Peter Clothier's Blog, page 7

GOODWILL IS SOMETIMES HARD TO PRACTICE

I note that I have been silent on The Buddha Diaries for a whole week. I have been preoccupied with matters on which I usually prefer to remain silent here--though I am not always successful. I try to think of these pages as something of a refuge, where I can reflect on things that I find more important. I can say, though, that I manage to keep up with my daily meditation practice, and that this is a physical and mental health necessity in these uncertain, even dangerous times.

I heard last night before turning in that the president and his wife had tested positive for the coronavirus, and had to make a conscious effort to suppress initial feelings of I-told-you-so. He has been publicly, loudly, excessively flouting every reasonable precaution recommended by the experts, and has persuaded millions of his fellow Americans, by word and deed, to do the same. As much as his refusal or inability to promote policies, his behavior has, by reliable scientific estimates, cost tens of thousands of lives. And thanks to his neglect, the virus continues to spread--in some areas, virtually unchecked. His insistence on the opening of schools and business, in flagrant contradiction to the rules of the country's public health experts, has given impetus to the virus, and deaths continue to mount.

So what are we to make of the announcement of his personal affliction, and his wife's? I am beginning to see the word "karma" flung around, but in a narrow and purely populist understanding of the concept. Still, there is some unkind and ignoble corner of my heart where I find it hard to find compassion for a man who seems to have brought this on himself. It was in all honesty an effort this morning, as I sat in meditation, to reach a place where I could send out sympathy for his predicament, goodwill, and wishes for his speedy recovery.

And wishing for his full recovery, I find myself adding the wish that his heart may become more fully human as a result of this experience, no matter how asymptomatic or severe it may prove to be; that he will come away from it with at least some of the empathy and wisdom demanded by his high office; and that the world will become a better place for all of us as a result.

PLEASURE

Our neighborhood meditation group met last night--a small group, but always welcome, no matter how many or how few. In view of the anger many of us are feeling at the many ways our whole country seems to be collapsing into chaos, we spent out time in contemplation of the simple pleasure of the breath. It's a pleasure of body and mind, both, to pay attention to the breath as it comes in, and again as it goes out. The whole length of it. And to allow it to bring pleasure with it--not sensual, quite, though it involves the senses; but holistic, gratifying, healing all at once. At the end of the session, everyone felt better. 

Then we started talking about our social and political unrest and uncertainties... 

THE MIDDLE PATH

Along with I suppose everyone who thinks like me, and believes as I do in justice for the powerless, the impoverished and disadvantaged, I was not only deeply saddened but seriously alarmed at news of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death last Friday. I was still more disturbed by the reaction of those on the right who leaped without hesitation to seize the opportunity to renege on previous policies and promises in order to ram through a nomination to replace this distinguished jurist before the election--or at the very least, before the inauguration of the next president.

Ginsburg's death has added a new and potentially noxious ingredient to the already toxic brew of the coming election. Before anyone has had the time to mourn the loss of yet another great champion of democracy, the argument is already in full swing as to who will benefit the most, Republicans or Democrats. The intensity of the division between left and right, between "liberal" and "conservative" has only increased--and I use the scare quotes because those words have lost their conventional meaning in the era of the current occupant of the White House and his congressional acolytes. Conservatism, particularly, has been stood on its head; its partisans have abandoned every principle and policy in which they once so loudly proclaimed their faith. And the word "liberal", not only in their lexicon but also in that of the radical left, has become nothing more than a pejorative taunt.

The question that arises in my mind in the midst of our deteriorating national crises is this one: where is the Middle Path, and, even if found, is it possible, even desirable, to still follow it? With the best of intentions, I see no middle ground between my own democratic--and, yes, Democratic--convictions and those of a would-be autocrat's enablers and his adoring hordes. A middle path requires that ground, an agreed-upon set of values, a common ground of reason, a measure of goodwill on either side. Where is the middle path when those who have set standards and made explicit, public promises so readily abandon them in order merely to maintain and reassert their power? Where is the middle path when those on one side of the highway seem to have lost their way; to have no path at all, but zig-zag constantly according to their perceived benefit at any given moment?

I find myself in a state of unhealthful perplexity. I wake early, too worried to fall back asleep. I head off to my meditation at an earlier and earlier hour, and find it harder to resist the thoughts that insist on intruding on the equanimity I seek. I remind myself of that sound, reasonable teaching about hewing to the Middle Path... and am challenged by my inability to find one. 

THE DIGITAL WORLD

There are advantages and disadvantages to this digital world in which we live today. On the one hand, the Internet gives us all the opportunity to stay in touch in ways that would have been unthinkable in the past. Where would we be without the (double-edged!) blessings of email, FaceTime, Zoom, and so on, which allow us to stay in touch even in times of pandemic-induced isolation?  It's not the same, of course. What we see instead of a real person is a complex assemblage of thousands--millions?--or pixels. What we hear is not a real voice, but that has been digitalized and reconstituted as something approximate to the one we know. 

Case in point: our daughter, Sarah, left Los Angeles a couple of days ago on a flight to the Netherlands, to visit her friend there. The following morning, at seven o-clock already, we had an audio-visual conversation with her as the two of them sat drinking beer at a sidewalk cafe in Leiden. I clearly remember the days, not so long ago, when even a telephone call to family on the other side of the Atlantic involved an operator, false starts, endless waits for an open connection and, when connected, fuzzy voices and a lot of confused shouting. It was also expensive. You worried about the minutes as they passed. Now family is just a click away, with immediate connection, clear visuals and voices--all at no cost whatsoever. It was such a great pleasure to know that Sarah's flight had been an easy one and to see her happily enjoying the new environment several thousand miles away.

On the other hand... I just spent an hour "unsubscribing" from the mounting blizzard of unsolicited emails I have been receiving. I should, I suppose, have made a habit of unsubscribing a long while ago. In recent days, thanks to my neglect, I have been snowed under with 200, 250, 300 of these things a day. Two or three of them are personal. The rest are sales pitches or (mostly) political requests for money. The need is legitimate. It's a sad thing that American political life is dependent entirely on the flow of case, but that's the reality. And I understand the need. Our situation is now so dire, the need for change so urgent, the danger so great, the candidates are obliged to be unceasing in their barrage of requests for help.

Still, to sit every day, several times a day, and go through it all, and delete most of it, is a chore that has become increasingly... well, not burdensome exactly. Irksome, perhaps, is the word. Something of an unwelcome imposition. So I sat down yesterday morning and must have unsubscribed from at least 50 different sources. It's one of the penalties one pays, I suppose, for the convenient miracle of instantaneous communications.

And this morning... only 81 emails on awakening. More work to be done!

NEVER FORGET

The celebration of the Jewish NewYear begins today, followed a week later by Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement--a time to make up for unkindnesses and wrongdoings of all kinds from the year previous. I am not myself Jewish, though somewhat, having married into a Jewish family some 50 years ago. Brought up in an English country village during World War II, the son of an Anglican minister, I had little to no knowledge of Jews and Judaism, even with the arrival of a Jewish boy from Vienna, a few years older than myself. He had the good fortune to have been sent out of Austria on the now well-known Kindertransport, and stayed with us at the Rectory for the war years. I had no idea, at the time, that he was Jewish, nor what that meant. Immensely grateful to my family and much influenced by my father, he became a Christian--and remains one to this day. (I am still in touch with him; bereft since the death of his wife several years ago, he lives in a retirement home in the American Midwest). 
I did, however, learn from contemporaneous news reports about the Holocaust as the war came to an end and the Allied forces came upon those horrifying camps and liberated them; and that knowledge has remained as an essential part of my social and humanitarian conscience ever since. The memory is a vivid and important marker, a true measure of the depravity of which our species is capable. It is always there to remind me of an unfathomable darkness in the human psyche, and of the depths to which we can sink when we surrender our conscience to that darkness. 
So I was shocked to read this morning from a reliable source that about 63% of our young people, millennials and Generation Z, are not aware that the Nazis killed six million Jews during the Holocaust. I was shocked, mostly, because that not-knowing is what could all too easily open the door to similar atrocities in the future. A person needs that knowledge not merely for the sake of history, but to fully understand his or her nature as a human being. We need to know who we are and what we are capable of, particularly at a moment in history when so many of us are choosing to close our eyes and ears to the ill-will, prejudice and hatred validated by the voices and actions of our leaders. 
It is only small, unconscious steps, tragically, that lead us from toleration to acceptance, and from acceptance to the unthinking practice of actions that embody the worst of our humanity. We need knowledge, understanding, consciousness to save us from ourselves. 

A LEAD ROLE

I dreamt I was cast in the lead role in a play. It was scheduled to be performed on Saturday and it was already Thursday and I had not even begun to learn my lines, there had been no rehearsals, and the crew responsible for the set were hanging around with no idea what to do. I had arrived in good time that morning, as requested, but the director had not yet bothered to show up. There was another actor in a lead role, but he seemed unconcerned.

When the director finally arrived he proved to be an Oliver Stone type--or at least the type I imagine Oliver Stone to be: tall, hefty, self-possessed, but a bit disconnected from what was happening around him. I was delighted, though, that he brought with him a copy of "Bob Went Home"--a large-scale, clumsy book/poem/sculpture that I assembled with the artist Gary Lloyd many years ago, as a young man. He had opened it up to reveal its extensive, and some dangling parts, and gave me to understand that he set great store by. Which encouraged me to think that he was a man who had a good grasp of contemporary culture.

He seemed curiously disinterested in getting to work, however. Everyone was just hanging around, waiting for something to happen. I worried a lot about not knowing my lines, with only a bit of Thursday and Friday left before the performance. I was also more than a little annoyed to think that we'd probably be staying up very late that night.

PLAY TIME

 Bored with the breath? Getting too serious in your attention to it? Not looking forward to your sit?

That's how I found myself this morning. It's actually how I've been finding myself with meditation generally in recent days, but this morning I stumbled into a solution: play time! Have some fun with the breath! Take some pleasure in it!

So I worked (played!) through this meditation...

Those first few introductory breaths you use to settle in, make them delicious. Make them deeply pleasurable. Let them enliven every part of the body with delectable awareness. Inside, it can feel like a gentle massage. Outside, a full body caress.

Settle into thoughts of goodwill with that same awareness. Use the breath to spread feelings of goodwill for yourself throughout the body. Let that compassion permeate every molecule, every cell. Then let it radiate out, with pleasure as well as goodwill, to that familiar circle: first family and close friends; those you know well and like; those you know less well and feel more neutral about; those you dislike (your animosity poisons only yourself!); people you don't even know, people everywhere; and not only people, radiate goodwill to all living beings.

Bring that sense of pleasure to every part of the body as you shift your attention along the familiar path: navel and belly (give yourself a comfortable Buddha belly!), sternum and sides, chest cavity and heart (a special joy emanating from the heart!), head, neck and down the arms, back and down the legs. Find some silly or unfamiliar places to occupy your attention as you go: big toes, armpits, the space between brain and cranium. Then put it all together and let the whole body breathe.

Now's the time to allow yourself to get playful with the breath. Try taking a ridiculously long one, or a ridiculously short one, or alternate between the two. Allow yourself a smile at the absurdity of excess. Explore the possibilities of play, teasing yourself with the length or shortness of each breath, its depth or shallowness, its speed or slowness. Imagine the breath as a child out on the playground, with swings and slides, seesaws, ropes to climb on. Imagine yourself as the proud mom or dad, sitting quietly, looking on with the smile of a proud parent... 

Or... and/or... returning the attention to full body breathing, imagine yourself a gourmet (or wine connoisseur!) of the breath. Think of each breath as having its particular, individual taste, aroma, texture, no breath like the one before nor the one that follows after, and each one more exquisitely delicious than the last. Attune your attention to the tiniest of details, the subtlest of differences as you relish its special flavor. 

Each time the attention wanders off, bring it back to the sheer, simple pleasure of the breath. Each time it starts to get serious or heavy, bring it back to that sense of play. Each time you feel your facial features tighten into a frown, allow the smile to return to your lips. And remind yourself that nothing could be more pleasurable than this quiet, this rhythm, this recurring sense of relaxation and peace.

And before leaving meditation, be sure to radiate the pleasure out and share it with others, especially those you know to be suffering in their lives. May all share in the simple pleasure I have generated, may all living beings find happiness in their hearts.

HIDE, REPRESS, DENY

I learned long ago that it is those things we hide, repress and deny that cause us the most harm. At the intimate, personal level, they lie buried in our bodies and our minds, still active, still festering, without our even knowing. It takes bringing them back to consciousness to heal them. Old childhood wounds are the prime example. We all carry them. The happiest among us, those best adjusted to adulthood, are those who have learned in some way to expose them to the light and air they need to heal. Those who fail to do so often end up racked by physical or emotional illness or addiction. 

These thoughts come to mind this morning as I reflect on the damage wrought by what the leader of our country has sought to hide, repress, and deny--in part, we may suspect, in his personal life. We don't need to be armchair psychotherapists to guess that there is something amiss in the emotional makeup of a man who is so addicted to lies that his presidency has been marked by more than 20,000 of them, by the count of those who watch his words more closely than do I; who swings wildly between rage at others and self-aggrandizement; who, having acquired a position of the greatest responsibility, rejects it outright when faced with the consequences of his actions.

The evidence of the audiotapes published yesterday show the far-reaching, national, international consequences of this man's propensity to hide, repress, deny. They make it abundantly clear that he knew facts that were vital to the health and well-being of the people he was elected to serve, and that he hid them; that he knowingly repressed the information that was needed to save countless lives--many thousands of them, that could have otherwise been spared; that he denied the indisputable public health facts, the medical expertise, and the science that could have curtailed, if not halted the spread of the pandemic.

I am no Christian, but I recall that it was Jesus of Nazareth, the founder of the Christian faith, who told his followers: "you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." We live under the spell of a man to whom the truth is alien, perhaps fearful, to be avoided at all costs. Something to hide, repress, and deny. And we see the catastrophic consequences of this man's words and actions. 

The dreadful question we now face is this: with such immeasurable damage done to the truth and trust in it so severely undermined among multitudes of our people, what will it take for us to restore sufficient trust in truth, facts, science to address the challenges that we face and set a good path forward? A renewal of consciousness, an acknowledgment and exposure of past wounds is the most fundamental, and perhaps the most formidable of tasks.

THE APPLICATION

 I find myself in a foreign place, in need of a driver's license. There are crowds of people milling around outside the office, but I have been here before and have discovered a way to slip through, as people surge toward the line at opening time, and end up third in line. I feel particularly clever for my accomplishment.

When the office opens, there are a handful of helpers monitoring the line, lifting the rope to allow applicants through, one person at a time. I wait. I am wearing a pink shirt, open at the neck. When my turn comes, an aide indicates the rope line to follow, but instead of following her directions I decide to take a short cut and step over the red rope. She admonishes me, but allows me in to the administrative hall.

There are four desks, with a clerk issuing licenses at each of them. Each one is busy. When I reach mine, the clerk introduces me to a third party, with the subtle suggestion that if I'm willing to lend my license to this stranger, it will be all the easier and faster for me to obtain one. There is, he freely admits, something slightly illegal involved in this, and the man in question, hovering nearby, is a bit too charming, a bit too ingratiating...  

I am suspicious, but tempted to accept the offer. But I tell the clerk I'd prefer to make the decision to lend my license once I have it in hand. I'm thinking, little illegal things can easily lead to bigger ones, and soon to outright criminality. This man's charm and attempts at reassurance inspire the opposite of confidence. I do, however, need that driver's license... I move ahead with the application process.

RESPONSE TO A TRUMP VOTER

 A couple of days ago my friend Harriet Zeitlin, an artist of long-standing. sent me the image of a doorstep sculpture she had put together, satirizing the image of the man I am reluctant to even name, the one who occupies our White House and our Oval Office. It was good for a chuckle and a nod of the head, if not for a piece of extended art criticism—which I’m sure she had not intended. 

The letter that came in response to her email and image surprised me. A point-by-point justification for a vote for, um… that man, it was signed by one Peter (not this Peter!) and accompanied by a link that led me to the website of Red Heiffer Press (which publishes for “a significant ‘underground’ of independent, discriminating readers, hungry for excellent, thoughtful writing that challenges conventional thinking, current fashion and unofficial censorship.” Sounds good, right?) The publisher is Peter (yes, the letter-writer Peter) Gimpel, the son of the internationally-renowned pianist Jakob Gimpel whom I had the privilege to meet on one occasion at the home of my now deceased in-laws, in the company of the distinguished conductor Zubin Mehta. He was a charming and jovial character, as I recall, and tinkled merrily and without pretension on the very modest piano in my in-laws' living room. But that’s an aside.

 

At first I thought the letter had to be a joke. It is (I will quote from it liberally as I go) “a short version of why I will vote for Donald Trump as President.” I lost sleep over this letter and determined, on waking, that I needed to respond and that I would take it point by point. So here goes:

 

1. "I respect his great courage,” writes Mr. Gimpel, “under constant, unremitting withering fire from what used to be the Democratic Party (and I used to be a Democrat).” I myself do not see his constant petty, paranoid, other-blaming and invariably insulting tweeting as a sign of “great courage.” The Democratic Party (it is still the Democratic Party, even if Mr. Gimpel, for whatever reason, has abandoned it) has properly directed its “withering fire” at the shameless corruption and transparent, self-serving abuse of power practiced by this president. It was willful Republican see-no-evil, hear-no-evil intransigence that let him off the hook.

 

2. “I support his economic programs which reinvigorated the economy and made it strong enough to withstand even the current pandemic; and I support his brilliant renegotiations of trade and financial relations with Canada, Mexico, China (ongoing in spite of various diplomatic conflicts) and NATO.” He's joking, right? The economy that Mr. Gimpel so highly praises may still be working well for the privileged few protected by their wealth; but working (and no longer working) Americans, small businesses, the poor and the disadvantaged might disagree with him. There are millions of Americans, children even, who go to bed hungry; and millions more who, absent adequate insurance, lack needed medical attention or are crippled by debt. The "current pandemic" that Mr. Gimpel mentions in passing has wrought havoc on the economy for them, and Trump has been unable or unwilling to listen to what’s needed to stem its spread—the knowledge and experience of medical specialists, public health officials and scientists. He has chosen to ignore facts and data in favor of his own uninformed gut reactions. We have, now, more than 180,000 dead and as yet no significant national plan of action other than a prayer for a vaccine. How is it that almost every other country has managed to address the virus and start to restore its economy, and not the United States? We have the brains. We have the resources. We lack the leadership and the vision.

 

3. “I support his foreign diplomatic initiatives which most recently engineered an historic rapprochement between Israel and United Arab Emirates; moved our Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem; defused a near catastrophic crisis with N. Korea; withdrew the US from the insane Iran Nuclear Deal; I support his notable efforts to bring home our troops from Syria and Iraq and to negotiate with the Taliban.” No argument from me on anything accomplished with the goal of reducing tensions in the Middle East, but the abandonment of the “insane Iran Nuclear Deal” was, in my view, no step forward in achieving that goal. Nor was his abject abandonment of our Kurdish allies. He “defused” a near catastrophic crisis in North Korea? No, despite his exchange of love letters with the tinpot despot there, he fell just short of causing one. Negotiations with the Taliban? They still have the upper hand and continue to gain strength. He was played by them, as by seemingly every other smart participant in the game of international chess.

 

4. “I support the great restraint Trump has shown in confronting and quelling the violent riots that afflicted several US cities.” “Great restraint” seems to me an odd way to describe his unasked-for interference and his fanning the flames of discord with rhetoric that reliably sanctions right-wing violence and hatred and castigates those who demonstrate for justice.

 

5. “I support the long-overdue criminal-justice reforms he has promoted and approved.” Namely? This has not been a notable feature of his agenda.

 

6. “I support his immigration policy which aims at curtailing unsustainable illegal immigration, and the flow of illegal and harmful drugs into the US.” An “immigration policy” that seizes children from their parents and imprisons them in despicable circumstances is not one I can support. The connection between illegal immigration and the drug traffic is tenuous at best. I do not contest that this country—as does, indeed, the world—needs to address the growing problem of migrating populations, driven by population explosion as well as by climate change and its consequences (hunger, famine, dwindling resources of all kinds). But Trump's nationalistic isolationism is not the way to do it.

 

7. “I support his refurbishing of the US Military in the face of serious strategic and techno-military threats from China and Russia, not to mention N. Korea and Iran, and I support the honor and respect he has shown to our soldiers, living and dead.” As far as I understand these things, the US Military was depleted by the country’s wasteful and unnecessary wars in the Middle East. While I personally would be happy to see funds diverted from the bloated, overly powerful military to much-needed social programs, the “refurbishing” had already started under the previous administration. As for the “honor and respect he has shown to our soldiers, living and dead,”—oh, please! The absurdity of this claim has just in the past two days been exposed by a well-substantiated article in The Atlantic. Out here in the real world, we know that Trump thinks of those who serve and have served our country—including heroes like the late John McCain—as “losers” and “suckers.”

 

8. “In general, I have great respect for the calibre (sic) of Trump’s cabinet and administration. As a lawyer, I respect the calibre of the judges and justices he has proposed and appointed.” Mr. Gimpel refers here, I assume, to the Swamp. Trump’s cabinet and administration have been reduced to sycophants and yes-men (yes, men, mostly) whose absence of qualification for their jobs has left many of them in an acting capacity because they could not meet the approval of even a servile, acquiescent Senate. The corruption of many of his appointees has been widely documented—and ignored. His judicial appointments, many of them qualified only by their right-wing credentials, have been rammed through by Senate Leader McConnell over the reasonable objections of the Democratic opposition. I give you… Bret Kavanaugh.

 

“As a former Democrat," Mr. Gimpel continues, "I have seen no realistic, constructive programs offered by a Democratic Party Candidate.” Then, Mr. Gimpel, I’m sorry, you have simply closed your ears to anything that candidate says, or the platform on which he stands. (It's notable that Republicans declined to come up with a platform at their convention, other than uncritical and enthusiastic support for Trump.) “I am appalled by their desperate ruse of nominating an incompetent candidate"--Biden, a man of tempered competence and well-known decency--"and soon to be replaced, if elected, by an unelectable radical VP who doesn't even understand the Separation of Powers…” If there’s anyone who doesn’t understand the separation of powers, it is surely Mr. Gimpel's Trump!

Further, “I am appalled by the tactics of lies, slander, public insult”—does this sound like anyone you know?—"groundless impeachment”—I’m personally of the opinion that there were far more grounds than the Democrats brought up—”and legislative obstruction”—how dare he, after the implacable obstruction of everything Obama attempted!—”employed by the Democrats in the House and Senate, and by corrupt officials in the FBI and Justice Dept.” Hmmm. If you’re speaking of Barr, no argument from me!

 

“I understand that Trump's style offends many people who have been accustomed to lawyer talk and politician talk. Frankly, I don't give a damn.” And there’s the tell. There are many of us, Mr. Gimpel, who do give a damn. Who think that “style” is a measure of character. Who believe that words count, as does behavior. Who are appalled by the stream of demonstrable lies (20,000 of them!) that issue from this man’s lips and from his tweeting fingers. Who find it impossible to tolerate, let alone forgive his boorish, bullying demeanor, both in person and on the world stage. Who find his willful ignorance and his administrative incompetence at once deplorable and dangerous. We do give a damn about those who are suffering in consequence. We give a damn about the future of a planet further endangered by his scorn for science; about the future of our grandchildren. Do those who “don’t give a damn”, like Trump, think only of themselves?

 

Mr. Gimpel concludes: “There are millions of decent, hard-working, intelligent, morally conscious and socially responsible people who support Trump." Who have, in my view, been taken in by the brazenness of the Trump con. "If you demonize Trump, you demonize us, too.” 

But I don’t need to demonize Trump, Mr. Gimpel; he does a good enough job of that all by himself.