Saturday, July 31, 2010
Saturday Night Audio Meditation - Bjork, "All is Love."
NOT QUITE A NIGHTMARE
The mind plays funny tricks on us. Sometimes it seems to delight in tormenting us, as is the case with the kind of nightmare I had last night. Though actually what should have been a nightmare did not quite feel like one.
I am a long-time acrophobe. I first discovered how severe the affliction could be only later in life, at the top of the campanile in Florence, when I was seized with sudden dizziness and panic, and found myself clinging to the wall, as far as possible from the edge. But I do not remember having experienced this feeling as a child. Indeed, I remember distinctly standing at the parapets of St. Botolph's Church in Aspley Guise, where my father was Rector until I was twelve years old, looking far out over the flat lands of Bedfordshire.
No matter, there was this nightmare. I was close to the top of a tall building, a skyscraper, outside, where a stepped pyramid let on up to the very top. I do not remember how I got there--an unlikely event in real life. With me were two children and two adults, both men, if I remember right, at least one of them powerfully built. The steps were built in such a way that you could see through from one side to the other, and the idea was somehow to look through this gap and see the person on the other side. We were all climbing these steps, one by one, toward the top, and I was worried about the children--though they seemed to be playing quite happily.
The ascent did not seem as terrifying as it might have done, but I was very conscious of the importance of not looking down. More worrisome was the idea of the descent, which I imagined would be far more difficult. I knew I would have to ask for the help of the powerfully built man, and rely on him to support me. The dream ended at this point--I think before I had brought myself to ask this favor and risk showing my foolish weakness.
Does the dream have to do with aging? With the fear of having to rely on others for support? It is, after all, my birthday tomorrow. The children were playing, I note, "happily." And the "powerfulness" of the other man was clearly an important quality. If, as I have heard, every character in a dream is a projection of one's self, it's kind of a nice dream, with the manifestation of all stages of my life at the top of the tower. I note, too, that I did not actually feel dizzy or in panic. It was more the sense that I would normally, in such a circumstance, have those feelings. Interesting, too, that the dream ended without a conclusion. I had not yet brought myself to ask for what I thought I would need.
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 7/31/2010
"Whatsoever, after due examination and analysis, you find to be kind, conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings...that doctrine believe and cling to, and take it as your guide."
~The Buddha
Friday, July 30, 2010
BAD BEAR?
I was chided last week—quite gently, to be sure—by a kind reader who was uncomfortable with my analogy between wolves and those human “king-killers” I was writing about. It constituted, if I understand her right, a defamation of the character of wolves, who are only following their nature and the survival imperative that motivates their actions. They need to hunt and kill their prey. The human predators of whom I happened to be writing—those who attack their leaders out of greed, envy, or a sense of their own powerlessness—act out of less natural, and therefore perhaps less noble impulses.
Still, without wishing to defame those marvelous creatures in any way, I stand by my analogy. They do, like those humans, hunt in packs. And I believe, though perhaps wrongly, that predatory animals like wolves are known to ferociously challenge leadership when they consider it to be weak or untrustworthy. Even pure malice, surely, exists among animals as it does among human beings, as does altruism. Not everything about the animal world is innocent and noble. (There’s an interesting debate, these days, as to whether animals have a “moral code”: this book review suggests that Wild Justice might be a very interesting read.)
These thoughts, this morning, in reflection on the news that a grizzly bear (“or bears”) attacked a group of campers in Yellowstone Park and succeeded in killing one of them, and mauling others. The rangers are out there now hunting down the bear(s) in question with the intention, presumably, of imposing the death penalty on the offender. The latest, I hear, is that they have trapped a mother and three year-old cubs, against whom the evidence looks damning: a piece of ripped tent in the scat, a broken tooth left at the scene of the crime… The bears are as I write en route to a location where their DNA will be tested against crime scene samples and their guilt or innocence proved. They will not have a jury of their peers to try their case, and are unlikely to be spared the ultimate penalty.
Should we feel greater—or qualitatively different—compassion for our own species than we do for others? Traditional western thought, both secular and religious, have taught us to believe that we are superior to animals, thanks to our great intellect and its ability to reason, and to the moral codes to which we supposedly subscribe. The theory, frankly, is infinitely more noble than the practice. We have little compunction about finding the justification for killing our own, a practice that shows no sign of abating even in this post-Enlightenment period of our history. (It’s revealing to note the different between Eastern and Western uses of that word.) We persist in fouling our own nest in ways that most of our brothers and sisters in the animal world would consider unacceptable; and, incidentally, fouling the nest for them at the same time, since we all share it.
On what grounds, then, do we earn the entitlement to consider ourselves rulers of the universe? By what right do we haughtily judge and sometimes sentence them? Should we assume that this bear’s behavior, for example, is deviant, and deserving of execution? Or is it not possible that she was acting in accordance with her own “moral” code for reasons we could never understand? We humans, after all, are the invaders in that territory. Our presence there has created ecological contingencies she must address, if she is to take care of her cubs and assure their survival.
Am I a “bleeding heart”? Yes. I confess that I’m the one who feels a wee bit awkward telling George to “Sit” or “Stay”? Why should he, just because I tell him to? He looks at me like I’m crazy, asking such things of him. He has his own logic, his own rules. I could argue, of course, that he must learn these rules for his own safety, living in a world of human beings. But the truth is, he must learn them more for my convenience.
From the beginning of human history, I know, we have had to protect ourselves from other species, especially the wild and the strong ones, like bears. We have had to eat them, as they have had to eat those less powerful than themselves. We have been able to domesticate some of them, like George, for our own purposes—work or pleasure, or the provision of sustenance. And it’s good to recall that not all human intervention is destructive: how else would George have regained his eyesight?
I have no question that Buddhism is right in teaching the interdependence of all things and, particularly, of all living beings; and in teaching that compassion applies not only to those we know and love, but also to those by whom we are threatened, those we dislike or distrust, to those we fear. Still, as always, the practice is very much harder than the preaching. There was a time when humankind and animals could inhabit, largely, different domains. These days, our proximity is such that we can’t avoid collisions and confrontations like the one in Yellowstone Park. I feel terrible for the man who lost his life and for those who loved him and will miss him in their lives. I feel terrible for those who suffered wounds in the attack. And I feel terrible for the bear and for her cubs. Living beings all, whose unwanted encounter produced tragedy.
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 7/30/2010
"A wise man, recognizing that the world is but an illusion, does not act as if it is real, so he escapes the suffering."
~The Buddha
Thursday, July 29, 2010
George: the Up-Update
Well, it has been a week since surgery, and George continues to do well. He went in for his seven-day follow up exam today and had a good report on his progress. We had hoped--we had been kind of promising him--that we would be able to remove the Elizabethan collar today but alas, that seems a long way off. We had been told, originally, "seven to ten days," and were being perhaps overly optimistic. The doctor who saw him today, though, is much stricter than the previous one. She says she likes to be conservative, and wants to keep the collar on until his next appointment--in two weeks! Poor George! The disappointment is ours as much as his, since he didn't understand our promises in the first place. Still...
(This is my first attempt with a Flip Cam video! Hope it works)
Is the Swastika a "Universal" Symbol of Hate?
The swastika now shows up so often as a generic symbol of hatred that the Anti-Defamation League, in its annual tally of hate crimes against Jews, will no longer automatically count its appearance as an act of anti-Semitism. “The swastika has morphed into a universal symbol of hate,” said Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish advocacy organization. “Today it’s used as an epithet against African-Americans, Hispanics and gays, as well as Jews, because it is a symbol which frightens.”James: There is no doubt that in the western hemisphere the swastika is seen as a symbol of hate and intolerance but what most westerners don't know is that Adolf Hitler and the Nazis stole it from the Hindu and Buddhist religions and perverted its meaning. Ironically svastika is Sanskrit for "all is well" and is seen throughout Asia today--including emblazoned upon Buddha statues around the world. Thus, it was intended to be a message of harmony and well-being to all those who gazed upon its satisfyingly balanced shape. In Buddhism it is almost always seen pointing left, whereas the Nazis used it facing right.
I understand the aversion toward the swastika in the West but to say it is universally a symbol of hate could create more intolerance, not less. That's because it is a statement based in ignorance, and ignorance always breeds suffering. Their statement branding the swastika as universal symbol of hate excludes an entire half of the world where it is seen positively. In doing so this organization could possibly cause misunderstanding between Westerners and Easterners. What are less informed Western tourists going to think when they see a swastika painted upon a Buddhist or Hindu statue? What kind of conspiracy theories or misinformed opinions will they hatch out of ignorance propagated by a well-meaning organization? And just imagine the suffering that could be stirred up because of an ignorant tourist clinging to the Anti-Defamation League's wrong perception that the swastika is a universal symbol of hate. Of course you can't control how anyone is going to interpret something; nor should we seek to control it but I think the ADL owes it to the seriousness of this subject to educate to help prevent fear based ignorance from causing unintended consequences.
They were fine to remind everyone of the swastika's hateful past and that people are still using it to terrorize others. However, their mistake was in stopping with that statement, which is clinging to the hateful side of it. This could have been handled as a "teaching moment" as we say in America today. They could have gone on to educate the public that the symbol also means harmony and well-being. Then they could have advised us to stay vigilant toward intolerance and hatred but to not forget the original meaning, which we should embody instead of hatred and intolerance. This reminds us that all symbols have many meanings that can be interpreted one way or another based on our perceptions.
It is a great reminder of how much suffering our perceptions are to our lives. In the end though we have to let go of all perceptions. Even the perception that we are justified in hating those who hate us. As distasteful as this sounds we have to come to the realization that even those who flash the swastika in hate are doing so because of fear, ignorance and delusion. Thus, they too are suffering immensely and if possible having some compassion for them might help us overcome our hatred for them, which is only causing us additional pain. Hanging onto that hatred is like reminding ourselves of how painful that razor blade cut was a few weeks back by slashing your arm with it again. Or as Buddha said, "Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; its you who gets burned."
I'm not anywhere near at a place where I have been able to let go of all my perceptions, fear and ignorance (delusions) but I know the path to freeing ourselves from their suffering resides in letting go of their power. It doesn't mean that we ignore hatred, justify hatred, or stop educating people of their reality but it does mean that we should remember that our perceptions aren't usually completely accurate; and they can be damaging despite a well-meaning motivation. When we realize how interconnected we are there is often a natural widening of our mind and a greater awareness of the world around us, which enriches our lives and brings a deeper understanding of how we all work together.
~Peace to all beings~
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 7/29/2010
"The world, indeed, is like a dream and the treasures of the world are an alluring mirage! Like the apparent distances in a picture, things have no reality in themselves, but they are like heat haze."
~The Buddha
Today...
... or this...
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Tara's Enlightened Activity
Tara's Enlightened Activity: Commentary on The Praises to the Twenty-one Taras
The female Buddhist deity Tara is an object of devotional worship and meditative practice for Tibetan Buddhists everywhere, both male and female. She clears away fears, overpowers negative emotions, and enables all beings to reach enlightenment. She has special resonance as a source of female spiritual wisdom. Tibetans of all schools and traditions recite the verses on which this commentary is based. Focused, contemplative meditation in relation to the myriad aspects of Tara work to transform the practitioner's mind into those enlightened qualities and mind states that Tara represents.
Sought-after teachers throughout the West for over twenty-five years, Khenchen Palden Sherab Rinpoche and his brother Khenpo Tsewang Dongyal Rinpoche illuminate the practice of The Praises to the Twenty-one Taras with humor and wisdom. The explanations cover progressively more subtle levels, from basic Buddhism through the Inner Tantras and culminate with Dzogchen. Interspersed with lively stories about Tara, the authors explain the physical conditions for practice, the outer and inner meanings of the text itself, and give solutions for problems that may emerge as practice progresses.
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Nirvana: Concept, Imagery, Narrative
Nirvana: Concept, Imagery, Narrative
The idea of nirvana (Pali nibbāna) is alluring but elusive for non-specialists and specialists alike. Offering his own interpretation of key texts, Steven Collins explains the idea in a new, accessible way - as a concept, as an image (metaphor), and as an element in the process of narrating both linear and cyclical time. Exploring nirvana from literary and philosophical perspectives, he argues that it has a specific role: to provide 'the sense of an ending' in both the systematic and the narrative thought of the Pali imaginaire. Translations from a number of texts, including some dealing with past and future Buddhas, enable the reader to access source material directly. This book will be essential reading for students of Buddhism, but will also have much to teach anyone concerned with Asia and its religions, or indeed anyone with an interest in the ideas of eternal life or timelessness.
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You Left Hand Isn't Superior to Your Right.
The sound in this video is of poor quality so you'll want to turn up the volume.
~Peace to all beings~
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 7/28/2010
"Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill."
~The Buddha
George, The Update
George is doing extraordinarily well. Take a look at those eyes...
I have been thinking a good deal about the cost involved. Before this all came about, Ellie and I had agreed--very sensibly--between us that we were not the kind of people who would spend inordinate amounts of money on a dog when we knew that countless people in the world were sick and starving and when, indeed, in this terrible recession, we were a bit insecure about our own financial future. But come the time to make a decision between shelling out the money and George being blind for the rest of his days, I have to report that we did not hesitate for more than a couple of moments.
Looking back on that decision and reflecting on it, I realize that we were caught between two conflicting sets of values. The one set had to do with a sense of obligation, from our position of relative ease in life, to sympathize with, and as we can to help those less fortunate and less privileged than ourselves. The other had to do with our love for this animal who has done nothing but return that love with interest, who is a living being we have taken into our care, and for whose life and well-being we have assumed responsibility. When it came right down to it, we made our decision not out of ideology but out of love.
On a Sunday evening news show the other night, we were deeply distressed by a report on the plight of the poor in a part of the American Midwest. Unemployment has left many working people homeless and destitute, resorting to food banks and soup kitchens much as they did in the Great Recession of the 1930s. It is heart-breaking—indeed, outrageous—to see children go hungry, scantily clad in freezing weather conditions, and physically, emotionally and mentally unprepared for what little education is offered them. Then, just yesterday, we took George for a walk in the coastline park a mile or so south of where we live. The park is bordered by a recent development area of brand-new, multi-million dollar ocean-view houses, the majority of which are used for only a few days of the year by wealthy owners for whom they are luxury vacation stops. We judge these people—and stand to be judged for a decision like the one we made for George by those who do not share our good fortune.
Injustice exists—and it’s a whole lot easier to take the moral high ground from the theoretical point of view than when the dilemma is immediate and personal.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Being Peace
Being Peace - Thich Nhat Hanh
Thich Nhat Hanh delivered the words on this compact disk to an assembly of 700 gathered at Green Gulch Zen Center in Muir Beach, California, on November 3, 1985, and inspired the creation of the best selling book, Being Peace. The teachings contained here provide a crucial antidote to our busy lives, and because of Hanh's experience with the war and his willingness to face the realities of our time, these teachings are also about suffering, reconciliation, and peace.
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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 7/27/2010
"There has to be evil so that good can prove its purity above it. To live a pure unselfish life, one must count nothing as one's own in the midst of abundance."
~The Buddha
Monday, July 26, 2010
World Cup Buddhist.
Phayul, July 10, 2010
Dharamsala, India -- Barcelona and Spain defender Carles "Tarzan" Puyol who scored the only goal of the semi final against Germany to send his country into the first ever world cup final has a keen interest in Buddhism, according to his friend Ven. Thupten Wangchen of the Casa del Tibet, Barcelona. Ven Wangchen told VOA that Puyol's interest in Tibetan culture and Buddhism started after reading Sogyal Rinpoche’s book, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying which helped him deal with death of a family member. Puyol, Ven. Wangchen said, has a Tibetan tattoo on his left arm which reads “Power is inside the Mind. The strong can endure.”
James: I was thrilled like millions around the world to enjoy the football mega-tournament, the World Cup recently in South Africa. I think sports are a great way to connect with people from around the world to remind one another that we are all essentially the same. We all want to be happy, or as the Dalai Lama says, no one wants to suffer. It was great to see all the different cultures represented from around the globe and I especially enjoyed hearing all the unique national anthems play before each match. It really was a coming together of the world and I was overjoyed to be apart of it.
As to this article, I am mostly excited about the idea of a Tibetan national football team!! Go Puyol!! How cool would it be to see Tibetans play in the greatest game the world has ever played!! But the footage I'd love to see the most would be the Dalai Lama kicking around the hexagonal ball. Maybe surprise us with his stretching skills from years of meditation and go for a bicycle kick? That would be epic. I also happen to know that the 17th Karmapa has the bug for football/soccer and followed the World Cup. Besides I just think it would be cool to see a monk in robes blast a ball into the back of the net by way of a bicycle kick. I just think that dueling imagery would be cool to see. Ancient robes bustling in the air while a very modern game (football) is being played by the monk wearing those robes.
~Peace to all beings~
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 7/26/2010
"Just as treasures are uncovered from the earth, so virtue appears from good deeds, and wisdom appears from a pure and peaceful mind. To walk safely through the maze of human life, one needs the light of wisdom and the guidance of virtue."
~The Buddha
MR. ELLIS: SECOND THOUGHTS
FORGIVENESS
Her response is completely understandable to me. It’s completely human. It set me to thinking about the relative gravity of offenses, and to what extent this might contribute to our ability to feel compassion. Are there crimes so hideous that they can never be forgiven? Are there people so vile in their actions that they are unworthy of compassion? From this point of view, I was merely diddled as a twelve-year old boy; my friend was raped by a stranger at the age of eighteen. There are those whose children have been brutally killed by psychopaths. Are they to exercise compassion? And what about punishment? Do we have the right to mete out punishment to those who commit harmful acts against us? Society, clearly must have some recourse; but individuals?
These are vexing questions. Moved by my friend’s anger, and wanting to better understand what light the teaching of the Buddha might shed on them, I brought my dilemma to our sitting group yesterday, Sunday. What, I had been trying to recall, had Than Geoff (Thanissaro Bhikkhu) had to say on the subject? I remembered that he had spoken once, in a dharma talk, about a distinction between forgiveness and some other concept, but I had forgotten the other side of the equation. It was reconciliation, I was reminded. I can do forgiveness by myself; reconciliation requires a coming together, an agreement, an action on the part of the other party in the grievance—some act of contrition, perhaps, a make-up, a commitment to change the harmful behavior in the future.
Compassion is not the same as forgiveness, and not the same as tolerance for the offense. I can be compassionate for the perpetrator of an act I am unable to forgive. Indeed, as I understand the Buddhist teachings in the matter, I am not empowered to forgive. The responsibility for absolution and redemption lies primarily with the perpetrator, not the victim. Compassion, though I project it outward toward others, or another person specifically, is about releasing myself from the suffering that results from the painful experience. Its benefits may touch others than myself, but are most clearly evident in my own heart and the way I live my life. It’s possible, otherwise, to become addicted to something I have no power to change and which can only bring me further suffering.
The difficulty in all this, as I see it—and I mentioned this in our discussion—is that the theory is much easier than the practice. We are, after all, humans, and what lodges in the heart, what we nurse there, in our most powerful organ, comes to feel like a part of us that would require surgery to remove. It’s a part of our identity, of who we think we are. (And perhaps, then, an opportunity to exercise that mantra I keep coming back to: This is not me, this is not mine, this is not who I am…)
Compassion—and I speak here, as always, strictly for myself—needs to become a matter of practice as much as a matter of choice. I might not readily choose it, if I consider the magnitude or the repugnance of the offense. But if I choose to adopt it simply as a habit and enact it every day at the start of my meditation sit, I find that I can do it without question or doubt. I no longer debate the worthiness of the recipient of my compassion and choose, instead, to heal the wound in my own heart.
Reading back over what I have written, I worry that the words might seem self-righteous or complacent. I’m far from intending my reflections as a sermon to others, because what I may seem to preach I find incredibly hard to practice for myself. For me, every act of writing is an effort to learn, and this one is no exception.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 7/25/2010
"They are not following dharma who resort to violence to achieve their purpose. But those who lead others through nonviolent means, knowing right and wrong, may be called guardians of the dharma. Those who really seek the path to Enlightenment dictate terms to their mind. Then they proceed with strong determination."
~The Buddha
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Buddhism and Dalits
Buddhism and Dalits : Social Philosophy and Traditions
Buddhism is nothing if it is not social. A man from Kapilavastu on the border of Nepal saw the interaction of interests among individuals, associations, kingdoms and general folks with murderous hunt for enthronement, cut-throat competition between kins, rule of might over meek from a corner of Uruvela forest and found the way leading to the end of this misery and professed and propagated his vision of new and fresh dispensation by words of mouth while treading the rugged lands from east to west and n:orth to south on foot for forty five years and breathed his last at the age of eighty years in Kusinagar.
This was Siddhartha Gautama the Buddha whose legacy is transmitted to the world through Buddhist countries and missionaries who cared it more than their own and passed it on to us at present. Buddhism as philosophy appealed to the rational and as art to the artists. In the later half of the 19th century the attention of European scholars was drawn to the study of the Buddha and his religion. The story of Buddhism in India extended to Far East with its ramifications into different schools and sects, its literature, its education, its rulers and writers, during the fifth and seventh centuries A.D., its art, its revival and its present status in the world.
The most compassionate feature of Buddhism was its adoption of Dalits as its own and rendering service to uplift them on par with generality. Dr. Ambedkar, the 14th Dalai Lama, Yen. Thich Nhat Hanh, Sulak Sivaraksha and alike belonged to this social stream of Buddhism. They have always espoused the cause of the most degraded and downtrodden sections of society and set them free from the thraldom of social slavery, economic exploitation, educational backwardness and political subjugation. Out of 14 million Dalits in India none falls above ultra poor or poverty line poor. As such they suffer from poverty including deprivation of food, income and employment and, being socially disadvantaged group Dalits suffer from backwardness in education, discrimination in employment. atrocities and suppression in social, cultural and religious matter. Needless to stress that compared to SCs and STs, let alone OBCs and General Category the Buddhist group in Maharashtra has greatest incidence of poverty. No radical change is possible without Dalit participation in the midst of capitalist privatized corporate market economy neglecting human labour and its contribution for new products and new order of humanity.
Mahamudra: The Moonlight
Mahamudra: The Moonlight -- Quintessence of Mind and Meditation
When Mahamudra first appeared in 1986, it was a landmark in the history of Buddhist publishing in English. It was translated at the behest of the 16th Karmapa, who was asked what text would be most beneficial to Western practitioners. Collecting all of Mahamudra's key texts in one volume, the book is a staple for practitioners of the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism, who appreciate its detailed theoretical and practical explanations. This stunning new edition, printed on fine paper, is as inspiring to behold as it is to read.
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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 7/24/2010
"There is nothing more dreadful than the habit of doubt. Doubt separates people. It is a poison that disintegrates friendships and breaks up pleasant relations. It is a thorn that irritates and hurts; it is a sword that kills."
~The Buddha
KING-KILLERS
THE ART OF PERSONAL AND POLITICAL
ASSASSINATION: Some Thoughts on the Tour de
France and the Shirley Sherrod Fiasco
In the men’s work in which I engaged for many years, we called them “king-killers.” These are men—or women, why not?—so consumed by greed or envy, ambition, insecurity or fear of weakness, that they are driven to bring down the one whom they have chosen, or the one who stands up for leadership. They tend to show up, like their cousins, the wolves, or like sharks in the ocean, when they smell blood; or when they sense weakness or hesitation. Then they attack in swarms…
From many, I choose but two notable current examples: the one-time leader of the Tour de France and the current “leader of the free world.”
I hold no particular brief for Lance Armstrong, though I confess that I would like to believe him to be real. He may, or may not have been aided in his multiple Tour victories by performance-enhancing drugs. I hope not, but I do know that these drugs are prevalent not only in cycling but in all professional sports. I deplore their use. It’s a sad fact that, today, we are unable to trust a winner—whether track star, tennis ace, home-run slugger, or cyclist. Winning by cheating is not winning. But this is not about doping, nor even particularly about Lance Armstrong. It’s about king-killing, about the desire to bring the man down.
In Armstrong’s case, the blood was smelled early in this year’s race. The first cut came even before the 2010 Tour de France with accusations from a former team-mate, Floyd Landis, timed to coincide with Armstrong’s participation in the Tour of California. When the—let’s face it—aging champion fell and abandoned that race with injuries, the Schadenfreude was already evident in the press. More recently, the New York Times reporter on the Tour de France chose to drag out the accusation again on the first day of this year’s race, and has reported almost daily since then on the federal investigation.
It was soon clear that Armstrong would be unable to win to 2010 Tour. When the disasters came—he crashed on several occasions in the early stages—we began to hear delightedly malicious comments from some quarters: he was too old, he could no longer stay upright on his bike, he had given up too early, or had not given up when he should have done and stayed too late… After the sixteenth stage, when he chose to ride with familiar aggression in order to take some small victory away from his last Tour, and after his still impressive display of strength in the climbs clearly provided leadership for others in the stage leaders’ breakaway, the New York Times banner headline read: “In What May Have Been a Final Push For Old Times’ Sake, Armstrong Fails.” Not inaccurate, but pointedly phrased. The French press, too, long inimical to the man who stole their Tour, has reportedly been happy to pile on.
Let me say again, it’s not my business to defend Armstrong, nor does he need any defense from me. What’s of interest to me is to take note of the attack. The attack on Barack Obama is something else. I have a stake in this young President. I voted for him, I want to see him bring his campaign promises to fruition. I believe in what he stands for. In fact, I myself stand for the most part to the left of where he does—understanding his need to hold the center, out of political necessity—but I’ll take what I can get.
Once again, however, the sharp knives are out; the king-killers abound, and to judge by his falling poll numbers, their attacks are taking a toll. They come from left as well as right on virtually every issue: the economy, the conduct of the wars, health care and financial reform, his choice of officers and judicial appointments—even, ironically, for our first African American in the Oval Office, race. The unprecedented speed and spread of the Internet and associated technologies facilitates the attacks: a blog entry, a YouTube video, even a casual email can set off a nation-wide storm and promulgate its progress. The memory banks are immeasurable and accessed with incredible ease. No President has ever faced the challenges that confront those of the 21st century. No king-killer has ever had such a vast array of effective weapons within such easy reach.
It’s a fine line, certainly, between legitimate and necessary criticism and what I’m talking about. Let it be noted that I personally am far less than delighted with progress toward those goals Obama laid out in his campaign. But we must know how to make a usable distinction between the two, and I fear that we too often fail to exercise the judiciousness that is required of us to do that. Meanwhile, the welter of attacks and dissatisfactions increases daily, along with the all-too real disasters and the teacup tempests, despite the fact that many of them soon prove to be utterly without foundation in reality or truth—as in the latest Fox News-generated kerfuffle around Shirley Sherrod at the Department of Agriculture. The calculation is that if enough mud is thrown, some of it will stick.
Obama, certainly, like Armstrong, does not need my pity or defense. I am amazed, in fact, by his ability to rise above the pettiness that swirls around him, maintaining a voice of solid reason—when we get to hear it—in the cacophony of irrational anger, and sometimes the hatred hurled in his direction. The man is not perfect. He is a politician. Surprise! And no matter the damage they intend, if we listen carefully, these king-killers succeed mostly in betraying themselves and their own agendas. Examine what they say and how they say it and you’ll find that most often they are projecting their own worst qualities—their timidity, their incompetence, their racism and hypocrisy, their political partisanship—on to the object of their scorn.
When I hear the negative judgment of a king-killer, I try to remind myself to turn that judgment around and apply it to its source, to see whether the indictment not more about the accuser that the accused. I find this to be a useful and reliable test of the difference between sheer malice, for personal gain, and sound critical judgment.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Post-Op
He thanks everyone who was so concerned about him. As you can tell from the cell phone picture, he is obviously NOT keen on his Elizabethan collar, and has not yet adjusted to giving things the necessary wide berth. Stairs are still a challenge for him, because he gets the edge of the thing caught on the stair he's trying to navigate. But he did manage to jump up on the bed this morning, unaided--and received inordinate praise for the achievement.
Our midnight adventure was to be woken by this small, plaintive bark--to discover that he has pee'ed all over our bedroom carpet. Further investigation turned up more pee soaked into the duvet. I had taken him out for his usual before-bedtime walk, but I guess he was too dopey to perform. They had him on IVs during surgery, and probably dripped him lots of water to keep him hydrated. Poor dog! I think he was somewhat mortified by his accident. For us, well, if the worst thing is cleaning up a little pee in the middle of the night, we can't complain too much.
As for George's eyesight, I did notice, in the vet's office while we were waiting for the final paperwork, that he seemed to be taking unusual notice of what was happening around us, as though seeing things for the first time. The doctor says his eyesight is one hundred percent improved. The ball test remains to be applied.
I won't mention the bill, except to say that I put it on the credit card. Maybe the extra miles with provide us with a free first class flight to the New Zealand... when we can bring ourselves to leave poor George behind.
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 7/23/2010
"In a controversy the instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for the truth, and have begun striving for ourselves."
~The Buddha
Thursday, July 22, 2010
MR. ELLIS: A VERY PERSONAL ENCOUNTER
I have been watching the recent agony and embarrassment of the Catholic Church with some personal interest, for reasons I will soon explain. It is now several years since the issue of priestly sexual abuse surfaced, though it has likely persisted for centuries in the dark corners of the vestries and the shadows of the cloisters. And, sadly, is likely to persist so long as the Church insists on clinging to the absurd requirement that its priests be celibate. Human beings are, after all, human beings. For now however, the Church seems intent on digging itself deeper into the mire, and I think a part of the problem has been its inability to see the issue other than through its medieval lens of sin and redemption. Those in authority seem not to have accounted for the significant social changes that have taken place in the past few decades, or for the fact that the vast majority of us now see the issue in a quite different light: not the actions themselves, but the harm caused by these predators and the sometimes devastating consequences of their actions.
You will understand why I have been thinking about these things when I tell you about Mr. Ellis. Mr. Ellis was a teacher of mathematics at the private boarding school I attended in the south of England from the age of six until I was twelve years old, when I moved on to “public” school. He was a small, ordinary-looking, bespectacled man with thinning grey hair, an earnest mien, a ridge of wrinkles across his brow, and the smile of a benevolent uncle. With a white dog collar and a black cassock, he could easily have passed for a Catholic priest. Outside of school, in his regular life, he happened to have recently inherited a farm not far from the Hertfordshire village of Braughing (say it like “laughing,” with an American accent) where my father was, at the time, the vicar of the parish. Learning of this felicitous proximity, and needing to spend a weekend away with my mother at a diocesan conference, my father gladly accepted Mr. Ellis’s offer to put me up for a night while they were gone.
They drove me there in my father’s sporty grey Armstong-Siddeley automobile and left me off in Mr. Ellis’s charge. I was, as I remember the occasion, at once reticent and excited. It felt odd, certainly, to be staying with one of my teachers, but he welcomed me kindly and we spent the afternoon exploring the farm-yards and the barns, discovering in one of them an ancient, upright motor car with dusty, decaying leather seats and brass lamps for headlights, now dulled with age and neglect. Mr. Ellis let me sit in the driver’s seat and pretend to drive this magnificent relic from the early days of horseless carriage vehicles. There was much else, too, of similar vintage to be discovered and explored, and the afternoon passed quickly.
Then it was dinner in the cold, bare, stone-floor kitchen… and time for bed. I was eleven years old. Nothing, as yet, had alerted my body or mind to the advent of adolescence, but I was aware of a certain discomfort as Mr. Ellis helped me into my pajamas and tucked me up in a bed adjacent to his own. I lay there without sleeping for the longest time, listening to my teacher’s movements in the darkness as he prepared himself for bed. I was aware, too, of his breathing, his awakened state, and I think I may have held my own breath—in fear, or anticipation of I knew not what. Until he spoke… and there was a strange hoarseness to his voice.
“Are you awake?” he asked.
I barely managed a whispered, “Yes.”
“Are you cold?”
It was, in fact, cold in that big old house. I was shivering.
“Would you like to come into my bed?”
I recognized that this was not an invitation. It was an instruction, coming from my teacher. I had been taught to do as I was told. And, really, I knew of no possible evil intent.
I did know, however, that what ensued was not right. Imagine my shock when his head slid down under the covers, breathing heavily, and took that part of me into his mouth. I felt the response, felt a strange and—I knew—forbidden but still intensely pleasurable sensation that I tried simultaneously to resist. It was not right for Mr. Ellis to be doing this. I could not imagine what it was all about, but I was quite sure that my father would not approve.
After some minutes down there, engaged in this peculiar activity, my teacher re-emerged, and I was left with the clear impression that there was something that remained incomplete, something that had been expected of me that I had been unable to fulfill. There followed more movement down there, the sensation of something strange and hot and fleshy pressed up against my body, along with a dangerous, musty smell that was entirely new. Then I heard Mr. Ellis say--coldly, I thought—“You can go back to your bed now.” And I did, appalled by what had happened, yet shamefully excited in a way I could not understand. Back in my own bed, I felt suddenly alone, dismissed, and with the feeling that I had somehow proved a failure…
My father came to pick me up the following day. On the way back home in the car he chided me for having seemed rude and ungrateful when we said goodbye. He, too, was disappointed in me: he expected better manners from his son. I said nothing. What could I have said?
It was a year or so later that my father came up to my room in the vicarage one evening, before I went to sleep. He had received a telephone call from the headmaster of my school, to let him know that Mr. Ellis had been sacked for “playing around” with boys. Had anything happened, my father wanted to know, that night I had spent with Mr. Ellis on his farm? I acknowledged, yes. A grave silence. Did I want to talk about it, my father asked? I said, no. I would not have known how to talk about it. And my father said, alright then, and quietly left the room. Closing the door behind him. I think he was simply too embarrassed, too ashamed of having misplaced his trust and exposed me to this abuse, too devastated to know what to say himself. We never spoke of it again.
So, yes, it was a wound. Yes, I was abused. Yes, it went deep, and yes, there is a reason that the memory has stayed with me so clearly. There is a scar. I could attribute to the experience some of the inhibitions and reactive patterns that remain with me to this day: my reticence, my guardedness, my distrust of authority, my aversion to what I perceive to be any invasion on my privacy… Such explanations belong in the realm of therapy, and I do not discount their significance or value. It is possible, our culture has discovered, to repair such damage by means of bringing it to the surface and examining its effects.
In so far as I understand Catholic dogma, to sin is to require confession and absolution—which is perhaps a kind of personal therapy. Sins can be “washed away” by “the blood of the lamb.” But such putative redemption for the sinner fails to address the harm brought down upon the victims of his actions, for which actual reparations may be needed. This is the piece that is missing in the response of Church authorities. It’s not just about finally holding the wayward priests accountable and protecting the Church they betrayed, or even about preventing such behavior from occurring in the future. (I have my doubts as to whether that would be possible); it’s about the harm that persists, and festers in the lives of those who have been abused.
The strategy of the Catholic Church has done little to resolve the issue. Rather, it has left the whole thing bogged down in guilt, recrimination, anger and defensiveness. The missed opportunity is for the make-up—not the words of regret or apology, or the breast-beating, but the action that lays out the plan for more skillful behavior in the future, for Church policies that unflinchingly and publicly recognize its responsibilities to its flock, particularly its children.
But what, I ask myself in retrospect—and with regard to my own experience—would be the Buddhist view?
Let’s not excuse the inexcusable. I have no wish to be what Thanissaro Bhikkhu jocularly calls a “Buddhist doormat.” I’m not sure that it helps, though, to write Mr. Ellis off as “evil.” His behavior comes in part out of ignorance, in part out of misguided concupiscence, in part out of the man’s inability to control his appetite. All “unskillful,” to say the least. Mr. Ellis must surely by now be long gone from this world, but there are millions like him; and if we are to take the Buddha’s teachings seriously, they are all deserving of compassion. That is not the same as tolerance, nor obviously of approval. It’s simply the recognition that I do myself more harm by clinging to the offense than by acknowledging it, and letting it go.
To extend goodwill, to wish for the true happiness of such creatures as Mr. Ellis is not to excuse them, then, but rather to extend the wish for them to see the harm they cause to themselves and others by their actions. I believe, too, in this aspect of karma: that their actions are inevitably followed by proportionate consequences, and that they bring as much suffering on themselves as they do on those they harm. I see the likes of Mr. Ellis not as monsters, but as desperately unhappy beings, condemned to live out a life of torment unless they find in themselves the capacity to change. Society, of course, must act to protect its young from such people. If that involves locking them up, so be it.
For myself, I am not condemned to allow this past abuse to cause me perpetual suffering. I am blessed with the ability to choose the path of freedom. For those men and women, boys and girls who have been the object of similar abuse, I wish the same. From the work I have done with men like myself, I know they are more numerous than most of us can possibly imagine. The deeply human gift of sexual desire and the equally human joy of sexual experience can all too easily be perverted. For those so dreadfully cursed in their lives, I wish the release of enlightenment, which would be a gift to us all.
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