Readers of The Buddha Diaries will be as moved and inspired as I was by the HBO documentary, Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present. It's the story of the preparation and installation for the artist's 20120 retrospective exhibition of the same title at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, with its new performance designed especially for the occasion: "The Artist Is Present."
And is she ever. Abramovic is known for performances that explore the breadth and depth of her humanity, sometimes in its most vulnerable aspects. She is willing to expose both body and soul to the scrutiny of observers in order to share those human qualities that many others seek to hide, repress or deny. In telling us most intimately about herself, she offers us the opportunity to learn more about who we are. It is often a challenging, sometimes even a painful experience--for the artist, as well as for her audience. But she shrinks from nothing, it would seem, to achieve this goal.
I tend to recoil from performance work that smacks of exhibitionism, but even when naked this artist manages to banish the ego from the work at hand. It's not "Marina's body" so much as "human body" that we see; it's not "Marina's story" that we're told, so much as our own. It's the story of our own vulnerability, our own fear, the pain we experience in our own lives.
"The Artist Is Present" could not be simpler in design: two chairs are set up at the center of a large, white gallery space, with a table in between. Simply robed in red, white or black, the artist occupies one of the chairs. She invites any person who might so wish to occupy the other for a long enough period to receive her gaze and to gaze, in turn, into her face. No words are exchanged, no gestures, and no touch. There is barely anything that could be described as an "expression" on her face. In this way, the artist is able to become the mirror for each participant, reflecting back to them everything that comes to the surface in their face: their pain, their fear, their grief... sometimes, their joy.
The "performance"--I hesitate to call it that, because this is as "real" as it gets--is profoundly moving. It required immense physical discipline and stamina of the artist, who sat virtually immobile for hours on end each day of the exhibition's three-month run in what she called her "square of light" in the museum's atrium. It required the same measure of emotional discipline and stamina, and an immense resource of compassion. The full range and depth of her personal emotional well was plumbed each day, as visitors received their share of her and offered their own emotional life for her to absorb and, in some way, to heal.
It was an exemplary performance, a tour de force that most of us would lack the strength and fortitude to contemplate. Compassion at its best is the ability to empathize fully with the suffering of others, but without taking it on board and making it our own. Abramaovic reminds us of the commonality of simply being human, and offers us the comfort for knowing that it's shared. I wish now that I had been smart enough to take a flight to New York a couple of years ago to be present myself for "The Artist Is Present." Failing that, I'm glad to have seen the documentary. Don't miss the opportunity to see it for yourself.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Monday, July 16, 2012
LEARNING TO DRIVE
My hands clench tight
to the steering wheel.
I am perhaps eighteen years old.
My father sits beside me, in
the passenger seat,
his hands rolling, perhaps,
a cigarette, calmly,
with his familiar skill;
he watches me, watches
where the road ahead
leads into a pale sky
above the English hills.
He asks me, Why
are your hands so tight,
you see how white
your knuckles are?
And now, today,
so many years gone by,
still there are times
I am surprised to wake
at night and find my hands
clenched into fists...
And once again
the memoryreturns
today, in meditation,
my father long since
dead: I note the tension
in my hands, breathe in,
and send releasing
energy. They tell me
I hold on so tight
for fear of what might
be, if I let go.
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 7/14/2012
"Whether we are rich or poor, educated or uneducated, whatever our nationality, color, social status, or ideology may be, the purpose of our lives is to be happy."
~His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Friday, July 13, 2012
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 7/13/2012
"In our struggle for freedom, truth is the only weapon we possess."
~His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Thursday, July 12, 2012
STORAGE
In just a little while I'm off to the A-1 Storage center on the San Fernando Road with the hope of being able to empty out and close down the bin we have been renting there for several years now. There are boxes of books--mostly, I have to say, large numbers of mint copies of my own novels that were published back in the 1980s and were sent to my by the publisher presumably in lieu of the money that they (and I!) failed to earn on them; and family photographs and memorabilia; and quite a lot of art works for which we could find no space on the walls of our small house when we chose to downsize several years ago. Learning that the storage company have decided to cut off climate controls was enough to spur us to action, and we have now made what we hope will be sufficient space in our garage to store what we really need to keep.
Have you ever watched that cable television show about those professional scavengers who join in a weekly bidding war for abandoned storage bins, or those whose owners have failed to pay their monthly fees? The bidders are allowed only a glimpse inside, through an open door, before making their own best-guess judgment on that the contents might be worth. Sometimes they lose, sometimes they win out big, when they unearth a Tiffany lamp or some such marvelous treasure amongst the junk. Well, I have to say they would not have much luck with out bin. Still, it has to be cleared out.
All of which affords me the opportunity for a little Buddhist reflection on the things we accumulate in our lives, and to which we attribute different kinds of value--whether monetary or sentimental. Ellie is more attached, perhaps, to family things. I have found it hard--well, to date impossible!--to throw any of my books or manuscripts away. Is this with the delusional thought that some one, in a hundred or so years time, will rediscover the writings of the forgotten Peter Clothier and scour through my earliest manuscripts for evidence of my genius? Unlikely! Is it that I still cling to the young Peter who wrote those pages, some in tiny and illegible script, others hacked out on the trusty portable typewriter that accompanied me for many years on my travels?
Simple reason and common sense tell me that these boxes of books and papers have no value, really, and should be recycled. Will I be able to bring myself, today, to do it? Or will I weaken, give in to the hoarding instinct, and bring them back to the garage to be preserved for yet another few years, until my daughter has to make the decision for me?
What would you? Do you hoard useless old trash? Or do you follow the wiser, healthier path and chuck the stuff out? I'd like to know... But anyway, wish me luck!
Have you ever watched that cable television show about those professional scavengers who join in a weekly bidding war for abandoned storage bins, or those whose owners have failed to pay their monthly fees? The bidders are allowed only a glimpse inside, through an open door, before making their own best-guess judgment on that the contents might be worth. Sometimes they lose, sometimes they win out big, when they unearth a Tiffany lamp or some such marvelous treasure amongst the junk. Well, I have to say they would not have much luck with out bin. Still, it has to be cleared out.
All of which affords me the opportunity for a little Buddhist reflection on the things we accumulate in our lives, and to which we attribute different kinds of value--whether monetary or sentimental. Ellie is more attached, perhaps, to family things. I have found it hard--well, to date impossible!--to throw any of my books or manuscripts away. Is this with the delusional thought that some one, in a hundred or so years time, will rediscover the writings of the forgotten Peter Clothier and scour through my earliest manuscripts for evidence of my genius? Unlikely! Is it that I still cling to the young Peter who wrote those pages, some in tiny and illegible script, others hacked out on the trusty portable typewriter that accompanied me for many years on my travels?
Simple reason and common sense tell me that these boxes of books and papers have no value, really, and should be recycled. Will I be able to bring myself, today, to do it? Or will I weaken, give in to the hoarding instinct, and bring them back to the garage to be preserved for yet another few years, until my daughter has to make the decision for me?
What would you? Do you hoard useless old trash? Or do you follow the wiser, healthier path and chuck the stuff out? I'd like to know... But anyway, wish me luck!
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 7/12/2012
"It is under the greatest adversity that there exists the greatest potential for doing good, both for oneself and others."
~His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Why Buddhism Prospered in Asia but Died in India.
The story that unfolds describes a perfect storm that developed against Indian Buddhism. It's an epic history of Moghul invasion, Hindu persecution and a split within Buddhism itself. A saga that is captivating, insightful and perfect for a film adaptation. Click on this sentence to read the full article at "The Buddhist Channel."
~I bow to the Buddha within all beings~
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 7/11/2012
"A great rock is not disturbed by the wind; the mind of a wise man is not disturbed by either honor or abuse."
~His Holiness the Dalai Lama
MADE IN L.A. 2012
I'm afraid I feel much the same way about the sprawling "Made in L.A. 2012" show as I did about this year's Whitney Biennial in New York: unqualified to offer particularly useful or informed commentary. I just feel completely out of touch with what most of these (mostly) young artists are up to. My head and heart seem these days to be--aesthetically at least--planted distressingly in the past.
Which does not prevent me from making judgments, no matter how unwarranted! Of course, I could throw up my hands and say, I just don't get it, but the truth is that I find there's not a whole lot to be got. I think that the art school system--mea culpa: I was a part of it for a while in the 1970s and 1980s--has a lot to answer for. My first judgment: the system has become a self-sustaining production line, putting out more nominally "professional" artists into the world than can plausibly survive as professional artists. Second judgment: it has done many of these graduates a grave disservice in its over-emphasis on aesthetic theory and idea-based art. Ideas are thin gruel, in my view, whether in visual art or writing. The substance of art work is the rich texture of lived experience--the physical, emotional and, for want of a better word, the spiritual, along with the intellectual.
As a result of this, the "artist's statement" seems to have become de rigueur for anyone wishing to be taken seriously these days. More's the pity. I find it not just unneeded--the artist's statement, surely, is the art work itself--but actually harmful. It risks limiting not only the viewer's experience of the work but, worse, the potential of the artist's imagination. The very act of its formulation channels the mind into its narrow (and language-based) vision, closing off the otherwise infinite possibilities of the imaginative process. Its outcome is often to reduce art to what can first (or subsequently) be expressed in words.
Okay, rant over. Well, not quite. Back to "Made in L.A. 2012" and another, slightly different beef with art schools: perhaps because of the proliferation of graduates and the struggle to achieve just a glimpse of recognition, the obsession with originality has never been greater nor more damaging in its outcome. It's not new, of course: the whole idea of originality came along with the Romantics, at a time when art shifted from being of service--to church, to patron, to aristocracy--to being a form of self-expression, for its own sake. It's the same insistence on individuality and individual that inspired the growth of democratic movements everywhere. Given the proliferation of young artists alluded to above, it's harder and harder for young people to create truly original art, and the struggle manifests in work that simply seems to try too hard to be different.
Such observations make me feel like a grumpy old man, so let's take a look at some work included in "Made in L.A." that I really did like--some of it quite a lot. At Barnsdall, for instance, I particularly liked the installation by Miljohn Ruperto...
...consisting of a row of pedestal-mounted video monitors and a backdrop of replicas of a single large-scale painting by the German Romantic Caspar David Friedrich--made in China. The fake paintings, installed in moody half-light, offer a counterpoint to the broken narrative of the non-sequentially timed video playing on the monitors in the endless loop of a mystery story that engages--and, yes, amuses--the viewer's mind in its repetitive rhythms and discontinuities. The mind likes resolution, and is teased into the vain effort to interpret and resolve. We are offered the rare opportunity to watch the mind at work.
I liked, too, the multimedia work of Cayetano Ferrer...
...whose colorful cut-up and reassembled sections of carpet form a delightful jigsaw that invites the engagement of the eye in sorting out its parts and putting them back together into a coherent whole. Ducking under a low, ceremonial entryway and looking back (see above), the viewer is then confronted with a comparable patchwork of constantly shifting, patterned light projections that play on the relief surface of the wall that separates the two installations, contrasting the stasis of the carpet with a sparkling kinesis of brilliant illumination. My mind took me back to a long-forgotten reading of Rimbaud's proto-psychedelic prose poem, "Les Illuminations." A dance with color, pattern, light and motion.
There were paintings, too, at Barnsdall that I liked: Allison Miller's...
...quirky fantasies that play with geometric and organic form and flirt with a kind of clumsy, almost slapstick humor in the juxtaposition of abstraction with quasi-representational parts; and the mural-scaled "comic strip" by Nery Gabriel Lemus, with its riff on the conventions of the political mural and its inquiry into issues of ethnic identity, equality and social justice. In a related vein, I liked the chamber of curiosities--a mini-museum, really--assembled by Vincent Ramos...
...with its maze of display cases and memorabilia, a treasure house of family and community history in an endlessly complex and fascinating socio-historical context.
Over at the Hammer, more paintings to look at. I found particularly intriguing those of Zach Harris, whose intricate, patterned work with the pictures' frames is as engaging as the visionary miniatures they enclose. They invite a hallucinatory play between macro- and micro-space, evoking the exotic--and erotic--pleasures of Indian mogul art. At the other end of the scale, Mimi Lauter's...
...extra-large pastel drawings on paper evoke vast, imaginative, primeval landscapes inhabited, if you allow yourself a touch of fantasy, by mythical beasts. Meleko Mokgosi's...
...epic works recall the grand old tradition of historical painting, alluding to the continuing struggles of whole populations in the post-colonial era. I thought of Leon Golub--though Mokgosi's work is more dispassionate and analytical than Golub's. Same outrage, same need to share it on the canvas.
You begin to see my preference for painting... Might as well confess it: I love the figure, too--as in Mokgosi's paintings and, though in a quite different mode, the work of Thomas Lawson...
...whose boldly outlined nudes are eloquent in posture and relation to each other and whose "masks" explore the human physiognomy and hark back humorously to ancient Greece and Rome. In 3-D, Ruby Neri...
...uses clay and color in works that frankly recall her father, Manuel's work--and why not? Her figures recall the work of untrained artists everywhere that summon the spirits of the dead. And speaking of clay, I liked very much the odd, rather clumsy and reductive vessels of Caroline Thomas...
...and the colorful fantasies of Roy Dowell that function playfully in the ground between painted abstraction and utilitarian object.
Oh, and I couldn't close without a mention of the most senior of the "young" artists included in this exhibition, Channa Horwitz, who--dare I say?--at the start of her eighth decade continues to produce her meticulously lined and colored musical graphs, whose rhythms at once delight the eye and engage the mind. It's gratifying to find her work included in a show intended to represent the current energy of Los Angeles art.
Which does not prevent me from making judgments, no matter how unwarranted! Of course, I could throw up my hands and say, I just don't get it, but the truth is that I find there's not a whole lot to be got. I think that the art school system--mea culpa: I was a part of it for a while in the 1970s and 1980s--has a lot to answer for. My first judgment: the system has become a self-sustaining production line, putting out more nominally "professional" artists into the world than can plausibly survive as professional artists. Second judgment: it has done many of these graduates a grave disservice in its over-emphasis on aesthetic theory and idea-based art. Ideas are thin gruel, in my view, whether in visual art or writing. The substance of art work is the rich texture of lived experience--the physical, emotional and, for want of a better word, the spiritual, along with the intellectual.
As a result of this, the "artist's statement" seems to have become de rigueur for anyone wishing to be taken seriously these days. More's the pity. I find it not just unneeded--the artist's statement, surely, is the art work itself--but actually harmful. It risks limiting not only the viewer's experience of the work but, worse, the potential of the artist's imagination. The very act of its formulation channels the mind into its narrow (and language-based) vision, closing off the otherwise infinite possibilities of the imaginative process. Its outcome is often to reduce art to what can first (or subsequently) be expressed in words.
Okay, rant over. Well, not quite. Back to "Made in L.A. 2012" and another, slightly different beef with art schools: perhaps because of the proliferation of graduates and the struggle to achieve just a glimpse of recognition, the obsession with originality has never been greater nor more damaging in its outcome. It's not new, of course: the whole idea of originality came along with the Romantics, at a time when art shifted from being of service--to church, to patron, to aristocracy--to being a form of self-expression, for its own sake. It's the same insistence on individuality and individual that inspired the growth of democratic movements everywhere. Given the proliferation of young artists alluded to above, it's harder and harder for young people to create truly original art, and the struggle manifests in work that simply seems to try too hard to be different.
Such observations make me feel like a grumpy old man, so let's take a look at some work included in "Made in L.A." that I really did like--some of it quite a lot. At Barnsdall, for instance, I particularly liked the installation by Miljohn Ruperto...
...consisting of a row of pedestal-mounted video monitors and a backdrop of replicas of a single large-scale painting by the German Romantic Caspar David Friedrich--made in China. The fake paintings, installed in moody half-light, offer a counterpoint to the broken narrative of the non-sequentially timed video playing on the monitors in the endless loop of a mystery story that engages--and, yes, amuses--the viewer's mind in its repetitive rhythms and discontinuities. The mind likes resolution, and is teased into the vain effort to interpret and resolve. We are offered the rare opportunity to watch the mind at work.
I liked, too, the multimedia work of Cayetano Ferrer...
...whose colorful cut-up and reassembled sections of carpet form a delightful jigsaw that invites the engagement of the eye in sorting out its parts and putting them back together into a coherent whole. Ducking under a low, ceremonial entryway and looking back (see above), the viewer is then confronted with a comparable patchwork of constantly shifting, patterned light projections that play on the relief surface of the wall that separates the two installations, contrasting the stasis of the carpet with a sparkling kinesis of brilliant illumination. My mind took me back to a long-forgotten reading of Rimbaud's proto-psychedelic prose poem, "Les Illuminations." A dance with color, pattern, light and motion.
There were paintings, too, at Barnsdall that I liked: Allison Miller's...
...quirky fantasies that play with geometric and organic form and flirt with a kind of clumsy, almost slapstick humor in the juxtaposition of abstraction with quasi-representational parts; and the mural-scaled "comic strip" by Nery Gabriel Lemus, with its riff on the conventions of the political mural and its inquiry into issues of ethnic identity, equality and social justice. In a related vein, I liked the chamber of curiosities--a mini-museum, really--assembled by Vincent Ramos...
...with its maze of display cases and memorabilia, a treasure house of family and community history in an endlessly complex and fascinating socio-historical context.
Over at the Hammer, more paintings to look at. I found particularly intriguing those of Zach Harris, whose intricate, patterned work with the pictures' frames is as engaging as the visionary miniatures they enclose. They invite a hallucinatory play between macro- and micro-space, evoking the exotic--and erotic--pleasures of Indian mogul art. At the other end of the scale, Mimi Lauter's...
...extra-large pastel drawings on paper evoke vast, imaginative, primeval landscapes inhabited, if you allow yourself a touch of fantasy, by mythical beasts. Meleko Mokgosi's...
...epic works recall the grand old tradition of historical painting, alluding to the continuing struggles of whole populations in the post-colonial era. I thought of Leon Golub--though Mokgosi's work is more dispassionate and analytical than Golub's. Same outrage, same need to share it on the canvas.
You begin to see my preference for painting... Might as well confess it: I love the figure, too--as in Mokgosi's paintings and, though in a quite different mode, the work of Thomas Lawson...
...whose boldly outlined nudes are eloquent in posture and relation to each other and whose "masks" explore the human physiognomy and hark back humorously to ancient Greece and Rome. In 3-D, Ruby Neri...
...uses clay and color in works that frankly recall her father, Manuel's work--and why not? Her figures recall the work of untrained artists everywhere that summon the spirits of the dead. And speaking of clay, I liked very much the odd, rather clumsy and reductive vessels of Caroline Thomas...
...and the colorful fantasies of Roy Dowell that function playfully in the ground between painted abstraction and utilitarian object.
Oh, and I couldn't close without a mention of the most senior of the "young" artists included in this exhibition, Channa Horwitz, who--dare I say?--at the start of her eighth decade continues to produce her meticulously lined and colored musical graphs, whose rhythms at once delight the eye and engage the mind. It's gratifying to find her work included in a show intended to represent the current energy of Los Angeles art.
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
OUTCOMES
I'm getting hooked on the Tour de France again this year. It's my annual sports event--the only one I follow with any real involvement. Basketball, football, tennis, golf... none of these catch my interest. When I lived in Canada, years ago, I used to watch the National Hockey League games avery week, but I only recently returned for the Stanley Cup finals, when the L. A. Kings were in line to win. Hockey, in Los Angeles? And the players, when I used to watch in Canada, were nearly all French Canadians. Now, I discover, the sport is internationalized.
The same with the Tour de France. It used to be pretty much a contest between the French and their Spanish and Italian neighbors. Nowadays the riders come from virtually every part of the world--from Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, the Far East; last year's winner was the Australian, Cadel Evans. This year, for heaven's sake, it's an Englishman who's the favorite! Bradley Wiggins...
... won Monday's individual time trial with convincing ease.
As I say, I'm hooked. Which gives me the opportunity, once more, to reflect on my addiction to outcomes. I love stories. I want to know what happens next, I want to know how it all ends. In the Tour, of course, it's first and foremost a matter of who's going to end up in Paris with the winner's yellow jersey, after twenty grueling stages, five of them in the high mountains of the Alps and the Pyrenees--the equivalent of twenty marathons and more, on nearly consecutive days. It's a feat of endurance unrivaled by any other sport. As long-time readers of The Buddha Diaries know, I have been watching, on and off, since I was a lad with my own bright red racing bike in the 1950s, in the days when derailier gears were a lot less reliable than today's--and certainly not electronically controlled. The technology of the bicycle has, shall we say, evolved considerably since my day.
Doping. It's a shame. I sometimes wish that instead of banning the stuff they would just legalize it all and ensure that everyone has the same opportunity. It's the hidden edge of drug-enhanced performance that casts a real shadow over the entire sport. Still...
I'm hooked. Love to watch the sport. Need to know not only the big outcome, but all the little ones: will the breakaway succeed in outfoxing the peloton today? Who's going to be the first over the next hill, or reach the summit of the mountain first? Who'll emerge unscathed from the next disastrous pile-up along the route? Who'll prove the fastest sprinter, the fastest time-trialist? Which rider will drop out from injury or sheer fatigue? There are a thousand stories happening at once in this great tour, and I want to know the outcome of each and every one of them.
So, yes, it's a good lesson. I not only indulge myself and my addictions, I'm offered the opportunity to stand back and observe them. There are more important and compelling things in life than the Tour de France, more stories in progress in which I am personally involved. As I have said often in the past, my main problem with the prospect of having to die is the reluctance to let go of any of these stories, my need to know how they turn out. Will Luka one day be someone's grandfather, as I am his? Will a human being set foot on the planet Mars in 2030? It pains me that I will not be around to know such things, and for this reason struggle with my mortality. The achievement true happiness, Buddhist wisdom reminds me, depends upon a person's ability to surrender this addiction and accept the fact that everything is impermanent, even life itself.
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 7/10/2012
"Human happiness and human satisfaction must ultimately come from within oneself. It is wrong to expect some final satisfaction to come from money or from a computer.M Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment."
~His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Monday, July 9, 2012
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 7/9/2012
"If you have fear of some pain or suffering, you should examine whether there is anything you can do about it. If you can, there is no need to worry about it; if you cannot do anything, then there is also no need to worry.M Do not think only of your own joy, but vow to save all beings from suffering. This is sharing in its highest form and purity beyond all poisons of this world."
~His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 7/8/2012
"When you think everything is someone else´s fault, you will suffer a lot. When you realize that everything springs only from yourself, you will learn both peace and joy. Pride leads to violence and evil. The truly good gaze upon everything with love and understanding."
~His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Saturday, July 7, 2012
THE HUMMERS
You may recall the story of the hummingbird who built her nest in the garden of our Laguna Beach cottage, and of the two hatchlings that emerged from the eggs she sat on so patiently. Not having seen her for a while, we had grown concerned for her welfare, as well as for that of her chicks. Our fears may have been well-founded for one of them at least. But today, while talking on the telephone in our dining room, Ellie spotted the mother bird perched on the thin stem of one of our potted plants, bringing food to one of the chicks perched alongside her. I ran for the camera, but alas, she had flown by the time I was ready to take a picture. The baby bird, however, was still awaiting her return, and I snapped this shot:
I waited around for a while, hoping to get a picture of both of them together, but the youngster flew off before its mother's return. Too bad. But we were thrilled to see them, and will keep watching. I'll report back, of course, if we manage to get other pictures to post.
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 7/7/2012
"In the practice of tolerance, one's enemy is the best teacher."
~His Holiness the Dalai Lama
TWO NOTABLES
First, let me give a shout-out for a fine article in berfrois by Jay Slosar entitled Ordinary Americans: Technology and Paranoia. Slosar is the author of The Culture of Excess: How America Lost Self-Control and Why We Need to Redefine Success, a book I reviewed here a couple of years ago. I have given a good deal of thought to the culture of fear that so adversely impinges on our social lives and our political judgments, and this article gives expression to much of my own thinking with elegance and insight. As Slosar suggests, we persist in providing ourselves with ample grounds for justified fear. My own thinking is that it is in good part the world's growing overpopulation of the human species that makes us all so scared of each other and so apprehensive of the future.
Next, a shout-out for my own books. Both Persist and Mind Work have been declared finalists in the Global Ebook Awards! Mind Work: Shedding Delusions on the Path to the Creative Core is one of three books in the Religion/Faith Non-Fiction category. And Persist: In Praise of the Creative Spirit in a World Gone Mad with Commerce stands alone (!) in the Art/Graphics Non-Fiction Category--a sure winner, no?! If you do not already have your copy of either of these books, the links above will lead you to the paperback version (preferred, by me at least) or an ebook, if you have mastered the art of reading books this way. A big thank you to those who have already purchased copies, and especially to those who have left kind comments on Goodreads or Amazon.
Next, a shout-out for my own books. Both Persist and Mind Work have been declared finalists in the Global Ebook Awards! Mind Work: Shedding Delusions on the Path to the Creative Core is one of three books in the Religion/Faith Non-Fiction category. And Persist: In Praise of the Creative Spirit in a World Gone Mad with Commerce stands alone (!) in the Art/Graphics Non-Fiction Category--a sure winner, no?! If you do not already have your copy of either of these books, the links above will lead you to the paperback version (preferred, by me at least) or an ebook, if you have mastered the art of reading books this way. A big thank you to those who have already purchased copies, and especially to those who have left kind comments on Goodreads or Amazon.
Friday, July 6, 2012
HEART, MIND, AND BODY
It was with great shock and sympathetic fear that we learned, yesterday, that a person close to us has been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer—this only after hearing from two other close friends who have shared a similar predicament. Knowing that words are cheap and that “advice,” when proffered, can be both unwelcome and presumptuous, I still felt the need to put down some of my thoughts and feelings about this distressing news; and to ask myself how I myself might hope to react when confronted with such a diagnosis. I would need to call upon fifteen years of meditation practice to strengthen heart, mind and body for the difficult time ahead.
The first piece of work would be to bring to mind—and to maintain, once there—the thought that diagnosis is not prognosis, and that “rare” does not equate to “untreatable.” Besides, there are forces of nature more powerful and mysterious than those understood by science or medicine, and we know that these forces can be activated by the human mind. I am not one to believe in prayer, or that prayers will be answered. But I do believe that the mind is our most effective weapon in every circumstance, and that it is fully capable of directing energies in the body.
That said—and, yes, with the understanding that the forces of fear and confusion might easily prove to be formidable enemies—I would hope to be able to find the strength of mind to have it work in my favor, rather than against me. I have begun to learn, and continue to work at learning, that it’s possible to sit outside the body and observe its workings with a kind of equanimity, and with the realization—in the words of my favorite mantra—that “this is not me, this is not mine, this is not whom I am.” I would hope, then, to be able to dissociate from the physical dysfunction, and not allow it to define or take ownership of me.
I would ask a blessing of the small sitting group of which I am a member: would they gather with me to sit for a while in the Tibetan Buddhist practice of tonglen? This is a challenging practice that involves the breathing in of powerful negative energy, and then processing and purifying it in the heart so that it can be breathed out again as, now, a healing energy. I have tried practicing this in the past, in my beginner’s way, and have found it to be at the very least a soothing and effective way of sending out good thoughts and healing wishes to friends I know to be suffering from physical or emotional distress.
So much for mind and body. Then there’s the heart. Knowing how much I would need its strength in such a circumstance, I would want to be sure that it is in good working order and functioning at its optimum. The best way I know to assure this effect is to direct it, first, inward, and then outward. The practice of metta teaches that the first recipient of my compassion must always be myself; for unless I can find it for myself, I have none to share with others. The first thought, then, must be: May I be happy; may I be free from stress and pain; may I look after myself with ease. And then those thoughts spread out to close family, to friends, to other beings whom I do not even know…
And along with those thoughts, the actual practice of generosity. I would wish, in the face of such a diagnosis, to find the generosity in my heart and to work on that in the most immediate and practical of ways. I believe that the act—and practice—of giving without stint or expectation of return would bring me great release from suffering and an inner contentment that I would need to fight the battle ahead of me with integrity, patience, and persistence. It would provide me with the armor I would need against the sense of injustice and the pain.
These thoughts, then—these wishes, really—for myself. I have no way of knowing how I would be able to put them into practice, and readily concede that I might well not be able to find the necessary strength of mind. Fear and confusion are powerful and subtle enemies, and can easily overwhelm the best of my intentions. I still have plenty of work to do before coming to terms with the prospect of my own mortality. But that, I tell myself, is what this work is all about.
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 7/6/2012
"Spend some time alone every day."
~His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 7/5/2012
"Ultimately, the decision to save the environment must come from the human heart. The key point is a call for a genuine sense of universal responsibility that is based on love, compassion and clear awareness."
~His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 7/4/2012
"As human brothers and sisters, I have a feeling that deep down we are all the same human beings. Therefore, it is quite natural that when some human brothers and sisters suffer, then other brothers and sisters spontaneously develop some kind of sincere feeling or concern. At this moment I find this very much alive. I consider this a hope for the future."
~His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 7/3/2012
"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
Monday, July 2, 2012
A LUKA MONDAY...
He'll be eight months old exactly on the 4th. And generally when he arrives he brings with him the kind of chaos--the good kind!--that you expect when there's a baby around. There's also the Tour de France, which started to my surprise last Saturday--it usually does not start before July. In any event, I'm having trouble finding it on the television schedule to record the daily stages as I have done in the past. The only one I've been able to find is in French, on a Canadian channel. I don't mind the French--I can afford to brush up on that--but I have always enjoyed the commentary team of Bob Roll, Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen, and they seem to have moved this year to NBCSports. More research to be done, to see how I can access this channel... A double excuse, then, to taking a break. Unless there's something that can't wait...
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 7/2/2012
"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 others will leave all concerned at peace. This is the essence of Mahayana Buddhism."
~His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Sunday, July 1, 2012
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 7/1/2012
"Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions."
~His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Saturday, June 30, 2012
MEAN SPIRITS
The spectacle of Republican governors doing everything they can to deprive the neediest of their citizens of the benefits afforded them by President Obama's health care act would be laughable were it not so cruelly appalling. Now that the measure has been declared constitutional by decision of the US Supreme Court, failure to implement it looks like nothing more than sour grapes on the part of the right-wing ideologues who now dominate the Republican party. My hope is that those who suffer as a result of this intransigence will finally recognize that it is being employed to deny them the basic care that is rightfully theirs, and that the November vote will reflect their outrage. Is this what it will take to bring the American electorate to its senses?
I have been reading articles that criticize the Obama administration for not having done a better sales job on their bill. It seems to me that the benefits are out there in plain sight for anyone with half a brain to understand. Those who protest most loudly against their own interests, whether immediate or long-term, are choosing to listen to their own prejudices rather than the readily available facts; to the distortions and outright lies broadcast loudly and repeatedly by the ideologues rather than the simple truth. I honestly don't know how things could be made much clearer than they already are.
How many people will have to suffer needlessly before we reach critical mass in the public's realization that the provision of universal health care is the hallmark of a society that cares for its own and for each other? And that each one of us will have reason, sooner or later, to call upon that system for its help? We are all bound together in the inevitable process of aging, illness and death. Not one of us can reasonably expect to be spared. We need to approach this issue with mutual compassion, which asks us to discover our generosity of heart and spirit in order to counteract the small minds and mean spirits of those who speak out of mistrust, selfishness, and fear.
I have been reading articles that criticize the Obama administration for not having done a better sales job on their bill. It seems to me that the benefits are out there in plain sight for anyone with half a brain to understand. Those who protest most loudly against their own interests, whether immediate or long-term, are choosing to listen to their own prejudices rather than the readily available facts; to the distortions and outright lies broadcast loudly and repeatedly by the ideologues rather than the simple truth. I honestly don't know how things could be made much clearer than they already are.
How many people will have to suffer needlessly before we reach critical mass in the public's realization that the provision of universal health care is the hallmark of a society that cares for its own and for each other? And that each one of us will have reason, sooner or later, to call upon that system for its help? We are all bound together in the inevitable process of aging, illness and death. Not one of us can reasonably expect to be spared. We need to approach this issue with mutual compassion, which asks us to discover our generosity of heart and spirit in order to counteract the small minds and mean spirits of those who speak out of mistrust, selfishness, and fear.
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 6/30/2012
"We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without human affection."
~His Holiness the Dalai Lama
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