LT Saloon

1. Opposites: That everything exists in relation to its opposite and that to truly understand anything, you most also study what appears to be it’s complete opposite. The trick is that reality is not static or singular, but exists as a continuum – a range of motion – and to be understood, things must be located as to where they fall between the seeming opposites. The most obvious example of this is with darkness and light. Somewhere between utter darkness and blinding pure light is everything we humans can see. Ask a painter or photographer. What gives light its luminous glow is the shadow surrounding it, and what gives the dark its deep richness (as in Rembrandt’s paintings) is the quality of light that offsets it. There is a relationship of opposites in everything. To truly understand strength, one must understand weakness. To understand compassion, one must delve into the nature of selfishness. Nothing exists in a vacuum. The German philosopher Martin Buber, in his great work, “I And Thou,” describes the relationship between all things – the seer and the seen, the thinker and the thought. Newton’s third law states “every action has an equal and opposite reaction.” How can you practice concentration without also studying distraction? You resolve conflict through the study of its opposite – cooperation. People are constantly labeling and judging others as good or evil, smart or stupid, graceful or clumsy, and yet on further examination it is always revealed that they are good and evil, smart and stupid, graceful and clumsy, depending on the moment and circumstances. Much of what the Western mind sees as paradox is easily contained in the Eastern mind as the opposite nature of things. Which leads us to:

2. The Whole: The next great teaching is the concept that both sides are a part of the whole. Not that both are needed in the moral sense – as in, we need evil to teach us to be good – to tempt us so we can learn strength, as in some religious teachings, but that they simply are, factually, the way the universe is. In a purely scientific, non-judgmental way, good and evil simply both exist, and to understand the big picture, you must study them both. The Yin/Yang doesn’t show light as better than darkness. The two sides have equal weight in the structure of the whole. There are parasites and predators in nature. Winds and waves of destructive force. Life and death. There is no moralizing in the Yin/Yang. It is an illustration of the nature of things as they are. Animals show kindness and bravery and also cruelty and cowardice. These qualities have no moral content by themselves. We humans have decided that those parts of life that we approve of are good and those that we don’t like are evil. Go too far down that road and you end up burning books and imprisoning people for disagreeing with you. The Yin/Yang doesn’t judge. Death would not exist if there were no life. Life is defined by the fact of death. We are mortal and therefore alive. Opposite and inseparable are the two sides of the whole.

3. The Path: Down the center of the symbol is the s-curved line dividing the two halves. To me, this line represents the individual path through life. What Buddha called the “middle path”. The way of enlightenment or wisdom is walking the path that touches both sides of the whole equally. The path is narrow and curved – making it easy to stray. I think the dividing line represents the truth that the wise person tries to achieve balance and harmony by containing both light and dark. It also shows that wisdom means learning to discriminate between the two sides. Knowledge is protection. Ignorance is dangerous. The middle path sees truth in both directions and learns that there are pitfalls on both sides. So seekers of truth must learn to explore all the wisdom that is contained in the Tao (the true essential nature of the way things are), and not to turn away from either darkness or light. So, when faced with a difficult situation, consider all possibilities and try to see with as little bias as possible. For me the curved line is a reminder that appearances are deceiving. Sometimes the path seems headed into the light, sometimes toward the darkness, but ultimately the balance is maintained and all things are as they should be.

4. The Nucleus: The final teaching I want to explore here is often overlooked, and yet extremely important. Inside each half of the symbol is sometimes shown a small dot of the other side. In my meditations on this subject I come up with two truths: First, that each thing contains some of its opposite. We say that nothing is either all good or all bad. Stillness contains motion, as in the frozen moment before the sprinter unleashes his contained power. Motion contains stillness, as the long distance runner finds when she hits the “zone” where time slows and she can run forever. Inside the rushing river are the rocks that create the rapids. Inside generosity is pleasure for the giver – a self-serving feeling. Inside the love of protective parents is the desire to control. Doing terrible things in the name of good has occurred throughout human history. And doing good things in the service of something terrible also exists. Inside the monster of fascism is the desire to unite people, to feed them, to make trains run on time – to create order. The second and more difficult lesson is that each side of this equation is actually the nucleus or genesis of the other. That deep inside the light is a tiny spark of darkness that creates it. For example, the pain and fear you feel at injustice in the world is a darkness that creates light – i.e.: working to change things or to learn forgiveness and courage. And, conversely, the love of order and harmony leads to much darkness – bigotry, intolerance, and tyranny. Or the example of the pleasure derived from appreciating beauty leading to material possessiveness.

This ancient symbol of the nature of reality is both simple and incredibly complex – just like that which it represents. I use it to help find a clear path through the confusion of life. I hope you will find my explorations useful as well.

So remember that opposites are the two sides of the same coin. When you have trouble understanding something, look at its opposite – there lies insight. Good luck, and don’t forget to enjoy the view!

Contact the author at VJLeventhal@ltsaloon.org

Updated Nov. 19, 2009.

© Val Leventhal. All Rights Reserved.

It’s not too late – we still can make it
All Americans have a right
This is our chance – we’ve got to take it
Now while progress is in sight

There’s got to be a public option
We’re moving closer every day
We could get health care to depend on
If we keep pushing harder
They can’t keep standing in our way

There’s got to be a public option…
There’s got to be a public option…
There’s got to be a public option…

Contact the author at VJLeventhal@ltsaloon.org

© 2009 Val Leventhal. All Rights Reserved.

Obviously, people have different skills and different tasks requiring different skill sets. If you’re having brain surgery, you want the neurosurgeon, not the plastic surgeon, or the union electrician, but this is no way indicates that the neurosurgeon is a superior being to the electrician, or any other person. When we say that one person is superior to another with no specific context, then that is prejudice. The ego leads us to take that step over the rational line. Then we build an unjust world and use all kinds of nonsense to justify it. Unrealistic expectations are held out as golden rings everyone should be grabbing for: who really thinks they will win an Oscar, find a cure for cancer, etc. In our culture, we say that we’re raising our kids to be the best they can be, but often we are over-emphasizing the word “best.”

So what happens when we realize we aren’t “best” at something? Or even worse, when we realize we are seen as inferior because of things over which we have no control, such as height or IQ? We become demoralized. We are ready then to give away our power and self-esteem just because of some arbitrary perceived ranking in society. In a recent interview I saw with actor Michael Caine, he described the burden of class in his native England. Because of his Cockney accent, he experienced discrimination and found it difficult to get cast in British films, where actors were expected to speak in an upper class accent. He then talked of his feeling of liberation when he came to America – he called it the “disappearance” of class. But America is simply riddled with class prejudice based on our own regional accents, skin color, clothing, occupation, looks, and of course, money.

In this great engine of capitalism, money rules. One can be forgiven physical unattractiveness, skin color, low birth, lack of talent, brains, and even character, if you have enough money. Money confers automatic superiority, and the assumption is that everyone follows, or should follow, the money trail.

I had a conversation with a young neighbor a few years ago when the housing bubble had not yet burst and lots of speculators were looking for bargain houses to buy, fix, and “flip,” for a profit. We were discussing houses foreclosed for unpaid taxes (sometimes a few hundred dollars) and sold at auction to the highest bidder. He asked me what was wrong with trying to make a profit and build some capital for his future by investing in one of these foreclosures. His argument was that someone was going to profit from the loss of another, so it might as well be him. After all, it wasn’t his fault if some elderly person had been unable to keep their home. It was unfortunate for them, but presented an opportunity for him. He felt that he would increase the value of the property by fixing it up, whereas the previous owner was “doing nothing with it.”

I listened patiently as he made his case, and then I asked him why money, or profit, was the only value he considered. What, I asked, about the value of the house as a home in which a person had lived for many years and in which they wished to remain until their death? What about the decades of hard-earned mortgage payments that had paid for the house? What about the value to the neighborhood and the larger community of having people with a history and a feeling of investment in the area living there? I asked him what kind of society values profit more than people’s lives? He didn’t know what to say. He’d never looked at it that way before. He’d only been thinking that he was a winner, and winners come out on top, and the old person losing their home was a loser, and nothing could be done to change that. I asked him if it didn’t seem that there should be a law, or at least a government program, protecting people who had paid for their homes from losing them over a small tax liability. He agreed that there probably should be, but meanwhile, he was just trying to get ahead.

As long as we are pitted against one another in this super competitive system, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to change our society. We have to re-examine our beliefs. The current economic downturn, combined with the global information collective created by the Internet, is presenting an opportunity for real change by confronting people with the true ugliness and non-sustainability that lies beneath the surface of our culture. If you ask the average middle-class American if they would pay 50 cents more for a pair of shoes so that the people who make the shoes could have a standard of living that would allow them to rise out of abject poverty, they would say yes, of course. But corporate America always frames the question falsely, saying that paying the workers a living wage for their local economic system would double the cost to the consumer, which is just not true. They will never admit that their real concern is their own profits being slightly lower. As a matter of policy, the corporate rulebook says you must never give anything to labor so, no matter what, they will fight a more equitable exchange of money paid for the value of work. The industrialized “first world” nations continues to take unfair advantage of the third world and the poor of their own counties. Saying that this is just the way things have always been and always will be is a rationalization for behavior that should be defined as criminal — abuse and exploitation of people and theft of natural resources are not acceptable practices in a civilized world.

These larger issues come down to some simple questions: Is money more valuable than life? Is one human intrinsically more valuable than another? Who should be allowed to make these decisions?

Let’s look for a minute at life’s “winners.” When people are born into a comfortable and fortunate life, there is an instinctive understanding that they did not earn this position in which they find themselves. Sometimes, the guilt and fear of being unmasked as undeserving creates feelings of inferiority.

Occasionally, this leads to a constructive revelation that anyone can be lucky or unlucky and therefore we should help those in need. But sometimes it leads to the defense mechanism of assumed superiority. In the Gilded Age before the Great Depression, and in recent years before the economic meltdown, wealthy people turned their backs on the poor. In order to enjoy their own good fortune, they found it necessary to be insensitive to those less fortunate. They felt that they must be superior, or why were they doing so well? Therefore the poor must be inferior, and impossible to help, and somehow deserving of their plight. So terrifying as to be unthinkable would be the idea that the mighty too, can fall.

The idea that some poor people are deserving and some are not, has led to the mess in our social welfare system, which in many ways acts more as a job program for the middle class than an agent for helping the poor, and spends more time and money harassing and screening people out than it does actually helping needy people.

What if we understood, especially now when there aren’t nearly enough jobs for people who need them, that anyone who is needy is deserving of help? Instead of judging them, we should concentrate on finding sustainable ways to help people. We certainly don’t judge whether rich people are deserving. There is a great line from the movie “Sabrina,” when Sabrina’s father, a chauffeur, says, “No one poor was ever called democratic for marrying someone rich.” I love this insight. In a Democracy, rich and poor are supposed to be of equal innate value – equal as citizens with a vote, and equal in their rights and treatment by society, but of course, we always consider rich people to be better than poor people. Rich people get all the media attention, all the price breaks and tax breaks. Our courts and our police and our government serve the wealthy over the poor.

I see hopeful signs in the world that a new era is struggling to emerge, where human beings have more value than the creation of vast wealth, but we have such a long way to go. We need to develop the fundamental idea that there are ways of living that are win/win rather than win/lose. There must be more control by individuals over their own lives and livelihoods, but still the potential for success that drives the entrepreneur to greater heights. There most be protection from predators and exploitive practices, but also freedom to explore new ideas and capital to develop them. We can create a world that works sustainably and profitably for all of us, but first we must believe that this is possible.

Let’s work on redefining the game. With some loving kindness, some creativity, and the will to make it so, we can all be winners.

To contact the author, email VJLeventhal@LTSaloon.org

© 2009 V.J. Leventhal. All Rights Reserved.

That having been said there are times when you may have to defend yourself or others from harm. The Buddhist monks developed martial arts to defend themselves against a violent world. The spirituality behind these fighting techniques intends violence toward none, and requires a focused and calm mind. One is never to strike in anger, but simply to deflect the attacker without maiming or killing him. The masters considered that the highest level of wisdom was knowing when not to fight. In the modern world, there are people hard at work creating non-lethal weapons such as sticky webs (just like Spiderman) and stun guns, which will become the standard for police and maybe even military use. Imagine bombs that put the enemy to sleep or make them temporarily too sick to fight, with no lasting injury. The way of an enlightened society in response to violence will be to disarm, not to kill.

There are many other examples of non-violent solutions. One story I read happened on the subway. A large man was threatening another passenger, and as the situation began to escalate, a small, elderly man walked right up to the aggressor, looked him in the eye with a smile and asked him brightly for directions to some office building. He laid a hand gently on the man’s arm, and simply diffused his anger by distracting him. In seconds, the energy changed, the attack was deflected, and the incident over. The old man had used great sensitivity to change the moment. In the same way, my friend stopped a potential bar fight by putting his arm across the shoulders of an angry drunk and soothing him with a sympathetic manner. Instead of confronting violence with violence, which creates more violence, sometimes the whole situation can be transformed by a more subtle approach. Aggression is generally based on fear if you look deeply enough. That information, plus the fact that the aggressor is still a human being like you, can mean that acting with a more compassionate understanding rather than anger or fear will bring a better and more lasting resolution than fighting.

A powerful image from the peace movement of the Vietnam era was a flower placed in the barrel of a rifle. I remember when some of us knew this was the way out of violence – to respond with love. One of my favorite books, The Fifth Sacred Thing, by Starhawk, deals with this dilemma. The people in this novel have created an enlightened society – peaceful and sustainable. One day the warlike enemy comes. The people do not resist the invaders; neither do they give up their core principles. Some of them choose to fight through covert action – sabotage of equipment, hiding of wanted people, giving of misinformation. Some engage in passive resistance – refusing to harm another, rather giving himself or herself in another’s place for punishment or interrogation. Some are killed and some are jailed. Through it all they treat the invaders with love and kindness: bringing them water on a hot day, sharing their food and philosophy, asking about their homeland. Slowly, gradually, the enemy soldiers, who were, after all, only young men a long way from home, mostly conscripted against their will into a brutal war machine, begin to be converted by this compassionate society. They see that love is a better way to live, and the invaders become one with the invaded, joining the villagers and protecting them from the worst elements of their former society.

That was a fantasy, a story, but there is a model in medicine that helps make my point. When my friend had a large, open wound as a result of a massive infection, the doctor told us before we went home to deal with it, that we didn’t have to worry about keeping it sterile, only clean. He said that the wound was already colonized with bacteria – some good, some potentially harmful, but that his body was now healthy enough to slowly push out the remaining bad bacteria as the wound healed. The metaphor stunned me. We can’t eliminate all the evil in the world without also destroying the good, but a healthy society can gradually diminish the evil as it heals itself. This is done through loving kindness, not through violence. If we could find a better way in 98% of cases, we would be in a much stronger position to deal with that irredeemable 2% that remains. There are ideological fanatics in the world who just want to kill Americans, for example, but their numbers are small compared to the people with legitimate grievances who have become violent through desperation. If we approach the world, intending to help solve problems for people in terrible situations, we will diffuse the anger and resentment which are used as recruiting tools by the few true crazies out there, and then we would be in a better position to make international agreements to capture the real criminals who threaten the peace and safety of all of us. Most terrorism experts in the world have come to this conclusion, just as they agree that torture not only doesn’t produce good information, but also deepens anger and hatred against the torturer.

There may be times, however rare, when the only choice is kill or be killed. In this instance, each person must decide, but for any action there will be a cost. Jesus said we should turn the other cheek; Jehovah said we should not kill; devout Hindus and Buddhists believe that all life is sacred. We must decide what we believe and what price we are willing to pay. If you decide you must kill to defend yourself or others, then that act will affect you for the rest of your life. While it may seem a justifiable choice, and may even serve the greater good, you are still responsible for a terrible act. The warriors among us deserve our great gratitude for their sacrifice not only in putting themselves physically in harm’s way on our behalf, but also for the spiritual and emotional harm they risk. Just ask anyone in the police or military about the aftermath of taking another person’s life. The world is struggling to emerge from thousands of years of tribal hatreds, and territorial and ideological conflicts. If we are ever to have peace, we must learn that violence is not the only way. According to Doctors Without Borders, since the advent of modern warfare, we now kill far more civilians than soldiers in every war. Therefore there is no longer any justification for war as a means to resolve conflict. As for justifications for violence, I can’t find one. Violence is an evil to be avoided – period.

This is even true in our personal relationships. When my S.O. and I were first living together, we used to have raging arguments – each hurling insults and feeling badly treated. Personal growth led to the understanding that you don’t have to defend against every perceived slight; you can instead, forgive the other person for their flaws, understand that their behavior is probably not even about you, but about their own stress and agitation, and accept whatever your own responsibility may have been in creating the situation. Not defending oneself is sometimes the most courageous and most effective act. When confronted with anger and potential violence, the best response is to de-escalate, not to provoke. Then healing is possible. Violent people are already wounded in some way. We must learn to deal with them without causing them further injury even as we prevent them from harming themselves or others.

We teach our children that two wrongs don’t make a right. The hardest thing for most people to accept is that defense can also be an offense. We cannot make peace until we believe it is possible and learn to take personal responsibility for our choices. We can’t make peace until we learn not to make war.

Until next time: Believe in peace, and believe in the power of love, because the alternatives will surely destroy us.

Contact Val at valsview@ltsaloon.org

© 2009 V.J. Leventhal. All Rights Reserved.

Most people live in a constant stream of mental chatter about the mundane tasks at hand, plans for the future, fears, resentments and so on. It is difficult to turn off this chatter, called the “monkey brain” by the Zen masters, even for a few seconds. The practice of meditation is the tool for finding another, deeper, state of mind.

The simplest way to start this practice is with a basic breathing exercise. Sitting in a comfortable, alert pose, begin to breathe in and out deeply and regularly through the nose, filling and emptying the lungs as fully as possible, while focusing the mind only on the breath. The mind will constantly want to wander, and so each time it strays, gently but quickly return it to paying full attention to the breath. Most people need something to assist in holding their focus, so you can say the words “in” and “out” in your mind as you breathe. Some people use a candle or similar object to help them focus as they do this practice. Eventually, with time and repetition, you will find a deeper state where the mind is empty except for the awareness of the moving breath. I find that if I do this breathing meditation even for a few minutes I am greatly calmed and energized.

There are also many ways to practice changing your mental state during your regular day. The key is to still the mental chatter by focusing completely on the task at hand. If you are walking, feel the earth under your feet, notice the sights and sounds around you, expand your awareness to include the small things and the large, the ants and the sky, the buildings and the smell of the wet pavement. If you are washing dishes, feel the water and soap, the weight of the cup you hold, the stretch in your back and legs, and always the breath. This is mindfulness: being fully in the present moment. When you let your thoughts run ahead to the future or back to the past, you aren’t truly alive in the moment.

Learning to be present, to engage with full attention is the first step toward enlightenment. Our culture makes this difficult practice even more daunting, with its encouragement of multi-tasking, and the constant barrage of ever more and ever faster sensory input. Slowing down is the first step toward wisdom and inner power. When you are working with your breath moving slowly in and out and your mind focused and calm, you begin to notice that pain and tiredness disappear, and that you are filled with energy and a sense of well-being. You are tapping into a universal power source that is always available to you. The more familiar you become with the feeling of mindfulness, the easier it will be to engage. I can’t overstate the importance of spending some part of your day in a mindful state. It is where all our healing happens, where we can recover from the toxic exposure of our daily lives.

People who have mastery of their internal states can begin to see reality differently. Once you see that everything is impermanent, for example, because you observe for yourself that thoughts and emotions and sensations of the body come and go and that change is the only constant, it becomes easier to let go of fears and outdated ideologies. Once you observe your own mistakes and lapses of judgment, it becomes easier to have compassion for the mistakes of others.

Mindfulness has taught me not to tailgate in traffic, to be patient, because I observed that my own sense of urgency was unnecessary and was creating disharmony in myself, and in those around me. Once you start to examine your own thoughts and behavior for logical inconsistencies, a whole world of understanding opens up. Then you can see that there is never a justification for cruelty; that behaving unkindly to anyone else is the ultimate hypocrisy, because you wouldn’t want to be treated in the same manner. Once again, we come back to the Golden Rule. It’s such a great basic guide for living.

Years ago I took a class in Buddhism, which left me with a valuable insight on the nature of reality. The teaching said that we live as if looking through a vast stencil at the world. We see objects that look like this kind of shape or that, so we label them and believe that they are these separate things that we have named, and ever after will stay as these things. We study them in detail and feel that we “know” about the world. Buddhism asks us to pull away the stencil and try to perceive the entirety of existence: everything is connected to everything else and all is part of a whole, which is in a constant state of flowing and changing and it’s all happening at the same time. We need to have more humility and be more open to the possibility that we may have misinterpreted something.

In closing, without self-awareness, and awareness of our connection to the whole, everything we try to accomplish in the world may be tainted by the toxic beliefs and behaviors we carry unknowingly into every activity. One way to begin to understand ourselves is through meditation. There are infinite layers to the onion of self-mastery, so you will never run out of work to do and you will never fully achieve the end goal. Just try to go a little deeper each time. And as you build your inner resources, you will also become more able to reach your goals in the outer world, and to be of service to others.

Till next time…I wish you peace.

© 2009 V.J. Leventhal. All Rights Reserved.

There is another kind of power that has been known about for thousands of years as well, but only perceived and developed by a comparatively small number of people. This is personal, spiritual or psychological power – power over one’s mind and emotions, power to follow one’s own will and define one’s own existence, separate from the materialistic brute force machine; power to be happy, to be wise, to be free, to help others. This kind of power does not involve control of other people by force. It does not limit the world to one finite amount of stuff over which we must war, but sees the possibility of an expanding universe of infinite (at least in terms of human scale) promise and potential. With the development of this internal power there is less need for the other external kinds of power. There is no need to control other people, only oneself. This is both liberating and challenging. Internal power is certainly at the heart of every great spiritual leader. People who have mastered their own minds and hearts have a different kind of energy that attracts others without any use of force or coercion. They simply vibrate at a higher frequency. Organized religions in today’s world have mostly become about competition and control. This is a long way from what their original founding philosophies actually taught. The original words of the ancient sages – whether Hebrew, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist or Animist are all about internal power. “Jihad,” for example, is about the battle within one’s own will to be a better person, not the killing of non-believers, as the fearmongers would have us believe. Why is it considered impossible to base a society on the pursuit of internal rather than external power? It’s what we profess to believe – that love is stronger than hate, that faith moves mountains. Especially in America, the materialist dream has led to an unhealthy, frightened, and violence-prone society.

The time is ripe for a blossoming of spiritual power in the world, for nations as well as individuals to get a grip on the true nature of their lust for money and control, and realize the error in their thinking. We have plenty of great models for living a different kind of life – one that is more compassionate, more sustainable, more fair; a life based on healing old wounds, creating new pathways, respecting diversity as well as preserving and understanding history. It’s time to rethink the whole ball of wax. People need to be re-reading the great thinkers of the past, and looking for the new masters who will help us take the next steps in our evolution.

What if we saw greed as a mental imbalance, an illness, an addiction to power? What if the exploitation of sentient beings and even of the natural world was seen as criminal? If all human progress and development was seen in terms of balance and sustainability to the seventh generation, as some native peoples did in early American history? What if we really believed in the Golden Rule?

There is a leap of faith required in any journey into unknown territory. A peaceful and harmonious society requires its members to step up and work on their own individual issues. This is difficult and unaccustomed work for many of us. Will people look each into their own souls and admit that they are angry and mean-spirited in their political views? Will they see that they are picking and choosing from the words they claim to hold Holy in order to continue distinctly Unholy behavior? Can people let go of their fears and be willing to try something different? Can we regain our belief in ourselves and each other – so necessary in order to change our world for the better? These are the challenges humanity now faces, and with the economic and environmental state of the planet, we all need to get to work.

People who crave power over others are sometimes called “power-mongers.” The word “monger” is defined as someone who promotes something, often by unscrupulous means. Those who promote the idea of more and more external power are destroying the world. I’d like to define a new term for people who are developing their internal power – “power stations” – people who create internal power and then share this power with others who need it. We need more power stations in the world. We all have the ability to become more than we are and then to help others to do the same. Power for good, power for healing, and power for change: we are more powerful than we imagine. What we have to do is to believe it and do the work, step by step, inside our own hearts and minds; otherwise we will never become a part of the solution. Today, take the first step and ask yourself what it is that you believe. Then ask yourself why you believe it, and if it is good for the world. If you don’t have an answer, take the responsibility to go out and find one. It’s one thing to say you want the world to change. It’s another to actually change it. All real change begins with the only place where you have true power – yourself.

Ó 2009 V.J. Leventhal. All Rights Reserved.