Natural individuality vortexing in on itself becomes the “ism” of an attitude, a stance, a narcissism.

Its inherent anxieties churn faster than can be assuaged. Paying for insurance can’t save them. Growing into conspiracies that won’t be fact-checked. Trust dissolving. Seeking safety in strongmen.

Partisanship cannibalizing democracy: for the party not the people. Oligarchies cannibalizing consumers: in violence rather than stewardship. Consumers clueless as to what sustains life: meaning not stuff.

Spirit draining away, an insipid, parched trickle disconnected from what sustains life. Attention pulled by algorithmic media.

Such tragic, pointless suffering. Neurotic and unnecessary. So preciously MINE.

Yet … life and spirit available everywhere and always. Right here, just now. Aware.

Sensitivity opening outward even when awkward, difficult, or painful. Neither creating nor shunning conflicts. Life and death just so.

Not shrinking inwardly nor restlessly expanding outward. Open and porous. Individualism dissipates.

Though we are individuals we are simultaneously far much more. Neither need exclude the other.

What happens with our world when we view things as imbued with buddhaness, the “element or germ of awakening,” as Tan Ajahn puts it? For those of us who orient our lives with the lens of Buddhism, who are inspired by and take awakening seriously, what happens when we see other people — or consider the possibility in difficult cases — as full of this germ or element or quality that ripens in awakening? I find this challenging and enlivening, not to mention kind. Then, not overlooking my own inner stuff, might buddhaness be lurking within liver and kidneys, and even my fears and angers?

When Tan Ajahn contemplates buddhaness, he doesn’t do so with a fixed perspective or single definition. While we might want such tidiness, perhaps wishing for a simple approach, that’s not how deeper Dhamma exploration works. This encourages me to be playful and creative, flexible and curious, in exploring buddhaness everywhere and in everyone.

Although somewhat familiar intellectually, this is new to me as practice but still not too late to take advice from Thay and Tan Ajahn. As I carry on with the translation project, I’ll be minded to keep looking for the buddhaness in everything and everyone, including political and business leaders and followers.

Yes, we must resist the take over by mind-numbing corporate manipulation of values, by attention hijacking, by political confidence games, and unquestioning religious belief, especially those cloaking racist nationalism. We resist these because they reinforce the confusion, fear, selfishness, and ignorance within us. To wisely resist we must be dedicated in coming to terms with such inner forces, while blossoming the spiritual powers of compassion, fortitude, humility, honesty, and interiority.

In his brilliant late essay “The Undiscovered Self,” CG Jung highlights the crucial psychological and spiritual place of the individual. Writing after the horrors of two World Wars, he examines the ways modern society employs mass thinking. He clearly delineates how becoming the most of our individual potential is the only thing standing in the way of tyranny, whether of the marxist, fascist, capitalist, or hybrid flavors. (This podcast is a good introduction to the essay, How Did I Become a Statistic? Jung’s Essay, The Undiscovered Self.)

The early Buddhist figure of the true person (sappurisa) is essential for living a spiritually committed life (brahmacariya). Persons of integrity aren’t necessarily awakened and fully liberated, yet are dedicated to ethics, goodwill, healthy relationships, humanistic values, and contemplation. True persons are individuals discovering the path breath by breath. They support and aid others discovering their particular versions of path. However, groups don’t follow the path, only individuals do.

Emptiness doesn’t cancel individuals, ignorance does. Emptiness reveals the radically interconnected, relational realities of individuals and how individuals are in flux, are continuity within change, without a permanent core. Persons of integrity are in relationship with other beings, our bodies, nature, and truth (Dhamma, God, Tao). Thus, they don’t cling to narrow conceptions of their individual selves. Their desires aren’t self-centered. While each inhabits the path each is finding and embodying.

This post is telegraphic. I haven’t posted much in recent months, so wanted to convey something timely. Further looks at the perspectives above are in drafts that I haven’t quite finished.

And from a friend on Substack who is also concerned about the integrity of “Buddhism” amidst the destructive forces unleashed by our insincerity towards genuine science and religion.

… speak the truths of the racialization of peoples and white ethical fragility, please speak honestly and forthrightly within safe enough spaces and restraint of the bloviators and shouters.

… speak the truths of ecosystem trashing and of rejuvenation, speak from their troubled hearts and genuine care of living beings.

May those who suffer urban and rural poverty speak their truths loudly in the face of a grossly unjust social older.

May those who live with gender dysphoria and gender insecurities speak of them in ways congruent with healing for all.

Please speak truths, meaningful and honest, with feeling, but not hatred, denial of others, and intellectual sophistries.

May we all speak truths of living and dying, beauty and loss, pain and joy, as we encounter them genuinely and not speak too much for others.

May we discern what is truthful from what is merely asserted as true for other purposes. May we have the wisdom to listen to the truth-tellers.

Truths foster compassion, gratitude, and respect.

Oh, you believed in democracy as the way, the unique shining light on the hill, prosperity for all, our greatness for the peoples of the world to respect. So you did. Deep down. Even while knowing otherwise.

The true way is as ever navigating betwixt and between. Doctrines lacking essence may sometimes evoke reality. Practice rediscovered each mindful breath, each aware memory, each thoughtful idea, each ouch, each caring, each healing.

The suchness of stopping never anywhere else. So complain all you like.

Healthy societies are held together by good character, decency, integrity, and kindness. Tragically, such virtues have been denigrated by our hyper-individualism, excessive partisanship, class alienations, and such. Current ideology says that economics is what really matters, as in Bill Clinton’s famous “it’s the economy — stupid!”. I’ll choose to be stupid, then, choosing decency over philandering and power seeking, over spin and graft. And I ask you to peer into your own heart. Do you aspire to a world that suits our true needs as human and spiritual beings? Can such a world come about without good character, honesty, decency, and kindness? These are questions that can only be answered from deep within each of us.

In the days of trickle down Reaganomics, a group of activist friends spoke of trickle down corruption, which applied in Thailand as well as the USA. When national leadership is corrupt and greedy, corrupt thinking and behaviors trickle down through the apparatchiks, business people, consumers, and into the grass roots. Society as a whole is lead into precarity by lousy leadership. It’s an old story.

That governments, ruling classes, and their henchmen don't really serve the people very much or very well has always been the case. Ouch! That hurts those of us who’ve always hoped that this or that government would be good. But when they keep telling us what the people think — “the American people fill-in-the-blank with a partisan claim” — who can trust them? We don’t need them to tell us what we believe and think. We need them to listen to us and serve the greater good.

Sometimes governments do enough decent things, with the ruling classes allowing them to, for the rest of us to feel we can carry on with our lives, especially if we have some property and privilege. So we carry on, mostly within the parameters dictated by others, and leave it to the leaders “to lead.” These days, regimes like ours here in USA and that in Russia, along with many other countries, are leading us their own citizens into increasing harm and darkness. Greed, hatred, delusion, and fear are running these shows. Ideologies like capitalism and nationalism are used to blind and confuse. This is sad and tragic for modern minds that believe in progress, as well as common in human history.

When we have little or no influence on the larger stages of events — whether a bloated weapons industry promoting genocide in Gaza, Trumpism dismantling semi-democratic norms, or both parties bowing to geriatric patriarchs — we still have influence in our local communities, families, Buddhist Associations, and most of all our own hearts and minds. If we wish for a better world in which to live, close to home is where we have direct responsibility, with our own hearts being closest.

As one of the little people, someone who doesn’t fall for hero grandiosity or campaign finance professionals, I turn to Buddhist exemplars of Sappurisa for inspiration and guidance. Sappurisa are men and women, monks and nuns, of integrity, kindness, and character that we all can emulate. Sappurisa are honest and trustworthy, behave decently, make good friends, offer wise advice, give generously and wisely, hold beliefs in keeping with well-being for all, and seek spiritual depth. The more we have Sappurisa in our families, communities, and own bodies, the more hope there is for peace and ethics in them.

In Buddhism, the figures of Buddhas, Arahants, and Bodhisatvas represent ethical and spiritual ideals. For those of us who struggle to see ourselves as Buddhas and Bodhistavas, aspiring to be Sappurisa can feel realistic yet elevating. For ordinary folks, the figure of Sappurisa is especially fitting for our times. Why wait for imagined futures? We can be Sappurisa in these lifetimes. This is a relatively simple and straightforward aim. Nothing flashy. Just basic decency.

The etymologically of Sappurisa is “True Person” and “Person of Integrity” or “Person of Good Character” best expresses what the term is about. This shouldn’t require much explanation. Most of us respect persons of integrity and good character without needing complicated reasoning, though we may need to free ourselves of desires to seem cool, hip, or sophisticated to adhere with such old-fashioned notions.

I don’t suppose that Sappurisa would be captured by parties or identify with liberal and conservative labels. Ajahn Buddhadasa once warned me that political parties are inherently self-centered, too much motivated by the corruptions of the spirit. It’s taken me a long time to come around to that perspective, sadly.

Sappurisa, I think, will support freedom for ethical well-being while conserving what is for common benefit.

The Early Buddhist teachings present the figure of Sappurisa extensively, both in the use of the term and in the exemplars of practice that populate the thought world. Rather than focusing on the figures of “attainment” with our spiritual practice, let’s focus on the bedrock of character that the original teachings promote.

If you would like to learn more about Sappurisa in the words of the early teachings, they are translated in the following suttas:

• Shorter Full-Moon Night Discourse

• Gratitude

• Person of Integrity’s Gifts

• Some Qualities of a Person of Integrity

• Advice to To Dīghajāṇu

• Traits

• Admirable Friends

Here are examples of such inner work that I work on, inspired by the great suffering we are in:

• Examining how I view, perceive, and think about others — strangers at the store, public figures, local folks — to incorporate more consistent and heartfelt kindness, sympathy, and compassion. This is possible even with the political and corporate leaders pushing evil, destructive activities (in their delusion).

• Reflecting on the issues of the day in terms of inter-being, of radical inter-connectedness, with myself in the midst of it all. I am enmeshed in the polycrisis, not at all separate from all its manifestations. I touch and am touched by all of them.

• Rededicating to nurturing the sources of integrity within and around me. The integrity of others — such as in the church I attended as as a child or the dedicated school teachers I misbehaved around — has nurtured my own character. May my integrity strengthen and remain resilient so as to support integrity in others, in our locales, and in this troubled society.

• Reaching out in heart and mind to connect with Wholeness, with Life’s Totality, with the Fullness of Awareness (no matter how seemingly weak or intermittent the connection may be). This Unconditioned is so much more true than the biased truths of greed, hatred, and confusion.

I endeavor to daily engage in these, as well as in the work of physical, medical, ecological, and social realms.

One this flows into the next. None lasts or has sovereignty. No fixed “only this” can be found. Here we discover radical diversity. When we continuously reconnect with this, sameness is impossible and otherness has no meaning. In the radical diversity of thisness nothing is excluded.

Here-Now-This simply is. Being? More like changing.

Words never capture this and kill when they try to, like pinning moths to a display. Yet wholeness is worth pointing to, a noble gesture, with each this blossoming. To look, to aspire. Ye who seek love, seek so here.

But not exactly disconnected. I listened to various podcasts while enjoying the weather and work. Here’s two I recommend:

Trump’s Big Budget Bomb [listen or read] - Ezra Klein and his Washington Post guest Catherine Rampell talk through the budget recently passed by the House by a single vote and now with the Senate. Our “representative” here (Van Orden, WI-3) has not been honest about what the bills cuts, such as Medicaid and further destruction of vital services such as emergency preparedness from NOAA and NWS. There’s some news that Medicare is threatened, too. It’s hard to trust Van Orden and his congressional gang members, who constantly gaslight us. Ezra and his guest are far more reasonable and trustworthy, willing to dig into the Very Big Bill and tells what’s there and not there. They highlight how brutal and cruel this budget is, how dishonest those who praise it are, how destructively important it is, and what the budget shows about the true values of the current Reactionary Republican movement and the large chunks of America that follow their pied-piping.

The true-crime story of "The Limits to Growth": The study, the backlash – and its legacy (3 half hour episodes) - This important piece of history highlights central aspects of our society's current misguided, destructive paradigm. It is well told and focuses on the visionary work of Dana & Dennis Meadows and their MIT colleagues that was assaulted by status quo economists (i.e. capitalist ideologues) and the likes of Big Oil (with same consultants and playbook of Big Tobacco and today’s Big Tech). I knew the broad outlines of this story and benefited from hearing vital details. I’m reminded of how reactionary forces operate and applaud Dana Meadow's wise perspectives on how to respond to their obduracy. As the hard evidence accumulates showing how destructive this path of reductionist, capitalist materialism is, today the reactionary forces become ever more extreme in their denials and reprisals. As ever, spiritual grounding, grounding in nature and Dhamma, are vital to resisting the path of individualistic destruction. Part Three ends somewhat hopefully as the original MIT report is largely vindicated by our present climate, wealth inequality, pollution, migration, and other interconnected realities within earth’s complex living system and increasing numbers of scientists and citizens realize this. Tragically, many of our “leaders” lack the capacity and curiosity to understand complex systems and appear to think in the sound bites they babble at us.

These podcasts and similar honest journalism continue to reveal the dire mess we are in. What remains to be seen is how many Americans will wake up to realities that are slapping us in our faces and busting our knees. Complex systems, Nature including us, climate and weather, geology and technology, biology, and economies, too, unfold in surprising ways. Yet it isn’t that difficult to participate with the healthy bits if we have courage, patience, compassion, and pay attention. If we find politicians with these qualities, support them. Cajole others to strengthen them. Mostly, work in community with others who care and are trustworthy.

We don’t need heroes. We desperately need living, caring, human beings with all their native intelligence and creativity unshackled by fear and habit.

For a number of reasons, a huge number of us don’t normally breathe fully and healthily. This need not be the case but requires training. Breath therapy, if you like. Breath meditation, if you swing that way.

Learning to breathe more fully and deeply into the abdomen, as well as expansively in the chest.

Learning to breathe more slowly, smoothly, and flexibly.

Learning to breathe with sensitivity into all areas of the body from sinuses to pelvis and beyond. Breathing with the whole body.

Learning to breathe gently, calmly, when body-mind are in harmony with it.

Learning to breathe with pleasure and satisfaction.

Learning to breathe with joy and well-being.

Learning to breathe with subtle awareness of mind-heart.

Learning to breathe with intimate awareness of change.

Learning to breathe without a “breather.”

Breathing is here and now, present within this body’s reality. If you need refuge from time to time, this one is always at hand.

There are many resources — somatic, trauma, and physical therapists; skilled yoga teachers; dedicated practitioners of Buddha’s full method — you can find to help with the above. I have guided meditations for all of the above.

This is neither a proper essay nor poetry. It’s more like a list of suggested responses with a bit of explanation preceding each. You may not like what I write here; that isn’t the point. You may debate their truthfulness; that’s good. We’re in a big mess and addressing it will be messy. Please join in.

After the November election, thoughtful commentators provided lists of guidances. A short and simple one that I recommend is by Satya Doyle Byock, “Entering the Darkness.” Scholar of Eastern Europe Tim Snyder’s book Twenty Lessons on Fighting Tyranny from the Twentieth Century, was widely mentioned and here’s the 20. A local Coulee Region friend has compiled a slew of resources here. This post is a slow gestating addition.

This post is my attempt to pull together my primary thoughts, beliefs, and views on the social-cultural crisis we Americans are in, that we have been mindlessly building towards for a long time. While necessarily about politics and economics, those dimensions of samsāra are neither my expertise nor my preferred main interest here. They are far from the whole picture. Life has other important dimensions. My interest is social, ecological, cultural, and ethical, which are my preferred lens for examining politics and economics. There are plenty of excellent sources — Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky, and many more (see list at end) — that I draw upon and need not replicate. Here, I attempt to sketch the broad strokes of what I think about the mess we are in, that so many of us are fearing and grieving. I offer actionable responses to each piece of the mess that I highlight.

(1) Broadly, I am guided by a perspective shared by Mahatma Gandhi, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, and Ajahn Buddhadasa Bhikkhu. These three spiritual leaders, two of whom were also influential activists, had visions of spiritually meaningful societies worth living in. Some of its main elements are upholding loving ethics and virtue, taking care of the most vulnerable, fostering social cohesion, and reeling in the many destructive tendencies of the modern world. Ajahn Buddhadasa spoke of this as “Dhammic Socialism” rooted in Natural Truth and therefore more, or at least as, concerned with the good of society as a whole and all its peoples and species than primarily concerned with “me” and “mine.” It aims for collective, mutual well-being, which sadly our current American system has given up on.

Response: Clarify the main components of a society you can desire for yourself, loved ones, and everyone else. Don’t try very hard to be “realistic.”

(2) I have serious doubts that our current political-governmental system, especially on the federal level, is able to address the massive mess that it has helped bring about. The long string of fudges and deceptions means it cannot take the lead in moving us in the direction of a sustainable society worth living in. This is partly because of the political, ideological, and cultural strangle hold of our dirty money corrupted two-party system. It’s broken, no longer offering a coherent vision and agenda that provides hope. We’ve drifted away from our Constitution, a flawed but necessary legal basis for needed reforms. The steady abrogations of power by the Imperial Presidency and the emasculating of Congress violates the vision of the Founders and is not constitutional, as is the political factionalism of SCOTUS itself. The “strict constructionist” malarkey of the hardcore rightwing of the Roberts Court is doublespeak, not sincere adherence. This creep of presidential authoritarianism in service to national security state imperialism created the possibility we are in. This has steadily worsened at least since the Bush era perpetual “war on terror.” The constant distortions and lies of the bipartisan national surveillance state have fostered a culture of dishonesty — both omission and commission — that serves the accumulation of power by the already powerful. It is not honestly democratic, despite our rituals of elections.

Response: Don’t wait for the Republicans until they dump Trump, Vance, Musk, Bannon, et al, and act like responsible adults concerned for all citizens. Don’t count on the Democrats until they have a coherent, inspiring vision and grow a spine. Look for movements outside the corrupted system that put pressure on it to reform genuinely in the directions of diminishing inequality and fostering Blessed Community.

(3) The unlikelihood of the current configuration of our system to get us out of a mess that is intrinsic to it isn’t just about our broken two party system. So-called business, especially big business and the huge corporations that fund the parties while avoiding taxes is as much of a corrupting factor. Also the major investors who have held so much clout, often behind the scenes, while now kissing the ring of King Trump. Who is silly enough to believe their interests and ours coincide? Money is not speech; it’s money. But the Citizens United ruling of the Roberts court means that the wealthy have more right to express themselves that the rest of us. Business and government are misleading framed as in opposition, while they are in fact complementary factions in our exploitative capitalist system.

Response: While we are largely dependent on this soul devouring system for our basic needs, choose more benign providers (farmers markets) when possible. Cut back on spending on non-basic needs that make us the most profligate and destructive society ever. Unshackle your thinking from status quo assumptions and apologetics.

(4) I don’t see much hope coming from the political parties and big business sectors as they curry favor with Trump/Musk or lay low hoping to avoid the worst. To have hope for political and governmental reform requires a realistic and inspiring vision for a renewed Democratic party, a vision that aligns with MLK’s Blessed Community. Sure, resist the dastardliness of Trumpism AND also know what we are for rather than defaulting to the bureaucratic state. I admire Ezra Klein’s research and thinking on what such a Democratic party would be for and aspire to do. His recent conversation with his co-author of Abundance

sketches important elements. I rely on decent, caring thinkers like these guys and those they reference for policy and politics expertise I can’t manage to do personally. My work focuses on ethical and spiritual-cultural elements.

Response: Find trusty guides who are decent, caring, honest, intelligent, and provide valuable perspectives. I’ll add adrienne maree brown and Rebecca Solnit to the esteemed names I’ve been dropping.

(5) One dimension of Joanna’s Macy’s vision for the Great Turning — to avert total catastrophe and heal — is holding actions that slow down and resist the terrible destructiveness being unleashed by the delusional narcissists running the Trump power grab. I’m not someone to organize and lead protests, but I wish to join. I don’t see Making America Decent For Once possible without massive numbers of us in the public squares and streets, hopefully full-on DEI of people of goodwill. I think this is especially important for my generation’s educated professionals, especially we white liberals, as we have received so much privilege from the militaristic imperial capitalism that is destroying peoples, land, climate, and decency. I wonder if we can begun pledging that we will join the mass marches and protests that are needed.

Response: Reflect on how much courage, spunk, and love you can summon to defy tyranny. Can you live with not having any? Do your inner work around greed, hatred, fear, pride, confusion, apathy, guilt, despair, and the like. Find your inner resources for caring, courage, and sacrifice.

(6) For now, signs of leadership are coming from Bernie and AOC. I hope Elizabeth Warren and others join them. Maybe Al Sharpton, too. Note that these are the people that the institutional wing of the Dems have striven to marginalize. I would welcome leadership that includes William Barber II. There are surely others you can respect and resonate with.

Response: Get to know leaders you can follow, who won’t sell you out, who won’t badger you with endless fundraising.

(7) Technologically, we are undone by the misnamed “social media” behemoths successfully commodifying our attention, enabled by the federal government. Our docile consumerist habits make us easy pickings as we look for sort term bargains and convenience. Social fabric be damned. We face a huge challenge in using their high-profit technology wisely and in some areas shunning what has become overwhelmingly destructive. Tragically, we acquiesce again and again, at our convenience, through some combination of laziness, willful ignorance, superficiality, and addiction.

Response: Learn about addiction and its signs. Shun clickbait. Interrogate your use of the internet and algorithm controlled media — when is a use or encounter truly beneficial and when harmful. Prioritize actually social media like phone calls, hugs, walks together, town halls, and progressive rallies. Train your habits of attention to align with your highest values.

(8) When a government of, for, and by the people is dominated by millionaires and billionaires, what gives? As Bernie puts it, we “have a government of the billionaire class, for the billionaire class, by the billionaire class.” When only a tiny percentage of the electorate is paying attention to policies and their actual implementation, how can “the American people” vote intelligently? When many are getting their “news” from Fox and Facebook, how can we address the real world? When candidates communicate in sound bites and speak from pre-approved scripts, how can we know what they actually believe and intend? When consumers are mostly focused on their narrow interests and entertainments, how can the electorate care about the good of society? When angry people put their faith in Donald Trump as their Authoritarian Savior, what has become of religion? When we allow ourselves to be spun by identity politics, how can we be anything but manipulated?

Response: Step into the spaces of honesty and evidence, thoughtful conversation and debates, and respect for shared humanity — they exist. Listen with healthy boundaries. Contribute.

(9) Finally, I arrive at my main cultural and ethical concern: the massive infection of individualism in our culture, society, and lives. The toxic capitalist cuklture that we’ve been subsumed in has manipulated our sense of individuality and fostered individualism. Especially since the Reagan years, this has boomed, leading to evermore fragmentation in society. The more atomized we are, the more consumer units there are, which leads to tremendous waste and a diminishing of sharing. This serves the profit hoarding needs of consumer capitalism. We have had a ceaseless marketing campaign on behalf of the primacy of the individual and the ideology of individualism carried out by business, government, their hired hands in psychology and punditry, and even some religious groups, including within Americanized Buddhism. Individualism is so much the water we swim in that we fish don’t see it. We don’t want to admit how individualism actually dis-empowers us, as we lose the ability to foster networks of mutuality and collective life. In the face of the current tyranny, individualism is even more dangerous.

Our multifaceted individualism takes various forms, such as atomized consumerism, over-emphasis on individual rights, especially among the privileged, and Reagan-Clinton doctrines of self-interest (whatever is best for me and my family, usually construed in narrow, superficial ways). This myopic emphasis on the individual is so deeply rooted and taken for granted in mainstream culture that it’s nearly impossible to have coherent discussions about the common good, as the Covid pandemic baldly exposed, which we still can talk about.

It’s hard to imagine a society of individuals locked into their little phone worlds, tiktok videos, consumption habits, and trips to Vegas asking good and difficult questions about the collective good of our cities and states, let alone the ecosystems on which we depend and the country as a whole. Must we forget about humanity and sentient life as a whole? Individualism hobbles us as citizens.

Response: Track and diminish the “me” thinking and open your heart to bigger, inclusive, diverse “we.” Reach out and connect with fellow travelers new and old. Find community that you can contribute to.

(8) Psychology for individualists is tragically limiting. Like seeking a frog’s health at the bottom of a well. It doesn’t address the core of neurosis and suffering. The ideology tells us that the individual is our most precious core, then goes and commodifies it. What kind of precious is that! When buying this delusion, we believe its all we have and are terrified of losing it. That isn’t the case with healthy individuality embedded in mutually nurturing relationships, vibrant communities, and our eco-homes.

Response: There are countless ways to see beyond the individualist myopic egoism. Just dare to look. You are most capable of seeing.

(9) For the men among us, an important contribution is to find ways to address the toxicities of the manosphere and support younger men in self-acceptance, recognizing emotions, meaningful choices, pride in worthwhile non-violent endeavors, and in being part of a healing culture. It’s imperative that we model a healthy, meaningful, and happy alternative to the greed and hatred models of Jordon Peterson, Andrew Tate, Dana White, and Donald Trump. If we are cowardly in this, afraid of being attacked by those who viciously do so with joy, we abandon the future to proto-fascists. I ask women to stop using demonizing terms like “toxic masculinity,” which only worsens the problem. That makes it sound like masculinity is hopeless, that testosterone is the problem, and men should just become more like women, which is facile. What we need is men with courage, fortitude, compassion, innovation, and life-affirming ethics.

Response: Talk with other men about our hopes and dreams, our fears and insecurities, our loves and needs, and whatever else is cooking. Don’t lurk in the shadows.

(10) As a Buddhist, I believe that we can wake up from individualism and the selfishness it promotes to live ethically and in genuine flesh and blood community. We can change our lives through Path, whether Buddhist in expression, Gandhian, or the movement Dr Martin Luther King lead. Path need not be religious in external form but it must diminish self-centeredness on behalf of generosity, compassion, integrity, and genuine virtue. Forget the authenticity of petty egos; there is a more profound authenticity that transcends our persons and species. Freedom is from egoism not for egoism. This waking up is and always has been a huge challenge. Nowadays our species may be more lost than ever. How else can one explain voting for the ugliness of Trumpism or hiding from the news? Yet waking up is more needed by our shared future than ever before. Each one of who commits to waking up in multiple ways will naturally encourage others, in our interconnectedness, to awakening.

Response: The scale is huge and worsening, which can seem overwhelming to the individualist. Realize that each of us as individuals can’t understand it all, nor do you need to. It’s not your job to fix it (heroic fantasy), nor is it Elon Musk’s (like he really wants to fix anything). Yet we each — you — have our own parts to play. Find them out of compassion for your own life and those around you.

(11) We are emotional beings. How do we inhabit this fact in these circumstances? We can express and vent our upset and such. We can listen to each other sympathetically and commiserate. Are we able to go further? Or do we leave that for others? Are we afraid we’ll just get more upset? Do we care enough to take the necessary risks, emotional and other? Much hinges on this question.

Whatever we choose each day there will still be much suffering. Will we seek to appease the bullies? Will we resist in integrity and love?

Response: Address suffering.

Apologies for the incompleteness and roughness of this post. I’m not embarrassed. I’m putting out what I can in hopes that we will discuss with friends and allies what we are prepared to do to avert even worse calamity than what has already befallen. I can’t understand all aspects of this mess we’re in — nobody can. Yet, we can summon our basic intelligence, think seriously, and talk with each other. I may be off on various things, yet can only put forth what I honestly think and believe, ready and willing to be corrected by evidence, reason, and kindness. Feel free to poke holes in my claims and find better responses.

Bottom line: How will we change our lives, consumption, families, businesses, entertainments, and networks of friends in order to orient toward Blessed Community and Dhammic Socialism?

Further Recommendations:

William Barber II, The Poor Peoples Campaign, and Repairers of the Breach

Joanna Macy, The Work That Reconnects

Naomi Klein

Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent … a talk at UW-Madison https://chomsky.info/19890315/?form=MG0AV3&form=MG0AV3 and Youtube

Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark

Tim Snyder

Jon Stewart

Reading the news is an old behavior and habit that started in imitation of my father — Chicago Tribune (but not Wall Street Journal). This habit gathered strength during Peace Corps with Newsweek and The Christian Science Monitor. Over my monkhood years other sources— Economist, Asiaweek — came and went. Now it’s a mix of progressive periodicals and on-line sources, including Substacks.

I observe an identity running through all that — being someone who’s on top of what’s happening in the wide world, not just my back yard, is knowledgeable and cosmopolitan, aims to be sophisticated, is progressive, and can speak cogently about the many issues that interest me. This identity keeps me enmeshed, trapped in being “the smart, knowing person.”

My personality trait of critical mindedness leads me to have opinions and critiques of those issues, usually finding persons, groups, corporations, and institutions to blame for what bothers me. Many things bother me. That blaming is, seen now, obviously defensive, protecting me from culpability for my many failings in other areas and distracting from feelings of sadness, guilt, and grief.

I like to read. Reading gives me pleasure since Fourth Grade. Reading the news can provide such enjoyment, even reading about horrible or disgusting things. Is it healthy to derive a certain pleasure from reading about the suffering of others or affirming that so-and-so is a sick %#&+@$? No, it’s perverse. I could just as well get my kicks from great literature, edifying Buddhist texts, informative history, and insightful psychology, all of which I enjoy reading.

I often read articles to the end, even when they are rehashing yesterday’s news. This looks like auto-pilot, a not very mindful habit. I’m now experimenting with skimming and gleaning the relevant gist that genuinely informs me without absorbing into a piece’s agenda or being stirred up by it. Instead of following the somehow acquired duty to read the whole thing, I’m more often asking myself: why am I reading this? what do I need to know here? will this informing lead to improving someone’s life?

Buddha-Dhamma does not encourage the poisons of greed, hatred, and delusion, as well as the other egoistic afflictions such as fear, anger, guilt, envy, confusion, and pride. I take this heart of Buddhism rather seriously. When does my reading of news stir up anger and guilt? When do I fall into the arrogance of opinion that pretends to analyze and understand what’s going on, especially when I have no direct, lived experience of it? I’m training myself to catch such defilements and just stop.

I don’t do much doom-scrolling; I’m far more prone to anger-scrolling. Still, I dutifully read reports from the climate destruction front and grieve for all the beings dying and suffering. I respect that grieving, just don’t want to indulge in it. Sometimes there’s the wicked pleasure of “boy, we really buggered up this one!” Cultivating compassion beckons as the wiser, trainable choice.

Little by little, I’m weaning myself from consuming the news, especially the 24-7 overstimulated sort, not unlike how I’ve weaned myself from coffee and it’s harmful effects upon my system. And just as I drink good green tea instead, I aim to read with discernment, healthy purpose, and compassion. I’m more interested in thoughtful understanding of where we are as a people and species, than spinning around rebirthing in fear, disgust, outrage, and disdain. In our brutal capitalist culture, being a consumer is a recipe for addiction and being brainwashed. Why not, as the Dhammapada says,

        As a bee gathers nectar from a flower 
          without injuring its beauty or fragrance, 
          even so the sage moves through the village. 

Thank you to the poet-meditators who gathered at the Stonybrook Meeting House, Princeton, NJ, on 31 January 2025.

Is Trump like a Korean Seon Master,
shocking us,
rattling everything,
undermining certainties and hopes,
stoking our trembling fears,
showing us our true faces
melting in the detritus of delusions,
of power, of greatness, of potency,
of safety.

Who am I? Who are we?
What’s up? What’s real?
Who can I trust?
Will I survive?

Of course not!
Trump’s no Zen Master revealing our True Nature.
No way!
He revels in greed, in hatred, in egoism.
Spouts truths multifarious and nonexistent,
provoking countless inanities.
Distractions.
Dumping all who fall into further suffering.
Trump is the way deeper in, and no way out.

Yet, as everything scrambles without holding center,
Trump is symptom, as you are, as I.
Stop being distracted by shock and awe —
what is to be realized.

In this total unknowability,
turn to a friend, an oak, a crow,
embrace and feel each other’s living presence.
Noone can take that away,
has the ownership and power over,
this fleeting moment.

Then, in love, set my ass down and resist.

Narcissist, conman, bully, coward, junk food consumer, entrepreneurial purveyor of bullshit, instigator of insurrection and violence, sexual molester — this is us — U.S. Deeply rooted in “our way of life.”

Individualist to the max. Run by self-centered id. Aggressive. Consequences for others, for future, be damned.

Individualism on steroids, on turbocharged fossil fuels, on nukes, on viagra and Big Macs. Lip service to God. Self as God. These are not limited to only one side of the voting spectrum.

Liberal Friends, wanting to be the good face of individualism and its capitalism, we separate — “that’s not me, that’s not who we are.” We want to be the good egos. But realities don’t let us separate and segregate, however much we want to be insulated, that is, isolated.

Such Individualist Family Systems are all just parts. The parts contained by and seen as “I.” Self of “I,” too. Such parts are ever fragmented. We cling to the little parts as “me” and “mine.” We lump conglomerations of parts as the “individual” we identify as, momentarily and often repeatedly. Such individuals are unable to heal into wholeness.

The Infinite Family System, Indra’s Karmic System, has no container. Inter-Being as far as and well beyond what can be seen, heard, and known. We are all parts of each other; individuality is inseparable from us all. Not exactly one in sameness. Not two in emptiness. Beyond counting.

how marvelous happening together within Indra's Net

happening together within Indra's Net

all beings twinkling

Before the election, there were warning signs, podcasts, and articles about a Trump victory and the consequences, especially if his party controls the Senate, House, and Supreme Court. Some of that was fear-mongering to win clicks and donations; there were many doses of truth as well. Now that The Boss Elect is showing that he means to follow through on his threats and obsessions (his promises are another matter), our future is even scarier.

If so, this mess will have to play out until forces realign, which is full of uncertainties. How can we non-elites influence the jostlings for power so as to minimize the substantial harm that is likely?

Further historical perspectives with a deeper time-span show where we (Americans) might be in a cycle that has played out countless times in history. Again, as the elites and their servants jostle for power, how can we small fry respond so as to protect ourselves and other small fry and not end up as cannon fodder, prison enslaved labor, and denied medical coverage?

I believe these historical perspectives and musings can be guides to making choices that support solidarity among the non-elite citizenry, ward off apathy and despair, encourage meaningful engagement in local communities and civic movements, and preserve our sanity. To do so requires mindfulness of cultural and societal trends of long-standing influence. It seems to me that Americans have been subject to and mindlessly participate in a number of trends, some quite old, that helped get us to this juncture of social decay:

• An evangelical orientation to “religion” that strongly prioritizes faith over reason: Facts don’t matter if one has “faith.” We can make up what we want to believe in and call it “God’s word.”

• The prominence of salesmanship in our culture. Marketing as a way of life. Selling stuff and ourselves.

• Rich people using their money to further their own agendas. (This one will never go away but can moderated by strong, ethical social movements.)

• Ronald Reagan successfully demonizing government and Democrats going along with him.

• Public school systems undermined and degraded by the mania for privatization, that is, profit seeking.

• Universities turned into businesses.

• Corporate for-profit “News” becoming entertainment and downgrading journalistic integrity.

• “Reality TV” blurring the difference between stage managed pablum-drama and actual reality.

• Racism for at least 400 years. Progress in various ways mixed with endemic bias and ignorance.

• Genocide as soon as the European invaders had the power to do so.

• Insistence to pouring trillions of dollars into the world’s dominant military power, sold with bogus patriotism, allowing corrupt contractors and their investors to get rich skimming.

• And sexism, the oldest of them all.

• Sorry stuff! In our sorry state, fascist tendencies will rear their heads, as they did in the 30s before WWII, exploiting the depression largely created by the forces that immediately sought to exploit it.

Will other cultural currents be strong enough to preserve our shaky rule of law, judicial system, and electoral politics, imperfect as they may be? Which cultural values can be drawn upon?

Some that seem necessary to me are:

• Capacity for hard work (especially evidenced in our part of Wisconsin by Latinos).

• Neighborliness. Caring more about how the people around us are doing than what celebrities are up to.

• Christian value of caring for the poor and marginalized.

• Sense of justice.

• Honest caring for truth, supported by thoughtful journalism.

• Healthy (non-destructive) connection to land, other species, and eco-systems.

• The mindfulness and personal development movements embracing social realities.

• Religion that decreases self-centeredness and increases compassion for others, including those who are different from us.

Please, help expand this list.

It’s beyond me to predict, or worry about, which set of forces will prevail. But I can choose to contribute where I can to the second set of cultural forces.

This is a simple message: Recovering the basic elements of human decency. All of them depend on less involvement with devices and screens.

Or in classic Buddhist terms, the moral practice of restraining greed, hatred, and delusion, then the spiritual practice of lessening these roots of evil.

Stay tuned. Like it or not, we’re all in this together.

Dukkha is dry eyes from low humidity, allergies, wind, or chemo sequela — uncomfortable, itchy, irritating. Rubbing makes worse, transferring dust, pollen, or kitty dander from clothes and hands to eyes.

Dukkha is regretting that careless rubbing. Dukkha is awkwardness about petting a friendly cat seeking affection. Dukkha is uncertainty about washing hands when drying out skin is another cluster of dukkha.

But these unpleasant sensations aren’t really suffering, just discomfort, annoying, not even painful (except when mindless rubbing goes way too far).

The despicable deceitfulness is in the inconstancy and instability. Careful not to rub. Mindful to wash hands and rinse face with soothing hot water. Remembering to blink a lot. These provide pleasing relief. Temporarily. The discomfort is out of mind for a while. The irritation passes. Not a long while.

Blowing nose. Vacuuming lady beetles. Outside in the wind. A rub. Relief didn’t last. Can’t count on the good stuff lasting. That is dukkha built into the nature of created things.

Midst the change, transitoriness, and instability of eyes, tears, wind, dust, hands, embodied life, and sentience is the impossibility of being comfortable forever. Whining about it is dukkha and resisting is more dukkha.

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Yet, dukkha is a foreign word for many readers. Even among students and practitioners of Buddhism, for whom it ought to be familiar, dukkha is poorly, loosely, or crudely understood. “Suffering” doesn’t get to the bottom of it. As Buddha stressed that thorough understanding of dukkha is necessary for awakening, careful inquiry into its meaning, range, and depth is advised. This series of dukkha posts aims to encourage that.

Dukkha, however, cannot be defined. It must be felt, experienced, seen in all its ramifications, again as Buddha advised. Therefore, this series will explore all sorts of ramifications that the writer has been tracking in himself, in lived experience.

My hope is that these reflections and ruminations will provide spiritual ballast for the more charged posts on the moral depravities and challenges.

We spiritually explore the nature of dukkha in order to awaken and be free in compassion. This brings clarity to the moral challenges of human life.

For non-Buddhists, here is a quick primer on the three main ways dukkha is discussed in the early teachings:

Dukkha as pain, as the unpleasant, disagreeable, uncomfortable feeling tones that accompanying many experiences. This kind of dukkha is simply part of sensate, embodied life, just like pleasure and pleasant feeling tones.

Dukkha as the inherent consequence of the constructed, impermanent, unstable nature of created phenomena. Pleasure and satisfaction are grasped fleetingly, if at all.

Dukkha as suffering, as the emotional malaise and hurt of reacting to experiences unwisely, taking things personally, living selfishly.

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Earlier posts in this series:

• Let me tell of my dismay

• blessings can be curses

• Uncertainty can inspire dukkha

• dukkha: dissatisfaction with our time

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• "I have to" ...