Dan Pallotta

5.21.2005

SATURDAY, MAY 21, 2005

Perplexity and Growth

"God makes us ask ourselves questions most often when He intends to resolve them. He gives us needs that He alone can satisfy, and awakens capacities that He means to fulfill. Any perplexity is liable to be a spiritual gestation, leading to a new birth and a mystical regeneration."

Thomas Merton

Click Here to Read More About Father Thomas Merton

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5.20.2005

FRIDAY, MAY 20, 2005

Revenge of the Sith

Why is it that people will go in droves to see Star Wars but we can't get people to vote? Everyone in Los Angeles is talking about Antonio Villaraigosa's landslide victory for Mayor of L.A. this past Tuesday, but the truth is, only about 440,000 of the City's 1.6 million voters voted, or about 25%. The fact that 60% of those people voted for him means that roughly 15% of registered voters voted for the new mayor. And that doesn't factor in all the people not even registered to vote. The 2000 U.S. census puts L.A.'s population at 3.7 million, with 73% of those over the age of 18 - or roughly 2.7 million people. This means that less than 10% of people eligible to vote voted for the mayor. This is a landslide alright. A landslide for apathy.

On the other hand, apparently last night's midnight showings of Star Wars, Episode III, Revenge of the Sith, set a record, bringing in over $16 million. I went to the movie theater up the street last night to buy tickets for tonight. They were showing it on six screens last night and all twelve of the pre-midnight shows were sold out.

The Star Wars saga gives people an archetype for heroism. It takes us into the hearts of Jedi knights, whose word is solemn, whose integrity is uncompromising, whose courage is legend, whose commitment to principle is unstoppable, and who make a vow for life. This speaks to our potential for greatness.

When politics begins again to speak to peoples' potential for greatness, and demands that they be their most noble selves, for life, then we will see people lining up to vote the way tonight they will line up to see Revenge of the Sith.

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5.19.2005

THURSDAY, MAY 19, 2005

The Real World

8,300 people died of AIDS again yesterday in the world. Another 8,300 people will die of AIDS again today. This is nothing compared to hunger. Some 20,000 people died yesterday of hunger-related diseases around the world - low birthweight, whooping cough, diarrhea, etc. This is not reported anywhere. The thinking is it's too overwhelming for us. Probably not as overwhelming though as it is to the people who died.

We need a newspaper that reports the real news to us, over and over and over again, every single day. We need a serious dose of reality, not this illusory world they broadcast to us on CNN and Fox, where we are told that the most important events of the day are the fact that two kids are missing in Ohio, Larry King was not able to testify in the Michael Jackson case, and the Senate is debating filibuster rules. You think those 28,000 people who are going to die of AIDS and hunger-related disease between now and tomorrow give a damn about the United States Senate's rules - as important as our news media tries to make it seem to us? Perhaps if we woke up to the same headline, day in and day out - that 8,300 people died of AIDS, and 20,000 people died of hunger-related diseases - after a very short while, instead of being overwhelmend, we would be overcome with a desire to do something about it. We need to start living in the real world. God knows there are enough people dying in it to warrant it.

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5.18.2005

WEDNESDAY, MAY 18, 2005

To Be Without a Sense of Purpose in Life

Sometimes I worry that God has no will for me. Ever felt that way? As if you have no real purpose here? Like you stand alone with nothing to do and nowhere to go in a sea of indispensable people rushing here and there to this appointment and that appointment, full of things to do and people to meet and important tasks to complete. They all seem to have an important purpose in life - they seem essential to the world, but you don't.

The fact that you are worried that God has no purpose for you means that you have a deep desire to fulfill some purpose for God. Otherwise you wouldn't be worrying about it. This is called intention. It is your intention in life to fulfill a great purpose. Some people have no such intention. They are content to be a victim - to wallow in their envy, jealousy, and disdain for those who seem to be succeeding at something. Others are afraid of their intention, so they rush around making themselves busy all the time so they never have to confront their real intention, or any sense of a lack of purpose.

The mark of a person with a true intention to make a difference in this world - to fulfill some noble purpose, however large or small - is the willingness to grapple with the question of purpose - the mystery of purpose. Whosoever would grapple with the mystery of purpose must necessarily experience doubt and the sorrow that comes with that doubt. To have the courage to feel that doubt and to feel that sorrow, rather than escape it by criticizing others or rushing around like a chicken with its head cut off, is the essence of integrity, authenticity, and greatness. Beware of people who are certain about themselves all the time - who never experience any doubt or any sense of being adrift. They have a false confidence.

Every great person whoever lived was filled with doubt about their purpose. They inquired constantly of God what God had in mind for them, often hearing nothing back but silence. Lincoln described this. Gandhi did. Friedrich W. Nietzsche said that, "One must have chaos in oneself in order to give birth to a dancing star."

Your doubt is a sign of your intention. And your intention is heard throughout all the universe. It will not go unanswered. Have faith. If you are worried that God has no purpose for you in this life, that is a good sign....and as with most wisdom in this life, that is completely counter-intuitive.

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5.16.2005

TUESDAY, MAY 17, 2005

God's Will

One of the mantras of all twelve step work is, "God, they will, not mine, be done." The "Our Father," says, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." The Third Step prayer in 12-step says, "Lord, I offer myself to thee, to build with me and to do with me as thou wilt."

While I can almost never tell what God's will is for me, I can almost always tell what my will is for me. And I think more often than not it's the case that God's will may be whatever mine is not. My will tends to be borne of fear, and it's pretty easy to tell when I'm acting out of fear. And is it any wonder in this world of ours that we are often afraid? Of course we want to take control. If we don't, we might end up homeless or abandoned - God knows we see plenty of people to whom that has happened.

I read this great observation about control in Steve Hagen's book, "Buddhism, Plain & Simple":

Generally our desire, our actions, our speech, and our thoughts are geared toward bringing about some particular end by exerting control. Then, when these efforts at control fail (as they inevitably must if held onto too long), we suffer.

The buddha-dharma doesn't ask us to give up control. Instead, it acknowledges that we never had it in the first place. When we can see this, the desire to control naturally begins to wane. The point is not to try to stop exerting control, or to condemn the desire to control as bad or wrong, The point is to see things as they are, to acknowledge what's really going on. Through such acknowledgment and recognition, we can cease to suffer.

Here's an example that might help - did you ever notice when you're coming down with a cold, for the first hour or so you keep swallowing and assessing whether you're really getting a sore throat or not, and half the time you say, "no I'm not getting sick," and the other half you say, "I think I'm getting sick"? You're kind of in this denial because you don't want to be sick. The denial actually makes you suffer. Ever notice that when you finally see what is - accept what is, and say, "I'm getting sick," there's a relief of suffering? Not a relief of the physical symptoms, but a relief from not fighting what is anymore.

I think that's what the "Our Father" and the Third Step Prayer are all about. When I'm trying to control, there's a pretty good chance that's not God's will. Sometimes, even just noticing that I'm trying to control a situation brings me all the relief I need.

Hope this is helpful to you in some way. Be good to yourself today. Go get yourself an ice cream cone or something and let go a little...I will if you will...

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MONDAY, MAY 16, 2005, SECOND POST

Microsoft / Gay Rights

The religious right is planning boycotts of Microsoft because Microsoft is backing a bill in Washington State that would prohibit discrimination against gays and lesbains in the work place. I regard this as actually a good thing, because the only computer alternative these people will have is to switch to a Mac, which in my mind is kind of like getting religion anyway. Oh, and Apple also supports diversity in the workplace. They seem to have boxed themselves into a bit of a corner. Hatred will do that to you.

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5.15.2005

MONDAY, MAY 16, 2005

Our Common Humanity

There are so many ways in which we are not known to one another. We call ourselves Republicans and Democrats and Christians and Muslims and Jews and gays and straights. We have elaborate systems for distinguishing the ways we are different from one another, and virtually no mechanism for seeing the ways we are similar to one another. And the real shame of it is, the differences are superficial in the extreme compared to the similarities. What is more important, the fact that one person is a Democrat, and another a Republican, or the fact that both of those people have been, say, overweight all of their lives, and have developed an intense self-loathing for themselves and feel completely alienated from society? What is more important, the fact that one man is gay and the other is straight, or the fact that both of them had overbearing fathers who never showed them any real love and the fact that they both feel unlovable? What is more important, the fact that one person is a Christian and the other a Jew, or the fact that they both work minimum wage jobs and that neither of them has been able to make good on their dreams or measure up on the economic scale by which society measures the value of a human being?

We have all these superficial labels to tell people we belong to this group or that group when the underlying reality is that many of us feel that we simply don't belong at all. Even the most successful among us. And this is the source of tremendous violence in the world.

So often we think the world is going to change by some great political adjustment. But until there is a great human adjustment - a recognition of our common humanity - our fears, our hopes, our dreams - whatever change we effect will be without very much joy. And what we really mean when we say "change the world," is to change it into a place where joy abounds.

This was what was so valuable about something like est. It gave people a vehicle to get all this garbage out of their heads and off of their chests, and to see that everyone else was dealing with a lot of garbage too. And as soon as that was lifted they started to want to do stuff to help other people in the world - end hunger, volunteer at nursing homes, organize clothing drives, and do all manner of other things to make a difference in the world. Twelve-step programs do the same thing, and they are this gigantic spiritual underground that none of the media ever talks about or quantifies, but are slowly, steadily, patiently working to transform life on earth one soul at a time.

The internet holds a similar promise. There are literally hundreds of thousands of blogs out there where people are able to communicate the day-to-day realities of their lives, their hopes, their anxieties, and their yearnings. To me, it is like a nascent central nervous system for the human race. It is beginning to allow us to connect with one another on a human level, directly, without the filter of the media, which paints a completely artificial sugary-sweet picture of the average person's life. The internet allows people to be real with one another.

What I'm getting at is that I don't think changing the world will necessarily fit out pictures of it. It may not look like the American Revolution. It is more likely to be a revolution of the soul. It will include political change, but it will look like an organic mix of soul connection and social action all at the same time. Whatever it looks like, one thing is clear. Our efforts to effect change cannot be simply political in nature. This is important. Most of the people and organizations who want to change things, from Arianna Huffington to Hillary Clinton to moveon.org seek to do so on an exclusively political plane. Do we really think that if John Kerry had been elected President it would do anything to quiet that voice in our heads that is constantly punishing us because we are not smart enough or successful enough or good enough, or that humanity would be any less estranged from itself?

Politics is a game of winners and losers. It necessarily creates more division. AA doesn't do that. est didn't do that. The internet doesn't do that. What we are looking for is an operating system for life on earth that rises above the paradigm of winners and losers, to the domain of our common humanity. In the domain of winners and losers, we are all losers. In the domain of politics, we are all partisans. In the domain of humanity, we are all human, and this is much closer to the truth. It is the truth. And the search for truth is the hallmark of enlightenment.

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SUNDAY, MAY 15, 2005

Meditation in Government

Imagine if every session of the United States Senate began with a ten-minute guided meditation that emphasized how connected we are to one another. Would Senators still be able to work in a context of division after such a powerful exercise on a consistent basis? Imagine if every session of the House began with a ten minute silent meditation, at which all members were asked to be present. Imagine if every Presidential cabinet meeting began with a ten-minute guided meditation. What a different government it would be. What a different governance. And what a different world...

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