Remember my old friend Bill and his notion of Sacred Lifeboats? I was writing about him just a short while ago on The Buddha Diaries, and his conviction that the big boat is sinking, that we need to prepare ourselves for that catastrophe by building our own lifeboats now. By lifeboats, as I understand Bill's thinking, he means small, mutually supportive communities of like-minded people who share values and a commitment to the survival of the human species and the human spirit on this endangered planet.
I was thinking of this old friend Bill as I sat at lunch yesterday with another old friend Bill, Bill Megalos, a documentarian whose films on people of different cultures throughout the world will be familiar to those who watch public television, even though his name might not be. Bill has been traveling the world recently with Prof. Muhammad Yunus whose pioneering work in the field of micro-credit for "leveraging small loans into major social change for impoverished families" earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006; my friend has been privileged to meet numerous world leaders in the company of Yunus, and has developed a new direction of his own. These days, much of his energy goes into teaching, and his goal is to create workshops and schools, especially in poor and underdeveloped countries where control of the media has been restricted to the powerful. In passing on his technical skills and film-making experience to the less privileged, he hopes to empower them to bring change to their communities in ways similar to those effected by Prof. Yunus.
The past ten days are nothing, surely, if not a reinforcement of my first Bill's thinking. He is further along the line than I am--I who believe that we have not yet reached the tipping point, that we can still work to achieve the changes that we need. But the meltdown of the financial markets and its revelation of deep cracks not only in the world-wide credit system but more broadly of the magical thinking that goes into the free market system with its unconscionable exploitation of the planet's resources and a belief in endless "growth." In this context, my second Bill's actions are a positive and constructive move towards a future in which human beings of all classes and cultures are equally empowered to live their lives according to their own values and traditions, and not some version of a terrifyingly global "American dream."
I am encouraged that there are people in America who are thinking in these ways--and of course not only in America. Bill's (the second) good faith is manifest not only in his large scale thinking about global challenges, but in his small-scale actions: for years he has been devoting precious time from his weekends to the needs of the homeless in his home town of Santa Monica. His gift to them is a special one: he cuts their hair. This intensely personal act of compassionate, physical closeness has earned him the lasting affection of people on the streets, who receive too few such gestures in their often desperate lives.
As we finished our lunch and prepared to leave the diner where we had met, we caught a glimpse of another old friend Bill, this one Bill Clinton, being interviewed presumably in connection with the Clinton Global Initiative, set up to support precisely the kind of community action that we're talking about. Seeing the familiar face on the television screen, I couldn't help but have that momentary cringe, recalling the contrast between the Clinton administration's engagement in the world and our current petulant isolationism. I also remembered those FOBs--the friends of Bill--and reflected that I seem to have a collection of OFBs. Old friend Bills.
Which reminded me to make a call this morning about another OFB, to see whether I might go over this afternoon to sit with him a while. This Bill, a physician, a distinguished teacher, and a writer of many articles and books on the important topic of health care provision, is now himself suffering from the early stages of a debilitating disease. It has been too long since I stopped by...
Showing posts with label community. Show all posts
Showing posts with label community. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Turn It Off
This morning, friends, even I, a self-confessed news junkie, reached for the off button on the remote to tune out the morning news. The reason? The report that "white women in droves" are turning to the McCain camp as a result of the Palin vice-presidential selection. Oh, and Ellie, my neighbor in bed, reads from the Tuesday morning New York Times that the Obama camp is now having difficulty raising funds, while cash pours into the Republican coffers. And Obama, in an interview, continues to maintain that "Americans aren't stupid." I hope he's right.
Me, I'm not so sure any more. But then I couldn't believe it when Nixon was elected, and then re-elected. I thought we were headed for the toilet when a worshipful country went for Ronald Reagan. The 2000 relection and, God help us, the 2004 RE-election of George W. Bush put the cap on the insanity. And all the while, despite the rhetoric, the mantras, the repeated lies, the economy runs irreversibly downhill, the debts mount up on every side, the financial well-being of the American middle class is increasingly at risk, our reputation in the world is shattered while we stand by and tolerate the killing of tens of thousands of innocent civilians and the imprisonment and torture of still more, and the very Constitution that defines us is shredded with impunity before our compliant eyes.
Are we willing, now, to throw away the opportunity to change our course? To elect a man who in so many ways represents a workable future for our country and the world we share? Are we so insecure, so shallow, so easily hoodwinked that we prefer instead a "maverick" who preaches the conservative gospel that has led us so very badly astray, these past three decades; and his fellow "maverick" who continues shamelessly to trot out her demonstrable but apparently self-serving lies before an adoring and uncritical public?
An old friend was saying just a few days ago that he believes, essentially, that this worldwide economic and social system we have constructed has us by the throat. He sees no hope for any significant change, no matter who gets elected, and puts his faith instead in the ability of human beings to regroup in small, workable, mutually supportive communities (he calls them "sacred lifeboats") to survive the inevitable collapse of what we call our civilization. I told him that I was not yet ready to go so far as to give up on the possibility to change course. It looks like this election could possibly support his view--in which case, I'll jump ship with him. But my friend is ready with the lifeboat he has been working with quiet prescience to construct. It may well be time for the rest of us to get to work...
Me, I'm not so sure any more. But then I couldn't believe it when Nixon was elected, and then re-elected. I thought we were headed for the toilet when a worshipful country went for Ronald Reagan. The 2000 relection and, God help us, the 2004 RE-election of George W. Bush put the cap on the insanity. And all the while, despite the rhetoric, the mantras, the repeated lies, the economy runs irreversibly downhill, the debts mount up on every side, the financial well-being of the American middle class is increasingly at risk, our reputation in the world is shattered while we stand by and tolerate the killing of tens of thousands of innocent civilians and the imprisonment and torture of still more, and the very Constitution that defines us is shredded with impunity before our compliant eyes.
Are we willing, now, to throw away the opportunity to change our course? To elect a man who in so many ways represents a workable future for our country and the world we share? Are we so insecure, so shallow, so easily hoodwinked that we prefer instead a "maverick" who preaches the conservative gospel that has led us so very badly astray, these past three decades; and his fellow "maverick" who continues shamelessly to trot out her demonstrable but apparently self-serving lies before an adoring and uncritical public?
An old friend was saying just a few days ago that he believes, essentially, that this worldwide economic and social system we have constructed has us by the throat. He sees no hope for any significant change, no matter who gets elected, and puts his faith instead in the ability of human beings to regroup in small, workable, mutually supportive communities (he calls them "sacred lifeboats") to survive the inevitable collapse of what we call our civilization. I told him that I was not yet ready to go so far as to give up on the possibility to change course. It looks like this election could possibly support his view--in which case, I'll jump ship with him. But my friend is ready with the lifeboat he has been working with quiet prescience to construct. It may well be time for the rest of us to get to work...
Friday, April 4, 2008
Children of Heaven
Is there something, I often wonder, that we have sacrificed along the way to the material comforts we enjoy in our society? There's a precious innocence about Children of Heaven, a 1997 Iranian movie about Ali, seen here,
and his sister, Khore,
living in the poorest quarter of what I take to be Teheran--or some other great Iranian city. Charged with taking his sister's shoes to be fixed, Ali loses them on the way home, and they agree to hide the loss from their impoverished parents, for fear of punishment. For each of them to get to school, they are reduced to sharing a single pair of sneakers--a trick that involves a lot of running through the narrow back streets to facilitate a timely exchange. At the end, a big interschool running competition holds out the offer of a new pair of sneakers as third prize, and Ali enters, with the desperate hope of taking third place... (I'm not revealing the outcome!)It's a thoroughly enchanting movie, not least because it's shot with such an eye for the beauty of detail--from the gutters running through the streets, to the faces of the children, to the street vendors' stores and the rugs at the local mosque. A brilliant sense of color pervades the every frame, along with a rhythm in the movement of the characters and the camera's eye. Beyond that, it's a story of utter simplicity, told at a leisurely pace and with an understanding that the tiniest of things (like William Carlos Williams's "red wheelbarrow," perhaps) can have the greatest of significance: the treasure of a gleaming, fake gold ballpoint pen, the opening of a bread oven, the bell-push at the gate of an impossibly wealthy mansion... Every image in this poetic movie seems to carry its own emotional weight, every relationship is sweet and subtle in its complexity, and the sense of community is palpable.
You have to wonder, don't you, how this kind of a movie emerges from this midpoint on our Bush's "axis of evil," our supposed archenemy in the Middle East, while our own "land of the free" produces its endless stream of violence and gore. I wrote a moment ago about the innocence of the film: it is innocent of guile, of irony, of malice. It's suffused with love--even though that love might be forbidding, at times stern. The children are allowed their childhood; even in these poor streets, they have no more to fear than a grown-up's anger. Protected by the community in which they live, they are safe to roam at will. Their deprivation of virtually all material goods--and sometimes of necessities, like shoes--does not deprive them of their humanity. Rather, it enriches them as human beings.
Okay, there's some idealization going on here. Life in the poor district of any city must surely be less benign than what we witness in "Children of Heaven." And yet... we hear, we read about those nine-year old American children in suburban Waycross, Georgia, plotting to harm, even possibly kill their teacher and it's hard not to conclude that there is some deep flaw in the way we raise our children in this largely rather affluent society, that we have lost some of the innocence that goes with the absence of material expectations. As for the protection of community... we have been taught to live in fear--of each other, of outsiders, of the dangers of the street. I watched this movie with both joy and sadness for own own current plight, let alone the plight of its young protagonists.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Better Than That
New, on The Buddha Diaries' blogroll.
We have been updating our blogroll these pas couple of weeks, and in the process have come across quite a number of wonderful, previously unexplored blogs. Here are a couple more recommendations:
Check out this sculpture by Juan Munoz at Tasting Rhubarb, and its inspiration in a painting by Gentile Bellini, a wonderful correspondence between a modern artist and the Renaissance. (Sadly, Munoz has now left us, much too soon...) Jean, at the London-based Rhubarb site, has a fine ear for language as well as a truly refined eye for works of art. She comes up with some highly individual photographs, too. A recent post indicates that she's off on vacation for a couple of weeks, but I for one am already looking forward to her return.
Also from England--and a small town near the village where I myself grew up--Mike Cross posts at Errata--a blog with the provocative subtitle "Who Turned Freedom Into Its Opposite?" (I can think of a candidate or two.) Mike brings a subtle intelligence to bear on Zen Buddhist concepts and linguistic constructs, inviting us into the space where mind and body co-exist and examining the thoughts of masters ancient and modern with astutely skeptical and self-critical humor.
Katia, at IAMKATIA, is a must-see, must-visit photojournalist, whose compassion for the homeless youth of Seattle, Washington reaches way beyond the sharp eye of her camera and into the streets themselves. I believe her absolutely when she describes the young people in her pictures as her teachers. Her photographs are mine. Teachers, that is.
Every time I wander off into the blogosphere, I'm struck by the intelligence and goodness and humanity that I find there. I know there's plenty of mean-spiritedness, too. I come across it in the political blogs. But even many of the political blogs are evidence of people getting together to talk out some of the urgent issues of our time. It suggests to me that there's still hope for "democracy" in this world, despite the rhetoric of politicians and their subterfuges. I like the sentiment that has cropped up like a flutter of hope in the current presidential campaign: We're better than that...
We have been updating our blogroll these pas couple of weeks, and in the process have come across quite a number of wonderful, previously unexplored blogs. Here are a couple more recommendations:
Check out this sculpture by Juan Munoz at Tasting Rhubarb, and its inspiration in a painting by Gentile Bellini, a wonderful correspondence between a modern artist and the Renaissance. (Sadly, Munoz has now left us, much too soon...) Jean, at the London-based Rhubarb site, has a fine ear for language as well as a truly refined eye for works of art. She comes up with some highly individual photographs, too. A recent post indicates that she's off on vacation for a couple of weeks, but I for one am already looking forward to her return.
Also from England--and a small town near the village where I myself grew up--Mike Cross posts at Errata--a blog with the provocative subtitle "Who Turned Freedom Into Its Opposite?" (I can think of a candidate or two.) Mike brings a subtle intelligence to bear on Zen Buddhist concepts and linguistic constructs, inviting us into the space where mind and body co-exist and examining the thoughts of masters ancient and modern with astutely skeptical and self-critical humor.
Katia, at IAMKATIA, is a must-see, must-visit photojournalist, whose compassion for the homeless youth of Seattle, Washington reaches way beyond the sharp eye of her camera and into the streets themselves. I believe her absolutely when she describes the young people in her pictures as her teachers. Her photographs are mine. Teachers, that is.
Every time I wander off into the blogosphere, I'm struck by the intelligence and goodness and humanity that I find there. I know there's plenty of mean-spiritedness, too. I come across it in the political blogs. But even many of the political blogs are evidence of people getting together to talk out some of the urgent issues of our time. It suggests to me that there's still hope for "democracy" in this world, despite the rhetoric of politicians and their subterfuges. I like the sentiment that has cropped up like a flutter of hope in the current presidential campaign: We're better than that...
Monday, February 18, 2008
"The Story of the Weeping Camel"
Enough of politics for the moment. Let's talk movies. Ellie and I Netflixed "The Story of the Weeping Camel" last week and enjoyed it immensely. What a treat! It's not about camels. Well, on partly. Mostly it's about this extraordinary Mongolian family of sheep- and goat-herders in the Gobi desert, who live in circumstances that we Americans, with our material well-being and our creature comforts, can scarcely imagine. Here's their little nest of yurts...
(is that the right term for these circular dwellings put together out of skins and wooden supports and camel-hair ropes?) in an environment as remote inhospitable as any I could dream of. And yet the interior is rich with carpets, tapestries, and all kinds of beautifully
made utilitarian artifacts and religious objects. Here, as you see, the family gather over tea, four generations of them so far as I could tell, from ancient, hoary great-grandparents to sweet-faced children. I imagine--what else can I do?--that they are not poor by the standards of their own society. They have plenty of livestock and can afford, so it seems at the end, a black and white television set with a satellite dish outside their home. Is this a suggestion, I wonder, at the end of the film, of the dangers inherent in the encroachment of technology on what must be one of the last enclaves of its kind on earth? Their distant neighbors in "town", a long camel's ride from their encampment, have motorcycles, cars, trucks, computer games...
Well, now, the story concerns the difficult birth of a white calf to one of their camels, who soon rejects his every advance to her, whether for food or affection. She turns him away, sulkily, and refuses the family's patient and loving efforts to bring mother and calf together. A heartless mom, indeed. In desperation, the family finally settle on a remedy and send their two young sons off on camel-back to the big city in search of a skilled musician! Just the thing to cure an an emotionally deficient camel! When he arrives on the scene, he readily grasps the situation and woos the mother camel with his two-stringed instrument,
until she finally weakens and allows her calf to suckle. Her tears at the eventual reunion, we suppose, are of repentance for her earlier intransigeance. A touching scene, for those of us who have soft hearts for other species and tend to humanize them. Here they are, reunited:
The wonderful part about this movie, though, is not the sentimental "story" at the heart of it, but rather the humanity of the people around its edges. They remind us that we are pleased to call our "civilization" has cost us dearly in terms of our relationship with the earth that nurtures us, with our fellow beings--both animal and human--and with that great, mysterious spirit that informs it all. Where we are scattered, individualistic, ego-centric, the people we meet in this film share a powerful bond of common interest: call it survival, call it love. They share everything. And the hardship of their lives serves to give them a strength and wisdom and clarity of purpose that is hard to find in our society, while the paucity of material goods provides little room for selfishness or greed. It's a film that has much to offer in understanding the best about our human species, along with a great deal of sadness that the last of this wisdom is so rapidly giving way to "progress."
(is that the right term for these circular dwellings put together out of skins and wooden supports and camel-hair ropes?) in an environment as remote inhospitable as any I could dream of. And yet the interior is rich with carpets, tapestries, and all kinds of beautifully
made utilitarian artifacts and religious objects. Here, as you see, the family gather over tea, four generations of them so far as I could tell, from ancient, hoary great-grandparents to sweet-faced children. I imagine--what else can I do?--that they are not poor by the standards of their own society. They have plenty of livestock and can afford, so it seems at the end, a black and white television set with a satellite dish outside their home. Is this a suggestion, I wonder, at the end of the film, of the dangers inherent in the encroachment of technology on what must be one of the last enclaves of its kind on earth? Their distant neighbors in "town", a long camel's ride from their encampment, have motorcycles, cars, trucks, computer games...
Well, now, the story concerns the difficult birth of a white calf to one of their camels, who soon rejects his every advance to her, whether for food or affection. She turns him away, sulkily, and refuses the family's patient and loving efforts to bring mother and calf together. A heartless mom, indeed. In desperation, the family finally settle on a remedy and send their two young sons off on camel-back to the big city in search of a skilled musician! Just the thing to cure an an emotionally deficient camel! When he arrives on the scene, he readily grasps the situation and woos the mother camel with his two-stringed instrument,
until she finally weakens and allows her calf to suckle. Her tears at the eventual reunion, we suppose, are of repentance for her earlier intransigeance. A touching scene, for those of us who have soft hearts for other species and tend to humanize them. Here they are, reunited:
The wonderful part about this movie, though, is not the sentimental "story" at the heart of it, but rather the humanity of the people around its edges. They remind us that we are pleased to call our "civilization" has cost us dearly in terms of our relationship with the earth that nurtures us, with our fellow beings--both animal and human--and with that great, mysterious spirit that informs it all. Where we are scattered, individualistic, ego-centric, the people we meet in this film share a powerful bond of common interest: call it survival, call it love. They share everything. And the hardship of their lives serves to give them a strength and wisdom and clarity of purpose that is hard to find in our society, while the paucity of material goods provides little room for selfishness or greed. It's a film that has much to offer in understanding the best about our human species, along with a great deal of sadness that the last of this wisdom is so rapidly giving way to "progress."
Monday, December 31, 2007
Four and a Half Billion Years...
... so science tells us, since the birth of our lovely planet.
Beautiful, no? Another two billion, give or take, before it dies--assuming that our troublesome species doesn't find some way to blow it to smithereens before then. Now, I'm no judge of the exactitude of the science, but I'll buy into the general premise. Those billions seem more credible to me than the few odd thousand allowed by the Bible literalist crowd, not to mention the scant few left before their purported Rapture. "Modern man" has been around for a mere 40,000 to 50,000 years, so far as I can tell--the blink of an eye in the history of the planet. It's only 2,500 since the Buddha walked the byways of India with his followers, and a handful more than 2,000 since Jesus did the same in the Holy Land. So much for the stories we tell ourselves to assure our significance in the grand scheme of things.
And our little planet in relation to the vast universe? A grain of sand is surely immense in comparison. Like everything else, it is born, it ages, and it dies.
All of which, on New Year's Eve, offers me a healthy serving of humble pie. I tuned in last night to the History Channel's How the Earth Was Made and was awed by this two-hour program about the story of the planet. What a perspective this science offers on those things that seem of the most lasting importance to us, and on the brevity of our little lives! How short the journey that we take, from our arrival on Earth to the time of our departure! With the reminder of those immeasurable reaches of time and space that surround us on all sides--and off into the past and future--how infinitesimal this right-now moment seems! And yet, how wonderful and vital, since it's all we have.
So, well, it's goodbye to 2007, just one more added to those four and a half billion! We do, I think, learn more about our species as we go. Our consciousness continues, amazingly, to expand. There's still time enough for us to fulfill the better aspects of the human potential, rather than the worse, and I certainly plan to continue my own efforts to be that better, wiser and more generous person in the coming year. I'm also comforted by knowing that there are many, many more like me, and that we are in conversation with each other in numerous ways.
Thanks for joining me. I'll see you all in 2008...! Happy New Year's Eve!
Beautiful, no? Another two billion, give or take, before it dies--assuming that our troublesome species doesn't find some way to blow it to smithereens before then. Now, I'm no judge of the exactitude of the science, but I'll buy into the general premise. Those billions seem more credible to me than the few odd thousand allowed by the Bible literalist crowd, not to mention the scant few left before their purported Rapture. "Modern man" has been around for a mere 40,000 to 50,000 years, so far as I can tell--the blink of an eye in the history of the planet. It's only 2,500 since the Buddha walked the byways of India with his followers, and a handful more than 2,000 since Jesus did the same in the Holy Land. So much for the stories we tell ourselves to assure our significance in the grand scheme of things.
And our little planet in relation to the vast universe? A grain of sand is surely immense in comparison. Like everything else, it is born, it ages, and it dies.
All of which, on New Year's Eve, offers me a healthy serving of humble pie. I tuned in last night to the History Channel's How the Earth Was Made and was awed by this two-hour program about the story of the planet. What a perspective this science offers on those things that seem of the most lasting importance to us, and on the brevity of our little lives! How short the journey that we take, from our arrival on Earth to the time of our departure! With the reminder of those immeasurable reaches of time and space that surround us on all sides--and off into the past and future--how infinitesimal this right-now moment seems! And yet, how wonderful and vital, since it's all we have.
So, well, it's goodbye to 2007, just one more added to those four and a half billion! We do, I think, learn more about our species as we go. Our consciousness continues, amazingly, to expand. There's still time enough for us to fulfill the better aspects of the human potential, rather than the worse, and I certainly plan to continue my own efforts to be that better, wiser and more generous person in the coming year. I'm also comforted by knowing that there are many, many more like me, and that we are in conversation with each other in numerous ways.
Thanks for joining me. I'll see you all in 2008...! Happy New Year's Eve!
Monday, December 3, 2007
The Buddha Diaries: Why Blog?
So Robin over at The Dharma Bums is worried that her blog "has no direction or purpose," and wonders if they should change the name because it rightly belongs to Kerouac. I say no. I say they have earned the name with their wonderful ramblings through life and nature, their astute observations with both word and camera, the love their blog puts out into the world. I say they are the rightful owners of the name they have chosen to adopt.
In an offline exchange of emails--I'm sure she won't mind my sharing this--Robin worried about the way we risk hiding our humanity behind our blogs, that the virtual "community" can become a way of NOT sharing our humanity, but rather sacrificing it to the seduction of a few electronic impulses. I do see what she means. For myself, though, I see The Buddha Diaries as another, rather special way of sending out metta into the world. It thrills me that I have readers who check in from every continent--I even have a world map above the desk in my office, where colored pins show the locations of visitors and readers. At this point, it's a veritable pincushion. A kind of vanity, I suppose, but it delights me. It gives me the sense of the potential outreach of this metta I send out, and I believe that The Dharma Bums send out metta of their own, their own goodwill and loving-kindness, along with all those other like-minded bloggers who are dedicated to the examination of their lives in the context of the world we're given to live in. To be even a small part of this global chorus is, for me, enough purpose and direction.
I do think of it, too, as a community. I understand that it is no substitute for personal, human contact. In my own daily metta practice, as an essential part of meditation, after family, I never fail to include three groups of people: the members of our Sunday sangha, our little meditation group; the artists that Ellie and I meet with in our monthly "Artists' Matters" sessions; and the men I have worked with over the years in The ManKind Project. I send out metta, too, to those fellow bloggers I have come to think of as a community. While I have met none of you "in the flesh," you keep showing me new parts of your heart and spirit every time you write, and I value what I read.
So, Robin, if you'll forgive this direct address, you and Roger ARE the Dharma Bums to me. I do hope that you'll not change names, but the name matters less than the spirit behind what you do. That's something I'd be really sorry to lose.
In an offline exchange of emails--I'm sure she won't mind my sharing this--Robin worried about the way we risk hiding our humanity behind our blogs, that the virtual "community" can become a way of NOT sharing our humanity, but rather sacrificing it to the seduction of a few electronic impulses. I do see what she means. For myself, though, I see The Buddha Diaries as another, rather special way of sending out metta into the world. It thrills me that I have readers who check in from every continent--I even have a world map above the desk in my office, where colored pins show the locations of visitors and readers. At this point, it's a veritable pincushion. A kind of vanity, I suppose, but it delights me. It gives me the sense of the potential outreach of this metta I send out, and I believe that The Dharma Bums send out metta of their own, their own goodwill and loving-kindness, along with all those other like-minded bloggers who are dedicated to the examination of their lives in the context of the world we're given to live in. To be even a small part of this global chorus is, for me, enough purpose and direction.
I do think of it, too, as a community. I understand that it is no substitute for personal, human contact. In my own daily metta practice, as an essential part of meditation, after family, I never fail to include three groups of people: the members of our Sunday sangha, our little meditation group; the artists that Ellie and I meet with in our monthly "Artists' Matters" sessions; and the men I have worked with over the years in The ManKind Project. I send out metta, too, to those fellow bloggers I have come to think of as a community. While I have met none of you "in the flesh," you keep showing me new parts of your heart and spirit every time you write, and I value what I read.
So, Robin, if you'll forgive this direct address, you and Roger ARE the Dharma Bums to me. I do hope that you'll not change names, but the name matters less than the spirit behind what you do. That's something I'd be really sorry to lose.
Monday, November 19, 2007
Mea Culpa
What a joy to be back in our little Laguna Beach sangha yesterday, after what seemed like weeks of absence. I guess it was probably no more than two weeks, but the mind does play tricks with time, doesn't it? The hour's sit, for example, seemed yesterday like an unusually long hour. But that's all it was. An hour... Such a pleasure, though, to be back with those good friends and fellow meditators. The post-sit discussion started off with a reading from a book I had received just the day before, Ken McLeod's "An Arrow to the Heart," a commentary on the (to me!) ever enigmatic Heart Sutra. More of this when I've had the opportunity to spend some time with the book...
In the meantime, I have been stewing some over Carly's response to my "Bumper Sticker" entry. He disapproved: "It's so out of the mainstream and unanswerable," he wrote, "it invites people to think Prius owners are a bit kooky. Sorry." In a subsequent, unposted communication, he was more detailed. I'm sure he won't mind my sharing some of it with you.
To all of which my first response is to get defensive. (He's right: I am a Leo!) I recognize that instinctive tightening of the gut, that flash of anger. I responded to his email to the effect that he was taking me too seriously, that I had intended it as something of a joke. In a word, I tried to shrug it off.
But then of course the next realization is that there is a deeper truth in what he says--otherwise, why should I be defensive? I do not aspire to sagehood, nor would I wish to be held up to that standard. But in some real sense it is quite un-Buddhist to declare, however subtly, the superiority of one's beliefs and practices.
I do not plan to remove that sticker from my rear end just yet. I will tote it around with me for a while, to see what else it has to teach me. Meantime, thanks to Carly for not buying into my comfortable bullshit. What would Buddha do? What he wouldn't do, I think, is put a bumper sticker on his car. Even if it was a Prius. Well, Carly's right again: especially if it was a Prius.
In the meantime, I have been stewing some over Carly's response to my "Bumper Sticker" entry. He disapproved: "It's so out of the mainstream and unanswerable," he wrote, "it invites people to think Prius owners are a bit kooky. Sorry." In a subsequent, unposted communication, he was more detailed. I'm sure he won't mind my sharing some of it with you.
"As I said," he wrote, in part, "it is very far out of the mainstream of your intended audience, therefore unanswerable and has an obscure tone, which does not invite introspection, but rather rejection.
"It was not your intention, but says, 'I know something you don't.'
"Because a Prius is already a statement itself, it says, "I know, or care more than you do, driving a conventional car.
"Because it is a religious statement, it says, 'My god is better than what you believe.' Or, 'My god is better than your god.'
"Because it is an obscure religion, it bolsters any opinion of how snobby religious people are.
"It is a very Leo thing to do because Leos are well-known to be egocentric. And Buddha is a brand which is worn with pride. As is Prius. The pride of the Lion.
"And because it's divisive, it doesn't conform with Buddhist ideals. Nor is it worthy of a sage."
To all of which my first response is to get defensive. (He's right: I am a Leo!) I recognize that instinctive tightening of the gut, that flash of anger. I responded to his email to the effect that he was taking me too seriously, that I had intended it as something of a joke. In a word, I tried to shrug it off.
But then of course the next realization is that there is a deeper truth in what he says--otherwise, why should I be defensive? I do not aspire to sagehood, nor would I wish to be held up to that standard. But in some real sense it is quite un-Buddhist to declare, however subtly, the superiority of one's beliefs and practices.
I do not plan to remove that sticker from my rear end just yet. I will tote it around with me for a while, to see what else it has to teach me. Meantime, thanks to Carly for not buying into my comfortable bullshit. What would Buddha do? What he wouldn't do, I think, is put a bumper sticker on his car. Even if it was a Prius. Well, Carly's right again: especially if it was a Prius.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
A Group Dynamic (Part II)
I have been thinking a great deal about including more of my interest in writing about art in these pages, and had thought to do so today after seeing Eden's Edge, the current exhibition at the Hammer Museum. It's a lively gathering of fifteen artists currently working in Los Angeles, and a fine tribute to the creative verve of city at the present time. Other than recommending it, though, I decided not to attempt to write about the various contributors here for the simple reason that a group show of this size sprawls over too much territory to cover in a manageable "review." To focus on a handful of the included artists while ignoring others seems like something of a slight, as would the strategy of giving short shrift to each of the fifteen. I decided instead to include a few images, below.
Sharon Ellis, New Moon and Palm Trees, 2004
Matt Greene, We Beheld the Holograph of Our Second Selves (Why Did You Eat Us), 2004
Liz Craft, Death Rider (Virgo), 2002
Monica Majoli, Hanging Rubberman #4, 2002
Lari Pittman, Untitled, 2000
Ken Price, Zigzag, 1999
Thanks to the Hammer Museum for the above images.
It's interesting, though--particularly in light of yesterday's entry--to think about the nature of a "group show." What was clear from "Eden's Edge" is that there's an undeniable dynamic in such a gathering, whereby each of the participants is enriched and clarified by the proximity of the others. Not that any one of these artists needs it: each one is fully capable to standing on his or her own. But for the visitor to the exhibit, all kinds of fascinating synapses get snapped in an exhibition of this quality as you move from room to room. There's a rich and infinitely complex conversation to be engaged at various levels of perception and understanding--visual, intellectual, emotional--that makes the experience a deeply rewarding one.
I imagine that it would be entirely possible for a show such as this to end up as a noisy and unpleasant argument: that doesn't happen here. For sure, there is a contrasting mix of voices and energies, but they have enough in common to allow for mutual communication. Do we end up with the sense of an "LA aesthetic"? If we do, it has more to do with diversity than with any identifiable trope or trend. But that, for me, is the fun of it--not to define, but to explore; not to come up with answers, but more questions.
So the group is turning out to be something of a theme for the current week in The Buddha Diaries. Last night, after the group show at the Hammer, I drove down south for a gathering of men I have worked with, mostly, for a number of years, in group work, and spent a rewarding evening exploring with great intensity and in great depth some common issues about individual responsibility and freedom, love and the loss of love, and the power of old memories and patterns of behavior. I consider myself more than fortunate to have access, in my life, to the collective power that such a group of extraordinary and committed men represents. Each one of us singly, I think, is vulnerable to all the fears and pain and grief we experience in alone-ness. Together, we have a resource of enormous strength.
I'd be interested to hear from readers their experience with community of this kind. I was delighted to read a related Buddha story in yesterday's comment from themindtaker. It bears repeating. "One day Ananda, who had been thinking deeply about things for a while, turned to the Buddha and exclaimed: 'Lord, I've been thinking--spiritual friendship is at least half of the spiritual life!' The Buddha replied: 'Say not so, Ananda, say not so. Spiritual friendship is the whole of the spiritual life!'"--Verse 2 of the Samyutta Nikaya. Thanks for that!
Sharon Ellis, New Moon and Palm Trees, 2004
Matt Greene, We Beheld the Holograph of Our Second Selves (Why Did You Eat Us), 2004
Liz Craft, Death Rider (Virgo), 2002
Monica Majoli, Hanging Rubberman #4, 2002
Lari Pittman, Untitled, 2000
Ken Price, Zigzag, 1999Thanks to the Hammer Museum for the above images.
It's interesting, though--particularly in light of yesterday's entry--to think about the nature of a "group show." What was clear from "Eden's Edge" is that there's an undeniable dynamic in such a gathering, whereby each of the participants is enriched and clarified by the proximity of the others. Not that any one of these artists needs it: each one is fully capable to standing on his or her own. But for the visitor to the exhibit, all kinds of fascinating synapses get snapped in an exhibition of this quality as you move from room to room. There's a rich and infinitely complex conversation to be engaged at various levels of perception and understanding--visual, intellectual, emotional--that makes the experience a deeply rewarding one.
I imagine that it would be entirely possible for a show such as this to end up as a noisy and unpleasant argument: that doesn't happen here. For sure, there is a contrasting mix of voices and energies, but they have enough in common to allow for mutual communication. Do we end up with the sense of an "LA aesthetic"? If we do, it has more to do with diversity than with any identifiable trope or trend. But that, for me, is the fun of it--not to define, but to explore; not to come up with answers, but more questions.
So the group is turning out to be something of a theme for the current week in The Buddha Diaries. Last night, after the group show at the Hammer, I drove down south for a gathering of men I have worked with, mostly, for a number of years, in group work, and spent a rewarding evening exploring with great intensity and in great depth some common issues about individual responsibility and freedom, love and the loss of love, and the power of old memories and patterns of behavior. I consider myself more than fortunate to have access, in my life, to the collective power that such a group of extraordinary and committed men represents. Each one of us singly, I think, is vulnerable to all the fears and pain and grief we experience in alone-ness. Together, we have a resource of enormous strength.
I'd be interested to hear from readers their experience with community of this kind. I was delighted to read a related Buddha story in yesterday's comment from themindtaker. It bears repeating. "One day Ananda, who had been thinking deeply about things for a while, turned to the Buddha and exclaimed: 'Lord, I've been thinking--spiritual friendship is at least half of the spiritual life!' The Buddha replied: 'Say not so, Ananda, say not so. Spiritual friendship is the whole of the spiritual life!'"--Verse 2 of the Samyutta Nikaya. Thanks for that!
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
A Group Dynamic
Over the years I've grown more and more and more to appreciate the power of a group of human beings sitting together in a circle to exchange experiences, thoughts, and feelings. The men's work in which I have been involved since the early 1990s gave me the first glimpse of this power; in a very different way, our small sangha, or meditation sitting group in Laguna Beach, has served to reinforce my sense of the value of the group dynamic. The "therapy group" is but a new manifestation of a very ancient ritual, practiced as a matter of course--a matter of necessity--by our tribal forebears. In a circle of this kind, it's as though each member shares in the energy and the wisdom generated by the whole, a way of actually experiencing oneness in the day-to-day separation that distinguishes our lives.
These thoughts after a wonderful session last night, in which Ellie and I brought together both of our monthly artists' groups for a summer celebration. It was the first time several of them had met. All the more amazing, then, that a sense of intimacy was so quickly established. We ate, we drank wine, we sat and talked, we looked at artworks that each individual had brought, and talked about them. It is soon apparent, in a group of this kind, if any participant is less than fully authentic, fully engaged in their own work and the work of others. In art schools, such sessions are usually called "critiques." Ours, I think, are no less rigorous in their own way, but kinder, more supportive, because they come from a place of a shared intimacy and a fuller understanding of each other's individual humanity.
It was a good evening, then, and one that left us all with that feeling of inner satisfaction for having experienced that contact. That's how I saw it. How I felt it. From what I heard from participants as they lingered on and finally made their way home, I trust that others did, too.
(A thrilling finish to yesterday's Tour, by the way. I had recorded the broadcast, and watched the last few minutes of the race before going to bed. A breakaway of four riders had held off the peloton for two hundred miles, and it seemed until the last minute within their reach to cross the finish line before being overwhelmed. After all their work, they certainly deserved it. Alas, within just the last few hundred yards, the horde bore down on them, and the Swiss yellow jersey wearer, Fabian Cancellara--the overall winner of the race--made a canny last-minute move to streak out in front and steal the stage victory to secure his lead.)
These thoughts after a wonderful session last night, in which Ellie and I brought together both of our monthly artists' groups for a summer celebration. It was the first time several of them had met. All the more amazing, then, that a sense of intimacy was so quickly established. We ate, we drank wine, we sat and talked, we looked at artworks that each individual had brought, and talked about them. It is soon apparent, in a group of this kind, if any participant is less than fully authentic, fully engaged in their own work and the work of others. In art schools, such sessions are usually called "critiques." Ours, I think, are no less rigorous in their own way, but kinder, more supportive, because they come from a place of a shared intimacy and a fuller understanding of each other's individual humanity.
It was a good evening, then, and one that left us all with that feeling of inner satisfaction for having experienced that contact. That's how I saw it. How I felt it. From what I heard from participants as they lingered on and finally made their way home, I trust that others did, too.
(A thrilling finish to yesterday's Tour, by the way. I had recorded the broadcast, and watched the last few minutes of the race before going to bed. A breakaway of four riders had held off the peloton for two hundred miles, and it seemed until the last minute within their reach to cross the finish line before being overwhelmed. After all their work, they certainly deserved it. Alas, within just the last few hundred yards, the horde bore down on them, and the Swiss yellow jersey wearer, Fabian Cancellara--the overall winner of the race--made a canny last-minute move to streak out in front and steal the stage victory to secure his lead.)
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Our House; Oh, and the iPhone...
Ellie hosted a meeting of professional women in the arts in our house last night, and it was a pleasure to see how well our new place worked to entertain a large-ish group of people. They arrived before sunset and enjoyed the daytime view of Hollywood from our balcony over wine and hors d'ouevres, then strolled in the garden before returning to the balcony for dinner around the big teak table there, staying on through the dusk into darkness, and well into the night.
I, meanwhile, was joined by the sole male guest--a friend and the husband of a member of Ellie's professional association. We sat and chatted together over dinner and throughout the evening, ending up with a long exposition from him about one of the great passions of his life: the Yiddish language--its history and practice, and its persistence despite the devastation of the Holocaust and the consequent diaspora of the twentieth century. A fascinating story. As one who studied languages and philology many years ago at university, I was able at least to contribute some interesting questions...
We talked, too, about the city and the undergraduate program I directed--also many years ago!--in which we took students for a full semester and immersed them in all aspects of art in the city of Los Angeles. Our first day, which started at four in the morning at the fruit and vegetable markets and lasted the full length of the day, was called "The City as Art" and involved a fast-paced, multi-vehicle tour of corners of Los Angeles that most students had never visited or known about--from the sublime to the ridiculous. We ended up at Forest Lawn cemetery, admiring the prim, fig-leafed copy of Michelangelo's David and the ghastly stained glass version of Leonardo's "Last Supper," viewed to the sound of pious organ muzak.
Interesting, though. My friend pointed out that many young people literally don't know where they are these days, In the geographical sense. The newest generation have grown up with navigation systems in their cars, so they drive without the faintest idea as to where they're going except as an electronic concept projected on those little screens. Without the digital assist, they would be lost. By the same token, we wondered, how many young people grow up with having to understand the basic principles of math? He told me that young employees in his office are astounded by his ability to work out mathematical problems in his head.
To what extent, I wonder, are we in the process of stultifying the human brain with our reliance on those marvelous digital gadgets? Are we at risk of sacrificing our own circuitry by outsourcing it to our machines?
It's today, is it not--or tomorrow--that the much-touted iPhone makes its public appearance. Predictably, there will be mobs of people storming the Apple stores to lay their hands on one. Another piece of miniaturized gadgetry that does everything but fly us to New York... How long will it be before everyone on Earth requires the help of such a device to ascertain where he is? Then we'll all be permanently lost.
I, meanwhile, was joined by the sole male guest--a friend and the husband of a member of Ellie's professional association. We sat and chatted together over dinner and throughout the evening, ending up with a long exposition from him about one of the great passions of his life: the Yiddish language--its history and practice, and its persistence despite the devastation of the Holocaust and the consequent diaspora of the twentieth century. A fascinating story. As one who studied languages and philology many years ago at university, I was able at least to contribute some interesting questions...
We talked, too, about the city and the undergraduate program I directed--also many years ago!--in which we took students for a full semester and immersed them in all aspects of art in the city of Los Angeles. Our first day, which started at four in the morning at the fruit and vegetable markets and lasted the full length of the day, was called "The City as Art" and involved a fast-paced, multi-vehicle tour of corners of Los Angeles that most students had never visited or known about--from the sublime to the ridiculous. We ended up at Forest Lawn cemetery, admiring the prim, fig-leafed copy of Michelangelo's David and the ghastly stained glass version of Leonardo's "Last Supper," viewed to the sound of pious organ muzak.
Interesting, though. My friend pointed out that many young people literally don't know where they are these days, In the geographical sense. The newest generation have grown up with navigation systems in their cars, so they drive without the faintest idea as to where they're going except as an electronic concept projected on those little screens. Without the digital assist, they would be lost. By the same token, we wondered, how many young people grow up with having to understand the basic principles of math? He told me that young employees in his office are astounded by his ability to work out mathematical problems in his head.
To what extent, I wonder, are we in the process of stultifying the human brain with our reliance on those marvelous digital gadgets? Are we at risk of sacrificing our own circuitry by outsourcing it to our machines?
It's today, is it not--or tomorrow--that the much-touted iPhone makes its public appearance. Predictably, there will be mobs of people storming the Apple stores to lay their hands on one. Another piece of miniaturized gadgetry that does everything but fly us to New York... How long will it be before everyone on Earth requires the help of such a device to ascertain where he is? Then we'll all be permanently lost.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Dinner With Friends
Readers will remember our friend Dr. Steve from several entries in The Buddha Diaries as a great healer. Now we know that he's also a great cook! I don't think he'll mind if I mention that we went over there to dinner last night and had a great evening of food, wine, and conversation with Steve and his partner, Tim--that passionate collector of sometimes difficult, always engaged political art whom I interviewed a while ago for my "Art of Outrage" series on Artscene Visual Radio. They live in an elegant home, architecturally designed by Tim himself in uncompromisingly hard edge style. It's always a pleasure to be in a home where art is taken seriously, and where it makes its presence known. And always a pleasure to engage in real conversation--impossible, generally, at large dinner parties or in noisy restaurants. Steve's home-made pasta was delicious--so much lighter, somehow, than the store-bought variety. Enhanced by an excellently-crafted sauce and followed by an incredible chocolate cake, it made for a first rate dining experience. In our busy lives, it's easy to forget the importance of this kind of human intimacy and exchange.
Monday, June 18, 2007
A Visitation: Sunday Afternoon
Here I am, sitting quietly on my balcony on page 55 or so of “God Is Not Great” when this hummingbird appears a couple of feet from me, sinking its tiny, needle-long beak into the business end of a plant that happens to be set on the table next to me. I turn my head, very slowly, to avoid disturbing this marvelous creature, and watch… It continues on about its business, refilling the nectar tank, and then, as if aware of my observation, swivels around to take a look at me. I hold my breath. Curious, it leaves the plant and comes to inspect me in a closer view. It’s now hovering with its familiar hum no more than six inches from my face, and staring at me intently. I return the gaze. After a moment, my visitor gets bored and heads back to the more satisfying task of feeding. But then it repeats the maneuver, closing in on me again, almost strafing my cheek; and then again.
I’m astounded by the fearlessness of this tiny creature, and humbled in a certain way by its interest in inspecting me. I suspect that the bird’s eyes are better by far than mine, and wonder what this extreme close-up of my face can look like, with its outcrop of bristly hairs, its many wrinkles, and a thousand barely visible pores. I wonder what the bird makes of this carefully motionless, gigantic fellow being, so intent on staring back at it—and so awed by its minute and miraculous presence and by its ability to literally stand still in mid-air, with only the whirring of those infinitely fragile wings to support it. Anyway, I’m deeply touched by the encounter, and somehow honored to have been chosen in this way. Thanks, hummer, for the reminder of the fragility that we share.
Another odd bit of business, quite different, though, and raising certain interesting ethical issues. Here goes: in our small cottage down here, near the beach, we have a neighbor with a ficus tree next door. Our large picture window offers us a daily view of the huge tree—and a nightly one, since we light it from below. It’s a living sculpture right outside our sitting room, and we treasure its presence there.
But it brings with it one enormous problem: its roots. They reach down under the foundation of our house—where they have as yet done no damage, at least none that we can see. But they have mercilessly penetrated the cast-iron pipes of our aging drainage system. Three or four years ago, we were forced to spend a huge sum--$12,000, for the curious—to replace the section of drain that leads from the corner of the house to the main drain at the center of the street. Recently, with raw sewage backing up into our bath and shower whenever the toilet flushed, we learned from the plumber that a whole new section of pipe, running down the side of the house to where it was repaired before, would need to be replaced—at the cost of another $10,000!
We gulped, we got an alternative bid, much lower, little more than half the cost, for a process that would line the broken pipe rather than replace it—and come accompanied by a guarantee of fifty years, rather longer than we expect to be around to enjoy the fruits of our expense. Thinking, well, it’s HIS tree, after all, we approached our neighbor with a super friendly and carefully unthreatening request, this time, to share the cost. He dillied and dallied, the drains backed up, we were forced to move—and accepted the lower bid. The work was done, the bill was paid. And the neighbor sent a letter back denying responsibility for the roots of his tree and claiming, anyway, that it could have been done at far less expense.
The instinct, of course, is to fight back. Get angry. Send another letter explaining in still greater detail the predicament and presenting still more evidence of the culpability of the ficus tree. Does our neighbor not bear some responsibility for the destruction to our property? In fact, from the legal point of view, he does: I had earlier sought legal advice, and we would have ample grounds for action. Obviously, though, it’s just not worth it: the satisfaction of getting even--perhaps even recovering some part of our cost--pales beside the prospect of protracted neighborly warfare. The line from the “Sublime Attitudes” rings true to me: May I be free from animosity. In the Buddhist view, I believe, any action on my part would end up harming me more than it would harm him.
Or am I just a patsy? It's small matters like these that test the convictions. What do you think? If you were me, would you pursue things with your neighbor? If you were him, would your instinct have been to help me out--assuming you could reasonably afford it? Or would you have told me to get lost? I like to think I'd have been on the helpful side... His tree, my property. It's a conundrum.
I’m astounded by the fearlessness of this tiny creature, and humbled in a certain way by its interest in inspecting me. I suspect that the bird’s eyes are better by far than mine, and wonder what this extreme close-up of my face can look like, with its outcrop of bristly hairs, its many wrinkles, and a thousand barely visible pores. I wonder what the bird makes of this carefully motionless, gigantic fellow being, so intent on staring back at it—and so awed by its minute and miraculous presence and by its ability to literally stand still in mid-air, with only the whirring of those infinitely fragile wings to support it. Anyway, I’m deeply touched by the encounter, and somehow honored to have been chosen in this way. Thanks, hummer, for the reminder of the fragility that we share.
Another odd bit of business, quite different, though, and raising certain interesting ethical issues. Here goes: in our small cottage down here, near the beach, we have a neighbor with a ficus tree next door. Our large picture window offers us a daily view of the huge tree—and a nightly one, since we light it from below. It’s a living sculpture right outside our sitting room, and we treasure its presence there.
But it brings with it one enormous problem: its roots. They reach down under the foundation of our house—where they have as yet done no damage, at least none that we can see. But they have mercilessly penetrated the cast-iron pipes of our aging drainage system. Three or four years ago, we were forced to spend a huge sum--$12,000, for the curious—to replace the section of drain that leads from the corner of the house to the main drain at the center of the street. Recently, with raw sewage backing up into our bath and shower whenever the toilet flushed, we learned from the plumber that a whole new section of pipe, running down the side of the house to where it was repaired before, would need to be replaced—at the cost of another $10,000!
We gulped, we got an alternative bid, much lower, little more than half the cost, for a process that would line the broken pipe rather than replace it—and come accompanied by a guarantee of fifty years, rather longer than we expect to be around to enjoy the fruits of our expense. Thinking, well, it’s HIS tree, after all, we approached our neighbor with a super friendly and carefully unthreatening request, this time, to share the cost. He dillied and dallied, the drains backed up, we were forced to move—and accepted the lower bid. The work was done, the bill was paid. And the neighbor sent a letter back denying responsibility for the roots of his tree and claiming, anyway, that it could have been done at far less expense.
The instinct, of course, is to fight back. Get angry. Send another letter explaining in still greater detail the predicament and presenting still more evidence of the culpability of the ficus tree. Does our neighbor not bear some responsibility for the destruction to our property? In fact, from the legal point of view, he does: I had earlier sought legal advice, and we would have ample grounds for action. Obviously, though, it’s just not worth it: the satisfaction of getting even--perhaps even recovering some part of our cost--pales beside the prospect of protracted neighborly warfare. The line from the “Sublime Attitudes” rings true to me: May I be free from animosity. In the Buddhist view, I believe, any action on my part would end up harming me more than it would harm him.
Or am I just a patsy? It's small matters like these that test the convictions. What do you think? If you were me, would you pursue things with your neighbor? If you were him, would your instinct have been to help me out--assuming you could reasonably afford it? Or would you have told me to get lost? I like to think I'd have been on the helpful side... His tree, my property. It's a conundrum.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Yoga in Lebanon
What a delight to see, amidst the welter of dreadful and not-quite-so-dreadful events reported on the BBC World News last night, the image of young Lebanese children practicing yoga under the tutelage of Indian United Nations peacekeepers in that unhappy country. The children were filmed in a restful pose, humming away contentedly, while their teacher explained, in an interview, how much they have benefited from the practice. It has gone a long way, she told us, toward healing the emotional wounds of last summer's war, and the children enjoy it enormously.
Aside from the sheer pleasure of seeing these children so engaged in the practice, I found it wonderfully satisfying to see how cultural borders can be crossed and cultural heritages merged when people of goodwill come together. Here was a class of Muslim children in a deeply disturbed country in the Middle East who were able to immerse themselves in the spiritual practice of a wholly different culture, and to benefit immensely from the experience. It says something to me about the shared understanding of what it means to be living in this human body, and about the value of paying attention to it in the particularly mindful way that yoga demands of us. It also says something about the capacity that we all have, even children, to find an inner peace amidst the turmoil the surrounds us.
A very lovely vision, and a tiny seed of hope for the future of humankind.
Aside from the sheer pleasure of seeing these children so engaged in the practice, I found it wonderfully satisfying to see how cultural borders can be crossed and cultural heritages merged when people of goodwill come together. Here was a class of Muslim children in a deeply disturbed country in the Middle East who were able to immerse themselves in the spiritual practice of a wholly different culture, and to benefit immensely from the experience. It says something to me about the shared understanding of what it means to be living in this human body, and about the value of paying attention to it in the particularly mindful way that yoga demands of us. It also says something about the capacity that we all have, even children, to find an inner peace amidst the turmoil the surrounds us.
A very lovely vision, and a tiny seed of hope for the future of humankind.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Rain... and Rebirth
Rain. It started last night, first a drizzle, then a good, heavy shower that lasted unfortunately only a few minutes. I heard it on and off during the night, but nothing really heavy, and this morning I note that the area under the pepper tree in our back patio is not even wet. It can't have rained much--not nearly as much as we need. In this morning's paper, I note that we're barely one fifth of our season normal to date--a fact that bodes a summer of serious drought and a dangerous fire season later in the year.
A wonderful gathering of our sangha yesterday. As I think I have mentioned before, we meet every Sunday morning for an hour's silent sit and an hour of discussion. I got the ball rolling with the question I found myself asking after one of my daily sits just the other day: if we believe in rebirth as one of the basic Buddhist tenets--and I'm sure that I mentioned my own problems with this belief--who gets to decide in what form we return? As a rat? A bat? A monk? An arhat? Who gets to weigh up the merits and demerits we have accumulated during this lifetime as regular human beings, and make that fatal judgment call?
Well, my neighbor at the sit, a fellow Brit who is only briefly here on his annual vacation visit to his brother, responded with an admirably concise and lucid explanation that each one of us makes that decision for him- or herself; that we keep making that decision in our actions throughout our lives, since our actions reflect our intentions. This, after all, is what karma is all about. It is not, as is often too glibly assumed, just another word for fate. It's a belief that our actions have consequences, and that the good ones bring about good results, while the bad ones bring harm to ourselves or to others. By the time we reach the moment of our death we have, through the sum of those actions and the trope of our lives, already decided the nature of our rebirth. And even at the moment of death, as Than Geoff teaches, we may still have decisions to make, should we by that time have developed the mindfulness and the clarity of intention to be able to make them.
Another of our members, a regular, followed up on our guest with an explanation in which contemporary scientific knowledge in effect confirms much of what Buddhism teaches on this subject: that what we think of as the self is no more than an illusion we create for ourselves, and that the only reality in the universe is energy and its constant process of change. The "selves" to which we attach such importance in our lives are as much engaged in this process as anything else, and the moment of death is no different from what has been happening to us from the moment of our birth. "Rebirth," then, is no more than an account of the principle of the universe...
... which led us to "The Secret", about which I knew nothing until I read Maureen Dowd's playfully mocking column in last Saturday's New York Times, spoofing Oprah Winfrey's recent whole-hearted embrace of "The Secret" on her show with the suggestion (Dowd's) that all we need to do to change the disastrous current course of this country is to send out good vibrations to Dick Cheney. I must confess I have difficulty with anything that advertises itself as "the Secret to everything - the secret to unlimited joy, health, money, relationships, love, youth: everything you have ever wanted." It sounds as easy to take as a diet pill and is probably, in my jaundiced judgment, as effective. Still, others in our group were more knowledgeable than I, had seen the movie which is causing such a stir, and described it as a non-intellectual's version of "What the Bleep Do We Know."
Well, okay. Ellie is determined that I should keep an open mind, but my skepticism is rampant... My British neighbor and I were agreeing, after the discussion concluded, that such enlightenment as we can achieve in our lifetime is more likely to result from the daily application of hard work than from any magical formula. Maybe it's in those pragmatic British genes...
A wonderful gathering of our sangha yesterday. As I think I have mentioned before, we meet every Sunday morning for an hour's silent sit and an hour of discussion. I got the ball rolling with the question I found myself asking after one of my daily sits just the other day: if we believe in rebirth as one of the basic Buddhist tenets--and I'm sure that I mentioned my own problems with this belief--who gets to decide in what form we return? As a rat? A bat? A monk? An arhat? Who gets to weigh up the merits and demerits we have accumulated during this lifetime as regular human beings, and make that fatal judgment call?
Well, my neighbor at the sit, a fellow Brit who is only briefly here on his annual vacation visit to his brother, responded with an admirably concise and lucid explanation that each one of us makes that decision for him- or herself; that we keep making that decision in our actions throughout our lives, since our actions reflect our intentions. This, after all, is what karma is all about. It is not, as is often too glibly assumed, just another word for fate. It's a belief that our actions have consequences, and that the good ones bring about good results, while the bad ones bring harm to ourselves or to others. By the time we reach the moment of our death we have, through the sum of those actions and the trope of our lives, already decided the nature of our rebirth. And even at the moment of death, as Than Geoff teaches, we may still have decisions to make, should we by that time have developed the mindfulness and the clarity of intention to be able to make them.
Another of our members, a regular, followed up on our guest with an explanation in which contemporary scientific knowledge in effect confirms much of what Buddhism teaches on this subject: that what we think of as the self is no more than an illusion we create for ourselves, and that the only reality in the universe is energy and its constant process of change. The "selves" to which we attach such importance in our lives are as much engaged in this process as anything else, and the moment of death is no different from what has been happening to us from the moment of our birth. "Rebirth," then, is no more than an account of the principle of the universe...
... which led us to "The Secret", about which I knew nothing until I read Maureen Dowd's playfully mocking column in last Saturday's New York Times, spoofing Oprah Winfrey's recent whole-hearted embrace of "The Secret" on her show with the suggestion (Dowd's) that all we need to do to change the disastrous current course of this country is to send out good vibrations to Dick Cheney. I must confess I have difficulty with anything that advertises itself as "the Secret to everything - the secret to unlimited joy, health, money, relationships, love, youth: everything you have ever wanted." It sounds as easy to take as a diet pill and is probably, in my jaundiced judgment, as effective. Still, others in our group were more knowledgeable than I, had seen the movie which is causing such a stir, and described it as a non-intellectual's version of "What the Bleep Do We Know."
Well, okay. Ellie is determined that I should keep an open mind, but my skepticism is rampant... My British neighbor and I were agreeing, after the discussion concluded, that such enlightenment as we can achieve in our lifetime is more likely to result from the daily application of hard work than from any magical formula. Maybe it's in those pragmatic British genes...
Monday, February 12, 2007
Racism: Mine
A naughty, stubbornly inattentive puppy-mind in meditation this morning. How strange it is, after a good session yesterday evening at our sangha with Than Geoff, to find my mind so... well, mindless, this morning. It was almost that it had decided, independently, that it had worked hard enough yesterday and needed a good rest this morning. Ah, well..
At sangha, after our hour's sit under the guidance of Than Geoff, the topic for discussion turned to racism. One of our group had received an email from a man he had thought to be a friend and was stunned to find it filled with hate-filled rhetoric--so stunned that he could think of nothing to do except to write back and say he could no longer pursue a friendship that had apparently lasted for years. Than Geoff's response was typically wise: he would have written back to say he was truly taken aback by this outburst and to ask simply where it could have come from? Non-judgmental honesty, followed by a question that would open up a field for investigation, rather than judgment and closure.
For myself, I would have wanted to explore my own response--my indignation, anger, and judgment. My practice, when I have a strong emotional response, is to see what, if anything, it has to say about myself. In this case, I would have wanted to explore that secret, unacknowledged part of me that harbors racist thoughts and racist habits. I may not like it, but I know it's there--even if only in the tendency to stereotype and categorize, in a mindless, automatically responsive way. I know that I share that kind of easy, "liberal" self-congratulation that says: Racist, who, me?--a way of absolving myself of responsibility for thoughts of which I would otherwise be ashamed. But the truth is that they're there, buried deep, perhaps, out of sight except when sought out and examined.
The other topic for the evening is related, surely: equanimity. This is not, in Than Geoff's teaching, a mere rejection of responsibility, and not mere, passive acceptance. Equanimity, for him, needs to be worked for. It's earned by some serious examination of the options: is there anything I can do to change this situation? If there is, I should work to make the change. It's only when I conclude that this is something I'm powerless to change that equanimity kicks in. As for racism, I can work to make changes in my own attitudes if I take the time to observe them honestly and examine them with thoughtful self-criticism. I may also, with care and compassion, have the power to bring others to an understanding of the harm that results from racism--harm to oneself as well as to others. If not, not. At which point, assuming that I am blessed with so much wisdom, I practice equanimity.
A confession: I read back through these words with a familiar fear of seeming pious or self-righteous--qualities about which I find it very hard to remain equanimous when I suspect them in others! But I don't see any of this as particularly holy. I just see it as a practical way to live in harmony with myself and others.
At sangha, after our hour's sit under the guidance of Than Geoff, the topic for discussion turned to racism. One of our group had received an email from a man he had thought to be a friend and was stunned to find it filled with hate-filled rhetoric--so stunned that he could think of nothing to do except to write back and say he could no longer pursue a friendship that had apparently lasted for years. Than Geoff's response was typically wise: he would have written back to say he was truly taken aback by this outburst and to ask simply where it could have come from? Non-judgmental honesty, followed by a question that would open up a field for investigation, rather than judgment and closure.
For myself, I would have wanted to explore my own response--my indignation, anger, and judgment. My practice, when I have a strong emotional response, is to see what, if anything, it has to say about myself. In this case, I would have wanted to explore that secret, unacknowledged part of me that harbors racist thoughts and racist habits. I may not like it, but I know it's there--even if only in the tendency to stereotype and categorize, in a mindless, automatically responsive way. I know that I share that kind of easy, "liberal" self-congratulation that says: Racist, who, me?--a way of absolving myself of responsibility for thoughts of which I would otherwise be ashamed. But the truth is that they're there, buried deep, perhaps, out of sight except when sought out and examined.
The other topic for the evening is related, surely: equanimity. This is not, in Than Geoff's teaching, a mere rejection of responsibility, and not mere, passive acceptance. Equanimity, for him, needs to be worked for. It's earned by some serious examination of the options: is there anything I can do to change this situation? If there is, I should work to make the change. It's only when I conclude that this is something I'm powerless to change that equanimity kicks in. As for racism, I can work to make changes in my own attitudes if I take the time to observe them honestly and examine them with thoughtful self-criticism. I may also, with care and compassion, have the power to bring others to an understanding of the harm that results from racism--harm to oneself as well as to others. If not, not. At which point, assuming that I am blessed with so much wisdom, I practice equanimity.
A confession: I read back through these words with a familiar fear of seeming pious or self-righteous--qualities about which I find it very hard to remain equanimous when I suspect them in others! But I don't see any of this as particularly holy. I just see it as a practical way to live in harmony with myself and others.
Saturday, February 3, 2007
A Social Evening
What a wonderful evening, yesterday! Ellie and I hosted a pot-luck reunion of those of our sangha who attended Than Geoff's meditation retreat in Santa Fe. The idea was to share the changes and perceptions that we came away with, and for the first hour or so we did just that, gathered around a cheerful fire in the living room of our little Laguna Beach cottage. Amazing, both the differences and the samenesses in our experiences, great evidence of the richness of Than Geoff's teaching, and of the commitment that each one of us brought to furthering our practice.
Readers of these pages will already know of the radical changes I have made in my own life as a result of that weekend. The curious thing is that I was truly not aware, in any analytical, intellectual way, that they were happening. I simply awoke on Monday morning with the decision made and plans laid ready for its implementation. No agonizing. No doubts, no self-questioning. I just got ahead and did what needed to be done. One surprise: I had presumptuously assumed that my young friend and associate, who had begun to post on The Bush Diaires under the screen name Cardozo, would jump at the opportunity to take it over. But even when he declined, I had no hesitation whatsoever, no second thoughts. Unless you count the subconscious ones: in one of those no-accident accidents, I first posted yesterday's entry, "The Weather", on The Bush Diaries. The fact that it seemed to fit equally well on both sites suggests that there is a continuity between the two--a thought that I find peculiarly satisfying.
Back to last evening: it was a heart-warming experience, after sitting and talking for a good long while, to move to the dining room and "break bread" together. Ellie and I rejoice in our good fortune to have found community in this sangha. Since we spend the better part of our time as a sitting group in silence, or in discussing the meaning of the dharma in our lives, it was a treat to have the opportunity of a social situation to get to know each other in a different way. We are all of such different ages, from such different origins, and engaged in such different walks of life; the fact that we have all found the same path in the life of the spirit seems like a special and quite delightful miracle.
Tomorrow morning, a number of us meet for a long, silent walking meditation in the wilderness. The adventure continues!
Readers of these pages will already know of the radical changes I have made in my own life as a result of that weekend. The curious thing is that I was truly not aware, in any analytical, intellectual way, that they were happening. I simply awoke on Monday morning with the decision made and plans laid ready for its implementation. No agonizing. No doubts, no self-questioning. I just got ahead and did what needed to be done. One surprise: I had presumptuously assumed that my young friend and associate, who had begun to post on The Bush Diaires under the screen name Cardozo, would jump at the opportunity to take it over. But even when he declined, I had no hesitation whatsoever, no second thoughts. Unless you count the subconscious ones: in one of those no-accident accidents, I first posted yesterday's entry, "The Weather", on The Bush Diaries. The fact that it seemed to fit equally well on both sites suggests that there is a continuity between the two--a thought that I find peculiarly satisfying.
Back to last evening: it was a heart-warming experience, after sitting and talking for a good long while, to move to the dining room and "break bread" together. Ellie and I rejoice in our good fortune to have found community in this sangha. Since we spend the better part of our time as a sitting group in silence, or in discussing the meaning of the dharma in our lives, it was a treat to have the opportunity of a social situation to get to know each other in a different way. We are all of such different ages, from such different origins, and engaged in such different walks of life; the fact that we have all found the same path in the life of the spirit seems like a special and quite delightful miracle.
Tomorrow morning, a number of us meet for a long, silent walking meditation in the wilderness. The adventure continues!
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