Awake in This Life

It’s hard to take much of this too seriously, but I still think two things are amazing:

1. Brit Hume’s views on what Buddhism does and doesn’t offer speaks to a significant lack of understanding, and
2. He does his best to play the martyr here even though an apology might have been the most “Christian” thing he could have done, allowing him to embody his faith.

And the tragedy continues for the elephants of Thailand:

Once the revered symbol of Thai culture, the backbone of industry and the protector of the country’s sovereignty during war, elephants now wander the streets of Bangkok, reduced to providing rides for tourists and helping their owners beg for their next meal.

With their drivers — mahouts, they are called — the elephants dodge Bangkok’s chaotic traffic and the feeble attempts of the government and the police to push them out of the city.

Many elephants were put out of work when logging became illegal in the 1980s, making it difficult for their owners to feed them. Wild ones have been hunted and driven from their natural habitat. It is estimated that there are now 2,500 domesticated and 1,500 wild elephants in Thailand, down from around 50,000 in 1950.

Bows, Tricycle

Stuart Davis offers us a nice piece of writing that confronts what many might see as fundamental flaws in the Rationalist’s arguments against religion.

I just finished reading God Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens. He’s given us another powerful work in the vein of Sam Harris (The End of Faith), Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion), and Bill Maher (Religulous). Team Rationality is ushering in a long-overdue examination of religion in the modern world. They make a strong case that religion is sick and dehumanizing. I would say more specifically, sick religion is dehumanizing. And we do have a global pandemic of sick religion: billions of believers stuck in low levels of consciousness, riddled with pathologies. ‘S called Samsara where I’m from.

However, reading these best-sellers has inspired me to make a wish-list. Here are five things rational religion-haters should know:

Read on…

Got Twitter?

The folks over at Integral Life are making a show of things.

So very interesting…

The People’s Daily Online reports:

According to an interview with People’s Daily Online, professor Shen Weirong, director of the Research Center on Han-Tibetan Buddhism at Renmin University of China, and expert on Tibet, said that the Dalai Lama’s wishes to select his successor through “democratic election,” but this procedure neither accords with religious regulations nor historical traditions.

Ross Robertson of EnlightenNext has a nice piece on an interesting pioneer:

Jun Po Roshi—dharma heir of Rinzai Zen Master Eido Shimano Roshi, founder of a lay Buddhist order called Hollow Bones, and originator of a modern form of Rinzai known as Mondo Zen—came to visit us at EnlightenNext yesterday. After a delicious lunch and a delightful afternoon together, I was even more impressed with him than I had been on the phone a few weeks ago when we interviewed him for a “Beyond Limits” feature in our next issue. Jun Po is a remarkable human being, and his presence transmits a unique combination of strength and sweetness, fearless confidence and undefended vulnerability. Immediately upon meeting him, he makes you feel like an old and trusted friend. And he’s filled with stories of a long life richly lived, from his days as a San Francisco “urban shaman” at the center of the LSD revolution to his years in the monastery, his passion for wild mushrooms and the Argentine tango, and his recent “march down to death’s gate” in the clutches of stage IV throat cancer.

A couple of more pieces on the ongoing saga of Osel Hita Torres who recently left monastic life and his tradition:

Over at the Guardian, Victoria Coren offers up an interesting bit of analysis:

…you have to know what you are rejecting. Otherwise, the rejection has no meaning. So my advice to the gurus of Buddhism, who have been drumming their fingers for it, I am sure, is to be hopeful rather than worried. All spiritual leaders need their time in the wilderness. If Osel Torres spends the next five years trying to get into the film industry, listening to Hendrix and watching people bounce desperately around in smoky boxes, then returns to the path of the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition, he could grow up into the greatest lama of all time.

Time magazine has also picked up on this story:

The abdication of the anointed tulku is a significant embarrassment to the group he was supposed to head, the powerhouse Foundation for the Preservation of the Monastic Tradition (FPMT), the foremost Tibetan teaching organization in the West. It also challenges Westerners who have adopted Buddhism to find more sophisticated ways of understanding its magical side.

Time goes on to quote Robert Thurman on the issue:

Robert Thurman, a Buddhist scholar, former monk and friend of the Dalai Lama, recounts that when told years ago that Hita was to receive a traditional Buddhist education in India he expressed concern. Thurman’s argument: “If he wanted Tibetan traditional [education] he could have reincarnated in a Tibetan family in exile.” The result of the misplacement, he says, is that Hita “has broken away in a full-blown identity crisis.” Thurman thinks that after some time in our “busy postmodern world,” Hita may see the value of the Tibetan tradition, “which he will then be able to approach or not, of his own free choice.” And, he adds, “More power to him!”

Ah, reincarnation. Sacred truth or egoic refuge?

I thought I’d share this exchange I just had with a reader:

Michael, for some reason, issues of guru abuse are coming at me from every direction. I just had a good friend call me asking to talk – she has been with a guru here in the Bay Area for 7 years and is thinking of leaving her community. Her community is devotional to this woman named “S.” It sounds like from what my friend says that there has been emotional abuse from her guru. Her community sounds like a confusing jumble of projections and power struggles. I’m confused b/c I know some people (Ken Wilbur?) say that cruelty from gurus is compassionate and done purposefully so that the devotee can wake up. Even though my friend agrees with this viewpoint, her guru has said some things quite cruel to her that she says don’t sound true. So she is losing trust in S. Her guru will also not allow for others in the community to question her correctness on any issue. That does not sound right to me. There are other things as well that I’m confused about…. I realize nothing is black and white, all or nothing. But I’m really questioning what the hell is enlightenment if it can look like what S is teaching.

My response:

For one, your friend should leave if there is abuse. In all cases, abuse
derails the process. While I’ve never once heard Wilber endorse guru
cruelty, if he did, he should reconsider.

Second, confusing “jumbles” of power struggles show up all the time in
community. We, at Infinite Smile, have been lucky so far but should also
be aware of stuff like this showing up as we grow. That said, teacher and
community should work together as a container for radical shifts in the
way students meet the world. So any organization that doesn’t reflect
kindness inherently defiles what’s most important in the process of
awakening.

Third, gurus are supposed to be relentless at pointing out clinging. This
doesn’t mean they should ever be cruel. Pushing happens and should. We
shouldn’t feel entirely comfortable with our teachers. They are not our
friends, after all. They are our guides on a treacherous journey and there
isn’t room in this work to lose our balance and either become too enamored of either the heart or the mind; the relative or the Infinite. This is serious business. Hilarious, but serious.

I notice in myself at times that I become aware of impatience
arising and thoughts that center around there not being enough time or
energy to waste on the same old stuff that students keep bringing up over and over again. Then I realize that I didn’t get
into this business for the outcomes. I got into it because I didn’t really have
any other choice.

Having said all of this, 21st century sensibilities help devotional traditions get pretty sticky. It never made much sense to me, but then again it works for some people. Regardless, total devotion to a teacher always brings out interesting qualities in both teachers and students. So what should we be looking for? One quality: trust. Are they firm? Good… this is definitely helpful. Are they cruel? This actually can reify egoic clinging in most of us, which is why I’d say “move on.” Without trust, intimacy can’t flourish. Without intimacy, the entire process becomes a “jumble” of egoic clinging.

Then the follow-up:

I think my friend is just beginning to step outside of her community’s foggy habitat
and admitting to herself that S is absolutely not flawless – and this is when the
problems began. Yikes! S was evidently enlightened through some kind of transmission from
Adi Da, but never actually worked with him. Maybe that’s part of what’s going on. She began teaching when others called on her to do so – is it a teacher’s responsibility then to not heed the call to teach until they know
they are ready? How does one know? And why do you think such a shift occurs when student has committed to one teacher?

And finally:

When is the right time to teach? Well, I’m probably not the best person to answer this as it was never my intention to teach. Short answer, I don’t know. In our situation, what started as a class on uncovering meditative stillness in a suburban hamlet became something bigger. I was fortunate in that both Infinite Smile and I have had lots of guidance from lots of people who’ve done this stuff before. I still call on people all the time for advice and I’m constantly looking at both my practice and the sangha’s “center of gravity” to make sure everything about us is reflecting a deep unity with the teaching as best as possible and thus remaining “fog free.” Of course this fog-cutting takes attention and work. For example, teachers who are surrounded by sycophantic students can easily lose sight of what’s most important, and because they are seen as peerless by all those that are around them, they can fall into the trap of becoming totally devotional to themselves and their work. This creates communities of pseudo-enlightenment, where egos that think they are awake push well-meaning practitioners into the ditch. And these ditch-dwellers simply don’t have the tools to get out even though “getting out” is precisely what is needed if enlightenment is the goal.

I wonder how today’s exchange at MIT will shake up the wider Buddhist community in the US?

Audience member: “Can you give us an example of a leader we should look up to as a positive influence?”

Dalai Lama (after thinking for a few seconds): “President Bush. I met him personally and liked him very much. He was honest and straightforward, and that is very important. I may not have agreed with all his policies, but I thought he was very honest and a very good leader.”

To be fair, after he said, “I may not have agreed with all his policies,” according to one observer, the audience broke out into relieved laughter.

Relieved? Hmm. I’m fascinated by this. What kind of expectations do people put on the Dalai Lama that would lead to them feeling “relieved” once he offers the disclaimer on policy?

What do you think?

Michael Paulson and James F. Smith of the The Boston Globe report on the Dalai Lama’s visit to Cambridge:

After the Dalai Lama slipped off his shoes, crammed his crossed legs into a too-narrow chair, and unceremoniously blew his nose, the world’s most revered and honored Buddhist monk offered a bit of wisdom for the sages: Being smart doesn’t make you happy.

This is a great reminder for both brilliant practitioners and wannabe brilliant practitioners. Still we should be careful. It’s important that we not get anti-intellectual about our practice. Dopey, for all his charm, wasn’t necessarily an enlightened dwarf. At least that’s what I was once told by a rather highly regarded Dharma teacher some years back.

The mind, as well as the ego, afterall, are both divine manifestations of the Infinite. It’s in the getting caught by our minds, brilliant or otherwise, that we find problems. Seeing the mind as a tool rather than getting tooled by the mind takes us to the heart of awakening.

I liked this post from Rev. Danny Fisher, about one of my favorite films, The Last Temptation of Christ (now available on Hulu.com):

Speaking about the film, its “blasphemous” qualities, and the international outrage surrounding the project, I think critic Roger Ebert put it perfectly when he wrote:

What makes The Last Temptation of Christ one of his great films is not that it is true about Jesus but that it is true about Scorsese. Like countless others, he has found aspects of the Christ story that speak to him. This is the Jesus of his two most autobiographical characters, Charlie in Mean Streets and J.R. in Who’s That Knocking at My Door? Both of those characters were played by Keitel. Interesting that he choose Keitel this time to play Judas. Perhaps Judas is Scorsese’s autobiographical character in The Last Temptation of Christ. Certainly not the Messiah, but the mortal man walking beside him, worrying about him, lecturing him, wanting him to be better, threatening him, confiding in him, prepared to betray him if he must. Christ is the film, and Judas is the director.

So well said.

At last night’s sitting, I read one of my favorite poems. The intent was to clarify what this Path is really about. So often, deep spiritual work is seen as a way to escape from what is going on when in actuality, awakening involves nothing less than an intimacy with what is going on. The Invitation nails this. I’ll share it here:

The Invitation

by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.

I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are.

I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon.

I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with JOY, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, or to remember the limitations of being a human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you’re telling me is true.

I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.

I want to know if you can be faithful and therefore be trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty even when it is not pretty every day, and if you can source your life from Its presence.

I want to know if you can live failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of a lake and shout to the silver of the full moon,”Yes”

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have.

I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done for the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you are, how you came to be here.

I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.

I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself, and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

May all beings uncover the truth beyond the matter.

via Infinite Smile.

Okay, not quite, but theworsthorse paints an interesting picture of the reasons behind Mel Gibson’s impending split and it has nothing to do with either interesting facial expressions or beard-tugging.

According to the LA Gossip Examiner:

Apparently, Robin Moore [his soon-to-be ex-wife] was becoming very interested in Buddhism, even attending Buddhist temples. Mel Gibson, a staunch Catholic – but definitely not a model one – became very upset with his wife.

Update: Fellow blogger, Danny Fisher, correctly points out that Gibson

…was a co-producer on Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man, the 2005 documentary which detailed (among other things) the famed singer-songwriter’s career and Buddhist practice–he even has a blurb featured prominently in the trailer (see here). So…who knows if there’s anything to this story or not?

Indeed, who knows? Then again, this line of questioning doesn’t diminish the fact that Mel Gibson has publicly expressed some interesting attachments over the years.

This should be interesting.

Zen Buddhist-indie rocker Stuart Davis is launching a new comedy series: Sex, God, Rock ‘n Roll. Season One of of this ground-breaking tv show debuts April 26 on HDNet across the U.S. and Canada. Sex, God, Rock ‘n Roll is written, directed, and hosted by Stuart Davis, and features edgy humor from the open-hearted maniac. Each episode follows Stu performing stand up comedy, news, sketches, and his acclaimed music. A twisted mind and a sensitive soul, Davis has made a career out of parsing tricky topics, and Sex, God, Rock ‘n Roll finds this ‘Punk Monk’ at his multi-faceted best.

Bows, kenwilber.com

The LA Times contributor Andrew Klavan challenged the Liberal Left to listen to Rush’s show before bashing him. This sounds like good advice, especially for those of us on the Path. Attachment to either Mr. Limbaugh’s opinions or the opinions that are in opposition to Mr. Limbaugh will certainly veil awakening from our sight. Right?

Mr. Klavan argues that he has “never heard the man [Limbaugh] utter a single racist, hateful or stupid word!” and therefore, lefty Rush bashers should just listen more deeply to the content in order to find the edifying truth in his daily verbal offerings.

Jason Linkins, it looks like, decided to take Mr. Klavan at his word and came up with the following:

Limbaugh went waaaaaay over the top in insulting Gordon Brown with a mental image that one must work at to un-think about, warning that if the British Prime Minister keeps “slobbering” over President Barack Obama, he’ll “come down with anal poisoning and may die from it.”

I’m not really sure where to go with this as a practitioner of stillness. What kind of clinging leads to this kind of imagery? Anal poisoning? What would Freud do with this? What would Buddha do? Jesus? Would they be laughing as hard as I am right now?

May all beings be healthy, happy, and may their undercarriages be free from any and all toxins.

Sex educator, Violet Blue, interviews author, punk rock bassist, film-maker and Zen rebel, Brad Warner about… you guessed it, the interconnection of sex and Buddhism.

Violet Blue: What’s the basic philosophy about sex from a Zen perspective?

Brad Warner: There’s no specific philosophy as such. When you enter the Buddhist order either as a layperson or clergy you take ten vows, one of which is not to abuse sexuality. But there is no specific definition of what that means. In the earliest Buddhist sanghas they decided that meant you had to be celibate. And some orders still interpret it that way. Lucky for me, Japanese-style Zen Buddhism does not interpret it in that way.

So many individuals seem to think that for any person to be spiritual they need to negate any impulse that originates below the neck. And yet cutting ourselves off from our bodily urges is just another attachment. At the same time, indulging our bodily urges is also just another attachment. Finding the middle space where our sexuality is neither abusive to self nor other helps us in this navigation.

The Washington Post ran an interesting Deepak Chopra article on the evolution of “evil.”

…the Devil is the embodiment of absolute evil, the kind that admits no other explanation. His fortunes decline when valid explanations are at hand.

It seems to make most sense to me that evil is a blunt and inaccurate expression of what unconsciousness would best describe.

Today, Andrew Cohen offers up an interesting piece in which he rather adamantly asserts that:

… Spirit is definitely Higher.

Definitely? Are you absolutely sure? Because conviction begets egoic resistance. I’m just saying we should be careful here.

On the level of mind, sure. No problem. Spirit is “higher.” But then again, it’s also “deeper” than anything. Of course, he alludes to this in his post in which he goes on to share:

… the contours of that which is only One, as it becomes manifest, contain countless dimensions and levels that are not all the same. This is very important to understand. Why? Because our capacity to manifest that which is highest here on Earth—wisdom, insight, evolutionarily enlightened awareness, and deep, impersonal, spiritual love—is entirely dependent upon our being able to discern what can at times be subtle differences. Our own evolution at the deepest level of our being depends upon our willingness to strive consistently to make philosophically and morally challenging distinctions. Spirit is One. But the nature of Spirit as it becomes manifest is the Many.

And again, I agree, as long as we notice that this realization gets defiled the moment we attach to any of it. The moment this, or any articulation, becomes something we view as indisputably true is the moment it becomes personal; the moment it becomes contained; the moment it becomes a mind-object to which we identify. Once this happens any authentic awakening we might hope to let through us gets blocked.

Waylon Lewis offers us a great insider’s account of the shifts and adjustments that Shambhala has made since Trungpa’s death.

…in the 17 years since his death, time has not stood still. When I came of age, having completed the 16-year-old Rites of Passage with Will Ryken and Mitchell Levy, the kingdom in which I had been raised was falling apart. The sad controversy surrounding the Regent was just fading, and the various gates, or spokes of Trungpa Rinpoche’s dharma wheel were spinning off from one another.

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.