11.17.07
If this is no longer worth taking seriously, nothing else will be
Holistic kinda guy that I am, I’m always looking for levels on which all the different realms in which I have concerns – the geostrategic, the economic, the cultural, the social – manifest in their own ways some common undercurrent. I’m always beset by this sense that there’s something that ties these different types of issues together.
It occurs to me – and I didn’t read this anywhere – that our challenges stem from a trivialization of the spirit.
A few posts back, I considered that, as a boomer whose lifestyle has been fairly bohemian since I came of age, maybe me and my ilk had been taken for a ride by the way-pointers of the counterculture. I think certainly in this area of trivializing of spirit, a lot of blame must be laid at the feet of some big beatnik and hippie icons.
Think about Square Zen, Beat Zen by Alan Watts. It’s a book-length attempt to find some justification for the loose adaptation by moderns who like to party of venerable teachings about enlightenment that go back centuries. The Dharma Bums by Kerouac fleshes this out in fiction, with the main characters alternately hiking in the Sierras to find meditative serenity by the side of the stream, and coming back into the city to guzzle cheap wine and play yabyum (an “esoteric” group-sex exercise) with their groupie.
Then there is The Politics of Ecstacy by Timothy Leary, in which he mixes up the all-is-one view of reality with an endorsement of countercultural revolution. At one point, he recounts watching his son burn a large sum of money with a who’s-to-say-he-wasn’t-acting-out-of-some-cosmic-wisdom tone.
Leary’s buddy, Richard Alpert, in his incarnation as Ram Dass, wrote what may be the essential work in the canon of profound-transformation-as-a-result-of-psychedelic-experience, Be Here Now. The first third is autobiography, covering his high-powered Boston Jewish Republican dad, his own climb up the academic ladder, his social life, the fashionable dinner parties, the introduction to the mystical substances, getting fired from Harvard, his trips to India, and his relationship with his guru. The second part is a freewheeling manifesto of a new frontier, in which all notions of tradition and rationality are blown wide open. In the third section, he recommends meditation techniques, dietary and sleep practices and “books to hang out with.”
A profound journey, many of us thought. Yet I remember going to see him speak in the mid-1980s, when he plainly said, “This stuff doesn’t always work. Just recently I found myself lying in a bathtub, tears streaming down my face in a jealous rage. So I’m as susceptible to human foible as anybody, believe me.” Indeed.
It wasn’t too long after that that I saw him on the cover of some new-age magazine touting his article on “The Zen of Golf.”
Whatever.
I’ve written elsewhere about how the whole all-is-one impulse in the counterculture’s spiritualty morphed into New-Ageism. (Probably my most comprehensive treatment of the subject is an essay called “Woo-Woo,” which I may include in my next book, a collection of essays I’m slowly compiling.)
Then there’s the way all-is-one-ism was tailored to the boomer generation’s growing appetite for status and toys. The pioneer in the it’s-your-spiritual-birthright-to-have-it-all area was Werner Erhardt, with his est and Forum programs. Other such “transformational workshops” followed, and a host of “channeled entities” sprang up to deliver the message to hotel ballrooms packed with devotees, credit cards in hand.
The spiritual level of our existence ought to command more rigor and a greater sense of responsibility than any other, given that it’s the foundation of all the other levels. The relationship between time and eternity, that between our souls and their Creator – these aren’t small matters. Tarting them up with golf and rock music and career-booster pep talks and navel-gazing renders them worthless, and then we’re sunk.
We get to where we can’t see what matters about one economic system over another, or the importance of being a truly good spouse or friend, or what real valor is. We drift into a conclusion that nothing is worth defending or preserving. Once we go in for cotton candy on the most basic ontological level, our whole basis for valuing anything is obliterated.
How far are we from that now?
Mr. Dings said,
November 18, 2007 at 3:55 am
Just take a pill for what ails you, courtesy of Big Pharma and call yoga stretching and meditation weird. The only quick fix in the above is brought to us courtesy of Western Man. There are serious practioners of meditation, yoga, tai chi, etc. who spend hours each day at these modalities, yes, right here in the Western Christian civ. Anyone truly seeking through the purported new age, ends up there, back in the old, old age, age old ways. Kerouac was a true seeker, if you have ever read his Some of the Dharma (actually a compilation of his journals for the three years he seriously practiced Buddhism before the drink took over)
http://www.wordsareimportant.com/someofdharma.htm
Of course there’s a certain paradox inherent in this “wisdom” book by Kerouac, a man who drank himself to an early death. It becomes a “do as I say not as I do” kind of teaching, but that does not negate its validity or negate the poignant fact that during the three-year period of his life while he was writing Some of the Dharma, Kerouac was practicing Buddhist dhyana (meditation) and achieving some happiness and peace of mind. Again the idea of “transmission” suggests itself. For three years Kerouac was picking up Buddhist wisdom on an open channel; then it stopped. By 1959, as he wrote to Philip Whalen: “Myself, the dharma is slipping away from my consciousness and I can’t think of anything to say about it anymore.”
Watts was a huge popularizer of tao buddh ism here, why fault him for that? Ram Das would be the first one to tell you, as did his guru in India, that psychedelics are not the true way to enlightenment. He and we had to learn that. Teach your grandchildren well.
Mr. Dings said,
November 18, 2007 at 4:11 am
BTW, yoga and qigong are multi-millennia old and mankind has been meditating since he first realized he had a mind. These are neither new age nor quick fixes, as anyone who has ever begun to practice them seriously will attest. Those who know do not say and those who say do not know (as Lao Tse put it circa 400 BC). What quicker fix is there than a few cocktails, our celebrated stress reliever of choice here in the West, though we surely did not invent it here, we imported it. Still, the middle way is best. Too bad Jackie K succumbed to his disease. Sooner or later it gets to some of us. If you reread Dharma Bums and Desolation Angels and Big Sur you will find that he was constantly trying to resist the impulses of his alcoholism. He should get an atta boy for some unnaturally Western effort at the dharma. Remember the 5 Precepts, the fifth of which is:
5. I will exercise proper care of my body and mind,
I will not be gluttonous nor abuse intoxicants.
Avoid alcohol and drugs which diminish clarity of consciousness.
I undertake the precept to refrain from intoxicating drinks and drugs which lead to carelessness.
Refrain from intoxicants that cloud the mind.
“Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful consumption, I vow to cultivate good health, both physical
and mental, for myself, my family, and my society by practicing mindful eating, drinking, and consuming.
I vow to ingest only items that preserve peace, well-being and joy in my body, in my consciousness, and
in the collective body and consciousness of my family and society. I am determined not to use alcohol
or any other intoxicants, or to ingest foods or other items that contain toxins, such as certain T.V.
programs, magazines, books, films and conversations. I am aware that to damage my body and my
consciousness with these poisons is to betray my ancestors, my parents, my society, and future
generations. I will work to transform violence, fear, anger, and confusion by practicing a diet for myself
and for society. I understand that a proper diet is crucial for self-transformation, and for the
transformation of society.”
The Five Wonderful Precepts. By Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh.
If you want to seriously practice Tibetan or Zen Buddhism, there are resources within an hour’s drive west and north. I mean seriously.
Mr. Dings said,
November 18, 2007 at 11:03 am
And you are indeed correct, sir, spiritus contra spiritum, the spirits against the spirit, old saying. http://www.imagejournal.org/back/014/wakefield_essay.asp
might be instructive here, since you have damned Jack, Alan W., Tim and Ram D. I think Ram D. got it, in the end and survived. The sins of the fathers do not have to be visited upon the sons. We’re all in this thing together, man.
As for your assertion: “The relationship between time and eternity, that between our souls and their Creator – these aren’t small matters. Tarting them up with golf and rock music and career-booster pep talks and navel-gazing renders them worthless, and then we’re sunk.” You are correct, kind sir. Just don’t throw the baby out with the bathwash. The deadliest sin is pride. They surely demonstrated it cometh before a fall. Only Ram is with us now. That wasn’t you crying in the bathtub, was it? How weak!!
Mr. Dings said,
November 18, 2007 at 8:43 pm
Dennis McNally writes in Desolation Angel that Jack at age forty-one spoke of his psychedelic experience with Leary as “a frightening descent into lostness that Kerouac now swore had ruined him. ‘I haven’t been right since,’ he confided.”
Mr. Dings said,
November 18, 2007 at 8:56 pm
That Thich Nhat Hanh? From Viet Nam.
He might be a freedom hater, whattya think?
During the US war in Vietnam, he worked tirelessly for reconciliation between North and South Vietnam. He championed a movement known as “engaged Buddhism,” which intertwined traditional meditative practices with active nonviolent civil disobedience against the South Vietnamese Government and the US. Martin Luther King, Jr. nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967. Hanh’s Buddhist delegation to the Paris Peace talks resulted in accords between North Vietnam and the United States, but his pacifist efforts did not end with the war. He also helped organize rescue missions well into the 1970’s for Vietnamese trying to escape from political oppression. He now lives in exile in a small community in France called Plum Village. Thich Nhat Hanh has written more than seventy-five books of prose, poetry, and prayers and continues to be banned from his native country of Vietnam. He spoke Tuesday night at the historic Riverside Church in Manhattan, where Martin Luther King first spoke out publicly against against the Vietnam War. The subject of his talk was “Embracing Anger.”
Mr. Dings said,
November 18, 2007 at 9:20 pm
I so agree with you, actually, about the quick fix routes we here in the West are especially taken by, innovators and reformers, movers and shakers we, but am not sure whether you are damning all “non-western” ways of trying to know in favor of our “traditional” seemingly self-serving ways, which, of course, among other magnificent achievements we continually pat ourselves on the back for, mowed down a lot of other “weaker” folks in the way of purported progress. Of course it was for the common good, you might say. Are you being harsh and judgmental? Mean? Demonizing? Dontcha think many young people everywhere and in every time tend to look around and wonder and dream things that never were and say, why not? But, you’re right. We have been led astray. What shepherd gently seeks us until he finds us? Every last lost one of us? I know, gotta separate spirituality and state. Methinks you might say, grow up?
Bentnotesmanhisself said,
November 18, 2007 at 10:58 pm
I’m not damning all non-Western ways at all. I hope I’ve made it clear to BN readers taht I still have big-time questions about the basic nature-of-God and how-to-regard-scripture issues. And, speaking of scripture, I continue, as I grow older, to be deeply moved by the Bhagavad Gita. As a matter of fact, I wish I could get the fundie / Jesus’-blood-alone-as-the-way-to-enter-heaven people in my life to check it out and savor the parallels between certain passages in the Gita and certain passages in Psalms. The sermons of the Buddha likewise have much to contribute to humanity’s understanding of its spiritual life.
I think it will require some more posts to thoroughly flesh out what I mean by trivialization of the spirit. It encompasses a lot of elements of our society – everybody from the empty-headed MySpace bling-and-gratification types to the creationists, who, frankly, I feel are wasting their time and that of anyone who listens to them with this insistence that Christian cosmology necessitates a six-day span from the void to a literal Adam and Eve, to the New Agers.
Now, with regard to the am-I-being-harsh-and-judgemental matter, a couple of things: I don’t think overly harsh, in that I take stock of what’s going on in my own heart of hearts many times daily and ask the Great I Am what I may be missing in drawing nearer to Him. Judgemental? Hmmm. I think that word is way overused in our modern society. Actually, I’d be for a lot more judgementalism. That is, the application of objective standards.
Then there’s your mentioning of the recommendation of dialogue and reconciliation between enemies, in the context of the Catholic bishops’ recommendation of engaging Syria and Iran, and Thich Nhat Han’s efforts to bring North and South Vietnam together. This gives me a great opportunity to say a word about the danger of naievite in one’s spiritual view. It does no one any good not to recognize what an enemy is and that one has enemies. If a person, country or “non-state actor,” as we’re getting used to talking about in this current world war, makes it clearto you that he has every intention of clawing your entrails out, you do neither yourself, your loved ones, nor the citizens of your nation any favors if you roll over on your back, expose your underbelly and oblige him.
Mr. Dings said,
November 19, 2007 at 5:39 am
Now you’re talkin’. Trouble with the roll over theory might be, the perceived enemy feels the same way. Interesting that, though Thich Nhat Han was on the enemy’s side, he helped rescue victims of oppression after our “defeat” and he is banned from the country, but Cummins Engine Company is not. Go figure?