Immersion and Comfort

 

I started this on Twitter but have collected it and added to it here. Maybe it’s a little disjointed but perhaps it’s useful to somebody.

It was one of those spontaneous outbursts that prompted further spontaneous outbursts from others. Try that sometimes. Seems to bring a sense of relief to people around. We have become so afraid to speak…too afraid.

3AM religious television in India is a lot more diverse & interesting than the constant Christianity that plays in Canada.

gurus, yogis, imams, priests, monks, babas…also yoga, Krishna dancing, speaking in tongues, animated Hanuman stories… immersion

Odd that an atheist (even a Buddhist one) would feel so comfortable with all that, but there it is. 1 reason it feels so empty here…

…on the verge of running with that here…maybe to the blog so yr timelines aren’t flooded…

One correspondent called the above:

suspension of disbelief

That could well be a part of it.

[As an aside yes I do find society in North America really empty as I mentioned above. It’s like a hard shell with nothing but gears and cogs inside of it…all metallic and full of sharp edges. Isolating and compartmentalizing everything human. Often to the point of being robotic. It’s such an incredible amount of work to reach any sort of real depth. “I don’t want to get involved.” seems to be the order of the day. Anyways…back to topic]

Another wrote:

I don’t find it odd. Joyful religious exuberance is one of the best parts of humanity. I get my hit from the local gospel station! I think there is something we long for in it.

I had to agree:

"Joyful religious exuberance" -a good way to put it. I find that also in Muslim countries with the daily calls to prayer 2

We don’t even get gospel (I also like) here in Canada. It’s all either ranting evangelicals or grumpy Anglican/Lutheran stuff

There really isn’t much religious diversity available publically in Canada, particularly in the media.   [Speaking of which, as I was writing this up somebody left a very long hectoring comment on another post about meditation being the devil’s business and how Buddhists are playing with dangerous forces etc. etc. You know how that drill goes I’m sure. I left it there so I could comment about it there and here.]

Writing about this on Twitter seemed to start something of a flood of favoriting, retweets and responses. Who knew? I’ll just put them here.

Someone posted this video with the comments:

I get my hit from the local gospel station! I think there is something we long for in it. I always have high hopes for feast practice but really want the church scene from Blues Brothers.

 

Me: That was retweeted in case somebody’s in need of some churching (Blues Brothers/James Brown style)

That feels good. Gospel singing big part of my childhood

Me: Oh hallelujah…I seem to be having a middle of the night religious conversion…lol… c’mon I’m messing with y’all a little bit… [a couple of people actually unfollowed—really!—because of this Twitter conversation]

Me:Just because someone (me) doesn’t subscribe to a god figure in any way, shape or form doesn’t mean hating on those who do is necessary. I enjoy the fruits of the world’s religions. Music, art, mythologies & that for some people it helps them be better people & gives them comfort

You can take that to mean the human part of religions, the creative things born out of the inspiration of what may (or may not) be perceived as supernatural for some. Sometimes, even though I may not believe in the underlying premise for making such creations there is a particular feeling that comes when one is surrounded, immersed in that kind of milieu. Part of it is the communal aspect, the sense of belonging it gives people. It’s also a kind of psychological comfort. An opiate to dull the pain. Sometimes that’s necessary.

[Since I brought up the famous phrase, Marx wasn’t criticizing opiates the way we do today BTW. They were the main form of pain relief back then and valued as medicine. His point was that life in oppressive societies and capitalist society in particular with it’s exploitative elements was alienating and painful hence religion served a function there. If those elements were removed people would be relieved of such pain and religion would fade away. Not unlike things said in the Buddhist canon about rafts and the like. Returning from that digression…]

I subsequently wrote:

There is not much of comfort in the world presently. Take it where you can get it.

Then one of the correspondents put this into the mix with comment:

Deep in my heart, I do believe, we shall overcome, one day

 

 

[I note I’m not the only one having such thoughts. Harry Bradley wrote Enlightenment, THE Enlightenment, Reason, and the Religion of Being Human... and Oxford professor of Islamic Studies, Tariq Ramadan wrote DANGEROUS EMOTIONS, LIBERATING SPIRITUALITY. Both touch on similar themes]

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Thanks to Twitter participants, retweeters and favoriters @JeffryGonzalez , @DeathZen, @Llimoner_ , @kaygeeuk, @BeyondMeds, @jamie_crozier, @Mz_Kiboko, @msSandy_

8 minutes of Zen with Nam June Paik

 

I am fond of Avant garde art of all sorts. From the Russian Oberiu group which includes people like Daniil Kharms, who I wrote about before at some length in the post Dystopia, to stuff Yoko Ono has done to situationist détournement to modern dance performances and street art. Here’s a great big juicy list on Wikipedia List of avant-garde artists.

I don’t analyze art much in any sort of “art history” or “aesthetic philosophy” way, even though I took such courses once upon a time. It’s just something I like to enjoy and think about. One of my favorite websites is UbuWeb which is chock full of the stuff.

Today in UbuWeb’s Twitter stream they pointed out a short film by Nam June Paik.

Nam June Paik (1932-2006) was a Korean-American artist who has produced many interesting pieces of work, a lot of them referencing Buddhist concepts. Many other artists have been influenced by his work, as the write up for Skip Blumberg – Nam June Paik: Lessons from the video master (2006) indicates:

Nam June Paik was the first video artist and did almost everything in video art first. His work broke the rules of art, television, graphics, and, because TV can use all possible art and information, practically everything else, too.

His first video sculptures, such as a Buddha watching his own image on TV and a magnet on the side of a TV set that pulls the TV image into abstractions, were shown at the Galeria Bonino, the Howard Wise Gallery, the Rose Art Museum and many others, beginning in 1965.

Nam June Paik was interested in the intersection between humanity and technology. He said:

Our life is half natural and half technological. Half-and-half is good. You cannot deny that high-tech is progress. We need it for jobs. Yet if you make only high-tech, you make war. So we must have a strong human element to keep modesty and natural life.

Image from the installation of 1974 on Nam June Paik’s official website.

Probably his most famous work depicts a Buddha statue watching itself on closed circuit TV. The questions such a piece of art brings up are numerous.

Is this a metaphor for meditation?

Is it a metaphor for narcissism?

How is our self image mediated by technology?

What is the subject and what is the object in this configuration?

As these are all manufactured objects where is the human in them?

Is the human becoming something of a ghost in the machine?

What of this Buddha figure with it’s apparent unchanging posture and stare?

Is the statue any different than “a rice bag”? –referring to the Zen story collected in Zen Flesh, Zen Bones:

A Zen master named Gettan lived in the latter part of the Tokugawa era. He used to say: "There are three kinds of disciples: those who impart Zen to others, those who maintain the temples and shrines, and then there are the rice bags and the clothes-hangers."

Like I said lots of questions.

The film pointed out by UbuWeb, "Zen For Film" [(1962-64), 8 min, b&w, silent] is an eight-minute strip of clear 16mm film leader. Nothing really happens in it in terms of a narrative, as it’s just a white square. Yet it is quite a strange experience to watch. There is a film, or a piece of film being projected, it’s just that there’s nothing deliberately placed on that piece of film.

It’s interesting to watch the whole 8 minutes, especially if you watch it with some self-awareness (I was going to say mindfulness but blah). When I watched it I noted:

• my eyes didn’t stop moving, searching the screen for something, some kind of input
• I got a sensation of anxiety and anticipation as if I were waiting for something to happen
• the occasional passing dust mote caused me to snap to attention
• all kinds of thoughts passed “Why am I wasting my time with this?”, “What’s the point of this?”, “Is this information?”, “If not then what is it?”, and so forth.

Give it a try and see what you come up with if you’re just killing time on the Internet.

Here are screen captures of some of the highlights if 8 minutes is too arduous to endure. You can project all your own notions upon it.

Not Good Enough <rant>

 

Life creeping you out?

The cool people, the important people shutting you down?

Tedious morons trying to troll you into silence?

Pressure to be “good enough” breaking you down?

I read some things tonight and I finally just feel angry. here’s why

Somebody wasn’t going to enter her poetry in a contest because she was beset with demons about it not being “good enough”, her writing wasn’t good enough, her words weren’t good enough, her emotions weren’t good enough, her experiences weren’t good enough…she was crying as she typed her message out…weeping was her word.

Forget the analysis. I’ll just spill out what I see.

Lots of times on social media I see people lamenting that they are not “good enough” for something—a job, a relationship, a certain crowd, some institution or organization, some bullshit awards, the attention of some clique, the attention of the world, a little bit of fucking consideration or respect…

not good enough to bridge the distance

not good enough to dare to ask

not good enough to trust…themselves or anybody else

not good enough to continue to draw breath

Oh there’s a hell of a lot of suicidal ideation floating around on the Internet.

There’s no such thing as good enough.

Where’s the fucking list of “good enough” criteria?

What are the top 10 items on the “good enough” list?

Who makes the list?

Who maintains it and checks off whether you’re doing things right or wrong?

Santa’s long dead and buried once you get past the age of 5 or 6.

People getting all tormented by unending thoughts

“You’re so fucking special,
I wish I was special.”

 

Maybe you think you’re a creep or a loser. So what! Even if you were you could make art out of it and get a couple million bucks, fame and popularity. Works either way. If that’s what you’re after. If the adulation of others is so important. Is that the only thing that matters? That’s some kind of fucked up priorities.

If everything’s turned into a contest. A competition.

Oh maybe there’s an app for winning that!

For every winner there’s a hundred losers all nursing the same wounds. The judges move on. They move on fast and don’t even remember your name.

 

Nobody gets through without wounds. Nobody even gets out of here alive.

Climbing all these mountains of emotional turmoil for what? For what?

Carrying some burden of the pain of sharp words knifed in the back when you find out the world’s not what you thought it was. It’s not what was promised.

It’s not really real. Whatever the situation. Mediated by desires messaged and massaged 24/7. Oh where’s McLuhan when you need him?

Maybe it’s not that kind of competition.

Maybe it’s a lover leaving.

Thinking the scent of somebody else’s sweat will be somehow more intoxicating, will be a better trip, for a while longer.

Maybe even your best friend has grabbed the goods while you weren’t looking

…there’s never going to be a world without the Jolenes in it.

 

Was it because you weren’t beautiful enough. What is beautiful enough?

Do we need reasons to be beautiful? Why?

“And they said in the end…you’d get better just like them..”

 

The only way to be different is to be the same.

All those beautiful lonely people…an accomplishment?

Everybody’s looking for a place with a sign that says “Come as you are” Bring your wounds, bring your pain and your insecurities, bring something honest and real…

When you lay it down on the table they all turn away because of the reminder…

…of everything that they sold to be where they are.

But there’s no neon flashing in the distance, there’s no rest stop along the dark highways

There’s no place to land

There is a flash of the truth every now and then but it’s gone before it can be captured, before it can stop your world from being upended.

The people you love say they don’t have a gun, either literally or metaphorically, but you walk around feeling like you’ve been shot with something anyways.

Yet how can you walk so wounded?

How can you carry a lead filled heart that weighs so much?

How can what you dream of be so daunting and impossible?

Maybe you’re not seeing it clearly.

It’s all been dreamed before. A billion billion times.

It’s all a fucked up Californication…a spectacle that sucks up what’s left of humanity in people and turns it into fast cash and flashy pictures. Hurray for fucking Hollywood that tells us if we’re “good enough” the world is just and we will all get what we deserve because…

…God or gods, karma, the universe, justice, fairness or some hero will fly in to save the day?

Nothing is promised when your head emerges into this world and you take your first breath.

“What a bitch! Taking away all the hope and promises.”

Whatevs babe. That’s the way it goes.

We can sit around and wait to be deemed “good enough”. We’ll be waiting til we die because nobody’s ever “good enough” by everybody, all the time, or for long.

So I say to that poet, that musician, that artist, that scholar, that person who wants something out of the funhouse, who craves a place at that banquet table…go for it, but remember

it’s not about you, it’s not even about your words or your song or anything like that. It’s not personal. It’s about what the market will bear, about tastes and trends, about who a few people think are in charge, about desire and craving, it’s about being insatiable, it’s about dissatisfaction and regret, it’s about arbitrary lists that change on a daily basis, it’s about ratings and profit, it’s about fake and faker, it’s about an enactment, a pretend sort of life that emulates human thought and desire, imposters playing imposter games…

but it’s not about you, or what you are really worth. If you can keep that in mind, go for it, grab some of the goodies, and be prepared to walk away when the time comes.

"Californication"

Psychic spies from China
Try to steal your mind’s elation
Little girls from Sweden
Dream of silver screen quotations
And if you want these kind of dreams
It’s Californication
It’s the edge of the world
And all of western civilization
The sun may rise in the East
At least it settles in the final location
It’s understood that Hollywood
sells Californication
Pay your surgeon very well
To break the spell of aging
Celebrity skin is this your chin
Or is that war you’re waging
[Chorus:]
First born unicorn
Hard core soft porn
Dream of Californication
Dream of Californication
Marry me girl be my fairy to the world
Be my very own constellation
A teenage bride with a baby inside
Getting high on information
And buy me a star on the boulevard
It’s Californication
Space may be the final frontier
But it’s made in a Hollywood basement
Cobain can you hear the spheres
Singing songs off Station to Station
And Alderon’s not far away
It’s Californication
Born and raised by those who praise
Control of population everybody’s been there
and I don’t mean on vacation
[Chorus]
Destruction leads to a very rough road
But it also breeds creation
And earthquakes are to a girl’s guitar
They’re just another good vibration
And tidal waves couldn’t save the world
From Californication
Pay your surgeon very well
To break the spell of aging
Sicker than the rest
There is no test
But this is what you’re craving