IF THIS, THEN THAT…

Best thanks to Carly for his provocative challenge in yesterday’s comment section. Writing about the movie “Michael Clayton,” I had occasion to use the words “unskillful behavior,” to which Carly responded:

The angle on behavior called "skillful" is interesting, manipulative, but interesting. I mean, an innocent person has no need for skill. The iChing, being a mathematical system, for instance, has 64,247 situations of wise advice. Would you do a piece listing five skillful behaviors for us please, in the typical style, perhaps just a sampling from your source? I am very curious how the advice is presented in English. Thanks.

Well, here's my best understanding in the matter: unskillful behavior, at its simplest level, describes actions—or patterns of action—whose results bring harm to myself or others. This passage from “The Wings to Awakening” might be more than the “sampling” Carly asked for and takes a good bit of reading, but I offer it as a serious answer to a serious question. It’s worth the effort. Here’s a small piece at the heart of what Thanissaro Bhikkhu has to say:

Anyone who has mastered a skill will realize that the process of attaining mastery requires attention to three things: (1) to pre-existing conditions, (2) to what one is doing in relation to those conditions, and (3) to the results that come from one's actions. This threefold focus enables one to monitor one's actions and adjust them accordingly. In this way, one's attention to conditions, actions, and effects allows the results of an action to feed back into future action, thus allowing for refinement in one's skill. By working out the implications of these requirements, the Buddha arrived at the principle of this/that conditionality, in which multiple feedback loops — sensitive to pre-existing conditions, to present input, and to their combined outcome — account for the incredible complexity of the world of experience in a way similar to that of modern theories of "deterministic chaos." In this sense, even though this/that conditionality may seem somewhat alien when viewed in the abstract, it is actually a very familiar but overlooked assumption that underlies all conscious, purposeful action.

I’m not sure that innocence enters into the picture here. All of us find ourselves in situations where actions are called for every day and the point, insofar as I correctly understand the Buddhist view, is that we are able to observe the results of those actions and determine whether they are desirable or undesirable by judging their effect. The unskillful action, as I say, is the one that results in harm.

Carly asked for examples of skillful behaviors. Let me take simple, personal ones, with the hope that they are not too trivial to meet his request.

1. A classic: I’m driving on the freeway in heavy traffic and someone cuts me off. The unskillful action is to allow my anger to get the better of me and return the favor in a rage. Or speed up beside him and offer him the finger. Undesirable result: everyone’s temperature goes up, and no one gets ahead any faster. The skillful action is to observe the anger as it arises, recognize it for what it is—just another passing feeling—and allow it to dissipate. Desirable result: a calmer ulcer, a more pleasant day, more harmony in the universe. And less harm to self and others.

2. Dinner time. I’m just a little overweight (true!) and I know that the second helping of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding (sorry, I’m English! Let's say, spaghetti alfredo) will do nothing to improve the situation. The unskillful action of course is to take the second helping. Undesirable result: more weight gain, less sound sleep, more discomfort in the morning. The skillful action, then, is to observe the desire arising, see it for what it is (greed!)—perhaps even find its source in old habits—and decline the second helping. Result: less harm to self and the environment (you’ve heard about beef, right?) along with better health for me, and the satisfaction of being in control of my appetites (I wish!)

3. I have an appointment for this afternoon, and need to prepare and leave in time to arrive at the appropriate moment. Unskillful action: I postpone my preparation and fiddle around instead with the damn blog. I get involved, fail to notice the passage of time, and leave later than I had intended. Undesirable result: I arrive late for the meeting, piss off the person I’ve arranged to meet, and don’t have the information I need to produce a successful outcome. The skillful action, of course, is to spend the time I need in the morning to put my facts together, to be aware of the time, and to leave enough of it for a prompt arrival. The desirable results are too obvious to mention.

I can count well enough to know that this is three, not the five requested, but you get the idea… I’m not convinced that any more would help. The Buddha’s most useful wisdom arises, I believe, from the observation of such everyday behaviors, and is most helpful guiding us in this way in our lives. The big abstractions don’t count for much, to me. It’s all about consciousness, about not sleep-walking through the day, about being aware of my actions and their results. It’s about the way I choose to live my life, the freedom from compulsions and addictions, and the progress toward as much enlightenment and happiness as I’m capable of.

Cardozo came up with the interesting idea, on reading the above, to open up a forum for those who might care to do so to write in personal examples of their unskillful behaviors and the results. A kind of Buddhist confessional, I suppose, which might stimulate deeper self-awareness---and perhaps an opportunity to share, mend and move on. We're debating how that might be done. I'd welcome your thoughts and suggestions.

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 10/31/2007

If you are seeking gratification, you will naturally find what you desire, but do not let us call it truth.

~J. Krishnamurti

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

My Teachers, the Leaves

The last few weeks have been very difficult for me and my wife. Things have been very stressful with a lot of problems swirling around our minds from financial problems due to my schizo-affective illness, Medicare dropping my insurance plan and trouble with my medications. I have found myself having bad reactions to my new medicine, Wellbutrin. It has been making me too stimulated and left me bordering on full blown mania. I have been quick to anger while taking it, to the point of being enraged over the littlest things. I wanted to give the Wellbutrin (or Hellbutrin as I call it) some extra time to work itself out because it has less side effects than other anti-depressants

That uncontrolled rage scared me since I haven't experienced that for years as I've been relatively stable with my long-time drug regiment. It was a major red flag that signaled the end of my patience toward the newly introduced drug. My psychiatrist wasn't convinced at first that I should go off the medicine but my therapist/councilor persuaded him to change his mind. So today is the fourth day off Wellbutrin and I feel much better. I feel much more stable emotionally and better prepared to deal with the stressful matters in my life mentioned above.

The other issue is that I got out of my meditation routine and haven't sat on the cushion in weeks. So right after I post this I am going to get back on track and meditate. I am going to do a metta meditation for others and myself to help heal and recover from the devastating events of the last few weeks. As well as help me win some breathing room to better deal with the continuing problems. That being said, sometimes meditation can make things worse if you're engaging in it out of a feeling of obligation, guilt or force. Sometimes it is better when you are feeling really angry to try and calm down through taking a walk/other exercise, read a peaceful book or other activities then meditate with the wrong intention. You don't want to come to resent the practice.

I have let the weight of the weeks events crush my happiness and it has left me in a place where I have been vulnerable and given in to self-pity. So today I began to dig myself out of the pit of defeatism by doing something for someone else. This time of year in Colorado, USA we experience a season called fall/autumn which sees a drop in temperature and crisp, dead, golden and auburn colored leaves falling off the trees, piling up to create drifts. So I tied on my shoes, went outside and began to rake up the leaves scattered across our lawn and my two neighbors lawns. We live in small houses that are all connected with a shared tract of land in the back but three separate, little front yards. Our neighbors are all elderly and the one man is very sick and needs oxygen.

It felt really good to forget myself and just clear up the lawns of the leaves. The minute I stepped outside, the fresh air invigorated my body and mind and brought the present moment sharp into focus. There was a slight breeze blowing around, making the vividly colored leaves dance in front of me. I smiled watching the performance and began to mindfully rake the fallen foliage. As I pulled the rake back and forth across the ground my self-pity began to fade away to be replaced by love of the beautiful nature just meters outside my front door. Then I felt gratitude fill my heart that I have decent health to help my neighbors with the yard work. I delighted in the soothing sound of the light, fluffy, rustling leaves being constructed into orderly piles. I breathed deeply and mindfully as I picked up clusters of leaves and placed them into the waste container.
How funny I thought that we call dead leaves, "waste" when they are still very useful. When piled up they are great fun for children, dogs (and fun loving adults) to jump into. It is like jumping into a large heap of feathers or what I imagine jumping into a large heap of feathers would be like.
Leaves also make great fertilizer in the spring, so no, they are not "waste." The wasteful activity in regards to dead leaves would be not to recycle them for plant fuel. Luckily our city picks up the "yard waste" and deposits it into a large compost pile at a recycling center where the finished fertilizer can be bought in the spring.

I gave of myself freely today and yet I feel like I gained much more. I am always pleasantly surprised at how many teachers there are waiting to help us if we just open our eyes through mindfulness and see with honest awareness. So many times over the last few weeks I was so self-absorbed that I didn't realize I was walking right over the top of my patiently waiting helpers and teachers, the leaves. It is like going on a great trek to the top of a mountain to visit a great teacher for wisdom, advice and peace while in the mean time we become annoyed by the rocks, tree branches, streams and leaves that seem to block our path on the way to the top.

Finally when we reach the top we tell the great teacher how hard our journey was and how difficult it was to reach him. Telling him how annoying the branches and rocks were on the way up making our trip more difficult. And maybe we would even get angry at him for not maintaining the path to make visiting easier. How silly we would look to the great teacher that we became annoyed with the leaves that we saw as blocking our path and slowing us down on our route to the top of the mountain to see the "real teacher!!" Surely that wise teacher would smile, perhaps laugh and tell us that we passed many great teachers that we could learn just as much, if not more from on the way up to see him!! And maybe we'd look confused and say, "I did not pass anyone old man!! You must be senile!! Do you take me for a fool?!! I see now that my journey up here as been a waste." To which he'd mostly likely respond, "Did you not pass many tree branches, rocks, streams and leaves?" "Well yes, of course and I already told you they were quite annoying!!" we'd respond. "Well then, you did indeed pass many great teachers!! I can not offer you anything up here. Go back and talk to the trees and the streams and you will find your answers and peace.

I bow to the leaves that helped me return to myself while assisting others at the same time. And while the leaves will clutter up the lawns again in a few days, I won't whine but rather smile, knowing their return is their commitment to teach me Oneness yet again. I am so grateful for my patient teachers who return again and again as many times as needed to help me understand.

What a beautiful world we are blessed to live in!!

A second post for today is below this one (gassho) _/I\_

~peace to all beings~

Meditation and Distractions

The purpose of meditation is not to concentrate on the breath without intetrruption, forever. That by itself would be a useless goal. The purpose of meditation is not to achieve a perfectly still and serene mind. Although a lovely state, it doesn't lead to liberation by itself. The purpose of meditation is to achieve uninterrupted mindfulness. Mindfulness, and only mindfulness, produces Enlightenment. Distractions come in all sizes, shapes, and flavors. Buddhist philosophy has organized them into categories. One of them is the category of hindrances. They are called hindrances because they block your development of both components of meditation, mindfulness and concentration. A bit of caution on this term: The word "hindrances" carries a negative connotation and indeed these are states of mind we want to eradicate. . . That does not mean, however, that they are to be repressed, avoided or condemned. Let's use greed as an example. We wish to avoid prolonging any state of greed that arises, because a continuation of that state leads to bondage and sorrow. That does not mean to toss the thought out of the mind when it appears. We simply refuse to encourage it to stay. We let it come, and we let go.

- Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English

James: I have found that the stronger I try to force hindering thoughts out of my head while I am meditating the more powerful I make them. They seem to just return even louder and more intrusive then If I just acknowledge them, mindfully watch them and contemplate why they might be appearing. Through this mindful investigation I usually find that the emotions appear to try and help me or protect me in some way. Once I let them make their presence known, tell their story, realize that I understand their root and acknowledge that I understand the perceived problem they seem to fade away of their own energy.

And when they return, as often intrusive thoughts do while meditating, I thank them again for their interest and concern in my life and gently remind them that the perceived or sometimes real problem will be looked into soon enough. However, right now we are enjoying this present moment without worry, stress or concern for what might happen or not happen in the future.

Nor are we concerned with the memories of the past because no amount of concentration can change those memories and their outcome now solidified within our karmic stream of consciousness. This is something I often tell myself when worries about the past arise during my meditation and then I return to my breathing and present moment by saying, "Breathing in, I am present. Breathing out, I am aware." That little gatha is really helpful in returning back to real time awareness. It is almost like a pressure valve that releases the stressful energy of hindering thoughts as my meditation unfolds. It seems too simplistic perhaps but try it, it might just be as powerful a tool to you as it is for me.

~Peace to all beings~

PHOTO CREDIT: Bhante Henepola Gunaratana near Beatenburg, Switzerland. Photo by Fred Von Allmen. I love the athletic shoes he is wearing with his humble monk robes.

Remember the Bamiyan Buddhas

I’m trying to remember where I first wrote about the Bamiyan Buddhas. I thought it was in my earlier blog, The Bush Diaries, but now I recall that the great Buddhas were wantonly destroyed by the Taliban’s dynamite in March, 2001, before 9/11 even, and long before The Bush Diaries started. And yet I do remember having written about these great monuments, the larger of which towered to 174 feet, and the smaller to 150. Ancient and venerable with history and religious significance, they were said to have been built in the years AD 554 and 507 respectively, at a time when the great Silk Trail was the major commercial route connecting East and West.




There has been speculation that these “twin towers” were destroyed at the behest of Osama bin Laden, in a kind of symbolic rehearsal for those other attacks that followed in September. Be that as it may, this needless, spiteful vandalism on the part of the Taliban stands as one of the great barbaric assaults on the splendors of human culture, conducted in the absurd belief that to destroy the symbols of a religion is to destroy the religion itself. Buddhism has not been substantially the poorer for the loss of these great tributes to its founder; for humanity, it’s a different story. We are all in some way impoverished by a grotesquerie of this kind.



These thoughts return thanks to the op-ed article in yesterday’s New York Times by Roger Cohen, written from Bamiyan itself, where he returned after nearly thirty-three years to renew his acquaintance with the site he had first visited on the “hippie trail” in a VW bus named Pigpen. Climbing to the place from which the great Buddha’s head had once looked out over the valley, he was as much moved, it seems, by the absence of the statues as he once had been by their presence. He demurs about the rumored intention to reconstruct the Buddhas, mentioned in this August 2006 issue of Tricycle and still, apparently, under live discussion. “Absence speaks, shames, reminds,” writes Cohen.

Even so, it would something of a miracle to see the Buddhas rise again.

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 10/30/2007

Can another help bring about a transformation in you? If he can, you are not transformed; you are merely dominated, influenced. You have been overcome; and whether you are overcome by envy or by a so-called noble influence, you are still a slave, you are not free.

~J. Krishnamurti

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

"Michael Clayton": An End to Suffering

(NOTE: You might not want to read this if you haven't yet seen the movie, and plan to. I don't think I give away much, but just in case...)

It's dawn. Three horses on a hillside, powerful, serene, majestic. They are connected with their natural environment, at peace with their own nature... Behind the man who stands there, gazing at them, down at the bottom of the hill, his expensive black Mercedes explodes in a burst of searing flame. Explodes again.

He was supposed to be inside it.

This is Michael Clayton's moment of truth, in the film whose title is appropriately his name. It's the moment that he glimpses an end to his own suffering. And suffer he does. His life has gone awry, his moral compass long since lost. Separated from wife and family, awash in gambling debts, he has surrendered his career as a lawyer to acting as the "janitor" to his corporate law firm, doing whatever it takes to clean up those inconvenient messes that threaten the firm's image--or that of its clients. He has learned to skillfully manipulate the truth to serve the corporate interest.

From that start on the hillside, we are led back through the last four days that have brought him to this epiphany. He has been assigned the task of bringing back a partner, Arthur (wonderfully portrayed by that fine actor, Tom Wilkinson) who is also an old friend and colleague, into the fold of corporate contingency. Arthur has lost his senses--or, as we discover, found them. Building the defense of a corporate client desperate to save itself from the public exposure of its egregious poisoning of hundreds of its consumers--and potentially millions more--Arthur has done the unthinkable, switching his alliegeance from the client to its victims. A traitor to the firm and to its bottom-line "values," this miscreant must be brought back in line, and Michael Clayton is the man relied upon to do it.

Along the road, however, Clayton is brought face to face with the venality of the system that he serves. Increasingly, he comes to realize that real justice is on the side of the plaintiff in the case in question, and that his friend is far from the lunatic he has been made out to be. When Clayton's counterparts, the "janitors" who represent his firm's corporate client, spring into action and resort, finally, to murder, he turns coat himself, sacrificing his own interest and that of his firm to the revelation of the truth.

Before I get lost in the complexities of this finely-conceived, finely-written, and magnificently enacted story, let me get back to redemption--for that, as I see it, is the story's theme. If Arthur forsakes the "meds" that have kept his life in balance and descends into a fit of madness that reveals itself as moral clarity, Michael's redemption is the greater struggle, because it involves the surrender of everything that has seemed important to him: money, status, the respect and trust of those he works for, his employment--and finally his very identity--in order to emerge from the hell he has created for himself. In a remarkable feat of acting, as the film comes to its close, George Clooney's face alone conveys the transformation from misery and desperation to a kind of happiness.

"Michael Clayton" kept me on the proverbial edge of my seat from beginning to end. It's the kind of film where you're never allowed to pause and glance nervously at your watch. It's a true thriller, but one where violence is reduced to the necessary minimum and where the characters and the complexity of their moral issues drive the action. It's tough, uncompromising, but not lacking in tender moments, and it grabs you where good art is supposed to grab you--round he heart. Clooney's Michael is at once strong and vulnerable, scared and angry, transparent and inscrutable. We can forgive him for having lost his way, because we share his human failings, his desires, his attachments. It's when he learns to let go of them--in good Buddhist fashion--that he finds the beginnings of his freedom.

The other part of the Buddhist lesson of this film, by the way, is the karmic teaching: that cruel, unskillful actions lead inevitably to unhealthy and undesirable outcomes, while skillful action brings about the results that satisfy the soul.

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 10/29/2007

Truth is not a matter of argumentation and conviction; it is not the outcome of opinion.

~J. Krishnamurti

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 10/28/2007

We choose our leaders, political or spiritual, out of our own confusion, and so they also are confused. We demand to be coaxed and comforted, to be encouraged and gratified, so we choose a teacher who will give us what we crave for. We do not search out reality, but go after gratification and sensation.

~J. Krishnamurti

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

Breaking News!

The monks are back home. The Metta Forest Monastery has been spared the ravages of the fires that raged in the hills around it.

We arrived back at our beach cottage yesterday afternoon to find it in immaculate order, the yard swept, the plants watered. Word soon reached us that the monks had left earlier in the day--along with ten retreatants who had been evacuated with them, and who also stayed in Laguna Beach--and that Than Geoff had called to say that the monastery was safe. Naturally, we were overjoyed.

Here at the cottage, the presence of the monks is still palpable. Remember the days when we used to talk about "good vibes"? They're here. I was certainly aware of them during my morning meditation. The collective power of eight monks in one small dwelling space... May those whose lives were changed by the events of this past week find happiness in their lives.

I'm thinking now of those firefighters, still kept at the task of controlling the fires before the Santa Ana winds return, despite the waning interest of the media and the unaffected public. I suppose we'll now be able to return our attention to the unfortunate Britney Spears. May she find true happiness in her life, and the source of happiness...

Hope you all have a great weekend, friends. May we all find that happiness...

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 10/27/2007

Thought is the verbalisation of influences.

~J. Krishnamurti

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

Cambridge Days

I was not a good student at Cambridge. That's the plain truth. Just out of twelve years in the internment camp of a couple of British boys' boarding schools (by the way, those interested or suffering from the post-traumantic stress induced by this experience would do well to check out Nick Duffel's organization, Boarding School Survivors,) I had been thrust all unprepared into "life," and set out to find out what it was all about. I discovered to my delight that there was another sex, about which I had learned nothing until then. Oh, and that beer tasted good and was fun to drink. So I spent three years studying mostly life and incidentally Modern and Medieval Languages and French Philology. (Three years was the norm for a Cambridge undergraduate degree. Not sure whether this is still the case.) At the end, I barely scraped past my "tripod" exams--quaintly named for the three-legged stool on which the examinee used to sit. My one moment of glory was the French oral exam, in which I scored a triumphant "first"--the equivalent, I suppose, of an A+ over here.

These thoughts occasioned by dinner last night in the company of visiting representatives from my old Cambridge college, Gonville & Caius (pronounced "keys"). The restaurant, which we picked from recommendations in a part of town midway between where we live and their hotel, proved undeservedly expensive: food not great, wine okay. But the moment gave me the opportunity to reflect on how greatly Cambridge, and Caius, have contributed to my life. I confess to having been profoundly--and I have to say ungraciously--disrespectful of the greater part of my highly privileged education. For the most part, it was an excruciatingly painful experience. But Cambridge... Cambridge was fun and freedom. Cambridge was exploration and experimentation. It was also a time of terrible mistakes, and heartbreak, and excess. It was punting on "The Backs" and dancing through the night. It gave me the first opportunity, really, to find things out about myself I had never known existed. The lectures, the tutorials, the exposure to truly disciplined, great minds--it was only much later that I began to value this.

I have learned, in recent years, to acknowledge and appreciate the privilege. Cambridge has opened doors for me that I would not have passed through otherwise. It gave me access to my first real studies, which led to a doctorate in Comparative Literature. It left me with an academic record that assured me a good place in line for a series of rewarding jobs in academia--before assuring me the inner fortitude to leave academia behind and become a writer. It was my boot camp as a poet. Privilege, I think, can be hard to bear with dignity and gratitude. It can lead so easily to snobbery and the unjustified, thoughtless assumption of superiority. Or it can lead to the reverse, a sense of guilt that festers into a kind of self-loathing, a self-deprecation, a lack of conviction in one's innate ability: it feels like too much has been given, and that without it one is nothing. As one victim of a different kind of privilege put it, "Less Than Zero." I believe that I have experienced both extremes.

But now is the time for simple acknowledgement and gratitude. I aspire to the grace to practice these qualities without reserve. Thanks, then, to Cambridge. Thanks to Caius for the many gifts received in my three years there. I was perhaps, in some ways, a better student than I knew.

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 10/26/2007

But that is not a safe refuge, that is not the best refuge; a man is not delivered from all pains after having gone to that refuge. He who takes refuge with Buddha, the Law, and the Church; he who, with clear understanding, sees the four holy truths: these four holy truths are: suffering, the origin (Samudaya) of suffering (Dukha), the destruction (Nirodha) of suffering, and the eightfold holy way (Marga) that leads to the quieting of suffering, that is the safe refuge, that is the best refuge; having gone to that refuge, a man is delivered from all suffering.

~The Dhammapada

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

In Memory: R. B. Kitaj

I was sad to read, in yesterday’s New York Times, the obituary of an old friend of the family—and a noted artist, R.B.Kitaj.


I had in fact heard a report of his death earlier, a couple of nights before, through a mutual friend, but neither one of us had been able to ascertain that the report was in fact no more than a simple rumor. It seemed he was simply too young to die. Yesterday, though, there was confirmation.

Ron, as he was known to the family—though he came to prefer the single “Kitaj,” and we eventually dropped the “Ron” out of respect for his wishes—was one of the great figurative artists of the post-World War II period. An expatriate American living in London for many years, he returned to make his home and work in Southern California a number of years ago, after the tragically early death of his wife, the artist Sandra Fisher. At that time, his important retrospective show at the Tate Gallery (this was 1994) had been widely, even cruelly, panned by critics, primarily on account of the lengthy explanatory texts he apparently felt necessary to include next to the paintings on the walls, in case they should be misunderstood. He bitterly and publicly denounced his critics for having contributed to Sandra’s sudden death of an aneurism, and later produced a painting called “The Critic Kills,” signed “By Ron and Sandra.”

Clearly, then, Kitaj was a man of quirks. He was a virtual recluse on his return to Los Angeles, and effectively discouraged visitors. Even so, I’m sad that we did not make the effort to penetrate his solitude at those times when he did put out the invitation. The truth is, I think, that both Ellie and I were not a little intimidated by the intensity of his intellectual fortitude and his fierce, single-minded dedication to the life of the mind. His closest friends included some of the great poets and writers of our time—Robert Creeley, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Duncan, Phillip Roth, among many more—and he was a voracious consumer of all things of cultural significance. He was also impatient of everything shoddy or ill-thought.

A prominent figurative painter throughout that period when the art of the human figure was sacrificed on the high altar of abstraction, Kitaj was willing to fight anyone for his convictions. His essay, “The Human Clay,” written in 1976, was a passionate defense of the “School of London” artists—Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Frank Auerbach, Leon Kossoff—who, like himself, persisted in finding inspiration and aesthetic necessity in the study of the human form despite the great American tide of abstraction championed by influential critics like Clement Greenberg. Kitaj’s own paintings defiantly combined narrative and history with a keen sense of social justice and humanitarian outrage. The one shown immediately below is subtitled "The Refugees." Kitaj's self-portrait stretches across the foreground, evoking his own sense of permanent exile and isolation.



It was in part, I believe, under the tutelage of my father-in-law, Michael Blankfort, that Kitaj rediscovered and committed his art to his Jewish roots and to the too-often dark history of European Jews. The NY Times obituary had him headlined as the “Painter of Moody Human Dramas”—an epithet that does only part justice to the social and psychological intensity of his work. The bleak history of the diaspora was a theme he explored not only in his paintings but also in two key essays, “The First Diasporist Manifesto,” (1989) and “The Second Diasporist Manifesto,” (2005).

Michael was also a collector of Kitaj’s works, and gifted the Los Angeles County Museum with several important pieces, including an early large-scale painting, “Dismantling of the Red Tent,” (1963-64) whose bleak and mournful landscape marked the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.



One work from the collection, a charcoal drawing called “Terese,” (1978) ended up in my own hands in a curious way. Always fascinated by the mystery genre, I had just published “Chiaroscuro,” the first of my own two mystery novels, in the mid-1980s. It was set in the contemporary art world, and started with the description of my intense artist-hero—I called him “Jake Molnar”—making a drawing. The drawing was one I had often seen and admired on the walls of the Blankfort house, “Terese.” I have never made a point of it in public, but there was much about Jake that reflected what I knew of Ron through our family friendship. In any event, it was in celebration of the publication that Ellie’s parents were generous enough to make “Terese” mine. She hangs, today, in all her glorious nakedness, above the mantle in our bedroom, and she is admired every day.



A sad loss, then, of a highly cultured man and an extraordinary artist at too early an age. He was only 74. The NY Times quotes the accolade of Time magazine critic Robert Hughes: “He draws better than almost anyone else alive.” But let Kitaj speak here for himself:

If some of us wish to practice art for art’s sake alone, so be it… but good pictures, great pictures, will be made to which many modest lives can respond… it seems to be at least as advanced or radical to attempt a more social art, as not to.

To which I say Amen, Ron. And bon voyage, wherever the journey leads from here. May this restless soul finally find a home.

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 10/25/2007

Men, driven by fear, go to many a refuge, to mountains and forest, to groves and sacred trees.

~The Dhammapada

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

Christians Protest Buddhist Display at City Hall meant to Promote Dalai Lama Visit

In Bloomington, Indiana in the United States of America the city hall has a display featuring Buddhist culture and art to promote an upcoming visit by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. In response, some Christians from the area are protesting the display claiming that it promotes one religion over another. They protested by placing a display of the Christian ten commandments at the city hall.

"I read a brief statement on the importance of the Ten Commandments being the bedrock on which our city and nation's cultural and legal foundations stand," he wrote. (James: An issue that is debatable) We then proceeded to take two stone tablets of the Ten Commandments (each about 2 ft. tall and 1 ft. wide) and a table inside city hall and placed them right in front of the city's religious display of Buddhism."

The city responded by taking down the ten commandment display saying that the Christian group didn't follow city regulations and process for such an action. The city also said that the display was religious because it listed the main tenets of the Christian faith, whereas the Buddhist display merely depicts the art and culture of Tibet.

Either way, it is my opinion that neither display should be allowed. I feel that government buildings and agencies shouldn't flirt with religion in any way. The government is funded and run by the public and therefore should remain neutral in regards to anything connected to religion.

The Christian group released the following statement regarding the two displays:

"These commandments are our symbol of peace, and we want to include them with the city's display to promote religious enlightenment. We want to be clear that we do not agree with the ideology of the Dalai Lama or Buddhist beliefs – we are Christians and believe in one God, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ," he said.

This is the most disappointing part of the whole affair for me because in saying that they do not agree with Buddhist beliefs in general they are saying they don't agree with compassion, peace, loving kindness and the easing of suffering. Both religions work to promote those ideals and it seems that the Christians could have asserted their right to the separation between government and religion without trashing Buddhism. I can only hope that the Christian group is simply ignorant of those core beliefs that the two faiths have in common.

May we all continue to strive for increased religious tolerance, respect and understanding.

~Peace to all beings~

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 10/24/2007

There is no satisfying desires, even by a shower of gold pieces; he who knows that desires have a short taste and cause pain, he is wise.

~The Dhammapada

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

Many Monks

Concerned about the safety of our good Thanissaro Bhikkhu and his fellow monks down in San Diego County, I called our friend Eva, host of our Sunday morning sangha sessions, to ask if she had any information.



(That's Than Geoff in the lead, by the way, in this picture from the monastery's website gallery.) Turned out the monks had just been evacuated from the Metta Forest Monastery in Valley Center, just north of San Diego, and were all headed to Laguna Beach in search of shelter from the firestorm. Our cottage, of course, stands empty until Friday, when we plan to return to the beach for the weekend, so we offered it in case of need.

Our offer was gladly accepted. Last I heard, from a neighbor, eight men in saffron robes were on the steps to the cottage, searching for the key. Our neighbor revealed our top-secret hiding place, and our cottage has turned into a temporary monastery—well, at least a dormitory!—for the full complement of Buddhist monks from Metta. It will, I imagine, be somewhat crowded in there. And there’s only a single bathroom. But I trust that monks know how to handle such contingencies.

I wish I had a picture of their arrival…

I’m not sure how long they’ll have to stay, but we hope fervently that it will not be long, that the beautiful monastery and its groves of avocado trees will be spared, and that the monks will very soon be able to return to their habitat of choice. How dry and vulnerable it looks, in this picture--again from the monastery website.



For us… what a pleasure to be able to return in some small way the gifts we have received from Than Geoff over the years! And I can’t help wondering what our neighbors on this small street will think…

The Buddha Diaries Recommends

Guilty With an Explanation

We're not quite sure what the author means by this title, but we think it is a perfectly apt description of her readers, who are undoubtedly guilty of spending much too much time perusing her addictive site.

The explanation (uttered to disgruntled spouses and employers, perhaps?) is that HeartInSanFrancisco (HSF) wows her readers day after day with original content, surpassing in breadth and humor almost every other space on the web.

Much of the fun of Guilty with an Explanation stems directly from vitriol, in which the reader laughingly indulges because HSF has spent so much time assuring us of her underlying compassion and sensitivity. When miffed, HSF pulls no punches, which is bad news for those who, say, ram into her with their cart at the grocery store. Her lambasting is often so articulate and spirited that it evokes a deeply satisfying sense of vicarious revenge. This, from 2006.

My neighbor is a hooker. A street ho. A strumpet, harlot, trollop. A tart. I finally figured it out after I saw her in black bra and tiny shorts draped around a lamppost in the Mission, an area which has not yet been gentrified. I doubt she was in the neighborhood for the discount fabric store, as I was.

But I don't hate her because of her morals. I hate her because she's a vile neighbor.

Fans of David Sedaris will enjoy HSF's unsparing portraits of her past. In these entries, HSF's childhood self emerges in hilarious and heart-breaking detail, as the reader becomes privy to those poignant, tragicomic moments characteristic of so many of our childhoods.

And in addition to all of this fun, HSF entertains with legitimately interesting encounters with notable historical figures such as Gracie Slick and Che Guevara.

Bottom line, this blog has something for everyone, and we encourage you to visit.

Apocalypse? Now?

Those of us living in Southern California may be forgiven for a sense that the apocalypse is approaching faster even than some evangelicals would have us believe. The place is an inferno, with wild fires raging out of control from Malibu to the border with Mexico. Living here, you can't help but be aware of it.



(The above is not a minimalist abstract painting. It's a digital photo taken from the window of our car.) The smoke pollutes the air even in those areas, like our own, which have been spared the actual burn. You can feel the heaviness in the lungs, the burn in the nostrils. The sunset glows an ominous, but glorious red.

Should we beat our breasts? Should we do a Pat Robertson, blame the gays and lesbians and our other evil ways? Is God trying to tell us something? Well, maybe not... Brush fires are a part of the natural cycle, nature's way of clearing things out to allow for new growth, new life. If they are now so terrible, though, it's in part a result of human behavior: over the past century, we have made valiant attempts--often in the interest of "development"--to control nature's efforts. Our need for housing and transportation routes has defaced the natural topgraphy. We know, too, that our greenhouse gases have contributed significantly to the climate changes that have promoted drought in this part of the world, as in the southeast of the United States and elsewhere on the planet. This in turn has created ideal fuel for the fires, desert-dry brush and timber in huge quantities. Our drought has also depleted the wherewithal to fight the fires where they flare up. Our human obsession with control and exploitation has done much to bring these situations on.

And then... I can't help but see these local brush fires in the context of the global ones: wars everywhere, civil (though how can war be "civil," ever?) inter-national and territorial; famine and plague; disasters of the kind we seem to read about daily in the papers. We co-create these events with nature, as the California fires, or we invent them all by ourselves. The latest brush fire that I hear about is the one on the border between Turkey and Iraq, with Turkey now threatening to invade that benighted country from the north, to protect itself from Kurdish terrorists seeking to consolidate an independent Kurdish nation. The particular fire we Americans lit amongst the already many conflagration points in the Middle East is sending burning embers flying into the surrounding brush.

Here's the "burning" question: are we nearer to our annihilation as a species than we had ever imagined? Is the process of destruction already beyond all hope of control? Are we now fated to stand powerless in the face of hurricane force winds, like those California firefighters, and watch as the world burns? It's a frightening thought, but a frighteningly real one at this moment in our planet's history.

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 10/23/2007

The swans go on the path of the sun, they go through the atmosphere by means of their miraculous power; the wise are led out of this world, when they have conquered Mara and his train.

~The Dhammapada

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

Ojai: Fun and Fire

Well, it was quite a trip. Here we are, safely back in Los Angeles--thanks, by the way, to those who wished us a safe journey. It actually felt like touch and go at times on the freeway coming home. More of that in a moment. Meanwhile...

We headed up the 5 freeway Saturday morning as far as Magic Mountain (unbelievable queues of vehicles blocking traffic as people lined up to exit the freeway there, to spend a joyful Saturday on the roller coasters and other instruments of torture!) and took the 126 east through Piru and Fillmore to Santa Paula, where we had been urged to stop to see an odd new show opening up in an odd new art space miles from the "art scene" in Los Angeles. The happily-named Kunstbarn--a play, no doubt, on the more august, ubiquitous "Kunsthalle," the venue of much avant-garde art in Germany and elsewhere--turned out to be just that: a barn. But a barn painstakingly converted into a small but pristine gallery space by the owner, Lotar Ziesing, who deals primarily in "Decorative Art and Antiques." His inaugural exhibition was entitled "Dysfunctional American Portraits, 1930-1960."

The dysfunctional portraits in question turned out to be mostly paintings by those anonymous, self-taught painters whose masterpieces you can pick up for a couple of dollars at garage sales and swap meets. If you have a good eye--as Lotar quite evidently does--you can find real gems, of the kind popularized by the artist Jim Shaw in his Thrift Store Paintings. Here's a couple of them, for your delectation: Lotar has graced each one with a title of his own invention. These two are called "Abused Child" and "Illuminated Shopper," respectively. The theme of the dysfunctional family makes an interesting and satrical comment on mostly post-war America and its illusions of domestic bliss.

It's a trek out to Lotar's place, but worth the effort. Lotar himself is a genial man, a generous host, and a source of endless knowledge about all things "mid-century." Parked outside his house when we arrived was a magnificent pillar-box red Lancia from the 1950s--or perhaps the 1960s, I'm no expert--and while we were still there a friend of his drove up with a beautifully restored Airstream-type trailer of the same period (it wasn't Airstream, but I didn't catch the make.) The late 19th century homestead, also restored with a finicky eye for detail, enjoys a spectacular view of the valley below with its wide arroyo and the mountains beyond.

We took the scenic route up over the hill to the outstkirts of Ojai, where our friends Chris and Nancy had generously invited us to spend the night in their guest house. We were greeted by three rowdy dogs, anxious to meet George, the newcomer. George is normally quite nervous around other dogs, and is known to lunge at them in a less than friendly manner. We assume that, being small, he needs to assert his dogulinity. It's a Napoleon thing. However, they all seemed to get along just fine as we settled down to an excellent lunch of home-brewed potato soup and salad. After lunch, the four of us--here are our friends--set out on a marvelous, long walk along a back road that soon led us through avocado and orange orchards, where George for the first time in his life learned the joys of running off-leash in the countryside. His long coat managed to pick up every burr along the way, but it was worth the work of pulling them all out one by one just to watch his doggy spirit run free.

We enjoyed a very pleasant dinner in the town of Ojai, and managed an early night and a good sleep, away from the light and sounds of the metropolitan area. We watched the sunrise on an exquisite morning that was marred only, moments later, by Ellie's accident with a glass tea-caddy--it slipped from her hand and shattered on the tile floor in a million tiny shards. Out with George for his morning poop walk, though, I was at once amazed and thrilled to actually hear the beat of crows' wings as a pair of them flew past. It was that quiet...

Breakfast of coffee and toasted English muffins with our friends on their enclosed back porch, surrounded by whispering trees--the wind had not yet risen to its later gusty strength; and a visit with a next-door neighbor, the artist Michael Dvortcsak, whose paintings we have been familiar with for many years.



Michael loves rough, volumetric shapes like ancient vessels and huge, craggy boulders which occupy his canvases like mythical, paleolithic presences set in dreamscapes of the mind. His studio is a solitary cave, hemmed in on all sides by racks crammed with paintings of all sizes and a single wall on which the works in progress hand are hung, awaiting his attention. It's always great to spend time in an artist's studio, and it was a pleasure to meet the man behind the paintings.

There was another studio visit in store for us. After a brief stop in town at the farmers' market, we headed out into the country in the opposite direction--to the south and west--to find the studios of an old friend, Gary Lang, and his wife, Ruth Pastine. Gary left Los Angeles years ago, in the early 1980s, as I recall, and spent a number of years in the contemporary art mecca of New York. He and Ruth returned to Southern California--and the paradise of the countryside around Ojai--a few years ago, and have built a magnificent his- and hers- studio, with a wing for each of them to work in privacy. In Gary's studio, we found a dozen new paintings in pursuit of his love affair--the word "obsession" came up--with color and movement. At one end, a large painting, similar to this one



(apologies to Gary for having lifted this absurdly too-small image, sans permission, from his gallery's site: it gives no feeling for the scale and grandeur of the actual work!) Where Gary works in wildly colorful, eye-popping abstraction, Ruth works much more subtly with shifting color gradations in canvases where serenity rules. Here's a blue one:



(Apologies to Ruth, too, from pretty much the same reasons!) We spent a good while in the studios, amazed, as always, by the endless inventiveness of artists and their dedication to their work.

We enjoyed a bite to eat at Ruth and Gary's, out on the shaded patio behind their house. It wasn't long, however, before we began to notice smoke in the air and smelled the burning brush--our first inkling of the terrible fires that were breaking out all over Southern California. After leaving their house, we headed into thickening smoke around Ventura, where traffic slowed to a crawl beneath a dirty red, hellish sky. Unsure whether the freeway would lead us, in this murk, to a dead halt between flaming hillsides, we debated leaving the 101 and heading back east on the 126 again. Not knowing which of the two routes was worse, we opted on instinct for the 101. It turned out to have been the better choice, I think, because a call to Lotar gave us notice of a raging fire in the hills above them, near Santa Paula; and later we heard that there were fires on either side of the southbound I-5, which we would have had to take after leaving the 126. Even so, as you can tell from this picture, it was bad enough. We were thankful to find our own area clear when we got home. Today we can look forward to heat--and more brush fires.

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 10/22/2007

He who formerly was reckless and afterwards became sober, brightens up this world, like the moon when freed from clouds.

~The Dhammapada

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

Reasons Why Buddhist Monks Wear Robes and ShaveTheir Heads

I received a comment asking what the symbolism is of the robes that Buddhist monks wear and I put together a response from some research. I decided to make a post out of it for others who might be interested in the query. If anyone else has something to add, feel free to post it in the comments.

For the most part the robes of the monks depended on the dye that was available in the region. And then tradition just kept those different colors. And it also helps distinguish which sect/tradition/school of Buddhism the monastic follows.

The simplicity of wearing a basic robe partly symbolizes the vow they have taken to live a simple life. It is like their "uniform" in a way. A symbol of their non-status that they are no longer partake in the material aspects of society.

The material and dyes for their robes are usually donated by the laity.

The robe also symbolizes the monks connection to the Buddha and his willingness to follow in his footsteps.

Within some Tibetan Buddhist schools, If their sleeveless tunic is trimmed with yellow brocade or they are wearing yellow silk and satin as normal attire, they are probably eminent monks or considered living Buddhas. This link will help describe how the robes have changed over time.

Some, however, consider robes to be elitist and encourage pride as one "advances" within ones sect.

As for monks shaving their heads, it often symbolizes the renunciation of worldly things. It helps monks over-come vanity to embrace the simple life of a monk.

I hope this little research has helped a bit.

P.S.~Just wanted to let everyone know that the blog has just passed over 100,000 hits. The number doesn't mean as much to me, whereas, the readers that number represents is what is notable and humbling for this imperfect manifestation called James. Thank-you to everyone for your support, readership and comments.

I bow to the Buddha within you all. _/I\_

~Peace to all beings~

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 10/21/2007

Come. Look at this glittering world, like a royal chariot; the foolish are immersed in it, but the wise do not touch it.

~The Dhammapada

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

Sheer Terror

A classic thriller: an upper middle class family is terrorized by unknown, invisible assailants. The threat is clear and imminent, but unspecified. The father is in a state of high anxiety, needing desperately to protect his family. I watch all this as one does a movie, anxious and scared, but somehow for them, not for myself. But totally engaged, "on the edge of my seat." It's "so real." Intense. Then I wake up for a bladder break in the middle of the dream and realize that I'll never know the end. I'll never know who these people are, or who is threatening them, or how, or for what reason. I'll never know if--or how--the family manage to extricate themselves from their predicament. Very Kafkan. Before heading off to the bathroom, I lie in bed and try to write an ending that feels right, but you know that never helps. The dream is a world unto itself, and an ending written in the waking world just doesn't quite do it...

This morning we leave for Ojai, with a stop in Santa Paula. Exciting times. We have chosen the hottest weekend since the September heatwave, with fierce Santa Ana winds blowing in from the deserts. Wish us luck.

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 10/20/2007

Bad deeds, and deeds hurtful to ourselves, are easy to do; what is beneficial and good, that is very difficult to do.

~The Dhammapada

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

People With a Passion

It's always a wonderful experience to be with people with a common passion. This thought prompted by my having stumbled across "Word Play" on public television last night--a documentary about crossword puzzlers. The New York Times crossword happens to be a small addiction of my own, one that I share, I now discover, with such notables as Jon Stewart, Ken Burns, Bill Clinton and countless others. "Word Play" centers around the annual tournament in Stamford, Connecticut, hosted by NYT crossword editor Will Shortz, where puzzlers of all stripes gather to vie for the championship. The competition is intense. My own humble efforts pale beside these folks, who complete the simple, early-week puzzles in seconds flat, and the progressively harder puzzles toward the end of the week in minutes. Amazing to watch them.

The crossword puzzle, though, is just a pretext for this study of people with a passion, and for the community in which they thrive. Even though they meet only once a year in this fashion, their hearts seem to beat as one. There's a mutual admiration, a bond, even, yes, a kind of love that unites this vastly diverse bunch of human beings. What's extraordinary is how they are all leveled--rich, poor, lawyers, doctors, students, secretaries, scientists, musicians... you get the sense that their differences mean nothing in this context, where their common humanity simply surges to the fore.

I think we bloggers are like that. It has come to be the thing I value most about this peculiar, near-daily obsession of mine. It's done in private, but the sense of community is increasingly powerful. (A propos, Cardozo is in the process of editing a new installment of "The Buddha Diaires Recommends," and I hope to have that posted early next week.) I know not a single one of you out there in person, but I come to recognize your voice, your vision, and there's a particular joy in finding common cause.

"Word Play" put me in mind of the first "YearlyKos" conference I attended a couple of years ago in Las Vegas, where a thousand progressive liberal bloggers gathered to meet not only each other, most for the first time in person, but also a good number of the Democratic Party leaders who had just begun to understand something of the power of the blogosphere. Barbara Boxer was there, and Harry Reid, Bill Richardson, Wesley Clark, and several other potential presidential contenders. I myself was working on my first blog at the time, "The Bush Diairies," and had just published a book version, "The Real Bush Diaries." It was a thrill to find myself amongst so many "of my own kind," all passionate about their politics and a little tipsy on their effects of their growing influence.

So this entry is just a way of saying thank you to those who blog and those who read the blogs and those who add their comments to the blogs they read. It's a joy to feel your presence out there and to sense that this small circle of Buddhists, near-Buddhists, and those attracted to Buddhism by its simple humanity, is making its own contribution to the conscience and consciousness it will take to save the planet that we share.

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 10/19/2007

Canal-makers lead the water; archers bend the arrow; carpenters bend a log of wood; good people fashion themselves.

~The Dhammapada

Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma Compassion

Free Tibet: The Dalai Lama Gets the Gold

Gotta love that Dalai Lama, right?



That smile, that giggle. That ability, despite obviously vast intellectual and diplomatic power, to maintain an apparent childlike innocence and wonder... That ability to look upon the disasters of the world with equanimity, and to find his happiness where he is.

Still, I could wish he had not chosen to accept his congressional gold medal from a man with so much blood on his hands.



I suppose he had to do it for his country, poor Tibet. But isn't there some rule about a monk accepting gifts of gold? I suppose it's uncharitable of me to be pissed off that Bush should be able to pick up so much in the way of brownie points by inviting His Holiness into his office to spite the Chinese, and use the occasion to lecture them on democracy and the freedom of religion. Very un-Buddhist of me.

And isn't there some rule about monks getting kissed on the cheek?

Ah, well, I'm off to try to practice a little metta.