How Our Very Happiness is Colonized

In 1980, the average American CEO's income was 40 times higher than that of the average worker. Today, it is well over 300 times higher.

A new study suggests this rising income inequality in the United States doesn’t just affect Americans’ pocketbooks; it affects their happiness. Over the past four decades, according to the study, the American people have been the least happy in years when there was the widest gap between rich and poor.

The above quote is taken from an article in Yes! Magazine, a longtime favorite of mine. Clearly, it's pointing to the level of economic injustice here in the States, the negative impact of which is growing by the minute.

The Buddha routinely spoke of the three poisons: greed, hatred, and ignorance. And there's little doubt in my mind that the kinds of material disparities we are now seeing are evidence of those poisons in action. All of them.

Hatred, you might be saying? Well, I say yes. Hatred too. Hatred of other. Of community. Of what sharing with your neighbors actually means (that we're interdependent and need each on some basic levels). Hatred of poor people, coupled with a fear of becoming "one of them." The list goes on and on.

Our whole economic system is built upon the three poisons. Until enough of us realize this, and make a shift (individually and together) towards something more beneficial, the misery will keep piling up.

In fact, the very linking of our happiness to material wealth, or lack there of, is a symptom of the system. How our minds have been colonized. How the narratives of consumerism, global capitalism, and the "American Dream" own us to the core. The hundreds and even thousands of hours of absorbing advertisements, corporate-driven media news, and corroborating messages from family, friends, and co-workers has left many of our brains swamped in poisons, to the point where some folks can't distinguish themselves anymore.

Which makes lack of having your basic needs met - something more and more of us are facing these days - all the more difficult. Because our thinking is so warped, so self abusive and impairing.

You may have noticed a rise in popularity over the past decade or so of "zombie" narratives. Movies, novels, faux documentaries, songs - all with zombies at the center. There are many ways to read this phenomenon, but I believe one way to read it is to see how the zombies are, in many ways, forms of "us." An end point, if you will, of the colonization process spoken about in the last paragraph.

And if you think about it, Buddha's teachings - and all great spiritual teachings - have really been about decolonization. Breaking the stranglehold of whatever narratives hold sway for someone personally, as well as those narratives that hold sway over people collectively. Buddha's break with the caste system is an easy example of the latter.

On the flip side, there is also some truth to this linking of happiness (or contentment) with material position. Going without food, clothing shelter, decent health care, safe work conditions, any significant time off from work, and numerous other things. Frankly, it's challenging to locate happiness, joy, contentment, or equanimity within those conditions. And yet, definitely possible. Plenty of hermit monks and others have lived joyful and content with next to nothing.

As such, I fully believe that it's possible to both turn any situation into an opportunity to practice, to find peace and liberation - and, at the same time, to recognize that some conditions are flat out unjust, and worthy of being targets for transformation on a collective scale. In other words, bot total acceptance of what is and also doggedly working towards something better for us all.

Happiness as we commonly know it is colonized. It's not an individual pursuit, nor is it about accumulation of possessions, procuring a partner and having children, or transcending all the mundane difficulties of life. What is it? Let's work together to find out.

The Pool of Freedom

One of the great temptations of human existence is to base your life on contingency. That you will actually take the courageous step once all the conditions are absolutely and utterly right for you. When you have the right boss, when you have the right job, when the car payments have been made, when the kids are through college, when you're on your deathbed. When you're dead. It would be certainly easier then. The though is that if only I can control the climate of my existence and get the temperature exactly right, then when I'm completely comfortable, and have a sense of freedom, and a sense that I'm not beholden to anything, then I'll take a courageous step in my life. Of course, these conditions almost never come.

David Whyte

Yes, this contingency seeking has been a common experience of mine. Tweaking and fussing, hoping and cajoling some situation in my life so that it will be a "safer," more predictable platform from which to jump off of.

Reminds me of the first time I jumped off a diving board. I was in swimming class, probably two or three years older already than most of the kids around me. The class teacher had gotten me to go up the stairs - how, I don't know. My knees were knocking, and I felt quite weak and dizzy as I went up, but somehow I made it to the top. Standing out on the board and looking out over the pool, I couldn't imagine jumping, let alone going upside down.

The teacher held up a long pole with a little hook on it and said I could grab it and use it as a support while I jumped. My young mind believed this for some reason, and I bent down and got into position to dive. Still absolutely scared, but somehow the sight of that pole kept me there. Then I heard the teacher count down - Three! Two! One! I stood still. Completely frozen. Someone said "Jump!" I looked at the huge pool under me and didn't flinch. Someone then said "Try again." And the count down began again. Three! Two! One! ...

As I began to move through the air, the teacher yanked the pole away, and a sudden racing shot through my body. It was too late to go back, and yet the fear ruined my form, and I ended up smacking the surface of the water with my back. I went under, and sunk almost to the bottom of the pool. Thoughts of drowning, which I knew nothing about, but could imagine - flooded my mind. And as it did, I saw the surface of the water coming closer and closer, despite anything in my head. Surfacing, I looked for the teacher, and said something about her taking the pole away, but the experience was clearly an example of the worthlessness of contingency seeking.

Thing is, though, when I look at how I have led much of my life, it's not much different than that little boy freezing, trying to calculate things out. Too much waiting for a pole to show up. Not enough just diving, taking the fears and calculations along for the ride.

But that's not the end of the story. Or even the whole story of what was. Liberation comes sometimes through recognizing the gaps in what you believe.

I've been only that scared and calculating little boy. Leaps have been made, small and large. Keep going there. Keep going there. Just like the breath in zazen. That's the path. That's the pool of freedom, ever ready for you to go swimming in.

What Saved Our Ancestors Often Is a Hindrance to Us Now

Suspicious, among other things, is:

"inclined to suspect, esp. inclined to suspect evil; distrustful"

Paying attention to suspicion in my own mind that comes and goes, I'd like to add that it is a desire to pin down, fix, name, and control the unknown.

I have a fairly strong desire for clarity. I want to be able to see through the muck of the world, and live and breathe the truths of my life. Not a terrible thing, in itself. Yet, how much of this clarity seeking is really just trying to solidify what can't be made solid?

Furthermore, how much of this clarity seeking is just creating an artificial division between that which I deem "clear" and that which I deem "unclear"?

Take a simple sour looking look spilling forth from a driver of a car waiting for me to pass on my bicycle. Sometimes, it doesn't take much for my mind to be swamped in worst case scenarios. He's pissed at me. I'm in the way. He probably hates bicyclists.

At the end of the day, the reasons for that look are rarely fully made clear. Even if the guy shouts at me out his window, I don't know the true origin of his anger. In other words, clarity is something usually different than the fixed story I have about it. And whatever it is in a given situation, it's not knowing every last fact and detail about what's happening.

It's likely that this very mind - suspicious mind coupled with a desire for clarity- saved our ancestors from being destroyed by countless numbers of events or predators. however, now it's more likely to be used as a means of standing back from the world. What worked to keep our ancestors alert and clear seeing, now often works to keep us from being fully alive.

Time for some retooling.

Expanded Love

I have been contemplating the ways in which we construct narratives recently - and probably much of my life if I'm really honest.

Lately, though, there's been a tug around blogging,
and the ways in which what gets written (here and elsewhere)
tends to be linear,
rather rational,
and well, simply put, organized towards certain messages or outcomes.

How does this impact readers? Or writers for that matter?

What are the limits of this kind of writing when it comes to speaking about -
expressing
our spiritual lives?

------------------

Let's try something different. And see what happens.

Start with this: Americans alone spend $5.7 billion annually on yoga classes and products.

That BIG. Big Mind Big. Every time I think of folks paying $50,000 to hang with Zen teacher Genpo Merzel, that's what comes to mind.

Big, but not
expansive

Not the universe,
multi-verse

moving in the ten directions,
connected if you will
as we are
with the myriad of beings

A few days ago, I came to stop at the edge of the bus stop, as a man was talking to someone on a cell phone, upset, pacing back and forth in the cool, early February wind.

Soon, he stopped too. Stopped talking. Clicked the phone shut. Looked at me. Sighed. Said "Sorry about that. My brother just died."

I stopped again. The "I" who was worried about such a conversation happening.

He started: "Things sometimes happen you know."

I do. But didn't.

"It's just that my sister stole the clothes he left me. I don't know why she did that."

Tears. Coming from somewhere between us
breaking through
both

for a moment

In meditation retreats. Sitting there, my entire body aching,
I have looked around and saw that nearly everyone else was still in half or full lotus posture.

So, what have I done? Stayed in half lotus, and either tried to cut off the bodily sensations, or intellectualized the pain as being “good for my practice.”

Why do we keep cutting our selves off from ourselves?

This man loved his brother. He was willing to cry with a stranger at a bus stop over his brother.

That's love just as much as the boundless joy of being together is.

Do you really know how to love? Allow love to grow and be?

The body as sex object. The body as an advertising method, and sales tool. The body as a machine. The body as a workhorse, means of obtaining income through labor. The body as powerhouse athlete.

All of these narratives are pulsing through many of us,

stealing the canals of our hearts

threatening to damn us
to lives of
quiet
or not so quiet
misery

He called himself "the godfather" of his family,
but also
a "lost cause"
damaged by military service,

and that which remained in silence
whatever it was
which clearly left him limping,

languishing in a certain kind of lack

even as he so easily
lifted the bar, unclasped the belt
tethered
to the wheelchair
of a passenger
about to get off
the bus

“alienation from the self is the entire focus of yoga philosophy"
yoga teacher Stephen Cope once wrote

as if we really needed that sentence
and yet

it's all so clear to me now, the way the seeds lay in our fields waiting,
patiently waiting

for the rain to come.

Narratives in Blogging on Social Issues

To those who have been reading my comments in relation to disaster relief, and few clarifications.

1. I am not blaming the Red Cross for all ills that occur after natural disasters.

2. I am not advocating that locals in disaster areas should do all the work themselves, and that "outsiders" are just a problem.

And most importantly 3) When writing about social issues, I tend to focus on areas I feel either aren't being explored, or are underexposed views. Sometimes, they are the views that I prefer, and sometimes they are ideas that I'm trying to understand better through writing about them, and may or may not see them as "my take on things."

I see this both as a practice of trying to "see more of the whole" myself, and also as a way to offer something to others that isn't repetition of what's already out there. One thing I have learned from Zen is to interrogate personal narratives through questioning, problematizing, and letting them go. And I extend this practice to everything else.

One dominant narrative around natural disasters is that "experts" and "professionals" should run the show because they know what to do in such situations. I see questioning that as practice, not just in terms of offering a different view on the particulars of natural disaster work, but also because it helps train my mind to question narratives. In other words, even if some of my conclusions about the particulars in Japan end up being wrong, the practice of investigating the story, researching other views, and checking my own biases is beneficial. In addition, I'd like to think that in offering viewpoints that are not mainstream, and that perhaps even are uncomfortable to hear, I am offering others the opportunity to reconsider whatever story they have around an issue.

Sure, I like it when others agree with me, but in the end, if whatever I write both gets readers' minds turning, and/or aids in loosening the grip readers' have on their view - then I'm happy.

And when I receive respectful and thoughtful disagreements in the comments section, this offers me the opportunity to experience that which I am sending out.

Anyway, I think it's helpful sometimes to share the process behind the process of writing.