I've been reading The Divine Comedy through Buddhist eyes and ethics. They way he tells the story, the language, the translation, the word images he creates. I kind off feel like he's punishing people that have done him wrong. I really hope to not do that. Even my ex-wives who have pained me greatly, I can't be angry at them. Friends have greatly disappointed me, but I tend to take the blame except when they claim not to have choices. But there is one person he liked who he finds in hell, a mentor, who was there for sodomy. I can't imagine God cares where you put or get your excitement (between consenting adults). Seems kind of petty. I get it that they want to grow the religion by having lots of children.
I think Dante was like me, idealistic and he didn't worry about wrong perceptions of himself--he perhaps could have been more political or Machiavellian regarding not getting exiled from Florence. Or maybe it was bound to happen. One of the things I've become interested in while reading The Divine Comedy is why and how he was exiled. Machiavelli was also exiled 200 years later for all his realpolitik. His birthday is May 3rd.
Lust: I'm in this circle of hell. I have not lived with simplicity, stillness and contentment enough. I think of all the sexual misconduct in the Buddhist community coming out of the 60's and the ripples that go on after that. Easily the clay feet exposer extraordinaire. I see Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump arguing about who raped the 16 year old tied up in the other room first. I'm not sure why people don't talk about that happening more. Read that in an article by a guy who called everyone in Epstein's book of phone numbers.
"Dante sees Semiramis, Dido, Cleopatra, Helen of Troy, Paris, Achilles, Tristan" (Wikipedia). I guess you could add Leander of Hero and Leander. Leander tries to swim Hellespont to be with Hero and drowns. My mistakes took up a lot of time in my life, but I wish I could think less about that stuff. I suppose like all intrusive thoughts, the trick is to just not pick them up and turn them over in your mind.
Gluttony: I can't help but see this connected to greed. The gluttony and greed of humans is destroying the earth, allows us to not focus on equal distribution of resources leading to starvation, sickness and harm to our fellow human beings. There's a kind of fundamental opposite of asceticism that misses the middle way. "Dorothy L. Sayers writes that "the surrender to sin which began with mutual indulgence leads by an imperceptible degradation to solitary self-indulgence"."
Greed: The USA military creates a lot of environmental harm, wastes money, and profits the rich. The image of the man on a golf course sending youth off to die in wars comes to my mind. I see corporations dumping toxic waste into rivers so they can give more money to shareholders. I see the rich fleeing India during a pandemic they could stay and fight it with their resources.
You can read some more about the rich in this subreddit post. I read that the Pope is trying to decrease "envelope culture."
I think about Peter Singer donating a fifth of his wealth to poverty issues in Africa. That is the opposite. David Loy is a really good writer who articulates this topic.
Wrath: Included in this one is depression, anger at the self. The image of mud blocking the mouth muting the cries. Not sure if I can get rid of that image.
Walking to the library I was crossing the street and a car almost his me doing an illegal u-turn. The person yelled out, "I told you so, asshole." I didn't really hear him before, so it's hard to understand that comment, but it seems like he anticipated my move, but his being illegal, I didn't anticipate his--but he did and told me so. The incoherence of wrath can be funny.
Dante talks about Medusa, the angry woman. Uma Thurman plays it well both in Percy Jackson and Nymphomaniac. The idea that you can't look at women's rage in Medusa is perhaps a male defense. We need to look at women's anger in our society, listen to it. I like Greta Thunberg's rage, "How dare you!"
Heresy: Buddhism isn't as obsessed with theology, unless you're reading r/Buddhism on Reddit. For me it's more about what you do, and focusing on your spiritual life and what you do.
Violence: Dante categorizes sin into three categories: incontinence, violence and fraud. Obviously violence is terrible and life stealing. Not harming anyone, including animals is pretty good, but not easy. There is emotional violence, sexual violence, and our favorite form of violence, movie violence.
I can still see the image of Frederick Douglass standing on the bank of a river, after seeing another head shot off by a frustrated slave owner, sinking into the river.
Once again I thought Dante was good on violence towards the self--suicide, these section have a real power as well.
Fraud: Fraud steals your power through stealing the truth, by presenting oneself as something that one is not.
Treachery: I know we're not supposed to be too political as a Buddhist. But I can't stop thinking about Russia helping Trump get elected and his thinking not doing anything to prevent deaths from Covid as a political strategy to win an election is quite treacherous. In the end political ideas are projections of psychology and personality, and you can't legislate the mind easily yet, but I think the raping of America by Trump was pure treachery (betrayal of trust; deceptive action or nature.). His complicity with the coup attempt also. Around him were gross flatterers.
Going into government to prove it doesn't work and to wreck it up is the ultimate in unpatriotic activity for an American. Like MTV doesn't play music any more and Christians aren't really into helping others, Republicans lost their way. Any republican with integrity quite the party like George Will. Those who went along for the ride are guilty of treachery.
There's a certain amount of treachery in sexual misconduct, greed, wars and fraud.
In the end, I don't like boxing people up and judging them. The most evil person in my lifetime, Donald Trump is more human than inhuman, more like me than I care to admit.
They say, hate the sin, but love the sinner. I wish I could do that with myself. Turns out what you do is who you are. Our lives are so short, every single thing we do matters. Our lives are so long, it's hard not to lose the intensity and preciousness of it all. The unbearable lightness of being. Perhaps it's just fluctuations in my energy.
Looking forward to Purgatorio next.
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