There are at least two ways of responding to pink clouds behind the mountains at dawn.
“Oh wow!”
or
“Big deal. I see those same mountains every morning, and a bunch of mornings there are clouds colored by the rising sun. Big deal.”
Yes, oh wow, a big deal!
“If you can’t say something nice about somebody, don’t say anything.”
This bit of Mom’s advice is frequently hard to follow. Harder than ever now that the ways of communicating have grown exponentially. What was once a limited circle of talk is now literally global. When we call it “social media” it means that one voice can potentially be heard by all of society—billions of people. Unkind words can reach very far.
Here is some wise advice. Just like the advice to thank your enemies and the worst people, it isn’t always easy to speak nicely about them. This blog in these times is an example of that tension. But there are good reasons to speak the best and withhold the worst.
The Importance of Pleasant Speech
The Buddha declared that pleasant, truthful, and wrong
Are three kinds of speech.
Words are like honey, flowers, and filth.
Abandon the last one.
This verse deals with the notion of speech. Three different kinds of speech are discussed: pleasant speech, truthful speech, and wrongful speech. We have to learn to speak properly. We have spoken about the mind in terms of how we should make use of it in terms of its flexibility or its inflexible nature. How human beings interact with others is based upon communication and the primary form of communication is conducted through the use of speech. Although we make many different kinds of use of speech, according to the teachings they are grouped into three.
The first one is called pleasant speech, which means saying encouraging things that others would like to hear. For example, trying to inspire others or saying things that are supportive of somebody. That is something that one should do. Pleasant speech has the impact of making others happy so what one has said makes somebody happy. In the teachings this is compared to a taste of honey.
The second one is truthful speech, which means to say something with sincerity. “Truthful” means something that is said not in terms of words but in terms of sincere speech and that means being sincere about what one is saying. When saying something pleasant to somebody, one should say it with sincerity. For example, flattery may not be considered pleasant speech even though it may be seen as something that is pleasant for somebody to hear. Sincere speech is said to be very beautiful—there is some kind of beauty in what is said with sincerity and it moves people. It has a very beneficial impact on others.
Wrongful speech is the opposite of these two. It is saying things in order to hurt others or to make them feel upset, to demean them or to put them down, or it is saying things without sincerity to deceive and manipulate. Nagarjuna says that the third form of speech is something that one should avoid and one should try to practice the other two forms of speech as much as possible.
Whatever is said makes an impact on the minds of others. Others will remember if one has said something nice to them. Therefore, even in terms of practicality one will receive a positive response or positive feedback from others. If we have said something very hurtful or demeaning, then others will respond in a similar fashion and one would then feel angered or demeaned or humiliated. From the Buddhist point of view, we have to look at this in terms of interpersonal impact: how what one says impacts upon others and how that then impacts upon us. We should then think about the migratory nature of sentient creatures.
Letter to a Friend* by Nagarjuna, commentary by Traleg Kyabgon
*Letter to a Friend is a brief philosophical poem by Nagarjuna, the influential 2nd-century Buddhist monk and Madhyamaka school founder. Written as advice to a royal patron, it presents core Buddhist teachings in accessible verse form.
Thomas Merton’s final book, Contemplative Prayer, was published in 1969, a year after his accidental death. In 1995, Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh added an introduction. He wrote about his admiration for Merton and about distinctions between Christian and Buddhist prayer:
“I first met Thomas Merton in 1966. It is hard to describe his face in words, to write down exactly what he was like. He was filled with human warmth. Conversation with him was so easy. When we talked, I told him a few things, and he immediately understood the things I didn’t tell him as well. He was open to everything, constantly asking questions and listening deeply. I told him about my life as a Buddhist novice in Vietnam, and he wanted to know more and more.
Our approach to prayer in Buddhism is a little different from that of Christianity. We practice silent meditation, and we try to practice mindfulness in everything we do, to awaken to what is going on inside us and all around us in each moment. The Buddha taught: “If you are standing on one shore and want to cross over to the other shore, you have to use a boat or swim across. You cannot just pray, ‘Oh, other shore, please come over here for me to step across!’” To a Buddhist, praying without also practicing is not real prayer.”
At the end of his Introduction, Thich Nhat Hanh offers a set of nine prayers—prayers beyond any sectarian tradition.
Nine Prayers
Thich Nhat Hanh
From Contemplative Prayer by Thomas Merton
1.
May I be peaceful, happy, and light in body and spirit.
May he/she be peaceful, happy, and light in body and spirit.
May they be peaceful, happy, and light in body and spirit.
2.
May I be free from injury. May I live in safety.
May he/she be free from injury. May he/she live in safety.
May they be free from injury. May they live in safety.
3.
May I be free from disturbance, fear, anxiety, and worry.
May he/she be free from disturbance, fear, anxiety, and worry.
May they be free from disturbance, fear, anxiety, and worry.
4.
May I learn to look at myself with the eyes of understanding and love.
May he/she learn to look at him/herself with the eyes of understanding and love.
May they learn to look at themselves with the eyes of understanding and love.
5.
May I be able to recognize and touch the seeds of joy and happiness in myself.
May he/she be able to recognize and touch the seeds of joy and happiness in him/herself.
May they be able to recognize and touch the seeds of joy and happiness in themselves.
6.
May I learn to identify and see the sources of anger, craving, and delusion in myself.
May he/she learn to identify and see the sources of anger, craving, and delusion in him/herself.
May they learn to identify and see the sources of anger, craving, and delusion in themselves.
7.
May I know how to nourish the seeds of joy in myself every day.
May he/she know how to nourish the seeds of joy in him/herself every day.
May they know how to nourish the seeds of joy in themselves every day.
8.
May I be able to live fresh, solid, and free.
May he/she be able to live fresh, solid, and free.
May they be able to live fresh, solid, and free.
9.
May I be free from attachment and aversion, but not be indifferent.
May he/she be free from attachment and aversion, but not be indifferent.
May they be free from attachment and aversion, but not be indifferent.
He/she: First the person we like, then the person we love, then the person who is neutral to us, and finally the person we suffer when we think of.
They: The group, the people, the nation, or the species we like, then the one we love, then the one that is neutral to us, and finally the one we suffer when we think of.
If you know little or nothing about American history, government and Constitution, little or nothing about Congresswoman Barbara Jordan , read and listen to this speech.
It is regarded as one of the great speeches in American history. According to one list, Barbara Jordan gave two of the greatest speeches: Number 5 (keynote address to the Democratic National Convention in 1976) and Number 13 (this speech).
This is not to suggest that Trump, whose conduct has far exceeded Nixon’s, should be impeached. On the contrary, efforts to impeach Trump during his first term failed, and would pointlessly fail now. Unless possibly a current member of Congress equal to Barbara Jordan could deliver an equivalent speech, which might make it worth it. With all due respect, that is not going to happen.
Congresswoman Barbara Jordan’s July 24, 1974 speech to the House Judiciary Committee
Mr. Chairman, I join my colleague Mr. Rangel in thanking you for giving the junior members of this committee the glorious opportunity of sharing the pain of this inquiry. Mr. Chairman, you are a strong man, and it has not been easy, but we have tried as best we can to give you as much assistance as possible.
Earlier today, we heard the beginning of the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States: “We, the people.” It’s a very eloquent beginning. But when that document was completed, on the seventeenth of September in 1787, I was not included in that “We, the people.” I felt somehow, for many years, that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton just left me out by mistake. But through the process of amendment, interpretation, and court decision, I have finally been included in “We, the people.”
Today I am an inquisitor. An hyperbole would not be fictional and would not overstate the solemness that I feel right now. My faith in the Constitution is whole; it is complete; it is total. And I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution.
“Who can so properly be the inquisitors for the nation as the representatives of the nation themselves?” “The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men.” And that’s what we’re talking about. In other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust.
It is wrong, I suggest, it is a misreading of the Constitution for any member here to assert that for a member to vote for an article of impeachment means that that member must be convinced that the President should be removed from office. The Constitution doesn’t say that. The powers relating to impeachment are an essential check in the hands of the body of the Legislature against and upon the encroachments of the Executive. The division between the two branches of the Legislature, the House and the Senate, assigning to the one the right to accuse and to the other the right to judge, the Framers of this Constitution were very astute. They did not make the accusers and the judgers—and the judges the same person.
We know the nature of impeachment. We’ve been talking about it awhile now. It is chiefly designed for the President and his high ministers to somehow be called into account. It is designed to “bridle” the Executive if he engages in excesses. “It is designed as a method of national inquest into the conduct of public men.” The Framers confided in the Congress the power, if need be, to remove the President in order to strike a delicate balance between a President swollen with power and grown tyrannical, and preservation of the independence of the Executive.
The nature of impeachment: a narrowly channeled exception to the separation-of-powers maxim; the Federal Convention of 1787 said that. It limited impeachment to high crimes and misdemeanors and discounted and opposed the term “maladministration.” “It is to be used only for great misdemeanors,” so it was said in the North Carolina ratification convention. And in the Virginia ratification convention, “We do not trust our liberty to a particular branch. We need one branch to check the other.” “No one need be afraid,”—the North Carolina ratification convention—“No one need be afraid that officers who commit oppression will pass with immunity.” “Prosecutions of impeachments will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community,” said Hamilton in the Federalist Papers, number 65. “We divide into parties, more or less friendly or inimical to the accused.” I do not mean political parties in that sense.
The drawing of political lines goes to the motivation behind impeachment, but impeachment must proceed within the confines of the constitutional term “high crime and misdemeanors.”
Of the impeachment process, it was Woodrow Wilson who said that “Nothing short of the grossest offenses against the plain law of the land will suffice to give them speed and effectiveness. Indignation so great as to overgrow party interest may secure a conviction, but nothing else can.”
Common sense would be revolted if we engaged upon this process for petty reasons. Congress has a lot to do: appropriations, tax reform, health insurance, campaign finance reform, housing, environmental protection, energy sufficiency, mass transportation. Pettiness cannot be allowed to stand in the face of such overwhelming problems. So today we are not being petty. We are trying to be big because the task we have before us is a big one.
This morning in a discussion of the evidence, we were told that the evidence which purports to support the allegations of misuse of the CIA by the President is thin. We’re told that that evidence is insufficient. What that recital of the evidence this morning did not include is what the President did know on June the 23rd, 1972. The President did know that it was Republican money, that it was money from the Committee for the Re-Election of the President, which was found in the possession of one of the burglars arrested on June the 17th.
What the President did know on the 23rd of June was the prior activities of E. Howard Hunt, which included his participation in the break-in of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist, which included Howard Hunt’s participation in the Dita Beard ITT affair, which included Howard Hunt’s fabrication of cables designed to discredit the Kennedy Administration.
We were further cautioned today that perhaps these proceedings ought to be delayed because certainly there would be new evidence forthcoming from the President of the United States. There has not even been an obfuscated indication that this committee would receive any additional materials from the President. The committee subpoena is outstanding, and if the President wants to supply that material, the committee sits here.
The fact is that on yesterday, the American people waited with great anxiety for eight hours, not knowing whether their President would obey an order of the Supreme Court of the United States.
At this point, I would like to juxtapose a few of the impeachment criteria with some of the actions the President has engaged in.
Impeachment criteria: James Madison, from the Virginia ratification convention: “If the President be connected in any suspicious manner with any person and there be grounds to believe that he will shelter him, he may be impeached.”
We have heard time and time again that the evidence reflects the payment to defendants’ money. The President had knowledge that these funds were being paid and these were funds collected for the 1972 presidential campaign.
We know that the President met with Mr. Henry Petersen twenty-seven times to discuss matters related to Watergate and immediately thereafter met with the very persons who were implicated in the information Mr. Petersen was receiving. The words are: “If the President is connected in any suspicious manner with any person and there be grounds to believe that he will shelter that person, he may be impeached.”
Justice Story: “Impeachment” is attended—“is intended for occasional and extraordinary cases where a superior power acting for the whole people is put into operation to protect their rights and rescue their liberties from violations.”
We know about the Huston Plan. We know about the break-in of the psychiatrist’s office. We know that there was absolute, complete direction on September 3rd, when the President indicated that a surreptitious entry had been made in Dr. Fielding’s office, after having met with Mr. Ehrlichman and Mr. Young.
“Protect their rights.” “Rescue their liberties from violation.”
The Carolina ratification convention impeachment criteria: those are impeachable “who behave amiss or betray their public trust.”
Beginning shortly after the Watergate break-in and continuing to the present time, the President has engaged in a series of public statements and actions designed to thwart the lawful investigation by government prosecutors. Moreover, the President has made public announcements and assertions bearing on the Watergate case, which the evidence will show he knew to be false.
These assertions, false assertions, impeachable, those who misbehave. Those who “behave amiss or betray the public trust.”
James Madison, again, at the Constitutional Convention: “A President is impeachable if he attempts to subvert the Constitution.”
The Constitution charges the President with the task of taking care that the laws be faithfully executed. And yet the President has counseled his aides to commit perjury, willfully disregard the secrecy of grand jury proceedings, conceal surreptitious entry, attempt to compromise a federal judge while publicly displaying his cooperation with the processes of criminal justice.
“A President is impeachable if he attempts to subvert the Constitution.”
If the impeachment provision in the Constitution of the United States will not reach the offenses charged here, then perhaps that eighteenth-century Constitution should be abandoned to a twentieth-century paper shredder. Has the President committed offenses, and planned, and directed, and acquiesced in a course of conduct which the Constitution will not tolerate? That’s the question. We know that. We know the question. We should now forthwith proceed to answer the question. It is reason, and not passion, which must guide our deliberations, guide our debate, and guide our decision.
The overlooked movie Force of Evil (1948) is one of the most striking creative critiques of big business in any medium. It was produced by the major, decidedly capitalistic studio MGM, and it featured one of Hollywood’s biggest stars at the time, John Garfield, in what many consider his greatest performance. A standout of intelligent film noir, it has a brilliant and poetic script, written and directed by Abraham Polonsky.
Garfield is still a celebrated name in movies. Polonsky is more narrowly known, mostly among film historians. Shortly after Force of Evil, both Polonsky and Garfield were blacklisted in the craze of anti-Communist McCarthyism that swept the movie industry. Polonsky would not work again for twenty-one years.
There are two kinds of political movies. One is expressly and directly about political issues. The other kind—the one that so worried Commie-hunters—are films that look entertaining on the surface, but have a subversive and counter-cultural subtext. Force of Evil is a sort of third wave. You can watch it as a well-acted and engaging melodrama, which it is. But at some points, the politics explicitly but gracefully rises above subtext, in a way that is mostly undidactic, so it doesn’t get in the way of enjoying and appreciating the movie. It is quite a trick that Polonsky pulls off.
One of the archetypes of storytelling is the two brothers who end up on opposite sides of the law—Cain and Abel, the cop and the gangster. In this movie, both brothers are on the wrong side, just on a different scale. Leo is small-time, running a modest numbers betting business. (Numbers, sometimes called the policy racket, is an illegal lottery, long popular in low-income neighborhoods. Small bets are placed on the last three digits of the daily betting take at a race track; the odds are thus 1000 to 1.) Joe (John Garfield), the younger brother who Leo helped put through Harvard Law, works for Ben, one of the biggest racketeers in New York.
Joe wants to make his first million, and he believes he will thanks to an ingenious plan to rig the outcome of the numbers on the Fourth of July. Since bettors often pick the numbers 776 on Independence Day, when that number comes up, the bettors will win for a change, but all the small-time numbers operators will go out of business, and be taken over by Ben. It is a strategy of forced, one-sided, underhanded mergers. (That’s right, the corrupt big business will play its dirty tricks on the slightly less corrupt small businesses—and on the innocent poor people—on the Fourth of July.)
Joe tries to save his brother by bringing him over to the bigger, richer and slightly darker side. But there are few heroes here. Events overtake characters, and in the end everyone, including a rival boss, is dead—except for Joe and the young woman he loves. While not exactly a happy ending, this outcome led some to complain that this sort of redemption was inconsistent with the rest of the movie. Maybe so, but this was made by one of the world’s biggest movie studios, and anyway, we all deserve a break in the face of this bleakness.
Bleak it may be, but Force of Evil is not some sort of dull lesson in ideology. It is a great, entertaining and rarely-seen film that deserves attention, whatever your politics.
Watch Force of Evil on YouTube
Do you listen regularly/occasionally to these songs? You should.
Wake up, kids
We got the dreamers disease
Age fourteen, they got you down on your knees
So polite, we’re busy still saying please
But when the night is falling
You cannot find the light
You feel your dreams are dying
Hold tight
You’ve got the music in you
Don’t let go
You’ve got the music in you
One dance left
This world is gonna pull through
Don’t give up
You’ve got a reason to live
Can’t forget
We only get what we give
You Get What You Give by New Radicals (1998)
Truth is, I thought it mattered, I thought that music mattered
But does it bollocks; not compared to how people matter
We’ll be singin’
When we’re winnin’
We’ll be singin’
I get knocked down, but I get up again
You’re never gonna keep me down
I get knocked down, but I get up again
You’re never gonna keep me down
Tubthumping by Chumbawamba (1997)
“The finest album I ever made.”
George Martin, producer of The Beatles albums
Think about that. George Martin, who produced The Beatles albums, says “Icarus” is the finest album he ever made.
Reviewers have tried to pigeonhole this masterpiece by saxophonist Paul Winter and this group of equally talented musicians. Some have called it “chamber jazz”. Some have pegged it as early New Age music.
Below are the first and last tracks, but please discover it all.
Like a vacation in a sonic paradise. Exactly the kind of music to truly help us through this moment.
“If the only prayer you say in your entire life is ‘Thank-you’, that would suffice.”
Meister Eckhart (1260 – 1328), Catholic priest, theologian, philosopher and mystic
I read a column complaining that too many people say “thank you” too much. The writer’s point was that much of the time this is perfunctory and reflexive, and people often don’t mean it.
The above quote from Meister Eckhart is a fitting response.
“Thank you”, whether deeply felt or not, is an express acknowledgment that something has been given to you or done on your behalf. Even if the thanks are grudging—maybe even sarcastic—you may hear a message inside.
In some enlightened traditions, we are advised to offer thanks not just to those on our side but to those actively against us:
When I see beings of unpleasant character
Oppressed by strong negativity and suffering,
May I hold them dear – for they are rare to find –
As if I have discovered a jewel treasure!
Eight Verses on Transforming the Mind
Thank you.
גֵ֖ר לֹ֣א תִלְחָ֑ץ וְאַתֶּ֗ם יְדַעְתֶּם֙ אֶת־נֶ֣פֶשׁ הַגֵּ֔ר כִּֽי־גֵרִ֥ים הֱיִיתֶ֖ם בְּאֶ֥רֶץ מִצְרָֽיִם׃
Exodus 23:9
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is taking on Pope Leo regarding a matter of biblical interpretation. Johnson says that government oppressing strangers is the biblical thing to do. Pope Leo disagrees.
One line from the Book of Exodus crystallizes the issue.
As with all biblical Hebrew, the translation is challenging and varied.
Exodus 23:9:
You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt. (NJPS)
You shall not oppress a resident alien; you know the heart of an alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt. (NRSV)
No sojourner shall you oppress, for you know the sojourner’s heart, since you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. (Robert Alter)
Robert Alter addresses one of the translation challenges, the Hebrew word nefesh/נֶ֣פֶשׁ:
“The Hebrew is nefesh, “heart”, “life,” “inner nature,” “essential being,” “breath.””
Another word needing expansion is the Hebrew ger/גֵּ֔ר. Scholars Mark Allen Powell and Dennis R. Bratcher explain in the HarperCollins Bible Dictionary:
alien (ger): In the Bible, one who is not a member of a particular social group. Accordingly, Abraham was an alien (NRSV: “stranger”) among the Hittites at Hebron (Gen. 23:4), as were Moses in Midian (Exod. 2:22) and the Israelites in Egypt (Deut. 23:7; cf. Ruth 1:1). The Hebrew word is ger, and it has often been translated “sojourner” in English Bibles. The NRSV is inconsistent, translating it “alien” in some instances and “stranger” in others. After the settlement in Canaan, the term not only designated a temporary guest but also acquired the more specialized meaning of “resident alien,” one who lived permanently within Israel (Exod. 22:21; 23:9). No doubt because the Israelites were keenly aware of their own heritage as aliens without rights in a foreign land, they developed specific laws governing the treatment of aliens. Strangers or aliens were to be treated with kindness and generosity (Lev. 19:10, 33–34; 23:22; Deut. 14:29). The basic principle was, “You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Deut. 10:19). And, again, “You shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt” (Lev. 19:34)….
“Alien” or “stranger” also appears in a figurative sense, usually in appealing to the generosity and mercy of God in dealing with undeserving people (Pss. 39:12; 119:19; 1 Chron. 29:15). The idea of dwelling in a land owned by someone else is also applied theologically to the relationship of the Israelites to the land; it belonged to God and they were the strangers in it (Lev. 25:23). (emphasis added)
Pope Leo has given lots of thought to the nefesh—heart, life, inner nature, essential being, breath—of the ger—stranger, sojourner, resident alien.
Has Mike Johnson given much thought to the nefesh of the ger? Have we?
Along with the Book of Exodus, we can sing along with Randy Newman in his song have You Seen My Baby?:
I say, “Please don’t talk to strangers, baby”
But she always do
She say, “I’ll talk to strangers if I want to
‘Cause I’m a stranger, too”
I have lived in a variety of places with hard winters, where occasionally in February it seemed like spring but was actually false spring, followed by more, sometimes much more, hard winter.
Here is not one of those places.
The Winter Olympics are happening now. Some places share Winter Olympics-type weather, some people prefer that, some people tolerate it, with the promise of spring arriving soon or eventually. Just not yet.
Some places, like this one, rarely have anything like hard winter, though on the other hand we know that hard summer will arrive eventually, just not yet.
The birds and the plants know. So do I.
If you are somewhere in the Northern Hemisphere where winter has more than a month to go, spring is coming. If you’ve never believed anything I’ve said, believe that.
Bob Schwartz 