Despots and fiddles

Note: I first wrote this post in September of 2011—Nine years ago. While the specifics have changed, the essence has not.

“Qu’ils mangent de la brioche.”—Let them eat cake. While scholars no longer attribute this saying to Marie Antoinette, it has nevertheless remained as the prime example of disdain by the aristocracy for people in need. It exists in classic anthologies epitomizing indifference exhibited by those with means for those who suffer. In the same vane is the myth of Nero fiddling while Rome burned, which has come to mean to occupy oneself with unimportant matters and neglect priorities during a crisis.

Both of these are finding relevance in our world today. While people try to regain their footing following natural disasters or struggle to survive following extended unemployment, loss of homes, and virtually any means of support, politicians wax on endlessly concerning themselves more with how many points they can gain by confronting “the opposition” than how many mouths they can feed.

In exactly two months time the appointed Washington “super committee” must propose ways to reduce an out of control Federal deficit. Whatever means they propose must be voted on by Dec. 23. As the situation currently stands these people are no closer to reaching accord than when they were convened a month ago. During that month one of the most devastating hurricanes on record destroyed the lives of hundreds of thousands and goes on record as one of the 10 costliest catastrophes in the nation’s history.

FEMA is our first-responder agency for bringing aid to such people as those who were wiped out by Irene or by the devastating EF5 multiple-vortex tornado that struck Joplin, Missouri. Every caring American expects our government to provide whatever support is necessary to assist those in need. Instead, FEMA is being held hostage by the radical fringe, lead by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor who demands that offsetting budget cuts in other programs must be found before approving new funding for FEMA. Such additional funding in the wake of costly disasters has been the usual procedure in Congress in the past since natural disasters by their very nature cannot be predicted.

On one level Mr. Cantor’s reasoning appears responsible. To go further in debt at the same time that the super committee is trying to come to terms with the future of our nation seems unreasonable. The costs must be born somehow and the source of such funding is perfectly obvious. When infamous bank robber Willie Sutton was asked why he robbed banks, his answer was immediate and clear: It’s where the money is. So where’s our money? It isn’t in the hands of the disappearing middle class. It isn’t in the hands of the expanding poor and desperate. The money is where it always has been: In the banks. Yet it is precisely the financial institutions of our nation that are now doing everything possible to manipulate the law to ensure that we once again pay for their own mismanagement. 

They were not shy in asking us to bail them out when they teetered on the edge of disaster. We did so and they repaid our generosity by handing out astronomical bonuses to their “senior executives” and then refused to fuel our economic recovery. In the meantime, so we’re told, corporations are flush with fat profits. Why won’t they reinvest? Because there isn’t sufficient demand. And why isn’t there sufficient demand? Because people have no jobs. And why do people have no jobs? Because the people who have money won’t invest it. Does anyone but me see the Catch 22 here?

If Mr. Cantor wants to find the offsets to continue FEMA funding, then he should take a lesson from Willie, go get the money from where it exists and stop his fiddling. Rome is about to burn and we need a lot more than “cake.”

Solomon and a divided nation

Once upon a time in a kingdom far away, there lived a king of great wisdom. Each day the king would hold court and hear the pleas of his people. One day, two opponents came before him for his adjudication over a matter of extreme importance concerning the state’s child. One of the opponents pleaded with the king to slash to the child’s support to the bone, arguing that the state will flounder and die unless the child is starved. His opponent argued that unless the king waged war on his neighbors and robbed their coffers, there wouldn’t be enough money to continue supporting the child, and it would likewise die. The king saw that to preserve the child of state, he would need to adopt a middle way between these two extremes, reducing the child’s support and avoiding war, which greatly angered both opponents but saved the child.

The we of you and me.

Previously, I published a book, The Non-Identity Crisis—The crisis that endangers our world. The topic of the book concerns a common mistake that everyone makes: We confuse functions with identity, and since we attach ourselves with these, we create unending hardship for others and ourselves.

Let me illustrate what I’m talking about with a small example. In a day, we perform many different functions. We get out of bed, go to the bathroom, prepare and eat meals, drive to various places, talk with people, assume specific roles, and do other things. While we are walking from our beds, we are performing a function called walking. During that time, we could rightly say that we are a walker. One who walks is a walker. One who prepares food is a preparer, driving/driver, talking/talker, so on and so forth. As our functions change, our sense of being changes accordingly.

This matter is compounded with other forms of more enduring activities that lead to misidentification. Some functions are vacillating and short-lived, such as eating or walking. Sometimes we eat, sometimes we walk, but these functions come and go frequently. However, other aspects are more enduring, such as being a parent, a spouse, or a volunteer. But even these can and do change. And there are other matters that we take on that define us, such as national, economic, political, religious, or ideological identities. All of the preceding can be, and are, combined. And all are changing and morphing. None of it stands still, but we do. That much is clearly evident and doesn’t require further explanation. So what’s the issue?

The issue is one of attaching our sense of being and worth to moving targets. If we ever took the time to truly understand ourselves (at the fundamental level), everything would be okay. We don’t, however, take the time to understand ourselves at this bedrock level. Instead, we understand ourselves based on these changing dimensions of mis-identity, and we suffer and create trouble because of this error. 

For example, we may consider ourselves (by way of illustration) as a prosperous American Republican, Christian, spouse, and parent. That is a complex combining, and each part of that combination changes. When we identify with each component (or the complex combination), we feel like our beingness is defined and vulnerable to attack. And then, we take the next step and defend these forms of identity against others who represent themselves differently.

Prosperity is then opposed to the disadvantaged; American is opposed to non-American; Democrat against Republican; Christian against non-Christian, etc. It is quite right that we flock together with birds of a feather to attack and get rid of birds with different feathers. If you wanted to articulate and characterize the core problem we are facing at this point in time, worldwide, it would emanate from this tendency to mis-identify and create forms of hostility against others not like us. This tendency makes it nearly impossible to break the logjam of dysfunction in Washington and worldwide, and that tendency is jeopardizing our mutual welfare.

What’s the solution? Actually, it isn’t that difficult to figure out, but it is challenging to solve. The answer is to take the time to find out who we are, at that fundamental level, because when we do that, we discover that we are one joint human family. Each of us adopts different ways of living. Each of us thinks other thoughts. Each of us performs a nearly infinite breadth of different functions, but none of that is who we are. Who we are is a matter of being, not doing.

So let’s spend some time examining this matter of beingness. Who and what are we? One part of us is clearly changing flesh, bones, related physical stuff, and if you haven’t noticed, all of that is in a continuous state of replication.

The rate of DNA replication for humans is about 50 nucleotides per second per replication fork (a Y-shaped part of a chromosome that is the site for DNA strand separation and then duplication). The physical aspect of us comprises trillions of chromosomes, and each and every one of them is continually being lost and replaced. Sometimes I look in the mirror and wonder who that wrinkly old guy is and where the young, handsome fellow went. The answer is that we are all sloughing off trillions of cells each and every moment of our lives. There is nothing of our physical being that is permanent, and one day that part of us will go the way of all flesh. But that’s okay because that is not who we are.

The other part of this identity matter is enduring, permanent, and invisible. It is never born and can’t die, but since it is hidden, we can’t detect it through ordinary sensory means. For sure, what we are not is an idea or image. Thoughts flit about like fireflies, but there must be one who is watching these ideas. Thinking doesn’t happen independently from a thinker, but as previously pointed out, thought is just a function: something we do, not who we are. This thing we call ego is an idea, otherwise known as a self-image. It’s a fabricated construction that has been bouncing around forever and is recorded in the literature as far back as 3,500 years ago in India and in ancient Greece. 

Freud co-opted the term as a part of his mapping of the psyche. The Greeks understood it in various ways ranging from the soul to a sense of self. The Buddha understood it as an unreal obstruction that was the source of suffering that blocked access to our true self, and if we’re honest, we can see that egotism is the source of much corruption and greed. The ego is a divisive manifestation that emerges from identifying with functions that leads to alienation and hostility against other not-like-us birds.

So we are neither purely physical nor ideas. We are something much more fundamental that doesn’t change. And what we discover when we thoroughly consider the matter is that this non-identifiable being, which is each of us, is precisely the same. That is our point of commonality, and that is the only thing we have in common. All of us are as unique and different as snowflakes, and all of us are fundamentally just snow.

Seeing clearly.

Today is Sunday, the day in the week when Christians around the world go to church, hoping to hear a sermon of inspiration and goodwill. Therefore, I am offering this post as a sermon that will accomplish those two things: Inspiration and goodwill.

To begin, I would like to address sight and vision. Macular degeneration is a condition that results in a loss of sight in the center of your eye due to damage to the retina. Some sight remains peripherally but is mostly lost looking straight on. There is no known cure for macular degeneration, but there is for degenerative vision.

There are parallels to this physical condition that we know of as such things as bias, preconceived notions, fixed opinions, denial, and unfounded belief systems, all of which emerge from a self-understanding centered on the ego. All of these conditions serve the function of filters blinding us to unfettered clarity; true vision—seeing things as they are, without distortion. These impediments lock us into inflexible ideologies, opposed to, and at odds with, other similarly embedded ideologies. The impediments are clouded windows through which we see and understand the world and ourselves. It’s like being in a cave with two openings: One looking outward and the other looking inward, both of which are clouded and contaminated, obscuring clear vision. One gives us ideas concerning ourselves and the other, ideas concerning the world, and both are shrouded.

The undeniable correction is to remove the impediments and see without filters of distortion (call it spiritual surgery). Within Christian mysticism, the term that captures the principle of this unfettered clarity is “thusness,” which means things as they are. This “thus” means an unveiling of what is present, and thereby also an elementary confirmation, an original principle of truth prior to conceptual differentiation.  

Meister Eckhart, (the 13th-century German Theologian and mystic), used this expression to signify unattached oneness or unity. Such a view of unification, when intuitively experienced, removes the impediments and allows clear seeing.

One of the most misunderstood passages in the Bible is John 15:13, which looks like this in Koine Greek (the ancient form of Greek used to write The New Testament): “μείζονα ταύτης ἀγάπην οὐδεὶς ἔχει, ἵνα τις τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ θῇ ὑπὲρ τῶν φίλων αὐτοῦ,” and is ordinarily translated into English as, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” I’m not employing Greek here to impress you but rather to prove a point. The two highlighted words provide insight into the true meaning of this passage. 

The first highlighted word (ἀγάπην) means universal, unconditional love that transcends and persists regardless of circumstance. There is only one kind of love that is unconditional (e.g., no strings attached), and that kind of love can come only from God. All other forms of love are conditional and contingent upon changing circumstances.

The second highlighted word (ψυχὴν) is the life of a particular form: Life of the psyche, in other words, ideas, thoughts, ideologies, biases—any and all manifestations of the mind. In Koine Greek, there were three different forms of life that depicted the Greek’s different views of life. This form of life (“ψυχὴν”) is the form used here and is the root word of our present understanding of “psychology” or “psychiatry.” The second form of life was “ζοε” (pronounced Zoe—long A sound at the end—and meant the unified, ultimate source of everything. The third life form was “βιος,” the root word underscoring biology—our physical being.  To grasp the significance (as it relates to seeing clearly) it’s necessary to understand John 15:13 in the original language, not the English translation.

Thus, to come up with the correct translation of John 15:13, it is necessary to understand the words first in Koine Greek. Rendered in that way, the passage should be: “Greater love (e.g., unconditional) has no one than this, that one lay down his ‘mind manifestations’ for his friends.” And why might understanding be the highest act of love? Simple: It’s impacted ideologies (dug-in biases) that separate us all from one another and drives us into camps of close-minded hostility: The same quality, that at present, lies at the core of polar oppositions, dividing people everywhere and leading to the political gridlock that paralyzes our current government (and those around the world) where compromise becomes an impossibility. 

Often times, spirituality and contemporary living appear to be at odds. Nothing could be more incorrect. Seeing clearly is essential to human progress, and at the present time, we seem to be stuck in ruts of ideologies of irreconcilable opposition, believing all the while in the flawed principle of “I’m right, and you’re wrong.”

Talk without action is cheap (and worthless)

Have you ever wondered what Rip Van Winkle must have thought when he awakened after having been asleep for twenty years? Time had moved on. Circumstances had changed. It must have been quite startling, but more than likely after a few days he just went back to sleep again.

We all do that sort of thing. One day we are walking along with our norms, not even aware of anything different and suddenly a Galileo shows up and shocks our norms, and then we go back to sleep again. We adjust to whatever comes our way, before very long these shocking turns of events just blend into our norms again, and we return to our sleepwalk. So we go through these ups and downs only to have them eventually smooth out.

For most of human history, the gap between the norms and the shocks took place every so many thousand of years. Back then (whenever that was) we had the luxury of getting comfortable with our fantasies. Now the gap is getting shorter and shorter to the point that the shocks are more normal than the norms. Makes you wonder about what a norm really is when everything is abnormal. While certainly stimulating it can become a bit tiring, disturbing, and disorienting. For example, the notion of a “bully pulpit” has changed radically since Teddy Roosevelt coined the term. He meant it as an adjective meaning superb or wonderful—A Presidential platform that enabled TR to bring about needed reform of a positive nature. In the 115 years since his term, “bully” is no longer an adjective but has become a literal transitive verb, meaning anything but wonderful.

In commenting on his own failing memory, Mark Twain said, “When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not; but my faculties are decaying now, and soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the things that never happened.” Aging memory, like aging anything, can’t be trusted. 

I wonder if I’m alone in my reminiscing about the good old days (that may never have been)? Were they ever all that good? How far back do we have to go to find that whimsical Shangri-La? I suspect that the grass always looks greener in the rearview mirror even though when we were at that past juncture, the rearview greenery still looked more appealing. Nevertheless, we do seem to prefer the past we never had to the present we do have. We’re a curious species.

This tendency to grow accustomed to the normal status quo, however egregious, may be our undoing. It’s very curious how, if we wait long enough, what used to be unacceptable becomes the new acceptable norms. Edmund Burke, an Irish political philosopher, was once regarded as the father of modern conservatism. When you examine what he said in the 18th century, in light of today’s political environment, it’s unlikely he would still be considered as such. Among the many pearls of wisdom Burke expressed are the following:

“There is, however, a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue.” And “When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.” This latter has been recast and expressed as, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” The wording has changed but the sentiment is the same.

It has become unavoidably clear that nothing positive happens without courage and a willingness to pay a price for the betterment of all people. Examples of the small few who found it within themselves to stare evil in the face, and regardlessly pay the price, range from modern heroes and heroines such as Malala Yousafzai, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman who sacrificed his career as a whistleblower to speak the truth about our current “leader,” or the 17 celebrities who actively work to protect our environment, regardless of political consequences. These are the stars who light the path of goodness that allow us to walk in relative freedom.

There are some who dogmatically cling to the idea that our current misfortunes are the result of past wrongs and we are now reaping the winds of karmic justice. Consequently, they argue, we should accept our growing demise. There is some truth to that observation but there is an alternative perspective I wrote about recently in a post called “In the world: enlightened social responsibility.” In that post, I addressed this issue by posing related questions such as, “What role do we play in this vast drama of life. Do we intercede? Or do we accept things as they are, regardless of how they appear? Do we have a responsibility to fight injustice and evil, or stand apart and watch with detachment the destruction of society?”

After all else, we create our world of tomorrow by actions taken today. We define ourselves, not by what we say, but rather by what we do. There is a single-minded purpose to Dharma Space: to promote the well-being of one and all. It takes courage to first cast aside the delusions of egotism but once we find our deepest nature, we must act from the place of indiscriminate unity, and that too takes a different kind of courage: the kind of willingly sticking out our necks and exposing ourselves to the ax of evil. If we don’t do that then the purpose of enlightenment and being a Bodhisattva stands in question.

The bucket rule of politics and economics

There's a hole in our bucket

I taught our daughter economics, at an early age. And my teaching device was an old bucket. I punched a few holes in the bottom of the bucket and then she started pouring in water, which of course ran out the holes. Then I punched in more holes and she again poured in water. This time she had to pour in more water at a faster rate. 

Eventually, I completely removed the bottom of the bucket and she discovered that no amount of water could be used to fill the bucket; it ran out as fast as she could pour it in. Then I said to her, “Water is like money. Unless you balance what you pour in with what comes out the bottom you’ll never succeed in having any money left over.” She understood. Our government never has.

Right now the spigot that regulates the flow is severely restricted, yet the out-flow is at a record high. What used to supply our needs—tax revenues from the middle class—is disappearing at an alarming rate leaving only one source: those with money, to pick up the tab. And this restriction is coinciding with a bucket with ever-growing holes. Republicans are crying foul and claiming class warfare. But I have a simple-minded question: Who pays? It requires lots of water to pour into a bucket with a disappearing bottom. The poor can’t pay. The middle-class is rapidly shrinking, so that leaves only those who can pay, but don’t.

There are presently lots of naysayers who say that the wealthy will just pull up anchor and flee to more favorable shores. Indeed they may and have. Nothing can stop them except only one thing: A sense of public responsibility. For far too long just about everyone, from the wealthy down to the chronically poor, have shed a sense of public responsibility and milked the system for every drop. Now we face a serious emergency and it remains to be seen if anyone, rich or poor, will change course and do the right thing. If not, then our prosperity will end rather quickly.

Presently Congress is in the process of making a bad situation worse by creating policies that make the rich richer and the poor poorer. They take pride in enhancing the wealth of the prosperous (knowing if they do so they will be rewarded, under the table) while ensuring the death of millions due to mismanagement of a pandemic, people losing their jobs, and getting tossed out on the streets. Does this have anything to do with Zen? I think it does and here’s how: The essence of Zen is to bypass delusion and see clearly—things as they are, not as we wish them to be. Wishful thinking got us all into this mess and now we have lots of holes, not enough water, and are on the verge of disaster. 

Another parallel is the understanding that we are all connected. The super-wealthy may desire exclusive independence, but such a thing is not possible. In a civilized society, we share lots of things: The air we breathe, the water we drink, a common infrastructure that either allows prosperity or sinks us all, a food and money supply, and many other points of intersection. 

The notion that anyone can milk the system and get off scot-free is delusional. Individually and collectively we create karma either for the good or for the bad. We have no choice except to live with what we collectively create. And to continue with an ideological logjam while people are starving is madness. The resources of our nation do not belong to politicians. We supply these resources through our blood, sweat, and tears, and for the people in Washington to withhold what we have contributed is outrageous! We elected these people to represent us, not kill us. It’s 11:59 and unless we collectively wake up, midnight and the nightmares that come along will soon be here.

“Ide-prison-ology”

Rearranging priorities.

It’s time to add a new word to our contemporary vernacular. The addition is a simple adjustment to the word “ideology,” that reflects where our culture has arrived—in a prison of opposition with no legal appeal for release. 

We already have similar words  that approximate this new word, such as “Mexican standoff” or “logjam.” But the essence of this new word is only glancingly similar to those words. What the new word captures, sums up our current state of irreconcilability: a state of cultural and political “my way or the highway” stagnation where nothing gets done. 

The principle of compromise appears to be lost in the ash heap of time, and this state of mind is not limited to any one country. It is a global phenomenon that results in a preoccupation with the insignificant at the expense of the significant.

There is so much confusion occurring at the same time it is nearly impossible to arrange priorities. Even if we could, wait ten minutes and the entire deck gets reshuffled and we simply cease to think of what’s important and what’s not. Instead, we have fallen back into a time when legalism was abhorred by moral giants such as Jesus and The Buddha, both of whom fought to rectify the problem by pointing out what the laws of the time needed as a substratum—the spirit of the law. 

That focus has been lost as well, thus the need to establish this new word by recognizing what ought to be obvious but is not: We have fallen prey to dogmatic, inflexible positions of opposition where nobody but the rich and powerful—who rig the system to their advantage, perhaps by design, to keep us all confused and distracted by what is happening behind the scene with what is happening in front of the scene—too much of insignificance to enable us to notice matters of ultimate importance.

The question is, why is this happening? That’s a hydra-headed challenge but maybe it is simply a matter of too much comfort by the few at the cost of the many. Money and power are two factors not easily shared. Possessiveness is a stickler and the more a person has the more they seem to want. Maybe what we all need to do (and I’d suggest we begin from the top and work our way down) is go and live in places that aren’t so comfortable, where concern for your life is the common coin. There is nothing quite so transforming as your own experience of suffering. When you are starving, a single slice of bread becomes a feast and the ideology of the whole loaf or none at all descends into la-la-land, right where it belongs.

We have become imprisoned into camps of opposing ideas and values with no escape. It is long past time for us to realize such behavior is shooting everyone in the foot. Life always seems to follow the path we noticed in the Marines: Bad stuff flows downstream, never upstream. The tide needs to turn, and soon.

Post Mueller; Continuing manipulation, or not.

Global Interconnectivity.

As I write this post, 91 days remain until the next US presidential election. We are now living in the post-Mueller era, and some key issues need to be addressed between now and November. It is most likely few even read the Mueller Report, fewer still are those who understood, and the tiniest of all are those who adequately grasped the essentials of what was learned. Nevertheless, global policies have been shaped without the slightest understanding of the implications going forward.

I am in a somewhat unique position to lay out the underpinnings of what has been learned (but not applied). Why? Because I had a career in the advertising business, I have a long history with Zen and am a bit of a tech junkie. While those seemingly disparate pieces appear to be unrelated, they are intimately joined at the hip.

First, let’s consider the essentials of “how” our democratic system was, and continues to be, subverted. And to understand this critical “how” we need to wind the clock backward (further back for the other part) to pre-9/11, during that time, the world was waking up to the fact of global terrorism. At that juncture, we were scrambling to develop means to anticipate probable next strikes, by identifying the who, what, where, and when of terrorist activities.

In those days, the NSA was leading the charge under the “management” of Retired Gen. Michael Hayden, former director of the NSA, CIA, and later national security analyst for CNN. Under his steerage was a low-level NSA operative by the name of Bill Binney, who happened to be a brilliant cryptologist and long-time National Security Agency analyst. Binney developed a sophisticated program named ThinThread for gathering data capable of providing clues, in real-time, of potential terrorist threats. See the documentary about this by going here. His method was based on the same technology later employed by Cambridge Analytica to manipulate voters during the 2016 campaign that led to electing Donald Trump POTUS. 

In simplistic terms, Binney began with an observation that terrorists used Social Media and other electronic devices (e.g., Cell phones…anything connected to the Internet) to garner sympathy for their cause, recruit such people, frighten many, and communicate with associates in planning, organizing and perpetrating terrorist attacks. Then he went the next step and developed precise “psychographic” personality profiles of those so inclined to malevolence. 

Psychographics (vs. demographics) emerged gradually 30+ years previously. It was used by advertising folk (one of whom was me) to identify probable targets (e.g., target marketing) to receive messages to induce potential customers to buy X, Y, or Z, based on the ingrained preconceived idea that unless they did, they were nobody. 

Demographics concerns such matters as age, gender, income, education, etc., whereas psychographics concerns what such people actually do (lifestyle choices: what they buy, where they go and when, what their interests are, etc.). The latter is much better in targeting potential customers and was just beginning to emerge when I was in the advertising industry. Back then, it was very crude and rudimentary compared to today. 

Now nearly every person on earth participates in Social Media of some sort, such as Facebook, Instagram, Google, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, or others. And when combined with the capability to do what Binney designed (but was never used by Hayden/NSA): To develop “psychographic” personality profiles, a potent tool for manipulation emerges that can be employed to find weak spots and exploit them to one advantage or another, from sending out instant, tailor-made messages to manipulate the uninformed via email, news feeds, etc. 

The Mueller Report pulled back the curtain to reveal how foreign governments can, and do, manipulate voter attitudes by taking advantage of preconceived biases and stoking them into tribal camps of opposition that destroy our freedoms. Few in Congress seemed to understand how this threat (and theft of private, personal data) is used to undermine democracy. Consequently, the manipulation continues, and as Mueller stated, it is being used to this very day, not only in the U.S. but around the world. Freedom is not freedom when our inherent preconceived attitudes and biases are manipulated in ways of which we are not aware of.

Cambridge Analytica, as a company, has been washed away by the tides of rage, time and change, but the methods continue to flourish and will most likely never end. All of the tech giants continue to use the same techniques. It should surprise nobody to observe that every time you do anything on the Internet (just as I am doing this very moment) “big brother” is listening, forming psychographic profiles and developing messages to steer you to physical and virtual spaces (Dharma Space; that also) to fulfill your interests.

Indra's Net of cosmic consciousness.

So much for today. Now let’s turn the clock back really, really far to the time of The Avataṃsaka Sūtra, which was written in stages, beginning from at least 500 years following the death of The Buddha. He died approximately 483/400 BCE, or in other words, a very long time ago. The Avataṃsaka Sūtra goes by an alternate handle of Indra’s Net (which simplistically explains the teaching). Imagine a net that encompasses and links together, every sentient being (e.g., humans, dogs, cats, elephants—any conscious being, perhaps even plants). All aspects of consciousness are knit together into a cosmic net. 

And why does this make sense? Simply because consciousness is primal, eternal, indiscriminate, unconditional, and is the basis of all life. At that deep and profound level of existence, all is interdependently linked, in a way similar to the technology used today to manipulate us all. The difference here is that, unlike the technology of today, when a person awakens to this level of existence, the tide shifts away from egotistical manipulation for malevolent means to unity, serenity, and the experience of eternal life, right here, right now.

Ah, if only: Politicians and all others would awaken to two truths—one of conditional, intertwined connections of opposition and the other of unconditional unity. What a transformed world it would be to such awakenings!

The cost of ignorance.

Some say we come into this world as a blank slate, upon which is

A high cost to pay.

 written the moment-by-moment experiences of mortal life. Nature vs. nature is the handle applied to this view. Accordingly, “nature” is the blank slate (with potential unrealized), and “nurture” is what is written, which leads to realizing (or not) that potential.

In Western philosophy, the concept of tabula rasa can be traced back to the works of Aristotle in his treatise De Anima (Περί Ψυχῆς, “On the Soul”). Consequently, given the Western roots, the philosophy continues to this day as an underpinning of Western psychology. This perspective presumes mortal life is a “one-and-done” proposition. One-shot (either for good or not) determines our destiny and where our soul goes following mortal death. 

On the other side of the world, however, an alternate perspective arose—karmic seeds—the essence of karma. When karma is dormant, it sleeps in this seed form. When it is latent, it exists as samskaras, embedded beliefs deep in the mind's unconscious zone, and as liminal fantasies encountered in dreams, hypnotic states, and meditation. When it is active, it is present in all seven levels, and we are aware of the force of craving or desire.

Whereas the Western view is a “one-and-done” proposition, the Eastern view is one of transmigration and reincarnation. In this sense, “life” isn’t purely mortal (which passes away—dust to dust) but is rather the “dust” plus immortality, with the soul being the vehicle within which the karmic seeds travel that predetermines unconscious vectors. Rather than “one and done,” this perspective is a “do-over” until we get it right. Thus, perfection is not an impossible, abstract, flawless mortal condition but is instead the end of attainment, stretching over eons.

These two perspectives produce very different senses of possibility. On the one hand, we believe that we are all flawed beings (and thus excessively tolerant of egregious behaviors) in need of divine salvation, or we’re in for a quick trip to a scorching place. The other perspective is one of infinite grace—recognizing that true life evolves as a learning experience that never ends until Nirvana is realized. The understanding of Nirvana is greatly distorted in the West. In simple to grasp terms, the word means the extinguishment of the three poisons—greed, anger, and ignorance associated with experiencing oneself as an ego. It is not some mythical place but rather a state of mind, achievable by realizing a person’s genuine nature hidden deep within the unconscious mind. 

By the time I arrived at the seminary and learned about tabula rasa, I had experienced a mind-blowing transformation that was not intellectual but rather intuitive. Then I had the advantage of a comparative frame of reference, and upon further exploration, I came to understand matters of my own mind I would never have come to given my own Western roots.

In seminary, I learned how to read the New Testament in the language originally used, that of Koine Greek: A Greek form no longer used but was used when the Greek Philosophers walked the earth. Obviously, Aristotle knew and used Koine Greek but must not have known the significance of the thorny crux of original sin—that everyone is flawed, in need of divine salvation, going back to the mythical sin of Adam and Eve. His lack of awareness concerning this dogma, of course, makes sense, but only when explored. Aristotle was born in 385 BCE and died 62 years later in 323 BCE. On the other hand, The Christian Bible canons (containing both the Old and New Testaments, wherein the creation myth existed) weren’t completed until the 5th century CE. Consequently, he knew nothing of the original sin's ideology, but he did understand the nature of a completed journey.

And how would I know that? Because of one single word (written in Koine Greek) that had to be one of transmigration instead of “one-and-done.” And the word in question is “perfection,” which, when written in Koine Greek, is teleos meaning “the end result.” Instead of using the word as a foundational principle of salvation, Aristotle saw perfection in a frame of nature, saying: “Nature does nothing in vain.” The philosophy itself suggests that acts are done with a foregone purpose in mind—people do things knowing the result they wish to achieve, and this in turn strongly suggest coming into this world, not as a blank slate but rather with seeds growing to a pre-determined (e.g., karmic seeds) conclusion.

The dogma of genetic flaw—going back to the creation story myth—has created countless tragedies over the vast expanse of time. The hope of ever achieving perfection (as a state of being without flaw in a “one-and-done” lifetime has caused untold billions to reach their end in a state of profound fear), all due to ignorance, the very thing The Buddha pointed out that was the heart of suffering:

“What is that smothers the world? What makes the world so hard to see? What would you say pollutes the world and threatens it the most?’ ‘It is ignorance that smothers,’ the Buddha replied, ‘and it heedlessness and greed, making the world invisible. The hunger of desire pollutes the world, and the great source of fear is the pain of suffering.”

The power of “me,” and the power of “we.”

Flattening the curve.

A dear friend, from my time as a Mad Man on Madison Avenue, sent me the image to the right. I responded by saying, “The power of me must first decrease before the power of we can increase,” and suggested the curve is upside down to allow “me” to bottom-out.

The point of those posts is the same as nearly every post I’ve written: Within us all lives the ineffable, indefinable true nature that unites us—The We. If we don’t discover it on our own, the virus will do it on its’ own by removing the “Me’s.” (not a word, nor in truth, a reality).

Nature is having a field-day with COVID-19 since the virus is indiscriminate, affecting everyone without preference for political affiliation, ideology, measures of intellectual acumen (or not), intuitive capacity, or any other criteria that define and keep us opposed from one another. It doesn’t read. It doesn’t calculate, speculate, or articulate. It does one thing only, supremely well—finds and infects a willing host. It is a traveling guest seeking an immovable host and reminds me of several posts I’ve written previously: “Guests and Hosts,” “Perpetual host; Holy ghost,” and  “Perpetual Motion.”

My way or the highway.

If it isn’t patently clear by now, “my way” is the highway to somebody else, who considers “our way” the flip side of “their way.” Wouldn’t it be great if there were an absolute way where there was neither “my way” nor the other way around? This idea of a universally embraced absolute with everyone on the same page is a fool’s paradise. This dilemma has never been more apparent than now, and the factions are growing further and further apart. Why is this division increasing? The Buddha had the answer more than 2,500 years ago, and at the core of the answer lies the thorny matter of how to define oneself. 

The ordinary way is in terms of an ego (e.g., the idea, or image, of who we think we are). From that perspective, the possessive nature of “I” is “mine,” which is of course not “yours.” That’s a problem since mine is clearly different from yours (and the opposite). And never the twain shall meet. That being the case, what is the solution? The extraordinary way of enlightenment where possessiveness disappears since in an enlightened state of mind “I” fuses with “not I,” and the difference between you and me disappears.

From the perspective of “I,” ideologues are the chains that bind us, and dogma becomes the order of the day. Rules, regulations, and laws ensure the walls that divide us. On the other hand, when we become enlightened, dogmas also disappear. Everything is in a state of continuous change and what worked yesterday, does not work today. Conditions change moment by moment and without rules, the unenlightened are disoriented and lost.

However, once a person becomes enlightened, change segues into the wisdom of “expedient means.” Then the challenge shifts from inflexible rules to flexible adaptation, taking into account circumstances as they emerge. To one who has not reached that state of mind, expedient means translate as being dishonest or disingenuous. Since the ego standards of morality are wedded to the rules of that which is measurable and never changes. The very idea of defying objectivity is a poison pill to the unenlightened, and anyone who dances to a different tune is not to be taken seriously or to be trusted. However, according to Chán Master Sheng Yen, “When knowledge and views are established, knowing is the root of ignorance. When knowledge and views do not exist, seeing itself is nirvana.” 

Another Zen Master expressed the difference this way: “Before we understand, we depend on instruction. After we understand, instruction is irrelevant. The dharmas taught by the Tathagata (e.g., The Buddha) sometimes teach existence and sometimes teach non-existence. They are all medicines suited to the illness. There is no single teaching. But in understanding such flexible teachings, if we should become attached to existence or to non-existence, we will be stricken by the illness of dharma-attachment (inflexible truth). Teachings are only teachings. None of them are real.”—Chi-fo (aka Feng-seng). 

In the end, morality is not a one-size-fits-all. Instead, it is governed by that which benefits one and all, except of course those who are clearly wedded to ignorance and work to ensure everyone must be sacrificed on the altar of their ego-enhancement

The New Normal

The best and worst of times.

If a person is born into bondage and is never exposed to anything other than bondage, they won’t know they are in bondage. Instead, they will accept their condition as ordinary. Only one who has become set free will be able to look back into the time when they were imprisoned and know the difference. 

But this escape to emancipation presumes the person desires something better. “Something better” will remain a rational illusion. This hope will never get out of that box unless the person accepts the possibility, however small, that the vision may have an element of worth and be reasonably likely. Having a sense of being normal is a two-edged sword: It may provide a sense of communion with others in the same condition, but it does not hold out a carrot for a better way.

Plato’s Cave (e.g., The Allegory of the Cave) is a story from Book VII in the Greek philosopher masterpiece The Republic, written in 517 BCE. The cave allegory tells of prisoners, chained since childhood, in a position within a cave so they can see nothing except shadows of themselves projected onto the cave wall in front of them. Consequently, the prisoners have no sense of anything other than the shadowy illusions before them and come to think of the shadows as their normal world-view. 

Few escape to learn the truth and when confronted with the difference between reality and falsehood, the few choose their ordinary falsehood—to which they have grown accustomed—over what is real, yet foreign. A key point in the story is that people prefer old norms over new ones, even when the new is real. 

While written 2,537 years ago, this story resonates with the convictions of “fake news” of today and echos the principle of a psychological back-fire effect. Nothing is more powerful than belief, even when such belief is false, which says much about attempting to persuade those away from false convictions. They will harden their convictions in the face of evidence to the contrary. Human nature changes little over the span of time. Tightly held beliefs “Trump” the hand of truth nearly every time.

That is indeed a thorny conundrum, particularly when the very thought of ordinary is becoming abnormal. Such is the case today when everything ordinarily considered to be normal has been turned on its head. One of the few advantages of being old is a perspective that comes with the passage of time and changing circumstances. If you live long enough, you’ll have lived through a range of conditions that provides a frame of reference that is lacking without tenure, and that gives you a memory of the way things could be, but aren’t.

Without expressing a cliche, the times in which we are living are unlike any within my lifetime. And I am not alone in that observation. Our times are an admixture of the best, and the worst, much like Charles Dickens wrote of in his Tale Of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” On the one hand, we are advancing so fast that the technology we create is obsolete as soon as it comes off the line. On the other hand, we seem to be unraveling as a human society even faster.

A while ago, a political commentary appeared in the Huffington Post, that contained the following: “What used to be the lunatic fringe is now called the House of Representatives. And what used to be at least controversial is now the mainstream.” 

In just a flash of yesterdays, has emerged a man as the most powerful leader of the Western World. This would have seemed impossible only a short time ago. No longer. Now an entire political party champions a man who is an acknowledged pathological liar, peddler of vile racism, a misogynist, cheerleader of xenophobic ravings, and sneering trampler of those who disagrees with him, not to mention our most fundamental American values.

The mood of the American public is, to put it in superlative terms, explosive. And, from a particular perspective, understandable when we consider how dysfunctional our cherished government has become. Time after time, our elected officials have danced to a drummer of self-serving greed with little, if any, responsiveness to the wishes of the constituents who elected them. Now we almost expect another week (or day) of “normal” chaos, violence, and behavior that used to be routinely unacceptable. And to add insult to injury, our elected officials are experts at one thing only: Nothing. And in consideration of such a state, it would be delusional to not expect anarchy. The new normal of today has become the abnormal of yesterday. And if it is true (and it is) that our tomorrows are the result of thoughts and actions taken today, it is terrifying what tomorrow will bring.

Irrational exuberance and the tradition of silence.

“Dogma” is the thorn in our collective side. It is always heated,

exuberant, and close-minded. The message of dogma is one of self-righteousness and is based on obdurate and unyielding ideologies. My way or the highway is becoming a really big problem, around the world today. The “unmasked” champions are convinced that the COVID-19 virus will somehow know they are the good guys and steer clear to attack just their opposers—the bad guys. 

Opposing sides are so dug in it seems impossible to win hearts and minds, even among those who cling to hair-brain ideologies (e.g., think QAnon, for example). Rationality matters little to dogmatic holders. All dogma is based on conceptual thinking—impacted points of view arising from a perceived beautiful, rational perspective (at least in the eye of the ideologist). A contrary ideologist sees this perceived beauty as sheer ugliness. So long as dogma reigns, no reconciliation is possible and both opposing forces become irrationally exuberant.

In sharing the dharma, some have said, “You’re closed-minded to my perspectives but are asking me to join you in your close-mindedness.” There is a difference between Zen and other perspectives. The tradition of Zen is a silent tradition and is fundamentally rooted in a transcendent position, which reaches “across time and space,” not favoring one position or the other. From that platform, you might say that Zen is being closed-minded to being close-minded.

The most revered figure following the Buddha was Nagarjuna who is best known for his doctrine of two truths. The essence of his teaching is that we have no choice except to employ conventional means, which are admittedly delusional, to ultimately destroy delusion. By using words (conventional abstractions: conditioned phenomena) the goal is to go beyond words to find ultimate truth. 

The famous Diamond Sutra, held in high regard by Zen advocates, teaches this point, saying:

“All conditioned phenomena
Are like dreams, illusions, bubbles, or shadows;
Like drops of dew or flashes of lightning;
Thusly should they be contemplated.”

The identity we value (self-image, the imagined “I”) lives within the illusion of what we ordinarily regard as mind―the manifestations, which emerge from our true mind. According to Chán Master Sheng Yen, (Complete Enlightenment—Zen Comments on the Sutra of Complete Enlightenment)

“… there cannot be a self (e.g., ego) that is free from all obstructions. If there is a sense of self, then there are also obstructions. There cannot be obstructions without a self to create and experience them, because the self is an obstruction.”

Rationality came out of the European Age of Enlightenment as a solution to religious dogma, but it has become a different form of dogma. I am not suggesting that we return to religious dogma. Dogma of any kind is what happens when we close our minds to suchness—to things as they are. Rather than swing from one dogma to another, or one set of illusions to another, what we need to do is dump all dogma and illusions and rid ourselves of bias, and delusion. That is the thrust of Zen. It is about seeing clearly; seeing things as they are rather than how we imagine they ought to be. Zen is about balance, integration, and harmony, and is opposed to imbalance, disintegration, and chaos. 

Zen Master Huang Po spoke eloquently about the difference between conceptual ideologies and ultimate truth. He said, “If he (an ordinary man) should behold the glorious sight of all the Buddhas coming to welcome him, surrounded by every kind of gorgeous manifestations, he would feel no desire to approach them. If he should behold all sorts of horrific forms surrounding him, he would experience no terror. He would just be himself, oblivious of conceptual thought and one with the Absolute. He would have attained the state of unconditional being. This then is the fundamental principle.” (The Zen Teachings of Huang Po—On The transmission of Mind). 

Yes, Zen is dogmatic, but the target of dogma is dogma.