vegetarian subtext

In The Sexual Politics of Meat by Carol Adams, she talks about how Charlotte's Web and Frankenstein have a vegetarian subtext. The stories are about how you should have empathy for animals and not eat them.

In w/ Bob & Dave on Netflix (in the US), among the first skits is one about men playing poker who have unrealistic dreams. One guy is Jewish and wants to become the first pope. Another guy wants to move to Hollywood and become a big movie director. Another wants to become a judge. They make fun of the guy who wants to stop eating meat.

The world is inverted, absurd goals are realistic and realistic things are absurd. They make fun of him for saying he will quit meat. They order a pizza with pepperoni and he he can't hold onto his resolution. And the others go on to do what they said they would do.

They are mocking how hard it is to quit meat, though with the American mindset it's more realistic to dream big, the idea of the American dream, you can do what ever you set your mind to. But not eating meat is crazy, undoable. 

Demolishing Wrong View

In Sangharakshita's latest essay "A Passage to America" he says:

Though there is a great deal of suffering in the world, much of it is due not to natural evil but to the morally evil behaviour of other people, especially as supported by this or that ideology. It is not enough, therefore, that we should seek to popularize mindfulness and metta, desirable as this may be. We have also to demolish the wrong views that undergird morally evil behaviour, and I suspect that work of demolishing them will be one of Triratna’s main tasks for a long time to come.

I guess you live the question as to how to best demolish wrong views that lead to suffering.

Where I'm at

Approaching art as though it's dharma is a way to incorporating... I want to say the spiritual life into the spiritual life. Perfection of wisdom moment.

Santa Clara Diet is about blood lust incorporated into the suburban lifestyle. She can't help herself, and they try to just brush it under the rug. Her husband cooperates to the best of his ability. Every day is a crisis of our desires and society's expectations.

Love, on Netflix, is about love and sex addiction. A woman who made poor romantic choices tries to pick a sensitive man, who is himself in need of assertiveness and insight. They try to grow up but it's also got a great sense of place about L.A.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is about abandoning everything to be connected to those you desire. She is smart and has willing accomplices. In the end she goes to jail after living in suburban L.A.

I tried to start reading Getting Off by Erica Garza. I've stalled even though it's a short book. This book is set in L.A.

I'm also reading A History of God which is in some ways an interesting history of human earth religion.

The movie version of Never Let Me Go is depressing, hard to finish. It's in a future world where people are grown specifically to donate organs.

The phrase "chasing the dragon" refers to trying to score drugs, addiction. Addiction is a matter of degrees. How impatient are your to fill up and empty out, the stomach, the bladder, the sink of dishes, the fridge of food?

Altered Carbon has been adapted by Netflix and is about how loving someone always makes a weakness, leads to exploitation, can be used against  you. That's a kind of man romance narrative, reluctant lover. Women throw themselves at him he never initiates. That's not how the world works, thus male romance. They call it tech noir.

Just enjoyed Fun House. It's an intense graphic novel about coming out, literature and self discovery. Now I'm reading First Landing. This is a good book on Mars. Mine is not so good. I wrote a Mars novel, and I've had my first reader read it. I'm going to be getting some feedback today hopefully. I like to think I'm perfectly OK with it sucking. But I think it's been read, so bravo for me. A novel written that is read by at least one is a success. Not sure how much I want to draft it. I could see drafting it the rest of my life, or just letting it go now. I already started on the second novel.

The opposite of Buddhism, still want to get rid of here

Sometimes thoughts are so vivid in my head, I can't shake them for a while. I always say when there's a train of thought coming through, step off the tracks and just let it go by.

A few times people have told me to take responsibility and then went on to say that they had no choice which undermines their point, which really confuses and befudles me. I know when I'm in the wrong I can't nit pick against someone's point, nobody cares, that's why I'm pointing out the contradiction in a blog post.

It would be better to say, "when you did what you had to do, I did what I had to do." That is deterministically consistent.

Or when, "when you made your poor choice, my choice was easy." That is free will consistent.

But to say "when you made your poor choice, I had to do what I had to do." Well, that's free will and determinism. Hey, maybe that's perfection of wisdom.

I'm pretty sure the Buddha would say the determinism versus free will debate won't get you enlightened and the Muslims would call it zanna. I know when I'm in the wrong it's not the time to point out that people are not consistent.

But still. Making a point needs to be clear and not distracting. Probably the least corrected situation is attacking someone in the wrong because nobody cares. "You're losing focus on how wrong you were." Another misdirection evoked by the way someone communicates then blamed on the person getting the heat. Piling on, blame the victim.

Reading

There is a paradox in the seeking in the spiritual life. In the Buddhist tradition you look inwards, but to see guidance outside yourself, you can get support. We don't always assess things properly, don't necessarily see when we're snookered. You can get dramatic and say kill the Buddha. Being too self reliant, you might not hear the teachings that you need.

There's another paradox in syncretism. Do you seek the path that is pointed to by all the traditions? Is it fair to co-opt tricks and turns from traditions that have different goals? Is heaven and grace here and now a kind of enlightenment?

Find the Seeker takes a syncretic approach by looking at Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, Stoicism, mystical and metaphysical poets, New Age gurus and Christianity. It has me asking these questions.

There is a part of me that wonders if Buddhism needs other ideas. I don't have a problem with people enjoying other traditions to enhance a Buddhist project. I don't have people who don't want to define things and put them in boxes. I don't have a problem with people enjoying traditions outside Buddhism. You own your path. I just wonder if I need anything else besides the Buddhist teachings. I certainly read other things, but it's just a matter of exposing myself. Perhaps I'm afraid it's not all contained in Buddhism. I want to make sure. Usually I find that I don't need anything besides Buddhism. I don't like it that I'm wary of some teachers, their reputation isn't that great. Perhaps some found good. I'm not against anyone finding good in a teacher. I sometimes wonder if some teachers just tried to churn out stuff to get a following or to maximize their sexual partners or to feel grand, but I didn't really know them, and I shouldn't comment not knowing. I can only go on what seems to me, and I try to have a sense of how well I know things. We have to be superficial because we can't be interested in everything. We have limits. Some books just somehow raise my hackles. Am I just too comfortable with my teacher? One talk I listened to discussed how you should absorb yourself in a tradition quite a while to give it a fair chance. Some people are more faithful and some people are more promiscuous with a tradition or traditions.

I feel like there is a saturation in spiritual books. We're chock a block with them. Some people are into The Secret. Or A Course Of Miracles. I've had lovely conversations based on these books though I have not read them myself. I like Marsha Linehan. There's an intersection between psychology and spirituality. I used to encourage people to explore their spiritual life.

I ask for people to send books to me, and then I get a big pile of books that I don't want to read once I read a few pages. Then I go months and months. I can't seem to control the flow of books, too much for a time, to little for a time. I haven't been reading as much as I used to. I gobbled up books there for a while and I've reread and reread quite a lot of books. Certainly I've missed a lot in gluttony and indigestion. Nowadays books tend to lose me in the introduction. I've been reading a lot of novels instead. I try to push nonfiction but it grates on me at times. You have to give library books back, even though modern apps allow for easy renewal. I've got a list of books I can get out of the library and continue to read. Every once in a while I pick up a book I was reading and finish it and wonder why I quit reading it. I must be currently in the process of reading about 40 books. I read a Mary Oliver poem almost every day.

I hate to sound like a psychoanalytic wonk but I like formulated experience, describing inner experience in it's rich flora and fauna. Sometimes I can't fall asleep because ideas are swooshing around my mind. I remember taking up 2 days contemplating an offense on a retreat. It's hard not to be precious and self obsessed examining your experience to try and transcend it.

More on violence and buddhism

NY Times had an interesting article, with an interesting quote: "There is a philosophically problematic presupposition that also figures into widespread surprise at the very idea of violence perpetrated by Buddhists -- that there is a straightforward relationship between beliefs people hold and the likelihood that they will behave in a corresponding way."

I'm guilty of violating my core beliefs, spectacularly so, but I do think there is a "straightforward relationship between beliefs people hold and the likelihood that they will behave in a corresponding way." It's called integrity. Unless you're on Arrested Development and part of the Bluth family, there is an expectation between words and actions. Maybe not if you're the president of the USA, and his staff, but for everyone else. (I never realized how much I expect from the president of the USA until a president seems so unpresidential--I often realize my beliefs after I have violated them. I need to be more proactive.)

The writers goes on to say that we are not transparent, we are opaque, and we never really know what we're going to do or for why.

The writers are Dan Arnold and Alicia Turner, and they go on to suggest that what ever people believe, the same wide range of human failings will always be present. A sort of conservation of failings belief? In dumping the metaphysic that people might be influenced by their beliefs, they seem wise and savvy, but do they create another unbelievable metaphysic?

I feel like the second I stepped into Buddhism, it was all about exemplifying and inhabiting a belief in doing well for others, and not just saying it. That's the whole point. Now, we're all in process and we're unlikely to be enlightened so there will be a gap between our aspirations and our behavior. I'd say "hate the sin but not the sinner", but we are what we do, so the sin is the sinner. We can see people for what they hope to be. The point is to be realistic that there will be a gap, but also not make that an "alli alli in come free".

I did like it that the article pointed out that the colonizers, the British, started splitting the country's groups by saying the Buddhists were peaceful, and that the Muslim and Hindu were not. There are peaceful strains in both those religions, they could have worked to unite, but as colonizers they were more about exploiting. So the idea that Buddhists are non-violent may have a history in colonialism.

But I still think we should be able to follow belief to action. I'm not willing to give that up.

Someone asked my opinion

What do I think about gun control?

I'm against the NRA. When I taught current events, I read the paper a lot and I noticed about once a year a father shot his daughter when she jumped out of a closet to surprise him as a joke. I've always been for gun control. I posted a link on my FB page about how the second amendment was for slavery. There is clear evidence that stricter laws would lead to less gun violence, and banning this assault rifle would stop people being murdered by it. Sure they could use other guns and bump stocks, but it might not be quite as an efficient murdering of humans machine.

The parallel with car is talked about--cars kill many people but we accept the risk. It's just that cars are for transport and guns are for killing. I'd be OK with getting rid of cars and only having mass transit. I'd love to bike to work on roads that don't have cars, like you sometimes see in China. I spent my childhood biking to school. I actually think we should have car laws that make them smaller. There has been an arms race to make cars bigger and bigger for "safety". I think an unintended consequence is that we're using up fossil fuels faster and polluting the environment. Unintended consequences: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unintended_consequences.

Thoughts and prayers does nothing, and the focus on "mentally ill" people not getting fire arms is offensive. So because I have depression I can't get a gun? If 2/3 people have a diagnosis in the lifetime, how mentally ill must a person be? What's the line? Again I think we run up against the fact that everyone has murderous rage inside them at one time or another and can act on it or not act on it. Most people don't act on it. There is no brain scan or chemistry test that can tell if someone will act on it.

Someone posted about a big knife attack in China saying getting rid of guns doesn't stop violence. Of course that person didn't kill as many people and was subdued quickly even if they inflicted damage in the meantime. That black presidential candidate said you've got to attack the gun shooter. Now he's in charge of housing in America and is trying to sabotage housing in America. And there was a guy with a gun there, and he did nothing. Now the whole country tries to shame him. Not everyone goes charging into a gun fight.

I've tried to read justifications on why we can't get rid of guns, and the articles are basically mumbo jumbo as far as I can tell. I can't even read discussions on FB because I get angry pretty quickly. In my mind we don't need guns. There was a joke that we need to reclassify schools as uterus and then the right would want to not kill anyone in them any more. There are so many contradictions and hypocrisy. When they point out the hypocrisy of cars, I just don't see it personally.

I know quite a lot of people who like their guns and believe strongly in the right to bear arms. I've seen a lot of people pick apart that so called right. In the end, I don't see people being persuaded one way or the other. Our president has sharpened the partisan divide, brought America apart.

People talk about Switzerland where they have a similar gun to people ratio and there isn't any problems. So what is the problem? I guess they don't need stricter gun laws.

They used to have people jumping off the empire state building, and then they put a net there. Of course you can jump onto the net and crawl to the edge, but it actually stops people from jumping. I believe you can do things to protect people. I don't think guns are necessary in our world any more. You can still have sporting clubs and whatnot, and still get the joy of gun shooting and whatnot. I've gone hunting, though I never got anything. It's not about getting rid of hunting culture. It's about killing less humans in a rage. Hunting culture actually helps with a respect for the violence. Hunting often has respect for the animals as well. Hunting with a bow is seen as superior because it's harder.

The liberals parallel the hoops you have to jump through to get an abortion or drive a car. I'm not a fan of government, I'm starting to lean right on this issue a little, or maybe understand it more. I wish we had less government more and more as I move through life. Not sure what homeland security does that other agencies don't do.

I remember when my uncle didn't renew his gun license for his guns. The sergeants came to the door and asked for them. My aunt said they were in the country and that they absolutely could not come in. But the guns were in the house. It kind of makes a mockery of licenses.

I think our modern society is sick. And we need to treat it as such. There is an array of solutions that would allow the gun nuts to keep their guns and just not let new people get them, and phase it out: Buy back programs; Australia took away the right to have gun. 

In England my ex-father in law had a gun, but he also had to have a gun safe bolted to the house, which was a good thing because his crazy son and daughter were the kind of people who would do such a thing (not my ex-wife or her older sister, but the 2 youngest were nuts). Seemed reasonable. But in the wild west of america we want our guns to be available for protection. 

I think we are less safe with guns and while I was brought up to shoot guns and have shot them many times, in many different situations, I don't really want gun around.

This whole thing makes me sick and I've felt helpless since I began reading articles about fathers shooting daughters in the 90's. I know friends on FB who love their gun collections, have a history in the military. I don't want to take away their guns. Just make it harder to get them moving forward. Let rodeo contestants ride their horse around shooting targets all they wants. Just evolve and phase it out. Which is what will happen but not soon enough for me. 

I resolved the issue in my head in the 90's. Loving children more than guns is what it will take. And the corruption of politicians taking NRA money needs to be exposed and they need to be voted out of office. I was sad to see that that guy that ran with Palin who some like, was on the take. We have to change the system. 

I'm in favor of teachers walking out, students walking out, any kind of protest. But I have little hope. I've been through this so many times. I don't have the patience. There's too many fuck faces who believe in the right. Even my supervisor in my first internship posts photos of his guns. He's a social worker in NYC, what's he need a gun for? A cop friend when he came over would put his gun up high so children couldn't get it when he came over. Come on. We can be mindful about guns and not stupid to keep them out of the hands that they don't belong.

I had a friend in high school who hammered a bullet and got shot in the wrist. You can say he was stupid or his parents were stupid for allowing him access. I think if it's harder to get to these things, then things like that don't happen. The world is evolving quickly and we're working on reducing fatal errors. Nobs on medical equipment are being standardized. Pilots and doctors have meetings where they can discuss their errors without fear of repercussions in an effort to cut down on mistakes. Safety is preached everywhere, OSHA and safety officers are everywhere. Somehow we have to go dumb on gun? They're that special to us now? I think it's a fiction that the NRA spreads that any creep will end up with outlawing them outright. I wish that were true. It's going to take longer to evolve there than my lifetime. Please, let us progress.

I'd get rid of them all together or heavily regulate. But the more realistic program is to gradually decrease their accessibility. It already works in the cities. We don't want people spraying bullets in heavily populated areas.

I go down the line. I'm against nuclear weapons, war, killing animals, and killing the ability of people to have babies with a safety net. It's not until we can treat all life as precious that we'll truly have justice on our planet.

So don't arm teachers, don't expect teachers to dive in front of children, don't expect teachers to charge a shooter, don't put more guns out there as a deterrent. Don't delude yourself into thinking we could get rid of guns all together, and don't treat the right to bear arms as something so sacrosanct, it's just another money making scheme that doesn't work if people are murdered;You just lost another customer.

The gun culture of America is not going away any time soon, and as atrocity after atrocity shows, we don't react with a clamp down on guns. I hope the youths for gun control speak out more and more, and the culture eventually fades away, when murder no longer becomes acceptable.

Bits and bobs.

I’m reading History of God, which has been very interesting. It’s kind of a comparative religion course by the great mind of Karen Armstrong. It’s includes Buddhism in it’s contemplation. I've been tempted to quote it many times. Some real fascinating stuff.

I can't get past the unmoved mover. This remote God doesn't get involved, it's hard to connect with it. When you take it into the trinity, there's a big question of whether Jesus was God or whether he was some sort of intermediary. My inclination is to think of Jesus saying he's the son of god, as saying we're all the son of god--which is not the doctrine.

The parallel between Theravada and Mahayana and Judaism and Christianity is interesting. Because the Jews were displaced so much, they had to get by without the temple. So they made everyone into a rabbi. In Theravada only the monks can go for it, but in Mahayana everyone can go for it, and doing good acts is quite good. There are many rules for the Jews, there are many rules for the monks. But there are broad principles in Christianity and the Mahayana.

I'm attracted to the do good Christianity, but as Karen Armstrong points out, it's a kind of minority of Christians who believe in that stuff. I still agree with the Buddha that getting all twisted up about God doesn't help one to move towards enlightenment. I still find the book interesting in terms of the history of religion. I need to know more about Christianity because it's used so much in literature and in America.

I've been thinking a lot about attention and control. It's hard to not control the breath when I'm paying attention to it. It take a fair amount of meditation to release the control and just watch. I parallel that to some parenting struggles.

A swell guy in the sangha passed away but he left us one of his play lists. I found it to be pretty good.

I got an interesting looking book called Find The Seeker that I'm slowly looking into.

Richard DeWald

One of my favorite bloggers is Richard DeWald. 

Also, I couldn't have said this better myself.

Book of the year

Looking through my books and posts from last year, I didn't read any great books that were published in 2017, so I can't give out a best book of the year award. There are so many books that are out there free, so many talks that are free. I know the writers who teach the dharma and sell their books don't make a killing. I'm sure they fund their various philanthropies.

I did read Psychotherapy East and West, and that's an interesting book, but I guess I wouldn't recommend it for anyone who wasn't a Buddhist psychotherapist or liked Alan Watts. I like his writings and that is why I'm reading his collected letters. I find his rhetorical style interesting, I study him as a writer.

I'm reading books on love, like Big Love, but I don't know if you would call it Dharma. I do read books as Dharma whether they are or not, but that's a personal decision.

The books that might be under consideration, Sharon Salzberg and Robin Wright's Why Buddhism Is True, I didn't finish. Salzberg's book seemed like a repeat of a past one. And I don't need scientific confirmation that the Dharma is good for me. True for me is good enough.

I wanted to Mark Epstein's new one but that's published this year. I wouldn't mind taking a gander at Unsubscribe. And I wouldn't mind looking at The Lost Art of Good Conversation. There's a new translation of Milarepa's songs I wouldn't mind reading. And Joan Halifax's new book isn't out yet. The Best Buddhist Writing series ended in 2012. I am enjoying Meditation Saved My Life but that was published in 2016.

The above books haven't come to my library last time I checked. Anyone have any good book suggestions?

spoiler alert

I've had glimpses of insight, a connection to everything, I've felt a weird kind of hallucinatory love. At the time, I didn't think much of it. I guess I've been trained to think peak experiences are distracting, not to be aimed for, just enjoy and then keep moving forward. I didn't even tell anyone when I was on retreat and I was the wind, the leaves, the trees, the roots, the ground, everything.

I go the other way with that now. I think I needed to take them more seriously. That I could descend into a negative place, and forget these things, was not good. I need to remember them, and act on them.

Spoiler alert! Do not read forward if you care about seeing Philip K Dick's Electric Dreams (Amazon Prime). It's kind of like Black Mirror (Netflix), they are episodic scifi, but just amazing.

The first episode is about going on a holiday. Some computer thingy reads your mind and sends you on a vacation. A woman who is leading a lovely life, goes on one out of stress. She ends up in a guilt fantasy--she can't believe her luck, so her holiday is a worse life, but she can get off on suffering for what she feels guilty about in real life. But in the course of things, it becomes confusing which is her real life. She imagines that the suffering life can't be her holiday and gets stuck in the suffering life.

I feel the same way about the spiritual life. It can't be as awesome as it seems. But it is. There's a phrase from the big book, "rocketing into a fourth dimension." I need to remember that. I don't need to choose the suffering life.

227 rules

"Should any bhikkhu knowingly deprive an animal of life, it is to be confessed." The above is from the 227 rules of conduct for a Theravadan Buddist Monk.

I think in this day and age you can assumed that eating meat caused the death of animals. To split hairs the carnist says did they kill it specifically for you? Decreasing the demand is what should be done for a multitude of reasons.

There are some far out rules. You can't dig in dirt or ride in a boat with a nun, except to cross a river. You can't be alone in a room with a woman with the door closed. Reminds me when a female psychotherapist left the door open for an orthodox man. I thought that was so bizarre at the time. With all the men losing their jobs because of sexual misconduct, maybe it's not so weird.

Who is the accused famous person who you find after Weinstein? I just saw Dustin Hoffman has been accused by 4 women. Do you gotta show your penis to women when you hit a certain age? Of course Hoffman is no Buddhist monk, rather a Hollywood movie star, with a different set of expectations.

Other recent thoughts: I've been reading Chogyam Trungpa's Training the Mind and Cultivating Loving-Kindness. There are two slogans that sort of got to me. One is "Drive all into one." This means that your wife leaves you, you inherit money, you lose your job, you find a sangha that works for you. Up and down life goes, but I often think, "if such and such just didn't happen," or, "This person made this wrong decision that negatively impacted me." It's all about driving pain away and pulling pleasure towards you. So you can come up with a proliferation of reasons why things have turned for the worse, but in the end it's all our relationship to our resistance to what is happening. It's easier said than done, but not resisting what must happen because of circumstances is good. The confusion for me comes when it looks like you might be able to change things. It's never really clear.

He gives good advice about how to take mindfulness off the cushion. He talks about being a child of illusion. When you're sitting, because you can't move (much) and don't have distractions like googling to gratify curiosity or playing music from India while you read an Indian author, you just notice what your mind is doing. Off the cushion it's not so obvious that you're mind is telling stories. So to "be a child of illusion" is to regard your thinking as you do similarly while on the cushion.


I've been reading Jack Kornfield's first book that came out in 1977. There is a kind of skepticism that writing a book would be useful, but still he interviews a bunch of teachers from Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia. He was one of the first people I read when I started digging into Buddhism.

Finally, I got a collection of Alan Watts letters which looks interesting. I like to read people's letters.

Hope everyone has good holidays. My pharmacist said that to me, and I asked him what his background was. He's a Muslim from Pakistan and he came here in '72 on a visa because he was a pharmacist and America needed them at that time. He offered to sign up for the military but Vietnam was winding down and they didn't need him. He told me two horrifying stories of being worked over at airports. Once when he was going to his father's funeral they accused him of being on drugs because his eyes were red from crying in grief because his father was his best friend. Sounded terrible. Anyway, happy holidays.

Contemplating the Buddha

My two gurus. The Buddha has shown me so many things about my mind, and launched great curiosity. My daughter is so curious, kind and she can fall asleep on a dime and be happy on a dime, she gets over things quickly. She challenges me to be my best every day.

#3

I've gotten away from moving through the 37 Bodhisattva practices: #1 and #2 are done.

The third practices is:

By avoiding bad objects, disturbing emotions gradually decrease
Without distraction, virtuous action nationally increase
With clarity of mind, conviction in the teacher arises.
Cultivate seclusion--This is the practice of the Bodhisattva

That sounds like advice from a Theravadan. The cannon of Mahayana texts comes after the word of the Buddha, though they says they are part of it. It is riffing off the life of the Buddha, combating a sort of isolating self spiritual pursuit. The Bodhisattva goes for Enlightenment with everyone.

Today we have all the texts and don't have to be sectarian, there is one dharma. It's a false dichotomy arhant/bodhisattva. One needs to retreat at times and develop with practices.

There's a group on Facebook called Western Buddhism. People ask questions and post logical conundrums. I want to ask people what their practices are, what do they do, and does it work and how it works.

I have gotten nothing but the culture that if you want to criticize someone, look at yourself. It does not behoove your practice to criticize others. Anyway, we can only control our spiritual lives. Energy invested in progressing yourself instead of criticizing others, is the ideal. It's not that we can't comment on others practices. It's just more like frivolous speech that it is harmonious speech.

Bodhisattva fever

Started reading Training The Mind and Cultivating Loving-Kindness by Chogyam Trungpa. He's got interesting language, "bodhisattva fever" and "cosmic monster". The book based off the seven point mind training. They are useful slogans that because of their small nature are open to wide interpretation but are best studied with a teacher. There are many version of explication available, even though this used to be a person to person oral teaching.

I can't but help think of his reckless behavior causing suffering. I won't go into. He had that crazy wisdom and tried to shake things up. He had a military unit in Shambhala. Watch the movie Crazy Wisdom. I think they cut out some of the more negative consequences in the release version.

He was among the few survivors who got out, lived a challenging life, with a terrible car accident. He founded Shambhala which is an amazing thing in itself. Founding a sect of American Buddhism or western Buddhism is no small feat. Lots of good in his life.

I agree with bell hooks that the good doesn't erase the negative in terms of using the word love. There has been a lot of abuse by Buddhist teachers. After the Weinstein effect, many people are complaining about abuses of power. I am not immune to sexual misconduct. America gobbled up Trungpa's teachings because Buddhism was new to America. Nevertheless I am reading his book with my critical faculties alive. 

Love continued

In all about love, the chapter on mutuality was a bit challenging to hear, but I can't say hooks is wrong. She contends that men seek out partners to mother them, to preserve their peter pan-ness. Men want to be loved without having to extend themselves and evolve, able to not communicate when they don't want to. Women are then put into the nagging position and that is when men can use violence to shut up the nagging. hooks puts the blame for this whole situation on men, and suggest that blaming women or even trying to see it equally at fault, is to not see the situation clearly. I'm sure these themes are developed further on her book about men and love.

She discusses divine love and romantic love. I remember in college I thought Gitangali by Tagore was about romantic love, but it was about divine love. Boy was I embarrassed.

Now I'm on the chapter of loss. She talks about love of death versus love. She quote Fromm, and that got me thinking about the death instinct. I think we're in an era of the death instinct. I think policies of government are known to increase deaths. Until we can cherish all life, I'm afraid we're doomed. I should speak, I hardly control my own negativity, acting in my own self interest is hard somehow.

The book is an up and down mixed bag, but I'm really enjoying it. I find it worthy of following her thoughts.

Love

bell hooks had a powerful chapter on greed in her book all about love. I'm not going to summarize or quote it. It moved me a lot.

hooks thinks the best way to get love is to avoid romantic relationships and have a circle of family and friends who are truly loving, that stand the test of time. She thinks small communities are best for this.

I've gotten friendly with a Colombian woman at the park, who has a daughter one month younger than mine. She says in NYC, people are not friendly because everyone is wary and rightly so. But someone at the park with a child is unlikely to whip out a gun. I work to build community in my neighborhood. Unfortunately everyone worth being friends with works and comes home to gork at the TV. Mothers at the park are interesting but primarily concerned with the children, I have to run after my daughter when she runs away, which is not conducive to conversation. I'm thinking I'm going to make more of an effort to befriend the males that live near me. But to tell you the truth, I do want to move to a small town, I'm over NYC.

In the mail I have 2 more books on Love, never mind all the ones hooks recommends. The Forgotten Art of Love: What Love Means and Why It Matters is by a doctor with a doctorate, Armin A. Zahed, a professor at Johns Hopkins medical school.

Big Love is by Scott Stabile who is an inspirational writer from Brooklyn.

Parenting and the dhamma

"If you’re a parent, for instance, a large component of your practice might center on understanding and thereby attempting to release the feelings of stress that arise around your children’s welfare. The very areas of your life that are sources of suffering for you can also help you to develop all the inner qualities which are necessary for attaining peace. Ajahn Viradhammo

Lying

In bell hooks' all about love she writes about the importance of honesty in association with love in chapter 3. When someone asks her if she liked a present, she is honest with them. Often times people are upset at what they hear.

I think sometimes in language you have to translate social conventions into what they really are. If someone asks if you like a present, they want a thank you really. They don't want honesty. They may want a hint of honesty, to see if it was a good present or not. To my utter shame and cringing I once told my uncle that I didn't really like the Star Wars spaceship he got for me for Christmas. I think the sentiment is wonderful. My uncle loves me and tried to get me something I would like. All kids liked Star Wars. He was really sweet and I responded with harsh truth. I think speaking the unvarnished truth, at times, is socially jarring and shows a lack of empathy for the other person.

Another example is, "how do I look?" I think the important thing to communicate is that you love someone, find them capable of being attractive, that their presentation matches the awesomeness that you see in them. To say, "I don't like bangs," or shoulder ruffles or whatever isn't really something to break out at that moment if it is the truth. Of course people will be angry if they later find out that you don't like bangs, so there is some questions. Anyway, if you want to go ahead and say you're, "not a fan of bangs, but they seem to pull it off," that captures both truth and commitment to a person.

This brings up the question of verbal dexterity. I'm not great in the moment in communicating often. It is to not accept me to think I should stop this immediately. I've been learning scripts my whole life to try and be apt in the moment, but novelty outstretches my experience. I think to not understand that communication is a first draft, it perhaps a bit harsh.

Some people can hear the intention behind the words, and that is quite a lovely skill. But to use that knowledge for lying, well that's mendacity.

Having written that, we live in a time when lying seems to be OK for the President of the United States and his staff. And as per bell hooks, I'm not feeling a lot of love from the executive branch.

Love

 

In bell hooks' all about love she likes Scott Peck's definition of love as "the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth."

She asserts that "love is as love does." One cannot abuse or neglect someone and then say they love them. Well, they can say that, but it's a confusion. Therefore patriarchy, sexism, racism, and savage inequalities are barriers to love. To participate, even unknowingly in these systems of oppression, any oppression is to not love.

In the chapter I just read, she talks about how parents think that abusing a child physically is OK, but that it's no OK for adults to abuse other adults. The family is perhaps open to autocrats and fascists. The idea that blood relations equals love does not equate with the above definition. Blood has nothing to do with it.

I find this book pretty amazing.

On another note:

Please consider donating to a friend who incurred medical expenses not covered in his cancer treatment by his insurance.