Ornoth

Time for a grab bag of Buddhisty observations based on some recent readings, dharma talks, and workshops.

At a recent talk, Ajahn Geoff was asked about the Buddhist concept of Right Effort: specifically, how to cultivate the discipline to perform actions you don’t want to do, but which you know will have positive results. To my surprise, he responded by outlining my longstanding belief that you must be guided by how you will feel on your deathbed about the choice you made. I’ve mentioned this guiding view of mine in blog posts from 2005 here and 2003 here.

My belief that the brahmaviharas of metta (lovingkindness) and karuna (compassion) are very similar was confirmed by Narayan at a recent CIMC workshop. The main difference is that compassion is more specifically targeted at suffering, whereas metta is a more general friendliness toward all, irrespective of the conditions of their life.

The phrases Narayan uses for compassion practice are “May I care for your [physical] pain” and “May I care for your [emotional] sorrow”. I feel that “May I” is semantically much weaker than “I do”, and “care for” is weaker and more vague than “care about”. So the phrases that speak to me most compellingly are “I care about your pain” and “I care about your sorrow”.

While on the topic of the compassion workshop, I should mention the following. Although I am currently halfway through my intended year of intensive metta practice, my current intention is to follow that up with a year of intensive karuna practice. That’ll cover the first two brahmaviharas, but I do not plan on devoting the same time and energy to the remaining brahmaviharas of equanimity and sympathetic joy.

When someone expresses dismay with the phrase “It’s not fair!”, I have always taken glee in pointing out that “Life isn’t fair, and you’re setting yourself up to be disappointed if you expect it to be”. I have recently begun to appreciate that although life indeed isn’t fair, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have compassion for those who suffer from life’s injustices, and take action to remedy them.

The two figures on the table behind the teachers’ platform at CIMC are Avalokitesvara, the bodhisattva of compassion (aka Guan Yin, Chenrezig), and Manjusri, the bodhisattva of transcendent wisdom. It seems a bit odd to have them so honored in a Theravadin meditation center, but it does underscore how relaxed CIMC is about borrowing from other Buddhist lineages.

We are often so preoccupied with planning about the future or reminiscing about the past that we aren’t paying any attention to the present moment. We must be present for our minds to process the sensory input we receive in each moment. If we are absent, one might say that we are “Out of our minds”. Are you “out of your mind”?

One of the observations in the Pali Canon is that our egos exhibit certain seemingly contradictory impulses: the desire to exist, and the desire to not exist. These can be seen, of example, in the desire to “leave one’s mark on the world”, or the parental impulse to live solely for one’s offspring’s benefit, losing oneself in something other than one’s own life. The Buddha stated quite clearly that these are not helpful preoccupations. However, many Buddhists also espouse the idea of cosmic unity: the view that we are all one entity, one living expression of universe, rather than many unique and separate individuals. To me, this seems to be just another, more politically correct manifestation of the desire to not exist. Submersion in some anonymous universal being is just as much a manifestation of the ego’s desire to find oblivion as any other human activity.

One of the ways that karma works is by one action setting up the conditions that influence one’s future state. For example, if we choose not to pay back a debt, we have created the conditions that cause others to mistrust us. Thus our bad acts indeed precipitate negative reactions from others, which impinge upon our future lives.

In “Walden”, Thoreau writes about mankind’s advancement of science and contrasting lack of progress in the ethical sphere thus: “Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end.” Technology is a tool that multiplies our capabilities, but it’s up to man to create something meaningful with that enhanced capability, and our philosophies haven’t advanced in any meaningful sense in the past 2000 years.

One way of looking at mindfulness is being mentally and physically present and open to the beauty in each instant of life in its fullness. If there is so much beauty and joy to be experienced in this world (and I believe there is), that raises the question of how to avoid being overwhelmed by it. At any given instant, I am presented with all kinds of sensory input and myriad potential objects of attention; so if I am to appreciate any of it fully, how do I choose what part of that experience to focus my attention on? This difficulty is compounded by the Buddhist affinity for what is called “choiceless awareness”.

One of the reasons western society is so focused on acquisition as a method of seeking happiness is the very affluence we have achieved. Consider the experience of a child going through a mega-warehouse toy store. The child is presented with thousands of wonderful things that create and fortify his sense desire. But even though his parents might give him numerous toys that far exceed what children in most other cultures would have, no parent can buy everything in the store, so the overwhelming majority of that child’s experience is being repeatedly told that they cannot have what they want. This cultivates an incessant feeling of lack, which over time solidifies into a longlasting sense of dissatisfaction, with a particular focus on acquisitiveness as the solution to life’s inherent disappointments. The scenario of a child surrounded by toys—seeking happiness from material objects they cannot have—is played out throughout adulthood as we are enslaved by our compulsive desire for the newest electronic gadgets, a sleek car, a wonderful home with the nicest television and kitchen appliances, and a trophy spouse. But ultimately it is the very profusion of consumer goods available to us that makes us feel deprived, impoverished, and unloved.

Most American adults suffer from some form of self-esteem issues. As a result, our childcare and education systems have changed to place an immense emphasis on cultivating self-esteem in our children. Today’s youth have grown up in an environment where they are not criticized, they are not disciplined, and they never face emotional hurt. However, since they have rarely if ever seen one of their peers suffering and in emotional pain, they have also never learned the skill of compassion. And even if they do see another person hurting, their own lack of trauma means they haven’t developed the ability to empathize with another person. To one who has never been hurt, the sight of another person’s suffering brings up feelings of aversion and disgust and fear rather than compassion; others’ suffering becomes something that divides and separates people rather than unites them in sympathy. By putting so much effort into raising children with a strong sense of self-esteem, we have accidentally raised a generation of youth who are self-absorbed and stunningly lacking in the virtues of empathy and compassion.

Bonus points if you get that reference!

I have to say this for Pope John Paul II: the little bugger's a better visual comedian than Jim Carrey! Last year I came across a photo of him posing with a gaggle of schoolchildren. Completely inappropriate for the situation, the old guy was making a face like he'd just been poked in the eye while eating a communion host that had gone bad. The photo was so funny that I had to feature it in a series of collages I was doing for art school, even though it completely violated the series' theme...

At the time, I thought it was a one-time fluke, but recently I was proved wrong. Our Man JP's recent trip to the Americas provided a couple particularly wonderful images of ecclesiastical humor. In one image (here), JP is being escorted from the PopeJet by a young priest, but his body language and expression say "Let go of me ya damned cardinal! I'm outta here I tellya!" That was followed up by another photo (here), where an attractive adolescent girl in colorful garb is presenting herself to the pontiff. His beanie is knocked askew, and he's holding his head as if to say "Oy, and I took a vow of celibacy?"

But the point of this post isn't to make fun of the chosen representative of God on Earth. No, really! After all, anyone who can type "http://images.google.com" can do that!

But this was the topic of conversation between my friend Rhonda and I when we went down a particularly interesting line of inquiry. We got onto the subject of her "version" of Heaven differing from the standard interpretation, and she described to me a recent Robin Williams movie entitled "What Dreams May Come".

Now, before I get into it, let me tell you that the movie is bad. I'm about to describe its only redeeming feature, so there's no need for you to go out and see it. Fair warning.

Rhonda brought it up because the movie's basic premise is that the afterlife we'll experience is a reflection of our expectations of it. If you believe that the afterlife is what el papa says, then that's what you'll experience; if you believe the afterlife is going to be one big orgy, then for you it will be; if you think you'll be punished for your transgressions in this life, you surely will be; and if you don't believe in life after death... Well, the movie doesn't really address that question, but I'm sure you can imagine. The basic plot of the movie is that Robin Williams dies and finds himself in the world he and his wife had always dreamed about; his wife, a needy, self-absorbed neurotic, commits suicide shortly after, and resigns herself to an eternity in her own personal hell. The basic conflict is Robin Williams' quest to be reunited with his wife and show her there's another way.

The idea that everyone could be a god ruling a world created by their own imaginings was the basis of the first story I ever got paid for, "In Our Infinite Wisdom", published more than 20 years ago. The premise was a late-night wargaming session, where the players began theorizing that if there were an infinite number of worlds, there'd be a world just like Earth, only we'd all live in castles, that one could get to simply by thinking about it. Shazam! There it is. The characters wind up continuing this line of thought, essentially incrementally thinking their way into their own individually-tailored Heaven. To give away the ending, the twist comes as they all gradually realize that there'd also be an equivalent Hell that one would be transported to simply by thinking of it, and their brief but vain struggle to not think about it.

So all this talk got me thinking about my own idea of Heaven, and how it might look. Not what I believe is after death, because I think I made than abundantly clear in my 2/24/2002 LJ article "Philosophy for Dummies" (here), when I wrote "When we die, like any animal, we die. There is no essense or spirit which survives when our brain activity ceases", but what I would like: what world I'd design if I were given free reign to create a Heaven of my own devising.

Interestingly, despite having written a story that dealt with the topic, I really have never thought about what my Heaven would be like. I decided that'd be an interesting line of inquiry. At the same time, I'm also curious about the kinds of worlds other people would create. Would they just give the universal answers of "flying angels, no disease, no hunger, no conflict", and so forth? I think you could learn a lot about someone by the unique things they'd do to create their own world and how it'd be different from everyone else's. In "What Dreams May Come", Williams' world is full of saturated colors and things made from wet paint, since his hobby is painting. I think it'd be an interesting question to ask people over beers. I also think it'd make a cool assignment -- create a ten-minute videograph of your idea of the perfect afterlife -- although in some of our cases getting willing and appropriately-endowed actors and actresses might be a bit of an issue...

So let's consider this question. Let's get the base assumptions out of the way: we're all going to prohibit things like disease, pain, conflict, hatred, inequality, injustice, and fear, right? Let's not restate the painfully obvious here. But in what less straightforward ways would your world differ from Earth? Here are some of mine...

• I would have the time to do everything I want to do
• "Do what thou wilt, and it hurt none" would not just be the whole of the law, but would also actually be practical and meet everyone's needs
• Travelling from place to place would be both free and instantaneous, allowing you to go anywhere anytime you wanted
• There would be the ability to travel to different destinations in time; you could easily visit the 1970s or the 14th century or ancient Rome if you so desired
• Seasons would be more discrete; summer would be more summerlike, autumn more autumnal, and you'd know when you passed from one to the next
• Similarly, urban areas would be more urban, and rural areas more rural; the two would mix less
• There would be no economy, in the sense of no currency and no need to work just to maintain one's standard of living
• Creating things would be quicker and less error-prone; things like baking, programming, and art would be much less labor-intensive
• Things would be less pre-fabricated, and everything would be more "designed"; all housing, in particular, would demonstrate more architectural and artistic appeal
• There would be very, very few smells; most odors we know wouldn't exist, and there'd be a cap on the strength of all odors
• There would be no children, noisy, smelly, hateful little things that they are
• Everyone would appear to be the age at which I knew them, e.g. my high school friends would be circa 1982, my college friends circa 1986, my co-workers circa 1998, and so forth
• No one would have any body hair, save normal hair on the top of their head
• One would have the ability to experience life as a member of the opposite gender if desired
• People would be free to express their affection to one another, without fear of any kind
• Sex of widely diverse flavors would be much more common; inhibiting factors such as social acceptance, rape, STDs, performance issues, and unwanted pregnancies would be alleviated
• People would be able to intuit and accept (and, of course, act on) one another's turn-ons
• True non-consentuality would not exist

I don't think there's any real need for me to comment any further on these. The point isn't to justify them to you, but just to noodle around some vision of what life might be like in my perfect world. And I'd hardly advertise this as an immutable list, just some brainstorming.

Now, unlike my previous postings, I'm going to open this one up for public response. However, I want to emphasize that I'm not interested in your comments about my Heaven, or the thinking that got me to this point. What I'm interested in is your description of the Heaven that you would create. I'd appreciate it if you limited your comments to that topic.

It's one part imagination, and one part character; so show me what you got!