Gladiators and the Forgetting

Buy Nothing Year???

Barely Buy Nothing Day... I managed to use my steel cup for a Starbucks coffee a couple of times, but I blocked out my conscious thought as I bought a bagel on my way to work (30 minutes after morning meditation no less).

Hypocrisy starts at home, I suppose.

This is going to be a whole lot harder than I thought.

So, tonight.

I'm feeling the jitters of someone who is a few weeks into trying to be VERY strictly vegetarian... Well, maybe one week of KINDA vegetarian.

So, I'm craving something. A week of getting up at five in the morning and praying to Shiva or Narayana can do the darndest thing... like make you want to drink beer or read People magazine or masturbate...

But, I let that pass. Exhale.

Well, I get some beer and order a sandwich from my local eatery. Yes, in packaging no less.

As I flip the TV on, lo and behold, what is the first thing that I spy on?

A documentary on the NFL...

I never watch sports.

But, since I'm on the sixth ring of hell, I might as well drop down to the final level.

But, it's not about money or sex or bling or even spectacular plays.

It's about postconcussive issues from the collisions in the NFL and early onset dementia.

And, it's moving.

It's karma, right there on the screen. Cause and effect.

Young, strapping men, at the peak of their physical prowess, their power, their glory.

Flash forward 20 years and you see crippled, broken, depressed men. Families. Their wives.

And a League that treats them as we treat all older people... with benign neglect on one hand and contempt on the other.

It is a Faustian bargain that these players make.

The star that burns twice as bright burns half as long, so says the maker in the movie, Blade Runner.

But, enveloped in the darkness that is dementia, the evil forbidden land of confusion, these former giants, former gladiators must feel some sense of regret. Some sense of sadness at a life destroyed by a moment of fame.

There was one very moving piece about a 58 yo former linebacker. Now a successful partner in a law firm. Smart and able, he and his wife planned for a life after football. But, tests show that his memory is slowly, inexorably slipping away.

He is just intelligent enough to clearly see his future. His drift into the "long goodbye". And, all he can think about is whether he will someday have the courage to take his own life.

We are all dying. Every day.

We do things unknowingly to expedite this. By the time we realize that we've smoked or drank too much, slept with the wrong person, worked in the wrong, unsatisfying job or just generally lived the life that we've come to regret... well, it's too late and we regret.

I hope the NFL can find a way to take care of these men. And their future players in need.

What happens to all of us, someday, when we are no longer young and good looking? No longer powerful and rich? When the lights are off and we are left alone, facing our end?

Is there compassion? A hand to hold? Someone to listen to our cries, our fears, our aches?

I hope so.

We will be there soon enough.

Buy Nothing Day... or Year?

I was reading some of my Walden today. Simplify, Thoreau entreats us. Live near the margin. In your mind more so than geographically, isolation/solitude/aloneness is a cleansing experience to him.

Unorthodox even in his own time. Ridiculed even. But, timeless in its apprehension that what is essential in life is often not seen or understood until we strip away most of the veneer of "happiness".

The clothes. The nights out carousing with people you don't even like. The pomp of titles and accomplishments.

Who are you, without the externals? Without the signals that are sent to others that signify your status, your importance, your role in the hierarchy of life?

What if you step outside the hierarchy?

What do they see?

More importantly, what do you see in yourself?

The magazine Adbusters advocates a "Buy Nothing Day" in the hopes of trying to turn this perspective on in the general population.

One of their main premises is that we are constantly inundated with advertisements, enveloped in messaging and commercialism and useless technology.

Our thoughts are rarely original, even if we think they are.

Right now, I'm channeling Thoreau, who was transmitting Hindu scriptures, which were expressing some age-old, preexisting thought no doubt itself.

The difference is not that originality is difficult.

But, rather, we are so swamped by external influences that it is exponentially harder and harder to identify anything true and resonant within our psyche.

The Internet, text messaging, the I-whatever of the month, group vacations, Monday Night Football, the war in Iraq, antiterrorism, even self-help and yoga...

Commercialization of everything rots our sense of the "commons". Our community itself.

Even our "communities", our prefabricated suburbs of uninspired, crappily manufactured, industrially toxic McHomes, with the pool and the community center and the geometrically proportioned lawns that shouldn't be there in the first place... even our communities are "sold" to us with packaging and mental manipulation.

Hence, "Buy Nothing Day".

But, how about buying nothing for a month or a year? Or forever?

I guess I have to qualify what constitutes something that is "bought".

I'm talking about discretionary purchases that are unnecessary to live, that don't factor into your day to day needs and are not essential in any way.

I was just at the Recycle Center this morning. Just seeing all the stuff that we get rid of. The sofas, the TVs, the plastic lawn chairs, the children's toys. All that stuff going into landfill.

Multiply that by the populations of China and India and I just felt despair.

We destroy our planet so we can buy some gadget that we'll only throw away in a year or two?

So...

I'm going to try.

I've been paring my possessions down quite a bit over the past year. Getting rid of as much stuff as I can.

If I don't wear it once a week, it's gone. If it's a duplicate of something that I already have that works well, it's gone.

But, perhaps I need to stop the influx of stuff in the first place.

So...

I'm going to try not to buy anything for a year... Yikes!

Let's have some caveats here.

These things don't count (I'm backsliding already):

1. Soap and other toiletries (toothbrush, toothpaste, etc.)
2. Food, although I'm committed to not buying anything that results in artificial packaging being needed. That means no takeout or delivery. Minimizing eating out altogether. No cups of coffee unless I use my own container. No little plastic caps. You get the picture.
3. Travel. No souvenirs or other trinkets, but the cost of the tickets themselves, etc.
4. Electronic music and books. Sorry, I'd die if I couldn't download books on tape.


The main thing that will pain me is not buying books.

But, I just better hope the public library has a good selection.

I've thought of buying a Kindle, but forget it. It would probably end up in landfill.

So, we'll see. I might mess up a bunch. I'm sure I will this week.

But, that is my commitment. I'm going to try to simplify, simplify, simplify.

I don't want to live that life of quiet desperation.

Moksha Redux

What is liberation? Moksha. This ancient Hindu concept.

It is translated as liberation or release. Likened to Nirvana, the "extinguishing out" to which the Buddha awakened.

I have been reading over and over these various concepts from Yoga and ancient Indian thought. They are described in various texts. You can get easy definitions from the Internet, various popular authors, a Sanskrit dictionary.

But, what is it? The feeling of it?

I have no idea. I'm not even close to it.

There are various stories from the early sutras of the Pali Canon that characterize the Buddha after he achieves Nirvana. They are illustrative.

I think of him as a humanistic, agnostic/atheist, fully-realized yogi.

He achieves the mastery of his body and mind early on through yoga. Studying with two renowned teachers shortly after leaving home, he quickly reaches the final, fourth stage of samadhi. That state of bliss and equanimity that is the final path of Raja Yoga.

And, yet, as he comes out of his state, each time, he faces the same reality. The same emotion. Transcendence is temporary. Bliss itself is constantly changing. There is an ebb and flow to all things, including liberation.

And, so he pursues tapas, austerities. The same kind of bed-of-nails, walking on hot coals, starvation-type activity that can be seen in India today.

Can you purify yourself by pain?

Can you, in effect, burn impurities out of you, like you would burn an alloy to reach the elemental metal?

His answer is an affirmative no.

Self-abnegation is a form of ego in itself.

And, so he sits down, remembers a state of blissful meditation from his childhood and sits under the Bodhi tree.

He confronts his demons. His alter ego. Mara. The demon is within. But, this time, rather than pushing him away or appeasing him or running towards purity or love... he simply watches.

Without engaging. Without reacting.

Without grasping towards or pushing against... Mara, his darker nature of both pleasure and pain... simply disappears and dissolves.

He is "liberated".

But, from what?

There is a great story of him walking past the first person he sees after achieving Nirvana... another yogi mystic. A fellow traveler.

He exclaims in joy that he is liberated.

The response.

A shrug of doubt and a "good luck" for the road.

I find that one of the most telling stories about the Buddha and the very goal he taught us to aspire towards.

The ultimate change is not external at all. You cannot "see" it.

Liberation has more to do with your internal state of mind and view than any outward appearance.

There are several other stories of young monks not recognizing him when he is under their nose, mistaking him for some wayward older monk. Stories of his frailty, even complaints of his back hurting as he approaches old age and death.

Moksha is within.

There is another famous story of the Buddha going before a crowd of other yogis, explaining the Dharma, his truth and path to liberation.

They scoff at him, seeing this ordinary yogi like themselves, if anything, a failure at tapas and divergent from their path.

Behold, to stun and silence them, he displays his siddhis, his yogic powers. He flys in the air, he hovers above, he is radiant and powerful.

Only after seeing this display of mastery of their own skill will they accept him and listen to the Dharma. Shortly after hearing his deep and humanistic understanding of life and death and the impermanence of things, they are quickly converted to the Sangha.

There are lessons from this story.

Having mastered yoga, the Buddha explored the limits of its power and technique, yet discarded some of its most sought after powers.

Liberation requires a certain discipline, but taken to extreme, the powers that are mastered through yoga are a diversion at best and destructive and illusory at worst.

Siddhis, yogic powers... I suppose this is metaphorical in the story for all kinds of byproduct, bystander, misleading accomplishments that are superficial but very powerful... Powerful, yet unnecessary and perhaps even an impediment to internal awareness.

That which can be seen by others or spoken about... they are by definition arousing of the ego. The ego solidifies a feeling of uniqueness in each of us, of specialness and of permanence...

This is illusory and drives us to deny the reality of our own decay and ultimate death. We pursue love and sex, money and objects, family and false spirituality, even intellectualism and excessive rationality. All in the hopes of assuaging our inner discontent and disappointment at the end that will inexorably approach us.

A beautiful body, being able to jump into a handstand, outwardly displaying a calm demeanor, seeming more progressive and Earth-friendly and "holistic", getting a better sex life, enhancing my relationship with my spouse or family... and on and on.

These are the modern day siddhis that we strive to achieve through hatha yoga in most places in the West and perhaps now throughout the world.

What will yoga do for me? How will I look? How will I feel?

Will I be more happy? Or attractive? Conquer my addictions? Be free from pain and suffering?

These are our modern aspirations.

But, like the the story of the Buddha, are they just for show, good to look at but unhelpful on the ultimate path to self-knowledge and understanding?

Anicca. Dukha. Anatta.

Impermanence. Suffering. Non-self.

I don't know much about moksha or nirvana... except it ain't gonna be easy.

Atha Yoganusasanam

The moment is here.

It's always here.

It's so hard to not get caught up with the failures and regrets of the past or the fears and loathings of the future.

Our minds are constantly swirling about. We are forever moving from one idea, one thought, one emotion to the next.

Can we silence this?

Should we silence this?

The second, more famous line of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali is "yoga citta vritti nirodah".

One translation of this is that "yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations of consciousness".

By slowing the mind, quieting the turbulence, we then get a glimpse of our "real self" or Self. We see who we really are, naked, alone, after removing all of the external forces that swirl around our body and mind and soul.

But, the first line is key.

Atha Yoganusasanam.

Now, with divine blessing, the exposition of yoga begins.

NOW.

As in the here and NOW.

The present.

Without staying in the moment, we will never grasp our inner self. We will always be slaves to our prior misfortune or exhilaration or fawns awaiting doom or bliss.

We must grasp what our body, our mind, our consciousness, our good, our bad, our essence is right at this moment, realizing, as the Buddha, one of the greatest of all yogis, realized... that the moment always changes.

Our fear of the change. Our fear of not being how we were yesterday or a year ago... or of not becoming or attaining what we wish. Of a future that we fail to realize.

We grasp for pleasure and shy from pain.

Never really understanding that all of life encompasses both of these and that pleasure and pain are always intertwined. They always follow one another. You cannot have one without the other.

So, now. Now. NOW. NOW!!!

We begin.

2010 has been the beginning of my life.

The Fire Next Time

Inner Russia.

A place that more often than not is temperate to cool to plain frozen for most of the year.

Well, this year, there are such devastating droughts and heat waves there that there have been significant California-esque wild fires and scorched earth. So much so that they have had to limit wheat exports, thus resulting in rising wheat and grain prices throughout the world.

A third of Pakistan is now flooded, a la the usual scenario in Bangladesh.

Are these just part of the normal variation in the climate or is this evidence that "climate change" is affecting us sooner rather than later?

I'm unsure, although I am a firm believer that the planet is being warmed due to the actions of mankind.

It is grey outside. Rainy. Dreary. But, not in a charming, English sort of way. It is gloomy, dark rain amidst a gentrifying blue-collar postindustrial town.

My thoughts turn to the future. My future. But, also the future of our species. Other species on the planet and our world itself

If anything in recent history has proven, it is that we simply cannot predict the unforeseen consequences of our actions.

Iraq, Afghanistan, the deficiit, the economic collapse, the worry about the influenza pandemic to come that never came... and on and on.

As applied from a conservative standpoint to climate change, this leads one to be skeptical that it will really be as bad as they say.

But, from another perspective, I can't help but think that maybe, just maybe, we've UNDERestimated the impact of warming. That there are unmeasurable changes yet to come which will accelerate this process. That we maybe will face a catastrophe of epic proportions.

Perhaps not in my lifetime. I will likely be dead by the middle to end of this century. But, will the next generation or the one after have the same planet that we have now?

Doubtful.

The fire next time will affect more than just the cost of my morning bagel.