Please make no mistake. I do not want to discourage any legitimate and lawful strategies to oppose the impending federal hegemony and the movement that brought it to power.
But I have some thoughts.
In the days since the election, we have heard from various worthy and respected people that things are already looking terrible and that we must stand together—including donating to the Democratic Party—to keep up the fight.
During the campaign, we heard in detail how bad things would get if he and they prevailed. We didn’t have to be told, most of us, because we already knew. Now that they have won, some of the horribles are already in the pipeline, with more to come after inauguration and the seating of the new Congress.
If the plan on resisting and fighting is to remind us every day how terrible each of the decisions and initiatives is, just to make sure we are still committed to opposition, we have eyes and ears and minds, so we already know. Beating us over the head with it is already maddening.
Instead, inside and outside the Democratic Party (which for better or worse in a two-party system is the chief opposition by default), we need to hear and see exactly, in detail, what form the effective resistance is going to take so we can take it together. Saying that you want more money so you can “keep up the fight”, repeating how terrible things are getting, is beyond pointless without detailed strategies. Given a president and a congressional majority completely compliant to his whims, that isn’t going to be easy. But it is essential, because in a version of a famous saying, hope and a list of horribles is not a strategy.
I have been practicing and studying Buddhism, primarily but not exclusively Zen, for a long time. Which means I acknowledge knowing one particle of dust about it.
In that time, my learning about and engagement with Tibetan Buddhism is less than that particle. But in recent weeks, I came across a Tibetan mind training practice known as lojong, within which is a practice known as tonglen.
A few very brief masterful explanations:
SENDING AND TAKING MEDITATION (Tibetan tong len). A meditative practice for adopting a radically new attitude or new way of looking at things. Sometimes called “exchanging self for others,” it involves visualizing giving away everything that is good in our lives and taking on everything that is bad in the lives of others as a way of training ourselves in courage. All forms of self-obsession lead to negative emotions, and tonglen is the antidote to that.
The Tibetan word tong means “giving”; len means “taking.” In its most well-known form, tonglen is a meditation technique that involves coordination with the breath. Breathing in, we visualize ourselves taking on the suffering of others; breathing out, we visualize ourselves giving others happiness. This powerful method for transforming our minds vividly illustrates the exchange of self and other that is the essence and spirit of tonglen. But the wider meaning and application of tonglen, both in spiritual practice and ordinary life, goes far beyond this specific technique. In general, tonglen refers to any form of exchanging self and other. We can even apply the term to the mundane exchange between an employer who pays wages and an employee who does work. Since, as we will see, the entire aim of the Buddhist path is to lessen the importance of the self and to increase the importance of others, tonglen is at the very heart of all practices. Without having an orientation toward tonglen, it is unlikely that our spiritual path will have a profound effect on our mind and heart.
TONGLEN MEDITATION Extracted from Practice Instructions Given by Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo
Meditate that you completely take on all of the suffering and the causes of suffering—negative actions and disturbing emotions—of all sentient beings, the objects of compassion.
Then, meditate on giving all of your happiness in its entirety, including the positive actions that are the causes of that happiness, to each and every being.
This is done using the breath as follows: Visualize that the negativity, obscurations, and suffering of all living beings are gathered together in the form of black light. With each inhalation, breathe in through the nose imagining that light dissolves into your heart. Think, “Through this they are now free of all negativity and suffering forever.”
Meditate on all of your happiness and its causes—whatever positive actions you have accumulated—appearing as white light that shimmers like the moon’s rays. With the exhalation of the breath, imagine that this light flows out and dissolves into all beings. Think, “Through this they now have temporary and ultimate happiness.”
This practice is done in gradual stages.
Start by bringing to mind one person who has been very kind to you, such as your mother or father, and imagine that he or she is in front of you. Use this person as the object of tonglen, giving and receiving.
Start by bringing to mind one person who has been very kind to you, such as your mother or father, and imagine that he or she is in front of you. Use this person as the object of tonglen, giving and receiving.Focus on other loved ones, friends and family, as the objects of tonglen.
Start by bringing to mind one person who has been very kind to you, such as your mother or father, and imagine that he or she is in front of you. Use this person as the object of tonglen, giving and receiving.Focus on those whose suffering is unbearable, such as beings in the three lower and less fortunate realms of existence, and use them as the object of tonglen.
Start by bringing to mind one person who has been very kind to you, such as your mother or father, and imagine that he or she is in front of you. Use this person as the object of tonglen, giving and receiving.Focus on those humans who are destitute and suffer more than most, and those who we know engage in harmful and negative actions, as the object of tonglen.
Start by bringing to mind one person who has been very kind to you, such as your mother or father, and imagine that he or she is in front of you. Use this person as the object of tonglen, giving and receiving.Focus on your adversaries—people, ghosts, and spirits who harm you and your loved ones—as the object of tonglen.
Start by bringing to mind one person who has been very kind to you, such as your mother or father, and imagine that he or she is in front of you. Use this person as the object of tonglen, giving and receiving. Finally, embrace all sentient beings as the focus of your tonglen practice.
After practicing this mind training as much as you can, recite the following advice:
When the entire universe and all living beings are filled with negativity, bring all adverse circumstances onto the path of enlightenment. Drive all blame into one and meditate on the kindness of all.
I avoid offering testimony on the effectiveness and value of religious practices and traditions. I follow the Buddha’s principle of upaya—skillful or expedient means, suited to an individual. About the practice of tonglen, and about lojong of which it is a part (more on this at some later time), this is something so simple and powerful that I thought I would share.
Note: This photo of Cody Coyote at the White House does not mean that he is my choice for alternative president. It does mean that Cody, smart as he is, might be better than some others.
The presidential election is over. Some citizens are very happy, some are very sad.
In one reality, DT is going to be president, with all that portends. That can’t be helped.
However, in our minds, we can imagine an alternative for the next four years. That imagining will not of course change the above reality. But it will give us an opportunity to think more clearly, focusing on who and what we would like a president to be, unencumbered by our emotional burden and politics as usual.
This alternative should not be DT or KH—even if KH was your favorite. Instead, there is no limit to who you might “elect”. Use your best thinking, about someone inside or outside the political box. Someone expert, someone celebrated, even someone in your community or family circle if they qualify (but, sorry, not yourself).
“We think that the benefits of being on X are now outweighed by the negatives and that resources could be better used promoting our content elsewhere.” The Guardian
The Guardian newspaper announced that they are no longer posting on X. In part:
We wanted to let readers know that we are no longer posting from any official Guardian editorial accounts on the social media site X (formerly Twitter). We think that the benefits of being on X are now outweighed by the negatives and that resources could be better used promoting our content elsewhere.
This is something we have been considering for a while given the often disturbing content promoted or found on the platform, including far-right conspiracy theories and racism. The US presidential election campaign served only to underline what we have considered for a long time: that X is a toxic media platform and that its owner, Elon Musk, has been able to use its influence to shape political discourse.
The Guardian isn’t alone. Other media organizations and X users are also leaving.
You should too. It won’t seem easy. Twitter (its brand before Musk killed the bluebird of happiness) developed into a social media platform that was simple to use and had global reach. The current alternatives have not yet reached its utility. But, and this is the watchword of the moment, we have choices and we can choose. No one said it would be easy to stand up and be counted.
Elections make us think that voting at the ballot box is the only way we can have our voices heard. Every movement that isn’t about elections would beg to differ.
Make a difference. Join the bluebird of happiness and leave X today.
Why am I writing about it here now? It is apparent that political leaders of all parties and ideologies, and by extension some of their followers, are being driven by unbalanced or unhinged self-interest and self-importance. This is blinding and deafening them to any reality that isn’t about themselves and what they think and believe. There may be good intentions involved, but as the proverb goes, good intentions are the road to hell.
We might ask that these politicos turn to their respective religious traditions for a selfless and clear vision of the way things are and how they and their followers can help. Many are religious people. But respectfully, as much as some help does come from these traditions—and it does—there is also a measure of exclusivity/superiority and an enforced parochial vision of reality that does more harm than good.
Am I suggesting that perhaps on Inauguration Day, all gathered political leaders and politicians, all members of old and new administrations, all members of Congress and the Supreme Court, should partake in a psychedelic experience? No.
But imagine it. Recall that in the view of some, the January 6 “gathering” at the Capitol was a “day of love”. It wasn’t. Psychedelic Inauguration Day would be a real day of love—a perhaps wild but nonviolent one—that might lead to some real breakthroughs and humane improvement in how American government operates in 2025 and beyond.
I’ve been reading Hannah Arendt today, as I have again and again in recent times. She is, as I’ve pointed out before, possibly the preeminent political philosopher of the twentieth century.
I’ve called for philosophers to force themselves into the difficult public discussions we have been having. They are rarely to be found, for example, on news media. That may be because their thinking is not conducive to digestible and understandable sound bites.
Their absence is too bad. We haven’t ended up in an admittedly difficult moment just because of some strategic political errors or because of some simple emotional dimension of the electorate, though those may be the case. It’s a lot deeper and broader than that. To use a worn cliché, many—not all—of the talking heads you hear opining, smart as they may be, are playing high level checkers, while a political philosopher like Arendt is playing, sorry again for the cliché, three-dimensional chess. It may be true that some of that sophisticated analysis may have little to actual tell us. Some of it, though, may tell us some things essential to understanding what happened, what is happening and what will happen.
There have been 38 Godzilla movies since 1954. This monster is going so strong that the 2023 movie Godzilla Minus One is the best reviewed Godzilla movie yet.
Godzilla movies have a total box office of about $2.5 billion. Maybe there has been criticism of Godzilla as a psycho monster. If there has been criticism, it has not affected Godzilla’s popularity.
People love Godzilla. People love monsters. Don’t tell them they don’t.
I could go on and on about the genius of the late James Marshall and his most beloved creation, the hippos George and Martha, two best friends.
You may think that these illustrated stories are for children, and you would be right, but far from completely right.
As an example, the very first of these 35 stories is Split Pea Soup.
Martha has cooked split pea soup for the two of them. George doesn’t like the soup, but doesn’t want to hurt Martha’s feelings, so he pours it into his shoes. Martha catches him in the act:
Martha said, “That’s silly. Friends should always tell each other the truth. I don’t like split pea soup very much myself. I only like to make it. From now on, you’ll never have to eat that awful soup again.”
“What a relief!” George sighed.
“Would you like some chocolate chip cookies instead?” asked Martha.
“Oh, that would be lovely,” said George.
“Then you shall have them,” said his friend.
If you think that the message is so saccharine and cliched that even a child, let alone a sophisticated grownup like you, would find it over sweet and oversimple, you have not met George and Martha.
When I searched today for appreciations of George and Martha, I found one from the New York Times in March 2018. The writer, Amy Bloom, explains how important George and Martha could be in those challenging times (you recognize why those times and these are similarly challenging):
“The Collected Stories of George and Martha: Two Best Friends” is all 35 George and Martha stories. I would recommend buying the book, with its glorious bright yellow-with-pink-flowers cover, and enjoying Sendak’s foreword. I would display it right where guests would see it even before they take off their coats. And I would hope that their exposure to George and Martha would act as lemon juice on scurvy, derailing some of the more predictable and dispiriting dinner party conversations of 2018.
Black and blue And who knows which is which, and who is who? Up and down And in the end, it’s only round and round, and round
Pink Floyd, and especially Roger Waters, are at or near the top of iconoclastic (“icon smashing”) pop music. (Waters continues to swim outside the mainstream, getting him into trouble with certain constituencies, but from my perspective, his artistic contribution grants him a license.)
Take the issue of education. We know the schools are not working, if the mission is to cultivate citizens with solid basic skills and knowledge. Instead of, for example, schools that deliver many students to college who are deficient in elementary math and who can’t conscientiously research and coherently write without the assistance of AI. What some parents clamor for is education that inculcates their children with the “right” ideology.
More than forty years ago, this is what Waters wrote in Another Brick in the Wall:
We don’t need no education We don’t need no thought control No dark sarcasm in the classroom Teacher, leave them kids alone
All in all, it’s just another brick in the wall All in all, you’re just another brick in the wall
Back to post-election music. Two years after John Lennon—another iconoclast—released his anti-war track, Happy Xmas (War Is Over) (1971), Pink Floyd featured Waters’ view about war on Dark Side of the Moon (1973). Us and Them is about war, but more broadly about the pointless and thoughtless identities that lead inevitably to pointless and thoughtless conflict.
Us and them And after all, we’re only ordinary men Me and you God only knows it’s not what we would choose to do
“Forward!” he cried from the rear And the front rank died The general sat, and the lines on the map Moved from side to side
Black and blue And who knows which is which, and who is who? Up and down And in the end, it’s only round and round, and round
“Haven’t you heard it’s a battle of words?” The poster bearer cried “Listen, son,” said the man with the gun “There’s room for you inside”
Down and out It can’t be helped, but there’s a lot of it about With, without And who’ll deny it’s what the fighting’s all about?
Out of the way, it’s a busy day I’ve got things on my mind For want of the price of tea and a slice The old man died
These methods were developed over decades as successful tools of change in resistance to authoritarian regimes. Which is to say: they have worked.
When I posted these in September 2020, I wrote at the time:
“As optimistic as I want to be about emerging sometime soon from dark governmental and political times, that day may not be tomorrow, or November, or January, or 2021.”
So it goes.
Please read this last thoroughly. Please consider which may be appropriate for you and for the current circumstances. Then please pass the list on and act.
These actions have worked before. And they can work again.
198 Methods of Nonviolent Action
Formal Statements
Public Speeches
Letters of opposition or support
Declarations by organizations and institutions
Signed public statements
Declarations of indictment and intention
Group or mass petitions
Communications with a Wider Audience
Slogans, caricatures, and symbols
Banners, posters, displayed communications
Leaflets, pamphlets, and books
Newspapers and journals
Records, radio, and television
Skywriting and earthwriting Group Representations
Deputations
Mock awards
Group lobbying
Picketing
Mock elections
Symbolic Public Acts
Displays of flags and symbolic colors
Wearing of symbols
Prayer and worship
Delivering symbolic objects
Protest disrobings
Destruction of own property
Symbolic lights
Displays of portraits
Paint as protest
New signs and names
Symbolic sounds
Symbolic reclamations
Rude gestures
Pressures on Individuals
“Haunting” officials
Taunting officials
Fraternization
Vigils
Drama and Music
Humorous skits and pranks
Performances of plays and music
Singing
Processions
Marches
Parades
Religious processions
Pilgrimages
Motorcades
Honoring the Dead
Political mourning
Mock funerals
Demonstrative funerals
Homage at burial places
Public Assemblies
Assemblies of protest or support
Protest meetings
Camouflaged meetings of protest
Teach-ins
Withdrawal and Renunciation
Walk-outs
Silence
Renouncing honors
Turning one’s back
The Methods Of Social Noncooperation
Ostracism of Persons
Social boycott
Selective social boycott
Lysistratic nonaction
Excommunication
Interdict
Noncooperation with Social Events, Customs, and Institutions
Suspension of social and sports activities
Boycott of social affairs
Student strike
Social disobedience
Withdrawal from social institutions Withdrawal from the Social System
Stay-at-home
Total personal noncooperation
“Flight” of workers
Sanctuary
Collective disappearance
Protest emigration (hijrat)
The Methods of Economic Noncooperation: Economic Boycotts
Actions by Consumers
Consumers’ boycott
Nonconsumption of boycotted goods
Policy of austerity
Rent withholding
Refusal to rent
National consumers’ boycott
International consumers’ boycott
Action by Workers and Producers
Workmen’s boycott
Producers’ boycott
Action by Middlemen
Suppliers’ and handlers’ boycott
Action by Owners and Management
Traders’ boycott
Refusal to let or sell property
Lockout
Refusal of industrial assistance
Merchants’ “general strike”
Action by Holders of Financial Resources
Withdrawal of bank deposits
Refusal to pay fees, dues, and assessments
Refusal to pay debts or interest
Severance of funds and credit
Revenue refusal
Refusal of a government’s money
Action by Governments
Domestic embargo
Blacklisting of traders
International sellers’ embargo
International buyers’ embargo
International trade embargo
The Methods Of Economic Noncooperation: The Strike
Symbolic Strikes
Protest strike
Quickie walkout (lightning strike)
Agricultural Strikes
Peasant strike
Farm Workers’ strike
Strikes by Special Groups
Refusal of impressed labor
Prisoners’ strike
Craft strike
Professional strike
Ordinary Industrial Strikes
Establishment strike
Industry strike
Sympathetic strike
Restricted Strikes
Detailed strike
Bumper strike
Slowdown strike
Working-to-rule strike
Reporting “sick” (sick-in)
Strike by resignation
Limited strike
Selective strike
Multi-Industry Strikes
Generalized strike
General strike
Combination of Strikes and Economic Closures
Hartal
Economic shutdown
The Methods Of Political Noncooperation
Rejection of Authority
Withholding or withdrawal of allegiance
Refusal of public support
Literature and speeches advocating resistance
Citizens’ Noncooperation with Government
Boycott of legislative bodies
Boycott of elections
Boycott of government employment and positions
Boycott of government depts., agencies, and other bodies
Withdrawal from government educational institutions
Boycott of government-supported organizations
Refusal of assistance to enforcement agents
Removal of own signs and placemarks
Refusal to accept appointed officials
Refusal to dissolve existing institutions
Citizens’ Alternatives to Obedience
Reluctant and slow compliance
Nonobedience in absence of direct supervision
Popular nonobedience
Disguised disobedience
Refusal of an assemblage or meeting to disperse
Sitdown
Noncooperation with conscription and deportation
Hiding, escape, and false identities
Civil disobedience of “illegitimate” laws
Action by Government Personnel
Selective refusal of assistance by government aides
Blocking of lines of command and information
Stalling and obstruction
General administrative noncooperation
Judicial noncooperation
Deliberate inefficiency and selective noncooperation by enforcement agents
Mutiny
Domestic Governmental Action
Quasi-legal evasions and delays
Noncooperation by constituent governmental units
International Governmental Action
Changes in diplomatic and other representations
Delay and cancellation of diplomatic events
Withholding of diplomatic recognition
Severance of diplomatic relations
Withdrawal from international organizations
Refusal of membership in international bodies
Expulsion from international organizations
The Methods Of Nonviolent Intervention
Psychological Intervention
Self-exposure to the elements
The fast a) Fast of moral pressure b) Hunger strike c) Satyagrahic fast
