Spirit on the Web

Brit Hume's Spiritual Illiteracy

2010-01-05T13:20:24Z

In a recent commentary on disgraced sports figure Tiger Woods, retired Fox News commentator Brit Hume had the following to say: "The extent to which he can recover as a person depends on his faith. He's said to be a Buddhist. I don't think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So my message to Tiger would be, 'Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world."

Hume, who once described himself as a nominal Christian, says he "came to Christ" after his son committed suicide a decade ago. Unfortunately, Hume displays the rampant ignorance about world religions typical of the news media in general and religious fundamentalists in particular. I'm not sure what Hume thought he meant to say, but the central tenets of Buddhism revolve around compassion for all beings, including oneself. As Buddhist journalist Barbara Hoetsu O'Brien put it, "Mr. Hume is right, in a sense, that Buddhism doesn't offer redemption and forgiveness in the same way Christianity does. Buddhism has no concept of sin; therefore, redemption and forgiveness in the Christian sense is meaningless in Buddhism. Forgiveness is important, but it is approached differently in Buddhism."

However, as any good Buddhist would quickly and compassionately inform Hume, the Buddhist practice of metta, or loving kindness, is extended to all beings, including those who have wronged us. In the basic meditation or prayer of metta, which is embraced by the Vipassana or Mindfulness tradition as espoused by the great Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh and many others, we beegin by offering loving kindness to ourselves, and then extend this compassionate intention in ever widening circles to those near and dear to us, to casual friends and associates, those we don't know personally, and even our enelmies.

For more detailed instruction on metta, please consult the ever-reliable buddhanet.com, run by people who actually know something about Buddhism. In the meantime, you might send Brit Hume an email suggesting that he read up on the Dalai Lama's practice of compassion. Every morning before sunrise, the Dalai Lama rises to practice four hours or so of meditation. For years, people have asked him exactly what he is meditating on. And he has given them a one-word answer that is a primary tenet of Buddhism: compassion.

Health Care for Christmas

2009-12-25T12:25:56Z

I admit I've spent the past few months feeling annoyed, no, furious, with Pres. Obama and the Democrats in general for cutting deals with Big Pharma, selling out to corporate interests and not doing enough to help the people who elected them by living up to our highest ideals. I'm painfully aware of how much better the Health Care Reform bill could have been, of how much corporate money has diluted it. Part of the problem, which needs to be addressed immediately, is the obsolete, unconstitutional, segregation-era tactic of the Senate filibuster that requires a 60-40 majority. That has to be changed so that a simple majority can enact all legislation. Without cloture, Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman would still be groveling in near-anonymity trying to get someone to pay attention to them.

But on a related front, today I received a notice in the mail from Bank of America regarding my credit card, noting a few changes coming in February. I braced for the worst, then started reading.

]]> Oh, right, in my fits of dismay I'd forgotten about the Credit Card Reform bill the Democrats passed, led by Barney Frank--another imperfect bill that didn't do all it could have. The letter reads in part:

Your rate for existing balances will no longer be raised for being a few days late with your payment.

Beginning Feb. 13, your APR on existing balances can only be raised if you do not make your minimum monthly payment within 60 days of the payment due date.

You will not be charged for going over your credit limit.

Any amounts you pay over the minimum payment will now be used to pay down balances with the highest APR first.

Do these sound like changes the banks would be making on their own? Do they sound like the result of legislation championed by Republicans? (The House Bill had 128 co-sponsors, of whom 127 were Democrats, although in the end many R's did vote for it.)

So maybe it's time to put the Health Care debate back in perspective. Much as I love the watchdog zeal of Jane Hamsher and firedoglake.com, I wonder what her endgame plan was in demanding that progressives kill the bill. How long does she think it will be before another Gargantuan effort at reform would be mounted? Finally, if every Republican and the majority of insurance companies still oppose the bill in its current form, and if even Bernie Sanders and, I presume, Maurice Hinchey will vote for it, why don't we just declare victory, fight for every inch we can get during reconciliation, and to all a good night?

As Paul Krugman concluded in his precisely reasoned column today, "So progressives shouldn't stop complaining, but they should congratulate themselves on what is, in the end, a big win for them -- and for America."

Where Are the Real Christians?

2009-11-29T16:25:28Z

I try not to get into partisan politics in this blog, although it's often inevitable. After all, the Democrats have not extricated themselves from the influence of money much more than have Republicans. Both major parties are beholden to so many monied interests that I'm astonished when any good legislation is passed. Until all money is removed from the electoral process, I don't believe this will change. And yet, when only 1 Republican out of 177 in the House voted in favor of a Health Care Reform bill, no matter how flawed, I have trouble und3rstanding how Republicans can so blatantly embrace Christianity in other contexts. Have any of them read the lengthy section of the Gospel of Matthew known as the Sermon on the Mount? Or the parable of the sheep and the goats (Matt 25:31-46) that embodies the heart of Christian compassion for the less fortunate? So I was intrigued to learn more about the lone Republican who apparently had not only read the Gospel, but taken it to heart, and voted in favor of health care. His name is Anh "Jospeh" Cao of Louisiana (photo by Brady Fontenot).

]]> Deborah Solomon of the New York Times why he bucked his party leadership in this instance. His response is so revealing I'll repeat it verbatim:

"This is a personal position of mine. I do believe that we need health care reform. I do believe that we as a government have a duty to help those who are in need but who cannot help themselves.

So you're saying you voted out of personal conviction, not politics?
Correct. I spent six years in the Society of Jesus, training to be a priest. I always adhere to what I call "the politics of the Gospel." You have to take care of the poor, take care of the widows, visit the sick, help those who cannot help themselves.

Why did you become a Republican?
Because of their strong pro-life stance. That alone.

In essence, Cao apparently embraces "the consistent ethic of life" articulated by Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, the late Archbishop of Chicago, who was opposed not only to abortion but also to the death penalty and to nuclear war and euthanasia, and linked all those issues to social justice, destruction of the environment, and unjust distribution of resources. So I wasn't surprised to find that Rep. Cao was trained by the Jesuits, only that a Vietnamese American could find a home in the GOP at all.

Arlo Guthrie recently announced that sometime during the second George W Bush administration he becme a registered Republican to be able to influence the party from within, "because to have a successful democracy you have to have at least two parties, and one of them was failing miserably. We had enough good Democrats. We needed a few more good Republicans. We needed a loyal opposition."

During a recent interview on NPR, Arlo espoused the same principles of compassion from the Gospel of Matthew (without quoting by name) that I referred to at the beginning of this post. So between Arlo Guthrie and Joe Cao, there may be hope for actual Christian principles to seep into the political landscape in this country.

Spiritual Art & the Vatican

2009-11-22T17:11:45Z

Does the Vatican want to re-establish its role as supporter of great spiritual art? Pope Benedict XVI recently convened an extraordinary gathering of creative people from many disciplines--and religious traditions--to discuss his beliefs about the place of the spiritual in art. But first, a little background is in order.

The link between art and spirituality may seem obvious, but it has fallen out of favor in recent years. Spiritual themes have been apparent in the mythic art of the Goddess era going back 40,000 years or more, and in the work of tribal artists for millennia, but also in medieval painting, sculpture, weaving, and manuscript illumination from Europe to Asia. The expression of profound spiritual insights connected to Nature was a major element in the first concentrated movement of art in the U.S., the Hudson River School that flourished from 1825 through the end of the 19^th century. Great painters including Thomas Cole, Frederic Church (that's his painting above, Twilight in the Wilderness), Asher B. Durand, George Inness and Ralph Albert Blakelock were informed by impassioned spiritual teachings ranging from Calvinism to Swedenborgianism.

]]> Klee, and Malevich, were influenced by the writings of Madame Blavatsky, Annie Besant, Charles Leadbeater and other Theosophical authors. And many American Abstract Expressionists, such as Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, and Agnes Martin, spoke openly of the spiritual underpinnings of their art, although few secular critics have acknowledged this. (For a more detailed discussion of the topic, please consult my archived essay.)
    The Catholic church has long since ceded its pivotal role in patronizing great art, but apparently the current Pope would like to change that. Without commenting on other statements by Pope Benedict, many of which are politically problematical, I would like to acknowledge what seems to be a genuine attempt on his part to re-establish a connection between art and the spiritual. Recently, he invited artists from around the world to gather in the Sistine Chapel and urged them to inject spirituality into their work, charging that contemporary beauty was often "illusory and deceitful." I'm not sure what he means by that--whether he is referring to the work of multimillionaire artists such as Damian Hirst and Jeff Koons, much of whose work I find, if not specifically deceitful, at least boring and vastly overrated.
    But according to a news release by Reuters, the Pope invited some 500 artists to the event, and more than 250 accepted--artists, musicians, directors, writers and composers from around the world and from many different spiritual backgrounds. Although most were from Italy, including film directors Nanni Moretti and Matteo Garrone, singer Andrea Bocelli and famed film composer Ennio Morricone, they were joined by Estonian composer Arvo Part, whose work is decidedly spiritual, Indian sculptor Anish Kapoor and Greek epic artist Jannis Kounellis.
      The New York Times points out that "between the early 1500s, when Raphael painted his famous portrait of Pope Julius II, who commissioned Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling, and 1999, when Italian conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan produced The Ninth Hour, a wax sculpture of Pope John Paul II struck down by a meteorite," the Vatican lost its connection with great art.
    Cattelan didn't attend, but architect Daniel Libeskind called the event an "amazing step," for the pope "to speak of art and ugliness and what connects art to culture. It's not an everyday thing." Bill Viola, an American video artist whose work often re-interprets Christian themes, agreed with Benedict's premise that art becomes more important during turbulent times. He didn't feel that the Vatican was trying to co-opt artists simply to improve its image. Italian artist Mimmo Paladino said it was now up to the Vatican to turn the dialogue into a reality, perhaps by commissioning art.
      Reuters reports that other guests included Iraqi-born British architect Zaha Hadid, whose Maxxi modern art museum has just opened in Rome, and F. Murray Abraham, who won an Oscar for his role as Salieri in the 1985 Mozart film, Amadeus. The Pope told the gathering beneath the vaulted ceiling of the chapel painted by Michelangelo, that he wanted to "renew the Church's friendship with the world of art."
      "Beauty," he said, "can become a path toward the transcendent, toward the ultimate Mystery, toward God." Well, we knew that, but it helps to reinforce such a valuable message in a secular world in which art is increasingly viewed as an investment instead of a means of exploring our spiritual nature. The Pope said that in a world of increasing signs of aggression and despair, we need to return to spirituality in art.
The event marked both the 10th anniversary of Pope John Paul II's "Letter to Artists," in which he spoke of the Church's "need for art," and the 45th anniversary of Pope Paul VI's original meeting with artists in 1964. "After a number of spats between the Vatican and artists in recent years, including a controversy surrounding writer Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code," said Reuters, "the latest overture to the artistic world is being driven by the Vatican's new culture commissar, Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi. In a sign of efforts at reconciliation, the Vatican has said it will participate in the 2011 Venice Biennale, one of the world's major art festivals held every two years.
     One wonders what exactly they will contribute, and how the participating artists will be chosen. But it is significant that a religious institution noted for its political conservatism has reached out to the world's creative community, which tends to share viewpoints antithetical to Catholic dogma. I hope the offer is sincere and will lead to more substantial dialogue.
     If you're interested in exploring the relationship of art and spirituality in modern times, I can strongly recommend a couple of works by leading art historians. Robert Rosenblum's Modern Painting and the Northern Romantic Tradition: Friedrich to Rothko (Harper & Row, 1975) brilliantly traces the arc of the spiritual within Western art of the last two centuries. The late historian and critic covers a wide swath of our most visionary artists in ways that are revelatory, linking the work of Caspar David Friedrich, William Blake, Samuel Palmer, Emil Nolde, and Max Ernst with Van Gogh, Marc, Kandinsky, Klee, and Mondrian. In a more rarefied vein, Diane Apostolos-Cappadona, one of the few living art historians writing on spiritual themes, examines the Hudson River School in The Spirit and the Vision: The Influence of Christian Romanticism on the Development of 19th-Century America Art (American Academy of Religion, 1995). I am indebted to both of them for many of the insights in my online essay.

Diwali Greetings from President Obama

2009-10-17T19:57:56Z

In a year of firsts, and what we hope will continue to be an Era of Firsts, the President of the United States has sent a videotaped greeting to all those who celebrate Diwali, the "Festival of Lights," in the U.S. and around the world. The holiday, which runs over five or six days in different regions, is observed by Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs for a variety of reasons, and it is a national holiday throughout India. In the President's message, he creates yet another first by quoting from Hindu Scripture, specifically the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, 1.3.28:
From the unreal lead me to the real,
From darkness lead me to the light,
From death lead me to deathlessness. (trans J. Mascaro)
In a year in which the primordial sound of OM was referred to in an acceptance speech at the Oscars, and Vice President Biden spoke the traditional Hindu Greeting "Namaste" on CNN, this adds another link in the chain of worldwide spiritual awareness emanating from America, the most spiritually diverse nation on Earth. We may have our failings as a country, as a political and economic force in the world, but it is hard to find another place more accepting of the world's religious traditions, from Atheism to Zen.

]]> Diwali has varying religious significance for members of the different traditions who celebrate it in India, Nepal, Maylasia, and Singapore; if you want more detailed information I recommend this comprehensive site. But the transcendent significance of Diwali, as alluded to by our spiritually attuned President, is an awareness of the inner light within each of us. Hindu spirituality focuses on the belief that something inside of us--called Atman, or Soul--goes beyond the physical body and mind and connects to the Divine, sometimes called Brahman. Diwali celebrates this inner light that outshines all darkness, removes all obstacles and dispels ignorance. Like the broken shards of the Light that burst its vessel at Creation according to the Kabbalistic tradition. It recognizes our connection to and, indeed, identification with, the unchanging, infinite, immanent and transcendent Reality. Although India supports many varied understandings of Hindu beliefs, one path is to achieve mukti, or liberation, is by experiencing God as identical with the Self or Atman, which dwells in each person, and which it is one's life-work to locate, identify, and ultimately realize as one's True Being.
Buddhists might call this True Nature or Buddha Nature; St Paul would say "I live now, not I, but Christ lives in me." Kabbalists call it the Light and the Holy One. The rest of us just call it the Divine Within. You don't have to look for God, because God is already here, in you. And since we know that we are all One, then the same Divine Being is in each of us, so it's impossible to worship a God that isn't identical with each other's conception of God. The crazy thing is that I think Obama knows this on some level, and isn't just saying words that some scholar wrote for him--although he may have had help. I would need help to explain everything as well as he did in that brief celebratory message that probably touched the hearts of a few billion people on the globe. So even if he seems to be less than optimal in some areas, his God is in the right place.

Carl Jung and the Red Book

2009-10-08T22:48:22Z

The word is out that Carl Jung's legendary Red Book, containing many years' worth of his most private explorations of his psyche, will be published in facsimile this month by W. W. Norton. The combination of hand-lettered pages and astonishing multicolored paintings in a baffling array of styles makes the book feel like a cross between William Blake's illustrated poems and an illuminated manuscript from the Middle Ages. In 1913, Jung underwent a crisis, or what he termed a "confrontation with the unconscious." Not one to shrink from a challenge, he induced visions and hallucinations and recorded what he discovered. The Red Book is the result of his psychological self-analysis and artistic visions. The book, which was the subject of an unprecedented New York Times Magazine cover story, is laden with copious footnotes and cross-references by Jung researcher and editor Sonu Shamdasani, including citations of the writings of some of Jung's clients and his many astonishing paintings. (Judging from the few illustrations that accompanied the Times article, his artistic styles range from Surrealism and Transcendentalism to graffiti art--one image looks surprisingly like a precursor of Keith Haring!)

]]>      "I should advise you to put it all down as beautifully as you can--in some beautifully bound book," Jung instructed her. "It will seem as if you were making the visions banal--but then you need to do that--then you are freed from the power of them. . . . Then when these things are in some precious book you can go to the book & turn over the pages & for you it will be your church--your cathedral--the silent places of your spirit where you will find renewal. If anyone tells you that it is morbid or neurotic and you listen to them--then you will lose your soul--for in that book is your soul."
     I don't think I've read a finer or more succinct description of the art and value of sacred journaling. I always tell my counseling clients, as well as the hundreds of people I instruct in journaling at at CMED (Caroline Myss's educational institution based in the Chicago area), that it doesn't matter what kind of journal they use. A two-dollar spiral notebook or school theme tablet is a s good as a leather-bound book with creamy, textured pages. And I believe that's true if it will get you journaling instead of dithering for months about finding the "perfect" journal. Now, though, I think I would combine both insights: Begin journaling with whatever is at hand or easiest to buy (you can get a spiral notebook in most drugstores), but also start looking around for the kind of journal that will make you want to write in (and fondle) it.
    I also advise sy students to kepp a separate dream journal, which they should keep at their bedside along with a pen that had has some kind of soft illumination. I used to recommend Star Light Pens for this purpose, but they have been discontinued. However, I found a reasonably priced alternative, a batch of 12 illumined pens that, with shipping, comes to about $15 (from generally reliable amazon.com). They don't look fancy, but they'll do. I've ordered some and will report back. (If you google on your own, be careful not to oredr a "pen light" by mistake. These light up but don't write--the name refers only to the size and shape of the things.)
    The important point is to start keeping track of your nighttime dreams as well as your waking dreams. What do I mean by "waking dreams"? I have always promoted recording your dreams because they are one way that your subconscious mind communicates with you. We all dream every night (unless taking certain medications), but we tend to forget our dreams if we don't train ourselves to recall and record them.
    In a recent talk at CMED, renowned scholar and author Richard Tarnas lectured about Jung's belief that synchronitity (the occurrence of meaningful "coincidences") is yet another way our subconscious communicates with our conscious mind. The difference is that we are usually wide awake when synchronicities occur, and so are more readily able to apprehend their significance--if we are paying attention! Jung variously described synchronicity as an "acausal connecting principle," a "meaningful coincidence," and "acausal parallelism." By "acausal" (without cause) he meant that there was no causal relationship between the events. We could more commonly define synchronicity as a conceptual relationship between ideas and events that is intricately structured in its own logical way. By observing and recording these synchronous events, we can learn more about the significance of our daily actions, thoughts, and divine guidance--because synchronicity and dreams are both forms of guidance.
    One example of such a synchronicity occurred at the very CMED workshop at which I heard Tarnas speak. I devoted much of my own opening lecture on Thursday (Oct.1) to the Times Magazine article on Jung's Red Book, and the significance of synchronity, as well as the quote with which I began this blog. Tarnas did not arrive at the hotel until two days later (Oct. 3), and had no way of knowing what I'd spoken about, just as I had no clue what he would be discussing. Nonetheless, he opened his lecture with a lengthy discussion of the Times aricle about the Red Book, leading into his fascinating remarks on synchronicity. Taking cognizance of this astonishing correlation, I used my remarks at the closing panel oh Sunday to alert everyone at the workshop to the importance of synchronicity.
So my closing point is to pay as much attention to the synchronicities in your waking life as you do to the symbolic events of your dream life. Combining the two can help you triangulate the significance of what is occurring in your daily life.

Michael Moore Endorses Christian Values

2009-09-27T16:45:17Z

I've never thought of Michael Moore as an especially religious person, let alone a Catholic, although he does often come off as a moralist. But his new film and a series of interviews about it give a clear impression that Moore sees the world in spiritual terms. His latest film, Capitalism: A Love Story, takes the American system of capitalism and its wealthiest proponents to task for their lack of concern about the rest of the country--the 99 percent that live outside the sheltered world of the most powerful 1 percent. In an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN discussing his film, Moore explicitly attacks the belief held by many of those in power in the U.S. that the richest one percent should control everything. "It's not right, it's not fair, it's not American, and it's not part of our Judeo-Christian ethic, or whatever religion you belong to--Buddhism, Islam. All the great religions are opposed to the wealthy being in charge and letting the poor suffer because of that." When Blitzer asks, "Are you a socialist?" Moore replies, "I'm a Christian." But Blitzer pushes his socialism question: "Would someone emerge from this movie saying, 'Michael Moore is a socialst'?"
   "Oh, no," Moore answers. He says that people instead would feel that "Michael Moore is following through on the values that his parents and the nuns and the priests gave him as a child. He believes that he is his brother's keeper. He believes that we will be judged by how we treat the least among us in this society."

]]> That last bit represents a succinct summary of the part of the Gospel of Matthew (25:34-46) in which Jesus sums up his social gospel in clear terms, saying that it is our spiritual and moral duty to care for the less fortunate in our society:
"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'
"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'
"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'"
   Along with the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7), these words represent for many the true essence of Christ's message. Among those who believed the Sermon on the Mount contains the central tenets of his message are Tolstoy, Gandhi, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Now I believe we can add to that list filmmaker Michael Moore.
   In the CNN interview, Blitzer several times asks Moore if he is a socialist, apparently in the belief that because he attacks the shadow side of capitalism, he must be implyicitly a socialist. Moore's answer that he is a Christian implicitly ties the principles that Blizer is branding as socialist to the teachings of Jesus Christ. It would be hard to define Jesus as anything other than a socialist, based on his teachings. Yet conservative Christians almost never acknowledge this aspect of his teaching. It's illustrative to look at what I believe to be one of the finest films ever made about the life of Jesus based on Scripture. The Gosel According to St. Matthew (Il Vangelo secondo Matteo, 1964) was directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini, an Italian atheist and Marxist who clearly found in the social teachings of Jesus featured prominently in Matthew a parallel with his own socialist beliefs. Pasolini quotes verbatim from the gospel text and adds no dialogue or action that isn't already there. Through his spare cinematography and the use of amateur actors, it becomes clear that Pasolini is not trying to overlay any ironic gloss.
   The story goes that In 1962, Pasolini traveled to Assisi in response to Pope John XXIII's call for dialogue with non-Christian artists. While there, he read through the Gospels "from beginning to end, like a novel," later proclaiming the story of Jesus "the most exalting thing one can read." As a result, Pasolini became consumed with filming the life of Christ straight from one of the Gospels, without a screenplay and with no editorial license. He dedicated the film "to the dear, happy, familiar memory of John XXIII"--a pope known for his humanity and concern for the life of the average person. Pasolini shot his film not in the Holy Land, which he found too commercialized, but in one of the poorer regions of Southern Italy.

Abbie Hoffman, Sacred Activist

2009-09-17T21:37:12Z

Can political activists also be spiritual teachers? That's a valid question at a time when large groups of people are pursuing both active involvement in the political sphere and the development of personal spiritual practices, often outside of the conventional wisdom traditions. My good friend Andrew Harvey has written a new book called The Hope that promotes the fusion of political activism and spiritual practice into what he calls "sacred activism." Although I haven't yet read the book, on several occasions I have heard Andrew discourse for hours on this subject, and I can tell you that it's essential wisdom he is purveying, and that The Hope is highly recommended reading. Indeed Andrew would say that the two--spiritual practice and social activism--need to be inextricably intertwined in our contemporary world.
    Andrew's book has just been published by Hay House, but the whole issue came to me synchronistically as I watched a film dramatization of the life of Abbie Hoffman, entitled Steal This Movie

]]>    But he's gone, like John Lennon--another cultural guerrilla who might have filled the leadership vacuum these last few years--and, of course, Martin, Malcolm, Bobby, and more. All taken out of action and no longer available to us, except in spirit. That spirit is powerful, though, and one that we need to invoke and recall in times like these. Lest we forget, in 1967 Hoffman and Jerry Rubin made headlines by talking their way onto the visitors' gallery of the New York Stock Exchange, then raining dollar bills down onto the exchange floor and sending traders into a frenzy of grasping for free money. As a result, the visitors' gallery was closed until a barrier of bulletproof, shatterproof glass could be installed, to prevent further acts of inspired lunacy. How much could we use him now?
   As far as I know, Abbie was not a fan of religion--I can imagine him saying, with apologies to Groucho Marx, that he wouldn't want to belong to any religion that would have someone like him for a member. Nonetheless he was a deeply spiritual being who placed principles of morality and decency above his own material welfare and physical safety. That might even qualify him for the job description of mystic. Like some well-known mystics, he suffered from what was diagnosed as bipolar disorder. And although there is no record of his ever having levitated like Teresa of Avila, Hoffman did try to levitate the Pentagon.
   In an interview in 1987 quoted in his obituary in the New York Times, Abbie Hoffman declared himself an unabashed leftist. "I believe in the redistribution of wealth and power in the world," he said. "I believe in universal hospital care for everyone. I believe that we should not have a single homeless person in the richest country in the world. And I believe that we should not have a C.I.A. that goes around overwhelming governments and assassinating political leaders, working for tight oligarchies around the world to protect the tight oligarchy here at home.''
   His vision, which shares the social gospel of the Sermon on the Mount, has been absorbed by many more people in the decade since his death, and never sounded more appropriate--or more spiritually on target.

Looking for Mr. Good God

2009-08-08T21:33:31Z

My friend Mark Whitwell, the yoga teacher from New Zealand, has absorbed the teachings of several Indian yoga masters, primarily T. Krishnamacharya and his son and student T.K.V. Desikachar. These teachers did not imbue in Mark the usual puritanical claptrap about self-discipline and the need to keep searching for God. "If you are looking for God," Mark says in his Fiji twang, "it means you don't have God. Even getting close to God means you don't have God. Looking for God is like looking for your glasses that are on top of your head." He might almost be quoting that lovely line from the Quran in which Allah says, speaking in the royal plural as is his wont at times, "We created man and surely know what misdoubts arise in their hearts; for We are closer to him than his jugular vein" (50: 15b, trans. Ahmed Ali).
Not long ago I went Mark one better. After a visit to the ophthalmologist, I was already on my way down in the elevator when I became convinced that I'd left my glasses in his examining room.
]]> I wandered back up and found my way unescorted to the room, only to discover they weren't there. Looking around in confusion, I saw Dr. Cheema and informed him that I was looking for my glasses. "Oh," he said in his unfailingly polite, slightly Pakistani accent, "I think you are wearing them!"
He had, of course, dilated my pupils during the exam, so that even with my glasses on everything looked hazy to me. Although I'm nearsighted, I couldn't see my cell phone well enough to call my stepson to pick me up. Because I had already forgotten the reason for my blurred vision, I had become a walking metaphor for the state of so much of humanity. Even wearing our corrective lenses, we think we need glasses to see properly. It reminds me of the famous image of the illusion of the material world used by Shankara, the ninth-century Indian sage. He likened our response to the manifest universe to that of a traveler walking along a pathway in the jungle; he sees a piece of wood on the ground but mistakenly thinks it's a snake, and so becomes afraid.

Forgetting that we are already perfect Buddhas, or, as the Kabbalists might put it, that we have one of the countless shards of divine Light already within us, we assume that we need some interpretive lens through which to see things as they really are. And yet, we're already equipped with such a lens, and it's closer to us than our jugular vein.

Dizzying, isn't it?

"The ancient wisdom of yoga teaches that Life is already given to you, you are completely loved, you are here now," says Mark Whitwell, pictured above. "It teaches that we are not separate, cannot be separate from nature, which sustains us in a vast interdependence with everything. The universe comes perfectly, and is awesome in its integration and infinite existence." So, that means we don't have to waste time looking for anything outside of us. It's all here, as plain as the glasses on our face, as warm as the blood streaming through our jugular vein.

Rick Warren Embraces Muslims

2009-07-05T14:44:12Z

In a sign of growing acceptance of U.S. Muslims, one of the most prominent religious leaders in the country, evangelical pastor Rick Warren, spoke recently at the annual convention of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). Representatives from the two largest streams of American Judaism, the Reform and Conservative movements, also attended to highlight their newly formed partnerships with the Muslim group, which is based in Plainfield, Indiana.
Warren, the founder and senior pastor of Saddleback Church, an evangelical megachurch in Lake Forest, California, is a bestselling author of many Christian books, including The Purpose Driven Life.
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Despite his conservative views on matters such as gay rights and abortion, Warren is also known for his outreach to non-Christians, and was the controversial choice of Barack Obama to speak at his inauguration. His presence at this major Islamic conference has resounding significance in the interfaith world. That is especially significant in the U.S., which is already the most religiously pluralistic nation on earth.
"The landscape of religion in America is changing," says Sayid Syeed, who leads ISNA's interfaith outreach. "America itself has reached a certain level of fulfillment in terms of diversity of faith."

In the Associated Press story on the eve of the conference, from which Syeed's quotes are taken, The Islamic Society is identified as "an umbrella association for tens of thousands of Muslims. [It] has worked for years to persuade leaders of other faiths to attend its convention, a massive family reunion in its 46th year that draws about 30,000 people. Major American Jewish groups had largely stayed away from the event, mainly due to hostility between U.S. Muslims and Jews over Israel, the Palestinians and the role of Hamas in the region. Many conservative Christians did the same."

But, the AP points out, ISNA "has prominently denounced terrorism, including terror by Hamas, and has endorsed a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians. The organization also elected its first female president, Ingrid Mattson, who participated in the National Cathedral service for President Barack Obama the day after his inaugural."
During his address to the conference, Warren said that Muslims and Christians should be partners in working to end what he calls "the five global giants" of war, poverty, corruption, disease and illiteracy.

Warren acknowledged that both ISNA and he left themselves open to criticism for their mutual outreach. "It's easier to be an extremist of any kind, because then you only have one group of people mad at you," he said. "But if you actually try to build relationships -- like invite an evangelical pastor to your gathering -- you'll get criticized for it. So will I."
Warren also urged Muslims and Christians to speak out against stereotyping of any group and to respect each other even while disagreeing.

To God or Not To God

2009-05-20T12:50:00Z

I've been following the raging debate about God vs. Science that has been taking place in the books of Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins and the pages of the New York Times (Stanley Fish, God Talk, Part 2 ) with amusement but also with a betting interest. The more people reject the concept of a Supreme Being--and that may or may not include less anthropomorphic Eastern concepts, such as Buddha Nature or the Tao--the easier it is to lump them all with the Hitchenses of the world. For these folks, it's all a matter of such simplicity. There is no scientific evidnce that God exists or plays a role in human history, ergo, secular humanism is the only way to go. My problem is that it's never been that simple. The best way for me to sum up my dilemma is to put it this way: The only thing more absurd on the face of it than the idea that "God" created the known universe (and, presumably, any number of others unknown to us) out of an act of will is the idea embraced by scientists and atheists that the universe "just happened."

]]> Either way--Fiat lux or Big Bang--represents a creation ex nihilo, which presumes a kind of nothingness beforehand. Believers argue that God always existed, and so there never was nothingness, and, of course, you have to take that on faith. Science, on the other hand, offers up a creation scenario known as the Big Bang that it fails to explain adequately--that is, with scientific precision--where the infinitely dense matter that exploded into the expanding universe came from. Indeed, both scenarios leave the mind gaping and groping for an explanation. Atheists insist that God is an invention of humanity and that science can explain everything that believers look to God to explain. Anything that science cannot adequately explicate at the moment--like, say, the precise origins of whatever existed before the Big Bang--is simply the result of not having enough information.

I can relate to that. Even those religious mystics, from St. Teresa of Avila to Sri Ramakrishna of Bengal, who have had what are known in the trade as mystical experiences, have described them as, well, indescribable. The word that the great American psychologist and philosopher William James (pictured at left) used to define these experiences is "ineffable." I have long thought that mystical experiences, near-death experiences, miraculous healings, extra-sensory perception, telepathy, bilocation and other seemingly inexplicable phenomena could all be explained if we but had enough information. (Although watching DVDs of a favorite old TV show of my childhood, One Step Beyond, has made me realize just how flimsy some of those explanations can be.) I even accept that some of that information might be of a nature that our consciousness, as currently configured, is incapable of understanding. And that holds true whether we are speaking about scientific reality or divine Reality.

In the end, religious belief is only as good as its manifestations. Many great mystics and writers on mysticism have said that genuine enlightenment always manifests as the desire to be of service. And being of service presupposes the ability to control one's egoistical desires. Secular humanists can be as selfless as religious practitioners, so belief is by no means a necessary precursor to ethical, compassionate action. In many cases, as we continue to observe, it can be a hindrance. (See my previous blog entry on Donald Rumsfeld's selective quotation of scripture to support an immoral war.)

In this regard, in my next entry I'll discuss David Foster Wallace's now famous 2005 commencement speech at Kenyon College and what it says about the possibility of following a secular path to divine awareness.

Deus Vult! (God Wills It!)

2009-05-19T02:10:34Z

"The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. An evil soul producing holy witness Is like a villain with a smiling cheek."
Wm. Shakespeare (Merchant of Venice i. iii. 93)

As we now know, courtesy of GQ's Robert Draper, Donald Rumsfeld's Defense Dept. tricked up glossy (and glossed over) reports on the early stages of the invasion of Iraq. His top-secret briefings for President George W. Bush included a document known as the Worldwide Intelligence Update, according to Draper, "a daily digest of critical military intelligence so classified that it circulated among only a handful of Pentagon leaders and the president; Rumsfeld himself often delivered it, by hand, to the White House." On April 7, 2003, for instance, the cover sheet showed Saddam Hussein striking a dictatorial pose, under this passage from the First Epistle of Peter: "It is God's will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men." This immediately made me think of the Crusades, that Christian effort to displace Muslims from the Holy Land, among other things.
]]> Deus vult! (God wishes it!), the crusaders set out and took Jerusalem in 1099.

The Crusades, as we now know, were disastrous for the Christian Crusaders (who attacked not only Muslims in the Holy Land but also Jews and Eastern Orthodox Christians) and for all future relations with the Muslim world. Each of the cover sheets presented an image accompanied by a line of Scripture. Although Rumsfeld is not know to have expressed his reliogious views openly, he clearly knew that George Bush, who had said he was being directed by God, took such things quite seriously.

These revelations constitute a stunning example of using the sacred for profane purposes, and there will no doubt be a special circle in Hell for those who engage in this kind of perfidy. Or at least in Purgatory: "Allah is merciful," as it says in the Quran. What do you think this says about the dangers of deliberately intermingling church and state? Did our Founders not know what shadows lurk in the hearts of those in government?

As the quote from Shakespeare with which I began this entry indicates, it's easy to twist Scripture for one's own purposes, as Satan is said to have done while trying to tempt Jesus as he prayed in the desert--a scene that is reminiscent of the Buddha being tempted by Mara, the Evil One, immediately following his enlightenment. As David Waters writes in the Washington Post about these biblical quotations:

"It's worth noting that none of the Pentagon's Bible verses (at least not the ones posted by GQ) were from the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the only books that quote Jesus directly. It's not possible to make a case for earthly war by quoting Jesus, who said among other things:

"Put up again thy sword into its place: for all they that take the sword shall perish by the sword" (Matthew 26:52).

"Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." (Matthew 5:44).

"You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,' But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also" (Matthew 5:38-42).

Doin' the Vatican Rag

2009-05-15T01:31:28Z

Under the headline "Papal Monopoly," a leading Catholic magazine in England revealed details of a new board game for Catholics. Depeneding on how the dice tumble, a cardinal's chances of becoming Pope can be boosted or destroyed. "That's the scenario in the impeccably researched board game Vatican, in which players take the role of cardinals vying for the throne of St Peter," says The Tablet of London. "During the course of their 'careers,' players 'Take a Stand' on weighty theological and moral issues, including contraception, clerical celibacy or the campaign to have the Virgin Mary proclaimed co-redeemer. The race begins as soon as the previous papacy ends, sometimes in bizarre circumstances. "The Pope dies when the popemobile rolls over after hitting a truck carrying bananas. Your earlier warnings that the popemobile was unstable are now seen as evidence of your sound judgment and you gain additional support," reads one card.

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Players must seek to climb the ladder to spiritual perfection while simultaneously avoiding the "Cesspool of Sin" by not, for example, committing the "Sin of Gluttony: at a papal banquet, you have three helpings of cannelloni." Thankfully these sins can always be expiated with a trip to the confessional.

I guess this is as good a testimony to the relevance of the Catholic church as anything. The Pope may favor a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine, but the idea that celibacy and contraception are debatable remains consigned to the limbo of a board game. Maybe we should go back to eating fish on Fridays.

Pathway to Wisdom May Be Found in Brain Circuitry

2009-05-01T01:39:09Z

The common traits of wisdom appear to follow a universal path in the brain, according to a recent study conducted by Dr. Dilip V. Jeste of the department of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego. Wisdom appears to be more than a subjective concept, but may actually be contained in certain brain circuits and pathways, suggests Dr. Jeste (any relation to David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest?), who compiled the first-ever review of the neurobiology of wisdom. He contends that this type of research could potentially lead to interventions for enhancing wisdom. It's widely agreed that wisdom includes six traits: empathy, compassion, altruism, self-understanding, emotional stability and pro-social attitudes, such as a tolerance for others' values, according to background information in a news release about the study.
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"Defining wisdom is rather subjective, although there are many similarities in definition across time and cultures. However, our research suggests that there may be a basis in neurobiology for wisdom's most universal traits," the study authors said in the news release.

Jeste and his colleague, Dr. Thomas W. Meeks, studied existing articles, publications and other documents for the six attributes most commonly associated with wisdom and for the brain circuitry associated with those attributes. They found that these six traits are associated with heightened activity in several different areas of the brain. It appears that the neurobiology of wisdom involves an "optimal balance" between more primitive brain systems (notably the limbic system) and the more developed areas of the brain such as the neocoirtex, the researchers said.

"Understanding the neurobiology of wisdom may have considerable clinical significance, for example, in studying how certain disorders or traumatic brain injuries can affect traits related to wisdom," Jeste said. The study appears in the April 6 issue of the journal Archives of General Psychiatry.

American Stonehenge

2009-04-28T01:43:48Z

"The strangest monument in America looms over a barren knoll in northeastern Georgia. Five massive slabs of polished granite rise out of the earth in a star pattern. The rocks are each 16 feet tall, with four of them weighing more than 20 tons apiece. Together they support a 25,000-pound capstone. Approaching the edifice, it's hard not to think immediately of England's Stonehenge or possibly the ominous monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Built in 1980, these pale gray rocks are quietly awaiting the end of the world as we know it."
So begins an article in Wired about an American oddity. It goes on . . .
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