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"Yes, Susan, I find that it works well for me. So easy... and so hard to keep at it!
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" Hello Reprehensible!
You sound a lot like me but my socks match. So I guess I'm kind of boring too.
Discipline can be boring but it gets results. I fin...more
Hello Reprehensible!
You sound a lot like me but my socks match. So I guess I'm kind of boring too.
Discipline can be boring but it gets results. I find that the discipline of a regular schedule is a helpful start.
What do you do?(less)
"
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Millennial madness is with us again as December 2012 looms and, with it, the end of the world as we know it, as "predicted" by the Mayan calendar.
It's a good moment, then, to take note of Richard Landes' Heaven on Earth: The Varieties of Millennial E...more
Millennial madness is with us again as December 2012 looms and, with it, the end of the world as we know it, as "predicted" by the Mayan calendar.
It's a good moment, then, to take note of Richard Landes' Heaven on Earth: The Varieties of Millennial Experience. It would take a mind more scholarly than my own to do justice to this book with a properly critical review. It's a hefty tome and its language is that of meticulously argued academic analysis. The footnotes alone often take up half a page or more--and that's on every page of this 500-page book. But--please note--this should not deter anyone who is seriously interested in attempting to come to at least a partial understanding of the bewildering, dangerous insanity that threatens to engulf our world in this twenty-first century. That should include all of us.
Okay, I'll admit I glossed over some of the more esoteric passages. I did not pay that much attention to the footnotes. And I struggled, at times, with the language. But I was so engaged by the stories of human gullibility, folly and delusion that my fascination never lapsed.
As have many people like myself who think of themselves, as I do, as rational, thinking human beings, I have been confounded by the absurd, sometimes outrageous, and ostensibly religious beliefs that govern the thoughts and actions of so many of our fellow travelers on this planet, who in their fanatic dedication to deluded notions gladly endanger our very existence on the planet Earth. I think not only of those "Muslim terrorists" who brought down the World Trade Center towers and plot the demise of Western civilization, but also of their Christian brethren in madness who preach their fundamentalist, end-of-times versions of reality in our own churches here in America. Such extremist views are not merely tolerated, they are embraced by alarming numbers of our fellow-citizens--and they coalesce into a powerful political force. It behooves us to pay attention, and to attempt to understand the incomprehensible.
Enter Richard Landes, who helpfully frames all this insanity in the context of the "millennial experience." In our attempt to explain and envision a reality beyond the human condition that is all too frequently one of suffering, bondage, injustice and violent conflict, we humans have often in our history rushed to embrace the prophecies of messiahs who promise us peace, freedom and justice for all--"heaven on earth," just over the hill, past the (imminent!) end of the world, if only we will repent, believe in them, and follow them if necessary to the ends of the earth. Whether by rapture or vengeful apocalypse, "we shall overcome" the forces of evil and find salvation through their intermediary.
Trouble is, of course, that the end of the world never comes, and the inevitable disillusionment needs some explanation: in the most benign of cases, the date of the cataclysm merely gets postponed; in the worst, we descend into mass suicide or mass murder, even genocide when the megalomania of false prophets explodes into homicidal frenzy.
I found this book to be both amazing and enlightening. As I suggested at the start, I am unqualified to review it in the critical perspective of other work in the same field of study, but I found its arguments compelling and its stories fascinating. We know these characters, from Jim Jones to Adolf Hitler, and Landes offers a plausible framework in which to understand their seemingly inexplicable power over their followers. The stories he tells help us to tease out the underlying patterns of human behavior that permit atrocities like the Holocaust, and leave us open, in the current century, to real and actual self-destruction as a species. In reading the deplorable history of apocalyptic prophesies and events and in understanding how they come about, Landes suggests in his conclusion, we might just possibly avert the biggest one of all.
Unless, of course, the Mayan calendar proves us skeptics wrong... (It may account for all those typos! Oxford University Press? Really? For shame!) See you in January.(less)
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I spent a delightful afternoon yesterday reading the Barefoot Books collection of Indian Tales, as told by Shenaaz Naji and illustrated by Christopher Corr. Barefoot Books aims to "celebrate art and story that opens the hearts and minds of children f...more
I spent a delightful afternoon yesterday reading the Barefoot Books collection of Indian Tales, as told by Shenaaz Naji and illustrated by Christopher Corr. Barefoot Books aims to "celebrate art and story that opens the hearts and minds of children from all walks of life, inspiring them to read deeper, search further, and explore their own creative gifts." I was initially attracted to their list by a press release mentioning a collection of Buddhist Tales (more of this in a later post.) My new little grandson, Luka, now barely six months old, is already fascinated and loves to sit on my lap and turn the board pages of his baby books. It's not so much a matter of "reading" to him yet, but the experience of being close and watching him learn is in itself a joy.
It was with this in mind, and the prospect of reading more to him as the months and years pass, that I contacted Barefoot, and they were kind enough to send me a generous sampling of their publications for review. Each one of these story books is beautifully written and exquisitely illustrated, with a real feel not only for the culture they represent but also for content that teaches, without sentimentality or preaching, the values of kindness and compassion, awareness to the world and its natural beauties, and sensitivity to living beings of all kinds. These are the kind of things that I myself have come to value most in life, and the gift I would most like to pass on to little Luka if I am given the opportunity.
The stories are produced for children of all ages, and Luka is certainly not ready yet for these Indian tales, but one day, perhaps when he's seven or eight, or a little older... The stories themselves are culled from the great wealth of Indian mythology and literature, and are delightfully told in simple language, without fuss or condescension. They originate in a spectrum of different regions that spans the sub-continent, and each story is preceded by an informative passage that describes the geography and special culture of the region--from the distinctive foods and flavors to the manner of dress and furnishings, the dances and social customs as well as the religious beliefs. I myself learned a lot I had never known about India from my afternoon's reading!
The illustrations, too, are a delight: richly conceived, thoughtfully interactive with the stories, and with a clear reference to the literary and artistic traditions from which they spring, they benefit also from an awareness of the diversity of contemporary artistic expression. A glance through the other books that Barefoot sent is evidence that "Indian Tales" is no one-off success story. I'll be writing more about those others in a future post, with special attention to their Buddhist content. In the meantime, I apologize it this seems like a rather weighty way of writing about something as innocently diverting as a children's book; but believe me, if you have children of any age in your family to entertain and teach with a purely pleasurable reading experience, Barefoot Books is worthy of your attention. They also do CDs and puzzles, and much more. Check out their site.(less)
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I would have been happy to have come across Running with the Mind of Meditation: Lessons for Training Body and Mind twenty years ago, before my lower back and my hips and knees started telling me that enough was enough. Authored by Sakyong Mipham, th...more
I would have been happy to have come across Running with the Mind of Meditation: Lessons for Training Body and Mind twenty years ago, before my lower back and my hips and knees started telling me that enough was enough. Authored by Sakyong Mipham, the leader of Shambala and himself an experienced marathon runner, the book is part inspiration, part invaluable instruction manual in the parallel arts of running and meditation. Running, I have always maintained, is a mug’s game: do it often enough, run far enough, and you’ll get good at it. Mipham’s book proves my old theory wrong, at least in the sense that training is about a good deal more than the simple pounding of the pavement: there is also mind work to be done.
Although… as the author this book makes clear, the separation between mind and body is an artificial and misleading one. As I train the body, my mind inevitably learns new habits. As I train the mind, I teach the body new paths to discipline, stamina and strength. My own running career had its origins in my adolescent years at public (read: private!) school in England. A duffer at any sport that involved a spherical object, no matter its size or shape—whether soccer or rugby, cricket or tennis—and required nonetheless to participate in afternoon physical activity, I chose cross-country running because it took the least amount of time. I became relatively proficient on the school’s five-mile steeplechase course, up hills, down dales, over gates and stiles and through icy water obstacles. It felt like torture to me then. A reading of Mipham’s book would have helped me to direct the pain into more productive channels.
Leaving school, understandably I think, after this ordeal, I abandoned physical activity of all kinds for a good number of years, returning to running only at the urging—and following the example—of my wife, Ellie, when we were both in our mid-thirties. Again, over the years, I became reasonably proficient over a five-mile stretch. At a time of great professional stress, I was even up to an eight-mile daily stretch, proving the point that the practice of challenging disciplined activities serves as a mutual enhancement. And even though I never acquired the ambition to run a marathon, I greatly admire those who, like Mipham, achieve this feat. Perhaps, had I been aware of the benefits of meditation at the time, it would have been a different story.
Both prolonged meditation and long-distance running are, after all, about discipline and practice. This book offers an exhaustive (and thankfully not exhausting!) program for success for both the runner and the meditator. Mipham explores the many areas of common ground between the two, and lays out principles and practice that can lead to a rewarding fulfillment of one’s personal goals in both. He accomplishes this with reassuring ease and unflagging good cheer, suggesting that the discipline of hard work and the pleasures of relaxation are not, as we too often assume, mutually exclusive---that the two go hand in hand.
You don’t need to be a marathoner—nor even an aspiring one—to learn from this fine book about the benefits of conscious living. In a sense, each one of us is committed to his or her own marathon as we make our way through life. Mipham’s eminently practicable strategies demonstrate how it is possible to run this course with a more generous spirit and a greater lightness of heart.(less)
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I first heard of Dr. Richard Davidson’s work in the field of neuroscience a couple of months ago in an unlikely setting: the annual conference of the National Art Education Association in New York. Regular readers might remember my mention of the Com...more
I first heard of Dr. Richard Davidson’s work in the field of neuroscience a couple of months ago in an unlikely setting: the annual conference of the National Art Education Association in New York. Regular readers might remember my mention of the Compassion Project in Appleton, Wisconsin, which challenged teachers and students at all levels to give some thought to the nature of compassion, to some discussion, and then to join in a collaborative art project. The results, an amazing 10,000 tiny paintings, all about four inches square, were installed in an exhibition at the Trout Museum. As a result of Dr. Davidson’s idea, an entire community became involved in a project intended to increase the understanding and practice of compassion among human beings. Brilliant, I thought.
Now this same Richard Davidson’s book falls into my hands. Co-written with science writer and editor Sharon Begley, it’s called The Emotional Life of Your Brain, and the first two-thirds of it are science. To be honest, my eyes tend to glaze as I attempt to grasp the meaning of it all; my own brain was not trained to follow the meticulous detail of scientific method. Still, I was more than willing to make the effort, because I have come to believe so passionately in the argument that Davidson presents: that we can literally “change our minds.” In the course of life, from childhood on, we acquire certain attitudes, certain ways of thinking about ourselves and the world, certain mental and emotional patterns that can—but need not—entrap us and impoverish our lives. Davidson skillfully and persuasively applies the principles and super-advanced technological tools of scientific research to demonstrate these truths.
It is the last third of the book that is the easiest for me—from the moment he brings in the monks (with the enthusiastic help of none other than the Dalai Lama) to test them for the effects on the brain of long-term meditation. I have argued often in the pages of The Buddha Diaries that meditation offers us the power to discipline the mind to do those things we want it to do, rather than follow its natural tendency to wander off and play, or engage in fruitless and distracting tasks that do nothing but support our old, often destructive habits. It is fascinating and immensely satisfying to see these ideas put to the scientific test and proven to be sound. Davidson’s research demonstrates that meditation can affect not only the minds of long-term meditators like those Tibetan monks who spend long, solitary years in remote mountain caves; even short-term practice, he shows, can produce dramatic results in the rawest of novices.
The last chapter of the book offers practical, how-to steps that can lead to greater strength of mind—and, indeed, to a more purposeful and satisfying life. With a consistent practice of the visualization and meditation techniques that he describes in detail, we can change the way our brains function and create “new channels in the stream bed of the mind.” We can even change our personalities in significant, life-altering ways. For skeptics, as I myself remained for many years, Davidson’s book presents a convincing scientific argument for the kind of Mind Work that I approach in a very different way (ahem, forgive me: I am not a "book critic"!) in my own recent book of that title.
Richard J. Davidson with Sharon Begley, The Emotional Life of your Brain, March 2012, $25.95, ISBN 978-1-9463-089-7.(less)
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What a great title: The Misleading Mind! Rings true to me… The subtitle of Karuna Cayton’s new book makes its intention clear: “How We Create Our Own Problems and How Buddhist Psychology Can Help Us Solve Them.” Cayton is a “psychotherapist, business...more
What a great title: The Misleading Mind! Rings true to me… The subtitle of Karuna Cayton’s new book makes its intention clear: “How We Create Our Own Problems and How Buddhist Psychology Can Help Us Solve Them.” Cayton is a “psychotherapist, business therapist and coach to help people lead a more balanced life,” and a student and practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism. He’s also a board member of the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition, a Buddhist organization with “over 160 centers and projects throughout the world.”
Impressive credentials, then. Cayton’s book comes from the perspective of years of both personal, spiritual practice and clinical work with patients, helping them to address the challenges in their lives and relationships. No surprise, then, given this background, that he follows the dharma in identifying the suffering we human beings experience, the source of that suffering, and the path that can lead us to the end of it. It’s the lies, ignorance and delusions of the “misleading mind” that are the prime suspects in the creation of what we see to be our “problems,” and it’s in training the mind that we can learn to overcome them.
I think that Cayton might have a quarrel with those who practice Buddhism as a religion in his belief that it is “a system of thought and ideas rather than a religion or dogma.” This has become almost an article of faith (excuse the term!) among those who preach a Westernized version of Buddhism that is “more science and philosophy than religion.” I myself, however, am not about to quarrel with the sound psychological counsel that his book embraces: if the mind is powerful enough to create what Cayton calls the “disturbing emotions” that cause our psychological imbalance and distress, it is surely powerful enough to enable us to identify and make our peace with them.
I say “make our peace” because after all it's inner peace we're looking for. And as Cayton makes clear, the work of emotional healing is not a matter of doing battle with our demons or overpowering them. It’s more a matter of learning about their strategies and habits through close, clear-eyed, mindful observation and, once having come to know them, making friends with them. The reactive patterns—of anger, fear, depression, to name only the most prevalent—are very often precisely those the mind invents, misguidedly perhaps, for our comfort or protection. They may have our best interests at heart. We cling on to them for dear life because our minds mislead us into mistaking them for the truth about ourselves.
Therapy, then, seen in this light, becomes the healing process through which we learn to “change our minds”—to teach them, kindly and through constant repetition and practice, to do those things we want them to do rather than those they decide to do, reactively, of their own accord. It’s the process by which we learn to relinquish our grip on imagined identities that no longer serve us, and to acknowledge the impermanence of the selves that we invent, or that others invent for us. With the dharma as his model, Cayton walks us through this process with both wisdom and patience, leading us toward the true revelation that it is indeed possible for us to choose compassion over anger, and inner contentment over depression and despair.
Eventually, it is not the doctor or the therapist who heals us, it is we who heal ourselves, and the single most powerful instrument at our disposal is the human mind. Cayton offers us a valuable gift in leading his reader thoughtfully along the path to self-knowledge and self-healing, with the persuasive, serviceable and user-friendly logic of proven Buddhist principles.(less)
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We know all these things, don't we? We know about the "peaceful warrior." We know that "War Is Not the Answer" and that we must strive for "World Peace" if our poor planet is to survive the ravages of humankind. We know these things so well that we r...more
We know all these things, don't we? We know about the "peaceful warrior." We know that "War Is Not the Answer" and that we must strive for "World Peace" if our poor planet is to survive the ravages of humankind. We know these things so well that we reduce them to bumper stickers and paste them on our cars. We know that violence begets violence; we know the golden rule, that we should do unto others as we would have them do unto us. We know in our hearts that love serves our common interests better than hatred. And still these things bear repeating, because even though we know them, we have not yet learned as a species to act consistently upon these truths. We persist in making war. We persist in enacting the rituals of violence, and in excusing ourselves with the delusion that this is our nature. We persist in acting against what we know to be our best interests.
So is there a Peaceful Revolution currently in progress, as the author Paul K. Chappell proposes, in his book by that same title? Is there a powerful paradigm shift in our thinking in the early 21st century, one equal in potential impact to the scientific discovery that the earth is round, or that it rotates around the sun, as Chappell argues? A young and conflict-seasoned soldier, a West Point graduate, and now a warrior for peace, Chappell writes from a personal pit of very human rage: born part-Korean, part African-American, part white, to a father whose emotional war wounds led him to violence inflicted on his son and, eventually, to madness, this writer made the journey from childhood innocence into the experience of deep terror and distrust too soon and too abruptly. When he writes of the worst of human suffering, he knows whereof he speaks. When he writes of violence, it is something he has experienced at first hand, and from the earliest age.
Chappell's personal salvation and his dedication to the cause of peace came from what seems at first to be an unlikely source: his training as a warrior at West Point. His argument proceeds from the West Point motto: Duty, Honor, Country. For him, he explains:
duty means taking responsibility for my actions and the problems I can help solve, and knowing I have a duty to serve others and make a difference. Honor means having integrity, being honest with myself and others, and treating people with respect. Country means being committed to and willing to sacrifice for something larger than myself.
Country, he adds, "extends beyond our national borders... In the twenty-first century, our global community has become so interconnected that our country truly is the planet earth." His mission, the reader learns, is to serve that global community on the path to a viable future where war and violence are as obsolete as the concept of a flat earth.
The discipline learned at West Point is crucial both to Chappell's mission as a peaceful warrior, and to his work as a writer. He martials and deploys his material with meticulous organizational skill, around the central metaphor of muscularity. He wants us to understand that to be tough and disciplined in practice in no way conflicts with the compassion and empathy he preaches. His chapter headings--"The Muscle of Hope," The Muscle of Appreciation," "The Muscle of Reason"...--are key to the clarification of his intention: these muscles, like those in the human body, must be conscientiously exercised if they are not to atrophy and die. He leads us toward his central point with finely-honed logic: violence is not inherent in human nature, it must be taught. If we are to save the planet and our species, we need to educate and nurture our natural propensity for compassion, empathy, and love.
Chappell textures his argument richly with references not only to contemporary social science and current research in the still-developing field of neuroscience, but also with quotations liberally culled from the history of human thought and literature, from such great teachers as Jesus and the Buddha to modern pioneers of the philosophy he embraces: Gandhi, Albert Einstein, Albert Schweitzer, Martin Luther King Jr.; from Daedalus to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; from Aesop's fox and his sour grapes to Chicken Little and the falling sky. A major--well, the major influence on his thinking is the study On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, an examination of the methods needed to train the mind of a normal human being into one prepared to kill. Soldiers, particularly, need to be taught to override their natural inclination to flight in order to prepare them to fight. Ironically, it turns out, the best tools in this endeavor turn out to be... empathy and compassion: the warrior is induced to fight most willingly if aroused to what Chappell calls "fury" in his instinct to protect. Think "Band of Brothers." Think what your own instinct might be if your family were threatened.
So it's in the appeal to that "fury" that Chappell sees not only the strength of the individual warrior but also the will of our species to transcend old patterns of behavior and enlist in the growing army engaged in the needed "peaceful revolution." His book is a persuasive and inspiring read. As one known to cast a skeptical eye on our national and global politics, I found myself able to connect with the hope that there is, indeed, a shift in human consciousness that is now taking place on the planet, an evolutionary change, if you will, instigated by our instinct for survival, and by our understanding that cooperation and compassion are, in truth, the only viable weapons to insure it.
Chappell's argument is in every way consistent with good Buddhist thought and practice. Toward the end of his book, he hints at a sequel that will explore the methodology and the results of meditation on the path to peace. I look forward to his insights.
Peaceful Revolution: How We Can Create the Future Needed for Humanity's Survival
by Paul K. Chappell
Easton Studio Press
www.peacefulrevolution.com(less)
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4.64 avg rating — 11 ratings
4.00 avg rating — 7 ratings
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published
1995
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2 editions
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