Once We Break the Bonds Committing Us to Truth, All the Beasts of the Human Mind Can Be Released: The Shot that Rang Out from the Golf Course

I was unnerved, so very disturbed by the shot that rang out yesterday (9/15) from a Florida golf course.

 

And it wasn’t only because the shooter seems to have intended to aim at, and kill a fellow human being, and a presidential candidate, but was thankfully thwarted by a Secret Service agent. That intention is despicable enough. But the whole context was shocking, the timing, the election. Just when a shift in people’s perception of DT was being reported, from the polls, and the debate⎼ just when so many more people had been coming to recognize the craziness he spreads to all of us, the threat, and then this happened.

 

And now, this newest example of intended gun violence is sharing the media news cycle with how DT would lie, say or do almost anything to get his way, no matter who he might hurt. How he used racist lies about Haitian immigrants to rile up his base, to shock and destabilize our nation and spread anger, hate, and the sense of continuous threat. And the result of his comments? Bomb threats and other violence are being aimed at those he maligned and hurt, and the city they live in. He and his VP were just beginning to be held accountable in many media sources when the Secret Service agent’s shot rang out.

 

But the mere attempt to kill a political leader in this country is shocking.

 

DT has continuously, from 2016 to today, viewed our nation through a dark lens, describing us as a crime-ridden, failed, “third world” country. He talks about not being able to go out for a loaf of bread without being raped, mugged, or shot at. Most of us go out every week without getting mugged or raped or shot at. Despite FBI statistics showing a historic 26.4 reduction in murders and similar reductions in rape, robberies, and crime overall in 2024, we might still fear violence due to the anger, hate, and sense of grievance DT stirs up. He helps create the division and violence he describes and attributes to others.

 

For example, his violent rhetoric has helped turn compromise into a dirty word, helped  turn people who have different viewpoints into enemies. He undermines political cooperation by turning discussion from a way to share viewpoints and create a greater understanding, to a way to destroy opposition. He thus undermines democracy itself.

 

In a specious manner, he makes claims that the violence he incited was caused by those who have revealed his role in said violence. For example, he said President Biden was trying to overthrow the United States by saying DT was a threat to democracy. Meanwhile, on Jan. 6 it was DT who actually tried to overthrow the constitution and the will of the American people (and then continued to lie about it ever since). His statements misrepresent the facts and the blame is his own.

 

His constant lying undermines not only the specific facts he distorts, but a general sense of truth, or reality. Once we break any commitment to truth, all the dark, imagined, feared beasts lying dormant in our minds can be released….

 

*To read the whole article, please click on this link to The Good Men Project.

How I Relate to Another Being is How I’m Living Life Now: The House of My Hearing Has Many Doors

Relationships are, clearly, at the heart of our lives; or maybe I should say that for most of us, they are our heart. Especially a marriage and those longstanding partnerships. They can be so miraculous, exciting, engaging, frightening, painful, and confounding that we lose perspective on the central role they play in our lives. Something comes up, a disagreement or hurt, and we focus exclusively on that. To the degree we feel engaged, we want to disengage. We can lose sight of how the relationship influences not only how we think of ourselves but all other relationships.

 

Despite the many relationships we have, we often think of ourselves as me-alone. Me separate from others, separate even from our world. But we’re never as fully separate as we might imagine. And core relationships have enormous power to reveal that. By recognizing this as a possibility, the relationship itself comes alive. The character of our lives improves.

 

Recently, I noticed that any marriage, or any core relationship, models for us what relationship itself means. It can become a school for learning how to deepen other, important emotional connections. For example, each friendship, in its own, unique way contains the possibility of developing a degree of the openness and emotional intimacy that a core relationship might develop⎼ a similar caring and being cared for, mutual discovery, trust, and exploration. Or if the core is dominated by resistance, pain, dishonesty, and projections, so might other relationships.

 

Such discovery and caring makes us vulnerable. When we’re open, loving, we’re vulnerable. That’s just what caring means. When we care we don’t wear bulletproof vests or build concrete walls around us. When we’re “open” our senses and feelings reach out. When we reach out, others can reach in. And this dynamic helps us grow in character.

 

This, of course, can also be frightening. It can scare us into shutting down. But being frightened can itself be a sign that something we’re feeling is meaningful and worthwhile. That we’re in a state where what we don’t know about the future of the relationship, or anything, might exceed what we do know. And we’re willing to risk that.

 

And this not-knowing is always with us. We might assume that when we’re open or vulnerable we’re less safe. But maybe we’re safer. If we’re more able to perceive what’s there, what’s real⎼ if we’re more cognizant of just how much of the future we don’t know, and more aware of what we’re doing and saying, then we can make better decisions. A relationship can help us recognize what’s real.

 

We can better recognize that right here, in this moment, this person⎼ is my life. I breathe; they breathe. I feel; they feel. Zen teacher and author Thich Nhat Hanh called this inter-being⎼ we inter-are with others. Likewise, Australian Zen teacher Susan Murphy borrows an Aboriginal term, us-two, to describe relationships. Our relationship with another person, being, or place is not between separate, disconnected things. Instead, me-and-you and everything are dynamically creating this moment together.

 

As I sit with them, whoever they are, I sit with myself….

 

*To read the whole article, please go to The Good Men Project.

What Makes a Relationship Work? Allowing Another’s Well-Being to Be as Important as Our Own

This might be one of the most challenging blogs, stories, poems I ever tried to write. It tries to get to the heart of my life without getting too personal, which is clearly a delicate balance. It was written or is being written both at night, in my dreams, and in the daytime. We might all know or think we know what a relationship is. But maybe it’s also something more than we realize, constantly changing as we live.

 

Blogs often arise when I see a hint of what is usually not seen and then follow it, try to open it up, or open me up. Last night, for example, I had this feeling that there was nothing more to write about, nothing more hidden away. Then, in a dream, the hidden side of that feeling was exposed, and there certainly was something there. Something that is almost always with me.

 

In the dream, a young boy and a woman were sitting at a table with me. I didn’t know the boy. My dream self knew the woman, but I don’t think my daytime self does. We were talking about human relationships, particularly intimate ones, and the boy kept asking, what do you mean?

 

For me, like most teenagers and people in their early twenties, relationships of any type, family, friends and certainly lovers, were one of the most important aspects of life. It was not just about fun and pleasure. It was an attempt, a yearning, to get to know how another person experienced life, experienced pains and joys, challenges, and insights ⎼ and to get to know how other people saw me. Such an experience was too fascinating, too powerful to ignore. At its base was the desire to love and be loved. I thought of each person that attracted me as a mystery waiting to be revealed. But unfortunately, I only found glimpses of what I sought. I didn’t know how to go deeper. It felt like I might lose myself if I did.

 

Then it, like everything, changed. I met someone and realized I could truly love this person.

 

The psychologist Carl Jung theorized that when we’re first attracted to someone, we’re perceiving in the other elements of ourselves we’ve denied, lost, or neglected. Our attraction is an attempt to recover what was lost. We project an emotionally charged image of the other person, creating a fascination for them. And likewise, we can think this other person is responsible for our own emotions, our love.

 

But to maintain a relationship, we must let go of what first attracted us, let go of this image and fascination, to find the reality, find the truly breathing person. And if we think of the other as the source of our loving, we never see, never truly feel, who we are. We give up our power over our own emotions and look for ourselves in the wrong places. We get habituated to looking outside ourselves to satisfy what lives inside us. Instead, we must make a decision of sorts, to be honest about who these two beings standing here, now, are.

 

In the dream, I said to the young boy that a loving relationship isn’t really a relationship at all, and it’s not just between two people. But I’m not sure what the dream me meant. It sounds deep, but maybe it’s got a dream logic that makes no sense in the daylight.  Relationship– the roots and etymology of the word takes us to re, meaning back or again, and the Latin relatio, or refero (I relate, refer), fero meaning to bear or carry. It can mean a type of association, kinship, where we carry inside us another being. Another being comes alive in us. Maybe, we bear the weight of feeling vulnerable, and allowing another’s well-being to be as important as our own.

 

Maybe the dream me was referring to the fact that we all exist in a larger setting, a community, a world. Or maybe he was talking about something else……

 

*To read the whole article, please go to The Good Men Project.

 

**The photo is of my parents.

 

 

Webs of Communities: Make Being With Others Our Practice

Last week, on NPR’s Science Friday, the host, Ira Flatow interviewed U. S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy on the National Youth Mental Health Crisis and the Loneliness Crisis in our nation. These crises not only greatly affect our nation, but much of the world.

 

And they’re not due just to the pandemic. As much research has revealed, social media is also deeply responsible. Murthy describes how it often targets young people; over 1/3 of children say they feel addicted. Many are focused on their phones and computers over 3 hours a day. Social media can be great for several reasons, including helping underrepresented communities get and keep in touch with others. But it fosters unwelcome comparisons between people that leads to an increase in negative self-image, depression, anxiety, violence, and bullying, and a decrease in sleep and eye to eye, real time friendship.

 

One recommendation made by Murthy is to create safety standards regulating how companies target groups and requiring they disclose research data they’ve accumulated on the effects of the media. Another recommendation is fostering in-person communities.

 

Recently, I was lucky enough to be part of an unusual event. 50 years ago, 3 groups plus additional friends interested in different aspects of social change came together to buy a piece of property and establish a community. One was based around a free school, another around economic change, the third was about social-personal change, and creating a safe place for people who are LGBTQ+. For a few years, around 40-50 people lived on the land in separate but friendly groups.

 

Now, only about 6 of us from the groups remain here, in separate homes, living alone or as a couple.

 

So, we had a reunion. And besides being fun, it reminded me, us, of why we had originally come together and the values which, at that time, shaped our lives. And I realized that, since DJT and the pandemic, our need for such communities has only increased and become more apparent.

 

And we’ve joined a new group. Last spring, many neighbors on the road where we live or nearby formed a group to get to better know and help each other. We have potlucks every month and a newsletter. Last winter, the rented home of a neighbor burned down, and they didn’t have enough money to rebuild. Some gave financial donations. One gave them a small piece of land to build a new home. Another helped organize the building and provided a room to temporarily live in. Several people helped move the firewood from the old home site to the new one.

 

In addition to the neighborhood group, retired K-12 teachers, and administrators from the school district where I taught came together to lobby the school district to get a better health care policy and share information. We had realized the insurance we had from the school district was not doing what it promised to do.

 

We live in interlocking nets or webs of communities….

 

*To read the whole article, please click on this link to The Good Men Project.

Perceiving Ourselves More Clearly So, We Can Perceive the World Around Us More Clearly and Act More Powerfully

A wonderful friend wrote a powerful and frightening article about the situation we humans face right now. I can’t share it here because he’s sent it out and it hasn’t, yet, been published. But I would like to share its central insight.

 

Most of us already know how difficult the situation is now, between climate change, the threats of autocracy, hate-manipulated gun violence, war, etc. We might be consumed by so many concerns that we get lost in fears and retreat to the usual, the safe. But what we face is not usual and not at all safe.

 

I sometimes wonder if we can even conceive of the challenge we face. We need our rational minds to evaluate all the evidence. But maybe we need to feel it even more than grasp it. We certainly can imagine what a small town looks like after a massive tornado; or what a city like New Orleans looked like after the flooding of Katrina. Or what burned out towns in California look like or cities when sidewalks and streets melt from the increasing heat. This is the face of the climate emergency. And whatever we’ve seen in the past, we’ll probably be seeing worse in coming days and years.

 

We might read about what it was like living in cities like London before environmental regulations were passed, when people couldn’t go outdoors without getting sick due to torrential smog. Or we can imagine a world without any wildlife outside zoos, no lions, tigers, and bears, no elephants, no eagles and ravens, no owls. Or no honeybees. Without bees, no honey, no fruit, no crops.

 

Or what happens to a nation when increasing hate fueled violence, like in Buffalo, NY fills the streets. The number of hate crimes has more than doubled since 2015, when DJT first ran for office. Or what a dictator like Putin is doing to Ukraine or what would happen if a white nationalist or Nazis became president or Dictator.

 

Or what happens when children are forced to read or learn about only what people driven by hate, bigotry, and lust for power want them to read. Or when women are no longer allowed to control their own healthcare options or how their bodies are treated.

 

My friend feels the terrifying frustration of seeing a threat so clearly yet also feeling powerless to stop it. I think he speaks the fear and concern that a majority of Americans feel. But for him, only dramatic changes will be noticed. Little changes can get lost in the storm clouds of images of what might be coming. Crying out to the world, “Why can’t anyone stop this?” can drive anyone crazy.

 

Yet, a democracy is all about many people doing relatively small actions together. The wheels of law and change can move with painful slowness.

 

A few close friends talked with him about not obsessing over these awful possibilities. And he knows this. But words do not reach deep enough to lift us out of an image of oblivion.

 

He spells out or shouts out a clear line of action we can all take….

 

*To read the whole post, please go to The Good Men Project.

Meaningful Rituals: Fostering Compassion, Honesty, and Social Cooperation Instead of Hate, Violence, and Social Disintegration

When I was growing up in the 1950s and early 1960s, I remember dreading many social rituals, especially those that had to do with death. I felt a funeral or memorial service, for example, was more to hide grief then help us face it. It felt like we, society, were going through the motions but had lost the substance. That was one of the messages I remember from the 1960’s, and afterwards; we needed to restore meaning to our shared social institutions.

 

Since then, our nation has developed new rituals or revived old ones, maybe ancient ones. Recently, I attended a memorial which was called a Celebration of Life of the deceased. A participant called it a tribute. Instead of the service being led by a Rabbi or Priest, someone paid to do it and not closely known to the people involved, the event was led by the husband, daughter, and friends. It involved laughter and photos shared, tears shed, and songs sung by family and friends.

 

But mostly, it was an afternoon of heartfelt stories. Instead of a campfire, we all gathered around our computers for a Zoom ceremony. And we were treated to great tales, some we knew, many we didn’t. The person came so alive to us. It was a sort of a resurrection, but without any religious attachments.

 

We valued the person and saw how valued they still were by so many. And this reminded us of our own value. By honoring one person in this way, the humanity of all of us was revealed, in a depth and breadth we hadn’t often felt before. We remembered how amazing a mother and dear friend she was, and suddenly felt befriended and loved. The deceased was seen in a larger dimension than many of us had often seen them. And in this realization, we ourselves were raised into a larger dimension.

 

Several good friends mentioned the deceased was very politically engaged, sincere, and committed, clearly illustrating with their life that the personal was political. How we act in our personal lives, with friends, family, and neighbors, is the root of the type of society we create.

 

The same thing is happening today with our political involvement, as is happening with some social rituals. Many of us had previously felt that who governed mattered little. That the voice and interests of the people were not being protected. That voting was an empty ritual. Or maybe, because we didn’t participate or weren’t allowed to, the ritual of politics lacked truth and meaning.

 

No longer….

 

*To read the whole article, please go to The Good Men Project.

Giving Oneself a Present: And When Being Present Is the Gift

Haven’t we all had the urge to give ourselves a present after a noteworthy achievement or surviving something difficult? I don’t mean after something as frightening as being attacked or an achievement as deep as graduating college or getting married. Those events warrant something public and memorable. But surviving a medical procedure, maybe, or just living through a tough day at work or writing a great song or article, some celebration is warranted.

 

Some people might bake a sweet or buy a new shirt, or go out to the movies. My favorite thing, especially before the pandemic, is to visit with friends, go out to eat, or to the library, or even better, a bookstore. Finding a good book to read is so refreshing for me. Not just due to the anticipation of entering a new world or going on an adventure, but expanding the world that I perceive and thus live.

 

So, this weekend, after a tough week, I bought a book of essays by theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli called There Are Places in the World Where Rules Are Less Important than Kindness: And Other Thoughts on Physics, Philosophy, and the World. This felt like a present filled with sweetness.

 

In the book, Rovelli includes an essay on yet another book, one by the Indian Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna who lived around 150-250 CE. The translation of the book’s title is “The Fundamental Verses of the Middle Way.” It is one of the most important works of the Buddhist and Eastern philosophical traditions. Nagarjuna’s essential point is that nothing exists by itself, but only through dependence on something else or in relation to other things, beings, or perspectives.

 

Of course, we have cultural conventions, languages, ways of perceiving and thinking which create for us the impression that individual things exist on their own. But this is all just the surface layer of things, an illusion, maybe a necessary one but still an illusion.

 

Culture itself, says Rovelli speaking as Nagarjuna, is an endless dialogue feeding on our experiences and exchanges, relationships. We are all, continuously, being enriched, hurt, or fed by others.

 

And the illusion culture creates helps us live in the culture. It provides processes and rules, helps us identify the limits of our body so we can put food in our mouths, or walk through a crowd without crashing into others. But without air and the earth to stand on, without food and water to ingest, without parents to give us birth or teachers to instruct; without friends and family to model how to speak, relate, and hopefully how to love, we don’t exist.

 

And at the center is the ultimate reality, nothing but a vast, interdependent set of relations. To borrow from ancient philosophers like the Greek Empedocles who said, “God is a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere,” each of us, each thing and being, is a center extending everywhere ⎼ that is dependent on the universe we are never separate from ⎼ and whose borders are both here and nowhere. The Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh used to say we all inter-are….

 

*To read the whole article, please click on this link to The Good Men Project.

Poetry the Universe Writes to Itself: Aging and the Gifts of Friendship

Friends can bring us back to ourselves. Over Thanksgiving with old friends, we each see ourselves in the others. Three of us have known each other for 57 years and we’ve come together for over 40 of those years to share the holiday together. We were freshman in the same college dorm at the University of Michigan. Our future wives entered our lives not long afterwards, anywhere from one to seven or eight years later. We see in each other how we’ve aged, faced threats and tribulations, pains, and losses, inspirations, and successes. How we are facing life now.

 

And it’s all out there for us to talk about. Right in front of us. Each friend with their own gifts and limitations. We give each other tips, perspectives to help us prepare for the next months, years, moment. We talk about illnesses, present and past work experiences, roof repairs, water pics, other friends, podcasts, music videos, movies, books, philosophy, and sleep. Sleep is so tenuous for half of us who, each night, have no idea how much or where in the house we will sleep. Nothing is assumed. We speak of dreams and family members. Deaths and losses. The threats to our world.

 

And then there’s the joy. So much to be grateful for. For the food, certainly. And sure, it’s an old stereotype, but all the men played football in one form or another when we were young, yet none of us attended a football game after our sophomore year. After a few years of college, it seemed so meaningless and violent. But sometime in our 50s, we began to pay attention once again and listen for scores. Especially Michigan v Ohio State. This year, we watched together, shouting and cheering. Even the women were drawn in by the drama and emotion. And then my wife and I had to leave early to return home. Ohio State was ahead by 3 points.

 

But about 3 hours later, still on the road, my wife checked her phone for the score. Michigan 45, Ohio State 23. We won. We actually won. We called our friends. What a celebration ensued.

 

And when we arrived home ⎼ we have 3 cats, but we couldn’t find any of them. They hide from our cat-sitter even though she feeds and talks to them. Sometimes, they punish us for leaving by not showing up. But this time, in 5 minutes or so, one emerged from the basement, one appeared by the door as we brought in the suitcases. Twenty minutes or so later, the third came up behind us, crying. They all cried for food and contact. And when my wife and I sat down later to eat dinner, they sat with us.

 

This year, something extra sat with us. There was a darkness in the house not attributable to the night. A warning in the air, or in me. How many more of these returns do we have? Aging is not about winning but presence. In the dark was a reminder to take in this moment more deeply. To embrace it as much as possible. To do everything I could to give back. This is all there is ⎼ feel it. Enjoy it. Be thankful for what we can be thankful for. Be kind, caring, even if it hurts. Pet the cats, love my wife. And maybe we will let more of the light in….

 

**If you live in Georgia, please vote on Tuesday, Dec. 6, to help protect your right to vote, the right for women to make their own health care choices, to protect the environment, Medicare, and Social Security ⎼ to help stop the politics of hate. Bring water, a photo ID, and friends. No matter where you live, you can help get out accurate voting information.

 

***To read the whole post, please go to The Good Men Project.

Let Love Live, Revisited: Will We Act to Strengthen the Caring Relationship We Call a Community and Hope to See Actualized in Our Nation?

I’m sure you, too, are amazed at scenes like this: You’re watching your child at play, or a puppy running around the yard. Or you’re walking in the woods and see a fawn, or a kit, a baby fox, or a butterfly.

Or—I’m sitting in bed, a magazine on my lap. My wife is next to me, doing a puzzle. In between us, near our feet, are two cats, sleeping. I look at them, at all of us, and feel awe. Ok, the cats are simply sleeping, my wife, puzzling. But there is such trust on that bed. These beings want to be here, with me, with each other. They care. Or we care.

One of the cats, Miko, starts shaking, as if dreaming. He wraps his front paws around and over his head, as if to hide. I lean over and touch his back, and the shaking stops. He relaxes, releases his head, and turns over, showing me his belly. There is such vulnerability there, and tenderness. I give myself to you, and you give it back, enhanced.

When life is tough, we need to know such moments are possible, and even better, how to create a situation so they’re probable.

I’m reading an article in Lion’s Roar: Buddhist Wisdom for Our Time. The piece details a wonderful conversation between author and meditation teacher, Sharon Salzberg, and the educator, scholar and social activist Bell Hooks, about “The Power of Real Love.” Sharon talks of growing up and thinking that love is something given by others, but instead, it is an ability, a capacity, maybe even a responsibility we have in ourselves. Bell Hooks talks of love as residing in our actions, not just in our feelings.

In this day, in this threatening political climate, where fear and hate are so frequently in the news—How do we love? How do we allow ourselves to be vulnerable and care when the forces of domination and injustice seem to surround us?

Fear can be a message to wake up and observe more closely, or to turn away and flee. It’s built on opposition and is unstable and lasts only as long as we maintain a threat, an enemy, and a wall. Those outside the wall are rejected; those inside the wall are suspect. Such fear needs our compliance with it to succeed. Sometimes, we must or can’t help but act out of fear, but we pay an awful price when we allow fear to live too dominantly in us.

Love is built on mutuality, on approaching as close as possible to another being. It thrives on moments when there is little or no boundary or wall and, as the philosopher Ken Wilber put it, when our borders are not just points of demarcation but places where touching is possible….

 

*To read the whole piece, please go to The Good Men Project.

 

**And thank you to Bell Hooks and Sharon Salzberg (and Lion’s Roar) for the conversation and teachings.

***This is a revisiting of a blog from September, 2017.

 

After the Celebration, Then What?

A big event occurs. You graduate from high school or college, you win the lottery, get married, and what do you expect next from your life? You imagine the joy of seeing the winning numbers going on forever. You imagine the ceremony, the parties, the honeymoon. But after the celebrating, what then? Do you imagine cleaning the house? Taking out the trash?

 

We expect the world would be changed or we would be changed. That the quality of our experience of life would be better, heightened, maybe. Or the quality of our mind would be different. And it is, but not like we expected. We are always changing. But we easily get caught up in the idea or the story we tell ourselves instead of the reality or totality.

 

Especially today, when the level of anxiety is so high due to all the threats to so many of us, and so many aspects of our lives, including our sense of humanity and the climate, our health or control over our own bodies, it is easy to expect or hope for even more from any event than it could possibly produce. For example, we could work to successfully elect a candidate we trust, or to defeat one we knew had to be defeated, and afterwards, we expect all the threats to disappear, and the whole world would be changed. If only that were so.

 

Daniel Kahneman, professor of both psychology and public affairs described this as a “focusing illusion.” When we’re thinking about the graduation or the wedding, it is big, tremendous. When we’re in school, we might think that when we graduate, life will be so different. Or we’re in love and imagine that, once the love is celebrated and wrapped in the marriage license, we will feel more secure and loved. But what we find is a new moment, another day, another call for action. We forget how we adapt to situations, to living with a spouse or a new job or whatever it is we do after a big event.

 

We forget where feelings come from. We think the achievement itself creates the thrill of success. We think the person we love creates the love. We forget that to feel loved one must love. To be touched, one must touch. Jack Kornfield wrote a book called After the Ecstasy, The Laundry: How the Heart Grows Wise on the Spiritual Path. We can even view enlightenment, whatever that is, in the same way. “Once I get enlightened, all will be different.” Or “If only I’d get enlightened…” If only this or that.

 

All we ever have is moments, and moments are too slippery to ever own. They are less a thing and more what or who we are. Hopefully, most will be spent with more clarity than confusion, more compassion than anger, more love than greed. We do the best we can in the moment to learn from whatever occurs, and then let it go. To perceive and honor what is there for us without blinding ourselves with self-judgments or turning a passing moment into a permanent monument to a self. Monuments don’t feel and what isn’t perceived can’t be acted upon….

 

*To read the whole piece, please go to The Good Men Project.