September 2008 Archives

Allow me to indulge in some pride – pride I have in my 16-year-old sister, Kate.

Last week, while other teenagers pined over the Jonas Brothers or lamented over Clay Aiken, my sister did this.

She rounded up a group of supporters (friends, teachers, and people who care), and let a team in the Light the Night Walk to raise money for cancer research. In total, Kate raised almost $3000 for her cause.

Did I mention that she is 16?

Kate is very often the subject of my lovingkindess practice as my “hero.” She survived cancer as an 11 year old, mastered piano, flute, guitar, now is apparently learning saxophone, she composes, she is an award-winning playwright, she’s basically good at everything and will be ruling the world one day. She writes political commentary for her high school newspaper. She listens to the problems of her family and friends with an open mind and an open heart. She feeds the cats. She's a vegetarian. I am constantly in awe of her.

As the subject of my lovingkindess practice, she’s easy. Unlike other people, whenever I bring her image into my mind to wish her health and happiness, I never feel resistance. There’s a fullness, an opening. My greatest wish for her would be more energy to keep doing good things for this earth.

I sit awash in pure admiration for this being that I am miraculously related to. She gives me hope, plain and simple. It’s hard to remember it, amidst the political ugliness we’re swamped with, but there are people out there who are capable of creating tremendous beauty. My sister is one of them.

Who is your "hero"?

It can sometimes be hard to discern changes in one's habits and motivations as a result of dharma practice. One area, however, in which I feel like I've observed a clear shift in myself is with regard to schadenfreude, enjoyment taken from the misfortune of others. I believe I can honestly say I indulge in schadenfreude less often than I once did.

That said, there is one area in which I've reserved for myself full sanction to relish other people's misery: baseball.

I'm not much of a sports fan in general, but I do like baseball quite a bit. My father lives and breathes baseball, so I had little choice in the matter. He grew up rooting for the Yankees in the 1950s, when the Giants were still in Manhattan and the Dodgers in Brooklyn, and Queens (where he lived) was thus neutral territory. Of course, by the time I was a boy in Queens, in the 1980s, the Mets were the local team and they were in their heyday, winning the World Series in 1986 with a remarkably charismatic team (Gooden, Strawberry, Dykstra, Carter, etc), and coming close again in 1988. The Yankees, meanwhile, had teams built around Henderson, Randolph, Mattingly, and Winfield, which would have been very good but for lousy pitching, and they never quite contended in the AL East.

Loyal to Pop, I steadfastly rooted for the Yankees anyway, and in this I was pretty much the only one at P.S. 99-Q. The schoolyard was an ocean of orange and royal blue; we were shown Mets propaganda films in school. I was taunted mercilessly. It was in this way that my hatred for the Mets was born. In the twenty years since then I've remained a Yankee fan, and while there has been much Yankee success to celebrate, I think I enjoy the Mets losing more than anything else.

From my perspective, baseball reached perfection with the 2000 World Series, in which Yankee success was the direct cause of Met woe. Luis Polonia holding up the balloon reading "Mets in 3000" in the 9th inning as the Yankees went up 2-0 in the series. Jeter's first-inning homer in Game 4 to break the momentum of the Mets' only win the night before. Baseball should have ended that year; there was nowhere to go but down.

The last couple of years have been a treat though. First last year's epic collapse. Then last night's little reprise. My heart is aglow with evil joy.

May all sentient beings (except Met fans) be happy and free of suffering.

All,

Sorry I don't have a ton of time to write a major post this week. I thought instead I'd post this video of myself speaking at the author's series at the very cool Google headquarters in NYC earlier this month. I.D. Project Member Antonella Pavese (soon to depart for a grueling month working as a field organizer for the Obama Campaign in Pennsylvania, and promising to blog about the experience after the election), was kind enough to invite me and host the event. I thought it was one of my more incoherent days, but maybe it'll be fun to watch if you need to kill some time and don't feel like meditation or asana practice (which I would more highly recommend than watching this). Click Below to watch it. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ipMH7vOc3M]

Also, we had an amazing activism meeting yesterday. It looks like we are moving full speed ahead to mobilize for either a tax or a ban on plastic bags in New York (and Portland, where the work is much farther along). Want to join our great activism team? email cassiemey@theidproject.com.

Hope to see you NYC folks at class tonight. We're talking about mindfulness and...wait for it...sex!

Peace to the cyber-fam.

Yesterday, after attending Hardcore Dharma class with Ethan where we talked about right speech, I stumbled across an article on MSNBC.com entitled Anonymity Can Turn Nice People Nasty. Whether it's yelling at a customer service representative over the phone or posting nasty comments on blogs, folks seem much more likely to engage in wrong speech when it's directed at a disembodied voice they'll never actually meet or they can remain completely anonymous using an online alias.

The MSNBC story references an interesting article by John Suler called The Online Disinhibition Effect (originally published in CYBERPsychology & Behavior v.7, #3, 2004, but available in an abbreviated format here) that looks at the factors that contribute to people's altered behaviors in cyberspace. The online disinhibition effect refers to the tendency for people to self disclose more quickly or intensely online than they normally would in person. Suler points out that this doesn't always have to be viewed in a negative light. For instance, some people use formats like blogs to explore their identities and it can become a helpful part of the self actualization process. He refers to this as "benign disinhibition" (right speech?). On the other end we have what he terms "toxic disinhibition". This is when people engage in what we would probably consider wrong speech- hurling insults, harshly criticizing, cyber-bullying, spreading hatred, and even making threats. He also includes the tendency for people to explore areas online that they wouldn't in the real world- pornography, violence, crime, etc.

Two of the biggest factors he looks at are dissociative anonymity and invisibility. Dissociative anonymity refers to how people come to think of their online selves as different from their "real" selves- it's compartmentalizing. Suler writes, "In the case of expressed hostilities or other deviant actions, the person can avert responsibility for those behaviors, almost as if superego restrictions and moral cognitive processes have been temporarily suspended from the online psyche." Invisibility refers to the disembodiment made possible by communicating online. Even if your identity is known and you're e-mailing a friend, you don't have to look at them when you say whatever it is you're going to say and they can't see you. We completely remove the nonverbal elements of communication which allows for further disinhibition. Suler compares this to traditional psychoanalysis where the therapist sits behind the patient to facilitate increased freedom of expression. Invisibility also fosters a lot of mis-communication. Something meant to be sarcastic becomes insulting without the smile with which it was paired while someone was typing it.

I find the psychological aspects of online communication fascinating, but to bring it back to right speech, it seems internet communication requires some extra vigilance. While most of us don't experience split personalities when we enter cyberspace (I hope), it certainly does foster a bit more openness...in both the negative and positive aspects, which probably means we should slow down and really think about what we're typing before we post or hit send. Maybe a good test is to ask ourselves, if this person was standing in front of me right now, would I say this to them...or say it in this way? I worry about the potential for us to become emotionally callous or overly reliant on online communication as a way of avoiding difficult conversations or true intimacy (but that might be a different blog post).

In addition to being mindful of our own expression, I think it's also important to slow down when we're consuming information online- whether it's an e-mail, a chat, blog post, etc. While talking about right speech, Thich Nhat Hanh emphasizes deep listening as well. I think this is key, especially online where we have the tendency to skim and respond. This is not deep listening...nor is it good for our shrinking attention spans. And perhaps most importantly, let's get off line a little more often and have some good old fashioned face time...it works.

I am suddenly compelled to tell people the truth. Last night into this morning I've been blurting out honest things about myself and the world, sometimes related to the conversation, sometimes not. I think it's because there's so much lying going on. It's also Friday.

John McCain said yesterday he was suspending his campaign, going to Washington, putting all his energy into forging a bi-partisan solution to the economic crisis, and not debating until it was done. And he's done the exact opposite, point by point, of everything he promised to do. It's revolting. It is playing chicken with America's economic security

Barack Obama's campaign is lying, too.

Everyone and their cousin has turned into a big fat lying liarface. So I'm pushing back with some deep personal honesty, in an attempt to counter the bad juju. I haven't even told my closest friends this stuff. Here goes:

I really, really like Sheryl Crow. In fact, I think "All I Wanna Do" is one of the finest songs ever written in the history of music. The building narrative, the character detail, the social commentary and the lively slide guitar - This song has it all.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5ouOa9k0gE]

I also adore a certain timeless club ballad by Enrique Iglesies which shall remain unnamed (God, the video is awesomely bad - I've not seen it before, I swear.)

There, it's done. I hope these liars learn something from my example. Let Freedom ring.