Winking Wisdom #10

Have compassion for all beings, rich and poor alike;

each has their suffering.

Some suffer too much, others too little.

— The Buddha

“Some suffer too much; others too little.”

“Too little”  — AH!

Christmas-Chanukah: What’s the Difference?

 

Just in case there might be someone who is not keenly aware of the differences between Christmas and Chanukah….

1. Christmas is one day, same day every year, December 25. Jews also love December 25th. It’s another paid day off work. We go to movies and out for Chinese food and Israeli dancing.

    Chanukah is 8 days. It starts the evening of the 24th of Kislev, whenever that falls. No one is ever sure. Jews never know until a non-Jewish friend asks when Chanukah starts, forcing us to consult a calendar so we don’t look like idiots. We all have the same calendar, provided free with a donation from the World Jewish Congress, the kosher butcher, or the local Sinai Memorial Chapel (especially in Florida ) or other Jewish funeral home.

2. Christmas is a major holiday.

    Chanukah is a minor holiday with the same theme as most Jewish holidays. They tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat.

3. Christians get wonderful presents such as jewelry, perfume, stereos….

    Jews get practical presents such as underwear, socks, or the collected works of the Rambam, which looks impressive on the bookshelf.

4. There is only one way to spell Christmas (Xmas doesn’t count).

    No one can decide how to spell Chanukah, Chanukkah, Chanukka, Channukah, Hanukah, Hannukah, etc.

5. Christmas is a time of great pressure for husbands and boy friends . Their partners expect special gifts.

    Jewish men are relieved of that burden. No one expects a diamond ring on Chanukah.

6. Christmas brings enormous electric bills.

    Wax candles are used for Chanukah. Not only are we spared enormous electric bills, but we get to feel good about not contributing to the energy crisis.

7. Christmas carols are beautiful…Silent Night, Come All Ye Faithful….

    Chanukah songs are about dreidels made from clay or having a party and dancing the hora. Of course, we are secretly pleased that many of the beautiful carols were composed and written by our tribal brethren such as Irving Berlin and Mel Torme. And don’t Barbara Streisand and Neil Diamond sing them beautifully?

8. A home preparing for Christmas smells wonderful. The sweet smell of cookies and cakes baking. Happy people are gathered around in festive moods.

    A home preparing for Chanukah smells of oil, potatoes, and onions. The home, as always, is full of loud people all talking at once.

9. Women have fun baking Christmas cookies.

    Women burn their eyes and cut their hands grating potatoes and onions for latkas on Chanukah. Another reminder of our suffering through the ages.

10. Parents deliver gifts to their children during Christmas mornings.

     Jewish parents have no qualms about withholding a gift on any of the eight nights.
11. The players in the Christmas story have easy to pronounce names such as Mary, Joseph, and Jesus.

     The players in the Chanukah story are Antiochus , Judah Maccabee, and Matta whatever. No one can spell it or pronounce it. On the plus side, we can tell our friends anything and they believe we are wonderfully versed in our history.

12. Many Christians believe in the virgin birth.

     Jews think, ‘Joseph, you shmuck, snap out of it. Your woman is pregnant, you didn’t sleep with her, and now you want to blame G-d. Here’s the number of my shrink’.

13. In recent years, Christmas has become more and more commercialized.

     The same holds true for Chanukah, even though it is a minor holiday. It makes sense. How could we market a major holiday such as Yom Kippur? Forget about celebrating. Think observing. Come to synagogue, starve yourself for 27 hours, become one with your dehydrated soul, beat your chest, confess your sins, a guaranteed good time for you and your family. Tickets a mere $200 per person.

14. Christmas has Santa Claus

Jews don’t have a Mr. Menorah. Santa Claus proves the ultimate cop-out for Christian parents.  If a child dislikes the gifts received, parents can blame it on miscommunications with the North Pole.

To all of you, a Happy Chanukah, Merry Christmas, Festivus for the Rest of Us, Happy Kwanzaa and a healthy, joyous 2009

Turtle Love Beyond The Grave

The photo below shows a male turtle who remained for hours at the memorial set up for its human friendly mate killed on a Hawaii beach.

People (usually scientists) who state animals lack emotions and memories, must lack such themselves

Please click here for the video. Have a hankie ready.

Cyber-Family

My uncle died last week.  Thanks, but no condolences are necessary. I saw him last some two decades ago. My mother’s oldest brother, he lived in Canada and rarely came to the States and our family rarely headed north. Once we got together for assorted Bat Mitzvahs or weddings, but we all grew apart as time grew long. We never visited. We rarely talked on the phone or corresponded even via Internet convenience. We failed to attend celebrations or even funerals — not because we did not have time, but that we lacked motive.

Today, if I passed my first cousins on the street, I would never recognize them.

My family is not close in either my maternal or paternal clans. We cannot blame distance for the dysfunction. Growing up in my hometown, my family always seemed on the oust with one or the other set my dad’s brothers and their kin. Unfortunately, the three brothers all co-owned the same retail business and the familial animosity reached histrionic proportions when the store shuttered and each sued the other.

Today, my youngest sister and I do not speak. When I attempted to reestablish communications, all my past transgressions of the past 50 years were rehashed (I’m truly sorry I laughed when you fell off the bed and gashed your head open when you were 8, but I really didn’t push you off!!!). My middle sister talks to me when the mood suits her. My parents call weekly and we discuss their latest medical test results (going to the doctor and early-bird suppers at Denny’s seem the most highly anticipated social pastimes of the aged). But we never really discuss feelings, emotions, joys, fears or sorrows. Personal barriers protect us from those truths. We end conversations with “I love you” from obligation not affection.

I bought the Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina merely for its first sentence: “All happy families are alike. Each dysfunctional family is dysfunctional in its own way.” I thought he must have met mine.

 I often wonder why my biological family act as they do? Is it our Russian Jewish ghetto heritage (albeit neither Tolstoy nor Karenina came from that milieu)? Is it some Mediterranean hot-blooded cultural tic in Jewish, Greek, Italian and Arab people that make us more vulnerable to family hostility (and Semitic wars)? Was either the nature or nurture of my ancestors’ pedigree so tainted that we repel each other throughout the generations? 

My husband’s relatives don’t act like this. His first cousins and family come to visit regularly. He knows the intimacies of his third cousin twice removed. My in-laws actually enjoy my company. So with marriage I cleave to my husband and his extended family as my true genealogy.

Another wise writer (whose name, unfortunately, escapes me now) said “Our real family is not necessarily the one we were born into.”  The author spoke not just of my marital kinfolk. Friends can become our true family. So can anonymous voices we meet in cyberspace.

While I do not really mourn my uncle’s death, I do deeply grieve over the loss of members of a cyber-family I have come to know well. I mourn the death of my favorite blog.

For the last three years, we gathered together daily, our electrons converging from the far corners of the galaxy to discuss our shared interest in all things Keith Olbermann. (Not quite a strange interest if one is a liberal living in a major red state with unfairly unbalanced ultra-conservative news offerings). 

I made many friends on that site although I really do not know their true names, where they reside, what they do when not blogging, or about their own family situations. I just know that we have laughed, fretted, critiqued, scorned, cheered and ruminated together on the political-social-cultural Countdown stories we shared via Internet and TV set. Together we survived the Dubya Administration, both Republican and Democratic primaries, the 2008 presidential election, Britney Spears, Sarah Palin and the ongoing Iraqi/Afghan wars.

Here and there, glimpses of our true personalities emerged. I discovered a fellow Buddhist on the group. Several of our blogsters realized they lived in the same city, or enjoyed the same hobbies, or cheered for the same sports teams. A few of us became good friends, talked off-line and helped each other through difficult personal times — illness, job problems, pet loss and, yes, family squabbles. 

Because of the blog, I finally understood the appeal of a Sex in the City coterie — the true deep affection of friends who gather together to discuss life, love and Mr Big (our KO). 

Perhaps this says something disquieting about society today. If we seek our most passionate connections through cable or DSL, what does that envisage for the future of civilization? However, maybe in turn, this need to connect on-line speaks volumes about the ills of humanity today.

Unfortunately, blogs (like jobs and relationships, friends and family) often require too much time, energy and maintenance to continue forever. They go adrift and fade into the pixels of cyberspace. They come and go more frequently than the neighborhood fusion restaurant. Blogs, I have learned, become unrelenting and apathetic taskmasters.

Most blogs claim only a few regular readers. To create a blog that truly captures imagination, ongoing interest, feedback, repeat readers, many lurkers, frequent commenters and the attention of its revered subject is rare indeed.  

But, to create a blog that inspires a true community of friends — no a community of family — who mourn its passing as personal, shines as sheer genius and inimitability . 

So, good-bye dear Either Relevant or True. And thank you, Becky and company for becoming my true cyber-family, if only for a while.

Yes We Can!

A myriad bubbles were floating on the surface of a stream. ‘What are you?’ I cried to them as they drifted by. ‘I am a bubble, of course’ nearly a myriad bubbles answered, and there was surprise and indignation in their voices as they passed.

But, here and there, a lonely bubble answered, ‘We are this stream’, and there was neither surprise nor indignation in their voices, but just a quiet certitude.

— from Ask the Awakened by Wei Wu Wei

How Would Buddha Vote?

Joe The Plumber may be a big, bald, happy fellow, but he definitely is not a Buddha impersonator. The non-licensed plumber from Ohio misrepresented himself to Barack Obama during their rope line exchange. He became a Republican shill for no other reason that he could and he manipulated his 15-minutes of fame and UTube notoriety into a potential (and probably unlikely) book and record deal. 

In other words, Joe The Plumber is an opportunistic scam artist whose inalienable Buddha nature remains stuck somewhere inside his colon.

I mention Joe The Plumber because he serves as just one talisman during this seemingly eternal presidential election. Sarah Palin represents another — a politico who offers limited intellect, questionable agenda but who generates ecclesiastical exhilaration among those who seek a Reagan-esque messiah.

Catholics had their Kennedy (Al Smith doesn’t count); Jews, their Joe Lieberman (although he went over to the dark side). Muslims cautiously vote for any candidate who will welcome them.  But how do Buddhists vote?

An article in today’s Houston Chronicle stated that Buddhists in America vote a split ticket. The number of Buddhists in the United States range from 1.5 million to more than 6 million depending on who’s counting, especially since Buddhists follow a variety of practices, groups, philosophies and even non-affiliated meditation

While some would suppose that Buddhists, who tend to take the world as it is (or with a grain of illusionary salt) might profess to be more liberal or independent politically, But, according to the article, that’s not always the case. Traditional Asian Buddhists (those born into the faith), particularly those from Southeast Asia, lean conservative. Memories of religious and social persecution by the communists in their home countries drive many Asian Buddhists into the Republican fold. On November 4, many of them will punch the chad for John McCain.

American Buddhists, those who came to the philosophy/religion from another background, do tend to be more liberal. They may see their ultimate goal to become a bodhisattva, one who renounces personal enlightenment to help other beings. American Buddhists who tend to respect the rights of all sentient beings (humans, animals, plants, even neo-cons) would be more inclined to vote for Democratic candidates who promote programs to aid the disadvantaged. Indeed, a new group calling themselves Buddhists for Obama sponsored numerous events and raised nearly $250,000 for their chosen candidate. A “Buddhists for Joe The Plumber’s Guy” doesn’t seem to exist.

Some American Buddhists take Buddha’s admonishment to “Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense” as the libertarian ideal —  not follow political parties and not rely on government to solve problems.

And, according to the article, many Buddhists seek refuge from the campaign noise, chaos and altercations by quieting their mind, meditating, not watching negative TV ads and refusing to answer robocalls.

But for those who ask “How Would Buddha Vote?” in this election, I would have to rely on Buddha’s own teachings, the Eight-fold Path of what leads to a world without argument, conflict and suffering. I guess the candidate who most follows the Eight-fold Path would get, perhaps, Buddha’s vote:

1. Right View — The right way to see the world is simply with an open and clear mind. Right view does not color things with personal agendas, expectations, and fear of what could be. Those with Right View accommodate as events unfold with balance and joy, not hope or fear.
2. Right Intention — Our intentions are pure. We no longer need to be manipulative or base our thoughts or actions on preconceived notions. We work with what is as it comes.
3. Right Speech — If we follow Right View and Right Intention have noting to hide and eschew manipulation and agenda, we never must be hesitant to speak, bluff our way through words, speak in tongues, or lecture with pompousness. We speak what needs to be said, when it needs to be said in a kind and genuine way. Otherwise, we listen and learn.
4. Right Discipline — We renounce all the biases, issues, conflicts that cloud our judgment. We seek an open and honest relationship with everyone and every situation. We drop all the bullshit that impedes our relationships and our ability to act as we should.
5. Right Livelihood — We should perform our job with appreciation and joy for the good it provides others, the satisfaction it gives us, the improvements it offers to the community, If our work causes suffering to ourselves, other beings or the community, we must find a different livelihood that first does no harm and second allows satisfaction for all involved, worker, proprietor, customer, community. Whether politics falls into the realm of “right livelihood” remains to be seen.
6. Right Effort — Wrong effort creates an “us against them” world. Struggle, argument, battles of illusionary good versus evil tears at the fabric of the world. Negative tendencies are magnified in other persons and other groups. However, right effort avoids struggle. Right effort emphasizes nonviolence and understanding and patience. Problems are resolved through skillful means without recrimination. Right effort promotes peace and kindness.
7. Right Mindfulness — Right mindfulness requires precision and clarity. We become aware of all around us, the bug balancing on a blade of grass, the brush of wind against our hair. We become mindful of how we approach others, how we talk with them, how we perform our jobs, how we care for others. With mindfulness we stand straighter, we walk confidently, we remain calm, and we stay mindful of our attitude toward everything and everyone around us.
8. Right Concentration — We daydream. We’re absentminded. We’re addicted to TV, video games, computers, blogs and other vapid entertainment. We lose interest rapidly and seek the different, the newness, the nowness. That leads to a loss of focus.  We lose our place in life. Right Concentration combines all of the other noble paths and emphasizes the need to stop and smell the roses. To be aware that roses do exist and only for a short season. With focus we begin to see gaps in the way world works. We learn that these gaps, rather than empty, provide the insight we need to truly make change in ourselves and our world. Right Concentration stops our obsession with busyness and ourselves and makes time to understand calmness and silence.

While some see Buddhists as nihilists, we actually have been highly political from ancient times. Buddha taught dharma to all interested beings including the lower caste, criminals, royalty and animals.  He allowed women to be disciples. He reluctantly dealt with bureaucracy that politics inevitably entails. He had to establish a strict monastic canon to keep insolent disciples in line. He confronted political deceit by his cousin Devadatta who created schisms in the sangha, attempted a coup against Buddha to take over the Awakened One’s leadership position. Buddha also proposed a “Middle Way” of practice, a centrist position between the extremes of religious mania and depression, so to speak.

Buddhists engage in political protest, whether selfless immolation during the Vietnam War, or much more peaceful and nonviolent marches against the tyrannical Burmese leadership. Today, the Dalai Lama epitomizes the Buddhist “politician” who follows the Eight-fold Path and the “Middle Way” in his dealings with his disciples and world leaders as well as his enemies.

So how would Buddha vote in Tuesday’s election? As far as that hypothetical goes, I guess we’ll just have to sit on it.

 

© 2008 by Winking Buddha Blog.  All Rights Reserved

 

Clap for the Koan (with poll)

Koans function as quizzes in Zen Buddhism. Zen masters use seemingly irrational stories, questions, riddles to debate, test and often totally perplex students. Koans become the veritable nightmare of the unexpected final examination on your first day of physics class. 

Koans shock students from discursive thoughts and offer another path toward awareness.  A student professing insight might receive an unsolvable koan to “validate” such experience. A koan’s answer may be correct, wrong or shift with circumstances. An answer right for one student may be poison for another. The student’s understanding of the koan itself, not necessarily the answer, may be the key to enlightenment.

One of the most famous koans originated with Zen master and artist Hakuin Ekaku:

Two hands clap and there is a sound.

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

Considered a “beginner’s” koan, the “One Hand Clapping” koan offers a fitting meditation to test readers’ nascent awareness. To make contemplating this teaching easier for non-Buddhists, we will present the koan with multiple choice answers.  

Take your time to meditate, contemplate, a chew on meanings. We will announce the answer in a Winking Buddha Blog soon after the Presidential election (a perfect diversion to take your mind off all those obnoxious political ads and robocalls).

KOAN POLL:

WHAT IS THE SOUND OF ONE HAND CLAPPING?

(a) whoosh, whoosh
(b) left or right hand?
(c) bear farting in the woods
(d) tree falling when nobody’s around
(e) one toe a tapping
(f) knee slapping
(g) an Aussie dog wagging tail
(h) Mu
(i) am I being graded on this?
(j) do I get a prize if I win?
(k) silence
(l) none of the above
(m) all of the above
(n) other (please include in comment section)

 

Note: 
We attempted to post this with a fancy new Poll Daddy feature 
but it didn't work. 

So we went back to more conventional multiple-choice choices.
Maybe next time!

 

 

Confession

The weather has been so nice here in Houston — in the low 70s, low humidity (great hair day), deep blue sky — that I’ve been spending all my time outside, rather than blogging.

 So, if you stopped by to check us out — my apologizes for nothing new.

But the day and season are new and worth appreciating. Especially after Hurricane Ike.

Enjoy

Winking Wisdom #6: Eschew the Choos

A journey of a thousand miles begins with comfortable shoes.

A Midsummer’s Dream: The Finale

Hurricane Ike claimed yet another innocent victim. Midsummer Books, in Galveston’s historical Strand district, drowned in eight feet of mucky brine that destroyed its eclectic collection of literature and homey interior. 

For years Galveston’s only new bookseller, Midsummer Books provided a literary mecca for Isle readers, tourists, academics and otherwise freethinkers. Unlike those corporate megastores that peddle everything from Kafka to coffee to CDs to comics to cosmetics, Midsummer Books carried — and displayed prominently –the latest fiction and fact from both people of letters and promising scribes.

Its shelves featured the top picks of the inspired Book Sense Indie Booksellers, not the “esteemed” New York Times Book Review, which too often hucks tripe from such literary gnomes as James Patterson, Danielle Steele, and Joel Osteen.  

Not that either Midsummer Books or its Galveston Isle home teemed with liberal agenda — this remains Texas, after all. But Midsummer Books never followed the popular but the profound. Camus not Coulter. Its shelves offered books on a wide variety of subjects including history, science, biography, architecture, philosophy, literature, natural history and Texas lore that I missed in Borders or B&N, simply because of the sheer volume of mass pulp that those stories purveyed. Midsummer Books shucked fluff to expose literary fruits. Sure, the store carried entertaining books, but those with droll sensibilities such as the best dog cartoons from The New Yorker, graphic novels (not comic books) and a lovely children’s collection.

Midsummer Books felt — and smelled — as a bookstore should. Walk in and you whiffed vellum anticipation mixed with the mustiness of Galveston humidity. The display shelves and tables were dark wood. Comfortable mismatched chairs and rugs over the hardwood floors invited browsing. And the orange bookstore cat snoozed comfortably near the poetry section (I do hope the kitty escaped safely).

Whenever another independent bookstore dies, America loses an irreplaceable aesthetic soul which every author, artist, academic. antiquarian, avid reader and citizen must mourn. Independent bookstores, no matter what their specialty, remain as vital to freedom of speech in this nation as the First Amendment — and as in the case of Denver’s eminent Tattered Cover often are called upon to defend it. 

These usually mom-and-pop booksellers wage the David-Goliath fight daily for independence of thought, creation, words, and views as well as for financial survival. Hometown newspapers no longer reflect local points of view, but rather the editorial and financial considerations of distant corporate conglomerates. Local TV and radio outlets focus on ad revenue for corporate owners which leads to sensational and nonsensical (and frequently politically extreme) news and public affairs programming. 

Instead, local independent booksellers, detached from the editorial flaccidity of corporate boardrooms, keep the dialogue and debate of current events alive. With profit margins teetering toward nonexistence, the indie book store becomes the true American commons of debate, discourse, democracy and dissent.

I last visited Galveston Island two days before Hurricane Ike hit. I normally enjoy lunch at my favorite restaurant Gaido’s, walk the seawall or beach, and finally settle down to browsing at Midsummer Books. That day I ran late, scratching the walk and the bookstore off my list. Since I planned to return to the Isle just two weeks later, I’d stop by Midsummer Books then, I promised.

But independent bookstores often die from reasons much less violent than hurricanes but frequently just as suddenly. For those of us who love them, the loss remains as traumatic. I missed Midsummer Books that day and now will forever. 

Please visit your local independent bookseller today. The literacy (and liberty) you save, may be your own!

 

Independent Bookseller Resources Links:

• American Booksellers Association
• IndieBound
• Tattered Cover – Denver, Co.

 

Local Houston Independent Bookstore Links:

• Brazos Bookstore 
• Blue Willow Bookshop
• Murder By The Book
• River Oaks Bookstore
• Shrine of the Black Madonna Cultural Center and Bookstore
• Light of Islam Bookstore

 

PLEASE NOTE: I did not include bookstores that sell used books. If you know of other Houston-area or national independent bookstore links, please add them in the comment sections.  Thanks!!