Types of Compassion

I had a bit of a discussion with my significant other a couple days back that got my juices flowing. We started talking about how it appears that the governments of the world really won't do anything at all about greenhouse gas emissions until it is much too late to prevent significant change.  I suggested that the thing that gives me hope is the option of geoengineering.   That is, that it should be possible to manipulate the climate in order to deal with some of the worst aspects of climate change, which would give humanity time to work at our greenhouse gas emissions.

Mention this subject to most people and they get very nervous about monkeying around with the climate.  I do too, and all things being equal, I'd be opposed to even thinking about it.  But things are not equal, they are seriously out of whack.  And even if we have serious qualms about what would happen with geoengineering, we might end up having to do it if we want to avoid climate catastrophe from runaway climate feedback.  If we get into a feedback loop like that, we could end up with a population crash that would result in billions of people starving to death as their agricultural systems collapse.

What surprised me about this discussion was the blythe way my significant other contemplated the nasty, horrid deaths of these people.  It isn't because she lacks compassion, indeed, she freaks if her cat catches a bird and makes a huge personal investment of her scarce resources to help friends when in need.  In this sense, she is a far more compassionate person than I am.  Yet I become extremely fretful over the prospect of billions starving in a way that she doesn't.  Could it be that Stalin was right when he said "One death is a tragedy;  one million is a statistic"?  

Being the wise person she is, my fiancee didn't get all emotional about this, but instead talked the point through with me.  She said that if a village of people were starving right in front of her she would get involved in trying to help them. (Of this I have no doubt.)  But contemplating numbers in a theoretical scenario was too abstract for her.  In contrast, when I am confronted by an actual person who is in dire straights, I often become fearful about that person dragging me down, in a way that she does not.

Ultimately, who is the more compassionate person?

Another element that she pointed out was that no one on the earth is able to avoid a death sentence and one way or another, the population has to shrink.  We all die.  My response was that it is better for people to die of old age than for them to die of hunger.  I'd rather that the population shrank through birth control than through a mass die off.  She could respond, "yes it would----but what are the chances of that happening?"   Not great, of course.

This leaves us with another issue.  If the population doesn't crash because of climate change, and it simply will not decline any other way, won't geoengineering simply postpone the inevitable and ensure that a population crash will come for some other reason?

She makes a very good point.

At this stage, all I can do is try to analyse my emotions and try to understand why I get so cranked up about climate change.   I understand that emotions are the drivers of behaviour.  I have been very involved in a wide variety of environmental projects simply because I get so emotional about all this stuff.  But this emotional response ceases to productive when things have reached this stage.  The rational response is to understand that the Dao is not going to deal with climate change the way I would have wanted it to.  Instead, it looks like we are on the edge of a crazy mega-experiment that will directly affect the lives of everyone on the earth.

My emotions, therefore, come down to a sort of existential dread, and not much else.   In a sense, my fear of the nasty, painful death of billions is ultimately connected to my fear of personal death.  If I can accept either one with equanimity, I can accept the other.  I understand this point intellectually, but not "in my bones", as the Zen people say.  When I can do this, then I will have achieved true equanimity.

I suppose many people who call themselves "Daoists" would say "well duh".   Certainly many folks I've met seem to not be able to understand why it is that i fret about this so much.  But I've always had a certain suspicion that this sort of thing is worthless unless it comes from real soul-searching and perhaps even suffering.  My feeling is that glib affirmations rarely stand significant stress tests.  So until someone really understands the horror of existence, they don't have the right to suggest that it is nothing but an illusion.  My better half has suffered a fair amount in her life, which is why I tend to believe her when she makes statements about this sort of thing.  Perhaps others I've met have too, and I was too callow to understand that.

Either way, I've spent a lot of time ruminating on the issue of compassion, what it means for the future of the earth, and whether my equanimity will ever be able to completely stand in the face of mega-suffering.

Environmental Vow: Part 15

Some People's Curious Unwillingness to Admit That Sacrifice Even Exists

There is yet another issue at play that needs to be discussed:  the relationship between “freedom”, “choice” and “sacrifice”.  I think one of the best ways to understand the relationship is to consider the significant fraction of the public that has been so seduced by the ideal of “do your own thing”, that they seem to believe that the concept of personal sacrifice is conceptually impossible.  Primarily, this boils down to the notion that no one ever does anything that they do not want to do simply because if they didn't want to do it, they wouldn't.   This response often comes out in conversations similar to the following one that I once had with a friend after I mentioned to her that I had decided to never fly again.

“Why would you decide to never fly in an airplane?”
“Jet aircraft release a lot of climate changing C02 into the atmosphere, so I've decided that this is a sacrifice I can make for the good of future generations and Mother Nature.”
“No, it's not a sacrifice. You simply choose to not fly.  You're afraid of flying, aren't you?  Don't worry, it's safer than driving a car.”


What I believe is happening in these sorts of situations is that people are confusing several different things for a variety of reasons and on the basis of that confusion jumping to unwarranted conclusions.


It is true that people often do announce that they are making a sacrifice for the greater good when in fact what they really are doing is seeking social recognition and status for their actions.  The corporation that “donates” money to a university but expects public recognition, a tax write-off and demands to set research priorities is an example of this sort of “giving” that really turns out to really be a purchase.   This sort of “sacrifice” is really a very self-conscious act of hypocrisy.  A more subtle, unconscious type of hypocrisy can also cloud sacrifice---as when a grasping parent demands constant attention by children for the “gift” of birth and nurturing until the age of majority.  An even more subtle case involves the sense of self-worth that can come from “doing the right thing” when everyone else isn't.  This sort of behaviour is common in religious organizations and usually labelled “self-righteousness”.   Finally, as in the example above, the “sacrifice” could be an excuse to cover up some other, not necessarily self-serving, reason for following a course of action---such as when my friend assumed that my decision to stop flying was just an attempt to hide my fear.  


In the case of environmental activism, it certainly could be the case that some people in leadership positions are enamoured by the attention they receive from the media and citizenry.  This cannot be a universal phenomenon, however, simply because for every person in a leadership position there needs to be many more who are supporters.  If only a small number of people involved in a situation can bask in the glory, it cannot be the case that everyone is in it for the prestige.  


And the issue isn't just one of activism.  People routinely “do without” in order to support some sort of higher ideal.  For example, a woman who has a child doesn't “want” to go through childbirth, have her sleep constantly interrupted or clean dirty diapers, yet she does these things willingly because they are necessary if she is to be a mother.  They are undesired yet necessary means to a desired end.   In much the same way, soldiers do not want to advance into battle and all monks have problems with at least some elements of monastic routine---yet they accept that these undesired things are necessary to pursue the desired ones.   In a similar vein, some people do choose to live without an automobile, not fly on airplanes, eat relatively inconvenient and expensive locally-grown, organic food, etc, because they think that the act is in defence of Mother Nature.


Yet, like my friend, many people are loathe to admit this.  I suspect that they often do so for two reasons.  First of all, if they admit that they didn't actually like doing the unpleasant means that they already do, they might feel that they are betraying the desired end.  In the case of a mother, she might feel that she is betraying her child if she admits that it isn't much fun washing dirty diapers.   Secondly, if a person admits that people do often do unpleasant things in order to pursue some other desired end, an implicit moral imperative comes into play.  When Henry David Thoreau went to jail rather than pay taxes in support of what he considered an unjust war (against Mexico) a visitor asked him why he was behind bars.  Thoreau's response was to turn the tables on the questioner and ask him “Why aren't you in here with me?”


This raises another important point.   When I brought up Cicero's definition of “freedom” as participation in power, I suggested that the relevant issue is engagement in the process.   I went on to suggest that the emotional connection with the community that comes from engaging with it has a lot to do with the experience of living a “free” life.  I would also suggest that there is an other element of engagement that needs to be considered:  personal responsibility.


A lot of people understand “freedom” in terms that take out any sense of personal responsibility.  That is, “freedom” for them is just another aspect of consumerism---like when you wander down the isle of a grocery store and have to choose between Coke and Pepsi.   This sort of consumer “choice” is totally value-free because there is little (if any) difference between the two options.  Both are  carbonated sugar-water beverages flavoured with cola nut extract, produced by multinational corporations and packaged in disposable aluminium cans.   There are consequences to both a person's health and to the environment (both negative) if a person decides to purchase either one of these products, but there is none at all over which particular brand.   If you look at people's lives, you find that even though North Americans have an enormous ranges of choices in their lives, the practical impact of those choices is limited---mother nature and your liver don't care whether you purchase Count Chocola, GMC and a split level as opposed to Lucky Charms, Chrystler and a ranch style.


This type of choice wouldn't be a problem but it has become so ubiquitous in our consumer society that many people confuse this “choosing” with the sort of important morally-based decisions that we have to make as both individuals and a society.   This leads to a conflation of the idea of consumer choice with democratic referendum.  Consider the sort of routine arguments that come about from public planning.  If the city suggests that suburban sprawl damages the economic and environmental viability of the community, and therefore zoning should be changed to force higher-density development, at least some members of the community will start arguing that developers “only build what people want” and if “people wanted higher density, they'd build it”.   This argument totally misses the point that the benefits from living in a low-density suburb go to the individuals that bought the home whereas the costs (such as increased infrastructure expenses) are paid for by the entire community.  


In situations like the planning of cities, freedom as “participation in power” involves getting the entire community involved in the process through elected representatives and hired staff who are expected to think about the good of the entire community.  In contrast, freedom as “consumer choice” narrows the terms of reference to “what's in it for me?”   Amongst other things, freedom as “consumer choice” is freedom devoid of any personal responsibility for the consequences of your individual decision.  “Participation in Power”, in contrast, suggests some sort of engagement with the wider community (i.e. the other people “participating”) that places a burden on the individual to think of the consequences of his decisions on these other people (and, by extension, the community of nature.)


Almost all environmental decisions suffer from this confusion of consumer choice and free choice because almost all environmental problems are the result of choices in the way people live their lives.  If we continue to labour under the assumption that being able to live “freely” ultimately means not having to think about how the impact of those choices will affect other people, it is hard to see how anything at all can ever be done to avoid ultimate and total catastrophe.   In effect, if the world is going to deal with the environmental crisis and remain a democracy, people are going to have to make personal individual sacrifices in how they live their lives.  As Mohandas Gandhi would have said, people are going to have to learn how to “Live simply that others may simply live.”

Prisons of the Mind

Where I work we've recently gone through a negotiating process in order to sign a new collective agreement between the University and my union.  I found it a depressing exercise in observing people who've become trapped in collective delusion.

I first got the feeling about this when I walked into a union meeting and saw this video from our union being projected on the screen above us.

Don't get me wrong.  I like this video and support it's creation and dissemination (that's part of the reason why I'm embedding it in this post.)  But I simply do not believe that it is apropos for where I work.  My workplace is more than a little paternalistic in the good sense.  As near as I can tell, the management really does look out for its employees.  Indeed, my supervisor used to be head of a union and is very pro-labour.

It's true that the university is looking to ask the union for concessions on our pensions, but the fact of the matter is that with the decline in interest rates and stock values, the present system will crash and burn if we don't put more money into it and cut back a bit on the benefits.  That's why every other union that I know of in Ontario has made concessions with regard to pension plans.

What bothered me about the local union leadership was the way it argued that the management were evil greed-heads out to screw the little guy instead of being in the difficult position of trying to protect an institution that is starved for money and suffering from economic forces outside of its control.  In effect, it "pumped up the volume" amongst the membership in order to put more pressure on Administration.  And since ever action creates a re-action, the administration decided to ask all the membership to turn in their keys on the day that both sides were legally able to stop work (either through a strike or a lock out.)  I've worked on campus for 23 years and I've never been asked to hand in my passkey.  There were a LOT of very long faces leaving the university after work that night.

Low and behold, however, a tentative contract was signed that night and I leave to vote on it today.  It will pass, of course, as I think both sides were plenty scared by all the brinksmanship that was employed by both.

My response is to think "how ridiculously stupid!", it was just like two male gorillas meeting in a forest to pound their fists against their chests and try to scare the other into backing down.  Surely there has to be a better way of dealing with a disagreement.

When I was talking to my co-workers, however, it became clear to me why things had escalated to this point.  A lot of people simply do not understand how much the world has changed and how this is going to impact the way they live their lives.

The entire basis of our economic system is ultimately based on a fallacious assumption that the economy can grow by geometric progression indefinitely.  That is what we call the "miracle of compound interest".   In effect, when someone says that the economy has grown by 3% per year (roughly what the Canadian economy has been growing by for a long time), it means that on average there has been a 3% increase in the number of cars being driven on the roads, houses being lived in, smart phones being called on, etc.  It is this constant growth in the amount of things being produced, bought, paid for and thrown away that ensures that on average a dollar invested in something will produce 3 cents in return per year.

It is this on average increase in the economy that allows an institution to toss a huge amount of money into a wide variety of investments and believe that this will accumulate value over the long haul.

There is a huge problem with exponential growth, however, in that the Earth and everything on it that we depend upon for our livelihood is fixed in size.  That means that there are going to be limits to how much our economy can grow.   The best way to understand this is to go to one of several websites that have compound interest calculators and punch in a few numbers.   For example, I wrote earlier that the Canadian economy has been growing at the rate of 3% per annum for a very long time (now, of course, it isn't.)  Canada, as a dominion, was created in 1867 or 144 years ago.  If we continue to have 3% average economic growth for the next 144 years, that means the economy will be over 70 times its current size! 

It is fundamentally absurd to think that our economy can grow to 70 times its current size given our ecological limitations, yet that is what our entire economic and political system demands in order to preserve the status quo in terms of pension benefits and government spending!!!!!


There's another element to this thing that makes it much worse.

The classic demonstration of this issue has been around for a very, very, very long time:

One of the key things to understand from this demonstration is that 3/4's of the rice will be on the last two squares of the board.  What this means is that not only is exponential growth unsustainable, it tends to "sneak up" on people and hit them without warning.  (If any of this is new to you, take a look at these series of YouTube videos, which are aptly named "The Most Important Video You Will Ever See". )

I'm not someone is able to see the future, but for a long time I have thought about these issues and expected that they would have a significant impact on my life----if I live to any sort of age.  My belief is that the current economic crisis we face is not some sort of momentary "blip", but rather the working through of the mathematical contradictions that our entire civilization is built upon.  Peak oil, for example, is not primarily a problem of running out of oil, per ce, but rather that of demand (created by global exponential economic growth) outstripping oil production, dependent as it is on a limited earth.   In the same way, climate change is also a creation of the collision between an exponentially-growing economy and a limited ecosystem.

Both peak oil and climate change will act as brakes on economic growth.  This will either happen because society will institute mechanisms for weaning us off fossil fuels or because scarcity will drive up the cost, which will pull money out of consumer's pockets so it can be used to chase fuels that are more and more expensive to produce.   (The first oil wells in Canada were in Southern Ontario and were simply hand-dug wells that people could lower buckets into.  Now we have to mine the oil out of tar sands in the extreme North and heavily process it in order to make crude oil.)   If we don't prevent climate change (actually that horse has already left the barn) then we are going to pull more money out of consumer's pockets to pay for storm damage-----like the Texas wildfires and the New England hurricane.)   Both mechanisms are going slow down economic growth and ultimately shut it down.

And that ending of economic growth is going to wreak havoc on things like pension plans and government spending.   And because most folks in the labour movement and government simply don't know about this sort of thing, we are going to have a lot of labour unrest as people fight to prop up something that simply cannot be propped up much longer.

The sad thing about all of this is that all this energy would be much better spent trying to manage change towards something better. But people have such an emotional investment in the status quo, and are so fearful of change in general, that they would rather shut their eyes to the big picture.  This came home to me in an exchange with a co-worker.  He's a smart guy, and as I explained the above argument, you could see that he was processing but scared of the implications.  Ultimately, he said "That's OK for you, you're a idealistic person.  But me, I think for myself first."  What I had a hard time explaining to him is that it isn't a question of choosing one point of view versus another, it was a question of understanding the world around you and adapting to circumstances instead of trying to fight them (and ending up in big trouble as a result.)

Where this fits into Daoism is the idea that Daoists try to understand the Dao and build their lives around it instead of the notions that dominate our culture.  Indeed, one of the things that my significant other said about me when we first became connected was "You are the biggest 'big picture' person I have ever met".   It was exactly this point that she zeroed in on.  (I learn a lot from her.)

So if I would make any sort of suggestion to anyone who reads this blog, try to understand the giant forces that are work in our lives.  You cannot fight against them with any hope of success.  But you can adapt and flow with them.  That will not guarantee success (that is in the hands of fate), but it will certainly increase the odds.

My History of Meditation

A couple posts back I did a review of a book by Livia Kohn that was about a specific meditational practice that she translates as "sitting in oblivion" and which I have tended to call "sitting and forgetting". An anonymous person asked if I would write something specific about what I have been taught about meditation, so I thought I'd spend a post discussing this subject.

The first thing to understand is that a person isn't a "blank slate" that comes to a meditation teacher to have the "wonderous technique" inscribed on their being. Instead, they come with a very large amount of personal experience. In my case, I grew up on a farm and spent an enormous amount of time working at very tedious jobs. One of them involved hoeing an absolutely enormous vegetable garden. (We raised almost all of our own food.) I found that the only way I could stand the boredom was by making a game of the work. This involved willing myself to become a "hoeing machine". That is I would totally focus on the work of hoeing to the exclusion of all other thoughts. This involved trying to become totally and completely aware of the bodily sensation of working the hoe.

Another appallingly boring job involved driving tractor---often until late at night. I got around this by similarly becoming a "driving machine". I also used to talk to myself----I would have long monologues on a variety of subjects.

These two aspects of my personal history taught me to deal with boredom by developing an "interior life". I once had a housekeeping foreman tell me that he never hired stupid people to be janitors because he found that the boredom would drive them to distraction. He said that smart people never get bored---because they always have something "in their heads" to keep them occupied.

My first formal meditation experience came about in somewhat unusual circumstances. I was at university, living in residence, and a hall-advisor had come to me to ask about another person in residence that I'd been seen with. This guy had gotten drunk the night before and said that he had a rifle and was thinking about going up on one of the buildings on campus to start shooting people at random. The police had been informed, who had contacted the advisor, who asked me.

This "freaked me out", so I sat down with this fellow in the student pub to find out about him. He told me a pretty sad story: his parents had run away on him at a young age and his sister had supported him by working in a body rub parlour (i.e. as a prostitute.) His first job had been as a "repo man" taking away things like television sets from people who had purchased them on time and couldn't make the payments.

He left the table after sharing this with me and I ended up sitting by myself feeling pretty bumbed.

At that moment a fellow sat down next to me, ordered two beers for me and introduced himself. He was one of those "hale fellow, well met, types" and we started talking about this, that and the other thing. It came out that he was a Buddhist and his brother was a monk in one of the Tibetan flavoured sects. I commented that religion was a lot of hocum and all I believed in was "science".

He responded by saying that it wasn't scientific to reject something without experimentation. I asked how someone could "experiment" with religion and he said that "meditation" was experimentation in religion. He made a good case, so I asked how someone meditated. He said that one way was to sit still and repeat some phrase over and over again. He said that what you said didn't matter, just that you repeated it.

I got home that night and thought I'd sit down, make up a mantra and repeat it over and over. So I did just that. Almost instantly I felt a very strong force from the base of my spine punching up and out the top of my head. I was having an "out of body experience".

This got me quite interested in the whole meditation thing. As a result, I spent a lot of time doing things like sitting and quieting my mind, hatha yoga, repeating mantras, meditating in the forest, etc, etc. I used to bump into the guy I'd met in the bar once in a while and he'd offer suggestions---once he said I should walk around and just focus on all the parallel lines that I could identify in the building.

I used to read all the books I could on the subject of meditation and try out all the techniques described. For example, I read all the books by Carlos Castenada (who I later found out was a complete fraud) and did things like meditate in dried-up ponds in order to find the "water spirit". I also once took a massive dose of magic mushrooms after staying awake and fasting for 48 hours (to magnify the effects, which it certainly did.)

Eventually, I decided to learn a martial art, which led me to joining a taijiquan club, which in turn led me to joining an organization led by a Daoishi. In turn, I joined a temple he founded and was initiated into his lineage. He had a brother initiate from Hong Kong who would visit Canada once in a while. He would hold meditation workshops (and initiated me into the lineage.) At these workshops all he would do is have people sit in a specific posture. He would walk around and correct our posture. Whenever we thought we couldn't handle the pain anymore, we'd get up. Everything else was a case of "figure it out for yourself".

Since then I continued to study meditation. I've been to various Buddhist retreats and classes. I also went for weekly spiritual direction for years with a variety of Roman Catholic types. I've also gone through a lot of different phases. For years I had an altar that I did "sitting and forgetting" at. For other years, I did walking meditation while reciting a Buddhist rosary. Now, I focus primarily on taijiquan, reading and writing things like this blog.

In summary, my experience tells me that while there are a great many things that you can do while meditating, most of the more dramatic effects are "blind alleys". The only really worthwhile thing that a person can seek is wisdom and greater control over the different aspects of his mind. I also believe that, contrary to what many folks have told me and what I've read in most books, almost all forms of meditation are very similar. They all boil down to learning how to control the "monkey chatter" in a person's mind. There are a wide variety of methods to do this, but ultimately they come down to learning to "think about thinking". And once you've started to do this, you can see that there are various processes at work that can be changed through disciplined effort.

I hope that some of the above is of value to others. Questions are always accepted.

The Transition of "Conventional Wisdom"

As someone who still finds himself attracted to the world of politics (like a fly to a venus fly trap, alas), I've been watching various different elements of the political ecosystem. This ranges from the loony American debt ceiling debate, through the municipal politics of Toronto, through the tragedy in Norway to the farce in Greece. Looking at all of these different elements together, I've come to the conclusion that they all have one thing in common: we've reached a "tipping point" in the evolution of "conventional wisdom".

People involved in radical politics understand that in a liberal democracy the terms of debate are severely limited. For example, none of the major parties will ever suggest that we need to radically change the way our government works. They all believe in roughly the same thing----a capitalist state with some welfare state provision for the poor. No one is talking about nationalizing the mines or locking up dissidents in concentration camps. (No matter what the rhetoric may suggest.) It's pretty much been this way since the end of the Second World War up until now. All debate in elections and Parliament has boiled down to seeking the percentage of emphasis----so many dollars for guns, so many for butter, so many for business, so much for the poor; and; the best means----low taxes, government incentives, strategic investment, free trade versus tariffs, etc.

This sort of stability is essential to the long-term viability of democracy. If people in parliament really did have radically different visions of what the state should do, at best this would result in procedural logjams as each fought tooth and nail for their vision. At worst, this could degenerate into civil war.

Well, I think if we look at the USA, I think that the case can be made that this government is suffering from procedural a logjam because the conventional wisdom has broken down and the Republican and Democratic vision is so far apart that it is almost impossible for them to agree on anything.

In parliamentary and municipal governments a different result comes from the same cause. Premiers and mayors work in a political system where they are not bound by the "checks and balances" that Barack Obama does. This means that they can actually make the changes that they seek without being stymied by the opposition. But come the next election they are sometimes replaced by administrations that then move to undo their work. In either case, administration of the state ceases to be effective because there is no unified vision at work.

As I see it, this dysfunction is not a long-term phenomenon but rather a specific period of dynamic chaos that exists between two islands of stability.

As I mentioned above, there has been a sort of "conventional wisdom" or "common sense" that has existed since WWII. A few parts of this consensus have been based on the idea that energy is cheap, nature can be taken for granted, there should be a sort of hierarchy in society, and, that the only viable morality flows out of the Bible.

Prior to the age of fossil fuels the cost of energy was a constant drag on economic growth. It takes a huge amount of wood to make charcoal to make iron. This puts a real limit on the amount of iron that a society can use. The same can be said about a great many other elements of our society. When the price of fossil fuels goes up, it means that money that used to flow to other things----such as wages, taxes, etc----is now used to purchase that energy. Since the price of oil by the barrel is currently around $100/barrel this means that any energy intensive activity in our society (or, damn near everything) has had to cough up an astounding $85 extra dollars for energy, per barrel, over what it did in 1988, when oil cost only $15/barrel.

All of a sudden, the cost of energy is now a part of the equation. Yet people who still adhere to the old consensus simply cannot figure this point out. That's why they constantly complain that there is a "conspiracy" by oil companies to gouge the public. It's also why they fight tooth and nail against creating a more energy-efficient society, simply because they cannot conceive that the cost of energy as being an intrinsic part of "just the way things are". These are the people who's answer to Peak Oil is the empty phrase "drill baby drill" or who make ridiculous claims about the promise of shale oil. Having lived most of their lives with energy being trivial in cost, they simply cannot accept that something so basic has changed dramatically.

A related issue is that of global climate change. People who have lived their whole life believing that nature is an "externality" that can be ignored simply cannot believe that serious amounts of money has to be spent on preserving the ecosystem. As a result, they have fled into denial, believing that some shyster economist that they read on the internet knows more than the overwhelming consensus of climate scientists.

Probably of equal import is the way women, gays, and, people of colour have become significantly more equal. This change is so pervasive that a lot of folks don't understand what a cataclysmic change this has been in the way people relate to each other. But for people who took it for granted that white men had exclusive access to various elements of society this change must seem like a tooth-grindingly awful change for the worse. Certainly it must make many feel like they have been totally short-changed by a system that changed the rules just when they got to the age where they could reach for the brass ring.

This change is more than just that of women in executive office, of course. It also means that the nature of work has changed dramatically. For example, the idea of "service" has become an integral part of many workplaces, which makes the sort of gruff, "macho" ideal that many blue collar grew up with an actual impediment to employment.

Finally, many people grew up on the idea that morality comes from submission to a set of moral rules that were codified in the Bible and explained by their local church. The idea that people would be able to come up with alternative sets of moral rules (e.g. that it is immoral to discriminate against gays), and actually suggest that this new morality is actually better than the old, has also caused a great deal of anger.

What I'm suggesting is that the Conservatives are right, there is a "culture war" at work in our society. Moreover, I would also suggest that they are also right in feeling that they are losing that war. It might not seem that way, because their militancy has allowed them to organize and exert influence beyond the actual numbers would support. But this is just a rear-guard action. No matter how much they howl "drill, baby drill", the price of oil has nowhere to go but up. And women, gays and people of colour are not going to go back to the kitchen, closet or Jim Crow.

It comes down to the numbers. The people who support the old status quo are older, and they are not reproducing. The people who are supporting the new consensus are growing rapidly. To cite one specific example, the battle to stop gay marriage is well on its way to being over. This is simply because the polling numbers show that a growing majority of Americans simply don't believe that the government should ban it. As I see it, the problem for conservatives is that once something like this becomes legal and people see that it doesn't lead to the horrible results that they suggest (the decline of Western civilization) people simply forget what the fuss was all about. (A similar phenomenon happened with abortion. A recent poll in Ontario suggests that only 8% of the population believe that it should be outlawed. That horse has left the barn too.)

The wild instability we are seeing in our political systems is coming about because in any transition from one conventional wisdom set to another there inevitably comes a point where both points of view are roughly balanced. At that point, a shift of support one way or the other can result in a huge victory for one at the expense of the other. Fortunately for the people who support the new consensus, however, this is just a temporary situation. Eventually, the new consensus achieves large enough support that the old once simply becomes incapable of every winning any more elections. It then dwindles down to being an angry, increasingly radical rump.

These rumps can cause problems for their society. The shooter in Norway and other terrorists like Bin Laden are fueled by resentment that their vision of society is so out of date that they cannot win at the ballot box, so they seek to win with the rifle. But they simply cannot win. Their actions do nothing more than convince the other side that they are even more right that they were before. This is why the Norwegian's promise to become "even more tolerant" will probably be successful. People resent being terrorized and it usually hardens people's resolve more than anything else.

I'm trying to suggest that "progressives" should avoid despair when they look at the way Conservatives seem to be able to wreak havoc on the world around us. I think that in ten years or so they will be fundamentally a spent force. That doesn't mean that the future is going to be all rose water and white gloves. There are objective problems that people are going to have to work hard to deal with, such as climate change and peak oil. But the current time of political paralysis is, IMHO, going to pass by fairly quickly. At that point we will have a new consensus and society will mobilize in order to deal with these crises---just as our grand parents did to deal with WWII.

What does all of this have to do with the Dao? A lot of people suggest that Daoism is not much more than walking in the woods with a smile on your face. But I would suggest that it is also about learning how to see the underlying, subtle laws that lie underneath the surface. I would also suggest that it is about developing a sense of equanimity that allows a person to focus on the big picture in order to stop hyperventilating about the problems that face her here and now.

Zuowang: "Sitting and Forgetting"

A while back I offered to write some reviews of books on Daoism for the publisher of an academic press. The publisher is a woman by the name of Livia Kohn, who is a fairly important person in the academic study of the Daoist religion as well as a practicing Daoist herself. The publishing house she runs is Three Pines Press, which is committed to publishing books about Daoism. They also publish a yearly journal about Daoism, the Journal of Daoist Studies. (I had an opinion piece published in their "Forum on Comtemporary Practice" in the last issue.)

The first book that I've decided to review is by Ms. Kohn herself, and it is titled Sitting in Oblivion: The Heart of Daoist Meditation.

It's a very good introduction to a key Daoist spiritual practice which I tend to call "sitting and forgetting", but which she translates as "Sitting in Oblivion" and which is often referred to as Zuowang.

What makes this book so useful is the fact that Kohn is a Westerner, a scholar and a practitioner. What this means is that she can write definitively about the practice using her own words and by making references to the modern Western cultural milieu. This makes the book far, far, far more intelligible than if she were a Chinese practitioner who had a hard time explaining herself to a Western audience. And as a practitioner, she understands exactly what is and is not important in the experience of "sitting and forgetting", which is something that an academic without any grounding in the practice could not possibly do.

In addition, Kohn adds translations of eight short Daoist texts on "sitting and forgetting" at the end of the book. These are texts that non-Chinese readers (and probably most non-Daoist Chinese readers too) will never come across.

As such, this book is probably the best academic introduction to "sitting and forgetting" that people are probably ever going to come across. If you want to learn what a book can teach you about "sitting and forgetting", this is probably the best source that I have come across.

I've been holding off on writing this review for months. Partially, this is because I have been really busy doing other things. But another part comes from a sort of inarticulate reticence. After long deliberation, I think I've figured out the different elements of this funk.

First of all, I really liked the first part of the book. Kohn is a good writer and she seems to really understand the subject. It was when I got to the end and tried to wade through the translations that I got bogged down. I've never been a fan of the metaphorical language of most religious Daoist texts. I like clear, precise essays. I know that I cannot expect this sort of thing from ancient sources, but that doesn't mean that I have to like what they do offer.

Secondly, I'm a little concerned about a lot of these sorts of texts because I wonder if reading them might be counter-productive. The school where I was taught "sitting and forgetting" did absolutely nothing at all to explain what it was that we were being exposed to. We were told to "just sit" and figure it out for ourselves. This might seem bizarre to modern Westerners who expect to have some sort of theoretical explanation for everything that they do, but I can't help but think that the "figure it out for yourself" bit is pretty important to the whole exercise.

Of course, memory plays tricks and the meditation sessions I attended were a long, long time ago. It might be that the Daoshi who taught us felt that the translation available wasn't up to the task of explaining what was going on. But be that as it may, I still think that my experience has taught me that there is precious little that a teacher can give to the student beyond his or her own personal example. Ultimately, everyone has to "figure it out for herself"----both on the pillows and throughout just about every other part of their life.

I came to this conclusion as I felt myself going through different stages in the process of "sitting and forgetting". I went through a stage where I kept falling asleep---it ended. I went through another stage where I was in incredible pain---it ended. I went through a stage of crazy boredom----it went away. I also went through a stage where I was hallucinating and having what seemed to be genuine psychic experiences----they too went away. The insight that I gained from these experiences was that these were not "impediments" to "sitting and forgetting", they were absolutely key to the process itself. A trite way of saying this would be to be that they "build character" in the individual.

If a teacher explained all of these points and held the hand of the student all through these different stages, he would gain a whole lot less benefit from the experience.

As for the weird experiences that people talk about with regard to meditation, I've had more than a few. I've had experiences of seen visions, a couple times felt that I was experiencing some sort of divine "oneness" with the world. I've also felt weird energies flowing through parts of my body. When I mention these experiences to others, a lot of people think that they signify something pretty darn important. But when I had them happen to me, I had the overwhelming feeling that they were pretty much trivial. They didn't result in any sort of world-altering experiences and they didn't make me a better man.

To cite one example, I once totally automatically walked out to meet a friend that I had every reason to believe was working in a factory that day. As I stepped out of my office and went across campus to meeting him, I purposely walked directly to a curb and at the exact moment I stepped onto it, he drove up in his car, stopped and I got in. "What, you might ask, was the cosmic result of this divinely ordained meeting?" We drove to a strip joint and had a few beers. All the genuinely psychic experiences of my intense meditation practice were all similarly absurd and mundane.

When I think of it, though, of what real significance are most religious experiences? St. Francis, for example, was supposed to have manifested stigmata. Exactly how did that butter anyone's parsnips?

Over the years I've come to the conclusion that there are significantly different types of meditation practice and some of them are of very limited value and others potentially acutely dangerous. Recently I've had this ambivalence reinforced by reading a blog that I subscribe to called "Down the Crooked Path". Whomever creates this blog puts a lot of effort into finding examples of religious leaders (mostly Buddhist and Yogic) who are abusing the trust placed in them. As well, she also has the odd post that shows examples of people who have suffered psychiatric problems as a result of pursuing specific types of practice.

These examples lead me to consider two very important things about meditation.

First of all, beyond the practical insignificance of any "miracles" that come from meditating, it appears that people can be very adept at some types of meditation and still be sex-crazed, materialistic, power-mad boobs. What this tells me is that these forms of meditation do not seem to be the "path to wisdom" that they are portrayed as being. Why do them if they don't work?

Secondly, it would also seem that some of these forms of meditation are also potentially harmful. If they don't really seem to work (i.e. make people who are really good at them into wise human beings), and, they could really hurt you, again, why do them?

Having said the above, I would suggest that there are different types of meditation. To that end, I think that "Holding onto the One", as suggested in the Nei-Yeh, is a pretty healthy form of meditation. It is not aimed at entering into trance states, or any sort of state at all, but instead is a form of mindfulness practice. It also seems to be very useful to have some sort of very minimal----but very regular---practice that incorporates some sort of physical movement. Taijiquan fits the bill perfectly, but there are also forms of walking meditation that I've done for years and are much easier to learn. The point is, that a lot of people in our world find themselves with "scattered" minds. A short, regular, "Holding onto the One", taijiquan and walking meditation practice do a really good job of helping people become a little more focused. But the emphasis should be on regular practice, not long duration. If you do stuff like this too much, there is the risk of sliding into trance meditation, which doesn't seem to me to be terribly helpful.

Of course, as in all cases, I'm ready to be corrected by someone who can show me the error of my ways. The only real reason why I post most of these things is because I've been doing this stuff for so long and I don't see many people out there that seem to know that much more than I do. Maybe someone will get some value from my babbling.

Different Religions, Different Visions

I recently had an involved conversation with my significant other about the differences between Christianity and Daoism. This stimulated a lot of thought and I thought I'd share one particular idea that struck me.

In chapter 19, story number 8 of the Zhuangzi you come across the story of Kongzi meeting an old man who has gained the ability to swim safely in a torrent that "fell from a height of thirty fathoms" and where no "alligator, fish or turtle could swim". When Kongzi speaks to this man, he says:

No, I have no special way. I began with what was innate, grew up with my nature, and completed my destiny. I enter the very centre of the whirlpools and emerge as a companion of the torrent. I follow along with the way of the water and do not impose myself on it. That's how I do my treading. (Victor H. Mair trans.)

By way of a contrast, consider Chapter 14, lines 24 to 33 of Matthew from the Gospels. In that story, the disciples are in a boat on the sea in a storm. Jesus has been left on shore, but he walks on the water out to meet them. They are as surprised as Kongzi at what they see. Indeed, they are afraid that they are seeing a ghost, so Jesus calls out to the "Take heart, it's me! Don't be afraid." Peter replies that if it's really Jesus he should order him to come out of the boat and join him. Jesus agrees and asks him to come out.

And Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But with the strong wind in his face, he became afraid. And when he started to sink, he cried out, "Master, save me."

Right away Jesus extended his hand and took hold of him and says to him, "You don't have enough trust! Why did you hesitate?" (Scholars Version, Five Gospels)

These are somewhat similar stories, but they differ because the two religious that they are trying to explain are based on very different ideals.

In the case of Kongzi and the swimmer, the issue at hand is to take what seems stupendously miraculous and explain it in a "matter of fact" way. It is amazing that this man can swim in the cataract. But he can do it because he understands the way water and currents operate, so he doesn't expend any energy trying to fight them. He also understands that even in a vicious undertow, there is always a return current that will take him to the surface. The "miracle" is that he has developed the consciousness that has allowed him to master his fear and completely understand how the water works.

Matthew's story is very different. There is no mastery involved, just a question of faith in the ability of one man, Jesus, to suspend the laws of nature. Moreover, there is no subtlety to the story vis-a-vis the psychology of faith. Jesus seems to have no sympathy at all for Peter's inability to sustain his faith in Jesus' ability to simply violate the laws of nature. When Peter starts to sink into the water, he says "You don't have enough trust! Why did you hesitate?" Well duh, Jesus. Every single event in Peter's life is telling him that its bloody impossible to walk on water. He's the only guy who even got out of the boat. It was his idea to get out and join you in the first place. What the heck do you expect?

What's important to Kongzi's swimmer is learning how things work, both the water and his own abilities. This is totally irrelevant to Jesus. It doesn't matter whether or not Peter has any understanding of the world around him or how his thinking works---all that matters is whether or not he has faith in Jesus.

How different!

I suppose that at one time it was possible for someone to build their life around total and utter submission to faith in the existence of both God and Jesus. And if one did so they would find their lives calmer and easier to live. But I don't think that that is possible anymore without creating a crazy feeling of cognitive dissonance . If you are a fundamentalist, you must accept "on faith" that evolution is a crock. But what must someone who thinks this feel when they walk through a museum and see galleries of dinosaur skeletons? Similarly, if you are a Catholic and must accept Papal "infallibility", how must reading about sexual abuse scandals make you feel? Indeed, how can one believe in God and life after death when just about every experience we have tells us that neither one exists?

I think that, like myself, increasing numbers of modern people find it pretty much impossible to make that "leap of faith" anymore. No matter how much we might want to just jam our reasoning minds into some sort of theological prison, they find some way of escaping. And just was we are reaching out hands out to Jesus, the water we are standing on turns back to liquid and we begin to sink beneath the waves.

I suspect, however, that a lot of people are not happy with simply rejecting God and Jesus out of hand. They want some sort of religious framework to build their lives around. I know that I do. That's why I am a Daoist. The story of Kongzi and the swimmer is just as rich with meaning as the one of Jesus walking on the water, but it is totally compatible with the modern world. Moreover, I think that societies need religions to create the sort of unity needed to deal with the big problems that face them from time to time---like our present environmental crisis. Again, I think that something like Daoism is desperately needed in order to help us work together and learn how to live in harmony with Nature.