REBIRTH, REVISITED

Let’s see if I have this right. I’m struggling through the first pages of Thanissaro Bhikkhu’s “The Truth of Rebirth.” Like all of Than Geoff’s writing, it is dense with knowledge and profound thought. He writes with great clarity, but his subject matter is not easy to grasp; and I continue to struggle, of course, with my own skepticism.

As I understand it, then, Than Geoff is disputing the easy path of “Buddhism without belief”—the familiar Western choice to embrace Buddhism as no more than essentially a sound guide to a life well lived and a fine model for psychological health. But not as a religion. This is the choice I myself have made, in my reluctance to move beyond reason into faith. I am, I confess, one of those who in Than Geoff’s words “have felt burned or repelled by the faith demands of Western religion” and who “would prefer a Buddhism that makes no faith demands.” Because faith would require that great leap beyond what can be rationally tested and proven into the belief in rebirth.

For Than Geoff, though, this belief is integral to following the Buddhist path. As is his custom, he turns to the Buddha’s words for instruction—or at least those words as they are reported by the followers who first set them down. He cites the three knowledges described by the Buddha in recalling the night of his awakening: the knowledge of “manifold past lives, i.e., one birth, two… five, ten… fifty, a hundred, a thousand, a hundred thousand, may eons of cosmic contraction”; the second knowledge, the “vision of how living beings at large are reborn after death”: and the third, the understanding that the “same causal pattern” of events—karma, then—operates in both the macro experience, life to life over eons of time, and the micro, “events immediately present in his own mind.”

All of which gave rise to the Four Noble Truths, because each life brings with it suffering, and the Buddha’s great teaching and his goal for all living beings was the end of suffering—and the end, then, logically, of the continuing cycle of death and rebirth, the attainment of the “deathless.” (Bear with me, I’m trying to work my way through this…) After identifying the existence and the cause of suffering, and establishing that there is an achievable end to it, the fourth Noble Truth lays out the path to follow if we wish to reach that goal.

Than Geoff argues vigorously—and with meticulously researched scholarship—against the historical revisionism that is used by those who seek to adapt Buddhism to a twenty-first century world by attributing the Buddha’s thoughts on rebirth to a long-discredited, pre-scientific cultural context. He sees the Buddha’s insights as a radical departure from then current thinking, when theories of the after-life were either “annihilationist” or “eternalist.” Much like the atheism of today, annihilationism denied any form of survival after death. In this view, death puts a full stop to everything, body and consciousness alike. Eternalism argued, on the contrary, that some part of our being survives after death, but without agreement as to exactly what. It hinged on “the metaphysics of personal identity”—the definition of what a “person” actually is. Some seemed to propose the existence of that kind of vital essence that Christians today believe in as the “soul”—the tradition in which I myself was raised and have subsequently abandoned.

In this context, the Buddha’s revolutionary contribution was to take the matter out of the power of extra-human hands—whether deities or metaphysical systems—and return it to the individual human being and his actions, thus empowering each of us to take responsibility for our own suffering and its cessation. Knowledge of his own past lives, revealed in the course of his awakening, convinced the Buddha not only of the truth of rebirth, but also of the causal connection between action and its consequence: what was true on the macro level, from life to life over eons of time, was also true of the micro experience of this lifetime: that wholesome, skillful, well-intentioned actions result in greater happiness for myself and others, while thoughtless, unkind, ill-considered actions bring the opposite results.

Once this responsibility is acknowledged, then, the matter of rebirth comes down to a pretty simple proposition. We can choose to either believe in it or reject it. Our choice may be guided by something akin to the famous bet that Blaise Pascal offered in the 17th century on the belief in God: if I choose to believe in the truth of rebirth, the Buddhist bet suggests, my good actions now will assure me a good destination in the “heavenly world.” If there is no world after death, those same good actions will assure me greater happiness and less suffering in this one. If the bet is a win-win, I can only benefit from making the choice to believe. Conversely, I have nothing to gain—and everything to lose—if I refuse it.

So, yes, this remains a leap of faith. The Buddha offers no proof, just the example of his own experience, the challenge to think it through, and a way to go about it. I'll be reading further and reporting further on is challenging and, to me, quite difficult book.

MY HEAD

I'm having problems with my head. Perhaps, noting the title and content of my last entry in The Buddha Diaries I've been thinking too much! The physical symptoms are disorientation and dizziness, a brain stuffed with cotton wool, a sense of emptiness and disconnection. Otherwise, I'm gloomier than usual, and lacking motivation. More disturbing, I find myself lacking in my usual confidence. I normally have a kind of clarity that guides me as I write, a reliable sense of direction, a trust in the words and where they lead me. The past couple of days, I have been so filled with doubt that I have not wanted at all to sit down and write. It's certainly not subject matter that I lack. Indeed, the opposite is true: I'm backlogged with promises I have made to myself. And yet yesterday I took not one but two long naps. I read a really mindless thriller. I watched stuff on television. I avoided anything that looked like work. This morning, I tried getting back to the question of rebirth; the results are, so far, pitiful. I dislike this feeling of incompetence. The best thing I can do, I suppose, is to wait it out, with a mix of curiosity and tolerance; and, please, without self-pity! Have a laugh about it. Breathe. Surely, as all things change, it will go away!

I'M THIINKING...

... I'm thinking. Best thanks to those who responded to my entry yesterday, either by comment or by email. Please come back when I've found out what it is I need to say.

AFTER-LFE

With my new book, "Mind Work," now finally copy-edited and ready for the publisher, I'm thinking of engaging a topic that has been on my mind for quite some time--perhaps because I'm already well on the path toward the end of life. The question as to what happens to us living beings after our physical bodies give out is a fascinating and, I know, unanswerable one. One reasons I have given myself for not having been able to fully embrace the Buddhist faith is that the full embrace seems to necessitate a belief in rebirth--a concept I have found incredibly hard to wrap my head around. But I am not entirely happy, either, with the belief that the end of life as we know it is nothing more than a full stop. It makes the most rational sense, I know--but reason is not everything. Far from it. Why insist that our earthly, scientific wisdom is unbounded? There's every reason to believe that, indeed, it is extremely limited.

This train of thought has to do, in part, with the arrival of our new grandson, Luka Yves. I loved the suggestion of a fellow-blogger, when I first wrote about his birth, that I should ask the newborn where he came from. She thinks there might be a small window of opportunity when the baby still remembers; and, holding baby Luka and looking into his glowing little face, I did myself think about this very question. Indeed, quietly, I asked him. But I had no idea how to communicate the question other than in thought, or to understand his answer if there was one. I am not possessed of the requisite intuitive skills--or, if I am so possessed, have no idea how to put them to use. But my friend's suggestion reminded me of a workshop I once took with a Huichol Indian shaman, who said that in their tribe the custom is not to "give" a newborn child a name as we do in our culture, but to wait and ask the baby, "Tell me who you are." I like the idea.

Last week, a new book came into my hands, by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. It's called--surely not coincidentally--"The Truth of Rebirth." I'm looking forward to finding out more about this subject from the Theravadan point of view. Meantime, I also plan to revisit other teachings about the after-death, including the Christian ones with which I was brought up. I'll be thinking about my own mother and father, their ashes resting side by side in the grave plot close by a tiny church overlooking the Cardigan Bay, in Wales. I'll be reflecting on my own, single, but intense experience with the vision of past lives. And, to take things a little more lightly, I'm sure I'll be thinking about archy and mehitabel.

So this morning I'm wondering if there might be anyone out there, any reader of The Buddha Diaries, who has either thoughts or experience in this matter. Do you have your own personal convictions or theories? Do you know of past lives? Of communications from realms other than our own small world? I'd love to hear about them, and to incorporate them in my own thinking along the way. It can be done privately: my email address is PeterAtLarge@mac.com. Best thanks in advance to anyone who can help with this.

A LIBERAL SAVIOR?

Like most liberal-thinking people, I suspect, I'm a big fan of Elizabeth Warren. She speaks with refreshing, forthright honesty and what she has to say about the financial sector and the inordinate power of lobbyists in government needs to be heard. I have contributed modestly to her campaign for a Senate seat, and think she has a good chance to be elected. I would like to see her defeat the incumbent, and take over where Ted Kennedy left off. (Speaking of whom, I saw a brief clip from a speech Ted Kennedy gave the other day and realized how much I miss the clarity of his vision and his powerful voice. We could use that voice in Washington today.)

I caught up with the article on Elizabeth Warren by Rebecca Traister in last Sunday's New York Times magazine, belatedly, in the gym this morning. I liked, particularly, Traister's last two paragraphs:

The key is not just emotional investment in election-year saviors but also an engagement with policy. A commitment to organized expressions of political desire — like those that have been harnessed so effectively in recent years on the right — have been absent for far too long in Democratic politics. Now, with labor protests, campaigns to block voter suppression and personhood measures and the occupations of cities around the nation, there seem to be some small signs that liberals are remembering that politics requires more of them, that they need movements, not just messiahs. But their engagement must deepen, broaden and persist beyond last week’s elections and well beyond next year’s elections if there is any chance for politicians like Warren to succeed.

Because while she might provide her supporters and her constituents a voice that, if properly tuned, will rattle doors that are now gummed shut, what Elizabeth Warren cannot do is fix this mess herself.

The same words, of course, are true of the whole story of President Obama, who has proved--not to my surprise--unable "to fix this mess" himself. Unless and until the support of liberals becomes more unified and less easily distracted into the narrow channels of self-interest and personal issues, we will continue to entrust our future to "saviors''--and will continue to feel let down by them.

THANKSGIVING

We are particularly thankful this Thanksgiving, of course, for our new arrival, Luka, three weeks old tomorrow. We'll be joining him and his parents for dinner later in the day. But I woke this morning thinking of our other wonderful reasons to be grateful. We're sad that they live so far away, in England, and we miss seeing them as often as we'd like to. Here's Alice...

... growing up much too fast, but probably not as fast as she would like to. And the twins, Georgia and Joseph...

Here's Georgia...

And here's Joe...

Gorgeous children all, and smart, and talented. They play a startling variety of musical instruments, they sing, they draw, they write. They do well at school. We are amazed, and proud, and thankful.

Metta to all on this Thanksgiving Day!

EXCITED...

I'm working on the final edits for my new book and giving it a final read through before sending it back to the publisher. The cover is shaping up very nicely, with an image generously shared by the artist Gary Lang. If all goes smoothly, the book will be available early February. More news to come. For now, excuse my haste...

BLAME

I made this mistake, this morning, of glancing at the New York Times headline before sitting down to meditate--which pretty much ensured a prolonged battle with futile thoughts before I managed to get the mind settled down. The headline read: "Lawmakers Trade Blame As Deficit Talks Crumble." That this was the predictable outcome was obvious from the start. No surprise there. But what bothers me is the implication of blame on either side.

Our current economic slump, as I understand it, has two proximate causes: the huge tax cuts in the early days of the Bush administration, and two protracted, unfunded wars. Reaching further back, it is the result of several decades of blind adherence to a trickle-down theory of economics which should have been long ago discredited by anyone with a fair and rational mind, but has been adopted as an article of faith by Republican loyalists; and by a program of deregulation that has given increasing responsibility for the fox to guard the financial hen house.

To attribute equal blame for this mess is to ignore history. These are right-wing actions and policies that have brought us to this pitch. It is right-wing intransigence that denies us a fair and rational solution. To address the clearly non-functional tax code is not the only part of the solution, but to refuse adamantly to consider it is to ignore reality in favor of a demonstrably misguided ideology. Yet this is what Republicans are doing. From what I have read and heard, I have reason to believe that Democrats have been prepared to yield ground on matters of profound importance to them--perhaps too readily. But their willingness to compromise has not been matched on the other side.

Blame, then, in my view, is not equally distributed. Both historically and in the present context, it lies heavily on the shoulders of Republicans. Yet one of their apparently successful strategies, mimic'ed in knee-jerk fashion by the media, is to purvey to the American public that there is equal blame on either side.

The Democrats are not faultless, obviously. They participate in an electoral system that requires them, if they wish to retain their seat, to pay heed to the corporate masters and their lobbyists. In the course of these past decades, they have surrendered more and more of the democratic principle for which they are supposed to stand. They have trembled in their boots before their Republican opponents and the moneyed interests they represent, and have yielded mile after mile of the territory they were supposed to occupy on our behalf. The name of the "Occupy" movement is no accident.

So yes, in the long perspective, there is perhaps shared blame for the current impasse. But don't try telling me that the blame is "equal." It's not. The anger and frustration that such thinking inspires is hard to shake when I sit down to meditate. Both reason and emotion get engaged in this internal battle that I know to be unwinnable but find hard to resist. I keep reminding myself to pay attention to the breath, but my rebellious brain is having such great time that it is reluctant to surrender to the wiser mind.

There was a striking difference, on last night's 60 Minutes, between the interviews with Grover Norquist, gatekeeper of the absurd Republican loyalty oath on taxes, and Christine Lagarde, the new head of the International Monetary Fund. Norquist impressed me as small-minded, smug, tendentious, self-important; Lagarde was modest, thoughtful, open-minded, with a broad view not only of the financial crisis but of humanity in general. At the end of her interview she reminded us, gently, that our seemingly great problems recede into insignificance when seen in the greater perspective of life, and death, and love...

LUKA

Yesterday was a Luka day...

You can see that Grandpa is pretty much besotted. And for good reason...

We had read earlier that even very young babies imitate, but I found this hard to believe... until I tried sticking out my tongue. Luka watched carefully and then, very deliberately, put his tongue out.

I swear this was not coincidence; it happened several times, and you could see him actually working at it. I was amazed. Our photographic record did not catch the exact moment, but you get the idea.

And so to sleep...

... with Grandma...

HANDEL

(With apologies to Handel enthusiasts.)

No disrespect, of course. But please remind me not to attend another all-Handel concert ever again. When we went to Disney Hall last night, I was quite excited about the prospect--in all my musical ignorance and forgetfulness. I imagined we were going to hear something elegant and inspiring. We got the elegance alright--too much of it for my taste. The inspiration, though...

Let me be sure to say that I blame myself, not the composer or the orchestra. As I suggested, I am ill-informed about music, and my ear is to say the least of it unschooled. I will say, though, that the music seemed to me formulaic, mind-numbingly perky--and unfailingly polite. I ended up longing for a big, rude musical fart, anything to intrude on the cucumber sandwich and Earl Grey tea party, the sheer 18th century Englishness of it all (and yes, I do know Handel's German; he must have spent too much time in Queen Anne and King George England). Court music. It summoned up images of unearned privilege, a decadent and perfumed aristocracy with wigs and garters. (Was this why the conductor, an energetic French woman of obvious talent and unwavering enthusiasm, wore that strange skirt with a bustle at the bum? Again, please, no disrespect!) So... Much too much teacake, not enough bangers and mash.

Already long before the intermission, I caught myself trying to establish a reliable count of the number of musicians who wore eyeglasses, just to keep my own eyes open. I was aiming for a more or less accurate percentage, in the interests of scientific research. But then I realized that some of them must be wearing contact lenses, so it wouldn't be a fair count anyway. So I turned my attention back to the bustle. That kept me occupied.

YES, BUT

I was listening to one of Ajahn Geoff's always-inspiring dharma talks yesterday morning, as an introduction to my daily sit, when I found myself having one of those "yes, but..." moments. The subject was our need to strengthen the mind in preparation for that time when that strength would be put to the test by aging or illness, perhaps in the isolation of some nursing home where we might well expect to be left to our own inner resources. And I found myself jolted by one of those "yes, but..." thoughts that jump at me and hold me hostage for a while.

This time it was yes, but... what happens if I lose my mind? All very well to have a good, strong mind as a bulwark against the suffering of age. I see that, and of course I see the value in doing all I can to get it ready for that moment. But people do lose their minds. I have seen it happen. I think, for example, of Ellie's stepmother, a fine, strong woman who took great pride in the power of her mind, only to lose it toward the end. She watched it going, with increasing anger, bitterness and despair. She just could not hold on to it. Had she been of sound mind, in my judgment, she would have suffered a great deal less. It was heart-breaking to see.

Is there a difference, I wonder, between the loss of intellectual brain-power and the loss of the mind? I know that my own brain capacity is much reduced from its sharper years. Memory is but one aspect of the loss--though an important and particularly salient one. Reactions slow down, too. I see it in my driving habits, for example, and make adjustments in the way I handle the car to allow for that slowing-down. But, watching it in the course of a meditation, say, I believe that my mind is still strong as it observes the breath energy coursing through the body. I can still be, at my best, quite fully aware. It's rather the opposite, in my experience: the mind seems to be growing stronger--which would be the desired result of practice.

But what happens if I lose it? Not for want of effort on my part, but simply due to physiological changes, the onset of senility or Alzheimer's disease? I heard just yesterday from the brother of a man I have known for many years, in response to a mass email I sent out to update my contact list. He told me that "an accident" had left my friend "mentally incompetent," and that he was now in process of "rapid change." This is a man of substantial wealth thanks to a long song-writing career, whose work has seen a sudden, late-life renaissance, and who seemed just a year ago to be enjoying the best of approaching age. From what I understand, he has "lost his mind," and is incapacitated.

I understand that a strong mind can overcome the ravages of physical incapacity, even pain. But what if that mind is simply no longer working? What if it has shut down? The thought is a disturbing one. Or perhaps, I wonder, does the mind indeed continue to function behind the curtain of non-communication? Could my friend be observing others taking care of him, lacking only the ability to share his understanding? I suppose it's possible.

Does anyone have any thoughts or insights on this question? I'd love to hear whether others struggle with it, or what their experience might be.

THE MAILING LIST

I got side-tracked, yesterday, working in the office with Emily, into a long-neglected task: clearing out the mailing list. It had grown absurdly long, with nearly a thousand names and email addresses. Many of them were friends with whom I wanted to stay in touch--some of them close friends and family. Many others were associates, readers, fellow bloggers, people with whom I have had mutually agreeable contact over the years. But many of them, I figured, had slipped into my mailing list unawares, without my even knowing who they were; and many were people I had long forgotten, and had long forgotten me. It was time to cull the list to the names of those I knew would want to hear from me from time to time, and to whom I would not be simply an annoyance.

We started out working through each name on the list individually, until Emily realized that this process would take us three weeks to complete, and suggested instead sending out a brief note to everyone asking if they would want to be included on the list. Still a big job, but a whole lot more time-efficient. We started out with the A's and B's, the early letters in the alphabet, and immediately began to amass a long line of responses--mostly from the "postmaster," announcing non-delivery; then it was a matter of checking through the names of non-recipients, to be sure that we were not losing real friends to a change in email address or a duplication. A number proved to be untraceable and, indeed, forgotten. My memory does not serve me as it used to, and I think there were names on the list of people I had genuinely never known in the first place.

Then there were the other responses, the personal ones. A few, unsurprisingly, had no idea who I was, but wrote back nicely to affirm that fact. A few others simply wanted their names removed. But mostly, I'm happy to report, the responses came from those who were pleased to be included, some from old friends from whom I had not heard for years. It was a heartening feeling, to know that I was remembered fondly. In many cases, to my great pleasure, the responses included nice words about my writing, or about The Buddha Diaries.

All of which left me with a feeling of rather surprised gratitude. I may not have a thousand friends in the world: the list will undoubtedly be much shorter when we are done. But an amazing number of those names, in those few early letters of the alphabet, turned out to be real "contacts," not simply names on a list. Reflecting on the results of our afternoon's work, I found myself thinking about the practice of metta, as we are led in it by Ajahn Geoff on a Sunday afternoon, in sangha, and as I try to follow in my daily sit--sending out thoughts of goodwill to first, those closest to me, good friends and family; then, in ever widening circles, to those I know and like; to those I know less well, and those I scarcely know at all; to those I know and dislike or distrust; and eventually to all those fellow-travelers in life I do not know at all, to all living beings.

It's a healthy practice. A humbling one, too, reminding me of the small place I myself occupy in the great chain of being. And reminding me to be truly grateful for the privilege of all my relationships--and indeed all my associations, be they ever so slight. And of the extraordinary capacity of friendship to survive any separation of time or geographical space. Those distances may change; the feelings, once recalled, remain remarkably constant.

A Sunday Sit

It's always a pleasure when Ajahn Geoff (Thanissaro Bikkhu) comes to lead our Laguna sangha in a teaching session and a sit on a Sunday afternoon, as he does, usually, once a month. The hour's study group discussion preceding the sit was based on a chapter in one of his many books, "Skill in Questions," but ranged more widely--in part at my own instigation--into thoughts about the current sex abuse scandal at Penn State University and the question of integrity. Is it possible to maintain integrity in one area of one's life, while losing it in another? Can a man still be honored for years of devoted service to the interests of student athletes when it becomes known that he readily sacrificed his integrity when it came to protecting the institution he served from shame and disgrace? And how does one get past outrage to find compassion for the man, and for those who conspired with him in their cover-up?

I think I arrived at an answer to that last question. As always, alas, it's the mirror. When I myself reach a state of perfection in my own integrity, then I will perhaps be entitled to pass judgment about the integrity of other men. Until then, it behooves me to take a close look at the cracks, small and large, that leave me open to the kind of judgment I am quick to pass on others. I look back on my life and find too many instances where I have betrayed myself and those closest to me, where I have failed to live up to that injunction to "do no harm." All very well to go cantering along on my high horse when others succumb to human failings--and indeed it's important that I recognize transgressions where I see them. It helps me to find compassion, though, when I acknowledge my own.

The hour's silent sit was a challenge for me, with these thoughts popping up insistently in my mind. Still, the breath is a wonderful tool to bring the mind back from where it wanders, and I was grateful for the inner peace I was able to find despite the interruptions. I honestly don't know where I'd be in my life without this resource; but looking around me at the dire state of human affairs, I know that I would be a great deal more fearful, angry and confused.

I left sangha armed with copies of Than Geoff's two newest books, one of which is titled "Selves and Not-Self," which reminds me bit of the original title of my own forthcoming book, "This Is Not Me"--now to be called "Mind Work." The second is "The Truth of Rebirth"--a topic with which I have struggled for many years as a nascent Buddhist, and one that assumes a particular resonance in the light of the recent arrival of a newborn in our family. Does little Luka join us in our current lives from a former incarnation? Where does this miraculous baby come from--and how was it that he chose our family to join? Mysterious questions. And questions I must be content to all to remain a mystery. Still, you can understand why I'm eager to find out more about the truth of rebirth...

"INTEGRITY": PENN STATE

If you have been following "The Buddha Diaries" for a while, you may recall that I'm among those many--far too many--who were abused as children. I don't like to use the word "victim," which seems to me to give too much power to perpetrators; but reading the Sandusky Grand Jury Report (please don't bother if you're squeamish), the word does seem dreadfully appropriate. A reading of the report confirms all the feelings of astonishment, dismay, outrage that have greeted the peculiarly nasty, long-hidden secret of the athletics culture at Penn State University.

Along with most others who have been watching media reports about the events following the release of this document, I have been outraged by the excessive clout of the football coach at a major academic institution, by the eagerness of a university administration to support him and his staff in the burying of a history of abominable child abuse, and by the apparent indifference to both common decency and the law when it comes to the money and power involved in college football. I was appalled, too, by the student demonstrations in support of Joe Paterno, a man who clearly put the interests of college football and his own reputation ahead of those of the boys who continued to suffer his friend's abuses for an entire decade after they became known. If you're still skeptical, read that report.

I was still more appalled by the behavior of the head coach himself, appearing like a rock star at his door to acknowledge the adulation of fans, undoubtedly confirming them in their denial. His perfunctory words about praying for the victims spoke far less loudly to the crowd than his arrogant concern that his team should win their game this Saturday. This hero of the sports world, a man who, from what I hear, has been widely worshipped for years as the model of integrity in college athletics, seems lost in the delusion that he can rest on his laurels despite a long history of protecting a known sexual molester at the expense of those he would continue to abuse.

A man who lacks the integrity to do everything in his considerable power to put an end to such behavior, or who chooses to feign or perpetuate ignorance to excuse inaction, is not entitled to respect for his integrity as an athletic coach--or in any other area of his life. The very word integrity implies completeness: it's about the whole man, not just his accomplishments on the football field. We hear that Paterno is a "devout Catholic." No matter his purported piety, however, and no matter his advanced age or prior reputation, it's inexcusable that this man should have for so long protected a member of his staff, a friend, who had been observed in the act of sodomizing a ten year-old boy in the showers used by his team. I can truthfully find little compassion in my heart for such a man, or for those who come to his defense.

I would hope that the university would have the good sense and the decency to withdraw its football team from further competition this year. Unfairly, perhaps, to the athletes themselves, the team has been irreversibly tainted by the behavior of its coaching staff. There should be a price to pay, a public admission of responsibility and regret, if only in justice for those who have been so revoltingly abused.

11/11/11

It's our wedding anniversary. The 39th. We celebrated with a family visit, and a glass of champagne at 11:11 AM, thanks to Ed!

This was in fact the precise moment at which we drank our original toast, 39 years ago. George joined in the party, of course.

What would it be without him? But, as Ed pointed out to him, he is now only number two on the special boy list. Number one is, without question...

... Luka! The best gift ever. Sorry, George. Grandma was clearly enjoying her anniversary...

And why not? Here's the lad...

And of course he's an early protester....

Runs in the family. We tore ourselves away and headed down to Laguna for the weekend. I took George up to the Top of the World for his run. Here's the view:

We count ourselves fortunate indeed, to be so blessed. Happy anniversary to us!

DISASTERS...

Well, honestly, not really disasters, but definitely annoyances. Yesterday was filled with them, one after the other. They put my best Buddhist intentions to the test, and I came up wanting. It was, as they say, "one of those days..." Let me enumerate my woes.

Seven a.m., Joe the gardener arrives--a good deal earlier than usual, but I had called to ask him to help me with the fish fence...

The fish fence is the electric wire we have installed around the fish pond in the Buddha garden right outside our bedroom. (It's the Buddha garden because we have a little Buddha sitting there, amongst the potted plants. The fish pond is inherited from the previous owner of our house.) The reason for the electric fence is to discourage the raccoons from feasting on our fish. We have had dealings with these creatures in the past; they climb down from our neighbor's tree and do their fishing from the side of the pond, and they have been known on occasion to fall in. The last time this happened, we decided on the fence. It gives them an unpleasant, but not fatal shock, and they seem to have learned that fishing in our pond carries penalties they do not wish to incur.

It has been some time since they last made their nocturnal visits. Then, last week, Ellie noticed that one of the fish was missing. The water was muddied, some of the water plants had been disturbed, the pump that keeps the water circulating had become disconnected, and the fence was broken. Hence my call to Joe, and his early arrival.

Joe, for all his many other admirable qualities, is not an experienced electrician. With my helpful suggestions from the sidelines, he did manage to rewire the fence and reconnect it, but for some reason could not get the electric current flowing. Repeated attempts at correction produced no results. Time for the expert, then.

We have a go-to guy from most of our household problems, but he's expensive and I chose on this occasion to be cheap. Well, the expense was somewhere in the back of my mind. I went to the yellow pages, found a local guy, and called him up. I like to use local guys, rather than the big advertisers. He said he'd come round a little later.

8 AM-ish. I had a quick breakfast, had a cup of coffee. And when breakfast was over, made myself my usual second cup and brought it down with me to my office, where my current project is to put order in the chaos. I had left the project uncompleted overnight, and things were strewn all over. Books, files, folders, office supplies, all higgedy-piggledy around the room. A nightmare. My printer had given out a few days earlier, and there was a new HP in its package, waiting to be installed. So I brought my cup of coffee down and set it down somewhere where I could be sure that it was out of the way. (It proved to be so out of the way that I spent much of the morning looking for it. More later...)

9 AM-ish. I had just got started on the office when the doorbell rang. Hayk. I knew he had to be Armenian because I had a good friend Haig, now long since disappeared, but despite the "k" on Hayk's name tag, I assumed it had to be the same. Besides, his command of English was not of the best--a fact that would soon take on critical significance, as you'll see. He came round to the back of the house, studied the fish pond and the electric fence, and said he had never in all his years as an electrician been asked to deal with something of this kind. Still, he started investigating the wiring, tut-tutting in dismay. They all have to do this. It's a part of the ritual, to point out the dreadful deficiencies in the previous guy's work. But I knew he was right. The mess of wires, cables, timers and boxes in that small back area was clearly not functional, and probably not safe. I asked what it would take to make just the fish fence functional and safe. He scratched his head. Re-wiring, insulation, a GFI... $125, he thought. I gave the go-ahead, and returned to my office job.

10AM-ish. The printer, of course, refused to work. I moved my computer forward to take a look behind...

... and moved it back again. I think I may have uttered my first profanity for the day. I went back through the easy-to-install instructions with the same result. Third time around, I discovered my mistake: I should have connected the firewire to the computer after going through the initial stages of the installation, not before. Of course. Fine print. Ah, well, one triumph, the printer worked.

Meantime, things were escalating in the Buddha garden. In the manner of all handymen everywhere (at least in my experience,) Hayk was discovering more and more problems as he worked. More crossed wires. More timers with no apparent function, more boxes that should have had GFIs but did not, more boxes with no source of power. Called repeated from my labors in the office, I was constrained to recognize each time that, yes, there was a problem there; it needed to be fixed. I had actually been aware for some time that there were problems, so perhaps now was the time to get them fixed...

Oh, did I mention that lost cup of coffee? I found it. This would have been around, say, 11 AM-ish. I was rearranging some books on the top shelf, above my desk. Above where the new printer had been newly installed. And something slipped. In fact, a whole row of precariously balanced books slipped, pushing over a number of other items I had left on the shelf, which in turn pushed over... that lost cup of coffee. A full cup. Its contents erupted over everything. Over the books, the papers. The new printer. And below, the carpet...

This may have been the cause of my second, louder, more enraged expletive. Ellie came running. Emily, our trusty assistant who had been working with Ellie in the upstairs office, came running. We surveyed the damage. Emily set to work on the rescue of the new printer, from which cold coffee was now seeping alarmingly. Together, we got to work on the carpet. A panicked call to the carpet cleaners. Water, we were told. Flush it out and blot it out. No chemicals, no soaps... The problem was not just the big patch of spilled coffee but, because it had fallen from that height, the hundreds of small, scattered spots, each one of which needed individual attention.

Back in the Buddha garden, at the end of the morning now, Hayk was ready to wrap things up. The original $125 bottom line had risen by now to $500. But he seemed to have done the job well. Everything worked... and better than before. I sighed as I wrote out the check. And I was saying goodbye to my new Armenian friend when he just happened to mention, casually, I thought, that the motion sensor light at the side of the house was malfunctioning; it was being activated by motion even during the day, unnecessarily, and power was being wasted. Hayk could fix that, no problem, he said (I thought he said; remember, the language problem?) for $25. So I thought, why not? In for a penny... Might was well get it done, and the extra cost seemed reasonable. Hayk said he'd be back in an hour or so to get it done.

And indeed he was. Rang the doorbell, announced that he was getting started. Fine, I thought. I went back down to my study and took some cash from my wallet. I didn't have the exact change for the $25, but I thought he'd be sure to have some. Maybe I'd even add a fiver, to show appreciation. So then, an hour or so later, another ring at the door. Hayk was done. Wonderful, I said, do you have change for a twenty? He looked at me. "It's $275," he said. Two hundred and seventy five dollars? I was appalled. "But you said," I said, "twenty-five." Hayk shook his head. "Two hundred seventy-five," he assured me: "I said." "But, but, but," I stammered. I had thought it was a matter of changing a bulb, brushing up a sensor... "I would never have agreed," I told him, "if I'd known it was that much."

Still, what can you do? Apparently there was a part involved--an expensive part. I don't actually care that much if the motion sensor light goes on in daylight, maybe once a day or so, when I pay a visit to the trash cans. There can't be that much power wasted in those moments. But there it was. Fixed. As I had requested. My outrage brought the invoice down a bit, scarcely enough to appease my wrath, but I wrote another check. Hayk and I parted, not on the best of terms.

Still seething, I called Ellie to confess to the fact that we were $700 poorer than the start of the day. She advised me, infuriatingly, to breathe.

Book Review: Sarah's Key

I have just finished reading Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay, and am left with conflicting thoughts and feelings. The first half of the novel toggles between wartime Paris and the round-up and deportation of French Jews, and contemporary Paris still in denial of France’s role—particularly the role of French authorities—in facilitating that despicable act of collaboration.

The story the fictional Julia Jarmond tells the reader is a compelling one: an American journalist married into a Parisian family, she unearths the lamentable history of Sarah, a young Jewish girl who tries to save her little brother from discovery at the time of the round-up by locking him in a hidden closet—not imagining she will never be allowed to return to let him out. She herself eludes her family’s captors and survives the war, but not the guilt for her brother’s death that she carries with her in the subsequent years, along with the key to the closet that becomes its symbol. In the meantime Julia, our narrator, who is undergoing her own personal trauma, slowly uncovers a distressing link between her husband’s family and the unpalatable past.

The story of the Velodrome d’Hiver bears retelling, whether in fictional or non-fictional form. This infamous sports arena is where thousands of Jewish families were held in inhuman circumstances and forcibly split up—first husbands from their wives and children, then mothers from their children--on their way to the Auschwitz death camp. The arresting police and the guards were all French; their cruelty and anti-Semitism added gratuitous homegrown injury to the Nazi insult—and their collaboration was sadly not untypical. It’s a part of the country’s history that must not be air-brushed over or forgotten, and the author does us all a service in reminding us of that brutal episode.

That said, I have to say that I found both plot and characters of "Sarah’s Key" to be unconvincing. That Julia allows her privileged self to become the central character in a tale about the Holocaust is distressing. That she proves herself so weak and vacillating undermines her credibility and our respect for her voice. I also find it hard to believe in her relationships—whether with her faithless husband or her petulant in-laws. Then, too, unhappily, the plot feels like a put-up job, contrived to suit the writer’s purposes rather than deriving necessarily from the beliefs and actions of her characters, whose mutual silences and denials on almost every issue stretch credulity. They seemed to me not only unconvincing but also, alas, not especially likeable. It’s clear that historical and personal denial are a part of the novel’s theme, but even so I kept wishing that someone, for God’s sake, would simply tell the truth—about themselves, their feelings, their relationships. I kept wanting vainly for there to be someone, one person, with whom I could find common ground.

A large part of the satisfaction in reading a novel is watching the characters learn and grow; to be, in Buddhist terms, released from some part of their suffering and, by extension, from some part of our own. But just as Sarah, who becomes Julia’s alter ego, clings to the key that symbolizes her pain, so Julia clings to the suffering of this woman she pursues. She ends up, not released from her own demons through her experience, but still—no, once again enmeshed, this time, improbably, with Sarah’s son, who bears the name of the little brother whom she lost. The reader—this reader—felt manipulated rather than rewarded. Rather than clarifying her subject’s grief, Julia stands rather plaintively between the reader and her subject. And that’s a shame, because the history warrants a more fully honest and transparent treatment, whether in fictional or non-fictional form.

THE NEW GUY

Well, it's my fourth time as grandpa, but the first when the baby has been close enough to see and hold on his first day of life. It's an amazing experience. Holding little Luca, old softie that I am, I cried. He was scarcely a few hours old.

Here's this awesome, tiny, living, breathing human being, his head barely yet the size of my fist, his skin so soft to the touch it takes your breath away, intelligence already shining in his eyes, his face, his little hands as he begins to explore this strange new world he's just arrived in. Watching him, I was astonished to see him already learning. That infinitely complex piece of organic engineering inside his head was already busy registering facts and feelings, tastes and smells and touch, attempting to put together a coherent picture of the world outside the womb. I was surprised, too, by his engagement--the squeeze of a finger, the meeting of the eye. And by the immediate, spontaneous bonding, the beginnings of relationship with Mom, with Dad and even--am I just being fanciful?--with Granddad and Grandmom.

Thanks, Luca, for inspiring me to try looking at the world through your eyes, the eyes of a new arrival, eyes that are at once innocent and infinitely curious, seeing everything afresh, for the first time. Or at least to imagine what it might feel like to see things in this way, to take not the smallest thing for granted, to ask everything to make itself known to me. May you continue to be as curious and as eager to learn as you seem to be today. May you continue to bring light and love and joy into the world, as you do today. These wishes from your old softie of a granddad, Peter.

PST: POMONA

So much to write about these days, and so little time to get to it. We headed east yesterday to see the first installment of the three-part Pacific Standard Time event at Pomona College Museum of Art, It Happened At Pomona: Art at the Edge of Los Angeles, 1969 - 1973. Part 1 is titled: "Hal Glicksman at Pomona." It happens that Hal is an old friend of mine, a former colleague at what was then Otis Art Institute of Los Angeles County (now Otis College of Art & Design,) where he was Gallery Director during my tenure as Dean. At Otis, he staged a number of standout, sometimes controversial shows including, as I recall, a magnificent exhibition of paintings by the late Sam Francis. He also brought the then little-known Laurie Anderson to perform there, and put on a marvelous show of trash retrieved from the MacArthur Park lake, when it was drained for cleaning.

Hal's tenure at Pomona was short, but notable for his ability to recognize important, innovative talent and to find ways to exhibit what others would have balked at. His name became associated with the earliest public installations of the "Light & Space" artists, and the current show is in part an homage to his vision. Here he is in an interview with exhibition curator Rebecca McGrew. The first installment includes seven of the artists Hal brought to Pomona: Michael Asher, Lewis Baltz, Judy Chicago, Ron Cooper, Tom Eatherton, Lloyd Hamrol and Robert Irwin. It's worth mentioning that the work is beautifully recreated and installed: I have seen the now-famous Robert Irwin disc...

(Robert Irwin, Untitled, 1968-69, acrylic lacquer on formed acrylic plastic, diameter: 54 in., The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Installation view at Pomona College Museum of Art, photograph by Robert Wedemeyer.) (Thanks to the museum for all captioned pictures.)

... in a number of different locations now, but never so well installed as here, where the disc floats magically away from the wall, and the shadows cast behind it are in perfect balance. The piece has an ethereal beauty that can take your breath away.

Michael Asher's contribution to the exhibition was to remove its doors...

No Title, 1970 Pomona College Art Gallery, Claremont, CA Photograph by Frank J. Thomas Courtesy of the Frank J. Thomas Archives

... letting in the light and air from the real world outside--and opening up access to the show for twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week. Ron Cooper's ball-smashed automobile windshields...

"Head On," 1969/2010; "Dead Center," 1969/2010; "Ball Drop," 1969, Collection of the University Art Museum Art Video Archive, California State University, Long Beach; Photography by Robert Wedemeyer

... were brought back to life, bringing to mind the risk we take every time we head out on the freeway, and at the same time making wonderful "drawings" with the shattered glass itself and the shadows cast on the gallery wall. (We happened to visit at the moment when the action that is an important part of Cooper's vision was being reenacted, and stood by to watch as a number of steel balls were dropped onto sheets of glass laid out on the ground...

An exciting performance piece in itself. The picture is my own.) The spare, minimalist cityscape photographs of Lewis Baltz occupied the full length of one gallery wall and across from it, documentary pictures of Judy Chicago's "Snow Atmosphere" performance with flares and smoke in a canyon on Mt. Baldy...

Judy Chicago, Snow Atmosphere, 1970 Performance, February 22, 1970 Mount Baldy, CA Organized by Pomona College Art Gallery (15 photographs)

... reminded the viewer that much of the work of this period was preoccupied with the way in which we perceive our environment, and how our perception can be manipulated to change our relationship with the external world. The artist's job was not merely to make beautiful objects, but to invent--and reveal to us--new ways of seeing.

Or to create a new, illusory reality, as do the recreations of installations from the period by Tom Eatherton and Lloyd Hamrol. Tom Eatherton's space...

Tom Eatherton, “Rise,” 1970, Light Environment consisting of incandescent bulbs, two layers of nylon diffusion material, and wooden support structure. Dimensions variable.

... invites you in, encloses you, transports you. Entering through a narrow passage, we find ourselves dwarfed on either side by immense curved scrims backlit in a blue of immeasurable depth; the dark, carpeted floor and the soft ceiling above take on a deep purple hue in the reflected light, and the whole effect is of walking through deep space with a sense of awe and wonder. We're invited to look into Lloyd Hamrol's space from outside, through a narrow aperture that closes off our vision from all surrounding information. The experience is like entering into our own head, a space as tender as the womb. The ceiling is a carpet of inflated, floating balloons, backlit in soft, pinkish light...

Situational Construction for Pomona College, 1969 9' h. x 30' w. x 40' l. Balloons, lead wire, water, colored light

A few black strands of led connect them to a watery, reflective floor, where their mirrored image pulls the eye down into (literally) non-existent space. It's a truly magical experience, a space so inviting and serene that you scarcely want to pull yourself away.

While at Pomona, we made the pilgrimage across campus to the permanent James Turrell Light/Space installation, Dividing the Light. The division is between the rectangle of "framed" sky above, the vista out toward the west, framed in turn by landscaping and college buildings, and the light reflected in the water of the infinity pool at the center of the installation. (This 43-minute YouTube video gives a sense of how Turrell's work.) We arrived at dusk, shortly before sunset--a good moment to observe the changing light. The view of the sky, isolated by Terrell's frame, was enhanced for us by the high, drifting wisps of cloud that also changed in color as the sun began to set...

(The pictures are all mine...)

Then the moon came out...

A truly awe-inspiring, truly magical experience. I notice that I keep coming back to that word; magic, as I understand it, has to do with transformation. These artists make it happen before our eyes.

And then we had to leave, because our grandson was about to show his face to the world for the first time...

HE'S ARRIVED!

Welcome to planet Earth! More later...

THE STORK...

... is due at any moment. Grandson on the way! Excitement prevents me from writing anything intelligible this morning. Metta to the new one-to-be! May his passage be safe...

PST: LACMA

No surprise, of course, that the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is also participating in the Pacific Standard Time extravaganza, with two major exhibitions, a multi-media installation, and two other installations reminding us of the pioneering work of two very different artists, Edward Kienholz and Maria Nordman. Too much for a single afternoon...

The Edward Kienholz installation, Five Car Stud 1969-1972, Revisted...

...has already provoked a good deal of talk and writing, though nowhere near the kind of controversy and, indeed, the censorship with which it was greeted at the time of its original creation. With its graphic evocation of the castration of a black American by a band of rednecks in the headlights of a circle of five cars, it's as intense an experience as it was back then. Our visceral response is shock and nausea, all the more so because we ourselves are invited to walk through the scene and share in the guilt of the assailants through our passivity. As the friend with whom I visited the installation remarked, we leave our footprints among those of thousands in the dirt. What has changed, perhaps, since the 1960s, is the cultural context: back then, the relatively innocent "Back Seat Dodge" by Kienholz was sufficient to bring down the wrath of the establishment and cause an uproar of protest. Today, even "Five Car Stud" raises scarcely an eyebrow in the community at large--and brings in thousands of visitors to the museum. (Of special interest in this installation is the ample documentation that accompanies the actual work, detailing the creation of the work, the response, and subsequent history. It's worth spending time with.)

It's now several decades since I spent time with Maria Nordman in the small studio in Venice which had been magically transformed with scrims and light into an exhibition in itself. So it was a pleasure to find her included in LACMA's PST program, with the installation of one of her early video works in Filmroom: Smoke, 1967-Present...

...Nordman has occupied a singular place among those artists preoccupied with perception--the familiar, if not entirely accurate term is "Light & Space"--and this work is a deceptively simple piece of "smoke and mirrors," almost literally, juxtaposing two screens and an actual (rather ugly!) armchair which appears also in the videos, on the beach, in the rising tide, as a prop to a young couple whose action consists in smoking cigarettes. We are invited to observe the way in which we observe the shifting scene in time and space.

California Design, 1930 - 1965: "Living in a Modern Way"...

...is a delight to the eye for anyone with an interest in the way we live our lives and the things we create to make them pleasant and practically livable. The show covers a vast array of material, from the pre-war architectural work of emigres like Neutra and Schindler to the post-WWII "Case Study" houses, to the interior design of Ray and Charles Eames...

It includes fine examples of the work of ceramic artists Laura Andresson and Otto and Gertrud Natzler...

...(see also below), along with commercial pottery from Brayton Laguna and Catalina Island; and the swimsuits of Rudi Gernreich and Mary Ann DeWeese. It's about the ease and pleasure--and privilege--of living in this part of the world, with its temperate climate and pervasive sunshine, and about the way in which this influences the objects that we make and put to daily use. I tend, myself, to lay the emphasis on privilege because many, though not all, of these objects speak of luxury. Interesting, though, that luxury in our age is seen in terms of the clean, spare, pared-down design and minimal visual excess. It seems clear that the influence of Asian aesthetic principle and practice runs deep in our culture today.

ASCO was for the streets. The word itself means disgust; I've had enough. A manifestation of the irreverent, rebellious spirit of Chicano East Los Angeles, ASCO was purposefully confrontational, sometimes offensive, always on the edge of risk and danger. It made people like me--white, anglo-saxon, educated, proper--nervous. It's important to be reminded of that moment in history in ASCO: Elite of the Obscrue, A Retrospective, 1972 - 1987. The core group of artists, Gronk, Willie Herron, Patssi Valdez and Harry Gamboa Jr., staged performances, street actions...

...public art projects with the express political intention of drawing attention to the hegemony of the dominant anglo culture--and the vibrant energy of their own. They were ready to attack institutions, with spray paint if necessary. They demanded to be heard. And were notably successful in opening the way for change in deeply-ingrained cultural attitudes. ASCO the show is a useful and timely reminder of that effort, in no small part because the institution tends to slip back into its old ways. What happens, though, when that energy gets boxed and framed for installation in a museum gallery is that some of the punch that defined its very essence gets diluted. The best moments of the exhibition are those where real art work pops up amongst the memorabilia and hits us in the eye.

Murals, too, are action--along with the graffiti that are their calligraphic cousins. Concurrent with ASCO, the Los Four group was busy asking us to reconsider the role of painting in our lives, taking it from the polite living room wall, sometimes illegally, to the city streets. Judy Baca was using the art to educate and create community. In association with the ASCO exhibition, Mural Remix: Sandra de la Loza reminds of those efforts in a multimedia show that creates a working assemblage of Chicano mural artists...

...historical and contemporary. Her installation is in part a celebration of ethnic identity, in part an exploration of the way in which it informs her own identity as an artist.

Much to be seen, then, much to be learned in LACMA's forays into the history of our city's art. I have to say, though, that what actually moved me most intensely on this visit to the County was the mid-career exhibition of Glenn Ligon's work. Glenn Ligon: AMERICA is one of those shows whose sheer, brute authenticity grabs you by the collar and makes you see things in a whole new way--in this case, through the eyes of a gay black man in a country that remains uncomfortable in its relationship with both gay and black. Our eyes descend through levels of obscurity in his coal-dust paintings, opening at the top with the lettering of a familiar--and usually disturbing--cliche and ending, at the bottom, in total obscurity...

We experience, in the metaphor of Ralph Ellison, what it is to be "the invisible man." There's both pain and defiance in these paintings that draw us in, through the movement of the eye, into their glittering, distressingly beautiful darkness. In another series of works, Ligon confronts us with Robert Mapplethorpe's homoerotic images of black men, and explores his own ambivalence between their stunning beauty and their explicitly sexual exploitation by the photographer.

Perhaps because I try so hard to practice it myself, I have a special respect for artists who devote their work to unsparingly honest self-examination. "Tell me who you are" has become the adage I take with me to every exhibition, because when I encounter that honesty on the part of another human being, I inevitably learn more about myself. Aside from its sheer, seductive aesthetic beauty, Ligon's work offers me the opportunity to see what makes him human, and prompts me to also take a thoughtful look inside, to be honest with myself about the harmful prejudices I harbor toward others; and perhaps, through the experience, to become a little better at the compassionate art of being more fully human.

And finally, speaking of beauty, I stopped by the Couturier Gallery on my way home from LACMA, to see the Gertrud & Otto Natzler show. These originally Viennese exiles who escaped from the Nazis at the time of the Anschluss set up their studio in Los Angeles and produced some of the most exquisite modernist pottery to be seen anywhere. Gertrud was the thrower--of marvelously intricate, stately, sometimes delicate forms; and Otto the glazier, who invented dozens of highly original and, yes, beautiful glazes in a stunning array of colors. The results, in no matter what scale, are nothing short of spectacular.