taking those next steps
Now I'm applying my "I'm horrible, and so is everybody else" strategy to my reactions to politics.
Why is it that I expect human society and its politics to not be horrible? Was the lesson of history -- all the history I've read and listened to over the course of my life -- was the lesson of history that politics is about people being nice to each other? LOL.
I think K would observe that I'm taking the next step on the path toward nihilism. But it is also the path toward zen.
Thursday night K also observed that I'm "the worst Buddhist" LOL. He's not the first person to tell me that. He suggested that maybe I'd benefit from medication for my OCD. I said, let me try to fix it myself first.
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Many years ago, as I was starting to investigate the versions of Buddhism that US residents have appropriated from various Asian countries, I bought a book called "Expect Nothing".
A lot of our frustrations and unhappy moments come from having unrealistic expectations for ourselves and for others, wrote this author. So, practice expecting nothing.
But I'm going deeper than that now, I'm expecting things to be horrible. Because expecting a neutral outcome, expecting neutral behavior, is still unrealistic!
And it wasn't even strictly Buddhist to expect nothing, that was a kinder and gentler US interpretation of Buddhism to say expect nothing. Buddhism teaches that life is suffering -- another way of saying life is horrible. [Even the US translation of the Pali word dukkha as "suffering" is a bit watered down from the original, I think.]
You are suffering in your relationship? That's normal, says Buddha. You are suffering in your lack of good health? Normal, says Buddha. Your boss and coworkers are pissing you off and exploiting you? Normal, says Buddha. Your country is corrupt and at war with itself and others? Normal, says Buddha. Life is suffering.
Expecting "nothing" was still too optimistic. Expect the worst, that's what Buddha would say, because the worst is going to happen. You're going to suffer and die, after living a life of pain and exploitation, and so is everybody else, and then we are all reborn into this world of suffering. In a world of suffering, expecting people to treat each other fairly will only lead to more suffering.
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What Buddhism attempts to address is not the problem of suffering, but the desire to rid yourself and the world of suffering. Because this desire only makes things worse. Your choices are: (1) accept that you and the world suffer, or (2) refuse to accept that you and the world suffer and thereby make things even worse.
Buddhism teaches that of these two choices, acceptance is the better path. It also teaches that you can't reduce the amount of suffering in the world unless you first accept the amount of suffering in the world. You have to start with the world as it is, and then move forward from there.
And in your movements from there, all you can control, to the extent you can control anything, is your own actions. And your own actions will typically have limited effects, and the effects of your actions can be unpredictable or counterproductive.
So, start by sitting still and contemplating what you are and what the world is. And everything is horrible.
-----
You can do good things, but if you try to identify as a "good person", you're immediately in denial of your true nature. At best, at best, you're a mixture of good and evil. And so is everybody else. And it's very easy to see the evil others do, and it's very hard to see the evil you do.
So, inevitably, if you sit still and contemplate long enough, you'll see that you aren't a "good person", that your attempts at identifying as a good person are based in the ego telling itself a story about itself to inflate its own importance.
I'm not a good person. And neither is my favorite political candidate ;-)
-----
The other day, when I was skimming the group chat with Tod and Brian -- I turned off notifications and don't read it in real time anymore -- I saw that Brian was wondering whether there's an app that can block political news when browsing news sites on the Internet.
I thought this was an interesting idea, but I wanted to take it farther -- why not just block all the news sites.
I've gone on news diets or boycotts before. I typically spend a lot of time digesting the news, throughout the day. It makes me think I'm more knowledgeable about what's going on. But it's probably just a time-wasting addiction of sorts that causes me to feel more over scheduled and stressed.
It also tends to feed my anger about the world not meeting my expectations.
What ultimately fuels my news-political cognition? A desire for the world to be better somehow, I guess.
-----
I didn't finish watching the BBC Two show W1A, which my deputy had suggested to me. I started watching it, thought it was hilarious, tried to share it with Tod, but Tod felt it was too much like work, hitting too close to home.
It's on Netflix, give it a try.
But something that was foreshadowed in the episodes I watched -- the fake version of the BBC that is lampooned in this comedy show -- this BBC was going to create a new executive position: BBC Director of Better
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1cC1TLcgKDSllHNtX0c3cnQ/bbc-director-of-better
placing the idea of betterness at its core going forward and beyond
-----
I have appointed myself the world's Director of Better. And I'm doing a horrible job at it. And so are the rest of you ;-)
-----
For a lot of people in the US, maybe elsewhere also, we think of ourselves as getting involved in politics, public service, religion, or volunteerism, as a way of making the world a better place.
But the flip side of this desire to make the world a better place is frustration with the world at not already being a better place. And, ultimately, after a lifetime of getting involved, the world will not yet become a better place. Suffering will remain.
Reading the news and commenting upon its apparent revelations via social media or real-life conversation doesn't make the world a better place.
Getting mad at Republicans (or [insert your local demon party here]) for being horrible doesn't make the world a better place. It just makes you mad.
In this present moment, sometimes you can offer to make somebody else's life more tolerable. Or, you can do something for yourself, to make your own life more tolerable. Does reading the news make anybody's life more tolerable?
-----
Some years later, I bought another book about another US version of Buddhism, this book was called "Nothing Special".
More sophisticated than the previous book, definitely, but it still contained an essentially sugar-coated version of Buddhism for a US audience.
Your life is not only nothing special. Your life sucks. And that's normal. That's also eternal. Your life sucks and it will always suck. The world sucks.
Chew all the way through the sugar coating, and you won't find "nothing special", you'll find horror.
-----
Which is probably why I can only take zen in small doses. And why my investigation of US versions of Buddhism may have contributed to my going crazy back in 2003. But I still give Catholicism a lot of credit for my going crazy ;-)
And this essential horror at its center -- is why Buddhism is called a "practice". We have to practice accepting that the world is horrible, because our egos so want the world to be other than it is.
-----
But this week when Michael Cohen testified regarding how horrible President Trump is, I tried telling myself: everybody is horrible. This isn't "news". It's the oldest story in the universe.
Why is it that I expect human society and its politics to not be horrible? Was the lesson of history -- all the history I've read and listened to over the course of my life -- was the lesson of history that politics is about people being nice to each other? LOL.
I think K would observe that I'm taking the next step on the path toward nihilism. But it is also the path toward zen.
Thursday night K also observed that I'm "the worst Buddhist" LOL. He's not the first person to tell me that. He suggested that maybe I'd benefit from medication for my OCD. I said, let me try to fix it myself first.
-----
Many years ago, as I was starting to investigate the versions of Buddhism that US residents have appropriated from various Asian countries, I bought a book called "Expect Nothing".
A lot of our frustrations and unhappy moments come from having unrealistic expectations for ourselves and for others, wrote this author. So, practice expecting nothing.
But I'm going deeper than that now, I'm expecting things to be horrible. Because expecting a neutral outcome, expecting neutral behavior, is still unrealistic!
And it wasn't even strictly Buddhist to expect nothing, that was a kinder and gentler US interpretation of Buddhism to say expect nothing. Buddhism teaches that life is suffering -- another way of saying life is horrible. [Even the US translation of the Pali word dukkha as "suffering" is a bit watered down from the original, I think.]
You are suffering in your relationship? That's normal, says Buddha. You are suffering in your lack of good health? Normal, says Buddha. Your boss and coworkers are pissing you off and exploiting you? Normal, says Buddha. Your country is corrupt and at war with itself and others? Normal, says Buddha. Life is suffering.
Expecting "nothing" was still too optimistic. Expect the worst, that's what Buddha would say, because the worst is going to happen. You're going to suffer and die, after living a life of pain and exploitation, and so is everybody else, and then we are all reborn into this world of suffering. In a world of suffering, expecting people to treat each other fairly will only lead to more suffering.
-----
What Buddhism attempts to address is not the problem of suffering, but the desire to rid yourself and the world of suffering. Because this desire only makes things worse. Your choices are: (1) accept that you and the world suffer, or (2) refuse to accept that you and the world suffer and thereby make things even worse.
Buddhism teaches that of these two choices, acceptance is the better path. It also teaches that you can't reduce the amount of suffering in the world unless you first accept the amount of suffering in the world. You have to start with the world as it is, and then move forward from there.
And in your movements from there, all you can control, to the extent you can control anything, is your own actions. And your own actions will typically have limited effects, and the effects of your actions can be unpredictable or counterproductive.
So, start by sitting still and contemplating what you are and what the world is. And everything is horrible.
-----
You can do good things, but if you try to identify as a "good person", you're immediately in denial of your true nature. At best, at best, you're a mixture of good and evil. And so is everybody else. And it's very easy to see the evil others do, and it's very hard to see the evil you do.
So, inevitably, if you sit still and contemplate long enough, you'll see that you aren't a "good person", that your attempts at identifying as a good person are based in the ego telling itself a story about itself to inflate its own importance.
I'm not a good person. And neither is my favorite political candidate ;-)
-----
The other day, when I was skimming the group chat with Tod and Brian -- I turned off notifications and don't read it in real time anymore -- I saw that Brian was wondering whether there's an app that can block political news when browsing news sites on the Internet.
I thought this was an interesting idea, but I wanted to take it farther -- why not just block all the news sites.
I've gone on news diets or boycotts before. I typically spend a lot of time digesting the news, throughout the day. It makes me think I'm more knowledgeable about what's going on. But it's probably just a time-wasting addiction of sorts that causes me to feel more over scheduled and stressed.
It also tends to feed my anger about the world not meeting my expectations.
What ultimately fuels my news-political cognition? A desire for the world to be better somehow, I guess.
-----
I didn't finish watching the BBC Two show W1A, which my deputy had suggested to me. I started watching it, thought it was hilarious, tried to share it with Tod, but Tod felt it was too much like work, hitting too close to home.
It's on Netflix, give it a try.
But something that was foreshadowed in the episodes I watched -- the fake version of the BBC that is lampooned in this comedy show -- this BBC was going to create a new executive position: BBC Director of Better
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1cC1TLcgKDSllHNtX0c3cnQ/bbc-director-of-better
placing the idea of betterness at its core going forward and beyond
-----
I have appointed myself the world's Director of Better. And I'm doing a horrible job at it. And so are the rest of you ;-)
-----
For a lot of people in the US, maybe elsewhere also, we think of ourselves as getting involved in politics, public service, religion, or volunteerism, as a way of making the world a better place.
But the flip side of this desire to make the world a better place is frustration with the world at not already being a better place. And, ultimately, after a lifetime of getting involved, the world will not yet become a better place. Suffering will remain.
Reading the news and commenting upon its apparent revelations via social media or real-life conversation doesn't make the world a better place.
Getting mad at Republicans (or [insert your local demon party here]) for being horrible doesn't make the world a better place. It just makes you mad.
In this present moment, sometimes you can offer to make somebody else's life more tolerable. Or, you can do something for yourself, to make your own life more tolerable. Does reading the news make anybody's life more tolerable?
-----
Some years later, I bought another book about another US version of Buddhism, this book was called "Nothing Special".
More sophisticated than the previous book, definitely, but it still contained an essentially sugar-coated version of Buddhism for a US audience.
Your life is not only nothing special. Your life sucks. And that's normal. That's also eternal. Your life sucks and it will always suck. The world sucks.
Chew all the way through the sugar coating, and you won't find "nothing special", you'll find horror.
-----
Which is probably why I can only take zen in small doses. And why my investigation of US versions of Buddhism may have contributed to my going crazy back in 2003. But I still give Catholicism a lot of credit for my going crazy ;-)
And this essential horror at its center -- is why Buddhism is called a "practice". We have to practice accepting that the world is horrible, because our egos so want the world to be other than it is.
-----
But this week when Michael Cohen testified regarding how horrible President Trump is, I tried telling myself: everybody is horrible. This isn't "news". It's the oldest story in the universe.