The Vote

on By
I haven’t spent much time bloviating about the election this year, but that doesn’t mean I’m not interested. Early every morning, just after sitting and reading a few Buddhist texts, the next thing I do is look up the polls and the best political analysis I can find (usually on the Washington Post app or RealClearPolitics. I check them repeatedly during the day whenever I can get away to my local hotspot at work. There’s so much information and opinion out there that it hardly seems worth the time to add more to the mix. I suppose you can say that I’m a bit more emotionally detached, but this is a natural function of paying such close attention for so long. Over the past year I’ve been getting together about once a week to watch old episodes of The West Wing. It’s almost amazing how little the basic issues have changed in the decade since these shows were produced. (We are currently on the seventh and last season, just before the debates, so our timing has been perfect.) 
 
I must say that this election is the most interesting I can remember. Two candidates are running who aren’t idiots and who are able to clearly articulate their positions. Both presidential candidates and both parties have become clear expressions of two polarized views of the world. The ferment among the population has been a long time coming. This election could mark a decisive defeat for forces of right wing bigotry and religious intolerance that have tried over the past 30 years to turn the country into a racist colonialist theocracy. Or not. I look forward to this inevitable defeat, which will mark the passing of an aging population of baby boomers who are caught in the passing remnants of idealistic illusions that have clashed since the advent of television and the long slow decline of the American Empire. In the midst of all this dreaming the Republican Party made a deal with forces that promoted the extreme dreamworld of Ronald Reagan’s “Morning In America.” This gave rise to a frightened community who see their rights of racial privilege threatened at every turn and would deny the validity of virtually every progressive change that’s emerged since the end of the Civil War and the ‘Guilded Age’. 
 
The elements that represent the worst of America flocked to the Republican party when the Democrats embraced civil rights in the sixties. What were once solid “Blue” states in the south turned bright red and have remained so ever since. Racism and evangelicalism accompanied by assumptions of white superiority aided by voter suppression became the backbone and the curse of the new “conservatism.” The migration between parties won them several decades worth of electoral power over Democrats who were trying to redefine themselves as the party of diversity rather than the party exclusively of labor in the north and segregation in the south. 
 
For Republicans the cost of their bargain has come due. Through the globalization of electronic communication and the consequent liberalization of culture the base of their party has become narrowly white and is aging. As populations have become more concentrated in urban centers a cultural war is being waged between rural and urban America. Superimposed on this are the contradictions of a heavily subsidized (and mostly white) rural sector that hates government against a concentrated and diverse urban population that in many ways is compelled to find more creative ways to enter the future. 
 
Two very different sets of values have taken over each party and in every successive presidential election this split has become more pronounced. The configuration of both parties has now become all but set in stone. Although many will disagree, I believe that the old colonial values that we inherited from England have come to dominate the south and are backed up, particularly among the poorest and least educated class of whites, by Christian fear mongering. What sometimes appears to be a war of religious values is really a war about race and class that has been raging since our beginnings as a nation. Religion is used as the self-justification for the worst kinds of behavior. On the other hand, An increasingly secular and increasingly diverse and progressive (and young) population has become the base of the Democratic party. 
 
The victory of Obama in 2008, by breaking through the previously impenetrable barrier of race allowed the true underlying issues of class and culture to emerge as the driving themes of today’s politics. For me this election has been extremely encouraging. We are making progress in articulating our vision of the future after years of sliding back into denial of the present.
 
To those who are lost in the kind of cynicism caused by over-exposure to the mind numbing critiques of the left, particularly over issues of foreign policy, I can only say that I don’t believe for a minute “both parties are the same.” The difference, even in foreign policy, is clearly put forth in the rhetoric of the presidential candidates. Mitt Romney forthrightly represents the old colonial assumptions of white supremacy and the just rule of financial elites. Barack Obama’s foreign policy, which has been criticized for being too reactive (rather than pro-active) consistently emphasizes themes of cultural diversity and cooperation and are never mired in the rhetoric of religious and racial bigotry. It’s true, I will concede, that both candidates and both parties support the continued strength and overwhelming superiority of the American military. Both will do what it takes to keep the lights on. Both will use drones (or whatever means necessary) in wars against foreign enemies (with consequential collateral damage to civilians). I do believe, however, that the switch from a rhetoric of domination to the rhetoric of cooperation and defense is more than just a change in vocabulary. It indicates an important step toward new approaches in a world that faces enormous changes where cooperation is the only path that can take us beyond disaster. 
 
 

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   

Sites of interest:

http://arclist.org/

http://deskript.com/

http://www.openculture.com/

http://open.salon.com/blog/ralph_melcher/recent

http://arclist-ralphmelcher.blogspot.com/

To subscribe to the Arclist send a message to melcher@nets.com

“If you want to find pure gold, you must see it through fire.” – Mumonkan

The Teacher

on By
Dear Charlette,
 
So, this morning as I came before my teacher for our weekly meeting (dokusan) the first thing he says to me is “How was your week? Were you finished beating up on yourself?”
 
My thoughts were: “Shheeeyt, is this so obvious to everyone around me? Three people that I treasure have pointed out this quality in just the past couple of weeks. Is it my most prominent feature, like a huge mole on the end of my nose? Oh well, I had to tell the teacher that I still indulged in quite a bit of it (see my last email to you). He told me a story about how we first erect imaginary obstacles and then have to summon up the courage to ‘overcome’ them. They are, after all, imaginary. 
 
Let this be my Zen journal, as it feels like one hell of an adventure upon which I’ve embarked and I’d like to tell it to somebody that can either sympathize with or at least comprehend the ramifications. 
 
Speaking of hell, you could call this a “journal from hell” I suppose. Hell defined as the “six realms of samsara” that the Buddha perceived as the source of human suffering. They are as follows:
 
Hell is the realm where we make each other suffer. Or when we subject ourselves to the frustrations of some inner struggle that we can’t let go of. 
 
Hungry ghosts are beings that exist in a world of unending and unsatisfied craving. Consumerist society thrives in the world of hungry ghosts. Our economy would collapse if too many of us diverced ourselves from this delusion. 
 
Animals are those who are content to eat and sleep and work and have no other aspirations in their lives. They are those who have surrendered their volition to others.
 
Asuras are those who define themselves in opposition to those perceived as enemies. It’s this one that I’d like to illuminate. (see below)
 
Human Beings are those who project their success or failure endlessly into the future. They are never satisfied with the present. 
 
Heavenly Beings are those who have achieved everything that our society defines as the necessary ingredients of success. Their primary motivation is to protect what they have gained and they are governed by the fear of losing. 
 
Usually in the time of presidential politics I’m ‘out there’ o the firing line launching scathing critiques and obsessive analysis regarding the tide of battle, the enormity of hypocrisy, the evil of Republicans, etc. This is what I’ve done in the past, but haven’t really wanted to get into in the present. It doesn’t really nourish me or anyone else. If negativity is the only voice I can summon I’d just as soon sit this one out. 
 
I’ve tried to take the angry reactivity that so much of the political dialogue sparks and turn it into statements that project something positive and optimistic into the future. I’ve even seen this as a ‘spiritual’ practice…and so it is. The problem is that the political discourse has become so much more poisoned and polarized than ever before (in my lifetime) that even to get near it is to risk the danger of being overcome by the fumes. So, I’m not writing much of anything these days, laying low until something new and authentic and not merely reactive arises from within me. 
 
Shohaku Okumura in his book Living By Vow describes the realm of hell that’s most relevant to the tendencies with which I’ve most strongly identified in the past.
 
“Asuras are fighting spirits. Asura was a mythical Indian god of justice. When we believe we are right, we criticise others based on our own concept of justice. If necessary we fight with others until we win. Exterminating people who oppose us becomes the purpose of our lives. Such people cannot be satisfied without enemies. They can’t live without something against which they can struggle. We all have this sort of attitude sometimes. When we have someone to criticize, we feel safe, righteous and good.”
 
That sure sizes up the spirit I’ve identified with for most of my life. I probably will never quite get beyond this identification, as I’ve spent so much time living it, but perhaps I can step back from it and not let it possess me so completely. 
 
I’ve long thought that it’s almost impossible for people to fundamentally change their habit patterns. I still tend to believe that only in the most extreme circumstances do human’s really change. However, I now see that it’s possible, by seeing clearly these habits for what they are, a person can allow them to show themselves but choose not to hitch a ride. 
 
I may try my hand at another essay this week. No promises. I’m trying to write something everyday. It’s kind of a vow I’ve made to myself. The biggest challenge is not letting exhaustion overtake me. Of course, the nature of a vow is that it may be unattainable but at least it’s a target to aim for. 
 
With Love,
 
Ralph
 
 

 

The Beasts

on By

In these days of mighty CGI (Computer-Generated Imagery) and 3D and IMAX and stadium sized theaters and all of the other efforts to bring people into the cinema it’s remarkable to see a movie that makes us rethink the way we see movies and the role of art itself.

All movies are to some extent fairytales in the ways they relate to what we know as the ‘real’ world. Even documentaries are fairytales in the sense that they capture events within the mythic frame of the camera lens and organize them into narratives designed to capture our hearts and minds.

Since the invention of the camera we have used the images captured and purposefully arranged by storytellers to make sense of our world. In the age of technology we interpret our lives though the mediation of the lens and the screen.

Technology has reshaped our lives to follow its own designs. We’ve built mighty barriers that separate and protect us from the natural world. The effect has been to divide us from our own bodies and from the body of the earth that sustains us. Living in this disembodied state we suffer from diseases of separation that devastate our environment and drive us insane.

The waters that we have held back are now rising. The time has come for us to re-unite with the sources of our being. The earth itself cries out and sends us signals through our dreams. For those who are ready to listen here is a dream from the soul of the earth.
The Beasts of the Southern Wild sings the power of the body returning. Through our bodies the universe speaks to us and we awaken to our connections with everything there is. In a time when cinema weaves fairytales by the dozen here is a fairytale that brings us closer to the world in which we actually live.

It’s difficult to describe this movie. It isn’t quite like anything else I’ve seen. At times it looks like a roughly cut fable assembled out of fragments of debris washed up by the flood. At times it moves with soul stirring beauty and grace. It offers a heroic and defiant journey that surprises us with magic and miracles at every turn, and yet it never leaves behind the gritty realities of life and death. The whole story swirls about the figure of a six year old girl called Hushpuppy and her father Wink, who live in a place called The Bathtub, where people of all races and ages live in natural harmony with each other and with the world around them. It’s a place outside of the world of machinery we’ve constructed that allows us to rise out of the flowing waters of life and change. In the words of Hushpuppy’s father, “…the most beautiful place in the world.”

When the storm comes and the waters rise the inhabitants of the Bathtub who stay behind are faced with the struggle to survive in a realm that’s been both devastated and poisoned. They are being forced to leave by those who would ‘rescue’ them and write them off as forgotten remnants of a world that is no more. Instead of submitting to the rules of the ‘civilized’ world the people who carry the Bathtub’s soul rise up to resist, and in their resistance summon nature’s most powerful creations to be their allies.
Here is a fable that evokes the world in which we live and the choices each of us will have when faced with the storms that are coming. In a sense this is a prayer for survival and a hymn to the true nature of who and what we are, not apart from anything, able to live and walk in beauty over the earth that is our mother and rejoicing in the magic that gives us the gift of life.

Between the Self and the Truth

on By 2 Comments

“All men are created equal.”

– Thomas Jefferson

***************************

“Money, not morality is the principle of commercial nations.”

– Thomas Jefferson

“…just starting with the question of “What happened to black people?” is not sufficient to understanding that at the end of the day, the very notion of settlement in this country was about procuring resources for the purposes of wealth accumulation. That was true for most who came to this country, maybe not true for a small band of Puritans who landed in Massachusetts, who imagined the recreation of a very special, religious community. But even that vision of American society didn’t last very long…it’s certainly true, as far as I’m concerned, that over the last 225 years, Thomas Jefferson’s second point about money– has far outlasted and triumphed over the notion of freedom.” – Khalil Muhammad

Happy Fourth of July.

Here is a link to the Bill Moyer’s interview with one of our most prominent young black historians. In light of an election that will be, as was the last, decided partly around the issues of race, I think that this is an important perspective for all Americans to understand. Unfortunately this is a time when most Americans will do almost anything to avoid the truths of their own history, a time when the vestiges of white supremacy will attempt, perhaps successfully, to purchase the upcoming elections.

This is one of the best and most informative interviews I’ve ever seen, and given the brilliant history of Moyer’s interviews, that’s saying something. The fair minded clarity of both men is beyond reproach, offering an unmatched glimpse of the undercurrents that run through our culture along with their historical roots.

America has been living a contradiction since its founding, and over 200 years later we have yet to overcome that contradiction. We are at a crux in our evolution as a society. Along one path, the path known as “conservatism”, America continues to be viewed primarily as the “ownership society”, where absolutely everything is valued only as a commodity, including our concept of freedom and speech, our communities, even our closest relationships. Along this road we are a society bought and sold, where human rights are measured only in terms of what we own. In my opinion this path, in the long term, is doomed to collapse and failure.

Fortunately, emerging out of this collapse is another point of view, mostly held by the young, who have grown up in a world where the boundaries between nations and races has been largely broken down through the rise of global digital culture. Surveys have shown that young people are less susceptible to the influence of television and religion, the primary tools used by the ‘Baby Boomer Generation’ for the promulgation of bigotry and paranoia. (I was both surprised and encouraged by a debate I recently listened to on NPR’s Intelligence Squared that asked the question Would The World Be Better Off Without Religion, where both sides were very eloquently argued.)

I recently returned from a trip through the midwest and part of the deep south and was dismayed at the level of ignorance and cultural isolation that I sensed as I crossed this wide and beautiful nation. On the other side I’ve been inspired and uplifted by watching the HBO drama Treme which goes to the true heart of America through the music and culture of New Orleans as it rebuilds itself after Katrina. In these episodes I’ve seen reflections of myself and my own attitudes, both good and bad. There’s the hopelessness that turns into depression and rage, directed both against the outside and against the self. On the other side there’s the sheer joy of being alive and the will to continue on, to celebrate and to be a part of one another. Maybe its only through something dying that something new can be born.

The Rise of Another World

on By
In light of the irrelevant squabbling that characterizes the fear based struggles of the west, particularly the current election cycle, we should be aware that in important ways the world is ‘moving on.’ As a culture we will either learn to ride the waves or we will fail. 
 
My generation woke up in the sixties to the horrors and injustices of a world overtaken by colonialism and the machineries of global capitalism. We came of age in the first decades of television and the rise of electronic media. The shock of seeing the world from a whole new perspective than that of our parents drove us into a quest for the future that was both hopeful and desperate. We created the hopeful dream of a future dominated by peace and love. We tried to transcend the forces of history and in the process created unfortunate blind spots in our view of the present. 
 
Things have turned out differently than many of us dreamed, at least in the short term. Instead of an Age of Aquarius we appear to have arrived in a world where the dominant reality is one of fragmentation and fear. Instead of universal brotherhood we’ve become isolated into paranoid camps dreaming up ways to attribute our woes to others. Many ‘New Agers’ that I know have taken refuge in bizarre fantasies of persecution and/or redemption that are drawn out of thin air to ‘explain’ the bewildering complexity of the world. We are unable to give up our destructive addictions, so we turn them into religions and defend them with a passion born of fear.    
 
In our struggle to deny the reality of the situations we collectively face, we’ve been caught up in a confusion of contrarian visions, each defending its own turf against all others. The Internet, while opening us to a world of almost infinite diversity has also been a mixed blessing, particularly in the so-called ‘developed’ world. In the domain of ‘social networks’ (read ‘tribes’) we tend to gather into closed networks that reinforce our preconceptions while excluding input from contrary points of view. 
 
In spite of all of this the world continues to change and humans continue to imagine and create. What we need more than ever is the ability to pay attention, to listen to other points of view and other ways of perceiving the reality we face. More than ever we need to be detached and fluid as the world reshapes itself. My advice to us all is, “don’t sweat the big stuff.” We can only effect the enormously complex forces that are reshaping the world by the quality of our everyday interactions.
 
As an illustration of the factors that will effect our future, I offer a link to this important TED talk on China by Martin Jacques, author of When China Rules the World. 
 

Understanding China

 
Mr. Jacques presents a historical outline of the important aspects that we in the western world tend to miss when we assume that a country like China approaches the future in a manner that merely replicates our own and that the Chinese are motivated in the same way that we are. 
 
The main points of his talk:
 
By the end of the next decade China will have an economy twice the size of the United States. 
 
The speaker warns that “the West has lost the sense of the future.” He makes a case that the world of the future will be shaped more by the developing world than through the weakening influence of the long dominant western models.  
 
China’s problem: A huge number of people and no space. 
 
Three crucial differences in China’s sense of itself and the factors that shape its decisions:
 
The concept of the Civilization State (as opposed to the Nation State).
 
The notion of Race (the absolute primacy of a single dominant race: the Han).
 
The State as the defender of Civilization (the state as the guarantor of Unity).
 
The Chinese invented Golf. 
 

Signals to Noise

on By

I just got this email from some obscure person working for an international drug cartel selling pain -killers and drugs for erectile dysfunction. I don’t know this person but apparently I’ve managed to get on some marketing list and a some robotic attack machinery has broken through my SPAM filters. 

 
Still, I thought this was a worthy attempt at literature:

 
When your dear people suffer you are ready to do anything to rid them off the torture.
But unfortunately quite often we simply cannot do anything that would help.
I m 52 and I work as a fireman.
I have two grown up children - my elder son Jim is 29 and my daughter Alison is nearly 20.
They are everything to me that s why I starve to spend all my free time with them.
Jim and I are fond of mountains and rock climbing.
Every summer we go in the mountains for a week or so.
Last summer we went for a week and a half in June.
We have been in the mountains for 5 days already and have gone far away from the town when by some horrible occasion Jim fell off in a deepish gorge.
I was paralyzed, I saw him lying on the bottom of the gorge groaning.
Then I regained my self-control and managed to climb down into the gorge.
Jim felt terribly, from time to time he lost his consciousness.
It seemed as if he got his hip and his spine broken.
I would not be able to get him into the town by myself.
He was trembling with pain; it was unbearable to watch your child suffering.
When I called emergency line they told me that they would try to find us as soon as it was possible but until that time I had to stop Jim s pain as his heart could not possibly stand it.
I started pottering in our knapsacks and fortunately I found out that my wife had put some pain-killer into my knapsack before our departure.
It was Tramadol, I have never heard about it, and I was not sure whether it was powerful enough to help Jim, but I had no choice.
I gave him two pills.
Gradually he stopped groaning and fell asleep as I thought.
They found us 3 hours later.
In the hospital they told me that Jim s spine was not broken but it was damaged greatly and every breath hurt him enormously.
They also said that if it were not for the pain-killer my son wouldn t be still alive.
Do I have to say anything else about my gratitude towards this medicine and my wife?
 

This is followed by a web link that I’m not inclined to follow and won’t pass on here. It probably connects to a server based in India or the Ukraine where they smuggle and ship millions of orders worldwide. We are merely the end of the chain. 

 
Nor will I pass on the name of the author. Who knows if the author still lives, or ever lived, or where he/she lives? Perhaps the author is himself a construction of the machine. Or maybe its the transcript of a conversation once held and long since fading away. 
 
Still there is gratitude, for both the medicine and the wife. 

I Aim to Misbehave

on By

All of my friends know that I’m a dedicated fan and proselytizer of the Firefly television series produced by Joss Whedon in 2002 and canned summarily by Fox Television before it was given a chance to gain an audience. True to the spirit and very premise of the show, after cancellation it emerged through word of mouth and a widespread underground movement to become one of the most popular dvd collections ever. Universal Studios then acquired the rights to produce the movie Serenity in 2005, concluding the arc of the story and initiating Mr. Whedon to big screen directing. Nowadays the one season series runs almost continually in syndication on cable.

This story is reminiscent of the first Star Trek series, which was also cancelled (if somewhat less rudely) by clueless executives in the sixties, going on to become one of the most successful movie franchises ever. Ironically, Firefly offers sort of an anti-Star Trek narrative, where the corporate establishment that the Federation glorifies has now become bad guys and the heroes are essentially anarchists and criminals. Likely this is symptomatic of a collective loss of faith in the promise of unending technological progress and the corporate American Dream. Personally I hope that it indicates a resistance to the virtual assimilation and homogenization of the social commons by the Borglike marketing spheres of vast networked entities like Facebookistan and Twitter.
The quote, “I aim to misbehave”, is one of the key lines spoken by pirate captain Malcolm Reynolds before he leads the forces of the the Alliance into a deadly trap to expose the secret that allows them to maintain absolute control. It expresses the spirit of contrariness and rebellion better than almost any phrase I can recall spoken in the movies. I’ve decided therefore to establish a personal  commemorative to honor any movie or television show that embodies the subversive spirit so well portrayed in Firefly. 
To this end, the first award goes to The Hunger Games, a film by director Gary Ross (Pleasantvulle, Seabiscuit). In a recent interview on Elvis Mitchell’s show, The Treatment, Mr. Ross speaks about his interest in exploring societies where a select few exercise disproportionate power without consensus (the 99 and the 1 percent) and how single acts of morality can cause the tenuous fibers of that culture to unravel.
I saw the movie the other day, not without some apprehension. Judging by the number of cover stories on the magazine racks of my local grocery store, it was the most hyped movie since Avatar, and it appeared to be geared toward a younger audience that flocks to movies like Harry Potter and the Twilight series of vampire melodramas. Not only was I more than pleased with the movie itself, I was gratified that such intelligent storytelling is going over big with an up and coming generation.
The Hunger Games worked for me on many levels. The story is a finally crafted arc where a young and very believable heroine named Katniss Everdeen (embodied with strength and intelligence by Jennifer Lawrence) grows beyond her narrow focus on survival to discover the boundaries of her own ethics and morality. She lifts it proudly in the face of a brutal spectacle in which she risks everything. Supporting the lead performance by a fine group of young actors are veterans like Stanley Tucci, Woody Harrelson (particularly good as a game survivor and mentor) and Donald Sutherland.
Although the movie is set in a high tech future the special effects are largely understated and never come to dominate the performances. Most of the narrative takes place in the woods of an Appalachian wilderness (it was filmed in and around Ashville, North Carolina) reminiscent of the Michael Mann film of The Last of the Mohicans. Unlike many sci-fi epics, The Hunger Games keeps its focus tightly with the point of view of particular characters. Through mostly close-in footage we witness the world narrowly through the eyes of Katniss and thus are taken along on her very personal journey. Outside and against the point of view of Katniss’ we see the spectacle from the standpoint of those who work the machinery. In a single notable exception that breaks us out of this closed circle we get a short glimpse of people rising up in response to an act of courage and honor to express rage and quickly repressed rebellion. The scene is effective and memorable as it exposes the thinly fraying threads of brutal control that an act of individual courage can potentially unravel.
The spectacle itself is portrayed as a cross between a television show like Survivor and a modern broadcast version of the gladiatorial arena. By juxtaposing the brutality spawned by the Roman Empire with the presentation techniques of contemporary television (only the costumes and hairdos would seem out of place) we see the dark side of how modern media becomes the primary vehicle for social control. This is the reality of network television.
At the end of the movie we are left with an acute awareness that beneath a very thin veneer of temporary media satiation large forces have been triggered by an act of moral courage. The story is only beginning. Although I’ve never read the books, I can’t wait for the sequel.

Oversight

on By
A friend of mine today asked me what I thought of Thrive, a propaganda documentary currently making the rounds on the New Age circuit. I thought I’d already sent out a review weeks ago, just after I saw it in January. Lo! I poked through my Arclist archive and could find no trace. It turns out I posted the piece on my Blog but either hadn’t sent it out as a mailing or for some reason deleted it from the archive. Perhaps I didn’t want to offend any true believers in my audience. Whatever the reason, here I want to correct the oversight,
You can read my review here, under the title, Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
In the past several weeks I’ve been much too distracted by circumstances to find the energy to write much of anything although I watched the Oscars last week and, amazingly, found that I’d actually seen the majority of nominees. My own personal picks for best movies of the year, in descending order: My Week With Marilyn (more on this in a future piece), Contagion and Melancholia, with The Tree of Life (certainly the most ambitious) as a close runner-up. My own reviews of these are here and here. I measure them according to the enduring effect of their message and imagery. 
So, here is a little review of the past few weeks.
________________________________________________________________________

“Whenever two or more are gathered in my name it turns into a mob of power junkies.”

Who is it that said this? Was it Jesus or the Buddha? I don’t know, maybe Jesus. He always seemed a little more self absorbed, probably because of the “God” thing. Maybe he could see from first hand experience, being personally tempted in the wilderness and all, what all of this would likely come to. Buddha, frankly, couldn’t give a crap. He was more of a take it or leave it kind of guy, not trying to overturn some major religion or empire or anything, maybe a little more adaptable. His line was a throwaway: Suffer or not, it’s up to you.
Still, we have numberless generations passing the torch and along the way adding a little of this and a little of that, just to make the thing more palatable at a given place and time. Of course, there’s the irresistible urge always to skim a little authority off the top by adding robes and ceremonies and grades of enlightenment and lots of lists of things to do. Nothing wrong with it, as without somebody being the ‘designated driver’ so to speak, whatever might trickle down from mouth to mouth gets quickly and hopelessly distorted and the core of anyone’s teaching is lost in all the haze.
I’ve been caught up myself in sorting out some haze these past few weeks. I won’t go into details here, but let me tell you, the lessons learned when one is involved with other people are both priceless and nerve wracking. I’ve been in corporations and communes, political organizations and spiritual communities, and I swear to the almighty (whom I don’t believe in) that the same games get played in every one. Somebody’s gotta be right and somebody’s gotta be wrong, and whoever fancies themselves closer to the ‘source’; that being whatever brings the group together, ideology, vision, a teacher or leader, money, ends up being the one who calls the shots. The more effective the organization, the more power it draws to itself, and the more baroque and underhanded the social games and power plays.
We forget that we got involved for relatively simple, even primal reasons. We wanted to feel that we weren’t alone in the world. We wanted to meet somebody else who saw things in some way we could relate to, or maybe we just wanted to get laid. We thought that being involved would give us a sense of purpose that would connect us with the rest of humanity in this big empty universe. So we knocked on the door and hoped somebody would show us the way in.
Trouble is, once we get inside the door we get confused all around the issue of what it means to be ‘inside’ as opposed to being ‘outside.’ Suddenly the universe looks like Dante’s Inferno, with circles inside of circles, and everyone wishes they could get to the one in the middle where there aren’t anymore barriers to cross.
Chogyam Trungpa called this ‘Spiritual Materialism.’ Instead of simply wanting to be happy, we become goal oriented and our happiness is dependent on some arbitrary definition of ‘success.’ When we finally achieve the goal we find that another beckons. The road is endless where happiness is defined by circumstance and the actual experience of happiness recedes like the edge of an ever-expanding universe.
Speaking of Trungpa, in the middle of my own dramas I saw Crazy Wisdom, the documentary of his life. Certainly one of the great teachers and transmitters of the Buddha’s message to the West, Trungpa and his followers provide an excellent study in all I’ve mulled over in the previous paragraphs. Was he also a drunk and a sexual libertine, taking advantage of his devotees in a manner that personally made me cringe? Am I just being obtuse and refusing to see the lessons in all of these actions of a master?
As my own Zen teacher, who learned it from Roshi Bernie Glassman, who got it from The Dude, likes to say, “That’s just, like, your opinion, man.”
So I will here let it all go. I simply don’t presume to know the answers in all of this complexity. Still, I will look for fellowship with others amid all of our common craziness. I pray only that in the midst of it I can attain compassion. Maybe then I will find myself brushing against happiness.

Biology

on By

Notwithstanding Chris Matthew’s comments this week referring to Republicans who believe in Creationism as “Troglodytes” (a view with which I share some sympathy) the arguments waged between biologists about the true nature of evolutionary processes are vastly more intriguing (and relevant) than the abstract arguments between science and religion. In some ways the disputes between biologists resemble the friction between religious factions, but in more important ways they represent the very manner in which science progresses toward new conclusions, which then lead to new discoveries and new arguments, ad infinitum. 


One of the most important arguments being waged is between the selfish gene theories of neo-Darwinists like Richard Dawkins and theories of symbiogenesis pioneered by Lynn Margulis and James Lovelock. It is important because it challenges scientists to think beyond the conventional linear boundaries of simple cause and effect and to embrace much wider possibilities of complex systems involving interactions on a multitude of levels where cause and effect become so enmeshed as to be indistinguishable. This view requires that our approach to knowledge comes against traditional boundaries between disciplines and thus it has met resistance from those who hold those boundaries sacred.
 
A recent essay discussing the life and work of Lynn Margulis appears in the Lindisfarne Cafe section of The Wild Rivers Review. An eminent biologist and wife of the late Carl Sagan, her theories and experiments into the mysteries of life’s origins challenge the conventional views of natural selection. She died on November 22, 2011.
 
From the essay: 

Lean Forward, Stand Back:

The Worldview of Lynn Margulis (Scientist)

by Andre Khalil 
   

 

Many neo-Darwinist concerns circled nervously around words like “Gaia” and “cooperation” (which Margulis did not like to use). They were, perhaps rightly, concerned that these terms were ripe for religious appropriation. But Margulis herself was outspoken against such mishandling of her research.

Some new-agers love to grasp symbiosis as signifying “altruism” between organisms. But it’s much more complex than that—there is something “in it” for every symbiont, just as a state beneficial in some way arises out of each symbiosis.  Terms like “altruism” had no scientific value, because they are too single-minded to describe the phenomenon.

New age thinkers also use Gaia as a blanket term. They’ve appropriated it to mean that the Earth is a living organism. Or they refer to Gaia as a “goddess.” This turns Gaia into a sort of Stepford planet by containing its complexity in a simple and inadequate metaphor. This no more grasps reality than “selfishness” does our genes.

Margulis expressed her solution to the error once by saying, “Gaia is not merely an organism.”

The Earth is beyond stale conception. It is more magnificent and active than we can imagine. Gaia is object and process. Gaia houses volcanos and every book, every word on volcanos ever written, and at the same time is those volcanos. It is where our greatest loves live, and where every human heartbeat has ever rhythmically pulsed.  In this new understanding, that something can pulse with life and yet be beyond our concepts of living, those concepts begin to change.

If Gaia is conscious, it possesses a consciousness of a different magnitude, probably of a different order all together.

Richard Dawkins and his pre-cursors like John Maynard Smith, as well as other neo-Darwinist thinkers, could not and cannot understand this lesson: this complexity is impossible to incorporate in a linear and reductive understanding.

Part of their failure lies in a misunderstood version of cause and effect that plagues science.  At a certain level of complexity, somewhere just above a billiard ball clanking into a another billiard ball, cause and effect begins to change its shape.  This change may be real—that is, it may actually shift in its laws and patterns in nature—or it may be imagined. In other words, it may demand a different sort of thinking.  Effectively it doesn’t matter, since we need to contend with the shift in our thinking. To encompass complex systems with our thinking, we must imagine a model that is less like “cause-effect” more like “being-manifestation.”  That is, multiple layers and numerous agents of forces unconsciously conspire together, and their conspiring is so intermingled, that it is simultaneously cause and effect, and thus beyond both.  For example, the being, or process of Gaia manifests itself as an unstable, constantly correcting level of oceanic salinity.  One cannot be said to cause the other, since the oceanic salinity interacts so deeply with the beings and environs from which it arises. Symbiosis and biological forms demand the same sort of thought.


 

  

 
 

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   

Sites of interest:

http://arclist.org/

http://deskript.com/

http://www.openculture.com/

http://open.salon.com/blog/ralph_melcher/recent

http://arclist-ralphmelcher.blogspot.com/

To subscribe to the Arclist send a message to melcher@nets.com

Two Movies

on By
Two exceptional movies framed the past year for me. 

The Tree of Life begins as a seed of light and then expands to the whole territory of existence. Through the memories of ordinary life juxtaposed with glimpses of the primal forces of creation we are given a view of a universe spawned in raptures of what may be called love. 
 
Melancholia is no less of a masterpiece, but its subject is the utter finality of death. 
 
Tree of Life is actually the first movie by Terence Malick that I totally enjoyed and appreciated. As ambitious as any film can be, it’s also so unconventional in structure that to many it has been either overwhelming or inaccessible. The only film I can think of that embraces so wide a vision is Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. And yet, while that movie approaches the big ideas from a rather cerebral standpoint and spends most of its time outside of the earth, Malick’s singular achievement is to uncover the secrets of the soul through the device of memory and the lens of an ordinary life. 
 
We watch a life unfold from infancy to adulthood in a little town in Texas and we are also witness to the initial explosion of creation leading to the evolution of life on our planet. Malick’s theme is the continuity between the extremes of our mundane existance and of the greater evolution within which our lives unfold. Only a director who is equally at home with the grandest vision and the minute particulars of memory could pull this off.
 
On one hand this is certainly one of the best portraits of growing up that I’ve ever seen. I could feel the textures and almost sense the smells and touch of my own childhood, growing up in the fifties. The intimacy and the struggles of family life, and particularly the relationship between a father and a son are revealed in such finely selected detail that what we witness reveals universal themes of love and struggle contained in singular circumstance. Brad Pitt’s portrayal of the father is truly exceptional as is the performance of the young Hunter McCracken as the son and Jessica Chastain as both mother and as the embodiment of grace. 
 
Somehow, woven through the family drama, in a manner that is miraculously seamless, we witness in breathtaking segments the big bang, the evolution of stars, the emergence of life and the birth of the world we are familiar with. I can’t describe how or why this works, but it’s a feat that only a master of film and a true spiritual visionary could achieve without for a moment falling into the maudlin and sentimental. 
 
At center the movie carries an essentially Christian message, but one that is both universal and transcendent. When we contemplate the last few images of skyscrapers and the Golden Gate bridge, we are seeing them through the eyes of a man who has taken the full lesson of life, that all that we are and all that we build are the products ultimately of the love that has been passed on to us.
 
Melancholia, by Lars von Trier, is about the denial of love and of life and the profound emptiness at the core of our suffering. Von Trier is a controversial director whose films have earned both the highest recognition and vitriolic condemnation. His actresses have won acclaim while he has been accused of misogyny for the usually harsh treatment of their characters in his films. His movies are not always easy to watch or gentle on our sensibilities, but he is an absolute master at constructing images that transcend the content of his narratives. Like one of his mentors, the Russian director Andrey Tarkovsky, he approaches film as a painter or sculptor in time, building for us in a precise accumulation of impressions a total picture that leaves us usually stunned and breathless. 
 
About five years ago a very good friend of mine ended her life by jumping into the Rio Grande Gorge. I’ve often tried to imagine what went through her mind as she drove her ramshackle car with a broken window 40 miles up through the canyons toward Taos under the cold and overcast April sky, arriving at the bridge in the dark of evening. She walked to one of the exposed platforms that overlook the river, 600 feet down. You can’t see the river once the sun goes down, so what you are looking into is a vast pool of darkness with the distant sound of the rapids sifting between the canyon walls. What was she feeling as she removed her coat and her shoes, climbed the railing and jumped? Was it sudden fear or the exhilaration of flight, or just a numbing descent into oblivion? 
 
I believe that the motives we imagine for suicide are full of misconceptions. Sometimes we think that a person who commits suicide is trying to leave here for a better place or was seeking some sort of transcendent experience. We may think that it’s an act of violence or revenge enacted toward we the survivors. Finally I’ve come to accept that for some people this life means nothing but constant pain, and death for them is not about transcendence or revenge, but only a blessed end to it all.   
 
In Melancholia a world ten times the size of our own collides with the earth. We see it twice. During the overture we view the spectacle from outer space, as one enormous globe embraces and devours the other. Then we watch a woman’s life unravel in her total collapse into depression. We then see her slowly revive with the revelation of the end and finally in a welcome embrace of death. Then, once more we witness the collision of worlds, this time from the perspective of those whose lives are ended in its vast and sudden conflagration. 
 
These are timely images in a year when visions of strange planets and worlds colliding echo in the consciousness of many who expect the revelation of dire prophecies. But von Trier isn’t talking about prophecies. He is addressing the condition of both longing and avoidance as we face each other and our individual mortality. The character Justine, played by Kirsten Dunst, is a woman who tries to find meaning in the enveloping ritual of an elaborately staged wedding celebration. When confronted by the contradictory undercurrents and self deceptions of family, friends and associates, she fails completely in her efforts to conform, and what results is the almost complete collapse of her world. What remains is her relationship with Claire, her sister and caretaker, Claire’s husband, and their young son. The final drama plays out on a huge estate separated from anyone else in the world. Overshadowing every relationship is the approach and impending arrival of the mysterious planet, which is in the end, death itself. 
 
What we witness is that in the face of death all of our illusions and rituals unravel and we can no longer hide from our fears. We are unmasked. The scientist must set aside rationality and embrace the unknown. Those who have everything under control see that control is ultimately an illusion. To those who welcome death with open arms, and perhaps for the children who are too innocent to have constructed a body of fear there is the possibility of calm acceptance or even embrace. 
 
In the final image in the film, the two sisters and the child sit under a tent made of branches while the beautiful and awesome planet fills the horizon before it obliterates everything. This singular and powerful image is one that I will carry with me for a long time. For me it conveys a certain acceptance. To my surprise I found in this film a kind of understanding and a kind of peace. 
 
These are the two movies, out of all that I saw in 2011 that stand out as special achievements. On the surface they appear to be contradictory in their themes, but as both strive to address universal questions of life and death they are not as far apart as they seem. Perhaps, as my own awareness vibrates between the poles of light and dark, life and death, love and despair, I find it  quite natural to embrace both visions.