The Only Power We Have

The only question these days, or so it seems to me, is, "How do we live in this world as it is?" Because it is no secret to anyone that we are in a bit of a mess. We are threatened on every side, or so it appears, and it is difficult to remain optimistic. And yet I am. I am not naively optimistic that everything is going to be O.K., because I'm pretty sure it's not, at least not by the definitions of okayness I have always held as my measure of such things. And sometimes I genuinely despair when I think of the world children being born right now will inherit.

No, my optimism has an entirely different source, one that is difficult for me to tap into from time to time, but which is much more solid and real than the cynicism it is so easy to fall into these days. It is not that everything will someday be alright, but the thought, the deeply held understanding that they could not be otherwise.

I know this can seem to be a tautology: things are as they are because they are as they are and could not be otherwise because if they could be otherwise, they would be otherwise. Well...duh. But that's not really what I mean. The deep meaning of the teachings of the Buddha (at least as far as I am capable of penetrating them with my relatively shallow insight) is that there is nothing that cannot be made worse by wishing it were otherwise. And there is no joy that cannot be ruined by wishing that it could remain forever so. The good and the bad (so-called) arise and pass away.

Each generation believes they are living in the end times. I recall very clearly the certainty we felt in the 1970s that nuclear apocalypse was upon us and the only question was when it would happen. We had to decide from day to day whether or not it was worthwhile making plans. Kathy and I had quite a serious discussion about bringing children into a world they would never see into adulthood; that is how thoroughly we believed in the end of everything. Yet that era arose and passed away. From the luxury of historical remove, we can see that world wars have a beginning, a horrid middle and a joyous end. But in the minds of those living through them there is no such certainty. They, too, have lived through the certainty of end times that nonetheless never arrived.

So, I go through my life with two key commandments for myself: the first is to practice complete and utter acceptance to the best of my ability, because pushing against the reality of what is will only increase the misery of all those around me. The second is to do my very best not to make things worse. There are actions I can take to ameliorate my small corner of global climate change. I can vote for and support those who practice tolerance and kindness. I can open my heart to everyone around me to the best of my ability (I am not very good at this, I admit—it's scary. But I try). I will assume that everything will come out precisely as it is supposed to, not in some sort of "God predestined it" way, but because, indeed, it could not have happened any other way. To presume we can change the past to create a better future is pure fantasy and is not helpful.

And I will not hate. I understand that there are many people who are doing a great many despicable things, but to practice hatred is to let those evildoers call the tune and create in me a place of hardness and rage to match theirs. Humans seem to share an odd delusion that if we practice hate toward a person or group of people, somehow our hatred will overwhelm theirs (somewhat analagous to shouting at the television to change the outcome of the ballgame). Where is the evidence for this? How exactly would that work? Do we believe Donald Trump has the answer to these questions? He seems to think he does, but I have yet to hear him give us a practical plan for how hate is going to solve anything at all, how it will not in fact make things much, much worse, than they already are.

I am not going to do these things because they are the right thing to do, even though they are. I am not going to do them in the vague hope that my love will spread all over the world and make things better, though it might. I am going to do these things because it is the only decent, respectful, openhearted, constructive, proper way to live, and in the end, it is the only decent, respectful, openhearted, constructive, proper way to die, if that is what is to come sooner rather than later.

What else can we do? How can we do anything but love? What other power do we have?

A Year of Metta

I have been pondering the metta sutta recently. For those of you not familiar with the teachings of the Buddha, metta can be translated in several different ways, but most commonly as lovingkindness. And a sutta is simply a teaching. So, the metta sutta is a teaching on lovingkindness delivered by the Buddha.

One of the things that led me to consider this sutta is that quirk of human character which makes all of us more or less selfish. I know this sounds like a criticism, but what I mean is that we are hardwired for survival of ourselves as organisms, and that while essentially no effort is required to think in this way, quite a bit of effort is required to think altruistically.

This fact is not a problem, really, at least not for the most part. Of course, taken to an extreme, this overarching philosophy is the source of all war and the degradation of the environment, since we tend to think rather narrowly about personal or tribal survival at the expense of more (literally and figuratively) global concern. But on a day to day basis, thinking in this way does not really create much havoc.

But it doesn't create much harmony, either, and I have been wondering if my own life and the lives of those around me might not be made considerably more harmonious if I focused my attention on ways of serving others as my first consideration. It's not that I'm some insensitive bastard in my accustomed mode, mind you, but I do find myself rather narrowly focused on what is going to get me through the day, rather than how I can make your life simpler or easier.

Thus the metta sutta. It seems to me that this simple teaching provides the guidance I need to make this shift in thinking and acting in the world.

One quick word on the name of this sutta. Metta can apparently be translated in several ways. I don't speak Pali, of course, but a teacher I trust (Christina Feldman) has chosen the term unconditional friendliness as the translation she prefers. She has said that the term love can be quite a loaded term for many of us, and kindness a bit vague. On the other hand, unconditional friendliness seems to her (and to me) very specific and describes a way of being in the world to which we can all aspire. Thus, from here on out, when I speak of metta, it is this translation I will use. You probably won't see me write the word lovingkindness in this blog for quite some time.

Not that I dislike the word itself, but I do feel it has become code for some sort of vague, warm, fuzzy feeling toward the whole world and all the creatures in it. I'm not sure that's what the Buddha had in mind. We can all generate happy thoughts about bunnies. What metta asks of us is much more stringent. Can you, it asks, feel unconditional friendliness toward everyone and everything? Toward nuclear reactors and ISIS? Toward those who practice hatred, greed, and violence? Toward people who have done the deepest damage to you in your life? Rather than the casual generation of good vibes, metta may well be among the hardest work any of us will ever do.

What I am proposing is to make metta the heart of my practice for a full year. I have taken such vows before (not metta vows, but others) and find that a year is a good test of my discipline. Also, after doing just about anything for a year, it usually becomes an integral part of who I am. That is the hope. Because I distrust the whole idea of New Year's resolutions (too often bogus, too often broken by January 15), I propose to begin this on Decmeber 1st, which is, of course, in a few days.

I'll keep you posted. In future posts, I will also write a bit more about the sutta itself so that you (and I along with you) can figure out a bit of what this vow means. What have I gotten myself into? I guess we'll see.

IOU

I have no delusion that Phillip Seymour Hoffman owed me anything. He didn't know me, nor I him. We weren't friends. Still...

Art is a contract, isn't it? We both (creator and consumer) invest something in the exchange and expect something in return. That seems only fair. Without my emotional investment, the roles Hoffman played would be meaningless to me. And without a similar investment by thousands of others, he wouldn't have been able to do what he did at all, because there wouldn't have been an audience for it.

Don't get me wrong, I think the guy had every right to be a junkie if he wanted. He had the right to take his own life, too, if the overdose was intentional (though I choose to think it was not). But still there is an anger in me that he left so soon, that what I gave, though a minuscule part of the whole, was so lightly regarded that he could die before his time. That perspective feels a bit bizarre even to me, but I think it's a valid one.

Not taking care to stay here for us is a breach of faith, it seems to me. Now, retiring from the scene (as in Grace Kelly, for instance, or J.D. Salinger) is a different matter—they and others like them decide for whatever reason that they are through with serving up what we want. But to exit inadvertently or with malice, either one, is to rip apart that bond between us, no matter how tenuous it might be.

David Foster Wallace

Do you hear that, Marilyn? John Belushi, are you listening? David Foster Wallace, you prick, did you hear what I said? Does this ring a bell, Heath? C'mon, Kurt, did you really have to put that gun in your mouth? James Gandolfini, Andy Kaufman, Whitney Houston, James Dean, Jim Morrison, Judy Garland, Jimi, Janice, oh the list goes on and on. It is so sad. I feel so deprived.

And I feel a bit of a cheat, too. What business do I have to still be alive when The Big Bopper died so young?

Yet, we carry on. The world goes round. We celebrate who they were and listen, watch, and read what they did. We hold them in our hearts. We hope they are at peace. We wish them well on the journey. We go on.

But It's Still Work

I have been writing quite a bit lately about letting go, which sounds so easy. And it is easy, once we get past all of the things that stand in the way. But getting past those things requires an enormous amount of work.

Now, why should this be? I have been curious about this question for as long as I remember. Why are we not just born with an innate sense of the value of letting go of all those things that keep us from happiness and joy? Is there some adaptive reason why we can't just begin life as wise beings?

I think there is. Of course, some people are born more wise than others (I have no idea why that might be so, though it seems to be), but all of us have to go through the maturation process of separation from our parents and making our way in the world, which is, in a word, terrifying. It might also be wonderful, exciting, and cool, but it is nonetheless terrifying. We respond to that terror with ways of coping which make life more bearable, but which also isolate us, place barriers between ourselves and others and also between ourselves and the naked truth.

Babies are born with an utter openness, which they then lose. Those of us seeking freedom later in life must work to get that openness back. But it would be futile to hang on to that infantile openness, because only with experience can we gain wisdom. And it is only when the openness is combined with wisdom that it can actually lead anywhere worth going. Freedom without wisdom is empty, even dangerous.

But what exactly is the work we have in front of us? That is, perhaps, the most important question we will ever ask ourselves. I suppose that for each of it the form this work takes is different, measured out not only on the basis of our preferences, but as a result of our individual experiences. Still, there is a common theme to the work we must do if we are to reach the freedom that is available to each of us.

I have come to believe that this work may have no better name than kindness. I am aware that this seems a bit wimpy; I could have said "justice" or "spiritual awakening" or "enlightenment", but I truly believe that these (and other such aspirations) are a result, more than anything, of kindness. Because if we aspire for ourselves, we are leaving behind all those poor, benighted others that don't achieve what we achieve. Only with a heart of kindness can we know that all must be brought along with us for spiritual attainment to be worthwhile.

Language, as always, is inadequate to express what exactly I mean by kindness. In Pali, the word metta is familiar to most practitioners of the Dharma. Metta is generally taken to mean "lovingkindness", but also translates (so I am told) as "unconditional friendliness" and "openheartedness", as well as other, similar terms. What would it be like to be entirely loving, friendly, and openhearted? What would it take to be thoroughly kind?

What would be required is complete and unconditional acceptance of life as it is, of others as they are, of ourselves just as we are in this moment. What would be required is letting go, but doing so with unconditional love.

Does this sound impossible? It's not. It's unlikely, but not impossible. And the good news is that we can start absolutely anywhere. Try this: be the nicest person the grocery store clerk encounters all day. Just do that. It is an act of love. It is openheartedness. It is metta. It is not only the road to ultimate peace, but the road to true freedom, what we choose to call nirvana. We can achieve this one grocery clerk at a time. Start there. Work your way up to the person you find most unforgivable. When we hate or resent, when we put any creature out of our hearts, we are only poisoning ourselves.

It is simple, truly it is. Not easy, but simple. Peace awaits us.