I'm in Pismo Beach, stopping over on my way back south. Yesterday, a long walk on the beach here, surrounded by flocks of sea birds with hundreds of (broken) sand dollars underfoot. Ellie speculated that the birds had pecked them open for their living innards... perhaps she's right. Anyway, more later, when I'm back at my desk. And, within the next couple of days, a new travel log--with comments on some interesting art from San Francisco. Herewith, the proverbial lick and promise...

September Journeys

Today, we invite you to travel with us across the fractal terrain of our friendly blog community and...

get inside the pants of a Bad Ass Knitter...

sail across virtual waters for an adventure in Buddhism

stop for ice cream, and walk down memory lane in Somerville, MA

crawl inside the beating heart of a Dharma Bum

get lost and get found in the Wisconsin wilderness

Happy Reading! Peter returns tomorrow to give us the latest from the gentle streets of San Francisco.

The Buddha Diaries Recommends

Thailand Gal

I just spent the morning steeped in the archives of Thailand Gal...and now my head is spinning!

Thailand Gal is a journey deep into the heart and mind of ThailandChani, a self-described Caucasian Thaiphile. Her love (and practice) of Thai culture - and her intention to relocate to Thailand once she can raise the funds - is the blog's most prominent recurring theme. But her reasons for this lifestyle choice take her posts far and wide...into nearly every conceivable area of her "unusual life."

Shucking brevity and bravado, Thailand Gal is a breathtakingly honest exploration into Western culture - the albatross around ThailandChani's neck, her "culture of birth (as opposed to culture of choice) which is dedicated to individual success at all costs, assertiveness that often comes across as rude or pushy, competition and focus almost exclusively on 'self-esteem'."

While many blogs attempt to address the ills of Western society, the majority of those do so by tearing down those who embody the opposing viewpoint, as though "winning the argument" might lead to a mass conversion of the wrong-headed. Others adhere strictly to faith-based perspectives.

ThailandChani, conversely, is that rare cultural dissident who dwells insistently on the horrific personal consequences of a broken culture. Many of her posts are heartbreakingly brave...and conscientiously stripped of self-righteousness. At the same time, she fiercely protects a firmly-held belief in the goodness of herself and of humanity - of each individual human.

Her posts rely on raw personal experiences as material for well-written and nuanced evaluations of cultural norms. The posts are under no illusion that changing our patterns of thought and behavior (ultimately destructive to ourselves and the community, she argues) will be easy. There are no villains and no heroes in the world of Thailand Gal...only truth-seekers and truth-obscurers.

For a good intro into what Thailand Gal is all about, read two of the first posts (here and here) from September, 2006. Happy reading!

This Week...

.... I'll be gone. Today is our last (half) day of the summer in Laguna Beach. We leave around midday to return to our Los Angeles abode (it's 100 degrees up there! Ugh!) There will be plenty of catch-up to be done--mail, bills, etc., and a new recorded piece for The Art of Outrage to be completed--before we leave for the drive up to San Francisco Wednesday morning. Two days there, doing mostly art things: I'm embarking on a catalogue text for the artist Masami Teraoka, and his main gallery is there. He also has a big show at the Sonoma State University gallery, so there should be some good opportunities to see his work first hand. Friday, we drive on to Napa--and the wedding, Saturday, of the daughter of some of our oldest friends.

While I myself am planning to take a vacation from The Buddha Diaries, bear with me. I'll be prevailing upon the stalwart Cardozo to keep things going. There should be at least a couple of entries during the week, perhaps in the form of our "Conversations" or "The Buddha Diaries Recommends." Who knows, I might even find myself in front of a computer with the irrepressible urge to say something...

I must admit to some anxiety about taking a vacation--particularly at a moment when the blog has been sailing along quite nicely, gathering new readers throughout the country and the world. I do love the opportunity the blogosphere has given me to speak to others, and to hear back from them, and there's this little superstitious part inside my head, warning me that if I don't post every single day, no one will love me any more...! Ridiculous, no? So, my challenge is to breathe, let go, and trust. A good exercise, surely, and one that I'll find exceptionally hard to do.

Wish me luck! See you next week! Blessings, PeterAtLarge

Belief and Disbelief

A new insight. Well, it’s new to me. Like all my “insights,” it has probably been perfectly obvious for years to many other people, but it came to me yesterday with a certain clarity as I was reading a translation of The Heart Sutra by Red Pine, replete with mind-benders like this:

"Form is emptiness, emptiness is form; emptiness is not separate from form, form is not separate from emptiness; whatever is form is emptiness, whatever is emptiness is form."

Lovely. But go figure. Anyway, here's my own insight:

Belief and disbelief are not mutually exclusive opposites, they are rather two sides of the same coin. As readers of The Buddha Diaries will likely be aware, I myself have been much attached to disbelief. And what came to me with that certain clarity yesterday was that to be attached to disbelief is really no different than being attached to belief. Disbelief is in itself a form of belief—a belief that the belief of others is somehow wrong-headed or ignorant. The two seem to me, on reflection, to be in balance with each other. The one who desires to follow the Middle Way would steer a path between belief and disbelief, without allowing himself to be attached to either one.

Skepticism is a little different from disbelief. I hold to my skepticism (am I “attached” to it?) because it comes down on neither the side of belief nor, properly, on the side of disbelief. The mind that opens itself to disbelief can surely remain open to belief. If it questions belief, by the same token, it will as honestly question disbelief.

Am I counting the angels as they dance, here, on the head of a pin? Perhaps. But this, it seems to me, is the sense of the Middle Path in the matter of belief and disbelief. And this is my mighty insight for the day. I trust that I will be able to learn from it.

Blessings!