Nobody on the Internet has written this essay, yet. According to Google ;-)

I've been studying various American strains of Buddhism for a few years now, sometimes intensely. I've learned how not to desire a wide variety of pleasures. I've experienced the trauma and excitement of spiritual rebirth. I've used Buddhist ideas to swat down some extremely pesky existential guilt and existential anxiety.

No, I haven't read everything there is to read about Buddhism. But I've read a lot. And now I feel like I've sucked the essential marrow from the bones ... further reading is becoming repetitive.

This raft of Buddhism has taken me far, and perhaps it will take me farther, but ... I don't need to keep carrying this raft with me everywhere I go. I can put it down, and walk away, knowing it will stay where I left it. I can build a different raft now, or perhaps I can simply walk on my own two feet for a while.

Not that there is anywhere special I need to go. I'm right here, now, aware, and sorta sleepy.

Every morning I awaken torn between the desire to save the world and the inclination to savor it.

— E. B. White

I've made a big deal about my mostly Buddhist spiritual path during the past couple of years ... searching for answers, searching for comfort, searching for inner strength, searching for the ethical rules I should follow ... searches that kicked into higher gear a few months after my father died ...

A couple weeks ago I decided to face, skip beyond, and then deconstruct a couple of the most difficult emotional obstacles limiting my life: existential fear and existential guilt. Afterward, I began to feel deeply calm.

Then I began to feel a paradoxical joy at my own unimportance. That's Thomas Merton's fault:

I think the chief reason why we have so little joy is that we take ourselves too seriously ... to penetrate the truth of how utterly unimportant we are is the only thing that can set us free to enjoy true happiness.

We are often a self-important species, viewing ourselves as the highest of life forms, making claims that we have personal relationships with the Creator, worrying about apocalypse and striving to build utopias. Maintaining elaborate portfolios of opinion and belief, we construct systematic and detailed methods for attaining peace and tranquility.

There is only so much Buddhism.

It is possible to become obsessed with reading ever more interpretations of Buddhism, forgetting to put any of it into practice. It is possible to stare so intently at the raft upon which we float that we pay no attention to our surroundings or our intended destination.

I have explored enough. I have distracted myself from my surroundings enough. I'm here, now. So, what now?

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Upon finding freedom, I'm not sure what to do with it.

Freedoms from and freedoms to ... which path do I explore now?

I need to write a personal mission statement. Then I need to tear it up and swallow it.

slashing through the sounds of the fog
cracking the chaotic stones of power
setting fire to the primal wetness
sacrificing the temples of order
to the hellhounds of the carefully forgotten dead

(I wrote this on March 26, 2003)

There is: The way the world works.

And,

There is (for each of us): The way the world ought to work.

The way the world works has absolutely nothing to do with the way (each of us thinks) the world ought to work.

In its most essential form, Buddhism describes the way the world works, and encourages us to sit still with that information. However, one of the ways in which the world works, is that people try to prescribe how the world ought to work — people create ideals. Buddhists do this too, more or less. Perhaps it is impossible for a human being to completely stop thinking "oughts" or "shoulds", though it might help to try.

However, if I tried to make people stop oughting and shoulding, I'd be, once again, trying to impose my own ideals upon the world. If I try to make myself stop, I'm trying to impose my ideals upon myself.

Imposing ideals doesn't work. At best, imposing ideals represses mindful decision-making and spontaneous behavior. At worst, imposing ideals destroys people's bodies, minds, and lives.

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Yesterday I was deeply depressed about my country's war against Iraq. From my point of view, knowing what I know, and under my own system of ideals, this war is unjust. In reality, there is no "my country", and my ideals about war and peace are artificial standards that have no effect on the world, other than to make me depressed when the world doesn't follow my standards.

Plus, each individual has her own standards about the world ... and the people who support this war believe it is harmonious with their own standards. For them, allowing Saddam's Iraq to continue as a member of the Axis of Evil was just as intolerable as, for me, Bush's pre-emptive war is intolerable.

As the Dalai Lama says, we are all the same, we all want the same things. We all want to feel happy and secure. We all want to meet our physical and emotional needs. These needs appear differently for each of us because we have experienced different lives, but they operate the same way for all.

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This is the way the world works. So, Buddhists tell us, sit still, relax. Good and evil are manifestations of the human mind, they are not reality. It is impossible to predict the future, therefore, it is impossible to know which actions will bring future pleasure and which actions will bring future pain. And, yes, there is pain, lots of pain. People are wounded, people are oppressed, people are killed. People starve, people lose their loved ones, people lose their property, people become sick, people die. Events do not turn out as planned. War and poverty bring ruin, peace and prosperity bring riches, and never are these evenly distributed around the globe. Some people dominate and control others, some people submit mindlessly, some people rebel against authority, some people are imprisoned, tortured, or killed by authority. Leaders face the same risks, insecurities, and pains as the people they lead.

There is pleasure in everyday life. There is pain in everyday life. There is chaos all around. We change from moment to moment, our surroundings change as well. Efforts to hold on to joyful circumstances can not ultimately succeed — they only increase suffering. Efforts to avoid sorrowful circumstances can not ultimately succeed — they only increase suffering.

(I wrote this on March 19, 2003 )

How do you decide what to think about?

If you are a media junkie like me, you probably think about whatever your media sources tell you to think about.

If you are a Buddhist practitioner like me, you probably think about the activities happening within your present surroundings ;-)

But even within those two broad categories -- media agendas & personal surroundings -- we focus on very particular and idiosyncratic items.

It is likely impossible to read every story in the newspaper -- and certainly not every story in each of the thousands of newspapers published on the Internet! Those people who read newspapers have their favorite sections, and usually only read those stories that look particularly interesting.

Very few people attend carefully to each item or event that occurs within their perceptual field -- your retina can not focus on everything! While concentrating on that pain in your neck you are probably not also paying attention to the pressure of your underwear's elastic waistband.

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Somehow we decide to focus on particular conditions, problems, or goals. These foci become the stages upon which we build our life stories. Generally, we become quite attached to these foci, and our emotions revolve around them. Either we like the item we are focusing on, so we are pleased; or we dislike the item we are focusing on, so we are displeased. Or, perhaps we've lost an item we used to focus on, so we are grieving; or we think we are about to gain an item we've been focusing on, so we are hopeful.

If our focus is not on the present moment ... all this internal storytelling is a product of our imaginations. Our imaginations may be more or less correct about whatever it is we are thinking about ... but, still, we are dealing merely with our internal imaginations, not with perceptions of reality.

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Buddhist meditation is mostly about realizing this. Realizing that our focus, whatever we are focusing on, is an arbitrary constriction of reality or imagination. With all the chaos happening around the world, and across the universe, we are focused on one particular thing. And, most likely, we are trying to hold on to that particular thing, or acquire it, or grieve it. At the expense of everything else that we could be focusing on instead.

Buddhist meditation is also about a different kind of focus. Instead of holding, acquiring, or grieving, a meditative focus observes, watches, appreciates, welcomes, and lets go.

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(I wrote this on March 8, 2003)

In my continuing quest to understand those with whom I differ, I read the Amnesty International report about Iraq's systematic torture of political prisoners. I'll assume for the moment that the report is error-free, and that whatever's happening to the Taliban prisoners at Guantanamo Bay at the hands of my own government is none of my concern ...

OK, so, Iraq is unapologetically torturing those citizens who dare to express anti-government sentiments.

This bothers me a lot more than allegations of "weapons of mass destruction" ... probably because I think the United States is hypocritical to complain when it has the largest and most deadly stockpiles of such weapons in history, and has killed more people with them than any other country with such weapons.

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See, part of my opposition to this war is really opposition to the pot calling the kettle black.

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In the past I've contributed money and time to Amnesty International. This is one of the charities on my short-list, when I've got extra money to give.

Amnesty International attempts to conduct impartial research on human rights abuses around the world. Genocide, extra-judicial killings, unfair trials, imprisonment without trial, imprisonment for non-violent expressions of dissent ... all of these are happening right now. The Holocaust Museum is not history ... it is happening now ... Never Again is Today.

So, should the United States go to war against a country because Amnesty International has documented torture or other human rights abuses?

Well ... it is entirely possible that such a war would kill more Iraqi people than the government of Iraq has itself tortured. Just as the war against the Taliban probably killed more innocent people in Afghanistan than died in the collapse of the World Trade Center.

Even looking at the Holocaust itself ... all those deaths in the gas chambers were probably less than 10% of the total deaths attributable to World War II. If, somehow, World War II had been fought over the sole issue of ending the Holocaust, it would have killed far more people than died in the Holocaust.

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War is a very expensive way to force change upon the world. Expensive in money, environmental damage, denial of civil liberties, injuries, and deaths. There is practically no discussion of these costs when people contemplate going to war. The typical war argument begins with a recitation of injustice or insecurity, followed by a demand of zero tolerance and a prediction of victory. The costs are difficult to estimate, and are typically ignored -- the costs are often ignored after the fact as well, when people look back and debate whether a war was successful. A war is won, or lost. There is no relative balancing of pros and cons, of costs and benefits.

The typical peace argument also fails to balance the costs and benefits -- arguing from "war is bad" sentiments, or "war is a last resort" or even "war is a conspiracy of the military-industrial complex". All of which I agree with ;-) But, these arguments don't convince people who are fixated on the casus belli.

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What is to be done ... in the face of torture. The war supporter will expect me to have an answer. How am I going to stop torture in Iraq?

I don't know that I can.

Perhaps war would stop torture in Iraq. Perhaps. But at what cost?

In 1914 Serbian terrorists assassinated the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. In revenge, World War I ensued, and over 8,000,000 people died in combat. Sure, assassination is wrong, but responding with a war made a huge mess of things.

There are nonviolent ways to respond to injustice.

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And, nonviolence doesn't always "work" ... there is still injustice in the world. Petty crime, murder, rape, torture, terrorism, genocide ... all the human rights abuses we find in the annual report of Amnesty International ... abuses on every continent, under every form of government.

(I wrote this on March 6, 2003)

I think it is more important to insist upon humane treatment of domestic animals than to ban domestic animals altogether.

I mean, Vegans don't prohibit keeping pets, right? They prohibit using the skins of those pets for fur, or eating the flesh of those pets for nourishment ...

But who would keep a cow as a pet? If everybody were Vegan, wouldn't cows, chickens, and pigs become extinct? Is there no value to living as a cow as long as a human drinks milk or eats hamburgers? The cow still lives, for a while, potentially enjoying the sunlight, grass, and open air. It seems to me that raising a cow for consumption really isn't any different than raising wheat or apples for consumption. Except for the issue of humane treatment. Cows appear to have some level of intelligence and feelings, so treating them poorly might cause them to feel pain and emotional distress. By not respecting the intelligence and feelings of cows, by treating them inhumanely, we cause them to suffer.

The more Democrats get mad at Nader, the more I want to vote for Nader, just to support the freedom of "minor" party candidates to run for President and present their alternate platforms to the citizenry. There are some things more important than beating Bush -- such as continuing to support a Constitutional republican form of democracy where anybody who meets the Constitutional criteria to run for President may run for President.

Some Democrats want to blame Nader for Bush, and I agree that Bush is the worst President since Nixon, but these Democrats believe they own Nader's votes, as though he were the only barrier between them and the White House. These Democrats would rather suppress my Constitutional rights to run for President and vote for whomever I choose, than lose.

Despite all the focus on Nader, Nader wasn't the only minor party candidate on Florida's ballot. According to the official count, Bush beat Gore by only 537 votes in Florida. But every minor party candidate got more than 537 votes in Florida, not just Nader. Browne got more than 537 votes. Buchanan got more than 537 votes. Hagelin got more than 537 votes. Harris got more than 537 votes. McReynolds got more than 537 votes. Moorehead got more than 537 votes. Nader got more than 537 votes. And Phillips got more than 537 votes. ^{http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/2000presgeresults.htm}

Making Nader the scapegoat for Bush is no better than making Queers the scapegoat for the decline of the American family. Bush got more votes than Gore. Bush is the reason Gore lost.

Show the American people why Kerry would make a better President than Bush, or Nader, or anybody else on the ballot. Do that, and Kerry will win.