AMERICA'S WAR OF REVENGE IN AFGHANISTAN

Jonathan Steele, Ghosts of Afghanistan: The Haunted Battleground: Hard Truths and Foreign Myths (Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2011) ("The principal ghost of Afghanistan are the dead on every side. In thirty-five years of unfinished civil war, made worse by foreign intervention, close to 15,000 Soviet dead, over 1,500 Americans, nearly 400 British and more than 500 from other counties. Above all, the lost sons and daughters of Afghanistan itself: some 20,000 troops, and as many as two million civilians." Id. at 14. "[A] central theme of this book is the similarity of the Soviet and U.S. interventions and the lessons that ought to be learned. Described as wars of necessity, they were really wars of choice. In each case the decision to invade was made on the grounds of protecting national security but with little thought of the consequences. Could non-Muslim outsiders expect support if they stayed for more than a few months in a country that had never welcomed foreign armies? Was there not a substantial risk that the mission would increase rather than lesson the dangers of terrorism." Id. at 15. "History gets telescoped in people's minds, and it is easy to forget that almost four weeks passed after the 9/11 attacks before the United States launched its air strikes on Afghanistan. The path to war was methodical. First, a fourteen-ship battle group was sent to the Persian Gulf. A hundred combat aircraft were readied. Targets for missile raids were prepared...." "Afghanistan's religious leaders met in Kabul on September and asked bin Laden to leave the country. Bin Laden ignored them. Had he not done so and had the Taliban offered proof he was gone from Afghanistan, Bush's reprisals might conceivably have been averted. An American attack might also not have occurred if the Taliban had detained bin Laden and handed him over, as Bush demanded. But this option was unlikely since Bush did nothing to make the Taliban position easier by sending proof or addressing them tin calm diplomatic language rather than with threats. With the White House, many senators and representatives and much of the media clamoring for revenge, the administration feared that to comply with Taliban requests for evidence of bin Laden's role would look weak. Bush's initial nervous reaction to being told of the attacks on the World Trade Center while he was visiting a primary school in Florida had already raised doubts over his leadership qualities. Rather than make a serious proposal for talks, Bush preferred to issue an ultimatum. It would be easier to justify a U.S. attack once it was rejected." Id. at 217-218. "Indeed, evidence emerge a few days after 9/11 that the Bush administration had warned the Taliban two months earlier that it might take military action to topple the regime unless they handed bin Laden over." Id. at 219, emphasis added. "The Afghan campaign was the first attempt by a Western state to achieve regime change in a poor country without losing the life of any of its own ground troops. It relied entirely on techniques of asymmetric warfare, massive and sustained bombing raids form the safety of the air as well as missile strikes from distant ships and submarines. Designed to terrorize and destroy an almost completely defenseless enemy, this new type of killing in which the attackers operated in a largely risk-free environment has a sanitized video-game quality, with warriors [?????] firing missiles from remote aircraft cockpits or sitting in front of screens in comfortable offices on the ground and using their computer mouse to direct a pilotless attack drone." Id. at 241-242. We Americans tend not to think very much about our wars, though we do stand up a "support" our troops. But we don't think much about whether we have good reasons for going to war, whether there are other options short of war, what the long-term consequences of the war will be, and whether it is really worthwhile. The war is Afghanistan should underscore that revenge is not a very good reason for war. As they say, revenge is the poor man's justice. It does not befit a nation such as the United States, unless, of course, by "poor" once means moral or intellectual poverty.).

READING HALL, II

Francesca Lia Block, Necklace of Kisses: A Novel (New York: HarperCollins, 2005) ("Find the goddess inside yourself instead of looking for the god in someone else." Id. at 192.).

Francesca Lia Block & Carmen Staton, Ruby: A Novel (New York: HarperCollins, 2006) ("'...The sacred feminine is gathering so much force, even in popular culture. But the male energy can't quite handle it. It's all somewhat explosive.'" Id. at 87. "I am Ruby, I told myself, named for the stone that chases away evil spirits. But what demons would be released if I stopped fighting against them, even for a moment?" Id. at 170. "You can change things with your will, your determination, your strength. You can move away, track down your true love, treat your children differently than you have been treated. But how strong do you have to be to fight a ghost?" Id. at 192.).

Kofi Busia, ed., Iyengar: The Yoga Master (Boston & London: Shambhala, 2007) (From Joan White, "A Learner's Journey": "Long ago, I gave up on rigidity: life is fluid, yoga has to be fluid, teaching has to be fluid. One's practice has to depend on one's ability to transform and change--to continue to listen, to remove self-ignorance through knowledge (shravana), to wipe away any doubts with thinking (manana), and to contemplate through a growing abidance in oneself and through removal of habitual error (nididhyasana). Id. at 25-31, 31.).

Kathie Carlson, In Her Image: The Unhealed Daughter's Search for Her Mother (A C. G. Jung Foundation Book) (Boston & London: Shambhala, 1990) ("The primary relationship between women is the relationship of mother and daughter. This relationship is the birth place of a women's ego identity, her sense of security in the world, her feelings about herself, her body, and other women. From her mother, a woman receives her first impression of how to be a woman and what being a women means. She also receives her first access to at least some aspects of the archetypal mother, the Great Mother, and to an experience of the feminine Self. This latter dimension is generally not recognized in our culture." Id. at xi. "In this book, I want to reconnect the very human problems between mothers and daughters with their deeper psychic roots.... The problems, woundings, strengths, and delights of the mother-daughter relationship are also part of a deep spiritual search among women, a search for a more authentic feminine. Sourceground for their lives." Id. at xii. "Ultimately, this book is addressed to the unhealed daughter in us all, to help her better comprehend when she has experienced within its broader and deeper context, and to enable her to seek out more effectively what she hasn't experienced and needs for the fulfillment of her soul." Id. at xiii. "The unhealed daughter is full of yearnings, rage, hurt, and legitimate needs which were not met in her experiences with her mother. She is a 'child place' within us that continues to be present and felt or denied within our adult lives." Id. at 61.).

Linda Johnson, Daughters of the Goddess: The Women Saints of India (St. Paul, MN: Yes International Publishers, 1994) ("Indian women have actually always been the backbone of Hindu religious life. Unlike most Western faiths, which are celebrated communally once each week, Hinduism is usually practiced daily in the home. Morning and evening worship before the family altar is often conducted by the women of the house, and the numerous legends that illustrate Hinduism's highest principles have been passed--in some cases for thousands of years--primarily from mother to child." "It is no accident that in India the deity who governs education, the arts, and religious knowledge is Sarasvati; the deity associated with strength and protection is Durga; the deity who rules wealth and commerce is Lakshmi--all are Goddesses. I am trying to remember a time when I walked into an Indian home or business and did not find the portrait of at least one of these goddesses hanging on the wall; I honestly cannot recall a single instance. While we in Europe and America decorate our homes with pictures of ourselves and or relatives, Indians surround themselves with portraits of divinity, constant reminders of the spiritual dimension of life and the compassionate motherhood of God. Today, as social strictures against women continue to crumble, more than ever Indian women are free not only to worship the goddesses but to imitate them, both in the home and on the world stage." Id. at 21-22. "How can it be that we Westerners, with all our worldly wisdom, have lost the ability to distinguish a saint from a snake oil peddler? I wonder if it was when we lost the Goddess, when we started telling ourselves that we are basically sinful rather than essentially divine, when we accepted that God embodied himself on earth only once rather than that the Goddess is incarnating here continuously, in every age, in every culture, when we lost the sense that to look into the face of God we need look no further than the person sitting next to us. We gave away our spiritual authority, handing the key to heaven to an enclave of priests who seem to have misplaced it. Now we are locked our of our own divine being, And any rascal who comes along insisting he can get us back in looks good to us!" "The women saints I have been privileged to meet are in a very real sense the antithesis of the religious preachers of the West. They don't tell us what to believe but show us how to live. Rather than condemning those whose mores differ from theirs, they serve them. Rather than insisting that one particular party has exclusive claim to saving knowledge while everyone else is eternally condemned, they quietly suggest that a divine light shines in every heart; we have only to remove the bushel basket covering the flame."  Id. at 120.).

"INDIANA JONES WITH A CAMERA" *

Timothy Egan, Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis (Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012) (* from the bookjacket).

ASPIRATION: ZEN YOGIC-ARTIST FOR LIFE

Class cancellations, at the yoga studio where I practice, resulted from Hurricane Sandy, followed a week or so later by a snow storm. The impact of canceled classes was compounded for me by my injuring my back, causing me to miss a few days of class. I am a creature of routines, and I do not deal well with my routines being turned inside out. Yoga, meditation and Zen Buddhism have helped me deal better with such disruptions. And, fortunately, these particular disruptions have turned out to be blessings in disguise. 

I had been reluctant to develop a home yoga practice. This was due, in large part, to the simple fact that home has its own routines, and beginning a home practice would disrupt those routines. The other part is that a home practice can be done at just about anytime you want, so if you don't do it at, say 9am, you can always do it at 9pm; whereas a studio class is when it is scheduled and you are either there or you are not. But the catch with the flexibility in the home practice is that the 9am gets pushed to 12noon, which gets pushed to 4pm, which gets pushed to 8pm, which gets pushed to 10pm, which get pushed to not being done at all. A home yoga practice (just like a home office) requires a lot more discipline to get oneself onto the mat,  i.e., setting a time and sticking to it. So, the cancelled studio classes and the back injury forced me to begin development of a home practice. Moreover, I had the good fortune of one of my yoga teachers emailing a set of asanas (some yang/vinyasa; some yin) for me to work on in connection with the back injury. I am still working out the logistics of the home practice, but a home practice is here to stay. That is the principal blessing in disguise.

One great feature of the home yoga practice is the lack of external chatter. No more unnecessary chatter from some instructors (Why do some instructor insist on 'entertaining' the students? Why do the students want to be entertained?). And no more totally inappropriate chatter from some members of the class. In a home practice there is just you and, unless you are talking out loud to yourself, there is no external chatter. No external chatter, but plenty of internal chatter.

So, borrowing from Eugen Herrigel, see below, I have been working on my Zen in Hatha Yoga, or my Zen in the Art of Hatha Yoga, and hope to be able to bring it into my studio practice. 

Eugen Herrigel, Zen in the Art of Archery, translated by R.F. C Hull, with an introduction by D. T. Sukuki (New York: Vintage Spiritual Classics/Vintage Books, 1953, 1981, 1989) ("The process of letting go of oneself [is] divided into separate sections which had to be worked through carefully...." "The first step along this road had already been taken. It had led to a loosening of the body, without which the bow cannot be properly drawn. If the shot is to be loosed right, the physical loosening must now be continued in a mental and spiritual loosening, so as to make the mind not only agile, but free; agile because of its freedom, and free because of its original agility; and this original agility is essentially different from everything that is usually understood by mental agility. Thus, between these two states of bodily relaxedness on the one hand and spiritual freedom on the other there is a difference of level which cannot be overcome by breath-control alone, but only by withdrawing from all attachments whatsoever, by becoming utterly egoless: so that the soul, sunk within itself, stands in the plenitude of its nameless origins." "The demand that the door of the senses be closed is not met by turning energetically away from the sensible world, but by a readiness to yield without resistance. In order that this actionless activity may be accomplished instinctively, the soul needs an inner hold, and it wins it by concentrating on breathing. This is performed consciously and with a conscientiousness that borders on the pedantic. The breathing in, like the breathing out, is practiced again and again by itself, with the utmost care. One does not have to waist long for results. The more one concentrates on breathing, the more the external stimuli fade into the background. They sink away in a kind of  muffled roar which one hears with only half an ear at first, and in the end one finds it no more disturbing than the distant roar of the sea, which, once one has grown accustomed to it, is no longer perceived. In due course one even grows immune to large stimuli, and at the same time detachment from them becomes easier and quicker. Care had only to be taken that the body is relaxed whether standing, sitting, or lying, and if one then concentrates on breathing one soon feels oneself shut in by impermeable layers of silence. One only knows and feels that one breathes. And, to detach oneself from this feeling and knowing, no fresh decision is required, for the breathing slows down of its own accord, becomes more and more economical in the use of breath, and finally, slipping by degrees into a blurred monotone, escapes one's attention altogether." "This exquisite state of unconcerned immersion in oneself is not, unfortunately, of long duration. It is liable to be disturbed from inside. As though sprung from nowhere, moods, feelings, desires, worries and even thoughts incontinently rise up, in a meaningless jumble, and the more farfetched and preposterous they are, the less they have to do with that on which one has fixed one's consciousness, the more tenaciously they hang on. It is as though they wanted to avenge themselves on consciousness for having, through concentration, touched upon realms it would otherwise never reach. The only successful way of rendering this disturbance inoperative is to keep on breathing, queitly and unconcernedly, to enter onto friendly relations with whatever appears on the scene, to accustom oneself to it, to look at it equally and at last grow wary of looking. In this way one gradually gets into a state which resembles the melting drowsiness of the verge of sleep." Id. at 35-27. From D. T. Suzuki's "Introduction": "Man is a thinking reed but his great works are done when he is not calculating and thinking. 'Childlikeness'* has to be restored with long years of training in the art of self-forgetfulness. When this is attainted, man thinks yet he does not think. He thinks like the showers coming down from the sky; he thinks like the waves rolling on the ocean; he thinks like the stars illuminating the nightly heavens; he thinks like the green foliage shooting forth in the relaxing spring breeze. Indeed, he is the showers, the ocean, the stars, the foliage." "When a man reaches this stage of 'spiritual' development, he is a Zen artist of life." Id. at viii-ix. *Childlikeness is not silliness. Oftentimes the supposed childlikeness in yoga class is really just silliness. Not childlike self-forgetfulness, but rather conscious (though not sufficiently self-conscious) narcissism in the form of adult(?) silliness.).

I aspire to be a Zen yogic-artist for life. It is a long journey, and I have taken my first few baby steps along the path.

WAR

James Q. Whitman, The Verdict of Battle: The Law of Victory and the Making of Modern War (Cambridge, Massachusetts, & London, England: Harvard U. Press, 2012) ("A pitched battle is something like a trial, and warfare that is limited to battles, even when it is inconclusive, represents a kind of rule of law. Confining warfare to a filed of battle is like confining disputes to the legal system. If two private parties can be induced to submit their dispute to the judicial process, they will be spared a worse danger: that the conflict between them will degenerate into violence. A trial can be a difficult and embittering experience, and sometimes litigation, like war, may drag on; but deciding disputes through litigation is more civilized than settling them though private vengeance. In much the same way, battle warfare is a more peaceful way of settling international disputes than more savage forms of war." Id. at 5. "[W]hen nineteenth-century republics fought wars, those wars spun out of control. This was true of the Mexican-American War, of the American Civil War, and it proved true once again with the emergence of the French Third Republic in 1870. Contained battle warfare was a business for legitimate monarchs. Once new republican forms began to shoulder monarchy off the stage, once war ceased to be a means of the acquisition of (dynastic) property and became a means of spreading new forms of government through the world, war exploded beyond the confines of the classic battlefield. Once war-making ceased to be a symbolic expression of settled sovereign legitimacy and became instead a means of contesting legitimacy, it spiraled out of control." Id. at 22-23. "The idea that just war theory was about 'the recourse to war as punishment' has driven deep roots into our common culture--so deep that is may be hard to imagine that it is mistaken. Nevertheless is is so....As a few fine scholars, especially Peter Haggenmacher, have recognized, classic just war theory was in fact largely about the just property claims of the victor, and it assumed and tolerated rapacious and even savage forms of war." Id. at 101. "High morality is an exceedingly treacherous foundation for the law of war. The largest lesson of the eighteenth century is that it may be better that war should simply be a way of deciding who gets what, when, and how." Id. at 253. "Wars will end more easily if the combatants can all be given something, even if that something is commercial concessions, access to oil, or cooperation in international policing. Wars will end more easily if we can cut deals, and to cut deals you need entitlements that you can trade away. Too much high morality makes it too hard to dicker. The law of war might save more lives if, instead of insisting that wars should be fought only to establish the millennium, it contributed its mite to making deal cutting a little easier. That does not mean that wars should be initiated for gain....But all of our experience shows that wars, once begun, acquire new purposes. We need a jus victoriae to specify those purposes in such a way as to coax our wars to end with as little destructiveness as possible. We need law that defines victory in such a way as to permit a brokered peace." Id. at 261. "Good law is made for the world in which we live. It would be better if there were no wars at all....But there are wars, and the job of lawyers is not to create a perfect world; it is to patch together arrangements we can live with. Wars enter their most dangerous territory when they aim to remake the world, and the same is true of lawyers." Id. at 262. A WORTHWHILE READ FOR THE SERIOUS STUDENT OF LAW AND OTHER INTELLIGENT ORGANISM.).

LEARNING AND CULTIVATING FEARLESSNESS

Thich Nhat Nahn, Fear: Essential Wisdom for Getting Through the Storm (New York: Harper One, 2012) ("The only way to ease our fear and be truly happy is to acknowledge our fear and look deeply at its source. Instead of trying to escape from our fear, we can invite it up to our awareness and look at it clearly and deeply." Id. at 1-2. "Many of us find ourselves thinking of things that stir up feelings of fear and sorrow. We have all experienced some suffering in our past, and we often recall our past suffering. We revisit the past, reviewing it and watching the films of the past. But if we revisit these memories without mindfulness or awareness, every time we watch those images we suffer again.... Mindfulness reminds us that it is possible to be in the here and now. It reminds us that the present moment is always available to us; we don't have to live events that happened long ago." Id. at 15-16." "'Terrorists' are everywhere. They're not only the people who blow up buses and markets. When we are angry, when we behave in a very angry, violent way, then we are not so different from the terrorists we demonize, because we have that same knife of anger in our hearts. When we're not mindful in our words, we say things that can hurt others and cause a lot of pain. That is a kind of intimidation, a kind of terrorism. Many people use hurtful words against children. That knife of hurt may twist in a child's heart every day for the rest of his life. In our family, in our society, on our planet, every day we create more people with knives in their hearts. And because they hold knives in their hearts, their suffering and rage overwhelms their families, their society, the world." Id. at 95. Food for thought.).

ASSHOLE

Several week ago I was asked, What are your favorite books? In a future blog I will list my favorite books, but first I will reread them all (as that is what one does with favorite books). Until then, however, the following title will have to suffice as it is, I think, one on my favorite books ... or, at least, a favorite of the year 2012.

Aaron James, Assholes: A Theory (New York: Doubleday, 2012) ("Our theory is simply this: a person counts as an asshole when, and only when, he systematically allows himself to enjoy special advantages in interpersonal relations out of an entrenched sense of entitlement that immunizes him against the complaints of others people." Id. at 4-5. I began taking yoga classes earlier this year. One of my pet peeves concerns people who throw their mats down, stomp around the room, come in late, engage in affected breathing. I found myself quietly, to myself, calling those such persons 'asshole,' and have several times come close to saying it out loud. I don't because, well, I would be the asshole. What is surprising to me is that, until I started going to yoga class, I never thought of women as being assholes. Difficult at times, yes. Annoying at times, yes. Self-centered at times, yes. Yet, not assholes. No, never! Yoga classes, which are heavily populated by women, have made me realized that women, or, American woman, have become more and more like men, including an increase in their asshole factor. "Not only do some societies, such as the United States or Italy or Brazil, seem to produce many more assholes than other societies, but each seems to have more assholes than it used to.... If we look at global trends ... , asshole production seems to be on the rise." Id. at 97. "Perhaps 'collectivist' cultures are less likely to engender or tolerate the required sense of entitlement than are 'individualist' ones.... So, for example, given that the United States seems to have more than it share of assholes, it would be interesting to know how many impressionable young Americans read Ayn Rand's Objectivism-soaked novels and how those numbers compare in Japan, where assholes seem comparatively rare. We might also compare the effects of self-esteem-boosting parenting and Internet social networking, which are increasingly making narcissism a sociocultural disease, and may explain the precipitous drop in empathy among college students (especially after the year 2000, after social networking caught on). Without strong collectivist counterpressures, it would be surprising not to see a spike in the asshole population." Id. at 99-100. Ah! The next chapter in American Exceptionalism. Food for thought.).

And, yes, at the end of the day I have to ask myself, Am I an asshole? Probably so, but only a little one. Or, so I hope. And, as they say, owning up to a problem is the first step to resolving it. I am not beyond repair.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Thich Nhat Hanh, Good Citizens: Creating Enlightened Society (Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 2012) ("Each of us has the capacity not only for great happiness but also for bringing great happiness to others. Each of us has Buddha nature. If we practice the ways of living happily in the present moment, we will water the seed of Buddha nature within us and help it grow....We can't seek to receive the path from anyone else. In order to touch the seed of wisdom within us, all we need to do is practice sitting, walking, listening, and acting with mindful awareness. If we are able to walk together on this path, it is because of our own practice, not because of something laid down by a god or a rule of law." Id. at 60.).

LESSONS OF WAR

Kevin Powers, The Yellow Birds: A Novel (New York, Boston, & London: Little, Brown, 2012) ("The war tried to kill us in the spring.... Then, in the summer, the war tried to kill us as the heat blanched all color from the plains.... The war had killed thousands by September.... We hardly noticed a change when September came. But I know now that everything that will ever matter in my life began then...." Id. at 3-4.).

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Thich Nhat Hanh, Answers from the Heart: Practical Responses to Life's Burning Questions (Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 2009) ("Q. How can those of us who had a painful childhood get past our pain and learn to trust people again? A. Many of us have a wounded child within. When we've been deeply wounded as children, it's hard for us to trust and love, and to allow love to penetrate us. Because we are so busy, we don't have time to go back to our wounded child and be with her to help with the healing. Many of us are afraid to go back to ourselves and be with that child. The block of pain and sorrow in us is so huge and overwhelming that we run away from it. But in this practice, we are advised to go home and take care of our wounded child, even though this is difficult.... You have to talk to your wounded child several time a day. Embracing your child tenderly, you reassure him that you will never let him down again or leave him unattended...." Id. at 45.46.).

DZOGCHEN, OR THE PATH OF TOTAL PERFECTION

Chogyal Namkhai Norbu, The Crystal and The Way of Light: Sutra, Tantra and Dzogchen, compiled and edited by John Shane (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 2000) (The term self-liberation should not . . . be taken as implying that there is some 'self' or 'ego' there to be liberated. It is a fundamental assumption . . . at the Dzogchen level, that all phenomenon are devoid of self-nature and it is understood that no phenomenon has inherent existence. Self-Liberation, in the Dzogchen sense, means that whatever manifests in the field of the practitioners's experience is allowed to arise just as it is, without judgment of it as good or bad, beautiful or ugly. And in that same moment, if there is no clinging, or attachment, without effort, or even volition, whatever it is that arises, whether as a though or as a conceptualization of a seemingly eternal event, automatically liberates itself, by itself, and of itself. Practicing in this way, the seeds of the poison tree of dualistic vision never even get a chance to sprout, much less to take root and grow." "So the practitioner lives his or her life in an ordinary way without needing any rules other than one's own awareness, always remaining in the primordial state thorough integrating that state with whatever arises as part of experience--with absolutely nothing to be seen outwardly to show that one is practicing. This is what is meant by self-liberation, this is what is means by the name Dzogchen--which means Great Perfection--and this is what is meant by non-dual conemplation or simply contemplation." Id. at 52-53.).

Chogyal Namkhai Norbu, The Cycle of Day and Night: An Essential Tibetan Text on the Practice of Dzogchen, translated and edited by John Reynolds (Barrytown, NY: Station Hill Press, 1984, 1987) (From the backcover: "Central to Dzogchen, 'the Great Perfection,' is contemplation--the immediate experience of the primordial state of the individual, the unconditional nature of the mind. This nature of the mind transcends the specific content of mind, the incessant flow of thoughts reflecting our social, cultural, and psychological conditioning.").

Chogyal Namkhai Norbu, Dream Yoga and the Practice of Natural Light (Revised and Enlarged Edition), edited and Introduced by Michael Katz (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 1992, 2002).

Chogyal Namkhai Norbu, Dzogchen: The Self-Perfected State, edited by Adriano Clemente, and translated from the Italian by John Shane (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 1996) ("An individual is said to be like a little bird closed up in and protected by a cage. The cage here is a symbol of all the limits of our body, voice, and mind,  But the cage in the example is not meant to indicate some especially horrible abnormal situation; rather it is meant to describe the normal condition in which a human being lives. The problem is that we are not aware of the situation we actually find ourselves in, and are in fact afraid to discover it, because we have grown up in this cage since we were little children." Id. at 36. "When we are aware of our limits there is the possibility of overcoming them. A bird which lives in a cage gives birth to its children in the cage  When they are born, the little birds have wings. Even if, in the cage, they can't fly, the fact that they are born with wings shows that their real nature is to have contact with the open space of the sky. But if a bird that has always lived in a cage suddenly escapes from behind its bars, it could encounter many dangers, because it doesn't know what to expect out there. It may be devoured by a hawk, or caught by a cat. So it is necessary for the bird to train a little, flying about a bit in a limited space, until, when it feels ready, it can definitely take flight." "It's the same for us: even if it is difficult for us to overcome all our limits in an instant, it is important to know that our real state is there, beyond all conditioning factors, and that we really do have the possibility to rediscover it." "We can learn to fly beyond the limits of our dualistic condition, until we are ready to leave it behind altogether. We can begin by becoming aware of our body, voice, and mind. Understanding our true nature means understanding the relative condition and knowing how to reintegrate with its essential nature, so that we become once again like a mirror that can reflect any object whatsoever, manifesting its clarity." Id. at 37-38.).

Chogyal Namkhai Norbu, Dzogchen Teachings, edited by Jim Valby and Adriano Clemente (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 2006) ("BREATHING AND MOVEMENT: In Yantra Yoga there are many positions similar to those of Hatha Yoga, but the way of getting into the positions, the main point of the practice, and the consideration or point of view of the practice of Yantra Yoga are different. In Yantra Yoga, the asana, or position, is an important point, but is not the main one. Movement is more important. For example, in order to get into an asana, breathing and movement are linked and applied gradually. Each movement is divided into periods of time consisting of four beats each: a period to enter the position, a period to remain in the position, and then a period to complete the position. As everything is related in Yantra Yoga, the overall movement is important, not only the asana." Id. at 131-132.).

Chogyal Namkhai Norbu, The Lamp That Enlightens Narrow Minds: The Life and Times of a Realized Tibet Master, Kyentse Chokyi Wangchug, translated from the Tibetan into Italian, edited, and annotated by Enrico Dell'Angelo; and translated into English by Nancy Simmons (Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2012) ("Today, all think that the venerable people in the Land of Snows the good land blessed by Avalokitesvara, who followed the teachings of the Buddha, did not merit such intolerable distress, If we think for a moment, however, we realize that such events are none other than the fruit of karma. This is the meaning of what Lord Atisa said with so much emphasis: 'If not practiced correctly, the dharma itself becomes the cause of the inferior states.'" "What else if not the fruit of their negative actions could these individuals with limited minds obtain, who full of hatred and attachment of religious sectarianism and bigotry, developed ever more useless fears and expectations? Many, persisting in this sectarian vision, still continue through their rancor and narrow-mindedness to accumulate negative actions in the same way that, as the proverb has it, 'one stretches one's legs in a bed that is already warm.'" "Alas! Masters, manifestations of Manjusri, father and son, you who dwell in the condition of peace, behold the ignorance that darkens our minds shut in the cage of narrow-mindedness. With the power of the light of compassion's rescuing lasso, dispel in an instant the dense shadows of ignorance due to narrow vision. Develop in us the vision of wisdom." Id. at 99-100. From the backcover: "The Lamp That Enlightens Narrow Minds tells the remarkable story of Khyentse Chokyi Wangchug (1909-1960), a realized Tibetan tulku (reincarnated lama or teacher) and reincarnation of the great nineteenth-century master Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo. Author, Dzogchen Buddhist scholar, and internationally known teacher Chogyal Namkhai Norbu, Chokyi Wangchug's maternal nephew and disciple, and himself a high-ranking tulku, describes in intimate detail the important events of Chokyi Wangchug's life, his spiritual practices, and the challenges he faced at a time of vast change and political upheaval in Tibet. Mantaining his sense of equanimity and dedication to the Buddhist teachings while navigating the complexities of Tibetan religious hierarchy and the invasion of Tibet by Chinese forces he was captured by the Chinese and died in prison in 1960. Upon his birth in 1970, the son of Chogyal Namkhai Norbu, Khyentse Yeshe, was recognized as the current reincarnation of Khyentse Chokyi Wangchug by H.H. Sakya Tridzin, the head of the Sakya Order of Tibetan Buddhism.").

Chogyal Namkhai Norbu & Adriano Clemente, The Supreme Source: the Kunjed Gyalpo, The Fundamental Tantra of the Dzogchen Semde, translated from the Italian by Andrew Lukianowicz (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 1999) (From the backcover: "The aim of Dzogchen is the reawakening of the individual to the primordial state of enlightenment which is naturally found in all beings.... The direct path of self-liberation is very different from the other Buddhist paths or renunciation, peculiar to the sutras, and transformation, peculiar to the tantras. The Dzogchen practitioner is aware of the absolute clarity and purity of his or her own mind, and, without trying to modify what is already perfect in itself, without striving to obtain from somewhere else the state of realization, remains always in the real nature of existence, in the supreme source of phenomena. 'Those who try to mediate and to realize this condition through effort are like a blind man chasing the sky.'").

HATHA YOGA

Ulrica Norberg & (photos by) Andreas Lundberg, Hatha Yoga: The Body's Path to Balance, Focus, and Strength (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2008) ("When we practice asanas we combine and balance the masculine and feminine energy within each of us, whether we are a man or a woman. According to Hatha Yoga philosophy, each individual must begin by balancing the physical body so that the mind can also be strengthened. If the body is strong, it creates a counterweight and positively influences mental power. But the mind also must be strengthened so that it, in turn, can strengthen the body. These two function in harmony. If the mind and body are weak, the soul is more easily influenced and wounded. Psychic-physical yoga movements lead to a calm, focused mind and a strong and flexible body and bring a feeling of wholeness, harmony, freedom, and peace to the soul." Id. at 18.).

Samskrti & Veda, Hatha Yoga: Manual I, 2d ed., revised and expanded (Honedale, PA: The Himalayan Institute of Yoga Science and Philosophy of the U. S. A., 1977, 1985) ("The benefits and purposes of the asanas may be concisely summarized as follows. First, to prepare the body for meditation, making it calm, steady, and firm. Second , to free the body from disease (dis-ease); to develop superb health so that the mind is not distracted by aches and pains after the body has been made steady for meditation. Third, to bring lightness to the body--not only literally, by reducing excess weight and increasing suppleness, but also figuratively, counteracting heaviness and depression by developing lightness of feeling and expression." Id. at 62.).

READING HALL

Noah Levine, Against the Stream: A Buddhist Manual for Spiritual Revolutionaries (New York: HarperOne, 2007) ("We have all been seduces by the world's enchanting offers of happiness through pleasure and accumulation, but they are lies, shams, fallacies. In order to find the true happiness and freedom that are available, we must understand this clearly. We must experience a revolution in our perception of the material world. Inside each one of us resides the truth; and however deeply buried or obscured that truth has become, we have the ability to uncover and experience it for ourselves--and happiness and freedom will follow." Id. at 118.).

Noah Levine, The Heart of the Revolution: The Buddhas's Radical Teachings on Forgiveness, Compassion, and Kindness (New York: HarperOne, 2011) ("Forgiveness--the journey and practice of intentionally letting go of the stuff of the past that has caused us emotional suffering and feeling anger and resentment--begins with the understanding that all harm caused comes out of suffering and ignorance. There is no such thing as wise abuse or enlightened betrayal. This is the core truth of harm: it always comes from confusion and suffering. Anger, violence, and all forms of abuse and betrayal are always motivated by an ignorant or confused intention. When the mind is unconfused--awakened--it cannot intentionally cause malicious harm. The awakened heart/mind acts with only wisdom and compassion. That understanding is essential as we practice forgiveness, in that it forces us to distinguish between the confused, suffering actor and the actions themselves.... Most of the time the anger and resentment we hold are directed against the actor; in our minds we don't instinctively separate the abuser from the abuse. But this is exactly what we must do. We must come to understand that confusion comes and goes. An action from a confused and suffering being in the past doesn't represent who that being is forever, it is only an expression do that being's suffering. Furthermore, if we cling to resentment over past hurts, we simply increase our own suffering. By holding on to our anger and resentments, we make our own lives more difficult than need be." Id. at 62-63.). 

Noah Levine, Dharma Punx: A Memoir (New York: HarperOne, 2003, 2004) ("My search for happiness, which first led me to drugs and punk rock, is the same search that eventually brought me to spiritual practice. The truth is, going against the internal stream of ignorance is way more rebellious than trying to start some sort of cultural revolution. It's easy to hate and point out everything that is wrong with the world; it is the hardest and most important work in one's life to free oneself from the bonds of fear and attachment. Compassion is our only hope, wisdom our weapon. The inner revolution will not be televised or sold on the Internet. It must take place within one's own mind and heart." Id. at 247.).

"THAT IS ENOUGH"

Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard, with an Introduction by Pico Iyer New York: Penguin Books, 1978, 2008) (From the diary entry, dated November 13, 1973: If all else fails, GS will send Jang-but to Saldang to buy an old goat as leopard bait. I long to see the snow leopard, yet to glimpse it by camera flash, at night, crouched on a bait, is not to see it. If the snow leopard should manifest itself, then I am ready to see the snow leopard. If not, then somehow (and I don't understand this instinct, even now) I an not ready to perceive it, in the same way that I am not ready to resolve my koan; and in the not-seeing, I am content. I think I must be disappointed, having come so far, and yet I do not feel that way. I am disappointed, and also, I am not disappointed. That the snow leopard is, that it is here, that its frosty eyes watch us from the mountain--that is enough." Id. at 238.).

'BE A PERSON WITHOUT ILLUSIONS'

Balthasar Gracian (y Morales), The Art of Worldly Wisdom, translated from the Spanish by Joseph Jacobs (Shambhala Pocket Classics) (Boston & London: Shambhala, 1993) ("100. Be a person without illusions, one who is wise and righteous, a philosophical courtier. Be all these, not merely seem to be them, still less affect to be them. Philosophy is nowadays discredited, but yet it was always the chief concern of the wise. The art of thinking has been degraded. Seneca introduced it at Rome, it found favor for a time among nobility, but now it is considered nonsense. And yet the discovery of deceit was always thought the true nourishment of a thoughtful mind, the true delight of a virtuous soul." Id. at 85. ""276. Know how to renew your character both with nature and with art. Every seven years the disposition changes, they say. Let it be change for the better and for the nobler in your taste. After the first seven comes reason, with each succeeding lustre let a new excellence be added. Observe this change so as to aid it, and hope also for betterment in others. Hence it happens that many change their behavior when they change their position or their occupation. At times the change is not noticed till it reaches the height of maturity. At twenty a man is a peacock, at thirty a lion, at forty a camel, at fifty a serpent, at sixty a dog, at seventy an ape, at eighty nothing at all." Id. at 238.).

"I BOW TO YOU, AN ENLIGHTENED BEING TO BE."

Thich Nhat Hanh, Being Peace, edited by Arnold Kotler, with illustrations by Mayumi Oda (Berkeley: Parallax Press, 1987) ("If I have a feeling of anger, how would I meditate on that? How would I deal with it, as a Buddhist, or as an intelligent person? I would not look upon anger as something foreign to me that I have to fight, to have surgery in order to remove it. I know that anger is me, and I am anger. Non-duality, not two. I have to deal with my anger with care, with love, with tenderness, with nonviolence. Because anger is me, I have to tend my anger as I would tend a younger brother or sister, with love, with care, because I myself am anger, I am in it I am it. In Buddhism we do not consider anger, hatred, greed as enemies we have to fight, to destroy, to annihilate. If we annihilate anger, we annihilate ourselves. Dealing with anger in that way would be like transforming yourself into a battlefield, tearing yourself into parts, one part taking the side of Buddha and the one part taking the side of Mara. If you struggle in that way, you do violence to yourself. If you cannot be compassionate to yourself, you will not be able to be compassionate to others. When we get angry, we have to produce awareness: 'I am angry. Anger is in me. I am anger.' That is the first thing to do." Id. at 40. "America is somehow a closed society. Americans are not very aware of what is going on outside of America. Life here is so busy that even if you watch television and read the newspaper, and the images from outside flash by, there is no real contact. I hope you will find some way to nourish the awareness of the existence of suffering in the world. Of course, inside America there is also suffering, and it is important to stay in touch with that. But much of the suffering in the West is 'useless' and can vanish when we see the real suffering of other people. Sometimes we suffer because of some psychological fact. We cannot get out of our self, and so we suffer. If we get in touch with the suffering in the world, and are moved by that suffering, we may come forward to help the people who are suffering, and our own suffering may just vanish." Id. at 92.).

Thich Nhat Hanh, Call Me by My True Names: The Collected Poems of Thich Nhat Hanh (Berkeley: Parallax Press, 1999) ( The poem "Unclasp": "Deserted beach, / footsteps in the sand / erased by rain-- / this anguish comes from nowhere, / and its feet do not yet touch the Earth. // Suddenly I hear a far-off whisper / of the gentle winds of Spring, / and the anguish is gone." Thich Nhat Hanh explains, "A feeling of anxiety can be transformed with a few conscious breaths. The anxiety is like a cloud trying to land on me. I breathe in and out, and it vanishes." Id. at 96.).

Thich Nhat Hanh, Finding Our True Home: Living in the Pure Land Here and Now, with a Preface by Sister Annabel Laity (Berkeley: Parallax Press, 2003) ("As human beings, our deepest desire is to find a secure environment where there is love and understanding. . . We all imagine establishing a place where we can nourish ourselves and other people. In such a place, we have the right conditions to develop our understanding  and love, to transform our own suffering and that of others. The place is called the Pure Land." "The notion that the Pure Land is an exterior reality, a place to be found far away in the western direction, is just for beginners. If we deepen our practice, the Buddha and the Buddha's land become a reality in our mind. Our ancestral teachers have always said this. If we practice well, we can experience Amitabha Buddha and the Pure Land wherever we are in the present moment. Id. at 22-23. "In the beginning we talk about pure as the absence of pollution. It means the pollution of being busy, of money, or power, of jealousy, of anxiety, or of fear. Pollution is the garbage. If we know how to do it we shall be able to transform garbage into flowers, fruits, and vegetables for our daily use. So 'Pure' in the context of Pure Land means not to be polluted by the afflictions. It does not mean no toilets, no bathrooms, no cooking and no washing up." Id. at 63-64.).

Thich Nhat Hanh, Going Home: Jesus and Buddhas as Brothers (New York: Riverhead Books, 1999) ("When we hate someone, we are angry at him because we do not understand him or his environment. By practicing deep looking, we realize that if we grew up like him, in his set of circumstances and having lived in his environment, we would be just like him. The kind of understanding removes your anger, removes your discrimination, and suddenly that person is no longer your enemy. Then you can love him. As long as he or she remains an enemy, love is impossible. Loving your enemy is only possible when you don't see him as your enemy any more, and the only way to do this is by practicing deep looking. That person has made you suffer quite a lot in the past. The practice is to ask why." Id. at 34-35.).

Thich Nhat Hanh, Making Space: Creating a Home Meditation Practice, with an introduction by Phap Dung (Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 2012) ("May I [you] be peaceful, happy, and light in body and spirit. May I [you] be safe and free from injury. May I [you] be free from anger, afflictions, fear, and anxiety." Id. at 60.).

Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness: A Manual on Meditation, Rev' ed., translated by Mobi Ho, with  drawings by Vo-Dinh Mai (Boston: Beacon Press, 1975, 1987) ("Some people have said that if you look at reality with the eyes of a Buddhist, you become pessimistic. But to think in terms of either pessimism or optimism oversimplifies the truth. The problem is to see reality as it is. A pessimistic attitude can never create the calm and serene smile which blossoms on the lips of the Bodhisattvas and all others who obtain the Way." Id. at 52.).

Thich Nhat Hanh, The Sun My Heart: From Mindfulness to Insight Contemplation (Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 1998).

Thich Nhat Hanh, Teachings on Love (Berkeley: Parallax Press, 1998) ("For love to be true love, it must contain compassion, joy, and equanimity. For compassion to be true compassion, it has to have love, joy, and equanimity in it. True joy has to contain love, compassion, and equanimity. And true equanimity has to have love, compassion, and joy in it. This is the interbeing nature of the Four Immeasurable Minds. When the Buddha told the Brahman man to practice the Four Immeasurable Minds, he was offering all of us a very important teaching. But we must look deeply and practice them for ourselves to bring these four aspects of love into our own lives and into the lives of those we love." Id. at 9.).

Thich Nhat Hanh, Zen Keys, with an Introduction by Philip Kapleau (New York: An Image Book /Doubleday, 1974, 1995) ("Although Zen declares that it is not based on words and concepts, it in fact manipulates words and concepts in order to reveal the reality that transcends words and concepts.... It must be clearly understood that though Zen masters may not encourage their disciples to spend time studying the Madhyamika and the Vijnanavada, it is not because these doctrines contradict Zen; in fact, they can very well illustrate the development of Zen. But Zen is not the study of Zen, Zen is life. Zen is direct contact with reality. The Madhyamika and the Vijnanavada doctrines can explain many things, but they do not put the practitioner in direct contact with living reality. Zen can only be lived and experienced. A Master Tue Trung said, 'This marvelous piece must be played.' What is the good of discussing a musical masterpiece? It is the performance that counts." Id. at 139-140. "The process of Zen finding roots in Western soil is an ongoing one. Cultural, economic, and psychological conditions are different in the West. One cannot become a practitioner of Zen just by imitating the way of eating, sitting, or dressing of Chinese or Japanese practitioners. Zen is life; Zen does not imitate. If Zen is to fully take root in the West, it must acquire a Western form, different from Oriental Zen." Id. at 102. "Contemporary man is dragged along in a producing and consuming treadmill to the point where he begins to become a part of the machine and loses mastery of himself. Daily life dissipates our spirit, eats up our time, and thus does not leave the opportunity to become aware of ourselves or return to our deeper self. Accustomed as we are to being constantly 'occupied,' if these occupations should be taken from us, we find ourselves empty and abandoned. Still, we refuse to confront ourself and instead go off in search of friends, to mix in with the crowd, to listen to the radio or to the television, to get rid of this impression of emptiness." "[] The economic, political, and military systems we have established have turned against us and imposed themselves on us, and we have become increasingly 'dehumanized.'" Id. at 151-152.  'Scientists, historians, and sociologists have sounded the alarm, but our societies do not seem to change. We continue our daily lives contributing to the maintenance and consolidation of the machinery of production and consumption.  We eat, drink, work, and distract ourselves, as if nothing is going to happen." Id.at 154-155.).

NOTE OF CAUTION: The more I read and think about Buddhism, especially Zen Buddhism, I am coming to sense that being enlightened, being awakened, is to be able to tell one's life story without making oneself the hero/heroine, without making oneself the victim, or even the central character; and to be able to tell the story honestly, yet without the self-deception that the story is really complete or even true. These are some of the aspects of Buddhism which will make it difficult, though not impossible, for a truly American form of Buddhism to firmly establish itself, that is, to become mainstream. The American culture, as it is now, is far too narcissistic, far too self-centered, etc., to embraced any form of Buddhism worthy of that name. This concern about the viability of Buddhism, especially Zen Buddhism, in a western or American form has been touch upon by Thomas Merton:

"However, let us be on our guard. This reference to Zen, which naturally suggests itself at a time when Zen is still somewhat popular in the western world, may be a clue, but it may also be a misleading cliche. There are quite a few western readers who have in one way or another heard about Zen and even tasted a little of it with the tip of the tongue. But tasting is one thing and swallowing is another, especially when, having only tasted, one proceeds to identify the thing tasted with something else which it seems to resemble.

"The fashion of Zen in certain western circles fits into the rather confused pattern of spiritual revolution and renewal. It represents a certain understandable dissatisfaction with conventional spiritual patterns and with ethical and religious formalism. It is a symptom of western man's desperate need to recover spontaneity and depth in a world which his technological skill has made rigid artificial, and spiritually void. But in its association with the need to recover authentic sense experience, western Zen has become identified with a spirit of improvisation and experimentation--with a sort of moral anarchy that forgets how much tough discipline and what severe traditional mores are presupposed by the Zen of China and Japan...." Thomas Merton, The Way of Chuang Tzu (New York & Boston: Shambhala, 2004), at 2-3.

I HAD A DREAM LAST NIGHT.

I was a young associate in a law firm headed by Tony Soprano. What is that all about?

NOVEMBER 6, 2012, FAVORITE ELECTION DAY SIGHTING

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SEEKING UNDERSTANDING OF THE SPRING PEEPER

Peter Matthiessen, Nine-Headed Dragon River: Zen Journals 1969-1982 (Shambhala Dragon Edition) (Boston: Shambhala, 1985, 1987) ("To practice Zen means to realize one's existence moment after moment, rather than letting life unravel in regret of the past and daydreaming of the future. To 'rest in the present' is a state of magical simplicity, although attainment of this state is not as simple as it sounds. At the very least, sitting Zen practice, called zazen, will bring about a strong sense of well-being, as the clutter of ideas and emotions falls away and body and mind return to natural harmony with all creation. Out of this emptiness can come a true insight into the nature of existence, which is not different from one's Buddha nature. To travel this path, one need not be a 'Zen Buddhist,' whut the mind, to return it to the clear, pty oich is only another idea to be discarded, like 'enlightenment' and like 'the Buddha' and like 'god'." Id. at x. "A tree frog or 'spring peeper' has replaced the white moth as my sentinel. It bounces down the silent row of bodhisattva, bounces back again with a minute pum, pum, pum, seeking the dark. Where is the door to Zen? Do you hear the peeping of a tree frog? Begin there! Or there! Or there! (Shunryu Suzuki-roshi said, If you have truly understood a frog, you have understood everything.) Zen is life, each moment of our life, thus Zen is everywhere." "Lao Tzu said, When your mind is empty like a valley or a canyon, then you will know the power of the Way. A Zen master says, How can I fill your cup until you empty it? In zazen, one opens to this emptiness, to the great stillness of our true nature, which is also the foundation of the universe. Then pure tears fall in utter relief at finding the way home." Id. at 44. "Meditation has nothing to do with contemplation of eternal questions, or of one's own folly, or even of one's navel, although a clearer view on all three of these enigmas may result. It has nothing to do with thought of any kind--with anything at all, in fact, but intuiting the true nature of existence, which is why it has appeared, in one form or another, in almost every culture known to man. The entranced Bushman staring into the fire, the Inuit using a sharp rock to draw an ever-deepening circle into the flat surface of a stone, achieves the same obliteration of the ego (and the same power) as the dervish or the Pueblo sacred dancer. Among Hindus and Buddhists, realization is attained through inner stillness, usually achieved through the samadhi state of sitting yoga. In Tantric, the student may displace the ego by filling his whole being with the real or imagined object of his concentration; in Zen, one seeks to empty out the mind, to return it to the clear, pure stillness of a sea shell or a flower petal. When body and mind are one, then the whole being, scoured clean of intellect, emotions, and the senses, experiences that individual existence, ego, the 'reality' of matter and phenomena are no more than fleeting and illusory arrangements of molecules. The weary self of masks and screens, defenses, preconceptions, and opinions that, propped up by ideas and words, imagines itself to be some sort of entity (in a society of like entities) may suddenly fall away, dissolve into formless flux where concepts such a 'death' and 'life,' 'time' and 'space,' 'past' and 'future' have no meaning. There is only a pearly radiance of Emptiness, the Uncreated, without beginning, therefore without end." Id. at 81-82.).

OVERHEARING CONVERSATIONS REGARDING HURRICANE SANDY...

Very few seem to get the fundamental lesson of Hurricane Sandy, or other natural "disasters'. We human beings are really insignificant. We may be able to manage aspect of our environment but, in the end, nature will always win. Will always bend us to our knees. 

Even when discussions turn to global warming and climate change--pressing wicked problems, yes!--, few conversant get the basic point that the Earth will survive global warming and climate change, and that it is the cancer called man [and woman] that will not survive. So, we complain about the loss of electricity, telephone, cellphone, cable services, etc., the long line for gas, no money in the ATM machine, bare store shelves, flooded basements, the trees that fell, canceled events, the havoc done to our time schedules and plans, and on and on. Yet, not realizing, not appreciating, not comprehending that climate change and global warming are killing us; and, since we are the cause of climate change and global warming, we are killing ourselves. Though, perhaps, a small part of the specie will evolve in ways suitable for survival, evolution takes a very, very, very long time.

I AM NOT FROM AROUND HERE!

One can learn things about oneself when confronted with nature's wrath, such as Hurricane Sandy which made its impressive mark on the East Coast this past week. What I learned, or remembered, is that I am not a New Englander. For the most part, I find it nearly impossible to relate to New Englanders. A Japanese-American college friend, from New York City, insists that, because people everywhere are different, people everywhere are the same. Not true. New Englanders are a wholly distinct specie from Midwesterners. And, being a Midwesterner, I long for home, especially when nature shows her wrath. There is a distinct form of selfishness (though they call it 'self-reliance') bred into New Englanders. It is a form of selfishness that, for all the talk of the value of community, is void of a real sense of community beyond one's own family, one's immediate tribe. 

A very large limb (not a branch, a limb) broke off from the tree outside the condo where I live. It blocked the sidewalk. And, still leaning on the tree, continued to put stress on the tree itself and threatened to bring down the telephone and cable wires (which would have result in at least twenty-five percent of the street homes losing those services). It would be awhile before the city came around to remove it. So, I went out to see what I could do, if anything. Many people walked by, neighbors came out, while I attempted to remove the fallen limb. In two and one-half hours of effort, the only person who offered to help was a fellow Midwesterner. I felt I had come home.

RADICAL ENLIGHTENMENT (SOMETHING TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY AMERICA DESPERATELY NEEDS)

Jonathan I. Israel, Democratic Enlightenment: Philosophy, Revolution, and Human Rights 1750-1790 (Oxford: Oxford U. Press, 2011) (From the bookjacket: "The Enlightenment shaped modernity. Western values of representative democracy and basic human rights, gender and racial equality, individual liberty, and freedom of expression and the press form an interlocking system that derives directly from the Enlightenment's philosophical revolution. This fact is uncontested--yet remarkably few historians or philosophers have attempted to trace the process of ideas from the political and social turmoil of the late eighteenth century to the present day. This is precisely what Jonathan Israel now does in the third part of his defining and revisionist series on the Enlightenment.").

Jonathan I. Israel, Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man 1670-1752 (Oxford: Oxford U. Press, 2006) ("From the outset then, in the late seventeenth century, there were always two enlightenments. Neither the historian nor the philosopher is likely to get very far with discussing 'modernity' unless he or she starts by differentiating Radical Enlightenment from conservative--or as it is called in this study--moderate mainstream Enlightenment. For the difference between reason alone and reason combined with faith and tradition was a ubiquitous and absolute difference. Philosophically, 'modernity' conceived as an abstract package of basic values--toleration, personal freedom, democracy, equality racial and sexual, freedom of expression, sexual emancipation, and the universal right to knowledge and 'enlightenment'--derives . . . from just one of these two, namely the Radical Enlightenment; historically, however, 'modernity' is the richly nuanced brew which arose as a result of the ongoing conflict not just between these two enlightenments but also (or still more) between enlightenments, on the one hand, and, on the other, the successive counter-enlightenments, beginning with Bossuet and culminating n the Postmodernism rejecting all these principles and seeking to overthrow both streams of Enlightenment. Rousseau, initially in the late 1740s and early 1750s and ally of Diderot and a radical philosophe, subsequently, in the 1760s, rebelled against both branches of Enlightenment, becoming the moral 'prophet' as it were of one form of Counter-Enlightenment." "Of the two enlightenments, the moderate mainstream was without doubt overwhelmingly dominant in terms of support, official approval, and prestige practically everywhere except for several decades in France from the 1740s onwards. Nevertheless, in a deeper sense, and in the long run, it proved to be much the less important of the two enlightenments. For it was always fatally hampered by its Achilles heel, namely that all its philosophical recipes for blending theological and traditional categories with the new critical mathematical rationality proved flawed in practice, not to say highly problematic and shot through with contradictions, Cartesian dualism, Lockean empiricism, Leibnizian monads, Malebranche's occasionalism, Bishop Huet's fideism, the London Boyle Lectures, Newtonian physicotheology, Thomasian eclecticism, German and Swedish Wolffianism, all the methodologies of compromise presented insuperable disjunctions and difficulties, rendering the whole philosophico-scientific-scholarly arena after 1650 exceedingly fraught and unstable." "The radical wing who scorned all such dualistic systems, and attempts at adjustment, may have been a tiny fringe in terms of numbers status, and approval ratings, among both elites and in popular culture, but they proved impossible to dislodge or overwhelm intellectually. . . ." Id. at 11. "The present modish preference among teachers and students for the 'cultural' and the 'social; over the intellectual in the core mechanics of history may owe much to the, for some, appealing implications there is no need to bother one's head with complex ideas supposedly the concern only of small and remote elites. But this kind of anti-intellectualism, however many eager converts it wins, does so at great cost: for it is often rendered the 'diffusionists' either willing or . . . unwilling allies of the Postmodern campaign to discredit traditional methods of historical criticism and marginalize, and cast a negative light on, the Enlightenment itself." Id. at 22. "Among the most divisive and potentially perplexing of all basic concepts introduced by the Radical Enlightenment into the make-up of modernity, and one of most revolutionary in its implications, was, and is, the idea of equality. Assertion of universal and fundamental equality was undoubtedly central not just to the Radical Enlightenment but to the entire structure of democratic values espoused by the modern West. Yet, neither the philosophical nor historical grounding of this idea, that is it intellectual origins and roots, is at all obvious and this whole issue had been, to a quite remarkable extent, shrouded in neglect in the historical academic literature. Surprisingly ignored as a cultural phenomenon, claiming the basic equality of men and women also continues to be widely opposed and rejected in much of the world today." Id. at 545. "Radical Enlightenment equality urged the democratization of knowledge and making the same idea, techniques, and critical methods available to the poor and unprivileged as the rich and privileged had access to. Yet a Postmodernist claiming this rhetoric of equality was really an arrogant quasi-colonial, western 'Enlightenment discourse', designed to master the cultures and traditions of others, might still raise the objection that this was a bogus equality extended to white Europeans and Americans but not to the rest of mankind. Was not the greater part of the world falling under European domination by the later eighteenth century? Yet it is precisely here, with its stress on the fundamental unity of mankind, that the Radical Enlightenment opposed the new varieties of hierarchy--racism and imperialism--with which more conservative elements of the Enlightenment and their nineteenth-century heirs, were to exert their greatest and most pervasive impact on the history of the next two centuries." Id. at 569-570.).

Jonathan I. Israel, Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650-1750 (Oxford: Oxford U. Press, 2001) (From the backcover: "In this controversial and original study the renowned cultural historian Jonathan I. Israel reveals the pivotal role of Spinoza and the influence of the widespread underground international philosophical movement known before 1750 a Spinozism on the intellectual and political revolution of the eighteenth century.").

Jonathan Israel, A Revolution of the Mind: Radical Enlightenment and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Democracy (Princeton & Oxford: Princeton U. Press, 2010) ("Radical Enlightenment is a set of basic principles that can be summed up concisely as: democracy; racial and sexual equality; individual liberty of lifestyle; full freedom of thought, expression, and the press; eradication of religious authority from the legislative process and education; and full separation of church and state. It sees the purpose of the state as being the wholly secular one of promoting the worldly interests of the majority and preventing vested minority interests from capturing control of the legislative process. Its chief maxim is that all men have the same basic needs, rights, and status irrespective of what they believe or what religious, economic, or ethnic group they belong to and that consequently all ought to be treated alike, on the basis of equity, whether black or white, male or female, religious or nonreligious, and that all deserve to have their personal interests and aspirations equally respected by law and government. Its universalism lies in its claim that all men have the same right to pursue happiness in their own way, and think and say whatever they see fit, and no one, including those who convince others they are divinely chosen to be their masters, rulers, or spiritual guides, is justified in denying or hindering others in the enjoyment of rights that pertain to all men and women equally." "These principles, broadly accepted nowhere in the world before the American Revolution--and by no means fully implemented there . . . --are only very patchily accepted by societies and governments in much of the world today. But while in many places these core democratic values retain only a precarious foothold, they did finally triumph in much of the world after 1945. . . . " Id. at viii-ix.).

Steven Nadler, A Book Forged in Hell: Spinoza's Scandalous Treatise and the Birth of the Secular Age (Princeton & Oxford: Princeton U. Press, 2011) (From the bookjacket: "When it appeared in 1670, Baruch Spinoza's Theological-Political Treatise was denounced as the most dangerous book ever published--'godless,' 'full of abominations,' 'a book forged in hell . . . by the devil himself.' Religious and secular authorities saw it as a threat to faith, social and political harmony, and everyday morality, and its author was almost universally regarded as a religious subversive and political radical who sought to spread atheism throughout Europe. Yet Spinoza's book has contributed as much as the Declaration of Independence or Thomas Paine's Common Sense to modern liberal, secular, and democratic thinking. In A Book Forged in Hell, Steven Nadler tells the fascinating story of this extraordinary book: its radical claims and their background in the philosophical, religious, and political tensions of the Dutch Golden Age, as well as the vitriolic reaction these ideas inspired.").

Benedict de Spinoza, The Collected Works of Spinoza, Volume I, edited and translated by Edwin Curley (Princeton: Princeton U. Press, 1985) (Spinoza has his 'Buddha" moment, then he loses it and, then again, regains it in bits and parts. "After experience had taught me that all the things which regularly occur in ordinary life are empty and futile, and I saw that all the things which were the cause or object of my fear had nothing of good or bad in themselves, except insofar as [my] mind was moved by them, I resolved at last to try to find out whether there was anything which would be the true good, capable of communicating itself, and which alone would affect the mind, all others being rejected--whether there was something, once found and acquired, would continuously give me the greatest joy, to eternity." Id. at 7. From the Ethics:  "The essence of man does not involve necessary existence, i.e., from the order of nature it can happen equally that this or that man does exist, or that he does not exist." Id. at 447. "If someone begins to hate a thing he has loved, so that the Love is completely destroyed, then (from an equal cause) he will have a greater hate for it than if he had never loved it, and this hate will be greater as the Love before was greater." Id at 515. "He who Hates someone will strive to do evil to him, unless he fears that a greater evil to himself will arise from this; and on the other hand, he who loves someone will strive to benefit him by the same law" Id. at 516. "Hate is increased by being returned, but can be destroyed by Love." Id. at 518. "Hate completely conquered by Love passes into Love, and the Love is therefore greater than if Hate had not preceded it." Id. at 519. "Blessedness is not the reward of virtue, but virtue itself; nor do we enjoy it because we retrain our lusts; on the contrary, because we enjoy it, we are able to restrain them." Id. at 616.).

Benedict de Spinoza, Theological-Politial Treatise (Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy), edited by Jonathan Israel, translated from the Latin by Michael Silverthorne & Jonathan Israel (New York: Cambridge U. Press, 2007) ("True joy and happiness lie in the simple enjoyment of what is good and not in the kind of false pride that enjoys happiness because others are excluded from it. Anyone who thinks that he is happy because his situation is better than other people's or because he is happier and more fortunate than they, knows nothing of true happiness and joy, and the pleasure he derives from his attitude is either plain silly or spiteful and malicious. For example, a person's true joy and felicity lie solely in his wisdom and knowledge of truth, not in being wiser than others or in others' being without knowledge of truth, since this does not increase his own wisdom which is his true felicity. Anyone therefore who takes pleasure in that way is enjoying another's misfortune, and to that extent is envious and malign, and does not know true wisdom or the peace of the true life." Id. at 43.).

In contrast, also see:

* Max Horkheimer & Theodor W. Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment:  Philosophical Fragments, edited by Gunzelin Schmid Noeer, translated by Edmund Jephcott (Stanford, CA: Stanford U. Press, 2002) ("In the bourgeois economy the social work of each individual is mediated by the principle of the self; for some this labor is supposed to yield increased capital, for others the strength for extra work. But the more heavily the process of self-preservation is based on the bourgeois division of labor, the more it enforces the self-alienation of individuals, who must mold themselves to the technical apparatus body and soul. Enlightened thinking [note, I think Horkheimer and Adorno mean, in Israel terminology, 'conservative enlightenment', not 'radical enlightenment'] has an answer for this, too: finally, the transcendental subject of knowledge, as the last reminder of subjectivity, is itself seemingly abolished and replaced by the operations of the automatic mechanisms of order, which therefore run all the more smoothly. Objectivity has volatilized itself into the logic of supposedly optional rules, to gain more absolute control. Positivism, which finally did not shrink from laying hands on the idlest fancy of all, thought itself, eliminated the last intervening agency between individual action and the social norm. The technical process,  to which the subject has been reified after eradication of that process from consciousness, is as free from the ambiguous meanings of mythical thoughts as from meaning altogether, since reason itself has become merely an aid to the all-encompassing economic apparatus. Reason serves as a universal tool for the fabrication of all other tools, rigidly purpose-directed as a calamitous as the precisely calculated operations of material production, the results of which for human beings escape all calculations. [] The self, entirely encompassed by civilization, is dissolved in an element composed of the very inhumanity which civilization has sought from the first to escape. The oldest fear, that of losing ones own name, is being fulfilled, For civilization, purely natural existence, both animal and vegetative, was the absolute danger, Mimetic, mythical, and metaphysical forms of behavior were successively regarded as stages of world history which had been left behind, and the idea of reverting to them held the terror that the self would be changed back into the mere nature from which it had extricated itself with unspeakable exertions and which for that reason filled it with unspeakable dread. Over the millennia the living memory of prehistory, of it nomadic period an even more of the truly prepatriarchal stages, has been expunged from human consciousness with the most terrible punishments. The enlightened spirit replaced fire and the wheel by the stigma it attached to all irrationality, which led to perdition. It hedonism was moderate, extremes being no less repugnant to enlightenment than to Aristotle. [] The essence of enlightenment is the choice between alternatives, and the inescapability of this choice is that of power. Human beings have always had to choose between their subjugation to nature and its subjugation to the self. With the spread of the bourgeois commodity economy the dark horizon of myth is illuminated by the sun of calculating reason, beneath whose icy rays the seeds of the new barbarism are germinating. Under the compulsion of power, human labor has always led aways from myth and, under power, has always fallen back under its spell." Id. at 23-24.).

Henry F. May, The Enlightenment in America (New York: Oxford U. Press, 1976) ("What people take for granted is usually more important than their pronouncements or manifestoes. The unexpressed and implied ideology of nineteenth-century America rested, I believe, on a series of tacit compromises. Of these the most basic was the compromise between a belief in moral certainties and a belief in the desirability of change and progress. This compromise was achieved and maintained not by intellectual argument, but by assertion and symbolization--almost without realization of its inherent fragility." Id. at xi. "When one looks at the eighteenth-century in America with..., one finds two main clusters of ideas. One of these consists of the doctrines of Protestantism and particularly Calvinistic Protestantism, drawn from sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe but developed and institutionalized with great vigor in America, particularly in New England. The other cluster of ideas is drawn from the Enlightenment of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe. The relation between these two major idea systems is basic to the understanding of eighteenth-century America, and indeed, I would say, the understanding of America in any period." Id. at xi-xii. (italics and emphasis added). In many ways, might much of the overarching differences between late-twentith-ceentury democrats and republicans be understood in terms of their embrace or rejection, respectively, of European Enlightenment, and their rejection or embrace, respectively, of orthodoxy in religious beliefs?  From the bookjacket: ""It has long been taken for granted that the ideas of the European Enlightenment--of men like Locke, Hume, Voltaire, or Rousseau--profoundly affected America during the Revolutionary age.... " "May defines the Enlightenment broadly. Men of the Enlightenment were all those who believed that their own age was more enlightened than the past and that man and nature are best understood though the use of natural faculties. He treats the Enlightenment as a 'religion,' even though many of its leading proponents oppose organized religion. Throughout the book he relates the Enlightenment to Protestant Christianity, for it is out of the clashes and reconciliations between those two systems that nineteenth-century American culture--a culture that lasted almost to our own time--took shape." Defined so broadly, the religion of Enlightenment obviously included many different kinds o people--deists and skeptics and liberal Christians, aristocrats and democrats, conservatives and revolutionaries. May divides the European Enlightenment into four major categories, and shows how each had a different effect in America. Obviously some ideas could be transmitted more easily than others to a society overwhelmingly Protestant and rapidly becoming democratic. May shows how the Enlightenment affected the thoughts and actions of major figures like Jefferson, Franklin, and John Adams, but these familiar figures are treated against a background of less well-known people--doctors and ministers, scientists and planters and politicians." "Beginning with the movement of relatively conservative British Enlightened ideas to America before the Revolution, May moves on to the transmission of the skeptical thought of men like Voltaire and Hume, and the revolutionary prophesies and programs of Rousseau, Condorcet, and Paine. The climax of the book cones in the 1709s, when radical enlightenment ideas clashed head-on with New England's religious and social traditions. The last part of the book shows how some aspects of the European Enlightenment were assimilated and others rejected by the new American society of the nineteenth century.").

* I was reading Dialectic of Enlightenment between yoga practices one recent Saturday. A woman, having noticed the title and, more specifically, the word "enlightenment" in the title, asked whether I was reading the book in preparation for yoga class. I found that humorous, as would Horkheimer and Adorno, but that would be unfair to the woman because she was unaware of the actual subject-matter of the book. She was thinking of 'enlightenment' as that notion might be understood in Eastern philosophy or religion. Still, even that is humorous. As if the typical modern Western yoga class would facilitate one's path to any kind of Eastern enlightenment. If one has been to a typical modern yoga class, with it emphasis on the asanas/postures, one will appreciate the humor in the question. There are, I think, individuals at yoga practice who are struggling along the long road towards enlightenment, but yoga class is not central to that journey, not a significant marker along the road.