Measure for Measure

Woe to you, O destroyer, you who have not been destroyed! Woe to you, O traitor, you who have not been betrayed! When you stop destroying, you will be destroyed; when you stop betraying, you will be betrayed. --Isaiah 33:1

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There are those among us who are evil. There is no other word for them and there are no cogent explanations for why they exist, but we all know they do exist, and they exist to do wrong to others. These people are the ones who enjoy hatred, sorrow, and pain and care nothing for love or compassion. These people follow the wind. They live by no creed or code. And, the Holy Bible makes clear the fates of those who follow the whirlwind. Those people will inherit the wind itself because of their own evil deeds, and their very lives will be lost in the dust. As Isaiah wisely said of such persons, they will be destroyed and betrayed. This is a truth borne out by many other spiritual and philosophical works. The Buddha spoke intensely of the subject of reaping what one sows in the Dhammapada. He said that one who is busily performing evil deeds to harm others may go on doing so for a long time without the seed of their evil works bearing their fruits. But, as surely as day follows night, the evil fruit will bear. Likewise, those who perform good works and plant therefore good seeds will bear beautiful fruit in time. This is as certain as the flower budding out in spring.

We must all love one another and take responsibility for our actions. We must measure accordingly our words and deeds and make each of them count.

Pure, Transparent Freedom

I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom.  ~Simone de Beauvoir

Freedom is a beautiful and noble ideal to which we should all aspire each day. Freedom is made of the individual rights of all the people who make up the world. If even one person's freedoms are railroaded for convenience sake, we all suffer for it. And, I am saddened to say that here in my own country, I see freedom eroding bit by bit each day as our government throws our civil liberties to the wind.

But history is littered with such episodes where fascists, despots, or simply brutes have taken the rights of the common man and woman and destroyed them. At one such frightening time in history, Sir Thomas More was one man who stood against the brutishness of his sovereign. And as he said, so bravely and beautifully in response to his son-in-law, William Roper, who asks him if he would "give the Devil the benefit of the law?" in A Man for All Seasons,

SIR THOMAS MORE: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

ROPER: I’d cut down every law in England to do that!

MORE: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!   

Sir Thomas More, by the way, was the only man willing to stand in opposition to Henry VIII when he was trying to seek a divorce from his lawful wife in order to marry Anne Boleyn. The King asked More too much when he asked that he betray his own conscience and agree to vote for the alteration of the laws prohibiting his divorce from a woman whom had in no way injured or betrayed him. Thomas More, sadly, spent his remaining years being tortured in the Tower of London and ended up with his head on a spike.

Such tragic instances as Thomas More's are sadly too commonplace in history. There are so many countless people who have stood against authority when authority was plainly wrong. Few of them, however, lived to tell of the tale.

We live now in dangerous times when people like More are difficult to find. You might come across one here or there, perhaps in an Abby or hidden away as a hermit. They are hidden because they know the world and what it is capable of. 

It's time to ask yourself a hard question: "Are you waiting for someone else to be your hero, or are you willing to stand for something?"

I am ready to stand for one thing and one thing only: Freedom. The beautiful freedom Thomas Payne spoke so brilliantly of when he shouted, "Give me liberty or give me death."

I think it's time now, my friends, to remember that freedom is lost for everyone when we allow anyone to be abused in the name of the law. Stand for liberty, for EVERY American citizen's liberty, not just your own.

The Unexpected

Natalie Portman in her unexpected and jaw-dropping role as a knowing young stripper in 'Closer'

How well do you deal with unexpected events in life? Do you find them thrilling and dangerous or do you find them brutal and absolute? The Zen philosophy is that we should anticipate nothing. But if we must anticipate something, then we should expect the reverse of what we imagine may happen.

The wise and soulful Hindus believe that we should live with the total acceptance of the reality that, our souls (our atmans) are all that matter about us as living creatures. Hence, we should set our sights on the eternal and the ultimate consciousness from which we all came and to which we all shall return. These earthly matters, the wise sages of India tell us, are nothing but maya (illusion) and we must take the reins and control our wild desires for pleasure, money and fame.

I believe both are true and that the stage of our soul's education in life is determined by constant battles between reality and illusion.

Swami Vivikananda tells us that we must learn always through all of the painful blows life brings to our souls, that while these blows may hurt us, they also teach us the necessary ability to discern between truth and fiction, between illusion and reality. Swamiji's name is based on the Hindu word 'vivek' which means to discern between good or truth and bad or falsity. His name suited him perfectly, and we should learn from his brilliant example, his rare ability to see reality and to dismiss and refuse to accept illusions.

Journeys Across the Toll-Bridge

Each of us passes through life with some experience of karma. When I was a little girl, I once spit my chewing gum out on the pavement when we got out of the car to go shopping. When my mother and I returned to the car, the pavement was scalding hot. I forgot entirely about the chewing gum I spit out. But when I climbed inside the car and looked down at my tennis shoes, they were covered in pink chewing gum. At that moment, though I had no word for what happened, I understood karma intrinsically. That karmic bubblegum was a great instructor for me. It taught me that my mistakes would be paid for by one person only: Myself.

Karma is simple: When we do something wrong to another person, either in thought or in deed, we will pay for it. Like a sticky and determined piece of bubblegum, your karma will stick to you and won't relent until you have paid for your error. Karma is never mistaken and only delivers your outcome based on what you've done to receive it. Whatever karmic outcome you have, you can rest assured that you have bought and paid for it prior to its arrival.

Sometimes, karma can be good. Sometimes, it can be bad. But whatever the case, you will deal with your own karma. The process of life and karma will take you across many toll-bridges in this life. You will pay for that walk across the bridge. The payment may be light or heavy, but you will pay. The key is to remember this: You are only responsible for paying your fare--i.e. your karma. And you should never allow anyone else to make you think you have to pay for theirs too.

Hold your head high. Pay what you owe. And keep walking as elegantly and bravely as a mighty elephant through the forest.

A Time for All Things

I learned a long time ago that there is a time for all things, and I made a deal with myself that I would always respect the times when I have nothing to say and therefore nothing to write. Some writers write even when they have nothing to say, but I fear their work suffers from it. My philosophy has always been that, if you want to give to others of yourself, to give of your ideas and your perceptions, then you should write these down only when they would be relevant to those reading your words. So, I've taken some time away to just fill up the empty well inside me and now that it is full once more, I write once more and hope it might be something good for others to read and consider.

Like Thoreau who took time away from the world to live simply and well, to live on the land and by the land, I have done similarly of late. There is nothing in this world that I have found which is more satisfying than physical work--the kind of work that makes you sweat but that at the end of it, you see a clear result. It gives you a beautiful sense of completion that is rarely obtained in writing.

I write a great deal, and I have been recently toying with the idea of a new book project which I've started outlining, but the reality is: I will write the book and then offer it to others for sale. After that, my hands are no longer really involved. It either sinks or swims on its own. If I did my job right, it will sell. If not, it will languish on some lonesome shelf--as it should if I failed. In any case, the project scheme is never really so complete as the process of say, planting new flowers, watering them, and then seeing them flourish.

My life is simpler in some ways when I don't write, but it is also more complicated. When I don't write, I don't express all that I feel. But as far as I'm concerned, it's not always the right time to express your feelings. It's sometimes good to give your ideas and emotions time to grow and become something better in silence before putting it on the page.

Now, it is time for me to share myself once more in a book, so here on the blog, I will be sometimes less present. Just the same, know, dear readers, that I will return when the odd thought comes along that I hope to share. Until then, namaste.

Discipline & Punish

“But the guilty person is only one of the targets of punishment. For punishment is directed above all else, at others, at all the potentially guilty.” 

--Michel Foucault
 

“...if you are not like everybody else, then you are abnormal, if you are abnormal , then you are sick. These three categories, not being like everybody else, not being normal and being sick are in fact very different but have been reduced to the same thing.”
--Michel Foucault

Have you ever committed a crime? Have you ever been punished for breaking a rule? Have you ever done anything that others called strange or different or sick? If you are human and if you have a pulse or have ever had one, you probably have experienced all three. The only difference is the degree of your wrong and the degree of your punishment.

What is punishment, after all, but a society's way of telling the wrongdoer that he or she is wrong and simultaneously of telling anyone who might commit the same wrong that they had better not do what this person has done or they will suffer the same fate?

The problem comes in when we consider that it seems what is "wrong" in 2011 or what was wrong in 1911 or 1711 are very different matters. Why is what was wrong in the 1600s not wrong today and vice versa? Is "wrong" an objective matter or is it decided by the groups who hold power at a given time? It seems that it is very much a matter of who holds the power.

In the early days of America, a woman could be clapped in the stocks for no more than disagreeing publically with her husband. In the 19th century in both England and the U.S., a woman or a man could be placed in a mental institution with no proof that she or he was actually mentally ill. During the 1600s, a European citizen who disagreed with the church could be branded a heretic and burned at the stake.

To a modern audience, these terrors sound impossible, yet they were all too real for those who came under the watchful eyes of the power-mongers of the aforementioned ages gone by.

In contemporary America, in matters of discipline and punishment, why and how do the power-holders get to make the decisions regarding so-called moral recourse against so-called criminals? It is sad to note that, the United States has more prisons than all the other nations in the world combined. Most of the prisoners in our teeming jails are in for drug crimes and in many cases crimes for which other countries would only require a fine to be paid. Is this reasonable?

I think it might be a good time to ask the questions: Can we place everyone who doesn't agree with those in power in prison? Can we place everyone who commits even the slightest infraction behind bars? At this rate, it appears that our national leaders want to put these questions to the test.

Everyone is subject to arrest at some point in time if they break--in even the slightest way--the law. The sad thing is that most of us don't ever stop to ask questions about crime and punishment until we are the ones in the hot seat. Unless you land in a courtroom with a judge staring you down, you may not care one way or the other about criminal matters or punishments either. But one day, what will you do if you do err and do get caught and no one--including you--has asked or will ask the questions? You'll go to prison, and then it will be entirely too late for questions.

As citizens of the world, it is our job to ask the hard questions now so that we can prevent a prison nation from being all the U.S. is known as around the world.

We need to criticize most sharply the structure of our current system. As Foucault rightly puts it, we need to challenge all of the assumptions and unexamined ways of thinking that these kinds of wrongful practices are based on so as to "make harder those acts which are now too easy. ”

The Power of Beauty

Marion Cotillard--French Beauty

When the world seems dark and humanity finds no comfort anywhere, we look to beauty for some ray of hope amidst the gloom. There is beauty in the rain clinging softly to the vine, beauty also in the eyes of Marion Cotillard--so blue and so still.

There is beauty in the melodious singing of Billie Holiday and of the old man who sits quietly alone in a room listening to her songs and daydreaming of Marilyn Monroe whose photograph decorates his lonesome wall. Beauty is in the leaves falling, the sun fading, the moon rising, the heart pounding. Beauty in a dancer's movements, beauty in a lover's kisses.

Always, no matter what the hour, no matter how dire the fates we suffer, we can find if we but look. It is not necessary for it to be pure or perfect. It can be perfectly imperfect and gorgeous for that reason. Beauty is the most complete vision of the eternal love from which we all came and which still resides in each of our souls or else why would we all of us, each separate being, still be so drawn to it like a young babe is drawn to its mother's breast?

Beauty is the guide for the weary. Share some beauty today or find some where it still exists and love it for beauty is truly precious in a world like the one we inhabit.

An Excerpt from John Keats' Ode on a Grecian Urn

Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,'--that is all
Ye kno on earth, and all ye need to know.