It's the headline news! Money! Stock markets tumble throughout the world! The Dow Jones Industrial Average loses more than 500 points in the course of the afternoon, then recovers enough to register no more than a 400-point loss by the end of the day. What does all this portend? The experts are trotted out. Conclusions are drawn. Predictions are made. The nation extends its wrist to allow its financial pulse to be taken. Are we healthy or sickening? Are we headed for the toilet? Will we all survive? The panic mounts...
It seems to me that the markets and their mavens would do well to take a lesson from simple Buddhist wisdom: sit back, take a breath... take another... Bring the attention to the breath and, of course, keep bringing it back each time that the mind is tempted to lose itself once more in idle speculation. That way, panic is avoided, the situation calms, and equanimity is restored.
How we love the drama, though! How we love to tease ourselves with the direst of all possible outcomes! How we yearn for those very things that are denied us by the nature of reality: for certainty, for reassurance, and knowledge of the future! The financial markets are no less subject to change than everything else in this world, but the human mind is always reluctant to grasp that simple reality. We want the markets to keep going up, to satisfy our desperate need for security.
The media, of course, who report on these events, are savvy to what it is that appeals to our less noble qualities, and play to the lowest of them all: our greed and fear. Will I lose what's mine? Is this the beginning of the end? Will the capitalist system fall apart? Is this the demise of civilization as we know it? The first sign that Armageddon is upon us? Will the terrorists win?
Stay tuned.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 2/28/2007
The Heart Sutra
The Heart Sutra is believed to have been written about the first century BCE. Although this is a very short text - about a page in length - it has been enormously influential. Essentially it expounds the concept of 'emptiness' (sunyata), a key term in Mahayana philosophy. In short, sunyata refers to the absence of self or essence in all conditioned phenomena: 'form is emptiness and emptiness is form'. The world is seen as a complex of ever-changing, fluctuating elements (dharmas): 'Here, O Sariputra, all dharmas are marked with emptiness'. The texts culminates with the mantra: 'Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone altogether beyond, O what an awakening, all-hail!'.
The Heart Sutra is believed to have been written about the first century BCE. Although this is a very short text - about a page in length - it has been enormously influential. Essentially it expounds the concept of 'emptiness' (sunyata), a key term in Mahayana philosophy. In short, sunyata refers to the absence of self or essence in all conditioned phenomena: 'form is emptiness and emptiness is form'. The world is seen as a complex of ever-changing, fluctuating elements (dharmas): 'Here, O Sariputra, all dharmas are marked with emptiness'. The texts culminates with the mantra: 'Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone altogether beyond, O what an awakening, all-hail!'.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Politics, Diplomacy
My thanks to all who took the time and trouble to respond to yesterday's entry about the Oscars! It's great to have the sense that this is more than a monologue! An aside to my Taoist friend: I'm happy to have to keep going back to the definitions and the texts. Perhaps it's the aging brain cells, but my memory blurs things very easily, and it's at once humbling and refreshing to be the constant student. And that, as I understand it, is in good part what the practice is all about: learning, testing, unlearning, relearning--until some small part of it sinks in. Samsara does seem to necessitate a belief in rebirth; but until I reach that point, I still find the concept useful and compelling, since it describes so well that cycle through the sometimes painful paths of life that we all know so well. The treadmill, if you will.
But, forgive me, I was going to get back on my political hobby-horse today. The Middle East mess. Talk about unskillful! The high-handed, ham-fisted administration we have misguidedly placed in office in Washington, DC, could hardly handle its diplomatic efforts in the world with less subtlety and imagination, or with less sensitivity to its allies--or indeed its enemies--in the world out there. To send Dick Cheney, of all people, to deliver a public rebuke to Pakistan's President Musharraf about his failure to control the Taliban seems to me the height of blinkered arrogance. After its own failure to take care of the Taliban and the Al Qaeda cadre it protected in Afghanistan, at a time when that was possible, the Bush administration has the gall to humiliate Musharraf for the same failure.
Okay, I understand that Musharraf has made his own blunders--most notably in that agreement with the tribal leaders last fall to give them free rein in their territories--and has allowed himself to be blown around by the winds of powerful extremist religious forces in his own country. But we might say that Bush has done the same. And given that political reality with which Musharraf has to deal in predomnantly Muslim Pakistan, this kind of heavyweight public scolding only serves to shame him in front of his own people and stiffen the resolve of the extremists. we're asking him to fight To send for this task the Bully-in-Chief behind the pulpit, Dick Cheney, whose devotion to American hegemony in the world--by military force if necessary--is well known, is to pile on the insult. Is it any wonder that this "surprise visit" yielded nothing but protests that "we have done all we can", and further animosityin the Muslim world?
It's hard to know what to do with this nagging conviction that things are going badly wrong with the human species and the world that we inhabit--and that we Americans, in the name of freedom and democracy--are doing more than our fair share to make them worse. To wash one's hands of the whole mess, park one's rear end on the cushion and practice one's Buddhist equanimity seems almost irresponsible in the face of the enormity of the consequences of inaction. At the same time, I have to recognize the limits to what I can do. Chalk it up to samsara, I guess, and send out metta to those in the world whose actions are the cause of these disastrous consequences. Which may be good for the heart, but I have to say that the brain remains dissatisfied.
But, forgive me, I was going to get back on my political hobby-horse today. The Middle East mess. Talk about unskillful! The high-handed, ham-fisted administration we have misguidedly placed in office in Washington, DC, could hardly handle its diplomatic efforts in the world with less subtlety and imagination, or with less sensitivity to its allies--or indeed its enemies--in the world out there. To send Dick Cheney, of all people, to deliver a public rebuke to Pakistan's President Musharraf about his failure to control the Taliban seems to me the height of blinkered arrogance. After its own failure to take care of the Taliban and the Al Qaeda cadre it protected in Afghanistan, at a time when that was possible, the Bush administration has the gall to humiliate Musharraf for the same failure.
Okay, I understand that Musharraf has made his own blunders--most notably in that agreement with the tribal leaders last fall to give them free rein in their territories--and has allowed himself to be blown around by the winds of powerful extremist religious forces in his own country. But we might say that Bush has done the same. And given that political reality with which Musharraf has to deal in predomnantly Muslim Pakistan, this kind of heavyweight public scolding only serves to shame him in front of his own people and stiffen the resolve of the extremists. we're asking him to fight To send for this task the Bully-in-Chief behind the pulpit, Dick Cheney, whose devotion to American hegemony in the world--by military force if necessary--is well known, is to pile on the insult. Is it any wonder that this "surprise visit" yielded nothing but protests that "we have done all we can", and further animosityin the Muslim world?
It's hard to know what to do with this nagging conviction that things are going badly wrong with the human species and the world that we inhabit--and that we Americans, in the name of freedom and democracy--are doing more than our fair share to make them worse. To wash one's hands of the whole mess, park one's rear end on the cushion and practice one's Buddhist equanimity seems almost irresponsible in the face of the enormity of the consequences of inaction. At the same time, I have to recognize the limits to what I can do. Chalk it up to samsara, I guess, and send out metta to those in the world whose actions are the cause of these disastrous consequences. Which may be good for the heart, but I have to say that the brain remains dissatisfied.
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 2/27/2007
The Lotus Sutra
The Saddharma-pundarika, or 'Lotus of the True Dharma' is written in Sanskrit and has become one of the most influential of Mahayana scriptures. Analysis suggests that it was written between 100BCE and 200C. In the Lotus Sutra, the Buddha in the form of Sakyamuni speaks to a vast audience of assembled saints, monks, nuns and bodhisattvas. One of the key Mahayana concepts to be found in the Lotus Sutra is that of skill-in-means (upaya). This is the idea that the Buddha has adapted his teachings to suit the level of his audience. Thus, Theravada and Mahayana are parts of a single path (Ekayana).
The Saddharma-pundarika, or 'Lotus of the True Dharma' is written in Sanskrit and has become one of the most influential of Mahayana scriptures. Analysis suggests that it was written between 100BCE and 200C. In the Lotus Sutra, the Buddha in the form of Sakyamuni speaks to a vast audience of assembled saints, monks, nuns and bodhisattvas. One of the key Mahayana concepts to be found in the Lotus Sutra is that of skill-in-means (upaya). This is the idea that the Buddha has adapted his teachings to suit the level of his audience. Thus, Theravada and Mahayana are parts of a single path (Ekayana).
Monday, February 26, 2007
Favorite Incense
Just curious. What is your favorite incense?
Mine is Aloeswood (and the Morning Star brand pictured above is my favorite source of all my incense but especially Aloeswood. Other, more pure Aloeswood incense is on the market but be aware that it will cost you a lot of money). Although, the Nag Champa I purchase is from a different company. Anyway, Aloeswood reminds me of my time in Africa. This incense has complex scents to it but one or more of them bring back wonderful memories of wood being burned to fuel fires used to cook food upon. I also like it because it has a deep woodsy scent that is earthy and soothing. It lends itself well to deep relaxation, grounding and balancing during meditation.
Here are my top 5:
1). Aloeswood
2). Nag Champa
3). Sandalwood
4). Lavender
5). Sweet Grass
(Honorable mentions: Patchouli, Sage and Jasmin)
~Peace to all beings~
Accidental Dharma
I'm trying to remember the exact phrase from yesterday's sangha, our Sunday sitting group. Than Geoff, our teacher, has this idea for an article, or possibly a book, about "accidental dharma"--the kind of dharma that occurs to all of us, if we're awake to it, at the most unlikely moments in our lives. I'm not sure that I have the right word--my short-term memory is unreliable these days--but, to use an art term, I understand it to be a kind of "found" dharma, even perhaps, more often than we would like, an "unwanted" dharma--the kind the jumps up and hits us in the face when we'd much rather have gone on with our otherwise comfortable lives. Anyway, we heard that Than Geoff is thinking of a collection of examples, and were encourged to help him out with our own experiences.
In my experience, when I think about it, it's all dharma. Take for example that moment a breakfast, a couple of days ago, at one of our local sidewalk cafes. I was sitting there with George while Ellie was inside putting in our order when I caught a glimpse of this sweet young couple... Later, at home, I wrote down this brief account. It's called, "So Young."
So Young
So I see this
sweet young pair
maybe twenty at
most, so reed
slim, so young, so
in love, they can
barely keep hands
from each other;
I watch them
quietly from where
I sit with my double
latte thinking there
was a once day
when some grey-
bearded seventy
something sat in
my place, with his
coffee, gazing
at me and my then
beloved thinking,
here is this sweet
young pair, maybe
twenty at most, so
reed slim, so very
young, so in love
they can barely
keep hands from
each other. And
thinking that man
who sat there at
that very moment,
watching, can now
no longer be with
us, at least not
in the form in
he then existed.
So what's a budding Buddhist to say about the Oscars? All that glitz and glamor? All that extravagance? All that wealth... those million-dollar, diamond-encrusted shoes? And all that flesh? I watched it. Did you? Betcha did.
First thought: it's easy to condemn such displays of material excess and self-congratulation, especially in the light of a world full of hunger, and violence, and abject poverty; and a world, of course, that we are in the process of destroying to support our common, exploitative greed. The Oscars represent conspicuous consumption at its worst. It's as easy to condemn, then, as the pomp and extravagance of the Catholic Church, say, in the Vatican--or indeed of those gold-encrusted Buddhist shrines. It does seem like a blatant contradiction, to be indulging in this kind of ostentation at the upper echelons, while at the same time extolling the virtues of simplicity and self-denial to the flock.
And yet... I watched. As did a billion other human beings, spellbound by the spectacle of celebrities celebrating each other's celebrity. So then it comes down to accidental dharma. What's the teaching? That it's all karma? That some of us are granted apparent privilege in life, for reasons we can never know, whilst others grovel? That we aspire to the privilege that we imagine others to enjoy? That behind the facade of glamor, likely, hides as much suffering as the rest of us experience in our lives? That everything, including privilege, is ephemeral? That privilege brings with it both responsibilities and dangers, if we are to believe that our actions bring inevitable consequences? Certainly, if we do subscribe to this belief, we must take special care that our actions carry the full weight of intention, that we act in consciousness of consequences...
Okay, I'll confess that I'm a bit bewildered by all this, my thoughts a bit scattered, as was my morning meditation. Perhaps there's just too much stuff here, too much mud in the water to find the clarity. Did you watch the Oscars? I'd love to hear what other thought the teaching was... if any.
In my experience, when I think about it, it's all dharma. Take for example that moment a breakfast, a couple of days ago, at one of our local sidewalk cafes. I was sitting there with George while Ellie was inside putting in our order when I caught a glimpse of this sweet young couple... Later, at home, I wrote down this brief account. It's called, "So Young."
So Young
So I see this
sweet young pair
maybe twenty at
most, so reed
slim, so young, so
in love, they can
barely keep hands
from each other;
I watch them
quietly from where
I sit with my double
latte thinking there
was a once day
when some grey-
bearded seventy
something sat in
my place, with his
coffee, gazing
at me and my then
beloved thinking,
here is this sweet
young pair, maybe
twenty at most, so
reed slim, so very
young, so in love
they can barely
keep hands from
each other. And
thinking that man
who sat there at
that very moment,
watching, can now
no longer be with
us, at least not
in the form in
he then existed.
So what's a budding Buddhist to say about the Oscars? All that glitz and glamor? All that extravagance? All that wealth... those million-dollar, diamond-encrusted shoes? And all that flesh? I watched it. Did you? Betcha did.
First thought: it's easy to condemn such displays of material excess and self-congratulation, especially in the light of a world full of hunger, and violence, and abject poverty; and a world, of course, that we are in the process of destroying to support our common, exploitative greed. The Oscars represent conspicuous consumption at its worst. It's as easy to condemn, then, as the pomp and extravagance of the Catholic Church, say, in the Vatican--or indeed of those gold-encrusted Buddhist shrines. It does seem like a blatant contradiction, to be indulging in this kind of ostentation at the upper echelons, while at the same time extolling the virtues of simplicity and self-denial to the flock.
And yet... I watched. As did a billion other human beings, spellbound by the spectacle of celebrities celebrating each other's celebrity. So then it comes down to accidental dharma. What's the teaching? That it's all karma? That some of us are granted apparent privilege in life, for reasons we can never know, whilst others grovel? That we aspire to the privilege that we imagine others to enjoy? That behind the facade of glamor, likely, hides as much suffering as the rest of us experience in our lives? That everything, including privilege, is ephemeral? That privilege brings with it both responsibilities and dangers, if we are to believe that our actions bring inevitable consequences? Certainly, if we do subscribe to this belief, we must take special care that our actions carry the full weight of intention, that we act in consciousness of consequences...
Okay, I'll confess that I'm a bit bewildered by all this, my thoughts a bit scattered, as was my morning meditation. Perhaps there's just too much stuff here, too much mud in the water to find the clarity. Did you watch the Oscars? I'd love to hear what other thought the teaching was... if any.
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 2/26/2007
"When man becomes aware of the movement of his own thoughts he will see the division between the thinker and thought, the observer and the observed, the experience and the experiencer. He will discover that this division is an illusion. Then only is there pure observation which is insight without any shadow of the past or of time. This timeless insight brings about a deep radical mutation in the mind."
~J. Krishnamurti
~J. Krishnamurti
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 2/25/2007
Acceptance does not mean inaction. We may need to respond, strongly at times. From a peaceful center we can respond instead of react. Unconscious reactions create problems. Considered responses bring peace. With a peaceful heart whatever happens can be met with wisdom. Peace is not weak, it is unshakable.
~Pete "The Turtle" Johnson
~Pete "The Turtle" Johnson
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 2/24/2007
Better than a thousand useless words is one useful word, hearing which one attains peace.
~Dhammapada 100
~Dhammapada 100
Today, Saturday....
...something completely different, as they used to say on Monty Python. Well, not really so different. It's all the mind's work, no? Even the funny stuff... This one is called "Little Pricks." With apologies to anyone who might be offended.
Little Pricks
Remember that
little prick in
the bathtub, all those
years ago? Your
cousin's? Donald's? It
was all wet and
shiny, and he
popped it up, out
of the soapy water, like
it was a lighthouse
and he rammed
his bath boat into
the rocks, sinking it. He
was not ashamed
of his, as you were
of yours, it was
just fun for him. You
were amazed and a bit,
yes, shocked, and you hid
yours under the suds,
shyly, despite his
invitation to join in
the fun. So how come
my mind recalls
this with such intense
clarity from no more
than six years old, today
as I wake, the big
fan motionless above
my head, against
the white boards of
the bedroom ceiling?
little prick in
the bathtub, all those
years ago? Your
cousin's? Donald's? It
was all wet and
shiny, and he
popped it up, out
of the soapy water, like
it was a lighthouse
and he rammed
his bath boat into
the rocks, sinking it. He
was not ashamed
of his, as you were
of yours, it was
just fun for him. You
were amazed and a bit,
yes, shocked, and you hid
yours under the suds,
shyly, despite his
invitation to join in
the fun. So how come
my mind recalls
this with such intense
clarity from no more
than six years old, today
as I wake, the big
fan motionless above
my head, against
the white boards of
the bedroom ceiling?
Friday, February 23, 2007
Moment to Moment
During meditation I settled into my breathing from the abdomen and soon realized that the main attention of my meditation was going to be surrounding non-self and thus interconnection and impermanence as well. A common trio in my meditations.Immediately I noticed the noise of someone chopping up the ice in their street gutter with some sort of tool and I was transported into their situation and experience of that moment. I experienced the focus and concentration that they must have been feeling while doing this task. Experienced the satisfaction of chopping up the ice so that the water might flow freely away from their house. I experienced their muscles, heart and entire body working harder to accomplish the work. Then I heard a woman's voice talking to the other person about the chore and realized her encouragement and desire to help. In that moment I too was encouraging the person doing the chore.
Soon they finished and except of the occasional whiz of a car--silence returned to the neighborhood.
Then I heard a train off in the distance sound it's horn. In that instant I was with the driver and could feel the vibration of the engine as it slowly and mindfully churned through the intersection. I thought of the joy or maybe stress and frustration the worker was feeling as they moved along in the engine. Realizing their concentration is a meditation no different then the concentration experienced in formal, sitting meditation. I was also with the people waiting in their cars to get moving again when the train passed. Perhaps they were annoyed, angry, peaceful or feeling neutral as they waited. I thought of the family of the train driver that might be reliant upon the workers money received for the job and felt their pride and connection in their working relative.
After a brief time the train's horn blended into the distance of space and time and I was left again with silence.
A short time later an ambulance rang out near by as it sped along to possibly save someone in distress or return to the hospital. I experienced the adrenaline that the medics must have been feeling as they weaved through traffic. I was with the patient in need as they experienced pain and suffering and I held their hand. My other hand held the hand of the loved one that might be waiting in stress and horror as their loved one was in extreme suffering and pain. I breathed with them for a time until the ambulance faded into the distance. I thought of the doctors and nurses waiting at the hospital to work on the person in need of emergency assistance and smiled at their compassion, commitment, service and dedication.
This self blended into the ups and downs and side to side of each of these moments as they blended together like a rainbow in the sky after a rain storm. It was all there. The pain, pleasure and neutral feelings but no attachment to them. Just experiencing them and being apart of those moments. Nothing to do or undo. Nothing to fear and nothing to force. All things unfolding as they would without any stress or desire to try and control the stream of consciousness moving through and along side of this (for lack of a better term) "body."
--------------------------------------
The picture is of the final product of my Buddha tattoo on my left fore arm. My tattoo guy did a WONDERFUL job with it and I can not help but stare at it through out the day and feel peace and tranquility radiating from the art. Sure it's just a symbol, however, symbols can be very powerful and helpful tools to remind one of the Dharma or a myriad of other pieces of information. Symbols convey ideas and importance without using many words and so they are often offer a more direct path into one's consciousness. Every time I am out and about in the rapid paced, dualistic world and I look upon this tattoo I will be reminded to take a deep breath and return again and again to the present moment of the middle path. As well as reminding me that peace and mindfulness are present and available in any moment of any situation.
~Peace to all beings~
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 2/23/2007
You are your own master, you make your future. Therefore discipline yourself as a horse-dealer trains a thoroughbred.
~Dhammapada 380
~Dhammapada 380
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Creation... and The End of the World
I did a little research on the question raised yesterday in a comment by Mark, a student at Drury University in Springfield, Missouri, where I curated an exhibition and lectured last fall. His question (read it in full in yesterday's "Comments" section) was about the creation. If there were no deity to perform the act, he asked, how was it done--and why?
I was interested in Mark's question because, in fact, I had given little thought to the matter and was ill-informed about Buddhist thinking about the origins of the universe. As it turned out, this was no great surprise, since the Buddha clearly discouraged speculation on the subject, as he appears to have done most frequently with the great unknowables. One answer I came up, however, was in an essay by one A.L. DeSilva in an essay on the website, Buddhism Today:
"Buddhism says little on this subject," writes DeSilva, "and for a very good reason. The aim of Buddhism is to develop wisdom and compassion and thereby attain Nirvana. Knowing how the universe began can contribute nothing to this task." DeSilva continues with this story from the Buddhist texts:
A good story. One of the appealing things about the Buddha is that he told a good story--at least to judge from the reports of those who carried them in memory and those who eventually wrote them down. It bothers me that Evangelicals spend so much time and effort agonizing over the beginning and the end of the world. I suppose it's because their concern is with what they believe to be the eternal soul, and what will happen to it after death. In this light, the Buddhist concept of rebirth seems infinitely more expansive and humane. Do-overs, to me, are definitely preferable to eternal damnation--a fate which Evangelicals tell me I must expect if I'm not "reborn in Christ."
In any event, to believe in the literal word of the Bible on the subject of creation despite centuries of empirical scientific evidence seems to me willfully obtuse. The Buddha would surely shrug off that kind of ignorance. As for the end of the world, the Armageddon that Evangelical Christians like to wave like a warning cudgel--and which they appear to embrace in the belief that they alone will be spared... well, I like the incisive, playful irony of Robert Frost:
Wise words written in 1920. And of course, there's always the anticlimax T.S.Eliot offers in The Hollow Men:
(My thanks to Michael Davis at Michael's Scribblings for reminding me of these two visions!)
So what would the Buddha say? I think he'd say simply, don't bother your head about the things you can never know. Take heed of the present moment, and put your efforts into developing that wisdom and compassion. As for the origin of the world, as DeSilva nicely puts it at the end of his short essay: "Buddhism concentrates on helping us solve the practical problems of living - it does not encourage useless speculation. And if a Buddhist did wish to know how and when the universe began he would ask a scientist."
I was interested in Mark's question because, in fact, I had given little thought to the matter and was ill-informed about Buddhist thinking about the origins of the universe. As it turned out, this was no great surprise, since the Buddha clearly discouraged speculation on the subject, as he appears to have done most frequently with the great unknowables. One answer I came up, however, was in an essay by one A.L. DeSilva in an essay on the website, Buddhism Today:
"Buddhism says little on this subject," writes DeSilva, "and for a very good reason. The aim of Buddhism is to develop wisdom and compassion and thereby attain Nirvana. Knowing how the universe began can contribute nothing to this task." DeSilva continues with this story from the Buddhist texts:
Once a man demanded that the Buddha tell him how the universe began. The Buddha said to him "You are like a man who has been shot with a poison arrow and who, when the doctor comes to remove it, says 'Wait! Before the arrow is removed I want to know the name of the man who shot it, what clan he comes from, which village he was born in. I want to know what type of wood his bow is made from, what feathers are on the end of the arrow, how long the arrows are, etc etc etc.' That man would die before all these questions could be answered. My job is to help you to remove the arrow of suffering from yourself." (Majjhima Nikaya Sutta No. 63)
A good story. One of the appealing things about the Buddha is that he told a good story--at least to judge from the reports of those who carried them in memory and those who eventually wrote them down. It bothers me that Evangelicals spend so much time and effort agonizing over the beginning and the end of the world. I suppose it's because their concern is with what they believe to be the eternal soul, and what will happen to it after death. In this light, the Buddhist concept of rebirth seems infinitely more expansive and humane. Do-overs, to me, are definitely preferable to eternal damnation--a fate which Evangelicals tell me I must expect if I'm not "reborn in Christ."
In any event, to believe in the literal word of the Bible on the subject of creation despite centuries of empirical scientific evidence seems to me willfully obtuse. The Buddha would surely shrug off that kind of ignorance. As for the end of the world, the Armageddon that Evangelical Christians like to wave like a warning cudgel--and which they appear to embrace in the belief that they alone will be spared... well, I like the incisive, playful irony of Robert Frost:
SOME say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Wise words written in 1920. And of course, there's always the anticlimax T.S.Eliot offers in The Hollow Men:
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
(My thanks to Michael Davis at Michael's Scribblings for reminding me of these two visions!)
So what would the Buddha say? I think he'd say simply, don't bother your head about the things you can never know. Take heed of the present moment, and put your efforts into developing that wisdom and compassion. As for the origin of the world, as DeSilva nicely puts it at the end of his short essay: "Buddhism concentrates on helping us solve the practical problems of living - it does not encourage useless speculation. And if a Buddhist did wish to know how and when the universe began he would ask a scientist."
Thich Nhat Hanh's Visit to Vietnam 2007
This is only the second time that Thay has returned to his native Vietnam. For decades he was unwelcome in his home country by the communist government.
He is currently still there until May 9, 2007. This trip the Zen master is working to heal the wounds of the Vietnam war and to support the fledgling sanghas in this still communist state.
The remaining wounds of the Vietnam War will be work on by organizing three Great Chanting Ceremonies in the three main cities of Vietnam – Saigon, Hue and Hanoi. The ceremonies will be led by many holy High Monks of each region, to pray for the liberation of the many people who tragically died during the war and after the war. There will be a teaching every day during the Ceremony period so that the understanding and the liberation will be realized in the hearts of the relatives of the deceased people.
Thay is also going to lead many retreats for monastics as well as for lay people in Vietnam.
~Peace to all beings~
He is currently still there until May 9, 2007. This trip the Zen master is working to heal the wounds of the Vietnam war and to support the fledgling sanghas in this still communist state.
The remaining wounds of the Vietnam War will be work on by organizing three Great Chanting Ceremonies in the three main cities of Vietnam – Saigon, Hue and Hanoi. The ceremonies will be led by many holy High Monks of each region, to pray for the liberation of the many people who tragically died during the war and after the war. There will be a teaching every day during the Ceremony period so that the understanding and the liberation will be realized in the hearts of the relatives of the deceased people.
Thay is also going to lead many retreats for monastics as well as for lay people in Vietnam.
~Peace to all beings~
Rebirth: A Letter
Today, with his permission, a letter from a friend on the subject of rebirth, and the belief in rebirth. He says it all much more completely than my brief resume last Monday.
Hi Peter,
It was good to meet you on Sunday. I enjoyed the blog; thanks for the kind words.
It's a pity that we didn't have more time to discuss your question but the talk seemed to wander off in another direction - "The Secret" etc. Rebirth is a difficult one and I struggled with it for a long time. I started out with complete disbelief, considering it to be wishful thinking at best and completely at odds with scientific "facts", but the more I thought about and researched it, the more I realized that my belief that rebirth doesn't exist was just as much a dogmatic philosophical position as the belief that it does. I can't say that I know that rebirth is impossible and scientists haven't proved that it is impossible. This is particularly so with the Buddhist concept of rebirth because the Buddha said that there is not a "thing" that moves from life to life, just a process.
The idea of rebirth without any "thing" being reborn seems, at first sight to be nonsense but, if you think of your present life span, it seems more plausible. You say in your profile that you are 70; well, if you think of yourself now compared to when you were 7, what is left of the 7 year old Peter? Science tells us that we are mainly composed of water and that has changed since you were 7. All the gases in your body have changed. All the cells in your body have changed. Our minds change even more rapidly than the body - as we find out as soon as we try to do breath meditation! So the seven year old Peter has completely disappeared but we don't say that Peter doesn't exist. In fact, if the seven year old Peter hadn't existed, the seventy year old Peter could not now exist.
So why couldn't this process continue after the death of your present body? We know that the body isn't reborn because, if we are so inclined, we can watch a dead body rot. The only thing that could move on to another life is the mental continuum. For this to be the case, the mind would have to be a separate thing than the body and not dependent on the body for its existence. The Buddhist position is that the mental continuum started in the distant past and will continue into the future, only coming to an end when it stops grasping after further existence. In some ways, you could see it as similar to radio waves. These are in the air all the time but we are not aware of their existence; we can't experience them until we have a radio receiver.
In the scientific community there is disagreement as to whether consciousness can exist apart from the body or whether it is just an epiphenomenon of the brain. At the moment, the latter view seems to be dominant but the important thing is that neither side of the argument seems to be able to produce conclusive proof.
My position at the moment is that I don't know if rebirth exists but I lean towards accepting it because the Buddha said that it does and, every other time that I've put the Dhamma to the test I've found the Buddha to be correct.
In one way the question of rebirth can be put aside as long as you accept the theory of kamma. If you believe that all your actions have effects which depend upon the intention behind the act, then you will do all that you can to make sure that your actions aren't the cause of suffering for yourself or others. When you really investigate suffering and have real insights into it and its causes, you'll end up enlightened and will have put an end to rebirth.
Anyway, I'll stop my rambling now. I hope that this has helped you, if not, just hit the delete button and consign me to the great recycling bin in hyperspace!
I hope that I can speak to you again in person before I leave for home. If not and you want to keep up a dhamma discussion by e-mail I would be happy to do that.
Take care. Say hi to Ellie.
Best wishes, Nigel
I wrote back: Thanks, Nigel. Very good to hear from you. Your first paragraph sounds a bit like Pascal's famous bet about the existence of God. What you say makes good sense to me, but there is still a leap to make that I'm not quite ready for on this issue. Clearly, to make the point you make about believing what the Buddha said, you have far greater experience in testing out the Dhamma than I, and I respect that experience. I know that I have a lot of work to do! Would you mind if I used your letter in The Buddha Diaires? Please let me know. And do let's stay in touch. All being well, I'll see you this coming Sunday. Best of everything, Peter
And heard again from him: Hi Peter, Please feel free to use the letter, it might start a discussion. As for Pascal's wager, the problem is that he seems to think that it is an argument for believing only in the existence of the Christian God, whereas, if you follow the logic, you'd also have to believe in every other god or goddess that people have believed in since the beginning of time - and perhaps fairies at the bottom of the garden partying with leprechauns too! Regarding the fact that you are not ready to make the leap to believe in rebirth, the Buddha said somewhere, I think in one of the suttas in the Majjhima Nikaya, that you don't have to believe in rebirth but, if you don't, it means that you should go all out for enlightenment in this life. See you on Sunday. Take care, Nigel
And I, to him, briefly: Thanks, Nigel. I'll plan to share your letter in the next couple of days. And yes, the further discussion would be welcome. Fairies and leprechauns, eh? Sounds like fun. As for going all out for enlightenment, aren't we supposed to do that anyway? Or does belief in rebirth come with some kind of dispensation? Cheers, Peter
As Nigel suggests, wouldn't this be good, if this exchange started a discussion?
Hi Peter,
It was good to meet you on Sunday. I enjoyed the blog; thanks for the kind words.
It's a pity that we didn't have more time to discuss your question but the talk seemed to wander off in another direction - "The Secret" etc. Rebirth is a difficult one and I struggled with it for a long time. I started out with complete disbelief, considering it to be wishful thinking at best and completely at odds with scientific "facts", but the more I thought about and researched it, the more I realized that my belief that rebirth doesn't exist was just as much a dogmatic philosophical position as the belief that it does. I can't say that I know that rebirth is impossible and scientists haven't proved that it is impossible. This is particularly so with the Buddhist concept of rebirth because the Buddha said that there is not a "thing" that moves from life to life, just a process.
The idea of rebirth without any "thing" being reborn seems, at first sight to be nonsense but, if you think of your present life span, it seems more plausible. You say in your profile that you are 70; well, if you think of yourself now compared to when you were 7, what is left of the 7 year old Peter? Science tells us that we are mainly composed of water and that has changed since you were 7. All the gases in your body have changed. All the cells in your body have changed. Our minds change even more rapidly than the body - as we find out as soon as we try to do breath meditation! So the seven year old Peter has completely disappeared but we don't say that Peter doesn't exist. In fact, if the seven year old Peter hadn't existed, the seventy year old Peter could not now exist.
So why couldn't this process continue after the death of your present body? We know that the body isn't reborn because, if we are so inclined, we can watch a dead body rot. The only thing that could move on to another life is the mental continuum. For this to be the case, the mind would have to be a separate thing than the body and not dependent on the body for its existence. The Buddhist position is that the mental continuum started in the distant past and will continue into the future, only coming to an end when it stops grasping after further existence. In some ways, you could see it as similar to radio waves. These are in the air all the time but we are not aware of their existence; we can't experience them until we have a radio receiver.
In the scientific community there is disagreement as to whether consciousness can exist apart from the body or whether it is just an epiphenomenon of the brain. At the moment, the latter view seems to be dominant but the important thing is that neither side of the argument seems to be able to produce conclusive proof.
My position at the moment is that I don't know if rebirth exists but I lean towards accepting it because the Buddha said that it does and, every other time that I've put the Dhamma to the test I've found the Buddha to be correct.
In one way the question of rebirth can be put aside as long as you accept the theory of kamma. If you believe that all your actions have effects which depend upon the intention behind the act, then you will do all that you can to make sure that your actions aren't the cause of suffering for yourself or others. When you really investigate suffering and have real insights into it and its causes, you'll end up enlightened and will have put an end to rebirth.
Anyway, I'll stop my rambling now. I hope that this has helped you, if not, just hit the delete button and consign me to the great recycling bin in hyperspace!
I hope that I can speak to you again in person before I leave for home. If not and you want to keep up a dhamma discussion by e-mail I would be happy to do that.
Take care. Say hi to Ellie.
Best wishes, Nigel
I wrote back: Thanks, Nigel. Very good to hear from you. Your first paragraph sounds a bit like Pascal's famous bet about the existence of God. What you say makes good sense to me, but there is still a leap to make that I'm not quite ready for on this issue. Clearly, to make the point you make about believing what the Buddha said, you have far greater experience in testing out the Dhamma than I, and I respect that experience. I know that I have a lot of work to do! Would you mind if I used your letter in The Buddha Diaires? Please let me know. And do let's stay in touch. All being well, I'll see you this coming Sunday. Best of everything, Peter
And heard again from him: Hi Peter, Please feel free to use the letter, it might start a discussion. As for Pascal's wager, the problem is that he seems to think that it is an argument for believing only in the existence of the Christian God, whereas, if you follow the logic, you'd also have to believe in every other god or goddess that people have believed in since the beginning of time - and perhaps fairies at the bottom of the garden partying with leprechauns too! Regarding the fact that you are not ready to make the leap to believe in rebirth, the Buddha said somewhere, I think in one of the suttas in the Majjhima Nikaya, that you don't have to believe in rebirth but, if you don't, it means that you should go all out for enlightenment in this life. See you on Sunday. Take care, Nigel
And I, to him, briefly: Thanks, Nigel. I'll plan to share your letter in the next couple of days. And yes, the further discussion would be welcome. Fairies and leprechauns, eh? Sounds like fun. As for going all out for enlightenment, aren't we supposed to do that anyway? Or does belief in rebirth come with some kind of dispensation? Cheers, Peter
As Nigel suggests, wouldn't this be good, if this exchange started a discussion?
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 2/22/2007
Make an island of yourself, make yourself your refuge; there is no other refuge. Make truth your island, make truth your refuge; there is no other refuge.
~Digha Nikaya, 16
~Digha Nikaya, 16
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
PLEASE NOTE...
... if you're reading these pages and feel moved to respond, I warmly welcome any and all comments. I value what you have to say. Be aware, however, that if you choose the "anonymous" path in the comment box, the Blogger system leaves me unable to know who you are or get back to you--especially if your name is a relatively common one, like Peter!--unless you also choose to identify yourself, or let me have your email address separately at PeterAtLarge@mac.com.
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 2/21/2007
Just as a mountain of rock, is unwavering, well-settled, so the monk whose delusion is ended, like a mountain, is undisturbed.
~Udana III, 4
~Udana III, 4
Forgiveness
I woke up puzzling over Lord Longford--or at least Lord Longford as he was presented in the BBC television drama "Longford," which we had previously recorded and got around to watching last night. Frank Pakenham, the 7th Earl of Longford, who died in 2001, had clearly been a figure of considerable respect, as well as widespread contempt and ridicule during his life. He was a crusader, a modern-day Quixote. Mocked in Britain as "Lord Porn" for his anti-pornography activism, he also incurred the wrath of the British public for his three-decade long attempt to help the despised "Moors Murder" villainess Myra Hindley in her battle for parole. 
Wild-haired, gawky, and with a perpetually bewildered gaze, he managed to look the goofy character his detractors so easily maligned.
On the one hand, it's tempting to see the good earl in the venerable, if slightly wacky tradition of upper class British eccentrics, who are rewarded with nothing but mockery and condescension from the ordinary folk for their untiring efforts to compensate for inherited privilege with their pure thoughts, words and deeds. Count Prince Charles as prominent amongst them, for his undeservedly unkind image as a daft tree-hugger and generally nutty greenman. It's as though these superannuated aristocrats are trying to shake off centuries of guilt with single-minded dedication to redemption. They cling obstinately to a sense of duty for which others only censure them, and shoulder more than their fair share of suffering.
On the other hand, the good they try to do is undoubtedly good. To historian observers in the future, I have no doubt that Prince Charles will look like a truly enlightened pioneer in his personal obsession with organic gardening and agriculture. More power to him. As for Longford, his devotion to the unpopular cause of visiting even the worst of incarcerated criminals and his belief in the possibility of their rehabilitation are surely as noble as his family titles. Still, at least in this televised dramatisation of his life, he also comes across as naive and a shade overly pious in his determination to forgive.
It may be that Longford's obsession with forgiveness was rooted in his own need to be forgiven, as I have suggested. It was certainly deeply rooted in his embrace of Roman Catholicism, to which he converted as a younger man--though this might well be a chicken and egg effect. Which comes first, the man's obsessive need to be forgiven or the church's dark appeal in its own obsession with sin, guilt, confession, and redemption? The model of Christ as the forgiver-in-chief (apologies to my former nemesis, Bush!) seems to be what drives this character and his actions beyond the pale of reason and into a place where he is easily betrayed and made to look like a patsy and a fool. (Among the best scenes are those where Longford encounters the satanic Ian Brady, Hindley's partner in the child sex-and-murder crimes, who acts as the Devil's foil to the self-doubting saint in Longford. The whole thing, be it added, is superbly acted.)
All of which had me mulling the differences between Christian and Buddhist attitudes toward forgiveness. I remembered that Than Geoff had spoken on the subject but had forgotten exactly what he had to say, so I checked on the Access to Insight website to remind myself. Amongst other things, he wrote that "the Pali word for forgiveness-khama-also means 'the earth.' A mind like the earth is non-reactive and unperturbed. When you forgive me for harming you, you decide not to retaliate, to seek no revenge. You don't have to like me. You simply unburden yourself of the weight of resentment and cut the cycle of retribution that would otherwise keep us ensnarled in an ugly samsaric wrestling match. This is a gift you can give us both, totally on your own, without my having to know or understand what you've done." This squares, I think, with Longford's generous ability to eschew vengeful thoughts or intentions, to his own benefit as well as to that of the one at the receiving end of his forgiveness: it's the basic Buddhist principle, to avoid harm to both oneself and others.
What has me wondering is whether Longford's (guilt-ridden?) forgiveness is not too readily given, and does not too easily pass over responsibility for actions that were criminally brutal. Than Geoff makes a clear distinction between forgiveness--a simple, one-sided, and compassionate act; and reconciliation, which must be earned by the re-establishment of trust, beginning with the transgressor's recognition and acknowledgment of the transgression. As this drama shows it, Longford's trust is given too easily: he fails to recognize the falsity of Hindley's "confession," and in this way becomes a partner in her deception. As Than Geoff has memorably noted, "Buddhism does not require you to be a doormat"--a word which rather aptly describes the way in which Longford, in his eagerness to forgive, allows himself to be treated by Hindley, at great cost to his personal reputation. One can exercise forgiving compassion without being duped.
Food for thought: as an epigraph to his essay on forgiveness, Than Geoff invokes the wisdom of the Buddha.
"These two are fools. Which two? The one who doesn't see his/her transgression as a transgression, and the one who doesn't rightfully pardon another who has confessed his/her transgression. These two are fools.
"These two are wise. Which two? The one who sees his/her transgression as a transgression, and the one who rightfully pardons another who has confessed his/her transgression. These two are wise."
Wild-haired, gawky, and with a perpetually bewildered gaze, he managed to look the goofy character his detractors so easily maligned.
On the one hand, it's tempting to see the good earl in the venerable, if slightly wacky tradition of upper class British eccentrics, who are rewarded with nothing but mockery and condescension from the ordinary folk for their untiring efforts to compensate for inherited privilege with their pure thoughts, words and deeds. Count Prince Charles as prominent amongst them, for his undeservedly unkind image as a daft tree-hugger and generally nutty greenman. It's as though these superannuated aristocrats are trying to shake off centuries of guilt with single-minded dedication to redemption. They cling obstinately to a sense of duty for which others only censure them, and shoulder more than their fair share of suffering.
On the other hand, the good they try to do is undoubtedly good. To historian observers in the future, I have no doubt that Prince Charles will look like a truly enlightened pioneer in his personal obsession with organic gardening and agriculture. More power to him. As for Longford, his devotion to the unpopular cause of visiting even the worst of incarcerated criminals and his belief in the possibility of their rehabilitation are surely as noble as his family titles. Still, at least in this televised dramatisation of his life, he also comes across as naive and a shade overly pious in his determination to forgive.
It may be that Longford's obsession with forgiveness was rooted in his own need to be forgiven, as I have suggested. It was certainly deeply rooted in his embrace of Roman Catholicism, to which he converted as a younger man--though this might well be a chicken and egg effect. Which comes first, the man's obsessive need to be forgiven or the church's dark appeal in its own obsession with sin, guilt, confession, and redemption? The model of Christ as the forgiver-in-chief (apologies to my former nemesis, Bush!) seems to be what drives this character and his actions beyond the pale of reason and into a place where he is easily betrayed and made to look like a patsy and a fool. (Among the best scenes are those where Longford encounters the satanic Ian Brady, Hindley's partner in the child sex-and-murder crimes, who acts as the Devil's foil to the self-doubting saint in Longford. The whole thing, be it added, is superbly acted.)
All of which had me mulling the differences between Christian and Buddhist attitudes toward forgiveness. I remembered that Than Geoff had spoken on the subject but had forgotten exactly what he had to say, so I checked on the Access to Insight website to remind myself. Amongst other things, he wrote that "the Pali word for forgiveness-khama-also means 'the earth.' A mind like the earth is non-reactive and unperturbed. When you forgive me for harming you, you decide not to retaliate, to seek no revenge. You don't have to like me. You simply unburden yourself of the weight of resentment and cut the cycle of retribution that would otherwise keep us ensnarled in an ugly samsaric wrestling match. This is a gift you can give us both, totally on your own, without my having to know or understand what you've done." This squares, I think, with Longford's generous ability to eschew vengeful thoughts or intentions, to his own benefit as well as to that of the one at the receiving end of his forgiveness: it's the basic Buddhist principle, to avoid harm to both oneself and others.
What has me wondering is whether Longford's (guilt-ridden?) forgiveness is not too readily given, and does not too easily pass over responsibility for actions that were criminally brutal. Than Geoff makes a clear distinction between forgiveness--a simple, one-sided, and compassionate act; and reconciliation, which must be earned by the re-establishment of trust, beginning with the transgressor's recognition and acknowledgment of the transgression. As this drama shows it, Longford's trust is given too easily: he fails to recognize the falsity of Hindley's "confession," and in this way becomes a partner in her deception. As Than Geoff has memorably noted, "Buddhism does not require you to be a doormat"--a word which rather aptly describes the way in which Longford, in his eagerness to forgive, allows himself to be treated by Hindley, at great cost to his personal reputation. One can exercise forgiving compassion without being duped.
Food for thought: as an epigraph to his essay on forgiveness, Than Geoff invokes the wisdom of the Buddha.
"These two are fools. Which two? The one who doesn't see his/her transgression as a transgression, and the one who doesn't rightfully pardon another who has confessed his/her transgression. These two are fools.
"These two are wise. Which two? The one who sees his/her transgression as a transgression, and the one who rightfully pardons another who has confessed his/her transgression. These two are wise."
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
A Treasure
I broke a treasure this morning. My daily routine is to come upstairs after my morning meditation (our bedroom, in this house, is on the lower level) and make a pot of tea to bring down for us both to enjoy in bed as we watch the morning news. This morning, in the process of assembling things on the tray, I reached for the sweetener and knocked its container off the shelf to the floor. The container in question was the smallest in a set of three ceramic "Made in Japan" cannisters--a gift, Ellie reminded me later--from a friend who had been a house guest in our home at a difficult moment in her life. We have a whole collection of these things, accumulated during our swap-meet days, but this one was of a particularly attractive, post-deco design and had been much used and loved.
I was feeling a bit sad and guilty, then, when I broke the news to Ellie. I could take the event, I suppose, as an object-lesson in non-attachment: no matter how much we treasure them, things come and go in our lives and it's best not to attach too much significance to their arrival--or their loss. This was a small thing, indeed. There are much bigger, much more important things we are called upon to relinquish--up to and including the very bodies in which we spend our lives!--so I can't feel too sorry for myself over the loss of what is clearly no more than a trinket, no matter how beautiful we thought it. It's important, though, to take note of that twinge of sadness and regret over something so small, and realize how easily we do become attached.
My choice, though, is to look at it also from another point of view. What caused the loss was a moment of inattention on my part--a lapse that only became significant when its result became apparent. There's something bigger at stake here. In the course of my morning sit, I had become more than usually aware of extra weight I carry around with me with a discomfort that I am normally able to ignore. I know that this, too, is just another result of inattention, the mindless consumption of unneeded food and drink for no better reason than emotional consolation. Since I have been thinking a good deal about karma these past few days, in both conscious and, I'm sure, unconscious ways, I began to see plausible connections between past actions and my present predicament.
The uncomfortable truth is that I do not need to explore my past lives--if such there were--to find examples of the kind of unskillful, harm-producing actions that could result in my need for emotional comfort today. No need, here, for personal confessions. The nature of those past actions matters less than the realization that they could have resulted in those things about myself that I find less than appealing today and would like to change. To wit, for one, that extra weight I carry around with me to my discomfort and to the detriment of my health.
The realization, of course, is a good deal easier than the choice to become more mindful, more attentive to what I put into my body. Wisdom is cheap. Those things I love, to which I have become attached--my extra glass of wine, my pre-dinner snacks, my post-dinner desserts--seem to mean more to me than health and balance in my life. The good news is that this ius not one of those things that can't be changed, that can be addressed only with equanimity. But I guess that's the bad news, too, because it makes it my responsibility to change. It's not that I don't know what's good for me. No. It's that I persist in making choices for the bad. As countless others have discovered before me, there is no diet in the world that can adequately solve this dilemma for me. There are only quick, all-too-ephemeral fixes that create the illusion of a solution. It's the inner work that needs to be done, and that's the hard part.
I was feeling a bit sad and guilty, then, when I broke the news to Ellie. I could take the event, I suppose, as an object-lesson in non-attachment: no matter how much we treasure them, things come and go in our lives and it's best not to attach too much significance to their arrival--or their loss. This was a small thing, indeed. There are much bigger, much more important things we are called upon to relinquish--up to and including the very bodies in which we spend our lives!--so I can't feel too sorry for myself over the loss of what is clearly no more than a trinket, no matter how beautiful we thought it. It's important, though, to take note of that twinge of sadness and regret over something so small, and realize how easily we do become attached.
My choice, though, is to look at it also from another point of view. What caused the loss was a moment of inattention on my part--a lapse that only became significant when its result became apparent. There's something bigger at stake here. In the course of my morning sit, I had become more than usually aware of extra weight I carry around with me with a discomfort that I am normally able to ignore. I know that this, too, is just another result of inattention, the mindless consumption of unneeded food and drink for no better reason than emotional consolation. Since I have been thinking a good deal about karma these past few days, in both conscious and, I'm sure, unconscious ways, I began to see plausible connections between past actions and my present predicament.
The uncomfortable truth is that I do not need to explore my past lives--if such there were--to find examples of the kind of unskillful, harm-producing actions that could result in my need for emotional comfort today. No need, here, for personal confessions. The nature of those past actions matters less than the realization that they could have resulted in those things about myself that I find less than appealing today and would like to change. To wit, for one, that extra weight I carry around with me to my discomfort and to the detriment of my health.
The realization, of course, is a good deal easier than the choice to become more mindful, more attentive to what I put into my body. Wisdom is cheap. Those things I love, to which I have become attached--my extra glass of wine, my pre-dinner snacks, my post-dinner desserts--seem to mean more to me than health and balance in my life. The good news is that this ius not one of those things that can't be changed, that can be addressed only with equanimity. But I guess that's the bad news, too, because it makes it my responsibility to change. It's not that I don't know what's good for me. No. It's that I persist in making choices for the bad. As countless others have discovered before me, there is no diet in the world that can adequately solve this dilemma for me. There are only quick, all-too-ephemeral fixes that create the illusion of a solution. It's the inner work that needs to be done, and that's the hard part.
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 2/20/2007
Think not lightly of good, saying, "It will not come to me." Drop by drop is the water pot filled. Likewise, the wise man, gathering it little by little, fills himself with good.
~Dhammapada 122
~Dhammapada 122
Monday, February 19, 2007
Thai Monks Want Buddhism Official Religion of Thailand
Bangkok, Thailand -- A group of Buddhist monks and supporters rallied in front of Parliament Tuesday to demand charter drafters to state that Buddhism is the national religion. The group of 100 demonstrators is led by Phra Mahacho Thassaniyo of Maha Chulalongkorn Monks University.
The monk said so far over 300,000 Buddhists had signed their name to demand that the next charter would specify Buddhism as the national religion.
He said if the number of signatories would grow over 1 million and he would later submit the names to the Constitution Drafting Committee.
He said if the call was ignored, Buddhists would definitely reject the draft constitution in a public referendum.
James:
This movement seems antithetical to the Buddha's teachings. First, in regards to attachment. Insisting that there be a national religion is attaching to the structure of "religion." It is placing yet another limb into the vast, sticky spider's web of duality.
Declaring a "national religion" is to put the concept of a "religion" higher then even the basic tenets of the religion itself?!! The frame work and labels of a religion are just a shell. Attaching to them is ignoring the meat that are the teachings.
The attitude seems to be, "The majority of people practice "Buddhism" here so it must be better then other religions and therefore lauded to the highest praise and exclusivity." It is not Right View to say that one religion is better then another one. Right View is see things as they are (not as "you" perceive them to be (or want them to be). As we know, all things are impermanent and saying that "Buddhism" be the national religion is trying to make permanent a belief system that teaches impermanence at it's very core!!
Then there is the Buddhist teaching of the middle way. Attaching too much importance too one religion over another is an imbalance that invites undo suffering upon people of other beliefs. It is creating yet another separation between people. Buddhism tries to break down those perceptions of separateness not create more. Separateness that can very easily lead to misunderstandings, anger, social upheaval and ultimately war. A large number of wars in the history of Earth have been fought for "religion."
The current Dalai Lama has often taught the importance of religious pluralism. That not only is it not "Right View" and "Right Action" to convert and shun other believers but that it is also harmful and not in keeping with the fundamental "Buddhist" teachings of compassion, loving-kindness and interconnectivity.
Perhaps some might be shocked that Buddhist monks would have such a warped understanding of the Dharma but it is no different then extremist Christians in America that seek the same exclusivity. Ignoring the teachings of their founder, Jesus, to love one another and not create enmity between people. The same is true of radical Islam. Yes, there IS extremism in Buddhism. People can fall into the trappings of fundamentalist ideology within Buddhism just as easily as any other religion. Extremist, ego-eccentric, dualistic attachment is no respecter of persons or religions.
Even if this move is for honorary reasons it seems silly, hollow and a waste of time, energy and resources.
~Peace to all beings~
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 2/19/2007
Irrigators direct the water, Fletchers fashion the shaft, Carpenters bend the wood, The wise control themselves.
~Dhammapada 80
~Dhammapada 80
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...
Sunday, February 18, 2007
The Gift of Arms
I was walking out of the grocery store today with bags of food in my two arms and remembered how much we do with our arms and hands. I am so very grateful to have two working arms and hands.
Speaking of arms, below are the finished pictures of the dragon sleeve tattoo wrapped around the three jewels in Chinese characters. And below them are the updated Buddha tattoo pictures:
The Buddha tattoo shots below. It's about half way done.
~Peace to all beings~
Speaking of arms, below are the finished pictures of the dragon sleeve tattoo wrapped around the three jewels in Chinese characters. And below them are the updated Buddha tattoo pictures:
The Buddha tattoo shots below. It's about half way done.
~Peace to all beings~
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 2/18/2007
Be capable, upright, & straightforward, easy to instruct, gentle, & not conceited, content & easy to support, with few duties, living lightly, with peaceful faculties, masterful, modest, & no greed for supporters. Do not do the slightest thing that the wise would later censure.
~Sutta Nipata I, 8
~Sutta Nipata I, 8
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Traffic
We left the Bergamot Station art gallery complex a little before 4:30 after our art walk Thursday. Bergamot Station is between Olympic and the 10 Freeway at 26th Street in Santa Monica, so there was good reason to believe that we were leaving plenty of time to make it to midtown, Melrose and Highland, in good time to make our 5PM dinner reservation. (We had made it so early because this restaurant has become so hugely popular that, with a good week's notice, we had been unable to get a table after 5PM!) As it turned out, we arrived at the restaurant forty-five minutes late for our appointment--and the table, of course, was gone.
Okay, it's getting to be a bore to complain about it, but it seems that the traffic in Los Angeles is getting worse by the day. After leaving Bergamot, we ran into nearly stationary lines of it on Olympic more than ten blocks before the 405 Freeway. After twenty minutes or so, thinking that it must be some dreadful accident that was holding us up, we cut north to Santa Monica Boulevard, and then east toward the freeway underpass and on through Beverly Hills. Same problem. The traffic was blocked solid, inching forward at the change of every light. Three, four, five light changes before we actually managed to cross an intersection. Same thing through Beverly Hills.
It's in situations like this, I confess, that I find it hardest to put those wonderful Buddhist principles into practice. Equanimity at zero miles per hour, sitting amongst the fumes of a hundred vehicles hemming you in--to me, this is a near-impossibility. I tell myself to breathe, but the anger and frustration continue to sizzle--and occasionally explode when my lane seems to be the only one that's stalled. Until, of course, I sneak into the next, which seems to be making at least minimal progress, and that one stalls instead, while the one I've left starts up with a burst of unpredictable speed. Or when one of those rude drivers zooms ahead and cuts in front of me from another lane--no matter that I've just done the same myself. Ah, yes, goodwill. Compassion... Equanimity, hell!
Well, cell phones have their uses, and Ellie was able to call ahead to let the restaurant know we would be late and ask them to hold the table for as long as possible. At five o'clock, they offered, tentatively, another twenty minutes. At that time, we even thought we might be able to make it. Vain hope! We did stop by the restaurant at 5:45, but by then it was already far too late. We drove on to a restaurant closer to home and drowned our sorrows in a nice bottle of coastal pinot noir.
Arriving in Laguna yesterday mid-afternoon, we were appalled to find gridlock here in the village too. We tolerate the summer crowds, and do most of our travel here on foot. But we usually expect to be spared, off-season. Is there nowhere to escape this curse of contemporary civilization?
Okay, it's getting to be a bore to complain about it, but it seems that the traffic in Los Angeles is getting worse by the day. After leaving Bergamot, we ran into nearly stationary lines of it on Olympic more than ten blocks before the 405 Freeway. After twenty minutes or so, thinking that it must be some dreadful accident that was holding us up, we cut north to Santa Monica Boulevard, and then east toward the freeway underpass and on through Beverly Hills. Same problem. The traffic was blocked solid, inching forward at the change of every light. Three, four, five light changes before we actually managed to cross an intersection. Same thing through Beverly Hills.
It's in situations like this, I confess, that I find it hardest to put those wonderful Buddhist principles into practice. Equanimity at zero miles per hour, sitting amongst the fumes of a hundred vehicles hemming you in--to me, this is a near-impossibility. I tell myself to breathe, but the anger and frustration continue to sizzle--and occasionally explode when my lane seems to be the only one that's stalled. Until, of course, I sneak into the next, which seems to be making at least minimal progress, and that one stalls instead, while the one I've left starts up with a burst of unpredictable speed. Or when one of those rude drivers zooms ahead and cuts in front of me from another lane--no matter that I've just done the same myself. Ah, yes, goodwill. Compassion... Equanimity, hell!
Well, cell phones have their uses, and Ellie was able to call ahead to let the restaurant know we would be late and ask them to hold the table for as long as possible. At five o'clock, they offered, tentatively, another twenty minutes. At that time, we even thought we might be able to make it. Vain hope! We did stop by the restaurant at 5:45, but by then it was already far too late. We drove on to a restaurant closer to home and drowned our sorrows in a nice bottle of coastal pinot noir.
Arriving in Laguna yesterday mid-afternoon, we were appalled to find gridlock here in the village too. We tolerate the summer crowds, and do most of our travel here on foot. But we usually expect to be spared, off-season. Is there nowhere to escape this curse of contemporary civilization?
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 2/17/2007
Live without covetous greed, fill your mind with benevolence. Be mindful and one-pointed, inwardly stable and concentrated.
~Anguttara Nikaya II, 29
~Anguttara Nikaya II, 29
Friday, February 16, 2007
Meditations on No-Self and Change
I just got off the meditation cushion and like after many sessions I have the inspiration to write.I was meditating upon the teaching of no-self in particular today and after a while I felt this extreme relaxation that sometimes comes when I focus my attention on the lack of an inherent self. This state of calm comes with a feeling of slight floating and a sensation that my body has melted beyond it's frame and merged with the continuous chain of molecules in space and time. I feel as if I am apart of a firm yet flexible wall where I can not tell at what point my body ends and the rest of the world begins. This experience is by no means ever present when I sit and it isn't something to attach too. However, it is always a beautiful, welcome, hands-on lesson in inter-connection and losing oneself into the vast yet comforting ocean of emptiness or no self.
Today is a very windy day and I am enjoying the commotion it has created. I use to become anxious with the wind (as I think I have mentioned here before). It use to anger me because it forced my carefully crafted world of "me" into flux. With mindfulness, however, I have come to welcome it as a visible reminder and agent of change. It helps remind me that change is a good thing. Without the changing winds there would be no seeds scattered to implant in fertile soil. Without the winds of change rain clouds would never empty their liquid beauty upon those seeds to grow into cherished plants to feed us.
I also see wind as symbolic of blowing the toxins of the "self" out of our minds. It is as if it is the very breath of Inter-being blowing away the dualistic boundaries of separateness to scatter our habit energy to be burned away in the freedom of emptiness or no self. Emptiness being liberating because in that state we are no longer bound by the constraints of the ego. Or "self" which seeks to imprison everything and everyone into categories or "jail cells" out of ignorance and fear which ultimately leads to all of our suffering. This example of the prison really helps me understand the beautiful gift of emptiness/no self. Because if I see myself as trapped in a cage (ego self) then I want to do everything to free myself from that cage so that I might reunite with my family and friends (the state of inter-being of the Higher Self). Seeing the freedom in emptiness and change is Right View or Buddha mind. This is because in emptiness we see things as they really are. The blurry glasses have been removed.
What have we to fear if we embrace change as a gift?
I hope some of this makes sense. It does in my head but isn't that where the problems lie in the first place? Ha!!
~Peace to all beings.
Art Gallery Rounds
Well, I kept my pledge. I wrote to both my senators and my congresswoman about that UNICEF report on the well-being of our children here in America, and I found what I think is a good organization to which to send some money. It's the Children's Defense Fund. Under the leadership of founder and president Marian Wright Edelman, this organization seems to be doing the kind of work I'd want to support, and I trust that readers of these pages might want to add a few dollars to the pot. It's easy, painless even. Just click on the link above, hit "donate," and Bob's your uncle, as we used to say,
So let's talk about art. Ellie and I made the rounds of some of the galleries yesterday, and found more than our usual share of interesting work. For locals, a stop at the Jancar Gallery on Wilshire Boulevard (for details, check out the handy Artscene gallery guide) rewards with a show of unabashedly political paintings and drawings by Kim Hubbard. No holds barred. This is an artist previously known for abstract paintings. Perhaps, not unlike myself, she was called to respond with unambiguous anger to what's happening in the world--and particularly in American politics these days. I say, bravo!
Another women artist caught my attention further along the route. In a capacious old hangar at the Santa Monica Airport, the Sherry Frumkin Gallery shows Corey Stein, whose relief paintings--she uses paper cut-outs to create the relief--are at once hilarious, witty, provocative and poignant. She titles the show "Gallery Guyde"--pun obviously intended, since the series of works riffs on the experience of a Miss LonelyHearts in the yearning search for a beau. Stein, who has suffered from epilepsy all her life and underwent brain surgery to correct the affliction, looks out at the world from an almost painfully personal point of view. The wry, sardonic, occasionally biting humor does not quite manage to disguise the vulnerability in these works. Anyone with an ounce of human senstivity will resonate with the aching dread of isolation and with the simultaneous paradoxical anxieties about contact and closeness with other human beings. To paraphrase that old Beatles song, we all need someone to love--and someone to love us.
On to Bergamot Station in Santa Monica, where there was also plenty to see--and plenty to admire. For myself, of special interest was the Jan Bas Ader installation at Patrick Painter Gallery--a reminder of the special influence of this pioneering Dutch artist on future generations. The deadpan irony of his camera work and situations elicits sometimes uncomfortable smiles. His disappearance at sea in 1976 as he was attempting a trans-Atlantic crossing in a small boat as a part of an art experiment deprived the art world of an original practitioner. Also, the work of Amy Bennett at Richard Heller Gallery. Her spookily bland suburban scenes with their odd surprises (a tiny naked figure, for example, in a window, or a couple caught in flagrante delicto in some unexpected corner) have something of the familiar frisson of "Desperate Housewives." The dark side of the comfortable American way of life.
I fell in love with Kathleen Henderson's show of oil stick drawings and small, three-dimensional pieces (you could hardly call them "sculptures")--the word suggests more formality than these unsettling works possess at Rosamund Felsen Gallery. Part mythical, part satrical, her figures are most frequently humans masked as animals--the rabbit is clearly her favorite, to judge by his ubiquitous appearances--and they're caught in situations that mime the extremes of human foibles, most frequently malevolent, and often military, personal or sexual aggression.
The rabbit, of course, has contradictory dual associations, as both the irresistibly cuddly, furry little thing that children love and the promiscous, tireless--and prolific--sexual aggressor. Henderson's Rabbit has both qualities, in spades. At first sight, the work might seem merely whimsical. It shares some of the humorous qualities of James Thurber, both in theme and execution. Examine these drawings and sculptures more closely, though, and we're drawn back into some pretty serious and damning reflections on human nature and the society in which we live.
Aside from the compelling quality of the content, though, I was attracted by Henderson's modesty and economy of means. She manages to say a lot with little, and in very small scale. To get a better sense of the work, click on the "current exhibition" at Rosamund Felsen Gallery and you'll find a nice selection of the work. Better yet, of course, stop by the gallery one day soon.
If I were writing for a magazine, as I used to do, I would have to add a "full disclosure" here. Ellie and I were so engaged with Kathleen Henderson's work that we splurged and bought one of her "sculptures"! But this isn't a magazine, and I don't have to tell you. So forget I mentioned it.
So let's talk about art. Ellie and I made the rounds of some of the galleries yesterday, and found more than our usual share of interesting work. For locals, a stop at the Jancar Gallery on Wilshire Boulevard (for details, check out the handy Artscene gallery guide) rewards with a show of unabashedly political paintings and drawings by Kim Hubbard. No holds barred. This is an artist previously known for abstract paintings. Perhaps, not unlike myself, she was called to respond with unambiguous anger to what's happening in the world--and particularly in American politics these days. I say, bravo!
Another women artist caught my attention further along the route. In a capacious old hangar at the Santa Monica Airport, the Sherry Frumkin Gallery shows Corey Stein, whose relief paintings--she uses paper cut-outs to create the relief--are at once hilarious, witty, provocative and poignant. She titles the show "Gallery Guyde"--pun obviously intended, since the series of works riffs on the experience of a Miss LonelyHearts in the yearning search for a beau. Stein, who has suffered from epilepsy all her life and underwent brain surgery to correct the affliction, looks out at the world from an almost painfully personal point of view. The wry, sardonic, occasionally biting humor does not quite manage to disguise the vulnerability in these works. Anyone with an ounce of human senstivity will resonate with the aching dread of isolation and with the simultaneous paradoxical anxieties about contact and closeness with other human beings. To paraphrase that old Beatles song, we all need someone to love--and someone to love us.
On to Bergamot Station in Santa Monica, where there was also plenty to see--and plenty to admire. For myself, of special interest was the Jan Bas Ader installation at Patrick Painter Gallery--a reminder of the special influence of this pioneering Dutch artist on future generations. The deadpan irony of his camera work and situations elicits sometimes uncomfortable smiles. His disappearance at sea in 1976 as he was attempting a trans-Atlantic crossing in a small boat as a part of an art experiment deprived the art world of an original practitioner. Also, the work of Amy Bennett at Richard Heller Gallery. Her spookily bland suburban scenes with their odd surprises (a tiny naked figure, for example, in a window, or a couple caught in flagrante delicto in some unexpected corner) have something of the familiar frisson of "Desperate Housewives." The dark side of the comfortable American way of life.
I fell in love with Kathleen Henderson's show of oil stick drawings and small, three-dimensional pieces (you could hardly call them "sculptures")--the word suggests more formality than these unsettling works possess at Rosamund Felsen Gallery. Part mythical, part satrical, her figures are most frequently humans masked as animals--the rabbit is clearly her favorite, to judge by his ubiquitous appearances--and they're caught in situations that mime the extremes of human foibles, most frequently malevolent, and often military, personal or sexual aggression.
The rabbit, of course, has contradictory dual associations, as both the irresistibly cuddly, furry little thing that children love and the promiscous, tireless--and prolific--sexual aggressor. Henderson's Rabbit has both qualities, in spades. At first sight, the work might seem merely whimsical. It shares some of the humorous qualities of James Thurber, both in theme and execution. Examine these drawings and sculptures more closely, though, and we're drawn back into some pretty serious and damning reflections on human nature and the society in which we live.
Aside from the compelling quality of the content, though, I was attracted by Henderson's modesty and economy of means. She manages to say a lot with little, and in very small scale. To get a better sense of the work, click on the "current exhibition" at Rosamund Felsen Gallery and you'll find a nice selection of the work. Better yet, of course, stop by the gallery one day soon.If I were writing for a magazine, as I used to do, I would have to add a "full disclosure" here. Ellie and I were so engaged with Kathleen Henderson's work that we splurged and bought one of her "sculptures"! But this isn't a magazine, and I don't have to tell you. So forget I mentioned it.
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 2/16/2007
One who has crossed over the mire, crushed the thorn of sensuality, reached the ending of delusion, is a monk undisturbed by bliss & pain.
~Udana III, 2
~Udana III, 2
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Our Children
Shame on us, America, for showing up next-to-last--just before (once Great) Britain!--in the UNICEF report on children's well-being in developed countries. Twenty-one countries! And we show up #20. Almost as shameful is the paucity of media attention to the report, which was released yesterday. Here we compare unfavorably also to the UK: the BBC World News had the good grace to feature the shameful news near the top of its newcast. I saw not a mention on the network news that I watched, and I'm not sure, either, about Public Television, which I was watching only out of the corner of an eye whilst Ellie and I were preparing our Valentine's Day dinner (steak, baked potato, brussels sprouts and a nice bottle of California coastal Syrah: even this seems a bit obscene to me--to confess to sumptuous dining while children starve.)
Yes, starve. Here in the richest country in the history of the world. Well, perhaps they don't die of malnutrition in the tens of thousands, as they do in less fortunate countries, but thousands go to bed hungry. UNICEF's cateogries, according to this morning's Los Angeles Times (where was the report in the New York Times? I couldn't find it!) included "material well-being, health, education, relationships, behaviors and risks, and young people's own sense of happiness." The highest ranking for the United States was 12th, in the education category. 12th! So much for No Child Left Behind. The vast majority of our children, it would seem, are being left behind when compared to their peers in other developed countries.
So much for the best. The US was bottom of the list for health and safety, "mostly," the LA Times reports, "because of high rates of child mortality and accidental deaths." We ranked next-to-last in "family and peer relationships and risk-taking behavior", and 17th in the percentage of children who live in relative poverty. Our low standings, it seems, result from "less spending on social programs and 'dog-eat-dog' competition in jobs that [lead] to adults spending less time with their children and heightened alienation among peers."
So what, I wonder, is the response of the American people to such a disastrous report card? Do we know about it? Likely not, given the slim media coverage. Do we care? Are we sufficiently outraged to go running to our representatives in government to demand that they address these issues without delay? I fear not. I fear that our greed and narcissism is so deeply engrained at this point that we will simply throw up our hands and deny any personal responsibility.
Here's for me, though: I pledge to write, today, to both my senators and my congressman to bring my own sense of outrage to their attention; and to find some charitable organization concerned with food for children and make a donation proportionate to the cost of that Valentine's Day dinner for two.
*******
On another front, a thought, this morning, after meditation, regarding that troublesome question of reincarnation: if we are reborn into another, different life form after our death to this human existence, who gets to decide what form that will be? Does the belief not imply the existence of a source of judgment? A god? In my next life, am I to be a rat, an elephant, a hyena--or a boddhisatva? Who makes that decision--if it's not left up to me?
Yes, starve. Here in the richest country in the history of the world. Well, perhaps they don't die of malnutrition in the tens of thousands, as they do in less fortunate countries, but thousands go to bed hungry. UNICEF's cateogries, according to this morning's Los Angeles Times (where was the report in the New York Times? I couldn't find it!) included "material well-being, health, education, relationships, behaviors and risks, and young people's own sense of happiness." The highest ranking for the United States was 12th, in the education category. 12th! So much for No Child Left Behind. The vast majority of our children, it would seem, are being left behind when compared to their peers in other developed countries.
So much for the best. The US was bottom of the list for health and safety, "mostly," the LA Times reports, "because of high rates of child mortality and accidental deaths." We ranked next-to-last in "family and peer relationships and risk-taking behavior", and 17th in the percentage of children who live in relative poverty. Our low standings, it seems, result from "less spending on social programs and 'dog-eat-dog' competition in jobs that [lead] to adults spending less time with their children and heightened alienation among peers."
So what, I wonder, is the response of the American people to such a disastrous report card? Do we know about it? Likely not, given the slim media coverage. Do we care? Are we sufficiently outraged to go running to our representatives in government to demand that they address these issues without delay? I fear not. I fear that our greed and narcissism is so deeply engrained at this point that we will simply throw up our hands and deny any personal responsibility.
Here's for me, though: I pledge to write, today, to both my senators and my congressman to bring my own sense of outrage to their attention; and to find some charitable organization concerned with food for children and make a donation proportionate to the cost of that Valentine's Day dinner for two.
*******
On another front, a thought, this morning, after meditation, regarding that troublesome question of reincarnation: if we are reborn into another, different life form after our death to this human existence, who gets to decide what form that will be? Does the belief not imply the existence of a source of judgment? A god? In my next life, am I to be a rat, an elephant, a hyena--or a boddhisatva? Who makes that decision--if it's not left up to me?
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 2/15/2007
Difficult to detect and very subtle, the mind seizes whatever it wants; so let a wise man guard his mind, for a guarded mind brings happiness.
~Dhammapada 36
~Dhammapada 36
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
About That Press Conference...
... this morning. I tried, I really did. I tried listening to my late father's familiar injunction: Be charitable. That would be the Christian voice. I listened to Than Geoff's recommendation of goodwill, compassion or, failing that, at least equanimity. The Buddhist approach.
But the Bush voice--that indignant whine of one who believes that his questioner is incapable of understanding the full depth of his wisdom--and the Bush assumption of unassailable rectitude in all matters, great and small, and the Bush humor, with its waggish condescension, well... they all drive me to distraction. I watched this man this morning as he evaded and purposefully distorted questions, ducked responsibility and cheerfully laid blame on others, rambled on unintelligibly and smirked that aggravating smirk, and I frankly found it hard to wish him well. If I wished him true happiness and he found it, I suppose the world would be a better place, as Than Geoff suggests. In the meantime, though, I find it scarcely possible to forgive him for the harm he has done to this world, and continues to do, with apparent impunity. I guess I'm just not Buddhist enough yet. Maybe karma will catch up with him in a later life--or later in this one. But let's not hope for anything so dreadful... Let's stick to the wish for true happiness. Much nicer.
Last night, though, we did have a good session with one of our artists' groups. The most interesting part, for me, was to hear how each of us, in our various ways, delights in that sense of being in the flow. It's not something you can work to get, really: it's something that happens when you work. Ellie had brought in a wonderful quotation from an article on the video artist Bill Viola, in which he was quoted as recalling a thought from a 14th century Japanese treatise on acting:the artist's consciousness is a seagull and the outer chaos is the wind, and the right alignment of the two results in effortless flight. A much more profitable topic for reflection than all of Bush's tripe.
But the Bush voice--that indignant whine of one who believes that his questioner is incapable of understanding the full depth of his wisdom--and the Bush assumption of unassailable rectitude in all matters, great and small, and the Bush humor, with its waggish condescension, well... they all drive me to distraction. I watched this man this morning as he evaded and purposefully distorted questions, ducked responsibility and cheerfully laid blame on others, rambled on unintelligibly and smirked that aggravating smirk, and I frankly found it hard to wish him well. If I wished him true happiness and he found it, I suppose the world would be a better place, as Than Geoff suggests. In the meantime, though, I find it scarcely possible to forgive him for the harm he has done to this world, and continues to do, with apparent impunity. I guess I'm just not Buddhist enough yet. Maybe karma will catch up with him in a later life--or later in this one. But let's not hope for anything so dreadful... Let's stick to the wish for true happiness. Much nicer.
Last night, though, we did have a good session with one of our artists' groups. The most interesting part, for me, was to hear how each of us, in our various ways, delights in that sense of being in the flow. It's not something you can work to get, really: it's something that happens when you work. Ellie had brought in a wonderful quotation from an article on the video artist Bill Viola, in which he was quoted as recalling a thought from a 14th century Japanese treatise on acting:the artist's consciousness is a seagull and the outer chaos is the wind, and the right alignment of the two results in effortless flight. A much more profitable topic for reflection than all of Bush's tripe.
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 2/14/2007
Mind precedes all things; mind is their chief, mind is their maker. If one speaks or does a deed with a mind that is pure within, happiness then follows along like a never departing shadow.
~Dhammapada 1
~Dhammapada 1
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
George Gets Skunked...
... That's the morning headline. I did the usual thing. If it's still dark when I first get up, I take him out on a leash for his morning pee. When it's already light, I open the back door for him and he runs down into the garden by himself. This morning, it was kind of half and half. I judged that the morning twilight was light enough.
Big mistake. I was just about to settle down for my morning sit when he charged back in and the reek of skunk was everywhere. George's first instinct was to try to rub the stink off onto the carpet. Not a great idea. The carpet is only a year or so old, and Ellie has been been protecting it carefully. I picked him up and woke Ellie. The remedy might be a tomato juice bath--but did we have the wherewithal? It seemed not. Ellie recalled that feminine douche might also do the trick, but we didn't have that, either. A trip to the market, then. George was shut out on the balcony to await his reward for bad behavior, and I fired up the Prius...
I made it to the local market twenty minutes before opening time. Called Ellie on the trusty cell phone. She thought the other, slightly more distant market might be open. I drove further, but that one, too, was closed. Drove back to our local market, which by this time was open, and chatted with the girls at the checkout counter about feminine douche. They giggled. Armed with my purchases--four cans of Campell's tomato juice and a pack of extra strength water and vinegar feminine douche--I took the back route home to avoid the high school traffic.
George had his bath. He got a good rub with feminine douche first, and tomato juice next, followed by dog shampoo. He emerged looking bedraggled and justly pained by the experience.
There must be a teaching in all this. One thing, for sure, is never to mistake morning twilight for the light of day: George gets the leash if there's even a hint of darkness in the air. Otherwise: don't ever take your sitting time for granted. Life's contingencies might get in the way.
Big mistake. I was just about to settle down for my morning sit when he charged back in and the reek of skunk was everywhere. George's first instinct was to try to rub the stink off onto the carpet. Not a great idea. The carpet is only a year or so old, and Ellie has been been protecting it carefully. I picked him up and woke Ellie. The remedy might be a tomato juice bath--but did we have the wherewithal? It seemed not. Ellie recalled that feminine douche might also do the trick, but we didn't have that, either. A trip to the market, then. George was shut out on the balcony to await his reward for bad behavior, and I fired up the Prius...
I made it to the local market twenty minutes before opening time. Called Ellie on the trusty cell phone. She thought the other, slightly more distant market might be open. I drove further, but that one, too, was closed. Drove back to our local market, which by this time was open, and chatted with the girls at the checkout counter about feminine douche. They giggled. Armed with my purchases--four cans of Campell's tomato juice and a pack of extra strength water and vinegar feminine douche--I took the back route home to avoid the high school traffic.
George had his bath. He got a good rub with feminine douche first, and tomato juice next, followed by dog shampoo. He emerged looking bedraggled and justly pained by the experience.
There must be a teaching in all this. One thing, for sure, is never to mistake morning twilight for the light of day: George gets the leash if there's even a hint of darkness in the air. Otherwise: don't ever take your sitting time for granted. Life's contingencies might get in the way.
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 2/13/2007
Consort only with the good, come together with the good. To learn the teaching of the good gives wisdom like nothing else can.
~Samyutta Nikaya I, 17
~Samyutta Nikaya I, 17
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.
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 2/12/2007
In every virtue all-accomplished, with wisdom full and mind composed, looking within and ever mindful- thus one crosses the raging flood.
~Sutta Nipata 174
~Sutta Nipata 174
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 2/11/2007
By love they will quench the fire of hate, by wisdom the fire of delusion. Those supreme ones extinguish delusion with wisdom that breaks through to truth.
~Itivuttaka 93
~Itivuttaka 93
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Karma
What kind of karma, I wonder, was the unfortunate Anna Nicole Smith working out in her short life? Talk about hungry ghosts! She was, it seemed--I know her only through media accounts, and therefore not at all--a glutton for attention, ready to use anything, not least her body, to attract it. Viewed from the outside, through the filter of rumor, gossip and media distortions, her life seemed to be an unmitigated disaster, a skein of scandals, lawsuits, personal entanglements and tragedies that plagued her every footstep. Could it be that this woman was required to use the life she only recently lost to atone for some awful karma acquired in a previous one? Can she hope for a better one to come?
This is one aspect of Buddhism that frankly leaves me skeptical and puzzled. There's a kind of logic to it, certainly--that we're doomed to keep coming back until we get it right. That our actions have consequences seems like no more than common sense: I have not the slightest difficulty in believing that harmful and unskillful acts bring undesirable results, and that mindful, decent behavior brings rewards. It's the transmigration part that bothers me. But then, since prior lives and subsequent lives are unknowable, at least to one still as distant as myself from enlightenment, perhaps it's simply unnecessary to concern myself with them. This present life is enough, and certainly as much as I can cope with.
As for poor Anna Nicole, well, the best I can do is send her loving-kindness in whatever state she may currently exist, and hope that she'll have earned the chance, through her suffering, to have a better shot at happiness next time around.
This is one aspect of Buddhism that frankly leaves me skeptical and puzzled. There's a kind of logic to it, certainly--that we're doomed to keep coming back until we get it right. That our actions have consequences seems like no more than common sense: I have not the slightest difficulty in believing that harmful and unskillful acts bring undesirable results, and that mindful, decent behavior brings rewards. It's the transmigration part that bothers me. But then, since prior lives and subsequent lives are unknowable, at least to one still as distant as myself from enlightenment, perhaps it's simply unnecessary to concern myself with them. This present life is enough, and certainly as much as I can cope with.
As for poor Anna Nicole, well, the best I can do is send her loving-kindness in whatever state she may currently exist, and hope that she'll have earned the chance, through her suffering, to have a better shot at happiness next time around.
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 2/10/2007
How short this life! You die this side of a century, but even if you live past, you die of old age.
~Sutta Nipata IV, 6
~Sutta Nipata IV, 6
Friday, February 9, 2007
Survey in China finds 300 Million Religious Believers
The number of religious believers in China could be three times higher than official estimates, according to a survey reported by state media. A poll of 4,500 people by Shanghai university professors found 31.4% of people above the age of 16 considered themselves as religious.
This suggests 300 million people nationwide could be religious, compared to the official figure of 100 million.
The survey found that Buddhism, Taoism, Catholicism, Christianity and Islam are the country's five major religions - China considers Catholicism as separate to Christianity, which covers Protestantism.
About 200 million believers "are Buddhists, Taoists or worshippers of legendary figures such as the Dragon King and God of Fortune", the China Daily reported.
The survey also found a significant rise in Christianity - accounting for 12% of all believers, or 40 million, compared with the official figure of 16 million in 2005.
He said the average age of religious believers had fallen, with two-thirds of those in the poll who considered themselves religious aged between 16 and 39.
"This is markedly different from the previous decade, when most religious believers were in their 40s or older," he said in the Chinese-language Oriental Outlook magazine, which published the survey.
James: You just can't keep prevent people from believing what they want to believe. It is like trying to damn up a stream. You may keep a majority of the water blocked but water will still find it's way through cracks and holes in the damn. Water (faith) can brake apart and crumble even the strongest rocks (dictatorships) over time.
In a controlling society one can still find ways to express one's faith. Many believers meet in private homes. However, one does not have to attend an organized sangha, temple, church or group to practice faith. One can easily and effectively pray and meditate in one's everyday tasks and to yourself without anyone knowing what you are engaging in.
It reminds me of Jews that continued to practice their faith in concentration camps whenever and however they could. The suffering only made many stronger and more resolute.
And it seems to me that the more you try to keep people down and under control the more faith increases as people turn to religion for solace, peace and freedom from that control!!
As American president Abraham Lincoln said, "You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time."
PHOTO CREDIT: NewsweekThe beginning of my Buddha tattoo below. This is just the outline. The robes will be colored the traditional saffron and the halo in a red blended to orange. The lotus petals will be a pinkish/lavender coloration. The face and hands will be in a greyish tone.
~Peace to all beings~
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 2/9/2007
Wisdom springs from meditation; without meditation wisdom wanes. Having known these two paths of progress and decline, let a man so conduct himself that his wisdom may increase.
~Dhammapada 282
~Dhammapada 282
Home Again, Naturally
It was the wall color that did it. As soon as I walked into the gallery yesterday to see the new David Hockney paintings at LA Louver Gallery, I made the connection. How could I miss it? Eating Room Red. Where had I seen that color before? Of course! The day before, at the Huntington Library, for the Constable show. There, in the words of the Huntington's press release, "the wall paint... was made possible through a gift by Farrow & Ball from their collection of colors, which is based on historic English interiors. The colors were selected to bring to mind the backgrounds Constable painted the wall of his lodgings in 1813 for displaying his paintings. The gallery walls are painted Eating Room Red, based on an 1818 color evoking the strong, intense shades favored during the early nineteenth century..." Of course, then! Big landscape paintings, plein air... two British artists, two centuries apart, the English countryside...
And I discovered from Hockney himself that the coincidence was in fact no coincidence. The idea of showing his big new landscape paintings of East Yorkshire concurrently with the Constable show originated with Stephanie Barron, the chief curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, who suggested it to Hockney.
It was a wonderful moment of synchronicity for me, however--compounded by the fact that I had been on the telephone that same morning, yesterday, February 8, talking to my sister in the Cotswolds, to send her birthday wishes. Hardly surprising, then, that my meditation this morning was flooded with memories of England and images of the English countryside I knew so well as a child: the bluebell woods at the bottom of the hill near our village of Aspley Guise in Bedfordshire, and the other, sandy woods toward Woburn Sands, across from my grandmother's house, where we went to gather chestnuts on cloudy autumn days; I can still recall the particular smell of ferns, damp moss, the bark of trees... Or the Sussex Downs-the setting for my school years--white with chalk beneath the grass, where my cross-country team would train with five mile outings over hill and dale and, the last half-mile, though thirteen dikes where we would have to break the ice in winter to splash through the muddy water...
Powerful memories, irresistible once triggered, as they were by the Constable and the Hockey shows. No matter how much I tried, in meditation, to being my attention back to the breath, they reasserted themselves with insistent stubbornness. I gave up, finally, and just allowed my mind to wander through those landscapes and recall the depth of feeling with which they are still associated. Mostly, for me, this was the sense of isolation, at once passionately sought after, as a refuge and--in the form of intense loneliness--feared.
What I got from Hockney's landscapes was predominantly joy, the sheer exuberance of return to a setting so intimately familiar that you know you're home. That this is where the heart belongs, has always belonged, since your earliest days. That kind of joy, that sense of "fitting" in one's true place in the universe. These are huge paintings, considerably larger than Constable's. Those in LA Louver's main gallery are rectangular assemblages of numerous separate canvases, each separately framed but all hung together to form a single picture--a device that reminds us forcefully that we are looking at art; and indeed that we are looking at painting, not the photography to which our eye has become attuned in its expectations. We are not allowed to see these gloriously colored images as "picturesque." We are required to experience the landscape through the medium of paint and through the artist's feeling-eye.
Having myself written a full-length monograph on David Hockney, I know about his decades-long fascination with photography and its influence on painters and the way we see. He was talking, last night, about Constable--and the fact that Constable must surely have known about camera obscura and the potential for "photographic" reproduction of reality. But as Hockney notes in a quotation cited in his exhibition's press release, "The camera sees geometrically--we must see psychologically." His critique of the photograph is that it flattens out both perspective and color, and tends to close the viewer out rather than welcome us in, as does a painting.
Clearly, then--and unlike so many artists working today--Hockney rejects the use of the photograph even as an aide-memoire. Even for these huge works, he packs a bunch of canvases in the trunk and sets them up on huge easels (for an image scroll down through this link) to work en plein air, as did Constable--though the latter lacked convenient transportation, of course, and brought his sketches back to the studio where he worked. That's why these Hockney paintings are so incredibly, almost shockingly lively. It's not only their scale, it's their immediacy we respond to--the direct connection we intuit between the landscape out there and the artist's eye-heart-hand. As Constable said (I think I have the quotation right: it's printed on one of those Eating Room Red walls) "Painting is another word for feeling."
Impossible, anyway, not to be swept up by the power of those big paintings, even in the crowded space of a big--in this case, a very big--gallery opening. Even with all the conversation, even with the attention diverted by the exchange of politenesses and catch-up--Hockney's paintings refused to be ignored. There they were, evidence of the simply masterful authority of a man who has spent his life examining the information his eye receives and the responses in his heart with critical curiosity, and who has acquired an ease of line and a sometimes outrageous passion for color that few can equal. I used the word "luminous" yesterday in talking about Constable, where it glows amongst the shadows and through the foliage. These paintings of Hockney's are all luminosity. Even those that are more subdued in tonality--and there are a few--seem to glow.
I did mention, earlier, my own ambivalent relationship with isolation. Beyond the exuberance. I sense that ambivalence in Hockney, too. His people and his panoramas have been largely separate. There are portraits, there are landscapes, there are interiors. They rarely meet, especially in the recent work with which I am familiar, in the same picture. There's an interesting push-pull between the often wild, irrepressible surfaces and the quiet within. Eventually, for me, it's the quiet that wins out. Take a breath... Another... Silence, that's the ticket.
And I discovered from Hockney himself that the coincidence was in fact no coincidence. The idea of showing his big new landscape paintings of East Yorkshire concurrently with the Constable show originated with Stephanie Barron, the chief curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, who suggested it to Hockney.
It was a wonderful moment of synchronicity for me, however--compounded by the fact that I had been on the telephone that same morning, yesterday, February 8, talking to my sister in the Cotswolds, to send her birthday wishes. Hardly surprising, then, that my meditation this morning was flooded with memories of England and images of the English countryside I knew so well as a child: the bluebell woods at the bottom of the hill near our village of Aspley Guise in Bedfordshire, and the other, sandy woods toward Woburn Sands, across from my grandmother's house, where we went to gather chestnuts on cloudy autumn days; I can still recall the particular smell of ferns, damp moss, the bark of trees... Or the Sussex Downs-the setting for my school years--white with chalk beneath the grass, where my cross-country team would train with five mile outings over hill and dale and, the last half-mile, though thirteen dikes where we would have to break the ice in winter to splash through the muddy water...
Powerful memories, irresistible once triggered, as they were by the Constable and the Hockey shows. No matter how much I tried, in meditation, to being my attention back to the breath, they reasserted themselves with insistent stubbornness. I gave up, finally, and just allowed my mind to wander through those landscapes and recall the depth of feeling with which they are still associated. Mostly, for me, this was the sense of isolation, at once passionately sought after, as a refuge and--in the form of intense loneliness--feared.
What I got from Hockney's landscapes was predominantly joy, the sheer exuberance of return to a setting so intimately familiar that you know you're home. That this is where the heart belongs, has always belonged, since your earliest days. That kind of joy, that sense of "fitting" in one's true place in the universe. These are huge paintings, considerably larger than Constable's. Those in LA Louver's main gallery are rectangular assemblages of numerous separate canvases, each separately framed but all hung together to form a single picture--a device that reminds us forcefully that we are looking at art; and indeed that we are looking at painting, not the photography to which our eye has become attuned in its expectations. We are not allowed to see these gloriously colored images as "picturesque." We are required to experience the landscape through the medium of paint and through the artist's feeling-eye.
Having myself written a full-length monograph on David Hockney, I know about his decades-long fascination with photography and its influence on painters and the way we see. He was talking, last night, about Constable--and the fact that Constable must surely have known about camera obscura and the potential for "photographic" reproduction of reality. But as Hockney notes in a quotation cited in his exhibition's press release, "The camera sees geometrically--we must see psychologically." His critique of the photograph is that it flattens out both perspective and color, and tends to close the viewer out rather than welcome us in, as does a painting.
Clearly, then--and unlike so many artists working today--Hockney rejects the use of the photograph even as an aide-memoire. Even for these huge works, he packs a bunch of canvases in the trunk and sets them up on huge easels (for an image scroll down through this link) to work en plein air, as did Constable--though the latter lacked convenient transportation, of course, and brought his sketches back to the studio where he worked. That's why these Hockney paintings are so incredibly, almost shockingly lively. It's not only their scale, it's their immediacy we respond to--the direct connection we intuit between the landscape out there and the artist's eye-heart-hand. As Constable said (I think I have the quotation right: it's printed on one of those Eating Room Red walls) "Painting is another word for feeling."
Impossible, anyway, not to be swept up by the power of those big paintings, even in the crowded space of a big--in this case, a very big--gallery opening. Even with all the conversation, even with the attention diverted by the exchange of politenesses and catch-up--Hockney's paintings refused to be ignored. There they were, evidence of the simply masterful authority of a man who has spent his life examining the information his eye receives and the responses in his heart with critical curiosity, and who has acquired an ease of line and a sometimes outrageous passion for color that few can equal. I used the word "luminous" yesterday in talking about Constable, where it glows amongst the shadows and through the foliage. These paintings of Hockney's are all luminosity. Even those that are more subdued in tonality--and there are a few--seem to glow.
I did mention, earlier, my own ambivalent relationship with isolation. Beyond the exuberance. I sense that ambivalence in Hockney, too. His people and his panoramas have been largely separate. There are portraits, there are landscapes, there are interiors. They rarely meet, especially in the recent work with which I am familiar, in the same picture. There's an interesting push-pull between the often wild, irrepressible surfaces and the quiet within. Eventually, for me, it's the quiet that wins out. Take a breath... Another... Silence, that's the ticket.
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