Anger

The politics of anger are rising from the relatively wealthy in the form of the Tea Party in America. Funny. I am reminded of the advent of the French revolution, when the relatively affluent Bourgeoisie manipulated the destitute and truly poor to dislodge the aristocracy for them. The result was a Reign of Terror, in which many of those leaders of the Bourgeoisie were cannibalized by their own monster.

The politics of common sense are seldom popular, because common sense is an antidote for personal greed in society. Greed wins the attention of the middle class. Trashing the concepts of progressive taxes, public health care and business regulation gets the bourgeois mob inflamed. They are motivated by greed, not by social justice.

This year's elections in America will be a test of the true center of the American conscience. Will the people choose the politics of anger and materialism? Or, will the people realize that patience and the correction of the materialistic and militaristic policies of the past decade will eventually promote greater economic equality in the country?

Fireworks

strolling tired in summer heat
long day of july independence
moving against a human tide
madly rushing to water's edge

avoiding addled drugged stares
pairs and triads of angry men
seeking source or target of pain
along steaming paved streets

near empty subway rumble ride
loud asian syllables in the air
yearning for quiet in my rooms
interrupted by more angry eyes

ambling along to my own street
suddenly peopled with strangers
climbing the low hill with relief
old wooden door unlocked yields

flashing and booming fireworks
there outside my own window
now shrugging with wide yawn
happily drifting to sweet sleep

Commonality

In a recent group discussion about forgiveness, the consensus seemed to be that reaching some sense of commonality with the person who offends helps when trying to forgive that person. One member of the discussion spoke of trying to summon forgiveness for a person who had committed atrocities against many human beings. This was a hard case.

The ultimate commonality which we all share with all other beings is our mortality. I have begun to incorporate a more present consciousness of this reality in my daily practice of being. For example, when confronted with an insect in my kitchen, I struggle with the impulse to kill it. I think of the parallel between its life and my own. I question whether my ability to kill it easily is a justification for killing it. I consider that the minor violence of killing the insect brings me closer to committing future violence. If the insect poses a real threat to my own immediate well being, I may kill it. Otherwise, I will attempt to remove it without fatally harming it.

I am not a Jain, but I understand the Janist approach to defeating the impulse to violence in our animal brains. The building of patterns of behavior in daily life leads to the growth of the human condition, individually or societally. By remembering the precious brevity of all life, I find that the impulse to anger and violence is much more easily managed. Getting to the awareness and acceptance that we al die all too soon is a challenge in a world of electronic avatars and fundamentalist religions, which promote an illusion of immortality.

Anger

As I see the U.S. wend its way to the Right, I do experience a fair amount of anger. Some readers have offered their opinion that my anger is non-Buddhist. They may be correct. But I seek here to explain not myself, but that anger which is evident in my writing at times, when I see things in society or politics which push my buttons.

Most of this anger comes my frustration from spending the last forty years defending myself and other gay men against homophobic discrimination, denigration and outright violence in this society. Those who are identified with the heterosexual mainstream cannot understand this fully. Just as a white man cannot fully understand the weight of being non-white in a white society. Just as a man cannot fully understand the problems of being a woman in a sexist society. Most heterosexuals, whether white or not, in my experience, simply do not even want to try to understand it what it means to be a homosexual in heterosexual society. The word 'tolerance' is used routinely by even liberal heterosexuals when they talk about their attitudes toward gay men.

A secretive holocaust, a form of intentional cultural cleansing, occurred in the U.S. from 1983 until 1990 under the Federal government of the Republicans, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, and Congress. Gay men were shunned during the course of one of the worst modern epidemics. The government condoned the worst scapegoating of gay men. It withheld resources intentionally. It spoke of gay concentration camps for the infected.

Yet, society expects gay men now to deny this ever happened...to forget about it. AIDS in the gay community, due to well-earned compassion fatigue, is 'old' and 'tired'. Few of us with the political consciousness of Gay Liberation of the 1970s have actually survived AIDS. Those who conducted the cultural cleansing, the Reagans, the Bushes and their cohorts, who are now the bulk of the Neo-Con movement, succeeded in crushing Gay Liberation as a political movement. The symbolic assassination of Harvey Milk was a portent of things to come.

We endure being forgotten whenever a Holocaust memorial is erected to memorialize the Nazi victims unless we scream loudly. No Mossad searches out and brings to trial those who tortured and killed the gay men of Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary. The killing of gay men was not mentioned noticeably at Nuremberg. There is no gay country, like Israel. And so, when gay men are stigmatized, beaten, ostracized, experimented upon by therapists and regarded as toxic in homes, in jobs, on streets and in hospitals, as during the AIDS early epidemic, very few heterosexuals cry out.

We are expected to be satisfied with the spectacle of the AIDS Quilt. A fun, arty day out for those who were untouched by the epidemic. A stabbing, recurrent grief for those who lived the epidemic. And we still suffer and die from AIDS. We watch as the fundamentalists and Neo-Cons bemoan AIDS in Africa, while condoning the persecution of gay men in Africa. We know that the millions spent in Africa also serve the purpose of bleaching the blood stains from the hands of those who ignored us.

So, pardon me if I decry the earliest glimpses of fascism, especially when they are ignored by others who should be shouting as loudly as I am, based on history. Pardon me if I think anyone who would deny human equality in civil law by withholding marriage rights for gay men is a heartless bigot. Pardon me if I do not try to excuse my own humanity because I carry a socially inconvenient disease. Pardon me if I seem angry, because, about all this, I am and will be until it stops.

In my daily practice, this anger is a perpetual threshold, over which I try to step to remain open to life and all humanity. No amount of meditation or New Age or religious hocus-pocus or therapy or pharmacology. will erase this anger. This anger is as much a part of my survival as the many medications I must swallow every day. Yet, I have become an expert at living with anger and grief. Amazingly, I can still learn to love and nurture other human beings for their goodness by nurturing the embers of love in my heart. I credit this to my practice, perpetual study and endless attempt to seek the good in the people I meet.

Nonviolence

I have learned a great deal from Asian philosophy and culture. I have not practiced martial arts, but I have studied their basic philosophy. Unfortunately, the Western interpretation and mutation of martial arts often blurs the lines between self defense to immobilize or fend off an aggressor and intentional or lethal harm to an aggressor.

There is power in living nonviolently, in my opinion. To firmly root oneself in nonviolent thought and nonviolent action takes practice. More practice for some than for others. Playing violent video games is not consistent with nonviolent practice. Supporting blood sports is not nonviolent practice. Joining the military is not nonviolent practice. Engaging in threatening speech or action is not nonviolent practice.

The key to nonviolent practice is the bridling of instinctive anger and conditioned anger. First, one must acknowledge the presence of anger in the moment. Then one must develop ways to deal with the anger immediately and consciously in the moment. Suppressing or repressing anger is not nonviolent practice. Acknowledging and channeling anger consciously and consistently is nonviolent practice. Exposing one's anger for what it is, accepting it and understanding its stimulus are essential conscious actions.

Many of us go through life experiencing habitual anger with roots in bad relationships in our pasts. This anger, if unexposed and left unattended to, will be an obstacle to many relationships. It will also inhibit personal growth.

Practice encompasses making conscious all the senses and all the emotions in our bodies. Then, moment by moment, mindful experience and channeling of our emotions builds a practice for personal growth. This is the central healing relationship we must build within ourselves before we can truthfully benefit the world around us in our practice as mindful, compassionate human beings in society.

Thaw

This winter in New England has been long and cold. The earth recently thawed somewhat. The piles of snow have melted for the most part. I saw the large planter in my yard for the first time since December this week. I realized that the revelation of all the hidden constants on my small piece of property stimulated me to feel excitement and a great sense of comfort. Winter will pass. Spring will come.

The practice of forgiveness in relationships elicits much the same response in me. When I can get to that forgiveness or feel that forgiveness coming to me from someone else, I am refreshed and liberated from the darkness that comes with stored anger and resentment. This is an ongoing mutual process in some of my relationships. And, those relationships which never move from anger to forgiveness are frozen beneath a glacier of indifference.

Learning to expand practice to mindfully dealing with inevitable unpleasantness in daily life is key to personal development. Forgiveness is one way to deal with one's own anger. Forgiveness in you may well inspire forgiveness in those whom you may offend.

Consciousness

I have been reminded this week of the importance of practice when I have listened to accounts from the Democrats' Convention In Denver, Colorado.

Angry women allow their rage over the loss of their idol, Hillary Clinton, to endanger the accomplishment of a great cause for all the American people: The displacement of the fascist regime of the Republican presidency of George Bush. Others decry Obama ostensibly for this or that reason, while their racism is obvious, though (perhaps) unconscious on their part.

Consciousness, mindful awareness in each moment, is the keystone of practice. Without consciousness, right action and right thought cannot be pursued in the moment because life will always place distractions in the way of the unconscious person. We all suffer for the lack of practice among most of our brothers and sisters on the planet. Human beings will continue this suffering until practice is the keystone of life on the planet. This may or may not happen before the human race becomes extinct.

Dialogue

I recently experienced an informal educational meeting with several peers. The meeting was moderated helpfully by one of us. We each gave a time-limited presentation, which was then critiqued by the group. After my presentation was critiqued, the moderator added a final observation and suggestion. He said, "After each critique, you responded to the person's observations about your presentation. I would like to to not respond and just be silent after feedback."

Naturally (for me), I responded and was basically told to shut up. Had the moderator asked me not to respond to him, I would have gladly granted his wish. I realize now that being told to do something against my hunger for dialogue angered me.

I have to say that the enforced silence and the subsequent anger were helpful experiences. My practice entails making difficult experiences opportunities for learning. "Make poison (anger in this case) into medicine, like the lotus in the mire," to paraphrase the Buddha. There is always a new venue where I can be a novice. This is the excitement of the mind which is open to learning in every moment.

FundaMENTALism

The fundamentally and dogmatically religious are, by definition, intellectually afraid. They are not stupid. They simply are not adult learners or questioners, those human beings who are never satisfied with one simple answer.

The source of this fear could be poor socialization, conditioned dread of change. a genetic predisposition to paranoia or xenophobia, or other dysfunctional personality traits. The primitive human ego externalizes fears and projects them onto 'the outsiders', those outside the comfortable, conditioned or adopted belief system.

Compassion for these individuals can be a challenge for a person in evolutionary practice, since the fundamentalist of any belief system purposely, out of defensiveness, places himself in aggressive opposition to anyone who challenges his fundamentalism. Aggression is a natural defense of the primitive and fearful. The fundamentalist is an expert in fear. He uses it as his natural weapon and defense. The current U.S. government is controlled by these fundamentalists. They fear loss of control of wealth, oil, power. The Muslim jihadists are afraid of loss of control of land, their oil, their women and their wealth.

Mindful interaction with fundamentalists must be based in this understanding of them. Anger is always counterproductive and especially so with fundamentalists and growling dogs. The practitioner of peaceful human evolution can avoid their aggression by distance, silence, kindness, education or any other skill. However, to expect any result outside oneself in practice is folly. So, caution and wisdom are best observed when dealing with the fearfully religious.

I focus on my practice, not on the obstacles to my practice.

Aggression

Human life comes with aggression. It is simply part of being an animal. It is hormonal. It is hard-wired. Learning to first recognize aggression in one's own consciousness and behavior is a challenging practice. Road rage, cutting into lines, racing others to check out counters...these are easy examples. However, the harder examples are the subtle forms of aggression that occur when we compete unconsciously with others. This competition is increasing as the world becomes polluted and overpopulated. Resources are dwindling. Capitalism encourages aggression. In fact, anyone who is awake can see the increase in female aggression in the new economy of the US, where women are striving with men for economic equality or dominance. This alone explains to me why capitalism does not bring peace. An economic (survival) system that is based on aggression has not and cannot possibly foster world peace. Propaganda about professional (capitalist) sports as a medium for cooperation and peace is so obviously flawed, when one considers the history of violence at Olympic games and the increased occurrence of drug abuse and corruption in the whole arena of professional sports. People increasingly find surrendering their aggression in capitalist societies frightening. It is the surrendering of a significant defense against poverty and the delusion of control. Yet, no human, male or female, will evolve beyond basic animal behavior and consciousness without surrendering voluntary aggression as a first step to enlightenment, mindfulness and compassion.

How to practice the surrender of voluntary aggression in daily life? First, it is important to recognize the simple physical signs and behaviors of aggression, such as increased heart rate, blood rushing to the face, increased vocal volume, clenched jaw and/or fist, increased driving speed, rushing, and many other signs which must be observed, accepted and recognized in the moment they occur. Otherwise, how can anyone practice control of aggression?

Then what? The daily practice to control aggression by recognizing impulses to be aggressive takes many years to develop. It also requires patience with and acceptance of one's own animal instincts. That is, patient acceptance that we are indeed animals. If a person is wedded to religious notions of man as non-animal, that person will never understand his aggression. Let alone control it and evolve away from it. He will live in denial of it.

Finding and fostering affection and compassion in one's life for oneself and others equally facilitates the process of managing and evolving beyond aggression. I recommend it. It takes time, meditation, determination, and, above all, practice, practice, practice.

Anger

Anger is a drug. It stimulates the body's hormonal responses when allowed to escalate into a raging tantrum. It provides a high. It also brings the temporary secondary gain of inducing fear in the object of that anger. This is all basic animal behavior. Getting hooked on anger is easier for some than for others. Those who do become addicted to their anger tend to become isolated and depressed over time, unless they have the misfortune of pairing with another anger addict or a masochist. Taking control of anger is perhaps the most powerful tool on the way to mindful human evolution. When recognized and harnessed, the natural anger response is a generator of tremendous energy for change. This is the basis of martial arts, for example. My practice includes learning to harness my anger and to deflect the anger of others.

Warriors

I wonder at the universal acceptance of war memorials. We honor those who kill with impunity in the name of nationalism. Americans are hardly entitled to honor its soldiers as defenders. American soldiers, from its very inception, have been commissioned for aggressive acquisition of land and power. The first American army was commissioned to take the thirteen British colonies from the British Empire. It was not a defensive struggle. In fact, it was a struggle initiated by the colonists, who did not want to meet their fiduciary obligations to their country, England. The War of 1812 was indeed defensive, but it was defensive against the claims of the English resulting from the revolution. The bombing of Hawaii, an American colonized territory, by the Japanese marginally qualifies the American intervention in World War II as defensive. The Civil War was just that. It was not a war of aggression against "America". The current war in Iraq is a war of aggression and colonization. Warriors who defend the innocent with their lives may well be seen as heroes. Warriors who kill and maim the innocent in the name of some vague ideal which covers materialistic motives of the wealthy are hardly heroes. Killing is inhuman, from the perspective of the 'higher nature' of man. It is unjustifiable altogether in Buddhist thought. In my practice, I wrestle with my own tendency to anger, violence and hatred. This is indeed a war within myself. Perhaps we should strive to win these individual wars, billions of them on this planet. Then, and only then, will there be world peace.

Spite

I have known people in my life whose lives are ruled by spite. Despite their advanced ages, they were still basing life decisions in reaction to parents or others who were long dead or completely removed from their actual lives. I find this very saddening to observe. In fact, I consciously avoid the company of people who live spitefully. Life's possibilities for evolving as a person and doing some good along the way are everywhere around us. We are not trains, confined to laid tracks going in one of two directions. I have struggled with spiteful reactions in my life. I know how automatic they can become. However, the effort to break from spiteful action is well worth it. It can be life pushing back a curtain to discover a new world of seemingly endless possibilities.