Leaving Fear Behind

Blurb: Leaving Fear Behind (in Tibetan, Jigdrel) is a heroic film shot by Tibetans from inside Tibet, who longed to bring Tibetan voices to the Beijing Olympic Games. With the global spotlight on China as it rises to host the XXIX Olympics, Tibetans wish to tell the world of their plight and their heartfelt grievances against Chinese rule. The footage was smuggled out of Tibet under extraordinary circumstances. The filmmakers were detained soon after sending their tapes out, and remain in detention today.

Time 25 minutes. Click screen icon for fullscreen.


For further info, visit leavingfearbehind.com

Saniel Bonder on Spirit & Money

Saniel Bonder writes on spirit/money split. Quote:

"What we may have here is a Spirit/Money split so pervasive among us it’s like the atmosphere before we figured out it was dangerously polluted. As the Chinese leaders figured out about Beijing not so very long ago. The economists have been super-specialized, super-outstanding paragons of the “Money” side of the split. Olympic champions. I’ve been rabidly focused most of my adult life on the “Spirit” side. So have many of my colleagues. Most all of us are so ill-informed about one another’s disciplines and understandings, we often act as if they don’t exist—or if they do, they’re secondary if not irrelevant to life in our own (to us, the only) “real world.”"

Read the whole article.

!And this reminds me - there's an article by Ken Wilber on this very topic called "Right Bucks" (here in pdf format).

Pinker on Violence

A fair look at violence through ages. Blurb: "In a preview of his next book, Steven Pinker takes on violence. We live in violent times, an era of heightened warfare, genocide and senseless crime. Or so we've come to believe. Pinker charts a history of violence from Biblical times through the present, and says modern society has a little less to feel guilty about." Time 20 mins.

Ritual: Theory in Practice

Review of Zen Ritual: Studies of Zen Buddhist Theory in Practice, ed. by Steven Heine and Dale S. Wright, review written by Zoketsu Norman Fischer for the Spring 2008 issue of Buddhadharma. Excerpt:

There’s no doubt that if you read Buddhist texts—from the Zen masters’ sayings to the Pali canon materials—you will find a basic philosophy and recommended practice that does lend itself to the idea of Buddhism as a sort of rational self-improvement religion. And Zen and early Buddhist texts do express, to some extent, the notion that ritual, faith, and sacrifice are to be rejected in favor of personal ethics, meditational cultivation, and transformative insight. So the early scholars, however blinded they were by their own cultural biases, were not making something up out of whole cloth. They had texts to cite.

But the essays in this book are not based on the study of sacred texts. These essays are valuable because they reflect a crucial sea change in the contemporary study of religion: a shift away from the study of what religion says it is about (as explained in sacred texts) to what religion is actually about (as discovered in historical records and sociological observation). And this turns out to be one of the most astonishing and salient facts about Buddhism and religion in general—that there is always a huge gap between what a religion says and thinks it is about, and what it is actually about. And the question of ritual, why and how it is practiced, and how important or unimportant it is lies at the center of this gap.

Read the whole piece.

Height Gap

Quote from "The Height Gap", an article in Newyorker:

"Around the time of the Civil War, Americans’ heights predictably decreased: Union soldiers dropped from sixty-eight to sixty-seven inches in the mid-eighteen-hundreds, and similar patterns held for West Point cadets, Amherst students, and free blacks in Maryland and Virginia. By the end of the nineteenth century, however, the country seemed set to regain its eminence. The economy was expanding at a dramatic rate, and public-hygiene campaigns were sweeping the cities clean at last: for the first time in American history, urbanites began to outgrow farmers.

Then something strange happened. While heights in Europe continued to climb, Komlos said, “the U.S. just went flat.” In the First World War, the average American soldier was still two inches taller than the average German. But sometime around 1955 the situation began to reverse. The Germans and other Europeans went on to grow an extra two centimetres a decade, and some Asian populations several times more, yet Americans haven’t grown taller in fifty years. By now, even the Japanese—once the shortest industrialized people on earth—have nearly caught up with us, and Northern Europeans are three inches taller and rising.

The average American man is only five feet nine and a half—less than an inch taller than the average soldier during the Revolutionary War. Women, meanwhile, seem to be getting smaller. According to the National Center for Health Statistics—which conducts periodic surveys of as many as thirty-five thousand Americans—women born in the late nineteen-fifties and early nineteen-sixties average just under five feet five. Those born a decade later are a third of an inch shorter.

Just in case I still thought this a trivial trend, Komlos put a final bar graph in front of me. It was entitled “Life Expectancy 2000.” Compared with people in thirty-six other industrialized countries, it showed, Americans rank twenty-eighth in average longevity—just above the Irish and the Cypriots (the Japanese top the rankings). “Ask yourself this,” Komlos said, peering at me above his reading glasses. “What is the difference between Western Europe and the U.S. that would work in this direction? It’s not income, since Americans, at least on paper, have been wealthier for more than a century. So what is it?”

Read the whole piece.

Thinkable Futures

This is from Kevin Kelly, something he did 15 years ago with Brian Eno, and published a list of "unthinkable futures" or worst case scenarios in 1993 issue of Whole Earth Review. Some of these are actually quite thinkable, so here goes a selection from each:

Kelly:

* A new plague seizes the world. As fatal as AIDS, but transmitted on a sneeze, and spread by airplane travelers, the virus touches billions within a year.

* Alcohol is so severely restricted that people need "licenses" to drink it. Tobacco is, of course, prohibited from being sold. You can grow your own, though, and some do. The underworld moves to North Carolina as cigarets become contraband.

* The human genome project is halted by activists. Placards at demonstrations say: "Our DNA, Our Selves."

* American universities go franchise. Ivy League schools launch branches in Tokyo, Berlin, London.

* Twenty-five years from now, the American public becomes even more conservative at the grass-roots level than it is now, and the Reagan years are viewed as "moderate."

* GLOBAL COOLING -- After a steady increase in mean temperature, the Earth starts cooling off. Dire warnings are issued; no one pays any attention.

Eno:

* Everybody becomes so completely cynical about the election process that voter turnout drops to 2 percent (families and relatives of prospective politicians) until finally the "democratic process" is abandoned in favour of a lottery system. Everything immediately improves.

* A new profession -- cosmetic psychiatry -- is born. People visit "plastic psychiatrists" to get interesting neuroses and obsessions added into their makeup.

* A new profession, meme-inspector, comes into being.

* Famous and talented men routinely auction their sperm for huge sums.

* Disabled people finally come into their own as remote operators of telerobots. They are the only ones prepared to commit the immense amount of time necessary to learn the finesse of working inside another body.

See the whole list...

Why materialists cheat

The 2008 Shift Report: Changing the Story of Our Future, published by the Institute of Noetic Sciences. Among its many other compelling facts, here's a description of an experiment conducted by Kathleen Vohs of the University of Minnesota and Jonathan Schooler of the University of British Columbia that investigated the ways in which believing, or disbelieving, in free will affects moral choices:

[W]hat one believes about free will has an important social consequence.... In the Vohs and Schooler study, [some] participants read passages from The Astonishing Hypothesis by Nobel laureate biologist Francis Crick, which promotes the idea that free will is an illusion: “Who you are is nothing but a pack of neurons.” Others read more neutral statements as a control condition. The results of the study showed that participants who read [Crick's] anti-free will statements were significantly more likely to cheat on several experimental tasks. If exposure to [anti-free will messages] increases the likelihood of unethical actions, then what does this same message, repeated by authoritative scientists and promoted by the media, do to societal behavior?

This came in from WIE. Download free Intro chapter at the Shift Report website.

Zizek scores on Tibet

Quite a few valid points made by the "orthodox Lacanian Stalinist" Slavoj Zizek in Le Monde Diplomatique. Several excerpts follow:

...Before 1950 Tibet was no Shangri-la, but a country of harsh feudalism, poverty (life expectancy was barely 30), corruption and civil wars (the last, between two monastic factions, was in 1948 when the Red Army was already knocking at the door). Fearing social unrest and disintegration, the ruling elite prohibited any development of industry, so all metal had to be imported from India. This did not prevent the elite from sending their children to British schools in India and transferring financial assets to British banks there.

...The Cultural Revolution which ravaged the Tibetan monasteries in the 1960s was not imported by the Chinese. Fewer than a hundred of the Red Guards came to Tibet with the revolution, and the young mobs burning the monasteries were almost exclusively Tibetan.

...A main reason why so many in the West have taken part in the protests against China is ideological: Tibetan Buddhism, deftly spun by the Dalai Lama, is a major point of reference of the New Age hedonist spirituality which is becoming the predominant form of ideology today. Our fascination with Tibet makes it into a mythic place upon which we project our dreams. When people mourn the loss of the authentic Tibetan way of life, they don’t care about real Tibetans: they want Tibetans to be authentically spiritual on behalf of us so we can continue with our crazy consumerism.

Read the whole article.

Deliver 'em from evil

Two weeks ago I did a post on the BBC's "Sex Crimes and the Vatican" documentary (available online). Another documentary, specifically focusing on the true story of the Catholic priest Oliver O'Grady, is called "Deliver Us from Evil" (2006) directed by Amy Berg. Here's the trailer:




The conduct of Vatican and the Holy See in this whole affair is scandalous but not unexpected. Here's a list of cases by country that makes an interesting reading.

The Dirty Word: C%#t

In this absurd Monthy Pythonesque episode starring the British Police, Church of Scientology, and the Anonimous, a 15-year old is facing prosecution for using the word "CULT" to describe the Church of Scientology!

The incident happened during a protest against the Church of Scientology on May 10. Demonstrators from the anti-Scientology group, Anonymous, who were outside the church's £23m headquarters near St Paul's cathedral, were banned by police from describing Scientology as a cult by police because it was "abusive and insulting".

Writing on an anti-Scientology website, the teenager facing court said: "I brought a sign to the May 10th protest that said: 'Scientology is not a religion, it is a dangerous cult.'

"'Within five minutes of arriving I was told by a member of the police that I was not allowed to use that word, and that the final decision would be made by the inspector."

A policewoman later read him section five of the Public Order Act and "strongly advised" him to remove the sign. The section prohibits signs which have representations or words which are threatening, abusive or insulting.

The teenager refused to back down, quoting a 1984 high court ruling from Mr Justice Latey, in which he described the Church of Scientology as a "cult" which was "corrupt, sinister and dangerous".

After the exchange, a policewoman handed him a court summons and removed his sign.

Article at Guardian.

Sex Crimes and the Vatican

Documentary from BBC's Panorama. Time 39 minutes.

A secret document which sets out a procedure for dealing with child sex abuse scandals within the Catholic Church is examined by Panorama. Crimen Sollicitationis was enforced for 20 years by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger before he became the Pope. It instructs bishops on how to deal with allegations of child abuse against priests and has been seen by few outsiders. Critics say the document has been used to evade prosecution for sex crimes. It instructs them how to deal with priests who solicit sex from the confessional. It also deals with "any obscene external act ... with youths of either sex." It imposes an oath of secrecy on the child victim, the priest dealing with the allegation and any witnesses. Breaking that oath means excommunication from the Catholic Church. Reporting for Panorama, Colm O'Gorman finds seven priests with child abuse allegations made against them living in and around the Vatican City. One of the priests, Father Joseph Henn, has been indicted on 13 molestation charges brought by a grand jury in the United States. During filming for Sex Crimes and the Vatican, Colm finds Father Henn is fighting extradition orders from inside the headquarters of this religious order in the Vatican. The Vatican has not compelled him to return to America to face the charges against him. After filming, Father Henn lost his fight against extradition but fled the headquarters and is believed to be hiding in Italy while there is an international warrant for his arrest. Colm O'Gorman was raped by a Catholic priest in the diocese of Ferns in County Wexford in Ireland when he was 14 years old. Father Fortune was charged with 66 counts of sexual, indecent assault and another serious sexual offence relating to eight boys but he committed suicide on the eve of his trial. Colm started an investigation with the BBC in March 2002 which led to the resignation of Dr Brendan Comiskey, the bishop leading the Ferns Diocese. Colm then pushed for a government inquiry which led to the Ferns Report. It was published in October 2005 and found: "A culture of secrecy and fear of scandal that led bishops to place the interests of the Catholic Church ahead of the safety of children."

(documents, transcript and more from BBC news)

What GDP is NOT

Speech by Robert Kennedy, 18 March 1968, University of Kansas.

"We will never find a purpose for our nation nor for our personal satisfaction in the mere search for economic well-being, in endlessly amassing terrestrial goods.
We cannot measure the national spirit on the basis of the Dow-Jones, nor can we measure the achievements of our country on the basis of the gross domestic product (GDP) Our gross national product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them. It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armored cars for police who fight riots in our streets. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.

Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it tells us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans."

Water Day

Key statistics from "The Water Report":

• 1.1 billion people don’t have safe, clean water to drink
• 5000 children die every day from water-related diseases
• water-related disease is the second biggest killer of children worldwide, after acute respiratory infections like tuberculosis
• 443 million school days are lost each year due to water-related diseases
• the average European uses 200 litres of water every day; North Americans use 400 litres
• the average person in the developing world uses 10 litres of water every day for their drinking, washing and cooking. This is the same amount used in the average flush of a UK toilet
  
• households in rural Africa spend an average of 26% of their time fetching water, and it is generally women who are burdened with the task
• an extra US$10 billion each year is needed to reach the Millennium Development Goal target of halving the proportion of people without access to safe water and sanitation – about half of what rich countries spend on mineral water

Open or download the Water Report in .pdf. March 22nd is the Water Day. For more, visit Wateraid. org

Become an Integral Peacemaker

Watch Fleet Maull on Integral Peacemaker Training



Quote from Peacemaker Institute website: "Building on a rich tradition of spiritually grounded peace and social change work, and extensive experience in cutting-edge leadership training, the Boulder Peacemaker Institute offers an intensive peacemaker certification program and a year-round schedule of other trainings, workshops and retreats for professionals and volunteers from around the world seeking to create a more peaceful world. Our participants and graduates are engaged in a wide array of community development, social change, and peacemaking activities, including conflict resolution, homeless advocacy, restorative justice, prison ministry, juvenile justice and at-risk youth programs, AIDS relief, social entrepreneurship, and human rights and peace work."

BTW, the training itself is structured on Ken Wilber's four quadrants:

• transforming self
• transforming relationship
• transforming groups
• transforming systems

The Training is designed for professionals & volunteers engaged in Peacework, Conflict Resolution, Community Building, Engaged Spirituality, Restorative Justice, Prison Work, Sustainable Resources, Environmental Issues, International Relations, Organizational Development, Urban Issues, Social Action & Activism, Social Justice, Human Rights, Economic Development & Relief Work or anyone interested in connecting mind, body, heart, & spirit to create peace in relationships, groups, communities, systems & ourselves!

Secularism, religions, and the GDP

"...Until relatively recently, most social theorists, from Marx to Freud to Weber, believed that as societies became more modern, religion would lose its capacity to inspire. Industrialization would substitute the rational pursuit of self-interest for blind submission to authority. Science would undermine belief in miracles. Democracy would encourage the separation of church and state. Gender equality would undermine patriarchy, and with it, clerical authority. However one defined modernity, it always seemed likely to involve societies focused on this world rather than on some other."

Read the whole article in the Atlantic by Alan Wolfe, featuring also a useful graph comparing per capita GDP and religiosity (Kuwait and US being notable exceptions to the general trend). Thanks to Philip Ryan for heads up.

Not Spiritual

An interview with Ethan Nichtern, Founder and Director of the Interdependence Project (The ID Project) in New York City and author of the new book "One City: A Declaration of Interdependence". Good stuff!



Then there's an article by Whitney Joiner on the ID Project at Salon.com entitled "Dive-bar dharma".

The trap and the dream of freedom

"The Trap" by Adam Curtis, or "What happened to our dreams of freedom" (for info, see detailed entry at Wikipedia, from which descriptions below are taken). On liberty, individual freedoms, illussions, control, and politics. Watch at Google video, links for each of the three programs below. Each program 1 hour. Enjoy!

Episode One entitled "Fuck You Buddy":

In this episode, Curtis examines the rise of game theory during the Cold War and the way in which its mathematical models of human behaviour filtered into economic thought. The programme traces the development of game theory with particular reference to the work of John Nash, who believed that all humans were inherently suspicious and selfish creatures that strategised constantly. (...) The episode ends with the suggestion that this mathematically modelled society is run on data—performance targets, quotas, statistics—and that it is these figures combined with the exaggerated belief in human selfishness that has created "a cage" for Western humans. The precise nature of the "cage" is to be discussed in the next episode.

Episode Two entitled "The Lonely Robot":

The second episode reiterated many of the ideas of the first, but developed the theme that the drugs such as Prozac and lists of psychological symptoms which might indicate anxiety or depression were being used to normalise behaviour and make humans behave more predictably, like machines. This was not presented as a conspiracy theory, but as a logical (although unpredicted) outcome of market-driven self-diagnosis by checklist based on symptoms, but not actual causes, discussed in the previous programme. (...) Curtis's narration concludes with the observation that the game theory/free market model is now undergoing interrogation by economists who suspect a more irrational model of behaviour is appropriate and useful. In fact, in formal experiments the only people who behaved exactly according to the mathematical models created by game theory are economists themselves, and psychopaths.

Episode Three entitled "We Will Force You To Be Free" (see comment for alternative links to part three):

The final programme focussed on the concepts of positive and negative liberty introduced in the 1950s by Isaiah Berlin. Curtis briefly explained how negative liberty could be defined as freedom from coercion and positive liberty as the opportunity to strive to fulfill one's potential. The programme began with a description of the Two Concepts of Liberty, reviewing Berlin's opinion that, since it lacked coercion, negative liberty was the 'safer' of the two. Curtis then explained how many political groups who sought their vision of freedom ended up using violence to achieve it. (...) In essence, the programme suggested that following the path of negative liberty to its logical conclusions, as governments have done in the West for the past 50 years, resulted in a society without meaning populated only by selfish automatons, and that there was some value in positive liberty in that it allowed people to strive to better themselves. The closing minutes directly state that if western humans were ever to find their way out of the "trap" described in the series, they would have to realise that Isaiah Berlin was wrong and that not all attempts at creating positive liberty necessarily ended in coercion and tyranny.

Freedom of freedom

There is freedom of irony, but there's also the irony of freedom, as demonstrated by many media unable to withstand the threat of blind fundamentalism, thus proving themselves incapable of freedom. Statement by cartoonist Kurt Westergaard:

"Of course I fear for my life after the Danish Security and Intelligence Service informed me of the concrete plans of certain people to kill me. However, I have turned fear into anger and indignation. It has made me angry that a perfectly normal everyday activity which I used to do by the thousand was abused to set off such madness. I have attended to my work and I still do. I could not possibly know for how long I have to live under police protection; I think, however, that the impact of the insane response to my cartoon will last for the rest of my life. It is sad indeed, but it has become a fact of my life. "

See the whole story.

Discussion ad hominem

Not long ago I decided to effectively leave the Zaadz community and abandon my post there for several reasons. First, I felt the promised transformative platform was being pampered and traded for an irritating LOHAS chic, soon to be confirmed with Zaadz (a Friend of the I-I) being sold to Gaiam (origin: "Gaia+I am", OMG) and then adequately renamed to Gaia dot com (on the web, semantics is everything). Second, it was becoming obvious that even the best discussions at Zaadz are inescapably tainted with endless and painful logical and emotional circularity, defended as PC tolerance at this crucial time when the unsophisticated, deeply narcisistic sensitivity of so many is assaulting every trace of authenticity to be found in so few. Other reasons seem to stem from these two. You know, anybody is equally entitled to anything, and the only sin is a violation of That. Not of duty, not of privilege, but of an absurd entitlement. Basically, I wasn't dissapointed or disheartened, but have come to conclusion that Zaadz was a herald of a project that will be progressive enough to boldly proclaim standards that go beyond sheer egalitarianism, to usher a new standard of communal excellence and depth, immune to the extreme of uncritical acceptance otherwise celebrated as a cardinal virtue. In short, Zaadz was somewhat a hype.

Recently Julian Walker (see here) and Bruce Alderman (see here) both contributed remarkable posts to their blogs. The discussions themselves tended to blur the points made in original posts, and eventually seemed to neutralize the potential opened by the posts themselves. I wouldn't and couldn't take part in the ensuing discussions, since I have already left the tribe. It doesn't hurt to peek, though, right? Yes, the discussions can be fun and entertaining and even empowering, but so can many other things in life, while some things, some ideas, some practices, some phenomena etc. deserve a special treatment, because of their explicit transformative potential. Meanwhile, Julian became annoyed after taking so much "flak from everyone", Bruce felt that Julian doesn't stop long enough to actually understand what someone else is saying, and others - with few exceptions like Jim and James and David - mostly used their combined authenticity to chip in with anything from admiration to agreement to self-promotion to ill-hidden sarcasm to childish f*ck yous to simple gratitude. Despite all that, Julian and Bruce, with a little help from some friends, did manage to make at least some differences stand out rather clearly.

However, I was now in position of an onlooker, an intellectual peeper, as most readers of such discussions are by definition, and I discovered how frustrating discussions can be for the most part, and often useless. In order to have a meaningful discussion, participants must share a common purpose, that implicitly transcends their respective views or agendas. An example of such purpose is given in the dialogical notion of Raimon Panikkar (e.g. see Balder's take on Panikkar).

Something like this has happened already, and will happen again. For example, when the Integral Institute launched its forums, the Road Rules were set forth to "not just regulate traffic, but to call all participants to their own highest awareness." The guidelines were all variations on the simple dictum: "Let the next words out of your mouth (and into this forum) be from your Highest Self as you understand it." Well, it was an attempt, that didn't work very well. I haven't visited the I-I Forums for a loooong time.

On the other hand, hardcore discussion can only take place in protected spaces (online or real world), far from anything resembling universal entitlement. Instead, deep discussion is delineated by merit and realization. Whether in business, politics, or spirituality, deep dialogue is sustained by those who are willing and capable to embody that which is being aimed at by discussion with a common purpose and an open mind, or else to remain silent and respectful. Is that too much to ask? Fortunately, there are such places. But we need more hybrids, where some of that deep conversation can be joined by the public in a meaningful way. Any thoughts?

What dogma?

CJ Smith has a post on anti-dogmatic dogmatism and/or dogmatic anti-dogmatism of the so-called new atheists and I think he has some great arguments. BTW, I agree with most if not all. Here's a snip:

The worry with the New Atheists, who are otherwise harmless and not particularly that deep in my book, is that they could veer towards illiberality. Dawkins most especially. Mostly they just come off as adolescent, maybe d–kheads a lot of the time. Which is fine; it’s a free country. They are not promoting communist gulags. They do practice psychological taunting, bordering on (mild) abuse I would say, de-humanizing and arrogant at times (Hitchens and Dawkins I’m thinking of now). Though they receive in truth far worse from so-called religious people, so that’s understandable if still not acceptable in my book.

And more:

What they miss is this–humans want their enslavement. Many humans that is. They want dogmas out of fear and if religion is destroyed then they will create atheists dogmas in order to fill in the gap. In other words, they are highly naive as to the depths of human evil. The evil they see as all outside implanted in us by parasitic religions. The truth often (sadly and more frighteningly) is that humans want and will create if needs be these parasites and inject themselves with them.

Read the whole piece.

Century of Self from BBC

A documentary from BBC by Adam Curtis. Each part 1 hour. (Wiki entry here) See each at Google video, links below.

The Century of the Self episode 1 begins with, Sigmund Freud's nephew, Edward Bernays. He went from Enrico Caruso's publicist to WW1 propagandist and repackaged propaganda as "public relations". Herbert Hoover applied his ideas to turn Americans into the consumers industry needed. Joseph Goebbels, is shown explaining how Bernays' same ideas were used to turn the Germans into Nazi's.

The Century of the Self episode 2 begins with Sigmund Freud's daughter, Anna. Studies of traumatized soldiers in WW2 showed their upbringing made them psychologically vulnerable. Anna Freud popularized the idea that imposing conformity strengthened the ego. Thus leading to the conformity of the 50's.

The Century of the Self episode 3 shows the overthrow of Anna Freud's ideas and reverses them with the idea that it is society that is sick and individuals need to free themselves of it. Thus the counter culture and the self actualization movement. Industry no longer wanted to make standard products, they married their new products with expressing individuality. Maslow's hierarchy of needs provided a model for this and was used to elect Ronald Reagan.

The Century of the Self episode 4 shows how the public had become consumers of politics in the same way they had earlier become consumers of products. Focus groups determine policy, first for the Right, and then, to survive, for the Left, especially, Bill, Hillary, and Tony Blair.

Thanks to Daily Kos.

The intensely liberating sexist religion

From an article by Rita Gross, published in Shambhala Sun, July 2005:

"As we survey the issues important to Buddhist women, it is easy to see why people have such drastically different impressions of Buddhism. The public face of Buddhism as seen in its Asian cultural context is very male-dominated, so much so that many women would not consider exploring Buddhism because it is clear to them that Buddhism is just another sexist religion. Others who have explored Buddhism more personally have found Buddhism so intensely liberating that they devote much of their life to its study and practice.

Paradoxically, both impressions are correct. Buddhism has been quite disadvantageous to women, and yet Buddhism can provide freedom, dignity, and peace to women. It all depends on how Buddhism is practiced, and much of that depends on the initiative, courage, and imagination of women practitioners, especially those who pioneer a gender-neutral and gender-free way of understanding and practicing Buddhism. These women practice a middle path of neither ignoring obvious sexist practices in Buddhism nor being so alienated by that sexism that they abandoned Buddhism. We will need to stay on that middle path for some time to come. It would be naive to assume that Buddhist patriarchy is gone for good in such a short period of time, given patriarchy’s venerable place in Buddhism throughout its history."

Read the whole piece.

Superdiversity

From The Observer: "At least a dozen British towns and cities will have no single ethnic group in a majority within the next 30 years.(...)It is going to become increasingly difficult to generalise about Britain's plurality because different cities are experiencing different levels and types of diversity. This creates a complex challenge for those responsible for successfully managing the country's changing population.(...) Although Greater London's population is already significantly diverse with a white population of 67.5 per cent, it is not likely to become plural in the near future. By 2026 the white population is predicted to reach 60.7 per cent, with just eight of London's 33 local authority areas predicted to become plural." LINK

Dharma MUST be political

'...It’s fair to say that— within contemplative communities—discourse about specific social and political issues has typically been met with a general unease. This discomfort even extends to many people who feel deeply passionate about social issues in their personal lives, but feel wary about bringing that discourse into the conversations and interactions that occur within their meditation community. Even on the pages of a magazine like this, a letter to the editor expressing dissatisfaction with politically oriented content could make the editorial staff fret that the magazine is being viewed as “too political.” A general fear of appropriateness abounds, coming from a compassionate intention not to alienate those who don’t share our political inclinations.

This uneasiness seems to hinge on a worldview that sees participation in political and social issues as a personal choice. Some people choose to be political, some people don’t, this worldview claims. No matter what choice they make, the inner work of meditation can benefit them. So please, let’s not alienate those who have chosen differently from us. From this point of view, keeping the context of our meditation practice personal and apolitical seems to be the most compassionate and inclusive thing to do. Everyone can work on personal issues, and no one feels alienated. In the various training programs I attended to become a teacher of meditation, we were warned multiple times against using too many political or societal examples in lectures and discussions. There is only one little problem: the view that participation in social and political issues is a matter of personal choice is based on a complete and utter fallacy...'

Read the whole thing by Ethan Nichtern.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

"... As you read this, Ayaan Hirsi Ali sits in a safe house with armed men guarding her door. She is one of the most poised, intelligent and compassionate advocates of freedom of speech and conscience alive today, and for this she is despised in Muslim communities throughout the world. The details of her story have been widely reported, but bear repeating, as they illustrate how poorly equipped we are to deal with the threat of Muslim extremism in the West."

A Refugee from Western Europe, article by Sam Harris and Salman Rushdie. Thanks to WH for the tip. More on Wikipedia Ayaan Hirsi Ali and profiled on BBC.

Monks vs. soldiers

From NYTimes: "Despite threats and warnings by the authorities and despite the beginnings of a violent response, tens of thousands of chanting, cheering protesters flooded the streets, witnesses reported. Monks were in the lead, “like religious storm troopers,” as one foreign observer described the scene."

As hours go by, we may expect more violence from the military regime, unless something quite new happens in Burma, which I doubt.

Dangers in devotion

John Crook wrote "Dangers in Devotion" ten years ago, and some of it's conclusions are even more significant today.

The implication of this is that the Buddha Dharma must be 'open'. Even though individuals may subscribe to contrasting traditions of practice and viewpoint if there is openness to the underlying empty vision then understanding can arise. We need therefore to cultivate a tradition of 'open Buddhism' and only if we manage to do so will the Buddha Dharma find a place in the West free from cultic factionalism and argument. (...)

Cults can be profitably undone by democracy. All that is needed is proper attention to the creation of an institutional structure in which the power relations between guru and followers is balanced, in which problems and disputes can be raised and discussed and in which the formation of appropriate committees allows decision making processes reflecting the wishes of the membership. Many Buddhist institutions lack proper constitutional organisation and a prime recommendation may be that this issue be immediately addressed.

Read the whole article.

Enemies of Reason: Part Two

I've posted recently about Part One of Dawkins' new documentary "Enemies of Reason". See that one first in the post. Here comes Part Two, and from Dawkins himself: "In this program I want to look how health has become a battleground between reason and superstition." Time 48 minutes Enjoy!

Any good about men?

The article is from NY Times, and the whole speech by Roy F. Baumeister "Is there anything good about men?" can be found here. Quote:

A few lucky men are at the top of society and enjoy the culture’s best rewards. Others, less fortunate, have their lives chewed up by it. Culture uses both men and women, but most cultures use them in somewhat different ways. Most cultures see individual men as more expendable than individual women, and this difference is probably based on nature, in whose reproductive competition some men are the big losers and other men are the biggest winners. Hence it uses men for the many risky jobs it has. Men go to extremes more than women, and this fits in well with culture using them to try out lots of different things, rewarding the winners and crushing the losers. (...)

The basic social insecurity of manhood is stressful for the men, and it is hardly surprising that so many men crack up or do evil or heroic things or die younger than women. But that insecurity is useful and productive for the culture, the system.

Again, I’m not saying it’s right, or fair, or proper. But it has worked. The cultures that have succeeded have used this formula, and that is one reason that they have succeeded instead of their rivals.

Read the whole thing, it's good.

Zizek on Western Buddhism

Slavoj Zizek has a generous critique of Western Buddhism. Quote:

... "Western Buddhism" thus fits perfectly the fetishist mode of ideology in our allegedly "post-ideological" era, as opposed to its traditional symptomal mode in which the ideological lie which structures our perception of reality is threatened by symptoms qua "returns of the repressed," cracks in the fabric of the ideological lie. The fetish is effectively a kind of symptom in reverse. That is to say, the symptom is the exception which disturbs the surface of the false appearance, the point at which the repressed Other Scene erupts, while the fetish is the embodiment of the Lie which enables us to sustain the unbearable truth. Let us take the case of the death of a beloved person. In the case of a symptom, I "repress" this death and try not to think about it, but the repressed trauma returns in the symptom. In the case of a fetish, on the contrary, I "rationally" fully accept this death, and yet I cling to the fetish, to some feature that embodies for me the disavowal of this death. In this sense, a fetish can play a very constructive role in allowing us to cope with the harsh reality. Fetishists are not dreamers lost in their private worlds. They are thorough "realists" capable of accepting the way things effectively are, given that they have their fetish to which they can cling in order to cancel the full impact of reality. In Nevil Shute's melodramatic World War II novel Requiem for a WREN, the heroine survives her lover's death without any visible traumas. She goes on with her life and is even able to talk rationally about her lover's death because she still has the dog that was the lover's favored pet. When, some time after, the dog is accidentally run over by a truck, she collapses and her entire world disintegrates. ...

Here's another thinker who can join the ranks with Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and other skeptics who seem intent on forcing themselves on a notion (whether "religion" or "faith" or, in this case, "Western Buddhism") and incapable of distinguishing at least two major, significantly distinct meanings of it. While some of Western Buddhism indeed deserves a bashing as quasi-Western pseudo-Buddhism, it being an insidious newage flirtation with general Buddhist signifiers, and a shallow understanding and application of Buddhist spiritual methods, there is surely an authentic Buddhist mysticism for the 21st century being questioned and formulated here in the West by at least some. Slavoj Zizek, a rather famous postmodern philosopher and cultural critic, should be aware of the difference between legitimacy and authenticity, and eager to apply this basic distinction to his otherwise worthy critique, thus avoiding several seriously damaging fallacies. For a way out of such mess, read chapter "Legitimacy, Authenticity, and Authority in the New Religions" in Ken Wilber's "Eye to Eye", or see the online essay "A Spirituality that Transforms".

Read the whole article by Slavoj Zizek.

Dawkins makes new foes

The unreasonably reasonable Richard Dawkins moves on. First, if you have seen Dawkins' last series "The Root of All Evil", where the subject was religion, then you're familiar with his basic approach. He pretends being interested and then uses a rather narrow argument to disprove something that, more or less, disproves itself, but he fails to grasp the deeper features of the phenomenon.

This now, is the first part of "The Enemies of Reason"! The general logic remains intact, though the enemy is now more accurately defined, namely superstition, or as Dawkins may prefer - nonsense. It even starts with an ingroup chanting of daimoku (i.e. Namu Myoho Renge Kyo), which I would agree is a great example of nonsense, and in most cases superstition. But then, I have a divided take on Dawkins and an uncommon take on mantra. Time 48 minutes. Enjoy!

Dharma a capella

Japanese Buddhism keeps meandering, looking for a way to enter contemporary Japanese culture. At times, it gets entertaining. Quite literally, but not really.

"In the beginning, some people thought there was a funeral wake going on inside and just left," said Kyoko Sakamoto, who runs the establishment. "But now, people come for the comfort that the sounds of sutra offer." The monks perform three or four pieces each time and later sit among the audience, sometimes offering advice on life's problems to those who seek it. (...)

"Suffering in society cannot be addressed if monks just stay cooped up inside their temples," said Noriyuki Ueda, associate professor of cultural anthropology at Tokyo Institute of Technology. "Buddhism in Japan will surely become more relevant if the number of younger generation monks with ambition to spread the word increases." Ueda, who serves as an adviser to the monks' meetings at Seishoji, says the only way to revitalize Buddhism is for monks to have greater contact with the world at large.

Read the whole article.

Yes or Nhat?

Excerpts from Tricycle Blog post by James Shaheen:

The current issues of two Buddhist publications contain articles about the eminent Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh. The Shambhala Sun, founded by the pioneering Tibetan teacher Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche (his son and heir is now the publication’s president), devotes sixteen pages to Nhat Hanh and features his photo on the cover. Inquiring Mind, “a journal of the vipassana community,” which this year celebrated its 20th anniversary, has an intriguing piece by Arnie Kotler, once Nhat Hanh’s editor, publisher, disciple, and assistant, that discusses the painful dissolution of their long and close relationship. (...)

The Shambhala Sun’s Thich Nhat Hanh section comprises two articles and a teaching with a mix of excerpts. The picture that emerges is one of a Buddhist master steeped in the wisdom, compassion, and virtue of the tradition he represents and which we, the readers, seek to learn. It is a heroic picture of an exemplary figure, and to readers of Buddhist publications, including Tricycle and Inquiring Mind, it is a familiar one.

The Thich Nhat Hanh in the Inquiring Mind essay is very different indeed. Alongside his virtues as a Buddhist master, a poet, and a peace worker, this Thich Nhat Hanh is manipulative, hypocritical, and even litigious. He takes Kotler under his wing as a student and the two form a close working partnership—out of which come the books and teaching tours that formed the basis for Nhat Hanh’s current popularity—then, suddenly and for no clearly stated reason, he dumps Kotler(...).

Will the real Thich Nhat Hanh please stand up? Or peel a tangerine?

Read the whole Tricycle thing.

Integral recovery?

Joe Perez writes on a more integral approach to recovery. For the meanings of the color scheme, see here. Excerpt (with added bold/italics):

In amber recovery, abstinence and dependence on a Higher Power and a Higher Collective Order is the remedy. In orange recovery, building healthy ego strength in the service of rational decision-making to unmask the irrationality of addictive thoughts and behaviors is the prescription. ... Green recovery is tricky because it tends to reinforce magenta/red and often has trouble distinguishing between healthy and unhealthy versions; overall, green is capable of affirming healthy relative choices but not very good at identifying and rejecting unhealthy relative choices because there are no absolutes, fixed rules, or overarching principles. Unhealthy green is absolutely relativistic and therefore lost, dazed, and confused. Healthy green recognizes relative but meaningful choices, and therefore is able to benefit from programs that help them to affirm healthier personal and interpersonal choices. For example, mythopoetic ideas can be helpful to addicts at the green station. Green is capable of recognizing the Addict as a mythic archetype, as well as the Lover and the Frozen One or Numb One. Unhealthy green cannot tell the difference between the Lover and the Addict. Healthy green can. As green begins to transform into teal and turquoise, the distinctions between healthy and unhealthy begin to appear as hierarchical value judgments (though never simply "just the way things are" as in the amber and orange versions). ... Turquoise recovery is straightforward to define in theory. Its approach is to recognize valid partial perspectives on recovery that are appropriate to various stages and stations of life. Thus, turquoise recommends amber programs to folks in an amber station, orange programs for orange, green for green, etc. Turquoise also rejects the absolutistic claims of various recovery programs, and insofar as any program makes totalizing demands in its attempt to "win converts", then turquoise would not accept those demands without qualification. The turquoise mind is also capable of blending valid partial approaches from different stages of development into creative syntheses that are best for persons at almost any stage of recovery. ... There are reasons, however, that there aren't more recovery programs or counselors advocating Integral recovery. First, the vast majority of individuals aren't there yet, and encouraging synthetic approaches to recovery when those approaches may be working at cross-purposes is a very risky endeavor. Second, recovery is by its very nature an enterprise that requires social support, reinforcement, and mentoring. I believe strongly that recovery is not something for lone, isolated individuals. It requires engagement with others who are wrestling with similar concerns and can benefit enormously from the wisdom of peers, mentors, sponsors, and counselors. ... Thus, there is a very real sense in which the only recovery programs worth recommending are those with substantial levels of social support.

What is the Matrix?

Julian Walker brings a layered and thoughtful comment to the Matrix Trilogy. Quote:

Morpheus explains that Neo has been living in a dream world - that the world (shown now on a TV screen) he has taken as reality is in fact a computer simulation of 200 years ago and then he shows him the world as it is today - a post-apocalyptic wasteland which they now are shown to be sitting in themselves. We come full circle now to Baudrillard as Morpheus intones, “Welcome to the desert of the real.”

Read the first part: Matrix Revealed

Read the second part: Matrix Decoded

The Climate Heretic

Freeman Dyson rocks! Some will surely take him to the public square (aka Internet) and burn him on the stake. But, unfortunately, that will only contribute to global warming.:-) Quote:

"...I will discuss the global warming problem in detail because it is interesting, even though its importance is exaggerated. One of the main causes of warming is the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere resulting from our burning of fossil fuels such as oil and coal and natural gas. To understand the movement of carbon through the atmosphere and biosphere, we need to measure a lot of numbers. I do not want to confuse you with a lot of numbers, so I will ask you to remember just one number. The number that I ask you to remember is one hundredth of an inch per year. Now I will explain what this number means. Consider the half of the land area of the earth that is not desert or ice-cap or city or road or parking-lot. This is the half of the land that is covered with soil and supports vegetation of one kind or another. Every year, it absorbs and converts into biomass a certain fraction of the carbon dioxide that we emit into the atmosphere. Biomass means living creatures, plants and microbes and animals, and the organic materials that are left behind when the creatures die and decay. We don’t know how big a fraction of our emissions is absorbed by the land, since we have not measured the increase or decrease of the biomass. The number that I ask you to remember is the increase in thickness, averaged over one half of the land area of the planet, of the biomass that would result if all the carbon that we are emitting by burning fossil fuels were absorbed. The average increase in thickness is one hundredth of an inch per year..."

Read whole article. Thanks to ~C4 for heads up!

Karma of excellence

There's a tradition of karma yoga, spiritual discipline of ordinary worldly activities entered with a lofty motivation, performed with mindfulness, and dedicated to the goal of awakening. Then there's the notion of seva, or service, which builds on that. But fundamentally, all action-based transformative practices stem from the twin forces of devotion and ethical awareness.

Devotion implies one is humble and sincere in the face of ubiquitous ultimate reality. One is careful to do one's best, and therefore avoids external activities which are likely to be done poorly by any established standards. If one must, such activities are done with special care to minimize harm. Essentially, we choose to serve from our natural gifts. Instead of being a poor therapist, better to be an excellent lawyer. Instead of being a poor teacher of meditation, better to be an excellent gardener. Instead of being a lousy mechanic, better to be an excellent bohemian. We do our best to do what we do best in the best possible way for the best possible purpose.

Excellence has an important place in the karmic cycle. In premodern societies, one could not do much in terms of choosing one's calling. Today, we enjoy much greater freedom in that respect and, due to our longer lives, we may even attain proficiency in several fields. Recognizing our gifts is essential to finding our role in the wider socio-cultural context. We're not narrowly concerned with just doing or even doing well, but also with benefiting others and positively contributing to the society. And while noble intention is the primary cause of transformative action, talents and abilities - which may be freely trained, learned and educated - provide crucial conditions for its fruition.

The unfavorable course of action is to go after the money, disregarding vocational standards and professional integrity. The limiting course of action is to settle for mediocrity. The worst we can do is performing a job poorly and expecting to be paid for it. The best done job is guided by ethical consideration, and enjoyed in beginning, middle, and end, while also providing unreserved benefit to client or customer. Such a job, which is a reward to itself, deserves being paid for, and accords with the order of reality. Everything else is a drudgery, and a punishment, choking the natural creativity, as well as the emergence of higher social and spiritual realities.

Reality starvation

Another study to "evaluate psilocybin or similar substances for their potential to increase self-awareness and a sense of spirituality". In my opinion, it's another study to show the sad affair of state-starvation so common at this time everywhere. Stuck in their flattened waking awareness, bereft of depth and meaning and authentic spiritual pursuits, people are hungry for some chemical enlightenment. Quote:

Two months later, 24 of the participants filled out a questionnaire. Two-thirds called their reaction to psilocybin one of the five top most meaningful experiences of their lives. On another measure, one-third called it the most spiritually significant experience of their lives, with another 40 percent ranking it in the top five.

Give mushrooms to 24 spiritually realized individuals and asked them if that was the most significant experience of their lives. Besides, experiences do not carry significance, awareness does. Of course, the research has unfortunately been scarce for the last 30-40 years, and hopefully some of it is coming back. Read the whole article.

Myth of Porn

"The ubiquity of sexual images does not free eros but dilutes it. Other cultures know this. I am not advocating a return to the days of hiding female sexuality, but I am noting that the power and charge of sex are maintained when there is some sacredness to it, when it is not on tap all the time. In many more traditional cultures, it is not prudery that leads them to discourage men from looking at pornography. It is, rather, because these cultures understand male sexuality and what it takes to keep men and women turned on to one another over time—to help men, in particular, to, as the Old Testament puts it, “rejoice with the wife of thy youth; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times.” These cultures urge men not to look at porn because they know that a powerful erotic bond between parents is a key element of a strong family.

And feminists have misunderstood many of these prohibitions."

A bit of a generalization, as "traditional cultures" refers not only to behaviours, but also to value systems, and those can be all over the board from extremely narrow-minded to genuinely generous to all involved, often also depending on class or caste. But the basic implication is true enough. Certainly, they way back is not the way ahead. Pre-porn is not post-porn. Anyway, nice article by Naomi Wolf at the NY mag, link here.

History and Dharma (4)

So it's states and structures, or structures and states. There are two basic models to take a look at: one was proposed in "Up from Eden" (KW, 1981) relating the average mode to the advanced mode of consciousness. The other is the Wilber-Combs lattice (pic here). First the average/advanced model.

Prehistoric humanity (paleolithic to mesolithic, 200,000 yrs ago) identifies with archaic structure (Jean Gebser) as its average mode. It's difficult, if not impossible, to reconstruct the mysticism at this level, though quite certainly the great states of waking, dreaming and sleeping are equally available with such a structure. My guess is that mystical experiences at this stage emerge almost exclusively as spontaneous bursts in gifted individuals, coupled with early forms of almost compulsive immersion through intense physical activity (journey into wilderness) and isolation from the herd/group/tribe. While terms are lacking for this early proto-mysticism, I opt for raw unity, where RAW stands for rapture, awe and wonder, these being the primordial sources of search for reintegration (the "atman project") through both states (immediate, obvious, pic here) and structures (longterm development, pic here) in ontogenetic and phylogenetic unfoldment.

From this stage, we find the emergence and stabilization of magical structure (mesolithic to neolithic, 50,000 yrs), perhaps also quickened in Left Quadrants by raw experiential breakthroughs of individuals, that strongly affected their groups due to hive resonances, and then relived in round the fire stories and rudimentary rituals wherein the whole group could be connected in rapture, awe and wonder. During the period of prevailing magical structure, we find shamanic and early yogic as the prototype of mysticism, and indeed nature mysticism prevailed as far as we can tell. These shamans developed higher-structure capacities such as mythic and mental, i.e. amber and orange altitude. (Note: as far the classification of mysticism is concerned - nature, deity, formless, nondual - there are many overlaps in this due to the fluid nature of states. This is a genealogy as much as a typology.)

In the same manner, with mythical structure in average mode (5,000 yrs) we find saintly spirituality of subtle realms in the advance mode, with mature mystics developing highly rational capacities, i.e. post-orange altitude, that allow them to conceptualize sophisticated systems of spiritual training and logical reasoning. Then, the first more stable emergence of rational structure coincides with formless/nondual mystics or sages, who not only have access to transrational structures, i.e. teal and higher, but are also originators of great religions we know today. While the Founders may have discovered the Ground, this esoteric certainty easily translated into mythic/rational