If there is one lesson I am grateful to have learned from the Navy, it can be summed up in the phrase I used for this post's title. When I first heard a chief say this to me, I almost laughed aloud I was so delightfully surprised by the direct wisdom of this playful yet stern catchphrase. I really feel that this is pointing to a lesson I have learned time and again through zen practice.
I have a lot of problems. They range from macroscopic (how will the human species avoid destroying ourselves?) to trivial (fucking assholes don't know how to merge!). Quick aside: it seems like those two problems are really just different iterations of the same underlying frustration. But anyways... At work, I sometimes delay my own progress out of frustration with some such issue or another. This only hurts me. At times, doing this even adds to my frustration. The resolution I imagine will fix everything will never come to be. The resolution I should instead put my efforts toward realizing is essentially equanimity: the willingness to experience any mental state (nod to Darlene Cohen for that phrasing). When I am unwilling to be frustrated, I am unwilling to deal with my frustration in a constructive way.
Getting all butt-hurt about stuff is useless. Whining about it and ruminating only make it worse. The buddhist guidance of right attitude is not something I will eventually obtain after practicing at Tassajara (though I may benefit in other ways). I can practice the noble eightfold path (or whichever spoke is applicable) here and now. Sometimes, though, I need a verbal smack on the head to remind me of this.
Sunday, September 27, 2015
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
Three Soda Cans -- Or: Pragmatism, not idealism
I frequently get really upset over what appear to be small issues. I felt like writing about this one for some reason.
The other day on board the ship, we did a ceremony to commemorate "crossing the line" -- when a ship crosses the equator. It is a tradition steeped in maritime history. For our ship, it involved a lot of water and no small amount of dirt... and also some tuna. In any case, it was pretty messy. I lucked out and got to the showers before a long line formed. A couple guys waiting in the berthing area asked if I would get sodas for them. I agreed. Then I did my laundry. Later, I got back to the berthing and the three empty soda cans were just left out... on my locker no less. There were three because one of the guys asked me to get him two sodas. Some different guys were talking about this. It was not the only example of littering that day; they recounted an exchange with another guy in berthing who left his soda cans out, too, in which he gave the excuse that the berthing was going to get cleaned up later, anyway. It didn't seem important to him that he might not be the one to clean it. I told one of the guys I bought a soda for that I didn't appreciate him leaving his can out. He gave me the same retort. There wasn't even a hint of apology, even though he must have been able to tell I was upset about it. When I was venting about this to a friend, I said something to the effect of, "I'll think really hard before I do something nice for someone again."
I was upset because I hate the pathologically pragmatic attitude I encounter so frequently on board this ship which excuses indecency and makes work for others. I pick up a lot of soda cans and other trash because people leave it laying around in the classroom, head, berthing, pretty much everywhere.
It is not hard for me to understand that people often don't clean up after themselves because there is a compulsory period of cleaning every day during which this trash gets picked up. Knowing that one's soda can will be cleaned up by someone else because it is part of the routine, one would be hard-pressed to make a convincing argument why one SHOULD throw away one's own soda can. Now, I estimate the percentage of people that behaves this way is small. Most soda cans and other trash get thrown away with no problem. And I think that is because common decency is still pretty common. But today it occurred to me that such motivation is idealistic rather than pragmatic.
I hate the frustration I feel when I am challenged to convince someone of something with pragmatic logic when I myself believe it because of my personal ideology. I was also upset because I don't like feeling like being idealistic is a bad thing (and by the way, I really don't think I was being that idealistic!). But lately I have been reading a book which suggests that buddhism is not an idealistic religion but a pragmatic one. The happiness that is said to come from buddhism is a result of living according to the dharma. So we live buddha's teaching and naturally are free from suffering. Bam! That's pragmatic. Interesting. But I was still upset -- maybe most of all -- because if buddhist practice is supposed to yield happiness, then why wasn't my good deed from an hour ago making me happy in the face of this wretched selfishness? Well, I thought it over and here's what I came up with: The spontaneous generosity was buddhist practice. When I projected retroactive expectations onto those guys, however, that was not buddhist practice. They played Pirates of the Caribbean on the ship's TVs that day, and a quote from Jack Sparrow sums it up best: "They done what's right by them. Can't expect any more than that." Even when evaluating the past, to attach to a certain outcome will create suffering, e.g. anger. And yes there ARE some things worth getting angry about in order to change... Maybe littering is one of them. But I have to be willing to experience the anger that arises and channel it. If I am not willing, I fall victim to the ravages of my own mind's karma.
I sometimes doubt the purported pragmatism of buddhism. Maybe that is because I am mistaking an idealistic notion of buddhism for actual buddhism, and I am mistaking a rough, common idea of pragmatism for the way buddhism actually works. It's not magic, it's just the cause and effect of the mind and body. And though buddhist pragmatism may be too subtle to explain in a convincing, materialistic way, that is not the same as being idealistic. But then what's with all that flowery, universal compassion stuff? And IS "common decency" an ideal?
By the way, there were nine uses of "pragmatic" or forms of that word, including the title, in this entry.
It is not hard for me to understand that people often don't clean up after themselves because there is a compulsory period of cleaning every day during which this trash gets picked up. Knowing that one's soda can will be cleaned up by someone else because it is part of the routine, one would be hard-pressed to make a convincing argument why one SHOULD throw away one's own soda can. Now, I estimate the percentage of people that behaves this way is small. Most soda cans and other trash get thrown away with no problem. And I think that is because common decency is still pretty common. But today it occurred to me that such motivation is idealistic rather than pragmatic.
I hate the frustration I feel when I am challenged to convince someone of something with pragmatic logic when I myself believe it because of my personal ideology. I was also upset because I don't like feeling like being idealistic is a bad thing (and by the way, I really don't think I was being that idealistic!). But lately I have been reading a book which suggests that buddhism is not an idealistic religion but a pragmatic one. The happiness that is said to come from buddhism is a result of living according to the dharma. So we live buddha's teaching and naturally are free from suffering. Bam! That's pragmatic. Interesting. But I was still upset -- maybe most of all -- because if buddhist practice is supposed to yield happiness, then why wasn't my good deed from an hour ago making me happy in the face of this wretched selfishness? Well, I thought it over and here's what I came up with: The spontaneous generosity was buddhist practice. When I projected retroactive expectations onto those guys, however, that was not buddhist practice. They played Pirates of the Caribbean on the ship's TVs that day, and a quote from Jack Sparrow sums it up best: "They done what's right by them. Can't expect any more than that." Even when evaluating the past, to attach to a certain outcome will create suffering, e.g. anger. And yes there ARE some things worth getting angry about in order to change... Maybe littering is one of them. But I have to be willing to experience the anger that arises and channel it. If I am not willing, I fall victim to the ravages of my own mind's karma.
I sometimes doubt the purported pragmatism of buddhism. Maybe that is because I am mistaking an idealistic notion of buddhism for actual buddhism, and I am mistaking a rough, common idea of pragmatism for the way buddhism actually works. It's not magic, it's just the cause and effect of the mind and body. And though buddhist pragmatism may be too subtle to explain in a convincing, materialistic way, that is not the same as being idealistic. But then what's with all that flowery, universal compassion stuff? And IS "common decency" an ideal?
By the way, there were nine uses of "pragmatic" or forms of that word, including the title, in this entry.
Monday, April 13, 2015
My Tattoos
My first two tattoos ever are a pair that I have thought about getting since I was at Tassajara. It's been a decent amount of time since I got them, and I am still happy that I got them. I talked a little about them on Facebook when I got them, but I wanted to expound on the small blurbs I typed when I posted pics.
Style-wise, I like that there is symmetry (they are both short phrases, one on each arm), but there is also asymmetry (the one on my right arm has a little wave shape to the text). Here's what they say: on my left arm, "Breathe through it"; on my right arm, "Turn the light inward". The lettering is basically my own "fancy" print. They are advice -- notes from myself, to myself. The first one, "Breathe through it", was said to me by a practice leader at Tassajara when I asked about what to do when I feel overwhelmed by negative states of mind. For some reason, the power of the utter simplicity and truth of this made a huge impact on me. I want never to forget this simple advice. Even though I know what I got tattooed on my arm, I like that I can look at it from time to time and remember that I at one point heard a piece of advice that I wanted to never ever forget. In some ways, it is like summarizing all the lessons I have ever learned from zazen in one sentence. Am I feeling physical discomfort? Breathe through it. Am I frustrated at work and cannot wait to get home? Breathe through it. Am I feeling such intense anger or sadness that unwholesome desires or daydreams manifest ceaselessly? Breathe through it.
Especially now, onboard my carrier, deployed, trapped with a lot of people who are less enthusiastic than I am about being considerate of others, it is vital that I remember many things. First, my practice is for others. That is something that my teacher has said, and it is important not to lose sight of the fact that I practice for the benefit of others. While it is true that I suffer less through buddhist practice, my goal is to benefit those around me. Second, now is never forever. This "now" will always become another "now", complete with its own mind states and possibilities. Maybe it is really, really similar to the one right before it. But it is not the same. Whatever is happening in the present WILL change, sooner or later. I have only to focus on my breathing and remember the transient nature of reality. And hey, maybe I can learn something. Third, when I respond to negativity with more negativity, I am effectively taking on another person's bad karma. When someone lashes out at someone else, it is because they are suffering. Sadly, expressing that negativity leads to more suffering. I can either engage that negativity skillfully and help both parties suffer less, or I can engage it unskillfully and both parties suffer. This may be overly simplistic, but it is more or less the truth in interpersonal conflict.
That third thing that I must remember ties in to my other tattoo. The phrase "Turn the light inward" comes from Dogen. I don't know which fascicle, but I bet it's one of the essays in Shobogenzo. The whole sentence is something like "Turn the light inward and take the backward step," but just the first part caught my attention. It's got a few meanings which I want to remember. One interpretation is that when I look at others' faults and judge them, I am shining a light on them -- like a beam of investigation, I find out their flaws and hunt for the causes of their behavior to solve their problems (or just feel superior). But I really need to take that beam and turn it on myself. This interpretation reminds me of a quote I heard attributed to Confucius: "When I see virtue in others, I vow to emulate it. When I see evil, I look within." Rather than waste energy critiquing the behavior of others, which not only doesn't help anything but is also a shitty habit in terms of personal growth, I should examine my own life and look for the ways I can be more skillful, compassionate, and wise. Besides, as another Dogen quote goes, "Only a fish knows a fish's heart." I have no idea what's going on for that other person over there. So it is not for me to judge. Another meaning of this phrase for me relates to learning truth, to finding a solution to a problem. I think it is fair to say that the root of every problem I have ever had, the source of all my suffering, lies within myself. But the good news is that inside is also the source of the end of suffering, the source of wisdom, the source of the solution. So there is no need to look for the truth anywhere beyond my own experience. This ties into the third meaning. This meaning is much more vague, and I only feel a sense of this meaning so far. It is something like, investigating within is the way to realize the truth. I feel like I maybe already said that, but this time I mean it more generally. Dogen says, "To study Zen is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. Forgetting the self, one is actualized by everything." So the first step in the great endeavor of realizing the truth of zen involves looking within and seeing exactly what it is that's there. I should do that. But I forget to do that. So I got a reminder tattooed on my right arm.
Style-wise, I like that there is symmetry (they are both short phrases, one on each arm), but there is also asymmetry (the one on my right arm has a little wave shape to the text). Here's what they say: on my left arm, "Breathe through it"; on my right arm, "Turn the light inward". The lettering is basically my own "fancy" print. They are advice -- notes from myself, to myself. The first one, "Breathe through it", was said to me by a practice leader at Tassajara when I asked about what to do when I feel overwhelmed by negative states of mind. For some reason, the power of the utter simplicity and truth of this made a huge impact on me. I want never to forget this simple advice. Even though I know what I got tattooed on my arm, I like that I can look at it from time to time and remember that I at one point heard a piece of advice that I wanted to never ever forget. In some ways, it is like summarizing all the lessons I have ever learned from zazen in one sentence. Am I feeling physical discomfort? Breathe through it. Am I frustrated at work and cannot wait to get home? Breathe through it. Am I feeling such intense anger or sadness that unwholesome desires or daydreams manifest ceaselessly? Breathe through it.
Especially now, onboard my carrier, deployed, trapped with a lot of people who are less enthusiastic than I am about being considerate of others, it is vital that I remember many things. First, my practice is for others. That is something that my teacher has said, and it is important not to lose sight of the fact that I practice for the benefit of others. While it is true that I suffer less through buddhist practice, my goal is to benefit those around me. Second, now is never forever. This "now" will always become another "now", complete with its own mind states and possibilities. Maybe it is really, really similar to the one right before it. But it is not the same. Whatever is happening in the present WILL change, sooner or later. I have only to focus on my breathing and remember the transient nature of reality. And hey, maybe I can learn something. Third, when I respond to negativity with more negativity, I am effectively taking on another person's bad karma. When someone lashes out at someone else, it is because they are suffering. Sadly, expressing that negativity leads to more suffering. I can either engage that negativity skillfully and help both parties suffer less, or I can engage it unskillfully and both parties suffer. This may be overly simplistic, but it is more or less the truth in interpersonal conflict.
That third thing that I must remember ties in to my other tattoo. The phrase "Turn the light inward" comes from Dogen. I don't know which fascicle, but I bet it's one of the essays in Shobogenzo. The whole sentence is something like "Turn the light inward and take the backward step," but just the first part caught my attention. It's got a few meanings which I want to remember. One interpretation is that when I look at others' faults and judge them, I am shining a light on them -- like a beam of investigation, I find out their flaws and hunt for the causes of their behavior to solve their problems (or just feel superior). But I really need to take that beam and turn it on myself. This interpretation reminds me of a quote I heard attributed to Confucius: "When I see virtue in others, I vow to emulate it. When I see evil, I look within." Rather than waste energy critiquing the behavior of others, which not only doesn't help anything but is also a shitty habit in terms of personal growth, I should examine my own life and look for the ways I can be more skillful, compassionate, and wise. Besides, as another Dogen quote goes, "Only a fish knows a fish's heart." I have no idea what's going on for that other person over there. So it is not for me to judge. Another meaning of this phrase for me relates to learning truth, to finding a solution to a problem. I think it is fair to say that the root of every problem I have ever had, the source of all my suffering, lies within myself. But the good news is that inside is also the source of the end of suffering, the source of wisdom, the source of the solution. So there is no need to look for the truth anywhere beyond my own experience. This ties into the third meaning. This meaning is much more vague, and I only feel a sense of this meaning so far. It is something like, investigating within is the way to realize the truth. I feel like I maybe already said that, but this time I mean it more generally. Dogen says, "To study Zen is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. Forgetting the self, one is actualized by everything." So the first step in the great endeavor of realizing the truth of zen involves looking within and seeing exactly what it is that's there. I should do that. But I forget to do that. So I got a reminder tattooed on my right arm.
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
What I'm Running From
It has been nearly a year since the last time I wrote in this blog. As luck would have it, a big reason I haven't been writing in here is the subject of this entry: laziness. I am probably not going to spend a lot of time developing the thoughts behind this bit of writing because I'm worried that if I do I will overthink and ultimately not write it. And since this is the most effort I've made in writing on here for quite a while, I want to go with it and get it out there rather than let it die.
Recently, during indoctrination training onboard the carrier I'm assigned to, it was suggested that in one way or another, all of us joined the Navy because we are running from something. Perhaps we're running from bills, drugs, a dead-end job, a bad neighborhood... After I considered this for a second or two, it occurred to me that perhaps this person was making a good point. Maybe it is not true of everyone in the Navy, but at least I could say honestly that I joined the Navy because I was running from many things. Among these things is one of the five hindrances to buddhist practice: torpor, or laziness.
I want to digress for a second and say that I dislike calling this quality "sloth". The sloth is a noble creature. It lives a wonderful life, and I feel that to shame such an awesome animal by associating its name with a negative characteristic (in fact one of the seven deadly sins in Catholic teaching) is to say God erred when he created that marvelous thing. Back to my entry.
When I decided to join the Navy, I was almost 27 years old. I had been living in Los Angeles for just over four years. Now a lot of people, and I was one, would say that making it past even one year in that city is a big deal. But the more I thought about it, the less I felt like I had accomplished anything just by BEING there. After all, my parents had subsidized my gas and food and car insurance (and I was driving a car they purchased... and which they took back at some point leaving me to get around exclusively using public transportation) for most of those four years. I was living paycheck to paycheck. I nearly got kicked out of my apartment at some point by my roommates for being late in paying the rent. I was miserable, and I wanted to change my situation, but I felt trapped. I felt like I was spinning my wheels and going nowhere, so I didn't put forth a lot of effort towards acting or comedy... and I therefore perpetuated a self-fulfilling prophecy of going nowhere. I was lazy. I smoked a lot of pot instead of working hard after finishing my shift at Starbucks to realize the dream that had brought me out there in the first place. One night after my enlistment paperwork was signed, while a coworker and I were closing up the store, I actually blurted out, "I think I joined the Navy because I needed an excuse to quit smoking pot."
I had considered a few alternatives. I could move somewhere cheaper and work at a different Starbucks until my debts were paid off and then just go live at Tassajara. I could apply for scholarships for grad school. I could re-double my efforts in acting and comedy and work to justify my existence out in the City of Angels. But these didn't motivate me in the same way that joining the Navy did. To my mind at that time, the Navy represented the opposite of everything I was doing wrong. I felt like I was being selfish to try making money in popular media. I felt like it would be a scam to go directly into monastic life and monk training. I felt like I wasn't contributing. I felt like nothing I did mattered. And most of all, I was tired of feeling so fucking lazy. So, I felt like I could join the Navy and solve all of that. I felt like I could get away from those feelings if I was a United States Sailor.
It's funny how the mind will play the same tricks on itself over and over again. It had barely been a month after I finished my summer at Tassajara -- where I clearly learned that I can never run from any of my problems since I am always the root cause of them -- before I was trying to run again. But that's no matter. Really, as I explained in my first couple entries, there were many reasons that inspired me to join. For now, though, I'll finish exploring the silliest of them.
I haven't been completely wrong. I am doing more, earning more money, than I was back in Los Angeles. I am constantly accelerating... no more a victim of stagnant inertia. And, of course, I don't smoke pot these days. But now, it seems, I see more laziness in and around me than ever before. And now, too, I have another hindrance to battle: ill will. I see some garbage laying around the classroom or the head, and the laziness of the people who left it there infuriates me. I hear someone talking about the studying they are doing, or see two guys going off to the gym, and I fume inwardly that I am heading to bed instead of doing those things, too.
These days, laziness is a special trigger for me. I often feel torpor is humankind's worst sin. It is the biggest hindrance to us all. We could soar like angels, but we are too lazy to use our wings. Giving up our prejudices takes too much work. Putting aside our comfort for the greater good is counter-intuitive to our species. I am no exception. And so it goes. Ironically, to stop running and face the aspects of myself and others that I would rather not with radical acceptance rather than disdain is too great a task for me right now. Or at least that's how it feels. But as my teacher Greg says, perseverance is the way to practice with this. I'll try.
Recently, during indoctrination training onboard the carrier I'm assigned to, it was suggested that in one way or another, all of us joined the Navy because we are running from something. Perhaps we're running from bills, drugs, a dead-end job, a bad neighborhood... After I considered this for a second or two, it occurred to me that perhaps this person was making a good point. Maybe it is not true of everyone in the Navy, but at least I could say honestly that I joined the Navy because I was running from many things. Among these things is one of the five hindrances to buddhist practice: torpor, or laziness.
I want to digress for a second and say that I dislike calling this quality "sloth". The sloth is a noble creature. It lives a wonderful life, and I feel that to shame such an awesome animal by associating its name with a negative characteristic (in fact one of the seven deadly sins in Catholic teaching) is to say God erred when he created that marvelous thing. Back to my entry.
When I decided to join the Navy, I was almost 27 years old. I had been living in Los Angeles for just over four years. Now a lot of people, and I was one, would say that making it past even one year in that city is a big deal. But the more I thought about it, the less I felt like I had accomplished anything just by BEING there. After all, my parents had subsidized my gas and food and car insurance (and I was driving a car they purchased... and which they took back at some point leaving me to get around exclusively using public transportation) for most of those four years. I was living paycheck to paycheck. I nearly got kicked out of my apartment at some point by my roommates for being late in paying the rent. I was miserable, and I wanted to change my situation, but I felt trapped. I felt like I was spinning my wheels and going nowhere, so I didn't put forth a lot of effort towards acting or comedy... and I therefore perpetuated a self-fulfilling prophecy of going nowhere. I was lazy. I smoked a lot of pot instead of working hard after finishing my shift at Starbucks to realize the dream that had brought me out there in the first place. One night after my enlistment paperwork was signed, while a coworker and I were closing up the store, I actually blurted out, "I think I joined the Navy because I needed an excuse to quit smoking pot."
I had considered a few alternatives. I could move somewhere cheaper and work at a different Starbucks until my debts were paid off and then just go live at Tassajara. I could apply for scholarships for grad school. I could re-double my efforts in acting and comedy and work to justify my existence out in the City of Angels. But these didn't motivate me in the same way that joining the Navy did. To my mind at that time, the Navy represented the opposite of everything I was doing wrong. I felt like I was being selfish to try making money in popular media. I felt like it would be a scam to go directly into monastic life and monk training. I felt like I wasn't contributing. I felt like nothing I did mattered. And most of all, I was tired of feeling so fucking lazy. So, I felt like I could join the Navy and solve all of that. I felt like I could get away from those feelings if I was a United States Sailor.
It's funny how the mind will play the same tricks on itself over and over again. It had barely been a month after I finished my summer at Tassajara -- where I clearly learned that I can never run from any of my problems since I am always the root cause of them -- before I was trying to run again. But that's no matter. Really, as I explained in my first couple entries, there were many reasons that inspired me to join. For now, though, I'll finish exploring the silliest of them.
I haven't been completely wrong. I am doing more, earning more money, than I was back in Los Angeles. I am constantly accelerating... no more a victim of stagnant inertia. And, of course, I don't smoke pot these days. But now, it seems, I see more laziness in and around me than ever before. And now, too, I have another hindrance to battle: ill will. I see some garbage laying around the classroom or the head, and the laziness of the people who left it there infuriates me. I hear someone talking about the studying they are doing, or see two guys going off to the gym, and I fume inwardly that I am heading to bed instead of doing those things, too.
These days, laziness is a special trigger for me. I often feel torpor is humankind's worst sin. It is the biggest hindrance to us all. We could soar like angels, but we are too lazy to use our wings. Giving up our prejudices takes too much work. Putting aside our comfort for the greater good is counter-intuitive to our species. I am no exception. And so it goes. Ironically, to stop running and face the aspects of myself and others that I would rather not with radical acceptance rather than disdain is too great a task for me right now. Or at least that's how it feels. But as my teacher Greg says, perseverance is the way to practice with this. I'll try.
Sunday, April 27, 2014
The Conservation of Happiness
So I don't know if this is a thing all throughout the Navy or just concentrated in the nuke community (or perhaps it is known far and wide, and I am only just now hearing about it), but a phrase that keeps popping up in conversations with instructors and students is "Conservation of Happiness." It is a reference to the conservation of energy (energy can neither be created nor destroyed, merely altered in form -- also known as the first law of thermodynamics) except this version states that happiness can neither be created nor destroyed, merely transferred from one person to another. Basically, if I want to be more happy I have to make YOU less happy, thus taking some of your happiness. Now of course I know this is not true. From my experiences, I can say with certainty that a person can become happy or unhappy without affecting others either way. What's more, I feel sure that few (if any) people I have encountered who would invoke this pseudo-principle sincerely believe that it is true.
This idea gets brought up a lot, though. And even if nobody who brings it up believes that it is true, it has a strange sort of reality which has real effects. For starters, it does astutely describe a phenomenon which seems to be deeply embedded in the culture I am now a part of. I witness a troubling amount of spite and bullying. I want to take a moment and clarify that I am not talking about bullying in the sense of malicious, ongoing torture. This is more like aggressive ribbing, comprised of short encounters where one person will put down another person in order to feel better. I also hear about such instances anecdotally, like "when I made that guy cry I got sooo happy." I was bemoaning the unkind nature of my classmates to someone who has been to sea, and he told me that I should grow a thicker skin because it is even worse on the ships. One story I heard which perfectly illustrates this warning involved one sad crew member who was talking about wanting to cut himself. His crewmates' response was to find all the knives they could and stash them in the sad crew member's rack.
Even if the wording which describes this phenomenon is unique to the Navy, I realize that putting others down to feel better is nothing new. But most people grow out of it by the end of high school. So far in the Navy, though, it seems like this systematic schadenfreude is not only tolerated but encouraged. Why might this be? I cannot know for sure, but I have a few thoughts I'd like to share. For starters, the whole military resembles one giant frat. Back in college, this was a culture that I had a strange love-hate relationship with. On the one hand, pack mentality, group-think, cult of personality bullshit repulses me on so many levels. To suppress creativity and novelty in favor of primitive ideals which appeal to the lowest common denominator stymies progress, and all the frat activities I witnessed around the U of A campus seemed to be demonstrative of this kind of retardation. On the other hand, though, I did not like feeling like an outsider. I longed to bond with fellow males on that intensely basic level of understanding which seemed to come naturally to that crowd. After all, fraternité means brotherhood in French. So now, in the Navy, I am learning a thing or two about male bonding on a basic level. Case in point, another comment from a sea-returnee was something to the effect of "It's when people stop messing with you that you should worry."
I am still puzzled by this. All my buddhist training on kind speech seems to be non-applicable. I mean sure, there are exchanges of good-natured barbs, but that's not what I'm talking about. To really improve one's mood in keeping with this "principle," one must genuinely hurt someone else. And people do derive some form of pleasure from upsetting others, particularly subordinates. Maybe that's one reason for this behavior: by using one's position of authority to hurt those beneath them, even in ways with no lasting ramifications, one reenforces their place in the pecking order. But upon even further analysis -- and this is what makes this issue really fucking crazy to me -- it is apparent that the person who is trying to take the happiness from the other person doesn't actually want or need the other person to be unhappy for very long. What they want is a temporary transference of happiness and then subsequently a recovery and resurgence of their victim. Because we all are, in fact, on the same team. We need to know the people we are working with are strong, emotionally, because in a crisis situation our own lives depend on the strength of our crewmembers.
So apparently this behavior kills two birds with one stone -- improving the mood of one person by practicing mild sadism and/or underscoring their authority (if a power dynamic is at work) while simultaneously testing the emotional fortitude of their teammates, perhaps building it up in the process. I submit that it is possible to improve one's mood and increase people's emotional stability without resorting to behavior rife with potential for negativity. But such alternatives must necessarily encourage empathy, and in a culture devoted to the vanquishing of one's enemies, empathy can be a dangerous luxury. Now I posit, based on my experience and understanding, that even empathy towards one's enemies can be possible without undoing the goals of a military. But perhaps my understanding is flawed. Perhaps I am coasting on an ignorance masquerading as understanding, and I am really all fucked up. But anyways, I will keep inquiring into this and other issues that arise and try not to settle too comfortably into an answer or explanation.
I kind of lost any sense of thesis in this entry. This sort of thing defies understanding. There is a continuum of messing with people. It runs the gamut from ribbing for the sake of camaraderie to malicious, sadistic sociopathic bullying. I think mostly, the discussion I attempted can only serve to scrutinize my own motives. Any more than that is beyond the scope of buddhist examination.
This idea gets brought up a lot, though. And even if nobody who brings it up believes that it is true, it has a strange sort of reality which has real effects. For starters, it does astutely describe a phenomenon which seems to be deeply embedded in the culture I am now a part of. I witness a troubling amount of spite and bullying. I want to take a moment and clarify that I am not talking about bullying in the sense of malicious, ongoing torture. This is more like aggressive ribbing, comprised of short encounters where one person will put down another person in order to feel better. I also hear about such instances anecdotally, like "when I made that guy cry I got sooo happy." I was bemoaning the unkind nature of my classmates to someone who has been to sea, and he told me that I should grow a thicker skin because it is even worse on the ships. One story I heard which perfectly illustrates this warning involved one sad crew member who was talking about wanting to cut himself. His crewmates' response was to find all the knives they could and stash them in the sad crew member's rack.
Even if the wording which describes this phenomenon is unique to the Navy, I realize that putting others down to feel better is nothing new. But most people grow out of it by the end of high school. So far in the Navy, though, it seems like this systematic schadenfreude is not only tolerated but encouraged. Why might this be? I cannot know for sure, but I have a few thoughts I'd like to share. For starters, the whole military resembles one giant frat. Back in college, this was a culture that I had a strange love-hate relationship with. On the one hand, pack mentality, group-think, cult of personality bullshit repulses me on so many levels. To suppress creativity and novelty in favor of primitive ideals which appeal to the lowest common denominator stymies progress, and all the frat activities I witnessed around the U of A campus seemed to be demonstrative of this kind of retardation. On the other hand, though, I did not like feeling like an outsider. I longed to bond with fellow males on that intensely basic level of understanding which seemed to come naturally to that crowd. After all, fraternité means brotherhood in French. So now, in the Navy, I am learning a thing or two about male bonding on a basic level. Case in point, another comment from a sea-returnee was something to the effect of "It's when people stop messing with you that you should worry."
I am still puzzled by this. All my buddhist training on kind speech seems to be non-applicable. I mean sure, there are exchanges of good-natured barbs, but that's not what I'm talking about. To really improve one's mood in keeping with this "principle," one must genuinely hurt someone else. And people do derive some form of pleasure from upsetting others, particularly subordinates. Maybe that's one reason for this behavior: by using one's position of authority to hurt those beneath them, even in ways with no lasting ramifications, one reenforces their place in the pecking order. But upon even further analysis -- and this is what makes this issue really fucking crazy to me -- it is apparent that the person who is trying to take the happiness from the other person doesn't actually want or need the other person to be unhappy for very long. What they want is a temporary transference of happiness and then subsequently a recovery and resurgence of their victim. Because we all are, in fact, on the same team. We need to know the people we are working with are strong, emotionally, because in a crisis situation our own lives depend on the strength of our crewmembers.
So apparently this behavior kills two birds with one stone -- improving the mood of one person by practicing mild sadism and/or underscoring their authority (if a power dynamic is at work) while simultaneously testing the emotional fortitude of their teammates, perhaps building it up in the process. I submit that it is possible to improve one's mood and increase people's emotional stability without resorting to behavior rife with potential for negativity. But such alternatives must necessarily encourage empathy, and in a culture devoted to the vanquishing of one's enemies, empathy can be a dangerous luxury. Now I posit, based on my experience and understanding, that even empathy towards one's enemies can be possible without undoing the goals of a military. But perhaps my understanding is flawed. Perhaps I am coasting on an ignorance masquerading as understanding, and I am really all fucked up. But anyways, I will keep inquiring into this and other issues that arise and try not to settle too comfortably into an answer or explanation.
I kind of lost any sense of thesis in this entry. This sort of thing defies understanding. There is a continuum of messing with people. It runs the gamut from ribbing for the sake of camaraderie to malicious, sadistic sociopathic bullying. I think mostly, the discussion I attempted can only serve to scrutinize my own motives. Any more than that is beyond the scope of buddhist examination.
Wednesday, April 9, 2014
Tassajara Journal Review 1
I have wanted to write something in here for a while, but I have been both bothered by too many ideas and bothered by too little motivation for any one of them. So to appease my longing to contribute to this project and to express something that is going on for me right now, I am posting a journal entry from my time at Tassajara.
At times, I feel like the mouse in this next story. And what I symbolize in the story, the ogre, the oaf... Well that could be a number of things. No need to name them. Anyways, here it is:
Monday, June 13 -- Day 65 (10:30 pm)
Just now, in the bathroom, a large mouse or smallish rat was surprised by my arrival [in the lower barn bathroom] and had no way to escape. So what he did is find the corner farthest from me and make himself as small as possible. When I went closer to get a good look at him, he dashed past me to a different corner (inset of sorts, on the step up to the stalls) and hid behind the broom/dustpan. I was able to sit on the step and see him closer, but as I reached to tap his tail he made a break for it across the room and this time behind the container for hair clippers. Again, I went closer. I kept this up for a little bit; partly to see this creature closer, but also partly to observe his method of self-preservation...and...it wasn't much, really. I mean, without an escape all he could do was put some object between us or just bury his face in a corner and hope that I would leave. If I got too close for comfort, he would make a break for it. Watching him at one point, cowering, whiskers aquiver, I realized, "he's more scared of me than I am irritated by him." Then I brushed my teeth. While brushing, I went up to him in a new spot behind the plastic bin the toilet plunger is kept in and pinned him against the wall with said bin so I could give him a tiny stroke on the back in a last attempt at comprehension, on my part, of the reality of this creature, and communication of peace as well, no matter how unlikely it was that it would be understood. Then I thoroughly washed my hands (who knows what diseases it might by carrying in his fur?) and finished brushing my teeth.
At times, I feel like the mouse in this next story. And what I symbolize in the story, the ogre, the oaf... Well that could be a number of things. No need to name them. Anyways, here it is:
Monday, June 13 -- Day 65 (10:30 pm)
Just now, in the bathroom, a large mouse or smallish rat was surprised by my arrival [in the lower barn bathroom] and had no way to escape. So what he did is find the corner farthest from me and make himself as small as possible. When I went closer to get a good look at him, he dashed past me to a different corner (inset of sorts, on the step up to the stalls) and hid behind the broom/dustpan. I was able to sit on the step and see him closer, but as I reached to tap his tail he made a break for it across the room and this time behind the container for hair clippers. Again, I went closer. I kept this up for a little bit; partly to see this creature closer, but also partly to observe his method of self-preservation...and...it wasn't much, really. I mean, without an escape all he could do was put some object between us or just bury his face in a corner and hope that I would leave. If I got too close for comfort, he would make a break for it. Watching him at one point, cowering, whiskers aquiver, I realized, "he's more scared of me than I am irritated by him." Then I brushed my teeth. While brushing, I went up to him in a new spot behind the plastic bin the toilet plunger is kept in and pinned him against the wall with said bin so I could give him a tiny stroke on the back in a last attempt at comprehension, on my part, of the reality of this creature, and communication of peace as well, no matter how unlikely it was that it would be understood. Then I thoroughly washed my hands (who knows what diseases it might by carrying in his fur?) and finished brushing my teeth.
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
Guilt
I've heard it said that Catholics and Jews tend to be more guilty than most. I don't know why, but that's the accepted stereotype. Well, I was raised Catholic. And whether or not that has anything to do with anything, I am noticing a lot of guilt lately surrounding my buddhist practice. Guilt is a useless emotion if it isn't serving to motivate improvement. For example, when I feel guilty about not practicing the guitar I paid $200 for (or when I feel guilty for paying $200 for something I don't practice), when I feel guilty for not working out or exercising when I have plenty of free time, these are opportunities to act differently, to do the things I have objectively deemed worthy of my time instead of being idle. I feel like the best scenario would involve doing these things without the guilty feelings serving as motivation. But the guilt is there, largely because I don't do these things way more than I do, and so I usually just end up feeling guilty. This brings up the question of whether I actually WANT to do these things, or if there is something else going on -- some neuro-peptide addiction which is gratified by guilty feelings, perhaps. It's difficult to say. But if I'm feeling guilty and NOT taking action to fix whatever I am feeling guilty about, then the guilt just ends up being somewhat masturbatory -- I get to continue being shitty but still feel kind of good for being tortured over my shittiness.
Often, though, I feel guilty about stuff that is much more subtle and nuanced than simply going to the gym vs sitting around in my room. Sometimes I feel guilt over something no rational person would feel I should have to change, like not returning the feelings of someone, for example. I have noticed I will feel guilty BOTH for giving a homeless person money and for holding back from giving a homeless person money. I feel guilty when my practice doesn't resemble that of people I look up to. That last one is really a bit silly; I mean isn't it the point of "looking up to" someone to emulate the qualities in someone more developed which one hopes to cultivate in themselves? So while it's good to feel motivated, there's no reason to feel guilty about not being a particular way NOW. I struggle immensely with this.
I still get angry, upset, or otherwise worked up -- quite often, actually. I feel guilty when I get like this. One reason is that I feel like I am misrepresenting buddhism, zen specifically. I (perhaps erroneously) feel like meditation practice should help a person be calmer, more collected. I mean, it probably does... A common fear for me (which I touched on in an earlier blog entry) is that meditation really only helps keep me at mostly-normal levels of irritation -- that without it I would be a raging psychopath or something. That's most likely not true. What IS true, maybe, is that I was more angry or prone to getting worked up before I started zen practice, that I am less so now, and that in the future these traits will be even smaller. I do need to keep reminding myself that the fruits of practice (as Darlene Cohen mentioned) are best measured in degree rather than in order of magnitude (that phrasing was co-opted from an NPR article I can't now recall). It takes more than four years to turn an intense young man into a sage, cool cucumber. In the mean time, I will persevere in noticing my failings, feeling guilty about them (if it's a failing I can rectify, like judging people or being unkind, or clinging to a small sense of self) and using that as motivation to work continually TOWARDS the idea of buddhism. If I notice masturbatory guilt, I will try to let it go. And if I can't, well at least I will do my best not to feel guilty about it.
Often, though, I feel guilty about stuff that is much more subtle and nuanced than simply going to the gym vs sitting around in my room. Sometimes I feel guilt over something no rational person would feel I should have to change, like not returning the feelings of someone, for example. I have noticed I will feel guilty BOTH for giving a homeless person money and for holding back from giving a homeless person money. I feel guilty when my practice doesn't resemble that of people I look up to. That last one is really a bit silly; I mean isn't it the point of "looking up to" someone to emulate the qualities in someone more developed which one hopes to cultivate in themselves? So while it's good to feel motivated, there's no reason to feel guilty about not being a particular way NOW. I struggle immensely with this.
I still get angry, upset, or otherwise worked up -- quite often, actually. I feel guilty when I get like this. One reason is that I feel like I am misrepresenting buddhism, zen specifically. I (perhaps erroneously) feel like meditation practice should help a person be calmer, more collected. I mean, it probably does... A common fear for me (which I touched on in an earlier blog entry) is that meditation really only helps keep me at mostly-normal levels of irritation -- that without it I would be a raging psychopath or something. That's most likely not true. What IS true, maybe, is that I was more angry or prone to getting worked up before I started zen practice, that I am less so now, and that in the future these traits will be even smaller. I do need to keep reminding myself that the fruits of practice (as Darlene Cohen mentioned) are best measured in degree rather than in order of magnitude (that phrasing was co-opted from an NPR article I can't now recall). It takes more than four years to turn an intense young man into a sage, cool cucumber. In the mean time, I will persevere in noticing my failings, feeling guilty about them (if it's a failing I can rectify, like judging people or being unkind, or clinging to a small sense of self) and using that as motivation to work continually TOWARDS the idea of buddhism. If I notice masturbatory guilt, I will try to let it go. And if I can't, well at least I will do my best not to feel guilty about it.
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