I just read this lovely quote on Jade Mountains. I thought you'd like it... I do, anyway. In the context of our current mess, it evokes some measure of equanimity and sanity. Thanks to the Rev. Mugo for putting my head straight!
All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well -- Julian of Norwich
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Religious Intolerance
I was sorely tempted, this morning, to write once again about the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, and my dismay at his seemingly intentional subversion of the Obama presidential campaign. In his appearances these past few days--cocky, snide in his remarks, intemperate, self-congratulatory, playing to the gallery--he would have you believe that this whole brouhaha is about religious intolerance, an attack on African-American religion. I don't see it that way. I believe it to be more about monomania, vanity, personal envy and spite.
But I decided to contribute no further to this unseemly and depressing spectacle. Instead, I'm choosing this morning to pass on a story of real religious intolerance, one that I heard just a couple of days ago from a friend about a mutual friend of ours--more an acquaintance, really, than a personal friend of mine, but a man I have known for some forty years, and one whose privacy I would not wish to risk violating in these pages. He will remain, then, anonymous. Call him Greg. And understand that parts of the story are suppositions on my part, based more on guesswork than actual fact.
I'm guessing, then, that Greg was born into a secular Jewish family--refugees, I perhaps, from post-World War II Europe, rather than Holocaust survivors--and was raised in this country as a non-religious, non-practicing Jew. As such, reaching adulthood, he married and became the father of a son, whom he raised, in turn, without any particular religious affiliation or belief. By mid-life, not unlike myself, he found himself searching for some spiritual underpinning for his life and--again, not unlike myself--found in the Buddhist teachings and the practice of meditation a resource for the rational but spirit-yearning mind, a religion that required no suspension of disbelief but, rather, welcomed healthy scepticism and curiosity. He studied the teachings and developed a strong meditation practice.
Greg's son, meanwhile, clearly felt the call of the spirit at a much earlier stage of life and turned to his neglected Jewish heritage. Perhaps because of his sectarian education, he was attracted to the farther extreme, an embrace of increasingly strict orthodoxy that led him, eventually, to religious education in a yeshiva. His enthusiasm even carried his father along--perhaps in part, at least, out of love for his son and respect for this new path that he had chosen. Greg began to rediscover his own Judaism, to study kabala, to venture into kosher eating practices, and to embrace the Jewish faith. He told friends--including, at one point, ourselves--that he had found in Judaism a richer and more rewarding resource than Buddhism, and he seemed committed to a serious change in his affiliation.
We were surprised to learn, then, in that recent conversation with our mutual friend, that Greg had returned to Buddhism and his meditation practice. According to our friend's account--and I remind you, none of this is told first-hand--Greg's son had become increasingly strict and intolerant in his views, to the point that he began to complain, on visits home, about his mother's kitchen habits, to criticize her for not being "kosher enough," and finally to issue threats to the effect that he could not continue to come home to visit unless she would conform to his requirements. Greg, it seems, was willing to risk alienation from his son in defense of his wife, asserting that he, the son, must be willing to accept his parents for who they are, and not for who he imagines or requires them to be. At the same time, he made the decision to return to his Buddhist practice.
A sad story, then, of religious intolerance and its destructive and divisive potential, even in a close and loving family. And this is not about Judaism. The story could equally well have involved Muslims, Catholics, or Protestant Christians. It reminded me of another, similar story, of a very old family friend, a Kindertransport survivor from Austria, who lived for a while in our house as a child and, uprooted from his Jewish origin and partly under the influence of my Anglican minister father, whom he dearly loved, even idolized, became a committed Episcopalian when he arrived in America after the war and was reunited with his parents. The last time I met him, in Chicago, many years ago, I was appalled to learn that he had disowned his daughter because she had decided to become--an Anglican priest! He believed that the priesthood was reserved for men.
I was happy to learn since, from other sources, that this particular rift was eventually healed. But I am saddened by the never-ending evidence that religious beliefs, while purporting to teach us to live better lives and promoting love among human beings as their ideal, continue instead to foster hatred and intolerance in the world. It's another good reason, for me, to value what I have discovered in the tolerant, always skeptical wisdom of the Buddha.
But I decided to contribute no further to this unseemly and depressing spectacle. Instead, I'm choosing this morning to pass on a story of real religious intolerance, one that I heard just a couple of days ago from a friend about a mutual friend of ours--more an acquaintance, really, than a personal friend of mine, but a man I have known for some forty years, and one whose privacy I would not wish to risk violating in these pages. He will remain, then, anonymous. Call him Greg. And understand that parts of the story are suppositions on my part, based more on guesswork than actual fact.
I'm guessing, then, that Greg was born into a secular Jewish family--refugees, I perhaps, from post-World War II Europe, rather than Holocaust survivors--and was raised in this country as a non-religious, non-practicing Jew. As such, reaching adulthood, he married and became the father of a son, whom he raised, in turn, without any particular religious affiliation or belief. By mid-life, not unlike myself, he found himself searching for some spiritual underpinning for his life and--again, not unlike myself--found in the Buddhist teachings and the practice of meditation a resource for the rational but spirit-yearning mind, a religion that required no suspension of disbelief but, rather, welcomed healthy scepticism and curiosity. He studied the teachings and developed a strong meditation practice.
Greg's son, meanwhile, clearly felt the call of the spirit at a much earlier stage of life and turned to his neglected Jewish heritage. Perhaps because of his sectarian education, he was attracted to the farther extreme, an embrace of increasingly strict orthodoxy that led him, eventually, to religious education in a yeshiva. His enthusiasm even carried his father along--perhaps in part, at least, out of love for his son and respect for this new path that he had chosen. Greg began to rediscover his own Judaism, to study kabala, to venture into kosher eating practices, and to embrace the Jewish faith. He told friends--including, at one point, ourselves--that he had found in Judaism a richer and more rewarding resource than Buddhism, and he seemed committed to a serious change in his affiliation.
We were surprised to learn, then, in that recent conversation with our mutual friend, that Greg had returned to Buddhism and his meditation practice. According to our friend's account--and I remind you, none of this is told first-hand--Greg's son had become increasingly strict and intolerant in his views, to the point that he began to complain, on visits home, about his mother's kitchen habits, to criticize her for not being "kosher enough," and finally to issue threats to the effect that he could not continue to come home to visit unless she would conform to his requirements. Greg, it seems, was willing to risk alienation from his son in defense of his wife, asserting that he, the son, must be willing to accept his parents for who they are, and not for who he imagines or requires them to be. At the same time, he made the decision to return to his Buddhist practice.
A sad story, then, of religious intolerance and its destructive and divisive potential, even in a close and loving family. And this is not about Judaism. The story could equally well have involved Muslims, Catholics, or Protestant Christians. It reminded me of another, similar story, of a very old family friend, a Kindertransport survivor from Austria, who lived for a while in our house as a child and, uprooted from his Jewish origin and partly under the influence of my Anglican minister father, whom he dearly loved, even idolized, became a committed Episcopalian when he arrived in America after the war and was reunited with his parents. The last time I met him, in Chicago, many years ago, I was appalled to learn that he had disowned his daughter because she had decided to become--an Anglican priest! He believed that the priesthood was reserved for men.
I was happy to learn since, from other sources, that this particular rift was eventually healed. But I am saddened by the never-ending evidence that religious beliefs, while purporting to teach us to live better lives and promoting love among human beings as their ideal, continue instead to foster hatred and intolerance in the world. It's another good reason, for me, to value what I have discovered in the tolerant, always skeptical wisdom of the Buddha.
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 4/30/2008
There is no meditative absorption
Without wisdom.
There is no wisdom
Without meditative absorption.
With both,
One is close to Nirvana.
~Dhammapada 372
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Rising Corn Prices and Bio-Fuel.
The effort to turn corn into fuel (ethanol) is being criticized now because of the rising food prices. However, some of the biggest cost increases are for meat products because farm animals to be used for food are fed mostly corn. So there is another way to look at this, if more and more people turn toward vegetable based diets then we wouldn't have massive animal feed lots that require huge amounts of corn.So by being a vegetarian or vegan we help the environment in big ways and doing so also allows us to continue increasing production of bio-fuels without raising the price of food too drastically. How? It would free up ranch land to be used to grow more wheat, rice and soy to further offset the price of corn. Switching that ranch land from raising animals for food to growing crops would also help the food shortage world wide as we'd have a surplus of grains that could be shipped to areas who desperately need it.
Just raising something to think about.
~Peace to all beings~
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 4/29/2008
Wisdom arises from [spiritual] practice;
Without practice it decays.
Knowing these paths to gain and loss,
Conduct yourself so that wisdom grows.
~Dhammapada 282
Monday, April 28, 2008
The Sacred Sites of the Dalai Lamas: A Pilgrimage to The Oracle Lake
The Sacred Sites of the Dalai Lamas: A Pilgrimage to The Oracle LakeJoin a spiritual pilgrimage and explore the Tibetan caves where the early Buddhist masters achieved enlightenment. Visit the sacred Oracle Lake where the Dalai Lamas have received prophetic visions. Other major power spots of Tibet include: Potala Johkang Drepung Monastery Nechung Drak Yerpa Valley The caves of Songsten Gampo, Jowo Atisha, and Guru Rinpoche Samye Monastery Lambhu Lagang Castle Ani Sanku Nunnery Lama Tsongkhapa Meditation Cave Tranduk Kangyur Stupa Terdak Lingpa Tashi Lumpo Champa Zhishi Sakya Chokhor Gyal Milarepa s Cave The Oracle Lake Our guides are Steve Dancz (composer for National Geographic), Glenn Mullin (author of over 25 books on Tibetan Buddhism) and Khenpo Tashi (a Bhutanese monk and international teacher.)
TPB
Clinton Tactics; Wright Is Wrong
I came upon this entry in World Changing 101 and thought it worth passing on--both the entry itself and the responses, all worth reading. I have to say that none of it surprised me. It just confirmed my own response to what seem to me despicable--and needless--tactics on the part of Hillary and her spouse. Not only is she willfully sabotaging Obama's chances in November, she is working hard to ensure her own defeat, should she be the nominee. A year ago--well, even a few short months ago--I was dismayed by all those irrational Hillary-haters. Now she is simply vindicating a view of her that I always thought to be sheer prejudice and distortion. I agreed with her about that "vast right-wing conspiracy." But not it's as though she has transformed herself into very worst that all those people could imagine of her. Has she been hexed?
I wonder what Clinton thinks of her new cheerleader, William Kristol. His op-ed piece in Monday's New York Times argues the "liberal media" are failing to give her "the respect she deserves." Kristol concludes that Obama "[is] happy to have fantasy debates with unnamed people who are allegedly challenging his patriotism. But he is not willing to have a real debate with the real person he's competing against for the nomination." "Will Obama pay no price for ducking?" Kristol asks, rhetorically--presumably referring to that single debate in North Carolina that Obama declined, after... how many already? The last of which was a farce in the guise of a political debate.
I'm sure that Kristol and his ilk are falling all over themselves in anticipation of a general election with Clinton pitted against McCain. They are counting on that history of powerful, passionate negatives to work in their favor. And as things stand now, Hillary seems to be working hard to prove them right.
I'm sure that Kristol and his ilk are falling all over themselves in anticipation of a general election with Clinton pitted against McCain. They are counting on that history of powerful, passionate negatives to work in their favor. And as things stand now, Hillary seems to be working hard to prove them right.
I wrote in an earlier entry that Wright was right. Watching his dreadful performance yesterday, I have changed my mind. While some of the substance of what he has to say about the history of race relations in this country is incontestable, he seems to have decided at this point to use the unexpected gift of a national bully pulpit to wreck the chances of the first serious African American candidate for the presidency. His unnecessary, sneering mockery of JFK and LBJ, his snidely cute responses to genuine questions, his cocky, self-congratulatory demeanor left a very different impression of The Reverend Jeremiah Wright than the one I had before, from the Bill Moyers interview, when he seemed relatively modest and realistic. He seems now to be merely reveling in the make-or-break power he has undeservedly acquired over the presidential candidate, and the spectacle has become at once unseemly and depressing. Bob Herbert has it right in his New York Times column today. After Obama's generosity toward him, Wright's response seems particularly mean-spirited, short-sighted, and spiteful. I hope that voters in the next primary states will have the good sense and the fairness to ignore his toxic influence, but in truth I have learned to have little faith in the electoral process. If it's all about image and sound bites, Obama will have a hard time overcoming this new obstacle in his path.
Memories
I did not know Leonard Rosenman, who died earlier this year at the age of 83. I did, however, by reason of our family connection, join the throng of friends and family who gathered yesterday afternoon at the Eastwood Sound Stage at Warner Brothers Studio to honor him and celebrate his life. An extraordinary life it was. A composer of note who turned his primary attention to scores for film and television, he was "discovered" by the young James Dean in the 1950s and composed the music for both Rebel Without a Cause and East of Eden, along with an innumerable list of other movies; drank beer with Dylan Thomas and bummed around with Leonard Bernstein; joined Albert Einstein (who by then, according to the account we heard, had become somewhat hilariously tone deaf) in a chamber concert; studied with Arnold Schoenberg; made more friends than could possibly be imagined; won Oscars and Emmys; and of course, with his music, reached the ears of countless millions of those who did not know him.
All of which would be impressive enough in itself--a rich, luminous life, lived to the full, and an important contribution to the history of both music and film; and, on the personal front, a wonderful, loving and mutually supportive family, many of whom were there on this occasion to offer their own tributes. Almost more impressive, though, was the twilight of his life. Diagnosed in his 70s with frontal temporal dementia , a degenerative brain disorder, he lost certain capacities of his formidable brain but, as one of his daughters put it in her tribute--and here I paraphrase--found a way to live, instead, more fully in his heart. He lived those last years of his life, I heard reiterated many times as those who loved him spoke, exclusively "in the moment." Last to take the stage in his honor was the group of young, creative people known as "Leonard's posse," care-givers who discovered in his energy and joie de vivre, and in a capacity to love that transcended his disease, a source of inspiration that changed their lives.
There was the opportunity, of course, as is inevitable on such occasions, to reflect on the fragility of life and the advance of years. Particularly moving, for me, was the moment when the octogenarian actor, Robert Brown, a contemporary of Leonard's, spoke with personal intensity about the experience of watching the body in the process of its inevitable changes as it ages--something I myself am keenly aware of. And toward the end, the presiding rabbi spoke of memories--"the only thing we truly have," he said. I see what he means. Our own memories, and the ones that others form of us, exist on a plane that is quite different from that of material reality.
Still, in my understanding of the Buddhist teachings, I find myself in disagreement with the rabbi on this point. Memories, like everything else, are illusory and fleeting; they come and go seemingly as they will, often in conflict with our own needs and desires. We each have our different ways of remembering: Ellie has an incredible memory for faces, but searches in vain for names; I can often supply the names, but fail to recognize the faces. Like everything else, our memories fade and disappear. Leonard's short-term memory was pilfered from him by the peculiarities of his disease; but, not long before his death, we heard, in the comfortable home to which his family had entrusted him for his health and safety, he sat down at the piano one day and played, beautifully and to everyone's surprise, the theme he had composed decades before for "East of Eden."
One thing, of course, is certain: that Leonard is more fortunate than most of us in that his memory will live on in his music. Those listening to it, years from now, will have no living "memory" of the man who wrote it; but they will have the evidence of the music itself to identify and communicate with the human spirit from which came into the world. The impression I was left with was that this Leonard was a truly happy man, who spent his life devoted to what he loved the most--whether his art, or the people who supported him in his practice of it. May we all find such happiness in our lives.
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 4/28/2008
"All things are impermanent."
Seeing this with wisdom,
One becomes disenchanted with suffering.
This is the path to purity.
~Dhammapada 277
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 4/27/2008
One is not wise
Only because one speaks a lot.
One who is peaceful, without hate, and fearless
Is said to be wise.
~Dhammapada 258
Wheel of Time (2003)
Werner Herzog's mesmerizing documentary chronicles the creation of the Kalachakra sand mandala, a magnificent, intricate work of art constructed in a meticulous ritual through which Tibetan Buddhist monks complete their ordination. The fragile, delicate work, taking place over 12 days in India, is followed by the mandala's total destruction, as the sands that make up the "wheel of time" are scattered as a spiritual blessing. Herzog also conducts a rare, amusing and insightful interview with the Dalai Lama. 80 min.
BTJunkie
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Saturday, April 26, 2008
A Path to Happiness: His Holiness the Dalai Lama (2006)
A Path to Happiness: His Holiness the Dalai Lama (2006)
Considered one of the greatest influencers of our time, the Dalai Lama has spent his life teaching people how to be happy. Being happy is not only our right, he teaches, but is clearly the principle force that drives our lives. Our ability to attain a lasting happiness, however, is not so clear. The path of inner transformation begins with developing an understanding of our true nature. Once this door opens, one naturally develops a feeling of compassion and acceptance for oneself and others. In these difficult times, people are looking for answers to finding inner peace and happiness and arguably the greatest teacher shares important insights to getting there.
TPB
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 4/26/2008
As a deep lake
Is clear and undisturbed,
So a sage becomes clear
Upon hearing the Dharma.
~Dhammapada 82
Friday, April 25, 2008
A Wonderful Opportunity for Hillary
Senator Clinton, it seems to me, has been presented with a wonderful opportunity to regain some of the high regard in which she was once held, and from which in recent months she has fallen with many people like myself. All she would need to do is to come out with a strong, public statement decrying Republican attacks on Barack Obama on the issue of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Were she to express some understanding of where the pastor's fiery words might come from, and to support Obama's powerful utterances on race in America instead of muttering about how she, righteously, would have shunned this pastor's church, she would do much to rehabilitate herself with those of us who believe that Wright was right in substance, if infelicitous in tone. If she were now to side unambiguously with her own party instead of the Republican candidate on this issue, she would demonstrate to Americans a good faith that has been singularly lacking in her campaign of late.
Alas, I think the opposite is likely: my guess is that she will use the opportunity of Reverend Wright's re-emergence, with his appearance on Bill Moyers tonight, to cast more stones. Not having seen the interview, I'm holding my fire about its content, but the network media seem content to let loose before it airs. I do plan to watch...
Alas, I think the opposite is likely: my guess is that she will use the opportunity of Reverend Wright's re-emergence, with his appearance on Bill Moyers tonight, to cast more stones. Not having seen the interview, I'm holding my fire about its content, but the network media seem content to let loose before it airs. I do plan to watch...
The Painter from Shanghai
I have been reading, this week, at our cottage retreat in Laguna Beach. And thinking, not for the first time, about art and artists...
There’s a huge amount of interest in the art world, these days, in what’s happening on the art scene in post-Cultural Revolution China. The phenomenal exhibition of the work of Shanghai-trained Cai Guo-Qiang, currently installed at the Simon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, offers but one example of the new wave of Chinese artists recently “discovered” by the West. Western dealers and collectors, so I’ve heard, are swarming through the massive buildings that house galleries and studios in cities like Beijing, and not only those artists but also the newly wealthy Chinese plutocrats are a becoming significant presence in the still-overheated world art markets.
All the more interesting, then, to take a leisurely trip back through time to catch a glimpse of a very different “art world”—both in China and the West—a century ago. The Painter From Shanghai, a newly published novel by Jennifer Cody Epstein, offers just this opportunity, since the academies of Shanghai and Paris provide the background and local color for her story.
From the point of view of artists’ expectations and the role of the art market, as well as that of public attitudes and tastes, that world seems strikingly innocent by comparison with our own.
Not so innocent, however, were the early years of the protagonist whose story Epstein tells. This fictional account is based on the real-life experiences of Pan Yuliang, a woman who was to become, in exile from her homeland, one of China’s best-known and best-loved painters of the early twentieth century. Orphaned as a child and sold into prostitution at the age of thirteen by the opium-addled uncle entrusted with her care, this remarkable, strong-minded and eventually independent woman (a stubborn, footloose “boar” in the Chinese calendar) survived the beatings, the abuse, the abject humiliation of life in a provincial town brothel for long enough to be rescued by the gentle, respectful, progressively-minded man whom she would eventually marry as his second wife, or concubine.
In Epstein’s sensitive and persuasive telling, it was the common love and knowledge of classical Chinese poetry that formed the initial bond between these two, and served as the glue that kept them together over many difficult years. A “Selected Bibliography” at the end of the book—unusual for a novel—makes it clear that the author read widely in preparation for her understanding of early twentieth century China, its history, culture and social mores, as well as the sights, sounds and smells of a city so far removed from our own experience. Still, one of the most remarkable things about this book is Epstein’s imaginative ability to make it all come alive through the precision of detail and evocative image. She manages to convey a sense of the ambience of the period that is at once poetic and steeped in realism.
If the first half of Epstein’s novel immerses us in the world of provincial and then, in Shanghai, cosmopolitan China, the second takes us to Europe where Pan Yuliang experiences new hardships as an impoverished art student struggling to make ends meet and to refine her own skills and vision as an artist. The twin threads of the story are, on the one hand, personal, intimate, aesthetic and, on the other, social, global and political, with rival factions of Communism and proto-fascism clashing, at times violently, in the streets of both China and the West, and Japan’s brutal war on China leaving a lasting scar on the country’s subsequent history. Modernity is in its birth throes, too, throughout the world, and there are cultural taboos with which Pan Yuliang must struggle, painfully, in order for her vision as an artist to achieve maturity. Known chiefly for her highly lyrical and overtly sensual nude self-portraits, she courted the outraged disapproval of an easily-offended, tradition-bound public—at times at risk of life and limb.
Epstein weaves her dual threads together skillfully, and “The Painter from Shanghai” is an enjoyable, engrossing read. Having spent a good deal of time with artists and writers over the years, I generally get nervous when I encounter a fictional version of one or the other—particularly of artists. There’s a tendency amongst writers to romanticize the artist, and to produce characters that in no way resemble those I have come to know or am likely ever to meet; and despite the hardships she so effectively describes, Epstein does leave something of a rosy aura around both her characters and the cultural and political world in which they live. Her detail can be so exotic, so subtle, so “Chinese” in flavor that even a life of slavery and physical abuse in a brothel risks seeming charmingly oriental and seductive rather than truly vile.
Still, without that glow the book would perhaps not be the pleasure it is to read. Those interested can readily find examples of the real Pan Yuliang’s work online. Blending her own native Chinese traditions with an obvious love of Matisse and the lessons of pre-Modernist masters like Cezanne, her pictures exude that unabashedly sensuous energy that seems entirely in keeping with the Pan Yuliang portrayed by Epstein in her novel. The artist’s story is a remarkable and touchingly human one, extolling the triumph of the imagination over any and all obstacles life chooses to thrust in our path. While she is never fully allowed to escape the pain and isolation incurred on her journey from desperate childhood into eventual exile as an artist and teacher, she has learned to live with them, by the end of Epstein’s story, with a true measure of dignity and inner peace. In this regard, the pursuit of material “success” that colors the vision of so many artists in today’s market-driven art world seems shallow and paltry by comparison.
There’s a huge amount of interest in the art world, these days, in what’s happening on the art scene in post-Cultural Revolution China. The phenomenal exhibition of the work of Shanghai-trained Cai Guo-Qiang, currently installed at the Simon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, offers but one example of the new wave of Chinese artists recently “discovered” by the West. Western dealers and collectors, so I’ve heard, are swarming through the massive buildings that house galleries and studios in cities like Beijing, and not only those artists but also the newly wealthy Chinese plutocrats are a becoming significant presence in the still-overheated world art markets.
All the more interesting, then, to take a leisurely trip back through time to catch a glimpse of a very different “art world”—both in China and the West—a century ago. The Painter From Shanghai, a newly published novel by Jennifer Cody Epstein, offers just this opportunity, since the academies of Shanghai and Paris provide the background and local color for her story.
From the point of view of artists’ expectations and the role of the art market, as well as that of public attitudes and tastes, that world seems strikingly innocent by comparison with our own.Not so innocent, however, were the early years of the protagonist whose story Epstein tells. This fictional account is based on the real-life experiences of Pan Yuliang, a woman who was to become, in exile from her homeland, one of China’s best-known and best-loved painters of the early twentieth century. Orphaned as a child and sold into prostitution at the age of thirteen by the opium-addled uncle entrusted with her care, this remarkable, strong-minded and eventually independent woman (a stubborn, footloose “boar” in the Chinese calendar) survived the beatings, the abuse, the abject humiliation of life in a provincial town brothel for long enough to be rescued by the gentle, respectful, progressively-minded man whom she would eventually marry as his second wife, or concubine.
In Epstein’s sensitive and persuasive telling, it was the common love and knowledge of classical Chinese poetry that formed the initial bond between these two, and served as the glue that kept them together over many difficult years. A “Selected Bibliography” at the end of the book—unusual for a novel—makes it clear that the author read widely in preparation for her understanding of early twentieth century China, its history, culture and social mores, as well as the sights, sounds and smells of a city so far removed from our own experience. Still, one of the most remarkable things about this book is Epstein’s imaginative ability to make it all come alive through the precision of detail and evocative image. She manages to convey a sense of the ambience of the period that is at once poetic and steeped in realism.
If the first half of Epstein’s novel immerses us in the world of provincial and then, in Shanghai, cosmopolitan China, the second takes us to Europe where Pan Yuliang experiences new hardships as an impoverished art student struggling to make ends meet and to refine her own skills and vision as an artist. The twin threads of the story are, on the one hand, personal, intimate, aesthetic and, on the other, social, global and political, with rival factions of Communism and proto-fascism clashing, at times violently, in the streets of both China and the West, and Japan’s brutal war on China leaving a lasting scar on the country’s subsequent history. Modernity is in its birth throes, too, throughout the world, and there are cultural taboos with which Pan Yuliang must struggle, painfully, in order for her vision as an artist to achieve maturity. Known chiefly for her highly lyrical and overtly sensual nude self-portraits, she courted the outraged disapproval of an easily-offended, tradition-bound public—at times at risk of life and limb.
Epstein weaves her dual threads together skillfully, and “The Painter from Shanghai” is an enjoyable, engrossing read. Having spent a good deal of time with artists and writers over the years, I generally get nervous when I encounter a fictional version of one or the other—particularly of artists. There’s a tendency amongst writers to romanticize the artist, and to produce characters that in no way resemble those I have come to know or am likely ever to meet; and despite the hardships she so effectively describes, Epstein does leave something of a rosy aura around both her characters and the cultural and political world in which they live. Her detail can be so exotic, so subtle, so “Chinese” in flavor that even a life of slavery and physical abuse in a brothel risks seeming charmingly oriental and seductive rather than truly vile.
Still, without that glow the book would perhaps not be the pleasure it is to read. Those interested can readily find examples of the real Pan Yuliang’s work online. Blending her own native Chinese traditions with an obvious love of Matisse and the lessons of pre-Modernist masters like Cezanne, her pictures exude that unabashedly sensuous energy that seems entirely in keeping with the Pan Yuliang portrayed by Epstein in her novel. The artist’s story is a remarkable and touchingly human one, extolling the triumph of the imagination over any and all obstacles life chooses to thrust in our path. While she is never fully allowed to escape the pain and isolation incurred on her journey from desperate childhood into eventual exile as an artist and teacher, she has learned to live with them, by the end of Epstein’s story, with a true measure of dignity and inner peace. In this regard, the pursuit of material “success” that colors the vision of so many artists in today’s market-driven art world seems shallow and paltry by comparison.
It's a Start.
London (PTI): World leaders on Friday welcomed China's decision to reopen dialogue with a representative of the Dalai Lama as a "major" and "first" step in resolving the vexed Tibet issue and to end the recent unrest there."We, together with other members of the international community, have consistently called for dialogue between the Chinese government and the Dalai Lama. I welcome today's announcement as the first step in that process," he said.
James: This is indeed a welcome development. However, my fear is that China is only doing this to improve its image abroad ahead of the Olympics and that after the games the talks will stop. That being said, I do have sincere hope though they will engage in a meaningful dialogue andthat the two sides really listen to one another. In Buddhism listening means being fully present with that person and being mindful of their concerns instead of just hearing them but thinking only of what you'll say next. Or how you can gain the upper hand with the issue being discussed and manipulate them.
Often we think of having a dialogue as better than resorting to violence and in the true meaning of the process it is of course the best way to settle disputes. However, dialogues can become verbally violent and abusive and cause harm and distrust as engaging in physical violence and intimidation does. We have to be careful because words can cause great suffering, they can bring peace but can just as easily cause war. So we must always try to listen with compassion and empathy because our "enemy" wants to be heard and understood just as we do.
However, there are times when one must speak sternly but we should always try to keep it from being abusive. In such instances it is easy to become haughty, insulting and patronizing. Thus I try to keep my stern language to a minimum but I often fail. Right Speech is a difficult teaching for me to practice sometimes. I always forget that when I do insult others that it causes more suffering for myself. It's pretty much impossible to insult others without causing pain to yourself as well. It's like throwing a boomerang at someone with the intent of hurting them but in doing so we open ourselves up to being hurt as well as the boomerang will come right back toward us.
Anyway, I sure hope that this new dialogue produces some results but perhaps at the very least it will build trust that is critical before any compromise and positive action can occur.
~Peace to all beings~
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 4/25/2008
As a solid mass of rock
Is not moved by the wind,
So a sage is not moved
By praise and blame.
~Dhammapada 81
Thursday, April 24, 2008
TBD Recommends: Zen Habits
(with thanks to Cardozo for this posting)
“If we seek inner detachment and clarity while our outer life is a mess, we may enjoy periodic escapes from turmoil but find no lasting equanimity. If we devote ourselves to the welfare of the world while our inner life is riven by irrational ideals and unresolved compulsions, we can easily undermine our own resolve."
-Stephen Batchelor, Buddhism Without Beliefs
Is Buddhism “deep?” If so, what do we mean by “deep.” When we think about Buddhism, what is the first image conjured by our brains? Someone sitting the lotus position, perhaps, engaged in meditation?
Meditation is, by all accounts, central to Buddhist practice. But it’s important to note that some thinkers – such as Stephen Batchelor who writes, above, about the notion of “unresolved compulsions” – take pains to put meditation within a broader context. Meditation, they remind us, is not an end goal, but rather a step along the path toward awakening. And while meditation is ultimately a solitary practice, our awakening is characterized by our enagement in the world – in the mundane, surface-level, non-intellectual practice of our daily lives.
Leo Babauta, author of zenhabits.net, carries on admirably in Batchelor’s tradition. Even though his Buddhist ideas are strictly limited to the concept of zen, his entries provide thoughtful tools for engaging successfully, simply and directly with the world.
A list of some of his popular posts will serve to convey the thrust of the blog:
* 18 Practical Tips for Living the Golden Rule
* 5 Powerful Reasons to Drive Slower
* Become an Early Riser
* Email-Zen: Clear Out your Inbox
* 50 Tips for Grocery Shopping
I think you get the point, just from the titles of his entries. Each of them is infused with common sense wisdom and stripped of gimmick or distraction. Yet they are written in everyday vernacular and supported by poignant and often humorous examples from Leo’s own life. A life, incidently, in which he lost 30 pounds, doubled his income, eliminated his debt, revolutionized his eating habits, quit smoking, and ran a marathon, all within the same calendar year.
In sum, we’d like to thank Leo for reminding us that all Buddhism really offers is a path, and the outline of a path at that. Walking the path requires not just non-attachment, but also the cultivation of productive habits in the myriad everyday tasks that comprise our modern lifestyle. Do check out the blog.
As a teaser, we’ll sign off with one of Leo’s strategies for becoming an early riser:
“Go out of the bedroom as soon as you shut off the alarm. Don’t allow yourself to rationalize going back to bed, just force yourself to go out of the room. My habit is to stumble into the bathroom and go pee. by the time I’ve done that, and flushed the toilet and washed my hands and looked at my ugly mug in the mirror, I’m awake enough to face the day.
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 4/24/2008
Irrigators guide water;
Fletchers shape arrows;
Carpenters fashion wood;
Sages tame themselves.
~Dhammapada 80
Angry Monk (2005)
Angry Monk: Reflections on Tibet (2005)
Tibet - the mystical roof of the world, peopled with enlightened monks? Only one of them wouldn't toe the line: Gendun Choephel, the errant monk who left the monastic life in 1934 in search of a new challenge. A free spirit and multifaceted individual, he was far ahead of his time and has since become a seminal figure, a symbol of hope for a free Tibet. A rebel and voluble critic of the establishment, Gendun Choephel kindled the anger of the Tibetan authorities. The cinematic journey through time portrays the life of this unorthodox monk, revealing a face of old Tibet that goes against popular clichés. The film makes an abundance of unique and rare historical footage available to the general public for the first time. But it does not dwell on the past; rather it skilfully oscillates between tradition and modernity. Archival images of ancient caravans and monasteries give way to scenes of discos and multi-lane highways in Lhasa, where pilgrims prostrate themselves as they circle the holy temple. ANGRY MONK offers a fascinating insight into a country whose eventful past is refracted in the multiplicity and contradictions of everyday life. Ultimately, this road movie also tells the story of a man who left home to search for something that could have liberated traditional Tibet from its rigidity. An outsider who was always open to new things, he eventually became a stranger in his homeland and homeless in foreign lands - a wanderer between worlds.
BTJunkie
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
The Energizer Bunny
She keeps running, and running, and running....
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton lost a lot more than she won yesterday.
What did she win? She won a short-term political victory. She vindicated herself and her campaign for the presidency, at least in her own mind. She won another state primary, by a respectable majority. She proved that win-at-any-cost can win--despite the cost. She proved that harsh words, the pretension of strength, negative attacks, distortions--plus a few outright lies--are still effective weapons in swaying the American electorate. More's the pity. Shame on us.
What did she lose? Sadly she lost what little affection may have been left for her (I speak for myself, of course, but I suspect for millions of others.) She sacrificed admiration, respect, and the trust of a preponderance of the American people. Worse, she lost them not only for herself, but also for the party she purports to represent. She reduced the level of discussion to scrappy trivia, personal attacks, and the vanity of one-upmanship. I do not buy the claim that she and her campaign campaign promulgate that Senator Obama has used these cheap strategies in the same way that she has.
Senator Clinton won a personal political battle yesterday. She can call that a victory. But she won it in a way that risks losing the larger and vastly more important war to redeem the American soul and repossess what once was a fine, generous-hearted country--a war that she could have helped us win by showing us her best qualities rather than her worst.
Don't call me a sore loser. I would have wanted to support the senator. I would have wanted to celebrate this victory, if it had been won without leaving so much destruction in its wake. I once liked her and respected her. It has been her choice to wallow in the mud of divisiveness and slander rather than to yield a single inch of ground. Too bad for all of us.
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton lost a lot more than she won yesterday.
What did she win? She won a short-term political victory. She vindicated herself and her campaign for the presidency, at least in her own mind. She won another state primary, by a respectable majority. She proved that win-at-any-cost can win--despite the cost. She proved that harsh words, the pretension of strength, negative attacks, distortions--plus a few outright lies--are still effective weapons in swaying the American electorate. More's the pity. Shame on us.
What did she lose? Sadly she lost what little affection may have been left for her (I speak for myself, of course, but I suspect for millions of others.) She sacrificed admiration, respect, and the trust of a preponderance of the American people. Worse, she lost them not only for herself, but also for the party she purports to represent. She reduced the level of discussion to scrappy trivia, personal attacks, and the vanity of one-upmanship. I do not buy the claim that she and her campaign campaign promulgate that Senator Obama has used these cheap strategies in the same way that she has.
Senator Clinton won a personal political battle yesterday. She can call that a victory. But she won it in a way that risks losing the larger and vastly more important war to redeem the American soul and repossess what once was a fine, generous-hearted country--a war that she could have helped us win by showing us her best qualities rather than her worst.
Don't call me a sore loser. I would have wanted to support the senator. I would have wanted to celebrate this victory, if it had been won without leaving so much destruction in its wake. I once liked her and respected her. It has been her choice to wallow in the mud of divisiveness and slander rather than to yield a single inch of ground. Too bad for all of us.
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 4/23/2008
Like someone pointing to treasure
Is the wise person
Who sees your faults and points them out.
Associate with such a sage.
Good will come of it, not bad,
If you associate with one such as this.
~Dhammapada 76
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Meetings With Remarkable Men (1978)
The story of G.I. Gurdjieff and his travels to achieve enlightenment and inner growth. Beginning with his childhood, the movie follows his journeys through Central Asia as he discovers new levels of spirituality through music, dance and near-encounters with death.
http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3542259/Gurdjieff_-_Meetings_With_Remarkable_Men_(1978).3542259.TPB.torrent
Concert For India’s Environment
I've been busy this week with work and only seem to have time listen to some music and watch a few short things. I'm really loving Chinmaya Dunster
these days so I poked around you tube and found a nice 3 part concert/documentary on Environment in India with Chinmaya playing in the back. Check it out.
Also a link for more info on the film: http://www.rebelliousspirit.com/osho-webzine/113
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8fal8iMMuI
Earth Day, Buddhism and Vegetarianism.
Today is the day in America that we celebrate our beautiful and life-giving planet Earth which hosts us as guests. Yet we aren't often being very nice guests with our treatment of this very environment that keeps us alive and thriving. So on this Earth Day I would like to address the connection between vegetarianism and the environment. If you strongly disagree with vegetarianism and don't wish to hear how eating meat impacts or environment then you might want to avoid this post. This is a subject that I am passionate about and have mentioned often here. I am trying to do my part to help understand how our eating habits affect our well-being both physically, socially and spiritually.The first precept in Buddhism encourages no killing and that can very much be applied to our diet. By switching to a vegetarian lifestyle we can greatly help save the environment in a big way.
Farm animals take up more water than vegetables/gains, taking nearly half of our water supply and 80% of our land. Animals raised for eating consume 90% of the soy, 80% of the corn crop and 70% of the grain. According to the Water Education Foundation, it takes 2,464 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef in California. This is the same amount of water you would use if you took a seven-minute shower every day for six entire months. In contrast, only 25 gallons of water are needed to produce one pound of wheat.
David Pimentel from Cornell University explained it this way, 40 calories of fossil fuel are needed to produce one calorie of protein from feedlot beef while only two calories of fossil fuel are needed to produce one calorie of protein from tofu. Adopting a vegan diet actually does more to reduce emissions than driving a hybrid car! Methane may be the most serious gas given off from livestock. In fact the meat industry is the number one source of methane throughout the world, releasing over 100 million tons a year. Methane is a gas that traps heat in the atmosphere and causes the earth’s temperature to rise. Noam Mohr in his report on global warming says, “methane is 21 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.” The summery being that raising animals for food is much less efficient than the growing of crops.
In addition, clear cutting of our precious rainforest's to raise animal meat is devastating to the overall environment for many reasons: The rainforest's clean our air, provide medicinal products, maintain a large biodiversity and act as a heat regulator and water pump for the environment.
They release moisture into the atmosphere which returns to the ground as rain. When the forest is cleared, the water cycle is disrupted, temperatures increase, droughts become common, and eventually deserts may form. For example, the drought in the Sahelian belt (south of the Saharah Desert), has been attributed to deforestation in West Africa. Estimates suggest that tropical deforestation currently contributes at least 19% of greenhouse gas emissions. Tropical forests have been described as "the lungs of the Earth". However in mature primary forest, storage and release of carbon is in balance. Carbon-dioxide consumed during photosynthesis is equalled by that released when organic matter decays. A standing forest acts as a store or sink of carbon. On the other hand, when forests are burned or logged and the debris left to decay, carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere.Rainforest's and other forests also help reduce and prevent flooding, soaking up water like a sponge. Without those forests soil erosion increases which adds to a leaching of life giving minerals. In general, our trees are vital resources in reducing global warming and maintaining the fragile balance that enables sustainable life possible. The devastation of our forests directly contribute to increasing animals suffering by destroying their habitats within our forests they are driven to less sustaining land and eventually extinction. It isn't just our forests that suffer, our oceans are damaged by over-fishing, the destruction of plant life important to animal survival along rivers and water born diseases that threaten both human and animal life.
Vegetarianism is following the middle path because it makes it more possible to consume only what we need and reduce our negative impact on a planet which we share with so many other sentient beings. We humans arrogantly think too often that we are the center of this planet and that the environment is simply something to consume and fulfill our cravings.
However, we are learning the painful lesson as to just how fragile the life sustaining environment really is. A healthy environment maintains the balance of life that is crucial to all life on this planet and that balance is the Earth's version of the middle path. We cause great suffering when we veer off that environmental middle path.
Vegetarianism is a way to over-come our desires for less sustainable foods that aren't necessary to man's survival. In Buddhism we know the danger and suffering that awaits us when we over-indulge in our desires and our lust for meat is destroying our bodies and our very home. We are acting like parasites that suck all the life out of an organism and then move onto the next one but we are quickly running out of resources to sustain that type of living. It is quite possible that our rampant consumer economy and lifestyle choices could very well be our own down-fall, we are quite possibly slowly killing ourselves and many other innocents lives--those of the animals. See, animals do not over-consume their resources, they take only what is needed and should be examples for us in how to maintain sustainability. As we know, we are forever linked to the animals and so as they die off, so do we.
The Buddha was greatly impacted and connected with the environment as he spent much of his time in the forests and wilderness. In addition, he developed a peaceful relationship with animals throughout his life, even stopping a charging elephant with his peaceful presence and it was in a deer park that Buddha taught his first lessons. It is said that when Buddha meditated under the Bodhi tree that animals gathered all around him and didn't feel frightened by his presence.
Respecting animals is also vital to understanding the Buddhadharma because we have all undoubtedly been one in a past life and a cow that we might be responsible for killing to provide meat could have been our mother at one point. In addition, Right Livelihood advises us to not take jobs that create suffering such as a butcher of animals.
We can talk about the second precept too in not taking what is not given. An animal does not want to suffer and does not give up it's life without a fight, so in other words it is not "giving" itself to us. We are taking what is not given by killing animals. We humans constantly take from the environment and animals as if they belong to us and are simply there to serve us and our needs.
All of this being said, it is not required to be a vegetarian in Buddhism and in some areas of the world it is nearly impossible not to eat meat because of poor crop growing conditions. However, I think that if one must eat meat that they should do it with as much moderation as possible and with Right Intention. This means killing animals as humanely as possible and not doing it out of anger or unnecessarily such as sport hunting. It also means using every single bit of the animal to reduce waste and therefore the number of animals killed.
May we all find ways to help ease our Mother Earth's suffering.
~Peace to all beings~
Masami Teraoka: See This Show
So here's what I had been planning to write about yesterday, before getting sidetracked by Rudyard Kipling and his son Jack. I wrote back in October of last year about the essay I had been asked to write as a part of the text for a catalogue for an exhibition of Masami Teraoka at Sam Freeman Gallery in Santa Monica. The show finally opened at the weekend, and Ellie and I were there to greet Masami--an old friend who once showed at Ellie's gallery, back in the early 1970s--and to see how the work looked in its installation.
I was in awe. Much of the work I'd written about I had seen only in reproduction--either in hard copy, in books, or online. As I told Masami, what I saw was much, much better than what I had written about. Quite different, in fact, in many respects.
First, the scale. These are massive, mural-sized paintings, many of them, and as imposing as their size would suggest. They dwarf the viewer, and demand to be experienced as physical presences, not simply as visual objects on the wall: to actually see them, you have to walk with them, end to end, following their "story" and their multiple incidents. Taken as a whole, the installation gives a whole different sense of the artist's intentions: the gallery space, with its calibrated lighting and high ceilings, becomes a cathedral--or in the case of one small side galery, a chapel--in which art occupies a quasi-sacred space and invites that kind of attention. Sacrilegious though many of the paintings might appear in theme and image, they refer the viewer indisputably to the traditions of Renaissance religious painting, and carry that weight with them.
Satirical, parodic, scatalogical, erotic, Teraoka's paintings mock the holy cows of present-day society and expose its myriad hypocrisies. He takes on Bush and politics, the Pope and sexual abuse by Catholic priests, food fetishes and exercise fads, sado-masochist perversions and sexual stimulants. He explodes violence, sexism, and corporate greed with gleeful passion and often bawdy humor (take note, in "Cloning Eve/Viagra Falls," above, of the curious projections from the loins of mummified corpses--giving a whole new meaning to "rigor mortis!)
The work, then, is at once spiritual in intention and highly irreligious. It celebrates human diversity and the joys of art and culture even while poking fun at all hypocrisy and pretension. It is deeply engaged in life, even as it refuses to allow us to sweep death under the carpet of distractions. With its constant, bemused references to the ubiquity of twenty-first century technology, it celebrates the inventiveness and creativity of the human mind, even as it deplores the results to which some of our greatest achievements are put. Its vision is lively, voracious, wildly comprehensive, charged with irrepressible energy and, yes, compassionate toward our wayward species.
All of which it to say that if you live in or near Los Angeles, you should not miss the opportunity to see this show. Knowing how frequently important work gets overlooked in the welter of what is fashionable in the art world, I'm hoping that this one receives the attention it deserves. I know, I know, I wrote the catalogue. I'm not exactly an impartial witness. But I'm asking you to trust me on this one anyway.
I was in awe. Much of the work I'd written about I had seen only in reproduction--either in hard copy, in books, or online. As I told Masami, what I saw was much, much better than what I had written about. Quite different, in fact, in many respects.
First, the scale. These are massive, mural-sized paintings, many of them, and as imposing as their size would suggest. They dwarf the viewer, and demand to be experienced as physical presences, not simply as visual objects on the wall: to actually see them, you have to walk with them, end to end, following their "story" and their multiple incidents. Taken as a whole, the installation gives a whole different sense of the artist's intentions: the gallery space, with its calibrated lighting and high ceilings, becomes a cathedral--or in the case of one small side galery, a chapel--in which art occupies a quasi-sacred space and invites that kind of attention. Sacrilegious though many of the paintings might appear in theme and image, they refer the viewer indisputably to the traditions of Renaissance religious painting, and carry that weight with them.
Satirical, parodic, scatalogical, erotic, Teraoka's paintings mock the holy cows of present-day society and expose its myriad hypocrisies. He takes on Bush and politics, the Pope and sexual abuse by Catholic priests, food fetishes and exercise fads, sado-masochist perversions and sexual stimulants. He explodes violence, sexism, and corporate greed with gleeful passion and often bawdy humor (take note, in "Cloning Eve/Viagra Falls," above, of the curious projections from the loins of mummified corpses--giving a whole new meaning to "rigor mortis!)
The work, then, is at once spiritual in intention and highly irreligious. It celebrates human diversity and the joys of art and culture even while poking fun at all hypocrisy and pretension. It is deeply engaged in life, even as it refuses to allow us to sweep death under the carpet of distractions. With its constant, bemused references to the ubiquity of twenty-first century technology, it celebrates the inventiveness and creativity of the human mind, even as it deplores the results to which some of our greatest achievements are put. Its vision is lively, voracious, wildly comprehensive, charged with irrepressible energy and, yes, compassionate toward our wayward species.
All of which it to say that if you live in or near Los Angeles, you should not miss the opportunity to see this show. Knowing how frequently important work gets overlooked in the welter of what is fashionable in the art world, I'm hoping that this one receives the attention it deserves. I know, I know, I wrote the catalogue. I'm not exactly an impartial witness. But I'm asking you to trust me on this one anyway.
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 4/22/2008
A fool conscious of her foolishness
Is to that extent wise. But a fool who considers himself wise
Is the one to be called a fool.
~Dhammapada 63
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 4/21/2008
Wisdom is the opposite of greed, hate and delusion is so far as greed, hate and delusion create blindness, while knowledge restores sight.
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 4/20/2008
Great compassion and skilful means (directed toward liberation) are conditions for the perfections. Skilful means is the wisdom which transforms giving (and the other nine perfections) into requisites for awakening. Through wisdom a bodhisattva brings him or herself across (the stream of suffering), through compassion he or she leads others across. Through wisdom one understands the suffering of others, through compassion one strives to alleviate their suffering. Through wisdom one destroys all attachments, but because of compassion, one never desists from activity that benefits others. Through wisdom one is free from "I-making" and "mine-making," through compassion one is free from lethargy and depression. Through wisdom and compassion one becomes one's own protector and the protector of others.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Kipling & Son
I was about to write something different today, but I got side-tracked by the excellent Masterpiece Theater dramatization of Rudyard Kipling's loss of his son, Jack, to the slaughter of World War I, the "war to end all wars." "My Boy Jack" was another powerful indictment of war, blind patriotism, and the nationalist spirit that inspires them.
Kipling is superbly played by the actor who also wrote the piece, David Haig, and the terribly young son Jack, also superb, by the Harry Potter star, Daniel Radcliffe.
Since I was a child and had them read to me, I have always loved Kipling's stories. I read "The Jungle Book" and "The Just-So Stories" to my children when they were young, rediscovering the sheer oral pleasure of reading Kipling's words out loud: what could be more glorious and appealing than that "great, grey-green, greasy Limpopo river," or "old dog Dingo, grinning like a coal scuttle"? As an adult, certainly, I was not unaware of the imperialist paternalism behind the Mowgli stories, nor of the cheesiness of Kipling's jaunty verse, but these faults mattered little compared to the joys of narrative and language.
Until close to the end, "My Boy Jack" threatened to undermine everything about Kipling that I loved. It was unsparing in its exposure of his simple-minded jingoism, his devotion to the monarchy and the British Empire, his unquestioning and enthusiastic rush to war with "the bloody Hun." Returning to his home country from years of world-wide travels, he was by this time widely known and influential not merely as a literary figure, but in the world of politics and the military elite. Brought up in this spirit of nationalistic pride, Kipling's boy Jack was mortified by his rejection by the Royal Navy on the grounds of his severe myopia; initially, he was rejected by the officer's training academy at Sandhurst, too, but his father used every ounce of his significant influence to get him admitted--despite the fact that without his glasses the lad was nearly blind.
Gung-ho for the war and the defeat of Kaiser Wilhelm, well-educated young Britons like Jack were volunteering manfully for the armed forces as junior officers and being sent off like lambs to the slaughter in the poppy fields of France. (Read Rupert Brooke and this poem by Wilfred Owen, or this one, among many others, for a feel for the initial pride and the disillusionment.) With his father's blessing--and his required permission--Jack was posted to France in charge of an infantry platoon at the age of seventeen. He celebrated his eighteenth birthday in the sodden, vermin-infested trenches, ankle deep in filth and mud and the blood of the injured. And at the age of eighteen plus one day, he led his men "over the top" into enemy machine gun fire, where all but one were mowed down by enemy bullets.
The family--mother, sister, father Rudyard--were informed by telegram that Jack was "missing," and spent months contending with the cruel hope that he might yet show up alive; until the lone survivor from his platoon showed up at their home and told the dreadful story of his death. Racked with guilt and grief, Kipling was brought face-to-face with the futility and tragedy of it all, and the teleplay ended with a scene in which he recites with deathly dispassion the poem that he wrote to mourn his son's death. Here it is:
My Boy Jack
“Have you news of my boy Jack?”
The tragic part, for me, is that Kipling still could not transcend the jingoism inherent in that "he did not shame his kind," nor the need to "hold [his] head up all the more." He still needed, perhaps more desperately than before, to believe in the meaning of his son's sacrifice--even though it was no more than to "that wind blowing and that tide!" The teleplay has him agonizing over existential doubts, and the belief that he has condemned his son not to some glorious afterlife, but to "oblivion." Clearly, he had glimpsed the futility, but could not allow himself to acknowledge it.
With Jack's mother and his sister, it was different of course--both, too, superbly acted roles. They got it from the first, but were powerless to argue with Kipling's male conviction and authority. And the real tragedy of it all is that NOTHING HAS CHANGED. Here we are, close to one hundred years later, with a predominantly male, predominantly military power structure (in BOTH conflicting worlds) sending others to their needless deaths in order to promote the interests of that same predominantly male, predominantly military power structure. We have learned nothing from a century of wars and countless millions of human beings slaughtered.
Must we still stand, hand over heart, flag pin in lapel, and pay pious homage to the memorials we erect, supposedly to honor the dead? It all brought me, once again, to tears.
Kipling is superbly played by the actor who also wrote the piece, David Haig, and the terribly young son Jack, also superb, by the Harry Potter star, Daniel Radcliffe.
Since I was a child and had them read to me, I have always loved Kipling's stories. I read "The Jungle Book" and "The Just-So Stories" to my children when they were young, rediscovering the sheer oral pleasure of reading Kipling's words out loud: what could be more glorious and appealing than that "great, grey-green, greasy Limpopo river," or "old dog Dingo, grinning like a coal scuttle"? As an adult, certainly, I was not unaware of the imperialist paternalism behind the Mowgli stories, nor of the cheesiness of Kipling's jaunty verse, but these faults mattered little compared to the joys of narrative and language.
Until close to the end, "My Boy Jack" threatened to undermine everything about Kipling that I loved. It was unsparing in its exposure of his simple-minded jingoism, his devotion to the monarchy and the British Empire, his unquestioning and enthusiastic rush to war with "the bloody Hun." Returning to his home country from years of world-wide travels, he was by this time widely known and influential not merely as a literary figure, but in the world of politics and the military elite. Brought up in this spirit of nationalistic pride, Kipling's boy Jack was mortified by his rejection by the Royal Navy on the grounds of his severe myopia; initially, he was rejected by the officer's training academy at Sandhurst, too, but his father used every ounce of his significant influence to get him admitted--despite the fact that without his glasses the lad was nearly blind.
Gung-ho for the war and the defeat of Kaiser Wilhelm, well-educated young Britons like Jack were volunteering manfully for the armed forces as junior officers and being sent off like lambs to the slaughter in the poppy fields of France. (Read Rupert Brooke and this poem by Wilfred Owen, or this one, among many others, for a feel for the initial pride and the disillusionment.) With his father's blessing--and his required permission--Jack was posted to France in charge of an infantry platoon at the age of seventeen. He celebrated his eighteenth birthday in the sodden, vermin-infested trenches, ankle deep in filth and mud and the blood of the injured. And at the age of eighteen plus one day, he led his men "over the top" into enemy machine gun fire, where all but one were mowed down by enemy bullets.
The family--mother, sister, father Rudyard--were informed by telegram that Jack was "missing," and spent months contending with the cruel hope that he might yet show up alive; until the lone survivor from his platoon showed up at their home and told the dreadful story of his death. Racked with guilt and grief, Kipling was brought face-to-face with the futility and tragedy of it all, and the teleplay ended with a scene in which he recites with deathly dispassion the poem that he wrote to mourn his son's death. Here it is:
My Boy Jack
“Have you news of my boy Jack?”
Not this tide.
“When d’you think that he’ll come back?”
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.
“Has any one else had word of him?”
Not this tide.
For what is sunk will hardly swim,
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.
“Oh, dear, what comfort can I find?”
None this tide,
Nor any tide,
Except he did not shame his kind—
Not even with that wind blowing, and that tide.
Then hold your head up all the more,
This tide,
And every tide;
Because he was the son you bore,
And gave to that wind blowing and that tide!
The tragic part, for me, is that Kipling still could not transcend the jingoism inherent in that "he did not shame his kind," nor the need to "hold [his] head up all the more." He still needed, perhaps more desperately than before, to believe in the meaning of his son's sacrifice--even though it was no more than to "that wind blowing and that tide!" The teleplay has him agonizing over existential doubts, and the belief that he has condemned his son not to some glorious afterlife, but to "oblivion." Clearly, he had glimpsed the futility, but could not allow himself to acknowledge it.
With Jack's mother and his sister, it was different of course--both, too, superbly acted roles. They got it from the first, but were powerless to argue with Kipling's male conviction and authority. And the real tragedy of it all is that NOTHING HAS CHANGED. Here we are, close to one hundred years later, with a predominantly male, predominantly military power structure (in BOTH conflicting worlds) sending others to their needless deaths in order to promote the interests of that same predominantly male, predominantly military power structure. We have learned nothing from a century of wars and countless millions of human beings slaughtered.
Must we still stand, hand over heart, flag pin in lapel, and pay pious homage to the memorials we erect, supposedly to honor the dead? It all brought me, once again, to tears.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Heart Sutra by His Holiness Dalai Lama
Heart Sutra by His Holiness Dalai Lama
In Essence of the Heart Sutra, the Dalai Lama translates and interprets a central teaching of Buddhism with his trademark precision and straight talk. In the Heart Sutra, the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara describes how to train in the perfection of wisdom by seeing through the illusions of all things. The Dalai Lama goes through the text passage by passage, after an extensive introduction to the basics of Buddhism and the Mahayana tradition's emphasis on emptiness. This doesn't take long, as the entire sutra covers all of three pages, but the Dalai Lama shows how understanding emptiness is a key to happiness and liberation from suffering. Although Essence of the Heart Sutra does not differ significantly in overall message from previous offerings such as The Meaning of Life and An Open Heart, in this book the Dalai Lama stays focused on the relevance of the Heart Sutra, and who better to explain it than the man reported to be the present-day incarnation of Avalokiteshvara himself.
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Saturday, April 19, 2008
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 4/19/2008
Wisdom is mentioned immediately after renunciation: a) because renunciation is perfected and purified by wisdom; b) to show that since concentration is the proximate cause of wisdom, there is no wisdom in the absence of meditation (which requires renunciation or letting go).
Friday, April 18, 2008
Thus I Have Heard:The Life & Teachings of Chögyam Trungpa
Thus I Have Heard, Nine Films on the Life and Teachings of Chögyam Trungpa captures the power, the depth, and the brilliance of this remarkable teacher during the seventeen years that he taught in North America. It also conveys his immense gentleness and humor and his capacity to touch the essence of humanness in each of us.
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