"THE LACUNA"

I'm reading, belatedly--I'm slow in catching up with all those bestsellers--Barbara Kingsolver's "The Lacuna." It's a wonderfully told tale woven around the events in Mexico in the heyday of the revolutionary days of the early 20th century, with intellectuals like Frida and Diego and Trotsky in the vanguard of a movement to turn the world over to the workers. Some hope! In Mexico, sadly, these days, the country seems to have been turned over to murderously feuding drug cartels. Ah, well.

But it's a marvelous book. I was slow getting into it but now, halfway through, I'm hooked by both the narrative and the narrator--a wry observer of the cultural and political scene from boyhood days, whose mother leads him on a fate-driven dance in the vain and ever-declining search for a man of wealth to support her. He becomes first the fresco-mixer to the great muralist, "the Painter," then cook and confidant for the famous couple, then secretary to the troublesome visitor from Russia. Thus far... with so many pages left, I'm wondering where he's headed after the death of these giant figures. We'll see.

In the meantime, Kingsolver treats us to an engaging mix of lyricism and epic, taking in both the natural wonders of the sub-tropical environment and the great, mostly tragic sweep of pre- and post-Columbian history. Subtly, she reveals to us truths about our own time as she does so. Here's "Lev" Trotsky, via Kingsolver, on journalists. "They tell the truth only as an exception. Zola wrote that the mendacity of the press could be divided into two groups: the yellow press lies every day without hesitating. But others, like the Times, speak the truth on all inconsequential occasions, so that they can deceive the public with the requisite authority when it becomes necessary." On the same page, Lev notes acerbically, "We are made to declare our love for our country, while it tramples our rights and dignity."

Most of all, perhaps, I'm enjoying Kingsolver's strikingly visual prose. I have been to some of the sites she describes--Rivera's modernist concrete block residence and studio, Frida's ranch style house with its outrageous colors and its glorious flower garden; Kingsolver captures them to perfection, as she does the jungle and the ocean, the teeming streets of Mexico City and the desert that surrounds it. You constantly feel included, as a reader, as a silent participant in each scene, emotionally tugged in to the narrative by the mercurial Diego and the temperamental Frida, great characters, both.

So, I read on, after this sort-of review. Since I'm not in the business, I feel free to write one even when I'm only halfway through.

HOPING FOR THE WORST

It's not something I care to admit, even quietly to myself, but sometimes I catch my mind hoping for the worst.

It happened again with the latest hurricane. I should, of course, have been mightily relieved for my fellow citizens to watch its power decline as it reached the coast and headed north. But no, the shameful truth is that some part of me kept clinging, secretly, to the perverse hope that it would maintain and even intensify its strength.

What's this about? Am I alone in this peculiar perversity? I'm sure I can't be. I hope not, since that would make a monster of me. I hope that it's merely human to be attracted by high drama, even tragedy, no matter that it involves the suffering and death of others. Beyond the abhorrence, there is something magnetic about the catastrophic earthquake, the mine disaster, the terrorist attack. At least--and, as I said, I am not proud to admit it--this is true for me. Reason argues vainly as the mind goes charging off in pursuit of its childish excitements.

I wonder if my attachment to our current political debacle is related to this unhealthy habit of hoping for the worst? I watch with fascination, as well as with despair, at the hurricane approaches. I can't seem to take my eyes off the madness that abounds. What I'm learning, slowly, is to be honest in watching my mind at work, to observe when it latches on to these reprehensible thoughts and, with patience and a modicum of reason, to correct them.

THIS IS NOT ME

I'm happy to be able to note that I have just now completed the task I set myself for the summer, putting the finishing touches to the final draft of a new collection of essays. It's called "This Is Not Me." Here's the brief introductory piece I completed yesterday, which tries to give the reader a nutshell sense of what it's all about:

A PREFACE

The essays in this loosely assembled and necessarily incomplete collection of essays are the result of a continuing effort to deconstruct the self—to disassemble some of its component parts and take a look at how they work, or sometimes fail to work, in the broad context of my life. I say incomplete because the task is of such a magnitude and the self such a seemingly solid entity that I do not see myself quite ever achieving the final goal: to liberate myself from the stress of holding it all together, in order to come closer to that elusive happiness of enlightened clarity and peace of mind.

The epigraph with which I introduce the collection is bound to seem quite blatantly paradoxical when all this writing is about the self. The words are those of my favorite Buddhist mantra: This is not me, this is not mine, this is not who I am… I return to them for understanding and guidance every time I find myself entrapped in the delusion of my identity or enchanted by my ego; whenever I attach to those possessions I imagine belong to me; or whenever the vicissitudes of life become so overwhelming that I slip unconsciously into knee-jerk response.

They are words of great resonance for me; their profound truth never fails to bring comfort and reassurance. I have only to take a few good breaths and repeat them quietly to myself, and I find that I can usually re-establish inner calm in the most adverse of circumstances, along with a reasonable sense of proportion. Hearing them, I see my attachment to self-image or possession in the light of a greater perspective, and manage to let go of some of the stress and suffering these delusions cause me. The more I become aware of them and the power they exercise, the more easily I am able to free myself from their grip. That freedom, in essence, is what I would want this book to be about.

My daily blog, “The Buddha Diaries,” sent out into the world from my home in California, is the source of most of these essays. It is not particularly a “Buddhist blog,” in that it does not attempt to promote or explicate the fundamentals of the religion. Rather, it’s a journal whose pages allow me to explore any aspect of my life and any event that occurs in it from the wise perspective afforded by a strictly lay person’s acquaintance with the teachings of the Buddha. Collectively, these teachings constitute what’s called the dharma, but since I want my essays to have broader and certainly a not-exclusively religious appeal, I’ll settle happily for “teachings.” In them I have found the wisest and most practical guide to the examined life that I seek, in my later years, to lead.

Now begins the hard part--getting it into print and out into the world; or publishing it as an ebook. Not sure, yet, which way to go. The real, enduring issue, of course, is distribution... (I'm attached to that!)

Beware Rick Perry...

... and the NAR--the New Apostolic Reformation movement that organized "The Response," the Texas governor's August prayer rally for "a nation in crisis." Yesterday's Terry Gross "Fresh Air" interview with researcher Rachel Tabachnick, linked above, was one of the scariest things I've heard for a long time. An obviously well-financed and well-organized group of right-wing Christian evangelicals, the NAR practices "dominion theology"--which means, in a nutshell, them having dominion over the rest of us. Their political agenda includes the banning of abortion, the attack on gay rights, and the conversion of Jews. The latter is intended to clear the way for the Second Coming of Christ and the rapture, currently on hold, it seems, until enough Jews in Israel convert to Christianity--a prerequisite for the grand event. But that's not all:

For the past several years, [Tabachnick] says, the NAR has run a campaign to reclaim what it calls the "seven mountains of culture" from demonic influence. The "mountains" are arts and entertainment; business; family; government; media; religion; and education.

"They teach quite literally that these 'mountains' have fallen under the control of demonic influences in society," says Tabachnick. "And therefore, they must reclaim them for God in order to bring about the kingdom of God on Earth. ... The apostles teach what's called 'strategic level spiritual warfare' [because they believe that the] reason why there is sin and corruption and poverty on the Earth is because the Earth is controlled by a hierarchy of demons under the authority of Satan. So they teach not just evangelizing souls one by one, as we're accustomed to hearing about. They teach that they will go into a geographic region or a people group and conduct spiritual-warfare activities in order to remove the demons from the entire population. This is what they're doing that's quite fundamentally different than other evangelical groups."

Along with their demons, they also believe in the Antichrist--and many of them, I would guess, subscribe to the harebrained notion that Obama is his current manifestation in the world, bent on leading us into the satanic abyss of Socialism. (Just try googling Obama and Antichrist side by side. I'm not offering to do it for you.)

The NAR also argue, apparently, that this country's constitutional separation of church and state is a myth. They believe, quite literally, that it's their God-given right and duty to take over first this country, then the world. What's scary is not that already large numbers of people believe such madness but that they are able to persuade others to follow their delusional agenda, and that they wield potentially vast political influence. The fact that at least one major contender for the Republican nomination for the presidency is, if not one of their number, at least demonstrably influenced by their supposed piety, is deeply troubling to me. It should be receiving far more media investigation and exposure than a single episode of "Fresh Air." In case you missed this interview, here, again, is the link. If it doesn't scare the pants off you, I don't know what will.

Living Beings

I believe that this is a Coopers Hawk...

... I spotted early this morning through our living room window, perched in our neighbor's ficus tree. Can anyone confirm or correct?

On the subject of living beings in the animal kingdom, we had to take George in to the doctor yesterday. In the past couple of weeks, he has been waking in the middle of the night with a horribly growling stomach, jumping down from the bed, and calling to us, first politely, then more insistently, to be taken out. This has been happening two or three times a night, and you can imagine that it has displeased us mightily. We need our sleep!

Once leashed and out in the darkened street ( I worry a bit about coyotes: there have been recent reports about small dogs on leash being attacked, along with their owners) George just wants to eat grass--or any plant he can find that he judges to be medicinal. I eventually tried giving him a little food in the attempt to settle him down, and that seems to help. Still, he was due for his annual physical, so we decided it was time to visit the vet.

Like his caretakers, he has lost weight--a good thing, since he was getting a little plump around the midriff. The breed is so terminally cute, you can hardly help yourself from offering them treats; we try not to spoil him, but... The doctor gave him a thorough check and pronounced him to be in excellent condition. At ten years old, he is fortunate to have escaped the heart murmur that is common, these days, among Cavalier King Charles Spaniels; his eyes are bright, his coat is full and healthy; his teeth somewhat worn down by his attachment to those tennis balls, but otherwise in good shape...

As for the stomach problem, the doctor recommended half a Pepcid tablet and a teaspoon of PeptoBismol at bedtime, along with a late snack. He'll have no problem with the latter--he has always been an eager eater--but we doubt he'll much enjoy the PeptoBismol.

That's today's news from the animal kingdom hereabouts. Be well...

ENGAGEMENT

(NOTE: I'm drafting out a handful of the remaining essays that I feel are needed in the new collection that I'm trying to put together over the summer, "This Is Not Me." This one echoes much of what I say here often in The Buddha Diaries, and seeks to fill what I think is a gap in the collection.)

Here’s my struggle—well, one of my struggles, but perhaps the most enduring of them: reason tells me that I’m unable to save the world, but my heart persists in believing that I ought to. I know that my attachment to this belief serves only to bring me needless stress and suffering, but I find it impossible to let it go.

It happens to be a Monday morning as I write these words. The headline in the New York Times informs that the rebel troops in Libya have finally succeeded in storming the capital, and that the dictator who has hideously oppressed them these past four decades is about to fall. I rejoice with them for the freedom they have gained, but tremble at the prospect of what might result from it and despair at the violence it took to bring them to this point. In other Middle Eastern countries, the streets of cities are in turmoil as long overdue liberation movements threaten the stability of whole populations; in Syria, currently, at the cost of thousands of lives. Their future is of grave concern to the entire, ever-shrinking world.

Elsewhere on the planet, wars continue to rage in far too many places, and are likely to worsen as humans battle over territory, resources, money and power, and millions flee to escape oppression or deprivation—some of it clearly due to climatic changes brought about by our poor stewardship of this small globe we call our home. In Somalia alone, tens of thousands have been driven from their homes by pitiless drought and are threatened with imminent starvation, while pitiful human beings with guns do battle over the ephemeral illusion of power.

Meanwhile, here in the country that has adopted me, taken me in and treated me with inordinate generosity, a handful of us live in unprecedented luxury, with wealth beyond imagining; a very large number of us enjoy a standard of living that is the envy of most other peoples in the world; and too many of us live in dreadful insecurity, without the prospect of work or income, or already mired in poverty. It’s abundantly clear that all the significant political power has shifted into the hands of those who value the bottom line of profits above the welfare of actual human beings and that, short of revolution here on the streets of America, the prospects for change continue deplorably to diminish.

I was brought up in a country where “socialist” was not a dirty word but a legitimate political party, believing that we are responsible for our mutual well-being. Confronted everywhere with the evidence of inequality and injustice, I know that I am virtually powerless in the struggle against them; and everything I read and hear in the media suggests that it is a losing battle anyway. I am furious at what I deem to be the willful blindness or plain stupidity of ideologues and the self-importance of those in a position to shape opinion. Yet I have learned from the wisdom of the dharma that I only bring suffering upon myself by clinging to the belief that I can control events in the world out there, and that the work starts with myself, within…

Still, no matter how clearly I can hold these things in at least moderately realistic perspective, I am unable to surrender. I am engaged. It’s who I am—or so I tell myself, even while that Buddhist part within insists on reminding me that it’s all delusion. I find myself persisting in the struggle. I continue to watch the news and read the newspaper, increasingly aware of the outrage they provoke. I feel the tension in the back of my neck, my personal control center. I feel it also as a pain in the gut, a general feeling of malaise as I go about my daily life. Unable—perhaps unready—to retreat into detachment, I work to maintain a semblance of equanimity in compromise: I will try to content myself with doing what I can.

I can write. “The Buddha Diaries,” my daily writing practice, evolved from a more political commitment to “The Bush Diaries”—a commitment made the day after the re-election of George W. Bush in 2004. It does not, frankly, feel like nearly enough to me. What I write will certainly not change the world. Even those voices more influential than my own—I think of Paul Krugman, in the New York Times, for example, with whom I mostly, uncomfortably, agree—seem to have little power to effect the kind of change I personally want to see. But I will satisfy myself with writing what I can, and sending it out as I can into the world. I’ll hope that the words I write will fall on some few receptive and compassionate ears. And will continue to remember to breathe.

Gluttony

This morning's meditation afforded me the opportunity to observe at first hand the effects of over-indulgence in food and wine. I can report that they include, but are not limited to a fuzzy head, a laboring heart and uneven breathing, an uncomfortable, distended belly, generally disordered thoughts and a lack of concentration. Not bad, for an evening's work.

The occasion was the visit of some very old friends whom we had not seen for quite some time. We greeted them at the cottage with a nice bottle of Sancerre, crisp and cool from the refrigerator, along with salty snacks that I managed, for the most part, to resist. Driving downtown, we stopped by the Laguna Art Museum to see the current exhibitions--one of Isamu Noguchi, which included a full documentation of the big, majestic "California Scenario" sculptural environment at South Coast Plaza about which I wrote many years ago, for Art in America, as I recall; and a lovely installation of the artist's Akari light sculptures...

(this image is not of the LAM installation, but pirated online) ... marvels of design constructed out of mulberry bark paper and bamboo. Upstairs, an exhibit of our friend Lita Albuquerque's lovely "Red Pigment Paintings", where she used wind or breath to disperse pure red pigment on black surfaces...

and her "Beekeeper" video.

So far, so good. For dinner we had made reservations at the Brussels Bistro, a usually not terribly crowded restaurant downtown. Now, since returning from our Midwest trip a few weeks back, in early July, to the shock of stepping onto the bathroom scale and realizing just how much weight I'd added to my already overweight frame, I have been working hard to do something about it. And indeed, I have succeeded in losing about thirteen pounds, achieving my first goal a couple of days ago when I registered a solid five pounds below my pre-trip norm. My next goal is to drop another five pounds, with the intention of maintaining at that level--a more acceptable one for my age and height.

It has not been easy. I have been eating with careful attention, avoiding those things I know to be the major culprits, especially three of my personal favorites: wine, bread and potatoes. And I have been enjoying the weight loss, feeling more sprightly, less weighed down, lighter in both body and spirits. Having paid more attention, then, to the consequences of my choices, I was especially attuned this morning to the results of last night's binge.

Dinner... We had already polished off a good deal of the bottle of Sancerre, remember. Now, at Brussels Bistro, we ordered a Syrah/Merlot blend from the Laguedoc, and set to work on that--along with, for me, roast breast of duck with a reduction sauce, a delicious small pot of dauphine potatoes and a bundle of green beans wrapped in a rasher of bacon. The waiter also brought us an extra side order of Belgian "frites" for the table and, having tried, tentatively, one, then a couple... I started to tuck into the delectable fries with unrestrained abandon. The wine helped, I'm sure. And then--for the table again--we ordered a warm, dark, juicy Belgian chocolate cake... a la mode.

I'm not about to castigate myself for the excess. I enjoyed myself, loved the food, the wine, the company--despite the noisy crowd we come to expect at the beach in the summer time. But it was sobering to watch the physical effects during meditation, highlighted as they were by the previous weeks of abstinence and a body adjusted to more sensible eating habits. My observations encourage me to return to the straight and narrow, and to value the more lasting feelings of good health over the ephemeral delights of gluttony .

INVENTORY

Yesterday's clean-up effort, mentioned in these pages, reminded me of a long-intended and I think essential chapter on material possessions for my new book, This Is Not Me. Since I write this in the bedroom, thanks to the convenience of the laptop computer, let me look around and take inventory of some of the things I own.

There is, of course, first of all, the bed--a double bed that takes up a good deal of the space in this small room. Bed linens, a duvet. Pillows. A newspaper, waiting to be read. A dog--though I would not wish to claim "ownership" of this fellow living being. George is sleeping blissfully. He owns even less than the monk's bowl and robe.

Above the bed, two sconce lamps and between them a painting made by Ellie's's mother in the 1930s. On my side of the bed, a a bedside stand with my CPAP machine, a book, a cup of tea--now empty. In the drawer, various sundries like an eye relieving pad stuffed with lavender, and other items that have been there for so long untouched that I have forgotten what they are. On Ellie's side, a white table with her pile of books, some read, some waiting to be read; and, on a lower shelf, piles of magazines. Gourmet, Sunset, the New Yorker, and so on.

Against the wall on my side, a built-in that consists of numerous drawers and cupboards of different sizes and, above, book shelves. In the drawers and cupboards, clothes. Winter beach clothes: sweaters, sweat suits, sweat shirts. Pajamas. Several paris of shorts and light-weight pants. A couple of tall piles of t-shirts, those at the bottom of the piles largely unworn. A drawer for socks--a few dress socks and numerous pairs of thick white athletic socks. A drawer for underwear and handkerchiefs.

On the bookshelves: books, of course. Dozens of them. Novels and books of poetry. Non-fiction. Several shelves of books of spiritual interest, including a wide selection of the writings and translations of Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Knick-knacks. A brightly painted Mexican wood carving of a howling coyote, a birthday gift to my Coyote self from Ellie. An old tin box. A stuffed frog, sitting way up at the top. A couple of baskets. A small plein air painting, and a small hard-edge abstraction made by Ellie. Family photographs. A small Egyptian deity carving, brought back from a long-past journey down the Nile. A telephone. Another, smaller laptop than the one I'm using now. A cup full of pens and pencils. And more...

Across from me, looking out into the garden, a small table with a laundry basket. Hooks with robes. An old watercolor of an East Coast harbor scene. A wicker chair, with cushions and a folded blanket draped over the back. French doors, offering a view past the bamboo wood chimes into the patio: an Adirondack chair, painted green, with small matching table. A fake (plastic) weather-proof wicker chair, a tile-top metal table and two chairs to match. Many, many pots, with plants of every imaginable kind. A small collection of sea shells, weathered white. Two umbrellas with stands, one open, one closed.. A jacuzzi.

On Ellie's side of the bed, two floor-to-ceiling closets with mirrored sliding doors and, between them, a built-in chest of drawers. The closets are filled with hanging clothes, summer and winter, and with shoes. The drawers with carefully folded clothes--more carefully folded, I must say, than mine!--and with her many scarves and other accessories. The top drawers have neat trays with eyeglass cleaners, scissors and other necessities for nail care, polishes and nail polish remover. On top, a small round mirror, a vase with flower patterns, a decorative etui (a word familiar to me through my addiction to the NY Times crossword!) a photograph of our first two King Charles Spaniels, a photograph of myself, mugging for the camera with a navy baseball cap with the word FOOL in large letters on the front and, on the wall to one side, two small framed "portraits" of women, I'd guess from the 40s, done in embroidery silk.

Not an exhaustive inventory, perhaps, but enough to remind myself how life so easily gets cluttered with belongings. So much stuff, even in this one small corner of my life. And I haven't even started yet on the other rooms in the cottage, let alone our place in Los Angeles, the storage locker... Sometimes it's useful to take inventory, even if only as a practice in awareness.

Clean-Up

It's clean-up day. For weeks the mess has been accumulating. I make notes on post-its, scraps of paper, folded halves of used foolscap and set them aside so they won't be forgotten. They sink down to ever deeper levels in the piles, beneath the bills I have postponed paying, the requests for political contributions and donations to charities, the advertisements and notifications that somehow seemed of interest--but not immediately. Then there are the multiple drafts and hard copies of things I have been working on, some finished, some likely never to reach completion. A jury summons, along with an excuse. A check I forget to send in to the bank. All kinds of trash and treasures.

Well, today's the day. It's time to organize, file, and trash. Time to unbury my office from the mountains--well, the hillocks--of paper. Think of it as a metaphor for clearing out the mind. A useful practice. And, I remind myself, don't forget to breathe. You'll feel a lot better for it.

Riots; and the Big Idea

I've been thinking for a while now about those riots in the streets of London and other British cities. It all seemed so very unlike the rather tame and orderly England where I was brought up, and where the only sign of public protest was those quiet, largely pacifist demonstrations against the "nukes." To have whole gangs of young people running amok and looting their own neighborhoods would have been inconceivable in those days. But of course, even then there were the "Teddy Boys", with their black velvet Edwardian collars and their "duck's arse" hair styles; and later, after I had left the country, I read about the wars between the "mods" and "rockers" with, respectively, their Vespas and their motorbikes. And there was Pinky, already in 1938, in Graham Greene's Brighton Rock. The strain of disenchanted, rebellious, nihilistic youth is no new phenomenon.

And yet... it seems to me that there's a common thread that connects these youthful sociopaths with the recent slaughter of innocents in Norway and what has been happening in the streets of numerous countries in the Middle East. I noticed how quickly the authorities--and even the media--sought to dismiss the London riots as "not political." Prime Minister David Cameron castigated the rioters as a bunch of thugs--which undoubtedly they were. There were thoughts about a sense of entitlement amongst these youngsters, as though it were perfectly appropriate to steal what others had, but they could not afford. I even heard one commentator, on the BBC I believe, attribute the whole miserable affair to an absence of work ethic among the young people of today. Work ethic! As if they had the prospect of work to be ethical about!

Of course it's political. It's geopolitical. In this increasingly crowded world, where the values of the last century simply no longer apply, it's all geopolitical. It has been more than a century since some began to worry that machines would deprive large numbers of human beings of work, and the effects of recent advances in technology are making it clear that their dire predictions are now reaching fulfillment. There is not enough work to go around, and the work there is requires sophisticated skills and more than basic education to acquire them. It is also easily transferable around the globe. Yet "work" is the foundation of the civilization we have created, along with the money earned and the goods we purchase with it. With vast numbers of our young people, here in this country and in Europe, facing the very real prospect of lifetime unemployment, the stays have been kicked out from beneath us. Our building has begun to crumble.

There was an excellent article by Neal Gabler on the front page of yesterday's New York Times opinion section. It was titled, The Elusive Big Idea, and it pointed to the substitution, in our society, of information in the place of thought. It seems to me that we're in desperate need of the next Big Idea--the one that takes us beyond the all-too evident cracks in the capitalist system, the growing gulf between rich and poor, the old five-day work week and the paycheck, beyond even the rusting social security and national health care schemes, into a whole new concept of how we humans can live together on this planet without destroying it--and, in the process, our own species. If we don't find that Big Idea, I fear that the riots in London and the Middle East--no matter how different their causes and their manifestations--might look like minor disturbances in the light of what is to come.

One of the most basic of human needs--along with food, shelter, good health, rest--is hope. Where there's no hope, to coin a phrase, there's fire. I can well understand the deep despair that lies at the heart of today's worldwide unrest. I feel it in the pit of my stomach, a sense of anxious doubt about the future, not for myself, obviously, but for my children and my grandchildren. I have just finished reading the powerful novel, The Invisible Bridge, by Julie Orringer, about the days leading up to World War II; it starts with the edgy but still poignantly hopeful days in pre-war Paris, and depicts in heart-wrenching detail the decline and decimation of a Hungarian Jewish family in Budapest as the war rages around them. Those were bleak days indeed, when Hitler brought our Western civilization to the brink of collapse.

We managed to step back from the precipice then. Will we need a new world war to bring us back this time? Will we come up with a truly new, and truly Big Idea? Or will we fall into the abyss of our own making?

I sat in our little Laguna Beach sangha yesterday evening. Thanissaso Bhikkhu, always a reassuring presence, was on hand to teach us. I keep returning to the refuge of Buddhism as the only reasonable and sane way to live my life. Perhaps, I thought, we don't actually need a new Big Idea. We already have a very old one that could very well work for us, if only we would listen--and follow its precepts to act more skillfully in the world.

The Pepper Tree

We had this lovely pepper tree. It created shade in our back patio for the better part of the day. It shared its cool shadows with us generously. It afforded us the opportunity to have shady plants like azaleas in our garden. Its long, green extensions hung down over us and swayed elegantly in the breeze...

Early this week, a tree trimmer came by. Xavier. Our neighbors up the hill had hired him to cut back some of the growth that stood between them and their ocean view. They had instructed him, he said, to cut back the tops of our pepper tree by six feet. No, no, we insisted. Not six feet. Too much. We agreed--with the tree trimmer, so we thought--on three or four feet. No more. That seemed fair. And the tree would be carefully shaped, to preserve its natural elegance. The job was scheduled for Thursday and Friday. Our neighbor, Xavier assured us, would stop by to be sure we were in full agreement on the extent of the work

We saw nothing of our neighbor this week. Thursday, the job started on schedule. There was plenty of work to do in other areas, so our pepper tree remained untouched at the end of the day. Today, Friday, Ellie was working down in the studio, I on the computer in my little back room. Towards noon, Ellie came back up, intending to get ready to go out for the afternoon. I heard her call me from the back patio. I found her in a fury...

They have butchered our pepper tree. There's no other word for it. There is no way in the world this can be called a trim. No way it can be called a three- to four-foot layering off the top. This was not even a bad hatchet job. This was wholesale, wanton, senseless butchery. Take a look...

The "job" was not yet finished. We insisted that the trimmers stop right there, where they were, so that we could have our neighbors come by to see the damage. I walked up the hill to fetch them, but it seems they are both gone for the day.

Impossible to say what can be done to restore the beauty of this tree. For no apparent reason, a couple of branches have remained untrimmed, sticking out forlornly this way and that. The rest is the stumps you see above. We are heartsick and can barely contain the anger that we feel.

Ignorance: The Opposite of Bliss

(A companion piece to "Animosity"--see below.)

We were talking about ignorance, the other night in sangha. There's a wonderful, very thourough explication of the dharma's teachings on the subject by Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Access to Insight,here. Than Geoff writes: "When the Buddha focuses on the ignorance that causes stress and suffering, saying that people suffer from not knowing the four noble truths, he's not simply saying that they lack information or direct knowledge of those truths. He's also saying that they lack skill in handling them. They suffer because they don't know what they're doing."

Ignorance comes in a variety of forms. There is, I believe, genuine ignorance, which is fostered by poverty and the sheer lack of opportunity to learn. Some of the least fortunate among us in this world are condemned to the kind of existence where immediate survival itself is the first and only concern. For the rest of us, ignorance is a choice. It can take the form of denial, a stubborn refusal to look at the truth about ourselves--the kind we have learned a great deal about through the work of the twelve-step programs.

Ignorance can also be nothing more than simple laziness. It takes effort to be informed, to learn what's important to know about ourselves and our planet. It may be induced by willing self-deception: we believe what we want to believe. But it's also a good deal easier to swallow down the half truths and lies that are offered freely by those who would wish to deceive us for the benefit of their cause or religion. I think, here, of those millions of us who reject the preponderance of proven scientific evidence in the matter of climate change, the determined idiocy of those who buy into the belief that this planet is six thousand years old.

This is ignorance promoted by dogma or propaganda, and it is used widely and with demonstrable success in the political arena. Such half-truths and lies are used to persuade those who choose ignorance over knowledge to vote against their own interests in the polling booth. Seduced easily by greed or the gratification of prejudice, they accept without question the one-line slogans that are thrown in their direction, and repeated with such frequency that they come to stand in for the truth. We see the results of such widespread ignorance in the current inability of our politicians to move beyond the ill-thought and irreducible cliches on which they were elected.

It's no exaggeration to say that simple ignorance threatens to destroy our country. It works in even more devious and invisible ways to destroy us. I was reminded of this when reading an op-ed piece in Tuesday's New York Times, Evolution's Gold Standard, by Diane Ackerman. "When people feel bad," she writes, "they instinctively want to hug someone or something." It's this instinctive reaction that leads us from the need to touch to the need to have--from contact, in Buddhist terms, to the clinging that leads to suffering. And it is precisely this instinct that is readily exploited by those who would wish to sell us stuff, the commodifiers who drive the markets that drive the engine of the economy.

Think of it, researchers determine, these days, what it is that our acquisitive natures respond to: "Companies have always been hoodwinking our fickle senses," writes Ackerman. "Panels help design just the right 'mouth feel' for new yogurts, the right crunch for potato chips, the right degree of pucker for lemon sorbet. Used-car dealers spray 'new car scent' in their vehicles. Malls waft 'eau de pizza' around the heads of hungry shoppers. Perfumers weave talcum powder into their aromatic tone poems, hoping to evoke memories of innocence and nurturing. Realtors bake bread or spray 'cake bake' around the kitchen before showing a house to a potential buyer."

As though we didn't know it! We simply, for the most part, choose ignorance--because it is easier, because it allows us the immediate gratification we seek. We choose then, to be governed by our ignorance in the subtlest and most pervasive of ways. The (difficult) response, in every walk of our lives from the politics to the shopping mall, is to make the effort to know the difference between what we want and what we need, and to make appropriate choices determined by that knowledge. It is galling to realize how much of our lives is governed secretly by those whose sole interest is to make money from our ignorance; and to realize exactly how successful they are in doing what they do. We have only to look to Washington to see the results of their nefarious work.

Clearly, we need to exercise a great deal more skill in the way we acquire and process the "truths" we live by.

ANIMOSITY, PART 3

A long email today, from a friend who confessed to being the source of the "Obama the Eunuch" remark that sparked what she called "a ruckus" in response. I read it, every word I promise, and with a great deal of sadness--in part because the attacks on Obama really do ring true to me, in some part of my own political consciousness; in part because I despair of ever getting past this mess we have created for ourselves. I would reprint my friend's long, thoughtful, and deeply felt critique, except that I don't have her permission and the arguments are by now uncomfortably familiar. We know them perhaps too well.

I did write briefly in response: "I hardly know what to say, where to begin, so I think I won't! It's not that I don't see where the anger and disappointment are coming from. I do. It's just that I don't see where it gets us, to dump it all off on Obama. It's not about him. It's about the America that elected him, the America that willingly, even eagerly contributed to the creation of this mess, the America that now works untiringly to reject and block him at every turn, the America that gets mad at him for not being who they wanted or expected. Obama is just a reflection of who we are. Too bad for us. Love, Peter."

I'm feeling burdened by the stagnant, foul-smelling stew of our political life. I keep telling myself it would be better to withdraw from it, to not watch, not read, not write about it at all, but rather to spend my time more profitably in quiet contemplation. Do a little navel-gazing! I don't know what keeps engaging me, despite all rational judgment to the contrary. I suppose I just feel an obligation to use what skills I have, both as a writer and those I have at least begun to learn from the dharma, and make a contribution to the alleviation of suffering in the world. But the few dollars I sent yesterday to relieve the threat of famine in Somalia probably do more...

Animosity, Revisited

This morning I re-read what I wrote the other day, about the animosity that infects much of the political discourse in this country today. I was prompted to take another look because I was intrigued by the huge response it got at my site on the Huffington Post, when I cross-posted it there. Few of my musings attract as much attention as this one did and I'm grateful, of course, for the conversation.

To judge from the responses, the piece was read primarily as a defense of President Obama, and indeed it was that, in part. But only in part. I thought it was a rather carefully nuanced exploration of what I thought to be attitudes about Obama rather than an assessment of his performance in office. At least I intended it as such. Some readers, though, chose to see what I wrote as an uncritical paean of praise, and a rejection of all arguments to the contrary. They felt the need to reassert their own, sometimes angry, sometimes even bitter judgments of his failure to live up to the promises they believed he had made when seeking their vote. Re-reading my words, I believe that I tried to acknowledge my own disappointments on this score. I myself had wished for faster and more radical change, and am chagrined by what is at best slow progress toward a more humane, just and rational America.

There were others who deplored a perceived weakness, a failure to stand up to the opposition, an overly eager willingness to compromise or, worse, capitulate. My article invoked Sun Tzu's great treatise on military--and political--tactics, The Art of War, as a way of understanding the value, sometimes the necessity of retreat and retrenchment; that working with the opponent's strengths as well as with his weaknesses can make good tactical sense in the right circumstances. We can disagree, of course, on the rightness of the circumstance in the current political stalemate, but surely not on the notion that standing immovably on principle does not inevitably produce the desired results, and may produce the opposite.

In any event, I had not intended to express uncritical support for the President. I agree with those who made the point that he actually needs our criticism. If it was a defense, it was not against the content of the criticism directed against him, but of its self-righteousness and the personal animosity with which it is so frequently expressed. We all have to be so bloody right. We seem unable to conceive of any iota of rightness on the other side, and are as uncritical of our own thinking as those we assail for being so bloody wrong. My plea was for us all to get our egos out of the equation and see our way clear to some thoughtful disagreement and discussion and, yes, compromise, in order to escape the deadlock in which we find ourselves.

Animosity, surely, proceeds from that insistence on me being right and you being wrong. It's this that puts us at odds. One of the greatest lessons I learned was from a wise counselor to whom I had turned to advise me on a difficult, confrontational, and seemingly irresolvable situation which at the time threatened my very livelihood. He picked up a cushion from the couch and asked me what color it was. It was red. No question. Inarguable. "So what if I told you it was blue?" he asked. Well, quite obviously he'd be wrong. No question. It was red. I could see what was in front of my very eyes, couldn't I? So then of course he turned the cushion around and it was blue.

I keep a coin on my desk these days to remind me of this advice. It's painted blue on one side, red on the other. Red coin, blue coin, take your pick. My piece was not about Obama. It was about us, and about the poison we seem willing to inject into our own veins--and into our body politic--with our stubborn animosity and our refusal to see anything but our own side of the coin.

I had to smile when one reader, charmingly, invited me to "put down your tambourine and get a grip." Well, actually, not me, but "you guys"--presumably myself and those who wrote in agreement with what I had to say. He had noted that I come from a Buddhist point of view. So what does the dharma have to do with all this? For me, it's not about religion; the dharma simply offers more reasonable, sensible and practical guidance in politics and political discourse--as in all human matters--than any other source I know. And in my judgment we could use a lot more reason, good sense, and practicality in our political discourse, as well as in our politics today.

An Excellent Adventure

Yesterday, George and I had an excellent adventure. We stumbled into the annual picnic to celebrate La Leche League's "World Breast Feeding Week." The Laguna Beach chapter, we assumed.

When we're down here in Laguna, as we are now for the month of August, George gets to run free to chase his ball--often up in the Alta Laguna Park at the Top of the World. It's clear that he absolutely loves the freedom, and it's a joy to see him galloping off across great stretches of lawn, and come charging back with his tennis ball in his mouth. It's not a large one--the mouth, I mean--so he looks quite comical when he carries his ball, and it's wonderful to watch the smiles that he creates when people catch a glimpse of him. What a great gift, to be able to create so many spontaneous and genuine smiles in what is, today, in so many respects, a rather glum world! George brings an innocent ray of sunlight with him wherever he goes.

Anyway, there we were, at the end of his run, strolling past the annual family picnic of the World Breast Feeding Week. More breasts than you could shake a stick at--though mostly, I have to say, not on the job. A folk singer in full croaky voice, accompanying himself on the guitar. Games: I was intrigued by the "Potty Toss," but did not venture to participate. A Bake Sale. Door prizes. The whole deal. A heart-warming piece of Normal Rockwell Americana, reminiscent of those days when things were still all well, before we were yelling at each other and competing for who could be richer and more mean.

Oops. Sorry, I did not mean to go there. My purpose was to Get Away From All That. Our adventure seemed like a refreshing break from a week of increasingly depressing news from our nation's capital. This morning I picked up the Sunday New York Times, glanced at the content, and put it down again. Instead, I'm choosing to take pleasure in the recollection of an afternoon in the park, with moms and dads and children playing happily everywhere.

See, what an old sentimentalist I've become?

From "The Onion"

With thanks to my friend Stuart...

Obama Turns 50 Despite Republican Opposition

AUGUST 4, 2011 | ISSUE 47•31

WASHINGTON—After months of heated negotiations and failed attempts to achieve any kind of consensus, President Obama turned 50 years old Thursday, drawing strong criticism from Republicans in Congress. "With the host of problems this country is currently facing, the fact that our president is devoting time to the human process of aging is an affront to Americans everywhere," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who advocated a provision to keep Obama 49 at least through the fall of 2013. "To move forward unilaterally and simply begin the next year of his life without bipartisan support—is that any way to lead a country?" According to White House officials, Obama attempted to work with Republicans right up until the Aug. 4 deadline, but was ultimately left with no choice except to turn a year older.

A Buddhist Happy Birthday Wish

After freedom from animosity, the next step in the metta practice is the wish for freedom from oppression. I see oppression as the flip side of animosity, the victim to animosity's perpetrator, so this wish completes a full cycle, the yin and yang, if you will, of human relationship. Neither quality is particularly attractive when we watch it in action, whether in ourselves or others; but they complement each other to absolute perfection. The practice has me first wish myself freedom from animosity, then from oppression; then, from those closest to me out in ever-widening circles, to wish the same for others.

Animosity is the harboring of ill will toward others; oppression, to be the target of others' ill will. There seems to be plenty of both to go around in America today. I am concerned, as you may have surmised from yesterday's entry--and from many similar entries in the past--about how to square my respect for the dharma and my desire to follow its principles with my sense of responsibility for political engagement. While the dharma, in my understanding, teaches respect and tolerance for the views of others, it does not requite one to be a doormat. It's a difficult balance, though, and I find myself often on an uncomfortable knife-edge between intellectual opprobrium and the commitment to compassion.

Today is President Obama's fiftieth birthday. It's an appropriate moment to send him metta. He already seems remarkably free from animosity, and needs no help from me in this regard. So for this man whom I genuinely like and for whose unenviable predicament I feel genuine sympathy, my birthday wish is freedom from oppression, where he can use all the help he can get.

As Marilyn Monroe sang, in that quavering little-girl voice, Happy Birthday, Mr. President; Happy Birthday to you.

ANIMOSITY

In the daily metta practice with which I start my meditation, I reiterate the wish to be free from animosity. It's easy enough when it comes to those I like, and with whom I generally agree; the hard part is with the people I dislike, and those with whom I disagree. They include, most recently, the politicians who have in my own view seemed bent on destroying this country. The dharma teaches me, wisely and I think correctly, that the animosity that arises serves only to introduce toxin into my own veins. It certainly does nothing to change those against whom it is directed.

These thoughts were stirred in part by the comment to my entry in The Buddha Diaries yesterday. I was writing about gratitude, concluding with a note about the surprise and plucky appearance of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords to cast her vote on the debt ceiling bill in the House of Representatives, and my gratitude to her for reminding me of the importance of the vote. Not a word about Obama. But my entry somehow triggered the response you'll find if you check in the comments section, filled with anger directed at "Obama the Eunuch."

I was aware of my own distress as I read and re-read the comment. Some of it came from that part of me that is uncomfortably close to agreement with the content of the writer's argument. It's clear that Obama has been weakened by the unmitigated hostility and adamant rejection with which every part of the agenda on which he was elected has been opposed. It has been relentless and unappeasable, from his first day in office. In my view--perhaps incorrectly--there are many of his supporters who have allowed themselves to be swept up in that hostility, too readily co-opted by the powerful tide of rejectionist action and propaganda. With the erosion of support on his own side, he becomes still more exposed and vulnerable. As I've written before, we on the left, who have learned to distrust authority whatever its source, are prone to the heady delights of king-killing.

That's my view. I find that I hold on to it even more tightly when I myself feel the beginnings of mistrust in it; or, particularly, when I feel it under attack. I pull back in, defensive. Intended or not as such, my correspondent's initial sarcasm and subsequent anger felt like personal animosity, and I withdrew into my shell to mull over its implications. This morning, as I suggested, I paid more than usual attention to my own animosities. I did my best to observe them and then let them go, along with the anger that accompanies them.

I was wondering aloud, at the Buddhist Geeks conference just a few days ago, whether anger ever serves a useful purpose. I believe it can, when it is directed with clear intention and used skillfully; to do so, I must understand what part of the anger is about me, and what part is genuinely about the injustice or malpractice that aroused it. Warrior energy is a necessary part of political action--see Sun Tzu's "The Art of War"--but used indiscriminately and tainted by personal animosity, it can be counter-productive.

The image of a solitary Obama signing a bill which clearly fell far short of his objectives--and equally short of my own sense of what is needed in our current economic crisis--filled me with sadness for both the man and the country that he seeks to serve. He is the target of so many millions of deeply divisive projections that he can scarcely hope to live up to more than a handful of them. There are those, of course, many, who wish him nothing but ill. And there are those, many, who feel that he has let them down; that he is not the man they took him for. I'm only surprised that he manages to tolerate with a semblance of grace the generous heapings of scorn that are dumped on him from both left and right.

I personally think that this would be a good time for us all to take a thoughtful look at our projections: if we think of Obama as the mirror, what is it that we see about ourselves when we look at him? The projection of blame is too easy an answer for our troubles. We have our own share of responsibility for the dreadful mess in which the country finds itself. As another correspondent wrote to me in an email today, "I'm highly disgusted with what's going on in Congress right now, [but] I have to keep reminding myself that we DO live in a democracy, don't we?"

We do. Well, I sometimes think rather that we live in an oligarchy that survives by successfully disguising itself as a democracy (I first typed "demoncracy"!) But, yes, we do. So we do not further our cause by trying to wish away or ignore the existence of the deep and powerful strain of conservatism that has been changing the balance of the American political system, not just in Obama's time but, with increasing power, these past several decades. Like it or not (I don't!), it's impossible to move in any direction without taking it into account. All very well to stand by and jeer at Obama's perceived lack of leadership from the sidelines. He's trying to quarterback a team that plays by the rules of human decency and fairness against bunch of steroid-powered thugs who don't care what tactics they use--or how many injuries are incurred--so long as they dominate the game. (Is this animosity? Or simple realism?)

I know that I'm in a growing minority in a cacophony of voices noisier and I'm sure far more effective than my own. I suspect, though, in a less demonstrable way, that I may be a part of a new "silent majority" that continues to support the President despite the ferocity of the attack. I will not yet surrender the "I Back Barack" bumper sticker on my car. Nor will I cease sending daily wishes of good will to both him and his opponents. And the same to my "anonymous" correspondent, whom I thank for challenging me to think again, again. I send out metta in full consciousness of the adverse circumstance, if only to preserve my own health, and sanity, and self-respect! May all beings be free from animosity...

Gratitude

So here we are, survivors... post Buddhist Geeks, post birthday, post debt ceiling crisis, back in Laguna Beach for the month of August and delighted to be here. It's a clear, bright day, with a light sea breeze flowing through the cottage and making it cool enough to be pleasant. I've no doubt we will have our turn, but today I can have sympathy for those who are sweltering in many other parts of the country.

About yesterday: I was astonished at the volume of mail--most of it, though by no means all, through Facebook--bearing birthday wishes. I did not keep count, but I know that there were at least 150, maybe more. And not all of them by any means were just the pro forma "Happy Birthday" from that ocean of anonymous friends. No, many of them came with a personal message, from people who follow what I write and appreciate it. I was, as I say, astonished--and grateful, too. I think I answered every one, at least with a word or two; or more for those who had written more themselves. It took me, yesterday and this morning, a good few hours to catch up and I'll admit I was relieved when I reached the last of them. In case I missed anyone who might be reading these words, please accept this as my "thank you."

So much, then, to be grateful for. I'm looking forward to some quiet time down here at the beach, with the opportunity to get some new writing done and think about that new book I've been planning.

For this morning, let me just add that I was much moved, along with the rest of the country, I'm sure, by the plucky appearance of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in the House yesterday, in order to cast her vote on the debt ceiling bill. If we Democrats (liberals and progressives) all valued our vote as much as she does hers, we might not find ourselves in the mess we find ourselves today. As one letter-writer in the NY Times pointed out in this morning's paper, it was our failure to turn out in sufficient numbers to vote last November, along with the enthusiasm of Tea-Partiers, that opened the door wide for the right-wing extremism we have witnessed in recent weeks. We have received a powerful reminder of the importance of our vote, and a gift in the stellar example of Ms. Giffords. I'm grateful, too, to her.

Buddhist Geeks: The Bloggers

I ducked out of the Buddhist Geeks conference early, opting instead for family plans in connection with my birthday. (Today is the first of my 75th year. I'm overwhelmed to find 140 emails in my inbox, the vast number of them birthday greetings from Facebook friends!)

It was not an easy choice to leave. I drove off late afternoon on Saturday with the feeling that the conference was just beginning to hit its stride and fulfill its exciting promise. Until lunchtime, participation for those of us who were not up on the podium, speaking or participating in panels, was largely passive listening. I suspect that many, like myself, were itching to get in on the action.

The lunchtime mixing at the cafeteria tables was a good start. Then, after lunch, came the first of the "Buddhist Geeks Workouts!" sessions, with smaller groups gathering to mull specific issues; I chose a group focusing on "Chaplaincy as Practice" led by Danny Fisher, and enjoyed the opportunity to experience the art of active listening. Having learned the value of pastoral work early in life from my father's example as a country vicar, I have always admired the much-needed work that chaplains do in such places as hospitals, prisons, schools and military bases, especially in bringing spiritual aid and comfort to those in distress, the sick and dying. It was also a special pleasure to meet Danny and see him in action, having "known" him online for quire some time. Could have spent another two hours at this one!

Following up on the pre-arranged workshops, participants were invited to propose our own sessions for "Buddhist Geeks Unplugged!" My hand shot up to propose a group meeting of bloggers--a moment I had been waiting for. I knew there had to be fellow bloggers at the conference, but had no way of identifying who they might be. We ended up with a good group and a lively session that proved us to be a diverse bunch indeed, each with our own approach to the art of writing, how and where to out it out into the world, and who we think we're talking to. It was Ken McLeod who proposed, as our time drew to a close, that we go around the circle to allow each of us to speak for a few moments about "why we do it." Excellent insights into the diversity of motives and intentions.

In the course of this last round, I circulated a pad with the request for blog names and sites. I promised to post the list, so here it is--the order determined solely by the direction of the pad:

Rev. Paul Dochong Lynch, Zen Mirror; Chan Poetry: Before Thought; and Abstract Purpose (could not find a link for the last one.)

Rev. Danny Fisher, Rev. DannyFisher.org

Ken McLeod, Musings by Ken; and, of course, Unfettered Mind

Stephanie Nash, Mindfulness Arts (celebrating her first blog entry on Sunday!)

Paul T. Bradley, reporting for LA Weekly's Style Council

Richard (RJ) Eskow, Huffington Post; and A Night Light: God, Guts & Guitars

David Chapman, Meaningness; and Buddhism for Vampires

Carter Smith, Carter Smith's Blog

Peter Clothier, The Buddha Diaries; Persist: The Blog; and Vote Obama 2012

I plan to add these blogs to my blogroll shortly, and look forward to following what my fellow Buddhist bloggers have to say. Meantime, I thank them all for a great gab session. As I say, despite the reservations I express on Friday morning, I was very glad to have overcome them and to have been a part of the conference. Thanks to Vince Horn and his Buddhist Geeks colleagues for having dreamed this up, and for having put so much time and effort into making it a reality. I'm looking forward, now, to next year's event...