Awake in This Life

Current TV has made a series of short satiric cartoons known as SuperNews that have on several occasions cracked me up. You may find the following offensive. Apologies if you do. What got my attention was that this parody of Fox News host Glenn Beck reflected so many of his attachments.

via “The Glenn Beck Apocalypse” – War Room – Salon.com.

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve received several inquiries relating to how any of us could possibly “let go” of that man called Rush and all of the unconsciousness that he spits out over the airwaves each day. For the record, my preference is to choose music over talk whenever I can. I should also note that while I’ve only listened to Mr. Limbaugh a few times in my life, I have found his commentary, political and otherwise, tends to embody the very attachments that veil awakening from our sight. And these veils are spread easily. But this doesn’t make him evil. Unconscious, maybe. Egocentric, for sure, but evil? If he’s seen as evil, his unconsciousness must be spreading.

Unconsciousness, like the common cold, gains traction on the terrain of those who see the world as being divided dualistically between in here and out there; I’m right and you’re wrong; and, us versus them. A deep and authentic stillness practice will eventually show anyone brave enough to commit to its rigors many significant things, among them: first, that us is them, and second, that no one is brilliant enough to be 100% wrong.

Seen through the Dharma’s lens, Mr. Limbaugh can be an amazing teacher since, at least in my sangha, he seems to put people in touch with many of the thoughts and feeling that they cling to. So bows to Rush, and any other person in this life who forces us to face our attachments. His words and deeds might just inspire compassionate and mindful action that intimately, and intentionally, meets all of the unconsciousness thus lessening its charge, decreasing its valence within us as well as within those who echo his sentiments.

With this in mind, I was struck by an article in the Huffington Post, where Mike Papantonio makes an interesting numerical argument regarding Limbaugh’s affect:

The analysis on Rush is easy. Historically, he has had zero impact on the outcome of elections. Every day during the 2008 presidential primaries, he attacked John McCain and predicted McCain would never win in the primaries. All the anti-McCain hate talk Rush could dish out had no effect on the outcome. Next, Rush tried to show that he had political muscle by calling Barack Obama a communist and a Kenyan illegal immigrant. Rush was certain that his vast political influence would end Obama’s presidential hopes. But the truth is Limbaugh’s political influence is not vast at all.

He goes on:

Let’s buy the spin and assume that 13 million people at some time during a week listen to Rush’s rants. If every one of those listeners does exactly what Rush begs them to do, as they march off the cliff they will have zero impact on elections. In the last presidential election 125 million people voted, and the Democrats whom Rush vilifies daily pulled off sweeping victories all over America. Rush has an approval rating with the general public that is even more dismal than the one W. left behind when he left office. Gallup puts Raging Rush’s favorables at around 28%. An entire generation of young voters tuned Rush out years ago. Instead, they tune into places like Jon Stewart’s Daily Show or the Colbert Report to follow politics.

What do you think?

Bows, Mike Papantonio.

Those who know me best are familiar with my appreciation of wine. I also appreciate food, too. There’s such magic and mystery to both wine and food; an infinite expression of Dharma in the glass and on the plate. Paired perfectly, Nirvana is revealed at the table. That said, each of us must be careful not to let the seduction of the senses veil Awakening from our being.

So with this disclaimer out of the way, I think Slate’s Mike Steinberger’s article on what Obama might be able to “bring to the table” is “well-done”. There’s “so much on Obama’s plate,” but I think that our president-elect has a chance to get this “bitter taste” out of our mouths… okay, I’ll stop.

Whitehouse sommelier, Daniel Shanks gets ribbed by Steinberger:

because only 55 minutes are allotted for the actual meal, it is essential that the wines served on these august occasions “have presence.” And what did he mean by “presence”? “A perfectly aged cabernet may be great in the glass,” he explained, “but it can’t stand up to the intense atmosphere of a White House state dinner. You have to have something with youth and vigor.” Delicate wines will be overlooked; only strapping, assertive ones have what it takes to be “noticed in the context of the White House experience,” as Shanks put it. In other words, the desired effect is shock and awe, achieved not with cruise missiles but fruit bombs.

On the matter of Big Bad Napa Cabs, he says:

These bruisers could also be sending an unhelpful subliminal message. Diplomacy is a subtle art, and when it is conducted à table, it requires subtle libations. Mellow wines promote conviviality, encourage reflection, and create goodwill—the very things state dinners are presumably meant to foster. A hulking cabernet that assaults the senses and flattens any food that gets in its way hardly lubricates the path to world peace. Indeed, serving such a wine might even be construed as a sign of hostile intent: Tonight we smash your palate; tomorrow your palace.

Perhaps, as Steinberger suggests, going beyond a “kinder, gentler” approach to wine service at the Whitehouse is in order. Maybe a more purposeful approach to consuming the blessing of a wine’s potential subtlety might go far in communicating differently.

Cheers.

I always love leading these things. But at the same time, I sometimes wonder if the words will come. I know I can’t attach to outcomes. If I did, I’d be frustrated with myself as well as many of my students. Instead, I find myself wondering what might happen once I take my seat in front of all those precious beings, and after a few seconds of quiet and a few breaths taken all the way to my core, I open my mouth hoping that the Dharma will be available to all of us. What if nothing shows up.

Then the teaching will be about no-thing-ness.

There is a great post by Noah Millman over at The American Scene where he takes on several issues relating to religion, all of which are entertaining. I’m most partial to his description of how religion works:

…most of us who are in any meaningful sense religious are members of corporate bodies extending through time and space. And corporate bodies to exist at all must define their boundaries: this is who we are, this is what we believe, this is how we behave. And this requires an implicitly if not explicitly excluded “not that.”

He goes on to posit what most of us familiar with the work of Ken Wilber and Spiral Dynamics might see as the core of the Mean Green’s dilemma:

This being the case, if freedom of religion means, most fundamentally, the freedom to be a heretic, it equally means the freedom to declare that the other guy is a heretic. In a very real sense, a social environment that is hostile to religious intolerance must necessarily be hostile to religious freedom.

Andrew Sullivan chimes in on this with an astute observation that points directly to the limits of First Tier approaches to Spirit when he suggests that none of us holds a monopoly on truth:

…the impossibility of humankind ever being able to know the Godhead with sufficient certainty to use power to restrain the heretic. Again: the true believer will, in my view, seek freedom for God rather than power against heresy.

First off, “certitude” is the source of the problem. Certitude is exactly what gives rise to the egoic division that says “I’m right, and you’re wrong,” which in turn begets violence. Our futile attempts at knowing God will forever frustrate us since God is precisely beyond the mind. Trying to know God is like trying to shovel away the tide.

Truly being still, on the other hand gets us past the boundaries of both the mind as well as the body. Practicing this expanse mysteriously pushes and pulls at everyone of our relationships, including our old mental and physical constructs. From here, difference and sameness become much less of an issue since they are seen as incomplete aspects of a bigger story.

Here’s a InfiniteSmile.org podcast that might be of interest.

 

 Uncovering Beauty in the Middle of Hell: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Gerald, over at The Level 8 Buddhist takes on the use of alcohol:

As the Buddha taught, alcohol and intoxicants cause heedlessness. The more you drink, the more heedless you become. It’s not that you become heedless after X number of drinks only, any amount will impair mindfulness and make it harder to practice Buddhism on some degree or another.

While I agree that the abuse of any substance can impair one’s practice, seeing that our attachments to stories surrounding the substance can also inhibit realization. Getting fundamental about abstinence can be an addiction that veils awakening from our sight. In a similar way, knocking back several shots of tequila in order to numb our experience can do exactly the same thing.

This isn’t to say that the use of alcohol should be embraced among otherwise sober Buddhists. Instead each of us should look to see if we’re caught by our use, or non-use, of any intoxicant be it something tangible or intangible; be it a form or a thought. This leads us into an even deeper level of inquiry where we get to ask ourselves questions like: Is this pint of Guiness an abuse of an intoxicant? What is my relationship to it? Or perhaps, is my abstention from alcohol an appropriate response in this moment? Is my vow not to abuse alcohol the same thing as never using it?

Mary Midgley over at the Guardian suggests that we quit seeing ourselves as God, thereby reversing the trends that accompany this mindset:

If we ask, then, what religious change is most urgently needed today, the best answer surely is that we should debunk and explode this anthropolatrous superstition. We do not need it. Its bad practical effects are clear, not only in the mass of silly climate change denial which infests the internet but, more subtly, in the extreme slowness with which peoples and governments still respond to obvious dangers. But it is also bad in itself, psychologically and spiritually. It is bad religion. Self-worship is an appalling habit, which vitiates the deep understanding of human life that serious humanism calls for.

Not to take anything away from Mary’s points, I would still add that simply seeing everything as God-in-action might serve the same purpose. Recognizing the One in the Many leaves little room for superstition and its concomitant folly as long as the practitioner has an opportunity to test this insight in an environment where it can be unpacked with a good dose of wisdom and care.

I must admit that I was surprised when I saw this story glide across my computer screen this morning. Certainly there were individuals of the cloth that might have been picked that could have reflected a deeper sense of post-fundamentalist spirituality than Rick Warren. Wouldn’t another choice allow for an introduction into a more integral approach to faith? Or am I putting too many expectations on Obama?

Michael Tomasky, over at the UK’s Guardian says:

Some folks on the left are, in my view, suspicious types, always on the lookout for signs of apostasy and ready to scream “Sellout!” the minute Obama (or any mainstream liberal pol) does some small thing they don’t like.

I agree with this. Then again, such is the nature of attachment. What’s most interesting is that I wonder how picking Warren really helps America evolve.

… Warren’s endorsement by Obama, which this very high-profile invitation in essence is, really is a slap in the face to some of his core constituencies, as Sarah Posner argues in this fine Nation piece.

The Huffington Post’s Steven Waldman sums up his defense of Obama’s pick of Rick Warren by saying:

For Obama, picking Warren for the inauguration is a smart move. George W. Bush chose Franklin Graham, a hard-right evangelical to do his prayer. Instead of retaliating by choosing a liberal preacher, Obama opted for spiritual bipartisanship. The move helps to depoliticize prayer — which, of course, is very politically shrewd.

Politically shrewd? I don’t really see how picking Warren is politically shrewd except in the most superficial ways.

In a letter to God, guardian.co.uk‘s Mark Vernon wants to uncover the depth of true Silence. The kind that Thomas Aquinas uncovered on 6th December 1273 when he uttered his final “Ite missa est” (the mass is ended) and then left the altar for good.

He [Aquinas] told his friend Reginald that he would not write another word. Moreover, all the words that he had written up to that point, now seemed like as much straw to him.You know what he meant. We can’t quite be sure. However, my best guess is this. Straw was a metaphor for “basic stuff”

Perhaps it is from this silence, about which Mr. Vernon asks, that the Infinite “speaks” to us most profoundly; where we are no longer concerned with being good Christians, or Buddhists, but instead become actual Christs and actual Buddhas.

Maybe Ludwig von Wittgenstein sums it up best:

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

Simply shutting up while being still offers us this most simple, and yet most profound of insights. But it takes practice. Realization of the Eternal shows us what is immediately and always prior to the flow of time, but glimpsing this isn’t an endpoint. It’s a beginning. At each and every moment.

Enjoy this.
(Bows to The Worst Horse and Rev. Danny Fisher)

A good stillness practice is like spiritual athleticism, right?

Looks that way.

At integral praxis, there is a new post about a study showing that meditation opens the gateway to compassion

Like athletes or musicians, people who practice meditation can enhance their ability to concentrate — or even lower their blood pressure. They can also cultivate compassion, according to a new study. Specifically, concentrating on the loving kindness one feels toward one’s family (and expanding that to include strangers) physically affects brain regions that play a role in empathy.

On Michael Paulson’s Articles of Faith Blog, San Francisco’s Archbishop George H. Niederauer’s defense of California’s Proposition 8, outlawing same-sex marriage is paired with its backlash. The only problem is that the video “Proposition 8: the musical” starring Jack Black as Jesus and an assortment of other celebs, has been yanked by Funny or Die from YouTube. Sorry.

Anyway, Archbishop Niederauer has lots to say, excerpted here:

Some voices in the wider community declare that there could be only one motive: hatred, prejudice and bigotry against gays, along with a determination to discriminate against them and deny them their civil rights. That is not so. The churches that worked in favor of Proposition 8 did so because of their belief that the traditional understanding and definition of marriage is in need of defense and support, and not in need of being re-designed or re-configured.

And yet the very churches that worked in favor of Prop. 8, have redesigned and reconfigured their traditions quite a lot, over the years. For example, neither Catholics nor Mormons sell their daughters into slavery any more, as scripture permits. At least I’m not familiar with this practice going on very often in my community. The Archbishop goes on:

For our part, we churchgoers need to speak and act out of the truth that all people are God’s children and are unconditionally loved by God. While we argue among ourselves, the people who need our help with hunger, unemployment, homelessness and other problems wait for us to turn together toward them.

Is he including the world’s gay and lesbian population here, or is his an articulation of partial inclusion?

To be fair, where does the Buddhist tradition land on this issue? In my last read, the Tripitaka seems to rule against monk-on-monk expressions of love, but what about consenting adults among the laity?

Again, here’s a specific point where tradition can evolve into something that reflects compassion more comprehensively, in ways that might negate traditional attachment but could very well enhance the meaning of one’s faith in the same move.

(Bows, Michael)

Time magazine’s, Jeff Israely notes:

After acquiring a reputation as an aggressive, doctrine-enforcing Cardinal, Pope Benedict XVI has surprised many with his gentle manner and his writings on Christian love.

Not so fast…

Benedict’s envoy to the United Nations, Archbishop Celestino Migliore, has announced that the Vatican will oppose a proposed U.N. declaration calling for an end to discrimination against homosexuals. At first blush, no one should be surprised to find the Catholic Church hierarchy butting heads with gay rights activists. But this particular French-sponsored proposal, which has the backing of all 27 European Union countries, calls for an end to the practice of criminalizing and punishing people for their sexual orientation. Most dramatically, in some countries, including Iran and Saudi Arabia, homosexuality can be punished by death.

Ah, attachment. It never fails to amaze. And to be fair, traditional Buddhism isn’t all openness and tolerance on this issue either. I wonder, for instance, what it would be like if the Dalai Lama took a decidedly Buddhist stand supporting gay marriage or an even more comprehensive stand on global discrimination of homosexuality.

Bows to the WorstHorse for this one.

Over at the Huffington Post, Deepak Chopra brings up interesting points when it comes to public presidential piety (just try to say that bit of alliteration quickly).

Money quote:

…if Obama went to a different church every week, with the intention of healing the wounds of divisiveness, he’d be extending the message he was elected on.

As we learn to stop moving, we come to the realization that there is a largely unfamiliar part of us that has never and will never move at all. Re-familiarizing ourselves with this space is an amazing, often tear-filled homecoming into grace. The mystery is that we are individually and collectively each quite homesick for this place of grace, and that homesickness shows itself all of the time. Most often it happens when our individual egos experience a feeling that something is wrong, that something is somehow either lacking or too much, or of a deep anxiety about our circumstances. Sometimes we even feel excruciating psychological or physical pain. This makes us feel either a need or a compulsion to reconnect with grace. Whatever the case, if in meditation we follow these egoic senses to their origins and we constantly uncover “who,” or better yet “what,” exactly is feeling them, we will put ourselves on the Path that leads us directly into a home where we are forever able to live as an expression of grace.

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As heady as all of these words might strike us, pointing to Infinity is fairly simple. In fact, everything is Infinity, so there is no way to avoid it. Knowing this deeply, all things change to reflect our realization, and we begin to inhabit a different place of being. Just sitting still ignites a mysterious process. It’s not unlike water of stillness being poured on the dry sponge of the contracted, always moving small self. The more stillness, the more the small self expands its form into an uncontracted Big Self. Once this expansion begins to occur, we become more intensely aware of everything that arises in life. In fact, the whole world can open us up to an intense fire of Freedom. As we soak our contracted sense of self with this timeless and boundless communion with everything and then allow all of our action to come from this infinitely expansive and fluid place, we can’t avoid becoming profoundly helpful. This helpfulness spontaneously expresses itself as we become what Buddhism refers to as bodhisattvas.

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Unfortunately for our greedy egos, awakening to an enlightened perspective cannot happen without stillness. You might be one of those exceedingly rare individuals who awakens without the support of either a teacher or a regular stillness practice. But the Enlightenment that the mystics and sages speak about can only ever show up through stillness. As much as our egos would love to have it their way where they can manage the entire process of Awakening, authentic transformation, from the narrowness of the small self to the spacious Ultimate Life of the Big Self, happens only when meditative stillness becomes part of our more active lives. Sadly enough for our overachieving egos rushing to Awaken, meditation is the shortcut, since meditation is stillness, and stillness is the unbounded estate of Enlightenment.

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