March 27, 2021

Is Jesus currently a Chinese woman performing Irish stepdance?

Probably not. But Wikipedia reports that, according to the Church of Almighty God of China, Jesus Christ has returned to Earth and is presently living as a Chinese woman.

That may sound far-fetched to you, but maybe not more surprising than it was to me as I recently watched members of that church on YouTube brilliantly copying the style and choreography of the Irish dance show Riverdance. I never thought I’d see Chinese people attempting, let alone succeeding at, that Irish art form. Until 1994 no one outside Ireland and the Irish diaspora knew anything about Irish dance, which until then had been tradition-bound with limited cross-cultural appeal.

And then Riverdance, Lord of the Dance, and other Irish dance extravaganzas took the world by storm, becoming sensations in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, and big hits in China. Even so, it never occurred to me that the Chinese would want to actually do stepdance. I thought it would be too, well, Irish for them.

Stepdancing, when done professionally, is an exciting blend of precision, grace, elegance, athleticism, speed, drama, and thunderous percussion. The distinctive style emphasizes footwork, so the upper body is rigid and the arms are mostly kept at one’s sides. And I thought that the music – reels, jigs – might be too ethnic to appeal to anyone outside of St. Patrick’s Day. Besides, stepdance is a competitive sport among the Irish, and until Riverdance it had no international cachet.

But the Chinese have discovered what I learned years ago when I was in an amateur stepdance troupe: Irish hardshoe dance is very demanding but exhilarating to watch and to perform. Watch the three and a half minute video on YouTube: Riverdance Chinese style https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZy78vA4SAg . The dancing is excellent, though they’re stepping to Chinese and not Irish music, so it’s not as authentic as it could be. I saw Riverdance live in Dublin a couple years ago, and it was superb. But the slick Chinese show is almost as good as the original. The Chinese dancers are so robotically perfect that they make the Irish Riverdancers look relaxed and sexy by comparison. But both approaches are wonderful to behold. To see six minutes of the original Riverdance, click on this YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPBn2kbBqV0 . And if you just can’t get enough of the original, here’s another four and a half minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfEkSW3K1tg

In researching the church and its cultural presentation for this essay, it’s not clear to me why these Chinese church members decided to put on an Irish dance show. Their three to four million-member church is banned in China because, as with the Falun Gong religious movement, the Communist Party considers it to be a dangerous cult. The church probably feels that the Communist Party is also a dangerous cult. In any case, their show is so professional and polished that they’re obviously not doing it just for fun; they’re trying to impress someone – but who? Is there a political or religious agenda to their dancing that is under the radar of the audience? One of the internet articles I read about the church, also known as Eastern Lightning, implied that the female incarnation of Christ is a member of their organization.

Check out the outstanding young stepdancers of the Church of the Almighty God of China. One of the women may be Jesus.

March 7, 2021

Is your skin color the most important part of your identity?

If you are a white nationalist on the far right of the political spectrum, or a progressive in the far left wing of the Democratic party, then the answer to that question is probably yes. For many conservatives and liberals, race is the determining factor in who they consider themselves to be. And the two main competing camps in this nation’s racial drama are white Americans and black Americans.

A recent opinion piece in the New York Times by Jorge Ramos, a Latino journalist and pro-immigration activist, blamed Donald Trump and anti-immigration white people for the racial tensions in this country.

But in yesterday’s Times a Korean-born American named Jay Caspian Kang wrote a more nuanced essay specifically acknowledging Asian/black conflicts and exploring the complexities of racial tribalism in this country. At one point he referred to racial politics as “a zero sum game in which everyone loses.”

In response to his essay, a reader identified as Charlotte from Atlanta wrote in an online comment:

The current orthodoxy on race in the U.S. pushes all of us to identify with, and be identified by others with, our race above all other identities. The races are then sorted into groups of oppressors (white people) and the hapless oppressed (everyone else). If you are an oppressor, you are supposed to commit your entire life to “the work,” i.e. expiating the collective guilt that you bear as a member of your race, regardless of your personal actions, choices, and beliefs. The oppressed, meanwhile, are treated as morally childlike victims – incapable of perpetrating racism themselves, not responsible for their own decisions or choices, and incapable of being successful or self sufficient without the intervention of others.

When an oppressed group contradicts this narrative (e.g. by academic or economic success, voting Republican, opposing affirmative action, etc), instead of taking a hard look at the narrative, we just move that group into the oppressor category. It’s happening to Asians and segments of the Latino community already.

Asking people to sacrifice for the common good is far more successful than asking them to sacrifice for someone else. By pushing a politics of polarization, we’ve destroyed that sense of common good and created precisely the zero sum game the author describes.

And what is the “common good” to which Charlotte refers? Public health, the economy, climate change, education, public safety, and housing are issues that affect people regardless of skin color. In my view, problems such as income inequality are less about race and more about class.

That’s not to deny that race, culture, and gender are significant factors in how people treat each other. Those factors are true not only in the U.S., but also in Africa, China, India, Japan, Vietnam, Europe, and everywhere else I’ve ever visited. So the attempts by progressives to blame racial prejudice on white institutions in the U.S. and Europe are simplistic at best. Racial and cultural frictions are an international problem, a challenge for the only race that really matters: the human race.

What we need here in the U.S. and around the world is not the left wing and right wing emphasis on racial identity, but a larger vision of our shared humanity. A common good based upon a more evolved consciousness of who we really are – interconnected souls – rather than the shallow, ego-based identification with our various racial, political, and religious tribes.

One reason I’m not too attached to my skin color, nationality, or gender is that I see those variables as being temporary. Because I believe in reincarnation, I thinks it’s likely that in future lifetimes I could well be, say, an Indonesian woman or a Nigerian man. And for all I know I may already have been an African American woman or a Mexican Indian man. These identities are fluid and temporary, from my Buddhist and metaphysical perspective, so labeling each other according to racial classifications is short sighted and ignorant.

Our true identity is not based upon the color of our skin, but rather is about the content of our character. We are not our race.

February 22, 2021

All spleen, no soul.

That is a phrase used recently in the New York Times to describe Twitter and other social media platforms that some people use to angrily express their political opinions. I’m not on Twitter, so I’m blissfully unaware of the nastiness that apparently is widespread on that and other social outlets. And I had to look up the meaning of spleen, which turns out to be an organ that the body uses to clean blood. But spleen is also used to suggest a bad temper or spite, as in venting one’s spleen about traffic.

The term spleen was used in an article about the recent death of Rush Limbaugh, a well known right wing radio personality known for his incendiary rants and denigrating language about people with whom he disagreed. The death of this famous demagogue has reportedly caused widespread celebration among his political opponents, and I must confess that I am one of those individuals who was pleased to hear of Limbaugh’s demise. We all vent our spleen from time to time, but Limbaugh was reputed to be vitriolic and spiteful on a daily basis.

Even so, the extensive cheering at the passing of the bombastic Mr. Limbaugh caused Times columnist Frank Bruni to entitle his latest piece, “Must We Dance on Rush Limbaugh’s Grave?” While acknowledging that Limbaugh was “so prone to cruel mockery, so proudly prejudiced, so recklessly divisive,” Bruni cautioned that “I think we should speak honestly of the dead, and in many cases that means speaking ill. But the pitch of that ill-speak needn’t be screechy. The manner of it needn’t be savage.” In other words, we shouldn’t do unto Rush as he did unto anyone he disagreed with.

Donald Trump was a big fan of Mr. Limbaugh, and it’s not hard to see why. Both traffic in abusive verbiage, and both promote malice, racial resentment, and conspiracy theories. Mr. Trump validated his friend’s brand of paranoia by awarding him with one of our nation’s highest honors, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. I can’t think of a less deserving recipient.

But Frank Bruni is right – just because we disagree with a Limbaugh or a Trump doesn’t mean that we should hate or insult them. And it isn’t really in our self interest to disparage others, since in doing so we allow ourselves to dwell in a negative frame of mind that can’t be good for our spleen or any other organ.

In the Buddhist tradition there is a concept called right speech, or wise speech. It means to pay attention to our choice of words, and then intentionally choose language that is wholesome, helpful, kind, generous, healing, and even inspiring. There is a certain morality implied in right speech, in that it implies distinctions between right and wrong, or setting higher standards for our words and our behavior. My friend Joseph adds that there is internal and external speech, so it’s important to have a positive and appreciative attitude in one’s own mind as well as in words spoken out loud. “Bless your food, and everything that comes to you,” Joseph advises.

I admit that my spleen enjoys being as opinionated as Mr. Limbaugh. But my soul prefers right speech.

February 5, 2021

Just when I thought I had masculinity all figured out, along comes the Chinese government to set me straight. Thank God for the Chinese Communist Party.

According to an article in today’s New York Times, “Government officials in China believe that boys are getting more effeminate and want to toughen them up. In the latest attempt to tackle what academics and news outlets call a ‘masculinity crisis,’ the Education Ministry has proposed emphasizing the ‘spirit of yang,’ or male attributes…to prevent the feminization of male youths.” A top official said that “the prevalence of female teachers and the popularity of ‘pretty boys’ in pop culture has made boys ‘weak, inferior, and timid.’ He also lamented the fact that boys no longer wanted to become war heroes.”

What a shame. Who’s going to invade India, Taiwan, or the South China Sea if Chinese boys don’t want to be war heroes?

At least good looking Chinese boys have an alternative to being soldiers: playing patriotic warriors onscreen. In another New York Times article dated August 8, 2017, the headline was “China’s Pretty Boys Find a New Gig: Propaganda Films.” The report describes such actors and other young male celebrities by saying, “Known in Chinese as xiao xian rao, ‘little fresh meat’ refers to Chinese teenage idols and boy band members, famous mostly for their manicured good looks and sculpted physiques.”

I’ve been thinking lately about masculine and feminine qualities because I’m currently half way through War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy’s epic historical novel about Napoleon’s invasion of Russia. In the book, the aristocratic young men are handsome and dashing, and the upper class young women are beautiful and “blooming.” I don’t mind the gender stereotypes; after all, the book was written over 150 years ago. And not all of the men want to be war heroes, though many of them do desire that glory, and not all the women are scheming to find a rich husband, though most of them are.

I’m perfectly willing to accept that there are male tendencies and female tendencies, though to avoid excessive sniping I’ll leave it to the reader to decide which are typical male and female behaviors and attitudes. I do believe that people should be free to dress and act in whatever ways feel right for them, rather than having to conform to preconceived notions of what is appropriate for their gender.

Although I don’t remember if I ever wanted to be a war hero (I probably did), I do know that starting at about age six I wanted to be a champion of some sort. I was first inspired by the TV cartoon character Mighty Mouse, who rescued fair maidens and defeated bad guys. Ever since then I’ve wanted to be confident, strong, courageous, and noble in spirit. Those are qualities that I’ve always associated with manhood, though now I would also add kindness, compassion, and wisdom to my idea of a paragon of positive masculinity.

Napoleon was a military genius and a social reformer, but he was also a tyrant and mass killer of men, so I would have to cite him as an example of toxic masculinity.

Is it possible to be both beautiful and masculine? I would say definitely yes. The other night I watched Risky Business again, and in it a young Tom Cruise does a very sexy dance alone wearing just an unbuttoned shirt, jockey shorts, and socks. His character is an uninhibited stud acting out his fantasy of being a rock star, and if his exuberant strutting isn’t masculine, I don’t know what is. He may be a pretty boy, but his swaggering cock-of-the-walk explosive dance is the antithesis of being “weak, inferior, and timid.”

Maybe the Communist Party should use Risky Business as a recruiting film for the Chinese army. It’s definitely got that yang thang.

January 21, 2021

Sanity, grace, and civility have returned to the White House. It is not yet clear whether these virtues have returned to our democracy or our citizens.

Like most Americans and people around the world, I was relieved yesterday to see the treasonous and disgraced former president depart from Washington. And I was gratified to watch the televised inauguration as a calm, dignified, and humble Joe Biden became our 46th president.

I enjoyed the beautiful shots of our sunny nation’s capital: the stately Capitol building; the spacious outdoor National Mall and its Smithsonian museums; the simple and lofty Washington Monument; the inspiring Lincoln Memorial; the peaceful Reflecting Pool; the colonnaded Supreme Court; the beautiful Library of Congress; and the historic and elegant White House.

And I was moved by the continuity of the civic rituals of our peaceful transfer of power: the presence of former Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama with their First Ladies; Supreme Court justices and members of Congress from both political parties; the administering of the oath of office; the President’s inaugural address; the singing of the national anthem; the recitation of a lovely poem by a youth poet laureate; the presidential review of the military marching bands.

But the very visible presence of 20,000 National Guard troops was a reminder of the physical assault upon the Capitol building two weeks ago by Trump thugs seeking to overthrow our democracy and install Donald Trump as an authoritarian dictator. President Biden acknowledged this near-catastrophe in his inaugural speech when he said “Democracy is fragile.” In other words, we are not out of the woods yet. Our nation and our democracy remain under threat from domestic terrorists fueled by lies and misinformation from social media, some “news” media outlets, paranoid conspiracy theorists, and self serving Republican politicians.

Joe Biden made it obvious in his inaugural address, as he has throughout his long political career, that he is a man of honesty, decency, and empathy who intends to restore a sense of morality to the country while confronting the urgent issues of the pandemic, climate change, a battered economy, increasing financial inequality, and racial tensions. Yet although he is assuming the lofty position of the most powerful office in the world, he gives the repeated impression that, unlike his predecessor, his presidency will not be about him, but will instead be about us: we, the people.

And who are “we,” anyway?

For some of our fellow citizens, mostly Republicans, to be American means to be white and Christian (even though very few of them actually believe in or follow the teachings of Jesus). Jews, blacks, and people of Asian or Hispanic descent may be citizens, according to this view, but they are sometimes considered, unconsciously or otherwise, to be second class citizens. And as recently as the 1960’s, Catholics were viewed with suspicion by many WASPs (White Anglo Saxon Protestants) because it was feared that they would be more loyal to the Pope than to their country. The Irish in America were long distrusted because of their Catholic religion. So in 1960 when the Irish Catholic John F. Kennedy ran for president, many people voted against him because they didn’t accept him as one of “us” (WASPs). Fortunately for JFK he was young, handsome, Harvard educated, and rich, so he was able to overcome enough prejudice to barely win the election. Decades later, Irish and Catholics are considered part of “us,” so now we have our second Irish Catholic president in Joe Biden (Ronald Reagan was Irish but not Catholic). Progress is slow but steady in these United States.

Yet where should we draw the line as to the question of who is American and who isn’t? Are illegal immigrants Americans just because they now live here? For Joe Biden, apparently the answer to that second question is yes. He wants to provide amnesty for the estimated 11 million people who have come here without permission. And for humanitarian reasons he wants to open our borders to increased legal immigration from tens of thousands, probably tens of millions, of poor people who want a better life than they currently have in Mexico, Central America, Africa, the Middle East, or Asia.

Is it the moral responsibility of the American government and people to accept and provide for an endless stream of migrants? If so, how many millions should we accept, or should there be no limit? I believe that President Biden has an obligation to be up front with us as to how many millions of poor people he is willing to bring into this country, and how he will take care of them.

For me the question is not whether we should assist people in need; of course we should. The question is how can we do so wisely. I am not in favor of increasing the population of the United States; in my view, we have too many people already. From 200 million Americans in 1967 to 330 million today, that is a rapid population increase driven almost entirely by immigration, leading to a dramatic demographic change that is socially and politically destabilizing and environmentally destructive.

But if we are to aid our fellow human beings, how do we do so without overburdening our schools, health care systems, welfare agencies, freeways, criminal justice systems, and housing?

The answer may lie in helping people to stay where they are through assistance from NGO’s (Non Governmental Organizations) to help with security issues, food distribution, education, and family planning/birth control. The question of how to alleviate world poverty, corruption, and migration is beyond the scope of this essay, but it does raise the issue of identity: are Americans simply citizens of the United States, or world citizens with a responsibility to help all of humanity? Who should we include in “us” in the U.S. – the entire human race?

Is President Biden attempting to live up to the ideal written on the Statue of Liberty?: Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Or should he try to take care of American poor first?

I appreciate President Biden’s generosity of spirit in wanting to welcome millions of legal and illegal immigrants to our country. But while I do not support these proposals, I do support his overall agenda and his mission to preserve and protect this democracy for future generations. I hope he can heal our divided nation, and for that reason I wish him a long and healthy life and a successful four or eight year term in the White House. We the people, all of us everywhere, need him to succeed.

January 7, 2021

Yesterday, January 6, 2021, a date which will live in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by fascist forces aligned with the Republican Party. An armed mob of white people waving Trump signs and Confederate battle flags stormed the Capitol Building in Washington DC to block certification of the 2020 presidential election results.

The Republican rioters rampaged through the center of American democracy, vandalizing the chambers and offices owned by the American people and ransacking the symbolic public square of our nation’s history and culture.

The mob was formed and incited at a nearby Trump rally by President Trump himself, aided by other demagogues such as Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani who called for “trial by combat.” Among the armed attackers were Proud Boy thugs, QAnon conspiracy fanatics, and terrorists who placed two pipe bombs nearby and who came prepared with rifles and Molotov cocktails. Hours after the violence subsided, President Trump released a video in which he tried to have it both ways, telling the assailants to go home and adding, “We love you.”

This right wing assault on democracy must not be allowed to stand. There have been calls by Democrats and even some Republicans for President Trump to be impeached again and for the 25th Amendment to be activated to forcibly remove him from office. These measures are unlikely to occur in his 13 remaining days in office. But I fervently hope that once he is out of the White House, that he is arrested and imprisoned for treason and corruption. And I hope that he and many of his fellow Republican traitors get long prison terms for their assault on the United States Constitution and their attempt to overthrow American democracy and the will of the people.

There are many individuals and groups to blame in this debacle: Messrs. Trump and Giuliani, Republican enablers such as Mitch McConnell and Mike Pence, social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter which are complicit in allowing toxic misinformation to spread widely, right wing news media such as Fox News, conspiracy groups such as QAnon, the gun lobby, and the unprepared Capitol Police.

To be fair, many of the Republican rabble roused by Mr. Trump have been brainwashed by social media and by right wing media. They believe Mr. Trump’s lies about a supposedly fraudulent election, and they’ve been told that they are defending democracy and the Constitution by protesting a stolen election. Most of them are decent human beings. I know, because two of my family members and two friends are Trump supporters. Even so, ignorance is no excuse for fanaticism, and people need to take responsibility for their education or lack thereof.

Also in fairness, it is not only conservatives who engage in violence and anti democratic behavior. On November 7, 1983, a bomb exploded in the U.S. Senate, a device placed by the radical left wing group Resistance Conspiracy. On March 1, 1954, four Puerto Rican nationalists opened fire in the House of Representatives, wounding five congressmen. Sometimes anarchists in antiwar demonstrations or Black Lives Matter protests have engaged in looting, vandalism, and assaults against police and other citizens.

Yes, we need law and order, and yes, we need strict gun control. We also need greater regulation of social media and news media to require them to stop spreading false information and conspiracy theories. And we need to restrict hate speech from politicians and extremists.

But our problems are deeper than political issues. Spiritual and cultural decay at the root of American society are the real causes of social unrest and economic inequality. The cult of selfish individualism encourages greed and corruption, leading to mass poverty and environmental destruction. Honesty, kindness, and generosity of spirit are held hostage by fear and by the American gun and money religions. We need to find a better balance between capitalism and the good of the community and the Earth. We need a new vision of morality.

In the short term, our nation is under attack from Republican extremists driven by fear, greed, hunger for power, and ignorance. We need to defend ourselves by voting, educating ourselves and each other, and appreciating and protecting our democratic inheritance.

But in the long run we need to raise our consciousness as individuals and as a people by recognizing the oneness of all Americans and all human beings, and by taking better care of each other and of our planet.

Almost 80 years ago President Franklin Roosevelt rallied the American people by denouncing the December 7 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor as a “date which will live in infamy.” Let’s hope that yesterday’s Republican attack on democracy will serve as a catalyst to awaken the American people to the dangers within our body politic and our culture.

December 15, 2020

“I will insist that the Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation.” President John Adams, 1809

Sometimes, when we lose something or are about to experience loss, we realize that we should appreciate that which we have taken for granted. That’s why I wrote my last blog essay, A Wonderful Life (December 7), and the one before that, Thanksgiving Expectations (November 23). And that’s why I’m writing about Jews today.

According to USA Today, on December 8 the only American memorial to Anne Frank was vandalized with swastikas in Boise, Idaho. My first reactions were disgust, anger, and sadness, in that order. I guess I took it personally because I’ve visited the Amsterdam home of Anne and her family where they hid from the Nazis and where she wrote her charming and endearing diary. She died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp at the age of 15, one of one million Jewish children murdered by the Nazis.

While I hope that the vandals who desecrated Anne’s memorial are caught and punished, along with the perpetrators of other hate crimes, our democracy is being threatened not just by thugs but by something more insidious: ignorance. People are willing to believe conspiracy theories and other false narratives because they are uneducated, gullible, and looking for scapegoats to blame for their problems and inadequacies. And Jews are convenient targets because they are relatively few in number yet arouse jealousy because of their educational and professional achievements.

But rather than bemoaning what I don’t like in the news, I decided to read something positive about Jewish contributions to humanity. The Gifts of the Jews by Thomas Cahill focuses most of its appreciation on the early bestowals of the Jews upon Western civilization, rather than their contemporary largesse toward the human race. So I’ll make my own observations about current Jewish magnanimity in a moment.

Cahill may be engaging in a bit of hyperbole when he claims that the Jews are “the inventors of Western culture” – what about the Greeks? – but otherwise his praise seems justified. Among the philosophical offerings that Jews have made to how we humans see ourselves are monotheism (the idea that there is a higher intelligence governing the universe, rather than competing and combative gods and goddesses); the moral behavioral code of the Ten Commandments; freedom (from slavery and from predetermined fate); the idea of people as individuals with unique destinies (not just as tribal members); social justice; and the concepts of progress, change, and hope for the future.

Cahill states that “most of our best words – new, adventure, surprise; unique, individual, person, vocation; time, history, future; freedom, progress, spirit; faith, hope, justice – are the gifts of the Jews.”

He adds that Jews originated the ideas that we should pursue justice for everyone, not just people in our own tribe, and that if we don’t help those in need, including the hungry, the powerless, and the marginalized, we are rejecting God.

And that brings me to what I like about the Jews.

The Jews in the U.S. and elsewhere are a generous people. If you watch PBS programs or listen to NPR, you’ll notice that the names of most of the benefactors are Jewish. A high percentage of the donors to museums, universities, and hospitals are Jewish. Philanthropy is a big part of the Jewish religion and culture, and Jewish social services support people in need from all backgrounds. Too bad that Jews aren’t Catholic, because if they were, many of them would be recognized as saints.

I also deeply respect the Jewish emphasis on the importance of education. In my view, this is the key to their success and a model for the rest of us to emulate. (See the Travel tab on this website’s home page and click on the drop down menu for my Israel essay, “Snorkeling in Jerusalem,” which addresses this subject and related topics).

Thomas Cahill quotes biblical scholar Nahum Sarna acknowledging the importance of study to the Jews as “the universal duty of continuous self-education.” Cahill says that ancient Israel was “the first human society to so value education and the first to envision it as a universal pursuit – and a democratic obligation that those in power must safeguard.”

Creativity? Per capita, Jewish writers, filmmakers, comedians, and scientists probably surpass those of any other culture, religion, or ethnic group in the world.

Humanity needs more Anne Franks: idealistic, creative, resilient, resourceful people. The kind of people who just might be able to help heal the benighted souls who defaced a memorial to a 15 year old girl.

As Anne said in her diary, “I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.”

Happy Hanukkah.

December 7, 2020

I know, I know – we shouldn’t judge other people. After all, we don’t have all the facts about their current life circumstances or their childhood and family dynamics, not to mention their karma or soul agendas. But screw it – I feel qualified to judge my friend Kay, and I judge her just-completed life to have been a glorious success.

I first met Kay in high school in 1969, when she was 15 and I was 17. We had both just started practicing Nichiren Buddhism, and we used to get together before or after school to chant our mantra, Nam Myoho Renge Kyo. She was a bubbly teenager who laughed a lot, though years later she told me that before she started chanting she had been depressed most of the time. I still find it hard to visualize her as depressed, because for the 51 years I knew her she was Ms. Sunshine, radiating enthusiasm and positive energy wherever she went.

Kay had her share of ups and downs, but she was resilient and unsinkable. She seemed to have access to what Herman Melville described in Moby Dick as an “insular Tahiti,” an inner place of serenity that allowed her to bounce back from whatever disappointments life might present to her.

I saw that resilience first hand in 1972, when she and I found our hopeful if unrealistic expectations dashed against the reefs of reality. We desperately wanted to go on a tozan (pilgrimage) to our sect’s head temple in Japan to attend what we were told would be an epoch-making event: the opening of the Sho Hondo (palace of world peace). But our group pilgrimage was fully booked. That didn’t stop us, though. With the can-do spirit of our Nichiren practice and American optimism, Kay and I showed up at the San Francisco airport with our bags packed, passports in hand, resplendent in our blue polyester tozan uniforms, chanting for a last minute miracle that failed to materialize. Crushed, we watched the plane take off without us. After a bit of time feeling sorry for ourselves for having missed out on that history-making extravaganza, we decided to celebrate our defeat by having chocolate fondue with fruit at an outdoor table at Bernini’s restaurant off of Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley. We later donated our tozan plane fare to our Nichiren lay organization. In our view, we had practiced hendoku iyaku (changing poison to medicine).

But if Buddhism brought us together, it also drove us apart for many years. In 1981, feeling disillusioned with what I felt was group-think, mindless conformity, and a cult of personality in our Japanese religion, I wrote a 50 page manifesto urging democratic reforms and transparency in our movement. Our Japanese leaders were not amused, and Kay didn’t approve either. I was banned from our Nichiren community center, and eventually left the organization while continuing my individual practice. Kay remained a true believer in the SGI (Soka Gakkai International) organization. We didn’t argue about or even discuss our religious differences; we simply went our separate ways for about 18 years.

Then in 1999 I ran into Kay’s mother Eleanor in the produce section of Raley’s supermarket in Santa Rosa. Delighted to see Eleanor after the passage of decades, I was shocked to learn that Kay had just been diagnosed with the most aggressive kind of breast cancer and had been told that she only had months to live. Devastated by the thought of losing my old friend, I called her immediately, and we laughed and laughed as we caught up and swapped stories from our teen years. We didn’t acknowledge our different approaches to Buddhist practice; we simply moved forward from that moment on.

And from that moment we’ve been close friends again, through my visits to her in Seattle and her visiting me in the Bay Area, as well as innumerable and lengthy phone calls and emails. Throughout that time she has courageously faced and overcome bouts of cancer, until it finally claimed her life two weeks ago.

Since her death on November 22 I’ve been reflecting, by myself and during her pandemic-necessitated memorial on Zoom, on what made her so special – what was her secret sauce, or the source of her light? If you had asked her that question, she would have attributed her strong life force to her Buddhist practice of chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo. And I would have to agree with that assessment. However, I think there’s an additional explanation for her joie de vivre, her exuberant nature, her ebullient personality, her sunny disposition. She deliberately intended, she consciously chose, she was determined to be happy herself and to be kind and compassionate to others. Call it positive thinking or buoyancy or what you will, Kay made up her mind to be the woman she became: joyful, big-hearted, generous. Her chanting became the means to direct her energy and passion. Believe me, most Nichiren Buddhists are nowhere near as enlightened as Kay was. But one of her leaders advised his followers to “resolve to be the sun,” and Kay took that advice to heart and put it into practice. Kay Rynerson McCabe became the sun around which her family and friends revolved. She illuminated us with her wisdom and her laughter. She made Pollyanna look like a pessimist. Pollyanna could learn a lot about optimism and positive thinking from Kay. So could we all.

I’ve loved Kay for 51 years, but I’m glad we never dated or married each other. With our strong personalities, we would have experienced two solar eclipses. But as platonic friends, I’m grateful to have been inspired by her courage and her zest for life, and her devotion to her husband, kids, and grandkids.

A week before she died, I asked her about her thoughts about death and rebirth. We both believe in reincarnation, but I was curious about what she thought might happen to her. She told me that she’d like to be reborn in India because the women wear such colorful clothes, and I learned from someone else that Kay also wants her next lifetime to be in India so that she can work there for women’s rights. Classic Kay – have fun, and be in service to others.

At her Zoom memorial Kay’s husband Dennis told the story of how, when the two of them would ride their bikes past a nearby neighborhood mural or artwork called the Wall of Death, they would sometimes drop their pants and “moon” Death. Nothing like irreverent humor to put death in its proper place: as part of life.

When Dennis called to tell me of Kay’s passing, he said that her last words were something to the effect of how she was riding her bicycle along a pathway through a field of flowers.

Now that’s what I call a beautiful ending to a life well lived.

November 23, 2020

Sometimes we need a holiday to remind us that it’s OK to be contented. And sometimes it takes a book to help us remember that we don’t always need to improve ourselves.

Like many people in the Western world, I have my share of self improvement projects. One of those endeavors recently has been to read or re-read the great classics of Western literature. God forbid that I should read fine books just for the fun of it. Luckily, I’ve got more time on my hands right now because of a job furlough resulting from the coronavirus. So the other day I started reading Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.

That novel is about a dirt-poor orphaned English boy named Pip who is determined to rise out of poverty and make a better life for himself. He describes himself as “restlessly aspiring, discontented me.” His wish to better his circumstances comes true when he comes into an unexpected small fortune, enabling him to become a young gentleman. But with money comes arrogance and the abandoning of his friends, causing him to eventually learn that higher social status is not the same thing as happiness.

The irony is not lost on me that in my own “restlessly aspiring” quest to accumulate knowledge and bag another literary trophy, my great intellectual expectations (pretensions?) may simply be another way of filling a “discontented” void. That is, since I ain’t rich, maybe I’ll feel better about myself if I can rattle off a bunch of highbrow books I’ve read. And hey – it does feel virtuous to finally read a great classic that I’ve heard about all my life. So even if my motive for pursuing Dickens, Tolstoy, and Emerson is just bragging rights, what’s the harm in that? Desires can lead to enlightenment, if for no other reason than we may discover, as Pip did, that achieving our desires leads to temporary fulfillment but not long lasting satisfaction.

So, like Pip, I’ve decided this Thanksgiving week to appreciate what I already have. And since our country and our democracy are in grave danger from political extremism and fanaticism, not to mention Covid 19, economic disruption, and climate change, I intend to appreciate American institutions and legacies while we still have them.

For that reason, I give thanks to the flawed geniuses who created this imperfect and wonderful country. I especially honor General Washington, whose perseverance against overwhelming odds, especially through the terrible winter at Valley Forge, allowed us to establish a government of, by, and for the people. And I greatly respect President Washington for declining the opportunity to be president for life, unlike our would-be dictator currently occupying the White House, who is desperately clinging to and refusing to relinquish power.

I give thanks to President Abraham Lincoln, who successfully guided us through a bloody civil war, and who established our Thanksgiving tradition in 1863 in gratitude for the victory of the Union Army at the battle of Gettysburg. And I appreciate Lincoln for establishing Yosemite as the first national park on Planet Earth (Yellowstone officially has that distinction because it was called a national park, but Lincoln set aside Yosemite as a park years before Yellowstone was designated as such). We have the first, and still the best, national park system in the world, thanks to people like Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and John Muir.

I give thanks to President Franklin Roosevelt for Social Security and unemployment insurance, and for leading us through the Great Depression and World War II. I give thanks to President John F. Kennedy for keeping us safe during the Cuban missile crisis. And I give thanks to President Lyndon Johnson for Medicare and for civil rights legislation.

I give thanks for the health care workers on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic. I appreciate the police, who help us maintain a veneer of civilization in these crazy times. And I’m grateful to the firefighters and other first responders here in California for protecting us from the awful wildfires that are being made so much worse by global warming.

I give thanks for journalists who tell the truth, and for our legal system that has resisted efforts at a political coup, and for those profiles in courage, Democrats and Republicans alike, who have defended our constitution and stood up for free and fair elections.

I also give thanks to my parents, who taught me lessons in tolerance, generosity, and unconditional love.

When I was a boy and a young man like Pip, I too had wishful fantasies about how my hopes and dreams would play out. Truth be told, I still harbor some possibly unrealistic preferred outcomes, and in spite of many disappointments I’m reluctant to let them go. But I’m learning to accept the things that I can’t change. At this stage of my life my expectations may not be as great as they once were, but my appreciation has increased significantly. And like Pip at the end of the novel, my ambition is to be filled with affection and an inner moral conscience, no matter what is happening in the external world.

So, dear readers, on this upcoming day of Thanksgiving, may we all be contented with our lives and enjoy and appreciate our families, friends, and country.

November 6, 2020

It looks like President Trump will soon be officially vanquished in his bid for a second term. As of this writing it appears that, once all the ballots have been counted, Joe Biden will win the popular vote by about five million votes and will handily win the Electoral College. While I’m pleased with that result, I’m surprised to realize that I continue to learn a lot from Mr. Trump.

That realization dawned on me this morning as I listened to Insight Meditation teacher Gil Fronsdal speak live via YouTube to several hundred meditation students. The subject of his talk was Right Speech, one of the instructions of the Buddha about how to live wisely and compassionately.

According to Fronsdal, Right Speech (or Wise Speech) is wholesome, inspiring, and helpful. He said that we should use words that bring concord (peace and harmony) and words that help to unify people. He added that recognizing and telling the truth are important aspects of Right Speech, and are a big part of mindfulness practice. In fact, he said, mindfulness and truthfulness are synonymous; honesty is mindfulness out loud.

The opposite of Right Speech, he went on, is to speak falsely, divisively, harshly, and hurtfully. Alternatively, Right Speech is a social teaching about how we can live together harmoniously. Smiling, he added that truth is more important than who will be president.

You can probably see where I’m going with this essay. But before I get back to Mr. Trump, allow me to acknowledge my own challenges in the wise speech department.

In private conversations I can be very direct and even blunt, and if I’m angry then my bluntness can be hurtful. I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, of course, but I have done so at times. So to avoid offending anyone, I sometimes express my displeasure behind their back, rationalizing my complaining by saying to myself that what they don’t know won’t hurt them. I can think of three individuals with whom I have polite if unsatisfactory relationships, and about whom I have vented to others. But Fronsdal asks, how do you speak about people behind their backs? If they heard you, would they be hurt? He’s holding us to a higher standard of conduct than I sometimes practice, so clearly I have some work to do.

But I don’t believe that I’m being hypocritical by criticizing President Trump, because I’m well aware of my own shortcomings and am actively addressing them. Mr. Trump, on the other hand, is a very public figure who courts controversy and chaos and appears to be disdainful of self reflection as being what he considers to be a sign of weakness. He is a case study in Wrong Speech: constant falsehoods, blame, rage, and divisive and hateful rants. If he were a private citizen I could ignore his relentless negativity, but as President of the United States he is a threat to the peace and security of this nation and the world. Even so, he is teaching us how fragile democracy can be and how much we have taken for granted: the need for civility, respect, honesty, and kindness.

We the people have voted that damaged soul out of office, but that’s only the first step. We need to rebuild our country after the devastation that Mr. Trump and his fanatical followers have inflicted, not by hating them but by becoming better citizens and better human beings ourselves. Elections will not solve our problems. A better economy and a vaccine for Covid 19 will not solve our problems. Confronting China, Russia, and other authoritarian countries may be necessary but still won’t solve our problems.

We all need to heal ourselves. Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, and atheists need to find a spiritual solution to the greed and selfishness that threaten our very survival on this planet. We can’t outsource the solution to politicians. Joe Biden can’t save us. We have to save ourselves.

I don’t know what the future of the human race or Planet Earth will be. But I’m grateful to my many teachers, including Gil Fronsdal and Donald Trump, for reminding me that the best way for me to contribute to a better America and a better world is to heal my own shadow and be kinder to everyone I meet. I can’t fix our political, economic, or environmental problems, but I can wake up to face the truth of my responsibility to live more wisely and compassionately.