Ornoth

As it spread across Asia and the rest of the globe, Buddhism changed and adapted to the local cultures it encountered; however, Buddhism’s core goal—freedom from suffering—and its core method—contemplative meditation—have perforce remained constant… until recently.

Thus it’s understandable that the 20th Century Westerners who went to Asia would come back with a unique version of Buddhist practice that ought to work better for those of us brought up in the West than the original article. The hybrid Buddhism that we inherited from them had been distilled down to the essentials that would most appeal to educated middle class White people like themselves.

That meant discarding inconvenient concepts and practices such as reincarnation, myths & deities, miracles & supernatural powers, ritual & chanting, merit-making, the more esoteric states of concentration practice, karma, renunciation, non-duality, and non-self. That’s how American Buddhism became divorced from Asian, and enabled a diminished “secular meditation” with all the uncomfortable bits filed off.

That decision made some sense, as several parts of devotional Buddhism are at odds with our Christian heritage or directly contradict universally-accepted scientific laws. But the stylized meditation techniques that have gained such popularity in the American mainstream have also lost sight of the actual purpose and point of meditation practice.

The most facile example of the trendy “Mindfulness Movement” is Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program. Obviously, learning tools to cope with stress is a Good Thing, but I can’t help but be saddened by how much got lost when the goal of meditation was reduced from the “eradication of the root cause of human suffering” to “just help me get through my day”.

It’s as if everyone in Asia had been inoculated with a one-time permanent cure for diabetes, but we Americans have shortsightedly continued carrying blood testing kits and syringes filled with insulin, only treating the symptoms of the chronic disease as they arise day after day.

Another painful example is how big business and professional sports have co-opted meditation as a cheap tactic for “guaranteed career success” and “enhancing peak performance”, promoted by well-heeled management consultants and wealthy athletes like Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, and Derek Jeter.

I’ve participated in several sittings and talks run by prominent performance-oriented meditation gurus, and always felt deeply uncomfortable. Because at their core, these programs and prescriptions are diametrically opposed to what Buddhist meditation is all about. Whether it’s vanquishing your business or athletic rivals, these techniques are designed to promote selfish desires and goals which reinforce the ego.

In contrast, Buddhism guides the meditator toward the understanding that no worldly attainments can ever provide deep or lasting satisfaction; toward relinquishment of personal desires; and toward freedom from our unexamined enslavement to the insecure demands of the ego.

All too frequently, I hear proclamations from people publicly known as meditation experts that completely set my nerves on edge. In their own literal words, meditation can: lower stress levels, help you drop all distractions that may interfere with winning, enhance peak performance, aid in the reduction of how chronic pain affects the mind, help you cope with the aftermath of a disappointing performance, strengthen your drive, boost your belief in yourself and your ability, build your athletic identity, improve sleep patterns, speed recovery time, enhance endurance, aid in proper fueling, and help control oxygen.

I’m sorry George, but the Buddha had a far more important and fulfilling goal than “speeding recovery time”, “building his athletic identity”, and “controlling oxygen”.

Through tireless self-aggrandizement and promotion, many of these business and sports meditation gurus have grown rich and famous as a result of dispensing their advice. I’m going to leave that contradiction aside however, as it’s too obviously hypocritical to waste time discussing.

Attending these completely secularized meditative self-gratification programs is kind of like taking classes at a prestigious cooking school, but disregarding everything except how to microwave a frozen burrito. It’s such a waste! Buddhism has a larger mission and so much more to offer than empty self-affirmations and greed-reinforcing self-talk.

I’ve also observed that when teachers introduce meditation practices to naïve Westerners, most of the reported short-term benefit is due to peer pressure or the placebo effect. For the practitioners I’ve known, their initial months of meditation were uncomfortable and challenging before things settled down and the practice started producing its slow, gentle results. But Americans have been sold a persistent fable that meditation will produce immediate and noticeable relief; so that’s what people report, after just a few minutes alone with their unruly internal dialogue.

For all these reasons, the majority of Americans think of—and relate to—meditation as if it were just another self-improvement project: a way to be a far more powerful, unshakeable, invincible you.

While there are undeniable positive side effects of long-term meditation practice, it’s not about building up, improving, or perfecting the self; it’s about letting go of the self, and liberation from the tyranny of the ego.

And the ultimate goal of Buddhist meditation—which the Western mindfulness movement has completely forgotten—is the freedom and well-being that results from the eradication of suffering in our lives: something many self-proclaimed “meditation experts” have a vested interest in perpetuating and profiting from.

Is it hypocritical for newspapers to tout themselves as defenders of the English language while simultaneously butchering it whenever it is convenient?

Here’s a selection of recent headlines from the Boston Globe. You’ll note the grammatically egregious use of “slay” as a noun and/or adjective, rather than the proper nominal/gerund form, “slaying”.

IN SLAY CASE, NYC POLICE SEEK CLUES AT BAR SITE
SLAY VICTIM, 24, MOURNED IN BOSTON
‘SCHOOL CAME FIRST’ FOR NYC SLAY VICTIM, 24
OFFICIALS POINT TO SLAY CASE SUCCESSES
HUNDREDS PAY TRIBUTE TO SLAY VICTIM
GAS STATIONS ARE A FOCUS IN SLAY PROBE
PROSECUTORS SAY OTHER VICTIMS POSSIBLE IN N.H. SLAY CASE
BAIL SOUGHT IN 33-YEAR-OLD SLAY CASE
REWARD MONEY OFFERED IN PROBE OF NYC SLAY CASE
JUSTICE WILL PREVAIL IN THE HOPKINTON DOUBLE-SLAY CASE, VICTIMS’ KIN SAY
SLAY CASE MYSTIFIES A MAINE RETREAT
WEAPON FIGURES IN SLAY TRIAL
JURY SELECTED FOR TRIAL IN ’03 SLAY CASE
DEATH PENALTY RULED OUT IN GANG SLAY CASE
BAIL STAYED FOR ACCUSED IN TRURO SLAY CASE
SLAY CHARGES DROPPED VS. HOMELESS MAN
CHARITY HONORS SLAY VICTIM’S EFFORTS
SLAY SUSPECT OUT ON BAIL
OFFICER GRANTED BAIL IN GANG SLAY CASE
SLAY VICTIM MOURNED IN NEW BEDFORD
2D SUSPECT ARRESTED IN MBTA SLAY CASE
FORMER CORRECTION OFFICER PLEADS GUILTY IN SLAY PLOT
SLAY VICTIM’S GOAT BRINGS COMFORT IN E. FALMOUTH
MAN FOUND STABBED IN DORCHESTER IS CITY’S 27TH SLAY VICTIM
DEFENSE EYES DNA IN TRURO SLAY CASE
SLAY-PLOT SUSPECT EJECTED FROM COURT
FBI SEEKS MEETINGS WITH R.I. POLICE ON SLAY SUSPECT’S ARREST
SLAY SUSPECT ARRAIGNED

So an individual can be suspected of slay, be charged with slay, and be arraigned for slay. One can plot slay, probe slay, investigate cases of slay, and try slay. And believe me, we’re all victims of slay.

Obviously, this isn’t a case of one headline requiring a tweak, nor is it the doing of one marginally literate writer. It’s a systematic practice in which the Globe’s demonstrates its inability to write headlines in coherent English.

The Globe’s presumed justification for this practice would be that it is impossible to use proper grammar in their headlines, due to space constraints. However, one of those headlines is no less than 72 characters long. If we take that as a theoretical maximum length, then not a single one of the other 27 headlines would exceed that limit if we were to add the three-character “-ing” suffix that would make “slay” grammatically correct. So what, exactly, is their justification for this wanton butchery of standard practice? Answer: there is none. It is pure and utter caprice, reinforced with the weight of bureaucratic hubris.

I pointed this out in an email to the Globe’s so-called ombudsman two years ago. “Thanks for the course correction on the use of ‘slay’ in headlines. I’ve given the headline bosses the benefit of your wisdom.” In other words, “Fuck you very much; we’ll do as we please.” Proper grammar has no place in the Boston Globe, except when it can provide some entertainment value, in which case it is conveniently relegated to their weekly “The Word” column.