Wishing You a Wonderful 2008.

May this new year, 2008 bring more peace, tolerance and happiness to people of all religions, philosophies and those who follow no religion. May this new year bring an end to all wars and strife in the world so that harmony will increase amongst all sentient beings. May we rededicate ourselves to our practice so that we will feel more stability and insight into our lives and help us not to be so swept away by our egos.

It has been a memorable year for The Buddhist Blog and I want to thank all of you for making this blog possible. I am so appreciative of every single one of my readers and give thanks for the conversations that we have had. I have been touched deeply by you and It is my humble hope that I can continue to serve you and all the people I will meet in 2008. Please know that I am bowing before you all to honor the Buddha within you. I look forward to watching Buddhism evolve further into this new century and millennium. This is a perfect time to post a great quote regarding the beautiful fluidity of our faith. The Buddha warned against trying to anchor Buddhism and all Dharmas too firmly into one way of thinking or any one culture. This leads me to a wonderful quote on this matter:

To say that Buddhism is transitory, insubstantial and conditional is merely to restate its own understanding of the nature of things. Yet its teachings endlessly warn of the deeply engrained tendency to overlook this reality.... Instead of seeing a particular manifestation of the Dharma as a living spiritual tradition of possibilities contingent upon historical and cultural circumstances, one reifies it into an independently existent, self sufficient fact, resistant to change. Living continuity requires both change and constancy. Just as in the course of a human life, a person changes from a child to an adolescent to an adult while retaining a recognizable identity (both internally through memory and externally through recurring physical and behavioral traits), so does a spiritual tradition change through the course of its history while retaining a recognizable identity through a continuous affirmation of its axiomatic values. Thus Buddhism will retain its identity as a tradition as long as its practitioners continue to center their lives around the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha and affirm its basic tenets. But precisely how such commitment and affirmation are expressed in different times and places can differ wildly. The survival of Buddhism today is dependent on its continuing ability to adapt. - Stephen Batchelor, The Awakening of the West from Everyday Mind, a Tricycle book edited by Jean Smith

While remaining solidly upon the foundation of taking refuge in the Triple Gems, the Four Noble Truths and the Eight-fold Path let us rejoice in watching our beautiful faith blend with new cultures such as here in America. It is my wish that Buddhism will continue to influence my country in positive ways.

With a smile to you all, I will see you on the other side in 2008.

~Peace to all beings~

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!

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/31/2007

It is nature's law that rivers wind, trees grow wood, and, given the opportunity, women work without iniquity.

~Buddha

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/30/2007

It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.

~Buddha

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Here’s Pieter Brueghel…

… brought to life in modern, feminist garb in Antonia’s Line, the 1996 Dutch movie that won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film. We rented it a couple of nights ago and enjoyed immensely. Its setting is a small Dutch village in the period shortly following World War II and its hero the matriarch called Antonia, whose love embraces the entire village in its gentle reach.

Where does Brueghel come in? Well, first in the look of the film, its overall brownish tonalities with flashes, here and there, of brilliant color, and in its plain, coarse costumes in black and white and brown and grey; in the village itself, with its farms and barns, its cottages and its church, its dirt pathways and wooden fences, the winter mud and ice and snow, and the springtime greening of the fields and hedgerows.

And then in the cast of characters, a glorious spectrum of human woes and wonders, eccentricities and foibles: Antonia herself, big as life, stout of girth, filled with love and tenderness and broad humor—though rough and tough and pitiless when needed; her artist daughter who decides on a practical plan for pregnancy before settling for lobe-for-life with a Lsebian lover; her granddaughter, brilliant and aloof, who gifts her, via a violent rape, with the sweetest great-granddaughter a matriarch could wish for. This is the matrilineal line referred to in the title.

And then the motley, Brueghel-esque band of villagers: the Catholic spinster who bays at the full moon, and her Protestant would-be lover who live one above the other and look out over the same village square but who meet only in death; the village priest, a gawky sensualist, too full of life and libido for his robes of office; the lovable half-wit (sorry, correctness thrown to the winds in this report—as well as in the movie!) and his half-wit girlfriend; the village bully, the rapist who takes refuge in self-imposed exile and returns in military uniform to wreak further havoc—and meet a timely, satisfying end; the manic depressive village sage who quotes from Schopenhauer and Nietzsche and provides sanctuary and education for the precocious child…

Those who have ever heard the Dylan Thomas radio play, Under Milk Wood, will find themselves in familiar territory here. The “story” is the village itself, the lives and loves and deaths of its inhabitants, the teeming vitality of human survival amidst hardship and adversity. Judgments are few, and love is bountiful. Suffering is everywhere, but so is joy and celebration. “Antonia’s Line” invites us frequently to join in the communal banquet at the long wooden table in Antonia’s yard. The film itself is a feast, a roll in the mud, a roll in the hay, a roll in the whole tragi-comic mystery and physicality of human existence.

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/29/2007

If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.

~Buddha

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The Nursery Clock

Have I written before about the nursery clock? I may have done. It's a beautiful mantel clock, perhaps twelve inches high, quite elegant in shape, its oak wood body sweetly inlaid with other woods in a simple deco pattern. A plain white face, now slightly damaged, with numerals in black. It has a mellow, gentle strike on the half hour and the hour, and its sound reverberates pleasantly throughout the house. It's called the nursery clock because it stood on the mantelpiece in the room that my sister and I shared, as very small children, in the big old brick Victorian rectory at Aspley Guise, in Bedfordshire, where we spent our earliest years. From its perch on that shelf, it witnessed those yearly appearances of Santa Claus--in England at that time we called him "Father Christmas": I wonder if that has changed?--and many a squabble between us siblings.

The nursery clock comes to mind for a number of reasons. It has been temperamental in recent years. Despite significant expense and lengthy stays at our local clock expert, it refused for long months to work at all, sitting on the mantel in decorative silence. Then, a couple of months ago, after I had lit our first wood fire for the winter, it decided to come back to life and started up with its familiar tick-tock. We took that as a blessing, and rewarded it with a rewind that kept it going for a good few days. Then equally mysteriously it went back to sleep. And awoke again in time for a visit from our daughter, Sarah, who complained that its hourly and half-hourly strike was keeping her up at night. I reached around behind the clock and stopped its pendulum, to ensure a good night's sleep for everyone.

Obviously offended by my action, the clock refused to start again after Sarah left. It went, as it were, on strike. Or no-strike. It seemed to have returned to its former dormant state. I tried everything. I tickled the pendulum back into its swing, and the clock inched forward for a minute or two, then yawned to a stop. I resigned myself to the possibility that the nursery clock had finally given up the ghost.

But no. Just recently, for the Christmas season, perhaps, it re-awoke in response to a gentle nudge and, give or take a hiccup or two, has been working ever since. It made its presence known last night, when we stopped back home for a cup of tea after dinner at a restaurant with friends. The clock struck ten, and its sound drew appreciative comments from our guests. It drew my attention again this morning during meditation, when it dutifully struck six, and again its single strike at six-thirty to remind me it was time to get to work.

I'm wondering whether in some strange way the nursery clock remains sensitive to that old sibling relationship. I mention this because my sister and I have been mostly out of touch for years now, chiefly because of the vast geographical distance that separates us--she still lives in England. That distance set our relationship, recently, on a rocky course but it is showing signs of healing, thanks in part to my decision to make the trip to England in February to help celebrate her birthday. Does the clock's on-and-off performance reflect how things stand between us? An absurd notion, of course, but you can't help but wonder. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy... quoth Hamlet, right?

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/28/2007

Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.

~Buddha

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Hands Across the Water...

(The following words were written and posted before I turned on the television and heard news of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan. Another dreadful event in the bloody history of our contemporary world, and one which only underscores our pressing need to expand the community of those dedicated to peace and goodwill.)

Heartfelt thanks to those who have sent greetings, online and off, in the past few days. The cockles of my heart--whatever they may be--have been duly warmed. People with their own strange agendas may find it convenient to argue amongst themselves about what festival or season it's appropriate to celebrate. I say, bring 'em on--though in a different context from that man who poses as our president.

I know that we have exchanged views, this past year, on the nature of this peculiar community the Internet affords us; and I share a bit of the skepticism of those who worry that it's too safe to hide behind our computers where we have only the illusion of being truly in touch with others. Rather than bringing us together, there is the danger that this medium can isolate us still further in this often alienating age.

But then I find readers--and read blogs--from the furthest reaches of the world, from London and Copenhagen, Singapore and Sydney, Australia, from Bangkok and New Delhi and Cape Town and Lima, Peru, and I imagine a meeting of minds that could occur in no other imaginable way. And at such moments I feel like I'm part of a groundswell of potential, of a growing community of human beings who are not satisfied with our lack of mutual understanding or with the greed that threatens to destroy our planet.

And it seems to me that the "spirit of Christmas," with its message of "peace and goodwill toward men"--that must have been in the days before women were invented!--is still alive and thriving at least in this one small corner of the vast blogosphere that I occupy, and likely too in many more. And I feel privileged to be a part of it, to know that my voice is heard and that its particular and individual sound can resonate with others, whose thoughts and feelings coincide with mine.

Perhaps, I find myself thinking at such moments, we are part of a vast and growing conspiracy of human beings--not left-wing nor right, not black or white, not gay or straight, not American or Indonesian or Chinese or Italian--whose collective thoughts and efforts may indeed conjoin and work together to heal this ailing planet through the collective power of our sanity, our struggle to adhere to a sound, mutually beneficial moral clarity, and our commitment, each to the truth of our individual experience.

I heard once that the Quichol Indians in Mexico, instead of giving their new babies a name, ask first of the newborn: "Tell me who you are." That. for me, is the lovely, fundamental practice of those whose blogs I value most: through what they write, they tell me who they are. Just as, through The Buddha Dairies, I discover (almost!) daily more of my own humanity and hope to share that human part of me with the world.

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/27/2007

Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.

~Buddha

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/26/2007

He is able who thinks he is able.

~Buddha

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Merry Christmas from Buddha Santa!!

I hope you all had a peaceful, serene day.

Today on Christmas I was thinking about Jesus and how in the Buddhist tradition he would probably be a Bodhisattva, and that is exactly how I see him--a great, wise and wonderfully compassionate teacher. Or perhaps a Buddha. It's another way for me to feel apart of the season with my Christians brothers and sisters. It's a time to celebrate common ideals such a peace on Earth and good will toward every man, woman and child.

He did so much for the poor and down trodden seeing the clear importance of taking care of one's brother like oneself. Just as the Buddha lived and taught. Let's hope that by this time next year the present giving tradition will be replaced with donating money to charities that others support. Or at least reduced to only giving a few simple gifts in addition to donations.

It is sad to see such a sacred tradition of celebrating the serene and glorious birth of one of the greatest spiritual leaders on planet Earth stripped and warped into the commercial, materialistic orgy it has become today.

~Peace to all beings~

Happy Christmas....

... or, as they say here in America, Merry... I'm wondering, not for the first time, why it is that I was brought up, in England, saying Happy Christmas, while over this side of the pond it's invariably Merry Christmas. I checked this out with a fellow ex-pat yesterday at the gym and she confirmed that, yes, she too had been brought up saying Happy. More Dickens readers here, these days, I wonder? Or is the U.S. simply still stuck in the nineteenth century? Curious, the old habits one sticks with. I have never felt comfortable saying Merry Christmas--and it's not the Christmas part of it, as those who wage that noble war against the war on Christmas would have it. It's the Merry part. I can't quite get my mouth around to saying the word. It's like bath. I haven't yet learned to say it with that short, practical, American "a". I still say "baaarth." Though I don't use the thing much myself, anyway. I shower, American-style. But I do still use the word for George, the dog. He enjoys a weekly baaarth. Ah well. Happy Christmas, everyone!

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/25/2007

Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.

~Buddha

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The Butterfly

(cross-posted with Accidental Dharma)

Thanks to my wife, Ellie, who put this book into my hands--with the words "Accidental Dharma." It's very short, for reasons that will become obvious. I read it in a couple of hours... and she's right, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is the archetype of the "gift wrapped in shit." Jean-Dominique Bauby, its author, was at the prime of his creative and, yes, rather glamorous life as the editor of the French magazine Ellewhen he was struck, at the age of 43, by a massive stroke. (Ram Dass, remember, fondly calls it being "stroked.") Bauby was left totally debilitated, but for the ability to blink his left eye. The "diving bell" is the metaphor for the nightmare prison in which he finds himself isolated, and deprived of even the least of those things that had brought joy into his life: his family, his work, the physical activity of the body, food and wine...

The gift was the "butterfly," the life of the mind which becomes his last refuge ad solace. With it, he studies the inside of his diving bell with feelings ranging from despair, to inner rage, to bemused irony and gentle, self-directed humor. When self-pity rears its head, he nudges it away with wit or memory, reliving incidents of his past life with gratitude and pleasure. Or rides on the wings of his butterfly into the world of the imagination, inventing vistas of which he is physically incapable. All in all, Bauby takes us with him on an agonized--but also tender and delightful--voyage into the furthest reaches of the human mind.

How does he manage this, with his near-total disability? He blinks an eye. Working through the alphabet with the aid of an able and infinitely patient assistant, he stops her with that one good eye at the letter that he needs, and thus dictates the words, the sentences, the paragraphs that make up this short but powerfully eloquent little book. Reading it, we come to understand that human life stripped of everything but the barest of essentials can still be a life worth living, thanks to that invisible, intangible and infinitely mysterious of qualities, the mind and its ability to experience love.

Julian Schnabel has created a film version of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly which has already been honored with multiple awards and nominations. Schnabel, known first for his work as a painter, is also the creator of two earlier outstanding biographical films, Basquiat, about the ill-fated young African American graffiti artist, and Before Night Falls, about the Cuban poet Reinaldo Arenas, both men who faced great adversity in their lives and whose creative minds proved at once their burden and their triumph--either one, if you haven't seen them, a great rental.

Signing off here, for Christmas, with all good wishes to those generous to read my ramblings. May you and yours be blessed with peace and happiness in your lives.

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/24/2007

Good men and bad men differ radically. Bad men never appreciate kindness shown them, but wise men appreciate and are grateful. Wise men try to express their appreciation and gratitude by some return of kindness, not only to their benefactor, but to everyone else.

~Buddha

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A Cheerful Belated Winter Solstice Wish to my Pagan Friends!!

So yesterday was the official day of celebration for Winter Solstice. I apologize for missing the specific date but I wanted to pass on my well wishes to all those who celebrate this wonderful, peaceful, accepting holiday/tradition. I didn't know much about the celebration so I did some studying for this post. I hope you find some things in this short essay that you didn't know before and find a new respect for a great holiday with a long, proud history.

May the year to come bring many happy days to everyone. This is a time of celebrating rebirth of the seasons as from now on the days will get longer. The celebration of rebirth during the Winter Solstice is also because it represents the end of one year and the beginning of another, Stonehenge is a perfect marker of this event.

Another extremely interesting site that marks the Solstice is Newgrange, a megalithic structure in Ireland which is estimated to be 5,000 years old which is older then Stonhenge by about 1,000 years and even older then the Great Egyptian Pyramids!!! It is a tomb that lights up with the allignment of the sun of the Winter Solstice and is believed to symbolize the rising of the dead into the Heavens upon the rays of the sun.

Since many didn't survive the cruel winters within the ancient communities, the Solstice was (and still is) a time to reflect on the previous year, celebrate surviving another year, give thanks for the many benefits received and look forward to the arrival of spring, pregnant with possibilities. Is it any wonder then that spring was/is linked to the goddess veneration and celebration of sexuality, what a beautiful and sacred time.

There is a Taoist element to this time of year as well. It can be seen in the East Asian celebration Dongzhi or Toji Festival which celebrates the balance and harmony between dark and light, sun and darkness. It is usually celebrated around 21 December.

These are but just a few of the Winter Solstice type celebrations, it is venerated throughout the world which places it as one of the most popular and widespread holidays of all humanity.

May all realize harmony during this time of year and look forward to a new year of happiness, joy, good health and much love for all people.

~Peace to all beings~

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/23/2007

Friendship is the only cure for hatred, the only guarantee of peace.

~Buddha

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Every human being is the author of his own health or disease.

~Buddha

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Every human being is the author of his own health or disease.

~Buddha

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Today, Please Go To...

.... Accidental Dharma, for two new entries by Khengsiong at Goodwill 101 and Gary at Forest Wisdom. Please note that I have left my own first entry at the top of this site, so that newcomers will get the idea. It will be there for another few days, then moved back down to a less prominent place. We have forty people coming to our tiny cottage tonight, so Ellie and I have to get cracking on the preparations. As a friend once wrote, Make it a great day...

Online Gift Certificates

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/21/2007

Endurance is one of the most difficult disciplines, but it is to the one who endures that the final victory comes.

~Buddha

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Skinheads

Salomon Huerta, Untitled

Interesting, isn't it, that the shaved head should have come to be in such vogue as a statement about personal freedom and power? Back in the sixties, it was... hair. Remember? An abundance of it. A strange reversal, specific to our times, perhaps, because hair has been associated with power throughout the ages. Just think of Samson and Delilah. I'm waiting for the Broadway musical, "Bald." Interesting, too, that the shaved head should find practitioners at both ends of the social spectrum, the saints and the reprobates, the monks and the skinheads. Which begs the question as to whether its popularity is any way associated with the popularization of Buddhism. Clearly, in both cases, cutting off one's hair is an act of renunciation of material and social values, as well as a powerful visual statement about identity. For a monk, I suppose, it's a positive act of liberation; for skinheads, we tend to read the same statement as angry and aggressive.

We have talked before, in The Buddha Diaries, about the phenomenon of tattoos in this same context. The two come together in a gripping movie that we watched last night, "This Is England." It's about the bonding of young males, about bullying and fierce tenderness, about the grief and deprivation and despair that contribute to acts of violence and retribution. It's about the fears and fury of young men when their masculinity is threatened, about rivalry and racism. While it's set in contemporary England, it could just have well been set in the United States.

Shades of "A Clockwork Orange"--that terrible, compelling story about the adolescent male ego gone amok. But here the alienation is of a different, less glaringly surreal, more socially realistic kind.


Shaun is a twelve year old whose father has just been killed in Margaret Thatcher's senseless invasion of the Falkland Islands. He is adopted as a kind of gusty little mascot, first by a relatively harmless gang of hooligans, then by a seriously sociopathic hoodlum recently released from jail and bent on taking his revenge on society with a gang of demented skinheads. Drummed into a racist frenzy by an England-first ideologue, they wreak havoc with their anti-Pakistani agenda, and little Shaun learns to his cost about the consequences of rage and hatred.

For those who choose to avoid movies that show violence, it should be noted that there is one scene in this film where rage explodes into explicit, momentarily uncontrolled brutality. Generally, though, we are shown the damage wrought by rage and hatred on the human psyche, less so on the human body. Violence is below the surface, omnipresent, threatening, but expressed more in language and attitude than in blood and gore. I kept thinking about this country, about Minutemen, about the shameless exploitation of the immigration issue by Republican demagogues in the presidential campaign, about not so deeply buried racial fears and hatreds, about not so deeply buried rage... "This Is England" is as much about America as it is about the country of my birth, as much about the growing global problems of population growth, wealth and resource distribution, climate change, and consequent migration patterns as it is about Merrie Olde... A disturbing, thought-provoking piece of work, and easily accessible thanks to Netflix.

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/20/2007

Do not speak harshly to any one; those who are spoken to will answer thee in the same way. Angry speech is painful: blows for blows will touch thee.

~Buddha

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A Reply...

Yesterday I received a query from a reader puzzled by the inconsistencies in some of the thoughts and beliefs expressed here in The Buddha Diaries. I hoped that a response would help me understand them a little better myself. I don't feel free to post the original questions, since they were sent to me personally, offline, but I thought I would post my own thoughts on the matter this morning. At least the poem, if you don't already know it, might amuse you, and I do think it says something about The Buddha Diaries. Here goes:

I'm not sure why my inconsistencies and ambivalences are such a worry to you. They aren't, particularly, to me. More of a curiosity, really. I can't explain myself, can't justify my thinking, even--perhaps especially--when it fits no rational pattern or philosophical truth. I'm a poet, for God's sake. Always have been. I just put down words, one after the other, without trying to deal out wisdom, even when they contradict each other. You ask questions for which I have no answers, with references that are beyond my understanding. I have no way of satisfying the hunger you project to corral me into some convenient cattle chute. If I seem to be clueless, it's because I am! Sorry! Here's a poem for you. Consider it the source of all the wisdom you mistakenly ascribe to me! I have always loved it. Perhaps you're familiar with it. If not, enjoy.

It was sent with admiration and affection for a mind quite different from my own. Sometimes I wish I could understand all this. Mostly, though, I'm just caught in the muddle of it all, and do my best to pay attention to the experiences that come my way. Best to all...!

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/19/2007

Do not overrate what you have received, nor envy others. He who envies others does not obtain peace of mind.

~Buddha

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George...

... takes his ease...



He sat motionless on my lap during meditation this morning, and silent but for the occasional gentle snore. He is plainly unperturbed by the state of the world. It matters little to him that the "most powerful man in the world" speaks in ever greater inanities. His "gift wrapped in shit" comes unwrapped, actually, on his morning and evening walks, and is left for me to wrap and deposit in the closest trash can. Ah, well, a greater wisdom than I am able to muster.

George also, wisely, refrains from bothering himself with political involvement. As for me, I am changing my mind and thought I'd let you know about it. I have mentioned, surely, that my heart is with Kucinich. Sadly, though he speaks more sense than the rest of them put together when he is allowed a word in the great "debates," he is allowed too few of them to be a a viable candidate. I'm grateful to him for being there, to give an ounce of perspective to the rest of the line-up. I like Obama for his youth and vision, but it's John Edwards who speaks closest to my mind. When he talks of the change that's needed, he's far more radical than Clinton and Obama; from their lips, "change" sounds more like a word than a necessity. With the experience of a trial lawyer, Edwards might be the one to stand up against the corporate powers that constitute that "oligarchy" I was speaking of the other day.

I'd be grateful for your thoughts. Otherwise, for The Buddha Diaries today, I plan to follow George's excellent example. Cheers, everyone...

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/18/2007

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.

~Buddha

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The Buddha--A Disturbing Image

It's a good thing that Buddhists aren't Muslims, at least not those of the fundamentalist variety. Otherwise the giant Buddha images by Japanese artist Takashi Murakami in his current exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles would provoke a world-wide conflagration of outrage. (You'll have to check on the MOCA site for images of the Buddhas, but it's worth the time and effort to view and listen to Murakami's tour.)

But more of the Buddhas shortly. First, be it said that if you wish to see a relentlessly sly, subversive--yet savage--assault on the skewed values of contemporary civilization, you need look no further than this show. Murakami outWarhols Warhol in this plethora of work where kitsch meets high fashion meets Madison Avenue marketing meets, um… art. Included in the installation is a complete high-end Louis Vuitton store where fashion accessories may be purchased for barely mentionable sums of money. When we were there, my wife spotted a young woman cheerfully charge $1,000 and significant change on one of the knick-knacks on sale there.

Murakami skewers--and profits from!--not only the high end market, however. Included in the show are dozens of the tiny, cheaply manufactured and cutely bizarre toy figures he produced to be marketed with candy and ice cream—goods as toxic, in their way, as the cigarettes with which baseball cards were once mass-distributed. His high-gloss, psychedelic adumbrations of the human form, ranging all the way from miniature to monumental, combine the terminally cute with the hideously grotesque, sci-fi anime with fairy tale, the child's innocence with the overtly obscene. Garish in color and material, their shapes blend the streamlined finish of the automobile with the sensual rotundity of the egg—or the baby’s bottom, or the mushroom, both frequent icons in this work!—with the harsh, sharp edge of weaponry or mechanics.

His subversion of the post-Romantic, modernist view of the art object as unique, original, disengaged, and isolated in its own aesthetic bubble of perfection could not be more complete or dismissive. His "superflat" paintings, for God's sake, not only "go with" the wallpaper; they match it! Or they reduce the imagery to a single, cartoonish character or line,



a huge, grinning, devastatingly altered Mickey Mouse face, for example, or a branching lightning bolt. He is not above regaling his viewers with a million of those cheap and pretty flower shapes

and simple, repetitive patterns of all kinds. His mushrooms are rendered with the simplistic cheeriness of those you see on the nursery wall, with colorful dots and friendly, bulbous stalks. Every tawdry, cliché’d graphic device is grist for his tireless mill.

A further strategy of subversion is infantilism. The child-like cartoon characters, recurring everywhere in this work, from painting to sculpture to video, are the counterparts of those in the typical Disney film;



indeed the entire installation is a kind of nightmare Disneyland, where cuteness reigns supreme in a kind of extravagant cultural gesture of denial of the grim geopolitical realities that face us in an increasingly at-risk world. It’s no accident that those nursery mushrooms remind us tauntingly of the clouds above Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And the innocence of Murakami’s little people covers for something quite different beneath the benign appearances, and much closer to the surface than is the case with those cute Disney dwarfs and monsters.

Which brings us back to those Buddhas, two of them, towering assemblages of multiple parts on a base, in each case, of the traditional lotus plant. In the most recent, “Oval Buddha,” 2007, the figure of the Buddha sits atop a huge turtle and a tall pedestal encrusted with a profusion of rococo detail. (Tour #6 on the link above will give you a view of this Buddha, and a partial glimpse of the other.) Gone, though, is the traditional pleasing serenity of the Buddha’s smile, replaced here by two faces, one on each side of the head—the first an angry scowl, the other a devouring grimace with ferocious teeth. Murakami’s subversion, it seems, extends from the physical to the spiritual realm, in a world where suffering is omnipresent beneath the mask of material well-being. It’s a deeply disturbing vision, but one that should compel our attention and demand a reconsideration of many of our treasured assumptions about ourselves, our human nature, as well as about our spiritual aspirations and pretensions.

New Jersey Abolishes Death Penalty

TRENTON, N.J., USA (AP) — Gov. Jon S. Corzine signed into law Monday a measure that abolishes the death penalty, making New Jersey the first state in more than four decades to reject capital punishment.

The bill, approved last week by the state's Assembly and Senate, replaces the death sentence with life in prison without parole.

"This is a day of progress for us and for the millions of people across our nation and around the globe who reject the death penalty as a moral or practical response to the grievous, even heinous, crime of murder," Corzine said.

The nation has executed 1,099 people since the U.S. Supreme Court reauthorized the death penalty in 1976. In 1999, 98 people were executed, the most since 1976; last year 53 people were executed, the lowest since 1996.

James: As someone who as opposed the death penalty for years, I am rejoicing today. One of the main pillars of Buddhism is the concept of non-violence. Yes these criminals must be isolated from society because of their choices by spending life in prison without the possibility of parole. However, executing them lowers our collective consciousness to the level of these killers and other criminals and we lose our innocence and peace as a society. In addition, the person who's job it is to execute the prisoner faces their own suffering. You can not engage in killing without losing a certain degree of peace. I can't imagine having to be the executioner and face the terrible dreams that must come with the job. We become desensitized to the very violence we are trying to prevent by killing these offenders. It is up to us to rise above the violence and break the cycle of suffering.

I feel deep sadness for the families who have lost loved ones and for the victims who have suffered immensely from the crimes of these individuals. I have compassion for their suffering and cry with them. That being said, I do not think that exacting revenge helps them heal. I say this because killing these criminals doesn't do anything to bring those loved ones back from the dead. It would seem to me that a person embraces more suffering than happiness by taking joy from watching one be executed. After the execution the criminal is gone but they still haven't dealt with their grief and anger which leaves one feeling hollow inside. Anger prevents us from healing and letting go of the chains that keep us imprisoned. How ironic that the victims and their families end up in a sort of prison themselves by clinging to their anger and bitterness. Anger shackles them (just as it does all of us) and the angrier they (and we) become the tighter the chains dig in.

It reminds me of a great story told by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh which I have mentioned here before. Imagine your house is set on fire by an arsonist, you escape but instead of trying to put out the flames you chase after the criminal fueled by anger and a blinding lust for revenge. You run and run and perhaps you catch the person who did this but in the mean time your house has burned down. The point being that holding resentment and anger in our hearts slowly kills us (literally). We know that all things are connected and medicine has proved that elevated stress levels (which occur from extreme anger and anxiety) can shorten ones life. Anger can build and build until often it is released through violence and by committing violence we have turned into the person that we hated so deeply in the first place.

How can we convince others that killing is wrong by killing people?

The very real chance of executing an innocent person is another big reason why we shouldn't have a death penalty. There are many, many cases of people who have been proven innocent through DNA testing but often only after spending decades of their lives in prisons. It seems quite likely that there have indeed been those wrongfully executed.

Also, the Buddhist principle of impermanence implies that all people have the capacity to transform themselves and we must allow these criminals the possibility of redemption. Perhaps the criminal kept alive could one day write books and give interviews/speeches to help others avoid a life of crime. The example of Stanley "Tookie" Williams comes to mind.

A reformed gang member who committed murder but then wrote books to keep kids out of gangs and help them avoid the terrible choices that he made. Instead we executed him and in doing so lost a credible voice in preventing future crime and that is our burden to carry. We were so consumed with our anger and lust for revenge that it blinded us to the greater good that was unfolding. Allowing the criminal life in prison gives them a lot of time to think about what they have done and think of ways to redeem him/herself. We just never know what benefits change can bring and by executing someone we take that possibility not only away from the families and the offender but also from society as a whole.

While I haven't faced the tragedy of losing a loved one to murder or watched a family member suffer from the pain of being the victim of other heinous crimes, I do know that eventual forgiveness and acceptance is the key to healing.

I hope that I never have to face such a terrible choice but I would hope that through meditating upon compassion and forgiveness that I would be able to let go of such horrible anger and pain. I have told my family that should I be killed that I do not want them to advocate the death penalty for the criminal.

It is time to focus on working toward getting to the roots of violence and therefore help reduce it rather than perpetuate it.

~Peace to all beings~

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/17/2007

Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.

~Buddha

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/16/2007

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.

~Buddha

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/15/2007

An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast; a wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind.

~Buddha

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/14/2007

All that we are is the result of what we have thought. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him. If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him.

~Buddha

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The Buddha Diaries Recommends

To learn more about what is planned as a collaborative site, please check out our just-launched Accidental Dharma: The Gift Wrapped in Shit, presented by The Buddha Diaries. You'll find the site's intention described there, along with several examples of the kind of story that we're looking for. We're hoping to receive your stories to post, if and when you feel moved to send them to us at AccidentalDharma@mac.com. While we can't promise to include everything we receive, we'll post every story that is in harmony with the spirit and intention of the site. The process of writing, as all bloggers know, can serve to shed light on our experience, so we're hoping that this site will prove enlightening to contributors and readers alike.


Also... there's a terrific piece of writing over at Adgita Diaries, which we discovered when we checked in there yesterday. A review of the History Channel's 1968 with Tom Brokaw, it takes the long view of those of us who participated in those times and laments the loss of their promise. Here's a short piece of what MandT have to say, a paragraph that particularly resonates with me:

Brokaw’s ‘suit’ vision of his own youth in the center of a watershed year in contemporary history is profoundly blind as he states in conclusion: “"If there is one enduring lesson for me, it is that we survived as a nation and as a culture.” Not true-- so very not true. 1968 was the year America entered in earnest its entopic decline. The Vietnam War was clearly revealed for what it was---a profiteering corporate militaristic fantasy of long lasting fatal results. The old Democratic Party died with Jack Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, the failure of Lyndon Johnson to hoist The Great Society, and perished in Daley’s thug Chicago amid killings, riots, the ghosts of a murderous Kent State and the future charismatic machinations of the Clintons. The First Amendment became a lethal attraction, the Bush administration----its newly dug grave.

Here's one fellow blogger who concurs with their dissent from Brokaw's conclusion. It is "so very not true," indeed, for the reasons that they eloquently elaborate. I also love their vision of the blogosphere: "The reality community never sleeps, and the Internet has become our Paul Revere."

I do love to read the views of the young and idealistic--represented in MandT's entry by the wonderful song that accompanies it. I also love the voices of those who have managed to maintain the idealism of their youth and temper it with the wisdom and compassion of respectable years! Thanks, MandT, for this good piece.

Over at Nick's Bytes, always a fun trip, there are a couple of interesting memes. I like the one about writing a letter from your now self to yourself as you were when you were 13 years old. Mine would go something like this: "Dear Peter, Don't worry, you'll get out of this alive. Boarding school is hell and everyone knows you're the easiest tease around. Try not to get mad, and feel free to have a good cry once in a while, where the others won't see you. Oh, and that little thing down between your legs. I know it's giving you a lot to worry about right now, but once you get over this 13-year old hump it'll do just fine. You're not the freak you think you are, I promise. Lots of love, Old Peter."

At one plus two read the heartbreaking story of two little girls in dire straights at Christmas time. Though it shouldn't matter, should it, whether it's Christmas or not?

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/13/2007

A wise man, recognizing that the world is but an illusion, does not act as if it is real, so he escapes the suffering.

~Buddha

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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.