November, 2009

Those who know me well know that I often have zero interest in popular culture. Sure, I like a good ballgame and follow my local sports teams with more than a passing interest. But when it comes to celebrities, television, "human interest stories," trivial banter, and famous-people gossip, I'm usually tuned out deliberately. Anything I do end up learning about these things is often because our society is so saturated with this crap that even people like me aren't immune from it.

Take the recent "Obama party chasher" couple. Apparently, these two have spent a long time cultivating a high-rolling, pseudo-famous image, to the point where they have now entered our public consciousness by breaching White House security and living it up with the leaders of two nations. Besides the general concern I have for our President and his family, who will probably wonder about security at all future events, I find myself in awe at the level of meaningless nonsense people have deemed important in their lives.

I came upon this relentless article by writer Chris Hedges about the addiction Americans have to pop culture and various other trivial bits of information. He writes:

Will Tiger Woods finally talk to the police? Who will replace Oprah? (Not that Oprah can ever be replaced, of course.) And will Michaele and Tareq Salahi, the couple who crashed President Barack Obama's first state dinner, command the hundreds of thousands of dollars they want for an exclusive television interview? Can Levi Johnston, father of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's grandson, get his wish to be a contestant on "Dancing With the Stars"?

The chatter that passes for news, the gossip that is peddled by the windbags on the airwaves, the noise that drowns out rational discourse, and the timidity and cowardice of what is left of the newspaper industry reflect our flight into collective insanity. We stand on the cusp of one of the most seismic and disturbing dislocations in human history, one that is radically reconfiguring our economy as it is the environment, and our obsessions revolve around the trivial and the absurd.

Of what value is knowing what's "really" on with Tiger Woods? How will knowing that, gasp, Mr. Woods is a flawed guy make the world a less violent, more compassionate place? In fact, how much of wanting to know the "dirt" about famous people is just an effort to feel smug about yourself, to be able to share a moment of glee with your friends at the expense of famous person X? I can hear the emphatic cries now: "I told you Tiger Woods wasn't perfect! I told you so!"

Haven't we heard similar comments about Buddhist teachers whose squeaky clean images are suddenly cracked in half by some scandal. It's as if we have plugged our ears to every teaching the Buddha gave about about the fluctuating, unstable nature of people and their characters.

Take a deep breath after reading the following statement from Hedges, which I think points to the grave trouble that comes from an emphasis on the trivial and meaningless:

Celebrity worship has banished the real from public discourse. And the adulation of celebrity is pervasive. The frenzy around political messiahs, or the devotion of millions of viewers to Oprah, is all part of the yearning to see ourselves in those we worship. We seek to be like them. We seek to make them like us. If Jesus and "The Purpose Driven Life" won't make us a celebrity, then Tony Robbins or positive psychologists or reality television will. We are waiting for our cue to walk onstage and be admired and envied, to become known and celebrated. Nothing else in life counts.

Now, I don't think everyone in the U.S. has a dream to become a celebrity, but certainly there are a lot of us who do. Why else would reality TV be so pervasive, to the point where people like the parents of the "Balloon Boy"(I couldn't escape that one either) would feel entitled to involving real public officials and police officers in a chase for their future fame? Ir would ignorant, in my opinion, to assume that the Balloon Boy scandal, or the White House Party Crashers, are simply isolated incidents of hubris.

Take the show "American Idol," just to give one example. During the last season of the show, 624 million votes were cast for the contestants of the show. In fact, during a single episode in May 2009, 100 million votes were cast. Think about that - almost 1/3rd of the nation felt it was "important" enough to speak their mind about someone singing a pop song on TV. Not pretty.

I could probably fill pages with theories about why all this has come about. Everything from a void of meaning in people's lives to the end logic of a capitalist society might apply. I'd like to think that Buddhist teachings might be of some help, but some days, I'm not sure if even Manjushri's sword could cut through this pervasive, collective delusion.

Maybe it's like chopping down a tree with an axe in that it's going to take many, many hacks from a hell of a lot of us, repeatedly, to shift the madness.

There's nothing new about cults of celebrity and the fantasies that drive them. But when you look at the cultures that became consumed by variations of this theme, such as ancient Rome, it's hard not to see what's coming next: collapse and misery.

In a way, we're already seeing signs of it. People going on shooting rampages. An expansion of overt racial and religious hatred. The commodification of anything and everything, including our deepest, most intimate ethical and spiritual values. And I'm sorry folks, but these aren't just symptoms of a temporary recession: they are balls of collective karma we have been rolling down the mountain for decades.

Not too long ago, I got into an argument with a friend about the level of talent on our local American Football team, the Minnesota Vikings. He said they weren't really as good as their record is, and I disagreed. This went on for a few minutes, some back and forth defending our points with trivial minutia, until I realized that I just didn't care. It didn't matter whatsoever whether I was right or he was right.

And yet as I write this post, I am aware that even I have a bit of this addiction floating within me. This is the power of collective addictions - they have an impact on even those who participate the least in them. May we each wake up, and may we work together to help each other wake up, from these dangerous dreams we cling to.

.
Got this in email and have no clue how it works:

Regifting Robin
.

.
The Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki once wrote (in what context I can't remember) that he would be as patient as an island that was moving, inch by inch, up along the California coast. What good patience that would be!

But my own patience is nothing like that. Sometimes I get full of a kind of wrathful crankiness, 100% in sympathy with those who cloistered themselves and cussed out all comers or those who beat their students unmercifully.

What brought this to mind was reading words about "Soto enlightenment." In contrast, as I got it, to "Rinzai enlightenment." I hesitate even to write such words for fear that some poor schnook will think they might have any valid meaning. What utter and complete HORSESHIT, my impatient mind roars...how dumb can you get?! Find me "Soto" when sitting on a cushion. Find me "Rinzai" when doing zazen ... or picking your nose or gassing up the car or getting laid! Cut the crap!

Two people sit down to write a letter to a dear friend. One picks up the pen with his left hand. One picks up the pen with her right hand. One writes with an ass-puckering neatness. The other writes in great swoops and arabesques. How complicated is this scene? How worthy of anyone's analytical energies? What is the point, here ... what is actually going on? Does it need icing of some kind?

Yes, patience is less and less a strong point for me ... just blow the goddamned island out of the water! Who needs "Buddhism" when they've got Buddhism?

OK, I'll go sit now. I'll do my best to load it up with ooey-gooey virtue or well-schooled serenity or perfectly-credible doubts or some other extraneous shit.

I don't think it'll work, but I'll try.

Shiiieeet!
.

A practice I like to do, and have written about before, is bus meditation. Not just watching people quietly, but actually doing zazen in a moving bus. It looks no different from zazen in a chair at home or at your meditation center, but it certainly can be a challenging, but worthwhile experience.

This morning, on the way to work, I did a little bus meditation. It takes somewhere between 10-15 minutes to get there, perfect for a a short sit. Sometimes, I can settle in quickly, stay focused on my breath, maybe offer metta or lovingkindness to myself and those around me on the bus. Other times, my mind is zippy, ragged, paranoid. This is really no different from any other meditation I've experienced - it changes constantly.

So, I sat and watched old movies this morning. A few thoughts arising about my job. Return to the breath. Memories of nasty, racist comments a few people in my step family made at Thanksgiving, and some judgment of them. Back to the breathing. Pain in my lower back, neck, and shoulders - trying to stay with that - then letting it be. Then, towards the end of the ride, the bus came to a stop and the driver said "We'll be waiting about a minute." This happens fairly often. Sometimes, I have no issue with it, enjoying another minute of breathing. Sometimes, I get this righteous voice in my head about how "controlled" the drivers are by the schedule, and how I wish they weren't so. Still other times, I'm just impatient, anxious, wanting to be out of there for some reason. This morning, as the driver's words came to an end, I noticed a little knot forming in my stomach. No story yet, just a knot. And I was able to see it, and let it pass. The minute stop was no problem, and needed no story.

However, as we started up again, I got ready to get off. In the seat in front of me, a woman also got ready to get off, so I stood waiting for her to get out of her seat. She turned, looked at me, and said "Back door," cutting in front of me. Another moment of righteousness arose - "Geez, why the hell bother" I thought. And then it came to me how the surprise of her not doing what I thought she was going to do tossed me. The effort I made to be kind and wait suddenly was a wasted one in my mind. How interesting!

In this moment, I saw a resistance to the unknown, to the world surprising me. And also an attachment to an outcome that my mind deemed "successful," in order for the effort made to be considered worthy. All attempts to judge the effort, in fact, are simply stories. Good effort, bad effort - does it ever really describe what's happening?

And when I think about the impulse to be kind, to wait for another to do something first, and how that can easily turn sour if that other person surprises you, I kind of cringe. This stuff happens every day. I do it. You probably do it. My guess is that nearly everyone has these moments where there's a shift away from buddhanature because of some surprise that occurred.

Zen talks a lot about "don't know mind," and yet I think most of us get lost in the nice sound of those words. Don't know mind means, in a way, to be constantly surprised by the world without being tossed about by that surprise. Not really an easy thing to do without some practice. And if you're not aware of it even, not aware of the many ways in which your views of the ordinary are fixed and conditioned, then you might talk a good game, but mostly are sleepwalking through your days.

What does the mind and heart that is "don't know" truly look like? How does it feel? Do you even see it, feel it, when it's happening?

Be careful when you step on the bus today. Or get into your car. Or eat lunch. Or whatever it is you do regularly. Appearances are so damn tricky. Don't be fooled by that which looks the same as it was yesterday.

.
An email this morning informed me in detail I did not entirely understand of a change in leadership at a Massachusetts Zen center.

In the email, it referred metaphorically to a flight of geese. When geese fly, as they do around this time of year, they fly in roughly- and sometimes perfectly-shaped V's. The point position changes during the flight ... first one, then another goose assuming the role of leader. There is no static-state leadership role.

I like the analogy.

A good goose.
.

Shirley Chisholm would have been eighty-five today.



I think she would have loved last year's election, particularly the primary, having lots of problems picking her candidate...