BALANCE: "NOT SEEKING ONLY PLEASURE WITH A PASSION EXCESSIVE"

Vatsyayana, Kama Sutra: A Guide to the Art of Pleasure, translated from the Sanskrit by A. N. D. Haksar (New York: Penguin Books, 2011) (From the translator's "Introduction": "The Kama Sutra was written during a period of economic growth with greater scope for elegant living, and of increased cultural activity, in a society which recognized the legitimacy of pleasure as a basic human pursuit, along with that of virtue and wealth. It expounded on the first, but also urged a balance with the other two, as is evident from the final verse of its epilogue. Its detailed expositions on the lifestyles of cultivated gentlemen and fashionable courtesans gives some idea of the audience to which it was addressed. Later literary evidence would indicate that both used it as a guide for recreational and professional purposes. But it also dwells on other matters, specially of marital import: the aesthetic education of girls; the wooing of a prospective bride; the role of partners in matrimony, monogamous as well as polygamous; and also on romantic relationships outside marriage, apart from erotic techniques for the enhancement of sensual pleasure. It is thus a fairly comprehensive manual on loving and living, and deals both with contemporary issues and others which are timeless." Id. at xxiv-xxv. From the "Epilogue": "One who understands the essence of these precepts and safeguards the state of Dharma, Artha, Kama in himself and in the world, will his senses truly conquer. // Learned and adept in these, looking to virtue, also wealth and not seeking only pleasure with a passion excessive, he will succeed in what he does." Id. at 186.).

SUGGESTED FICTION

Adalbert Stifter, Rock Crystal, translated from the German by Elizabeth Mayer & Marianne Moore, with and Introduction by W. H. Auden (New York: New York Review Books, 1945, 2008).

Donald Barthelme, Forty Stories, with an Introduction by Dave Eggers (New York: Penguin Books, 1987, 2008).

Donald Barthelme, Sixty Stories, with an Introduction by David Gates (New York: Penguin Books, 1982, 2003).

Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, Introduced by Michael Moorcock, and Illustrated by Sam Weber (London: Folio Society, 2011) ("It was a strange quiet meeting. The old man admitted to being a retired English Professor who had been thrown out upon the world forty years ago when the last liberal arts college shut for lack of students and patronage." Id. at 68.).

Elizabeth Taylor, A Game of Hide and Seek, with an Introduction by Caleb Crain (New York: New York Review Books, 1951, 2012) (from the bookjacket:"Harriet and Vesey meet when they are teenagers, and their love is as intense and instantaneous as it is innocent. But they are young. All life still lies ahead. Vesey heads off hopefully to pursue a career as an actor. Harriet marries and has a child, becoming a settled member of suburban society. And then Vesey returns, the worse for wear, and with him the love whose memory they have both sentimentally cherished, and even after so much has happened it cannot be denied. But things are not at all as they used to be. Love, it seems, is hardly designed to survive life.").

IT IS THE LITTLE THINGS IN LIFE

Barbara Ann Kipfer, 14,000 Things To Be Happy About: The Happy Book, Revised and Updated, Illustrated by Pierre Le-Tan (New York: Workman Publishing, 2007).

DON'T TRY TO CHANGE THE SITUATION

Chogyam Trungpa, Meditation in Action (40th Anniversary Edition), with a afterword by Samuel Bercholz (Boston & London: Shambhala, 2010) ("Of course, one generally associates 'wisdom' with some special activity and one immediately rejects the present situation. . . . . But something is not quite right, because sooner or later you have to return to that same familiar street and those same familiar people, and everyday life continues on and on; one can never escape from it. So the point is, one must not try to change the situation--in fact one cannot. Since you are not a king, who could just give an order and stop things happening, you can only deal with what is nearest to you, which is yourself. . . . One must not blame one's surroundings, one must not blame people, one must not blame eternal conditions, but without trying to change anything, just step in and try to observe. That is real sampa, real contemplation on the subject. And when one is able to overcome the romantic and emotional attitude, one discovers truth even in the kitchen sink. So the whole point is not to reject, but to make use of that very moment, whatever the situation may be, and accept it, and respect it. Id. at 85-86.).

NPD

Elsa F. Ronningstam, Identifying and Understanding the Narcissistic Personality (Oxford & New York: Oxford U. Press, 2005) ("The workplace may present extraordinary challenges for the narcissistic individual as it usually requires a capacity to understand and attend to more or less explicit rules for and patterns of interpersonal interactions. The team belongingness among peer colleagues, the hierarchical interaction vis-a-vis supervisors, managers, and bosses/leaders and the relationship with partners outside the workplace can contribute to difficult internal experiences and interpersonal conflicts for narcissistic people. Power, competition, sub-group belongingness, informal hierarchies of status and popularity, gossip, and so on, can trigger unmanageable rage and/or insecurity. Despite exceptional skills and knowledge, it is not uncommon that these interpersonal conditions create such overwhelming problems for the narcissistic person, often expressed in an inability or unwillingness to collaborate and follow rules for communication and exchange, rage outbursts, ignoring or deliberately overstepping rules and boundaries, efforts to dominate and take control, or to form special or influential relationships. The person may struggle with experiences of being outside, excluded, or isolated, or with feelings of insecurity, envy, or resentment toward more senior or competent people, or with issues related to specialness and advantages." Id. at 138. Most of us have at least a touch of narcissism. Another reason for trying to live life with greater mindfulness.).

SELF-UNDERSTANDING

George Lakoff & Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, with a New Afterword (Chicago & London: U. of Chicago Press, 1980, 2003) ("The capacity for self-understanding presupposes the capacity for mutual understanding. Common sense tells us that it's easier to understand ourselves than to understand other people. After all, we tend to think that we have direct access to our own feelings and ideas and not to anybody else's. Self-understanding seems prior to mutual understanding, and in some ways it is. But any really deep understanding of why we do what we do, feel what we feel, change as we change, and even believe what we believe, takes us beyond ourselves. Understanding of ourselves is not unlike other forms of understanding--it comes out of our constant interactions with our physical, cultural, and interpersonal environment. At a minimum, the skills required for mutual understanding are necessary even to approach self-understanding. Just as in mutual understanding we constantly search out commonalities of experience when we speak with other people, so in self-understanding we are always searching for what unifies our own diverse experiences in order to give coherence to our lives. Just as we seek out metaphors to highlight and make coherent what we have in common with someone else, so we seek out personal metaphors to highlight and make coherent our own pasts, our present activities, and our dreams, hopes, and goals as well. A large part of self-understanding is the search for appropriate personal metaphors that make sense of our lives. Self-understanding requires unending negotiation and renegotiation of the meaning of your experiences to yourself. In therapy, for example, much of self-understanding involves consciously recognizing previously unconscious metaphors and how we live by them. It involves the constant construction of new coherence in your life, coherence that give new meaning to old experiences. The process of self-understanding is the continual development of new life stories for yourself." "The experientialist approach to the process of self-understanding involves: Developing an awareness of the metaphors we live by and an awareness of where they enter onto our every day lives and where they do not[;] Having experiences that can form the basis of alternative metaphors[;] Developing an 'experiential flexibility'[;] Engaging in an unending process of viewing your life through new alternative metaphors." Id. at 232-233.).

SEARCHING "FOR MEANING AND FULFILLMENT BEYOND THE AMBIGUOUS FULFILLMENTS AND FRUSTRATIONS OF HISTORY"

Reinhold Niebuhr, The Children of Light and The Children of Darkness: A Vindication of Democracy and a Critique of Its Traditional Defense, with a new Introduction by Gary Dorrien (Chicago & London: U. of Chicago Press, 1944, 2011) ("These profound questions about life from the perspective of the individual who is able to see the whole history of his nation (and of all nations for that matter) as a flux of time, imply eternity. Only a consciousness which transcends time can define and circumscribe the flux of time. The man who searches after both meaning and fulfillments beyond the ambiguous fulfillments and frustrations of history exists in a height of spirit which no historical process can completely contain. This height is not irrelevant to the life of the community, because new richness and a higher possibility of justice come to the community from this height of awareness. But the height is destroyed by any community which seeks prematurely to cut off this pinnacle of individuality in the interest of the community's peace and order. The problem of the individual and the community cannot be solved at all if the height is not achieved where the sovereign source and end of both individual and communal existence are discerned, and where the limits are set against the idolatrous self-worship of both individuals and communities." Id. at 84-85.).

CORE TEACHINGS OF BUDDHISM

Thich Nhat Nanh, The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation: The Four Noble Truths, The Noble Eightfold Path, and Other Basic Buddhist Teachings (New York: Broadway Boook, 1999).

"MAKE PREPARATIONS TO DEPART"

Padmasambhava, The Tibetan Book of The Dead: First Complete Translation [English Title]; The Great Liberation by Hearing in the Intermediate States [Tibetan Title], Revealed by Terton Karma Lingpa, Translated by Gyurme Dorje; Edited by Graham Coleman with Thupten Jinpa; and with Introductory Commentary by His Holiness The Dalai Lama (New York: Penguin Books, 2007) ("Alas! This illusory and feeble aggregate of form, Created from compound past actions and conditions, Like [the flame of] a butter lamp blowing in the wind, cannot last forever. Nothing at all exists which is not subject to the conditioning of death, And indeed, since it is uncertain when death will occur, One should constantly be cognisant of the signs of [impending] death, And strive after [the accumulation of] virtue. There are two [primary] conditions responsible for the death of human beings: [First] untimely death and [second] death due to the [natural] exhaustion of the lifespan. Untimely or sudden death may be averted, By successful application of the Ritual Deception of Death, But death due to the [natural] exhaustion of the lifespan Is like the burning out of a butter lamp, So there is no way of averting this through 'ritual deception', And thus, [if this is indicated], one should make preparations to depart. . . ." Id. at 155-156.).

"MAY I BE FREE FROM ATTACHMENT AND AVERSION, BUT NOT BE INDIFFERENT."

Thich Nhat Hanh, Reconciliation: Healing the Inner Child (Berkeley: Parallax Press, 2010) ("May I know how to nourish the seeds of joy in myself every day. / May I be able to live fresh, solid, and free. / May I be free from attachment and aversion, but not be indifferent." Id. at 85.).

SUGGESTED FICTION

Michel Houellebecq, The Map and The Territory: A Novel, translated from the French by Gavin Bowd (New York: Knopf, 2012) ("Aging, and especially apparent aging, is in no respect a continuous process. Life could rather be characterized as a succession of levels, separated by sudden falls. When we meet someone we have lost sight of for some years, we sometimes have the impression that he has aged; sometimes, on the other hand, that he hasn't changed at all. This is a complete fallacy, since decay is still secretly making its way inside the organism before bursting out into broad daylight." Id. at 149-150. "Quite ironically, he had interrupted his medical studies between the first and second years because he could no longer bear the dissections, nor even the sight of corpses. Law had immediately interested him a lot, and like almost all his classmates he considered a career as a lawyer, but his parents' divorce was to make him change his mind. It was a divorce between old people, he was already twenty-three, and their only child. In young people's divorces, the presence of children, whose care they have to share, and who are loved more or less despite everything, often lessens the violence of the confrontation; but in old people's divorces, when there remains only financial and inheritance interests, the savagery of the fight no longer knows any limits. He had then realized exactly what a lawyer is, he had got a full sense of that mixture of deceit and laziness which sums up the professional behavior of a lawyer, and most particularly of a lawyer specializing in divorce. The procedure had lasted more than two years, two years of endless struggle at the end of which his parents felt for each other a hatred so violent that they were never to see or even phone each other for the rest of their lives, and all that just to reach a divorce agreement of depressing banality, that any cretin could have written in a quarter of an hour after reading Divorce for Dummies." Id. at 185-186.).

Alan Lightman, Mr. g: A Novel About the Creation (New York: Pantheon Books, 2012) ("As I remember, I had just woken up from a nap when I decided to create the universe." Id. at 3.).

Barry Unsworth, The Quality of Mercy: A Novel (New York: Nan A Talese/ Doubleday, 2011).

EMBRACE THE SEED OF FEAR

Thich Nhat Hanh, Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames (New York: Riverhead Books, 2001) ("[T]he Buddha said that all of us have the seed of fear, but most of us suppress it and keep it locked in the dark. To help us identify, embrace, and look deeply at the seed of fear, he offered us the practice of the Five Remembrances: '[1] I am of the nature to grow old. I cannot escape old age. [2] I am of the nature to have ill health. I cannot escape ill health. [3] I am of the nature to die. I cannot ex cape dying. [4] All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them. I cannot keep anything. I cone here empty-handed, and I go empty-handed. [5] My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground on which I stand.' Everyday we have to practice like this, taking a few moments to contemplate each exercise as we follow our breathing. We practice the Five Remembrances so that the seed of fear can circulate. We must invite it up to be recognized, to be embraced. And then when it goes back down again, it becomes smaller." Id. at 175.).

SUGGESTED SUMMER (2012) READINGS FOR LAW STUDENTS; OR, A THIRTEEN CASEBOOKS OR (STUDENT) TREATISES I WOULD WORK MY WAY THROUGH WERE I A LAW STUDENT

I know that so-called "experiential learning" is the current rage. Yet, experiential learning may not be the best way to learn some things, and is certainly not the only way to learn. Consider this: If you could learn the lesson of the horrible and painful consequences of placing your hand into the flame on your kitchen stove burner by having your mother or father explain what will happen, then would you really rather learn that lesson by actually placing your hand into the flame and experiencing those horrible and painful consequences? Yes, we learn by our mistakes--our maybe we don't--; but we can learn a lot without making the mistakes. Others have been there before. We can learn from their mistakes. Reading is a primary means of learning from other people's mistakes. We (including you) are not the first to travel the many paths of law. We can learn from what others have learned on these well-trodden paths. That said, these suggested readings are not for the faint of heart.

Dawn D. Bennett-Alexander & Linda F. Harrison, The Legal, Ethical, and Regulatory Environment of Business in a Diverse Society (New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2012) ("What this text strives to do as you study it is to open your eyes to ethical and diversity issues so, where applicable, they become a relevant part of your business decision-making process, just as legal considerations are. Our aim is to teach you the legal, regulatory, and ethical implications of business decisions in the context of diversity, as business cannot be divorced from the reality of the world we live. We of course do not tell you how you must think about such issues on a personal level, as you are able to hold whatever opinions you wish. Rather, we make you aware of how your business decisions may be impacted by issues you might not otherwise have considered. . . . We want you to consider these factors as a routine part of your business making since the reality is that they will have an impact." Id. at 21-22. Here are the chapter titles: "Introduction to the Business and Ethics Environment in a Diverse Society," "Alternative Dispute Resolution," "The Court System and Legal Process," "Administrative Law," "Contracts and Sales," "Torts," "Property, Real and Personal," "Business Crimes," "Secured Transactions and Bankruptcy," "Agency and Business Organizations," "The Employment Relationship and Equal Employment Opportunity," "Labor and Management Relations," "Securities Regulation and Compliance," "Antitrust and Trade Regulation," "Intellectual Property," "Environmental Law and Business," and "International Trade and Business." As you work through this textbook you will have that "OMG-moment," where you will say to yourself, 'I should have read this book at the beginning of law school, and certainly before deciding what courses to take in my second-year.' Now you know. It is not too late.).

Lisa Schultz Bressman, Edward L. Rubin & Kevin M. Stack, The Regulatory State (Boston & New York: Wolters Kluwer law & Business, 2010) ("This book provides an introduction to the modern regulatory state, which is the collection of federal governmental laws and institutions that determine significant aspects of social and economic policy today. The regulatory state is the dominant feature of our nation's governance system. It has not aways been this way. Prior to the modern era, federal regulatory efforts were haphazard. Social and economic policy were largely determined by the forces of supply and demand--in other words, the market. And the common law, which is developed mainly by state judges in the process of deciding cases, provided most of the important rules governing private conduct. But during the past century and a half, this regime has been largely displaced by statutes and regulations. Statutes are laws enacted by legislatures, such as Congress, and regulation are laws issued by administrative agencies, such as the Department of Transportation or the Environmental Protection Agency or the Federal Communications Commission. Statutes and regulations are paramount in this book because they are principal sources of law in the regulatory state. We examine judicial decisions as well, but they play more of a supporting role here than in many other law school books." Id. at xxi.).

David G. Epstein, Richard D. Freer, Michael J. Roberts & George B. Shepherd, Business Structures, Third Edition (American Casebook Series) (St. Paul, MN: West, 2010) (From the "Dedication": "We wrote Business Structures primarily for students who did not take any 'business courses' in college. Two of us did not take any 'business courses' in college. And then we took this course in law school, and it was our worst law school experience (until, years later, we attended our first law school faculty meeting). We wrote this book to spare you that fate." Id. at iii.).

Laura P. Hartman & Joe DesJardins, Business Ethics: Decision-Making for Personal Integrity and Social Responsibility (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2008) ("This textbook provides a comprehensive yet accessible introduction to the ethical issues arising in business. Students unfamiliar with ethics will find themselves as unprepared for careers in business as students who are unfamiliar with accounting and finance. It is fair to say that students will not be fully prepared, even within traditional disciplines such as accounting, finance, human resources management, marketing, and management, unless they are sufficiently knowledgeable about the ethical issues that arise specifically within those fields." "While other solid introductory textbooks are available, several major features make this book distinctive. We emphasize a decision-making approach to ethics and we provide strong pedagogical support for both teachers and students throughout the entire book. In addition, we bring both both of these strengths to students though a pragmatic discussion of issues with which they are already often familiar, thus approaching them through subjects that have already generated their interest." Id. vii. If you are going to be a business, commercial, or corporate lawyers, shouldn't you know the potential ethical issues facing your clients?).

Howell E. Jackson, Louis Kaplow, Steven M. Shavell, W. Kip Viscusi & David Cope, Analytical Methods for Lawyers, Second Edition (New York: Thomson Reuters/Foundation Press, 2011). (Decision Analysis, Game and Information, Contracting, Accounting, Finance, Microeconomics, Economic Analysis of Law, Fundamentals of Statistical Analysis, and Multivariate Statistics).

Mark Weston Janis, International Law, Sixth Edition (Aspen Student Treatise Series) (New York: Wolters Kluver Law & Business, 2012) ("This book endeavors to introduce the discipline of international law in such a way as to clarify and order a dauntingly complex and variegated subject. . . . I introduce international law not only in its traditional public or interstate sense, but also in its increasingly important private and commercial aspects." Id. at xv. "Three questions more or less structure the text: What are international legal rules? What is international legal process? What role does international law play in international relations? . . . The book is meant to reflect international law generally and should prove useful read either on its own or as a supplement to any of the standard American legal or political casebooks on the subject." Id. at xvi. "It is a sorry state of affairs to have to count the United States as one of the countries most often in non-compliance with ICJ [International Court of Justice] decisions." Id. at 150-151.).

Emma Coleman Jordan & Angela P. Harris, Economic Justice: Race, Gender, Identity and Economics: Cases and Materials, Second Edition (New York/Foundation Press, 2005, 2011) ("We live in a society organized according to two master principles: capitalism and democracy. Although principles and their associated values, institutions, and norms are integral to American life, they often seem to exist in different worlds. Capitalism is often thought of as belonging to the 'private' sphere, whereas democracy belongs in the 'public' sphere. Capitalism is the business of business organizations and of economic analysis; democracy is the business of politicians and voters and of political analysis. Within the academy, a similar split seems to have created two cultures, like the ''two cultures' of science and the humanities of which C.P. Snow originally spoke. Economic analysis has developed a culture of scientific expertise in which developing testable hypotheses with mathematical rigor, constructing quantitative analysis, and making predictions are principal values. Although social scientists increasingly analyze democratic institutions in this way as well, discussions of democracy have more traditionally been the bailiwick of moral philosophers, and more recently critical theorists, who use the language of morality, justice, and the methodological tools associated with the humanities to pursue the 'ought' rather than the 'is.'" "The split obtains in legal scholarship as well. In the last few decades, the law and economics movement has had a tremendous impact on legal studies. Like its parent discipline economics, law and economics focuses on questions of transactional efficiency and tends to ignore questions of distribution or justice; it seeks to accurately describe how legal rules work (or don't work), and to the extent it is normative rather than descriptive, the assumed goal is greater efficiency. Traditional legal scholarship, however, has taken the pursuit of distributional justice, fairness, and democratic process as central to its analyses. In the last few decades critical legal scholarship has developed an even more openly moral discourse of justice, focused on the pursuit of equality. Traditional and critical scholars, however, have seldom ventured into the territory of efficiency or the systemic analysis of transactions, just as law and economics scholars have seldom ventured into the territory of fairness and equality. . . ." "The phrase 'economic justice' signals our aim: rather than maintaining the tacit assumption that 'justice' has nothing to do with economics and economics nothing to do with social justice, we hope to engage the two cultures with one another. What can economics tell us about democracy and the law? What can theories of justice tell us about economic theory and law? Why is there no legal language of 'class' in the United States, and what might one look like? Rather than asking students to specialize in one or the other discourse, as current legal pedagogy implicitly does, this casebook openly engages students in the project of learning from both discourses, and using each as a means to gain insights on the other. . . . " "In this casebook, we use the problem of racial and gender injustice as a vehicle for engaging both critical theory and economic theory. Just as race, gender, and class seem inextricably intertwined, economic and critical analysis both seem crucial to unraveling the knot of racial and gender inequality. Moreover, economic analysis and critical analysis may need to influence and be influenced by one another in order for a truly incisive and transformative dialogue about race and gender to emerge in the legal academy and in American society more generally." Id. at v-vi.).

Avery Wiener Katz, Foundations of The Economic Approach to Law (New Providence, NJ, & San Francisco, CA: LexisNexis, 2006).

John Monahan & Laurens Walker, Social Science in Law: Cases and Materials, Seventh Edition (New York: Thompson Reuters/Foundation Press, 2010) ("The purpose of the book should be clear at the outset: to apprise the reader of the actual and potential uses of social sciences in the American legal process and how those uses might be evaluated. We here view social science as an analytical tool in the law, familiarity with which will heighten the lawyer's professional effectiveness and sharpen the legal scholar's insights. The principal alternative to this 'inside' perspective on the relationship of social science to law is the 'law and society' or 'sociology of law' approach which seeks to understand the functioning of 'law' as a social system. [] In choosing an orientation from within the legal system rather than that of the law and society observer, we mean no disparagement of the latter. . . . " Id. at v.).

Roberta Romano, Foundations of Corporate Law, Second (New Providence, NJ, & San Francisco, CA: LexisNexis, 2006).

Maxwell L. Stearns & Todd J. Zywicki, Public Choice Concepts and Applications in Law (American Casebook Series) (St. Paul, MN: West, 2009).

Charles J. Tabb & Ralph Brubaker, Bankruptcy Law: Principles, Policies, and Practice, Third Edition (New Providence, NJ, & San Francisco, CA: LexisNexis,, 2010).

Robert E. Stout & George G. Triantis, Foundations of Commercial Law (New Providence, NJ, & San Francisco, CA: LexisNexis, 2006).

What one wants to accomplish in the first and second years of law school is the acquisition of foundational knowledge; that is, knowledge and skills which will serve you well no matter what areas of law one ultimately pursues or, for that matter, even should one decide not to pursue a law career.

Also, since some of you may be entering the full-time work force for the first time, or are contemplating a career change (into law), you might find working through the following book useful.

Richard N. Bolles, What Color Is Your Parachute?: A Practical Manual For Job-Hunters and Career-Changers 2012 (40th Anniversary Edition) (Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press, 2012).

FOR THE PRESENT MOMENT, HOPE IS NOT ENOUGH.

Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life, edited by Arnold Kotler (New York: Bantam Books, 1991) ("Western civilization places so much emphasis on the idea of hope that we sacrifice the present moment. Hope is for the future. It cannot help us discover joy, peace, or enlightenment in the present moment. Many religions are based on the notion of hope, and this teaching about refraining from hope may create a strong reaction. But the shock can bring about something important. I do not mean that you should not have hope, but that hope is not enough. Hope can create an obstacle for you, and if you dwell in the energy of hope, you will not bring yourself back entirely into the present moment. If your re-channel those energies into being aware of what is going on in the present moment, you will be able to make a breakthrough and discover joy and peace right in the present moment, inside yourself and all around you." Id. at 41-42.).

MAITRI, KARUNA, MUDITA, UPEKSHA

Thich Nhat Hanh, True Love: A Practice for Awakening the Heart (Boston & London: Shambhala, 2011) (loving-kindness or benevolence; compassion; joy; equinity or freedom).

MORAL METASKEPTICISM

Tamler Sommers, Relative Justice: Cultural Diversity, Free Will, and Moral Responsibility (Princeton & Oxford: Princeton U. Press, 2012) (The Metaskeptical Thesis: "the view that there are no universally true conditions for moral responsibility. The evidence suggest that there would be no convergence in considered intuitions, even in idealized conditions of rationality. Since considered intuitions ultimately ground our theories of responsibility, there does not seem to be a principled way of establishing conditions of moral responsibility that would apply across cultures. Like all empirically driven arguments, this one could turn out to be wrong. But my case is sufficient strong, I believe, to shift the burden of proof to those who defend universalist theories. They must defend the empirical and theoretical assumptions on which their theories rely--or give a convincing account of why such a defense is unnecessary." Id. at 108.).

ESSAYS: ZEN BUDDHISM

Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism (New York: Grove Press, 1949).

FROM SAN DOMINGO TO HAITI

Laurent Dubois, Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution (Cambridge, Massachusetts, & London, England: Belknap Press/Harvard U. Press, 2004) (Also see, Adam Hochschild, "Tragic Island," NYT Book Review, Sunday, 1/1/2012.).

Laurent Dubois, Haiti, The Aftershocks of History (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2012) ("It's easy, in the abstract, to identify what makes for a successful democracy: a strong state, civil society, popular participation, an effective legal system. Many of these have in fact existed at one time or another in Haitian history. But the devastating combination of internal conflict and external intervention has stymied their consolidation into a network of sustainable and responsive political institutions. Remarkably, however, the history of repression has not snuffed out the Haitian struggle for dignity, equality, and autonomy. Haiti's people have steadfastly sustained the counter-plantation system that they created through their founding revolution and painstakingly anchored in the countryside over the course of the nineteenth century. Generation after generation, they have demonstrated their ability to resist, escape, and at times transform the oppressive regimes they have faced." Id. at 369.).

C. L. R. James, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution, Second Edition Revised (New York: Vintage, 1963, 1989) ("The massacre of the whites was a tragedy; not for the whites. For these old slave-owners, those who burnt a little powder in the arse of a Negro, who buried him alive for insects to eat, who were will treated by Toussaint, and who, as soon as they got the chance, began their old cruelties again; for these there is no need to waste one tear or one drop of ink. The tragedy was for the blacks and the Mulattoes. It was not policy but revenge, and revenge has no place in politics The whites were no longer to be feared, and such purposeless massacres degrades and brutalise a population, especially one which was just beginning as a nation and had had so bitter a past. The people did not want it--all they wanted was freedom, and independence seemed to promise that. Christophe and other generals strongly disapproved. Had the British and the Americans thrown their weight on the side of humanity, Dessalines might have been curbed, As it was Haiti suffered terribly from the resulting isolation. Whites were banished form Haiti for generations, and the unfortunate country, ruined economically, its population lacking in social culture, had its inevitable difficulties doubled by this massacre. That the new nation survived at all is forever to its credit for if the Haitians thought that imperialism was finished with then, they were mistaken." Id at 373-374. From the backcover: A classic and impassioned account of the first revolution In the Third World" "This powerful, intensely dramatic book is the definitive account of the Haitian Revolution of 1791-1803, a revolution that began in the wake of the Bastille but became the model for Third World liberation movements from Africa to Cuba. It is the story of the French colony of San Domingo, a place where the brutality of master toward slave was commonplace and ingeniously refined. And it is the story of a barely literate slave named Toussaint L'Ouverture, who led the black people of San Domingo in a successful struggle against successive invasions by overwhelming French, Spanish, and English forces and in the process helped form the first independent nation in the Caribbean.").

"ROYAL RULE"

Saki Santorelli, Heal Thy Self: Lessons on Mindfulness in Medicine, with a Foreword by Jon Kabat-Zinn (New York: Three Rivers Press, 1999) ( "[T]he 'royal rule': To meet the unwanted with kindness and love rather than harsh rejection or abuse." Id. at 116. ).

"SHINE A LIGHT ON THE DARKNESS OF MISUNDERSTANDING"

Naomi Benaron, Running the Rift: A Novel (Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2012) ("In this complex world, it is up to us as teachers to shine a light on the darkness of misunderstanding." Id. at 107. " 'Did I get this right?' Jonathan asked. 'Did someone bury a mine on a path where children walk to school? And the children stepped on it?' Too numbed to speak, Jean Patrick nodded. 'How can one human being do this to another? To children, for God's sake: six- and seven-year old children,' Jonathan said. He cradled his head in his hands, 'The cold, calculated brutality--to camouflage the damned thing with leaves.' " Id. at 183. "If you stretch a spring long enough, far enough, the metal will fail and the spring will snap. The same with a human body. The same with a human heart. The same, even, with a country. . . . " Id. at 231. "You can outdistance that which is running after you, but not what is running inside you." Id. at 313.).

I HAVE BEEN MY OWN WORST ENEMY. ALWAYS!

Jon Kabat-Zinn, Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Mediation in Everyday Life (10th Anniversary Edition) (New York: Hyperion, 1994, 2005) ("The romantic notion is that if it's no good over here, you have only to go over there and things will be different. If this job is no good, change jobs. If this wife is no good, change wives. If this town is no good, change towns. If these children are a problem, leave them for other people to look after. The underlying thinking is that the reason for your troubles is outside of you--in the location, in others, in the circumstances. Change the location, change the circumstances, and everything will fall into place; you can start over, have a new beginning." "The trouble with this way of seeing is that it conveniently ignores the fact that you carry your head and your heart, and what some would call your 'karma' around with you. You cannot escape yourself, try as you might. And what reason, other than pure wishful thinking, would you have to suspect that things would be different or better somewhere else anyway? Sooner or later, the same problems would arise if in fact they stem in large part from your patterns of seeing, thinking and behaving. Too often, our lives cease working because we cease working at life, because we are unwilling to take responsibility for things as they are, to work with our difficulties. We don't understand that it is actually possible to attain clarity, understanding, and transformation right in the middle of what is here and now, however problematic it may be. But is is easier and less threatening to our sense of self to project our involvement in our problems onto other people and the environment." Id. at 195-196. I shall strive to be nontoxic.).

FACULTY OF AWARENESS

Jon Kabat-Zinn, Mindfulness for Beginners: Reclaiming the Present Moment--And Your Life (Boulder, CO: Sounds True, 2012) ("Is it not true that ever since we were in school, we were trained to think 'properly,' to think critically? Isn't that a good deal of what school is for? I remember very clearly asking my teachers . . . , when it came to learning something that I did not like or want to learn, . . . 'Why do we have to learn this?' Usually, when the teacher didn't get angry but took the question seriously, the response was that it would help us develop the capacity to think critically and to speak and reason more clearly and more thoughtfully." "And you know what? It turns out that it is true. We certainly do need a foundation in critical thinking and in analytical and deductive reasoning in order to understand the world and not be totally lost or overwhelmed by it. So thinking--precise, keen, critical thinking--is an extremely important faculty we need to develop, refine, and deepen. But it is not the only capacity we have that needs developing, refining, and deepening. There is another equally important faculty that almost never gets any systematic attention or training in school, and that is the faculty of awareness. Yet awareness is at least as important and useful to us as thinking. In fact, it is demonstrably more powerful in that any thought, no matter how profound, can be held in awareness." Id. at 31-32. "Liberation from greed, hatred, and delusion." Id. at 116.).

END OF THE FRENCH EMPIRE

Martin Evans, Algeria: France's Undeclared War (Oxford & New York: Oxford U. Press, 2012) ("This book is a chronological narrative of the Algerian War's origin, intensification, and consequences. It is structured around three analytical threads, the first of which is the long hatreds produced by the original French invasion in 1830." Id. at xi. "The second analytical thread is the emergence of modern Algerian nationalism from the 1920s onwards. Algerian nationalism was made of four strands: assimilationists, a religious clerical movement, communists, and radical nationalists, each of which looked beyond Algeria for inspiration." Id. at xii. "This brings us on to the third analytical thread: third-way reformism. . . . [which] sought to chart a third-way between hard-line settlers, opposed to any reform, and a nascent nationalist movement . . . communist controlled." Id. at xii-xiii.).

I HAVE HAD FAR TOO MUCH INNER BUSYNESS.

Jon Kabat-Zinn, Full Catastrope Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to face Stress, Pain, and Illness (Fifteenth Anniversary Edition) (New York: Delta Trade Paperbacks, 1990) ("If you start paying attention to where your mind is from moment to moment throughout the day, chances are you will find that considerable amounts of your time and energy are expended in clinging to memories, being absorbed in reverie, and regretting things that have already happened and are over. And you will probably find that as much or more energy is expended in anticipating, planning, worrying, and fantasizing about the future and what you want to happen or don't want to happen." "Because of this inner busyness, which is going on almost all the time, we are liable to either miss a lot of the texture of our life experience or to discount its value and meaning. . . . " Id. at 23-24.).

THE UNEASY FRENCH-AMERICAN RELATIONS

Richard F. Kuisel, The French Way: How France Embraced and Rejected American Values and Power (Princeton & Oxford: Princeton U. Press, 2012) ("This study examines how, why, and with what consequences America served as a foil for France in the final two decades of the twentieth century. It is the story of France's effort at designing its own path to modernity, a path that moved at tangent from the one represented by America. " Id. at xi-xii. "It is my principal task to examine how the French perceived America, why the came to measure themselves against Americans, and how they designed policies in response to this model in the final decades of the century. The inquiry leads to the larger question of whether or not they found a divergent 'French path' to modernity in contrast to that of the American way. Had the French, by the end of the century, charted a distinctive and viable alternative to what they transatlantic cousins championed as the only way forward?" Id. at xii-xiii.).

LOSING SIGHT OF THE PRESENT MOMENT

Eihei Dogen, Dogen's Genjo Koan: Three Commentaries, Translations and Commentaries by Nishiari Bokusan, Shohaku Okamura, Shunryu Suzuki, Kosho Uchiyama, Sojun Mel Weitsman, Kazuaki Tanahashi, and Dairyu Michael Wenger (Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2011) (From Uchiyama Roshi's Teisho on Genjo Koan: "How can we determine if we are in the present moment? There is no fixed criterion to measure this because it is never hidden or revealed. At any moment, the present moment is the present moment without fail. Therefore, in our lives, the present moment is the present moment anytime and anywhere. However, if we say that the present moment has become the present moment, it is too much because it is already in the past. At that point, it is not the present moment anymore. If we say the present moment will become the present moment, it is not sufficient because it is still in the future. At that point, the present moment has not yet become the present moment. In whatever situation, the present moment is the present moment. And yet, it is possible to lose sight of the present moment. At that time the present moment is no longer the present moment for us." "It goes without saying that air is more important for the physical life of human beings than money or diamonds. However, actually there are many people who put more value on money or diamonds than air. Although we cannot be alive for a moment without air, we often lose sight of this truth. Even if we lose sight of it, we will not die from suffocation right away. But, if we continue to pollute the air for the sake of maintaining our luxurious lives as we do today, the time may come when we will suffocate. Therefore it is a problem for us to lose sight of the importance of air." "Thus we are always living in the present that has nothing to do with appearing and disappearing. The present moment is always the present moment. But if we do not value the present moment as the present moment and instead us it to fulfill our illusory thoughts, we will certainly suffocate. It is truly important to live without losing sight of the present moment as the present moment. That is why we have to endlessly deepen this genjo." Id. at 149, 152-153.).