Author Archives

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Coming to be, coming to be…

Whatever we fear in the world, we make more likely to be.

If we are fearful and angry about that fearful angry world we see coming to be out there, we contribute to creating that world.

If we hate the violence and evil we see forming around us in the world, we become part of that hateful, violent world.

Rather, we must live in love with peaceful hearts, helping that more peaceful, loving world come to be.

—This came to me as a voice speaking in that mysterious space between dreaming and waking. I am honoring its resonance in my heart.

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After Buddhism…

Yes, I have been waiting on this book for all my life.

Although I’m not yet halfway thru it, I’m loving Stephen Batchelor’s new book. I’m reading it slowly, as it’s pretty heady stuff, but Therese talked about the central idea of it during our retreat at Southern Dharma in April, so I had the basic sense of it already.

I will wait until I’m done reading before I try to really address it here, but the thing about it that has so captivated me is that it allows me to understand first why I was so sure, all those years ago, that Buddhism was for me, and second, why it has been hard to relate to the institutional versions of it with which I have been involved.

Basically Stephen says is that in the first 300 years or so after the Buddha died, many modifications were made to the teachings, changing them from the very practical, relative message evident in the early texts to a more ontological, absolutist kind of religion. And… that what the Buddha was saying is that awakening is not some metaphysical event that ends all desire and thus frees one from suffering, but a process of coming to an understanding of how to end – at least moderate – one’s natural reactivity so that one lives one’s life with a perspective that makes the existential condition of life tolerable and allows one to cultivate an integrated, authentic life.

Yes, that’s the Buddha I have always been looking for!

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Coal Karma

There is a certain degree of karmic fruiting involved in the whole threat of toxic coal ash dumping in this little southern community.

I say this with trepidation and apologies to friends and neighbors involved, as I don’t mean to make light of the threat or the struggle to prevent it, but only to put it in the larger context. And certainly I’m not saying it in the sense that this county, this community, has done something to specifically deserve this fate. (Though our leaders could have been more astute!)

No, the choice of spots to dump on is pretty random in the rolling engine of destruction, the Leviathan that is big-coal/big-utility/big-disposal.

In the bigger picture, however, the cultural context of late-stage capitalism in the U.S., we all have brought this on ourselves, gorging ourselves on the material world without thought of the consequences for the past several centuries. In a capitalist system ruled by profit, if we want cheap energy for the vast array of “labor-saving devices”, entertainment, recreation, travel, business – and all in air-conditioned comfort – then we must burn coal, split atoms, dam rivers, drill and mine. All those things that are insult to the Earth and anathema to life.

Why have we done this?

As Ta-Nehisi Coates explains in his recent work Between the World and Me, [see my post], the same mentality that created and perpetuated the plunder of colonialism, slavery, and racism is behind our current ecological crisis:

Once, the Dream’s parameters were caged by technology and by the limits of horsepower and wind. But the Dreamers have improved themselves, and the damming of seas for voltage, the extraction of coal, the transmuting of oil into food, have enabled an expansion in plunder with no known precedent. And this revolution has freed the Dreamers to plunder not just the bodies of human beings but the body of the Earth itself.” [p. 150]

In another post, I noted:

Both [Coates and James Baldwin] maintain that the same forces that have driven black people into slavery have created the degraded forms of life now ruling the ghettos and the suburbs alike, and promise to destroy all that is lovable in human life as well as threaten the very biosphere – at least the parts of it that we depend on. Baldwin sees our only salvation in “transcendence of the realities of color, of nations, and of altars.” [p. 81]

So this threat of toxic destruction looming over small rural communities throughout the southern U.S. could be seen as the ultimate karmic retribution for our sins of racism, consumerism, plunder.

I believe that only as we can rise above these past divisions and join together will we be able to avoid this immediate threat and the long-term threat our way of life poses to life on the planet.

Related posts:

The Fire Next Time

As though she were normal…

On “Between the World and Me”

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That wrecking ball…

“And wouldn’t time seem so kindly,
if every bright-eyed girl could be
more like you, and
shelter me
from that
wreckin’ ball… that wreckin’ ball.”

–Andrew Marlin (Mandolin Orange)

Ah yes, we look for shelter in every corner, every thought as we feel the onrushing of impermanence, shunyata filling every experience. Such a human thing.

But though it seems helpful, shelter in the long run is itself part of the damage we do to ourselves, part of the grasping for the pleasant rather than the difficult, part of what Stephen Batchelor calls “the default habit of seeing the world as being hostile, desirable or boring.”

In his recent book After Buddhism: Rethinking the Dharma for a Secular Age, Batchelor translates tanha, understood in the Dharma as the cause of suffering and usually rendered as ‘craving’ or ‘desire’, as reactivity. Letting go of reactivity – or creating the conditions under which release may happen, which is really all we can do – comes from understanding, he says.

To release oneself from the hold of this behavior [reactivity] requires coming to a mature comprehension of one’s mortality, of how each fragile moment rests on the pumping of a muscle and the drawing of a breath. [p. 78]

Though I’ve only read a bit of this book, which my teacher introduced at a recent retreat, I’m finding it full of profound new insights and very helpful as I continue my lifetime effort to understand the Dharma and live my life in an authentic, integrated way.

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Quivering with compassion, quaking with confusion-

From Buddhist Peace Fellowship: (this describes my state of heart – Perfectly!)
People need space to make sense of this political moment — Trump’s hate mongering, the daily stories of cops killing folks of color, and the inspiring brilliance of liberatory movements like #BlackLivesMatter. White Buddhists are reading about this in the news or seeing the stories pile up in their Facebook feed, with aching hearts quivering with compassion but troubled minds quaking with confusion. How could all this be happening — hadn’t they been told that racism was a thing of the past? — Dawn Haney, BPF co-director, in Growing the Ranks…
As my friend said yesterday, I find myself crying everyday, thinking, what is this place? Looking around at what people are saying, I wonder, who are these people? How can they have so much hate, anger, fear? Dawn’s answer to the venom directed at the Black Lives Matter concept, it seems so simple and obvious, I wonder why it’s so hard for some to get it. Dawn says:
We demand that Black Lives Matter, because in the relative reality, they don’t. If we want all lives to matter, its time we started making sure that black lives matter.
And I wonder what is the role we White Buddhists can play? This answer  from Mushim Patricia Ikeda is instructive:

If you’re at the beginning of your ally journey, there’s something you need to know, right off the bat, if you haven’t already given it a lot of thought. Beyond feeling good about being anti-racist, you’re going to need to face your fear of losing your protected status as a white person.

We can begin to see and feel that fear, and live with it enough to understand what’s driving some of those angry folks, without letting the anger rise in us. That means a lot of sitting with the feelings, because it’s not easy. I’m pretty sure almost all anger has fear underneath it, so there’s that natural progression that wants to happen. Just watching it, watching it, seeing it for what it is… that’s the only way I know of to be clear.

A lot of practice, some of it sitting. Some of it while walking around, talking, lying down, working, thinking. A lot of letting it sit in the heart without denying, excusing, suppressing, ignoring. That’s what it will take.

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Lean in…

“So, what if instead of continuing to avoid this hurt and grief and despair, or only blaming them—the corporations, politicians, agrobusinesses, loggers, or corrupt bureaucrats—for it, we could try to lean into, and accept such feelings. We could acknowledge them for what they are rather than dismissing them as wrong, as a personal weakness or somebody else’s fault.”

—Per Espen Stoknes

in:  In Order to Respond Adequately, First We May Need to Mourn

from:  Over Grow the System

In continuing efforts to “respond adequately” to any of the insanity going on in our world today, it seems this advice is profound, and in keeping with the Buddhist approach which I try to maintain.

Rather than descend into denial and escapism or the trap of blaming “them”, we must do our best to lean in – as Leah Song of Rising Appalachia sings – facing the truth of what is happening, the truth of our own pain and grief over it, and then… and then… rise up in new clarity and resolve and begin to work through the changes that we can see are needed for things to be better.

Changes in our own lives, in our own approach to the world, in how we communicate about it all. In what we believe is possible for us to do. Respond adequately.

The blaming trap, casting all this horrifying, depressing tragedy as an “Us v. Them” thing is really just a way of avoiding the hard truths of it, and worse, makes the situation worse by hardening the positions of those we castigate, label, vilify and hate. Not that there’s not ample evidence that much of the problem stems from actions that are clearly deliberate efforts to accrue personal benefit to some in callous disregard of the likely – dare we say unavoidable? – consequences.

But there’s where the Buddhist perspective comes in. The dharma teachings are full of the notion that everyone – the most vile, depraved, evil among us – has Buddha-nature and that everyone’s actions in this world are the result of causes and conditions that we may not be able to discern, but nevertheless are deeply buried in the motivations and responses of everyone. Understanding that there are things in ‘those people’s’ lives – think of how they may have been abused and neglected in childhood as a simple example – that are responsible for the actions that we see as greedy selfishness or mean-ness or evil can help one to respond to those people with compassion rather than anger and hatred.

Not that these things in any way excuse or justify actions that are harmful to others, but simply that seeing that as an underlying truth can help one respond with love and compassion.

And that kind of response is the only thing that has even the remotest possibility of touching the hardened hearts of those who are destroying our world.

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No Coal Ash – ANYWHERE!

Janisse Ray, my friend and a writer and an activist whom I consider a national treasure, has written a powerful essay, “From Ashes Such as These, What can Rise?”, about the attempt by waste disposal giant Republic Services to use the regional landfill here in Wayne County as a coal ash dump.

In exposing the depths of the corrupt machinations and big money behind this attempt, her article reveals much more than a poor county with challenged local governance being exploited by a powerful corporation. And it reveals more than just the fact that Big Coal and Big Power and Big Money don’t give a rip about rural America.

Both of which are certainly true and truly revealed in her article.

Her article also shows what can happen when a community decides to speak up in its own behalf. And how difficult it can be to win against the Big Boys – even when everyone, or apparently nearly everyone, is opposed to them. It shows the true horrors that coal in every aspect of its life (other than deep underground where it belongs) poses for us.

But Janisse goes beyond all that, ranging deep and wide in the essay, showing how much love for the natural world – and how much intelligence – lives in these people in the Deep South, and what it is that we really stand to lose here. She buries the knife deep in our hearts with personal stories of what we’ve already lost in rural life, and makes a passionate cry for the salvation of the South, for the resurgence of rural America.

This is an essay that needs to be read widely in America today, because though we poor rural communities in the South are prime targets, we are not alone. Everyone is vulnerable and likely to be victimized in this game.

But there’s a deeper reason we all need to read this essay. A deeper reason we need to consider this whole issue… deeply.

Us vs. Them

I awoke in the middle of the night – which is not so unusual for me, but this night, I could not stop thinking about coal ash, the death of the flatlands, and the arrogance of power that we face; this little story playing out in our tiny, poor county is really the whole story. The big story. The Old Story. The story of an industrial/post-industrial/post-post-industrial world gone rogue.

Yes, we are engaged in a penultimate battle here in Wayne County: Us, the rural community, vs. Them, the life-destroying Agents of Death — Big Coal, Big Power, Big Waste. Corporate America.

That’s how the battle lines are drawn. And that is a battle we can only lose.

We face accusations of selfish, NIMBY-style hypocrisy in this fight, perhaps justly, because we all enjoy the lifestyle, the products, the ease that cheap energy provides. And someone has to pay the price.

So – if we only win that battle, a win that simply forces Them to dump their poison “somewhere else”, then it will be a hollow victory.

Yes, on this immediate issue, the dumping of toxic waste in our landfill, we need to win. And By Whatever Means Necessary. Because there is truly more at stake here than our own comfort. Ecosystems, aquifers, the biosphere. A lot. Ultimately, this is a battle in the War for the survival of human life on this planet.

So in truth, we are bound by moral decency and our common humanity to oppose coal ash. We are bound because coal ash is where it all ends up. Someone, somewhere has to stand up and say, “No more.” If we can do that, and by it inspire the other target communities across the land to stand up and refuse to accept coal ash, what will Big Energy do?

If that happens, eventually, the truth will dawn on everyone that we just can’t keep making coal ash. If there’s nowhere to put it safely, then we just must stop digging coal out of the ground and burning it. That may mean we have to pay more for our electricity. It may mean we must reduce our consumption of energy.

In fact, it clearly does mean we must reduce our consumption of everything.

Aye, and there’s the rub.

So, in the long run, the battle is Us vs. Us.

If we can see through all the layers of pain, confusion and anger that cloud it, then that is a battle we could win. In fact, that is the War, the War for human survival, and it can be won only by realizing that it’s Us vs. Us, transcending the formulation that demonizes those ‘others’ and lays all the blame on them for this situation.

It’s Us, the Georgia Power/Southern Company customers who love our cheap power, it’s Us, consumers across America, across the continent and around the world, who are responsible for the existence of this coal ash, and only as we realize this and confront our own complicity, our own addictions to power, to ease, to comfort, to self will the causes for this War cease.

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Fascism in Amerika

I have avoided writing much about politics lately. It’s something of an exercise in futility in the first place, and tends to increase my stress level as well, so why get into it? But the direction things are going push me to make a few comments about how I see the overall picture these days.

What seems clearest is that we are on the brink of a retrograde move, sliding back into the kind of hate and division that characterized the country over a century ago. With all the Republican candidates expressing xenophobic, extreme ideas and the positive responses they’re getting, it seems the country is so consumed with fear that only such authoritarian extremism will appeal to the masses.

I have commented in the past about the fascist leanings that seem to be growing in strength, and as several authors recently have noted, this is not new. It began mostly with Nixon and the Southern Strategy of whipping up white animosity towards people of color using code words.

One excellent source of information and perspective on this fascist tendency is Orcinus, a great blog by Dave Neiwert who is an investigative reporter. He’s been following this trend since at least 2003. He is a writer and contributor to Southern Poverty Law Center (the prime legal effort to thwart the KKK) and other magazines.

In his most recent post, Dave has a detailed examination of recent absurd suggestions that the KKK was a “liberal” or “left-wing” idea back in the day, which he demolishes with a bit of history.

It’s clearly not a pleasant topic, this swelling fascism/authoritarianism, but it is one we all need to be much more aware of and able to address. Clearly defining and identifying authoritarian ideas is a first step. Helping people to see that just because there are things the government does that are wrong-headed does not mean we need to turn things over to a brute. People need to understand how things work and be willing to be involved, aware, thoughtful and compassionate.

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Separation…

My friend Gareth has a great post this week that I wanted to share… it’s a sweet and deep look at how we suffer from this oh-so-human condition: separation.

“But the other side of these stories of identity is that they cause separation.”

In his essay “Mind creates the abyss, heart crosses it” Gareth gets at the central issues we face on a daily basis… our tendency to think we can mentally construct happiness for ourselves. But just read what he has to say… it’s good!

Gareth always has something worthwhile to say, and I would recommend regular reading – but this one is particularly poignant, at least to me, so I hope you’ll find it meaningful, and consider signing on for his blog as well…

http://garethjyoung.com/mind-creates-abyss-heart-crosses/