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.
"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.
posted by David Federman @ 8:00 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home