SOWING PANIC

Law Schools’ Applications Fall as Costs Rise and Jobs Are Cut BY ETHAN BRONNER Applications are headed for a 30-year low, reflecting increased concern over soaring tuition, crushing student debt and diminishing prospects of lucrative employment upon graduation.

TOLERATING RELIGION

Susan Jacoby, The Great Agnostic: Robert Ingersoll and American Freethought (New Haven & London: Yale U. Press, 2013) ("Known as 'Robert Injuresoul' to his clerical enemies, he raised the issue of what role religion ought to play in the public life of the American nation for the first time since the writing of the Constitution, when the founders deliberately left out any acknowledgment of a deity as the source of governmental power." Id. at 2. "To the question that retains its politically divisive power today--whether the United States was founded s a Christian nation--Ingersoll answered an emphatic no." Id. at 4.  "The other cultural issues that divided Americans in Ingersoll's time are equally familiar and include evolution, race, immigration, women's rights, sexual behavior, freedom of artistic expression, and vast disparities in wealth. In the nineteenth century, however, the issues were newer, as was the science bolstering the secular side of the argument, and the forces of religious orthodoxy were stronger. The overarching question in Ingersoll's time was whether any of these issues could or should be resolved by appeals to divine authority. To this Ingersoll also said no, spreading the gospel (though he never would have called it that)  of reason, science, and humanism to audiences across the country. It is not an overstatement to say that Ingersoll devoted his life to freethought, the lovely term that first appeared in England in the late seventeenth century and was meant to convey devotion to a way of looking at the world based on observation rather than on ancient 'sacred' writings by men who believed that the sun revolved around the earth." Id. at 6-7. "Ingersoll used every possible public platform to remind Americans why the founders had written a godless constitution in the first place. In response to one of the many ministerial pleas for a godly constitution since Lincoln had evaded the issue in 1864, Ingersoll noted that 'if there is to be acknowledgement of God in the Constitution, the question naturally arises as to which God is to have this honor.'  [] Ingersoll had two major concerns about separation of church and state. First, he feared that in an expanding and expansive society that included people of more varied cultures and beliefs than the founders could ever have imagined, the most retrograde representatives of orthodox Protestantism would attempt to solidify their political and economic power by laying claim to a religion-based political authority denied by the Constitution. Second, he anticipated that the Catholic Church would press for more laws in conformity with its doctrines as the number of American Catholics increased.... Ingersoll saw the Catholic opposition to free public schooling and its suspicion of science as particularly harmful and noted that the Vatican respected the religious liberty of others only in ares where Catholics were a minority." "But Ingersoll also had a low opinion of the curriculum in American public schools when it came to teaching students about either freedom of conscience or the separation of church and state in American history." Id. at 139- 142. "The connection between old-time religion and politics, however, was the reverse of today's close relationship between religion and economic conservatism. Bryan was the leader of the entwined forces of economic and religious populism until his death in 1925 (shortly after the Scopes trial). His famous 1896 'cross of gold' speech had embodied the philosophical linkage between turn-of-the-century evangelical religion and the desire for economic (though not racial) justice. Bryan would undoubtedly have been astonished had someone told him in the 1890s that a century in the future, Americans who upheld the literal truth of Genesis would be equally committed to the idea that the rich should pay lower taxes and that corporations should be treated as people." Id. at 149-150.).

Brian Leiter, Why Tolerate Religion? (Princeton & Oxford: Princeton U. Press, 2013) ("The central puzzle in this book is why the state should have to tolerate exemptions from generally applicable laws when they conflict with religious obligations but not with any other equally serious obligations of conscience." Id. at 3. "The important fact here, however, is that religious commands--whether rightly or wrongly understood--are taken categorically by their adherents. [] Is religion really alone in this regard? One respect in which Marxism may have been justifiably called a religion is precisely that in some of the historical contexts just noted, the only other groups as categorically committed to resistance as the religiously inspired were communists, who led resistance to Nazism, as well as apartheid in both South Africa and the United States, long before other groups joined the battle. More generally, of course, one might think that all commands of morality are categorical in just this way. Does that mean, then, that religion is not special after all, since it shares the property of categoricity of its commands with Marxism and with one common understanding of morality?" Id. at 37. "Let us recap. There maybe compelling principled reasons for the state to respect liberty of conscience--the conclusion established by the Rawlsian and Millian arguments of chapter 1--but there is no apparent moral reason why states should carve out special protections that encourage individuals to structure their lives around categorical demands that are insulated from the standards of evidence and reasoning we everywhere else expect to constitute constraints on judgment and action, even allowing that those demands may figure in systems of beliefs that have some utility-maximizing effects (e.g., existential consolation). Singling out religion for toleration is tantamount to thinking we ought to encourage precisely this conjunction of categorical fervor and its basis in epistemic indifference, and that we should simply bite the speculative bullet. If matters of religious conscience deserve toleration--a they surely do given the arguments of chapter 1--then they do so because they involve matters of conscience, not matters of religion." Id. at 63-64.).

TRADING WITH CHINA IS A BETTER OPTION THAN IS WAR.

Odd Arne Westad, Restless Empire: China and the World Since 1750 (New York: Basic Books, 2012) ("When foreign investment returned to China in the early 1990s..., it was at a pace and level never seen before in China's history. The combination of a dedicate and cheap workforce and the foreign hope of buying into China's own domestic development led to the country leap-frogging all others in terms of foreign direct investment (FDI). Over the course of the decade, China was second only to the United States in attracting FDI--a remarkable change, given that foreign investment of any kind had not existed in Communist China prior to 1980. Up to today the changes in China's economic system have to a large extent been driven by the needs created by foreign investors. For instance, a legal framework of ownership had to be created to serve those who wanted to invest in China. The same framework could then serve China's own embryonic capitalists. Similarly for stock exchanges, insurance arrangements, and quality control. China's bid to join the World Trade Organization (WTO), which finally succeed in 2001 (very much thanks to the goodwill of the United States), was intended to serve China's export potential, but also made the country sign up to stringent regulations concerning state subsidies (or rather the absence thereof), industry standards, copyright protection, and not least opening the Chinese market to foreign competition. The international drove the domestic in terms of economic change." Id. at 384-385 (emphasis added.) The international driving the US domestic may be become a reality sooner than many Americans think, let alone want. Protectionism, for instance, may make good rhetoric in US domestic politics, but it will not fair very well in the global economy where production inputs are readily moveable and where emerging consumer markets determine where demand resides. "By the latter half of the 1810s, Beijing began looking for more effective methods for upholding the emperor's 1796 total ban on opium import. But the imperial administration's new concerns about the effects of opium just as smuggling of the drug was becoming central to the British East India Company's China strategy. After almost two generations of a negative trade balance with China, the company has finally chanced upon a product that was not only popular there but also widely available form British India. For Britain, the China trade has suddenly turned both profitable and important in size. India had been a colonial enterprise whose cost-effectiveness many in Britain  doubted, but now it began generating income through a government monopoly on opium production. Meanwhile, private investors profited from selling the drug in China, especially after the EIC's monopoly on trade was abolished in 1833. In the 1829, the import of opium more than tripled. Beijing noted that large amounts of silver were flowing out of China as payment for opium and feared that inflation and state impoverishment would result." Id. at 39-40. "Both Japanese and Chinese nationalism took part of their core purpose from ideas adopted from the West. But even so they were very different in character. Japan developed a form of ethnic nationalism. in some ways similar to the new nationalism found in Germany and Italy, or in parts of Eastern Europe. Defining all Japanese as one ethnie, the state constructed a religion (Shintoism), an educational system, and an army that taught the new message: All Japanese were one, bound together by bloodline and territory (what the Germans called Blut und Boden) into one national state. In China such an ethnic nationalism was difficult to imagine. China had been everything, not just a group of people tied together by some form of inheritance. China was a culture as well as an empire, and it took as long time--really up to today--before Chinese fully began seeing themselves as one group, defined by where they live and what they look like. Still, the Chinese nationalism of the early twentieth century--centered on the state--as enough of a challenge to others, and especially to Japan, whose incursions into China were predicated on the absence of a viable Chinese state." Id. at 120-121. "During the first half of the twentieth century, China became internationalized. In 1900, both natives and foreigners saw the Chinese empire as a thing apart, but by the late 1940s the country had become integrated into a capitalists world of expanding markets and movements of people and idea. Foreigners in China played a significant role in this transformation. Coming from all parts of the world and representing all kinds of backgrounds and professions, they helped transform China (though not always in directions that most Chinese appreciated). They were missionaries and businessmen, advisers and adventurers, revolutionaries and refugees. While some came for short-term profits, many stayed in China and died there. In each single case they influenced and were influenced by their Chinese contacts, often in directions that would profoundly affect China and the world up to today." Id. at 171. "Things travel alongside ideas, and sometimes the materials travels faster than the idea it came from. In China in the early twentieth century, products from the industrial revolutions in Europe and North America reached the far corners of the country, handed down from imports to middlemen to county fairs, traveling merchants, or the town store. Bicycles, batteries, glass, telephones, lights, cotton, leather shoes, perfumes, wristwatches, photography, and radios--all things foreign and therefore modern created a sense of excitement in China just as they had done when they had been introduced a few decades earlier on the continents where they were created. Almost immediately the Chinese started to integrate such products into their own lifestyles and esthetics, and very soon the most advantageous of them were produced in China, for domestic consumption and then for export. Nobody who has studied the introduction of foreign products into China in the early twentieth century will be surprised at the speed with which the country was to become an export dynamo three generations later, when the political pendulum swung back toward enterprise values and interaction with the world. Although the willingness to adapt to rapid change also created resistance, the ability to find ways to integrate the Chinese with the foreign baffled many observers and made urban China seem well poised for being on the cusp of modernity." Id. at 176-177. "The US government banned Chinese immigration in 1882. It is the only restriction Congress has ever enacted directed against all citizens of a specific country. The ban lasted up to 1943, when Chinese officials managed to sufficiently embarrass their wartime ally to have it withdrawn." Id. at 224. This is a good, quick, overview for students interested in international trade, international business, international relations, or who increasingly see themselves more as cosmopolitan citizens of the global community rather than parochial  citizens of any given nation-state. I don't think we are in Kansas Toto.).

CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE FOLLY THAT FREE MARKETS WILL PROVIDE THE SOLUTION

Adrian Parr, The Wrath of Capital: Neoliberalism and Climate Change Politics (New York: Columbia U. Press, 2013) ("The narrative of modernity and the optimistic feeling of newness it generates are merely a distraction. Distractions such as decarbonizing the free-market economy, buying carbon offsets, handing out contraceptives to poor women in developing countries, drinking tap water in place of bottle water, changing personal eating habits, installing green roofs on city hall, and expressing moral outrage at British Petroleum (BP) for the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, although well meaning, are merely symptomatic of the uselessness of free-market 'solutions' to environmental change. Indeed, such widespread distraction leads to denial." Id. at 2. "In the absence of an internationally binding agreement on emissions reductions, all individual actions taken to reduce emissions--a flat global carbon tax, recycling, hybrid cars, carbon offsets, a few solar panels here and there, and so on--are mere theatrics." Id. at 3. "Climate change poses several environmental problems, many of which now have a clear focus. The scientific problem: How can the high amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere causing the earth's climate change be lowered to 350 ppm? The economic problem: How can the economy be decarbonized while addressing global economic disparities? The social problem: How can human societies change their climate-altering behaviors and adapt to changes in climate? The cultural problem: How can commodity culture be reigned in? The problem policymakers face: What regulations can be introduced to inhibit environmental degradation, promote GHG reductions, and assist the people, species, and ecosystems most vulnerable to environmental change. The political problem is less clear, however, perhaps because of it philosophical implications." "Political philosophy examines how these questions are dealt with and the assumptions upon which they are premised. It studies the myriad ways in which individuals, corporations, the world's leaders, on governmental organization (NGOs), and communities respond to climate change and the larger issue of environmental change characteristic of the Anthropocene age. More important, political philosophy considers how these responses  reinforce social and economic structures of power. In light of this consideration, how do we make the dramatic and necessary changes needed to adapt equitably to environmental change without the economically powerful claiming ownership over the collective impetus and goals that this historical juncture presents?" Id. at 4. From the bookjacket: "Although climate change has become the dominant concern of the twenty-first century [NOTE: climate change was not a topic/issue in the 2012 U.S. presidential elections], global powers refuse to implement the changes necessary to reverse these trends. Instead, they have neoliberalized nature and climate change politics and discourse, and there are indications of a more virulent strain of capital accumulation on the horizon. Adrian Parr calls attention to the problematic socioeconomic conditions of neoliberal capitalism underpinning the world's environmental challenges, and she argue that, until we grasp the implications of neoliberalism's interference in climate change talks and policy, humanity is on track to an irreversible crisis." "Parr not only exposes the global failure to produce equitable political options for environmental regulation, but she also breaks down the dominant political paradigms hindering the discovery of viable alternatives. She highlights the neoliberalization of nature in the development of green technologies, land use, dietary habits, reproductive practices, consumption patterns, design strategies, and media. She dismisses the notion that the free market can solve debilitating environmental degradation and climate change as nothing more than a political ghost emptied of its collective aspirations.").

NYING-MA ORDER OF TIBETAN BUDDHISM

Tenzin Gyratso, The World of Tibetan Buddhism: An Overview of Its Philosophy and Practice, translated, edited, and annotated by Geshe Thupten Jinpa (Boston: Wisdom Publications 1995).

Longchenpa, Kindly Bent to Ease Us (Klong-chen rab-'byams-pa): Part One: Mind (Sems-nyid ngal-gso), from the Trilogy of Finding Comfort and Ease (Ngal-gso skor-gsum), translated from the Tibetan and annotated by Herbert V. Guenther (Oakland, CA: Dharma Publishing, 1975) ("It is not enough to be reminded of the preciousness of human existence, of its impermanence, of frustration and suffering, and of the significance our actions have in determining the life which we will have to live. Much more important is that we learn how to live a life that in retrospect may be deemed to have been worth living. There can, however, be no learning without there also being some teaching. Learning is not merely the memorizing of isolated facts but rather a perennial search for values relevant to the learner's existence. Similarly, teaching is not merely the presentation of bits and pieces of information and, when the person's concrete existence is at stake, the offering up of 'normative standards' to fixate on, but the explication of the human situation and of what his holds for him who is willing to learn. The common bond between teacher and disciple is the experience of an obligation which implies the recognition of a value relevant to the existence of both teacher and disciple. There are, as everybody knows, teachers and teachers and, if anything goes wrong in the precarious teacher-disciple relationship, it is customary --and often the impression is gained that there is a compulsive urge--to blame the teacher and to exonerate the student contrary to all evidence. Yet it is equally true that there are students and students, and that some are willing to learn while others inertly exist without thought." "Although the relationship between a teacher who is able to teach because he has gone through the arduous process of learning, and a student who is willing to learn because he feels the need to be taught, is of paramount importance, this relationship does not occur in a vacuum. Rather it is a complex phenomenon having a private and a public sector. The public sector is represented by 'friends' who determine the milieu in which the learning process takes place and who aid the process by setting an example." Id. at 72-73. "He who wants to cultivate contemplative attention must give up distractions and restlessness. / Delight in sensuous objects is like clouds in the autumn sky, / Unstable like lightening and very capricious. / Their enjoyment is evanescent, like a phantom palace. They never can be trusted; give them up / And quickly resort to quiet forest groves. // Have few desires and be content / Because desires produce dissatisfaction. / They cause frustration building them up, preserving them, and finding new ones; / They create discord by saturation, craving, avarice; / they lead to evil forms of life and block the way to happy ones. // Just as bodily wounds cause untold suffering, / So also much wealth creates even greater worries. / The fewer the necessities, the greater the happiness. / Persecutions are less, and there is no fear of enemies and thieves; / Praised by all, you stay on the noble path. / Since duties become fewer and preoccupations grow less, / Always train yourself in having few desires." Id at 143. From the backcover: "There is depth, breath, and magic in Nyingma thought and its charm grows the more one studies it. Klong-chen rab-'byams-pa's work is lit with a light that radiates into and transfigures every aspect of man's life...." "Speaking from the deep inner experience of Longchenpa, Kindly Bent to Ease Us is a basic guide through the traditional stages on the path to enlightenment. The title points to the thrust towards Being as both the source and fulfillment of man's ongoing quest for the meaning of his life. Since in the quest, Mind and, in particular, the understanding of its working, is of primary importance, the vast scope of Mind is the subject of this first part of "The Trilogy of Finding Comfort and Ease.'").

Longchenpa, Kindly Bent to Ease Us (Klong-chen rab-'byams-pa): Part Two: Meditation (bSams-gtan ngal-gso), from the Trilogy of Finding Comfort and Ease (Ngal-gso skor-gsum), translated from the Tibetan and annotated by Herbert V. Guenther (Oakland, CA: Dharma Publishing, 1976) (Given how much of one's day, one's week, one's life, etc., is spent in the workplace (and with Internet connections, smartphones, and other technologies, some of us are nearly always at work or on call), read the following passage, substituting 'workplaces' for 'places' or 'houses.' "In brief, there are places and houses which at first are quite pleasing, / But the more familiar you become with them, they turn out to be unpleasant with few rewards (for your spiritual efforts); / There are others that at first are frightening and vexatious, but become very pleasing the more familiar you become with them; / They offer supreme blessings; rewards (for your spiritual efforts) are quickly repeated, and there are no obstacles. / Apart from these two kinds, all other are neutral and do not offer any benefit or harm. // Since, depending on the place in which you reside, your mind undergoes a change, / And there is either growth or decline in your efforts in what is healthy and wholesome, / It has been said that it is of utmost importance to examine the place or the locality. // To sum up, there are also four (kinds of) places corresponding (in mood) to the four kinds of actions: / Places inspiring 'inner calm' automatically keep the mind steady; / Places conveying the feeling of 'expansion' have the mind rejoicing and resplendent in grandeur; / Places implying 'powefulness' have the mind captured and attached; / Places conveying the feeling of 'severity' make the mind dizzy and induce dread and terror. / In their subdivision these places are countless and beyond measure...." Id. at 49-50.  From the backcover: "Meditation... introduces a central practice of Dzogchen, the Teachings of the Great Perfection. The form of meditation presented here...is considered the pinnacle of all Buddhist meditative traditions, the 'king of al instructions.' Its purpose is to liberate us from mind's of awareness. The experience of this meditation is like the sun emerging from the clouds; it fills the mind with light and transforms the practitioner's understanding.").

Longchenpa, Kindly Bent to Ease Us (Klong-chen rab-'byams-pa): Part Three: Wonderment (sGyu-ma ngal-gso), from the Trilogy of Finding Comfort and Ease (Ngal-gso skor-gsum), translated from the Tibetan and annotated by Herbert V. Guenther (Oakland, CA: Dharma Publishing, 1976) ("All that has happened up to yesterday's (events) / Is similar to last night's dream, a content of (subjective) mind. / Even what is present now is but your intellect's activity, nothing as such and yet being there. / Yesterday and today are like a dream and / Tomorrow and day after tomorrow are a dream not yet come. / Having firmly set up the idea that all that presents itself to you, for negation and affirmation and / As happiness and misery, is a dream, / Do not for a moment harbor the idea that there is a true mind." Id. at 43-44. "Again listen to my explication of the Victorious One's statement / That all that is is a phantom." Id. at 99.).

Khetsun Sangpo, Tantric Practice in Nying-ma, translated and edited by Jeffrey Hopkins, co-edited by Anne C. Klein (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications, 1982, 1996) ("What are the causes of happiness? We can enumerate them as the ten virtues: Three physical virtues: abandoning killing and sustaining life; abandoning stealing and engaging in giving; abandoning sexual misconduct and maintaining pure ethics. Four verbal virtues: abandoning lying and speaking the truth; abandoning divisiveness and speaking harmoniously; abandoning harsh words and speaking lovingly; abandoning senseless talk and talking sensibly. Three mental virtues: abandoning covetousness and cultivating joy for others' prosperity; abandoning harmful thoughts and cultivating helpfulness; abandoning wrong ideas and learning correct views." Id. at 21. "In a sutra it is said, 'Seek the excellent doctrine until death, crossing through fire or on a razor's edge.' You should not worry about difficulties such as whether you will get hot or cold or have to listen for a long time. It will be to your great advantage to bear willingly whatever hardship is required." Id. at 35. "ANIMALS: The animal realm, the best of the three bad realms, refers to animals living in the sea and on land. Those in the watery depth are especially prone to the suffering of the larger eating the smaller and the smaller latching onto the bodies of the larger and eating holes in them. Those on land suffer particularly from being used by others." "The worst affliction of animals is stupidity, for they are so dull that even though they are being used or about to be eaten by other beings they cannot free themselves. Their minds are so obscured that they do not know what to do and what to avoid; they have no notion of how to engage in religious practice." "There are many examples of how animals are used by other people and deprived of all freedom. Sheep are kept for their wool; when sheared, they may be injured, but they have no choice. Others, such as tigers and bears, are killed for their skins, elephants for their tusks and musk deer for their musk. Their own bodies have led to their deaths." "Animals are so tortured with endless suffering that they seem to be drunk with it. Their distress is caused by former actions, motivated by ignorance confusion and obscuration. In meditation you should imagine that you yourself are undergoing all this, and you will wish to gain such understanding that you will never again have to suffer such pain." Id. at 75-76.).

B. Allan Wallace, Stilling the Mind: Shamatha Teachings from Dudjom Lingpa's Vajra Essence, edited by Brian Hodel (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2011) ("What is 'earnest mindfulness of death,' and what is its value? This virtue is put into practice by living with death in the back of your mind, and sometimes in the front of your mind, and becoming very comfortable with it. This recognition puts things into sharp focus--gives us 'the conviction that all composite phenomena are impermanent, so that you have little attraction to mundane activities.' In light of our death, our mundane desires are seen for what they are. For example, I feel a desire for my favorite bread, and then I get some and eat it. In normal, conventional circumstances that may be meaningful. In the face of death, it is completely irrelevant. How much sourdough bread I have eaten in this lifetime won' be something I care about when I am dying. From that perspective all the mundane concerns are likewise valueless. If our desires for wealth, luxury, good food, praise, reputation, affection, acceptance by other people, and so forth are worth nothing in the face of death, then that is precisely their ultimate value. Furthermore, anything unwholesome we've done in the pursuit of mundane concerns is going to have a negative impact. Maintain that perspective." "There is, however, another side to that coin. Just as we can overindulge in the mundane concerns, we can also go to the other extreme by overindulging in austerity. If we set inordinately high ascetic goals for our practice we can create obstacles and even injure ourselves physically and mentally." Id. at 45-46. This book is a translation of, and commentary upon, the shamatha section from Dudjom Lingpa's Dzogchen tantra known in Tibetan as the Nelug Rangjung. The Vajra Essence's full title is The Vajra Essence: From the Matrix if Pure Appearances and Primordial Consciousness, a Tantra in the Self-Originating Nature of Existence.).

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Joyce Carol Oates, Daddy Love: A Novel  (New York: The Mysterious Press, 2013) ("[Y]ou could say there's a disadvantage to having had a personal catastrophe in your life. [] Being unaware of the degree to which you're an asshole, because people give you a free ride. [] The actual disadvantage is that you attribute your subsequent life--every mood, every downturn--to that catastrophe. You can't imagine an alternative life. There is only the one life. You have no perspective. This was true. This was sad, banal, quasi-profound, true. [] The perspective you lose is not knowing how different you life would be, otherwise. I mean your inner, essential life...." Id. at 243-244.).

ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM IN AMERICAN PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS

Elvin T. Lim, The Anti-Intellectual Presidency: The Decline of Presidential Rhetoric from George Washington to George W. Bush (Oxford & New York: Oxford U. Press, 2008) ("My thesis is this: the problem of presidential rhetoric in our time resides not in its quantity, but in its quality. The problem is not that 'going public' has become a routine presidential practice; it is that while presidents talk a lot, they say very little that contributes constructively to public deliberation. Our problem is the anti-intellectual presidency, not the rhetorical presidency." Id. at x. Then, again, don't the people get the president they deserve? If the people or voters are themselves anti-intellectual, will they not tend to get--though not necessarily be satisfied with--an anti-intellectual president? "Rather than harp on the problem of the rhetorical presidency, this book addresses presidential anti-intellectual head on. This is a critical enterprise because much is wrong with American politics today begins with the words that emanate from the nation's highest officeholder and principal spokesperson. When presidents lie to us or mislead us, whey they pander to us or seduce us with their words, when they equivocate and try to be all things to all people, or when they divide us with wedge issues, they do so with an arsenal of anti-intellectual tricks, with rhetoric that is linguistically simplistic, reliant on platitudes or partisan slogans, short on argument, and long on emotive and human-interest appeals." Id. at x-xi. "Peggy Noonan articulates the groupthink behind contemporary speech craft: 'It is simplicity that gives the speech its power.... And we pick the signal up because we have gained a sense in our lives that true things are usually said straight and plain and direct' (original emphasis). But simplicity does not guarantee the truth, only the semblance of sincerity. Paradoxically, in heeding Noonan's advice, presidents have to be untruthful or duplicitous--altering their innate speech patterns--in order to appear truthful." "Speechwriters in the last half century have, by their own accounts, killed oratory. Eloquence, today, has become a function of simplicity...." ""We observe ... a global rejection of rhetorical complexity, with no qualification as to the limits of simplification or the dangers of oversimplification, much less any concern about the potential duplicity of simplifying language not for the sake of the transmission of truth but for its semblance. Indeed, presidential instructions for 'workaday prose' are obviously an effort to push the frontiers of simplification. As is the case with any intemperate position, there is something troubling about this. Education experts tell us that, in order to maximize learning, there is an optimal readability level that  be set above, not at or below, the reader's present level of ability. Using books that are at or below a reader's level may increase reading fluency and rate, but not comprehension. Judging by the cult of simplicity that presidents have promoted, it would appear that they have been less concerned with educating members of the public than with wooing them. The cult of simplicity endorsed by presidents and speechwriters is anti-intellectualism with a demagogic smile, it is a seductive justification of anti-intellectualism that has blinded us to the gradual rot of our public deliberative sphere." Id. at 47-48. Four comments: (1) This, relatively short, book is worth a careful read. (2) Locate and read Richard Hofstadter, Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1963). (3) Think about the anti-intellectualism in your daily life, say, at your work, at your school, in your social life. I have written elsewhere, for instance, of the deep anti-intellectualism of today's legal education; but I suspect a thoughtful and perceptive person will see anti-intellectualism's presence throughout American society. Think about a group meeting where specific issues were supposed to be discussed and decided upon, but where any attempt to introduce any nuance into the discussion was summarily cut off because, in short, it detracted from the simplistic black-white, either-or, etc., narrative of those controlling the agenda. Anti-intellectuals don't want nuance. It is the fly in the groupthink ointment. And, (4) it is not that we as a people are getting less intelligent and more dumb, it is that we are becoming more anti-intellectual. We are becoming quite shallow thinkers, readers and listeners. Woe be us!).

THE FOURTEEN PRECEPTS OF THE TIEP HIEN ORDER

Thich Nhat Hanh, Interbeing: Commentaries on the Tiep Hien Precepts, edited, with an introduction, by Fred Eppsteiner (Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 1987).

"The First Precept. Do not be idolatrous about or bound to any doctrine, theory, or ideology, even Buddhist ones. All systems of thought are guiding means; they are not absolute." Id. at 27.
"The Second Precept. Do not think the knowledge you presently possess is changeless, absolute truth. Avoid being narrow-minded and bound to present views. Learn and practice non-attachment from views in order to be open to receive others' viewpoints. Truth is found in life and not merely in conceptual knowledge. Be ready to learn throughout your entire life and to observe reality in yourself and in the world at all times." Id. at 30.
"The Third Precept. Do not force others, including children, by any means whatsoever, to adopt your views, whether by authority, threat, money, propaganda or even education. However, though compassionate dialogue, help others renounce fanaticism and narrowness." Id. at 32.
"The Fourth Precept. Do not avoid contact with suffering or close your eyes before suffering. Do not lose awareness of the existence of suffering in the life of the world. Find ways to be with those who are suffering by all means, including personal contact and visits, images, sound. By such means, awaken yourself and others to the reality of suffering in the world." Id. at 34.
"The Fifth Precept. Do not accumulate wealth while millions are hungry. Do not take as the aim of your life fame, profit, wealth or sensual pleasure. Live simply and share time, energy and material resources with those who are in need." Id. at 37.
"The Sixth Precept. Do not maintain anger or hatred. As soon as anger and hatred arise, practice the meditation on compassion in order to deeply understand the persons who have caused anger and hatred. Learn to look at other beings with the eyes of compassion." Id. at 39.
"The Seventh Precept. Do not lose yourself in dispersion and in your surroundings. Learn to practice breathing in order to regain composure of body and mind, to practice mindfulness and to develop concentration and understanding." Id. at 42.
"The Eighth Precept. Do not utter words that can create discord and cause the community to break. Make every effort to reconcile and resolve all conflicts, however small." Id. at 45.
"The Ninth Precept. Do not say untruthful things for the sake of personal interest or to impress people. Do not utter words that cause division and hatred. Do not spread news that you do not know to be certain. Do not criticize or condemn things that you are not sure of. Always speak truthfully and constructively. Have the courage to speak out about situations of injustice, even when doing so many threaten your own safety." Id. at 47.
"The Tenth Precept. Do not use the Buddhist community for personal gain or profit, or transform your community into a political party. A religious community, however, should take a clear stand against oppression and injustice and should strive to change the situation without engaging in partisan conflicts." Id. at 49.
'The Eleventh Precept. Do not live with a vocation that is harmful to humans and nature. Do not invest in companies that deprive others of their chance to live. Select a vocation which helps realize your ideal of compassion." Id. at 51.
"The Twelfth Precept. Do not kill. Do not let others kill. Find whatever means possible to protect life and to prevent war." Id. at 54.
"The Thirteenth Precept. Possess nothing that should belong to others. Respect the property of others, but prevent others from enriching themselves from human suffering or the suffering of other beings." Id. at 56.
"The Fourteenth Precept. Do not mistreat your body. Learn to handle it with respect. Do not look on your body as only an instrument. Preserve vital energies (sexual, breath, spirit) for the realization of the Way. Sexual expression should not happen without love and commitment. In sexual relationships, be aware of future suffering that may be caused. To preserve the happiness of others, respect the rights and commitments of others. Be fully aware of the responsibility of bringing new lives into the world. Meditate on the world into which you are bringing new beings." Id. at 57.

"The fourteen precepts of the Tiep Hien Order are a unique expression of traditional Buddhist morality coming to terms with contemporary issues. These precepts were not developed by secluded monks attempting to update the traditional Buddhist Precepts. Rather, they were forged in the crucible of war and devastation that was the daily experience for many Southeast Asians during the past several decades." Id. at 5.

"Learn to look, because compassion is understanding itself." Id. at 41.

DO WE, THROUGH OUR INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS, HAVE OBLIGATIONS TO THE GLOBAL POOR?

Nicole Hassoun, Globalization and Global Justice: Shrinking Distance, Expanding Obligations (Cambridge: Cambridge U. Press, 2012) (From the bookjacket: "The face of the world is changing. The past century has seen the incredible growth of international institutions. How does the fact that the world is becoming more inter-connected change institutions' duties to people beyond borders? Does globalization alone engender any ethical obligations? In Globalization an Global Justice, Nicole Hassoun addresses these questions and advances a new argument for the conclusion that there are many coercive international institutions. She argues that such institutions must enable their subject to avoid severe poverty. She consider the case for aid and trade in light of these obligations, and concludes with a new proposal for Fair Trade in pharmaceuticals an bio-technology. Her book will appeal to reader in philosophy, politics, economic, and public policy." Students in my International Business Transactions and International Trade Law courses will see addressed here some of the issues I raised there.).

THE WOLF IN THE MIND

A. S. Byatt, Ragnarok: The End of the Gods  (Edinburgh & New York: Canongate, 2011) ("Both sun and moon were hotly pursued by wolves, with open jaws, snapping at their heels, loping across emptiness. The story did not mention any creation of wolves; they simply appeared, snarling and dark. They were a part of the rhythm, of things. They never rested or tired. The created world was inside the skull, and the wolves in the mind were there from the outset of the heavenly procession." Id. at 28. "And the wolf? Wolves run strongly through the forest of the mind. Humans heard the howling in the dark, an urgent music, a gleeful reciprocal chorus; the loping, padding, tireless runners are both out of sight and inside the head. There, too, are the bristling coats, the snout, the teeth, the blood. Firelight, and the light of the full moon are reflected in in human eyes, glittering in the dark, specks of brightness in deep shadows. Human respect wolves, the closeness and warmth of the pack, the ingenuity of the chase, the calling and growling, messages from the throat. Odin in Asgard had two tamed cubs at his feet, to which he threw meat he did not eat. Wolves are free and monstrous: wolves are the forebears of dogs, which are creature of the hearth and hunt, who have replace the pack leader with a human one. Humans and gods made their own packs to hunt down and kill the wolf packs. Maybe cubs were taken from a lair when the parents have been slaughtered, and fed milk and meat, and brought in from the wild. Maybe a solitary cub sat on its haunches at the edge of a clearing and howled, and was taken in by a woman, and fed and tamed. They point their snouts at the moon, and howl." Id. at 49-50. "Gods and men, driven by the wolf in the mind, and the snakes at the roots of the tree, had hunted both creatures remorselessly, destroying their lairs and holes, cleaning them out. And as they hunted the grey wolves in the forests, slaughtering cubs, spearing their dams, so Fenris's kindred in the Ironwood grew wilder and more monstrous." Id. at 99-100. "From the Kettlewood, where Loki lay bound amongst the geysirs--which still spouted hot--came a louder howl of wolves, wolves in the wood, wolves padding over the snow, wolves with blood on their fangs, wolves in the mind." "Wind Time, Wolf Time, before the world breaks up." "That was the time they were in." Id at 134-135.) "Odin advanced on the Fenris-Wolf, balancing his ash-spear, Gungnir. The wolf's hackles bristled. His mean eyes glittered. He yawned. The god drove the spear into the gaping jaws. The wolf shook himself, snapped the spear, took three steps forward, gripped the great god, shook him, broke him, swallowed him." Id. at 142.).

A POSTSCRIPT TO YESTERDAY'S POSTING

Shoji Yamada, Shots in the Dark: Japan, Zen, and the West, translated from the Japanese by Earl Hartman (Chicago & London: U. of Chicago Press; Kyoto: International Research Center for Japanese Studies, 2009) (From the bookjacket: "In the years after World War II, Westerners and Japanese alike elevated Zen to the quintessence of spirituality in Japan. Pursuing the sources of Zen as a Japanese ideal, Shoji Yamada uncovers the surprising role of two cultural touchstones: Eugen Herrigel's Zen in the Art of Archery and the Ryoanji dry-landscape rock garden. Yamada shows how both became facile conduits for exporting and importing Japanese culture." First published in German in 1948 and translated into English in 1953 and Japanese in 1956, Herrigel's book popularized ideas of Zen both in the West and in Japan. Yamada traces the prewar history of Japanese archery, reveals how Herrigel mistakenly came to understand it as a specifically a Zen practice, and explains why the Japanese themselves embraced his interpretation. Turning to Ryoanji, Yamada argues that this epitome of Zen in fact bears little relation to Buddhism and is best understood in relation to to Chinese myth. For much of its modern history, Ryoanji was a weedy, neglected plot; only after its allegorical role in a 1949 Ozu film was it popularly linked to Zen. Westerners have played a part of redefining Ryoanji, but as in the case of archery, Yamada's interest is primarily in how the Japanese themselves have invested this cultural site with new value through a spurious association with Zen."  Basically, how much true Zen is in Zen and the Art of Archery, or Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, or Zen in the Art of Writing, or Zen and the Art of the Internet: A Beginner's Guide, or Zen and the Art of Screenwriting: Insights and Interviews, or Zen and the Art of Murder, or Zen and the City of Angels, or Zen and the Art of Making a Living: A Practical Guide to Creative Career Design, or Zen in the Art of Golf, or Zen in the Art of Climbing Mountains, or Zen and the Art of Street Fighting, or Zen and the Art of Stickfighting, or Zen and the Art of Travel, or Zen and the Art of Gardening, or Zen and the Art of Cooking, or Zen and the Art of Well-Being, or Zen and the Art of Casino Gaming: An Insider's Guide to a Successful Gambling Experience, or Zen and the Art of Poker, or Zen and the Art of Foosball: A Beginner's Guide to Table Soccer, or Zen and the Art of Stand-Up Comedy, or Zen and the Art of the Monologue, or Zen and the Art of Close Encounters: Crazy Wisdom and UFOs, or Zen and the Art of Changing Diapers, or Zen and the Art of Child Maintenance, or Zen and the Art of Fatherhood: Lessons from a Master Dad, or Zen in the Art of Rhetoric, or Zen and the Art of Anything, or Zen and the Art of Postmodern Philosophy, or Zen and the Art of Knitting, or Zen and the Art of Diabetes Maintenance, or Zen and Art of Falling in Love, or Zen in the Art of SAT: How to Think, Focus, and Achieve Your Highest Score, or Zen and the Art of Dodgeball, or Zen and the Art of Faking It, or Zen and the Art of Housekeeping: The Path to Finding Meaning in Your Cleaning, or "Zen and the Psychology of Education," or "Zen and the Art of Management," or Zen in the Art of Supervision," or Zen and the Art of Higher Education Maintenance: Bridging Classic and Romantic Notions of Quality," or "Zen and the Art of Policy Analysis: A Response to Nielsen and Wolf," or "Zen and the Art of Medical Image Registration: Correspondence, Homology, and Quality." Id. at. 10-17. What does this marketing approach--and it is a marketing approach--say about the intended audience, the intended consumer? So, be careful. Most likely many of these New Age Zen-ers are engaged in bullshit calling it "Zen". On a similar note, one should be caution about of books, articles, workshops, educational programs with "mindfulness" in the description. Yes, some of them are serious, but mindfulness means quite different things to different uses, and sometime the use is meaningless, unmindful, or both. "Herrigel's translators and publishers hid every single piece of information related to him and the Nazis. Herrigel had supposedly penetrated into the heart of Zen with its lofty spirituality and had introduced it to  the West, Without a doubt, they did not want anyone to know that he had been a Nazi." "The Zen scholar Brian Victoria . . . harshly criticizes prominent Japanese Zen priest for the way in which they enthusiastically embraced militarism and them covered up that fact after the war. Zen and the war--this is a negative aspect of Japan's history that the Japanese have kept hidden. We have tried hard to keep the war from being reflected in the mirror of Zen and have done our best to not think about it. If others interpret this as suppressing the facts, we have no one to blame but ourselves. This is just as true in Herrigel's case." 'However, no one ordered anyone to conceal anything. Scholem ascribes this phenomenon to the workings of a common, unspoken will to create an image of Herrigel as a spiritual man. What gave birth to this unspoken, shared desire to create a particular image of Herrigel? It was the subconscious intention of those who were searching for the magic mirror." Id. at 102. "In a corner of their hearts, everyone is looking for a magic mirror. If there was a mirror that would reflect the image of them as they fervently wished to be, surely everyone would treasure such a mirror for as long as they lived." Id. at 1.).

WAY OF THE BOW; SPIRITUAL FORGING

John Stevens, Zen Bow, Zen Arrow: The Life and Teachings of Awa Kenzo, The Archery Master from Zen in the Art of Archery (Boston & London: Shambhala, 2007) ("Here is an outline of the principles of Kenzo's Great Shooting Way Teaching: Trust in the practice of the Way of the Bow. / Archery is not an art, it is a Way. / When you practice the Way, it is not just training in technique; it is spiritual forging. / Forging your spirit is to become empty, and to focus on your center. / To become empty is to become one with the divine--this is the Way. / To attain the Way is to manifest the Way. / The Way of the Bow is to manifest your self Buddha-nature and arrive at the ultimate." Id. at 13. I am trying or seeking to do with my yoga practice what Kenzo asserts the aim of archery: it is not the training in technique so much than as the forging of the spirit, the forging of my spirit.).

FOR LAW STUDENTS

Nagarjuna, Elegant Sayings: The Staff of Wisdom (Lugs kyi bstan-bcos shes-rab sdong-po) by Nagarjuna; and A Precocious Treasury of Elegant Sayings (Legs-bshad rin-po-che'i gter) by Sakya Pandit (Tibetan Translation Series) (Berkeley, CA: Dharma Publishing, 1977) (By Nagarjuna: "Why should a man who can go anywhere / Be injured through attachment to his native land? / A stupid man says, 'This is my own well,' / And say thus, drinks brackish water." Id. at 7. "When young, rejoice in the tranquillity of the old. / However great your glory, be forbearing in your manner. / Boast not of what you know, even when learned. / However high you may rise, be not proud." Id. at 22. "If people mutually advertise each other's virtues, / Even he who possesses none will acquire some. / But he who proclaims his own, / Even though king of the gods, is not respected." Id. at 36. "If you desire ease, forsake learning. / If you desire learning, forsake ease. / How can a man at ease acquire knowledge, / And how can an earnest student enjoy ease?" Id. at 55. By Sakya Pandit: "A foolish man proclaims his qualifications, / A wise man keeps then secret within. / A straw floats on the surface of water, / But a precious gem placed upon it sinks to the depths." Id. at 76. "Knowledge existing only in books, / Mantras not committed to memory, / And those things which a forgetful man has learned / Often deceive us in a time of necessity." Id. at 92.).

Thich Nhat Hanh, Work: How to Find Joy and Meaning In Each Hour of the Day (Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 2012).

MORE ON JUNGIAN FEMININE PSYCHOLOGY

Erich Neumann, Amor and Psyche: The Psychic Development of the Feminine: A Commentary on the Tale by Apuleius (Bollingen Series LIV), translated from the German by Ralph Manheim  (Princeton: Princeton U. Press, 1956, 1971) ("The basic law of the matriarchate forbids individual relations with the man and acknowledges the male only as a anonymous power, representing the godhead." Id. at 75. "When the gods love mortals, they experience only desire and pleasure. The suffering had always been left to the mortal part, the human, who was usually destroyed by the encounter, while the divine partner went smilingly on to a new adventures equally disastrous for humankind. But here something happens: Psyche, for all her individuality a symbol of mortal woman's soul, takes an active part....Psyche dissolves her participation mystique with her partner and flings herself and him into the destiny of separation that is consciousness. Love as an expression of feminine wholeness is not possible in the dark, as a merely unconscious process; an authentic encounter with another involves consciousness, hence also the aspect of suffering and separation. Psyche's act leads, then, to all the pain of individuation, in which a personality experiences itself in relation to a partner as something other, that is, as not only connected with the partner." Id. at 84-85. From the backcover: "The renowned tale of Amor and Psyche, from Apuleius's second-century Latin novel The Golden Ass, is one of the most charming fragments of classical literature. Erich Neumann chose it as the exemplar of an unusual study of feminine psychology. Unfolding the spiritual and mythical background of the pagan narrative, he shows how the contest between the mortal maid Psyche and the great goddess Aphrodite over the god Amor--Aphrodite's son, Psyche's husband--yields surprising and valuable insights into the psychic life of women.").

Erich Neumann, The Archetypal World of Henry Moore (Bollingen Series LXVIII), translated from the German by R. F. C. Hull (Princeton: Princeton U. Press, 1959, 1985) ("But the highest values in every culture are also symbolical values; and these, by their very nature, cannot be made wholly accessible to consciousness, let alone to rational thought. Thus in every culture and every age we find without exception that its cultural canon is determined by unconscious images, symbols, and archetypes. It is immaterial whether they express themselves as gods, as ideals and principles, as daemonic powers, or as the certainties of religious faith and superstitious belief." Id. at 2. "If the essence of Moore's work lies in its concentration on the archetype of the feminine, then its radical advance from the naturalistic and representational to the 'abstract'... is not to be understood as a formal process having its analogy in the trend of modern art as a whole. The unique feature in the development of Moore's art is that his apparently formal process goes hand and hand with an ever-changing revelation of its archetypal content, in which this content achieves ever greater authenticity and clarity." Id. at 14. "As we follow Moore's development we shall see that it is always the two great themes of mother and child and the reclining figure round which his art unfolds. All other objects are only peripheral; they prepare, illustrate, and elucidate what is going on in this central zone of the feminine." Id. at 18-19. "The spectral of the feminine archetype that everywhere makes it assume the frightening form of the hag, revenant, and devouring mother appears--like everything else Moore does--as an absolutely new figure in our age. Whereas death, hitherto depicted in European culture as a skeleton doing the death dance, or as a warrior, murderer, or a man with a scythe, has always preserved its masculine character, Moore's death figure is feminine--she is the Great Goddess manifesting herself as mistress of death." Id. at 115. "Whereas the feminine, in good and evil alike, exercise a fatelike power in Moore's work, the masculine always remains stuck at the 'adolescent' stage and never gets beyond the phase of bondage to the Great Mother." Id. at 176-179.).

Erich Neumann, Art and Creative Unconscious: Four Essays (Bollingen Series LXI), translated from the German by Ralph Manheim (Princeton: Princeton U. Press, 1959. 1971) (From "Leonardo Da Vinci and the Mother Archetype": "In normal development, the man's 'feminine component' is largely repressed and contributes to the constellation of the anima in the unconscious, which, projected upon the woman, makes contact with her possible. But in the creative man this process is incomplete. By his very nature he remains in high degree bisexual, and the retained feminine component is manifested by his increased 'receptivity,' by his sensibility and a greater emphasis in his life on the 'matriarchal consciousness,' expressed in inward processes of parturition and formation that essentially condition his creativeness." Id. at 18. From "Art and Time": "When the world of security crumbles, man is inevitably devoured by nigredo, the blackness and chaos of the prima materia, and the two great archetypal figures of the Devil and the Terrible Mother dominate the world. The Devil is shadow, evil, depression, darkening of the light, harsh dissonance." Id. at 113. "Behind the archetype of Satan and the blackness surrounding him, at whose impact the crumbling world of the old cultural canon has collapsed, rises the devouring Terrible Great Mother, tearing and rending and bringing madness. And everywhere in modern art we see this dissolution in the breakdown and decay of form." Id. at 114.).

Erich Neumann, Depth Psychology and a New Ethic, with forewords by C. G. Jung, Gerhard Adler & James Yandell, and translated from the German by Eugene Rolfe (Boston & Shaftesbury: Shambhala, 1969, 1990) (From the backcover: "The modern world has witnessed a dramatic breakthrough of the dark, negative forces of human nature. The 'old ethic,' which pursued an illusory perfection by repressing the dark side, has lost its power to deal with contemporary problems. Erich Neumann was convinced that the deadliest peril now confronting humanity lay in the 'scapegoat' psychology associated with the old ethic. We are in the grip of this psychology when we project our own dark shadow onto an individual or groups identified as our 'enemy,' failing to see it in ourselves. The only effective alternative to this dangerous shadow projection is shadow recognition, acknowledgment, and integration into the totality of the self. Wholeness, not perfection, is the goal of the new ethic." Think some of the rhetoric in the so-called war on terrorism, in the political posturing of democrats and republicans, in many discussions of global/international competition/cooperation, in the machinery of interoffice politics, etc. Many of us are still imprisoned by the old ethic, unwilling and unprepared to accept that the future is here and the old ethic simply does not work or, at least, not constructively.).

Erich Neumann, The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype, 2d ed. (Bollingen Series XLVII), translated from the German by Ralph Manheim (Princeton: Princeton U. Press, 1955, 1963) ("This book...is the first part of a 'depth psychology of the Feminine.' The investigation of the special character of the feminine psyche is one of the most necessary and important tasks of depth psychology in is preoccupation with the creative health and development of the individual." "But this problem of the Feminine has equal importance for the psychologist of culture, who recognizes that the peril of present-day mankind springs in large part for the one-sidedly patriarchal development of the male intellectual consciousness, which is no longer kept in balance by the matriarchal world of the psyche. In this sense the exposition attempted in our work is also a contribution to a future therapy of culture." "Western mankind must arrive at a synthesis that includes the feminine world--which is also one-sided in its isolation. Only then will the individual human being be able to develop the psychic wholeness that is urgently needed if Western man is to face the dangers that threaten his existence from within and without." Id. at xlii. "When analytical psychology speaks of the primordial image or archetype of the Great Mother, it is referring, not to any concrete image existing in space and time, but to an inward image at work in the human psyche. The symbolic expression of this psychic phenomenon is to be found in the figures of the Great Goddess represented in the myths and artistic creations of mankind." Id. at 3. "[I]t is evident that the combination of the words 'mother' and great' is not a combination of concepts but of emotionally colored symbols. 'Mother' in this connection does not refer merely to a relationship of filiation but also to a complex psychic situation of the ego, and similarly the term 'Great' expresses the symbolic character of superiority that the archetypal figure possesses in comparison with everything human and with created nature in general." Id. at 11. "A configured form of the Great Mother has emerged from the primordial archetype..... She has three forms: the good, the terrible, and the good-bad mother. The good feminine (and masculine) elements configure the Good Mother, who, like, the Terrible Mother containing the negative elements, can also emerge independently from the unity of the Great Mother. The third form is that of the Great Mother who is good-bad and makes possible a union of positive and negative attributes." "Great Mother, Good Mother, and Terrible Mother form a cohesive archetypal group." Id. at 21. "For obvious reasons woman is experienced as the vessel par excellence. Woman as body-vessel is the natural expression of the human experience of woman bearing the child 'within' her and of man entering 'into' her in the sexual act. Because the identity of the female personality belongs with the foundation of feminine existence, woman is not only the vessel that like every body contains something within itself, but, both for herself and the male, is the 'life-vessel as such,' in which life forms, and which bears all living things and discharges them out of itself and into the world. [] Only when we have considered the whole scope of the basic feminine function--the giving of life, nourishment, warmth, and protection--can we understand why the Feminine occupies so central a position in human symbolism and from the very beginning bears the character of 'greatness.' The Feminine appears as great because that which is contained, sheltered, nourished, is dependent on it and utterly at its mercy. Nowhere perhaps is it so evident that a human being must be experienced as 'great' as in the case of the mother. A glance at the infant or child confirms her position as Great Mother. Her numinous superiority constellates the characteristic situation of the human infant in contrast to the newborn animal, which is far more independent at birth. [] Woman = body = vessel = world [.] This is the basic formula of the matriarchal stage, i.e., of a human phrase in which the Feminine is preponderant over the Masculine, the unconscious over the ego and consciousness." Id. at 42-43. "The Great Mother is the giver not only of life but also of death. Withdrawal of love can appear as a withdrawal of all the functions constituting the positive side of the elementary character. Thus hunger and thirst may take the place of food, cold of warmth, defenselessness of protection, nakedness of shelter and clothing, and distress of contentment. But stronger than these is often loneliness, the principium individuationis, the contrary of the containment that is the basic principle of participation mystique, of the bond in which there is no loneliness." Id. at 67. "The Great Goddess--if under this name we sum up everything we have attempted to represent as the archetypal unity and multiplicity of the feminine nature--is the incarnation of the Feminine Self that unfolds in the history of mankind as in the history of every individual woman; its reality determines individual as well as collective life. This archetypal psychical world which is encompassed in the multiple forms of the Great Goddess is the underlying power that even today--partly with the same symbols and in the same order of unfolding, partly in dynamic modulation and variations--determines the psychic history of modern man and of modern woman." Id. at 336.).

Erich Neumann, The Origins and History of Consciousness (Bollingen Series LXII), with a foreword by C. G. Jung, and translated from the German by R. F. C. Hull (Princeton: Princeton U. Press, 1954, 1970, 1973) (From the backcover: "This is an original and creative interpretation of the relations between psychology and mythology by a distinguished Jungian analyst. According to Dr. Neumann's thesis, individual consciousness passes through the same archetypal stages of development that marked the history of human consciousness as a whole. The stages begin and end with the symbol of the Uroboros, or tail-eating serpent; the intermediary stages are projected in the universal myths of the World Creation, the Great Mother, the Separation of the World Parents, the Birth of the Hero, the Slaying of the Dragon, the Rescue of the Captive, and the Transformation and Deification of the Hero. The Hero, throughout this sequence, is the evolving ego consciousness.").

THE WITCH AND JUNGIAN FEMININE PSYCHOLOGY

Irene Claremont de Castillejo, Knowing Women: A Feminine Psychology (Boston & London: Shambhala, 1997) ("We are only exhausted when talking to other people if we do not meet them, when one or both of us are hiding behind screens." Id. at 11. "How is it then that we fail to meet so often?" "There seem to be three main reasons. The first is that we are often living on a different level of awareness from the other person. [For example, "focused consciousness" versus a "diffuse awareness of the wholeness of nature."] "The second is that one of us at least is often playing a role, or is somehow possessed. And the third is that we fail to listen to each other." Id. at 14. "The modern emphasis on relationships between only two people can sometimes degenerate into mere exclusiveness and a self-conscious sharing which, valuable through it is, may become an infringement of privacy, or an abuse of intimacy. Deliberate sharing is sometimes as dangerous as sympathy. New ideas which are forming in the depths of the mind can actually be destroyed or crippled by being shred too soon.... Respect for another person's privacy is as important as sharing thoughts. The deepest communication will in any case take place in moments of silence." Id. at 13. "The shadow is that part of the psyche which could and should become conscious, yet of which we are unaware. It consists of those characteristics we do not recognize in ourselves. Unfortunately people tend to believe that 'the shadow' means our bad qualities. But the shadow can be bright and good as well as dark and bad. A real virtue is often hidden away in the unconscious." Id. at 29. "A good way of learning to detect one's shadow is to notice what qualities in others make us angry or irritated." Id. at 30. "Now the three shadows which we should perhaps take special note of today are the national shadow, our own personal shadow, and, darkest of all, woman's shadow." Id. at 31, emphasis added. "I will write at greater length of woman's bright shadow in another chapter, but I cannot close this one without speaking of woman's direst and most destructive shadow. The witch is chiefly woman's responsibility. All women who have not totally lost contact with the unconscious are in touch with power. Power is not necessarily bad. Its direction is what makes it good or bad." "The life force which surges up through women is a tremendous power, whether employed biologically or in some other way. We have heard a great deal about woman's suffocating quality. She pours our energy on those for whom she cares and does not know she suffocates. Giving feels like love, but giving without measure and without discrimination stifles." "It is when a woman actually uses the power with which the feminine is in contact for her own personal ends that she becomes truly a witch. This is real evil which needs all our resourcefulness to fight. I suspect there are few woman who will not find a witch lurking somewhere within themselves if only they dig deeply enough." Id. at 41-42. "To accept one's own personal shadow means to accept responsibility for its behaviour, not necessarily the licence to live and put in practice all we find within--this is a common fallacy. It demands not only self-knowledge but the utmost vigilance to see it does not break out unawares. And if it should, to call it back and make amends and admit very humbly that this unruly shadow is a bit of me." "What one does, one is. Not what one says nor thinks one is, but what one does. Doing may be a concern of an inner invisible process which we call being, but it is still what in fact one does; though, of course, the quality of our being will depend on the value of our actions or our influence." Id. at 40. "The consciousness of woman is a very recent acquisition...." "Today woman is sleeping no longer, with the uneasy results we see all around us. gender seems to be confused. One is no longer quite sure whether women are feminine, nor how far men are male." "But the emancipation of women came through their finding a hero within themselves. It was this which overcame all obstacles in their path: the law, tradition, the obscurantism of their own as well as of the other sex." Id. at 49.  "None the less, although woman no longer projects her own latent hero on to her men folk, which of course in the past did actually help men to be heroes, she does not appear to have outgrown her old expectation that a hero is what he ought to be." "So the poor man suffers doubly. No longer boosted by the woman on the one hand, and actually competed with by them on the other, he feels depotentiated and unable to rise to the heights expected of him. All this at the same time as he is rightfully developing his own more sensitive feminine side." Id. at 50. Woe is me! "Today the world's problems are too technical and too vast for ordinary individuals to feel they have the power to influence them. Our educational institutions still pay lip service to the importance of training our children to think and take responsibility. But once outside school or college we plunge them into a society where independent thought ceases to be an asset. The government employee . . . knows that he can never take final responsibility. The last word rest with the bureaucracy." Id. at 27. Or, for those working in the so-called 'private sector' with management. ).

M. Esther Harding, The Way of All Women, with an introduction by C. G. Jung (Boston & Shaftesbury, 1990) ("We live in an age of executives and scientists, and our leaders are chosen from those ranks. Little attention is paid to the achievement of an inner development in the emotional realm. Indeed it is generally taken for granted that an individual's emotions are what they are and that they are not subject to development--certainly not to education." "But to be childishly immature in one's relationships implies that one has only an undeveloped personality with which to meet all the intricacies which make up the problems of the world. Our modern difficulties, whether social, political, or economic, are in the final analysis human problems. Any fundamental discussion of these matters always reveals the same basic difficulty: 'If only human beings were different'--more honest, more conscious of the effects of what they do, if they would trust each other more, if only they were convinced of the trustworthiness of others and incidentally of themselves, if only no one was trying to get ahead by undercutting another--then we could deal readily enough with material supplies and their distribution, which form the chief question of social, economic, and international controversy. But human beings are selfish and egoistic. Their love and consideration are shallow and unreliable, and pitifully narrow in their range." Id. at xiii. "The ancient religions of the moon goddess represent the education of the emotional life as taking place, not through a course of study, not even as the result of a system of discipline, though both of these things doubtless entered in, but through an initiation. The interpretation of the moon mysteries suggested in the following chapters link our modern life problems to those of the ancient peoples who recognized that in their day, as in ours, the world at times became sterile and was laid waste, not by war or pestilence, but because some essential fertilizing spirit had been withdrawn. Everything became dry and dusty and infertile. . . . [T]he ancients said, in symbolic language, that the moon goddess, goddess of love and fertility, was absent in the land of No-Return, and our modern poets dimly voice the same idea." Id. at xiv-xv. "According to the beliefs of the most primitive peoples, the moon is a kind of beneficent presence whose light is considered, not only favorable, but even indispensable for growth. The moon is a fertilizing force of quite general efficacy. It causes the seeds to germinate and the plants to grow, but its power does not end here, for without its aid animals could not bear young, and women could not have children. In a temperate climate the sun's power is thought of as causing things to grow, but in hot countries the sun seems hostile to life, scorching the young green things and destroying them To those primitive peoples who live in southern climates the sun appears as a force hostile to vegetation and reproduction. To them the moon is the fertilizing power, But strangely enough the belief that the power of growth resides in the moon is not confined to hot climates. [T[he people of Greenland, for instance, hold the same views. To these peoples it is not that the moon represents, or is an emblem of, the power of fertility; that is an altogether modern concept. We know, for instance, that the germ of life is in the seed and the warmth of the sun does but foster the germ. But to the primitive, the seed is an inert mass, like a stone, entirely lacking in any power to grow. To him, that power has to be bestowed on the seed by a fertilizing force, or, perhaps, by a deity of fertility. When he speaks of the moon as possessing and bestowing the power of fertility he means exactly that. It is no facon de parler for him. Plants and seeds would not grow without the influence of the moon. Animals and women cannot bear young without the energizing of the moon. Id. at 21-22. I wonder how many individuals at my yoga class or aware of, and then think about, the significance the the Sun and Moon salutations. "To the ancient and primitive man, the moon was the visible representative of womanhood. The ancients naturally did not understand the nature of the power which they revered in the moon, but we realize that to them it stood as a symbol of the very essence of woman in its contrast to the essence of man." "In the myths and customs outlined in the following chapters, are set forth in shadowy form the feeling, the reaction, which men and women had, not towards a particular woman, not even towards women in general, but to feminineness itself, to the feminine principle which was and is, in spite of the feminist movement and the masculinization of modern woman, the mainspring of woman, controlling both her physical life and her inner psychological being." Id. at 29.).

M. Esther Harding, Woman's Mysteries: Ancient and Modern, with an introduction by C. G. Jung (Boston & Shaftesbury, 1990) (From Jung's "Introduction": "It is a foregone conclusion among the initiated that men understand nothing of woman's psychology as it actually is, but it is astonishing to find that women do not know themselves. However we are only surprised as long as we naively and optimistically imagine that mankind understands anything fundamental about the soul. Such knowledge and understanding belong to the most difficult tasks an investigating mind can set for itself." Id. at xv. "Soul is here used in a psychological, not a theological, sense. When Jung speaks of the soul he is concerned 'with the psychological recognition of the existence of a semiconscious psychic complex, having a partial autonomy of function." Id. at 8, fn. 1, citations omitted.).

AVOID THE "TYRANNY OF TOOLS"

D. T. Suzuki, Buddha of the Infinite Light: The Teachings of Shin Buddhism, The Japanese Way of Wisdom and Compassion, revised with an Introduction by Taitetsu Unno (Boston & London: Shambhala Publications, 2002) ("Another unique aspect of human beings is this: people by nature manufacture all kinds of tools. Names are also tools. With names we handle objects. But inventing tools may lead to the 'tyranny of tools.' When tools become tyrannical, instead of our making use of them, they rebel against their inventors and take revenge. Then we are made of the tools that we make. This strange process is especially noticeable in modern life. We invent many machines, which in turn control human affairs, our human life. Machines, especially in recent years, have inextricably entered our life. We try to adjust ourselves to the machine, because the machine refuses to obey our will once it's out of our hands." Id. at at 43-44. Think of the computer, the Internet, the smart phone, Facebook, etc., and how so many of us are completely loss if we are even momentarily disconnected from our devices. "In our intellectual processes, ideas can also be despotic, for we cannot always control the concepts we use. We invent or construct many ideas, many concepts. They are very useful to us in dealing with our life, but convenient ideas frequently control their inventors and become despotic. Scholars who invent ideas forget that they formulated them in order to handle realities for a specific purpose. Each science, whether it is called biology or psychology or astronomy, works with its own premises and its own hypotheses. Each science organizes the field it has chosen ... and works with those realities according to the conceptual scheme especially devised to study them for our understanding. In pursuing their theories and using their formulations, scientists sometimes find themselves in situations that cannot be explained by their concepts. Then, instead of dropping those ideas and trying to create new concepts so that the unexpected difficulties can be included and handled, they often stick to the first ideas that they have devised and try to make the new realities obey those ideas. Or they simply exclude anything which cannot be covered by the network of ideas they have created." Id. at 44. "It may sound strange to hear that one can go beyond teleology or live in purposelessness. Everything we do in life has a purpose, but in the religious realm we become conscious of realizing purposelessness, going beyond teleology, meaningless meaning, and meaning itself. This is another mark of faith, stating 'Let thy will be done,' whereby we let go of self-power and let Amida do his work through us an in us. For this reason there is no prayer in the conventional senses in Buddhism. When we pray to acquire something, we will never get it. When we pray for nothing, we gain everything." Id. at 64.).