Step by step

"Passo dopo passo." So reads today's entry (March 27, 2011) in my calendar of everyday Italian phrases. It translates "step by step"--or to put it in the inimitable words of my stepson Eric, "One fucking thing at a time."

And it is a good Dharma lesson always--to stay in the present moment, and do what needs to be done--one step at a time--regardless of how many obligations are closing in on us at any time. This also means, for me, subduing the various Maras that afflict me on weekends: internet addiction, dissipation, torpor, and avoidance or procrastination.

A few days ago, I was invited to give a talk on Buddhism to a group of high school kids over in Chesapeake, who were taking an Advanced Placement class in world religions. Most of my talk was "Buddhism 101"--going through the basic teachings with them--the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, the Three Jewels, the Five Precepts, the Four Brahma-Viharas, and of course the essential discipline--Breathe, Observe, and Let Go. But in the course of my talk, while describing the Second Dharma Seal--interbeing or nonself--I stumbled on a potentially useful metaphor for this difficult-to-grasp concept.

When discussing the essential unreality of the separate self (Anatman) I compared it to a rainbow: something you see clearly, as if it were real, but if you move toward it, it recedes--and if the sun disappears behind a cloud, it vanishes altogether. It is, in effect, a perceptual artifact--something whose "existence" depends on a particular conjunction of causes and conditions that includes angle of sunlight from one direction, rain in the opposite direction, and of course the location of the perceiver. As Thay would say, "When conditions are sufficient, we see a rainbow; when conditions are no longer sufficient, the rainbow disappears"--even though the latent preconditions are still there: sunlight, clouds, rain, and perceiver.

The point is, our notion of "self" is more like a rainbow--a perceptual artifact--than it is like, say, a rock or even an animal. If we look deeper, of course, people, animals, and ultimately rocks are perceptual artifacts as well--all depend on the conjunction of certain causes and conditions, including the eye of the beholder.

But there is a danger--an ethical danger--in going too far in this direction, for if we persuade ourselves that everyone and everything is illusory--that is just an artifact of our own perception--then why should we care whether or not they suffer? This is the danger, as I see it, in certain "mind-only" schools of Buddhist thought--they are an invitation to complacency and smug indifference to others--and "by their fruits shall ye know them."

So how do we avoid this trap, once we grasp the notion of the separate self as a perceptual artifact, of simply concluding that everyone and everything else is as well, and that we can do as we please?

The Dalai Lama points one way, in this regard, in enjoining us to recognize what we have in common with everyone else we see out there: we all want happiness, and none of us wants to suffer. And this is the key: the ultimately illusory nature of the separate self simply indicates that everyone else is, deep down, the same as we are, and as we do for ourselves, so we do for them as well. This is also the inner logic behind the law of Karma as well--whatever we do to and for others, we also do to and for ourselves, for ultimately there is no difference at all between us and them--even if we fear and despise them. Hence our only recourse, as Lao Tzu says, is to "take care of everyone and abandon no one; take care of everything, and abandon nothing."

But back to my calendar lesson for the day: How do we go about dealing with all the things we've failed to do thus far--all the people and things we have not yet taken care of--due to the various Maras of dissipation, internet addiction, torpor, and procrastination--like grading my weekly papers--in order to resume taking care of everyone and abandoning no one? Passo dopo passo.

The Discipline of Satyagraha

A few days ago in my English 112 (Argument and Rhetoric) class, I had just shown the class a documentary film, The Corporation, a brilliantly crafted and scathing exploration and expose of the inherent self-maximizing logic of multinational corporations and their rapacious effect on the planet and society alike, and after class, one of my students, a young woman, remarked, "That film made me want to commit suicide." So I took some time out after class to give her a few alternatives to suicide, mainly by remembering that corporations need OUR money in order to thrive, and that the revolution begins in our wallets; that every time we choose to spend our money in a socially and ecologically responsible manner, we make it easier and more cost effective for everyone else to do likewise.

But her rather drastic response to this illuminating and terrifying film about the pervasiveness and rapacity of Glomart got me to thinking more deeply about how to give her, and all young people, an adaptive alternative to suicide in a time when (structurally self-serving) corporations have taken over our country, are destroying the planet with impunity, and have even colonized our minds via 24/7 television brainwashing--when all media voices critical of Glomart hegemony are being snuffed out one by one--Bill Moyers, David Brancaccio, and most recently Keith Olbermann.

Such thoughts got me thinking, yet again, about Mahatma Gandhi and his luminous concept of Satyagraha, the Dharma-based practice he developed for resisting systemic oppression of all kinds, a practice taken up, in turn, by other luminaries such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, Thich Nhat Hanh, Vandana Shiva, the Dalai Lama, Wangari Maathai, Sulak Sivaraksa, and Aung San Soo Kyi. So what follows is my own take on Gandhi's essential principles of Satyagraha, and is dedicated to this young woman, to all my students, and to all young people on the planet.

The word Satyagraha combines two Sanskrit words: Satya (truth) and Agraha (Holding firm), and it therefore means simply "holding firmly to truth." Gandhi coined this term as a substitute for the familiar term "passive resistance" to describe his campaign against British colonial domination in India, for he pointed out, quite rightly, that Satyagraha, while nonviolent, is anything but passive. It is, in fact, a form of warfare, a means of opposing oppression, with the important difference that it strives to convert, not destroy, the enemy. It is, in short, resistance without hatred.

While Satyagraha is commonly understood merely as "civil disobedience" or "nonviolence," it is, in fact, much more--it is an all-inclusive discipline that, if practiced with integrity and diligence, touches every aspect of our lives, from our response to political and economic oppression to our daily relationships with each other and with the planet.

Gandhi defined Satyagraha based on three central and interdependent principles, likewise derived from Gandhi's own indigenous Hindu traditions: Ahimsa (Nonviolence), Satya (Truthfulness), and Swaraj (Self-rule). To these I would add, based on my own absorption in Gandhi's teachings, as well as my study of his disciples (especially Martin Luther King, Jr., Thich Nhat Hanh, the Dalai Lama, and Wangari Maathai) three salient characteristics of a Satyagrahi (i.e. a practitioner of Satyagraha): in everything he/she does, he/she acts mindfully, strategically, and relentlessly. Let us therefore probe these two triads--Ahimsa, Satya, and Swaraj, practiced mindfully, strategically, and relentlessly, in order to clarify our understanding of this magnificent and transformative discipline.

Ahimsa which translates as "doing no harm," is the cardinal principle of Satyagraha, as both a political strategy and a way of life. It is based on the Dharma itself as principle, precept, and practice. If it is true (which it is) that we are "caught in an inescapable network of mutuality" where "whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly," then it follows necessarily that any form of violence is ultimately self-defeating--that whatever goes around, comes around. Gandhi recognized, moreover, that means and ends are inseparable: if you justify violence as a means to any political end, the outcome itself will be dependent upon the perpetuation of violence, and the world you create will be poisoned by hatred, vindictiveness, and animosity. One way of looking at Ahimsa can be summed up in the following, paradoxical syllogism:

1. "Strength lies in attack and not in defense." --Adolf Hitler
2. (However), "Force is followed by loss of strength" --Lao Tzu
3. (Therefore) "The meek shall inherit the Earth" --Jesus Christ.

All three quotes have their own wisdom. Hitler's satanic wisdom applies in the immediate short term, as any street fighter, soldier, or tyrant will tell you: in any combat situation, you gain advantage by attacking first. And believe it or not, Gandhi would agree. When asked what he would do if someone were attacking his family, Gandhi responded, without hesitation, "I would kill him first, if possible." The point is, there are circumstances where self-defense requires violence, but it only works in the short term.

In the longer term, Lao Tzu's wisdom, "Force is followed by loss of strength" always kicks in--as Hitler himself discovered to his cost, and in fact, as all tyrants, all who live by brutalizing others, come to find out sooner or later. This is simply a transform of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and it is also the foundation of all martial arts, properly understood: "Yield and overcome."

From which it necessarily follows, in the perspective of eternity, that "the meek shall inherit the Earth." The word "meek," however, is a connotatively obsolete translation of the Greek Praeis, a more apt translation of which would be "gentle," "accommodating," or "adaptable."--that is, someone who has cultivated the virtues of letting go of attachment to ego and maintaining equanimity: a practitioner, in heart and mind, of Ahimsa.

Ahimsa, however, is not easy. It involves coming to terms with the violence, not only in the world, but in ourselves. The best way to do this, of course, is to remember the essential discipline: whenever feelings of rage arise, we must remember to breathe, observe, and let go. And in fact, all practitioners of Satyagraha from Gandhi on have routinely withdrawn from the heated landscape of political strife to recharge themselves through meditation and devotional practices--Gandhi by withdrawing to his Ashram, King to the black churches, and Mandela, paradoxically, to the jail where he spent 26 years of his life, practicing Satyagraha day in and out.

Satya refers to the art of what the Quakers (themselves very proficient Satyagrahis) called "speaking truth to power." And this, likewise, is a demanding discipline, involving moral courage, eloquence, and strategic intelligence. Those who confuse speaking truth to power with disrupting a speaker by yelling insults completely misunderstand this principle, for effective and mindful speaking always involves listening as well. Today, some of the venues through which we can speak truth to power involve letters to the editor, public hearings, and visits to our elected representatives. If we do not practice these arts of citizenship, we will quickly lose them.

Swaraj or "self-rule" was originally a political term expressing the aspirations of the people of India for self-government, as opposed to British colonial domination. But Gandhi expanded the implications of this enormously, to comprise both self-discipline (through meditative practices and the ongoing cultivation of self-awareness and compassion) and also--most importantly--economic autonomy, as symbolized by Gandhi's spinning wheel. Today, therefore, in our struggle against Glomart domination, Swaraj involves reversing the three ways in which Glomart seeks to strip us of our autonomy. In three crucial domains--personal, civic, and global--the Glomart system (i.e. the Order of Money) is driven to reduce us from active to passive, and we must resist accordingly, asserting our autonomy:

1. Glomart benefits, and Gaia suffers, by turning active citizens into passive consumers. We can therefore push back by exercising our citizenship in whatever ways are still available--speaking truth to power through electoral politics, letters, hearings, and visits to policymakers, as well as through strategically organized mass demonstrations. Even as consumers, we can push back by assuming responsibility for the social and economic consequences of the money we spend. A good way of doing this can be found on websites like Goodguide.
2. Glomart benefits, and Gaia suffers, by turning active communities into passive markets for their products. We can therefore push back by organizing our communities, buying locally produced food, and forming or joining Community Based Agriculture cooperatives.
3. Glomart benefits, and Gaia suffers, by turning our natural support systems--forests, mountains, fisheries, aquifers, and topsoil--into commodities which can be bought and sold on the market, and the pollution which results from manufacturing these commodities. We can therefore push back by doing everything we can to protect our planet--from voting with our dollars to speaking truth to power to organized nonviolent noncooperation with evil.

And of course, the latter--direct action--is always our last resort, after all the other efforts have failed. If and when a campaign of direct action becomes necessary, it is essential that we be well-trained and well-prepared for it, and that, as in any nonviolent warfare, we act mindfully, strategically, and relentlessly. A poorly organized campaign of nonviolent resistance often backfires, and simply aids Glomart in stereotyping us as "radicals" or imprisoning us as "terrorists." Therefore, strong, credible moral leadership--such as a Gandhi, a King, a Mandela, a Vandana Shiva, or a Wangari Maathai--is essential to the success of a nonviolent mass movement. Also, any direct action campaign--organized nonviolent noncooperation with evil--must always be fully predicated on all three principles of Satyagraha--ahimsa, satya, and swaraj--in order to be successful. But we need not fear defeat, for as Gandhi pointed out, a Satyagraha campaign, when practiced with integrity according to these principles, may know many setbacks, but can never be defeated. Like the Dharma itself, it is indestructible, even if we ourselves are impermanent. As Dr. King said, "the man who has nothing to die for has nothing to live for."

So in our common effort to bring spontaneous remission to the Glomart cancer of the Earth, please remember and adhere to these key principles: Ahimsa (resolute nonviolence); Satya (resolute speaking of truth to power); and Swaraj (resolute self-rule and local self-reliance). And remember the three attributes as well of any authentic act of Satyagraha: that it is mindful, strategic, and relentless.

What more can be said?

"The SACRED (whatever that means) is surely related (somehow) to the BEAUTIFUL (whatever that means)..."

--Gregory Bateson.

I picked up this quote from Bateson from a comment thread to an article I just read on the Internet; I have no idea which of his writings it comes from, but it is so typical of his wry, no-nonsense wisdom that I had to share it.

I like it because it openly acknowledges both the complete inadequacy and the occasional necessity of words like "the sacred" and "the beautiful" as signifiers pointing toward an experience of the numinous that cannot be either expressed or understood in words. And it simultaneously expresses total, experiential assurance ("surely") in its fundamental equation (the sacred = the beautiful) and a refreshing skepticism about his (or anyone's) intellectual formulations ("somehow" and "whatever that means") of what these words actually denote.

It is analogous, in this respect, with the wonderful opening line of Lao Tzu's classic Tao Te Ching: "Tao ke tao fei chang tao"--which Gia Fu Feng translates, "the Tao that can be spoken (that is, talked about) is not the eternal (or true) Tao." Another version of the same insight is Alfred Korzybski's famous insight about the limitations of language: "the map is not the territory and the name is not the thing named."

This being the case, we need to remember that our own experience of the Sacred (hence of Beauty) is not communicable to anyone else with words or concepts, and that the world's various religious traditions have created intrinsically inadequate systems of metaphors through which people can share and discuss their experience of the Sacred. The big error made by fundamentalists of all stripes, however, is to mistake the language and concepts--the symbolic and ideological constructs--for the ineffable experience of the Sacred itself to which they allude.

But if we remember, as Bateson said (like Keats) that Beauty and the Sacred are one, (and that we cannot hope to understand either) we have taken our first step toward emancipation from the clutches of self-serving religious ideologies to an appreciation of the Sacred (beauty) as it manifests in all religious traditions worldwide, as well as in sunsets, lakes, smiles, oak leaves, and butterflies.

Solstice Thoughts

"Everyone has the choice/When to and not to raise your voices/It's you that decides..."--George Harrison

Winter solstice--the Christmas Season, as it is generally called, is supposed to be "the season to be jolly" but as the cold weather sets in, I have generally felt quite the opposite--quiescent, at best; gloomy at worst. But one inconspicuous, but very reassuring fruit of my practice has come clear to me in recent days: the recognition that we have a lot more choice over our moods than most people think. We all have limited control over our external circumstances--we are of the nature to get sick, grow old, and die (realities that become ever clearer after one turns 60!), and there is little we can do to secure ourselves from the vicissitudes of life. But no matter how many aggravating things happen, no matter how many afflictive emotions arise, we are still free, at all times, to CHOOSE to breathe, observe, let go, and--when ready to do so authentically--smile--that is, to breathe in our own and others anguish, whatever it may be, and to breathe out love, to ourselves and all others. And then, quite simply, to do what needs to be done, cultivating friendliness, compassion, joy, and equanimity all the while.

The Four Antidotes

In a previous post (August) I wrote quite darkly of "The Five Poisons"--greed, ignorance, hatred, denial, and despair--that have come to dominate our public life, and certainly our public discourse, in this country. Here I would like to draw, once again, on Buddhist wisdom to offer four antidotes to these poisons--four ways to practice being what Thich Nhat Hanh once called "a lotus in a sea of fire" during his years in war-torn Vietnam. In Buddhist theory, these antidotes are called the four "Brahma-Viharas"--that is, dwelling places of the Divine, immeasurable states of mind or (more colloquially), useful attitudes to develop toward everyone until they become habitual. These are as follows:

1. Maitri (or in Pali, Metta)--the mind of love
2. Karuna--the mind of compassion
3. Mudita--the mind of empathetic joy
4. Upeksha (or in Pali, Upekkha)--the mind of equanimity.

Thay (Thich Nhat Hanh) quotes Nagarjuna, the second-century Buddhist philosopher:

"Practicing the Immeasurable Mind of Love extinguishes anger in the hearts of living beings. Practicing the Immeasurable Mind of Compassion extinguishes all sorrows and anxieties in the hearts of living beings. Practicing the Immeasurable Mind of Joy extinguishes sadness and joylessness in the hearts of living beings. Practicing the Immeasurable Mind of Equanimity ex­tinguishes hatred, aversion, and attachment in the hearts of living beings."

Let's look at these four useful mind states in a bit more detail, trying to see beyond the connotative static that often accompanies words such as "love" and see, instead, how we can make them real in our everyday lives.

1. Maitri (Metta), often translated as "love" or "loving kindness" can be understood more colloquially, with less connotative baggage, as friendliness. An easy way to practice cultivating this state of habitual friendliness is to soften, deliberately, the muscles around your eyes, which often tighten up out of stress or defensiveness, and allow your mouth to relax into a gentle smile. Remarkably, when you deliberately take such simple physical actions, they have an immediate effect on your mental disposition toward the people you encounter. You feel friendlier toward them, and remarkably enough, they often smile back. It is important to practice this friendliness without any attachment whatsoever, without an agenda. It is easy, particularly for men, to smile at beautiful women, for example, but there is always, even unconsciously, an agenda attached: "Maybe she will take an interest in me!" Therefore try the same easy, relaxed smile when you see other men, homely old women, young children, or anyone else. Try it even with people you are inclined not to like, and you will find that your hostility toward them begins to dissolve--that you become more generally accepting of other people.

2. Karuna--"Compassion," the usual translation, literally means "suffering with" someone. But as Thich Nhat Hanh points out, Karuna involves, "the intention and capacity to relieve and transform suffering and lighten sor­rows." Once you have developed a firm foundation--a good mental habit--of Maitri or genuine, unaffected friendliness toward others, it is quite easy, and very healing, to become aware of others' suffering, and to be ready, whenever possible, to be there for them in their need, whether literally, through donations, or in spirit.

The challenge here is to cultivate such awareness without giving rise to a corresponding resentment of those who cause the suffering, for such resentment leads all too quickly to the poison of hatred. This is why the Tibetans, for example, encourage us to cultivate compassion for both the perpetrators and the victims of the ongoing Chinese oppression of Tibet. The powerful Tibetan practice of Tonglen--breathing in your own and others' pain and suffering, and breathing out love and healing--can be a powerful way of developing compassion for victims and perpetrators alike, and thereby decoupling compassion for victims from resentment of perpetrators.

But it takes lots of practice, and I can't pretend that I am there yet. When I see pictures of oil-soaked sea birds, victims of our Iraq or Afghanistan invasions, sick people without health insurance, or displaced homeowners who have been evicted through foreclosure, it is still very difficult for me to resist the co-arising of compassion for these victims with bitter resentment for BP, the Bush regime, the insurance industry, or the financial services industry...I need to remember, in such instances, the wisdom of Alice Walker's mother when she asked her how she managed not to hate the KKK and other racists who afflicted her. Her response was classic: "If they knew better, they'd do better." So when we encounter greedy or hateful people or their victims, the practice, taking a cue from Alice's mother, is to practice Karuna for the ignorance that gives rise to the perpetrators' greed and hatred, as well as Karuna for those who suffer its consequences. Not an easy task, but I'm working on it.

3. Mudita refers to joy, not just for ourselves, but for others as well. It is a natural outgrowth of Maitri or a friendly disposition, and it arises naturally as well from learning to abide in the present moment. A good translation might be "the ability to enjoy"--that is, the ability to feel a shared sense of gratitude and well-being, an awareness of beauty, in whatever we perceive. I find that a good place to practice Mudita is at the periodic TCC graduation ceremonies that we attend each semester. Despite the tedium of the ceremony--all the citations and pontificating--I love to sit on the side of the arena where I can see the radiant faces of all the students who have just received their diplomas, and share their joy. It is a good, healthy thing to do.

4. Upeksha, or equanimity, comes from the roots upa meaning "over" (cognate, through Indo-European, with the Greek prefix hyper- and the Latin prefix super-) and iksh which means "to look." So the etymology points to the core meaning: the ability to overlook--to let go, particularly, of perceived insults or slights. Thay likens it to climbing a mountain and "looking over"all sides. It involves nondiscrimination and nonattachment--the ability to empathize with, and understand, both sides of any given dispute or conflict. And like Karuna, it is difficult to cultivate toward those people or ideas that you don't like. As with all these other healthy habits of mind, it is best cultivated through the "essential discipline," in all circumstances, of breathing, observing, and letting go.

Finally, these four healthy attitudes all reinforce and give rise to one another. Maitri and Mudita are easy to cultivate, because they bring immediate rewards, both to ourselves and to others. Karuna and Upeksha are more of a challenge, because they both involve overcoming our own habitual resentments and attachments. But both are easier to cultivate if we establish a firm foundation of Maitri--an open, gracious, friendly attitude toward all whom we encounter, and Mudita--the ability to enjoy, selflessly, the beauty of the present moment. In time, all four "abodes" become available for us for meeting any person or situation we encounter: Maitri as a baseline attitude toward everyone we encounter; Karuna whenever we encounter or hear of people who are hurting or suffering, Mudita whenever beauty manifests, and Upeksha whenever people get ugly.

The Soul of a Cat

Today is my 61st birthday--an event I greet with little more than a yawn and a sigh:

"I am of the nature to grow old; there is no way I can avoid growing old."

This being the case, it is well, I think, to devote more of my attention, not to politics or other pernicious public follies well beyond my control, nor to future plans, since the future is getting smaller and more dubious with every passing day, but rather to the wonders of the present moment, and to being there for all others; that is, to cultivating mindfulness and compassion.

This morning as I walked into the bedroom after breakfast, I saw my cat Anthony--himself 16 years old and showing many signs of feline impermanence. Seeing me come in, he paused and coiled up like a spring at the food of the bed, intending to jump up and enjoy the cuddling and attention I generally lavish on him. But then, he reconsidered, turned around, and led me to the back door, so he could go outside instead and enjoy the crisp, cool morning for a while. Being an old cat, he seldom stays out long any more, especially since there is a strapping young alpha male red tiger cat, Boots, right across the street, and in any feline political turf struggle, Anthony would come out the worse.

But what caught my attention is how obviously he reconsidered. At that moment he was obviously weighing the alternatives between investing the energy (now depleted with age) necessary to jump up on the bed for my attention, as opposed to using that energy to step out for a refreshing, but wary look around the yard. In other words, he was evaluating his options--that is, thinking.

It all brought back a debate I had at the age of 13 with my junior high science teacher, a mean old battle-axe by the name of Mrs. Campbell. One day, in keeping with the anthropocentric ideology that then was accepted as "science," she explained how humans alone have the ability to reason, while all other animals (she simply called them "animals" as if we were not!) are driven by "instinct." I raised my hand and begged to differ, citing the example of our family cat Richie evaluating the distance from one branch to the other in a tree by triangulating (though I did not know the word then)--raising and lowering his head--before deciding whether or not to risk a jump. Mrs. Campbell ridiculed me ruthlessly for suggesting that Richie was showing "judgment" (which, in fact, he was) repeating once again that it was merely "instinct" (and thus something totally different from human reasoning). Naturally, she did not define "instinct." To her, the difference was self-evident, however unexamined. Despite her ridicule--quickly picked up by the other students--I stood my ground, insisting that Richie's behavior showed a form of "judgment" analogous to decision-making by humans. From then on, my fellow students sneered at me day in and out, saying things like "Have you talked to your cat, lately, Ellis?"

I was right, of course, but I did not have the intellectual tools to support my argument fully until some 20-odd years later, when I first read Gregory Bateson, a philosopher/biologist of phenomenal intelligence who completely deconstructed for me the Cartesian dualist ideology on the basis of which Mrs. Campbell had made her categorical distinction between human "reason" and nonhuman "instinct." Bateson observed, among other things, that the word "instinct" is what he called "an explanantory concept"--that is, an empty signifier that simply covers up a gap in our understanding. In this case, he pointed out, we simply don't know how other animals process information or make decisions, since they have no language to explain it to us, so we bracket and conceptualize our ignorance by giving it a name--"Instinct."

The Buddhists, as usual, know better, and have been knowing it: that mind is something shared by all sentient beings, but that humans are simply lucky because we happened to have been born with the unique gift of language, which not only allows us to process conceptual information far more precisely, but also to practice the Dharma--that is, practice conscious breathing, observing and letting go of those concepts themselves, and thereby to realize the emptiness that underlies all of these artificial distinctions...including the so-called distinction between "reason" and "instinct." Thereupon we realize, yet again, what William Blake meant when he said, "Everything that lives is holy."

Thank you, Anthony, for that insight. And thank you, Mrs. Campbell, for creating the causes and conditions that made me seek out that insight. May you, likewise, awaken to the Dharma in some future rebirth.

The Five Poisons

As most thoughtful people are aware, the political culture in the US is becoming very toxic these days. Traumatized by the landslide election of a charismatic black liberal President, two major corporate-backed right-wing media monopolies, Fox "News" (sic) and ClearChannel (sic) Radio are shamelessly poisoning the airwaves with the pervasive, strident ranting of scurrilous, paranoid, pernicious, lying demagogues like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, and far too many others. They have already convinced a sizeable chunk of the population of blatant lies--that Obama is either a Muslim, a "furriner" born in Kenya, a "socialist," a "Nazi," a black nationalist who "hates white people" (Beck's actual words) or--quite simply--the Antichrist; someone who hates God and America alike and must, in their shared view, be destroyed "by any means necessary." And Republican politicians, never much noted for integrity, have been all too quick to pander to just such paranoid, hysterical nonsense in order to gain votes.

This pervasive "prolefeed" (Orwell's coinage for such venal and pervasive media lies and distractions to keep the masses in the dark) has the Democrats running scared and backing off from their initiatives, while the Republicans have just had a landslide sweep in the Midterm Elections, bringing many of the looniest of these "Tea Party" crazies right into the Senate and House. Such a terrifying outbreak of media-manipulated collective insanity is reminiscent in so many ways of the rise of the Nazis to power, the more recent Serbian genocide campaign against the Muslims, Pol Pot in Cambodia, and the Rwandan Genocide. Is this where we are headed?

The bodhisattva Franklin Delano Roosevelt, coming into office in a similarly crazy and unhinged time (the Great Depression) said it best: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

Taking my cue from this insight, I wish to review some useful Buddhist wisdom, putting my own spin on it as always.

The Five Poisons begin with the Big Three poisons from the Buddhist tradition: Greed (Attachment), Ignorance, and Hatred (Aversion). But to these three, I would add two equally toxic spin-offs: Denial and Despair. All these poisons are pervasive in each of us and all of us--they are the wellsprings of Samsara, of the cycles of endless suffering in which we are trapped.

Greed, of course, is everywhere--it is the central organizing principle, or so it seems, of our modern Glomart society. "More is always better," and "To be is to buy;" these are the two messages we see and hear on television, all day every day. We are brainwashed, day in and day out, never to feel that we have enough, but always to want more stuff. Greed is also, of course, the central theme of Republican political discourse: "It's Your Money" the slogan popularized by Bob Dole, is the Republican mantra--that is, "Don't you dare take any of MY money to do ANYTHING for anyone else!"

Ignorance is, of course, the root of delusion, the root of both greed and hatred. The fundamental ignorance, according to Buddhist thought, is the illusory belief in a separate self, apart from everyone and everything else; the common belief we all have that we, somehow, are more important than anyone else. Hence "Looking out for No. 1" was the recurrent, hackneyed slogan of a flood of aggressive, mean-spirited self-help books, starting in the Reagan era--the Greed Society, as it was called.

But ignorance also arises from the loss of any ability to think, to distinguish truth from falsehood, about anything else. And such willful ignorance is also an epidemic in the US today: most people believe whatever they see and hear on TV or the internet, while our corporate media, competing for audience share with ever more sensationalism, have essentially abandoned their traditional investigative role of separating fact from fantasy or holding public officials accountable for lies. And so, increasingly, we live in a time of "universal deceit" when, as Orwell said, "telling the truth is a revolutionary act."

From greed (or sanctified selfishness) and ignorance naturally arises Hatred--the most malignant poison of them all. "If I can't get what I want, I will hate all those who deny it to me." Hence the right wing hatemongers trade on the fact that most people are easily swayed to hatred, so they openly and hysterically encourage the demonization of Muslims, contempt for the poor, racism, and generalized hatred of "big guv'mint" as the root of all evil--especially when the government tries to use taxpayers' money for decent, charitable purposes. They have no problem with the government squandering billions to invade and destroy Iraq and Afghanistan, because there they are (somehow) "protecting our freedom from the ter'rists." But try to spend one dime to create new jobs, curb carbon emissions, or provide health care to the indigent, and they raise the hysterical cry of "Socialism" and tell their followers to stock up on guns to "take our country back."

The problem is that the average ignorant TV-watching Joe out there loves his employer, however exploitive, because he pays him, and hates the government, because it taxes and regulates him or his employer. And nobody likes to be taxed or regulated. For this reason, such ordinary, unthinking people are easy prey for the hate-spewing demagogues to stir them into a frenzy of anti-government paranoia. This serves the agenda of Big Business perfectly, for it makes our elected officials terrified of regulating their emissions or raising their taxes, for fear of the wrath of the hate-intoxicated multitudes.

And the prime target of all this toxic hatred, on whom they focus it like a laser beam, is, of course, President Obama, the (negro) Muslim/Furriner/Socialist/Fascist/Dictator/Antichrist of their most feverish, media-induced nightmares.

The fourth Poison is Denial, the absolute refusal to admit the truth of a disturbing proposition when it is staring you in the face, and the consequent loathing (amplified, of course, by the Right Wing Hate Machine) of anyone who dares to speak these truths. The obvious examples today are the continuing, widespread denial of global warming, even by political leaders, despite overwhelming evidence from climate scientists worldwide, and the absolute refusal of the entire corporate media to allow anyone to question the (transparently absurd) Official Story of 9/11. If any one in the public eye even dares to raise such questions--to ask, for example, how it is possible for the top sixth of a steel frame building to disintegrate and simultaneously pulverize the lower 5/6ths at freefall rate without encountering any resistance--that person is instantly marginalized, smeared, and often subject to job loss and worse.

All of this spiraling madness in our country has opened up a vat of the Fifth Poison, Despair. Indeed, if the Republicans have become the party of Greed, Ignorance, Hatred, and Denial, the Democrats are now the Party of Despair, vainly trying to appease the howling mobs and hold onto their seats by watering down or compromising every principle they ever may have stood for, all while pathetically sending out desperate fundraising alerts to their despondent and disheartened base.

How did we ever fall so far, in such a short time, from the triumph of Election Day 2008? It is hard to say--President Obama is partly to blame for not being more aggressive and hitting back hard when attacked from all sides by the Lying Machine. He made the classic Machiavellian error of trying, as a leader, to be loved, rather than feared. He also made the huge mistake of trying to reach compromises with the vipers of the Republican party, rather than simply using his sizeable majority in both houses to push through his agenda and make them like it (as Roosevelt or Truman would have done). And as a consequence, his initiatives were so watered down that by the time they passed, they were worthless--and the Republicans simply amped up their well-funded hate campaign in response. So now his power base has eroded altogether, while his enemies surround him on every side like rabid hyenas. It is hard, under such dire circumstances, to feel anything but despair, for our country and for the planet.

So OK, what are antidotes to these poisons? I'll save that for the next blog...