Bob Schwartz

“What happened to the American Dream? It came true. You’re looking at it.”
The Comedian, Watchmen

Watchmen (1986) , written by Alan Moore, illustrated by Dave Gibbons, takes place in 1980s America.

The Keene Act of 1977 outlawed costumed superheroes. But instead of making America and the world better and safer, everything was going to hell, and the end literally was imminent. Chaos and fear reigned.

When asked by one of his former crime-fighting partners what happened to the American Dream, the ever-cynical Comedian says, “What happened to the American Dream? It came true. You’re looking at it.”

By the time of Watchmen, graphic novels were already earning cultural respect. Watchmen established that graphic novels were literature—and that Alan Moore was a literary great. Time magazine named Watchmen one of the 100 best novels of the twentieth century.

Technology, government, geopolitics, power, money, authoritarianism, violence, love, hate, human aspiration and frailty, cosmos, apocalyptic, and of course, America and the American Dream. All wrapped up in a “comic book” as relevant today as it was almost twenty years ago.

You may have seen one of the versions of Watchmen in the last few years. There was a not-so-successful movie, a more successful HBO series that was an extension rather than a retelling, and just now a very literal translation of the graphic novel to animation.

Whether or not you’ve seen or plan to see any of those, start with the novel itself.

Has the American Dream come true?

“Hope and a list of horribles is not a strategy.”

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:

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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.

Traleg Kyabgon, The Practice of Lojong: Cultivating Compassion through Training the Mind

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Introduction: It All Started with Tonglen

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.

Dzigar Kongtrul, The Intelligent Heart: A Guide to the Compassionate Life

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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.

Khentrul Lodrö Thayé, The Power of Mind: A Tibetan Monk’s Guide to Finding Freedom in Every Challenge

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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).

© 2024 by Bob Schwartz

I rarely write about psychedelics. See, for example, Psychedelics as icon smashers.

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.

© 2024 by Bob Schwartz

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.

© 2024 by Bob Schwartz

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:

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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.

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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 you do meet them—and you should by buying George and Martha: The Complete Stories of Two Best Friends—you, your own George or Martha, or any children in your life, will wonder how you got along without them.

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):

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“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.

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