JUDGING...

Today, I'll be spending a good part of my time in the difficult task of judging art works in a competition. If you're interested in my reflections on this task, you'll find them over at Persist: The Blog, just an easy click away.

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 8/31/2010

"Meditate on that which is beyond words and symbols. Forsake the demands of the self. By such forsaking you will live serenely."

~Sutta Nipata

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ACTIVATE!

That's it! Buddhist or no Buddhist (see yesterday's entry) I can't stand by and watch. I had made a kind of tacit agreement with myself to spend less time, in my blog, on politics; but I realize now that I need to spend more.

Long-time readers will remember that this whole blogging business, for me, started out with "The Bush Diaries," which took the form of a daily, somewhat irreverent letter to George W. Bush about the lapses, misdeeds and crimes of his administration. My first blog entry ever followed immediately after Bush's re-election in November 2004. I could not, then, believe that the American electorate could be so blinded to his disastrous policies--both foreign and domestic--as to vote him back into office for another term. I knew I had to do something, and the only thing I know how to do is write. It was then that I stumbled headlong into the blogosphere...

And two years after that, I woke one day with the realization that waking up with Bush every day was no prescription for serenity or sanity, so "The Bush Diaries" morphed quietly into "The Buddha Diaries."

The events of this past week, however, have convinced me that I cannot remain silent. The Glenn Beck/Sarah Palin rally that attempted to co-opt the memory and the values of Dr. Martin Luther King was loathsome enough to arouse the old political bile. Their call to restore America to God--and, oh yes, the radical conservatism that God apparently approves--came at the same time as the Jane Mayers article in the New Yorker about the Koch brothers and their determination to destroy President Obama no matter what the cost, financially, or to the truth. This past week, too, we had news of the poll indicating that vast numbers of Americans had been persuaded against all reason to believe that Obama was neither American nor a Christian, but rather a cuckoo in the nest, a foreign-born Muslim out to destroy this country.

Enough already! Even the Buddhist blood boils at the enormity of the lies that are being disseminated, the hatred that accrues, the prospect of the country's future--the future of the world--in the hands of people of this kind.

Don't worry. I'm not going back to daily politics. That would drive me crazy. Besides, it's perfectly plain by now that it's not about the honest debate of issues and ideas It's about money. It's about the inordinate greed for money and for the power that goes along with it. It's about defending, consolidating and multiplying wealth, and seizing the political power to make that possible. It's about deluding the American electorate into wild and self-destructive beliefs.

I cannot match the Koch brothers in political contributions. I cannot match Rupert Murdoch in access to the hearts and minds of American voters and in the manipulation of their views. I must think more in terms of proportion. I will act proportionately. I will give money in proportion. A billion in Koch money equals, what...? A hundred dollars of my own? I'll give the hundred dollars. I'll even double them up: I'll give two hundred to support the Democratic effort to retain control of Congress at mid-term.

And I will make a point of asking all my friends, and all my American friends on "The Buddha Diaries"--and all my "friends" (Facebook)--to do the same. I will importune them mercilessly, to give ten dollars, twenty, fifty. If they can, a hundred... I have about nine hundred friends on Facebook alone. If I could persuade them to give, say, an average of fifty dollars apiece, that would total forty-five thousand dollars. And if each of them were to pass on my challenge to, say, a hundred of their friends, and each of their friends were to respond with a donation, say, of an average of fifty dollars apiece, that would total four million five hundred thousand dollars. And if each of their friends' friends... It's a dream! An "American Dream"--and not the kind that simply advances my own interests.

But wait! I know that you're all impatient to get started, but hold your fire. I intend, in the next few days, to write up a kind of manifesto, something that can easily be copied and pasted and sent on, so that we could hope to start a movement and gain momentum--along with the millions of dollars--in time for the November elections. When I'm done with that, I'll post it. But in the meantime, your feedback would be appreciated. I'm ready to modify my plan to include all reasonable suggestions.

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 8/30/2010

"A buddha is one who does not seek. In seeking this, you turn away from it. The principle is the principle of nonseeking; when you seek it, you lose it."

~Pai-chang

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Meet the New Buddhist!

Yesterday we joined Thanissaro Bhikkhu for a day-long sit with our Laguna Beach sangha. The theme for the day’s dharma talk was “Questions and Doubts.” I felt honored that Than Geoff had added the second part of that title at my request. Because, yes, I am a skeptic when it comes to religions of all kinds. I have reiterated, perhaps too often, that I am reluctant to call myself a “Buddhist,” even though I have engaged in a serious and committed sitting meditation practice for some fifteen years and have done my best to understand and follow the teachings of the Buddha; and I have often struggled with my inability to make that final leap, that final avowal.

So I brought that struggle with me to our session yesterday. After the period of meditation that started the day, Than Geoff led us for a good half hour on an extraordinary, wide-ranging trip through the history of Western religious attitudes and man’s perception of, and relationship to “God.” As I understood his argument, the fundamental difference between those religions and Buddhism is the notion of absolutism, whether of the authoritarian God himself or of man’s interpretation of his existence or his word. The heart of the Buddha’s teachings lies less in the answers than in the questions we ask and the actions that we take, the way we choose to live our lives. It’s a “work in progress” rather than a system of beliefs.

Than Geoff’s talk, and his answers to the questions that followed—many of them, I have to say, from my skeptical self—helped me to refocus my thoughts in an important way. Up until now, I have thought about religion principally in terms of the transcendent: what happens beyond and after our physical existence. Religion, as I have understood it, was about providing answers to the unknowable, the mystery of death, the experience of the numinous; and as such, it always seemed to involve what our current, often vociferous atheists refer to as “magical thinking.” I have found it as difficult to accept that kind thinking as the atheists who scoffed at it, and yet I have found their screeds to be in the long run unconvincing and deeply unsatisfying.

The ultimate challenge, in this way of thinking about religion, is the afterlife. I have never—at least since graduating from Sunday School—been able to give much credit to the notions of heaven and hell. The whole idea of a God making judgments about who should live in bliss for all eternity and who should burn forever in the fires of hell has seemed absurd to me, and incongruous with the very concept of a merciful and loving God. It’s for this reason that I have tended to identity rebirth as the source of my discomfort with Buddhism “as a religion.”

So far as the afterlife is concerned, one part of the Buddha’s teaching reminded me very much of Blaise Pascal’s famous wager in his struggle with Christian thought: to believe in God is a better bet than not to believe, Pascal argued. If you believe and God exists, you’ll go to heaven and avoid hell; if you believe and you’re wrong, you have nothing to lose. But if you don’t believe in God and God does exist, you’ll lose heaven and go to hell; if you’re right, and God really doesn’t exist, then you still have nothing to gain. The Buddha, Than Geoff explained as we went through the relevant text from the Pali canon, agrees that he can’t prove the truth of rebirth and other lives, and argues, like Pascal, that it’s simply the better bet. But the Buddha's wager works positively both ways: if you learn to act skillfully in the world, you stand to gain no matter what the outcome after death because you’ll be happier in this, your single lifetime. And for the Buddha, of course, if we do get to experience an afterlife--or lives--the prospect is not for the “eternal” damnation envisioned by Pascal; hell is just another stage along the path to the deathless, the end of suffering.

Than Geoff, however, made it clear that this was not the central issue—and indeed that an understanding of rebirth is dependent on what is the central issue, which is action, and the consequence of action. Unlike the belief or faith required by other religions, the practice of Buddhism requires only constant questioning, and the testing of actions in the real world against the results they produce: do they add to our stress and suffering, or do they act to release us from their grip? The “deathless”—again, as I understand it—is not the reward of eternal bliss offered through the grace some higher power, but the result of our actions in the world: the eventual, final release from all suffering.

Of course, it doesn’t really matter to anyone, doctrine-wise, whether I call myself a Buddhist or not—though it does seem to matter whether I call myself a Christian, or a Jew, or a Muslim. Buddhism is different from other religions in that regard. It matters really only to me, and I have to conclude that my long-standing reluctance has its origin more in personal and emotional history than in mature thought. There is the history of my father, the Anglican priest, the example of his very physical (Christ-like?) suffering on the crucifix of his ill-health, the guilt I felt for many years about not being able to accept his teachings, and my inability to confront him with my reality as a apostate to the religion to which he devoted his entire life.

So what I think what I’ll do is try being Buddhist on for size. The next time someone asks me if I’m a Buddhist—and it happens fairly frequently—I think that instead of using the usual circumlocutions and qualifications, I’ll try simply saying Yes.

Of Robots and Altars.

We've been in the process of moving over this past month into our first house and the packing has dislodged all our "possessions" from their "right" place and thrown them into a mixed soup of items. As I was dutifully sorting and wrapping up our materialistic karma into the appropriate boxes, I noticed that during the churning maelstrom of the process that my toy, "Robot B-9" from the 1960s, American, science-fiction, t.v. program, titled, "Lost in Space" had found its way to the altar. Anyway, at first glance my conditioned mind saw this clunky, garish, pop-culture refugee, toy as a blight on my otherwise serene, elegant and meticulously designed, altar.

Yet as I questioned this initial reaction from my mind I began to see the cheap, plastic, robot in a different light. I questioned myself, "Why do you see the Buddha differently than the robot?" In a flash my newly focused mind replied, "me." By their nature, the Buddha statue and robot are inanimate objects made unique by their artists yet still of the same nature or essence. It was my mind that was labeling one as "beneficial" and the other as "clutter."

So, just to shake up my habitual mind I've decided to replace the Buddha statue on the altar with the robot for a few days as a kind of koan to contemplate. Religious paraphernalia can be a powerful reminder of what it means to follow the Dharma. However, it can quickly turn to spiritual materialism where we start to think that the items have some sort of power that improves our spirituality; and that without them we're somehow less of a practitioner. Surely the first time I go to bow to Buddha before meditating and instead see that goofy robot I will laugh out loud at my silly mind. Perhaps in a different world in a different part of this universe Buddha takes the form of a robot!! If you find that idea sacrilegious then perhaps you have some of your own spiritual materialism to shed?

---End of Transmission---

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 8/29/2010

"O let us live in joy, although having nothing! In joy let us live like spirits of light!"

~Buddha

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 8/28/2010

"Jazz is really a wonderful example of the great characteristics of Buddhism and great characteristics of the human spirit. Because in jazz we share, we listen to each other, we respect each other, we are creating in the moment."

~Herbie Hancock

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PLUS CA CHANGE...

... plus c'est la meme chose, the French saying goes. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Having made a couple of posts, in the past few days, about religious intolerance and skewed social values (see "The Mosque" and "Christians,") I was reminded yesterday with a jolt, in an artist's studio, that we were debating the same issues fifty years ago.

I'll be showing you pictures to prove my point, but for the moment let's talk about my studio visit. Since I have no permission to use the artist's name, I choose not to mention it. (Note: I have since spoken to him and, with his permission, can identify him as G. Ray Kerciu!) I have known G. Ray/of him for a number of years, but it was not until last week, when we ran into each other at a local cafe, that I suggested further acquaintance. We traded a few missed calls in the days that followed, but finally managed to get together and arranged the date. I drove up to his studio yesterday afternoon.

Quite a drive. G. Ray lives way up in the hills, overlooking the entire city of Laguna Beach and a vast vista of the Pacific Ocean. He greeted me on the steps and led me into the garage that stands in for his "gallery," where he hangs a couple of dozen recent paintings on the white walls that surround the parked vehicles. The paintings, neatly arranged in rows and in identical scale, are accomplished work; landscape abstractions (or abstract landscapes!) for the most part, they are done in thickly textured acrylics whose surfaces swirl with gleaming, even pearlescent color. The painted surfaces are sometimes layered in construction, with window-like rectangular cut-outs creating set-backs that invite the eye to explore the inner depths as well as the surface of the painting. G. Ray has been working with two- and three-dimensional artifacts for many years, and the experience shows. There's a confident ease about the work that makes it clear he knows what he's doing and is passionate in doing it.

It has to be passion that drives him. Like so many of his peers, G. Ray has limited opportunity to show his work these days. Down in his studio, where he is working now on some new impressive, three-dimensional investigations of the ancient obelisk form, we talk about Egypt, art history, his days as a teacher and sometime head of a significant university art department and, yes, the art world... I learn about what he describes, wryly, as his "fifteen minutes of fame," when he was teaching, at the height of the Civil Rights movement, at the University of Mississippi and was witness to the moment when Bobby Kennedy arrived with the National Guard to escort James Meredith, the first back student on the campus, to register for classes; and when he, the artist, achieved sudden fame for paintings that dared to address the social issues of the day--a huge American flag, he recalls, for example, boldly graffiti'ed with the racist comments he would hear all around him on the campus.

His fifteen minutes led him to the dizzy heights of an exhibit at the noted Martha Jackson Gallery in New York, its opening attended by all the notables of the day--Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, the whole gang of them; and reviews and articles in Time magazine and all the art journals. He was the hero of the day... for a day or two.

Since then, as evidenced by the sheer quantity and diversity of work that hangs everywhere at his house, G. Ray has persisted, as artists do, out of passion and because that--as I like to say--is what he is given to do. He tells me that he is content to keep working in his studio, now that he is retired from the teaching profession, and that he can well do without the other part--the galleries, the exhibitions, the sales. Still, I see the profusion of his work and I feel a certain sadness about the fact that it is not seen outside the studio. It has always been my contention that all creative work is an act of communication, a way of showing ourselves to the world, of being "in touch"; and that it needs that other part, the recipient, the responsive party, in order to complete its own intention. Hung up against the walls or stacked and heaped in corners, it feels, well... lonely. I want it to be out there, seen, appreciated, doing the work it was made to do with the eyes of those who look at it.

As for pictures of G. Ray's work... perhaps another time. I'd like to see it on the walls of a gallery one day. But I did promise you a glimpse of his early work, from the early 1960s, nearly fifty years ago, with its sad reminder that things have still not changed as, back then, we might have hoped they would. The pictures were taken unprofessionally, on my cell phone, but with the artist's permission. I append them here without further commentary, but with the hope that they'll be seen in the context of those earlier entries that I mentioned. Here they are:

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 8/27/2010

"The brief elation we experience appeasing sensual impulses is very close to what the drug addict feels when indulging his or her habit. Temporary relief is soon followed by a craving for more. And in just the same way that taking drugs in the end only causes trouble, so too does much of what we undertake to fulfill our immediate sensory desires. We must acknowledge that there can be no hope of gratifying the senses permanently. At best, the happiness we derive from eating a good meal can only last until the next time we are hungry."

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THE "MOSQUE"

A new friend and reader of The Buddha Diaries challenged me--whether consciously or not--to offer my own thoughts on the brouhaha around that "mosque" planned for a location two blocks for the site of the World Trade Center. My friend forwarded me a paragraph written by a friend of his, in which the writer expressed the view that Mayor Bloomberg and other supporters were being naive in believing that their support would send out a message of tolerance to the Muslim world. "The Muslims," he wrote, "have an agenda... They will get the message from their leaders that Americans are weak, capitulate and the Muslim message of eventual conquest will be the mosque, a monument to their victory blocks from the Twin Towers. Sharia law will be the next thing to creep in."

I have to say that I disagree completely with this view. My own is shaped by my admittedly limited knowledge, based on what I have read and heard in the media, but it starts out from the belief that this whole thing started out as a non-issue. The plan was brought to public attention months ago, without the slightest negative response from anyone. It was a plan--again, as I understand it--not for a mosque, but for an Islamic cultural center; it has since been dubbed a "mosque" for mainly rhetorical purposes. It became an issue only once it was recognized for its political potential--when those who stood to gain politically from its exploitation seized upon it and inflated it beyond all reason. That it is now seen as a part of an international Muslim agenda for world domination is, to my mind, wildly paranoiac.

I understand how the feelings of those whose lives were affected by the 9/11 attacks could be aroused by this, but I believe they have been manipulated and inflamed by others, more cynical than themselves. A two-block walk in densely-populated, densely-built New York can be made to sound like close proximity, but in reality it is a substantial distance. The cultural shifts are sudden and dramatic. As even Jon Stewart's The Daily Show suggested, with its own brand of humor, the proposed conversion of a former Burlington coat factory could hardly be considered an incursion into sacred ground; nor, as The Daily Show effectively documented, are the businesses in the adjacent area exactly monuments to hallowed territory.

No, I myself believe that it's not a Muslim but a home-grown, cynical political agenda at work here. The opposition to the construction of Islamic centers--be they cultural or religious--is by no means restricted to the area around Ground Zero, it's nation-wide. And there is no question in my mind that its origin is in religion based prejudices and fears. I was writing only recently about those "Christians" whose ignorance has now succeeded in blocking medical research that would bring hope to thousands upon thousands suffering from disease or physical debility. Today's New York Times National section headlines news about a pastor in Florida who "who plans to memorialize the Sept. 11 attacks with a bonfire of Korans." This is the loamy, fertile ground in which this issue has taken root and sprouted like an ugly weed. It is no longer just about an Islamic cultural center near the site of the World Trade Center. It has exploded in our faces into a debate about who we are as a people.

Is is a part of some "Christian agenda"? No. It has nothing to do with Christianity. It has everything to do with politics, with the exploitation of ignorance, prejudice and fear in order to further a political goal. My friend's friend writes that Muslims throughout the world "will get the message from their leaders that Americans are weak." My fear is that not only Muslims but other right-thinking people throughout the world will get a different message: that Americans have taken leave of their senses, that they have abandoned their fine principles to ill-thought, knee-jerk reaction to political rhetoric, manipulation and transparent lies. My fear is that, if there are victors in this, it will be those who sought to destroy the best about this country on that dreadful September 11, 2001, not those who seek to preserve and protect its ideals from the assaults within.

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 8/26/2010

"Karma is not something complicated or philosophical. Karma means watching your body, watching your mouth, and watching your mind. Trying to keep these three doors as pure as possible is the practice of karma."

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SCAMMED?

I don't know. Remember last week I was writing about my encounter, outside the grocery store downtown, with a down-and-outer who wanted just a couple of dollars? I turned him down. But I did want to understand a little more about the spontaneous mental and ethical gymnastics that went into that decision. Well, yesterday I had a second chance. I'm not sure whether I blew it, passed the test, or just got scammed.

It's mid-afternoon. I'm sitting out on the patio behind our cottage with a book when I think I hear the tinkle of the little bell at the front door. George is a bit slow on the uptake, but he starts to bark, so I assume there's someone there. I tear myself away from my reading (I'm catching up with Martin Cruz Smith, of Gorky Park fame; Red Square has me hooked, and it's quite a trek from winter at the Kremlin to the front door of our cottage in Laguna Beach,) and find a young black man, neatly dressed in white shirt and khaki slacks, greeting me with a big smile on his face...

This is Maxwell. Well, you just know he has to be selling something. He starts by selling his own story. a journey from the mean streets of Oakland, through addiction and jail time in San Quentin, to the self-help program in which he's now engaged. He tells it effortlessly, with great charm, without even a hint of self-pity; and he invites me, graciously enough, to compare it with my own tale of... well, middle class privilege. He speaks beautifully--no ebonics!--and has an engaging personality. My initial resistance yields to lending a grudging ear and, soon, to unconditional surrender.

I have enough gumption left, after a few minutes listening to his spiel, to ask what it is he's selling. Whatever it is, he has mastered the car salesman's--and the magician's--art of distraction. It's as though he's doing me a favor by engaging my philanthropy. But when he finally gets around to pulling the sales pad from his back pocket--where it has been carefully concealed--it turns out that he's selling magazines. I should have known. Actually, I did know, by this time I was expecting it. For a charitable cause, of course: the Ronald MacDonald house in Santa Ana, where needy women and children find refuge from the cruel circumstances that many of the poor are compelled to face out on the streets. Incidentally, the more magazines he sells, the more points Maxwell earns toward a program for his own betterment in life.

So of course I'm sold. It's not only my guilt that kicks in--though there's certainly an element of that involved in this transaction--there's also a genuine admiration for my visitor's skills and for his effort to put them to good use. He has managed to overcome much of my instinctive mistrust of the salesman (it was e.e.cummings, was it not, who wrote, unkindly, "a salesman is an it that stinks, excuse me"...?) and worked his way past all my other defenses. He has earned his keep.

He shows me, now, a list of magazine subscriptions to choose from and invites me to pick out three, or five, or six. I choose three, circumspectly. He offers me a choice of two-year, three-year, multi-year subscriptions. I choose the two-year option. I'm beginning to calculate, now, how much this is going to cost me, and I'm figuring, well, maybe fifty dollars. Then I notice that he's writing down on his sales pad, for one of my choices, what looks like $230. Whoa, I say! Hold on! I do plenty of giving in other ways, I'm not up for that kind of money. He scratches out the expensive choice without grumbling, and tots up the other two. It's still more than I intended--and a whole lot more than the two dollars I saved myself last week!--but my defenses are all worn down by this time and I append my signature on the appropriate line.

My new friend Maxwell is now set to leave and offers me his hand. I tell him to wait for a moment and return to the door with a copy of my book, Persist. He has earned that, too.

Here's the thing. Generosity is supposed to make you feel good. It does, when the generosity is altruistic. I felt generous in giving away a copy of my book. That was unasked for, spontaneous. I did not feel generous about any of the rest, with so much quid pro quo between me and the supposed end-recipient of my "generosity," the Ronald MacDonald House. So I resumed my seat in my back patio, after Maxwell left, still unsure as to whether or not I had been generous, or just expertly scammed. I would have wanted to feel the warm inner glow that rewards an act of generosity. Instead, I sat there simply feeling foolish and exploited, like an easy mark.

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 8/25/2010

"As a single slab of rock won't budge in the wind, so the wise are not moved by praise or by blame. Like a deep lake, clear, unruffled, & calm...so do the wise become clear and calm upon hearing the words of the Dhammapada."

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"Christians"

I use the quotes advisedly. And in anger. I read the headline in today's New York Times in disbelief. A Washington DC judge, it seems, has overturned the executive order, issued early in Obama's term, that allowed the scientific use of embryonic stem cells that George W. Bush had prohibited. The judge acted on a case brought principally by a "Christian" adoption agency on behalf of embryos. Now thousands upon thousands of already living human beings are forced to relinquish the hope that stem cell offered for the treatment of their diseases and disabilities; and hundreds of already advanced scientific research programs will be halted.

I was brought up a Christian, and do not recognize what is practiced and preached today in this country in the name of Christ to be anything close to what I was taught as a youngster. I do not believe that my father, an Anglican minister, would have recognized it either. From the literal-minded, intelligence-defying "creationism" to the angry, blinkered dogmatism that promotes this kind of perverse, unyielding, fanatical opposition to stem cell research, these people show as little mercy and as little civilized common sense as the Taliban.

What kind of God do they worship, that inspires such woeful, pitiless ignorance?

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 8/24/2010

"All People and things are interdependent. The world has become so small that no nation can solve its problems alone, in isolation from others. That is why I believe we must all cultivate a sense of responsibility based on love and compassion for each other."

~His Holiness the Dalai Lama

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A Cut

It was a small matter of cutting a large white onion into thick slices, ready for the barbecue. I have done it many times. Instead, yesterday, I chose to make a long incision into the index finger of my left hand. The knife was new and sharp. The pain was immediate, a flash of it. The blood flowed freely.

Inattention? Unskillfulness?

Remembering my father's insistence that each of the fingers has a special meaning, I turned to the Internet to see if I could find out why I had chosen this particular finger to cut and I happened upon Amy the Palm Reader. Unfortunately, her fine chart was cut off at the very spot in question, but I did pick up a couple of useful pieces of information. One was that the top of the finger--the part into which I so neatly sliced--represents the spiritual (the middle section represents the practical, the lower section, the basic.) The second is that the index finger is Jupiter, "the chief god ruling over laws and social order, so the Jupiter finger represents leadership and interest in laws." Also, I seem to remember from my father's lore, the left hand represents the feminine. Hmmm. I have some thinking to do about all of this. There has to be some subtle explanation... Perhaps you can help?

While I'm thinking, you might have fun with the fascinating science of palmistry. Here you will find more hand charts than you ever needed to see. In the meantime, I must nurse my wound and change the bandages...

As you can see, it took three Band-Aids in a row to cover the whole length of it. And it's still throbbing, this morning.

We did have a good evening, though, with our dinner guests...

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 8/23/2010

"Basically, universal responsibility is the feeling for other people´s suffering just as we feel our own. It is the realization that even our own enemy is motivated by the quest for happiness. We must recognize that all beings want the same thing we want. This is the way to achieve a true understanding, unfettered by artificial consideration."

~His Holiness the Dalai Lama

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 8/22/2010

"Today, more than ever before, life must be characterized by a sense of Universal responsibility, not only nation to nation and human to human, but also human to other forms of life."

~His Holiness the Dalai Lama

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SMALL ACTS…

… of cowardice and dishonesty. These are the ones that betray us. This morning, for example, I watched myself tell a lie so easily, without question or hesitation and without the slightest embarrassment… until after the fact. Here’s the circumstance:

I am sitting on a bench outside the grocery store in downtown Laguna Beach with George, the dog. We are waiting patiently for Ellie to finish with her shopping and rejoin us. A man approaches, clearly Latino, kind of unwashed but not severely so, and offers his hand. “Good morning, my friend,” he says with a big, friendly Latino smile. And adds, “Could you give me two dollars to buy something to eat?” He points to his mouth to ensure that I’ve understood.

Two dollars. It’s been a good long while since the days of “Brother, can you spare a dime?”

I guess that, given an adjustment for inflation, it was not an unreasonable request. But my knee-jerk reaction was the familiar one: self-protection mixed with more than a little spontaneous and self-righteous judgment. “Begging” is not approved behavior in the little universe I have created for myself. Besides, I was importuned. If the man was hungry, it was somehow his fault, not mine. Compassion, I regret to say, did not for one moment cross my mind—or enter my heart. Nor did any one of my professed social and political beliefs about the injustices we mete out to the poor and underprivileged. Had I parted with two dollars, it would not have made the slightest difference to my own well-being, and I had them in the wallet in my pocket.

Still, I chose to lie. Immediately, and without a single thought—especially none of those in the preceding paragraph. I said, “I’m really sorry”—without really being the least bit sorry—“but my wife has all my money and she’s in the grocery store.”

My new friend walked away, and left me to think more about the wallet in my pocket and the two dollars tucked away there with the rest of the bills. It was a small act of cowardice and honesty, as the scale of such things goes, but it served to remind me, uncomfortably, of qualities that I do not find admirable in myself. Namely, for one, hypocrisy. I do not practice what I preach, and quite easily find justification for the failure.

Namely, too, that little bit of cowardice that fails to take responsibility for a choice. It was after all my choice not to give the man the money that he asked for, but I managed in a subtle way to pass on the responsibility for it to my wife: she, I told him, had the wallet.

A little white lie? Yes, I suppose. It spared me embarrassment and allowed me to be parsimonious, all at once. It would have been unnecessary, perhaps, and a sad reflection on myself to tell the truth: “I don’t care enough about you to want to help you.” It would have been harsh to take the principled stand—“Get a job”—at a time where there are no jobs to be had. My choice, to tell the lie, spared me the awkward necessity of having to tell the truth, let alone admit it to myself.

What, I ask myself in retrospect, would have been the skillful action—the one that would have left me with the feeling that I had done something good for another person and, not incidentally, for myself? Had I given him the two dollars, would I then be encouraging vagrancy? I remember a friend, a young woman, an artist who worked in a cheap studio area in downtown Los Angeles, where numerous down-and-outers inhabit the streets. This young woman was herself struggling financially to make ends meets, but she never left her studio without a small bundle of dollar bills close to hand, to help out those less fortunate than herself. She made no judgment as to their relative need, or what she thought they might spend it on—cheap wine or food; when asked, she gave.

I’m glad to have remembered Cindy at just this moment. Another fine teacher. Wherever you look there they are. My Latino friend was my teacher for this morning. I’m just sad that I was too ungenerous to have been able to reward him in some small way for what he had to reveal to me about myself.

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 8/21/2010

"I believe our every-day experience confirms that a self-centred attitude towards problems can be destructive not only towards society, but to the individual as well. Selfishness does not solve problems for us, it multiplies them. Accepting responsibility and maintaining respect for other will leave all concerned at peace. This is the essence of Mahayana Buddhism."

~His Holiness the Dalai Lama

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Buddha Pictures

Buddha Wallpaper

Lord Buddha

Buddha's original name was Siddhartha. It meant one who had accomplished his aim. Gautama was Siddhartha's family name. Siddhartha was known all over the world as Buddha, the Enlightened. He was also known by the name of Sakhya Muni, which meant an ascetic of the Sakhya tribe. The Buddha who is the founder of the Buddhist religion is called Buddha Shakyamuni. "Shakya" is the name of the royal family into which he was born, and "Muni" means "Able One." Buddha Skakyamuni was born as a royal prince in 624 BC in a place called Lumbini, which was originally in northern India but is now part of Nepal. His mother's name was Queen Mayadevi and his father's name was King Shuddhodana. Siddhartha spent his boyhood at Kapilavastu and its vicinity. He was married at the age of sixteen. His wife's name was Yasodhara. Siddhartha had a son named Rahula.

At the age of twenty-nine, Siddhartha Gautama suddenly abandoned his home to devote himself entirely to spiritual pursuits and Yogic practices. A mere accident turned him to the path of renunciation. One day he managed, somehow or the other, to get out of the walled enclosure of the palace and roamed about in the town along with his servant Channa to see how the people were getting on. The sight of a decrepit old man, a sick man, a corpse and a monk finally induced Siddhartha to renounce the world. He felt that he also would become a prey to old age, disease and death. Also, he noticed the serenity and the dynamic personality of the monk. Let me go beyond the miseries of this Samsara (worldly life) by renouncing this world of miseries and sorrows. This mundane life, with all its luxuries and comforts, is absolutely worthless. I also am subject to decay and am not free from the effect of old age. Worldly happiness is transitory".

Gautama left for ever his home, wealth, dominion, power, father, wife and the only child. He shaved his head and put on yellow robes. He marched towards Rajgriha, the capital of the kingdom of Magadha. There were many caves in the neighboring hills. Many hermits lived in those caves. Siddhartha took Alamo Kalamo, a hermit, as his first teacher. He was not satisfied with his instructions. He left him and sought the help of another recluse named Uddako Ramputto for spiritual instructions. At last he determined to undertake Yogic practices. He practiced severe Tapas (austerities) and Pranayama (practice of breath control) for six years. He determined to attain the supreme peace by practicing self-mortification. He abstained almost entirely from taking food. He did not find much progress by adopting this method. He was reduced to a skeleton. He became exceedingly weak.

Buddha's Teachings - According to Buddha "Dharma" means "protection". By practicing Buddha's teachings we protect our self from suffering and problems. All the problems we experience during daily life originate from ignorance, and the method for eliminating ignorance is to practice Dharma.

Practicing Dharma is the supreme method for improving the quality of our human life. The quality of life depends not upon external development or material progress, but upon the inner development of peace and happiness. For example, in the past many Buddhists lived in poor and underdeveloped countries, but they were able to find pure, lasting happiness by practicing what Buddha had taught.

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 8/20/2010

"Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions."

~His Holiness the Dalai Lama

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Are You a Buddhist, and Does it Matter?

I get questions from people from time to time about how they should "become" a Buddhist. This isn't a silly question because a lot of religions have a very intricate process one must go through before they can call themselves a member of that faith. Unless you're becoming a monk there isn't exactly the same process in Buddhism. Traditionally a practitioner became a monk after taking formal refuge in the "Three Jewels" (The Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha). The idea of refuge is vital to understanding these. By coming to the monastery the novice was renouncing the failed appeasements of the world and embracing the shelter or refuge and help of the Buddha's example, his teachings (the Dharma) and the community of monks (Sangha).

It is the same for us today. Taking refuge in the Three Jewels isn't something to check off your "Things to do before I become a Buddhist" list but rather a personal acknowledgment that your life is out of control (like is the case for all of us) and that you need help. The refuges are meant to remind us that there is a way out and that it has been done before by Buddha but that the way out requires complete surrender. However, it's not a surrender to Buddha himself but rather to his example because Buddha isn't a savior like Jesus. We are saying, "O.k., I give up in trying to find relief externally, and figuring this out on my own. So, I am trusting in Buddha's example that it can help me as well." So, in essence every time we recite refuge in the jewels we are reminding ourselves of that reality. For, It is only when we let go that we find true freedom. Or, as the wise (yet rather crazy), "Master" Tyler Durden says in the movie Fight Club, "It's only after we've lost everything that we are free to do anything."

Then there are of course the "The Five Precepts" vows, which are a list of commitments that have been shown before by well-known monks to reduce suffering but they aren't a "naughty list." There isn't anyone that's going to be checking up on you if you don't keep all the precepts because, frankly, that would be counterproductive because in Buddhism there is no one that you need to please, appease or obey. Buddhism is the classic, "D.I.Y" or "Do it Yourself" motto because no amount of bowing, vowing or wowing is going to end your suffering. You and your karma are your own judge and savior.

I'm not saying you won't need teachers and other helpful guides such as the Four Noble Truths and the Eight-Fold Path. I'm simply saying that being a Buddhist is not about checking off boxes on a list and off you go to Buddhist retirement. If you look for Buddha--you won't find him anywhere but inside you. That means that to be a Buddhist, one only has to be a human being who has seen the useless help that the external world offers and actively live your life to find relief from within yourself with the example of Buddha as your guide. You have to live it to be it is another way of saying it.

Another Buddhist I was reading today inspired this post with a story about her desire to "become" a Buddhist and her teachers response to that desire. She wanted to know when she'd be ready to become a Buddhist. Her teacher wisely replied, "You know you're ready when becoming a Buddhist is simply a recognition of something that has already happened." So, perhaps the question isn't, "How do I become a Buddhist" but rather, "How do I reduce my suffering?" Because it is that goal, which defines most "Buddhists." If you follow the Buddha's example, seek to put his teachings into practice and ask for help, support and guidance from the wider Buddhist community (Sangha) then I'm sure you'll have your question answered by your own actions.

~Peace to all beings~

DRIFTLESS: A Book Review

I don’t suppose I would have come across this book, had it not been for my son, who sent it to me as a birthday gift. It’s called Driftless (the name derives from a peculiar geological area in southwestern Wisconsin which, eons ago, was spared the “drift” of the receding glaciers) and it’s written by David Rhodes. The author started out on what promised to be a notable career in fiction in the early seventies, but was halted in his tracks by a motorcycle accident that left him paralyzed. Driftless is his long-delayed return. Those who follow “The Buddha Diaries” will know that I have a special interest in, and fondness for creative people who have been sidelined in any way, and this writer certainly appears to fall into that category—though I have no idea as to why he chose to remain silent for so long.

In any event, this is a remarkable book. I love the way each of its many short-ish chapters has its own title, and could be read, almost, as a story in itself. Together, though, they follow several narrative threads, interwoven in the same odd ways as the lives of the characters. There’s the farmer and his wife who realize they’re being stiffed by the corporate milk company; the country singer who slowly finds her voice; the heart-sick repairman who can’t get beyond his mourning for his lost wife; the local pastor, a woman unable to let go of her childhood wounds; a wheel-chair bound spinster who squanders her life savings (and her sister’s) at the casino and rediscovers life at a local dogfight; a militia training for the overthrow of the government… And a wild creature, a black puma long absent from this area, stalks the pages like some wild, animating spirit reminding us of a time when nature was as yet untamed by man.

There are other threads. The setting, a small village whose very existence is threatened by the march of twenty-first century “progress,” is rich in natural beauty, poor in material wealth. Rhodes is at his lyrical best in evoking the landscape and its changes with the passage of the seasons, and in describing the symbiotic relationship between the land and those who live on it. His people are scarred, their hands gnarled by decades of hard labor, their faces marked by age and care. They are real in the same way that the trees are real, and the barns and silos of the farmyards, the jalopies and the trucks they drive. They need love and attention, don’t know how ask for it, suffer stubbornly and, sometimes, die.

I like writing that is straightforward, honest, un-literary, and at the same time rich in associative and evocative depths. I do not want to be impressed by the writing, so much as by the authenticity of where it comes from. Driftless , it seems to me, comes from a place of long experience and deep compassion, a place where suffering is understood to be both hard and real—and the threshold that leads to a more profound experience of life. The center of gravity of the book lies in the integrity of its central characters in the face of physical and emotional hardship. Their relationships, shifting nervously between suspicion and trust, generosity and self-protection, are deeply human. They invite us to laugh at them—and with them—to pity them, to “feel their pain” as well as their occasional rapture, and accept them for who they are.

There is also a broader context here, in which nature plays a significant role. It is, as the pastor discovers at a moment of revelation described with wry humor and compassion, both: that sense of Oneness that embraces everything. Call it--as she does, transcending the limited vocabulary of her Christian calling--love, a word that carries a good deal more freight than its deceptive single syllable. And this, perhaps, along with that wild black puma that stalks the human heart as it does the driftless landscape, is the animating spirit of the book.

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 8/19/2010

"The ultimate authority must always rest with the individual's own reason and critical analysis."

~His Holiness the Dalai Lama

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 8/18/2010

"Anything that contradicts experience and logic should be abandoned."

~His Holiness the Dalai Lama

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