Gaian Jesuits?

Even though I have never been a Roman Catholic, and have little use for the Roman Catholic Church as an institution, I have always had a grudging admiration for St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556), the founder of the Society of Jesus. This Spanish-Basque soldier-turned-monk used the military discipline he had learned to create a highly disciplined monastic order, later known as the Jesuits, to undertake the enormous and challenging task of both reforming the corruption within the Church, and revitalizing it by reclaiming for the Catholic Church many of the areas of Europe that had been lost to the Protestant Reformation.

The Jesuits accomplished this task by means both fair and foul, ranging from political manipulation, infiltration of regimes, and conspiracies to the creation of a wide array of impressive educational establishments that undertook to "deprogram" new generations from (what he saw as) the Protestant "heresy" and bring them back into the fold of (what he saw as) the One True Faith. These educational institutions, in turn, trained their students with a rigorous regime of logic and rhetoric, which has created an array of very impressive and influential scholar-activists throughout the world down to this day. Yet his whole edifice of education, scholarship, global missionary outreach, and political influence was predicated on rigorous basic training in "spiritual exercises" which not only ensured their total and unquestioning loyalty to the Church, but also gave them the intellectual tools and the inner spiritual fortitude they needed to fundamentally transform and revitalize the Roman Catholic Church and give it a formidable global influence that it retains to this day, especially in the Southern Hemisphere--from all of Latin America to much of subsaharan Africa, and on as far as the Philippines.

So again, my admiration for St. Ignatius is based on his truly impressive influence and accomplishments, not on his totalitarian religious ideology ("My way or no way") nor on the ethically questionable, Machiavellian means that he and his followers frequently used in their religious warfare. This leads to my question: Could a Gaian order be established, broadly based on the model of the Jesuits, that would train its sworn adherents to undertake, with similar dedication and efficiency, the subversion of the dominant Glomart ideology, and the regeneration of both a hopelessly corrupt political culture and a dying planet? Lets imagine:

Like the Jesuits, the training for a Dharma Gaia Society would be predicated on "spiritual exercises"--not to engender total devotion to any one religious ideology, but rather to create a solid, reliable foundation for open-minded, generous, intellectually open and rigorous, but deeply rooted spirituality, accessible to anyone, and compatible with any authentic faith tradition or lack thereof. The mission of the Dharma Gaia Society would be to integrate both Vertical and Horizontal healing of our fragmented Selves, our distracted Communities, and our devastated Planet. The "spiritual exercises" at foundation of such training, therefore, would not be any question-begging ideological catechism, but rather meditation, based on the Tenfold Mantra:

1. Breathe, Observe, Let Go (Abide)
2. Be well, Do Good Work, Keep in Touch (Abide)
3. Learn, Teach, Heal, and Create.

Total commitment to this Tenfold Mantra as a guide to living would be the only precondition to membership in the Dharma Gaia order--practicing it every day in formal meditation, and having it available, at all times, to deal with the vicissitudes they encounter with life. Once trained in this basic discipline, Gaians would go forth into the world to practice Doing Good Work by learning, teaching, healing, and creating Gaia--by pursuing lifelong education in green living (Learning), by finding occasion and establishing programs or institutions to instruct others in the contemplative arts (e.g. yoga, tai chi, etc.), community regeneration (from gardening to community organizing to political involvement), and ecological healing and regeneration (teaching, healing, and creating).

So this is the dream. Is the Tenfold Dharma Gaia Mantra a powerful enough tool of basic mind training (as were Ignatius' spiritual exercises) to accomplish this huge, intergenerational task? Time will tell.

On One Breath

In recent weeks, I have developed a mantra on a single breath that has proven very effective at quickly inducing a state of meditative stability. It is so useful, in fact, that I have started introducing it to my students in all my classes, referring to it as an "inner tune-up" to complement my "outer tune-up" (which usually consists of a small selection of Qigong longevity exercises). Here is the way it works:

1. On the inhale, say to yourself, "breathing."


2. In the brief pause at the top of the inhalation, say, "observing."


3. On the exhale, say, "letting go."


4. In the brief pause between exhalation and inhalation, say "abiding."

The reason I use the participial form ("breathing") rather than the imperative form ("breathe") is that any imperative we say to ourselves immediately creates a familiar dichotomy within us: the authoritative Parent figure and thus, the recalcitrant Child figure. If, for example, a sugar addict attempts to deal with his or her addiction by saying "Don't eat that cookie," that addict immediately creates the temptation (the recalcitrant Child) to do the exact opposite.

This tendency is beautifully illustrated in Gregory Bateson's essay on alcoholism, "The Cybernetics of Self" in which he cites the success of Alcoholics Anonymous in subverting this internalized Parent-Child dichotomy by encouraging their members to surrender control (let go).

So by saying to oneself "breathing," one is simply acknowledging what one is actually doing--not giving and obeying a command to oneself. Ditto for the others: "observing," "letting go" and "abiding." As such, these words become transparent--they become windows, through which we look at ourselves doing what these words say. This is also why, in his Sutra on Breathing, the Buddha instructs us to say "Breathing in, I am aware that I am breathing in; Breathing out, I am aware that I am breathing out"--and why, in his Sutra on the Four Establishments of Mindfulness, he speaks of "mindfulness of the breath IN the breath, of the body IN the body, and so on.

As we go deeper into meditation, the words gradually drop away as crutches, rather than distracting us as attachments. Soon we are simply and wordlessly breathing, observing, letting go, and abiding. This is the wordless, timeless, selfless state known as alaya.

But for most of us, this blissful state of non-thought, of emptiness and calm abiding, does not last long. Brain-chatter, like Nature herself, abhors a vaccuum, and will rush in to distract us again and again. This is where it is useful, I find, to displace this random brain-chatter (since the our minds can actually focus on only one thing at a time) with the mantra itself--focusing once and again on the four participial verbs--Breathing, Observing, Letting Go, and Abiding.

Another technique for displacing mental chatter--throwing a bone to our restless monkey-minds, as it were--is to map on to these four terms other related tetrads, that keep us focused on the Dharma, rather than on our own distractions. Here are a few examples that map on very nicely to these four stages:

1. Empathy (Breathing in), Joy or curiosity (Observing), Benevolence (Letting Go) and Equanimity (Abiding). These are, of course, the Four Brahma-Viharas, slightly altered in order: Karuna, Mudita, Maitri, and Upeksha. This technique also fits very nicely with the practice of Tonglen (Taking in our own and others' suffering, and breathing out healing to ourselves and others).


2. Birth and childhood (Breathing in); Adulthood (Observing) Age and Wisdom (Letting Go) and Death (Abiding.)


3. Fire (Breathing in oxygen--a transform of solar energy) Air (Observing the oxygen as it is carried from our lungs through our blood to all parts of our bodies) Water (Letting go on the outbreath, as water flows downhill), and Earth (Merging with dust--with the ground of our being.


4. Om (Breathe in) Mani (Observe) Padme (Let go) Hum (Abide)

And so on. I also can extend the tetrad to embrace the entire Tenfold Mantra, thus incorporating my vows into my practice in only three full breaths:

1. Breathe, Observe, Let Go (Abide)


2. Be Well, Do Good Work, Keep in Touch (Abide)


3. Learn, Teach, Heal, Create.

Practicing this way regularly has definitely improved my concentration, making it less likely that in formal meditation, I will be carried away by distracting thoughts. And that, after all, is the point. That is why it is called "practice:" to increase, gradually, the likelihood that in the course of daily life, we are more likely to respond to vicissitudes, whether within ourselves or in the world, with empathy, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. These four participial conscious reminders--Breathing, Observing, Letting Go, and Abiding--can be coordinated with the four phases of any breath we take, any time, anywhere, no matter what, and quickly restore us to the equipoise necessary to do what needs to be done.

Regeneration

We are here. It is 2012, the Final Year, according to the Mayan calendar, of this Magnum Annum; the end of history. Or not. I don't generally put much stock in such New-Age prophecies or astrological cycles, even though many of my friends do. It seems likely that all the prophetic speculation--all the astrological and apocalyptic fears and hopes--about 2012 will end up as empty and silly as the various "End of the World" or "Second Coming" or "Harmonic Convergence" or even "Y2K" hysterias of the past, and we will muddle our collective way on into 2013 right on schedule...some eminent people dying along the way, as always.

But then again, whether connected with astrological cycles or not, there does seem to be a quickening these days, a sense of things swirling toward a chaotic and increasingly unpredictable state throughout the world. The Glomart Economy is in a tailspin, and an inchoate, mass popular revolt is brewing worldwide--the "Occupy" movement--connected and reinforced by the Internet, against a political, military, and economic status quo that has clearly become dysfunctional, morally bankrupt, and depraved; the words of Bob Dylan spring to mind again and again:

"Come writers and critics who prophesize with you pen

Keep your eyes wide, the chance won't come again,

And don't speak too soon, for the wheel's still in spin

And there's no telling who that it's namin'...

For the losers now will be later to win,

For the times, they are a-changin'!"

Somehow, the keyword that keeps tugging on my consciousness these days is "regeneration." Not "revolution" (a word tainted with too much violent and repressive connotative baggage left over from the days of Robespierre, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao), nor even "redemption" (since I do not think our once-great nation can be redeemed) but "regeneration" in the sense of a phoenix rising from the ashes. And as Octavia Butler mordantly suggests in her "Earthseed" verses from her powerful dystopic novel Parable of the Sower:

"“In order to rise from its own ashes, a Phoenix first must burn.”

In short, we can no longer go back to what we once were as a nation. We are already too corrupt for that--the United States of America lost its soul--died--on that horrible day--December 12, 2000--when a corrupt and shamelessly partisan Supreme Court authorized the theft of an election by the criminal fascist Bush regime, and Congress was too cowardly to object. Since that day, we have become nothing but a zombie nation, murderously stalking the world while muttering empty platitudes about "freedom" and "democracy" that nobody else believes anymore...

And since the Great Hoax of 9/11, we have all been living out a nightmare of endless war and paranoia about "terrorists" based on a massive, consensual lie--an unchallenged, self-contradictory narrative that completely violates the known laws of physics, but that has nonetheless become the cornerstone--the enabling myth--of the so-called "Global War on Terror." So the America envisioned by Thomas Paine, Jefferson, Madison, Lincoln, and Roosevelt is dead and buried, while its zombie double, Glomart Fascist Amerika, the land of greed, ignorance, denial, despair, and lies, is doomed...and right now, they are rattling sabers at Iran (and vice versa) in the Strait of Hormuz, threatening thereby a nuclear holocaust that could engulf the whole planet.

Or not. Perhaps all the fist-shaking will pass, Obama's cool hand will prevail, and the leaders will find ways to save face and come to their senses, and we'll all muddle through, yet again. Let's hope. But one way or the other, "the Old Road is Rapidly Aging..." and so we all need to "get out of the new one if we can't lend a hand/for the times, they are a-changin'!"

For me, then, "Regeneration" is not of "the United States of America" per se, but of Thomas Paine's original vision--"the world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion." If we must burn, literally or figuratively, in order to rise from the ashes, so be it. May I therefore become, in this new and epochal year of 2012, an agent of Regeneration--a seed of Gaian renewal among the ashes of the corrupt and degenerate old Glomart order. America is dead. And though Gaia herself is dying, may we Gaians of all nations arise! May the 99% awaken to our true nature as Gaians--as fellow citizens of the only living planet we will ever know!

RIP USA 1776-2000

Lately I have been reading a searing, vivid, powerful memoir entitled Every Man in this Village is a Liar by Megan K. Stack, a young journalist who is featured as one of the speakers at an upcoming Literary Festival at Old Dominion University, a few miles away from where I work in Norfolk. I had picked up a copy of her book at Kramer Books in Washington, DC, and was immediately captivated by her precise images and her moral passion, so I bought it, and have scarcely been able to put it down since.

The book is mesmerising in its vividness and eloquence, but her subject matter--the war zones of the Middle East where she was sent as a correspondent by the Los Angeles Times--is utterly appalling. She records what she sees and experiences, first in Afghanistan, then on the Israel/Palestine border, then Iraq (and later elsewhere) with such clarity, precision, candor and pathos that you feel it in your bones.

However, reading this account of the sheer cruelty and horror of war on all whom it touches has also left me in even greater despair for my country than ever, particularly because she is eyewitness to innumerable atrocities wrought not only by the so-called "terrorists" (whatever the hell THAT means) but by the US military as well. For indeed, we are guilty as hell in all of this--except, of course, that "we"--the majority of American voters--never actually had any say in this ongoing crime against humanity, since the Bush Regime hijacked the country in 2000 and 2004, and Obama, who was legitimately elected (for a change) on a promise of ending the war and putting an end to the perversion of justice in horrific places like Guantanamo, has only continued these heinous occupations in the Middle East and the ongoing atrocities in which "our boys" are complicit every day.

And so indeed, my original fear has been validated--that the United States of America, as a concept with any real basis in the enlightened ideals of Thomas Paine, the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights, ceased to exist on December 12,2000--the day a shamelessly partisan Supreme Court overrode the rule of law and validated the theft of an election. The great hoax of 9/11/01 thereafter only confirmed the hijacking of our nation by this pernicious criminal syndicate of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al. And since then, the former "United States of America" has become a neofascist, corporate sponsored, pseudo-democratic zombie nation, living a lie, murderously stalking the world while muttering empty platitudes about "freedom," "democracy" and the "global war on terror."

I wish I could renounce my citizenship and move elsewhere--I can't. But then, it does not matter whether I am a "citizen" or not, since the nation of which I was once a proud citizen no longer exists. So instead, I have no alternative but to proclaim myself a citizen of Gaia, like my role-model Thomas Paine, who said "the world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion." And a citizen of Gaia can live anywhere on the planet and still be at home. In fact, all nation states are just mental formations--arbitrary lines drawn on maps. We are bound by their laws, but the only laws that matter, ever, are those that are compatible with the Laws of God (i.e. love your neighbor as yourself) and the Laws of Gaia (This is because that is). If any given laws enacted by any human government are compatible with these, we obey them; if not, we engage in Satyagraha.

My daily practice

"Wherefore by their fruits shall ye know them." --Jesus.

With this luminous quote, the Palestinian Jewish Buddha, Jesus of Nazareth, gave us the only reliable litmus test for evaluating another person's belief system or practice--its "fruits"--that is, the Karmic consequences of that belief and/or practice on everyone else.

So I share my own evolving practice not in any prescriptive sense--not "this is what you should do"--but rather simply for the curiosity of anyone who encounters these words, now or in the future: this is what I do, at this time. I would encourage everyone else to likewise share his or her practice routine, for in this way, we can all learn from each other and develop a personal practice suited to our own particular path. So here is the protocol for the practice I have evolved, in its latest incarnation:

First I read some Dharma. Right now, I am reading Pema Chodron's exegesis of Shantideva, entitled "No Time to Lose." I try to read a little bit of this each morning, in order to focus my mind on practice and diffuse whatever shenpa--whatever obsessive thoughts--have been provoked by my reading of the editorial page over breakfast. Then, but only when I sense that I am mentally and emotionally ready, I enter into a ceremonial space by taking off my sandals before I walk upstairs to my sanctuary in the attic. I have found that the tradition of taking off one's shoes before meditation makes good sense, because immediately we become more mindful of each step we take, and this, likewise, prepares us for formal meditation.

Then, after bowing to my Indonesian wood-sculpture of the Buddha, I practice the Qigong longevity sequence that I learned from the eminent Tai Chi master Gabriel Chin, with whom I had the joy and privilege of learning and practicing while we lived in Michigan in the early 90's. He was one of my first and finest teachers.

The longevity sequence consists of a set of simple exercises to generate chi or vital energy, and enhance its balanced circulation. The first exercise is to simply jiggle up and down like a puppet on a string, about 100 times or so. Next is to do 10 arm rolls (like a crawl-stroke and back-stroke while swimming) forwards, then backwards. Then I do 10 "scooping of hands" (or Hands-in-Clouds) moves, right and left, while keeping my eyes on the center of each palm as it comes up. Then I do another swimming move, this one like a butterfly stroke, forward and backward 3 times. Then I swing my arms around, hands down, on a level plane, 5 times each: left-counterclockwise, right clockwise, then left clockwise, right counterclockwise. Next I do the "snake"--joining palms over my head, I make an "S" motion down along the axis of my body, then back up again--3 times alternately in both directions. Next I do an exercise called "crane stretches its wings:" Hands straight forward, palms up, inhale--then exhale, drawing hands smoothly to the chest (3 times); then hands out sideways, palms up (inhale)--then exhale, drawing hands smoothly to the shoulders and relaxing them. (3 times). Finally--and this is the most difficult--I go up on my toes as I push my open palms straight back behind me, then purse my fingers as I draw them under my armpit and up to my shoulders--all on the inhale--then blow it out (thrusting my fingers forward forcefully with the sudden exhalation, while keeping each thumb over the middle of the palm). (3 times) This, according to the tradition, expels "stagnant chi" from our bodies. The original sequence goes on much longer, but at this point I foreshorten it by going into a Shou Gong (closing) exercise--on three full breaths. On the first inhale, lift open hands up to the sky, gathering the ambient Chi, then bring them down toward your scalp, in effect "pushing" the Chi right down your spinal column. Then, on the first exhale, elbows out, bring open palms straight down your center line, past your ears and straight down your center axis to your dantian (the fulcrum of your body, 4 inches below your navel) where--on the last inhale, you turn your palms out, so your fingertips, still parallel to the ground, are just touching--then, on the last exhale, rotate your palms outward in opposite directions, and bring them in toward your dantian, one over the other (for males, right over left; for females, left over right). If done correctly and mindfully, you can actually feel the subtle "buzz" of chi (which is the electrical force-field around your body) radiating through your palms from the core of your body.

After my Qigong sequence, I then do 3 prostrations, incorporating the Vinyasa sequence from hatha yoga. Getting down on hands and knees, I look up toward the Buddha, and leading with my rump, I crouch into a "pose of a child" asana, joining my palms above my head; then, leading with my shoulders I curl my spine up, roll it out, and repeat--3 times. On each prostration, I take refuge in, and contemplate the meanings of, the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha--the "Three Jewels" of Buddhist tradition.

It took me a while to get into doing prostrations; with my western ego, I initially considered them as a vestige of eastern superstition and obsequious bowing before princes--something that, with my all-American commitment to universal equality, I wanted nothing to do with.

But then I have gradually realized, more and more, the inner logic behind these ancient practices. By prostrating, we not only exercise our spines, but also we humble ourselves--we sacrifice our egos, in effect, before the altar of something greater than us--in this case the long tradition of transcendent wisdom, passed from one generation to the next--to all of our teachers. So in bowing to the Buddha, I am also bowing to Lao Tzu, to Jesus, to Guru Nanak, to St. Francis, to Gandhi, to Martin Luther King, to Nelson Mandela, to Wangari Maathai, to Thich Nhat Hanh, to the Dalai Lama, and to Pema Chodron--to all Bodhisattvas whose teachings have lit my own path toward greater understanding and compassion.

After the Three Prostrations, I am then ready for formal meditation--in my own case, because of congenitally tight hips, I prefer to kneel on my 3-legged stool, rather than sitting cross-legged on a cushion.

Once seated and poised, I generally start by picking up my copy of Earth Prayers, a beautiful anthology of 365 poems, invocations, and prayers from diverse cultures all over the planet, that honor the Sacred in all life. Selecting one, usually at random, I read it, either silently or aloud, and then pick up my sandalwood mala with its 108 beads, that serves as a timekeeper, and also reduces the likelihood of spacing out or getting distracted by my thoughts.

Then I ring my beautiful, bronze bowl-like bell, sitting on its cushion in front of me--or as Thich Nhat Hanh likes to put it, I "invite the bell." As the pure, resonant peal of the bell fades into its overtones, I begin my formal practice with my standard, home-brewed ten-breath guided meditation, advancing a bead on each breath: Breathe, Observe, Let Go; Be well, Do good work, Keep in touch; Learn, Teach, Heal, and Create.

From there, I spend the rest of the bead time (usually 30-40 minutes), either on each in and out breath (if I have limited time) or one full in-and-out breath per bead (if I have lots of time), following my breath and experimenting with a few of the techniques I have learned. These include the following:

• Tonglen (breathing in Samsaric pain, breathing out Dharmic blessings, in radiating circles, first for myself, then for those I love, then those I know, then those I don't know, then those I don't like, and then those I am inclined to despise, and finally, every living being in the universe.) This is the most powerful, yet also most demanding form of practice I know.
• Various guided meditations on the in and out breath, (such as Thich Nhat Hanh's "Flower-fresh, Mountain-solid, Lake-clear, and Space-free).
• Metta meditation, based on the Four Brahmaviharas (or "limitless qualities"): loving kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity.
• Chakra meditation (focusing in turn on each of the Seven Chakras, from the base of the spine to the crown of the head).
• Mantra practice (e.g. "Om Mani Padme Hum" or my own tenfold mantra)

and so on...whatever useful practices I come across. But I also like, periodically, just to sit--to calmly abide in Alaya, or undifferentiated Being, devoid of all thought.

Quite naturally, distractions come up all the time--whether planning my classes, worry about stuff going on, fantasies, fears, resentments, or political apoplexy. Whenever I catch myself in such mental distractions, I try to name them, and then go back to breathing, observing, and letting go. I find that I am less likely to get distracted, however, if I read some Dharma before meditation, and thereby focus my mental chatter on the Dharma, rather than on all the usual egoic stuff.

When I reach the end of my Mala, I generally bow three times again to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, and then sound the bell, letting the bell fill my consciousness again.

Then I get on my exercycle, and start pedaling. To avert boredom while bicycling, I have recently taken up mentally reviewing each injunction of the Eightfold Path, sometimes out loud, while pedaling: Right Understanding, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Contemplation. If done with any depth or commitment, this will take up 4-5 minutes quite easily.

Finally, I close with a Native American-inspired observance (with parallels in indigenous cultures throughout the world), which consists of picking up a hand drum and bowing in turn to the Six Directions and all their connotations: East (Sunrise, Spring, Starting Anew); South (Mid-day, Summer, Growth and nurturing); West (Evening, Fall, Fruition and harvest); North (Night, Winter, Death, Impermanence, and quiescence) And then I conclude with the two poles: Heaven (looking up--the Divine Mystery) and Earth (looking down--Gaia, the Manifestations). Often with the last two, I will repeat the line from the Prayer of Jesus: "Thy will be done in Heaven...and on Earth."

Then I am ready for my day, my mind and soul clear and refreshed...

Darth Cheney and me.

"When the world is full of evil, transform all mishaps into the path of Bodhi"

--The Lojong slogans.

"Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to them that despitefully use you." --Jesus.

"When Jesus instructed us to love our enemies, he didn't say we had to like them." --Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Hatred is a form of subjective involvement with the hated object." --Commentary on the I Ching.

This evening, I got caught up in a familiar obsession: seeking out snarky reviews of Dick Cheney's recently published memoirs, and working myself into a lather of sympathetic outrage as I read through the innumerable scathing comments of readers. "Darth" Cheney is truly a loathsome excuse for a human being--perhaps the most evil, vicious, hateful, truthless, sociopathic monster in the world today--the zombie-like embodiment of everything that has gone horribly wrong with America in the years since the Bush Coup of December 12, 2000 and the great 9/11 hoax (masterminded, no doubt, by Cheney himself). At the very thought of his smug, malignant, sneering face, I feel the familiar tug of what the Tibetans call shenpa--the almost visceral temptation to wallow in moral outrage and sheer obsessive hatred.

In effect, Cheney has infected my mind. But the honest recognition of this fact can be, in itself, a path to awakening, if I choose to take it. For when I indulge in such obsessive, apoplectic hatred of Cheney, I in effect become just like him--a troglodytic monster dripping with malice.

Several years ago, after a dharma talk in Hampton by Geshe Lobsang Tenzin of the Drepung Loseling Tibetan Center at Emory University, there was a Q & A session, during which I asked the Geshe the following question:

"How do you deal with blockages? That is, I try to generate compassion for all living beings, but then there are some for whom I feel such profound loathing that I can't get past it--and one of these is the President of the United States (George W. Bush). Is there a way to generate honest compassion for people you despise?" (The same is true, of course, even more so for Cheney).

The Geshe first acknowledged that this is very difficult, but then he told a parable. "Imagine," he said, "that you encountered a horribly abusive person who threatened you and screamed vicious insults at you. Naturally, you would feel fear and hostility toward him, and maybe even hatred. But then imagine that another person came along and told you that this person had just escaped from a mental institution and was profoundly disturbed. Your ill-will would then change immediately to a sincere desire to get help for him, because you realized that his abusive behavior was the direct result of his own profound suffering. So it is as well," (he said with a smile) "for anyone for whom you feel hatred--even George Bush."

About six months later, I was attending a workshop with a fairly advanced teacher (I forget her name) in Norfolk, who finally enabled me to awaken compassion for Bush. She told us the story of his childhood--how at the tender age of eight, he had lost his 3-year old sister, whom he dearly loved, to leukemia--yet his parents had not told him anything about her disease. They just took her away one day and she never returned. (The senior Bushes--George and Barbara--were of the same World War II generation as my parents, a generation who had seen such immense suffering throughout the world, both during the Depression and the war, that they tended to be very stoical, and desperate to protect their own children from suffering by suppressing their own feelings.) After the death of this child, the situation was made worse by the fact that young George's mother became depressed, withdrawn, and emotionally distant from him--so that not only did he lose his beloved sister, but he felt abandoned by his mother when he needed her the most. As a result, he was inwardly traumatized and strove thereafter, unconsciously, to "get back" at a world which had cruelly taken away everyone he loved. This was manifested in his early teenage years by his habit of torturing birds and animals, and later by his drinking and his feckless, self-indulgent behavior, his embrace of fundamentalist Christianity, and his later obsession with killing people, both as Governor (when he signed far more death warrants than any governor before or since) and President (when he gleefully invaded Iraq and smirkingly took pride in extrajudicial murders.) But all this sociopathic behavior was rooted in intense, unacknowledged inner pain and suffering. So, no doubt, it has been for Cheney.

Reflecting thus, we can find it possible to cultivate compassion even for monsters like Bush and Cheney. It is not easy--it takes serious introspection. One possible path to this realization is in a passage cited by Maureen Dowd in her (typically sardonic) review of his book, in which, toward the end, after an ugly litany of spin, smarmy self-justification, and lashing out at others in his own and the later administration, he indulges the reader with a sentimental moment, as he recalls drifting into unconsciousness before his most recent heart surgery, and having a very realistic dream that he was relaxing joyfully in "the Italian countryside, somewhere north of Rome." This is the very locale, dear to my heart--Tuscany--where my wife and I have spent two idyllic months during the past two years. Yet Cheney will never be able to go there himself, without fear of being immediately arrested as a war criminal. So at that moment, ironically, in his dream-state, it is as if Cheney and I became one. And we are one, much as I am loath to admit it, not only in our capacity for hatred, but equally in our capacity for joy that is free from suffering...for the sunny, ancient hills of Tuscany.

I'll see if I can say this honestly: May Dick Cheney know happiness, and the roots of happiness. May he be free from suffering, and the roots of suffering. May he know the original joy that transcends all suffering. And may he know the great equanimity, free from passion, aggression, and prejudice. May he one day awaken to his own hidden Buddha nature, and--for the benefit of all beings--may he see the light at last...

To be honest, the above words do not feel as sincere as they should--but I'm trying. Loving your enemy is the hardest injunction of all--but also the most essential. For Bodhicitta eludes us if we leave out anyone at all--even Dick Cheney.

Wangari Maathai: A Gaian Bodhisattva

I am currently reading a book that is both painful and inspiring: Wangari Maathai's latest book, The Challenge for Africa. It is, by any standard, a tour de force of historical insight, deep cultural awareness, moral clarity, compassion, perseverance, and hope--she is a magnificent role model, not only for all Africans, but for all Gaians--that is, for all of us. Here is one sample--her normative definition of democracy, which jumped out at me with the force of a revelation:

All political systems, institutions of the state, and cultural values (as well as pathways toward, and indicators of, economic growth) are justifiable only insofar as they encourage basic freedoms, including human rights, and individual and collective well-being. In that respect, democracy doesn’t solely mean “one person, one vote.” It also means, among other things, the protection of minority rights; an effective and truly representative parliament; an independent judiciary; an informed and engaged citizenry; an independent fourth estate; the rights to assemble, practice one’s religion freely, and advocate for one’s view peacefully without fear of reprisal or arbitrary arrest; and an empowered and active civil society that can operate without intimidation. By this definition, many African countries—and indeed, many societies in both the developing and developed worlds—fall short of genuine democracy. Likewise, “development” doesn’t only entail the acquisition of material things, although everyone should have enough to live with dignity and without fear of starvation or becoming homeless. Instead, it means achieving a quality of life that is sustainable, and of allowing the expression of the full range of creativity and humanity.

Wangari Maathai (Nobel Peace Prize Laureate)

The Challenge for Africa (Random House/Anchor Books, 2009), p. 56

What more needs to be said about the asymptotic goal toward which we all should be striving?