SURFING THE WEB
WILLIAM IRWIN THOMPSON



Artillery shells on the Buddha's Bamyan cliff,
Talibanic acid flung in the veiled schoolgirl’s face,
Qaeda beheadings taped for a medieval riff
streamed with the web's “Allahu Akbar’s” podcast trace.
Words alone among the silences they lattice
in sleepless nights in the world wide web's tendrils
conjure Fatehpur Sikri’s red sandstone palace
where Islam arched religions with Sufi spandrils.
Akbar’s grieving shade waits in the Diwan, alone.
In Waziristan, CIA drones fly above
in the full moonlight on the huts of sand and stone,
circling coils of the serpent on wings of the dove.
Towers fall; ruins stand. Our oil-derricked lyres
Untune the sky as Gaza burns in brimstone fires.



***
William Irwin Thompson is a poet and cultural philosopher who has made significant contributions to cultural history, social criticism, the philosophy of science, and the study of myth. Early in his career he left academia to found Lindisfarne, an association of creative individuals in the arts, sciences, and contemplative practices devoted to the study and realization of a new planetary consciousness, or noosphere. Thompson lived in Switzerland for 17 years and describes his most recent work, Canticum Turicum, as “a long poem on Western Civilization, that begins with folktales and traces of Charlemagne in Zurich and ends with the completion of Western Civilization as expressed in Finnegans Wake and the traces of James Joyce in Zurich.” With mathematician Ralph Abraham he has designed a new type of cultural history curriculum based on their theories about the evolution of consciousness. Thompson now lives in Portland, Maine. http://www.williamirwinthompson.org

Please e-mail or phone Governor Richardson of New Mexico today urging him to sign the bill abolishing the Death Penalty in New Mexico. Ask your friends and family to do the same. THIS HAS TO BE DONE TODAY!
Phone: 505-476-2225
E-mail:http://www.governor.state.nm.us/email.php?mm=6&type=opinion

Joan Halifax, January 21, 2009, Upaya Zen Center

About a thousand years ago in China, the interactions between Zen teachers and students began to be collected. These interactions were called koans which means ‘public case.’ As koans were being collected in China, Chaco Canyon was being constructed. It is interesting to be in a place where the structure of the buildings and the orientation of the buildings were an endeavor to create clarity and coherence in a universe that was perceived as being fundamentally indeterminate.  Koans are very much in that same spirit.  They are a means wherein people can contemplate an interaction from a thousand years ago that points to a quality within the human psyche, which has the capacity for deep discernment, for clarity.  We’re in an indeterminate time when discernment and clarity are useful. 

I think many of us yesterday morning sat in front of our television sets and our computers watching the historical inauguration, and here at Upaya were many people in the zendo sitting in front of a huge screen watching the inauguration of  Barack Hussein Obama.  I was reminded that many of my friends on Facebook gave themselves the middle name of Hussein as a way of using an identity marker to peel away the associations with an identity that turns us against half of the world and thus ourselves.  I thought it a wonderful joke and a skillful means. 

The koan that I’d like to present this afternoon as we touch into this exploration of Buddhism, democracy and Obama is a simple one.  It is from Basho,  a 17th century monk-poet and teacher who ended up eschewing the so-called social life.  He walked around the countryside in Northern Japan and composed many wonderful haiku that we continue to appreciate many years later. 

A Monk once asked Basho: “What is the essence of your practice?”
Basho replied: “Whatever is needed.”
 
I live with that koan inside of me, not that I always actualize it.  But it’s absolute plain-riceness, which is typical of Basho, is something that I have come to deeply appreciate.  What is the essence of this practice, our practice, whatever our practice might be, and the response by Basho, “Whatever is needed.”  Because the practice is not about Basho, we understand.  It is not even about the practice, it is not about Zen, it is not about Buddhism.  It is about just one thing and one thing only and that is what is needed.

In Buddhism, we speak about dependent co-arising.  When the meal servers stand in front of me with a pot full of food during oriyoki, I put my hands together and bow.  That sense of connection between me and the server, the food, the cook, the field and the farmer is so immediate in that gesture of raising my hands and putting them together and holding myself upright and then lowering myself.  Whatever is needed. 

In a week and a day, three people in this zendo will be ordained.  When people ask me about what it means to be a priest, I say it means only one thing and that is, being a servant to all.  It has nothing to do with Zen, religion, Buddhism but it has to do with an inner attitude. What is the essence of your practice—whatever, what ever is needed.  That sensibility is characterized by the archetype of the Bodhisattva in Buddhism.  Someone who has stepped away like Basho did, from social requirements and entertainment and has chosen to be born every day in the spirit of ‘What ever is needed.”  Whatever is needed. 
 
The basis for the bodhisattva’s path is characterized by theThree Tenets that were discovered by my teacher, Glassman Roshi.  These three tenets are important for us to consider in the light of what it means not only to be a priest, a leader, a president, a practitioner, but what it means to be a human being.  

The first tenet is so simple; it is the tenet of Not Knowing.  In our koan seminar, I heard someone ask “What does it mean cutting off this stuff?”  I thought, that’s the essence of Zen.  Cutting off your opinions, letting go of your impulses, letting go of any gaining idea of merit or worth or expectation, and being in what Suzuki Roshi called “Beginner’s Mind,”  mushin. 

How can you be a president, for example, and be in beginner’s mind, having a completely fresh approach to each thing, moment by moment, sometimes requiring tough love, sometimes requiring gentleness.  This mind of Not Knowing is a mind that actually drops beneath the personality and allows for the quality of freshness to arise as each situation is encountered.

The second tenet is Bearing Witness.  How do we actually bear witness to joy and suffering in a way that allows us to unify completely, to really feel the joy in the world, to really feel the suffering.  As I sat in this room yesterday morning, in the back of the zendo, in my father’s chair, thinking about his Southern roots, being from Savannah, Georgia, I wished that he were alive because I feel that his own conditioning would be absolved in the light of the current sanity. 

How to bear witness without prejudice, without judgment, presencing things just as they are, in a completely undivided way?   Yes, there was a little murmur when the then vice-president came out in his wheelchair; you could feel the old cynicism in the room.  I think that many know that feeling, that moment yesterday when the eight years of no sunshine, no transparency, giving rise to a divided heart where bearing witness was not possible because we felt the double thinking.  How do we come into this quality of presence which is really fresh, based in trust, that allows us to genuinely bear witness, not just to the good things but to the things in our world that are characterized by deep suffering, deep alienation.

The third tenet that Glassman Roshi spoke about is that of Compassionate Action.  How do we develop the qualities that allow us to respond.  Sometimes, as Paul Krugman said in a very powerful article, that we have to hold beings accountable in the spirit of truth and reconciliation, where the No is firm and we share it as a nation, as a world, to acts that are despicable.  Or a response of compassion that takes the form of joy on the path of service as we meet suffering in small intimate gestures:  toothpaste and socks for the homeless (bring these to the front desk please.  The shelter needs what you have.)
Obama with a paint roller in his hand the day before his inauguration putting teal paint on the wall of the homeless shelter.  Those small, perfect and humble gestures that make the world right.

2 I’ve often asked myself “Is there a Buddhist vision of leadership?” I’d like to share with you some thoughts in this regard. I feel that Buddhism has a tremendous amount to offer our politicians and to us at these times. The training that we engage in as practitioners is actually very well suited to this experience of compassionate servant-leadership. It requires discipline. I always liked the phrase by Carl Jung speaking about discipline because many of us have an aversion to discipline. It’s really hard for us to show up consistently. Carl Jung describes discipline as “an obedience to awareness.” Awareness is that process within the mental continuum that is characterized by non-judgmental luminosity. “An obedience to awareness.” Our practice also has many manifestations of confirmation of interconnectedness. I have used the example of the server and the one being served. We see what happens in the course of our Zen service in the morning-- This experience of interconnectedness manifested also as interdependence and interpenetration, that we are not separate from each other. Any being or thing whom we exclude from our heart, excludes our heart from ourself. It is such a deep practice to return again and again to the realization of non-duality, which is fundamental in this practice. In Zen, it is not a fancy mystical vision. It is the very simple actualization that we are not separate from any being or thing. Our work with koans, for example, is about this realization of non-separateness, non-duality. It is not a process where we conceptually unpack a koan or therapize ourselves to clarify our psychological problems through the medium of a koan. But we actually enter into something that cannot be solved, and we rest in mushin, beginner’s mind, the mind of inquiry through the medium of the story. An aspect of Buddhism that His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, profoundly emphasizes is universal responsibility. This as well is expressed in this vision of interconnectedness which is fundamental in Buddhism. It is not that we are just interconnected. I think of what Barack Obama has done in terms of reconciling with McCain, inviting his team of rivals to join him in his cabinet. Of not just reaching across the aisle and racial divide, but the divide of religion and nationality. It is a fascinating gesture of reconciliation of the profoundest type that is happening on the global stage. It characterizes a quality of heart and mind that somehow, not just in the past eight years, but for decades, perhaps since Kennedy or King, we have not had access to globally. Universal responsibility implies a profound ethical base. I like the title of Reb Anderson’s book about the precepts, “Sitting Upright.” The feeling is of fundamental dignity. Obama is calling for, and we will call from him as well, fundamental transparency, shining light right into the center of the busiest of governments. Because if we are to understand deeply the business of government, we are to understand that it is holy business. It is about making a whole cloth of this world. Another aspect of Buddhism that is very important for us to look at is popularly and Buddhistically known as karma, often misunderstood but meaning to understand consequentiality or the nature of causality. We have seen how the attitude and action thus far of this remarkable human being has actually created a psychic wave not only in our country but globally which has lifted the human spirit in spite of a declining economy, a difficult thing to do in a world that is so materialistic. Now the Buddha himself did not set out to create a mass movement of followers. His work, like those who organize neighborhoods including our president, was about the development not simply of leadership but of servant-leadership. It was not about non-disclosure, according to the history of Buddhism; it was about training individuals in clear discernment and to open up, through direct experience, the fundamental quality of generosity that makes for a good leader. It is interesting to look at the word sangha. We think that it means just a group of practicing Buddhists. But actually it meant council or parliament. It refers to a collection of individuals who are practitioners, servant-leaders, practitioner-servant-leaders. How do we cultivate true practice, the quality of mind that is not out for one’s self but is completely dedicated to the common good. Its really interesting to look at our business practices which are so competitive, so selfish and self-directed and to see the consequence of that ethos on our free market and its effect on creating poverty, not only nationally, but globally. Servant-leaders are holders of the vision. They are not necessarily the ones that create the vision. They learn to wait and to discern what really wants to happen here. Merle Lefkoff and Lynn Twist, women involved in visionary systems transformation, recognize clearly that one watches and waits for the way and has the quality of presence to actually catch and gather all into the way. This is a very different perspective than we have in western culture where the locus of power is in the so-called visionary who has the great idea. The visionary knows how to bear witness. To bear witness to, as Basho said, ‘what will serve?’ I feel that our current president has this sensibility. Maybe he too has heard this Christian joke . “What makes God laugh?” The answer is “Plans.” But the visionary is not the only one that discerns; also the sangha, the council, the parliament, the servant-leaders, us. we’re being invited to share our opinions with our government today and for this past month so powerfully, through the medium of the internet and all sorts of other media. Sending our voice. Our servant-leaders need not only to discern what is the vision by bearing witness to the people, but also how to be part of the excitation of the collective. And so the support and the cultivation of leadership capacities in others is essential, as Barack Obama knows as a community organizer. It will be fascinating to watch him in this upcoming period, apply the strategies that he used in his Chicago neighborhood, not just to the national issues, but to global issues. One of the most critical things in servant leadership has to do with initiative. How do we actually feel that we can take the initiative and get something done, or let something go when it is time to let go. Certainly I can say as a Buddhist practitioner, who is oriented towards the truth of change, our practice is about this. How do we see what wants to happen, help it happen when it wants to happen and let it go when the cycle is complete? So the virtues that we enjoy as spiritual people whether Christian or Buddhist, Muslim or Jew, includes the virtues that are manifesting powerfully at this time in the person of Barack Obama and are reflecting back and resonating within our own psychological structures. These include the spirit of inclusiveness. How do we bring everybody to the table? How do we manifest patience? How do we actualize not just tolerance but appreciation for differences? How do we take responsibility for our actions? Instead of saying ‘Oh, I think it was a pretty good eight years!” but we really take responsibility in a very fundamental way. This worked, this didn’t work. How do we learn from our mistakes?

I Tell You

I could not predict the fullness
of the day. How it was enough
to stand alone without help
in the green yard at dawn.

How two geese would spin out
of the ochre sun opening my spine,
curling my head up to the sky
in an arc I took for granted.

And the lilac bush by the red
brick wall flooding the air
with its purple weight of beauty?
How it made my body swoon,

brought my arms to reach for it
without even thinking.

*
In class today a Dutch woman split
in two by a stroke - one branch
of her body a petrified silence,
walked leaning on her husband

to the treatment table while we
the unimpaired looked on with envy.
How he dignified her wobble,
beheld her deformation, untied her

shoe, removed the brace that stakes
her weaknesses. How he cradled
her down in his arms to the table
smoothing her hair as if they were

alone in their bed. I tell you -
his smile would have made you weep.

*
At twilight I visit my garden
where the peonies are about to burst.

Some days there will be more
flowers than the vase can hold.



— Susan Glassmeyer

Fresh Air from WHYY, March 26, 2009 · Dr. Michael Grodin discusses his experiences treating Tibetan monks who suffer from post traumatic stress disorder. Many of the monks were imprisoned or tortured because of their resistance to the Chinese presence in Tibet, and now some of them experience "flashbacks" while meditating.

Grodin hypothesizes that meditation may reduce the brain's ability to inhibit unpleasant thoughts and memories. His treatment combines elements of Western and Tibetan medicine and therapy. Grodin wrote about his findings in the March issue of Mental Health, Religion, and Culture.

A professor of health law, bioethics and human rights at Boston University School of Public Health, Grodin is the medical ethicist at Boston Medical Center and the co-director of the Boston Center for Refugee Health and Human Rights.http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102373662&sc=emaf

Feature article about Roshi Joan in Shambhala Sun
http://www.upaya.org/news/2009/03/26/shambhala-sun-may-2009-joan-halifax-fearless-and-fragile/