Big Sur as Dover Beach

I haven't read Big Sur poet Robinson Jeffers for at least 40 years, but somehow I felt he would speak to my current bleakness. In 1938, when the world teetered on the edge of war, he wrote the following poem, "The Answer," standing at Big Sur the way Matthew Arnold had stood at Dover Beach. They say Jeffers was a crusty misanthrope, with curdled vision like Shakespeare's Timon of Athens--a vision washed clean of man since inhumanity was man's only contribution to history. I think they're wrong about Jeffers. He chose the unity of life above all else, even if his own species could not perceive or participate in it. I, too, have felt this unity of late. I, too, have known, as Jeffer's wrote in 1925, "the heartbreaking beauty / will remain when there is no heart to break for it." Listen to Jeffers now and hear the surf-roar that reassured him that all, the eternal all, would be well. Belong to that, and there will be peace.

THE ANSWER

Then what is the answer?--Not to be deluded by dreams.
To know that great civilizations have broken down into violence
and tyrants come, many times before.
When open violence appears, to avoid it with honor or choose the least
ugly faction; these evils are essential.
To keep one's own integrity, be merciful and uncorrupted and not wish for
evil; and not be duped
By dreams of universal justice or happiness. These dreams
will not be fulfilled.
To know this and know that however ugly the parts appear the whole
remains beautiful. A severed hand
Is an ugly thing, and man dissevered from the earth and stars and his
history . . . for contemplation or in fact . . .
Often appears atrociously ugly. Integrity is wholeness, the greatest beauty is
Organic wholeness, the wholeness of life and things, the divine beauty of
the universe. Love that, not man
Apart from that, or else you will share man's pitiful confusions, or drown in
despair when his days darken.

The Original Buddha-Mind Speaks at Methow River

In 1991, two years before his death, the US Forest Service asked poet William Stafford to write poems to be displayed on signposts along a road in an Oregon wilderness area. Stafford wrote 20, from which seven were selected. Stafford decided to write the poems as if they were trees or rocks standing there for as long as the forest. There is, as a result, a kind of hard-rooted, branch-resilient and swift-current, stream-clear wisdom to his texts--as if the Logos itself was active in wilderness life, as if it were a trail guide, or simply the deciphered acoustic of the place. I find the number seven sweet, as if marking seven different, far more comforting stations of the cross. You are entering the first station now.

BE A PERSON

Be a person here. Stand by the river, invoke
the owls. Invoke winter, then spring.
Let any season that wants to come here to make its own
call. After that sound goes away, wait.

A slow bubble rises through the earth
and begins to include sky, stars, all space,
even the outracing, expanding thought.
Come back and hear the little sound again.

Suddenly this dream you are having matches
everyone's dream, and the result is the world.
If a different call came there wouldn't be any
world, or you, or the river, or the owls calling.

How you stand here is important. How you
listen for the next thing to happen. How you breathe.

William Stafford, from "The Methow River Poems," published in "Even in Quiet Places," Confluence Press, 1996, p. 89

Six Renderings of the Self Tung-Shan Saw in the Stream

While looking at his reflection in a stream, Chinese poet Tung-Shan had his satori, and wrote one of Zen's most famous poems. Here are four scholarly translations, followed by a fifth bull's-eye rendering in English by poet and novelist Jim Harrison of what transpired in that glance into the mirroring water. Then, for laughs, there's an 'interlinear' version by yours truly that brings my teacher Bawa to bear on that moment of permanent discovery:

Beware of seeking [the Truth] by others,
Further and further he retreats from you;
Alone I go now all by myself,
And I meet him everywhere I turn.
He is no other than myself,
And yet I am not he.
When thus understood,
I am face to face with Tathatâ."
(Essays in Zen Buddhism – Third Series 238)



Long seeking it through others,
I was far from reaching it.
Now I go by myself;
I meet it everywhere.
It is just I myself,
And I am not itself.
Understanding this way,
I can be as I am.(Two Zen Classics 267)



Do not seek from another,
Or you will be estranged from self.
I now go on alone,
Finding I meet It everywhere.
It now is I,
I now am not It.
One should understand in this way
To merge with suchness as is.
(Transmission of Light 38)



Don't seek from others,
Or you'll be estranged from yourself.
I now go on alone—
Everywhere I encounter It.
It now is me, I now am not It.
One must understand in this way
To merge with being as is.
(Transmission of Light 167)



And the winner is:

Earnestly avoid seeking without,
Lest it recede from you.
Today I am walking alone,
Yet everywhere I meet him.
He is no other than myself,
But I am not now him.
It must be understood this way
In order to merge with Suchness.

And here's my stab at it:

Don't fall for the trap of an outside,
Or you'll keep thinking truth beckons from afar.
You thought you were walking the path alone
until you ran into an old friend.
No need for introductions
or you will mistake him for someone else.
A simple look is acknowledgement
of all you have, and are, in common.

Paradise Lost and Re-Found

As preface to these remarks:

From the journals of William Stafford:

5 March 1991:
Recently a new serenity has touched me, and a feeling of wisdom. No, this is not a proud feeling, a feeling of being in control, but an acceptance of not being in control.

William Stafford, Every War has Two Losers, Milkweed Edition, 2003, p.70


A Shameful Dream
It was my oldest or most chronic dream of late middle age: married man and farmer John Proctor meets teenage temptress Abigail in the barn, kitchen or narrow hallway and feels his Puritan-buried youth restored. Only in this dream, Proctor was a teacher and Abigail a student. I awoke from the dream terrified of its sweetness and success, and that I had let it go on for so long before summoning restraint by noticing a picture of my wife and kids on my desk. My first words of waking were a petition: "Why do I provide such willing shelter to this dream?"

The answer was resumption of a deeper discourse, as if all this had happened in the blink of an eye and that the only non-temporary answers to be found were in this longer-lasting, more sustained flow of inspired speech. By the way, the voice did not speak in a loud "Field of Dreams" whisper. It spoke at room and lecture level.

What the Voice Said
"Pacifism is not a belief," the answering voice was saying. "It is a perception--a permanent, organic perception of unity, of wholeness, in which the soul abides." This unity, my own voice took up, as if everyone in that space was reciting a pledge of allegiance, is our body and the shared breath that sustains it. Pacifism is an affirmation of our deepest certainty--code word: God--as human beings and the conservator creed that is native and most natural to this being. Pacifism is to know that in being born God has made a promise for all of life and that you are its keeper and, by so knowing, assigned to its keeping.

Every day, as aspiring Sufi, I repeat at ritual times and random instants what Muslims call the Rahmat: "La illaha / Illallahu."

There is nothing but God; God alone is real.

The Rahmat as World of our Father & Fathers
Once you see that God is the deepest indwelling of truth and love and conscience, you know Him as Creator but also participant narrator and lead character in the narrative we live. God is autonomic consensus of right behavior--behavior bequeathed by residuum of mercy, compassion, love, justice and all the other blessed attributes which we are to embody and practice. In this way, the pacifist knows with every breath that he is a proof of God. So God is both monotheistic and pantheistic (I prefer pantheistic to polytheistic because pan allows His presence in everything while poly makes Him into personalities).

This morning, thanks to poet and conscientious objector William Stafford, I realize that the Rahmat is a pledge to pacifism, and that all men of non-violence know that it is the cardinal (as in bird-song) truth about life on earth, or anywhere, and that to be born is to affirm this unity and vow to preserve it. Once you experience this prime perception of unity, you can no longer frame the world in them/us, friends/enemies, even God/Man. Dualisms can not do justice to the unity we are here to proclaim. And proclamation, promulgation is just to live with conservator kindness, even if the kindness is more attempted than accomplished. Forgiveness means there is no failure.

No permanent failure.

Getting the hang of non-duality
Most of my fellow Sufis, and friends who are as deeply compliant with the unity as preached and perceived in Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, or any other faith, now know as positive all-conquering suspicion that we are One flesh and family. Pacifism is what Buddhists call "Original Mind." As such, it is the practice of unifying wholeness in thought and action. This unity "is intransitive without subject or object," as a college friend used to say.

Thus the idea of enemies is, as Jesus preached, something we must reject, or, failing that, resist, just as I had to reject this morning the "friendship" of Abigail for the lifelong friendship of my wife. To live with the idea of enemies as a constant framing mechanism of thought and action is to place other Gods before us. Dualism is the central code of (mis)conduct in the dis-unified world. It is to believe in a central Disunity, or the fallen nature of man. This is a preposterous and abhorrent thought.

Facing the angry mob of disbelief
Again and again, pacifists are told, "Your unity works only in a world where men are good. And men are not good."

Again and again, pacifists are seemingly silenced by the fact of Hitler and the necessity, if not justice, of the war against him. "What about Hitler?" they are taunted. "What about the 6 million Jews?"

At such heated moments, the pacifist seems tongue-tied and defeated but these are koans he/she has already solved. And the solution is the permanent, organic perception of unity. Not a belief in the unity, but its practice in everything he or she does as Christ practiced unity in silence at his inquisition. The Pacifist is ceded from that world of warring clans, tribes, communities and states. War is now unthinkable. Everything he makes is now in some way a ploughshare or intended to be. He cannot help it if someone uses the ploughshare as a blunt instrument to kill. The Cain in us is able to use anything at hand to prosecute the delusion of disunity.

Again and again, the pacifist is told about the rapist and the murderer, for which each morning's paper serves as sufficient proof that violence is the true norm, north and death star of human nature. To the pacifist, they are creases, even rips, in the fabric, understandable cracks in the dry earth. The pacifist resumes his ceaseless prayer and unshatterable perception of unity. This morning's news is as, always, a Micky Finn slipped in his coffee or orange juice. To 'find' God is to resume life in, as in immersion, the unity. Some of are spending our whole lives learning the art of unity-resumption.

The faltering step is already forgiven
Pacifism was, for the first time this morning, the world restored to its original purpose: a paradise of teaching, gratitude and praise. If I plunge back into darkness, or seek comfort in the Abigails, then I have broken my vow of non-violence. If this happens, I must pray for the lightning-strike and blessed disruption of remembrance which is restoration of my true self. Ergo, it is forgiveness, which is paradise found.

Thank you William Staford, dear brother and friend, American Taoist-Christian. Nine bows of grateful affirmation.

13 October 1991, In Vienna:
For years these lined faces have told me how it was, and then said, with a shake of the head, "You don't understand." They look farther away and sigh. What they went through, in a war, in a depression, or when the city fell, has given them something. They pity those who lack these occasions for being pitied. "You will never know," they say. "You weren't there. I'm sorry, but there is no way [for you] to attain this knowledge I have." And they look off into that long corridor where heroes line up for their centuries of patient eminence.

"Did you see the massacres?" I ask. And they stare back at me:

"It wasn't like that."

"Was that the year of the potatoes?" I ask.

They life their shoulders, they spread their hands. "You don't see it. You don't get the picture." They straighten their napkins and look out a window. What they see is an avenue only they and their kind, gifted by a certain pain, can have.

William Stafford, Every War Has Two Losers, Milkweed Editions, 2003, p. 73

The Conscience of a Conscientious Objector

It's been a long time since a new poet haunted me the way William Stafford does. Here's why:

A MEMORIAL

In Nagasaki they have built a little room
dark and soundproof where you can
go in all alone and close the door and cry.

and this poem terrifyingly prescient of our dilemmas in Iraq and Palestine and all other places where imperialist and colonialist wars, for which we are main sponsor or biggest patron, are fought:

PRETEND YOU LIVE IN A ROOM

Play like you had a war. Hardly anyone
got killed except thousands of the enemy,
and many go starving, holding
their hands out in pictures, begging.

Their houses, even the concrete and iron,
they've disappeared. These people
now live camped in the open. Overhead
stars keep telling their old, old story.

You have this world. You wander the earth.
You can't live in a room.

This poem stunned me because it depicted the illusory partition between homeland and war zone where we count only our own dead who are so much less in number than the 'enemy' (combatants and non-combatants) who have been killed. And almost everyday, all we see of Iraq is bombed out market places and town squares. So the lines "Their houses, even the concrete and iron, / they've disappeared" impose themselves on our couch potato sensibilites. We cannot help but have this world. And so we wander the earth in pursuit of our armies and as anxious spirits praying for their welfare. (Thankfully, the prayers are being extended to protection from their might.) Yet evey day we know but refuse to accept that "You can't live in a room." The empire forces us into global cognizance. They ought to stage the next "Survivor" on the banks of the Euphrates. The challenges there are much greater than in Fiji.

Read these beautiful, discomforting William Stafford poems as soon as you get the chance. Be gratefully disturbed by them.

"Every War Has Two Losers"

It was worth it to turn 65 to receive a gift like the one my friends Amira and Kadir Cannon gave me last night: poet William Stafford's (1914-1993) "Every War Has Two Losers." A collection of journal entries and poems, these are the meditations and outcries of a WWII pacifist who, to me, seems an American Taoist, practising non-violence out of instinctive, deep, comprehensive clarity and conviction. Stafford's brother was a bomber pilot during the war. In the following poem, living brother visits the grave of his departed brother. It is a harrowing moment. Stafford honors his brother by shedding tears for those he killed. The compassion here is of a profoundly unflinching kind--one that does not lead to walls with the names of soldiers on it, but walls with the names of those they killed. That's how far the mistake of war goes and that's how much farther the final reach of forgiveness for these wars must extend. The canopy of compassion must contain the whole of the bloody histories we write.

"I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact."

AT THE GRAVE OF MY BROTHER: BOMBER PILOT

Tantalized by wind, this flag that flies
to mark your grave discourages those nearby
graves, and all still marching this hillside chanting,
"Heroes, thanks. Goodbye."

If a visitor may quiz a marble sentiment,
was this tombstone quarried in a country
where you slew thousands likewise honored
of the enemy?

Reluctant hero, drafted again each Fourth
of July, I'll bow and remember you. Who
shall we follow next? Who shall we kill
next time?

And this as a blessed bonus:

A RITUAL TO READ TO EACH OTHER

If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss out star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider--
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give--yes or no, or maybe--
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

--William Stafford, "Every Way Has Two Losers," Milkweed Editions, 2003.

Tucson Non-Duality

Written February 1st, 2007, while attending the Tucson Gem & Mineral Show:

"We study the self to forget the self. And when we forget the self, we become one with the the thousand things," Zen Master Dogen said and poet Gary Snyder often quotes. When I read that aphorism again early this morning after waking from indigestion dreams about trying to recover and relearn lost protocols for a real estate transaction (I wasn't permitted to consummate a land transfer until I had mastered an ancient, now obscure ten-point scheme of transfer etiquette), an insight into Creationism as an emblem for the dark side of messy-anic monotheism hit me as dead-on and deadly as a freight train hits a car stalled on the tracks with the driver locked inside. Actually, the force was more of a surprise, as if I had been a child skipping on the rails and never knew what hit me. Accidents can happen and some of them are for the best. Besides, one doesn't seek solutions to the anchoring dualities of his time and culture at 4 AM in the morning.

In this case, the duality is the Great Wall Duality of Man & Nature that has plagued Western Civilization for millennia.

If I am ever to be true Bodhisattva, I must understand and forgive the mind-set our fearful leader has been given carte blanche power to em-body and prosecute. I want to thank Wendell Berry and now Gary Snyder for helping me to see Herr Bush in a more compassionate context. He is the tabula rasa for Republican Party plutocratic imperialism, wet-clay cuneiform for the writs and wrongs of demonic dominion running far back to Holy Roman history (and its 20th century recrudescence in Right-Wing Fundamentalist Christianity). It is no accident that he was a male cheerleader at Yale.

Jihad Judeo-Christian-style
I don't have to tell you that we live in a war economy, and have since WWII rescued America from the Great Depression (if war can ever be considered a rescue). What I didn't see was that Capitalism itself is part of an unending world war on nature, practised and perfected by the Spanish in Central and South America--and continued by the English. The idea of a matrix economy was in full force wherever the Conquistadors plundered for gold and silver, pearls and emeralds, using native populations for the sole purpose of extraction and rewarding them for serving as machine parts with plush servants quarters in the Christian heaven.

Evidently, exploitative economies are nothing new, and other civilizations have engaged in deforestation. Gary Snyder brings this comprehensive, global perspective to his recent essays and it tempers the anger I often can't control. Here's Gary Snyder's take on America's present moment and fear fixations:

We all know that the "post-Cold War" era has suddenly and rudely ended, and we have entered a period in which global relations are defined by new nationalisms, religious fundamentalism, developed world hubris, stepped-up environmental damage, and everywhere expanding problems of health and poverty. What was to have been a "New World Order" [Ordure?--Federman] is revealed as a greater disorder, much of it flowing from the top down.

Disorder is nothing new in the human world. East Asia, the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East, and Europe have all gone through cycle after cycle of violent change--oppression at home, exploitation abroad, and bloody warfare. Much of it has been driven by various combinations of fanatic ideological beliefs, whipped-up nationalisms, and institutionalized greed. The great civilizations have had moments of peace and marvelous cultural and artistic accomplishments, punctuated by eruptions of hysteria, outbreaks of violence, and war after war after war.

The Bush Administration that was and is in power in the United States has little sense of history and no patience. With the war on Iraq, we have all been drawn into what Jonathan Schell calls "An American Tragedy." The shredding of international trust, the deceptions practiced on the people of the United States and Britain, and the unresolved chaos in the lives of Iraqis, Israelis, and the unresolved chaos in the lives of Iraqis, Israelis, and Palestinians make this a worldwide tragedy.

. . . . In most of the world now the outlook for the natural environment is not good. Initially the Bush Administration's retreat from environmental priorities was presented as being simply "pro business." The aftermath of September 11, 2001, then enbaled the Bush/Rumsfeld/Cheney forces to cloak their anti-environmentalism in the rhetoric of patriotism. There are corporations and government agencies that enthusiastically welcome this. The post 9/11 world of research universities is also changing directions. My own school, the University of California at Davis, quickly developed plans to build a "biocontainment
laboratory" to study deadly viruses and bacteria, clearly a response to the rise of terrorist fears.

. . . . A huge number of contemporary people realize that we can no longer think that the fate of humanity and that of the nonhuman natural world are independent of each other. A society that treats its natural surroundings in a harsh and exploitative way will do the same to "other" people. Nature and human ethics are not unconnected. The growing expansion of ecological consciousness translates into a deeper understanding of the interconnections in both nature and history, and we have developed a far more sophisticated grasp of cause and effect relationships. The lively discipline if environmental history is constantly enlarging how we understand both culture and nature. Politically there is a constituency for environmental causes in every nation. Everyone of the world religions has examined its own relation to the environment and is hoping to improve it. In a number of societies, a reverence and care for nature has been deep in the culture from the beginning. In the case of Japan we can see how a long-established love of nature can wither in the face of extreme urbanization and aggressive economic expansion. the grassroots public of Japan, however, has a resilient spirit for the defense of nature. (from "Ecology, Literature, and the New World Disorder, pages 22-4 in "Back on the fire," Shoemaker & Hoard, 2007)

From Seizures to Seasons
From this point on, Snyder seeks a way to frame and tame these convulsions. His solution is, at heart, a new global non-dualistic focus that sees all these events as planetary depredations that can only be cured by practicing caring interdependence between man and nature. In this view, the world is not so much nations as bioregions, each with its own particularities of land and life, climate and culture. So instead of a United Nations of representatives from map-drawn countries, there are regional conservators defending the true interests of their places, and working for balance and sustainability.

Now I know what you're thinking. This is too dreamy and far-fetched a solution, too at odds with the current politics of our planet. But think of this perspective as a way of personally framing conditions and events. Think of this perspective--quite instinctive to bloggers--as a means of forging common made-for-sharing understanding. Assume, as the ancients would say, we are all openings of one flute, played with a common breath that does not originate with us. Then practice that flue-player's breathed musicianship to 'compose' an understanding of an acute situation or circumstance of great personal significance. As Chuang Tzu wrote:

THE PIVOT

Tao is obscured when men understand only one of a pair of opposites, or concentrate only on a partial aspect of being. Then clear expression also becomes muddled by mere wordplay, affirming this one aspect and denying all the rest.

Hence the wrangling of Confucians and Mohists; each denies what the other affirms, and affirms what the other denies. What use is this struggle to set up "No" against "Yes," and "Yes" against "No"? Better to abandon this hopeless effort and seek true light!

There is nothing that cannot be seen from the standpoint of the "Not-I." And there is nothing which cannot be seen from the standpoint of the "I." If I begin by looking at anything from the viewpoint if the "not-I," then I do not really see it, since it is "not I" that sees it. If I begin from where I am and see it as I see it, then it may also become possible for me to see it as another sees it. Hence the theory of reversal that opposites produce each other, depend on each other, and complement each other.

However this may be, life is followed by death: death is followed by life. The possible becomes impossible; the impossible becomes possible. Right turns into wrong and wrong into right--the flow of life alters circumstances and thus things themselves are altered in their turn. But disputants continue to affirm and deny the same things they have always affirmed and denied, ignoring the new aspects of reality presented by the change in conditions.

The wise man therefore, instead of trying to prove this or that point by logical disputation, sees all things in the light of direct intuition. He is not imprisoned by the limitations of the "I," for the viewpoint of direct intuition is that of both "I" and "Not-I ." Hence he sees that on both sides of every argument there both right and wrong. He also sees that in the end they are reducible to the same thing, once they are related to the pivot of Tao.

When the wise man grasps this pivot, he is in the center of the circle and there he stands while "Yes" and "No' pursue each other around the circumference.

The pivot of Tao passes through the center where all affirmations and denials converge. He who grasps the pivot is at the still-point from which all movements and oppositions can be seen in their right relationship/ Hence he sees the limitless possibilities of both "Yes" and "No." Abandoning all thought of imposing a limit or taking sides, he rests in direct intuition. Therefore I said: "Better to abandon disputation and seek the true light!"
--Thomas Merton, The Way of Chuang Tzu, New Directions, pages 42-3.

Practicing Tucson Non-Duality
Chuang Tzu was a big bitter horse pill for me to swallow, but it had the needed effect of an expectorant, breaking up congested thought masses hardened by self-righteousness. My flute playing improved immediately. And I stopped choking on fanatic rage, only to find myself as attached to this easily-concealed weapon as a gunslinger to his .45.

The first test of Tucson non-duality was an encounter with an articulate Namibian Jew, denied a British passport many decades ago, even though his parents were British citizens. To him, the Jewish Right of Return was the last remaining rock to which he, or any Jew in a similar outcast circumstance, could cling. It meant, for him, irrefutable refuge--even if one of last resort. So when I condemned this law because it had been used a decade ago to smuggle a Jewish pedophile murderer out of the United States to Israel where he could be tried and sentenced more leniently, I suddenly saw its importance and necessity to him. And, at the same time, he could see where it should not be considered as absolute and binding as he once did.

Next came Palestinian Right of Return. If we were both to give Jewish Right of Return centrality in the life of Israel, we both knew it had to apply to Palestine. Until then, he had seen it as a threat; but once I relaxed with such laws for Israel, he seemed willing to relax with such laws for Palestine. And so dispute gave way to agreement. Principles that divided us--through hard but openhearted wrangling and empathy--seemed to unite us.

What I've taken to calling "planetary non-duality" worked.

Now I think this planetary perspective is a way to see the Israel-Palestine conflict. Start in your own mind, in your own daily (pre)conceptions of and confrontations with reality. See both sides as parts of a duality that must be resolved. Then, through dialogue with friends who agree and disagree with you, begin to build a shared, compassionate perspective that can become the basis of global advocacy. Non-duality is already an active principle in theoretical physics and biology; and it has also been incorporated into humanism. It can be brought to bear on politics, too.

Creationism and Monotheism
As a start toward a unified perspective on Israel and Palestine, I had to look at the two sides from a religious and cultural perspective. What did the two sides share? One morning I awoke at 4 AM with an answer, as if a part of me had needed the rest of me to sleep so it could think soundly and successfully. Here is the insight I woke with:

Basically, you have a clash of two desert peoples who share an Abrahamic monotheistic world view. Basically, you have two creationists cultures at needless war, projecting their own worst insecurities, fears and demons on to each other.

And here comes my insight per se. Creationism is the official evolutionary view of Abrahamic Judeo-Christian-Muslim world monotheism. Even though we have the corrective--and it is a corrective--of Darwin, which places man back in nature (where he has been comfortably ensconced in Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, etc.), the powers that be in religion, culture and even economics must reject this inclusive world view--the true, only feasible globalism.

Monotheists are horrified at what they see as the brute, non-intelligent unfolding of history. But, paradoxically, they see the world as a brute, passive preserve to be plundered by the overlords (once called "stewards") of the planet. "Nature" in our time has been reduced to non-human scenic places where the landlords go for recreation and relaxation. These are getaways from the world that was once nature but now is converted to sequestered human inhabitance. No wonder we see "Mother Nature" as a mad Medean housewife acting out of profound slasher petulance after years of sustained mistreatment and neglect by her "husband."

In short, Creationism sanctifies alienation and exploitation by placing the Creator outside His Creation. No room for pantheism, or seeing it as a depiction of the Creator's active involvement with his Creation. With a Nature-God, every scoop of earth is a gouge in God's side. Digging had better be necessary, you dig?

Creationism is a byproduct of duality, of separation, of living with a mythos that allows for an inside and outside, and makes our flesh a partition and our minds and bodies adjoining cells in a prison from which we 'escape' through non-transcendent means such as sex and stimulation. Buddhists call such beings "hungry ghosts." Lately, it has been fashionable to make room for "taos" of all sorts but usually they are reserved for books about business moguls and sports champions who are seen as embodiments of finely-honed instincts in their fields of endeavor. Their branding and business elan is rarely transferable into the deeper, more distant realms of wisdom and morality. I learned long ago that gunslingers are not Bodhisattvas and superstars are not avatars.

This is as far as I have gone with this new thinking. Tucson invites non-duality because there is still much raw nature to be found. But the ride down certain central arteries is no different than the interstate rides across those vast stretches of American heartland where all is commerce. But there were countervailing stretches of landscape that invited older astonishment and wonder.

Calling All Bloggers! Calling All Bloggers!

It wasn't getting to the top of the mountain that was difficult or, as Martin Luther King Jr. rightly feared conerning his own life, doomed. It was what happened at the bottom that made descent more dangerous than ascent. Am I speaking in code? Botched metaphor? All of the above.

Well, as the purchase of U-Tube by Google and the deletion of all Viacom videos shortly thereafter illustrates, cyberspace is being annexed by Wall Street. So that even here the ever-rising Dow becomes as much a danger sign as a smog alert or a storm warning. I always knew that this day would come. What other fate could be in store for a freedom whose prophet is Bill Gates? Never confuse billionaires with Bodhisattvas or superstars with avatars. As earth-residents, we all live in Matrix Country.

Listen, my fellow cyberspace travelers and Internet surfers both friend and foe, the time has come to discuss a global warming threat to our world. The era of informational hedonism has produced a group of blogger junkies, like myself, who have treated the Internet as a series of crack houses where we can practice carefree, irresponsible downloading of anything we please. Well, I believe the time has come to admit the promiscuous exchange of copyrighted art endangers all of us--sharers and deleters alike.

It endangers sharers by encouraging an ardent disrespect for or casual indifference to the law and it endangers deleters by encouraging the kind of ferocious self-righteousness that persuades right-to-lifers to take the lives of doctors and midwives who practice abortion. The few times I have tried to engage deleters in dialogue I have felt like a Palestinian in a faceoff with an Israeli. Suddenly all traces of the new millennium disappeared and I was in Birmingham circa 1963. But trying to engage fellow bloggers in discussion proved just as futile because most seem too intoxicated or engorged from the morning's downloads to do anything but belch or yawn. Which is worse? Deleter terrorism? Or sharer torpor? Believe it or not, this question is NOT a no-brainer.

Look, I'm trying to be a good Sufi Taoist these days. So I don't want to stereotype angry deleters as rednecks or racists or even property rights bigots. They are defending interests that are often near and dear to me, also. I have a close friend who runs an independent music label and he views the blogosphere like a Miami refugee views Castro's Cuba.

Nor do I want to paint bloggers as download fixers or innocent music-sharing mendicants who take vows of poverty so that they can escape accusations of self-enrichment with their charity. The blogosphere is not Haight-Ashbury. If anything, it is a rebel stronghold where Luke Skywalkers outwit their wiley Darth Vader dads. Yes, Viriginia, there is a Freud and he has hyperactive relevance to the 21st century.

In short, this struggle isn't black and white. It's got more grey than I've seen since the Blue Meanies took over Pepperland. And both sides of the dispute have legitimate concerns and can trace their behavior to laudable values and visions. So I am putting out a call for a conference based on team work to begin discussion of vital issues and lay the ground work for a workable code of ethics and honor here in the still-free mountains and valleys of cyberspace. I am inviting visitors to begin a forum to see if we can forge protocols and conventions of sharing that are fair and equitable. I would ask other bloggers in consort with this goal to take up my call. Any takers?