Welcome to the Asylum (excerpt)

“…it is only through the impractical, through that which can empower our imagination, that we will be rescued as a species.”

In William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest,” Prospero is stranded on an island where he becomes the undisputed lord and master. He enslaves the primitive “monster” Caliban. He employs the magical sources of power embodied in the spirit Ariel, who is of fire and air. The forces unleashed in the island’s wilderness, Shakespeare knew, could prompt us to good if we had the capacity for self-control and reverence. But it also could push us toward monstrous evil since there are few constraints to thwart plunder, rape, murder, greed and power. Later, Joseph Conrad, in his portraits of the outposts of empire, also would expose the same intoxication with barbarity.

The anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan, who in 1846 was “adopted” by the Seneca, one of the tribes belonging to the Iroquois confederation, wrote in “Ancient Society” about social evolution among American Indians. Marx noted approvingly, in his “Ethnological Notebooks,” Morgan’s insistence on the historical and social importance of “imagination, that great faculty so largely contributing to the elevation of mankind.” Imagination, as the Shakespearean scholar Harold C. Goddard pointed out, “is neither the language of nature nor the language of man, but both at once, the medium of communion between the two. … Imagination is the elemental speech in all senses, the first and the last, of primitive man and of the poets.”

All that concerns itself with beauty and truth, with those forces that have the power to transform us, are being steadily extinguished by our corporate state. Art. Education. Literature. Music. Theater. Dance. Poetry. Philosophy. Religion. Journalism. None of these disciplines are worthy in the corporate state of support or compensation. These are pursuits that, even in our universities, are condemned as impractical. But it is only through the impractical, through that which can empower our imagination, that we will be rescued as a species. The prosaic world of news events, the collection of scientific and factual data, stock market statistics and the sterile recording of deeds as history do not permit us to understand the elemental speech of imagination. We will never penetrate the mystery of creation, or the meaning of existence, if we do not recover this older language. Poetry shows a man his soul, Goddard wrote, “as a looking glass does his face.” And it is our souls that the culture of imperialism, business and technology seeks to crush. Walter Benjamin argued that capitalism is not only a formation “conditioned by religion,” but is an “essentially religious phenomenon,” albeit one that no longer seeks to connect humans with the mysterious forces of life. Capitalism, as Benjamin observed, called on human societies to embark on a ceaseless and futile quest for money and goods. This quest, he warned, perpetuates a culture dominated by guilt, a sense of inadequacy and self-loathing. It enslaves nearly all its adherents through wages, subservience to the commodity culture and debt peonage. The suffering visited on Native Americans, once Western expansion was complete, was soon endured by others, in Cuba, the Philippines, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. The final chapter of this sad experiment in human history will see us sacrificed as those on the outer reaches of empire were sacrificed. There is a kind of justice to this. We profited as a nation from this demented vision, we remained passive and silent when we should have denounced the crimes committed in our name, and now that the game is up we all go down together.

The rest of this essay can be found here.

Published on Monday, April 30, 2012 by TruthDig.com

Uncle Hickory’s prominence owes partly to his being in the middle of one of the few relatively flat parts of the valley, other than the bottoms flooded by rains and creek. He’s not too far from our entrance, nor too high up the slope, and has survived the old logging road that became our driveway. I wonder what he’s doing down here, while most of his brothers and sisters are up along the steeper parts of the slope or spread out back in the woods. Perhaps he’s a loner. Or precocious. Or a sentinel.

Uncle Hickory has lost branches to the electrical cooperative that has a small local line running beside him, from which we, too, draw power. The line dates back to WWII when copper was tight. Who was here first? Did he sprout beside the line or tolerate its imposition? Either way, he’s grown up beside it for many decades and suffered branches cut to maintain clearance. Further, trucks and tractors have rumbled over the logging road, compacting his northward roots, as have the cows that have grazed this land. Since we’ve arrived, delivery vehicles and occasional heavy equipment have abused his branches. He has sustained these wounds and seems to thrive. I feel great depth, strength, and resilience in him.

I hope, too, that he enjoys the Dhamma conversations, food sharing, and meditations where humans reveal our virtuous and convivial sides. It would be sweet if we bring more to him, and his coulee, than hurts and abuse.

Uncle Hickory’s scars – stubs that were once branches, chemicals in the air and soils, and living with electromagnetic radiation – remind me of my own. I carry many little artifacts of cuts and scrapes on hands, arms, and feet, as well as the abdominal scar where bits of bowel once dilated and ebbed within a little plastic pouch affixed to my belly. Within harbor emotional scars of growing up, of ideals violated, of loses, and of self-infliction. We all have such scars, hidden wounds, and currently open sores. We all live with modern industrial technology that tentacles the globe and pervades our bodies. Like Uncle Hickory, I believe, chemicals and electromagnetics, some very nasty, run through us. Can you feel them? Or does it take cancer, a growing epidemic among others, to make us aware? Through what sort of awareness does Uncle Hickory sense them?

There’s a strong push towards youth in our media-normed culture. Many of us long for pristine nature and health, pure water and air, uncontaminated food and soundscapes, beautiful vistas, and complete health and well-being. When such an aspiration takes root, happenings like cancer and depression separate us from what we’re supposed to be and create a level of ostracization, if not repugnance and rejection. When we identified with purity, wholeness, and absolute notions of health, we end up denying the scars and wounds that run through our lives. Which is our reality? The artificially enhanced stars of mainstream media and Disney movies, or the myriad forms of woundedness, such as, domestic violence, sexual abuse, emotional stuckness, cultural stagnation, economic oppression, racial profiling, homophobia, diseases of civilization, plastic food, love gone awry?

Uncle Hickory and I are having a conversation about this. It may last a long time, as such questions are not easily answered (remember the ents.) I’m clumsy in this kind of communication, tentative, groping, wondering if I’ll ever be sensitive enough, like Guan Yin hearing the cries of the world. I believe that Uncle Hickory is revealing that wounds and scars are as much of what we are as successes, talents, and accomplishments, and that they are an even more significant portion of our compassion and resilience. Life is brutal and beautiful. There is purity and pain. To grasp at just one side of the dynamic is to fantasize a chimera. When we hug and exchange kisses, we rub our scars, wrinkles, and flabby sections. Yet none of these get in the way of us standing tall in snow drifts or hosting families of birds or shading furry creatures.

Without wounds I would not feel compassion as much as I am able to do. Happiness and health did not teach me much empathy. Without hurts I wouldn’t need the love of others like I do. Though I still seek to be unconcocted by them, I don’t seek to escape or transcend them.

What strengths do we aspire to, to be without any wounds or to be resilient with woundedness? Is our healing in spite of the wounds, or to get rid of them, or through embracing them?

p.s. Just had quarterly CT-scan and blood work. No signs of returning lymphoma and some improvement in blood stuff, especially neutrophils and platelets. Looks like the bone marrow is doing better and immune system is stronger. The slow recovery continues.

You're always welcome here!

Tony Judt writes of the importance of trust in a decent, healthy society, with examples such as: Trust in each other to pay our fair shares of taxes. Trust in honesty and fair play in the marketplace. Trust in competent police, postal workers, road crews, teachers, medical professionals, civil servants, and politicians. Can you imagine living out your life each day without the belief (trust) that countless somebodies are doing their jobs decently, obeying traffic laws, and the like? Horribly nihilistic, then, the bashing litanies that abuse all those humble lives, turning them into abstractions and objects of angst or political gain. (Ill Fares the Land, pp. 65 ff.)

Local examples of mistrust aren’t hard to find, often mired in prejudice. Yet, what kind of society to we create when whites don’t trust Latinos and vice versa? When Lutherans don’t trust Catholics and vice versa? When old-timers don’t trust newcomers and vice versa? When Liberals don’t trust Conservatives and vice versa? When rural folks don’t trust city people and vice versa? I’ll bet this is easy to see in our not-so-communal “communities.” And it’s obvious in national politics. Whatever happened to folks relying on neighbors?

We live in a land of difference, upheavel, and vastness, so the trust doesn’t come so easily as when we all looked the same or went to the same church or did the same kind of work. Current extreme economic inequalities make widespread mutual trust even more difficult. Does difficulty make the challenge unworthy or unnecessary?

How may we reweave the frayed strands of trust in our communities? In our society? This is a vitally important question if we are to avoid hunkering down in fearful partisanship, petty isolation, and materialist selfishness. This question challenges us to ask what qualities we seek in our lives and the kind of society we wish to live in. Further, it calls us to live according to the society we require, rather than the society we are stuck with. We must be worthy of the society we want and it worthy of us.

watching for turtles?

One key piece is learning to trust ourselves. The naive may feel they already do. Yet, many of us find ourselves vulnerable to fear mongering; we fail in trusting ourselves whenever we succumb to manufactured fear. Distrust in ourselves easily gets projected onto others and society. When we esteem what is most true and worthy in ourselves, the merchants of fear have no purchase.

Ideologies can get in the way of healthy self-confidence. Some forms of faith teach trust in external authorities in violation of our inner sense of truth. Many aspects of post-modernism are profoundly skeptical, which the nature of today’s media feeds. Lack of democracy in much of the business world, especially the big forms, limits trust to narrow bounds. So what does it take to trust ourselves outside such belief structures?

Early Buddhism speaks of ‘seeds of awakening’ (buddha-pija, which the Mahayana has elaborated into “Buddha-Nature”). In each of us we find potentials for intelligence, curiosity, tolerance, generosity, cooperation, creativity, steadfastness, compassion, and wisdom, to name some of the powerful virtues available to us all. As our practice discovers and nurtures these seeds, we naturally have legitimate bases for trust that don’t depend on the flimsiness of ego structures, whether individual or collective. Learning to trust these seeds and their maturation is a daily practice of healing and happiness that triumphs over cynicism and despair.

blossoming though frosts and storms

A deeper level of trust emerges as we learn to live with uncertainty, which is central to Buddhist practice. As we recognize the constructed and only provisionally dependable nature of externals, such as political parties and corporations, as well as of internals, such as emotions, beliefs, and opinions, we look for a deeper freedom. Recognizing the ubiquity of change, allows us to accept impermanence, which is a whole lot more certain than mere stuff. Such radical acceptance of uncertainty gifts a counter-intuitive freedom. We thus find ourselves in better shape to cope with all the bewildering changes and challenges facing us in the early 21st century.

Then, less afraid, we can trust other human beings more.

As we practice kindness and trust, we will find ways to contribute to thriving communities and build the foundations for a more Dhammic society, if that is what we want.

What better “security” is there?

kitty meditation

Last night, in Eau Claire, I gave the second talk in a short series on one of Ajahn Buddhadasa’s meditation teachings: The Four Dhamma Comrades.

The first talk has just been uploaded to the website:
http://www.liberationpark.org/audiox/anapana.htm#buddies

If you missed any of these and want to catch up please back up from this post.

Best wishes, good practice!

grasses emerging

A couple months ago I drew attention to the writings & speeches of Vaclav Havel, who I’ve continued to read & learn from. Through Disturbing the Peace, Letters to Olga, and From the Castle and Back, I’ve come to appreciate the “power of the powerless” (an influential Havel essay) even within a totalitarian system. Havel and his colleagues refused to live with bowed heads, merely avoiding trouble, with all aspects of their lives dictated by the Soviet system. They chose to think, do art, eat & drink, converse & debate, and be in freedom & truth rather than slavery & inauthenticness. This was risky and landed many of them in prison, such as Havel, and some died from torture there. Yet their lives had meaning, unlike the absurdities Havel showed up in his plays.

Americans might be surprised that they did not look to the USA as a model for the democracy they aspired to, tho they learned from our history and contemporary behavior. Seems like they were looking for a way between the two superpowers and their ideological systems. One of those systems is considered totalitarian. The other probably doesn’t fit that label fully, yet might be understood as having an overwhelming impact, more subtly coercive than its competitor, on the lives of its subjects. If so, we might learn from Havel and his friends.

Now, for me, Tony Judt’s Thinking the Twentieth Century (with Timothy Snyder) puts Havel & his fellow Czechs within the broader outlines of Western social-political thought of the last century. For Judt, the commitment to truth is paramount. More so than taking sides or being loyal to party, faction, or clique. Our leanings, unlike some left intellectuals, need not blind us to the horrors of the Soviet system nor of our own history. We can continue to ask important questions. We can seek facts, where they can be found, practice clarity, and think with rigor. That is hard work, badly needed today as always. And not unlike the Buddha.

While the consumer-capitalist security-state democracy of the USA today may not qualify as “totalitarian,” the lessons of Havel, et al, appear apropos to our situation in a system awash with unfettered big-money corporate spending and media control. Here are some that can influence my life:

• No good accepting the identity of “consumer”; be a human being, even better, a Buddha in training.
• No good fudging the truth to avoid hurting somebody’s feelings, especially if s/he is saying things that just aren’t true; rather, find the kindest way to speak truth to confusion, ideology, and ignorance.
• No good in letting people yell at us because they don’t like what we believe, value, or say: speak back with compassion, strength, confidence, and truth.
• No good in demonizing “them,” even if they seem to be doing so to “us.”
• No good participating in trivializing language or sound bites: most things that matter deserve nuance, balance, and intellectual humility. If someone won’t take time to listen equally and think with at least a bit of openness, there’s no point arguing.
• No good reducing all of life to politics or economics; have fun, be creative, love, search, play, and practice Dhamma accordingly.

Undoubtedly, many more lessons remain. The path is not laid in concrete like a sidewalk. For now, I’m working to incorporate these.

Bye-bye.

In any case, best wishes for your exploration of Dhamma-Truth and may all your gracious wishes come true.

I’ve begun visiting the Rochester sangha on a regular basis. The venue is the very place where I weathered the months of chemo. It’s fun to be back in a rather different way, thanks to Doug McGill.

Recent talks have been posted on the Rochester Insight Meditation Group website:

The Fires of the Defilements (Feb. 23, 2012)

The Spectrum of Aversion-Anger-Rage (March 15, 2012)

On the RIMG website, you’ll find earlier talks be me, as well as talks by Doug & visiting teachers there, too.

the cottage's front room

We’ve had a run of highs in the 60s & 70s. All the snow is gone, except for that in pockets of deep shade. Tips of grasses, clovers, & forbs are coming up. Flowers soon to follow? Birds are singing. And, of course, mud! Good ol’ midwestern mud, especially downhill from the barn where the horses have been cooped up.

The ducks & geese are laying again. When they hear us coming, they quack & honk a delightful racket till they are let out. As they race & flap excitedly to the creek and then in search of delicatbles (bugs? shoots?), we collect 3, 4, or even 5 eggs. After their winter break, the shells are nice and robust, as are the insides.

Soon, too, there will be spring delicacies of the green & flavorful kind. The natural bounty of the valley will offer foraging opportunities: lambs quarters, yellow rocket, ramps, nettles, morels …

As the cottage is well insulated and is getting lots of sun, there’s barely any need for lighting fires in the stove. Still, we do every other day just because the fires are pretty and Flopsy likes them on her chair.

I’ve been enjoying a regular schedule of teaching since the start of February. Most of it is in the WI-IL-MN region, with a few trips further afield are in the schedule, too. I’ve enjoyed observing how my style has been effected by last year’s adventures — dare I say it’s softened & is more heartfelt — and I do less lecturing and more interactive conversing. Also, the inevitable references to cancer, chemo, the medical system, and the insurance industry tend to illicit responses such as chats afterwards with folks who’ve also been through cancer personally or with a loved one.

Santi on Junebug

Although we need to be careful with the mud and soft ground, we are finding more time with the horses, and even I’ve been riding. Living in the cottage, now, facilitates this and other aspects of sanity.

Apologies, tho, for less frequent posts & emails. With the teaching and finally enjoying living at LP proper, there’s less time for computers & the activities dependent on them, which remain at “the office.” We hope, too, that you can unplug more and enjoy life more naturally, in touch with bodies and the physical world. Tan Ajahn always reminded how being intimate with nature is beneficial for being intimate with Dhamma. When you are able to, please visit us, meditate in this beautiful valley, and explore Dhamma teachings under the hickory tree.

We wonder what this early spring, after an unusually warm winter, will mean for the summer months, but no need to proliferate around that. We’ll take what this spring offers, enjoy, and keep on practicing opening up & letting go.

Be well, be free.

The first is online as Mindfulness & Gratitude (37 mins; 8.6 mb).

coziness in the front room

Other happy news is that we’ve been moving into the cottage. Though work continues inside, we’ve set up the front room as a cozy space with couch, bed, and altar. It has good light, stays warm, and is suitable for meditation, reading, and rest.

Work on the bathroom and kitchen carries on between teaching trips to Eau Claire, Rochester, and Milwaukee.