Gaia Community: Sean's Blog

Knowing what you don’t know

http://dharmamonkey.gaia.com — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 01:19:27 GMT

An excerpt from Karen Armstrong’s new book, The Case for God, is included in this month’s Ode magazine. In it, she makes the argument that New Atheism, a school of thought that has gained popularity through the writings of people like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, doesn’t have the grounding in science that some would like to think.

Dawkins, she says, has argued that mankind’s propensity toward religion is “an evolutionary mistake.” I’ve read some of Dawkins’ works where he has described our shared religious impulse as an accidental by-product of evolution and, as Armstrong quotes him, a “misfiring of something useful.”

From The Case for God:

Dawkins is an extreme exponent of the scientific naturalism. For Dawkins, like the other “new atheists,” religion is the cause of all the problems of our world; it’s the source of absolute evil and “poisons everything.” These individuals see themselves in the vanguard of a scientific/rational movement that will eventually expunge the idea of God from human consciousness.

But other atheists and scientists are wary of this approach. The American zoologist Stephen Jay Gould [believed] everything in the natural world could indeed be explained by natural selection, but he insisted science wasn’t competent to decide whether God did or didn’t exist, because it could work only with natural explanations. Gould had no religious ax to grind; he described himself as “atheistically inclined agnostic,” but pointed out that Darwin himself denied he was an atheist. Atheism didn’t, therefore, seem to be a necessary consequence of accepting evolutionary theory, and Darwinians who held forth dogmatically on the subject were stepping beyond the limitations proper to science.
But the new atheists will have none of this. They adhere to a hard-line form of scientific naturalism that mirrors the fundamentalism on which they base their critique: Atheism is always a rejection of and parasitically dependent on a particular form of theism. Like all religious fundamentalists, the new atheists believe they alone are in possession of truth; like Christian fundamentalists, they read scripture in an entirely literal manner.

That last sentence underscores what I believe is the real problem. Isn’t is so easy to think that what you believe — or even what you see — is the truth? We’re all guilty, in one way or another.

Thousands of years ago, we looked to the heavens and within our own minds and wondered the eternal questions: How? Why? What’s Next? We used what we had to try and understand that which eluded us, and in doing so, we found what we thought were our own personal truths. Many of us still ask these same questions today.

Some could argue that, if this ability to place our faith in the unseen — be it within or in some omnipotent power — were so detrimental to humanity, evolution should have weeded it out by now. And for all I know, as wars rage around the globe while we amass stockpiles of weapons capable of annihilating our species and fundamentalists use terror to twist the teachings of wise men, maybe that’s where we are headed.

But the only thing I think I can be certain of is that no one knows the absolute truth.

Perhaps the underlying source of our problems is that evolution has given us the ability to rationalize our individual truths as The Truth. Do people go to hell after they die for not accepting Jesus as their personal savior, or for worshiping another god? Does the man who drives a car laden with explosives into a packed market spend eternity in the company of virgins? Is there some part of me that moves on after this body ceases to function?

I don’t know the answer to these and other questions, and yet, so much of my day-to-day life is based on the assumption that I do. Amplify this assumption by 6.8 billion people, and suddenly, things get very complicated.

The point where science and faith intersect is murky at best, but assumptions of truth should probably be left to scientists, who have established a method for separating that which is real from that which is unknown. As science and faith continue to work together, as is the case with organizations like the Mind and Life Institute, maybe we’ll find some answers. Until then, humanity is best served by leaving the absolutes in the laboratory.

Clipped from my blog: www.dharmamonkey.com/wp

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Compassion in action

http://dharmamonkey.gaia.com — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 20:38:42 GMT

With world headlines fixed on the return to Libya of convicted terrorist Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al-Megrahi, I have watched these last couple of weeks as deep sorrow over the loss of 270 innocent people has turned to anger, rage and hate. A court action, allegedly on the grounds of compassion, has generated profound animosity that is, perhaps, as deep as the sadness from which it sprung. Gouging the wounds of the surviving families is television footage of Al-Megrahi’s jubilant return to Tripoli.
I consider myself fortunate to have never experienced the depth of loss and helplessness that comes from the senseless death of a loved one. So it is easy for me to sit back and remind myself that we should feel compassion and loving-kindness for everyone involved in the tragedy of Pan Am Flight 103 — including the perpetrators. This is, I guess, an area of my spiritual practice where I am relatively untested, though I have been able to find room in my heart for forgiveness of those, especially in my own family, who have committed hurtful acts against me and the people I have loved.
I also have the example of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, with his sincere, public forgiveness of the same Chinese Communists who very nearly destroyed Tibet and forced its government into exile, all while torturing and murdering millions of Tibetans since the 1959 uprising. This, to me, is the ultimate act of compassion.
Survivors of the Mumbai attacks stand with Kia, center. From left are Patty and Phil Duncan, Ben Radtke and Master Charles Cannon
Another example of compassion in action comes from journalist April Witt’s well-crafted narrative of events during the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai. Her story, in tomorrow’s Washington Post Magazine, follows a group of spiritual pilgrims from Virginia who were in the Oberoi as terrorists put the hotel under siege, murdering 32 innocent people, including a father and daughter on the pilgrimage. Despite losing her husband and a radiant 13-year-old daughter named Naomi, Kia Scherr does not harbor the anger seen in light of Al-Megrahi’s release.
“We must send [the terrorists] our love, forgiveness and compassion,” she said at a news conference after the pilgrims from the Synchronicity Foundation returned home from India. ”As Jesus Christ said long ago, ‘They know not what they do.’ They are in ignorance. And they are completely shrouded and clouded by fear. And we must show that love is possible and love overpowers fear. So that’s my choice.”
The story featured photos of the pilgrims who survived the attack, including Kia. After reading the story and seeing the power of compassion in action, I guess it isn’t surprising that it appears as if light is literally emanating from the group. They are an example for all of us, a testament to the power of forgiveness in aiding the so-called human condition.
Photo credit: Matt Eich/Aurora Select, via washingtonpost.com
Clipped from my blog: DharmaMonkey.com

Tags: compassion, forgiveness

Many American names for god?

http://dharmamonkey.gaia.com — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 18:48:16 GMT

Newsweek’s Lisa Miller, one of my favorite religion writers, takes a different look this week at the 2008 Pew Forum survey data that confirmed America’s status as a “Christian nation” is on the decline. Perhaps, she speculates, America is becoming a Hindu nation?

Well, not really. But she notes, against the backdrop of sacred words from Hinduism’s Rig Veda, that America’s collective spiritual philosophies are quickly coming around.

For example:

● Sixty-five percent of Americans believe that “many religions can lead to eternal life,” including 37 percent of white evangelicals,
● Twenty-four percent of Americans believe in reincarnation (from a Harris poll in 2008), and
● More than one-third of Americans choose cremation, up from 6 percent in 1975

If it’s yoga or kirtan, Jesus or Parshvanath, or Catholic Mass versus a Buddhist retreat, it’s all the Truth in America, which is the way it should be.

Sure, the Founding Fathers were probably only thinking about different denominations of Christianity when they penned the opening sentence of the Bill of Rights — or maybe all Abrahamic religions at best — but the intent was that America would be free of both religious persecution and a sanctioned state religion. Funny how we’ve strayed from that in these last 20 years…

“That which is the One Truth, the seers teach in many different ways” (Rigveda I:164.46)

Clipped from my blog: Dharma Monkey

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“Death with dignity” as a fundamental human right

http://dharmamonkey.gaia.com — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 23:33:30 GMT

With America’s “crazy tree” in full bloom over public discussion of health care reform (and everything else we’re afraid of in a society that is facing it’s biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression), the question of end-of-life counseling has been forced into the spotlight. While some have managed to intentionally (and preposterously!) mangle the notion of palliative counseling into the advent of purpoted “death panels,” I am hopeful that we can take a step back and contemplate the larger question: what type of spiritual help do we (or should we) provide to the dying?

In Sogyal Rinpoche’s Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, he makes a strong case that end-of-life care is a necessity. In the chapter titled “Spiritual Help for the Dying, he writes:

“Spiritual care is not a luxury for a few; is it the essential right of every human being, as essential as political liberty, medical assistance, and equality of opportunity. A real democratic ideal would include knowledgeable spiritual care of everyone as one of its most essential truths. Wherever I go in the West, I am struck by the great mental suffering that arises from the fear of dying, whether or not this fear is acknowledged. …In Tibet it was a natural response to pray for the dying and to give them spiritual care; in the West the only spiritual attention that the majority pay to the dying is to go to their funeral. At the moment of their greatest vulnerability, then, people in our world are abandoned and left almost totally without support or insight. This is a tragic and humiliating state of affairs, which must change. All of the modern world’s pretensions to power and success will ring hollow until everyone can die in this culture with some measure of true peace, and until at least some effort is made to ensure this is possible.”

What is wrong with a government — with our government — sanctioning this type of deeply personal care, perhaps even elevating it to a unwritten right? People obviously have different notions of what happens at the time of death, but generic counseling not associated with any type of religious or spiritual tradition is available. At my Grandma’s hospice, which was run by a Protestant group that made no attempt to hide the fact, the materials provided to our family made no mention of God or Heaven, but instead tried to prepare us for the physical and mental states that Grandma would experience in her final days.

Clearly, the public dialogue on this subject has been twisted in order to meet the self-serving political needs of a group I can’t even begin to understand. And it’s regretful that, in order to try and focus the debate, the powers that be have taken end-of-life counseling off the table as a discussion point. But, as Sogyal Rinpoche so bluntly puts it, “What does it really mean to have the technology to send people to the moon, when we do not know how to help our fellow humans die with dignity and hope?”

Clipped from my blog, http://dharmamonkey.com/wp/?p=705

Tags: Buddhism, Life in General, National Politics, Spirituality, Death with Dignity, Palliative Care

Prayers for peace in the Internet age

http://dharmamonkey.gaia.com — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 21:59:37 GMT

As a child of the 1970s and early 1980s, the only exposure I ever received to world events took place during a five-minute segment on the evening news. The American TV broadcaster ABC would always place a red band in the top left-hand corner of the screen with the name of the foreign news location where the story was taking place. It seems sometimes as if the only memory I have of world news during those years is from Berlin, Moscow and Afghanistan.

In 2009, I can read in real-time about events unfolding on the streets of Tehran, Mogadishu and Lhasa. Within seconds of an event taking place, video flashes across programs like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. And the news is still rarely ever good.

For the last week, I have followed a perfect stranger’s experience on Twitter. I only know him or her as @change_for_iran, a self-identified student participating in the nation’s Green Revolution. When I realized earlier today that this person stopped posting to Twitter, I started searching for real-time news out of Iran. Within 30 seconds, I found a video of a young woman bleeding to death on the streets of Tehran, allegedly at the hands of the Basij, a pro-government militia.

I flinched at first, but then made myself watch all agonizing 30 seconds of the video of a precious young woman dying. In the comments below the image, people argued back and forth whether the video was made today, or if it was in Tehran or Esfahan. To all of them, I simply ask: Why does any of it matter?

Human beings have certain fundamental rights – human rights – including the right to self-determination, and yet, with something as seemingly novel as Twitter, the entire planet can watch as a young lady bleeds to death, all because she stood up for her basic rights. We, as humanity, should be outraged.

And yet, there’s reality. So many of us, myself included, are caught up in the whirlwind of our daily lives, distracted by the new restaurant down the street, or by a new version of the iPhone, that we literally lose sight of the fact that we are interconnected. We simply cannot see that, when one of us falls on the streets of Tehran, or suffers under the military baton in Lhasa, or loses a fight to drugs and gang violence on the streets of Washington, D.C., every one of us suffers.

Somewhere today, a parent is wondering why her daughter has not yet returned home, fearful, perhaps, of that green piece of cloth tied around the young girl’s wrist. And at some point in the future, the man who pulled the trigger and the man who ordered him to do so will have to come to terms with the blood on their hands.

The girl and the men involved in her death are my brothers and sister; I can only pray and ask for prayers of compassion and loving-kindness to prevail.

Photo credit: The New York Times

Clipped from my blog, http://www.dharmamonkey.com/wp

Tags: World peace, Iran, #gr88, #iranelection, compassion

The wicked power of ego

http://dharmamonkey.gaia.com — Wed, 06 May 2009 01:00:30 GMT

Clipped from my blog: http://www.dharmamonkey.com/wp/?p=652

Every seeker longs for that moment of ultimate realization -- the great ah hah! moment that makes the difficult path worthwhile. After seven years of searching inside and seeking knowledge from without, I think I’ve had my moment, only to realize that I was my biggest stumbling block the entire time, and will likely continue to be so.

The intersection of circumstances that have led me to this discovery are strange, and yet, they represent the day-to-day drudgery that is my thought process – a heap of screaming monkeys locked inside my head, determined, I had always thought, to keep me focused on everything except the here and now.

Well, I was wrong. Those monkeys are part of me, and their goal has always been to keep me from realizing the fact that my ego is wickedly strong.

Ego. Ego. Ego. It’s all I could think about last night as I tossed and turned, reliving every stupid, ignorant, dumb, illegal, inconsiderate and selfish act I’ve ever undertaken. It’s as if my ego has a separate consciousness, nudging me along my spiritual path (because I/it felt that this was the correct path), all while purposely throwing up barriers to keep me from noticing the power it holds over the forward direction of my life.

Ego.

It started with unmet expectations in my current job – what I had always thought was my dream job. There was resentment and anger, and a feeling of “this isn’t what I signed up for” that constantly gnawed at me, just below the surface. I’d catch a glimpse of my ego, and tell my mind to settle down. I’m fortunate to have a job right now, I’d think, and it’s stupid of me to be anything but grateful because I’m earning a decent salary. Then I’d dive in head-first to my work again and stop trying to figure out where the feelings were coming from. This made the ego happy, and so the pattern would continue for months, going round and round like the proverbial vicious cycle.

A few weeks ago, as I struggled to come to terms with these feelings (again), I happened upon a chapter in “Awake at Work” called “Practice ‘No Credentials.’”

“Workplace credentials – our titles, college degrees, qualifications, symbols of status and authority – can sometimes help get the job done and sometimes just get in the way.”

It goes on to describe a very typical situation here in Washington – people who define themselves by their job title or occupation – and how this practice can actually hinder your ability to do your job and your ability to be truly present and mindful as you work.

“Try as we might, we cannot create a seamless, reliable version of ourselves out of our career or job. And when we expect otherwise – when we expect work to deliver something it can never deliver – we become frustrated and uptight: exaggerating achievements, glossing over failures, sugarcoating mistakes; feeling arrogant, slighted, embarrassed or smug.

"By practicing ‘no credentials,’ we are willing to examine these feelings candidly, gradually unraveling the blinding effects of clinging to our credentials. We learn to let go of job titles and pretense and shift our attention to being authentic, to being who we are, where we are, at work.”

I’ve pondered this over the last few weeks, actually catching myself when asked, “What do you do.” Try responding with “I work in (industry)” rather than “I am (job title)." More than likely , you’ll be asked a follow-up question. “Oh, where? And what do you do there?” The very question of “What do you do” is like offering candy to a baby – or in this case, to your ego.

I guess this made my mind ripe for the next dose of reality, which came in the form of Sogyal Rinpoche’s “The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying.” I’ve felt pulled into the book, as if Rinpoche is directly answering the questions that have been lingering in my mind for the last few years. And last night, I reached the chapter on ego.

“Two people have been living in you all your life. One is the ego, garrulous, demanding, hysterical, calculating; the other is the hidden spiritual being, whose still voice of wisdom you have only rarely heard or attended to. As you listen more and more to the teachings, contemplate them, and integrate them into your life, your inner voice, your innate wisdom of discernment, what we call in Buddhism “discriminating awareness,” is awakened and strengthened, and you begin to distinguish between its guidance and the various clamorous and enthralling voices of ego. The [karmic] memory of your real nature, with all its splendor and confidence, begins to return to you.

"You will find, in fact, that you have uncovered in yourself your own wise guide. Because he or she knows you through and through, since he or she is you, your guide can help you, with increasing clarity and humor, negotiate all the difficulties of your thoughts and emotions. Your guide can also be a continual, joyful, tender, sometimes teasing presence, who knows always what is best for you and will help you find more and more ways out of your obsession with your habitual responses and confused emotions. As the voice of your discriminating awareness grows stronger and clearer, you will start to distinguish between its truth and the various deceptions of the ego, and you will be able to listen to it with discernment and confidence.”

I reached a point where, while reading these teachings, I set my book down, closed my eyes, and immediately feel into a state of deep thought where, for the first time ever, I was able to push my ego completely out of the way. Each time I tossed and turned during the night, the word “ego” formed on my lips as I rummaged through memories of everywhere my ego has taken me in 37 years – not a pretty trip when one is trying to sleep.

It was and continues to be profound, and I have no idea where this new perspective is going to take me, or if it will even continue.

But I’m hopeful, because I think only good can come from this.

Tags: Buddhism, Mindfulness, Personal, Spirituality

Absent-minded mindfulness

http://dharmamonkey.gaia.com — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 23:02:11 GMT

Absent-minded mindfulness

Clipped from my blog, www.dharmamonkey.com

Not too long ago, my yoga teacher had one of those ah-ha! moments in the shower. She was shaving her legs, had no idea that she was shaving her legs, and then realized she had no idea what she was doing. She shared the experience during class that evening as an example of the disconnect between mind and body that plagues many of us.

It is classic Thich Nhat Hanh – you wash the dishes not to get them clean, but to wash the dishes. The point is that we should always strive to be in this very moment, not absorbed by the end-goal of our actions, but instead engaged in this specific, exact frame of reality. All too often, our lack of mindfulness causes us to lose this frame, and then the next, and so on, until we are missing out on the here-and-now, which is the only thing we really have in the first place.

But what happens when we not only lose track of mindfulness, but we also carry out actions without a clear sense of intent? Are the two related?

Last weekend, I spent the better part of two hours preparing dinner, cutting up fresh ingredients and carefully measuring spices and liquids, to celebrate Valentine’s Day at home. As I neared the point where dinner would be ready to go on the table, I burned myself after dropping a chicken breast in hot oil, which gave me quite a wake-up call. Looking back, I see that I was charging gung-ho into the actual cooking without any thought for how I would finish an entrée and two side dishes at the same time, so that everything could go onto the plate fresh and hot.

The more I think about it, I am conscious of the fact that I had absolutely no clear intent for preparing that meal. I literally did not think about what I wanted to accomplish, or how I wanted things to turn out: the task was suggested, and I blindly walked into it. Althought I wanted to cook dinner and enjoy a good meal with my partner, I was simply going through the motions rather than putting any amoung of th0ught into my actions. I was literally absent minded.

When I make decisions – good or bad – I sometimes think of outcomes, but rarely ask myself why I choose to take the action at the onset. And yet, the more I turn this over in my mind, it seems that having the proper intention, or even knowing what my intent is in the first place, seems like such a basic component of mindfulness.

Tags: mindfulness, Thich Nhat Hanh

Miracles? Or random, everyday life?

http://dharmamonkey.gaia.com — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 15:49:44 GMT

Clipped from my blog, http://www.dharmamonkey.com/wp

Much has been said recently of the role of faith and God in the crash of a US Airways flight in the Hudson River. In today's Washington Post religion section is a story of the survivors of Flight 1549 who attribute the fact that they are alive to Divine Intervention.

In the days following the crash, I turned the question of miracles over and over in my mind. Are they real? What makes one person (or plane load of people) miracle-worthy? And don't other people deserve them? I have to think about the passengers of American Airlines Flight 77, including a group of D.C. school children on a field trip, who needed the same type of miracle before hijackers crashed that plane into the Pentagon.

It seems the distribution of these miracles is terribly unfair, and perhaps even unjust.

As part of my own journey, I have come to accept that no one is responsible for my personal "here and now" except for me. While the individual backstories of how I arrived at this very moment in time are intricate and complicated, they are, for better or worse, mine. Period.

I am the first to admit that one of the toughest parts of my spiritual journey over the last six years has been letting go of the security blanket that comes from being able to silently (or publicly) plead one's case with an omnipotent, all-powerful supreme being. The disillusionment that accompanies years and years of prayers for Middle Eastern peace - or decades of begging God, Jesus, the Holy Mother and St. Martin of Tours to help your mother kick her drug and alcohol habits - can be sharp enough that it forces you to ask some really difficult questions about life, including the issue of miracles.

As a child, I held a strong belief in miracles, because that's what the world teaches a small boy. When my puppy Cheeto was run over the day we brought him home, my dad and I prayed that he would somehow be OK. We prayed for a miracle that never came.

But as an adult, when the person I loved most lay in a hospice bed, I didn't pray for a miracle; instead, I asked the universe and all the holy things within it to envelop her in love and comfort so that she might have a smooth, quick journey out of this life. And for once, my "prayers" were thankfully answered.

I don't pretend to understand how this world works, other than the fact that I am solely responsible for me. I know that the impact of my actions in each individual moment creates ripples that move in all directions, and my ability to spread love or hate today will dictate the path that I walk tomorrow, in this life or the next.

That's not to say that the people who survived Flight 1549 were all incredibly nice people, or that people who do not get the miracle du jour are all mean and unfriendly. There are mysteries about our existence that none of will ever understand, and just as I got in my car last night, drove home, and walked through my front door, the 155 passengers of Flight 1549 boarded a plane bound for Charlotte, though they left the plane a little earlier than expected.

That's not a miracle. That's simply life, though this time it had a happy ending.

Tags: Spirituality, karma

Moral shades of gray: the Charter of Compassion revisited

http://dharmamonkey.gaia.com — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 18:52:57 GMT

Clipped from my blog, http://www.dharmamonkey.com/wp

A recent conversation here on this blog about an effort to create a counterpart to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that focuses on compassion as the single unifying factor among the world’s religions got me thinking: What exactly is universal among all mankind?

We are all united at a biological level, that is certain. With that fact in mind, is it possible that humanity shares a common set of morals?

There are any number of institutions in today’s world that are dedicated to the notion that good is, for lack of a better word, good. Churches, courts and social groups promote an agenda of helping; national chapters of the Red Cross or Red Crescent are able to mobilize massive financial aid and other relief services during times of catastrophic disaster, often crossing cultural barriers that have stood for centuries, if not millennia.

So, logic would follow, “good” clearly exists. Or at least some commonly held understanding that when there is suffering, humanity’s common good is served by relieving that suffering.

The question in my mind about the Charter of Compassion arose when someone in that discussion a month ago noted that there are sizeable swaths of people who commit what they believe to be good acts, when in fact, those acts may not be recognized as beneficial by society at large. Putting militants and radicals aside, what of conservative Christians in the United States during the last decade who honestly felt – in their so-called heart of hearts – that the bombing of an abortion clinic could be justified by the fact that the act would allow more embryos to develop into babies?

While abortion is a hot topic in contemporary American society, it seems like a good touchstone for me to try and formulate my thoughts on this question about the existence of a common set of morals, if for no other reason than it cuts straight to the core of people’s deeply held personal, cultural, societal and religious beliefs. Although I rarely discuss the topic of abortion with friends or strangers (who really does?), I can’t ever recall coming across someone who was either ambivalent or blasé about the subject.

(As a side note, when attending a Southern Baptist church as a teenager, the question was frequently posed by youth ministers and Sunday school teachers, presumably to perform an instant litmus test on the spiritual development of the young people.)

My answer when asked in Sunday school is the same answer I would give today: I am opposed to abortion, especially when used purely as a method of birth control. I’m sure my perspective today, as a 37-year-old self-identified progressive liberal, is based in large part on my upbringing in that small conservative Southern town, though even without that influence , I know that starting at a very young age, I have always felt that life, no matter what form it takes, is an incredibly precious thing.

It seems, therefore, that I share a moral point of view with the most ardent of right-wing evangelical Christians, though I wouldn’t necessarily equate the termination of an early-stage pregnancy with a strict definition of murder (and I believe strongly in a woman’s right to choose). And that, to bring the previous discussion of shared moral values as they relate to the Charter for Compassion, is where shades of gray start to come into play. While on the surface I’d hazard to guess that most people around the globe share the view that human life is something worthy of protection, the exact way that each of us interprets that moral imperative, as individuals and as a range of societal units, varies to such an extent that our original intent is lost. This leads me to believe that the protection of human life isn’t so much a moral imperative as it is a subjective set of decision points that eventually play a role in shaping each person’s world view.

This, of course, is disappointing. In high school, when I read William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, the first discussion question my English teacher posed on the subsequent essay exam was whether or not we felt, based upon what we read in the book, that human beings are aggressive by nature. I answered an overwhelmingly optimistic “no,” if for none other than the fact that Ralph and Piggy, polar opposites in so many superficial ways, held out until their respective ends, preferring the rational order of an establishment (which promoted the Common Good) to the chaotic nature of an anti-establishment, where the good of the individual is almost always served.

What then is the common thread among the world’s diverse religions and those who follow them? Is there, as the Charter for Compassion proposes, a universal Golden Rule? Or is it simply that in each case, our founding teachers – Jesus, Buddha and Mohammad among them – had a sense of optimism and purity of intent that set them apart from the masses?

I have studied the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama and Jesus Christ, trying to remove the cultural baggage that colors our 21st century interpretations of their words. And in doing so, I see men whose hearts transcended the shades of gray that we encounter when we ponder “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” For Jesus and Buddha, there were no exceptions – the meek, the wicked and the down-trodden were afforded the same comforts. There was no convenient forgetting of genocides happening a world away, or looking the other way as the actions of one group destroyed the fortunes of another. If all of these men had not been operating in a higher, purer mental state, their followers would have vanished shortly after their own deaths.

If I am to live at my fullest spiritual capacity, then I have to call on the true intent of the wise teachers who came before me and recognize the importance of compassion as the one common thread that runs through all the great acts of history and the people behind those acts. The baseline assumptions of the Charter of Compassion, which strike me as the smartest advice one can take into their spiritual life in this confusing world, have never been more important than they are today.

From charterforcompassion.com:
The Charter does NOT assume that all religions are the same; that compassion is the only thing that matters in religion; or that religious people have a monopoly on compassion.
The Charter DOES affirm that compassion is celebrated in all major religious, spiritual and ethical traditions; and that the Golden Rule is our prime duty and cannot be limited to our own political, religious or ethnic group.
Therefore, in our divided world, compassion can build common ground.

Tags: compassion, Charter for Compassion

Compassion = Hope = A Brighter Tomorrow

http://dharmamonkey.gaia.com — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 03:49:34 GMT

In last Saturday’s Washington Post, Karen Armstrong, a respected expert on comparative theology, reminds us that compassion is the cornerstone of each of the world’s major religions.

All the great religious sages insist that compassion is the chief religious duty. The first person to do so was Confucius, who, five hundred years before Christ, was the first to formulate the Golden Rule: "Do not do to others what you would not like them to do to you." It was the central "thread" that ran through all his teaching and should be practised "all day and every day." Every single faith has evolved its own version of the Golden Rule, which requires us to look into our own hearts, discover what gives us pain and refuse, under any circumstance whatsoever to inflict that pain on anybody else.

Such beautiful, simple words to describe an equally poetic approach to life and faith, and yet, so much of contemporary religion has strayed from this most basic of concepts.

Fundamentalists, it all too often seems, are focused not on leading a compassionate life, but on passing judgment on those who don’t conform to their narrow worldview. They seem to forget Jesus Christ’s own admonition against judging others, instead selectively following those tenants that suit their present situation. What’s worse, their “mainstream” brethren, who far outnumber those on the fringes, often stand by while the spirit and intent of Christ’s teachings are warped by those who take some Biblical teachings literally while ignoring others. (Reference the 55-year-old Northern Virginia minister who, shortly after his wife died, stood before his congregation and said that, according to the Bible, he was the high priest who had to take a virgin bride from among his flock. He married a 20-year-old parishioner a week later, yet he told the parents of a 16-year-old to either throw their son out on the street for wanting to leave the church or face being excommunicated themselves.)

There is hope in the progressive elements of modern religion, though they are painfully small in number. Out of 41,800 United Methodist congregations, only 221 have taken the step of saying they believe in the full inclusion of gays and lesbians in the life of the church – that’s one-half of one percent of all congregations. There are 158,000 Unitarians in American, compared to 16.2 million Southern Baptists; Buddhists like myself number somewhere between 1 million and 4 million.

My guess is that things, on the whole, have changed very little from those days thousands of years ago when Jesus, Buddha and Confucius walked the earth. People judging the behaviors of others gave the great teachers the opportunity to talk about and demonstrate compassion -- to put action behind their words for others to see. What has changed since then is that fundamentalists now have the means to have their message carried far and wide, which makes the mainstream toleration all the more frustrating.

And yet, even in this situation, I have to recognize that the Golden Rule comes into play. "Judge not lest yet be judged" works in both directions. As a Buddhist, as a progressive, and as a humanist, I have to feel genuine compassion for those who would seek to marginalize me or discriminate against my community, and I must get into the habit of always responding to those who would condemn (or those who otherwise standby in silence) with heartfelt loving-kindness.

Now -- and especially now -- is the time for compassion.

I know many of the people who read this blog understand where I am coming from, and I would encourage those people to engage in an international dialogue called the Charter for Compassion. Help make the case in a way that can persuade others to embrace a shared responsibility for fostering mutual respect among all people.

(Clipped from my blog, http://www.dharmamonkey.com

Tags: Charter for Compassion, compassion, hope, tolerance, Buddhism, Spirituality

Keeping politics in perspective

http://dharmamonkey.gaia.com — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 16:16:16 GMT

History was made in the United States Tuesday with the election of Barack Obama as our 44th president.

For the last couple of days, I’ve tried writing about any number of topics related to Election Day, but I stop each time because I find myself rehashing feelings accumulated over the last eight years. At one point, I put together a long list of the current administration’s flaws in an attempt to explain why the reaction to Obama’s win was so jubilant. In another draft, I found myself picking apart the McCain campaign because it seemed to be based solely on tearing down the opponent rather than presenting solid plans to fix the nation’s problems.

I was also ready to tell the stories of a couple of ultra-conservative acquaintances I have who have spent the last year posting negative (and sometimes even hateful) blog entries. With the election over and the outcome decided, one of them still can’t come to terms with the fact that Republicans lost, instead focusing much of his energy on conspiracy theory-filled tirades.

I don’t think either activity — me dwelling on the past eight years or diatribes blasting Obama and the Democrats — is especially helpful at this point. But then again, that’s usually the tough part about politics, especially for someone struggling to walk a middle way.

There is something to be said for practicing mindful politics, which seems to get more difficult each year as the rhetoric gets sharper, or as our collective situation gets more dire — the global economic downtown, our shared climate crisis and genocide raging out of control in hotspots around the planet all work together to create a sense of urgency.

We must find a way to collaborate on our problems, and we can’t do that very well if Politician A has his press people firing off snide statements to the media about every little thing that Politician B does. We have to find a way to recognize and embrace the fact that we’ve all got the same basic needs, regardless of political party.

We all have an opportunity to seize on the historic nature of Barack Obama’s election and forge a new path. The challenges that we face are far too important to have our leaders only give 50 percent, with one eye on the problem and the other on the folks across the aisle.

Already, I’ve heard talk of how one party will start working today to gain more seats in 2010, or to capture the White House in 2012. That approach is short-sighted at best, and could prove to be harmful to all of us in the long run.

Politics should be the vehicle that allows us to improve our lives and the world around us, not an annual bloodsport designed to pit neighbor against neighbor. It’s important, at least for me, to keep that in perspective, especially now that we have a chance to bring about change, which will require some give-and-take for all involved.

Clipped from my blog: http://www.dharmamonkey.com

Tags: politics, mindfulness

We say we support the troops, but what have we done?

http://dharmamonkey.gaia.com — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 13:44:49 GMT

Clipped from my blog, http://www.dharmamonkey.com/wp

One of the most distasteful and dishonest tactics employed by far-right conservatives in the years since the start of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has been to brand liberals, progressives, Democrats and anyone else opposed to the conflicts as unpatriotic and even anti-American. And for the most part, those same liberals, progressives and Democrats have been unable to counter this deceitful claim.

As for me, I am completely opposed to the wars on philosophical grounds. I don’t believe in state-sponsored violence of any type, regardless of whose flag is flying over the battlefield. At the same time, I know that the men and women who are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan are doing so in my name, and in both theaters, these brave soldiers are coming face-to-face with some of the purest forms of evil — terrorists who kill indiscriminately in God’s name. Simply put, I have to support them in every way possible.

I would challenge everyone who supports the troops but opposes the wars with a basic question: what exactly have you done to actually support them, besides lending them your words? I’ve done nothing at all, other than write about a few stories I’ve seen during the last five years.

But something I saw this morning made me realize we all need to do much more. NBC’s Richard Engel, reporting from Korengal, Afghanistan, on Oct. 16, followed the U.S. Army’s Viper Company into battle against the Taliban in a location ominously dubbed the “Valley of Death.” In the firefight, a 25-year-old soldier, Sgt. John M. Penich of Beach Park, Ill., died, while six others were injured.

Take five minutes and watch Richard’s story, Tragedy for GIs in the Afghan Hills. Think about what the men of Viper Company are going through on a daily basis. And do something to let them know you support them. Send them a care package. Write them a letter. Remember them in your prayers and dedications.

But do something so that that these men know they are not making this sacrifice in vain, and let it be the first of many things you do to put your proverbial money where your mouth is.

Viper Company: The Army servicemen featured in Richard Engel’s reporting from their outpost in Afghanistan would welcome winter hats, gloves and socks, comedy DVDs, videogames, cigars and Christmas treats. Send them to:
FB Restrepo
C/O CPT Jimmy Howell
BCo., 1-26 IN, 3-1 IBCT
Korengal Outpost
APO AE 09254

Tags: war, mindfulness, support the troops

On a short road to nowhere: The Economy of Greed

http://dharmamonkey.gaia.com — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 18:28:34 GMT

Clipped from my blog: http://www.dharmamonkey.com/wp

A couple of years ago, I heard an interview with His Holiness the Dalai Lama where he discussed global economics from a Buddhist perspective. Aside from topics of interconnectedness and compassion for the poor, he made a remarkably simple point that has stuck with me ever since: in a world of clearly finite resources, it is unrealistic that each nation in the developed world can continue to have year-over-year gains in GDP, especially with the BRIC and smaller members of the developing world coming right up behind us with mind-bending economic growth. We are quickly running out of resources on the planet, so the expectation that global markets must continue to grow each year is a fallacy.

There is also an inequality in wealth between the rich and poor that, at least in the United States, hasn’t been seen since the days leading up to the Great Depression. In today’s America, the richest 1 percent earn more income than the bottom 50 percent, while that same 1 percent holds more wealth than the bottom 90 percent. It is completely commonplace for chief executives to make 250 times more than the workers who are running their organizations.

As I watched the stock markets get pummeled over the last two weeks, I know that my meager retirement savings, which have already been completely wiped out once by one of the largest accounting scandals and bankruptices in history, hang in the balance. The economic situation our county has created, based upon the greed of a few whose actions have jeopardized the future of billions of people around the globe, will result in unimaginable financial pain. Even so, I simply can’t cheer that the S&P 500 Index posted its largest point gain last week because I feel like we are delaying the inevitable.

At some point in the future, be it now or in another 20 years when our climate crisis and failing supply of fossil fuels combine to bring us to our proverbial economic knees, it seems that we are going to have to withstand a painful philosophical correction whereby we acknowledge both that infinite growth in key financial metrics is unrealistic, and that efforts to keep us moving in that upward direction are detrimental to the vast majority of people on the planet, not to mention the very planet itself.

I don’t have a problem with people accumulating money, and in a modern democratic society driven by free markets, wealth is a primary personal motivator and the main reason we enjoy a higher across-the-board standard of living. It is, however, the selfishness, lack of compassion and narrow world view held by some of the wealthy — especially those “in charge” — that causes me concern.

Reference what has happened with Wall Street executives, earning hundreds of millions of dollars a year engaging in what has proven to be toxic business practices, reaping additional rewards as they either cashed out or were removed from the companies. Reference AIG, where top executives spent nearly a half-million dollars on a week-long spa retreat after I and 200 million other taxpayers propped up the company with $85 billion. The same company’s executives went on an AIG-paid partridge hunt in the English countryside at the same time my fellow taxpayers gave the insurance giant another $37.5 billion.

I personally am blessed to have a well-paying job, a comfortable home and all of the other trappings of the American Life. While I give about 7.5 percent of my take-home pay to charity, I recognize that I could do much more, and I am thankful for those who came before me to build an America where I can work hard and benefit from it. It is, I think, a travesty that our nation, our markets and our world seem to be on a short road to nowhere, the journey fueled by greed and a lack of concern for those whose backs our prosperity is built upon.

I have to wonder if those guys from AIG who relaxed at the St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach, California for a week on my dime have ever once in their careers thought about the words that for many people – to this day – form the foundation of what America and a prosperous world should stand for:

The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Emma Lazarus, 1883

Tags: Buddhism, National Politics, The Economy

We are all in this together

http://dharmamonkey.gaia.com — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 01:46:44 GMT

As the world faces a crisis so large that some economists predict it may eclipse the Great Depression and cause a financial collapse that makes 1929 look like a mild downturn, I have mostly avoided letting my mind wander into “what ifs” and have instead asked myself “why?” Is this current situation to be expected – even anticipated – in a global system that demands ever-increasing GDPs, despite the finite resources we have to produce commercial activity in a wickedly upward spiral?

I certainly don’t count myself as a historian, but it seems as though mankind has always lived in societies where status is afforded to those with means, often at the expense of those without. While the system, which I am left to conclude is almost as basic a part of our human nature as is our most fundamental forms of attachment, may have worked 50 or 100 years ago, we are now simply running out of planet and can no longer afford to collectively treat each other as a means to an end.

Throughout time, there have been incredibly wise people who have recognized that the solution to our problems lie in a mutual recognition of the interconnectedness that, for better or for worse, binds us together. It is only through actions that are informed by this view (referred to as “taking whole” in the writings attributed to the Chinese military strategist Sūn Zǐ) that we can begin to bridge the gaps spanning humanity and cooperatively work to solve our shared problems.

Among those wise men and women were Martin Luther King, Jr., who I am gradually becoming to view as a Buddhist thinker. In this month’s Shambhala Sun, Diana Calthorpe Rose of the Garrison Institute recalled MLK’s visionary, almost prophetic words from his final sermon:

Through our scientific and technological genius, we have made of this world a neighborhood and yet we have not had the ethical commitment to make of it a brotherhood… We must all learn to live together as brothers or we will all perish together as fools. We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.

The “whys” of the current economic situation ran through my mind today as some 20,000 people literally showed up on my work’s doorstep for a citywide job fair. For hours, lines snaked through and around the building as people from all walks of life waited for the opportunity to fill out a basic job application. Some of the people in the crowds seemed utterly defeated, others anxious or optimistic.

It occurred to me that, as Rev. King put it, our success as a society is as much on the shoulders of the wealthy lobbyists and lawyers on K Street – and paper pushers like me – as it is on the poorest and most destitute among us. What has yet to happen, I think, is a wholesale recognition of this fact in the large parts of our society where ambition is driven by raw greed.

When the wealthy Wall Street CEO crashes his mega-billion-dollar company into the ground, does he ever stop to reflect on what that severance check for $135 million would mean to the people whose money he lost? Better yet, what would it mean to those who have never had a chance to save money because they live hand-to-mouth, week after week?

I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. Powerful words that may yet start a global revolution in the distant future.

Clipped from my blog, http://www.dharmamonkey.com/wp

Tags: MLK, taking whole, interconnectedness, economic worries

Stepping out of the fray

http://dharmamonkey.gaia.com — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 17:15:23 GMT

I watch the news each night in bewilderment. A political candidate goes around essentially telling lies, portions of his campaign rhetoric debunked a hundred times over by the media, which only makes the candidate’s supporters even more certain of his credibility. On the other side, the one who said this campaign would be different is stooping nearly as low as his competitor; he has no choice, everyone reasons. Very little is fair in politics.

How is one to take a mindful approach to politics when so much seems to be on the line? I am tempted to sit here and tick off the reasons why I am sad, angry, disturbed and confused about what I see coming from the Republicans: are they really still using the “Bridge to Nowhere” in stump speeches? Do hard-hit factory workers in the Midwest actually give credence to awkward, populist messages from a man who owns so many houses he can’t keep track of them?

And what about Democrats? The “White Privilege” message circulating the Internet isn’t doing much to heal the partisan and racial rifts that are holding our nation back in a world that is more than happy to leave us behind.

Everything I felt on the night Barack Obama gave his acceptance speech – the optimism for the next four years and beyond that could have redefined Generation X – has been vaporized by the unending stream of rancor being let on the American people.

Those soaring feelings of hope have been replaced in a mind hardening for combat. I find myself reading dissections of Sarah Palin’s background, mentally cheering as pundits tear apart her pronounced readiness for the White House (“You can never blink, Charlie…it’s all God’s will, don’t ‘cha know?”). This woman has raised a huge family on the American Frontier and still found time to achieve a political status few women will ever know; what on Earth am I cheering for?

I don’t like being made to feel this way. It was, perhaps, naïve to walk away from Obama’s acceptance speech thinking that this campaign would be different, but that sense is what motivated to support him from the very beginning.

I am not naïve enough, however, to feel betrayed. This is simply the reality of national politics in America, which is the biggest let down of all.

Come back in four years. If we haven’t managed to melt the entire planet (or its financial markets), I’ll listen, just don’t expect me to open my wallet or my heart so quickly next time around.

Clipped from my blog, http://www.dharmamonkey.com/wp

Tags: mindful politics, Barack Omaba

Small world, big dreams

http://dharmamonkey.gaia.com — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 20:59:12 GMT

Clipped from my blog, http://www.dharmamonkey.com/wp

With a tropical storm pummeling Washington, I drove a friend to work this afternoon, and on the way back home, I took New Hampshire Avenue through Dupont Circle. There was very little traffic on the roads, and while the sky above was gray and heavy with rain, the tree-lined streets were completely placid.

Slowly driving through this, one of the older parts of the city, I came to appreciate how small our world has become. Embassies of African and South Pacific nations line New Hampshire Avenue in Victorian rowhouses; at the same time, a CD of the Dhol Foundation’s combination of traditional Punjabi and Irish folk music played on the stereo.

Twenty years ago, I would have never know about music like that of Prem Joshua, Choying Drolma, Angelique Kidjo or Ubud Dua. Place names like Eritrea, Wat Oudong, Tibet and Hvalfjörður were completely foreign. Splitting my time as a child between a farm and the nearby small town, I had no idea about qi, shirshasana or Chenrezig. And yet, in 2008, all of these things have made me who I am today.

I used to lament the lack of opportunity I had in that small Southern town. I never heard of the Peace Corps or archeology or applied linguistics. The world of Indiana Jones was one of complete fantasy; Washington, D.C. seemed light years away from the fields of my grandparents’ farm, and the classrooms of my middle and high school were a place where I struggled to understand myself, not the world around me.

But today, with a passport full of immigration stamps and visas – and a mind full of ideas planted by reading, studying, traveling, meeting people and expanding my horizons – I have come to appreciate the haven offered by the world’s former lack of connectedness. How many times have I wanted to pick up and move to somewhere like the Caribbean or Southeast Asia – or even back to a small town – in search of a simpler life? There are days when the caves of the Himalayan hermit monks sound incredibly appealing, especially in a world where an act of oppression, violence or hate can reach billions of people in the time it takes a byte of data to fly across the Internet.

I am hardly alone in longing for a slower pace, but humanity’s story is best told against a backdrop of planetary scale. We are, I believe, curious by nature, and most of us will seek to learn more about the world when given an opportunity. I never had the chance to see anything beyond a worn set of encyclopedias that my dad brought home when he worked as a traveling salesman for World Book until I was in my mid-20s; since then, I have felt a subconscious drive to try and catch up, formally studying linguistics and world religions in an effort to be the best-possible global citizen.

Global citizenry comes with a steep price: with the irrelevancy of world borders and the “merging” of societies resulting from the West’s broadcast of its finest cultural wares to the rest of the planet, there is no longer such a thing as an untouched culture, which is an inevitable and unfortunate fact of life in the 21st century.

But are we better off? China is now the world’s second most-obese nation, thanks in large part to the proliferation of Kentucky Fried Chicken and other fast-food restaurants in the farthest rural areas of that nation; languages are becoming extinct as the shift to an urban-focused life leaves millennia-old communities of people in ruins. And the global economy, built upon the notion of an ever-expanding GDP that is quickly outpacing the planet’s and mankind’s ability to keep up, is pushing us to a point where our Earth will be uninhabitable. Geez, who wouldn’t long for the simple life in a small town or isolated village?

The flip side of all of this is that we have an opportunity to reach new heights as a collective humanity. If half the propaganda put out by the Chinese during the Olympics were true – if ‘One World One Dream’ could be a reality in some way – we could work together to solve crises like HIV/AIDS, global warming and the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Working in concert, we could reach the pinnacle of our shared human potential.

So: small world, big problems or big world, small problems, it’s all a wash. We are where we are today, and the same holds true for me. I’m not sure where the solutions lie, or if there even are any, given the way things have worked over these last 20 years.

The only thing I can say for sure is that we are sitting on the opportunity of a lifetime – of thousands of lifetimes – to create a better world. Though when I stop to really think about it, I have that opportunity each morning I wake up and start my day. If enough of us seize that very real individual opportunity – in small towns and big cities, on small islands and across the seven continents – then maybe we can reach a tipping point. Maybe, just maybe.

Tags: interconnectedness, global village, human potential

Rationalizing the insanity of politics

http://dharmamonkey.gaia.com — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 12:54:02 GMT

Clipped from my blog: http://www.dharmamonkey.com/wp

Last Thursday night, standing in a neighborhood bar with friends, I rode the once-in-a-generation highs elicited by Barack Obama’s acceptance speech. It was a moment that finally opened my eyes to what really makes this a great nation: the millions of life stories and experiences that, when woven together, create what we all collectively recognize as the American Dream.

Then earlier this week, as I tuned in to the Republican National Convention, I was struck by one theme that constantly hung on the high-tech monitors around the edges of the arena: Country First. There were speeches and gestures and ceremonies and rituals that all focused on the potent power of patriotism. Men cried as they said the Pledge of Allegiance. They prayed in earnest for God’s protection over the United States, all with a striking absence of people of color.

It was as if a chasm opened up before my mind.

On one side are people like me, those who believe that America’s diversity lies at the core of who and what we are as a nation. There is no America without the Americans who have come from every corner of the globe and every path of the human experience to forge a true land of opportunity. We strengthen America by strengthening its citizens; we grow by constantly adding to the melting pot, enriching ourselves while creating a more diverse country for our children. America is dynamic – it is special because it is unique.

On the other side are those who believe that the concept of America should be placed above the needs of everyone except the majority. They believe that a piece of cloth with stars and stripes is so sacred – so holy, perhaps – that it deserves more legal protection than some of the human beings who live beneath it. Anything that goes against the grain of the status quo is to be feared; outsiders are welcome to live here, provided they accept an institutionalized second-class status, so long as it doesn’t create inconvenience for those who rely on their services. It’s Country First, People Second, and anyone who falls outside of the norm – or who questions the norm – is marginalized, ostracized. You can even have your rights legally stripped away from you based on who you choose to love.

When presented in these terms, there is no middle ground in this chasm. There can be no purple in the sea of red and blue. But can that be?

Here’s where I struggle: being a God-fearing, traditional-values conservative in this country doesn’t automatically mean that you’re a Bible-thumping, hate-speech-spewing bigot. I cannot assume that people who believe in Country First are prone to dislike/hate/marginalize me simply because I am a gay American who doesn’t believe in Abraham’s God. Even so, the differences between left and right are so stark at this point in history that I feel as if I have been conditioned to react to scenes of Republicans gathered en masse, praying and waving flags and preaching about conservative social values.

More importantly, the people who take pride in praying the another hurricane would drown New Orleans earlier this week (because the city was hosting the same gay mega-event that Katrina halted), those crackpots are just as much a part of the American story as the crazy Lefties who would have the government legalize all drugs, eliminate the drinking age and outlaw the military.

I struggle to find the middle path, plain and simple. I rationalize the way I feel by asking myself about the following scenario: what if today’s Democrats were the polar opposite of today’s Republicans? How different would the Democratic Party’s convention have been last week? It’s hard to imagine – so hard, I think, because the majority of America’s liberals aren’t speaking from the far fringes. There is no mainstream discussion in liberal circles of a nationwide gun ban, or realistic talk of legalizing all drugs, or of the government forcibly nationalizing ExxonMobil, though you do hear conservatives openly talk of an amendment to the Constitution banning marriage equality while promoting Christianity as a quasi-sanctioned state religion and providing unfair tax benefits that keep the rich wealthy while the poor continue to slide backward.

See how easy that was to rationalize? Insanely easy, I think.

Tags: politics, middle way, mindful politics

Holding out hope for “One World One Dream”

http://dharmamonkey.gaia.com — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 17:24:44 GMT

I said I wasn’t going to do it, and I honestly thought I could resist. But in the end, like most of the rest of the world, I caved. I watched the Olympic Opening Ceremony. Not once, but three times.

I have had a fascination with Asian history and culture for the better part of my adult life. I’ve formally studied Japanese and Mandarin (though not in the quantities or with the success I would prefer). I have practiced Vajrayana Buddhism for more than five years, which in the early days included a lot of reading about the intersection of classical Buddhist, Confucian and Taoist thought, teachings, history and culture in ancient China.

I have sought to understand the actions of today’s Chinese government against the backdrop of the same government of 30 years and 50 years ago, trying to recognize the complexities of something that is so far outside of my normal experience that I cannot help but to react to it through a lens of what is, on many levels, based on ignorance.

With all of that in mind, I can honestly say that the Opening Ceremony was the most visually and emotionally stunning production I have ever seen. Like many of the talking-head analysts who have picked apart China and these Games for the last few months, and like many of my own friends who aren’t nearly as vested in the issue, I have but one conclusion to reach: China’s bainian guochi, the 100-year humiliation of a people, society and culture that that has spent the better part of four millennia as a world powerhouse, is officially over.

Like the awe-inspiring pyrotechnic Footprints of History that marched through the skies between Tian’anmen Square to the National Stadium and directly into the minds of 4 billion television viewers across the globe, I have to believe that the Chinese Century has now made its way from concept to reality.

Perhaps underscoring my naïveté, I was surprised to see the gap between the ancient-history portion of the program, which concluded at some point toward the end of the Qing dynasty, and the start of the modern-history section, which the commentator placed at 1978, when China began implementing economic reforms after Mao Zedong’s death. Frankly, I found it strangely optimistic that this sterilized production of modern Communist history seemed to group the turbulence created under Mao, including the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, as part of the guochi, almost attempting to purge it from the world’s collective memory via the Opening Ceremony.

(I couldn’t help but to think back to the Opening Ceremony of the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, which sought to reconcile both the city’s and the entire geographic region’s egregious treatment of African-Americans before and after the Civil War through acknowledgment of past sins and celebration of black America’s individual and collective accomplishments.)

The Chinese government and its people put a face of overwhelming optimism on China’s role on the world stage in the next century via what will likely go down as one of the most expensive displays of propaganda in history (in fairness, every Opening Ceremony I’ve ever seen – including the one in Atlanta – is propaganda on a grand, prime-time scale). It is now incumbent on the rest of the world to hold the People’s Republic accountable for the responsibility that comes with the new, post-bainian guochi role.

As that happens, I’ll continue to try and find my own balance when it comes to the tenuous relationship between the Chinese government, her people, their collective culture and experience, and my own effort to practice the Middle Way.

Clipped from my blog, http://www.dharmamonkey.com/wp

Tags: Tibet, China, Olympics, Beijing

And so it begins…

http://dharmamonkey.gaia.com — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 15:28:04 GMT

BEIJING - Foreign activists unfurled pro-Tibet banners at a key Olympics venue Wednesday and spoke out against China’s rights record in Tiananmen Square, in the first attempts to use the spotlight of the games to raise other issues.

One athlete, U.S. swim star Amanda Beard, also made a public political gesture, on behalf of animal rights.

All of the groups tangled with Chinese authorities, who are determined to make sure the communist government’s plan for the Beijing Games to be an international showcase for the country goes off without a hitch.

(In this photo made available by Students for a Free Tibet, a protester hangs a banner which reads, “one world one dream”, the Beijing 2008 Olympic motto, and “free Tibet” beneath. Photo from Students for a Free Tibet via AP.)

Tags: Tibet, Olympics, China, Students for a Free Tibet

Despite Tibet, the Olympics must go on

http://dharmamonkey.gaia.com — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 01:13:56 GMT

With the Summer Olympics now upon us, I’ve turned the question of Tibet over in my mind a hundred times, trying to reconcile the grievous actions taken there by the Chinese Communists with the fact that the world is now lauding the Chinese government with an honor that it frankly, in my opinion, does not deserve.

I, for the first time in my adult life, have actually stopped watching the news, tired of seeing a government that has caused so much harm, death and destruction — and that has apparently gone back on just about every promise it made in order to secure the 2008 Games — showcase itself as an internationally sanctioned, Olympic-worthy powerhouse of the 21st century.

I did catch some images of the Forbidden City on the news this morning; Matt Lauer was giving U.S. viewers a first-ever glimpse at a former emperor’s “retirement chamber.” Seeing the wide shots of the Forbidden City, with all its beauty and ancient allure, made a connection in my mind between ancient China and a not-so-ancient Tibet, which was largely isolated from the world until the 1959 invasion by the Communists. Two ancient-but-ultimately-interconnected societies, where religious philosophers explored the inner workings of the mind.

Again, my mind is drawn to the Tibet of old, with its great Buddhist masters who forged a path for the rest of us to explore and contemplate upon. A society — albeit a flawed one — that produced a man best described as a simple monk who has gone on to captivate an entire planet with a message of peace, tolerance and love.

Then it occurs to me that my feelings toward the Chinese government are largely based on my own attachment to something that I’ve never experienced in person, but for which I have poured out so much compassion. I have protested in front of the Chinese embassy here in Washington with native Tibetans and Uyghurs — the people who actually lost their nations and fled for their lives. Yet my attachment to the notion of a free Tibet, where Vajrayana Buddhism can one again flourish, creates negative emotions.

I know that Vajrayana doesn’t need a free Tibet — or anything in Tibet — to be the Diamond Vehicle. The Triple Gems of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha will outlast both His Holiness and the Communists. Our samsaric suffering will continue, even if His Holiness is able to return to Lhasa in this lifetime and, as he has called for, Tibet is declared an International Zone of Peace.

I can not criticize people for taking an anti-China stance on the Olympics. What’s done is done, and my ability to actively seek refuge in Three Jewels does not require me to support or oppose the Beijing Olympics.

What we must realize, however — and these are difficult words for me to type — is that because of our interconnectedness, an attempt to make a political statement about China during the Games could very well lead to even greater suffering. If someone in Beijing tries to do something to embarrass the Communist government, what of the crackdowns that will certainly take place in the monasteries across the old Tibet, and in the back-alley shops in Lhasa?

I read enough from credible sources on the Internet to know of the horrors that are going on right now in prisons around China, and especially in the Tibetan areas. And I know it will get worse when His Holiness dies — the Communists will certainly do everything in their power to take over Tibetan Buddhism by naming his successor, just as they have already done with the Panchen Lama. The youth of Tibet, both inside and outside of the People’s Republic of China, will rise up, leading to even greater suffering, despite calls from their elders to practice pacifism.

Be it now or later, it is inevitable that we will fulfill our destiny as humans by creating more suffering in the name of stopping suffering. There is hope, but that hope exists solely inside the hearts, minds and souls of more than 6 billion individuals, all sharing this shrinking little planet.

For me, I will accept that I can do nothing to change the events that will unfold over the next three weeks. I am sure, in fact, that these Olympic games will bring joy to some people, and perhaps that joy will be enough to spur the innate seeds of compassion that we all harbor deep in our hearts.

I will keep vigil, however, being mindful of those who do not, will not or simply can not share in that Chinese Olympic joy. I will keep Tibet and Tibetans in my motivations and dedications. I will continue to pray for His Holiness’ long life. I will continue to seek refuge, and I will wish nothing but loving-kindness for the Chinese, including their leaders.

To do anything otherwise would defeat the entire purpose of my practice.

Clipped from my blog, http://www.dharmamonkey.com/wp

Tags: Tibet, China, Olympics, Buddhism, compassion, politics