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.
Saturday, June 30, 2012
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
Friday, June 29, 2012
HURRAH!
A big hurrah for those five members of the US Supreme Court, including Chief Justice Roberts, whose votes upheld the constitutionality of what is now commonly called Obamacare. Originally intended as a disparagement, the term is increasingly used with pride and confidence by those who defend it--and wish only to improve on its initial success in bringing the concept of universal health care to a reality in this country.
I have heard it argued, and I suspect it's true, that Roberts acted out of concern for the historical accounting of his court's legacy. This is a moment of reprieve from the increasing appearance of naked partisanship that has threatened to become its lasting reputation.
From the point of view of one who observes these things in mindfulness of the teachings of the Buddha, the Supreme Court decision brings us as a nation one step closer to the practice of compassion for all our citizens. In his op-ed article today, Paul Krugman rightly expressed dismay at the sheer cruelty of those who, often virulently, oppose every effort to assure the provision of health care for all those who need it--the most basic of all human rights. It takes a cruel mind, indeed, to challenge the needs of the very young, the sick, and the elderly and to deprive them of access to the care they need.
Those who now declare their readiness to push forward with further efforts to repeal the health care bill are largely the same as those who loudly proclaim their faith in American exceptionalism. Yet America lags far behind other developed countries in the provision of this most basic human need. This is no way to be exceptional, still less reason to boast about it. It is a national shame that we shirk our moral duty to address the suffering of the most vulnerable among us. We arrogantly lecture others about their failings in matters of human rights, but fail notably to see what the words of the Bible call the "beam" in our own eye.
Quite apart from all legal questions, yesterday's Supreme Court decision reaffirms our country's obligation to exercise compassion for even the humblest and least powerful of its citizens. So, yes: hurrah!
I have heard it argued, and I suspect it's true, that Roberts acted out of concern for the historical accounting of his court's legacy. This is a moment of reprieve from the increasing appearance of naked partisanship that has threatened to become its lasting reputation.
From the point of view of one who observes these things in mindfulness of the teachings of the Buddha, the Supreme Court decision brings us as a nation one step closer to the practice of compassion for all our citizens. In his op-ed article today, Paul Krugman rightly expressed dismay at the sheer cruelty of those who, often virulently, oppose every effort to assure the provision of health care for all those who need it--the most basic of all human rights. It takes a cruel mind, indeed, to challenge the needs of the very young, the sick, and the elderly and to deprive them of access to the care they need.
Those who now declare their readiness to push forward with further efforts to repeal the health care bill are largely the same as those who loudly proclaim their faith in American exceptionalism. Yet America lags far behind other developed countries in the provision of this most basic human need. This is no way to be exceptional, still less reason to boast about it. It is a national shame that we shirk our moral duty to address the suffering of the most vulnerable among us. We arrogantly lecture others about their failings in matters of human rights, but fail notably to see what the words of the Bible call the "beam" in our own eye.
Quite apart from all legal questions, yesterday's Supreme Court decision reaffirms our country's obligation to exercise compassion for even the humblest and least powerful of its citizens. So, yes: hurrah!
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 6/29/2012
"This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness."
~His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Thursday, June 28, 2012
BUDDHIST TALES
If you're committed to the pursuit of a conscious life, you'll surely be among those who love to sit with their children or their grandchildren and read stories. It is one of the richest of pleasures life can afford, and one that rewards the reader quite as much as the child who sits--sometimes squirming!--in her lap and listens to the words. There is something magical about stories, something we humans deeply yearn for and learn from. I have often said that my greatest reservation about dying has to do with not being able to know the end of the story. Well, stories, plural, because there are so many of them that run concurrently in our lives, from the big ones--will human beings one day land on Mars? and when?--to the little ones that start anew every day of our lives.
The answer, if you take a look at some of the items produced by Barefoot Books, is: quite a lot. I was writing, last week, about their Indian Tales. Since then, I have been reading some of their other books for children of a variety of ages, and continue to be impressed by their quality, both as skillfully told stories and as picture books. Even the simplest of their books is a rich verbal and visual experience. And they are committed to a healthy, environmentally conscious world view and to the kind of skills and values we learn from the teachings of the Buddha.
Take, for example, Listen, Listen--a board-page book intended for the very youngest children. Written by Phillis Gershator and illustrated by Alison Jay, it a visual delight, and one that immediately grabbed the eye and held the attention of my little grandson--who already loves to join in turning those sturdy pages. Painted with sophisticated simplicity against a crackle-glaze background, the images of the natural world are colorful and sweet, but without being sentimental. The story is about the cycle of the seasons. The text is beautifully written in simple rhyming couplets, quite as appealing to the ear as the pictures are to the eye; their repetitive, onomatopoeic evocation of the sounds of animals and birds, the wind in the leaves and even of plants blossoming in the spring provides the kind of sound-sequence that holds the youngster's attention and stimulates the brain's important memorizing process. What it teaches ("listen, listen") is the value of paying close attention to the here and now.
Tenzin's Deer, by Barbara Soros and illustrated by Danuta Mayer, is aimed toward the slightly older child. It is the story of a Tibetan boy and his rescue of, devotion to, and eventual release of a wounded fawn. Again, beautifully illustrated with an informed sensitivity to the artistic traditions and conventions of Tibetan art, with its combined stylistic patterning and attention to realistic detail, the book extols the healing power of compassion. Along the way, but subtly, we learn a valuable lessons: about karma--the way in which skillful action leads to greater happiness; about non-attachment and the importance of being able to let go; about the release from suffering; and about the respect we owe to every living being. For a similar age group, I think, is The Gift, by Carol Ann Duffy and illustrated by Rob Ryan, the life-cycle story--childhood to old age--of a girl who discovers her own burial plot at an early age and "gifts" it to herself and her family as a place of natural beauty where the cycle of her life will be very naturally and beautifully completed. We are born, we do our share of suffering, we experience illness and old age, and die...
And finally--this for somewhat older children--there is the Barefoot Book of Buddhist Tales, retold by Sherab Chodzin and Alexandra Kohn and illustrated by Marie Cameron. Even the exquisitely painted margins of this book are done with an eye for the varied traditions of Buddhist art as well as for each story's themes and motifs. The illustrations recall the conventions of the mogul painting, as well as the Orient as we learn about in such favorites as the countless children's versions of The Arabian Nights. They evoke the exoticism, the mystery--and the humor--of the stories, which range from Zen anecdotes to mythic tales from India, China and Japan. Each of them celebrates the range and influence of Buddhist teachings in the SouthEast Asian countries, and makes a point of clarifying some aspect of those teachings. A useful "Foreward"is helpful to adults in understanding the context of the stories with briefly told historical information about the origin and spread of Buddhism and its mythical and archetypal extensions. As it concludes, "These stories reflect many profound truths of the Buddha's teaching, but no matter how profound, the truth is always simple and can be grasped by young children at least as easily as adults."
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 6/28/2012
"Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them."
~His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
THE BIG ROCK... AND THE VERY SMALL ROOM
Sunday morning, Ellie and I went down to the Los Angeles County Museum to join in the celebration of the dedication of Levitated Mass--the Michael Heizer outdoor sculptural installation on the museum grounds.
You could hardly have lived in Southern California these past three months or so and not know something about this massive, 340-ton granite boulder and its journey from the quarry in Riverside County where the artist laid claim to it forty years ago for just this purpose. Its transportation to its site at the museum required the fabrication of a special vehicle and an eleven-day trek that drew thousands of gaping spectators--not to mention daily media coverage--along the way. It is now supported in place--for the next thirty-five hundred years, the LACMA's director, Michael Govan assures us--by a 465-foot long concrete slot that allows the visitor to walk directly underneath what is by now affectionately known as "the big rock."
There were speeches--the Mayor, the County Supervisor, the Chairman of the Museum's Board of Trustees, the Director. The artist kept wisely mum, allowing his work to speak for him. It did so, given its scale, quite loudly. The ribbon was cut by a delightful little girl, and the dignitaries led the way down the slope and under the rock for the first official viewing, followed by a parade of donors (the piece cost, as I understand it, some $10 million--though my private guess is that this would be an understatement,) a bevy of media and hundreds of us, the hoi-polloi...
We gazed upward and admired what few people ever see: the underside of a boulder that has the heft of an asteroid.
Okay, interesting things to think about here--the ancient history of the megalith, the Brobginangian object that reminds us ephemeral beings of our fragility and impermanence; we think of giant Olmec heads, of Stonehenge other rock circles, of Egyptian obelisks, of gigantic statues of the Buddha... objects whose very weight and imposing presence imbue our species with a sense of spiritual awe. We think of mass and and levitation, certainly, of weight and volume, of contour and shape. We think of the symbiotic relationship between art and nature. The surrounding flat, landscaped area of sand-colored decomposed granite reminds us that the rock originates in the California desert, that we live in this relatively fertile spot by the ocean, separated only by mountains from that arid expanse; and, as Mayor Villaraigosa aptly reminded us in his speech, in a world of changing climate that requires our responsible stewardship. Here in Los Angeles, our cars and freeways contribute excessively to the pollution of our atmosphere.
Beyond all this, I found myself troubled by a couple of perhaps picky details. One, the rock really doesn't "levitate." It sits, firmly bolted to its support structure, the very solid concrete channel that is engineered to carry its weight. I had expected something more magical, more threatening somehow, more oppressive. I was looking for what I might describe as a sense of imminence, or omen, and I didn't really find it. And then it seems to me that the same support structure, in its considerable length and width, tends to minimize the scale of the rock as you approach it. Once you get there, okay, it's pretty darn big, but it's somewhat diminished in the perspective from which you're invited to approach it. Still, definitely worth a visit, worth spending some time with. (A walking meditation, perhaps: "One Hour/One Rock.)
From the macro to the micro: we also visited our friend Valerie Wilcox's exhibition at Gallery 825 on La Cienega last week. She takes the tiny room she is given for a solo show and orchestrates it into a whole environment whose implications are much larger than the actual space she occupies. I wrote in an earlier entry in The Buddha Diaries about the idiosyncratic sculptural objects in which she explored the extension of line into a third dimension. Now, it seems to me, she pushes that interest in line still further, into the spatial environment itself. Her quirky black "marks in motion," installed in random patterns against the white wall...
... invite the eye to create its own lines, pointing along inexhaustible, multi-directional paths that lead around and back on themselves in a way that is at once amusing and as puzzling as a maze. She has turned another wall black...
... (seen here installed with a small, boxy white square of canvas inscribed with dotted lines) using the traditional means of mark- (or line-) making: graphite. On close examination, it reveals the textured process of its making: more lines--thick, slow lines that suggest a dark, watery surface, always in motion, setting up interesting black/white visual reverberations with the wall across from it. All of which goes to show, perhaps, that you don't actually have to act big to be big. Good things, we might infer, can come in small environments.
You could hardly have lived in Southern California these past three months or so and not know something about this massive, 340-ton granite boulder and its journey from the quarry in Riverside County where the artist laid claim to it forty years ago for just this purpose. Its transportation to its site at the museum required the fabrication of a special vehicle and an eleven-day trek that drew thousands of gaping spectators--not to mention daily media coverage--along the way. It is now supported in place--for the next thirty-five hundred years, the LACMA's director, Michael Govan assures us--by a 465-foot long concrete slot that allows the visitor to walk directly underneath what is by now affectionately known as "the big rock."
There were speeches--the Mayor, the County Supervisor, the Chairman of the Museum's Board of Trustees, the Director. The artist kept wisely mum, allowing his work to speak for him. It did so, given its scale, quite loudly. The ribbon was cut by a delightful little girl, and the dignitaries led the way down the slope and under the rock for the first official viewing, followed by a parade of donors (the piece cost, as I understand it, some $10 million--though my private guess is that this would be an understatement,) a bevy of media and hundreds of us, the hoi-polloi...
We gazed upward and admired what few people ever see: the underside of a boulder that has the heft of an asteroid.
Okay, interesting things to think about here--the ancient history of the megalith, the Brobginangian object that reminds us ephemeral beings of our fragility and impermanence; we think of giant Olmec heads, of Stonehenge other rock circles, of Egyptian obelisks, of gigantic statues of the Buddha... objects whose very weight and imposing presence imbue our species with a sense of spiritual awe. We think of mass and and levitation, certainly, of weight and volume, of contour and shape. We think of the symbiotic relationship between art and nature. The surrounding flat, landscaped area of sand-colored decomposed granite reminds us that the rock originates in the California desert, that we live in this relatively fertile spot by the ocean, separated only by mountains from that arid expanse; and, as Mayor Villaraigosa aptly reminded us in his speech, in a world of changing climate that requires our responsible stewardship. Here in Los Angeles, our cars and freeways contribute excessively to the pollution of our atmosphere.
Beyond all this, I found myself troubled by a couple of perhaps picky details. One, the rock really doesn't "levitate." It sits, firmly bolted to its support structure, the very solid concrete channel that is engineered to carry its weight. I had expected something more magical, more threatening somehow, more oppressive. I was looking for what I might describe as a sense of imminence, or omen, and I didn't really find it. And then it seems to me that the same support structure, in its considerable length and width, tends to minimize the scale of the rock as you approach it. Once you get there, okay, it's pretty darn big, but it's somewhat diminished in the perspective from which you're invited to approach it. Still, definitely worth a visit, worth spending some time with. (A walking meditation, perhaps: "One Hour/One Rock.)
... invite the eye to create its own lines, pointing along inexhaustible, multi-directional paths that lead around and back on themselves in a way that is at once amusing and as puzzling as a maze. She has turned another wall black...
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 6/27/2012
"A truly compassionate attitude toward others does not change even if they behave negatively or hurt you."
~His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
AN UNTOWARD EVENT
(A strange word, that: un-toward what? It's not one I often get to use, but I kind of like it when I do: untoward...)
So we went over to our daughter Sarah's house in Highland Park yesterday afternoon, to hang pictures--a skill in which I can claim some modest expertise, having started out my career as a preparator forty years ago, when Ellie first opened her gallery. Since then, I have hung hundreds of them, large and small, in dozens of locations. All you need is a measure, a pencil to mark the precise location on the wall, a hammer, an assortment of nails and picture hooks, and a reasonably good eye. A level helps, too. And sometimes, of course, a ladder...
Well we got the pictures hung with the the help of Ed and under the watchful eye of Luka, who--after a hearty lunch--appeared to enjoy the experience. It was six o'clock before we were done, and I was tired and hungry when we set out for home, unaware that this untoward experience was awaiting us just around the corner. I was driving west at a perfectly normal speed on York Street, a busy thoroughfare in Highland Park, when Ellie yelled a warning just as a car darted out into my field of vision from a parking place at the curb--no more than a flash of sudden movement--and slammed into my car's right side. His intention, clearly, had been to make a u-turn, and might have succeeded had my Prius not been in his immediate path.
He stopped. I stopped, in the middle of the road, unsure what damage might have been done or whether anyone was hurt. Traffic began to pile up behind us. A young Hispanic guy, generously tattoo'ed, climbed out of a somewhat battered white Geo and looked at me sheepishly. The anger and fear that had been my immediate response subsided rapidly. I signaled to him to stay where he was and pulled in to the curb ahead of him.
I said, "We should call the police"--thinking that there would have to be an accident report for insurance purposes; but he begged me, "Please, no police, please. I pay, no worry." He seemed like a perfectly nice young man, open-faced, friendly; but he did not, frankly, look as though he could pay for a hamburger and fries at the neighboring McDonalds, let alone the damage to my car. Both doors on the passenger side were badly dented and scraped--though both, I ascertained thankfully, were still operable. The damage looked to me to be superficial, but it would certainly be expensive to repair. A couple of thousand dollars, at a guess.
The young man had no driver's license and, I presumed, no insurance on his car. He pleaded some more for understanding: he was already in trouble, he said. He was liable for five years in jail for an incident somehow involving a girlfriend and a baby. That didn't sound good. He offered to call his uncle, to vouch for him. He would pay for the damage, he insisted.
I wasn't honestly sure wat I should get from him, by way of insuring that he did not simply disappear on us. He had not left the scene, that much was to his credit. But I was obviously unsure that he was to be trusted. He called his uncle. I called my insurance company. I spent a good long while on the phone making a report; the agent told me that it was unnecessary to call the police--and that even if I called them, they would likely not show up. A good thing for my Hispanic friend. I was actually growing quite fond of him, and would not have wanted to bring further trouble into his already troubled life.
The uncle arrived. We exchanged further information--names, phone contacts, license plate numbers. The uncle offered to have the repairs done at his expense at one of his relatives' body shops. We politely declined. Our insurance company had already made a date for us at its own preferred repair place, to get an estimate. And we parted on good terms, with handshakes all around. I could not resist the opportunity to share my wisdom with our young friend: take this as a wake-up call, I told him. It's a lesson that you needed: pay attention--and not only when you're driving. It's time to learn to pay attention to your life. He nodded eagerly. Yes, he said, he understood.
It would be nice to think that this accident might prove a turnaround moment in this young man's life. We'll probably never know. Meantime, however, it was also a good moment to take note and learn something myself. It was not about paying attention. The accident was not caused by any inattention on my part; there was nothing I could have done to anticipate or prevent it. No, the teaching had to do with impermanence, with learning to expect the unexpected, taking nothing for granted. The world out there can intrude upon us suddenly without any warning, and bring havoc into our lives. And the other part was the reminder of mortality: that little Geo turning out in front of me might, God forbid, have been a truck running a red light at high speed and broadsiding my little Prius. A faction of time and space away, the outcome could have been very different.
We are both fine. No injuries sustained. The car will be fixed. There will be time consumed, a bit of bureaucratic hassle. But we are reminded of the unpredictability of life, and of our own fragility; and are perhaps a little wiser for the experience.
So we went over to our daughter Sarah's house in Highland Park yesterday afternoon, to hang pictures--a skill in which I can claim some modest expertise, having started out my career as a preparator forty years ago, when Ellie first opened her gallery. Since then, I have hung hundreds of them, large and small, in dozens of locations. All you need is a measure, a pencil to mark the precise location on the wall, a hammer, an assortment of nails and picture hooks, and a reasonably good eye. A level helps, too. And sometimes, of course, a ladder...
Well we got the pictures hung with the the help of Ed and under the watchful eye of Luka, who--after a hearty lunch--appeared to enjoy the experience. It was six o'clock before we were done, and I was tired and hungry when we set out for home, unaware that this untoward experience was awaiting us just around the corner. I was driving west at a perfectly normal speed on York Street, a busy thoroughfare in Highland Park, when Ellie yelled a warning just as a car darted out into my field of vision from a parking place at the curb--no more than a flash of sudden movement--and slammed into my car's right side. His intention, clearly, had been to make a u-turn, and might have succeeded had my Prius not been in his immediate path.
He stopped. I stopped, in the middle of the road, unsure what damage might have been done or whether anyone was hurt. Traffic began to pile up behind us. A young Hispanic guy, generously tattoo'ed, climbed out of a somewhat battered white Geo and looked at me sheepishly. The anger and fear that had been my immediate response subsided rapidly. I signaled to him to stay where he was and pulled in to the curb ahead of him.
I said, "We should call the police"--thinking that there would have to be an accident report for insurance purposes; but he begged me, "Please, no police, please. I pay, no worry." He seemed like a perfectly nice young man, open-faced, friendly; but he did not, frankly, look as though he could pay for a hamburger and fries at the neighboring McDonalds, let alone the damage to my car. Both doors on the passenger side were badly dented and scraped--though both, I ascertained thankfully, were still operable. The damage looked to me to be superficial, but it would certainly be expensive to repair. A couple of thousand dollars, at a guess.
The young man had no driver's license and, I presumed, no insurance on his car. He pleaded some more for understanding: he was already in trouble, he said. He was liable for five years in jail for an incident somehow involving a girlfriend and a baby. That didn't sound good. He offered to call his uncle, to vouch for him. He would pay for the damage, he insisted.
I wasn't honestly sure wat I should get from him, by way of insuring that he did not simply disappear on us. He had not left the scene, that much was to his credit. But I was obviously unsure that he was to be trusted. He called his uncle. I called my insurance company. I spent a good long while on the phone making a report; the agent told me that it was unnecessary to call the police--and that even if I called them, they would likely not show up. A good thing for my Hispanic friend. I was actually growing quite fond of him, and would not have wanted to bring further trouble into his already troubled life.
The uncle arrived. We exchanged further information--names, phone contacts, license plate numbers. The uncle offered to have the repairs done at his expense at one of his relatives' body shops. We politely declined. Our insurance company had already made a date for us at its own preferred repair place, to get an estimate. And we parted on good terms, with handshakes all around. I could not resist the opportunity to share my wisdom with our young friend: take this as a wake-up call, I told him. It's a lesson that you needed: pay attention--and not only when you're driving. It's time to learn to pay attention to your life. He nodded eagerly. Yes, he said, he understood.
It would be nice to think that this accident might prove a turnaround moment in this young man's life. We'll probably never know. Meantime, however, it was also a good moment to take note and learn something myself. It was not about paying attention. The accident was not caused by any inattention on my part; there was nothing I could have done to anticipate or prevent it. No, the teaching had to do with impermanence, with learning to expect the unexpected, taking nothing for granted. The world out there can intrude upon us suddenly without any warning, and bring havoc into our lives. And the other part was the reminder of mortality: that little Geo turning out in front of me might, God forbid, have been a truck running a red light at high speed and broadsiding my little Prius. A faction of time and space away, the outcome could have been very different.
We are both fine. No injuries sustained. The car will be fixed. There will be time consumed, a bit of bureaucratic hassle. But we are reminded of the unpredictability of life, and of our own fragility; and are perhaps a little wiser for the experience.
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 6/26/2012
"Whether someone believes something or not, believer or non-believer, as long as you are a member of the human family, you need warm human feeling, warmhearted feeling. The question of world peace, the question of family peace, the question of peace between wife and husband, or peace between parents and children, everything is dependent on that feeling of love and warmheartedness."
~His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Monday, June 25, 2012
VISITING CHARLIE
I had the opportunity last week to reconnect with on old friend. Charles White, one of the key figures in 20th century African American art, died in 1979, but his son, Ian, still lives in the house where I used to visit Charlie on a regular basis in the two years before he died. Ian was only thirteen years old when his father died, and today he is himself an artist--who devotes a good deal of time and energy to the preservation of his father's legacy.
The house where Charlie lived with his wife, Fran, is situated at the outermost reaches of the Los Angeles urban/suburban sprawl, in the arid foothills of Altadena where the mountain lion still roams. It's a long, steep, winding road up there from the 210 freeway, and you feel the world drop away behind you as you make the drive. It's more than thirty years since I last visited, but memories came flooding back with each steep curve.
I headed up that way often with my tape-recorder and my note pad to conduct a series of interviews with the artist as a part of my work on a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship to write a much-needed monograph on Charles White's life and art. I had found already that the usual historical resources--in books and journals--were remarkably thin. The best source of the information I needed was Charlie himself. Pursuing the project after his death, I traveled throughout the country to interview early associates, from the well-known (Jacob Lawrence in Seattle, Washington) to the relatively obscure (John Biggers in Jackson, Mississippi), from the streets of Harlem in uptown Manhattan to the archives of Golden State Mutual in Los Angeles.
For a well-educated and, I had always thought, well-informed young writer--and, I have to add, a nice white guy--it was an eye-opening experience. I learned a lot about my own complacent ignorance of an entire, rich field of American culture that had remained hidden from view; and about the institutional racism that served to keep it "underground." I learned a lot about my personal racial prejudices I had not known about--and would never have believed until confronted with them in my "travels with Charlie." I have Charles White to thank for that important education, not only about his work, but about myself.
I have to thank him also for his friendship. I got to know him first when I was Dean--and, soon after my arrival, Director--of what was then Otis Art Institute of Los Angeles County. (It was on my very first day as Dean that the L.A. County Supervisors, in their wisdom, and facing the wrath of taxpayers spurred on by Howard Jarvis and the infamous Proposition13, voted to cut off all funds from the school for which they had unquestioningly footed the bill for the sixty years of its existence. The Director resigned; I inherited his very hot hot seat.) Students and faculty were running amok, alarmed at the prospect of imminent closure. Charlie was a rock of support and comfort--usually over a three-martini lunch.
So all these memories came back as I drove that familiar route to Charlie and Fran's place last Thursday. Ian, then thirteen, is now... well, do the math: a grown man. Over the years, he has put together a truly remarkable archive of memorabilia and art works, and a vast, indispensable library of books on African American art and culture. In the interests of preserving his father's legacy and housing the expanding the archive, he managed to purchase the next door property, from which he maintains the website, Charles White: Images of Dignity. He is also deeply involved with the CEEJJES Institute founded by the Dr. Edmund W. Gordon family as "a cultural, education, and research foundation dedicated to improving the educational and social conditions for all disenfranchised people" with "a particular emphasis on the lives of children of color." The Institute is also the home of the Charles White Gallery and the Du Bois Literary Collective.
It was a profound pleasure to catch up with Ian and his work, and to revive these memories of a man I am proud to have called my friend. I have been invited to write a catalogue introduction for the exhibition of a collection of Charles White's work later this year, and will be posting more about this outstanding artist in future entries on The Buddha Diaries. I hope that you'll feel inspired to check out his work online, and perhaps to take further interest in his legacy.
The house where Charlie lived with his wife, Fran, is situated at the outermost reaches of the Los Angeles urban/suburban sprawl, in the arid foothills of Altadena where the mountain lion still roams. It's a long, steep, winding road up there from the 210 freeway, and you feel the world drop away behind you as you make the drive. It's more than thirty years since I last visited, but memories came flooding back with each steep curve.
I headed up that way often with my tape-recorder and my note pad to conduct a series of interviews with the artist as a part of my work on a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship to write a much-needed monograph on Charles White's life and art. I had found already that the usual historical resources--in books and journals--were remarkably thin. The best source of the information I needed was Charlie himself. Pursuing the project after his death, I traveled throughout the country to interview early associates, from the well-known (Jacob Lawrence in Seattle, Washington) to the relatively obscure (John Biggers in Jackson, Mississippi), from the streets of Harlem in uptown Manhattan to the archives of Golden State Mutual in Los Angeles.
For a well-educated and, I had always thought, well-informed young writer--and, I have to add, a nice white guy--it was an eye-opening experience. I learned a lot about my own complacent ignorance of an entire, rich field of American culture that had remained hidden from view; and about the institutional racism that served to keep it "underground." I learned a lot about my personal racial prejudices I had not known about--and would never have believed until confronted with them in my "travels with Charlie." I have Charles White to thank for that important education, not only about his work, but about myself.
I have to thank him also for his friendship. I got to know him first when I was Dean--and, soon after my arrival, Director--of what was then Otis Art Institute of Los Angeles County. (It was on my very first day as Dean that the L.A. County Supervisors, in their wisdom, and facing the wrath of taxpayers spurred on by Howard Jarvis and the infamous Proposition13, voted to cut off all funds from the school for which they had unquestioningly footed the bill for the sixty years of its existence. The Director resigned; I inherited his very hot hot seat.) Students and faculty were running amok, alarmed at the prospect of imminent closure. Charlie was a rock of support and comfort--usually over a three-martini lunch.
So all these memories came back as I drove that familiar route to Charlie and Fran's place last Thursday. Ian, then thirteen, is now... well, do the math: a grown man. Over the years, he has put together a truly remarkable archive of memorabilia and art works, and a vast, indispensable library of books on African American art and culture. In the interests of preserving his father's legacy and housing the expanding the archive, he managed to purchase the next door property, from which he maintains the website, Charles White: Images of Dignity. He is also deeply involved with the CEEJJES Institute founded by the Dr. Edmund W. Gordon family as "a cultural, education, and research foundation dedicated to improving the educational and social conditions for all disenfranchised people" with "a particular emphasis on the lives of children of color." The Institute is also the home of the Charles White Gallery and the Du Bois Literary Collective.
It was a profound pleasure to catch up with Ian and his work, and to revive these memories of a man I am proud to have called my friend. I have been invited to write a catalogue introduction for the exhibition of a collection of Charles White's work later this year, and will be posting more about this outstanding artist in future entries on The Buddha Diaries. I hope that you'll feel inspired to check out his work online, and perhaps to take further interest in his legacy.
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 6/25/2012
"When we are young and again when we are old, we depend heavily on the affection of others. Between these stages we usually feel that we can do everything without help from others and that other people´s affection is simply not important. But at this stage I think it is very important to keep deep human affection."
~His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 6/23/2012
"Only the development of compassion and understanding for others can bring us the tranquillity and happiness we all seek."
~His Holiness the Dalai Lama
A GUEST ENTRY...
... by my friend Gary at CHISPHERE.
Mass Extinction or Evolution
Upright humans began c. 4 million years ago... Human history made a Great Leap Forward c. 50,000 years ago when standardized stone tools and cave paintings etc. appeared. This was approximately synchronous with a major extension of the range of humans to Australia and New Guinea using watercraft c. 40-30,000 years ago. Mass extinctions of large mammals occurred simultaneously. The Americas were colonized by the Clovis culture c. 11,000 BC--this corresponded to the end of the Pleistocene Era, the recession of the last Ice Age, and the beginning of the Recent Era, and was also associated with mass extinctions according to Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs and Steel. Although his excess of political correctness and almost oblivious recognition to the role of cultural differences and individuals in the shaping of history mars his theory of human development, Diamond is 90% spot on.
Mass Extinction or Evolution
Upright humans began c. 4 million years ago... Human history made a Great Leap Forward c. 50,000 years ago when standardized stone tools and cave paintings etc. appeared. This was approximately synchronous with a major extension of the range of humans to Australia and New Guinea using watercraft c. 40-30,000 years ago. Mass extinctions of large mammals occurred simultaneously. The Americas were colonized by the Clovis culture c. 11,000 BC--this corresponded to the end of the Pleistocene Era, the recession of the last Ice Age, and the beginning of the Recent Era, and was also associated with mass extinctions according to Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs and Steel. Although his excess of political correctness and almost oblivious recognition to the role of cultural differences and individuals in the shaping of history mars his theory of human development, Diamond is 90% spot on.
I feel that because we HAVE reached the tipping point in humankind's presence within the ecosphere/biota, it is time to do more than note the event. Sustainability of life different than we know it will inevitably be the next frontier of behavior required in order to survive in the NEW WORLD!
Data tools, not stone tools, are carving the path. Paintings will not appear on cave walls but on virtual screens and nanobots will deliver RNA interference with cancer cells to shut down their protein production, starving the cancer from its source of survival, as Andrew Fire and Craig Mello proved in 1998. For this work they received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2006.
What am I doing in my life to react to the tipping point that is significantly different in terms of my earlier behavior? To begin with, I have one car. I have painted my roof white, buy only what I need to wear, no extras, shop locally, walk to where I buy food, bike to where I can't walk unless it's just impractical, vote for and write to my political representatives and engage several blogs daily.
The Mountain Yellow Legged Frog was the most plentiful creature in Yosemite's eco system 10 years ago. Today is 94% depleted in all the California Sierra Range. It is temperature related. The glacier that supplied the water is in high retreat and water from it does not reach its destination in the meadowland below before it goes underground. Humankind is very like its ancestor, the frog. With all the science and money in the world, the truth is invisible to the very group that can make a difference, the 99%.
If you knew your home was going to be demolished in 10 years would you sit tight and wait?
I know that habitat imbalance is as rampant as the lack of political resolve regarding the changes that must be embraced to overcome it. I can self-immolateon on the steps of the EPA--with carefully organized media coverage, and a momentary spike of false concern will come and go. Perhaps a visit to the stock market floor with an endangered human from the Adamanese tribe who would be willing to self immolate? Of course these are only powerful, nightmarish images and horrific, frightening science fiction scenarios. They won't be performed.
A compelling request from the Delai Lama at the 2009 Climate Change Conference Nations to alert peaceful minds in positions of power has not brought climate change to the surface in any significant current political or economic national or international government debate. The MIC in each country represses and obfuscates the evidence for their own self-interest. Will the solution to overcoming the senseless waste of the amazing world we live in come and go without a fundamental paradigm shift? No, it won't. How to shift the paradigm in a very short time is the question. Will it take a meteorological event or "The Big One" to drive the point home? Our small, frail species with the big brain holds the keys but can't seem to reach out and open the door to the future.
O Spiritus Mundi, please come forth to awaken the still blind beast!
Love and hope, Gary
Love and hope, Gary
Friday, June 22, 2012
TO A DEMOCRATIC FRIEND...
... who castigates Obama and suggests that I'm too willing to turn a blind eye to what she sees to be his unprincipled actions, this letter (I trust she will not mind):
I think you do me an injustice in assuming that I do not examine these matters in great depth and sometimes anguish. I was born before, and lived through World War II. I earned my political pragmatism and my perhaps slightly jaundiced realism the hard way: with bombs and ration books and pervasive national fear and pain. And I had it easy. At that unhappy time, I am convinced, Churchill was principled only in so far as it furthered his obsession with defeating the Nazi empire. I'm also convinced that there are people we have to deal with in this day and age whose misguided fanaticism could lead, as did Hitler's, to world war, mass genocide--and even the extinction of our species.
As for the slippery slope you caution me to be aware of, let me play a little with your metaphor: I'm sure you will have noticed that our nation hardly occupies the high ground. The political world, particularly, is a morass of lies and slander, venality and self-interest. Unfortunately, this is not some weird, inexplicable anomaly thrust upon our unwilling, saintly selves, but a reflection of who we are. If there's a slippery slope, we're sliding down it, near the bottom already, and increasingly out of control. The precipice looms. in my view, we threw democracy off the cliff some time ago in order to facilitate our joy ride. Greed and ignorance have ceded the field to the interests of power and wealth.
Of course we should hold our president to higher standards. We should hold all our politicians to higher standards. But those you and I favor, the Democrats, are operating in a system already gone far awry, against political opponents who have no scruples whatsoever. It's all very well to stand outside that fray and cast aspersions from the luxury of the spotless high ground we like to think we occupy. Those poor bastards have no choice but to grovel in the pit of excrement created by our principled selves.
So there. My two cents. You say: be principled. I say: be real. I fear you're right, that we will not see eye to eye. But, as Ellie reminds me, reading this, politics should not be "off the table" as you suggest., even between friends who disagree so fervently. With love, Peter
A late added note, from the "Introduction" to the latest book out from my publisher, Parami Press, One Monk, Many Masters by Paul Breiter: "Ajahn Sumedho, a Western monk of the Theravada Thai Forest tradition, said, 'Any fool can say how things should be. It doesn't take any energy to criticize.' In ordinary life, we do more than enough fault-finding, and it doesn't bring us a whole lot of benefit. It is also a basic tenet that what we see in others is a projection of our own habit patterns." Amen.
A late added note, from the "Introduction" to the latest book out from my publisher, Parami Press, One Monk, Many Masters by Paul Breiter: "Ajahn Sumedho, a Western monk of the Theravada Thai Forest tradition, said, 'Any fool can say how things should be. It doesn't take any energy to criticize.' In ordinary life, we do more than enough fault-finding, and it doesn't bring us a whole lot of benefit. It is also a basic tenet that what we see in others is a projection of our own habit patterns." Amen.
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 6/22/2012
"True compassion is not just an emotional response but a firm commitment founded on reason."
~His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Thursday, June 21, 2012
(A NOTE...
... to new readers in South American countries: I note with great pleasure that my entries in The Buddha Diaries are beginning to attract more readers in your part of the world. I'd be truly grateful if you could help me spread the word amongst your friends, associates, fellow-bloggers! With good wishes...)
SPACIOUSNESS---THE LAST WORD
Well, never the last word, of course. But for now... I just wanted to add a few words to the two previous entries on spaciousness, prompted by my review of Tsoknyi Rinpoche's Open Heart, Open Mind. I had been writing about my sense of outer space and my sense of inner space and how I make the effort to open myself to both during meditation. The final step in this exercise is to allow the contours of the body to melt away so that the two can merge. It takes work, but it can be done in meditation. First, take the time needed to allow the mind to expand into outer space; and then, with the breath, to explore the inner space of the body. Then simply allow the border between the two to dissipate...
It's a delicious feeling. All the weight of the body seems to evanesce and even the slightest effort involved in breathing disappears with the sense that the body is no longer breathing, but being breathed. The feeling is one of leaving the physical body-space and slipping effortlessly into mind-space, from which all attachment, thought, anxiety and negative emotion are simply absent, and the clarity is intense. It's a feeling of being utterly--even timelessly--present, inseparable from the All.
I think you'll agree that I don't often wax spiritual in The Buddha Diaries. And I'd want to stress that, for me, when I'm fortunate--or focused--enough to arrive at that moment I describe, it's not about the transcendence I associate with spiritual aspiration, but more about actual experience in the here and now. When I write of the All, I don't intend to evoke what some call God, but rather the physical universe. And of course I realize that to some--perhaps many--this will make no sense at all. But I thought it worth trying to put into words...
It's a delicious feeling. All the weight of the body seems to evanesce and even the slightest effort involved in breathing disappears with the sense that the body is no longer breathing, but being breathed. The feeling is one of leaving the physical body-space and slipping effortlessly into mind-space, from which all attachment, thought, anxiety and negative emotion are simply absent, and the clarity is intense. It's a feeling of being utterly--even timelessly--present, inseparable from the All.
I think you'll agree that I don't often wax spiritual in The Buddha Diaries. And I'd want to stress that, for me, when I'm fortunate--or focused--enough to arrive at that moment I describe, it's not about the transcendence I associate with spiritual aspiration, but more about actual experience in the here and now. When I write of the All, I don't intend to evoke what some call God, but rather the physical universe. And of course I realize that to some--perhaps many--this will make no sense at all. But I thought it worth trying to put into words...
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 6/21/2012
"Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive."
~His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
MARCH!
Do you read Richard (RJ) Eskow at the Huffington Post? I recommend his articles. Today, he invites us all to join him in a march to protest the power of moony in politics, due to take place in Washington, DC. I was tempted to get on a plane immediately.
I met Eskow last year at one of the Marymount College sponsored "Intentional Conversation" sessions. A former punk rocker, he also hosts The Breakdown, an activist radio station "for Washington DC, the United States and the World. I'm sure you know his blog, Crooks & Liars.
I'm not sure whether I'm just getting more information in my email about Eskow's commentaries, but it seems to me that he's making his voice heard more frequently and more insistently than ever these days. I certainly welcome it.
In today's entry, he writes about the power of marching--which sometimes feels like such a futile and silly gesture in the face of entrenched political powers. It seems that Dr. Spock, who made Vietnam protests respectable to the American middle class, we inspired to join the protest by a young woman who joined an early protest outside the White House along with just two or three other "mothers for peace." She felt silly at the time, standing there with her protest sign. But later the good doctor told the story of how he had seen this handful of women on their lonely vigil, and had "got to wondering why they felt so strongly." As one who often wonders whether such lonely work is worth the time I put into it, I found this a particularly moving story.
I'll join this march in spirit at least. And am writing about it now, to those who follow The Buddha Dairies. We must all do what we can.
(A great "One Hour/One Painting" session, by the way, last night at Lora Schlesinger Gallery. A small group, with a Michael Beck painting that turned out to have endless fascination. You'll find an image at the gallery's website. We all agreed that an hour was not enough...)
I met Eskow last year at one of the Marymount College sponsored "Intentional Conversation" sessions. A former punk rocker, he also hosts The Breakdown, an activist radio station "for Washington DC, the United States and the World. I'm sure you know his blog, Crooks & Liars.
I'm not sure whether I'm just getting more information in my email about Eskow's commentaries, but it seems to me that he's making his voice heard more frequently and more insistently than ever these days. I certainly welcome it.
In today's entry, he writes about the power of marching--which sometimes feels like such a futile and silly gesture in the face of entrenched political powers. It seems that Dr. Spock, who made Vietnam protests respectable to the American middle class, we inspired to join the protest by a young woman who joined an early protest outside the White House along with just two or three other "mothers for peace." She felt silly at the time, standing there with her protest sign. But later the good doctor told the story of how he had seen this handful of women on their lonely vigil, and had "got to wondering why they felt so strongly." As one who often wonders whether such lonely work is worth the time I put into it, I found this a particularly moving story.
I'll join this march in spirit at least. And am writing about it now, to those who follow The Buddha Dairies. We must all do what we can.
(A great "One Hour/One Painting" session, by the way, last night at Lora Schlesinger Gallery. A small group, with a Michael Beck painting that turned out to have endless fascination. You'll find an image at the gallery's website. We all agreed that an hour was not enough...)
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 6/20/2012
"If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion."
~His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
SPACIOUSNESS
I thought I should explore that idea of spaciousness (from yesterday's entry) a bit further, because I continue to find it a useful and challenging one in meditation. First, I want to be clear that it's not about "spacing out." The popular misconception of meditation as a pursuit of bliss is a deeply mistaken one, in my experience. True happiness, yes--the kind of happiness that results from a release from those fabricated identities and reactive patterns that we too often allow to define who we are. But "bliss," to my way of thinking, has more than a suggestion of denial, and meditation is the work I personally use to bring me out of denial, another small step toward enlightened clarity.
The kind of spaciousness I'm talking about is something quite different from bliss, though it may bring with it a pleasurable serenity. Quite literally, "space" in our common language describes the infinite vastness that lies beyond our little earth's atmosphere. That humankind can now travel into space is one of the miracles of the times in which we live. And thanks to our ability to reach unimaginably far out into space to probe its depths with our advanced telescope technology, we know that it is far from empty. Not only are there billions of galaxies with their stars and planets, even the spaces in between them are crammed with matter. In meditation, I have discovered, the human mind is capable of infinite expansion, allowing occasional glimpses of this external space to flood it with a dazzling clarity that feels at once like understanding and acceptance. The resulting sense of being one with everything is at once powerful and incredibly humbling.
And then there is the space within, the microcosm that resonates with the universe's macrocosm. Again, with microscopic technology that rivals that of astronomical telescopes, contemporary science has allowed our human species to explore these inner spaces of the body and make mind-bending discoveries about the stuff of which we're made. Those spaces, too, are now open for more voyages and further discoveries; the adventure, we might say, has just begun. I can't lay claim to great expertise in this area, but I have noticed in meditation that the mind can be tuned to serve as an internal space ship, transporting me through these body spaces--particularly, when I manage to find the focus and the concentration that I need--into areas of joint and muscular distress that manifests as pain.
To explain a little further: I was writing yesterday about the chronic ache between my shoulders, at the base of my neck. In the normal course of a day, when I notice it, the muscular structure there feels dense, impenetrable, knotted. What I'm learning--and the point of yesterday's entry was that I was helped enormously along the way by Tsoknyi Rinpoche's Open Heart, Open Mind--is that it is possible to loosen some of those knots by using the mind to penetrate the area and locate the spaces in between. It's a little like untying a stubborn knot, which requires the use of subtle fingers to tease out the spaces that have become impacted and congested. It takes patience, careful attention, and intently focused skill before the strands of twine loosen and fall apart. The same process can be brought to bear on those familiar aches and pains in the body that seem intractable: when we worry at them with resistance, the knots simply tighten; when we are patient in our search for the spaces, we succeed.
That, anyway, is my experience. I am not, I repeat, proficient in the skills required for this healing art; but it's good to know where--and how--to start.
The kind of spaciousness I'm talking about is something quite different from bliss, though it may bring with it a pleasurable serenity. Quite literally, "space" in our common language describes the infinite vastness that lies beyond our little earth's atmosphere. That humankind can now travel into space is one of the miracles of the times in which we live. And thanks to our ability to reach unimaginably far out into space to probe its depths with our advanced telescope technology, we know that it is far from empty. Not only are there billions of galaxies with their stars and planets, even the spaces in between them are crammed with matter. In meditation, I have discovered, the human mind is capable of infinite expansion, allowing occasional glimpses of this external space to flood it with a dazzling clarity that feels at once like understanding and acceptance. The resulting sense of being one with everything is at once powerful and incredibly humbling.
And then there is the space within, the microcosm that resonates with the universe's macrocosm. Again, with microscopic technology that rivals that of astronomical telescopes, contemporary science has allowed our human species to explore these inner spaces of the body and make mind-bending discoveries about the stuff of which we're made. Those spaces, too, are now open for more voyages and further discoveries; the adventure, we might say, has just begun. I can't lay claim to great expertise in this area, but I have noticed in meditation that the mind can be tuned to serve as an internal space ship, transporting me through these body spaces--particularly, when I manage to find the focus and the concentration that I need--into areas of joint and muscular distress that manifests as pain.
To explain a little further: I was writing yesterday about the chronic ache between my shoulders, at the base of my neck. In the normal course of a day, when I notice it, the muscular structure there feels dense, impenetrable, knotted. What I'm learning--and the point of yesterday's entry was that I was helped enormously along the way by Tsoknyi Rinpoche's Open Heart, Open Mind--is that it is possible to loosen some of those knots by using the mind to penetrate the area and locate the spaces in between. It's a little like untying a stubborn knot, which requires the use of subtle fingers to tease out the spaces that have become impacted and congested. It takes patience, careful attention, and intently focused skill before the strands of twine loosen and fall apart. The same process can be brought to bear on those familiar aches and pains in the body that seem intractable: when we worry at them with resistance, the knots simply tighten; when we are patient in our search for the spaces, we succeed.
That, anyway, is my experience. I am not, I repeat, proficient in the skills required for this healing art; but it's good to know where--and how--to start.
Gautam Buddha Photo Gallery
It is said that one of the greatest spiritual teachers of mankind the world has ever seen is Gautam Buddha. Buddha was born around 543 BC as Siddhartha, the only son of Shuddhodana, the King of Kapilavastu. He is believed to have lived a very sheltered and protected life till the age of 29. He was completely ignorant of what miseries and sorrows were all about. He did not know the tragedies of everyday life. One day the prince desired to see the city. The King ordered that the city should be all gay and grand, so that everywhere his son would meet with only pleasing sights. In spite of the preparation, Siddhaartha witnessed some startling glimpses of life- he was shocked to see the harsh realities of life when he viewed an old man, a sick and disabled person and a dead body for the first time in his life. The fourth vision was of an ascetic who looked at peace with himself, which led Siddharth to search for the true meaning of life, renounce the luxury and worldly pleasures and look for enlightenment. He wandered to many places and ultimately attained enlightenment in Bodhgaya under a 'pipal' tree. Since then he was known as Gautam Buddha or the 'Enlightened One', who is completely free from all faults and mental obstructions. Lord Buddha is considered the ninth avatar (incarnation) of Vishnu
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 6/19/2012
"If the love within your mind is lost and you see other beings as enemies, then no matter how much knowledge or education or material comfort you have, only suffering and confusion will ensue."
~His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Monday, June 18, 2012
YOU CAN'T TELL A BOOK...
... by its title. Here's one that has been sitting on my desk for weeks, awaiting the moment for me to get past my resistance. It was the title, Open Heart, Open Mind: Awakening the Power of Essence Love, that alerted the received notions at the root of my prejudice. I have read a lot of books recently, with similar-sounding titles, and had begun to bundle them into a genre of well-intentioned screeds in which the author--one possessed of special knowledge and experience--feels ready to pass on his or her wisdom to the waiting world. The wisdom, in this genre, is generally a Buddhist-inspired path to happiness, the key to a better, more fulfilling life.
I can't quarrel with the intention--or, mostly with the books. It's just that, in my great wisdom, I was getting bored with them. They were all beginning to sound the same and, dammit, I knew this stuff already, didn't I? I was making, in my mind, a distinction between what I call "teaching" and what I call "preaching." The preacher has discovered the secret and deigns to share it. The teacher learns with his students along the way. Preaching tends to be abstract and theoretical; teaching is experiential. (My distinction is, of course, an arbitrary one: there are wonderful preachers out there, and pretty opinionated teachers. But for the sake of argument...) So when Tsoknyi Rinpoche's Open Heart, Open Mind reached my desk, I chose to believe that it belonged in that genre of book I was beginning to be bored with, and set it aside.
It's not the first time I've been misled by prejudice--a useful lesson in itself. Once I got to it, I found the book to be a deep and subtle exploration of the fundamentals of Tibetan Buddhism, in language that makes sometimes esoteric principles accessible even to a layman like myself. What makes it so approachable is that it's tied in, page by page, with the personal experience of a true teacher who struggled mightily with his own conscience and his own cultural heritage to find his mission and, once found, to pursue it without stint or compromise. It's further tied, page by page, to the personal stories and struggles of those who have entrusted their conflicts with him as a teacher, so that the teaching is rarely abstract or theoretical, but realized in the lives of actual human beings.
Tsoknyi Rinpoche was identified as a child as a tulku, the reincarnation of an enlightened master who chooses to return in human form--from the Western point of view an almost cruel burden to place on the shoulders of a young child. In keeping with the cultural traditions, he was sent off to be trained as a monk in the teachings of the dharma, and spent years in the grip of a demanding education that required not only much rote learning but also obedience to a strict moral code of behavior that conflicted with the freedom he had learned to love as a small child and continued to yearn for. His description of his anguished adolescent years and the inner battle between his natural inclinations as a human teenager and the precepts of the monastic code is particularly poignant; as is the courage with which he eventually challenged tradition, culture and family in relinquishing his monastic vows and dedicating himself instead to the life of a globally itinerant teacher.
Rinpoche tells this story with great dedication to the path he chose as a husband and a father, as well as to the demanding work of an internationally respected teacher; and with profound respect for those from whom he received--and continues to receive--the teachings of the dharma. His writing exudes the all-embracing openness and love about which he writes. Along the way, he invites the reader to experiment with simple practices that open the door to the experience of "open heart" and "open mind" and offers encouragement to those who may feel them to be beyond reach; with admirable modesty, he includes himself amongst the beginners and those of us who all too easily wander off the path. Even after decades of study and practice, he reminds us--and himself!--there is always more to learn.
Aside from a great deal of new knowledge about Tibetan Buddhism and its traditions and an endless supply of insights into the processes and potentials of the human mind, I left the book with two big take-aways. The first of these was the experience of spaciousness. I had already come to an understanding that the Buddhist concept of "emptiness" is far removed from the Western sense of the word as suggesting a kind of void, a nothingness; in Buddhist thought, it opens the mind to infinite potential. And I have had glimpses, mostly in meditation, of the awesome potential of what I call "mind-space." What I learned from Rinpoche was more of the mind's power to put that sense of space to work as a tool that can help us to deconstruct the identities to which we so readily become attached, restricting our freedom and our potential. That sense of spaciousness can help us to stand back a little from the body and its physical sensate, from the emotions and the thoughts we allow to become our "reality," and to see them for the insubstantial and ephemeral things they really are. If we look at them closely enough, Rinpoche suggests, we can locate and expand the spaciousness within these things that seem so solid and so real, disempowering their hold on us and allowing our true, generous nature to bloom. (I tried, this morning, finding the interstices between the seemingly solid, unified, ever-present ache that stress creates between my shoulders, at the base of my neck, breathing space into those interstices and allowing them to expand. It's a useful practice.)
My second big takeaway had to do with generosity--the "open heart." Reading Rinpoche's words, I realized how much my actions are determined by the expectation of reward, even those I like to believe to be generous ones. I think of my writing, for example, as a giveaway; but I am attached to the ego-gratification that comes from a growing readership and response. I get disappointed and discouraged when my books don't find a public, when my lectures or my "One Hour/One Painting" sessions fail to attract the number of participants I feel they deserve, when my "gift" seems to be under-valued or ignored. Rinpoche reminds me, gently but firmly, that true generosity requires no gratitude or response, and indeed that the ego attachment makes the act of giving less fulfilling for the giver. I will be a happier and more generous person if I can manage to do the giving freely, without expectation of reward. It's a lesson I value.
There are many such lessons in this truly generous book. Each reader will come away with what she or he needs to learn, and with a renewed sense of the mind's potential to enrich not only our individual selves but, more importantly, our responsibility towards those with whom we share this planet. Open hearts and open minds would surely do a lot to heal the challenges and crises that we face.
I can't quarrel with the intention--or, mostly with the books. It's just that, in my great wisdom, I was getting bored with them. They were all beginning to sound the same and, dammit, I knew this stuff already, didn't I? I was making, in my mind, a distinction between what I call "teaching" and what I call "preaching." The preacher has discovered the secret and deigns to share it. The teacher learns with his students along the way. Preaching tends to be abstract and theoretical; teaching is experiential. (My distinction is, of course, an arbitrary one: there are wonderful preachers out there, and pretty opinionated teachers. But for the sake of argument...) So when Tsoknyi Rinpoche's Open Heart, Open Mind reached my desk, I chose to believe that it belonged in that genre of book I was beginning to be bored with, and set it aside.
It's not the first time I've been misled by prejudice--a useful lesson in itself. Once I got to it, I found the book to be a deep and subtle exploration of the fundamentals of Tibetan Buddhism, in language that makes sometimes esoteric principles accessible even to a layman like myself. What makes it so approachable is that it's tied in, page by page, with the personal experience of a true teacher who struggled mightily with his own conscience and his own cultural heritage to find his mission and, once found, to pursue it without stint or compromise. It's further tied, page by page, to the personal stories and struggles of those who have entrusted their conflicts with him as a teacher, so that the teaching is rarely abstract or theoretical, but realized in the lives of actual human beings.
Tsoknyi Rinpoche was identified as a child as a tulku, the reincarnation of an enlightened master who chooses to return in human form--from the Western point of view an almost cruel burden to place on the shoulders of a young child. In keeping with the cultural traditions, he was sent off to be trained as a monk in the teachings of the dharma, and spent years in the grip of a demanding education that required not only much rote learning but also obedience to a strict moral code of behavior that conflicted with the freedom he had learned to love as a small child and continued to yearn for. His description of his anguished adolescent years and the inner battle between his natural inclinations as a human teenager and the precepts of the monastic code is particularly poignant; as is the courage with which he eventually challenged tradition, culture and family in relinquishing his monastic vows and dedicating himself instead to the life of a globally itinerant teacher.
Rinpoche tells this story with great dedication to the path he chose as a husband and a father, as well as to the demanding work of an internationally respected teacher; and with profound respect for those from whom he received--and continues to receive--the teachings of the dharma. His writing exudes the all-embracing openness and love about which he writes. Along the way, he invites the reader to experiment with simple practices that open the door to the experience of "open heart" and "open mind" and offers encouragement to those who may feel them to be beyond reach; with admirable modesty, he includes himself amongst the beginners and those of us who all too easily wander off the path. Even after decades of study and practice, he reminds us--and himself!--there is always more to learn.
Aside from a great deal of new knowledge about Tibetan Buddhism and its traditions and an endless supply of insights into the processes and potentials of the human mind, I left the book with two big take-aways. The first of these was the experience of spaciousness. I had already come to an understanding that the Buddhist concept of "emptiness" is far removed from the Western sense of the word as suggesting a kind of void, a nothingness; in Buddhist thought, it opens the mind to infinite potential. And I have had glimpses, mostly in meditation, of the awesome potential of what I call "mind-space." What I learned from Rinpoche was more of the mind's power to put that sense of space to work as a tool that can help us to deconstruct the identities to which we so readily become attached, restricting our freedom and our potential. That sense of spaciousness can help us to stand back a little from the body and its physical sensate, from the emotions and the thoughts we allow to become our "reality," and to see them for the insubstantial and ephemeral things they really are. If we look at them closely enough, Rinpoche suggests, we can locate and expand the spaciousness within these things that seem so solid and so real, disempowering their hold on us and allowing our true, generous nature to bloom. (I tried, this morning, finding the interstices between the seemingly solid, unified, ever-present ache that stress creates between my shoulders, at the base of my neck, breathing space into those interstices and allowing them to expand. It's a useful practice.)
My second big takeaway had to do with generosity--the "open heart." Reading Rinpoche's words, I realized how much my actions are determined by the expectation of reward, even those I like to believe to be generous ones. I think of my writing, for example, as a giveaway; but I am attached to the ego-gratification that comes from a growing readership and response. I get disappointed and discouraged when my books don't find a public, when my lectures or my "One Hour/One Painting" sessions fail to attract the number of participants I feel they deserve, when my "gift" seems to be under-valued or ignored. Rinpoche reminds me, gently but firmly, that true generosity requires no gratitude or response, and indeed that the ego attachment makes the act of giving less fulfilling for the giver. I will be a happier and more generous person if I can manage to do the giving freely, without expectation of reward. It's a lesson I value.
There are many such lessons in this truly generous book. Each reader will come away with what she or he needs to learn, and with a renewed sense of the mind's potential to enrich not only our individual selves but, more importantly, our responsibility towards those with whom we share this planet. Open hearts and open minds would surely do a lot to heal the challenges and crises that we face.
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 6/18/2012
"Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries.
Without them, humanity cannot survive."
Without them, humanity cannot survive."
~His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 6/17/2012
"Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth."
~The Buddha
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