Colbert to the left of me, white men to the right

And here I am, stuck in the middle with Assalayana.

Lately, I've been feeling like the legendary Assalayana, a 16-year-old student of the Brahmans who was given the unenviable task to dispute the Buddha's assertion that all castes are capable of enlightenment. And not just to dispute that assertion, but argue it head-to-head with the Buddha himself.

Needless to say, Assalayana didn't like this task. While he was an excellent student of many subjects, he knew that the Buddha was unassailable in debate. And it was quite possible that even before his personal encounter with the Buddha, he agreed with the Buddha's premise: he tells the Brahamans that the Buddha teaches Dhamma, which, when capitalized, is the Pali word for truth (lowercase it more closely translates as "dogma" or "doctrine"). So Assalayana tries to get out of this assignment. The Brahmans, however, impose their will, telling the erudite teen that if he's going to go down a loser, do it in battle.

And indeed, Assalayana goes down. So hard, in fact, that the youth droops into a deep depression right before the Buddha's eyes. Seeing this, in his immeasurable compassion, the Buddha shares with Assalayana a final Dhamma lesson that immediately convinces the youth to devote himself as a lay follower of the Buddha.

I've been thinking about Assalayana's experience recently in connection with the divisiveness regarding the #CancelColbert trend and the incendiary debate it has sparked.

For background, it began with a Tweet from @ColbertReport, an account connected with the Colbert show. The Tweet, which reportedly has been deleted, read: "I'm willing to show the #Asian community I care by introducing the Ching-Chong Ding-Dong Foundation for Sensitivity to Orientals or Whatever." That Tweet, in and of itself, was extraordinarily offensive and struck me, at least, as being very much out of Colbert's character.

The Tweet launched the hashtag #CancelColbert, thanks to @suey_park, which rallied hundreds, if not thousands of non-white people expressing their outrage.

The Tweet came from this segment on his show, which was largely devoted to lampooning Daniel Snyder.

It also ignited a litany of counter-tweets from predominately white people whose message was essentially, "shut up all of you, it's satire you stupid .... (insert racist expletive/ad hominem of your choice)." That activity attracted attention from a multitude of ostensibly liberally-leaning news and information websites that most of which, in my opinion, immediately adopted a defensive and reactionary point of view.

Suey Park was invited on to HuffPo Live to talk about the issue, but was gaslighted by the host who shut her down as soon as it became apparent to him - a white man - that he wasn't interviewing a subservient, docile Asian woman (her segment appears at roughly the 30 min mark). It's worth pointing out it was Suey Park who behaved absolutely professionally despite the circumstances.

What astounded me was I found myself defending that anger regarding the Tweet, as well as its original context within the segment it was attached, against liberal white men and journalists that I normally would have thought to be allies in these circumstances; I was not deflecting attacks from right wing reactionaries (although they came out of the woodwork as well, as expected). My sense of astonishment soon became dismay as I realized from the many others I engage with on Twitter that this was not surprising at all, that white liberals remain blinded to a large degree by their privilege. And that blindness was glaringly apparent.

Of course, I was ridiculed for failing to grasp satire and how it works. And yet, presumably liberal-minded white men couldn't hear my message when I said that white men need to stop presuming they are the arbiter of what is or is not offensive to non-whites. But as the writer in this post so prosaically points out, satire is meant to punch up, not down; it's designed to ridicule power and those that hold it, not the victim of that power. No one, however, was listening; it was a perfect storm of white men clamoring to justify another white man's behavior because it was "art."

"He's playing a character, you dumb shit, don't you get that?" opined one on Twitter.

I had others "explain" to me the full context of the original episode while they arrogantly presumed I had not seen the full clip, that I was reacting only to the original Tweet.

I felt my shoulders metaphorically slump just as Assalayana's had. The premise that Assalayana was sent to defend against the Buddha was a very racist notion that the Brahmans were the highest caste, that no other caste was equal, and the only way to become part of that caste was to be born in it. The Buddha methodically destroys that delusion, yet all Assalayana can say is, Yes, I agree with you Goatama, but this is how the Brahmans believe.

It is the delusion of privilege, and Assalayana is feeling the pressure of having been sent to defend that privilege while simultaneously clearly seeing it is delusion. He feels helpless and overwhelmed, and right there in front of the Buddha, he slips into despair (It really is a fantastic sutta to read).

But the Buddha does give him an out by offering the compassionate hand of the Dhamma and Assalayana readily accepts the gesture. By doing that, the teen willingly walks away from the Brahman culture that gave him his education and taught him many vitally important lessons. Yet that single delusion, so tenaciously held by even the most erudite of the caste, made being part of that system of thought unpalatable for the teenaged Assalayana.

I do wish I had the Buddha's debate skills. For now, I will continue to muddle through life, shedding a bit more of my privilege every day because in the end, it is my karma that I carry, no one else's, and I create my karma on my own, no one else creates it for me.

What’s all the Rush about?

You don’t have to be an enlightened being to know that Rush Limbaugh is very skilled at Wrong Speech. His most recent epithet regarding a Georgetown University law student really should come as no surprise even when measured by Limbaugh’s standards. Neither should his non-apology apology. And of course, none of us would ever do or say anything like what Rush Limbaugh said or did, right?

OK sweeties, let’s take a step back for a moment and seriously contemplate this thing called speech, because as many commentators have said and written, most of our “bad karma” is created by speech, by what we say and not by what we do (although our actions create plenty of bad karma as well). And it may come as a surprise to some of you that the rationalizations Limbaugh went through in his non-apology apology are often the same rationalizations we employ when confronted with foot-in-mouth syndrome.

“What? Me as boorish as Rush Limbaugh? That’s simply not possible!” I know, some of you are shocked. But rather than look at the specifics of what Limbaugh said and how he “apologized,” let’s look at their elements and characteristics.

As mentioned in the Abhayarajakumara Sutta (MN 58) and explained in this post, there are three elements to Right Speech: (1) Whether the speech is true; (2) Whether the speech is beneficial; and (3) Whether the speech is pleasing to others.

It’s easy to see how Rush Limbaugh utterly failed on all three of these, but how easy is it for us to look at our own speech to see how it may fail as well? Granted, determining whether what we say is true is probably simple enough – or is it?

This brings to mind a mother of one of the students killed in a recent school shooting in an Ohio suburb. This mother forgives the alleged shooter despite the fact she lost her son. But she admits that she doesn’t know everything about the situation, particularly what drove a young man to take such desperate action and shoot inside a cafeteria filled with other students.

Like her, we often only know part of the truth, and that part is often what’s inside our head, colored and distorted by our mind. It’s also why the Buddha warned us that just because something is true doesn’t mean we ought to say it. There remain two other factors, whether the speech is beneficial and pleasing.

Limbaugh gave a rather pathetic excuse in his non-apology apology that he was attempting to be funny. We’ll just ignore that. Yet, his comment is very telling. How often do we find ourselves saying something that we know might be offensive, but quickly follow up with the comment, “just kidding”? And when our quip comes off lame, how often do we blame the listener for not “getting it,” and chide them for being unable to “take a joke”? I’ll be the first to admit that at times I can be thin-skinned, which is ironic given my career in editing. I have plenty of experience listening to irate people on the phone lambasting me and the publication I was working for over something that was printed. But when someone reacts to something I say in a manner that reveals that they were offended despite my intention to be playful, clever or whatever, who failed “to get it”? I suggest that it’s me, the speaker, that didn’t get it, not the listener. Which, despite this being about point 3 (is the speech pleasing to others), brings us back to point 2, whether the speech beneficial.

Determining benefit may not only be a bit onerous, but it may also be a bit unrealistic. Can’t we have a little fun? Must everything bring benefit? Well, yes, it should and it can because if we look at who benefits, as opposed to whether there is any benefit, things become more clear. Because most, if not all, of the bad karma we create is the result of actions or speech that were motivated by selfish ends.

If all I’m concerned about is how funny or sharp I appear to others, then I’m not thinking about the person I am teasing or making my comment about. I’m thinking about me. So it's perfectly acceptable to come with some quips that get people laughing or smiling at the least, provided that is my intent. But as soon as my intent is about how I will appear clever and be admired for what I say, my words will fail. I’ll be like the pretty boats in the photo with this post: nice to look at but the tide will have disappeared leaving me stranded.

Ching chong, it means I love you

My life has recently been filed with violence and the rationalizations for it – er, well in a rhetorical sense. I have been bemused by many of my fellow Buddhist friends who believe that one can act aggressively if one does so out of compassion. At least they recognize there will be consequences for such action and there are actions to take to mitigate the karma created.

But I’ve also been reading an anthology of articles that examine how Buddhism carries and Buddhists practice a violent doctrine. It completely befuddles me that there are some who believe in “compassionate retaliation.” Intervening to stop violence or aggression is one thing, but engaging an aggressor on equal terms is simply more violence. That’s my view. If you truly have compassion, you would be unable to respond with aggression, no matter what the outcome.

I began to wonder if my point of view was just a bunch of Pollyannish hokum until I heard an interview with Jimmy Wong on NPR, and then saw a video of him being interviewed on MSNBC. The MSNBC video is below.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

This bright young man realized that his initial response to the “Asians in the Library” video was infused with anger. So he waited to craft his clever song, which has become a viral hit just as much as the offending video that started it all.

I guess my point is retaliation doesn’t change anything. All it does is make us feel better for the moment. So maybe a bullied person finally gets fed up and retaliates. The bully stops bullying that person. But did punching out the bully change the bully? Will the bully stop bullying others? Not likely. All the aggressive response did was make the bullied person feel better. And a person who in the past would not act violently suddenly has. An unskillful condition that did not exist now exists. Remember the Four Right Efforts?

For me, it recalls the opening scene from the Daniel Craig version of “Casino Royale.” You know, when the bad guy tells Bond that killing a person gets easier the second time, and Bond replies, “Yes, considerably.”

Here is the original “Asians in the Library” video that created the stir.

AsiansInTheLibrary

And here is Jimmy Wong’s reply.

JimmyWong

Thank you Jimmy for a wonderful video and a wonderful song. And gawd, is he ever cute!

Finding the Right Action

It’s been a while since I’ve addressed the Queer Eightfold Path, or the Noble Eightfold Path as Dorothy might have presented it to Oz .

Or would that be how Rahula would have presented it at Harvey Milk Memorial Plaza in the Castro? You know, Rahula was quite the hottie when he was 18, and the Buddha knew it; that’s when the Buddha instructed his son on the meditation technique of mindfulness of the body, except that the Buddha’s mindfulness of the body meditation isn’t all about, “Oh Jeezus I’m so Hot!” But I digress.

The nice thing about the Eightfold path is that it helps us understand better the nature of our actions as well as shows us how our actions are connected to immediate and future consequences. Another thing to keep in mind with each of the factors of the Eightfold Path is that they are dependent on each other. In other words, you cannot develop Right Intention without first having established Right View. And developing Right Speech can’t happen until you’ve developed Right Intention. Once we’ve established a sense of Right Speech, we’re ready to work on Right Action, because after all, speech is a form of action.

So what is Right Action? Let’s first get out of the way what it is not.

“No, no, don’t do it that way, do it like this, yes, like that, oh yes! That’s the right action! Woo-hoo!”

Erm, that’s not what we mean.

“Well, yeah, he’s cute. But he’s got all that hair crawling up out of his shirt and up his neck. I don’t need that kind of action.”

Uh, no, that’s not it either.

Let’s start first with what the Buddha said about Right Action in the Maha-cattarisaka Sutta (MN 117).

"Of those, right view is the forerunner. And how is right view the forerunner? One discerns wrong action as wrong action, and right action as right action. And what is wrong action? Killing, taking what is not given, illicit sex. This is wrong action.


"And what is right action? Right action, I tell you, is of two sorts: There is right action with effluents, siding with merit, resulting in the acquisitions [of becoming]; and there is noble right action, without effluents, transcendent, a factor of the path.


"And what is the right action that has effluents, sides with merit, & results in acquisitions? Abstaining from killing, from taking what is not given, & from illicit sex. This is the right action that has effluents, sides with merit, & results in acquisitions.


"And what is the right action that is without effluents, transcendent, a factor of the path? The abstaining, desisting, abstinence, avoidance of the three forms of bodily misconduct of one developing the noble path whose mind is noble, whose mind is without effluents, who is fully possessed of the noble path. This is the right action that is without effluents, transcendent, a factor of the path.


"One tries to abandon wrong action & to enter into right action: This is one's right effort. One is mindful to abandon wrong action & to enter & remain in right action: This is one's right mindfulness. Thus these three qualities — right view, right effort, & right mindfulness — run & circle around right action.”

Yeah I know. That was some pretty esoteric stuff. Let’s simplify it.

The Buddha is telling us that there are two categories of Right Action. The first one he identifies as being “with effluents.” This is just what could be called mundane Right Action because it’s tied to everyday activities in normal lay life (Um, and that doesn't mean the life of getting laid). It’s connected to the effluents because all this type of Right Action assures us is that we are good people who can expect a reasonably happy and productive life, as well as a peaceful and easy death. In our next life, we can expect to be reborn into a pleasant existence.

The Right Action that is “without effluents” includes those actions associated with someone who is actively seeking liberation, actively seeking release: in other words, someone who wishes to attain Nibbana and end the cycle of rebirth. This more than likely would include monks and nuns.

For most of us, the mundane Right Action applies, which is fine. Mundane Right Action is not lame or unimportant. It’s very important. It’s just that most of us do not live a monastic life nor have any desire to do so.

The Buddha then identifies three key factors that describe what mundane right action includes, and what he identifies is three of the Five Precepts. Don’t kill, don’t steal, and don’t be a whore dog. Just in case you’re not clear what “illicit sex” or the Third Precept means for we moes, read this and this too.

The Buddha then talks about developing the proper frame of mind necessary to abandon wrong action and replace it with Right Action. Part of this includes Right Effort and Right Mindfulness, which, ironically come later in the Noble Eightfold Path. This might appear to contradict what I said earlier about how each step on the path is dependent on the preceding steps. But it doesn’t really, because the development of Right Action is accurately described as being a prerequisite to Right Effort and Right Mindfulness. If you don’t know what constitutes Right Action, how will you know what the Right Efforts are needed to develop it? And if you haven’t developed Right Action, how will your mind be at ease so you can develop Right Concentration?

Look at it this way. If your meditation is a struggle because you’re worried about who you slept with the previous night and what might happen with that trick, then you haven’t developed Right Action. And if you’re withholding your HIV status from your sexual partners, then you haven’t developed Right Action either. And all of these examples can be traced back to a failure to establish Right Intention and Right View.

Once we develop a clear idea of what is Right Action, we start to practice it and evaluate our outcomes. We develop skillfulness by paying attention to what happened before, during and after a particular action. What was our intention as a situation developed? Did our action in that situation result with pleasant consequences for ourselves and for the others involved? Will how the relevant situation was resolved lead to more pleasant consequences in the future, or might it lead to an unpleasant situation?

That’s a lot of thinking. But it’s precisely a lack of this type of thinking that we can always trace our mistakes to. If something went wrong with a situation, or the results we expected didn’t happen, it’s because we didn’t think about these factors or we lacked the proper frame of mind – we lacked Right View and Right Intention. So when you want to get the right action, you need to employ Right Action.

Coming out day 2010

“History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.” MLK

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Edmund Burke

“The pink triangle was established as a pro-gay symbol by activists in the United States during the 1970s. Its precedent lay in World War II, when known homosexuals in Nazi concentration camps were forced to wear inverted pink triangle badges as identifiers, much in the same manner that Jews were forced to wear the yellow Star of David. Wearers of the pink triangle were considered at the bottom of the camp social system and subjected to particularly harsh maltreatment and degradation. Thus, the appropriation of the symbol of the pink triangle, usually turned upright rather than inverted, was a conscious attempt to transform a symbol of humiliation into one of solidarity and resistance. By the outset of the AIDS epidemic, it was well-entrenched as a symbol of gay pride and liberation.” From the Silence=Death page at ACT UP.

“Hope will never be silent.” Harvey Milk

“It takes no compromising to give people their rights. It takes no money to respect the individual. It takes no survey to remove repressions.” Harvey Milk

"And what other five conditions must be established in himself?

[1] "Do I speak at the right time, or not?

[2] "Do I speak of facts, or not?

[3] "Do I speak gently or harshly?

[4] "Do I speak profitable words or not?

[5] "Do I speak with a kindly heart, or inwardly malicious?

"O bhikkhus, these five conditions are to be investigated in himself and the latter five established in himself by a bhikkhu who desires to admonish another." The Buddha, AN V

OMG! Did you hear about...?

“Obvious is also the harm done to others by deception, by causing dissension and by backbiting. The mark of harming others is also attached to gossip because it takes away what is beneficial and causes to arise what is not beneficial …” Sallekha Sutta: The Discourse on Effacement (MN 8)

“He is a gossip: as one who tells that which is unseasonable, that which is not fact, that which is not good, that which is not the Dhamma, that which is not the Discipline, and he speaks out of season speech not worth recording, which is unreasoned, indefinite, and unconnected with good.” Saleyyaka Sutta: The Brahmans of Sala (MN 41)

“(He) should utter skillful words
that are not untimely;
should give no mind
to the gossip people might say.”

Sariputta Sutta (Snp 4.16)

“Here some person abstains from killing living beings, from taking what is not given, from misconduct in sexual desires, from false speech, from malicious speech, from harsh speech, from gossip, he is not covetous, is not ill-willed, and has right view. On the dissolution of the body, after death, he reappears in a happy destination, in the heavenly world.” Maha-kammavibhanga Sutta: The Great Exposition of Kamma (MN 136)

And then there’s the Dhamma expressed by Kim Wilson, formerly of The Fabulous Thunderbirds.

TheFabulousThunderbirds

Right Speech -Timing is everything

Some years ago, well before my mother had died, I had the opportunity to spend a week with her in a small cabin by the shore of Lake Huron. We covered a lot of ground during that week; reconciled many issues. And we did it in a loving and kind way.

Among the topics we covered was my coming out to her. She explained that at the time I told her I was gay, she was ready to hear and accept that. But, she added, if I had told her while I was still in high school, her reaction would not have been welcoming. In fact, she admitted that had I done it then, her reaction would have been ugly.

Most of us were taught since childhood that telling the truth is always the right course of action. But as we grew older, speaking the truth, we learned, was a complicated matter. Our culture attempted to simplify this with colloquialisms like, “If you can’t say anything nice, it’s better to say nothing at all.”

Trouble is for most of us, we are incapable of remaining silent when silence is called for. The Buddha recognized this, and his teachings on Right Speech reflect that while it is important we speak only truth, knowing when to do that is equally important. A relevant case can be found in the Abhayarajakumara Sutta (MN 58).

Prince Abhaya was goaded by Nigantha Nataputta to test the Buddha by asking whether one should always speak the truth, even if the truth would piss someone off (think Devadatta). But when Prince Abhaya asked, the Buddha replied that things aren’t that simple. The Buddha then replied with guidelines about what constitutes Right Speech. There are three elements: (1) whether the speech is true; (2) whether the speech is beneficial; and (3) whether the speech is pleasing to others.

Thanissaro Bhikkhu presents an excellent introduction to this sutta, noting that not only is the Buddha explaining Right Speech, he is demonstrating Right Speech in action. Throughout his explanation, the Buddha engages Prince Abhaya, allowing him to present his own thoughts and thus save face through the process.

Clearly, something that is untrue, that provides no benefit and which would just annoy people qualifies as wrong speech and ought to go unsaid. And if something is untrue, provides no benefit, yet would be welcomed by others, you still don’t say it. But, even if something is true, if saying it provides no benefit and would just annoy others, it also should be left unsaid.

“Do these jeans make my ass look fat?” “Why don’t you try on a different pair just to compare looks?”

What if the speech is true, is beneficial, but would still likely piss someone off? In those cases, the Buddha said it’s important to have good timing. That is even true when all three criteria are met: the speech is truthful, provides benefit, and would be welcomed. Even in that case, the Buddha said it is not spoken until the right moment arises. To know when the right moment occurs, we must cultivate compassion for others.

This isn’t always easy, especially when we talk of things like coming out. When we come out, that’s an example of something being true, that ultimately is beneficial, but which can bring about unpleasant results. We may deeply hurt someone when we come out, but we still do it. The trick is to have compassion for others. Sometimes when we come out in these circumstances, we are doing it solely for ourselves because we just can’t live the lie any longer. If we are compassionate when we do this, we recognize that whomever we are speaking to – a parent, other relative – may be guided by delusive thinking. We may never change that. We can, however, keep control over our own ego and retain our sense of compassion for the other person, even if he or she tells us to get the hell out of their life.

I was fortunate when I told my mother. Although I didn’t know it at the time, she already had several experiences that had prepared her for my announcement (not the least of which was her parish priest was a flaming queen!). At first, I think it did cause her some discomfort. But the timing was right nonetheless. And we moved on.

Do not lie, except when …

There's a conflict regarding Right Speech has been gnawing at me for some time, and I’ve still yet to find a satisfactory resolution. And perhaps unsurprisingly, this conflict shows up when examining how the Pali canon treats the issue of lying versus how it is discussed in Mahayana texts.

In the Lotus Sutra, there are numerous examples of “expediency” when it comes to telling lies. The parable of the father saving his children from the burning house is a good example. He tells his children a lie to lure them out of the burning house to save their lives. The lie is that he has beautiful carts drawn by different animals for his children to play with. However, when they come outside, there is only one cart. The implication in this metaphor is that the Buddha taught other methods of attaining release as an expedient device to show his followers eventually there was really only one vehicle to follow.

Later in the Lotus Sutra there is another story of a physician whose children took poison while he was away. He prepares a cure, but not all of his children take the cure; they are satisfied merely with the fact their father has returned from his absence. So the doctor concocts another expedient device by leaving again, this time having a false message relayed back to his children that he had died. Because he was dead, they would need to take the medicine to remove the poison, which they did. He then returns to show that he did not die; rather he lied to them to get them to do something beneficial for them.

This again alludes to the Buddha teaching the “lesser vehicles” as an expedient device to lead followers to the “greater vehicle.” All quite convenient, if you ask me. But snarky comment aside, I get the message: telling a lie can be skillful if the lie gets another to do something beneficial.

But does that conflict with the Pali canon when it comes to the teachings about lying in the suttas? I don’t think you can get any clearer than what the Buddha told his son Rahula:

“… Rahula, when anyone feels no shame in telling a deliberate lie, there is no evil, I tell you, he will not do. Thus, Rahula, you should train yourself, ‘I will not tell a deliberate lie even in jest.’”

I get that too; perhaps even more so than the “expedient device” concept presented in the Lotus Sutra. Because if we believe that something is being done to accomplish a greater good, then we can rationalize anything we say or do. History is filled with examples of when cruel and horrible acts were justified because a “greater good” was being sought. So I’m just not convinced that the teaching about “expedient devices” within the Lotus Sutra is a skillful one. But I admit the jury is still out.