After the busy news day yesterday on the celebrity-death front, my friend commented that it didn’t seem fair that Michael Jackson’s death was getting more attention than Ed McMahon’s or Farrah Fawcett’s.  It brought back memories of the weekend in 1997 when news broke of Mother Teresa and Princess Diana’s death.

I guess I wonder, particularly in the world of Facebook and Twitter, whether short lines of grieving from fans count as elegies–that is, whether we should feel compelled to dedicate them to noble celebrities and eschew them for unworthy ones.  What am I really saying when I tweet about a current obituary?

We use these tweets and status updates to work through our feelings in public, to negotiate a way of feeling about things through our friends.  Of course, my daily life changes very little with the passing of Michael Jackson or Ed McMahon.  I don’t have to worry how I’m going to live without either of them. And both deaths might be seen as trivial in the face of other deaths at war or in fights for civil justice.

But I can’t say that I have complicated questions about Ed McMahon to work through, but I think we all have complicated questions about Michael Jackson.   At one point in the 80s, Jackson was one of three major pop solo artists, along with Madonna and Prince.  Those two, while having complicated relationships with the limelight, both are still making music.  It’s not hard to imagine an alternate path of history where Michael Jackson kept releasing new music and performing well into the 21st century.  As it happens, he didn’t.  His media persona overruled his music.  Who would have thought in 1985 that of those three, Michael Jackson would be the one to go off the deep end?

As I said in my last post about Rachel Getting Married, there are two strategies for getting attention–success and failure.  Ed McMahon was, by all reports, a good man and a good role model.  Michael Jackson left behind a legacy of musical talent, but for the last ten years was much more likely in the news for a court battle than for a song.

Michael’s failures got more attention than McMahon’s successes.  It’s not fair, but feelings aren’t fair.  If people need to talk through their feelings about one death more than another, that’s okay.

Stories about addiction often interest me as a Buddhist, because addiction is a perfect example of  the kind of suffering Buddha taught about.  We suffer because we can’t control our craving, our thirst.  This applies to all of us; we all have things we’re addicted to.  Our dissatisfaction with life comes from our own habits and mental formations, and this realization is especially pronounced in those people whose addictions have driven them to a breaking point.

The main character in Rachel Getting Married is Kym, and she has passed this breaking point a long time ago.  At the beginning of the movie, she takes a temporary leave from an addiction treatment facility to attend the wedding of her sister, Rachel.  Kym’s leaving rehab, and Rachel’s getting married, and both are big events for the family that require a level of involvement and attention.

I think we all feel a bit of attention deficit from families.  Our families are where we first learn what it means to be a person, and however much we grow up, we still look to them for evidence that we are important, that someone’s looking at us as people.  But a fair share doesn’t seem like enough, or especially if you have siblings, it feels like someone else is always getting more than a fair share.  Kym and Rachel both feel this way at times, like they rightfully deserve a little more attention than they’re getting.

Of course there are two basic strategies that siblings can use to get attention: being a success and being a fuck-up.  Whichever strategy you’re using, you’re bound to feel a little resentful of a sibling who’s using the other strategy.  If you’re successful, you probably feel like it’s unfair that someone else gets attention whenever they mess up.  At one point in the movie, Rachel accuses her father of caring more about Kym’s melodrama–”If anyone wants to get your attention, they just have to ask you about Kym.”  The flip side of this resentment is that the fuck-up feels like the successful sibling is being rewarded beyond their success.  You’re getting married, you have a career, you have a healthy life, and on top of all that, you want everyone to devote a whole weekend to telling you how happy they are for you.

Not to give away any major plot points, but there’s a significant conversation in Rachel Getting Married that is turned around midstream, and Kym’s resentment of this is obvious: it’s as if she’s saying, “You can’t interrupt a conversation about my problems and turn it into a conversation about yet another way your life is going right.”

It’s an interesting, nuanced movie, in part because the whole family is somewhat sympathetic.  Even though Kym has no clue how to do what’s right, she wants to.  Even when in the midst of a crowd of wedding guests, Kym is obviously seeing her own story.  There’s a very long scene of the rehearsal dinner, where guest after guest makes a toast to the happy couple.  Through all the toasts, Kym looks like she’s trying to be part of the easy rapport that Rachel and her fiance Sidney have with a whole cast of friends and relatives.  When she tries to make her own toast, it results in deep discomfort; the guests who had been laughing amiably at all the other toasts seem at a loss from her first line: “Hello, I’m Shiva the destroyer, and I am your harbinger of doom for the evening.”

Her toast, and the other toasts, are contrasted by two scenes at a Narcotics Anonymous meeting.  At the meeting, Kym’s speech fits in.  She knows that she can say what she wants and people will understand.  She wishes she could find that in the rest of her life–and if there’s any more universal longing than that, I don’t know what it is.

I was interested, after seeing the movie, to look at other reviews, and I was surprised to see a lot of negative reviews from discussion boards, but perhaps what surprised me most was a positive review which focused entirely on the diversity of the wedding party.  The reviewer expressed surprise and happiness that a successful movie portrayed an interracial wedding.  It seemed strange to me that the review would make a big deal out of the fact that the movie treats interracial relationships as no big deal.

The flip-side to this is that in the smiling parade of diverse wedding guests, we focus on the drama of the two sisters and their parents, and some people wondered if the African-American family was portrayed as magically cheerful.  But I think it points to a truth about families: on the outside, families often look a lot happier than they are.  And sometimes we need a little reminder of this–if we’re harboring the illusion that other families have the Happiness Handbook that we somehow missed out on.  There could be a companion movie to this, Sidney Getting Married, where we see the hidden drama in Sidney’s family.

There’s another character who is having a homecoming: Sidney’s cousin, who is called Specialist Gonzales.  He is mentioned in some of the toasts as a special guest on leave from the service.  He is shown in a formal uniform, always holding a camera.  His character is a kind of doppelganger to Kym’s; both are home only temporarily, and while they’re central to the film, it’s not really about them.  It’s about the whole family, and when we put the camera down, we see that we’re completely linked to every one of them.

Someone in an online community asked:

A hypothetical question for all of you:

In your society, is nobody ever to be punished? Does being a Buddhist mean never reprimanding anyone?

Certainly not “never reprimanding.”  I mean, active forgiveness–telling someone that they are forgiven–involves some level of reprimanding, of calling the wrong action wrong.  “You hurt me, but I forgive you.”  It’s not the same as “Don’t worry about it, you never did anything wrong.”

In an ideal Buddhist state, there would be a lot less baggage to the concept of punishment.  Sometimes I think of punishment and I remember when I used to work at a video rental store.  I’d say as nicely as possible, “I see in your record that you kept your last movie an extra day.  There’s a one-dollar charge for that.”  Some people would feel affronted by that, reading into that one-dollar charge the accusation: “You failed to return your video on time.  You’re a bad person, and you’re being punished for it.”  I never found a way to get some people to accept that there’s nothing wrong with keeping a rental another day and paying for it.

I also think we bring baggage to the legal system, like we want an authority figure to say, “You’re right and he’s wrong.”  A Buddhist answer often requires two sides to reach an understanding, that neither side is inherently right or wrong.

So a Buddhist justice system would be a lot more focused on restitution and rehabilitation.  Recognizing that something wrong has happened in the past, we look for ways to encourage more right actions in the future.

Forgiveness, to me, means that I don’t think anyone’s a bad person.  If I caught you stealing money out of my wallet, I’d forgive you, but that doesn’t mean you can keep the money.  If you stole my car and wrecked it, I’d forgive you, but I’d ask you to help me get my car fixed.

I somehow became a heavy participant in the Meetup website and network.  I’d become aware of it when they started a local Buddhists meetup, and my first reaction, I’ll admit, was kind of skeptical.  Why do we need a website to set up in-person meetings with Buddhists?  I meet lots of Buddhists on Sunday mornings at the temple.  These things aren’t hidden.

But then the Buddhist Meetup came to Still Point for a visit, and I got to know them a little bit, went to their meetups at a Chinese restaurant in Dearborn, and then one of them invited me to a party.  This young woman is kind of a Meetup maven, and guests at that party had met her through several different groups.  I joined the International Meetup for a few outings after that, and when their organizer had to move on to other things, and was looking for volunteers to organize, no one else stepped up, so–boldly going where others fear to tread–I stepped up.  I get to meet interesting people, and I get to choose where we eat, so it’s a win-win.

There’s an interesting lesson in human psychology in the way a Meetup group runs.  Look at the numbers: Right now the International Meetup has 360 members, individuals who’ve joined the website and get the mailings about new events.  When I announced a meeting at a local Lebanese restaurant, 26 people left a “Yes” RSVP (and didn’t change it before the meeting).  At the actual meeting, there were 13 people total.  I’ve come to expect this kind of ratio, and if I can avoid being frustrated by it, I can learn an interesting lesson.  In any individual, there’s a discrepancy in these three points:

1. Willingness to click “Yes, I’d like to join this group.”
2. Willingness to click, “Sure, I’ll be there next Wednesday.”
3. Actually going.

Of course, people’s lives are complicated and they may have good reasons for missing.  But it’s enough of a trend that I think it shows something deeper about our minds.

I’ve heard that psychological studies show that we have very different kinds of thoughts about events that are near in time than events that are some time in the future or the past.  We tend to think of distant events in abstract terms, and near events in concrete.  If your brother asks you to babysit his kids next month, because it’s a month away, you’ll think about gratitude, family togetherness, learning experiences, childhood.  If he asks you to do it tomorrow, you’ll think about car seats, diapers, Disney DVDs, apple juice.

This could be the reason between the discrepancy between the things we say we want, and what we actually practice.  It’s typical that personal ads will say “I like long walks,” but you don’t see many people taking long walks.  It’s the same principle: when your romantic relationship doesn’t exist yet, it’s far enough away that when you think about the long walks you’ll take with your honey-to-be, you think in abstract terms: intimacy, relaxation, charm.  When it’s an option for tonight, you think in more practical terms: the shoes you’re going to wear, your tired feet, the bad sidewalks in your neighborhood, the TV programs you could be watching instead.

I have a theory that meditation practice allows us the space to remember what we really want from life.  We realize that it’s not that difficult to get out the door.  We remember that, a few weeks ago, we really wanted this, and we’ll make the stand and do it.  It’s just a theory, but I think if you try it, you’ll be glad you did.

Reposted from an email conversation with a Christian friend.

There’s a analogy for thinking about the goal of meditation: imagine that you have a pool of water, and you’re always throwing pebbles in it, or splashing in it, or stirring it, so that the surface is choppy and you can’t see your reflection. The water represents your mind, and the splashing and stirring and pebble-throwing represents all your worrying, wanting, planning, comparing, thinking. To get the pool clear, you need to let it sit for a while, then your reflection becomes clear. I like this analogy because it’s not like stilling the mind is some secret special way to stir it or an exotic type of pebble; and it’s not that your mind isn’t already made of pure, clear water. It’s just that it takes some stillness and silence to get it to settle down. (And, if you’re wondering, sleep doesn’t do the trick. The mind isn’t still in sleep–REM sleep is the time for the mind to try out all kinds of thoughts that hadn’t come up in waking life.)

Another way to think of meditation is as objectless prayer. Katagiri Roshi, one of the first Zen teachers to come to the US, said that zazen is prayer without the expectations that some people might put on the subject and object of prayer. It takes away the parts of prayer that people get hung up on. Now, I know that not all Christians pray for stuff, or pray for specific outcomes, but you can see how it’s a possibility that someone would get hung up on it. The concept of “answers to prayers” suggests a subject and an object, a separation from the divine, a speaker and a listener, I’ll give you this if you give me that. So in that sense, meditation is a kind of unconditional prayer. Praying to listen, not to talk.

The other thing that interests me in this definition is the idea of a consistent meditation practice. The changes in the way I deal with my thoughts didn’t happen overnight. Through setting time aside on a daily basis for silent meditation/prayer, I let the changes happen at their own pace. I know some religious people who pray or meditate only when they feel like they need it, only when they’re troubled–no atheists in foxholes, etc. And in terms of meditation, I say that it doesn’t work well as emergency medicine. If you only meditate when you’re dangerously overwhelmed with emotion, it’s not going to give you instant serenity.  Like all good habits, it works on you over time.

In a couple months, I’ll be making my second trip to India to see the places where Buddhism was started.  And I’m a little geeked about it, because it’s an exciting break from my usual life.  A little scary–okay, sometimes a lot scary–overwhelming, and chaotic, but there’s something compelling about India that makes it a great place for a pilgrimage.  Because India traveling is challenging and often requires some adjustment of thinking, occasionally my thoughts about it seem a little like Dharma talks.  Other times, because India is such a marketplace of practical setbacks, my thoughts are more detail-oriented.  If I talk about it as part of a Zen teaching, it’s hard to tell where the “Dharma talk” ends and where the “travel tips” begin.

Or, if I share advice on a travelers’ website like India Mike, I wonder how much my Dharma training seeps in, and if it makes me kind of a know-it-all on there.  So it goes.  I don’t know everything about India travel, but I do know a thing or two about the lessons we might need to unlearn if we’re going to see India for what it is.

Some people on IM preparing for a trip ask questions looking for reassurance about safety. One person said he didn’t want to take anti-malarial pills, because he heard they didn’t work. I wondered what he meant; did he mean that someone had taken them and got malaria anyway? Or did he mean that someone didn’t take them and didn’t get malaria? Either is entirely possible, because there’s always a risk.  That’s what risk is.

The Buddhist teaching on dukkha could be translated as “life is risky.”  We want to be told with certainty that the future outcome is there. Another traveler asked if she should bring her netbook computer–she wanted to know, will it get stolen?  What if I leave it in my hotel room, locked? Will my hotel room have a safe?  Will the hotel staff be digging through my stuff when I’m gone?

To face risk, we need to keep don’t-know mind.  No one knows.  You could ask your hotels if they have safes–some do, some don’t.

Yet there’s also a benefit to focusing loving-kindness.  The hotel owners are sentient beings who want to be happy.  Whether they steal your belongings or not, they are acting for their own happiness.  Practically speaking, though, they know that they make their living renting rooms to visitors, so in all likelihood, they don’t want to steal from their guests and get a bad reputation.

The other side to this is nonattachment.  I always give this advice to people who travel India on a budget: don’t take anything you can’t afford to lose. If losing it would be an utter disaster and destroy your life, it’s not worth the risk.  If people really get this, they’ll know that no object’s loss can destroy your life. It will be inconvenient and disappointing if your camera doesn’t make it home–especially because of the once-in-a-lifetime photos you’ve taken!  If you are overtaken by fear of losing your possessions, you’ve already lost them.  If you can visualize losing them and keeping your equanimity, then you won’t have to worry too much.

Really, it’s less likely that your possessions will fall to malicious theft than that they’ll get broken when you drop your bag, or will get muddy in the monsoon rains, or you’ll misplace them… or they’ll get taken by a monkey.