ILL WILL

I'm with John Lewis. I plan to boycott the Tr*mp inaugural. Not in the flesh, of course, but at least on television. I'll not watch it. I'm in agreement with the Congressman that the Tr*mp presidency is not legitimate. There are just too many indications that the election was not "free and fair." There is, just this morning, this story in the New York Times. In itself, perhaps, it would not be troublesome; but replicated likely many times by mischief-makers on the Internet both here and abroad, it suggests that fake news stories played a big part in the eventual result. Then there's the Russian intervention, by now beyond doubt.

Most disturbing to me is the part played by sheer ill will in the election. The Tr*mp team and the "President-elect" himself--sadly, this is likely the last time I'm able to use that term--whipped up so much hatred, not only directed against his opponent in the national election but also against the media, his rivals on the Republican side, indeed against anyone who dared oppose, or even criticize him. Throughout, he encouraged his supporters to indulge the worst of their primal instincts, and managed to generate a swelling flood of ill will on both sides--those who opposed as well as those who supported him. The anger and mistrust is everywhere.

Since his election, Tr*mp has done nothing to stanch that flood. No olive branch to those who disagree with him, despite numerous opportunities. Instead, he seems to have gone out of his way to engage in impetuous and petty acts of spite. Where he could easily have engendered some goodwill from opponents, he has--perhaps thoughtlessly, perhaps intentionally--provoked them further with his words and actions. He does not make it easy for any of us to modify our opinion of him, to "give him the chance" his acolytes have been pleading for, let alone to like him. He seems to enjoy the act of being ill will personified.

But we emulate him at grave cost to ourselves. My meditation group met for a sit last night, and I opened up the session with the invitation to join me in taking a close look at the ill will this man has provoked in our own minds. It will serve us better now if we manage to develop strategies to convert that feeling--no matter how righteous!--into its opposite: goodwill. To return ill will for ill will is to participate precisely in what we deplore. Which does not mean capitulating, condoning, or excusing. It does not mean suspending judgment. It does not mean sitting by and allowing ourselves to be steamrollered by untruths and injustice. It means rather to avoid being sucked into the vortex of ill will that Tr*mp has created. It may feel uncomfortable, even wrong, but it will not hurt us to send compassion out to one who shows so little of it. And who knows, it might rub off on him. It will certainly be better for our own peace of mind, which is something worth preserving.

9/11

I plan to dedicate my morning meditation to those who died and their survivors; to the brave rescue workers; and to all those who suffered, and still suffer from the long-lasting effects of this dreadful day seven years ago...

It also seems like a good day to bring you my friend Mark, a student in Missouri, a double major in Religion and Philosophy, who has just restarted his blog Marko Polo after a summer break. Here's a young man who takes his religion seriously enough to keep asking the probing questions, and who stands up for what he believes in. In his entry yesterday he "confessed" to being VP of his university's Students for Barack Obama, and took the risk of exposing some of his fears and judgments. He wrote, eloquently:

I'm really plagued with anxiety about it all. Today I had about three students try to rip off the Obama sticker I sported proudly on my shirt all day. One of them said, "Obama is GAY!!!!" To which I responded somewhat snarkily, "Oh man! Don't tell his wife and kids!" Another straight up said to me, "I'm gonna impress my political views on you whether you like it or not!" Again, I replied curtly, "And that's why you're a Republican." Fifty bucks says none of the people who tried to rip the sticker off of my shirt have done any research into why they're going to vote for McCain or why they hate Obama.

The other day I saw a bumper sticker on the back of a car that said, "NObama," which I'm fine with (outside of really detesting most negative campaigning). Freedom of speech is a good thing. Upon further inspection, I wanted to punch the window out of the car that had the bumper sticker attached to it. Instead of the field of red and white with a sun rising over it that represents Obama's campaign, there was instead a blue Muslim star and crescent. How ignorant can you be?!?! Not only is that straight up wrong, but it's hateful to a perfectly beautiful religion.

It's a source of pleasure and not a little pride to have readers like Mark tuning in to The Buddha Diaries on a regular basis. Where he lives, it's not so easy to be a supporter of Barack Obama as it is here in (mostly) liberal California and (seriously) liberal Hollywood. Thanks for reminding me, Mark, that it sometimes takes courage to put out your political beliefs in a public way. I'm not a Christian, but when I meet Christians like you I take heart in the reminder that your religion, the one I myself was brought up with, is about the compassionate teachings of a wise and courageous leader--a true "maverick", who put his life on the line to challenge the tired old truths and usher in some new ones!

That New Yorker Cover

Satire? They have to be kidding. Are the editorial staff of the New Yorker so tone-deaf to the political realities in this country that they don't understand how their self-indulgent "satire" will be put to use? By reducing the argument, as they do in their response to criticism, to purely literary and aesthetic considerations, they prove themselves to be asinine beyond belief. As others besides myself have pointed out, this idiocy hands the yahoos a weapon they themselves would not have had the wit to hone. In their sense of intellectual entitlement, they forget the vast mass of voters who lack the critical discrimination to read their cover in other than literal terms: those many who will understand it at face value, not for its ironical intention.

I notice that Obama's poll numbers have dropped significantly in the past week alone. along with his fund-raising potential. Thank his liberal friends, from Reverend Jesse Jackson to the idealist left-wing bloggers and mind-bogglingly stupid "literate" liberals like the New Yorker. I'm planning to send in another few dollars to support this candidate. I hope my readers will judiciously put aside their disagreements--no matter how much I might agree with their arduments--and join me in renewing our support. We simply cannot afford to sacrifice an entire election to our individual principles one more time. There's far too much at stake.

I'm hoping that the example of the New Yorker cover will prove a useful lesson to the liberal conscience about the risks incurred by this lack of circumspection. There's a single, over-riding goal at stake this time around. It's nothing less than the rescue of this country from self-destruction, not to mention the planet that we share with others. And that, to my way of thinking, is no exaggeration.

By the way, I have never done this before, because the gesture has seemed no more than petty spite, but I felt I had to make a statement, no matter how small: I canceled our subscription to the New Yorker. I hope millions of others do the same.

44th 4th; Freedom--and Responsibility

I was calculating, as I woke this morning, that this is my 44th July 4th in the United States. Happy Birthday, everyone! As I have suggested on several occasions in the past, I'm continue to wonder whether it's not getting to be time for us Brits--or, in my case, ex-Brits--to recolonize this place and bring it back into the civilized world. Just kidding.

Independence Day, then. I get the independence part. But what about "freedom"? It seems to me that this is a word, like "patriotism", much bandied about with little real sense as to its meaning. When it falls from the lips of the current (not for too much longer!) occupant of the White House--I still refuse to dignify him with the honorific "President"--I can't help but hear the clink of money accompanying it, along with a naive kind of ideology that believes that the American concept of freedom is good for everyone else in the world. It dovetails neatly with the notion of "free markets" and the kind of economic prosperity that benefits those with the skill and the mind-set to exploit them. It glosses too easily over the desperate poverty, hunger and disease with which too many of the world's inhabitants do daily battle--as though, once granted "freedom", their problems would be solved. For many, "freedom" would be little more than a survival ration of food and clean water to drink.

The idea of individual rights envisioned by those who founded America must surely have been more complex than it seems to be today. Did they envision a nation of millions upon millions, whose individual "rights" must inevitably clash, and whose "freedoms" might well impinge on those of their neighbors? Surely their idea of freedom was compounded with a sense of social responsibility, a willingness to compromise, even sacrifice some of those individual rights to the benefit of all? Today, it seems to me, we have lost much of that willingness to place "me", "my needs," "my rights" in the context of the common weal. (How about that "right to bear arms," to take but one example?)

I look around America today and I see freedom run amok. Consider the current Democratic election campaign. The kind of uncompromising, "my way and no other way", ideologically-based whining that I've been hearing, first from disappointed Hillary fans and now from disillusioned Obama supporters seems to me no different, really, than the ideologically-driven Bush administration. If we Democrats, particularly we so-called progressive or liberal democrats are incapable of listening to anything other than our own convictions, let alone modifying our ideological positions in order to work together for a greater goal, then we deserve, once again, to lose in November.

As I was saying just the other day, there are points on which I personally disagree strongly with the positions Obama has publicly embraced. I was brought up a good socialist, in Europe, and I wish he were able to speak from the much further, much more secular left. But this is America, "land of the free," where freedoms have been seriously eroded by successive, increasingly conservative administrations, and where a vast section of the electorate has supported and elected them. At this critical time in our history, I do want to keep our candidate on course; but let's allow him to be election-savvy as much as, if not more so than, ideologically correct. Let's for God's sake do everything in our power to get the man elected, even if it involves some sacrifice of our noble ideals.

Save the World

This, in the place of a Sunday sermon from Peter At Large...

My sister in England just sent me the link to this intriguing website, Parallel Community, which seeks to act as a contact point between people throughout the world who believe that there are many of us who share the desire for peace, a sustainable economy, and a viable future for humankind; and a distrust of the political systems whose misguided policies stand in the way of what real human beings actually want. The organization's introductory DVD is well worth a watch. I wrote to one of the founding members, Hamish Miller, to congratulate him on their work, and added a somewhat tongue-in-cheek observation:

Hamish, I love what you're doing! But it saddens me that everyone in your DVD has GREY HAIR, and WRINKLES and (men only, please!) BEARDS--just like myself. Where are the young people, who are the ones who will really feel the painful results of what we're doing to the earth? I imagine your organization is making good efforts to pull them in. One of the good things, I think, about our Barack Obama here in the United States is that he seems finally to have touched a chord amongst the young. Thanks for the good work, anyway. I will post a link on my blog, The Buddha Diaries, in the next couple of days. Blessings, Peter

I received the following friendly response:

Hi Peter,
Thank you for your response!
You're right! I AM a wrinkly grey haired bearded oldie but so many of the young folks had their heads down just surviving over here at the time we were doing the film. However this was when we were getting it together and since then a lot of young people have come around to help. You can depend on it that if there's another clip we oldies will keep well away! We need their energy but sometimes they need the help of our experience to guide the way. Watch this space for the young coming in to take over. They seem to have a pretty clear understanding of what's going on. We'll keep you in to what's happening and thank you for posting a link on your blog. It all helps enormously
Best wishes,
Hamish

I'm delighted to have been introduced to this worthy effort (thanks, Flora!), and plan to stay in touch. I'll also keep a link posted in my "Useful Sites" blogroll, in the hope that others, also, will continue to stay in touch with Hamish and his merry band.

Food

It's started. The BBC World News report on the startling rise in basic food costs throughout the world is alarming new evidence of the trouble we're in as a species. Unless we can learn to let go of our addiction to our comfortable standards of living, our excessive material possessions and our hunger for wealth, I do believe that we're headed for extinction--like those millions of other species that have failed to survive the continuing evolutionary process. Let's hope at least that we leave behind a world that's still habitable for other, more intelligent species, who share the planet and its resources with more foresight than ourselves.

The report notes a 75 percent increase in the cost of rice over the past twelve months, and a 13o percent increase in the price of wheat. The cost of corn has increased less steeply, but no less dramatically. It showed some of the results in various locations throughout the world, most notably in the Philippines, where dangerous stresses are already evident in the fabric of society. Anger and frustration mount, along with sheer, physical hunger. How long will it be before people start to fight for the food they need to survive? How long will it before nation becomes pitted against nation in the competition for this most basic of resources? How long will it be--no, this has already started--before people die of starvation?

So far, we Americans remain sitting relatively pretty. We whine about gas prices, watch food prices steadily mount and the financial markets teeter on the brink of disaster. We fume at the airport when our flight is delayed. The great middle class is not immune from the effects of global changes, but it has managed pretty much to ignore the plight of the truly poor. So far. But things will predictably get worse, as a result of our heedless consumption and our greed for the good life. In our most recent egregious misadventure, we have chosen biofuels for our machines over food for our people, destroying vast areas of agricultural land in favor of more profitable biofuel-producing plants. We are already paying for this stupidity.

Is there still time for a change of heart, a change of mind, a change of the policies that misguide us? It's such a huge change we will be required to embrace, it's doubtful whether we'll have the guts and the wisdom to do it before the tipping point is reached. And we don't even know where that tipping point is. We might already have passed it. What's clear, with the world population continuing to expand, is that sacrifice will be needed. We Americans will need to learn to honor the fact that there are other people in this world--just as human, if less "developed" than ourselves; and that, if we are to survive, we will need to make sacrifices to enable them, also, to survive. With India and China catching up with our profligate consumption of resources of all kinds--not to mention the attendant pollution--we must act very soon to slow down the approach of mass starvation, disease, violence, and war.

I realize that I'm not a voice crying in the wilderness, here. The voices are getting louder and more clamorous, their message more and more difficult to ignore. But denial is still rife in these United States, as is callous self-interest and willful blindness. This is no longer a matter of finding fixes for small problems, for putting out brushfires as and when they break out. We're talking, finally, about nothing less than the survival of our species.

FIDEL! Fidel...

Are you old enough--were you young enough--to have been thrilled by the fiery young Fidel and his spunky sidekick, Che,


and their revolution against the corrupt and oppressive Battista regime in Cuba? I am. I was. A dedicated young European socialist (small "s": remember, it had not yet been granted dirty-word status over there as it had here in America,) I saw in Fidel from that perspective a sign of hope for people across the ocean--the oppressed black people of America (this was the Fifties...) as well as the oppressed brown people to the south.

And then I watched in dismay as bully America--bear with me here, I am still in my early twenties, I am idealistic, I am socialist and European!--tightened its communist-fearing iron fist around the little island and drove Fidel unnecessarily into the welcoming arms of post-Stalinist Soviet communism.

I watched in dismay as the people's hero, the great liberator, turned into his own nemesis, the great dictator, the hectoring autocrat, dispatching those who dared to dissent from him to jail and continuing to cling blindly to his ideology and his power as the nation's economy crumbled about him.

I watched in dismay as the exiles from this Castro regime began to exercise an increasing and unhealthy influence in American politics, with their strident and overbearing demands on American leaders to support their anti-Castro agenda at the expense of American and hemispheric interests.

And I watched in dismay as the once jaunty hero showed up, at last, shriveled with age, a sick old man, gaunt, scraggly-bearded, hollow-cheeked and sallow, still clinging stubbornly to what was left of his power, a "shadow of his former self," the wreck of what had once been a powerful man.

The more I watch of the world and its affairs, the more I'm grateful to the wisdom of the Buddhist teachings. We all grow old and die. Political power is nothing but vanity. It is we ourselves who can be our own worst enemy. Attachment to outcomes brings nothing but further suffering, while equanimity and non--attachment lead to serenity of mind. And yet, and yet... I still continually find myself caught between the two!

What to Do About Politics?

I still regard myself as a novice when it comes to many aspects of the Buddhist teachings. Having now a ten-year daily meditation practice, and having read quite widely in the literature, I do not yet think of myself as a "student" in the the sense that a true student immerses himself or herself deeply and without reservation in the teachings. I am frankly an amateur of Buddhism. I love the practice and I am persuaded of the wisdom that the Buddha taught, but am not ready to turn my life over to the religious aspects of Buddhism. And I do NOT claim authority or complete understanding of the teachings.

That said, I remain in something of a quandary when it comes to politics. The teachings, in my admittedly limited understanding, advocate equanimity, non-attachment and goodwill toward others--even those with whom I disagree most fundamentally. On the other hand, with every fiber of my being, I believe in justice, fairness, mutual tolerance, and the inherent equality of all human beings. I understand that there are differences between us, and honor those differences; but I cannot support the privilege of the very few against the well-being of the many. And when I look around our country and the world in its current state, I see little on the geopolitical front but injustice, unfairness, intolerance, and inequality.

Call me naive, but I want to see a better world, and do what I can to contribute to that betterment. I want to live my life in such a way that it reflects the values I believe in. The practical, realist--Buddhist?--part of me recognizes that there are limits to my capacity to bring about the changes I believe in, and that the best I can do is to make changes in my own life. By becoming, simply, a better person myself, I trust that I am contributing to the wider cause. It's the theory of the butterfly wing and the tempest: even the tiniest action in one part of the universe causes a reaction throughout. It's what Thich Nhat Hahn, I believe, calls "interbeing."

That thinking, certainly, has its appeal. I have little trouble going along with it. And yet... and yet... There is this other part of me that gets sucked in, that gets mad as hell, that demands action at the social and political level. That wants to fight back against the powers of exploitation and oppression. This is the part that is glued to the television, to the news from throughout the globe about disease and famine, armed conflict, and vastly expanding, shifting populations. It's the part that worries about climate change, about the future of our species. It's the part that is outraged by the shameless actions of our current administration, about its resource war and its favoring of the wealthy, about its violation of basic human rights both here and abroad, about its turning a blind eye to torture, its secretiveness and its dishonesty. It's the part that demands a fair break for the underprivileged in this country, a decent education for every citizen, equal opportunity in employment, and a workable national health care plan with access and benefits for all.

I guess the ideal (Buddhist?) solution is to be political without attachment to the outcome. To act with integrity to my beliefs even as I forthrightly acknowledge the limits of my power to effect change--which would result, hopefully, in the desired equanimity. This is easier said than done, of course. The sense of powerlessness in the face of the world's problems and the inadequacy of our political system is not confined to this one voter. It's shared by a great number of us, people of good will and good conscience who want to do the best they can for their country and their fellow beings. For some, I know, that sense of powerlessness leads to apathy--a very different thing from equanimity.

Another, different solution is simply to stand back and refuse involvement. This is not one that I myself can feel comfortable with, so the inner struggle will certainly not come to a foreseeable conclusion. It's simply one of those perplexities I have to learn to live with. I would be interested to know if others share this particular anguish, and what they do about it...

Guns: A Loud Noise

Well, when I said yesterday that I was "sticking my neck out" with my remarks about guns, I did so advisedly. The piece came out in a slightly different version on the Huffington Post and immediately attracted a number of angry and indignant comments--20 as of this writing--several of them starting out with a derisive "Well, Pete..." Ouch! Several referred to my supposed desire to remove guns from people's hands. Though I'd be happy to do this in many cases, what I actually suggested was that we might a bit more careful about whose hands they ended up in. I also specified that I was talking about assault weapons, but this small detail seems to have gone unnoticed in the fury. I suppose this is but a trivial indication of why it is those politicians choose to skirt the subject, whilst the craziest amongst us continue to be able fairly easily to obtain the means to impose mass-slaughter on the innocent in schools and supermarkets and, yes, even churches.

My critics, I note, did not hesitate to be insulting. "Morally corrupt" was but one epithet hurled in my direction. Hmmm... Guess I need to look at that. Voicing mild opposition to easy access to assault weapons does seem, well, morally questionable to say the least. The Buddhist teachings, by the way, enjoin us to "Right Speech," which includes "abstaining from lying, from divisive speech, from abusive speech, & from idle chatter." (Access to Insight.) Have I resorted, in this instance, to "divisive speech," I wonder? Or "abusive speech"? I confess that did use the word "yahoo." And now I find myself resorting to sarcasm. Tsk. And, frankly, taunting. Is this another example of the paper cup and ice cube syndrome? (See The Buddha Diaries entry of 12/7.) Or have I indulged merely in "idle chatter"? All questions to be pondered. But to show the depths of my depravity, the truth is that the response simply makes me happy that I took the trouble to write about this thorny subject.

I noticed, by the way, that the third lead editorial in yesterday's New York Times addressed the same issue, and made much the same points as I did. My thanks to everyone who spoke in reasonable voices on this subject in comments on The Buddha Diaries.

Guns: A Deafening Silence

(A reminder: Click here to read The Buddha Diaries review of "An Arrow to the Heart: a Commentary on The Heart Sutra" by Ken McLeod on the Huffington Post.)


Strange. Strange and profoundly unsettling. In all the news media reports on the recent senseless killings in Nebraska and Colorado, I have heard very little about the guns that were used. If anyone has been speculating about how a deadly assault weapon ended up in the hands of a teenager who was already well known by authorities to be mentally unstable and a man whose hateful rage was also already on the record, I have not heard or read it.

I’m ready to stick my neck way out here and say that I find it incomprehensible and disgraceful that this sad history should have been allowed to repeat itself yet again in a country that suffers the evident delusion of being civilized. It’s incomprehensible and disgraceful that the question of reasonable gun possession legislation is not in the headlines of the media and on the tongue of every presidential candidate.

Has anyone given any thought to how sad it is that a church should need to employ armed guards for the protection of its staff and congregation in this “Christian” country? Apparently the Colorado case is confirmation of the need for such precaution, since the assassin was killed (in a timely fashion, true) by a woman security officer. We can be grateful to this brave woman that many lives were spared, and still rue the fact that her presence there was necessary in the first place.

Is this not yet another piece of evidence that what we are pleased to tout to the rest of the world as our “democracy” is, at best, a malfunctioning oligarchy, at worst, a mere plutocracy? Are we not ashamed that a small minority of fanatics should be able to intimidate our leaders and our elected representatives into continued support for a permissive policy that the vast majority find loathsome? How could anyone in their right mind believe that those who wrote the founding documents of this country intended that fire power be readily available to morons and maniacs alike (“militias,” anyone?)—let alone weapons of a destructive power that to those good men would have been unimaginable?

I am perplexed. Here is candidate Rudy Giuliani, formerly a rational proponent of gun control to stem the violence in the city of which he once was mayor, now doing a volte-face in order to escape the displeasure of the National Rifle Association and its followers. There is a row of Republican candidates confronted with an absurd and hostile UTube question from a pry-it-from-my-cold-dead-hands yahoo, rushing to surrender simple good sense to political contingency.

As for the Democratic candidates, check this out: Senator Biden “does not have a policy on gun control.” Senator Clinton “does not have a policy on gun control.” Senator Barack Obama “does not have a policy on gun control.” Same with Edwards. Of the whole bunch of them, only Sen. Mike Gravel even has a statement: “While Senator Gravel fully supports the 2nd Amendment,” it reads, “he believes that fundamental change must take place with regards to gun ownership. The senator advocates a licensing program where a potential gun owner must be licensed as well as properly trained with a firearm before they may own one." Well, bully for him. But what a weak-kneed, milquetoast qualification. (Dennis Kucinich, I’m happy to say, was rated “F” by the NRA, but I could not find a clear and honest policy statement on his site either.)

So where is the sanity? When do we begin to recognize that not every American citizen needs, or has a right to an assault weapon to protect his home, his family, his person. As for those who choose to hunt deer, or bears, or rabbits, or squirrels, or whatever other of God’s creatures they like to assassinate, are shotguns and rifles not weaponry enough for their valiant efforts?

Actually, I’m beyond perplexed. I’m outraged.

The Buddha Diaries Recommends

Click here to read The Buddha Diaries review of "An Arrow to the Heart: a Commentary on The Heart Sutra" by Ken McLeod.

Thanks to this article by RJ Eskow in the current Tricycle (I think you have to subscribe to the online magazine if you want to read the whole article, but the magazine itself is a wonderful investment: consider this a plug!), we at The Buddha Diaries have been thinking a bit about Buddhism and blogging, and whether the twain should meet. Before The Buddha Diaires there was The Bush Diaries, the political blog that Peter started---like RJ Eskow--immediately following the 2004 re-election, and for the same reasons. Something had to be done, and the only thing I knew how to do was write. You'll find some further thoughts on the matter--and on the Democratic presidential race on Eskow's Huffington Post blog. It's an interesting debate, and one in which I engage every time I feel moved to respond, in these pages, to political events.

Cardozo, meanwhile, my trusty sidekick, turned up this wonderful site, where a bona fide warrior with a conscience fights the good fight against the senseless spilling of blood. Cardozo writes:

Pen and Sword

Jeff Huber, a retired U.S. Navy Commander, has been blogging about the Iraq War and other misadventures of the Bush administration since 2005. The voluminous archives of Pen and Sword exist as a compelling database of the illogicalities and deceptions that have characterized Bush II.

As Huber wrote in the blog's introductory post, by pursuing a "fist-first approach to shaping the rest of the world in our image, [we may] collapse under the weight of our own hubris..."

Pen and Sword is driven by a passion born from patriotism, and tempered by an encyclopedic knowledge of national security issues. The blog url (zenhuber.blogspot.com) hints at a connection to Buddhist thought, but we could find no confirmation of this apparent influence within the posts themselves. Perhaps Mr. Huber leaves it to the reader to draw the natural link between Buddhist teaching and his unflinching critiques of the neo-cons' propagation of war and U.S. global dominance.

Please drop in at Pen and Sword to pay a visit to this military man with two boots planted firmly on the ground.

To which Peter merely adds, Amen.

On Privilege and Suffering

Thanks to those who responded to my "mea culpa" yesterday. Thailandchani raised this troubling question: "Can someone from an obviously privileged background ever come to really understand suffering?" To which she added, "Buddha left privilege behind for enlightenment." Troubling to me, obviously, because I happen to enjoy enormous privileges: by birth, by education, by social situation--by virtually any standard you care to apply. When I look around the world and see the immense suffering everywhere--from hunger, disease, oppression, warfare, poverty--it's hard to resist those feelings of guilt that privilege brings with it.

I happened to pick up a copy of a book by the Dalai Lama yesterday, at our local Target store, of all places, where Ellie and I had gone to find some stocking stuffers and cute clothes for our grandchildren in England. The book is called "How to Practice: The Way to a Meaningful Life," and on the very first page His Holiness has this to say on the topic in question:

Material advancement alone sometimes solves one problem but creates another. For example, certain people may have acquired wealth, a good education, and high social standing, yet happiness eludes them. They take sleeping pills and drink too much alcohol. Something is missing, something still not satisfied, so these people take refuge in drugs or in a bottle. On the other hand, some people who have less money to worry about enjoy more peace. They sleep well at night. Despite being poor in a material sense, they are content and happy. This shows the impact of a good mental attitude. Material development alone will not fully resolve the problem of humanity's suffering.

And even the Buddha, as I recall, discovered after years of exposing himself to poverty and hunger as a mendicant and ascetic that deprivation brought no more release from suffering than did the life of luxury he had led before.

To return to Chani's question, then, I have to say that the answer is No. To me, with all my privileges, the suffering of a great part of humanity is unimaginable. There's no way I can "understand" it. Even though it exists, certainly, in my own back yard, it's oceans away, so vast as to be incomprehensible. Should I, like the Buddha, turn my back on the life that has been granted me, for better or for worse? There's a nagging part of me--the conscience?--that keeps telling me I should, even while I recognize that it's neither reasonable nor realistic, nor that such a gesture would even do very much to help.

On the other hand, as the Dalai Lama suggests, none of us escape the inevitability of suffering. Are the wealthy in their mansions with their drugs and bottles suffering any less than those out on the street, with theirs? Certainly, they are suffering in circumstances of greater material comfort--but how much does that help, when suffering happens in the heart and soul?

And then that voice kicks in again to tell me that I'm rationalizing...

I come back to the need to remain conscious, to accept responsibility for everything that privilege has brought to me, and to practice proportionate generosity. I'd be interested in your views.

photo credit

Bumper Stickers

I have never once put a bumper sticker on my car--until now. It's a bit like wearing your heart on your sleeve, something I was taught, as a young English male, was never proper to do. The polite thing is to keep your opinions to yourself in all circumstances. And besides, who wants to drive around these days with an ad for a Kerry/Edwards ticket on one's rear end? Too painful. Or worse, Bush/Cheney. You'd risk brickbats, rotten eggs and tomatoes, or at the very least rude gestures on the freeway. (Though I like the simple W with a diagonal line through it.)

I do sympathize with a good number of the messages I see. I'm not opposed to peace, and all messages that signal support for that noble end never fail to warm my heart. I just worry that as soon as an eternal verity morphs into a bumper sticker, it degenerates into a cliche. "Support Our Troops" suggests so much that's different--and to me unacceptable--than what it's message purports to say that it makes my skin creep. I get a good laugh out of some bumper stickers, most recently "Honk if you like thinking about conceptual art." But once you get the joke... do you really want to be sharing your laudable sense of humor with every other driver on the freeway until your car finally makes the journey to its just reward in the junk yard? For me, no thanks. For the same reason, I personally reject tattoos.

Nature conservancy is good. I want to save the planet. I want to save the whales. I worry about the bees, and I do hug trees, of course, whenever the opportunity presents itself. As for those random acts of kindness... they used to be a refreshing bagatelle, but they have long since had their charm eroded by over-familiarity. Or am I just being cynical again?

Having begun this entry earlier, I took more than usual interest in the rear ends of cars as Ellie and I took our morning walk around Silver Lake. A lot of traffic there, believe me, and a lot of parked cars on the streets. I was surpised to see that only a tiny fraction of them were adorned with stickers. Perhaps they're going the way of the ill-starred John Kerry. Out of the literally hundreds of free advertising spaces, I saw only five in use. "WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER." Certainly. One of those verities I was mentioning above. "USC MOM"--a higher education version of the "I'm a Proud Parent" syndrome. "Shirley Chisholm For President." No kidding! (She ran in 1972, and died on January 1, 2005--having lived long enough to witness the current assault on the U.S. constitution which she so nobly served.) One (very small) JOHN KERRY 04 sticker. And an advertisement for CATNAP, with a www address for easy contact.

Anyway, here's the point. I received from a friend the gift of the only bumper sticker I have ever actually attached to my car. Here it is, on my super energy-saving, self-righteously environment-conscious car. (It's name itself is a bumper sticker, no?)



Okay, accuse me of wearing my heart on my sleeve. I just feel comfortable with this one. First off, it asks a question, it doesn't come up with the answer. It invites contemplation. I like that. Second, it's modest both in scale and color. Third, it's playful--a parody of the whole WWJD thing. And fourth... well, I like it.

What do you think? Do you have a bumper sticker? Kucinich, anyone? (I thought he was great in the debate last night!)

Torture

There's no other word for it, is there? The Mukasey appointment, approved yesterday despite the man's refusal to acknowledge the simple truth and with the connivance of a pair of Democrats I had previously admired, is but one more instance of our craven capitulation to the venal abuse of power on the part of Bush and his administration.

How did we get to this point, in America, where we allow ourselves to be led around by the nose by a man who apparently lacks the honesty to acknowledge what is plain to the world? "The United States does not torture," he repeats like some crazed mantra, as though by their repetition the words might somehow be believed. A man of this kind would surely in previous generations have been hounded out of office. Instead, our elected officials seem mesmerized into letting him have his way at every turn, and we are condemned to stand by and watch this cynical dishonoring of the most basic of human standards, the most basic of principles on which this country was founded. We have surrendered ourselves into the hands of men without conscience or consciousness, men who lie and abuse the power with which they were entrusted, men who ignore our will and spit in our eye with impunity.

How did this happen? How does it continue to happen that this man and his crew of bullies and liars work their will in a world that increasingly despises them? I am disgusted. I am disgusted with myself, who continue to sit here and blog, as though that were some significant action in the face of a government--my government--that ignores the plight of the poor, the sick, and the needy not only in our own country but around the world, and instead makes needless war and squanders the country's wealth on those very "weapons of mass destruction" it deplores in the hands of others. How does it happen that the voices of reason and conscience are belittled and ignored?

Enough for now. This morning, I woke with more than my usual share of outrage. What's a Buddhist to do, in such a dire circumstance? Breathe? Await the forces of karma to set things aright? Smile the smile of the Buddha?

You see what I mean?

Acts of Courage: Burma and "The War"

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

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



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

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

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

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

The Jena 6: Blame the Tree

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



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

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

WHERE IS EVERYBODY?

There they were, a million strong, in Washington DC, holding candles in their hands and joining in song: "All we are saying, is give peace a chance." A million of them. Think of it! Think of the power of it!

We were watching the DVD of "The U.S. Versus John Lennon." How this one man, among many, back then, had the courage to stand up for his beliefs and speak them out loud. John Lennon singer, songwriter, pop star, intellectual, performance artist, genius, clown... Not many, of course, had John Lennon's name, nor the platform he had to reach millions throughout the world. Not many--none other, perhaps--could attract the international media to his slightest move, his zaniest pronouncement. And yet millions did stand up for their opposition to a senseless, senselessly protracted war. There was hardly a campus, back in those days, that was not in active revolt.

So where is everybody? We know from well-publicized polls that opposition to Bush's folly in Iraq is widespread, even passionate--and yet we all sit on our duffs or peck away at our computer keyboards, hidden behind the multiple monitors in virtually every house. (I say "all," but that's not entirely true: there are a few hardy souls, like those who stand in protest every Saturday near the boardwalk in Laguna Beach. I honor them.) Where--the question is by now familiar--where is the outrage? Where are the million people flooding Pennsylvania Avenue?

The John Lennon documentary is brilliant, by the way. Our current fiasco is barely mentioned, but you can't watch it without making the comparison all along the way. And the persecution of this cheeky, iconoclastic singer by the entire weight of the United States federal government is an indignation-inspiring tale that will get your emotions roiling in sympathy. What is remarkable is that John managed to survive it. But of course he didn't. Not eventually. It took the bullets of a crazed, gun-wielding lunatic to get him, but he died for the balls he had to stand out and be heard. If you haven't seen the movie, I'd suggest you rent it... It's great just to hear those songs.

Which brings me to Katrina. Ellie and I had watched, the previous two nights (we've been doing a lot of Netflixing!) the epic Spike Lee documentary on the hurricane and its aftermath, "When the Levees Broke." Not surprisingly, it's a film about the abandonment of a city and its people by every level of government. It's about the discrepancy between the fine words some Americans speak and the fecklessness of their actions, or inaction. It's about the unique history and traditions of a truly great, truly individual, truly American city and the callous neglect with which that history and those traditions were snubbed in the wake of natural disaster. It's a depressing story of the indifference of those in power and their betrayal of the trust misplaced in them.

And then last night I heard on the BBC World News that the United States is now rated forty-second in life expectancy among the nations of the world. Forty-second! A statistic not shared, to my knowledge in any of the American media. And then in this morning's New York Times I read Bob Herbert's column on the dramatic growth in urban crime and the bloodshed left in the path of disgracefully uncontrolled guns. And I read the letters on the Editorial page about our country's failure to provide health care for forty-five million of its citizens, including millions of children, and the ruined lives that result from this criminal neglect.

And I remembered that man who stole the Democratic presidential candidates' debate last week--the one who wept before and audience of millions with the shame and indignity of being unable to provide, in his senior years, for health care for his wife; and who asked, choking with emotion, "What has happened to America?" And I hear the familiar chorus of voices that keep inanely bleating that old cliche, the "This is STILL the greatest country in the world," and I wonder...

Ellie reports that she has been sleeping poorly for the past few days. Today she decided that it was likely due to her distress in watching those movies before bedtime--two days' worth of Spike Lee and, last night, John Lennon. What kind of a country have we become, she wondered aloud? What's happened to America? I myself had woken grumpy, and "got out the wrong side of the bed." When I heard what Ellie had to say, I could understand why.

Who Are We?

Sorry about yesterday, friends. I woke in the morning and made a vow of twenty-four abstinence from cyberspace. It was Sunday. A day of rest, ordained by at least one Almighty--although why another Almighty chose Saturday is a mystery. But I managed pretty well--aside from one lapse, in the afternoon, when I felt impelled to check the email and respond to some of it. It's not easy, is it, for an addict?

Anyway, here we go, today, Monday, and the question is: Who are we? It’s the question Michael Moore comes to, after ninety minutes or so spent examining the American health care system—and finding it lacking. We saw his film, “Sicko” at the end of last week. I don’t like the title: it’s too flip for the serious work he has undertaken here—a soul-searching that turns out to be about much more than the health system. It probes deep into the national culture and the national character. Is this what we have become, he asks? A nation of people who surrender without a second thought to those who exploit the mental lethargy they have induced in us?

Is it any accident, I wonder, that we have accepted the odd notion of “The American Dream” as our ideal? Are we not all rather suffering through what Henry Miller called "The Air-Conditioned Nightmare"? Are we all so permanently lulled by the sleep of ovine contentment that we don’t notice how the values that once inspired this nation have been perverted? When do we all wake up? That’s the fundamental question. The “dream” has been mythologized into a complacent belief in a benign, love-thy-neighbor, faith-based, friendly giant America where the values of individual freedom and personal responsibility flourish, and where each of our citizens enjoys an equal opportunity to enjoy his or her own vision of happiness.

What nonsense. If we’re both clear-sighted and honest, we’ll recognize this myth for what it is: a commonly shared delusion of grandeur. So when do we all wake up to the truth that we are living in a country that has slipped—unconsciously, perhaps—into the belief that money is the ultimate value and that its pursuit excuses virtually any behavior, any excess, no matter how ruthless or inhuman? That we have chosen for ourselves a president and a congress of representatives who capitulate to those whose power is gained by wealth, and who allow their policies to be dictated by those who have bought their services? That what we are pleased to call a “democracy” is nothing more than an oligarchy in which we sleepers surrender our minds and our lives to corporate control?

When do we wake up, as Michael Moore would have us do, to the fact that the health care system in this, the wealthiest nation in the history of the planet, exists not primarily to provide for the health and welfare of our citizens but for the profit of our health insurers and providers? That millions of our fellow citizens either go without health protection because it’s unaffordable, or are commonly forced to leap through labyrinthine hoops to benefit from the insurance that they pay for? That HMO’s and insurance companies strive mightly to find reasons for the denial of benefits, which turns out to be a not-uncommon cause of death? That despite the high cost of health insurance, we rank miserably in the delivery of services when compared with other nations? That our relative infant mortality rate, for example, is a national disgrace?

We have been persuaded to swallow whole the negative myth of “socialized medicine” and to buy instead into a system designed to minimize service in favor of maximizing profits. If we were not asleep, or willfully ignorant, or deaf to reason, how could we have allowed this to happen? How can we allow it to continue? Tragically, how can we now do otherwise, with lawmakers bought and paid for by the profiteers?

And while the health care system is clearly now in crisis, it’s far from the only mess created by our collective surrender to corporate greed. What else is driving this war in which we are disastrously engaged? What else drives our international and national policies? Our significant contribution to the impending ecological disaster that threatens the planet derives from our reluctance to put bottom-line corporate profits at risk. We have elected, and continue despite all reason and intelligence to elect people who kow-tow to the gods of business and are willing to sacrifice our vulnerable and inestimably precious natural environment on the altar of progress and economic growth.

Is it not time we ripped the mask from the American Dream and revealed it for what it secretly promotes—the me-first greed that denies social responsibility for those less fortunate than ourselves? That panders abjectly to those who promise to cut our taxes and fails to mention the social programs that must also be cut in order to fulfill those empty promises? That willingly steps on the misfortune of our fellow beings in order to promote our own needs and interests?

So who are we, Michael Moore rightly asks? What have we allowed ourselves to become? What happened to that benign, generous, immigrant-embracing America of which the world once stood in envy and respect? How is it that violence in our homes and on our streets have become as "American" as the warfare we export?

These are questions those of us who seek to find serenity in our lives and to promote it amongst those who share this planet with us must seriously ask ourselves. We sit, we meditate, we send out metta into the world to the best of our ability. Well and good. But I, for one, am tormented by the sense of responsibility to do more--and the recognition of my relative impotence. I find it hard to be satisfied with doing only what is in my power, when my power seems so negligible in the face of such an imponderable and pressing need to change.

Live Earth

It being Live Earth day today, I'm content to hold my fire until tomorrow. I do have something I need to say. I just saw Michael Moore's "Sicko" last night, and I'm not going to let it pass without comment. Meantime, I leave it to the musicians. I hope you're listening, wherever you are. I've noticed there are more and more people throughout the world checking in to The Buddha Diaries, and that's a heartening thought. My ambition would be for us all to be talking to each other in the interest of our common good and our common survival, and I know that the Internet is facilitating that possibility. As for Live Earth, I can only hope that it leads to something much bigger than itself--not just a day when famous entertainers of good heart and good intention gather globally to draw attention to a "problem." What we need, of course, is nothing less than a radical change in the way we humans go about our lives. And that change, as I see it, is going to demand an awful lot of sacrifice. Are we up for that?

Executive Privilege

I don't often allow myself to be drawn into politics these days--not in The Buddha Diaries, at least. I tried to cut the Bush albatross from around my neck when I abandoned The Bush Diaries several months ago. I'd had enough of waking up every morning with this president in my bed. I guess I had grown tired of believing that he could listen to what I or anyone else might say, when all evidence pointed to the contrary. For whatever reason--and I've come to suspect some deep, intransigeant psychological disconnection from reality--the man seems completely isolated in the delusional confines of his own mind, to the lasting cost of the world over which he wields such untoward and harmful influence.

I would have hoped that the latest action of this imperious boy-man--the commutation of the prison sentence of his Vice President's former chief of staff--would prove the final straw. It's evidence of a complete contempt for the judicial system and a clear belief that the law applies to everyone except to himself and those he has elevated into his administrative circles. I understand that the action is within his legal authority as president, but it is also breathtakingly arrogant in its dismissal of the judgments of various courts and juries in favor of his own opinion that the sentence is "excessive."

Excessive? For a man who took it upon himself--presumably under orders from his boss, the Vice President of the United States; and from his boss's boss, the President--to reveal the identity of an American undercover intelligence agent as an act of petty revenge against her husband? For a man who lied under oath--presumably to spare his boss, and his boss's boss, the embarrassment of public exposure for the lies they used to lead this country into a wholly unjustified war, at the needless and inestimable cost of human life?

Was there, as I'm sure I'm not alone in suspecting, a bargain from the start? That this Libby would take the fall for his superiors with the understanding that he would be spared the consequences? The president's pretense that a quarter million dollar fine still constitutes "harsh punishment" is rendered absurd by the knowledge that a quarter million dollars is no more than a flea bite for the wealthy backers of this administration who will rush to Libby's aid; and the notion that his career has been somehow irreparably damaged is equally laughable. I imagine that future joblessness is the least of his fears, with friends like Cheney's Halliburton, to name but a single obvious example. No, Libby will not want for gainful employment in the future.

When, finally, is enough enough? When will this country awake to the damage that has been done to its reputation in the world, its military forces, its financial security, its judicial system, the health and welfare of its people--to the very Constitution of which it is so inordinately proud. When will we all recognize that the democracy we blithely preach to others has been subverted in our own country under our very eyes. Democracy, indeed! Under the apparently hypnotic sway of a petty autocrat and his team of hatchet men and sycophants? It seems to me that we sacrificed democracy some time ago on the altar of complacency.

So the question now is whether this tight ball of secrecy that has concealed every preremtory and perhaps even illegal act of this administration will finally begin to unravel. Will those senators and congress people we have elected to represent us finally find the guts to listen to their conscience rather than what they imagine to be political contingency?

I'm afraid I doubt it. We're too far gone down the road of apathy and willful ignorance. I hope I'm wrong. Because it seems to me that we must now ALL take some action to retrieve our national identity and our national honor. We are ALL required to play at least a small part in the recovery of democracy, if it is to be saved from the ideologues who have have seized it from us. This little piece, put out to the world, is a part of my part. I'm also planning to make my voice heard to the White House, as well as to my representatives in Congress.