AAR Montreal photos

My view(s) for the day as I stayed in today, furiously reworking my paper for tomorrow's presentation. It's looking better now; fewer outlandish claims and unsupported theses; fewer theses altogether as well. I still have one outlandish and provocative phrase that I'm debating cutting out, but.... We'll see.

morning

noon

night

Sitting across the table at dinner tonight was a professor at a certain Catholic school who let this one out: "Catholicism is the only religion that is capable of producing such delightful news headlines as: 'Vatican Celebrates Primate Erection, he has an STD and Ejaculates to Mary Hundreds of Times a Day.'"

Primate is another name for the Pope. They consider him "Erected" as in 'put up into place' when he is 'elected'. An STD is a Summa Theologica Doctorate, and an ejaculation is an aspiration, often associated with a prayer to a saint.

Catholics. Gotta love'em. Catholic scholars, even better.

Name Two Favorite Christian Theologians

More from AAR...

Brian, a friend of mine from this summer's China travels, will interview today for a job at an apparently very Christian college somewhere in the heartland of America. In a time and place where every interview counts, he finds himself scrambling to be a bit more Christian in the last few hours. Another friend, who interviewed with this college a couple years ago, gave him a bit of advice:

Know of and be able to talk about your two favorite Christian theologians.

Now if we knew the exact church that runs the school, we might be able to be a bit sneaky and find a couple of their big names, look 'em up on wikipedia, and say something intelligent (hopefully) in the interview. But all we really know is that they're not Catholic. In fact, on a funnier note, apparently they took the fact that they have some Catholic students as a sign of their diversity (welcome to the heartland of America).

Last night it came to me, my own two favorite Christian theologians (feel free to post yours in the comments):

1. Blaise Pascal: well known for his "wager" for the belief in God. Based on his sturdy logic, I cannot doubt that, were I a fan of gambling, I too would bet on God.
2. St. Thomas Aquinas: I'm actually not sure how big he is with Protestants, but I appreciate him for his via negativa or apophatic path to "knowing" God. His process is one of clearing away worldly concepts of God in order to approach a more direct, perhaps mystical, knowledge of the divine. Generally speaking, anything we could say about God in the affirmative is more a reflection of our own desires and ignorance than anything else.

So, with Pascal we find that perhaps we should believe in God, and with Aquinas we find that we should quit talking about him!

Next question.

(note: this is in jest. There are plenty of Christian theologians that I adore, from Justin Martyr to Bonhoeffer to St. Ignatius to Thomas Merton and more. Even those who found other reasons for God than Pascal and refused to stop talking about Him can be found amongst my long list of favorites.)

The Bells of St. Patrick

Grass blows in the wind above me
Trees, planted on balconies, brave Canada's cold...

Perhaps the start of a poem. Likely not. Either way, I've made it to Montréal, where I'll spend the next three days taking in as much Buddhism; Buddhist Philosophy; Buddhist-Christian Studies; Comparative Religious Ethics; Philosophy, Religious studies, and Humanism; Buddhist Critical/Constructive Studies, Rethinking Secularism, and whatever else I can find (that's just workshops and panels for tomorrow and Sunday morning).

It is soooo good to be here.

The studio loft I'll be sharing with another AAR'er. Just a couple blocks from the main conference center. Lovely. Very modern, with cement floors and open 14-foot ceilings.

Basilique St. Patrick, across the street from us but mostly obscured by more modern architecture. Pitty. Churches here, though, are a dime a dozen it seems. Apparently the city is overwhelmingly Catholic, French Catholic mainly, but enough Irish to have a St. Pattys Basilica, thank Jove.

And, just in case you didn't think that academics of religion were cutting-edge enough. Our exhibition hall is so advanced, it's already in the year 2010. Ha.

In addition to panels, I hope to meet up with Brian a new friend and colleague from my China travels this summer, Amod, another friend and fellow philosopher of a somewhat Buddhisty inclination... Oh, yes, and Ven. Yifa, fearless leader of our China escapades. Lastly, there's the ubiquitous job-search (the grown-up version of the Easter-egg hunt, or so that's how I think of it) and Monday's paper presentation (a grown up version of the spelling-bee).

Can you believe I lost my 5th grade spelling-bee on the word "yearn"? I swear the announcer horribly mispronounced the word, something like yoohhh-urn. It totally threw me off. Plus it's at the end of the alphabet. I had albatross through caribou down cold.

Some things, like 5th grade spelling-bees, you never get back. Easter egg hunts on the other hand, come every year.

A Phenomenology of Joy

When I'm not busy being a crotchety academic, marathon runner, meditation poster-boy, autumn-leaf photographer, one of the things I like to do is teach meditation. I've done it in a somewhat official form for about six years. I mostly work with college kids who are intersted, but I've taught retirees, housemates, last year our college athletes (many at least) had to sit through 15 or so minutes of me and my meditation bell, and this year I get to work with some Environmental Studies graduate students.

One of my favorites, and the one that I find most students enjoying the most, is the metta-bhavana, cultivation of loving-kindness. This year the "Campus Sangha" that I facilitate has been doing that meditation for about 6 weeks now, with really wonderful results. We've built a strong community of regulars and a fairly good group of rotating once-in-a-whilers and just-oncers. On some nights we have 10, others nearly 20 and I know almost all of the regulars names.

Afterward we always congregate in the kitchen; it's at the home of Linda and Larry. Larry was a student of mine when I taught at the U. 3 years ago and has since been a good friend; he's a man who has lived a dozen lives in this one and now spends his retirement busier that me on my best days. We drink tea, we eat cookies, or dates or treats that Linda has decided to bake.

All very mundane perhaps, but this is all after a long session of metta-bhavana.

Reading Buddhaghosa's commentary on this practice in his Vissudhimagga in recent weeks -I'm using it for a conference paper to be given next Monday- has added great depth to the practice for me. This week I pondered that Buddhaghosa spends just 3 pages (in the English translation, that is) introducing the meditation and getting you through the basics. He then spends 9 pages discussing overcoming resentment toward the "difficult person" (or enemy) in your meditation.

In abridged and glossed form, here are his suggestions (try each one and move to the next if it doesn't work):

1. go back to earlier persons (we first call to mind ourselves, a benefactor, a friend and a neutral person)
2. think of the positive aspects of our enemy (there must be something good about him/her)
3. develop compassion (knowing his/her negative actions bring him/her unhappiness)
4. be reasonable (your enemy may have hurt your body, but don't let them hurt your mind through growing angry)
5. take responsibility (your own anger will come back to you)
6. consider the heroic deeds of others (Buddha's past lives are mentioned, Jesus or your "Great Person" of choice works as well)
7. call to mind the elements (are you angry with this person's hand, his/her hair, eyes, feet, what part? His her mind, mere body, karmic formations? And so on)
8. give him/her a gift.

I especially like the last one. When all else fails, give a gift!

After tonight's meditation, a couple hugs from an old professor, many smiles and delicious snacks, I thought this is it - Joy.

I'm not sure if it was the joy of community, circles of old friends all coming back together (including news that one particular old friend and student will be back in town quite soon) and new friendships blossoming. Or if it was the joy of having given back a bit through the service of leading the meditation. Or of the meditation itself: actively cultivating positive emotional states for about 30 minutes. Perhaps the joy of integrating academics (head-stuff) into experience in a way that so obviously benefits both myself and others...

Or perhaps a bit of it all.

Either way, it was great. I still sit kind of "coasting" down from the experience. Soon the dull ache in my jaw or the paperwork I need to deal with will get the best of me...

But until then: joy.

The self is real, just not really real.

That's a quote (or very close) from a recent interview with psychologist Mark Epstein, featured over at the Tricycle blog.

My response(s) follow, slightly edited.

Hmmm… Is that like saying a creator God exists, it’s just not as real as you think? Sounds fishy. Perhaps skillful, but fishy nonetheless.

Sabbe dhamma anatta, all phenomena are not-self. Even nibbana is anatta. And all of samsara is associated with the 5 khandhas, which are the basis for all other dhammas. Where then, lies the self in Buddhism? (hint, next to unicorns and the creator God).

On second thought, yes, the Buddha does make wide use of the term atta as a reflexive pronoun: “nowhere is found one who is dearer than [one]self; in this way for others too the self is dear. Thus one should not harm others who loves [him/her]self.” (Nevajjhagā piyataramattanā kvaci; Evaṃ piyo puthu attā paresaṃ, Tasmā na hiṃse paramattakāmo’’ti.) fom the Mallika sutta in SN I,3 (#8). But this should be read as making an ethical point rather than a metaphysical one: you [think] you have a self, and it is dear to you; this is also true of others, so develop metta/lovingkindness for all (as you do yourself).

In this way the Buddha uses the term in a practical or conventional manner. When speaking of the true nature of things, though, the above quoted sabbe dhamma anatta, along with anatta as one of the “Marks of Existence” should suggest clearly his teaching of no-self. This is as much of a categorical denial as I can think of. He doesn’t deny the existence of the self to the wanderer Vacchagotta precisely because FOR HIM (this confused Brahmin) it would lead to a belief in annihilationism. So in that instance we have the Buddha’s silence. (SN 44:10)

As for the necessary fiction of self; yes it probably is needed at some level, but at the point of awakening we are said to finally(!) let go of the “asmi mana” the conceit or mania of I AM. I suppose as long as we have the conceit of self, it’s useful to act accordingly :)

I'm curious about the apparent streak of neo-Puggalavadins or Attavadins (those who teach that there is a person, or there is a self) in contemporary Buddhist circles. I suppose it has to do with our cultural fascination with the self: liberating it, actualizing it, helping it. If you're trying to gain self-liberation, self-actualization, or self-help you're probably off on a wild-goose chase. Much like trying to have a conversation with an omniscient, benevolent, creator God.

Check out the Sabbasava sutta. There the Buddha lists 16 unwise reflections:

1. What am I?
2. How am I?
3. Am I?
4. Am I not?
5. Did I exist in the past?
6. Did I not exist in the past?
7. What was I in the past?
8. How was I in the past?
9. Having been what, did I become what in the past?
10. Shall I exist in future?
11. Shall I not exist in future?
12. What shall I be in future?
13. How shall I be in future?
14. Having been what, shall I become what in future?
15. Whence came this person?
16. Whither will he go?

Now, as I mentioned in my first response above, any questioning into the self is thus pretty fishy. BUT, it could perhaps be skillful for some people. Just as in the Tevijja Sutta, where the Buddha tells young Brahmins that he'll teach them "the way to union with Brahma" and in fact teaches them ethics and meditation toward awakening, we perhaps could tell people we'll help them "discover their true self" only to lead them, through ethics and meditation, to the understanding of no-self. I'll leave you with one last snippit from the Pali sources (many thanks to Thanisarro Bhikkhu for compiling some Pali sources on Anatta):

“Monks, where there is a self, would there be (the thought), ‘belonging to
my self’?”
“Yes, lord.”
“Or, monks, where there is what belongs to self, would there be (the thought),
‘my self’?”
“Yes, lord.”
“Monks, where a self or what belongs to self are not pinned down as a truth
or reality, then the view-position—‘This cosmos is the self. After death this I will
be constant, permanent, eternal, not subject to change. I will stay just like that for
an eternity’—Isn’t it utterly & completely a fool’s teaching?” — MN 22

To say that this is a denial of only a certain kind of self seems to me to miss the point. It's like, to reiterate the above, saying that the Buddha only denied a certain kind of creator God, and thus perhaps there is one after all for Buddhists. Any view of self, it seems, is going to spiral into wasted time and effort trying to understand, fix, help, whatever, it (unless, again, guided by a wise teacher toward the understanding that there is no self). Similarly, views of God can be played with (as in the Tevijja sutta) by the wise, in order to bring others to an understanding of ethics, meditation, and wisdom (aka the Buddha's 3-fold path).

But in the hands of the unwise, people like me, speculation on the self or God is just likely to waste time.. how many gods can dance on the head of a pin? Oh, I'm sorry, that was angels. I'll have to speculate on that in a future post.

Travel the World, See Strange Things

From a taxi in Shanghai: It's an advertisement for a device that will "shape your breasts, care for your face, and tone your body."

Breathing Life Into Creativity

There is a new TED talk this month, by designer Stefan Sagmeister (thanks to my friend, Chic Monk for the head's up). In it Sagmeister describes the results of an innovative scheme of time off and the amazing way it boosted his life and income. His idea, incredibly simple in a way, was to take 5 years out of his retirement and insert them into the 40 or so that he projected to be his working life (age 25-65).

Thus he would take a full year sabbatical every seven years.

Now, for those of us in academia this is common sense: give a great mind a year off every so often and amazing things will come (or, in a more cynical view, give someone a year under the iron fist of "publish or perish" and he/she will indeed publish). But for most people, the idea of taking a full year off every seven years might sound a bit crazy, as if the whole year would be devoted solely to what has otherwise been squeezed into weekends and that precious ten days (in the US, vs 20 or so in Europe) of vacation time each year.

This brings me to think of the topics of time off, creativity, mental freedom, and happiness.

Just last week, a Spanish friend of mine remarked in astonishment that we in the US only have 5 or 10 days of paid sick leave (if we're lucky). In Spain, and in fact much of Europe, if you're sick, your simply sick. You take time off and you lose no pay. If this means 3 weeks, okay. If it takes 6 months, for cancer for example, okay. There's no question. If you're sick, you focus on getting well - not juggling illness with making a living, often to disastrous results.

America's ideals seem so distant from that ideal (unfortunately). Instead we are pushed to earn and produce, even in academia.

But taking time off? Simply relaxing and devoting yourself to you, to your personal and/or spiritual pursuits. This, as I mentioned above, has an odd ring to many in the US. But one of the things I love most about Buddhist Studies is that it gives us a mirror, a clear "Other" by which to reflect on ourselves. Sometimes what is odd to us is the norm somewhere else in the world, and sometimes so much so for the better. And having lived in Europe (the UK, at least), I challenge USA folks (because Canadians follow the Europeans) to justify our work ethic.

Why so much? Could it be connected with our relatively low levels of self-reported life satisfaction? Could it be connected with our general poor health (despite the most advanced medical technology in the world)? Why is it that Europeans generally pay a bit higher taxes, off-set by free/subsidized health-care, work less, and are happier?

As for my own meandering thoughts... Time off is good. I look at a good friend, Margaret, who is now done with her Ph.D., and revisions for publication, and articles, and presentations, and now... is relaxing. And it's wonderful. This freedom for creativity is put in contrast by another friend (from my London days), this one in Pakistan, writing of the difficulties as a professor in violent times. And somewhere in the middle are Sjors (creative genius in London), Kristen (ditto in Vancouver), and Amod, (philosopher outside of Boston, MA).

And then there is my own life, and that of fellow PhD student Loden Jinpa, which is simply overwhelmed with often self-wrought responsibilities and demands and possibilities and so forth. The world seems so open to us, at least me, having no classes and just a dissertation to write, and yet the "little" things we do take on wind up being so large, and important, and time-consuming, that we easily become as overwhelmed as any 9-5'er out there.

But... I know from experience that life as an academic can open up opportunities for breathing life into creativity. I remember very well... four years ago now, as I took time off from my second MA to fully complete my first. I had no job. I took one class (a graduate seminar on Hegel, it was great), and otherwise simply mused on life and worked on my MA thesis (one reason I love blogging is the ability to look back and see what I was up to then).

That time to simply sit and at time struggle with basic ideas and many not-so-basic ideas was a pivotal time in my life. The result was in part a mark of "with Distinction" on my MA, but, more importantly it was a time of opening of philosophical ideas and understanding for me personally. And, I would add, this opening was something I have happily shared with students as a university instructor and T.A. It is a feeling of crawling into the ideas and lives of past individuals and philosophers so as to fully sympathize with them (and then to critically examine their claims). This does not come easily. Openness to others' ways of life must be cultivated, in ways not describable in this post but certainly worthy of exploration.

Ahh, but that openness. That returns us to the idea of breathing life into creativity. Creativity requires an openness. Some may say that it is an inner openness but this is to miss the deep realization that there is no inner which is not also outer. That is to say that our innermost feelings and thoughts ultimately originate from out there, from others, perhaps our parents, perhaps favorite teachers or poets or philosophers of the past. The more we look inward with clarity, the more clearly we see the world around us.

And that, I think, is the gift of time off. Of sabbatical. Of retreat in the Buddhist tradition.

As we creep into the lives of others we "break the borders" of self-other ideas we might have had in the past. As we creep more into our own lives, we see that who we are is often just a convoluted story we've pieced together from circumstance and memory. But really we are the marvelous produce of mother and father, energy and sustenance, and so forth - building-blocks. Every human, and every human creation is this.

It reminds me of one Buddhist teacher's translation of upekkha as "disenchantment." With wisdom we give up clinging to "my ideas, brilliance" and so forth and accept that it all is interconnected. But, at the same time we are not de-tached from these; we are neither attached nor detached, but non-attached.

And that, I suppose, meanders well enough into the following talk, which itself meanders a bit. But before I let you go, I do want to re-emphasize the importance of taking time off. It may be impracticable to most of us in the US, but do consider trying.

Slow Down People Breathing

Polebridge, MT. Photo by Julie.

icebergs are buddhist monks

icebergs are buddhist monks i send forth,
released into the world from the great monasteries of the poles.
their mantra is the blue light humming within their frozen cores.
their message is peace and oneness,
but alas they simply vanish.
every year monks leave me and never return.

- yann martel

Read the rest here. (found here via twitter. Thanks Isabella!)

I missed the whole Blog Action Day thing this year (tisk tisk), but this poem fragment reminded me of it and the whole fact of Global Warming. While there is little I can say in this moment, noting that countless wise things have been said, and little in particular I can do, I would like to post a few more photos, specifically of the changing leaves of Glacier National Park, this time in a particularly contemplative mood:

(Yes, photos in a contemplative mood.
Click on them for a full-size version)

In each leaf, and in each dew drop, countless moments.

What stories might these leaves tell? What teachings? Perhaps to the astute ecologist they might hold warnings. To the Jesuit they may speak of God's gift, flourishing in every moment. For the Buddhist there may be anicca, impermanence, anattā, not-self, or dukkha, unsatisfactoriness.

Or perhaps,
simple
disenchanted
delight
in beauty.

6. Pare ca na vijānanti, mayamettha yamāmase; Ye ca tattha vijānanti, tato sammanti medhagā.

[And there are] those who do not realize, one day we all must die. And [yet there are] those who do realize this, who cease/calm their quarrels.

- (My rough translation of a verse in the dhammapada, based on Buddharakkhita)

I like, in typical nerd fashion, how Sammati (the singular third person verb found above in its plural third person "sammanti") can be from the Sanskrit verbal root √śam or √śram, each with its particular, yet related, meaning.

Sammati [śam

Sammati1 [śam; Dhtp 436=upasama] 1. to be appeased, calmed; to cease Dh 5; Pot 3rd pl. sammeyyuŋ S i.24. -- 2. to rest, to dwell D i.92; S i.226; J v.396; DA i.262 (=vasati); pp. santa. -- Caus. sāmeti to appease, suppress, stop, A ii.24; It 82, 83, 117, 183; Dh 265.

Sammati [śram

Sammati2 [śram; Vedic śrāmyati Dhtp 220=parissama, 436=kheda] to be weary or fatigued. (from here)

There is a poetic appreciation of the sense that it is only when we are weary or fatigued that we really are appeased, calmed, or ceasing [in our otherwise typical hedonic pursuits]. All the more fitting as this section of the Dhammapada employs some military/violent imagery.

And of course this also gets my mind bouncing along toward Sammā, a word familiar to many Buddhists; any at least who have heard the Noble Eightfold Path enumerated in the Pāli. Each "spoke" in that path is about getting things "right" or sammā. However, I have long-since preferred to translate sammā as "balanced" in opposition to micchā as "unbalanced," which has its own 8-fold path.

... and that reminds me of the movie everyone must see: KOYAANISQATSI: Life Out of Balance.

Which brings us, of course, back to the start of the thought-thread of the night: life. climate. change. words. action. balance. life... words...

A return to Glacier

Julie and I made it back to Glacier National Park this weekend, exactly one year after first journey there together. As before, it was gorgeous. Going-to-the-Sun road was closed, unlike last year when we made it all the way to the top of Logan Pass (big map). So we decided to focus our efforts on the west side of the park.

After camping at Apgar campground Friday night we took the road north (the Inside North Fork Road) that takes you to Fish Creek campground and then onward, on a narrow dirt road, toward the tiny town of Polebridge. The natural beauty up there is simply amazing; far, far beyond words or even pictures (but I try):

Our first interesting creature. She or he is a Barred Owl. This beauty was just off the side of the road watching cars, and presumably little critters, passing by. We also spotted: a fox, a black wolf with a dead animal in his/her mouth, a chipmunk, and many, many deer.

Friday night at Lake McDonald.

Golden Leaf.

Puppy (or wolf) prints.

Kinda weird, kinda true (wolves are known to lure loose dogs away and, yes, eat them). This is the front of the saloon, yes, the only one, in Polebridge, MT.

Bowman Lake, with scenery much like Lake McDonald, only closer (the mountains that is, because the lake is much smaller) and with fewer people.

Julie and I pause for a photo-op overlooking the Flathead River, between Polebridge and Columbia Falls.

A perfect sunsets concludes a perfect journey. This is the west side of Flathead lake just south of Lakeside, MT.

Our next stop was Symes Hot Springs where we soaked up the healing waters and listened to some live (supposedly) Irish/Swing music, it was far more Hawaiian and rockabilly.

A welcomed break for a busy Buddhist Philosopher. Now back to the writing, the marathon training, and whatever else it is I pretend to do in this life...