Change

This is my last post on Buddha's Pillow.

My new blog is The Practical Humanist.

The title says it all. I have been working with remarkable people at the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard since last year. Greg Epstein, the Humanist Chaplain, has managed to open the first Humanist Student Center on a university campus in the United States this year. Seeing the development of a humanist community at Harvard is the actualization of a dream I have shared with many: The coming together of people for the promoting the greater good without the trappings and divisiveness of religion.

In the spirit of this new Humanism, I have decided to write under a more direct title, one which better describes me and the way I view humanism in my life.

Inertia

The human brain has its own form of inertia. This inertia seems to increase with material comfort and affluence. It leads to conservatism in most who follow that path.

Hunger combats human inertia. The hunger for knowledge, the hunger for food, the hunger for human affection. These are motivators for human change, human progress. Intentional use of hunger is a powerful tool, used for centuries by those who have sought enlightenment and freedom from desire. Hermits isolated themselves from human companionship to produce a hunger for human interaction. The silence of cloisters produced a hunger for human speech and conversation. Yogis fast to liberate themselves from the distractions of metabolism.

How do you overcome your inertia? Do you even try? The seduction of routine consumption of food, alcohol, and entertainment is ever present in American life. Those who have grown rich by glutting America with consumables now try to steer its government to allow for even more exploitation of the consumers' addiction and greed. Cheaper fast food. More drugs. Less need for mobility. More bad television and distracting gadgets.

Overcoming mental and physical inertia is part of my personal practice. As I age, this requires more and more effort and mindfulness. A rigorous exercise regime is necessary. A strict adherence to a healthy diet is necessary. Daily morning commitment to make each day a day of progress, not stasis. Inertia is easy. Practicing the art of being the most growthful person I can be is difficult.

Onward

look up to the horizon's promise.
weighted dragging feet will follow.

heart will race and lungs expand.

shadowed mind will be lightened.

look up to the horizon's promise.

nagging history can be shaken off.

centered mind will be awakened.

now is the threshold to tomorrow.

Morphing

Change. Inside out or outside in? Some Buddhists say, "Man and environment, one."

I have often used the outside-in approach to supplement a fairly constant inside-out approach to changing my life. This entails more than geographical cures, though I have found those useful too.

Buddha's Pillow is leaving soon. I am staying for now. I will be writing another blog. Watch this space.

To those of you who have followed Buddha's Pillow or just dropped by occasionally, I convey my appreciation for your willingness to read my thoughts, so to speak. To those of you who have commented on Buddha's Pillow over time, I convey my heartfelt gratitude for letting me know you are there, letting my thoughts in and sharing yours.

Decisions

Maintaining this blog is a growth-promoting process for me. I previously maintained my own Web domain, the former paulcreeden.com, where I published my stories, novels, cartoons over a five-year period (1999-2004). I took paulcreeden.com off the Web when I discovered it was being used illegally as a cover by a pornographer in South Carolina, who had hacked into my domain's server while I was preoccupied with fighting cancer. As an outspoken gay man, I did not want to give the modern-day, fundamentalist-inspired Thought Police any excuse to accuse me of committing some hideous sex crime involving the non-consenting. So, paulcreeden.com, ironically and indirectly, fell victim to the sex industry, which I would otherwise defend as having a valid place in consensual, adult society.

Currently, I am actively involved in several fronts of major change in my life. Thanks to a productive writers' group of which I am a member, I have begun the process of submitting my fiction for on line publication on literary sites. Through this blog, I have become involved with Harvard Humanist Association in a small way. I am considering giving more time and support to the growing humanist movement, as exemplified by that group. And, since I will reach the traditional retirement age in 5 years, I am trying to wrap my head around how best to plan financially for an old age which no sane person who have expected me to have until recently.

I see great fortune in my life. The greatest fortune is being awake, consciously alive and able to still learn and change.

Buddha's Pillow has been an important part of my practice. Through it, I have learned to stretch my awareness of political and social issues. Frankly, it helped me get through the dark Bush years with my sanity. It also represents a personal transition in my life. While I have been an atheist since my adolescence, This blog has helped me to integrate the several serious encounters I have had with organized metaphysical thought. Buddhism was one of those. Parapsychology was another. New Age-ism another. And so on. These roads all taken after leaving the initial path of traditional Western Judeo-Christianity.

As I assess the various changes ahead of me, I am considering the end of Buddha's Pillow and the beginning of a new form of encouraging daily humanist practice in myself and any others, who wish to read and communicate about it. This process of making decisions is, for me, the refinement of practice, since I see humanist practice as operating on two levels: The Present and The Ongoing. In The Present of practice, I am trying in every living moment to train my brain to the path of light, kindness, compassion and mindful truth. In The Ongoing of practice I am bringing all my baggage of life-history, financial circumstances, mundane skills to bear on the bread-and-butter issues of daily life, not only today's, but also tomorrow's. Since I do not believe in magic or miracles, I must strive to integrate The Present with the Ongoing, by doing what I must do in a materialistic, commercial and somewhat indifferent society to have a roof over my head and food on my table.

I share this process as an attempt to show that my humanist practice is not based in some armchair ideology. It is a challenge, I realize, to those who live in far greater materialistic comfort to understand how crucial the balance of these factors in my decision-making is to my own practice and my life. Yet, I also know how fragile all comfort is. And, I offer this blog to all with the knowledge that we all face reversal, sickness, aging and eventual death, no matter what our current comfort level is. We are all equal in these things.

Change

Change is inevitable. Our bodies change constantly. The weather changes. The planet itself is always changing.

Human beings can execute behaviors, based on thought, which can change our environment. Yet, how do we use this exceptional ability? We use it to accumulate things at the expense of our health and well being.

The change which some politicians are promoting in their speeches is not really change for the betterment of the species or the planet. Their focus is to preserve the bad habits of materialism and selfishness which are rapidly degrading the planet. They are obsessed with human creations, wealth and power.

True change for the better would be focused on education, the alleviation of poverty by taxing the materialistic, directly dealing with overpopulation and holding responsible those who have plundered human wealth for irresponsible and destructive purposes. However, the domination of world governments by the very greedy corporate entities who have been destroying the planet for decades has perhaps already doomed the human species to a bleak future for some time to come.

Individual practice always allows for positive change in one human life. If the current destructive course of the human experience is to be reversed, individual practice will be at the core of that change. Living in the light of truth with compassion and responsibility is one way to create daily changes in the world, one life at a time.

Messages

A wise man once told me, when I was a child, that the truth lies in what people do, as opposed to what they say. When I watch the proceedings in Washington, DC, in this inaugural season, I see politicians doing the same old things while they are voicing a need for change.

The country is in shambles, largely due to politicians, who ripped the guts out of government watch-dogs in the last 8 years. Where is the behavior of change in the new politicians. the Obama politicians? I cannot see change in their behavior. Not yet, at least.

I may be criticized for being skeptical or impatient or cynical. I may be all of these. However, I was also skeptical, impatient and enraged, when the Bush fascists stole the election of 2000 and behaved as impeccable patriots. That bunch turned out to be mass murderers of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, shameless torturers and invaders of the privacy of all Americans. And the populace of America, by and large, just watched or looked the other way.

I want those Americans who demand change, expect change, have been promised change to stand up to these new politicians. I want to see those Americans walk the walk. And, if they do not get change, I challenge them to return to Washington, DC, to demonstrate, instead of celebrate. This age of mass distraction by the media must end for true change to begin.

Accidents

We live our lives thinking permanence exists. Permanence does not exist. The Universe itself is temporary and imperfect.

Recently, my friend, Peter, was sitting in his ninth floor apartment on a Thursday afternoon. It was a sunny late Fall day. Suddenly, water was pouring through his ceiling onto his bed and all over his apartment. A pipe on the tenth floor had broken in a wall. Peter's whole life was changed. He was suddenly homeless. His routines were shattered. His belongings were destroyed or damaged. All this happened in minutes. The rest of the large metropolis around him was indifferently unaffected by the disruption of his whole world.

Exercising the mind and spirit to accommodate to change in daily practice is essential to develop the skills to deal with crisis. Crisis is inevitable, no matter how prepared we are. Life itself is change.

Knowing

Knowing oneself is difficult.

It is the cornerstone of practice.

Always playing roles is poison.

It erodes the center of the soul.

Knowing oneself requires strength.

Looking at the unpleasant is hard.

Working to change it is harder.

Not changing at all is death.

Knowing oneself brings true joy.

Accepting the beauty is the gift.

Nurturing it is true evolution.

Ignoring it enforces the unpleasant.

Knowing to change and grow is practice.

Dichotomy

The dichotomy of effective practice is this: One must be rigidly based in daily physical routine to maintain maximum wellness in order to be able to joyously embrace unpredictability and change.

Change

How to embrace change and spontaneity, while mindfully attending to the routine responsibilities which create a basis of health from which One can evolve and share?

This is the challenge of the Middle Path. Shun attachment. Shun aversion. Shun ritual for ritual's sake. Shun mindless impulse. Balance through moderation is the goal and the remedy.

Episcopalians

American Episcopalian bishops were ordained in Uganda this past week. They were ordained in Uganda because the African Episcopal churches have become the new epicenter for religious-based homophobia in the Episcopal Church. Is it any wonder? The Prime Minister of Uganda spoke at the ceremony to lend his official gravitas to the proceedings.

Now, let's relax. There are hardly enough Episcopalians around to change a light bulb. So, I am not heralding an alarm. I would simply like to point out that this trend of public declaration of bigotry by Americans in other countries is exactly what the racist Southerners did forty years ago in their rage over equal rights legislation and desegregation. It is exactly what sexist politicians did thirty-five years ago during the feminist movement.

This illustrates one basic fact. Those who have aversion to change will waste their time, resources and energy resisting it. This works to the benefit of change agents who are patient and persistent.

My practice is to calmly and methodically focus on change for the evolution of my life. I trust in the force of change over the force of resistance to change. Water dissolves rock over time.

Accidents

All of life is accidental. This is not a statement of equivocation. This is an alarm. Wake up.

If you are pretty, healthy, well built, a racial majority where you live, born to a wealthy family by world standards, all of this has come to you by accident. You have not earned any of it. Therefore, you are not any more special than someone who wins the lottery. Society will reward you for these favorable accidents, as long as you conform to what society wants from you. And, because these favorable accidents may have spoiled you in many ways, you may well do everything you can to remain privileged and to feel superior.

Turning the mind away from the conformist view of favorable accidents is very hard for those blessed by them. This is at the very root of a celebrity culture, pumped up by capitalist advertising. It is also at the root of social stagnation. The pretty and rich often call the shots. They are elected to public office. They determine the fashions. They portray the heroes in cinema.

Compassion requires turning away from one's reliance on one's own happy accidents of birth. This, after all, is the story of the historic Buddha. When a person truly abandons the trappings of his accidents of birth in favor of becoming a person of change and intent for the benefit of all beings, it is indeed inspirational. Part of my practice is acknowledging the accidental nature of life and death for all beings.

August

The temperature here is nearing 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Animals are seeking water wherever it may be found. The squirrels look anorectic. The birds are quiet. The insects are slow. The cicadas are droning a complaint for all of us. The planet is getting our attention. We do not control it. It does not control itself. There is no control. The Universe is chaos. Happiness comes with knowledge (study), acceptance and determination to creatively live within this chaos. Personal evolution comes with sharing happiness and fostering compassion for all beings in our own lives.

Furniture

I sold my dining room set. It was just too large for the enclosed porch which has become my dining room in my new place. I suddenly had the experience of two sides of change and loss. I began fussing over filling the newly emptied space after the furniture was removed. I was horrified to admit to myself I missed the furniture and the way the room had been. Such petty attachment. Then I just emptied the space completely, took down the few pictures and the curtains. Suddenly I reveled in the emptiness of the room. I had gained space which I can now use creatively and enjoy redesigning. I enjoyed cleaning the room without obstructions. I may even paint it a different color. My practice makes it easier to embrace and enjoy change.