No Compromise

No Compromise

Recently, in a meeting I had with a wonderful person who leads an equity and social justice team, we had a discussion about a ‘How?” This how was in regards to working within an institution and trying, frankly, to confront and combat the institution. In this case we were explicitly talking about structural racism. The answer that I got stuck with me, it was a bit of gristle, that took a few days of pretty intense contemplation (at least for me, not in a measure of real contemplation). Here is what I came to.

Let me start by saying the woman I was speaking to is a person I greatly admire. She is a wonderful, dedicated, and successful woman. The below is the exact email I sent her.

Thank you for all your help. I wanted to send you an email that was from me that tells you about the thoughts your facilitation brought to me.  It was in particular when you spoke to how we have to serve both the institution and the movement, in essence, at the same time. I could be wrong but I have been chewing on that for days.

Here is what I have been thinking in a different form. I think I can share it with you in this style-I hope it makes sense (I call it literary photography)

“The only way to know truth is to make the Other your Beloved”

And our greats have known this always

“There art Thou, Thee art Thou”

and all that this demands

To oppose the institution is a must

at all levels

not because of the willful act of it

But the unveiling of Truth that Love demands

Any system, any construct,

Demands “this” and a “that”

Love demands no separation

that my confrontation is because

You are my beloved and you will not love

That love can speak

to anyone and everyone

is True

That it speaks in that which

We can hear

Is also True

Thus the work is in honesty

are we speaking from love to power

or from power to love?

I will serve no master but that which

Comes from love

But I will speak to all

For only in Love is there Truth and thus Happiness

Love, like water, goes most obviously where it is not

Love in love, is like water in water

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

I sent this after I got a response from her to my dear friend.

I wanted to share you this email I sent to a woman that is a director/lead level person in the City of_______. I wanted to say that you have kept pushing me to stay on point and task, which is so helpful. I know, typically, you are pointing me to 'education' but I know what I did education in the first place. It isn't, necessarily, education but was the most practical place to do what I thought was actual Reality. I am convinced of it now. the strength that it arises in me is that, now, that I have lived a awhile, have done some stuff that can be pointed to to show it works, I believe I can speak to power from this base. I had a long conversation with a group about how even methodologies of communication are biased and they are biased to dominant cultural norms. We can learn and practice these norms, those of us outside of it, but it is not 'natural' in the sense it is the Way we communicate. From a leadership standpoint it behooves the person in that position to be able to address this barrier to communication (which, I am told is the single largest complaint across the board from staff to leadership). It is a moral imperative...those in power have the moral obligation to change...that they do not leads to those out of power to be forced to aggregate into a power and then it usually is nasty because it becomes a struggle for power rather than, usually, the issue.

****************************************************************************************************

But here, let us speak of this more deeply.

When we think about the basic way that we exist in this world, it can be boiled down to a “this” and a “that”. Every Time that we posit a thing, anything, this screen in front of me, this table, it is appearing to do two things at once-it is defining the thing (everything within its border) and, by this, is defining everything that is not-thing (everything outside of the border).

In this Christian tradition this is the actual basis of Sin. The original Sin. When we, I, say this I am not talking about a historical positing, but, frankly I am not, not either-it was happening then too. But the very act of positing the Apple arose, simultaneously, desire/greed, and all the rest. In the Buddhist tradition this is called the 12 dependent links and is commented on extensively.

In a language that you do not hear of often, in systems, this is, at its most truthful conceptual level-the difference between Love and Hate. Some say that they are close together, and, quite frankly, they are if we are to base it symbolically on location. Because, at a conceptual level when I posit a this, there must be a that, like above it is the act of separation of the Thing and No-thing, the No-thing in this case is Hate.

I believe this is the reason why Frankl states that one can only know the Truth of a ‘person’ (I would put here anything that is posited) if they become beloved to us. The truest and deepest expression of Truth is the unfettering of our concepts, unbiased good will, action, service, all of it, toward the Other. The walls of separation have been placed and the issue is that we do not believe they are pragmatic tools of conversation. We believe that they are actual structures. These walls of clouds, illusions. But not to get too flowery, at a very basic level, this is the separation of Truth and Untruth, of Sin and Grace, of Love and Hate, of Awareness and Ignorance. The fall was not years ago but in every single moment we separate. We fall. We lose. We lose because we have given the Grace of the Unity of the Godhead up for the apple.  

This has a very fundamental basis to how we regard systems and how we are to combat those that have gone awry. First we must understand that they will inevitably go awry because they are based upon a false premise. The facade is up because we constantly, perpetually, acknowledge it and feed it with our assent.

yes, yes, yes, yes...” is how I imagine this going. That each moment, by the very nature of Nature, is different, it is dynamically, fundamentally, different by even out conceptual understanding (it no longer satisfies the definition of a moment ago). So it is a obsenity to Truth that we stand for anything other than an emanation of the Truth known as Love but is beyond thus.

This, to perpetuate our assent to a base other than Love, is the offering to Mamon, the truest sense of Idolatry. When we see systems, systems that are racist, etc. and we believe that we can’t do anything about it, is the way that it feels. To actively ignore it, or to revel in it, is the overt expression of Hate, of Separation, of finding revelry in the untruthful and the disunity that is against the fabric of Reality.

I think I must stop here and acknowledge that there is glee in this awfulness. There is. The Glee, I Imagine, that there would be this type in the 3rd of the Angels that fell from heaven. I think it speaks of this in a Mythological way (Myth, big M, is the closest to Truth in the conceptual language-it is not a fictional tale). I have felt it as a cruel child drunk on my physical dominance over insects and worms. Some may think it odd that such cruelties, the extent that I am hesitant to speak of, but did; firecrackers into their homes, burning them, exploding them in a microwave, all still deeply haunt me. The very fact of the seeming ease to enforce my will upon a being, a living being, for no other purpose than I could. Also, that my power did not lead me to anything kind or loving, or even an attempt at it, it was deeply hurtful and cruel and knew it when I practiced it. I can imagine, on a larger scale, this is what one feels when they consciously take on the Untruth as their mantle, as their guise...and yet, I cannot believe it is ever satisfactory. The Human seeks unity, but because it has only known seeking it believes that seeking is the natural state. But they do not know, that by the very nature of being able to seek it proves the premise of the dynamic Peace. One cannot seek if things are permanent, they must be dynamic, dynamism requires a duality that, when examined by the wise-stabilizes the view and arises peace. The dissatisfaction must bring about a horrible activity of mind, a burning, for it would always try to claw to certainty through means that cannot reach it. And even through its own flawed logic it defeats itself and so the reveler must accept their folly, their ignorance, which, for the actual unstained self (as all are) rebels against. A fire of desire, hate, anger, subsumed under a mountain of self imposed ignorance, sitting there like some churning volcano...what deep loneliness, this self imposed exile.

This feeling is the ‘lost’, it is the belittling of the very essence of what we are. The ineffable immeasurable, the unbounded Glory. We cannot ever actually take this away from ourselves, we cannot, it is the direct fundamental nature of reality-this perpetual dynamism and creation, it is not the truth to write it, or say it here, it must be experienced because by trying to impute it we are belittling it.

How much space between two points?

How many fractions do there belong?

Infinity is the only answer that suffices

and Infinity is immovable though conceptual

It is a finger that points to the Eternal

Only when we understand that because of its dynamic creation, like imputation, arises-and know this-does the conceptual become transformed, transcended, and true. What this looks like is a non-guilt, non-ironic-authentic life of responsibility toward this understanding, what it looks like in the case of ESJ is that there is a perpetual energy to get us closer to the Truth, to program off of it, and to eventually be the Truth, without putting it off to some distant future but to act off of the assumption it is going to happen right now, and have the strength to forever toil toward it. But the trick of the matter is not that we do not, “think” about it.

So, in regards to what this wonderful woman told me, if I was to take what is mostly meant by that statement-I would have had to disagree. I will not speak from power to Love, in this sense, I will not use the foundational premise that the institution has made (separation) and color it with language that was meant for Loving Language (Unity). I am in opposition to this mind set from every direction at every level, I will not compromise in my opposition to it...and yet, because of the dynamism of Truth, I can still speak to it in a language that it can understand. Whether it acts upon it or not is the bravery of those who inhabit the belly of the beast. The beast that, in Truth, is themselves, the mirror image that has swallowed itself.

I will not compromise with such evil. I will not. I will not collude with the debasing of existence. I will not side with untruth. You will be my beloved and I will speak to you in words of Love that will resonate with you because it is the Truth.  

Better Not Best

In my life I have been both condescendingly called a ‘do gooder’ as well as, I think, called this out of affection. Usually, the first of this group, feels it necessary to call me a condescending ‘do gooder’ because I challenge their thinking in this area. Recently it was a discussion on whether there should be a bottom to where a person can fall. I said it should include housing, safety, access to health care and an education. They scoffed and called me a ‘do gooder’ and despite my in depth discussion on how it wasn’t going to cost more money, they still said it was ‘too expensive”. The second group, usually, see what is being done by all the wonderful people I have been able to touch and know and my really small part and they say, ‘you’re a do gooder’ and move on from this. They don’t usually want the details. Recently, it hasn’t been the two groups that have weighed on my mind but the title of ‘do gooder’.

In its basic definition it is a person that does good. When we identify ‘good’ it is in juxtaposition with some identified moral good. And when a person adheres to this identification we call them good. When we either think it is excessive or praise it in a teasing way we come up with the term, ‘do gooder’. When I contemplate this, or have, there has been a level of unease at it. This unease I have, I think, found the root of.

I am uncomfortable with praise. I love to give it, to see the strength that I have the blessing to witness in most all beings I have met. As I practice I see that this ‘sight’ has widened and deepened and what was lost to me, previous to this, is not revealed. This is something that I have found to be remarkable in my quest but also a sustenance to try harder. It has also deepened my conviction on the near total infusion of suffering for beings and that it need not be so. My empathy and, at my best, my compassion grows and deepens with my feelings of sorrow and tragedy.

This sorrow that is coupled with the understanding that the situation need not be drives me. My teacher goes to bed at 9pm and gets up at 12am and begins his studies/service, driven by the need to help all beings. I cannot match this but I know it is possible because I see it. I know that I can grow my proverbial shoulders and when I am tired I can think on the suffering of beings and my energy is infused with the critical nature of the situation. By being a Buddhist, and being convinced in the eternal nature of existence all these beings have been those that I have loved dearly, who have loved me dearly, and of whom my duty should be unending. From just a mundane view of love, a tit for tat sort of love, one should serve.

How can I serve? In my life it has been surrounded by the efforts of a ‘do gooder’. But what I realize now is that this actual service has been infused with an error. This error is the basis for what I understand is the catalyst for my suffering, our suffering. That is the belief in inherency. What this means in the lens of a do gooder is the mistake that what I am working on, for, is, in itself, an entity that can bring about the Best e.g. Happiness. It cannot.

From a basic understanding of reality we know once something is posited there is something outside of that sphere of knowledge as well. For example, if I posit a ‘here’ there must be a ‘there’. On a more subtle level we see that with any imputation, even the word ‘the’ from the standpoint of being a concept, at the very least, there is a ‘the’ and there is not a ‘the’. Existence and Nonexistence.

In the more gross level of work in Human Services, as my life has been dedicated to, hinges on some deep philosophical implications. What am I really working on? When I hear myself extolling our students to gain some sort of quantifiable education within the system that we live in I find myself in sorrow. I am not even purporting, honestly, an education. I want them to have one so that they can take care of themselves because it has become increasingly more difficult for students to do this without this certification. However, really, what I am trying to do is to lift them up to a level of relative privilege. There is the ‘haves’ as are defined by some organization that churns our ‘requirements’ and stamps it on a piece of paper. By its very construction, this organization and the system that lends it its powers, we create the ‘Have Nots’ because they are the one’s without this certification. Once we have identified this certification as a measure of exclusivity, for that is what a bachelor’s degree and postgraduate degree is, we attach to it the material benefits e.g. jobs.

If this was just in a more just society that decided that there was a bottom that we would allow anyone to fall to, or choose to be in e.g. access to healthcare, education, housing, food, clothing being something that I have thought of before. These also have been practiced as the base level communities would allow their neighbors to have. Ours is not this society.

In our society with no floor we see that this imputation of concepts is so insidious. Again, if we didn’t attach so much exclusivity and separation (the opposite of inclusive non-conceptual thought) it wouldn’t matter. But what I have heard in practice and seen is when a former level of exclusive bestowal e.g. bachelor’s degree becomes too common then the next level of exclusivity is accepted as the norm. I have seen this with social workers at my work where a Bachelor’s degree was preferred, and then required, then a master’s degree preferred, and then required, now a very specific type of master’s degree in Social Work or education.

Our system as it is, is not in the business of eliminating the ‘Have nots’. It says it is by upholding programs that try to support students to privilege who were previously not within those bounds, but it does not try to move toward Just, at the least, not to say benevolent. By not having a bottom it can only be in the business of trying to foist as many people into privilege that the system can manage and then continue that process as the next level of exclusivity is used to identify privilege.

I can continue with my ‘do gooder’ ways, mostly because I am ignorant, but also because I have it within the context of a trajectory of life. What my duties are, are to support students and to help them gain skills enough to find meaning in their lives. For the vast majority of humanity that has ever existed in order for this to occur one must have met a modicum of material stability. But this material aspect is only a tool, a necessary tool but a tool nonetheless, to be able to craft meaning. Now that I think about it I think I must put Transcendent as a qualifier for meaning. The meaning for one’s existence, from my vantage, must arrive at a place where it become transcendent. That it arises above the means to get to that understanding but does not invalidate the pathway to it.

It is this calling that I have when I am trying in my ignorant ways to be a good man, good husband, teacher, child, friend-to try to live up to the sacredness of my existence through action, and also, to help support those, serve those, so that they can attempt the peaks that were our own to conquer.

The Poor, Poor, Rich

I am writing this after I have watched a movie that, not too long ago, I would have thought of as sweet, at least in its attempt, coming of age movie. It was called Goats. Now, in my sour mood I found it saccharine and, beneath it, a clandestine effort to humanized the rich. This would not seem to be such a bad idea, after all, they are human. They have human faults and often dynamic and tragic existences. They struggle with the existential question, as we must all, in their own forms. However, in comparison to the portrayal of the not-rich-which is different than those in abject poverty but also includes them, is different.

In Goats the rich kid who lives in New Mexico with his hippy come new ager mother comes to adulthood. All the prerequisites of this, at least to hollywood, are there; the next door vixen, the surrogate father (who grows marijuana and carries a beard), the new-boyfriend, the absent but eventually, kind father. I was trying to look into this film but I could not get past the house, the car, the prep school, his fathers sweater, the pool, etc. The portrayal of this child coming of age was not much different but much more insidious, at least to me, of propaganda materials in Stalinist Russia. I wondered and wonder if the blatant aspect of the Stalinist propaganda, to my 21st century eyes, was as insidious and subtle to those in the culture of that time.

I find it odd how infatuated we have become with this storyline and methodology. The nuanced and dynamic rich who ‘hurt’ too in their familial relationships, their love, the right of passage. It is a powerful message but I am flummoxed as to why we do not want such a statement being made about the not rich? The Not Rich, Romney’s 47%’ers, are left to caricatures-to films that are not nuances, that are painted with big brush strokes-the gross poor shown in films of abject poverty-the streets of Calcutta or Chicago, crime riven, filled with emotionally or biologically starved people. Blank stares, want, etc. We also have the Roseanne effect of the ill mannered, burp and farting working poor. This is not to say that there are not aspects of this. There are. I have grown up in them. But when juxtaposed to films like Goats and The Way, Way Back with one of my favorite actors, Toni Collette, we see that the nuanced, humanizing attempt, is not even attempted in the films about not rich people. We see, to put into single definitions; starvation, penury driven criminal activity, and, well, grossness.

That on a per capita basis to be not-rich is also, to be, often, not white is telling to me too. To even take the ‘feel good’ movies of this population we see caricaturization rather than character development. Lets take for example, Finding Forrester, where there is a black child, a young Man, who is, it seems, inexplicably smart. The underlying message, to me anyways, was that it is amazing that a black man could be smart. One could say that this is the case in something like Good Will Hunting but, in fact, Matt Damon’s character is seen in Harvard just minus the accent. Rob Brown’s character is not. He is the anomaly more than just his smarts. Good Will Hunting is insinuating an economic discrepancy between the students and the janitor, in Finding Forrester there is an innate (as well as economic) divide. The entire movie focused on this inexplicability with, now that I think about it, the thrown in rapper hopeful actor-pushing his brother to be different than all of them.

It all seems to me purposeful. This effective drive to humanize the rich so that we are comfortable with the rich. That we think that being rich is in fact, normal. I watched a few episodes of Modern Family which was well written and funny. But it was wrong. There is not a single American in that show if America can be defined by the preponderance of the people in America. There is a level of wealth that the developers of this show were able to play off of and make seem normal. This darkly brilliant effort as laid the groundwork for us to identify with this group (“my family says that all the time!”). In this identification we find that our own lives are not the actual life. We find ourselves in disconnect with it because we are not what we see. Seeing is so powerful, it is the most evolved of our senses, and it crafts our worlds accordingly.

Everyone is like those on the television or the movies screens so every damn thing is alright. I will take my own failure to be so upon myself. I will hide my shame in debt to catch up to this ephemeral reality, I will sell my children’s future, and for what? So I can feel normal.

It isn’t alright. Our lives are important as well. Our lives are nuanced and beautiful, tragic, but beautiful. That we do not regard the majority of us as normal, that we do not depict it honestly and artistically, seems, to me, on purpose. This purpose, I believe now, is to keep us in want. In a place where we are always the stranger. Always in danger of being exposed as a sham, and in this fear we are vulnerable to being told what is normal, and we cannot craft our own reality if it is already forced upon us. Why? Perhaps it is because we are a frightened group of people. We are not afraid of work, perse, for I know no other people that work so hard at the mundane in life. A job, etc. This is not to say that mundane is not important, it is, but it is a secondary truth, a functional truth. Meaning is the lot of life and it cannot be found through the mundane lens. A pile of whatever is not satisfying to ultimate sense of Man-he becomes restless, dissatisfied, which, I think Schopenhauer points out, is symptomatic by the perpetual fidgetiness of the modern human. They are uncomfortable in their skin, so to say, because it does not stand up-the inherency usually attributed to the body-to the reasonable aspect of man. He sublimates it.

I think it is funny, that reason and logic are the means of our current manifestation and yet, we have given those up-they have lead us to this belief of meaninglessness. To separation. To fear. The fear to ever be able to attempt to climb that was our birthright in this form. We have given it over and used our Mind to subvert even our biological drives to life (environmental degradation, for example), let alone to strive for the transcendent drive to life. We are frightened of this Truth of purpose for what it demands is grueling but, in the end, ultimately rewarding. So, it is strange that we work so hard in the opposite direction for, ironically, we are afraid of the work..possibly. I can see that we may also be afraid of their not being a meaning. That the effort would be futile. That would frightening indeed for the savage we have become that is fascinated with such trinkets, to such a degree, that he has used them to measure his life. His whole life built up like some cheap monument.

yes, the rich are humans. But so are we. Our lives are important and nuanced and beautiful...too. That we feel that they are not because they do not fit some other’s nuanced life, one that is shoved down our throats as normal, does not make yours any less so. Measure a life by that which has been done to serve good, the best of the human nature, not by the frog skins and that which it buys.

The Political Buddha

I was sitting in the backyard of my home. A summer rainstorm had lasted 3 days of which, I believe, could only be experienced by a resident of the northwest. Cold, wet, and a constant drizzle that periodically escalates to a drumming rain. It was a respite between the gray and the rain (that is what we call summer here in the NW, the Respite). There were mini-pine cones littered all over my porch and upon the ridiculous amount of toys my children have; a pool, a slide, some human powered vehicles, and a shield that was laying crest side down and filled with a pine cone rain mixture. I sat in an orange chair and leaned back to watch the racing clouds across the blue expanse. What came to mind, I hate to admit, was a sort of confrontation I had with my neighbor.

When I first arrived in this neighborhood a neighbor of mine found out, how I do not know, that I was Tibetan. Maybe he had seen my handicapped father wheelchairing around the block and deciphered it from phrenology of something.  But he did find out. He approached me and said,

“I am a zen Buddhist. Buddhism is the thinking man’s religion.” I nodded my head,

“Yes, it does take thought.” and I thought that might be it. It was, for that time, but then, a few weeks later, he accused me of being, possibly, homophobic because I asked my neighbors, who unbeknownst to me were homosexual, were participating in a loud gathering late into the night on a thursday. Well, late is relative, it was 11pm. It was Thursday however. Their affinity for early Michael Jackson was not to be abhorred but their affection for having their bass up to an obnoxious level that should have been satiated in our early twenties-was to be abhorred. I walked over to their home, knocked on the door in my pajamas, and requested, in what, I know, could be understood as a surly vein, for them to turn it down.

I found out later that they had spoken to the neighbors, this man specifically, and told them that they were offended that that was our first interaction. I wanted to say that I would have liked that not to be our second interaction (which was awkward) as our first (I found offensive), through a proxy, the aforementioned Michael Jackson. I didn’t say this. I just became furious when the Other Neighbor asked,

“Is it because they are gay?”

Now, I will leave this illustration here with this-I spoke to the couple, of whom I was not aware of being gay, that I wanted to have a better relationship with them. That I was tired because I woke up at 5 to take care of my dad, worked all day, came home and watched children, took care of my dad, tried to practice my religion, then, if possible, eat somewhere in there, defecate, maybe, and then sleep. Thats my day. I was tired.

After I was asked if I was homophobic or just a dick, by this man, he went into a long diatribe on how he is the lone liberal (meaning politically) in the neighborhood and that he felt was wrongly shifted to the right (meaning politically-not literally, which would be weird). He proudly displayed his Obama 12 bumper sticker, the blue B bumper sticker to show his solidarity with a group of people. He even revealed that his daughter was gay and that the neighbor, who once was directly opposed to all things gay, turned out to have a gay daughter. He said, “then he changed his way, funny how that happens.”

I have reread the above and I think it comes across as glib, in parts, but I think that, that was on purpose. The glibness of politics on the larger scale, at least now, is prevalent and perhaps all pervasive. I wanted to lay the ground in order to juxtapose it with the idea of religion and politics. For, this started out with this Zen practitioner, as a meeting of (at least from his side, I think) of similar faithed people. But where we differed, I think, is that he thought of it as a team, of a us and them, and that the ‘thinking’ folks or at least ‘men’. It has become this way with the many different paths. It is the enlightened against the unenlightened in some mighty grudge match.

I have seen this, in its most blatant form, in the monotheistic religions but I believe it is prevalent in all of them. It is very prevalent in the American form of them. The dark glee that I see when Hell is discussed and the oceans of eternally tormented souls is disturbing, what makes me even more disturbed is the flaccid compassion that is shown on their faces. Oh, wouldn’t it be great if they had converted-so the statement goes. This flaccid compassion though, is not inert, it is a raging impotence where they rise inquisitions and crusades, if, in most, only in their hopeful hearts of revelations.

But what makes the Buddha’s way different? Is not every human system subject to the eventual intertwining of the mundane and the supramundane? We see this pathway that the Catholic church took and wonder if it is not an inevitability of any organization? That it would rear its head in the form of Zen in America is a foregone conclusion, right?

Perhaps.

When we look at the Buddha’s methodology to this we see a very shrewd maneuvering. I use this term, shrewd, purely as my interpretation of it. I do not believe the Buddha was trying to be as an ends, political, and that his means were for the Enlightenment of beings, but also he taught beings within a system. This system, like most systems, is filled with inertia toward change because, like humans, systems want to survive and meet resistance with resistance. What made the Buddha’s methodology so successful in his time is the development of the Sangha.

All mundane systems, governing so to say, in the material realm use a form of material exchange as a scorecard. This exchange can be, in various levels, considered also the amount of power a particular individual or system within the system has. For example, the ear of the president, in our system, is, frankly, paid for. This does not mean that he is taking bribes etc. but that by the very nature of proximity to him it requires wealth. As a human being we are most influenced, usually, by those peoples thoughts nearest and longest to us. Thus wealth even if by proxy, has the bulk of power.

However, this also makes the system, the more it becomes this way, more vulnerable. We see this with technological gains, where there is an increase in efficiency there is a loss in self agency. If we use the idea of technological efficiencies gained through a global conveyor belt system like Dell does in order to reduce inventory we see, in real world examples, its dangers. A typhoon in Taiwan brought the entire process to a standstill for weeks because a critical part of the computer was shorebound with ships. Dell could not ship anything for weeks. We see this, with even a technology that we may not think of as a technology, food production. We are further and further from our food. We can get strawberries in October but, a few years ago, when flood waters covered I-5 we weren’t able to get any new produce/even local, for a week. It is this vulnerability that the Buddha exploited with his Sangha and, by exploiting it, was able to influence the politics of the time without a violent confrontation or purge.

The monks vows are rooted, or could be said to be rooted, in renunciation.

"Whatever a monk keeps pursuing with his thinking & pondering, that becomes the inclination of his awareness. If a monk keeps pursuing thinking imbued with renunciation, abandoning thinking imbued with sensuality, his mind is bent by that thinking imbued with renunciation. If a monk keeps pursuing thinking imbued with non-ill will, abandoning thinking imbued with ill will, his mind is bent by that thinking imbued with non-ill will. If a monk keeps pursuing thinking imbued with harmlessness, abandoning thinking imbued with harmfulness, his mind is bent by that thinking imbued with harmlessness."[3]

In this we can understand that, to put it coarsely, the monk or nun wants nothing of the mundane world. He or she lives within the world and has worldly needs, lets say food, but the worldly drive is not theirs. They renounce this drive for a higher drive and in this renunciation are able to remove their threat to the mundane systems. This is exemplified in the Buddha’s time and in some Pali tradition communities, act of begging for your food. The Buddha lived under ‘rocks’ and ledges, in the forest, and saw that this was the best way to be, without attachments. He told his followers that this was the best way because of its discordance with the world and its ability to be able to accord with the drive toward the mind of enlightenment. This higher drive, so to say, is not impeded by the drive of the world which, the Buddhist believes, leads to a cyclical and bounded existence .

By being in ‘poverty’ and not threatening the powers that be, they were able to subvert the systems desire to confront similar drives. They were able to live together as separate systems because their drive was different. By this, the Sangha was able to become a leveraged resource for advice by the kings and princes.

I see the difficulty of the other path to this. To subsume a transcendent drive within the systemic drive. I don’t believe they would put it this way but I believe it is an arguable position. For example, Reinhold Neibur, a christian philosopher who, apparently, is greatly admired by our current president, is a very good illustration of this.

Neibur’s christian pragmatism in what I have read is boiled down to the drive to love and the drive to justice. He believes that they are not compatible within the world. The Drive to Love is the love of Christ, or the blood of Christ, that is infinitely forgiving and the drive to Justice is the prohibitive consequence to an action against the ‘norms’ of a society. He hopes, in his writing, the the individual transcendent drive to Love imbues the drive to justice with the proper lens but he does separate the two. He believes it is the duty of the Christian to do both; one on the individual transcendent level and the other in the political sphere.

While this, on my first reading, did not seem to be too far from a belief of mine I had to after reflecting on some of the bases of Buddhist thought found it to be in error. The Buddha calls for a renunciation of these drives, or at least the call to justice. He finds that this, for those that are are ready, a pathway to inequity. A systemic approach to the transcendent, to intertwine them, in a calling for the faithful is arising a knotty issue. For, as the Buddha says, with the arising of ‘this’ comes ‘that’ in the teaching on Karma. Karma is meant to be gotten over and not continued. At the lower levels it must be cultivated in order to gain the proper foothold of fortunate birth to be able to attempt and accomplish the pathway to cessation. Cessation is not possible with the imputation of ‘that’ in either mind or action for it will always produce further-like a pillow that is punched.

What makes this even more impractical is that those within a system, a temporal order, in our nation a quasi secular governance, is then in direct confrontation with this newer power, especially if it states a paradigm that is in opposition to its own goals. In our nation it has, to this point, only been in specific areas and to, frankly, to a large degree, this is because of the lack of diversity of faith within the governance and to a large degree the people of the nation. But what happens with this type of governance to a nation that was as religiously diverse as India at the time of the Buddha? Temporal government then would come into direct confrontation with the religious order if it was to take upon itself worldly issues. The Buddha’s methodology dismantled this confrontation at its base of existence which was material gain.

I write this to keep this part in my mind. I may not dabble in the politics of the age and mix them as so many have. Politics are, in my definition, the middling ground of practical governance; as food is to the body. A necessity and sometimes a pleasant necessity and other not so much. However, the drive of my life is not to be seen through the lens of this necessity. It is a means to the purpose of life-transcendence-as is this body, a body like a boat, to take me to the farthest shore. I must take care of the body but I must not mistake the body for the distant shore-for if I do, then I will not steer, I will not guide, etc. I will have thought I arrived. And the deep, dissatisfaction with that imputation will not have any reference to alleviate it and therefore I will only have the tools at hand to work with. I will mistake the tools as ends and delve deeper and deeper into the error, more complex, dependently constructed, and yet, wholly illusory.

I see why the Buddha told us to renounce. Transcendence and its drive should not be advertised by mundane means and this includes a bumper sticker.

Be well
G