I yelled at my wife. I never yell at my wife. I wasn’t nasty. I was just bombastic for 10 long seconds. She didn’t mind. She knew what was going on. I was struggling, unsuccessfully, to manage the grief that we as a world community almost seem to be drowning in. It was a humbling reminder: Trump, and the soulless assaults on human dignity his presidency incites, are not responsible for single thing I think or feel.
Essays – Page 10
My Two Cents
Even with tears in their eyes, the gods have been smiling for weeks at the Great Mess triggered by our choice of president. That’s what gods do when they recognize that we, in our sleep, have created for ourselves an opportunity bordering on demand to address the question: Who will I be or die trying?
Yes, we’re in for some gruesome times. Military occupation of Manhattan if that’s what it takes to get Saturday Night Live off the air? Who would bet the farm against it? Our problem isn’t that Trump is malevolent. He’s far more dangerous than that. He’s absent. The way a drug addict is absent. The way a sociopath is absent. The way “A stiff prick knows no conscience” is absent. And that absence, that absence of humility, sincerity, empathy, that absence of even a sense of humor, has become a void of integrity in which some of our culture’s nastiest instincts are flourishing.
Even we who know this may wonder why it might cause the gods to smile.
The Big Picture. Knowing that a nation lives, not by its material achievements, but in its masterpieces of men and women. Having witnessed since forever how threats of profound harm are reminders that commitments have virtually no value until they are aligned with action. Recognizing that Trump is Santa Claus for anyone whose answer to the “Who will I be…?” question is: “Bring my very best self to whatever life presents.” This is among the big enchiladas of human aspiration. And the fact that Trump (unbeknownst to him, of course) can help us achieve it––just tickles the gods no end.
A friend who spent decades as a monk recently shared with me a pocket card that he and the other monastics were given at one point in his tenure. The card enumerated 10 reminders the monks and nuns were asked to keep present in their consciousness as they went about their daily activities. The points ranged from always keep your mind upon God to eat food slowly and avoid too much salt. I thought the purpose of the card terrific; valuable to anyone: a list of the key reminders we want front-of-mind no matter what comes our way. (A nation gone wacky, for instance.)
Of course, since monastic life is anchored in a vow of obedience, those monks and nuns were “given” the 10 points they were encouraged to remember––each receiving the same 10. Those of us free of such vows have the privilege of choosing the cues we’d like in our back pocket at all times. Among the reasons I find this process so rewarding is that we can pick things that are particularly gnarly for us. Even better, we can change our list anytime we wish for the rest of our lives. As you know, the universe is not shy about revealing new things worth remembering.
Below is my first crack at ten, plus a few extra, in case they stimulate your own discovery process. Before you get to them, however, I have a request. If you find this exercise useful, I would love to see the list of things you want to remember. We all have so much to learn (and steal) from one another.
The big picture from our front yard and Swami Rama
“Nature is the manifest form of the Divine Mother, the transcendental ocean of beauty and bliss. To enjoy her protection, love, and care, we must live in her lap. The more we distance ourselves from her, the further we distance ourselves from divine love and protection. Exploiting nature is like abusing our own mother. Out of ignorance we fail to see that we are constantly receiving nurturance from the sun, moon, stars, air, fire and water. We are made of these forces; they are integral to us. Even the force of gravity is a form of sentient love emitting from the heart of the planet. It holds us fast to the bosom of the Earth. Punching holes in the ozone layer is like drilling holes in our skulls. Destroying the forests is like hacking away our own limbs. Allowing the soul to erode is like ripping off our own skin.<br />
“…worshipping nature is the core of spirituality. ‘Worship’ means living in harmony with nature, actively contributing to her well-being, and refraining from harming her. Once we are in harmony with nature we begin to experience divine love and grace manifesting everywhere, and our hearts open spontaneously. As this happens, the curtain of duality is lifted and we no longer experience ourselves as entities separate from her. This experience erases our fear of death, because we now realize that we have been with her all along: there is nothing like being born or dying. We are drops of bliss emerging from the wave of bliss and subsiding into it again. We are no longer bound by the cycle of birth and death, for we know birth is like coming into the lap of our mother, and death is like returning to her womb.”<br />
From “At the Eleventh Hour, the biography of Swami Rama,” by Pandit Rajmani Tigunait, Ph.D.
After going to bed election night long before the results got interesting, I figured it a sign when I got up at 1AM and stepped into dog poop on the living room faux oriental. It was such a rare occurrence; our three boys have an entire mountain at their disposal. Upon cleaning the rug and washing my feet, a check of my laptop confirmed the poop’s forecast: Donald Trump’s chances of winning had soared to 95 percent. Not my desired outcome, but since I’m close to monotonous in my esteem for every event (and yes, I do include a shoelace in our soup right along with death) as, more than anything else, a call to grow our capacity to love, I soon identified a few gifts of Trump’s Triumph––all with far more reaching impact than the universe’s scatological humor at my expense.
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"I honor that we are killing the earth for the same reason I consider being an alcoholic a privilege: it is a doorway to the profound self-understanding required to make truly healthy choices."
The Essay: Honoring the Killing of the Earth
