Desultory Diary, Episode 29: We're in Trouble

A new definition of chutzpah! The old definition: a person, on trial for having murdered his parents, attempting to gain sympathy from the jury because he is, well, an orphan. The new definition: President Trump, whose animus against immigrants is legendary, presenting himself as an avatar of the Statue of Liberty. On the first evening of the Republican National Convention, Trump played the avuncular mentor-in-chief who welcomed five new citizens to this country. Are we supposed to forget that he has brought immigration--which has made this country great--to a standstill; that he has, with exceptional cruelty, separated children from parents at the border; that he has refused to grant immunity from deportation to adults who came to the United States as children? Stephen Miller in ballet shoes?

The RNC has been a propaganda show. Trump, the misogynist, has trouble with female voters. To counter justified criticism, many women who support Trump, some in high positions, professed their fealty to a man who invariably calls women opposed to him "nasty". Trump, the racist, has trouble with Black voters. To counter Black opposition, many African-Americans at the RNC presented a dubious case of Trump as an empathetic, fair-minded leader.

While in the real world the pandemic raged--which was hardly mentioned--and ongoing protests over police brutality continued, Mr. America's Reality Show went on--and on.

No one supports women more than Trump. The President is the least racist person in the entire world. Yeah, right.

2.

Two new images I find especially frightening. One is the picture of  a white couple aiming weapons at protesters passing by their mansion. There was apparently no threats of violence; the marchers marched on, as far as I could tell, ignoring the weapons pointed at them as best they could. Yes, you guessed it, the couple was invited to speak at the convention. The racial overtones of their talk was palpable. What would have happened if the gun-toting couple had been black and the protesters all white?

The second image was that of a young man with a smirk on his face, staring down an elderly man who apparently was trying to diffuse a situation that was getting out of hand. The elderly man was a Native American who was participating in an Indigenous Peoples March--this event occurred at the Lincoln Memorial in January 2019. The young man was part of a group of young Catholic high-school students who were bused in from Kentucky to hold a simultaneous pro-life rally.

The incident was not as clear-cut as one might have first thought. The whites had been taunted by a small group of Black Israelites, a group known for its confrontational style. Mr. Nathan Phillips, an elderly veteran, convincingly has asserted that he wanted to diffuse the escalating situation and began chanting and beating a drum. This is when the white student positioned himself in front of Mr. Phillips and stared him down.

Perhaps because I'm a senior myself, I saw the situation differently from those who reported it. I was horrified by the lack of respect the young man had for an elder, not to mention a Native American elder. The smirk on the young man's face was as hideous as it was iconic. Is that how we treat elders these days? In this instance, at least, yes indeed.

Growing old, believe me, isn't easy. Shouldn't a teen show a little respect for a man who has lived and suffered and survived into old age? The elder, after the video went viral and caused a furor, wanted to meet with the young man,  not to argue, but to diffuse the situation further. To my knowledge, his calls for reconciliation went unanswered.

Yes, you guessed it; the young man gave a little presentation at the RNC. He spoke against so-called "cancel culture."  After what I interpret to be a disrespectful, rude stare-down, he and his family received threats, including death-threats.  Matters made horribly worse!

The RNC gives the impression that the victims of cancel culture are always conservatives. The night before, Biden was portrayed as a left-wing radical. Trump family members called him "Beijing Biden," and, equally ridiculously, "The Loch Ness Monster of the Swamp." Joe Biden? Aren't these examples of cancel culture as well?

3.

On Sunday, August 23rd, 2020, a 29-year-old Black man was shot seven times in the back by a white police officer as the former attempted to get into his car. His three young children were in the back seat. It doesn't matter what he did or didn't do, the white officer's actions were completely unjustified. How many shocks can a person receive before he falls down dead?

The next day a white vigilante was driven from a neighboring state to Kenosha, Wisconsin, the site of the Black man's attempted murder. The seventeen year old vigilante, armed with an AR-15, shot into Black Lives Matter protesters and killed two, seriously injuring another. He can be seen in the video, running with his hands up with the weapon strapped to his chest, while witnesses screamed  to the police that he had just shot people. The police let him pass; he was arrested the next day. What would they have done if the vigilante had been Black? 

4.

None of these disturbances was mentioned during the convention. A police chief, however, gave thanks for Trump's unyielding support.

A picture came to mind; I remember it from my New York days. It depicts a Native American with a tear in his eye.

I weep for America. If subsequent events--beginning with a Biden victory--prove that I've been overreacting like a sentimental ass, I will be the first to admit it--and smile.

Desultory Diary, Episode 28: Towards a Kinder and Gentler Nation

Recently, I saw a YouTube clip of a man in Texas who said to a few friends, "The worst day in America is better than the best day anywhere else." He might as well have said, "Jesus Christ is Lord," for the group around him smiled in pious agreement. O, the arrogance!

The United States is, hands down, Number One in the world regarding Covid-19 deaths, but it lags behind other countries according to many indicators. We are the only wealthy country that lacks universal health coverage; we rank 35th according to longevity statistics, (just below Lebanon and just above Cuba), despite spending twice as much on health care as other wealthy countries; among the 31 OECD countries, we rank last regarding obesity; we are certainly nowhere near the best regarding infant mortality and education. The American Dream is alive and well, well, in Denmark.

Something is rotten in the United States, and it's about time that we do something about it.

The patriotic hubris of the Texans is not an isolated incident.

How many times have you come across someone asserting that this is the greatest country in the world? If you haven't ever been told this by a neighbor, teacher, or friend, you have probably been living on a different planet.

I am 75. When in grade school, I had to memorize the doggerel line, "In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue." At that time, Columbus was, in effect, a secular Messiah, who brought the gifts of Western Civilization to the New World. No mention of the Arawak Indians, who soon become extinct in Hispaniola, where Columbus first landed; not to mention the genocide against South American Indians, one of the worst genocides in history.

Regarding Thanksgiving, we were led to believe that Edward Hicks's painting, The Peaceable Kingdom, in which Pilgrims and Native Americans got along just fine, was historically accurate.

Later on, we were taught the concept of Manifest Destiny, namely, that it was God's will that the United States gain sovereignty from coast to coast, The wrong people in the wrong place at the wrong time, Mexican and Native Americans, had to be swept away like underbrush. And they were.

I remember the shock I felt, when, fairly recently, I picked up a bible with the American flag plastered all over it. It included on back pages a collection of religious hymns and patriotic hymns, and a mixture of both. America and God--there seemed to be no difference. An aria from The Messiah came to mind, with lyrics from the Old Testament, "Why do the nations so furiously rage together?/And why do the people imagine vain things?" Those lyrics were of course missing in that American bible.

I thought traditional religions taught that, while it is good to be patriotic, we live in a fallen world and every nation suffers from various degrees of fallenness. Not so in the American Religion, as the gaudy bible I had picked up proclaimed. It is dangerous, is it not, when the prophetic maxim, "walk humbly with your God," becomes, in effect, "God has chosen us to be on top!"

America's Original Sin

I grew up in the 1950s, and, like most white kids at the time, lived in a segregated neighborhood. (In a restricted sense, I still do, although my multi-racial family is no longer as unique as it once was.) Race was like rice in a pressure cooker over high heat--God had long since abandoned the kitchen--Pretty soon everything had to explode. And explode it did.

Blacks have had access to higher education; many have assumed positions of power. They are unwilling to be subjugated any longer. Progressive whites reject the racism of the past, as the multiracial protests in Portland attest. Yet not every white person is progressive.

When a pressure cooker explodes, expect a mess. I am firmly convinced however, that the mess can and will be cleared up.

Take the case of kneeling during the national anthem at NFL games. Colin Kaepernick--whose name sounds like that of a Dutch explorer--famously knelt in 2016 during the playing of the national anthem before a NFL game. He was protesting police brutality; his protest caused a furor in our divided country. God-and-country whites were deeply offended. Trump, in 2017, strongly advocated that players who refuse to stand during the anthem be fired. The NFL lost a lot of money.

The vehemence of the protests reminded me of the vehement arguments supporting either transubstantiation or consubstantiation, subtleties of Christian dogma over which people actually killed each other in the past. (Have people chosen to forget that the most important behavior is how we treat each other, not how we treat a flag? Colin Kaepernick has spent a lot of his money and time on children).

Things have since calmed down. On July 4, 2020, during a much-publicized game, it was left to the players to stand or to kneel during the anthem. A professor of African-American studies wrote, "I would have found it hard to believe it a year ago. I would have said something really happened in America to cause that. Clearly what has happened in America...fundamentally changed people's perceptions as it relates to racism in this society." The catalyst for this change was the brutal murder of George Floyd. You can be cynical and believe that the owners found a way for money to flow into their coffers again; nevertheless a change has occurred.

The intolerant God-and-country crowd, however, is still with us. I recently talked to some gym friends, who are mostly Trump supporters. When the topic of kneeling during the national anthem somehow came up, one of our friends went ballistic.

This person is vehemently against the removal of publicly displayed Confederate statues as well. Not much of a surprise there.

German Patriotism

I sometimes watch German-language TV. Once they had a segment regarding  teaching German teenagers the horrors of the Holocaust. Regarding the rabid anti-Semitism of those days, a teenager replied, in utter disbelief,  "Is this fiction?!" Yes, the degree of evil of the Nazi regime is beyond comprehension.

How do German patriots--and mostly everyone everywhere is, and should be, patriotic to some degree--fare these days? A teacher replied, "We love Germany. But we must love it with a broken heart."

I like that. America's racism has been, well, awful. America has also committed many atrocities around the world. Vietnam, Iraq, South America. There is a saying in Mexico, "Pity us. So far from God and so close to the United States." If you wonder why they could say something like that, ask a Native American.

There are of course many good things about our country as well. It is still--maybe not for long? a vibrant democracy. Long live the First Amendment--a variation of which in many countries simply doesn't exist. Despite many challenges, contemporary and in the past, the Constitution has been a beacon of light for the entire world.

Germany, with its sad history, is known as perhaps the least overtly patriotic country in Europe. It is also one of the most progressive. We could learn a lot from them, for our history has not been as good as many think. 


Maybe we could learn to love our country while we happily sing, "Hail, Columbia" without Columbus, and with a tear in our eyes. If we do, there is a good chance that George H. W. Bush's dream of a kinder, gentler nation would be fulfilled.

Covid Meditation, Episode Four: Sergeant Buddha

One of my favorite proverbs is in the Yiddish language: ibergekumene tsuris iz gut zu derstellen, (It is good to depict overcome sorrow). Such depictions can be of great use to the community at large, for it is likely that some in the community are currently enduring the sorrow which the speaker or writer has overcome. The implication is that one should stop complaining all the time; that one should work on the source of suffering in oneself and, after much hard work,  either accept it or overcome it, and move on. How one has succeeded in overcoming a particular source of sorrow, rather than continuing to wallow in it, can be of great use to others.

In this article I will discuss how the judicious use of righteous anger can help one progress spiritually. I assert that this limited use of anger has a universal application, although my perspective is Buddhist. Buddhism condoning the use of anger in certain situations? Sounds like an oxymoron, doesn't it? Perhaps not; I will explain.

Anger East and West

Buddhism with its emphasis on serenity, uphekka, traditionally has no place for anger. Dosa, anger, is one of the three defilements: lobha, dosa and moha, (greed, anger, and ignorance.) As far as I know, there are no examples of righteous anger in Buddhism. Insult a Buddha, and, typically, he or she will respond with love and compassion, not with hate or anger.

Western tradition is different. Its most well-known spiritual leader was Jesus of Nazareth, who, as reported in the Gospels, was no stranger to anger. Knocking down the tables of money lenders and those selling animals for sacrifice could not have been accomplished without anger. When asked, on another occasion, perhaps as a trick question, whether it was permitted to heal someone on the Sabbath, Jesus was reported to have "looked around at them with anger," (Mark 3:5). There are many recorded examples of Jesus's anger.

The Eastern tradition emphasizes wisdom and acceptance; the Western tradition emphasizes love and justice. When opposed by hate, Wisdom tends to respond with love and compassion; in contrast, Love, in response, say, to those in power who flout the Golden Rule, may on occasion respond with righteous anger. Both views are complementary; neither is wrong. (And, of course, people act similarly all over the world; in addition, East has long since met West. The contrast has philosophical significance, rather than geographical).

Anger and Meditation

I meditate regularly, almost always one hour twice daily. I've obtained several very useful insights during meditation. I am not going to depict personal issues here, just one insight, specifically one regarding anger issues, that might be helpful to others.

Nearly everyone conducts dialogues with oneself. Sometimes this inner voice needs a new script. As an example: what if your inner voice tells you, silently or angrily, that you are, say, stupid, a failure, or useless? These attitudes might be entrenched by years of negative thinking that often date back to childhood.

Buddhism recognizes three primary aspects of existence: dukkha (life is unsatisfactory, the ego will never be satisfied; anicca (there is no permanence) and anatta (there is no soul underlying reality). Science is in basic accord with these principles; deistic religions are not.

There is no place in the brain where the self resides. Da Vinci thought that the seat of the soul lay in the pineal gland; now we know it basically secretes melatonin. Science is completely in accord with the Buddhist principle that there is no permanent, abiding self.

Yet the illusion of a self, instead of providing the (equally illusory) ego with compliments, can sometimes be quite critical. I illustrate this with a reference to the iconic 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz. Visiting the Wizard's abode, Dorothy and her three companions are confronted by a screen on which an angry head appears which berates and belittles them. On a subsequent visit, Dorothy's dog pulls back the curtain of a small room, in which the Wizard is exposed. The angry man on the screen was produced by a wimp manipulating levers and a microphone--an illusion of technology, (examples with which we moderns are very familiar). The Wizard doesn't exist--the visitors have been scared to death by a sham!

Here's where Sergeant Buddha comes in. When an illusion yells, there's nothing in Buddhism that prevents one from yelling back. Compassion is good--but compassion  for rebarbative ghosts? It's best, of course, to treat the Wizard of Oz--sometimes I call him The Wizard of Id--in traditional Buddhist manner. "You are chemicals bearing false information. I will "re-wire" you into thoughts of love and compassion, by practicing love and compassion. I bear you no malice." This traditional method of silencing one's demons is best, but demons can be persistent. On occasion, it is efficacious (so I have found) to put illusions in their place--which is no place at all--by yelling back at them. Sergeant Buddha, after peeling back the curtain, can then tell the Wizard, in no uncertain terms, to get lost.

Examples where Sergeant Buddha Might Have Proven to be Useful

The first case is that of a very successful and good politician, Lázló Bogdán, a Hungarian politician who recently committed suicide at age 46. He killed himself at the height of his career, after doing many good deeds for his constituents. Why did he do it?

Bogdán belonged to the much-maligned Roma (Gypsy) community of Hungary. He became the mayor of Czerdi, a small, mostly Roma town, which was in bad shape when he took office. His success at job creation and crime reduction eventually made him well known throughout Hungary. He made much progress by encouraging self-sufficiency in the population. He died in the third term of his mayorship of Czerdi. He had been born poor, and worked himself up, beginning with employment as a menial laborer.

The prejudice against the Roma community of Hungary is fierce. I am sure he endured many racial put-downs in his too-short life. And no matter how good you are as a politician, there will always be those who vociferously oppose you. Add to this the fact that Bogdán was ambitious--racism, political opposition and ambition--all these ingredients probably fueled his critical Wizard of Id.

You're a failure; you're inferior; you haven't done enough. If such criticism arose from his inner voices, and they probably did, Bogdán might have benefited from an inner Sergeant Buddha who would have exposed the sham voices  and yelled back at them.

The second example is that of the great German Romantic composer, Robert Schumann (1810-1856). Schumann's music was quite advanced for the time. It took a lot of time to catch on with the public. He was also a shy man, quite awkward in social situations. He was frequently underestimated, even dismissed. His wife, the famous pianist and composer, Clara Schumann, overshadowed him for much of his career. He was not jealous of her--theirs is one of the great love stories of the century--but, as a very ambitious man, the fact that he was sorely underestimated, at least by his standards, caused him a good deal of suffering.

Later, as his brain deteriorated from tertiary syphilis, his inner voices, which had been kept in check by his successes, hard work, and by the love of his wife, came to the fore. They were very critical; they told him that he was bad and very wicked. Judith Chernaik, in her excellent biography of Schumann, reported on his inner state at this time of his life: "He believed fervently that he was a sinner, damned forever." This from a good, gentle man who, as far as I know, never harmed anyone!

Note that both men were inordinately ambitious. Desire--and ambition is certainly a form of desire--was considered by the Buddha to be the very root of suffering. No doubt desire fomented the biting criticisms of each man's inner voices. The traditional Buddhist path, the Eightfold Way, is a time-tested way to put desire in its place. What about Sergeant Buddha? How can his anger help in certain circumstances?

Conclusion

On one occasion, a man, most likely mad, accosted Buddha. He was very angry, and showered Buddha with insults. Buddha remained serene. How could he have remained calm in a situation in which many would return anger with anger? "Anger is like a pail of refuse," Buddha replied. "A man can put it down at my feet, but I don't have to pick it up."

Good advice, but many of us, myself included, haven't reached that state. Knowing that the Wizard of Id isn't real, and thus, knowing that one's anger is not doing any living being harm, sometimes it might be best if Sergeant Buddha picks up the pail of refuse and angrily throws it in the Wizard's direction, and then goes on the Way.

The motive of a good drill sergeant is not the humiliation of someone, but to help that someone mature; Sergeant Buddha is no different.

I think an angry Buddha can be of great help in the silencing of a vicious inner voice. Remember, though, that this example of righteous Buddhist anger is quite limited, and must be aimed at the voices of non-being, which hinder spiritual progress. After these negative voices have been dressed down and put in their place--which is no place--their power is weakened. (One yell, unfortunately, usually isn't enough. Work on love and compassion by all means, but whenever that overcritical voice appears, let the Sergeant yell until those little demons cease their mischief, at least temporarily. Another point worth mentioning is that we are not talking about psychotic wizards here, but neurotic ones. If one is "really" hearing voices, it's time to see a psychiatrist). 

Be mindful, be ready when the Wizard begins his nonsense. Let Sergeant Buddha drill him down. After that, Sergeant Buddha can retire awhile and Buddha can once again take over, leading us on into the light of love and compassion.

It is good to depict overcome sorrow. What worked for me might work for you. Such is my hope.

Covid meditation: Episode 4: Patience!

1. Patience in Art

One afternoon, before Covid-19 upended everything, I was driving home, and stopped at a light near my house. I had my right turn signal on; in Maryland, it is legal to make a right turn on red. Except in this case: there was a sign on the traffic light clearly marked No Turn On Red. The car behind me began to honk, and honk--and honk. I didn't move, and he didn't stop honking. Road rage, I thought, and, I admit  it, I felt scared. When the light finally changed, I made the right turn, while he honked  a few more times, as he whizzed on straight ahead, to let me know how much I had angered him.

Has that ever happened to you?

On another occasion, while driving on a highway, I witnessed a sports car weave in and out of lanes at high speed, like a hapless hare pursued by a bobcat. Why is the driver--most probably a he--risking his life and ours? Getting home a few minutes early so he can catch the beginning of his favorite show? Unlikely, since these days most shows are streamed. Rushing to get to point B from point A to taste a delicious samosa freshly prepared by his Indian wife? Unlikely; even if this unlikely pair were likely, she probably would be on the way home--at a more reasonable speed--from work as well. Speeding because he has an anxious foot on the pedal and a mind flailing about like a rabid bat? Speeding for no other reason than no reason at all? Likely, alas! indeed.

Why are we so impatient?

Our age sometimes has been referred to as "The Age of Anxiety." It is difficult to imagine anxiety without impatience. "The Age of Impatience," is therefore a synonym for our age; both adjectives apply to our impatience- and anxiety-provoking times, characterized as having more burning questions than soothing answers; as having more intractable problems than tractable solutions; as having more intangible woes, and fewer solid consolations.

It wasn't always thus. In the past, before electricity, people followed circadian rhythms, resting when it got dark and rising with the sun, rather than subjecting themselves and others to the unearthly rhythms of a Mexican jumping bean.

Patience was once considered to be one of seven traditional virtues; people were once actually expected to have the patience of a saint. Patience helped one endure difficult times; patience helped us be satisfied with inner light until sorrow's outer darkness dissipated.

One of my favorite statements regarding patience comes form Proverbs 14:29: The patient man shows much good sense, while a quick-tempered man displays folly at its height.

Our impatient age has much to learn from the much more patient past. In the sixteenth century, the Italian master Georgio Vasari painted The Allegory of Patience, which is now on display (when Covid-19 cases diminish, permitting its reopening) at the National Gallery in Washington D.C.)

The woman is chained to a rock; she patiently waits for the water to corrode the chain so she can break free. She looks down at her bound limb with an expression of supreme patience, her body conveys the peace of her mind; not a trace of tension anywhere.

Yes, she's going to have to wait a long time; and that's precisely the point.

2. Patience in Literature

There are undoubtedly many examples of patience in literature; I will list and briefly analyze two of my favorites.  The first is "On his Blindness," by John Milton.

When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Master, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide;
"Does God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait.

One of the finest sonnets in the English language. Rarely does one come across a poem where technique and content are so seamlessly fused. It is one of the profoundest poems as well--The wisdom of acceptance, the lack of which in modern culture often wreaks havoc, resulting  in frenzy and despair.

Next to the sublime last line, my favorite is, "Does God exact day-labour, light denied?" The protagonist expects great things from himself, and is perhaps close to despair from his inability to accomplish great things. (The metaphor for  this inability is blindness, but many other "defects" can be substituted.) An example; the composer Salieri in Schaffer's play, Amadeus, who wantS to serve God with great works of art, but lacks the ability to do so; how unfair it is that the capricious Mozart is endowed with talent in abundance!)

Salieri murmurs a lot in the play, but the protagonist of this poem, a man of faith, will not. Patience comes in the form of accepting life as it is, not as one's fantasy demands. Replace "God" with "life" and this line applies as deeply to modern secularists. If you don't accept the Book of Life's minute entry that describes yourself, too bad. To try and replace it with a phrase such as, "I am a very stable genius," when you're anything but, is the height of folly.  Sadness turns into joy, however, when the Book of Life is accepted as a whole. Once (at least relatively) free from the ego, one delights in everything: one's mind, one's neighbors, one's world.

The exquisite last line is a good way to segue to the second poem, In honour of St. Alphonsus Rodriquez Laybrother of the Society of Jesus, by Gerard Manley Hopkins:

Honour is flashed off exploit, so we say;
And those strokes once that gashed flesh or galled shield
Should tongue that time now, trumpet now that field,
And, on the fighter, forge his glorious day.
On Christ they do and on the martyr may;
But be the war within, the brand we wield
Unseen, the heroic breast not outward-steeled,
Earth bears no hurtle then from fiercest fray.

Yet God (that hews mountain and continent,
Earth, all, out; who, with trickling increment,
Veins violets and tall trees makes more and more)
Could crowd career with conquest while there went
Those years and years by of world without event
That in Majorca Alfonso watched the door.

(After teaching a course on Hopkins, I wrote an essay for the students which can be found at the following address: https://thomasdorsett.blogspot.com/2017/10/st-afphonsusrodriquez-alias-gerard.html) What follows is a quote from that article:

Alfonso Rodriquez (1532-1617) was the son of a wool merchant. When his father died when Alfonso was 14, the latter took over the business, but was unsuccessful. The future saint married, at the age of 16, a peasant woman and had three children. When he became a widower with two surviving children, he began to be increasingly devout, which in this case included severe austerities. When his last child died, he sought to enter a religious order. He was not accepted by the Jesuits to be trained as a priest, since he had little education...Eventually, he was accepted by the Jesuits as a lay brother. He was soon transferred to the Jesuit college in Majorca, where he served as a doorkeeper, or hall porter, for 46 years.

The inner struggles of an ordinary man, (in Rodriguez's case they were considerable), do not make the news, they are, according to Hopkins, newsworthy, nevertheless. They do not escape the merciful eye of God; God hews mountains, yes, but he also veins violets. He helped overcome hardships and daily struggles of a man whom we might designate today as a manic-depressive. Yet Rodriguez accepted his lot and performed a function commensurate with his abilities for 46 years--a prodigious example of patience. His humility, serenity, and affability made him, well, saintly. His is an example of patience in enduring his Cross without complaint.

These two examples of patience fit together nicely. The first is an example of a great man, the second, and example of a humble one. Transcendent patience, however, applies to both.

3. Patience in Music: Geduld! Geduld!

In the early 60's, I bought a recording of the St. Matthew Passion conducted by Karl Richter. The recording dated from 1958. Richter favored much slower tempos than are usual today; the emotional intensity of the performance, which I listened to countless times, had a very deep impression on me. I remember calling the figured bass in the astounding opening chorus the "sore-tooth bass" for it pounded home man's inhumanity to man, an impression which is still vivid after all these years.

My brother was affected as well. One the choruses, "O Jesu, was hast du begangen" became the first line (in English, "O Jesus, what crime have you committed?") of one of his first poems.

Years later, around 1975, after I received a fatal diagnosis at Columbia Presbyterian, (which proved not to be so bad--I'm still here), I walked home, nearly 100 blocks, muttering to myself, "Selbst das Wenige, was sie haben, selbst das wird ihnen genommen"--the Biblical, "even the little they have will be taken from them." I walked through dangerous neighborhoods, and on at least one occasion, fearlessly walked through a gang of young men, all the while mumbling those words; they cleared a path before me, an apparent madman. (Later, this reminded me of  George Fox, who,  in 165o, in a fit of madness, took off his shoes before the town of Lichfield and subsequently marched through its streets screaming, "Woe to the inhabitants of bloody Lichfield!" Later, he gave the lame excuse that he did it because someone was martyred there in the 3rd century.)

When I got home on West 59th Street, I played the Richter recording in its entirety.

Bach's St. Matthew Passion has remained among my favorite classical pieces to this day. I am writing this because of a wonderful tenor aria in the piece, called Geduld! Geduld! (Patience! Patience!). The background to this aria is as follows: Jesus is on trial. The High Priest testifies against him that Jesus blasphemously claimed to reconstruct the Temple, if destroyed, in three days. Jesus remains silent. The tenor aria is aimed at Bach's contemporaries: "Patience! Patience! When false tongues injure,/ if I suffer, though innocent,/ insult and mockery,/God will avenge the innocence of my heart." To remain patient, to keep silent when mocked--our twitter culture could learn a lot from that!

Here is my favorite recording of the piece, by the late, great Fritz Wunderlich:

4. Patience in Buddhism

Buddhism stresses not sweating the small stuff, to be patient with others and with oneself, and to concentrate on the big picture, peace. The impetus for writing this article is the occasional impatience I feel during meditation. Meditation can transform the personality in a very positive sense, but it takes time. It is working, but sometimes I am almost as impatient as the driver on the highway. Negative karma, after all, has been building up over a lifetimes, and, if you believe in reincarnation, for a long time prior to birth. There are no easy fixes in the universe, and Buddhism, albeit an answer, is not an easy answer. Without patience, little progress will be made. 

In Buddhism, there is an attainable state called that of the "stream-winner" (sotapanna). The stream-winner has gained insight into the truths of Buddhism. Enlightenment is inevitable; backtracking is now impossible. But Enlightenment can take up to 17 lives at this point! Talk about the necessity of being patient!

I have written about what I consider to be a "Wizard of Id" a disembodied critic inside the head. We peek behind the curtain, and realize that the Wizard is a sham. Yet it keeps on criticizing,  and, in weaker moments before Enlightenment, which are many, we still believe that nattering sham. We need to keep patient and to keep meditating, focusing on truths! This is why I find the lyrics to Bach's aria so apt. "The false tongues" I interpret as being one's false inner critics.

Mortal creatures, however, cannot have infinite patience. Hillel's question, "If not now, when" pierces the heart. We must do our best patiently. We must have the wisdom to know what doing our best means. Buddhism, as well as other systems, provides an adequate path. Great art has a lot to tell us about how to walk this path, with humility and with patience. Vesari, Milton, Hopkins and Bach--and, of course, Buddha--remember their examples when you lose patience with yourself, or with others. Smile, laugh, and then, patiently move on.

Covid Meditation--Episode Three

Approximately two months ago, on day 67 of the lockdown, I began to meditate more seriously, a resolve which has been assiduously followed. What have I learned in the interim?

1.
There are two things that I do spectacularly well. When I sit in meditation, which I've been doing longer and more frequently, I observe plain air going through my nostrils and into my lungs. After it accomplishes its ancient business of respiration, it exits, albeit modified, just as mysteriously as it entered. In and out, in and out; in my 76th year of life, I still do this with the same expertise I did when I started.

And, a fact which thoroughly delights me, I do this no better or worse than you. You might sing better than me, I might sing better than you; you might have more or fewer friends; no matter your circumstances or mine, we are expert breathers. Why isn't this enough?

2.
Before the covid epidemic, I did some volunteer work with a hospice program. The patient whom I visited, first every week, than more frequently as he got sicker, had had a tough life. At age 18, he had witnessed the murder of his mother by strangulation at the hands of his father. He was raised in a very tough neighborhood; once as a young man, he remained hospitalized for three months, having been an accidental victim of a drive-by shooting. The worst time in his life, he told me, was when he was homeless for a year in Baltimore; he said he was very near hopeless during the brutal winter of this homeless year.  That was the only time in his life during which he had occasional suicidal ideation.

Talk about a reactive depression.! Otherwise, he--I will call him Mr. C-- was remarkably upbeat. Saved by social workers, he lived in public housing for the last two and a half decades of his life. He was a social worker's dream--he never complained, and never used drugs.

If you ever got to know this champion breather, you would never waste your breath again.

Being an artsy guy, I asked him what his favorite piece of music was. It was "What Becomes of the Broken Hearted" by the Temptations:

He listened to this beautiful song on his phone over and over. It reminded him of his mother, to whom he had been very attached.

Mr. C was an amazing, unforgettable person. Everyone in the nursing home loved him. So many of the other patients complained; Mr. C. never complained.

As he was dying, I increased my frequency of visits. The last time, the day he died, he could no longer talk. I was well aware that he could still hear me--at least I thought so. Still feeling a bit guilty that I was not at my mother's side when she passed away in 2001, I shut the door, vowing to stay by his side until his last breath.

I closed the door, and kept on singing softy gospel tunes I knew he would know. How many times I sang "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," I'll never know. Eventually a soft death rattle became apparent. As his lungs filled with fluid, I raised my singing voice level, and continued. I'll never forget the last breath of this wonderful, gentle man. His suffering was almost over; his face relaxed. 

Mr. C. had been an expert breather for nearly sixty-five years. I will miss his expertise forever.

Mr. C. had led a simple life. He was not a doctor, lawyer or accountant; he was not a mailman, salesperson or clerk. He had earned some supplemental income when he could, by helping  a friend of his paint houses. Yet Mr. C., in my book, was a towering figure. Nearly everyone could learn a lot from him. One of his favorite sayings was "Go with the flow"--the current of life kept him afloat for years with hardly a complaint on his part. 

As I witnessed his final breath, I realized why the ancient Hebrews thought that breath and soul were one. G-d had breathed the soulbreath, the ruach adonai, into Adam's nostrils. We humans begin breathing at the first cry, and end it as we breathe our last.

3.
Meditation is a wonderful way for us to know that breathing is enough. You can always fall back on it periodically; it will support you; it will make you wiser. Yes, do what you do best as best you can, but, in this highly competitive world, if you sometimes think you have failed, do what you do best with unquestionable expertise: breathing. 

Buddhism, (and science), with its doctrine of anatta, "no soul," denies the existence of an eternal soul, even in this life. The ego is a fiction! If your id is doing a number on you, remember it has no more substance than the Wizard of Oz. Peak behind the curtain--smile, and realize what a fool you've been listening to him rather than listening to your own breath.

Thank you, plants, for the oxygen. Thank you, universe, for the privilege of meditation. Who focuses on breath begins to clear the hot air that has condensed into faulty thoughts. It might take some time to achieve tranquility, but, if one is persistent, one will be rewarded, After all, you've been breathing for a lifetime. Becoming truly aware of what you're doing is the best way to become aware of what truly is. 

Choose life, as the ancients taught us. Choose relationships, not love of money or fame. Chose wisdom, not distractions, of which there are many. Once again, choose life! Periods of silence, focusing on breath, refining periods of action, focusing on deeds--

Just live justly.  Breathe!

Book Review: Quichotte, by Salman Rushdie

Quichotte
by Salman Rushdie  
Random House 2020
London
390 pages          

The late Tom Wolfe, journalist turned author, whose major novel, Bonfire of the Vanities, appeared in 1987, complained that many modern novelists failed to do enough research regarding the themes broached by their novels. If he were alive today, he certainly would not have included Rushdie among those novelists whose lack of planning and whose unfamiliarity with details is readily apparent. Quichotte is as complex and detailed as a Tibetan sand mandala.

The well thought-out many layered plot contains fictions within fictions, some of them "written" by a fictive character of the novel. It is done so well that as we open each Babushka doll, as it were, we are surprised, even delighted; he maintains this artistry to the very end of the novel as we open the last doll, and are left with, well, nothing.

This, in keeping with the Quichotte tradition, is a picaresque novel with a very complex plot. The constant progress of the story line, including many twists and turns, is very entertaining. The theme of the novel, however, is bleak. In Rushdie’s words, pertaining to  the fictive author of the doubly fictive Quichotte character:

He talked about wanting to take on the destructive, mind-numbing junk culture of his time just as Cervantes had gone to war with the junk culture of his own age.

Nothing very ambitious, then, she (his sister) said. 

                                                               --page 289

                                                     

Rushdie is being ironic here, for his novel is very ambitious indeed.

At one point in the narrative, it is asserted that only two attitudes to life are valid: one, that life has meaning, albeit a hidden one; and two, entropy wins, thus life has no meaning at all. Entropy does indeed win. The end of the novel reminded me of Macbeth’s famous lines, that life...”is full of sound and fury,/ signifying nothing.”

The novel is very much about the Indian diaspora, symbolic of the near impossibility of finding a solid home in a world where "the center no longer holds.” The main characters of the novel, including the characters Quichotte's fictive creator invents, all hail from India. They have changed their names to better assimilate—Ismail, for instance, becomes Smile—but it doesn’t really work. Even if they feel at home in the West; even if they marry Westerners, they are more than occasionally reminded that their skin tone prevents them from being fully accepted. They wind up being at home nowhere, not in India, Pakistan, the United States or Britain. This describes, perhaps, Rushdie’s own view. After partition, Rusdie’s father chose Pakistan, while Rushdie chose to remain in India. Rushdie subsequently moved to Britain. Can one imagine Rushdie at home in the England of Brexit, in the India of Modi, in the Pakistan of Khan, or in the United States of Trump? I think not.

Rushdie is an expert story teller, as evinced by the wonderful tale of Ayesha in The Satanic Verses. A parallel to that tale is the equally beautiful, if sad, story of Sancho. Seeking love like his doubly fictive father, he takes a bus where he encounters the blue fairy in the form of an old woman—the blue fairy is central to the Pinocchio tale of a puppet being transformed into a real boy; Sancho is on his way to see “Beautiful from Beautiful, Kansas” a young Indian woman he had encountered on the journey cross-country with Quichotte. (Jiminy Cricket, you guessed it, had previously appeared to Sancho in the form of an Italian-speaking cricket, the Grillo Parlante, They have lively exchanges, in English and in Italian. Ruhsdie’s humor, however, fails here, a least for me.) Just as he rings the doorbell of Beautiful, from Beautiful, he disappears, since he is no longer an integral part of Quichotte’s imagination. It is a beautifully told tale; no Disney ending here, however. The tale, like the novel, ends in annihilation.

For Rushdie, however, a story is more than just a story. If life has no meaning, stories, quintessentially human, are what give life meaning, at least on a temporary basis. Religious faith is no longer possible for secularists like Rushdie; other fictions, such as nationalism, etc. are no longer possible either. Even Quichotte’s quest for romantic love is mocked; Quichotte’s quest begins only after his so-called, Internal Event, his stroke. Prior to this, he was, apparently, more rational.

There is one exception to the belief that life has no meaning. It is the belief in some form of the Golden Rule. If life truly had no meaning, all the mean-spirited characters of the book would be as valid as the kind ones. What makes junk culture junk culture, the windmill aimed at by the lance of Rusdie’s prose, is its inhumanity, its assault on the truth that we should treat neighbors with love and kindness.

The center no longer holds, but the center is still there. There is apparently a warm ocean beneath ten miles of solid ice on one of Saturn’s moons, Enceladus. Who, standing on the frozen surface, would be aware that life potentially exists far beneath his feet? Viewed metaphorically, every lie, every conspiracy theory, buries the source of potential life deeper and deeper. 

The book offers No Exit. At the end, the main doubly fictive characters, Salma R. and Quichotte, try to escape a collapsing world by transportation to another Earth, a system devised by Evel Cent, formally known as Awwal Sant. It doesn’t work. They are instead transported to the room of the dying fictive man who created them:

He saw the first minute creature enter, gasp, and faint, its hope turning to despair… The microscopic man, the creature of the Author’s imagination, had brilliantly done the impossible and joined the two worlds, had crossed over from the world of Fancy into the Author’s real world, but in this one he was unassimilable, helpless, puny, gasping for air, not finding it, choking, and so lost.

Stop! cried the Author, knowing what would happen next, the thing he could not stop, for he had already written it; it had already happened, so it could not be prevented from happening. His heart pounded, feeling as if it might burst from his chest. Everything was coming to an end.

The end cannot be changed after it has ended, not the end of the universe, not the death of an Author, nor the end of two precious, even if very small, human lives.
     

There they stood in the gateway, on the threshold of an impossible dream: Miss Salma R and her Quichotte.
                                                                      page 390
                                                                        

Entropy wins again! This is an entropic version of Alice having fallen trough the Rabbit Hole. Here, however, there will be no vials marked Eat Me and Drink Me; there will be no Cheshire Cat, no Mad Hatter, no Queen of Hearts, no anything.

It is a tribute to Rushdie’s genius that he is able to entertain us so fabulously as we gaze into the kaleidoscope of his creation, fascinated by its many moving jewels. We are delighted throughout; most of us moderns are able to handle the bleak ending as well. For as Buddha taught in his doctrine of anicca, everything changes; most of us now are aware that nothing is permanent, everything in the universe must come to a (non-Disney) end. Even great novels.

"Small Hands Blues" Have Gotten Worse

November 8, 2016, the date during which American citizens decided who would be their next president, was, at least in Baltimore where I live, a wonderfully crisp fall day. Several hours after I voted, as the results were starting to come in, I noticed that two of the three of us gathered before the LCD screen—my wife, Nirmala, and my nephew, Ranji--looked a little nervous.  I, however, remained calm.  “Hillary will definitely win, don’t worry—The American people will not elect a pathological narcissist with non-existent impulse control and with very little to offer, other than hyperbole and populist blather."

That's a quote from a blog essay entitled "Small Hands Blues," which I wrote directly after Trump had been elected president.

I knew his number even then. After the nation's disastrous selection, I didn't expect him to "grow into the job," as several pundits predicted. I expected a mess, and that's what we got.

https://thomasdorsett.blogspot.com/2016/11/the-small-hands-blues.html

Up until the Covid epidemic, Trump enjoyed what I call the "luck of the non-Irish"--a fortunate outcome of a throw of the dice by the chilly hands of entropy. But entropy asserts that nothing lasts; winter must come, even to fools, and so it did. 

I also predicted in the blog that the white working-class, who had a right to be angry but were angry for the wrong reasons, by the time Trump's term was up, would realize that they'd been duped and would see the land of the free beyond the Trumpian pig-iron fence. This is beginning to happen, thanks to the increasing manifestations of incompetence and malevolence on the part of our president, but I expected a stampede of raging whites, rather than relatively small groups of cattle transformed back into human beings by a repentant Circe.

The Mad Red Hatter's luck has run out. During the first three years, the Union was in relatively good shape, no thanks to him. (His sole achievement during this time was a tax cut that outrageously benefited the wealthy.) Then came the Covid epidemic. (How many persons would still be alive today, (138,000 dead as of 7/17/2020), if it weren't for Trump's incompetence? Thousands!)

The liar headed the birther movement for five years before he was elected. Some 17,000 lies later,  Trump, leading us into the valley of the shadow of death, still claims we should fear no evil and proceed. 

He wants the nation to get back to work for the sole purpose of getting himself reelected.  (He refuses to wear a mask, like an overweight angel of death.)

I knew he was mentally ill from the very beginning.  The pathological narcissist whom we elected--intellectually limited, incurious, racist, misogynistic, self-centered and viciously mean has behaved abominably, just as one should have expected.

Last night, I listened to Rachel Maddow's interview of Mary Trump, whose book excoriating her uncle has just been published. Maddow asked Trump's niece if she had ever heard him use the "n" word and/or antisemitic slurs. Mary Trump looked surprised. "Yes, of course," she replied. Maddow looked very serious, as if she had brought something very hidden to light.

The man who headed the birther movement; the man who wanted the Central Park Five to be executed; the man who thought the latter group of black and Latino men shouldn't be released from prison, even after, many years later, they had been found to be innocent; the man who ordered families to be separated at the border; the man who said that there were fine people on both sides after white supremacists marched on Charlottesville, etc; should we be surprised that such a man used racial epithets in private? If Mary Trump said that she never heard a racial slur come out of her uncle's mouth, I would instinctively know that she was not telling the truth.

C'mon, Rachel Maddow.

(It would be different if, say, President Obama, in a purloined recording, had declared himself to be a Holocaust denier. A lot different.)

What annoys me about many pundits is that they act surprised or outraged when Trump, a bad man, behaves badly. I suppose that's how they earn their money.

Another thing that annoys me about pundits: when Trump talks nonsense, they try to parse his statements as if he really believed what he said. For instance, Trump claimed recently that experts have been exaggerating the severity of the Covid epidemic, and that "99% of the time" the infection was harmless. As if this ignorant man were capable of making a scientific statement! Trump meant nothing more than"a whole lot"  by his designation of "99%". Pointing out that "99%" was way off the mark is like taking a little braggart kid seriously when he claims his big braggart dad is the richest person in the world.

Taking this evil Pinocchio in the White House seriously as if he were a real boy instead of a crazy man is, I guess, how pundits make their money. To keep sane, I limit my exposure to them.

As I wrote in my 2016 blog, I had told my nephew, on the eve of the election, not to worry; America would never choose him. Yet we did. I am now a lot less sanguine about our democracy than I was in 2016. Mary Trump read my thoughts when she stated that if The Orange Impostor wins again, the American experiment would probably be over. We can't let that happen!

Or can we?